interlinc

by Mark Pittman

Transported to another place, moved to tears, scared out of our seats, or actually clapping in excitement, there’s no doubt that movies can have a serious impact. As a youth pastor, there were usually two ways I would use movies in my ministry. First, during a talk, I would play a movie clip that I knew would help drive home a point. This can be a little tricky, but most of the time the clip did exactly what I needed it to do. The second way I would use a movie is just as a fun event for a big group of students – this usually was few and far between, because it’s hard to find a clean/fun movie that you can take everyone to.

Then The Passion of the Christ came along, and suddenly we had a whole new animal on our hands. Here was a movie that could be a ministry event. Since then, we’ve had a number of movies that have been more than just clips or fun. (The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Amazing Grace, Prince Caspian, Soul Surfer, etc.) There are a couple great things that happen when you use a movie as a ministry event.

Movies “Stick”
All it takes is a hand reaching for a hat under a closing garage door to make us all flash to Harrison Ford running with a whip in his hand. And let’s face it, Hollywood does a great job of melding story, character, image, and even music to fuse a clear image in our brains. So when I talk about being a “slave to sin” (Romans 6:18) I can put on my best Morpheous voice and ask, “What if you were born a slave and you didn’t even know it?” – and transport students right to that scene—and even better, take that scene and attach a Biblical thought to it.

The bottom line is that your students are going to go see movies. If we can use things that they are already putting into their lives to help communicate truth, then we can be a part of Ephesians 5:16 and be “… making the most of every opportunity”. Of course you have to exercise wisdom (there are going to be movies you say “no” to even if they have a good clip because you don’t want to endorse the whole movie) and there will be even fewer movies that get the “ministry event” title. But when they come along, let’s use them to the max!

You get to “Post Game”
Most of the time the post-movie conversation goes something like, “That was so funny when…” and everyone gets a recycled laugh. But if we have our ministry eye/ears on during a movie, we can eventually get to “What did you think about…” at the post-movie fast food joint.

Another great thing about movies is that they are usually embedded so well in our brains that we can have discussions about them well after we’ve seen them. Make sure you’re ready to do way more than just watch a movie. A few great questions can lead to some life-changing discussions (and back to God’s Word).

“Total Recall”
For some reason, movie quotes seem to stick in our heads. (I’m pretty sure that most junior high guy humor is just a series of recycled movie lines!) But, when we take movies or scenes and tie spiritual lessons to them or even just have good discussions around them, what you do with the movie becomes tied to the memory of it. It’s almost like you’ve taken what Hollywood wanted to say and turned it for the kingdom. Then you get the spiritual recall whenever they see, hear or even think about that movie.

Movies do matter – and wise youth leaders know how to make the most of them!

By Bill Petro (a long time friend from Cal Berkeley days) billpetro.com

The origin of Thanksgiving Day has been attributed to a harvest feast held by the Plymouth Colony. In 1621, Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony proclaimed a day of “thanksgiving” and prayer to celebrate the Pilgrims’ first harvest in America the year after their arrival on the merchant ship Mayflower.

The picture you usually see of a few Native American men joining the Pilgrims at the feast is a bit inaccurate, however. From original settler Edward Winslow in a letter to a friend in 1621, we know that some 90 men accompanied the Wampanoag Chief, Massasoit, to visit at Plymouth for three days of fish, fowl, and venison. But of the roughly 100 English settlers who had spent their first year on the Massachusetts coast, about half had died by this time. This would have left about half the 52 survivors as English men. So the Native men outnumbered the Pilgrim men by over three to one!

Motivation
The idea of the Pilgrims fleeing England due to persecution to come to America is not quite historically accurate, at least as the starting point. Rather, over a decade earlier they had already left England for Holland as Dissenters of the Church of England. They were not willing to comply with obligatory Church of England worship practices and were therefore subject to fines if they stayed in England. These Pilgrims were Puritan Calvinists in their theology and found the Dutch Calvinism more tolerant of their religious practice. However, they found that in Holland their children were forgetting how to speak English and were adopting Dutch customs too liberal for their sensibilities.

