My family is in transition. As many of you already know, we packed up our moving PODS last week, said goodbye to our friends in IL and have made our way towards our new home in Overland Park, KS.

We are waiting for our new home (rental) to have all the necessary things done such as carpet cleaning, etc., before we move in. We are also awaiting the delivery of our belongings which we hope arrive sometime this coming week!

In the midst of all this waiting my family has had some much needed connection time. We’ve been staying at one of Youthfront Camp West and my kids and I have just had a blast playing indoor kickball, going down the water slide, eating ice cream in the snack shack, swimming in the pool, etc.

I hate the waiting, but I love the family time! I have been taught over the last couple of days that the waiting is all worth it. I have also learned that I need to be in “waiting” mode a whole bunch more. By waiting mode I simply mean putting aside everything to focus on my family. How are you doing with focusing on your family? Recently, I haven’t been doing well…

A few months ago I posted re: my son’s recently identified hearing loss. You can read the post HERE.

Thanks to all of you who have prayed for him! I am happy to say that Luke is doing just fine. He is adjusting well. I am very proud of him. He has been attending school each morning where he works diligently on his speech and interaction with other students.

It is amazing how much difference a hearing aid makes! His world is completely different. Again, thanks for all of your prayers and the many emails inquiring about how he is doing.

Remember the phrase, “There are no dumb questions?” When we were kids teachers, parents, church workers, tutors, coaches, etc. wanted us to ask questions. Emphasis was put on the “no dumb” in the phrase above which means that the “there are questions” part of the phrase above was essentially a given. So, maybe a better way to go about making such a statement would be, “There are questions. None of them are dumb.”

Where did that line of thinking go? Why do so many who work with youth get spooked when students ask questions or express doubt? We’ve been telling students, ‘there are questions’ and ‘there are no dumb ones’ then when they have questions about faith issues many feel like they need to suppress those questions in favor of a more certain method of making known – absolute condescension. Meaning, some holding to an anti-doubt way of learning faith hold the key to all wisdom and meaning and therefore why would anyone doubt? After all, THE answer is this, that or the other thing. There is no doubt about it. “So why all the questions?”, some ask.

A few weeks ago I was invited to sit on a roundtable of sorts at a local Christian school here in the greater Chicago area. I didn’t want to go as I those types of arrangements usually make me more frustrated than is good for my spirituality. I said yes, however, because I had some connections with some of the other panel participants.

As I suspected, the ‘moderator’ had an agenda. The questions asked were not to spark conversation and healthy debate. Rather the questions put forth were to prove the moderator’s point – that the ‘lack of faith obviously visible’ in their students was a direct result of the many years that the school of allowed students to ‘question their faith’ and therefore, the students weren’t taking faith seriously. Needless to say, I stopped getting questions a few minutes into the conversation.

Doubt is good and so is dancing with it. Guiding our students in the process of their own belief is imperative to their ongoing spiritual development. It is imperative because in some way, shape or form doubt will always exist. Even something as simple and real as doubting oneself does indeed doubt faith, no? If we doubt elements of and within our stories, we doubt faith.

I realize that for many of you allowing students to doubt what I am talking about is not necessarily dangerous. I contend, however, that many of the parents of the students you work with most likely don’t feel the same way you do about faith and doubt. On a similar note, perhaps it might be a healthy exercise for you to measure how your volunteers feel about allowing students to express doubt. Oh yeah, and allowing students to doubt and allowing students to express their doubt are not the same thing. Most people who work with youth are okay or at least semi-okay with an internal conversation of doubt. However, when it is expressed verbally to the entirety of a group, it creates an often-unwanted environmental dynamic. A dynamic that encourages doubt to surface and can sometimes lead others to doubt upon a topic they haven’t yet doubted upon. Some of us just avoid the topic of doubt altogether knowing it isn’t always explainable and never controllable.

Dancing with doubt provides our students with an opportunity to…

…see God reveal himself in bigger ways than humanity can even imagine
… grow beyond the doubt; only to doubt something else
… joyfully cling to what is hopeful not to what is joyously hopeless
… establish a rhythmical critical thinking process that can lead to experiencing God more fully
…guide others toward and through the same doubt(s)
… trust God and others in immeasurable ways
… become more aware of the difference between confidence in things and trust in God
… experience the peace that comes through trust as along with the anxiety that comes with doubt; learning to experience them simultaneously
… listen to and learn from the authentic faith of others
… let failures in life be as significant as successes knowing that failure can lead to doubt and doubt can ultimately lead to more trust
…continue or begin serving others even when their faith isn’t all ‘worked out’
… see the world for what it is—a broken, messy, conglomerate of endless questions about what’s real – and in due course what’s restorable
…avoid the cynicism of those to whom doubt is wrong and inappropriate
…be patient with their peers who may struggle with the claims of God’s story

“Doubt is probably a permanent feature of the Christian life. It’s like some kind of spiritual
growing pain. Sometimes it recedes into the background; at other times it comes to the forefront, making its presence felt with a vengeance.” Alister McGrath, Doubting: Growing Through the Uncertainties of Faith

Check out Doug Jones’ post over at Perigrinatio HERE.

