The Right Kind of Rose

Monday, August 20, 2007

My Biggest Problem is Apathy But I Am Too Lazy to Care

After two years in youth ministry I have noticed a disturbing trend in teens over the past years. They don't tilt at windmills (see Don Quixote). They don't drive hard, strive hard, work hard, believe hard, and accept hard.

These teens have nearly no problem holding in tension their impure relationships with their boyfriend and girlfriend and their relationship God. And they can look at porn and not really feel convicted. And they can do drugs and then go into a worship service. These things they may never talk about it but that is because they are privately held beliefs and they don't need to be shared with anyone else.

So the Readers Digest timeline of American thought according to D.M. Rose would go something like this: WWII vets come home and after see death and destruction the likes of which this world has rarely seen decide to have lots of babies.

Those babies grow up hearing stories from their parents about the war and decide they don't want that for their generation and being the largest generation ever in America they have serious political sway. This political sway is used to push their post-modernist agenda because they see religion, moral beliefs, and "personal beliefs" disagreements at the root of violence.

So the hippies finally have kids after coming out of their LSD-induced comas and because they stood for nothing their kids don't know what to stand for outside of the fact that they want to own this world and their drive produces a heathen yuppie generation (see the eighties-coke-addicted-stock traders and the dotcom billionaires of the nineties).

And now those yuppies (who were open-minded enough to inter-marry not just denominations but religions and political parties) have kids who they don't want to punish or push because rules are lame, man (the one thing their parents did teach them). Additionally, they allow their kids to choose their religious views from the time they are fetus as if a child has the cognitive ability to process what is actually right or wrong let alone what they need (as opposed to want).

This up-and-coming generation ranging from 8-22ish stands for nothing. They were allowed to choose religion like so many candy bars at the grocery store so how much different can one be from another (outside that some may contain more nuts than others)? The same goes for political stances- who cares? Maybe it works for you and not me but, really, what does it matter?

The only thing I hear anyone in this age-bracket saying anything about is global warming and AIDs in Africa- simply talking points made by left-leaning talking heads that have no real personal implications in the life of your typical American teenager therefore requiring no change in lifestyle and no more serious an action than the purchase of a condom and "fuel-efficient" car. Not to mention, who cares if people illegally cross our borders, they just want a better life and who cares if a mother kills an unborn child, she just cannot afford it/doesn't really want it/wouldn't really love it and who cares if gays get married because they will just live together anyway? Who cares? WHO CARES?

This is not open-mindedness, this is apathy. They don't even really believe what they say they believe because they don't really care. Finally, we arrive back to the present. Where I sit, staring out across a sun setting on my lawn wondering how to impact even the relatively small group of kids I have so they will care. All I can do is tell them what I believe and the rest is up to them... or is that just the kids talking?

posted by D.M. @ 8:14 AM 4 comments

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Skip the End Zone Dance

Since I was a child I have been told to be more patient, slow down, take it easy, just relax and- to the surprise of many and chagrin of others- I can now say that I am a zen-master level of poker faces. Not that I don't have many trials more to go but in my first two years of ministry and work I feel that I have learned to sit in a horribly uncomfortable situation and have my face betray nothing. Which brings me to my point.

During all four of my college years I played flag football- seemingly insignificant to a casual observer but I am highly competitive and for 3 of my 4 years my team went to the championship game and the first two times I watched in disgust and frustration as we were beaten. During my senior year we went for the third time and this time won in the last play of the game. I remember being so happy over such a stupid thing that I ran and slid across the ground, knees down, in the cold and yelling. My wife, understanding my immaturity, smiled and hugged me (okay, she kissed me up good too).

But sometimes in life after a long struggle and final victory (hopefully of greater significance than flag football) you don't get to run and scream and do an end-zone dance. Because as you get older you worry about the other team remembering too much and their fans looking for you later. You realize that you can snatch happiness from the jaws of success and replace it with bitterness and regret if tact is not used.

You don't get to be Lattrell Spreewell or Mia Hamm or David Beckham and tear your shirt off at the zenith of victory and swing it around your head taunting those you have bested. You want to. But you don't.

And this is the difference between victory and Pyrrhic victory sometimes. You can win and win or win and lose. The man who wins and wins throughout life is the man who doesn't show his enemies his cards when the have all folded. Maybe he bluffed, maybe he didn't but you won't know next time either because he might need that trick again- and he will make sure it costs you to find out.