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Destination
Therefore, they intended to remove to America, having heard of successful settlement in Virginia, and hoped to arrive north of Virginia at the mouth of the Hudson River, in an area chartered to be called “New England.” The Mayflower was not a passenger vessel, but a merchant ship. The Atlantic passage was difficult, one passenger and one crewman died, and one baby was born.

Voyage
The Pilgrims disembarked Holland by way of England departing from Dartmouth, Devon and spent about two months crossing the Atlantic for the American coast. Weather was not their friend.

Plymouth Rock
They landed at Cape Cod. They tried to sail to the Hudson River but were prevented by currents and shoals, landing at Provincetown Harbor. Ultimately the ship’s complement disembarked at New Plymouth, at “Plymouth Rock.”

Controversy
There are several other accounts that compete for “First Thanksgiving” in America both in terms of date and location.

• Puritans: this group arrived in America from England 9 or 10 years after the Pilgrims and claim a thanksgiving holiday in Boston in 1631. Despite the two groups’ similarities, there are several notable differences and motivations for why they came, as I describe here.
• Irish: on February 21, 1621, a ship arrived from Dublin with food stocks at Plymouth Rock for the starving Pilgrims. The date differs from the aforementioned Autumn thanksgiving feast date.
• Spanish: more a religious service than a holiday, explorers in San Elizario, Texas held a thanksgiving feast in 1592. Other claims point to a Spanish celebration on September 8, 1565, in St Augustine, Florida.
• Virginia: the founding charter in Charles City County, Virginia by the Berkeley Hundred — the early Virginia Colony’s Berkeley Plantation land grant — pins a thanksgiving service to 1619.

Presidential Proclamations
One of the first general proclamations was made in Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1676. President George Washington in 1789 issued the first presidential Thanksgiving proclamation in honor of the new constitution. During the 19th century, an increasing number of states observed the day annually, each appointing its own day. President Abraham Lincoln, on October 3, 1863, by presidential proclamation appointed the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day, due to the unremitting efforts of Sarah J. Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book.

Recent
Each succeeding president made similar proclamations until Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1939 appointed the third Thursday of November, primarily to allow a special holiday weekend for the national public holiday. This was changed two years later by both Congress and the President to the fourth Thursday of November. Now you understand that scene in the movie Holiday Inn where the confused turkey jumps between alternative Thursdays in the calendar in November.

Gratitude
The idea of a day set apart to celebrate the completion of the harvest, and to render homage to the Spirit who caused the fruits and crops to grow, is both ancient and universal. The practice of designating a day of thanksgiving for specific spiritual or secular benefits has been followed in many countries.

Thanksgiving Day remains a day when many express gratitude to God for blessings and celebrate material bounty.

P.S. I’ve often been asked if the British also celebrate a day of Thanksgiving. They do, but they mark it on July 4th.

By Rick Bundschuh, Kauai Christian Fellowship, Poipu, Hawaii
from his book Don’t Rock the Boat, Capsize It

I think it is the solemn duty of all pastors to pass out full-size candy bars on Halloween.

Yes, I know that for many Christian folk this holiday is one born out of the depths of hell, and we must protect our children from it by wearing our costumes and passing out our candy in the safe confines of the church building. But in spite of the best efforts of our alarmists, it seems nobody has gotten the message about the evils of Halloween to the droves of grade school vampires, Spider-men, fairies, and witches who, with bulging pillowcase in hand, tromp up our porch steps on the thirty-first of October.

I live in an actual neighborhood. Unlike some anonymous and sterile suburbs, ours is an old-fashioned kind of place where people actually are acquainted with each other and give a wave when they drive by. Our children co-mingle for water balloon fights, birthday parties, and bicycle expeditions to the end of the block.