Tony Myles is a great friend. I met him a few years ago when he was discovering what God had next for him and we were discussing some possible roles with Sonlife. It never worked for him to come on our staff but Tony and I have done some writing together on a few projects including a soon to be released resource pack based on our Enroute training called, Virtues of Jesus. He also co-wrote a great devotional for us called, The Miracles of Jesus. You can check that devotional out HERE.

Tony is the pastor of Connection Church near Akron, OH and there is a great story about him and his church in the Beacon Journal that will undoubtedly warm your heart. You can read the article HERE.

(ht to Marko)

I have decided to hold off on posting my follow up thoughts to the “Five Dangerous Things” post (click HERE) for a couple more days. Reason being, I have decided to include Doug Jones over at Perigrinatio to post along side of my thoughts hopefully giving our fellow readers more to think about.

Let this also be an open invitation for any of you who also want to post your thoughts. I think this is a fundmental yet important line of thinking so the more voices to help us all sort this out the better! If you plan on posting with Doug and I, post your thoughts by 6/18 at 5PM or so…

Marko has a fabulous post on organizational thinking HERE.

Doug Jones over at Perigrinatio tagged me for my top 10 films. So here you go. Keep in mind, I am a pretty simple man.

In no particular order…

1. Fast Times at Ridgemont High - I used to watch this a couple of times a week with my friends in the neighborhood growing up. This movie brings back some great memories.

2. Caddyshack - I love golf and any self-respecting, wanna be golfer has to have this in their top 10 list.

3. Stripes - I am a big Bill Murray fan and the one-liners in this movie are priceless.

4. Bull Durham - I love baseball and growing up I wanted nothing more than to play MLB baseball. To bad I couldn’t hit, throw, catch or run very well.

5. The Bourne Movies - Obviously, I am counting this as one movie. Deep in my heart, I am a part of Treadstone.

6. Unforgiven - Three words: Eastwood, Freeman and Hackman. Three of the best.

7. Die Hard - “Yippe ky yeah … ”

8. Hoosiers - “I think you boys will find that these are the same measurements as our gym back in Hickory.” Dennis Hopper was amazing in this movie.

9. Bells of St. Mary’s - Father O’Malley and Sister Benedict… gotta love the generosity of one Horace P. Bogardus!

10. Big - Learning to cope with the world of adults. I still struggle with that.

My posts have been crappy lately, I know. Sorry about that. Basically, all I have been doing is posting my travel schedule. I am tired and not feeling very creative these days.

I am going to take a couple of days off next week and head to one of my favorite spots in Canada. There is a little town called Radium that I love to get away to. Usually I go up there and play a little golf with my friend Matt. This time, I am just taking some books and going to rest in the natural hot springs… They’re going to have to drag me out of the pool at closing time each night.

So, hopefully I will come back from my trip next week feeling refreshed and get back to post some ideas I have around topics like missio dei, youth ministry and the gospel, the role of the imagination in the spiritual formation of adolescents and hospitality as evangelism.

Peace.

I have been a baseball fan my entire life. My dad was a minor league pitcher (lefty) and I played Little League, Babe Ruth, High School and even college baseball. I loved every second of it. I can’t get enough baseball.

Of course living in Chicago I have the privilege of seeing two good teams (Cubs and White Sox) every night of the week on TV. Yesterday, however, I enjoyed the KC Royals home opener in front of a big screen at a local pup here in Kansas City watching the game with some friends I work with at Youthfront. I don’t care who is playing… I’ll watch it.

I was a Mets fan growing up. When you grow up in NY you pick the Yankees or the Mets. I chose the Mets and can vividly remember the 1986 World Series in which the Mets beat the Red Sox continuing the curse of the Bambino.

The Mets were great that year. They won 108 games during the regular season and won their division by 21.5 games. They beat the Astros 4 games to 2 in the NLCS and then went on to “trickle” past the Sox in 7 games in the World Series.

Of course, probably more note worthy than the Mets winning the series was the error by Red Sox first baseman named Bill Buckner. The error ultimately led to the Mets extending the series to seven games and then going on to beat the Sox.

At the time of the error I was thrilled that the ball had trickled past Buckner. Some years later, however, I hated that about the Series. As I got older I realized I would rather see my team loose (after all it is only a game for grown-ups) than see any human being endure what Bill Buckner had to endure.

For years Buckner has been shunned from the City of Boston (and not the Dwight Schrute shun on Andy kind off shun either) and has been the target of mean-spirited jokes, literally had people try to take his life and some report he even tried to take his own life –all because of an error that some say lost the series for the Sox. True baseball fans know however, that there was an error before the error. But as it is in life, you remember the last one not the one before the one that really matters…

Ahhhhh. But the beauty of baseball and the grace and reverence on which the very game stands prevailed on Tuesday at Fenway Park in Boston as Bill Bucker, the very one that made the error, was redeemed by the city of Boston. For 20 years people have shown hatred, disgust and absolute distain for the man. However, 2 championships later, yesterday Boston redeemed Bill Buckner and welcomed him back. Here is the clip…

I am sure that most of you are already familiar with www.youthnoise.com, a website designed as a “…social networking site for people under the age of 27 who like to connect based on deeper interests than Paris Hilton’s wardrobe and want to get engaged within a cause.”

If you aren’t familiar with it or haven’t been by there in a while, check out how adolescents are engaging in various causes around the world. You can check out the causes here: http://www.youthnoise.com/MyCauseIs/ It is very cool stuff…