So when you win, win as a gentleman and as a spy. The one who laughs hardest and longest is the one that won and got away and no one ever knew they won. No successful spy tells his enemies what he did even when he was done- that's just stupid.

So skip the end-zone dance, watch the clock tick down, say nothing, and jog to the locker room. There's always another game- you might see some of those people again.

posted by D.M. @ 12:17 PM 0 comments

Thursday, January 18, 2007

A Man Can Change (or Keep) His Stars

Today, as I walked up to my local coffee shop to meet with my brother and dad- as we do every week for our little "Man Club"- as was approached by a skinny, greasy, in-need-of-a-shower, late-twenties, poorly dressed white guy who proceeded to launch into a story about, "Wouldn't you know it but my car broke down and I don't have money or my wallet or my brain." (Okay, I added that last part)

Despite what some of my critics think of me I really am a tender person and gave this pathetic individual some cash. He then proceeded to get into his running car 75 yards off and drive away. And I was mad.

Not so much mad about losing some cash to the man but mad that now, the next time someone is in need I will be that much more cynical, that much more leery, that much more unwilling to help. And it made me think about the culture of the poor.

That guy probably saw his father do that type of thing. He grew up knowing welfare, delinquent fathers, lots of beer, poor hygiene, lack of emphasis on schooling, hard work, or morals. And you know what? He is still as liable for his actions as I am for mine.

You do not act out because your momma did not breast feed you enough, coddle you enough, your daddy was not there, you grew up poor, you were bullied or whatever new cop-out-drugstore-pop-psychology excuse some hot shot lawyer just used to get his multiple-repeating-criminal client out of the court charges of beating his girlfriend who wanted her child support payment and knocked over the local 7-11.

Hence I am Armenian. You chose. God gave enough grace to everyone to be liable to have either chosen Him or rejected Him come judgment day. I have known family members and friends who have rejected what they grew up with and ran down a road so vastly different than what they grew up with that it would shock most of their acquaintances to know their roots. It has nothing to do with intellect or some humanistic "scoobalah" (props to Dr. Chris Bounds).

Now I must turn my guns on a sacred cow. When the civil rights movement began blacks couldn't vote, sit in some diners, had to go to different water fountains, and couldn't hold some jobs. Let me just say, that is the dumbest list of rules I have ever heard in my life. And so sit-ins, race marches, and speeches began. The oppressed culture began to move and be promoted and make things of themselves. And I look around now to see something else.

I see NBA stars punching fans and NFL stars bickering over dances done on the field and prisons surging to the breaking point full of minority status citizens. And the leaders of the culture explain it away saying the rap is part of the "culture".

And this behavior serves the same purpose as the white guy at my coffee shop did for me. It taints you in ways you don't want to be tainted. I don't want to view every lower-class white person with the same disdain, distrust, and disgust that I viewed that man this morning. Nor do I want to view every pop-culture black man as having an entourage or attempting to go through airport security with marijuana in his water bottle.

What we must do is continue to act in the way God called us to. When I interned at a large church in Indiana the head pastor received a man into his office very similar to my friend from the coffeehouse and in the end gave him some cash. He told me, "How we act is between us and God and how he acts is between him and God."

The hard fact is that stereotypes may be stereotypes because that is what happens a majority of the time (the hobo is buying liquor, that man is on drugs, crime is higher among the poor, etc.) but that does not mean we should stop being insensitive to the Holy Spirit because we do not live to the audience of people around us and their opinions but to the Audience of One. He sees our compassion or lack their of. He sees our choices for good or ill. And He is the one to judge at the end of the day.

posted by D.M. @ 7:45 AM 3 comments

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

When You Get Hit...

I usually avoid blogging about my personal life but right now I need to vent. I have had one bad day after another for about nine days now, haven't had a day off in nearly two weeks, and it seems as if things are just caving in around me.

Let me just say this to anyone who can't man up and deal with crap by confronting other people: grow up. Either take a swing or shut-up.

And don't make a bed you aren't willing to lie in and then try to pass it off ot someone else.

"Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth." -Mike Tyson

posted by D.M. @ 12:37 PM 1 comments

Thursday, November 30, 2006

ROTC- The Right Path

Ahhhh... for all of the cries I hear about, "What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?" I certainly do see Athen's issues reflected throughout the blogoshpere of my peers. The overwhelming majority of who seem to have especially taken upon themselves the cause of Indiana Wesleyan University's newest addition: ROTC.While it won't shock any of my readers that I am in favor of the program I have felt a strong desire to weigh in on the issue. Once again, I find myself struggling to fathom how liberal (though they would no doubt want to be called something else as Christians) minds can work. To quote Jack Nicholson from the movie As Good As It Gets when he was asked, "How do you write women so well?" Nicholson responds, "I take a man, then I take away all reason and accountability." I have taken this advice with liberals and found- shockingly- this same premise applies. Allow me to show how this praxis is true in the left:

1. During the last Presidential race we all heard John Kerry stating, "Wrong war, wrong time, wrong place." Then we hear FROM THE LEFT that pulling out of Iraq may, "give the terrorists a sense of victory."- AP, mere weeks ago. Now the left controls the House and Senate and we are still waiting for their wisdom to shine through the "quagmire" of Iraq.

2. The value of human life. Libs love this term. They claim that they are against the war because it is killing our soldiers- hmmm.... okay, lowest causality of any war, ever; we disposed a genocidal dictator; are attempting to give their country back better and more democratic than before; providing more jobs... gee, I guess I'm just a glass-is-half-full kind of guy.Also to be noted: why are only soldier's lives valued and not unborn babies? Sorry, "fetus" (which is, of course, Latin for "baby").

3. The "Legislating of Morality" complaint. I sincerely hope to never hear this inane argument again. What is a law? A thing that tells people what they can or cannot legally do. Okay, therefore, you must believe that it is okay, beneficial, or providential to have those standards in place. Whether you make a law stating that abortion is okay and so is gay marriage or the polar opposite that law is based upon someone's moral compass (as close to a magnet as it may be).

Anyone, with any sense of history would be hard pressed to rationally hold the liberal’s company line- which really isn't a line anyway, it's more like a series of unconnected-special-interest-group strings.

So, now I shall turn onto the ROTC issue. The opponents of this particular move by IWU will gladly tell you that God not only calls people into the ministry to but to be doctors, cops, pharmacists, Wal-Mart workers (oh, right, liberals hate Wal-Mart so not that one), lawyers, and actors. Then, in the following breath they will speak against this "promotion of war" as one blogger put it.

Yes, God would not want us promoting war so let's get rid of doctors. Why doctors? You are promoting sickness, don't you know? Toss out the lawyers- they promote a racist, bureaucratic, system which depends upon people breaking the law. While we're at it we can chuck teachers because you are "promoting the illiteracy".

Personally, I want Christian cops and soldiers so that we do have some sense of higher morality and, maybe, even absolute truth in the midst of situations that may not be in God’s ideal will. The arguments against this on IWU's campus are only another example of liberal irrationality and "educationalism". See my below posts if you want to know more about at all that.

posted by D.M. @ 9:36 AM 11 comments

Friday, September 15, 2006

Educationalism

Having spent some amount of time in our world of Internet debate, among those who pursue education, are present/future intellect giants, and- for the most part- value intelligent and logical debate I have noticed a disturbing trend.

This first tickle of this epiphany came to me while spending my first and only semester at a seminary in Kansas City. It grew to an itch as I strove to impact students lives at my church. And as a recent philosopher once said, "...it is like a splinter in your brain, driving you mad." Finally though, I have named it.

Educationalism. The obsession of one who wants only to know, to only study, to delve deeper and deeper into thinking, ideals, writings, degrees, and schooling, until any hint of daylight from the world of reality is considered irritating and low-brow. These bottom feeders of the intellectual world dive so deep that ideals become reality from a reality that they fear they cannot impact heavily enough. They sense the real world may be harsh and that hard decisions must be made, that someone may call you out on your effectiveness as a minister, and that, shockingly enough, some of your high-minded ideals may be immature and need to be refined.

The sufferers of this disease quote Barth, Kant, Tertullian, Bonheoffer, Lewis, Calvin, Wesley, Bounds, and Athanasius like they knew them personally and by standing on the shoulders of these giants they too will be a giant.