Most everyone around knows that I am a professional religious guy—a pastor, reverend, priest, voodoo cult leader, or something like that. Out here in the neighborhood I’m never asked to give a message—I am the message. My integrity and authenticity are judged in a different way here than church folks judge it.

So if I stop and jump out of my car to retrieve a neighbor’s empty errant trash can from the street where it’s been blown on trash day, I give a message. If my kids trudge off to the same public school as the rest of the lads, I give a message. If at school I volunteer to chaperone field trips or be one of the guest classroom speakers on “Career Day,” I give a message.

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We Christians give messages all the time. Sometimes they are not very good ones.
There was a family in the neighborhood who always made Halloween a goofy, fun, quasi-spooky time by turning their front yard into a maze of tombstones, spider webs, black lights, blazing jack-o’-lanterns complete with cheesy-creepy sound-effects CDs. Their efforts were guaranteed to terrify any kid under the age of three. For everyone else the haunted house decor just provided a bit of sea¬sonal excitement and joy.
Then the mom became a Christian, and all fun ceased.

Her kids, to their horror, were forbidden to decorate or go trick-or-treating. Instead, they were forced to suit up as Bible characters and be dragged off to a Harvest Party instead. The house that had once been festive and ablaze with creepy fun would remain dark and abandoned on Halloween. The rest of the neighborhood didn’t really know what had happened, only that the woman had “gotten religion.” And the results were no fun. Her family would no longer play the game everyone had so enjoyed.

The terrible thing about this turn of events was that we (my newly converted neighbor and I) were supposed to be on the same side of all the issues—and we were not. The alarm inside me was starting to go off. I recalled that when I was a kid roaming the neighborhood on Halloween, there was a sense of judging the heart of the occupants by their willingness to play the game well. If the wife answered the door she would coo about the cute pirates (Cute pirates? Who ever heard of a cute pirate?). If the man answered the door he would mumble something, dole out the demanded bribe, and get back to his sports program.

This was the norm. But among those playing the game there was always someone in the territory (all kids have a territory; it enlarges a bit as they get older but it still remains their domain) who really loved kids. Someone who understood and gave out the currency of a kid’s Halloween kingdom: fun and loot. These were the folks who did one of two things: decorated their homes in a cool, creepy way, or gave out full-size candy bars rather than the little cheapies most people gave. Sometimes, on a rare occasion, they did both things.

Now I’ve got to tell you: kids remember. They remember things for a long time. They spread the word about those who are benevolent to the values of kid-dom. They hold those households in honor. Months after Halloween my childhood gang would bike past a home where full-size Snickers bars had been handed out and someone would say in hushed reverence, “That’s the house where they gave out big candy bars.” And everyone would smile and nod with greedy approval.

So I decided that our family would be that house now that the new Christian lady on the block had put the kabash on Halloween. I wanted kids passing by in the school bus weeks after Halloween to point to our home and say, “Those guys gave out full-size candy bars.” I want the goodwill and praise of children—and their pagan parents. I want them to think of us as fun. (We are.) I want, if even in a backhanded way, to give them the message that God is generous and fun as well.

To give our Halloween presentation a little more finesse, I replaced the outdoor lights with black lights and hid a fog machine under the stair landing with the controls running clandestine into the house. The squeal of delight that came from kids traversing the driveway was part of the payoff. The widened eyes as I held out a cauldron of full-size candy bars was another return on my investment.

But it is knowing that with mere candy bars I may be paving the road for future willingness on the part of these kids and their families to listen to and
experience the reality of Jesus that really gets me excited.

Because kids do remember.

Yep – Halloween is just around the corner. Longtime Team interlínc dude Mark Pittman created this talk when he was a youth pastor in San Diego. We’ve posted it before, and thought that now’s the perfect time to get it back in circulation. You’re welcome!

Theme:

What do I want them to do? To keep on seeking meaning in our lives or find meaning in a relationship with Christ.

Intro:

(Or your story own involving someone stuggling with not getting what they want, when they want it.)

