Black and White, and Gray

I had to attend a thing in North Vernon last night called "5th Quarter". There was a big basketball game at the High School. Jennings County Played Bedford North Lawrence. Apparently their coach is someone important. He helped win a state championship for BNL in the early 90's and played for IU. His name is Damon Bailey I think. Maybe you know him. Anyway, after that game I had to attend this 5th quarter thing. I was kind of ticked off because it was supposed to have been put on by all of the youth pastors in town and...no one told me about it until Friday morning. I showed up anyway. None of my teens were there but I knew a lot of the kids anyway.

When I got there I talked to a few of the youth pastors that were there and they all had some interesting things to say. The first guy I was talking to stopped one of his teens and asked him to show me his shirt which said "Turn or Burn." The youth pastor told me how cool it was and how he wished that he could get away with wearing that shirt. Too bad.

I talked with another youth pastor who attended the same youth specialty conference that I attended. We were supposed to have lunch together at the conference but we never meet up. He asked me what I did for lunch, and I told him I spent it hanging out with some homeless people and eating lunch or talking with them. To which he responded "Did you get any of them saved?" I responded "No" and slowly walked away.

The moments I had with those homeless people in Nashville were honestly some of the best parts of my trip to Nashville. I walked through downtown for 2 hours with one man as he poured out his life to me. We got to the library he was walking to and I asked him if he wanted to go eat with me but he turned me down because he just ate at the shelter. As I went to walk away he yelled "Hey!" I turned around and he grabbed me and hugged me tight and with tears in his eyes he said, "Thanks for listening to me, no one ever listens to me." He let me go turned around and walked inside. Maybe you disagree or you had to be there at the time, but to have said to that man after the hug and emotion "Ok sir that's nice and all but you need to turn or burn." Would have cheapened the moment and made the whole 2 miles we spent together seem like nothing but warming up to him so that he would convert at the end of our walk. Everywhere the man turns he is being preached at. The way a lot of the shelters are set up in Nashville you have to listen to a sermon before you can eat, or get a bed. These men and women are preached at constantly. Maybe we would do better if we just listened more.

I digress...

So after talking to these youth pastors it comes time for stupid games, (that's what they called them, not me) and then one of the youth pastors began to give a short devotional. It was pretty good. He talked about how we are all valuable to God, and no matter what people at school may say to us, or how our parents treat us it doesn't matter because even though everyone treats us like crap we are valuable to God.

All of that sounds good, makes sense and is true...Unless your the kid being picked on, whose parents are a mess, who no one will listen to. I think that if I was in that position as a teenager I would think "Big deal. What does that do for me Monday morning at school when people start making fun of me again? What does that do for me Monday when I am ignored, pushed around and degraded by everyone at school? Do I just put on a happy face and say, Gee this sure sucks but at least God loves me." It reminds me of a t-shirt I saw the other day it said, "Smile Jesus Loves You." and then bellow it in smaller type it said, "Then again, he loves everybody."

I don't say all this to make fun of the youth pastor or say I have it right and he has it wrong. Or I'm better than him because I can see it this way, because really I don't have an answer to my own questions. Should it be enough for that kid to just sit back and say, "Its ok when I'm beat up and picked on because Jesus loves me."

I have a lot of questions. And sometimes it scares me to death.

I read Rob Bells book Velvet Elvis a few months ago and what I remember more than anything is his chapter on Questions. He said something like, "Many people are afraid to ask questions. But what really scares me is when people don't have any questions at all."

Sometimes I think that life would be better and ministry a whole lot easier if everything were black and white. If I could say "Turn or Burn" and We need to save all the homeless people (I just realized his assumption that since they were homeless they obviously weren't "Saved") and here are twelve simple steps to guide you in living your life, and tonight when you get home and you want to accept Jesus into your heart than say this exact prayer. For me things are a lot more gray. Which scares me some. I tend to see a lot of "if's" and "but's". I don't really feel that "if's" and "but's" are too welcome in the church.

I think about where I will be in the future when I leave North Vernon. How do questions fit into a typical Nazarene Church? How do gray areas fit into a typical Nazarene church? These questions make teaching and preaching a lot more difficult too. I have a hard time standing in front of a group of people and proclaiming this is exactly what you need to do and this is exactly how you should do it. I'm a mess!

I was reading 1 & 2 Timothy yesterday and I read this in 2 Timothy 2:8 "Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel..." I can agree with that.
Where does everything else fit I'm not exactly sure. I'll keep journeying though...