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Bob Russell who preaches in Louisville was raised on a farm in Pennsylvania and he tells the story of his first youth minister who was a city-boy. Now his youth group was made up mostly of kids from the farm so they didn’t think they would have much in common with this city slicker and so weren’t much ready to listen to him. The entire youth group was at Bob’s one Saturday and it came time to milk the cows. This youth minister said, "Can I go down to the barn with you and see what is all about?" Bob said, "Sure," and Harry Orn, the new minister, headed with the others to the barn. What the youth group didn’t know was that Harry had worked each summer on his grandfather’s dairy farm. Well, Harry watched the milking for a little bit and then sheepishly said, "Could I try that?" Bob said, they welcomed the idea because they knew that it would be good for a laugh. So he sat down tentatively on the stool and he grabbed the cow in the appropriate place and 2 or 3 of the boys leaned way over to get a good laugh when this city slicker couldn’t get any milk out of the cow. And Bob says, "he suddenly turned that cow’s spicket right up at us and squirted us right across the face." Everybody thought it was hilarious. And you know what? He was an instant hit. Well, Bob says, maybe not instant, it took a couple of minutes, but Harry Orn was able to fit right in with the kids and had a great ministry. Listen, God can use any talent that you have, even milking cows.
Little Johnny’s grandfather was something of a philosopher and never missed an opportunity to give out bits of sage advice to his grandson.
“Yessirree, Johnny,” he said one day, “remember, fools are certain, but wise men hesitate.”
“Are you sure, Grandpa?” asked Johnny.
“Yes, my boy,” said the old man, laying his gnarled hand on the youth’s head, “I’m absolutely certain.”
Bits and Pieces, January, 1990, p. 9
TOP 5 SIGNS YOUR CHURCH IS TOO CONTEMPORARY:
5. At the annual meeting, you play Survivor to elect new leaders
4. When asked what church things begin with "J", the youth in church shout "Java" before "Jesus"
3. When asked, "Who wrote the Bible?" most members say "Eugene Peterson"
2. To be user-friendly, the building committee installs a Jacuzzi rather than a conventional baptistery
1. The "Left Behind" Bible isn’t the one you forgot at church
A River Funny
A preacher was winding up his temperance sermon with great fervor: "If I had all the beer in the world, I’d take it and throw it into the river."
The congregation cried, "Amen!"
"And if I had all the wine in the world, I’d take it and throw it in the river."
The congregation cried, "Amen!"
"And if I had all the whiskey and the rum in the world, I’d take it all and throw it in the river."
And the congregation cried, "Amen!"
After the sermon the preacher sat down. The deacon stood up: "Fo...
This reminds me of two elderly sisters who lived in Arcadia during my youth ministry days. One named Alpha, was always sick with some sort of ailment or another, the other, named Virginia, still worked in a county office even though she was in her late 70’s and never seemed to suffer from any kind of sickness. But the healthy sister would call me often to go to the hospital and visit her sick and dying sister. She would say, “Alpha is in bad shape. She could go any time now. Get over there as soon as you can.”
So I would drop what ever I was doing and drive 30 minutes away to a hospital in Clear Lake City to see Alpha, thinking that she surely was hooked up to machinery and on her last leg like her sister said. But when I arrived at the hospital and got into the room, Alpha would be sitting up in bed talking on the phone and watching TV. Now I’ll admit that there were many times I rushed over only to see that Alpha was no where near death, and in the end I finally learned that it wasn’t necessary to “rush” over to see Alpha. In fact, poor sickly dying Alpha lived for another 12 years after I left Arcadia. She outlived many other people supposedly more healthy than her.
This account of Jesus being called by Mary and Martha to come at once for Lazarus’ sake kind of calls to mind sickly old Alpha in Arcadia. And I noticed, that as I eventually learned to do, Jesus also felt no need to rush over there the moment he was called, although His delay was for a different reason.
