Futility and the Best Board Report Ever
This week, Jeremy, our children's pastor, submitted the best report to the board I have ever seen in all my years of pastoral work. With his permission, I am posting it for you:
Sometimes I think life is entirely futile. We live, we die. While we in America are currently protected, the rest of the world lives amidst civil war, strife, hunger, disease, chaos, fear, death, etc. When one looks at the politics in our country and in the world, futility seems to emanate from these thrones of power. The poor and minorities are oppressed. The rich are exalted. The middle class are targets of powerful corporations feeding us a line that their particular product or service will grant us a life of worry-free happiness if we hand over our credit card and bank account information. Who can win? Violence in schools… bullies… drug epidemics… and suicides. Natural disasters that seem like God’s vengeance. Global warming threatening the very reality we know. The list could go on and on. AIDS in Africa. Child slavery in the Far East to produce the goods we Americans enjoy. Starvation. FUTILITY.
What a way to start a board report, eh? “How’s it going in children’s ministry, Jeremy?” “FUTILE!!”
I wonder, though, if the way things are in this world… you know, futile… is a good thing. I wonder if the result of the Fall of mankind is the futility of it all. Because if this world did work for us, then maybe that’s all we would get. Maybe if the world worked for us, then we wouldn’t need God. Maybe the consequence of the apple from the wrong tree, is that life is really going to be horrible for you!! Nothing is going to work the way you want it to. That new flat screen TV you want to buy isn’t going to make you happy. Seriously. Because someday it is going to break. And someday you are going to want another one that is bigger and better. We are never satisfied. Man alive!! Doesn’t this kind of futility sound horrible?
That is why Jesus had such good news, the gospel. His way, His truth, His life. God’s kingdom. A way of life that is entirely upside down from the way we think it should be. Life that has hope out of futility. Something that will work for us in a world that is not made to work for us. The ways of Jesus. The life of Jesus. The words and actions of Jesus. Touching lepers (AIDS people, bad people in jail, old person in the nursing home, homeless person, or that obnoxious person that all of have in our lives). Befriending prostitutes and sinners (the crack whore that I heard walks the streets of Hayward, people who smoke, consume alcohol, produce meth in their basements, watch R-rated movies, etc.). Their lives… are futile! But with the good news of Jesus, God’s world does work for them. In His kingdom is where the rejects of this world will find what they are looking for.
I am concerned about what our children and youth in Hayward have to look forward to. FUTILITY? Or HOPE? Which is it? Are our lives centered around God’s kingdom and the ways of Jesus? Or are our lives centered on what this world has to offer in all of its futility?
That’s what has been going on inside of me lately. What can we bring as a faith community to this world of Hayward? Hope? Or just more futility? Are activities and programs at church that we do with children and youth just more futile things that families consume? Or are they a life-giving apparatus that displays and models hope that only living in God’s kingdom can produce?
In our nursery, we provide child-care for parents so that they can attend a church service and any discipleship classes that are offered on a Sunday morning. We try to provide a loving, caring and spiritual environment where babies and toddlers feel safe and secure and loved, and where parents feel comfortable to focus. Hopefully and prayerfully, this attempt is not futile, but produces life in God’s kingdom through loving people’s young ones.
In our children’s ministries: Main Street (Sunday School), Junior Followers, Followers, and various events (Trunk or Treat, Easter Eggstravaganza, VBS, and Kids Camp)… we provide biblical and Jesus-like learning opportunities amidst a fun, communal atmosphere where children can see the ways of Jesus modeled in the lives of adults and inspired to live in hope in God’s kingdom (not in futility). Hopefully and prayerfully, this attempt is not futile, but produces life in God’s kingdom through loving people’s children.
In our middle school ministry we provide a weekly community gathering where 6th, 7th, and 8th graders can experience a kind of world where acceptance and kindness rule in hope, not bullying and threats and cliques and sarcastic comments about the squeal in one’s voice in futility. Hopefully and prayerfully, this attempt at introducing middle school students to a community that is built on love and hope in God’s world, not on destruction and futility in this world.
In our families… the divine, uniquely structured model of holy communal living in honest, transparent, sometimes messy, mostly gross ways, in close proximity amidst four walls and a roof. The family transcends culture. It is its own culture. And don’t miss this: FAMILIES AREN’T DEFINED BY THE CULTURE, CULTURE IS DEFINED BY THE FAMILIES. If a community has many broken families (futile), then the culture is defined by an attitude (and a reality) of futility. If a community has many strong, united families (hope), then culture is defined by this attitude and reality of hope. Kind of like the Amish. For all their subversion to our current culture (no electricity, no cars; manual stuff) their families typically exhibit strength and hope from their unity (there are exceptions, but look at it in general). Hopefully and prayerfully, our families in this community can attempt to live in light of God’s world (kingdom) focused on our own particular family in hope of living as a model to restore the futile families in this community. It takes a family that is willing to look hard at itself and live out in familial living the ways of Jesus in hope. Then, one-by-one, a community starts to change.
That has been what is going on inside of me lately. Sure, programs and activities and curriculum and instruction and fun times are happening. Children and youth are growing in their knowledge of the Lord and being discipled in the ways of Jesus. But even beyond these attempts at transforming a culture through youth and children… they need good warming ovens… good homes where this unique life of faith (in the ways of Jesus in God’s world) can be encouraged, lived out, and modeled.
Now that could change a culture.
That could be the end of futility.That could be the beginning of heaven.