Connor loves to play & watch movies. Simpsons and Legos are big in our house! His life pretty much revolves around half/hour spans. ‘Daddy, I want to ____.’ Whatever he wants to do right now is the most important thing to him, most of the time its okay and we do what he wants to do or watch. Sometimes, like right before bed, he’ll ask to do something and we’ll have to say no, “it’s time to get ready for bed”. Then come the tears, he’s sad and disappointed because he didn’t get what he wanted. It’s tough to get him to see through that disappointment and into the fact that he needs rest. It’s tough to get him to think that we will allow him to do this thing tomorrow, but for now, he needs to sleep.

Transition:

We all lived like that when we were two, but then we started to see past the disappointment of the immediate.

Some times we got what we wanted – only it took a little longer and learning we could work toward the things we wanted. We could do chores for our parents and earn an allowance; we could save that up and buy the things we wanted. Life then became more than just stuff.

We learned how to do and say things to get friends. We learned how to interact and decide we needed to be liked. We started working on the need to be liked – The right conversations, humor, etc.

Meaning:

The bottom line is MEANING… How do you give your life meaning?

We all look for things to place into our lives to make our life meaningful and worth living. We have no choice than to deal with the issue of meaning:

• To search for it
• To fight for it
• To envy it in others
• To react against those who might take it from us
• To grieve when it has been lost

Let me read to you about a guy who dedicated his life to look for meaning in things.

Ecclesiastes 2:17-23
So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless. So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. For a man may do his work with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then he must leave all he owns to someone who has not worked for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune. What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless.

There are some pretty strong words from this Scripture: Life is meaningless.

People work their whole lives thinking if they get to the next rung, then they will be happy and their lives will have meaning – yet when they get there they find they are still empty inside or there’s another rung to climb.

We can end up just like Private Ryan. Not sure if he’s lived a life of meaning or not – “Tell me I’ve lived a good life, tell me I’m a good man.”

The Pumpkin:

So what makes life worth living… a relationship with God?

God created us to have a relationship with Him! That’s what we’re here for – Audio Adrenaline has a really cool old song I love. The premise of the song is simple – there’s a God-shaped hole inside of each of us – we can try to fill it with all sorts of stuff, but there’s only one thing that fits!

Same principle as a jack-o-lantern, other than pumpkin pie, the purpose of a pumpkin is to be a jack-o-lantern after you scoop the junk out.

Listen to what your life is like with a relationship with God

1 John 3:1
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him

Ephesians 2:4-10
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

We can choose to live life with the meaning of having a relationship with him – our meaning is being a child of God… we are his work!

Just like the pumpkin that sits, waiting to fulfill it’s purpose, someone change us…

Cut into it, remove the smelly junk from inside

A light is placed inside of us…

God does that in our lives: First

God cut & sacrifice was made by his son, death on a cross to remove the sin (smelly stuff) inside us,

God gave us his spirit inside us & we become a new creation… God’s hand made work.

Ending:

Tonight, choose to live… find meaning on your own and that life is meaningless. Find the perfect meaning by having a relationship with God. Maybe you have it and you have just covered up the light… remember what you were created for – Remember, your meaning is found in and through God.

By Rick Bundschuh • Kauai Christian Fellowship • Poipu, Hawaii

Early in my youth ministry career, I used to get a little guilty as I drove off for a couple hours of surfing in the morning. On the way to the beach I would pass all the suited up businessmen, harried moms with school kids in the van, and everybody else who lived a “normal” life. I’d paddled out to sit in the line up with waiters, beach bums, retired old guys and a few guys supposedly on disability leave.

You see, my day started much later than most people’s and came to a fever pitch once the end-of-school bell rang. Dragging into the house at 10pm or later was common many days of the week. Most of the other guys on the church staff showed up to their desk around 8:30 in the morning. I stumbled in after lunch, maybe — unless I was running around with a pack of kids.