One of the most fatal flaws of this disease is that victims can rarely admit when it has besieged them and even if they do cannot admit that it is a problem and view it only as strength. They are the workaholic claiming that it is being done for a greater good while others look on and shake their heads at those unable to grasp the bigger picture. They look down on those who do not have the disease and say that they just haven't read this book, they don't believe what the church has always taught (while bickering among themselves as to what the church has always taught), that others have simply sold out their ideals, and that they aren't "Christ-like".

They, "Those who cannot do teach," and while this sentiment is not entirely true it is educationalism that birthed this statement. The victims will whine and moan about the system, declare it too corrupt to even work in, and decide that the greatest impact is to train up the next generation of leaders- thereby influencing far more than if they themselves tried to lead (or so they tell themselves). What they do not know, or cannot admit, is that for every true leader they influence they raise up fifty more like themselves who cannot do and only teach- thus the system begets itself, professors of seminaries begetting professors of seminaries instead of church pastors.

I want my generation to be one of action, leadership, integrity, and strength. Our knowledge would drive all of these things not be driven by them. So why are you pursuing knowledge, what are you going to do with it? Beware as you go of the ever lurking temptation of educationalism. When knowledge is not a means to an end but an end of itself.

posted by D.M. @ 6:33 AM 8 comments

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

What are We Going to Do?

This was by far the busiest I have been during any given summer: I went full time with my church, applied to a new Master's program, was a dad, and initiated several youth programs throughout a given week. In the midst of all of this I read a book at the behest of my father called, Why Men Hate Going to Church by David Murrow. This work really made me contemplate two things: one, what was my philosophy of ministry to this point and; two, how was that philosophy playing out practically?

First, let me give the reader a two sentenced book report: Murrow comes at church from the understanding that the church has been geared to be sensitive, caring, and loving- however, these are things that the majority of men do not easily identify with. Further more, he says that to attempt and change men to be more effeminate does not behoove the church and endear us to men, whose wives/girlfriends/mothers have been trying to change their ways since day one.

This is my first tier of thinking. My second was in regard to a statistic that I had found most unsettling: that only 15-20% of students in youth ministry would one day be regular attendees at a given church (not that church attendance is a perfect barometer of spiritual growth). So as I was pondering both of these things they connected in single moment and things began to make sense.

One of the many reasons I love youth ministry is that you
do so much. You go on mission’s trips, hold concerts, workdays, events, and camps. You take teens paintballing, rock-climbing, and hiking where they connect with each other and, more importantly, God. You do.

Jesus went out, hiked in the wild places, ate, partied (loose definition, Wesleyans), preached, healed, sent his disciples on missions, challenged them, and even told them they would more than likely be killed. He did.

The church today does not do. Not by and large. We come together once a week and sing. The men feel useful if there is a building project they can help with but other than that they usher, serve on the board, and greet. That's it. They don't go on missions, aren't challenged to do great things.

This is the connection- I was so fearful that youth ministry was losing 80% plus of its students to a godless world because we (youth ministers) had failed to prepare them. While this could be the case in some instances I do think that, by and large, churches are challenging me or engaging them. Men in churches are supposed to be meek, yes, but the church today translates meek as quiet, soft, certainly not bold, daring, or outspoken. A church going man does not confront a friend on a sin pattern and tell him to knock it off- it's none of his business.

Our church has been, for several months now, talking about a women's ministry for women whose husbands don't come with them and are not Christians (much less the spiritual leader of their home). It had not struck me that there was no men's group for men whose wives don't come with them. It had not been discussed because there was no need for it. How sad.

I could not begin to tell you the number of times that my wife has asked me, "So what did you and J.T. do?" and I would tell her, "Played (insert favorite video game)/saw a movie/played a sport." And she follows up with, "Well, what did you talk about?" and I say, "Nuthin'." We did, and that was enough. We didn't sit and cry, discuss our inmost feelings, or talk about other relationships in our lives. Not that those things don't come up but for men the relationship must only be built by doing. We, as the church, need to engage men to stop losing them. We need to do.

posted by D.M. @ 8:52 AM 1 comments

"Memento Mori."- Remeber that you will also die.

Saying what needs to be said but everyone is afraid to say.

About Me

Name: D.M.
Home: Overland Park, Kansas, United States
About Me: I've lived at least 5 years in the last two but come out. After trials of fire and flame we are marching on and if we don't take the world we'll sure as heck die trying.
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