Sometimes I think life is entirely futile. We live, we die. While we in America are currently protected, the rest of the world lives amidst civil war, strife, hunger, disease, chaos, fear, death, etc. When one looks at the politics in our country and in the world, futility seems to emanate from these thrones of power. The poor and minorities are oppressed. The rich are exalted. The middle class are targets of powerful corporations feeding us a line that their particular product or service will grant us a life of worry-free happiness if we hand over our credit card and bank account information. Who can win? Violence in schools… bullies… drug epidemics… and suicides. Natural disasters that seem like God’s vengeance. Global warming threatening the very reality we know. The list could go on and on. AIDS in Africa. Child slavery in the Far East to produce the goods we Americans enjoy. Starvation. FUTILITY.
What a way to start a board report, eh? “How’s it going in children’s ministry, Jeremy?” “FUTILE!!”
I wonder, though, if the way things are in this world… you know, futile… is a good thing. I wonder if the result of the Fall of mankind is the futility of it all. Because if this world did work for us, then maybe that’s all we would get. Maybe if the world worked for us, then we wouldn’t need God. Maybe the consequence of the apple from the wrong tree, is that life is really going to be horrible for you!! Nothing is going to work the way you want it to. That new flat screen TV you want to buy isn’t going to make you happy. Seriously. Because someday it is going to break. And someday you are going to want another one that is bigger and better. We are never satisfied. Man alive!! Doesn’t this kind of futility sound horrible?
That is why Jesus had such good news, the gospel. His way, His truth, His life. God’s kingdom. A way of life that is entirely upside down from the way we think it should be. Life that has hope out of futility. Something that will work for us in a world that is not made to work for us. The ways of Jesus. The life of Jesus. The words and actions of Jesus. Touching lepers (AIDS people, bad people in jail, old person in the nursing home, homeless person, or that obnoxious person that all of have in our lives). Befriending prostitutes and sinners (the crack whore that I heard walks the streets of Hayward, people who smoke, consume alcohol, produce meth in their basements, watch R-rated movies, etc.). Their lives… are futile! But with the good news of Jesus, God’s world does work for them. In His kingdom is where the rejects of this world will find what they are looking for.
I am concerned about what our children and youth in Hayward have to look forward to. FUTILITY? Or HOPE? Which is it? Are our lives centered around God’s kingdom and the ways of Jesus? Or are our lives centered on what this world has to offer in all of its futility?
That’s what has been going on inside of me lately. What can we bring as a faith community to this world of Hayward? Hope? Or just more futility? Are activities and programs at church that we do with children and youth just more futile things that families consume? Or are they a life-giving apparatus that displays and models hope that only living in God’s kingdom can produce?
In our nursery, we provide child-care for parents so that they can attend a church service and any discipleship classes that are offered on a Sunday morning. We try to provide a loving, caring and spiritual environment where babies and toddlers feel safe and secure and loved, and where parents feel comfortable to focus. Hopefully and prayerfully, this attempt is not futile, but produces life in God’s kingdom through loving people’s young ones.
In our children’s ministries: Main Street (Sunday School), Junior Followers, Followers, and various events (Trunk or Treat, Easter Eggstravaganza, VBS, and Kids Camp)… we provide biblical and Jesus-like learning opportunities amidst a fun, communal atmosphere where children can see the ways of Jesus modeled in the lives of adults and inspired to live in hope in God’s kingdom (not in futility). Hopefully and prayerfully, this attempt is not futile, but produces life in God’s kingdom through loving people’s children.
In our middle school ministry we provide a weekly community gathering where 6th, 7th, and 8th graders can experience a kind of world where acceptance and kindness rule in hope, not bullying and threats and cliques and sarcastic comments about the squeal in one’s voice in futility. Hopefully and prayerfully, this attempt at introducing middle school students to a community that is built on love and hope in God’s world, not on destruction and futility in this world.
In our families… the divine, uniquely structured model of holy communal living in honest, transparent, sometimes messy, mostly gross ways, in close proximity amidst four walls and a roof. The family transcends culture. It is its own culture. And don’t miss this: FAMILIES AREN’T DEFINED BY THE CULTURE, CULTURE IS DEFINED BY THE FAMILIES. If a community has many broken families (futile), then the culture is defined by an attitude (and a reality) of futility. If a community has many strong, united families (hope), then culture is defined by this attitude and reality of hope. Kind of like the Amish. For all their subversion to our current culture (no electricity, no cars; manual stuff) their families typically exhibit strength and hope from their unity (there are exceptions, but look at it in general). Hopefully and prayerfully, our families in this community can attempt to live in light of God’s world (kingdom) focused on our own particular family in hope of living as a model to restore the futile families in this community. It takes a family that is willing to look hard at itself and live out in familial living the ways of Jesus in hope. Then, one-by-one, a community starts to change.
That has been what is going on inside of me lately. Sure, programs and activities and curriculum and instruction and fun times are happening. Children and youth are growing in their knowledge of the Lord and being discipled in the ways of Jesus. But even beyond these attempts at transforming a culture through youth and children… they need good warming ovens… good homes where this unique life of faith (in the ways of Jesus in God’s world) can be encouraged, lived out, and modeled.
Now that could change a culture.
That could be the end of futility.That could be the beginning of heaven.
You are right MArk. This is the besdt board report I've ever seen. Great insight. You have a real winner here!
ReplyDeleteWayne R
Thanks for sharing that! It is absolutely delightful to share in the children's ministry with Jeremy.
ReplyDeleteJeremy,
ReplyDeleteThis report was a delight to read. A place where acceptance and kindness rule in hope, not bullying, threats, cliques and sarcastic comments. This is the kind of world all churches should strive to offer. This is exactly how I want my students to feel about my classroom. A lesson my future teachers will receive (of course with a lot of mathematics thrown in).
Mark, share this with all the pastors you teach.