Going surfing in the morning was — and still is — a way that I balance my life. So, I don’t feel guilty anymore. The idea of sitting down to a nice relaxing family meal five or six nights a week was foreign to me. The more common scenario was to horse down something quick, kiss the kids goodnight (’cause I wasn’t going to tuck them into bed) and bolting for the door. And this was on the lucky nights when I wasn’t out on the road picking up kids.

But, I was there at lunch. Even when they went to school, I could show up and have lunch with my kids. Not too many other dads could pull that one off.

I worked hard and put in lots of hours when students were available; I made up for all those hours when students were in seasons where they were busy. Even to this day, I barely work almost the whole month of December. My kids think this is normal. This is just the balance of family and ministry.

Doing youth work well is all about balancing the various things in life and ministry. In fact, I’ve found that, because of all the various elements that most youth workers must deal with, the ability to handle the spinning plate balancing act without losing any of the fine china is often the difference between burning out of youth ministry and having a nice long run.

• It is about balancing wife, kids, and ministry.
• It is about balancing the need to have a private adult life with the public mania that comes with knowing every kid in the mall.
• It is about going after the unwashed kids in the neighborhood without losing the church kids.
• It is about loving and serving the geeks as well as the jocks.
• It is about having the cutting edge renegade sassiness that brings fun to the church community and at the same time being able to carry on a meaningful conversation with Mrs. Methuselah.
• It is about knowing when to control the kids and when to let them go nuts.
• It is about figuring out how much abuse one should expect the church van to suffer, and when to strap all the kids onto the roof rack.
• It is about being able to have fun, and to have impact.
• It is about knowing what about your ministry to tell the congregation and what to keep quiet about. (Wiping the four letter words written in shaving cream off the bathroom mirror would be one of those adventures not worth mentioning.)
• It is about having to be tough and loving at the same time.
• It is about having the trust of the kids, but being an advocate of the parents as well.

Balance is not always easy. We often let the demands of the squeaky wheel, the whims of our emotions, or unrealistic expectations tilt us. Balance means learning to say “No.” “No, I won’t take on the college-age class as well as the youth ministry.” “No, we won’t be coming to Saturday morning mens prayer breakfast because we will be playing paintball with a bunch of ruffians.”

Balance also means learning to say “Yes!” “Yes, I think we can find a night to be part of a small group even if it means I will be out five of seven nights most weeks.” “Yes, I will try to find some high school girls to babysit for the women’s ministry — and yes, I will ask them to ‘do it as unto the Lord’.” (But I hope the Lord is planning on at least tipping them.)

Dig in your heels and refuse to meet in the middle. Go overboard on one thing or another while neglecting other vital areas of youth ministry and you won’t last long. But learn balance, negotiation, the art of win/win, and the skill of an ecclesiastical shortstop — and my guess is that your career in youth ministry will not only be long and fruitful, you will enjoy the heck out of it.

Photo credit: © Dwphotos | Dreamstime.com

Through the wonder of technology, we were able to assemble this star-studded cast of Christian funny people – err, funny people who are Christians… umm, Christians who make people laugh. But they weren’t in the same room at the same time. Amazing! So listen in as we try to stump them with thought-provoking questions that are sure to generate some awesome conversation.

TH = Tim Hawkins
MJ = Michael Jr.
T = Tommy and E = Eddie (The Skit Guys)
TWP = Team WordPlay (Chris and Ryan)

What lets you know that a particular “concert” is gonna be a good one?

TH      When people know who I am. That’s always a plus. It beats all those banquets I’ve performed at where I’ve had to prove I’m more interesting than lasagna and cheesecake.

T         I guess it would depend on what kinda music you like. I’m fond of mostly 80’s music so I know it’s gonna be good if it’s REO Speed Wagon or Journey. Oh, and TobyMac – ’cause I’m a Christian.

E         When the seats are all filled up, there’s been somewhat of a line that has been waiting, and then the anticipation is at fever pitch. You step onstage and you can do no wrong. That’s a good one. Our videos have really helped propel our “live” shows. People watch these videos and they want to see us live. It’s as if we’ve developed a relationship before we get to town.