There is generally a staff of three in our building, our secretary Patsy, youth and children’s minister Sandy, and the warden, me. One day this week, at a particularly still and quiet moment, there was an incredible BOOM that shook the building. Sandy and I hit the hallway at the same time – we looked like two “does in the headlights”. Patsy was nowhere to be found. We called her name, checked her office, went upstairs to seek her in the sanctuary or anywhere – nothing! I never admitted it to Sandy, but as we continued to frantically search I remember thinking to myself as I descended the stairs, Man, the rapture’s come and the only one who made it is the church secretary! We later found her outside, gazing over to the far reaches of the church property where they were probably excavating with dynamite; she was just taking a break.
Foundation of Guilt
Years back when I was a Youth Minister, we did a lot of Youth Musicals. Some of them had funny skits that took a kind of "tongue-in-cheek" look at how churches worked. They had that kind of "ha-ha...ouch!" effect. I remember one featured a church that had this slogan: "Our love is built on the foundation of guilt."
When it comes to offering your life as a living sacrifice, guilt motivation won’t cut it! We may serve out of guilt or duty for a while...but that kind of motivation wears thin in the long haul!
Unfortunately, some people assume they must get all their Bible teaching from some kind of religious “expert.” The idea is that Joe Average is bound to get it wrong if he tries to understand the Bible for himself, so he needs an expert to interpret it for him.
Which reminds me of a story I heard about one of the most notorious bank robbers from the days of the Wild West. Pepe Rodriguez would regularly sneak across the border into south Texas to rob a bank, then escape back across the border before he could be caught.
The story goes that eventually the Texas lawmen cornered Pepe in a Mexican bar. Since Pepe didn’t speak English, they asked the Bartender to translate. With guns drawn, they told the bartender, “Tell him if he doesn’t turn over the stolen money right now we’ll shoot him dead on the spot!”
The Bartender translated, and Pepe started shaking in fear. In Spanish Pepe said, “Tell them the money is in the town well. The loot is hidden in a pouch behind the seventeenth stone counting down from the handle.”
The Bartender turned to the Rangers and said in English, “Pepe is a very brave man. He says you are a ...
STUPID IDEA
As far as stupid ideas go, this was one of my better moments. I stayed after church one Tuesday night with a number of other kids in the youth group. We were just hanging out and talking for a bit. We were a pretty wild youth group to begin with, but if you know anything about young teenagers, you know that the more of them you put in the same place unsupervised, the stupider they get. Intelligence actually drops, that is a medically proven fact.
This time was no exception. We had been hanging out talking but eventually we got bored and wanted to do something. Now we had a really open church parking lot. One of the guys there had a video camera...which also seriously decreases the intelligence of the group. We proceeded to stack up a few bails of hay and started out by having someone sit in a shopping cart and we pushed them as fast as we could into the curb, which would launch them out of the cart into the pile of hay. This was great fun.
Then the cart broke...but we would not be deterred. We figured if a shopping cart was fun, a car would work even better. That little voice that tells you not to do things had gone on vacation for me. So I volunteered to get on the hood of the car and get ramped into the hay. The car went to the back of the parking lot I hopped on the hood and off we went. We got up to about 25 miles an hour before the driver slammed on the brakes and I was tossed from the car to the pile of hay. It worked out perfectly.
So we decided to do it again. This time with two of us. I got on one side and my friend Zach got on the other. Same deal, car sped up, this time to about 30 miles and hour and then slammed on the brakes. One problem: this time he slammed on the brakes a little earlier. I left the car first. I was thrown and rather than hitting the hay flat as I had the first time, I hit it head first. Zach, who stayed on the car a split second longer than I did, flew to the pile of hay and landed with his entire body on my head. The stray from the hay pierced the skin all over one side of my face, even going though the skin of my lip into my mouth. I went to school the next day as two-face...but it wasn’t Halloween.
WAITING FOR GABRIEL
I was picking up my son at a youth event, and I saw Darl, who was doing the same. Darl’s oldest son is Gabriel. I asked him how he was, and Darl said, "Just waiting for Gabriel."
I responded, "Well, aren’t we all?"
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