From Sampler to Sower

I stumbled across this children’s book about dreaming big dreams. I liked it so much I thought I’d suggest it to you, even if they don’t appear to know the difference between “vain” and “vein”.

An Awesome Book by Dallas Clayton

A Woodcutter's Toolbox for Youth Ministry

It’s wintertime in Indiana, and that means at least two things at my house.

We’re literally burning through the firewood I stockpiled like a responsible ant while all you grasshoppers were out playing last winter.

And in anticipation of the likely advent of another winter roughly 12 months from now, I’m spending my Wednesdays (my day off) making sure I have another pile well stocked for next winter.  And so it was that I spent about six hours of quality time with my chain saw Wednesday afternoon.

And that got me thinking.

Every time I go woodcutting, there are a handful of things that I take with me.  Some of them are necessary for the task at hand.  Some of them are just to make the job more pleasant.  And today, I realized some of them could be valuable in youth ministry.

Below are five items from my woodcutting toolbox that would be an asset to any youth pastor.  And I’ve even made each image a link to Amazon.com so you can buy some for yourself, should you so choose.

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Write Them On My Heart

Weekend Teaching Series: Write them On My Heart (A series on the 10 Commandments)

Message Title: Word Ten: No Coveting What Belongs to Another

Sermon in a Sentence: In a world filled with greedy actions motivated by self-interest, God calls his people to serve others from a heart of love.

Text(s): Genesis 2:9, 3:6; Deuteronomy 5:21, Psalm 19:9-10, 68:19, Song of Songs 2:3, Romans 7:7-8

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 6 of 10, Pretty straightfoward service, only video was a pre-service countdown.  The only hard part was doing Chrsitmas songs for worship because we don’t play those a lot.  (That and the sleet storm that kept more than half our crowd away.)

Message Summary:

We wrapped up our 10 Commandments series with a review of the commandments so far.

We noted:

• They aren’t really commandments — with the exception of #5, none are in the imperative case and the Bible calls them the 10 “Words” or “decalogue”.
• They aren’t commandments because commandments are essentially options.  Rules provide ultimatums – either do this or if not, the consequence will be . . .  – and then leave the choice to obey with the hearer.
• The 10 Words are statements of fact.  They are not optional.  If we are God’s people, this is how we will live.  God does not say “Don’t murder or else. . . “  He simply states “You will not murder.”
• The first “half” (1-4) deal with our relationship with God the second half (5-9) deal with our relationship with others.
• And while the common approach to the Ten Words is to reduce them to a list of rules to hang on the wall and force others to abide by them, God actually desires to write these qualities on our heart, making us into the type of people he describes.

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This last Sunday our youth choir, under the excellent direction of our Children’s Minister Pastor Jill presented Geron Davis’ Christmas musical The Cradle that Rocked the World (from Brentwood Benson publishers).  It was an incredible service and I had the privilege of  preaching the message as part of the presentation.  (That’s why it’s so short — I hardly ever am this timely.)

In keeping with the musical, the theme was “This baby changes everything.”   And it is basically a retelling of the story of Simeon in Luke 2 .  (I had originally hoped to include the story of Anna, but time did not permit.)

Below’s my first attempt with Vimeo video.  Obviously I did not have the right deinterlace setting on in Handbrake when I converted it from our service DVD.  Oh well, live and learn, right?

The Story of Simeon from Bradley Buhro on Vimeo.

Whoo-hoo!  According to the comments, Josh Griffin of morethandodgeball.com and Saddleback Church has been to the site and checked out the weekly reviews.  That matters to me because Josh was the inspiration for this series of posts.  Now, if more of you youth pastors out there would start posting weekly reviews I’d really be happy.  Post one on your blog, and post the link in the comments so we can check it out.

Weekend Teaching Series: Write them On My Heart (A series on the 10 Commandments)

Message Title: Word Nine: No False Testimony

Sermon in a Sentence: The ninth word prohibits using our words to hurt others through dishonesty, fraud, gossip, complaints or bullying.

Text(s): Deuteronomy 5:20; 1 Kings 21; James 3:6; Ephesians 4:29

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 9 out of 10, couple of videos, couple of new songs (at least that we don’t play on a regular basis) and an attempt at using Twitter to help reinforce the message meant this was anything but the same old, same old for our staff.

Message Summary:

We began by looking at the story of Naboth’s vineyard from 1 Kings 21.  Long story short, when Queen Jezebel found her husband whining because Naboth refused to sell his vineyard, she arranged for two false witnesses to testify against Naboth.  Naboth is stoned for a crime he didn’t commit.  Ahab seizes his property.  And Elijah confronts the wicked king, pronouncing God’s judgment on the crime of false testimony, underscoring how seriously He takes the ninth commandment.

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Weekend Teaching Series: Write them On My Heart (A series on the 10 Commandments)

Message Title: Word Eight: No Stealing!

Sermon in a Sentence: We must not steal anyone’s stuff, livelihood or freedom.

Text(s): Exodus 21:16, 22:1, 7; Deuteronomy 5:19, 24:7; Joshua 7;

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 6 of 10; I’m just now realizing how arbitrary these numbers are, but I went with 6 because there was one video to worry about.

Message Summary:

We began with the story of Achan’s sin.  In a nutshell, during the battle of Jericho, Joshua instructed his soldiers that anything made out of metal was devoted to God and could not be taken from the city.  Achan disobeyed, taking for himself a robe, 5 pounds of silver coins, and a wedge of gold that weighed a little more than a pound.  Burying them in his tent, he assumed no one knew.  But when Joshua sent a force of about 3,000 men to attack the small and relatively weak town of Ai, Isreal’s army was defeated.  God revealed to Joshua that it was the result of Achan’s sin of stealing.  Achan and everything he had, his tent, his belongings, his livestock, even his family were brought before Joshua.  They were all stoned until dead, and the entire lot was burned.  Finally, a monument of stones was piled over the ashes to remind Isreal in coming generations of how seriously God took Achan’s sin.

Of course it should come as no surprise that God condemns theft.  After all it is covered in the eighth command – you will not steal.

We examined the language of the eighth command, looking at the Hebrew word for “steal.”  It is ganab which literally means to take something that isn’t yours without the owner’s knowledge or consent. (See the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament).  I realize how deeply profound such a definition is.  But we did talk about the difference between gazal (to take by force) and ganab (to take by sneakiness).

But what can be ganab-ed?

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