T         Ed, I think you misunderstood the question.

TWP   There are so many factors that come into play. But it’s usually not about numbers of people, but how they are situated. Like cold sores, comedy is contagious, and the closer people are packed together, the more the laughs seem to come. Also if, at the appropriate time, the host holds up the “LAUGH NOW!” signs we always ship ahead, that usually helps.

MJ      Most of the time if there is praise and worship beforehand, it is always a good one. And if people are laughing before I hit the stage. And if people are laughing during the show. And if they are laughing after the show. And if I get my money. And if the check clears.

At the end of the evening, when you’re back in your room or in your car headed home, what makes you think, “Whoa! That was GREAT!”?

TH      I don’t need to think it. I’ve actually hired a guy who sits in the car and says, “Whoa! That was great!” It’s just how I like to do it.

T         When I’m standing in the mirror sporting my Styx concert shirt. I usually think, “Whoa!  That was great!”

E         After one of our shows, we almost always stay and sign stuff and take pictures with people. That’s when the audience shares their stories – stories of how a particular skit, a certain phrase or sentence touched them or helped them through a difficult time. Again, it’s the relationship we have with these wonderful folks from city to city that makes it great.

T         Seriously – who came up with these questions? They are confusing!

TWP   We love having time to interact with the audience, not only during the show, but especially afterwards. Nothing makes us happier than when students come up to us and say, “I never thought about my Christian life in that way, but your sketch really made me think.” Also when the youth pastors tell us that the kids stayed up all night talking about whatever we spoke on that session. We love torturing the youth pastors.

MJ      People’s stories about how they really needed laughter at that particular time really blesses me on the ride home, at my hotel room, and beyond.

“Christian Comedy” can be kind of like “Grape Nuts” – which is neither grapes nor nuts. What makes your comedy “Christian”?

MJ      I don’t know; you tell me.

TH      I kiss my finger and point to heaven after a joke goes well.

E         There’s a definite message. It’s normally a “Christian” message. Our goal is not to be cheesy. We make no apologies about being “Christian”– we want it to be some of the best “Christian” stuff they’ve seen.

T         Christian audiences don’t expect much. Sad to say, but it seems that the bar has been lowered when it comes to comedy and expectations in church.

E         For too long, Christians have played it safe way too much when it comes to comedy. We try to have someone sitting out in an audience or in front of their computer to go, “I wasn’t expecting that!” Sometimes that’s the best compliment.

T         We are Christians who do comedy. So that makes it Christian comedy by default. Much like jumbo shrimp is both large and small because it’s – never mind. That analogy didn’t work.

TWP   Our comedy is Christian because we really don’t do anything in our act that is not designed to bring students into a closer relationship with their Creator. Laughter for the sake of laughter is great and there’s a little of that if we do an improv comedy concert but if, at the end of the day, we just made kids laugh and didn’t encourage them to grow closer to Christ, I think we’ve done them (and our ministry) a disservice.

Read the complete Wise-Cracking Wiseguys interview and get all the other humor-themed resources (from Tim Hawkins, Michael Jr, Skit Guys) in the new Youth Leaders Only Digital Box!

Guest post by Rick Bundschuh from Kauai Christian Fellowship

Editor’s Note: Rick is one of the coolest lunatics you’ll ever meet. We are proud to have him as a member of Team Interlínc, and as one of our WriteGroup contributors. His video of their Middle School retreat (you can see it here) is what prompted us to ask him to explain, “Why all the mess?” You’ll no doubt identify with his explanation!

I walked into the big room used by the Middle School every Wednesday night. There were feathers everywhere. There were feathers in the light fixtures, feathers on the shelves, feathers piled in the corners and feathers in the window screens. My first thought was, “It sure looks like someone (other than a goose or chicken) was having a load of fun!”

A certain part of youth ministry gets messy because messy means more fun.

Tie a donut on a string and have a contest to see who can eat it first. This could make a lot of crumbs, but it is really not all that messy. Take the same donut; dip it in chocolate syrup, and feed it to a partner lying on the floor and you now have “messy” with a capital M.

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The messy factor is what turns an okay stunt or game into something that kids talk about for a long time and one that they tell their friends about.

Of course messy doesn’t attract prissy girls or too cool guys—but it sure works great with the average Middle School monkey.

• Getting messy is what mom won’t let you do at home, which makes it even more fun.
• Getting a girl messy is the way that a Middle School guy shows affection.
• Getting your friend messy is the way that you show brotherly love—in Middle School terms that is.
• Getting messy makes for great movies, photos, and publicity on social media.
• Getting messy makes for lots of laughter and even more mess.

Messy is part of the message that says to kids, “Hey, this Christian thing is wild, fun, and exciting!” It wins us the right to talk about the “abundant life” with credibility because, for a Middle School kid, the more mess you make, the more abundant life truly is!

And yes, messy can have some downsides. Someone has to clean up all that mess. Shaving crème stings the eyes. The chocolate handprints your cleaning crew missed will come back to haunt you in the form of a scolding by the non-messy lady from the Women’s ministry. A few killjoys may make noise about bad stewardship in the waste of noodles, feathers, shaving crème, cooking oil, etc. Or, you may have to get out the vacuum and go after the feathers that your cleaning crew didn’t see in their hurry to suck up eight pillowcases worth of down.

But messy is one of those things that adults have generally grown out of. We have forgotten the pure joy of rolling in mud, being lathered in a bath of Jello, or getting a pie in the face. We would never think of bobbing for Baby Ruth bars in a toilet filled with Mountain Dew, or rediscover the missile launching pleasure of a good old fashion food fight.

And in a way, that’s too bad.

But, making a mess in the name of Jesus is what we in youth work are called to do. Many of us take great pride in our, mess, uh, err, work!

By Doug Hutchcraft• The Doug and Jon Show • thedougandjonshow.com

Psalm 126:2 and Job 8:21 directly link laughter as a result of God’s blessing. Even so, humor sometimes gets a bad rap in church and ministry circles because we’ve seen it used so many times in ways that don’t glorify God. When utilized within God’s boundaries though (see Ephesians 5:4 to read how much God doesn’t laugh at bathroom humor), laughter is simply too great of a gift and too powerful a communication weapon to not harness for God’s glory.

Laughter is one of God’s greatest creations.
Used creatively and effectively, it can attract people from all walks of life to His truth and ultimately, the Gospel. I’ve seen God at work through humor firsthand. It’s one of the reasons more than 30,000 young people from 90 countries have prayed to receive Christ on TheDougAndJonShow.com. It’s a primary reason 115,000 Facebook fans keep us in their news feeds. Yes, we share the Gospel – but we win a young person’s trust first by sharing some laughs.

Laughs break the ice.
When communicating, in some cases you’ve got maybe 30 seconds before a person, especially a young person, decides whether they relate to you and will listen to what you have to say. When you start a conversation with a shared laugh, you can break down invisible walls in an instant.

Laughs change negative perceptions.
We live in a world full of people that believe Christians are all Mr. and Mrs. Judge-ingtons. Their perception is we want to yell at them because they have sin in their lives. One shared laugh at our own shortcomings can communicate we’re not all the sticks in the mud they perceive us to be.

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Laughs can help effectively communicate hard truths.
Recently I taught at a church from Proverbs 4:23 on guarding your heart. I used a funny illustration about how there’s a stretch on Interstate 40 in Texas that assaults your nasal cavity because of all the cow farms in the community. Somehow though, the folks that live there don’t smell it because they’re used to it. From there I turned the corner into Christians not being able to “smell” the kind of entertainment that is offensive to God because we’re so accustomed to it. I call communicating hard truths this way as “putting velvet on a brick.” You don’t water down the hard truth — but you get people thinking about it on a deeper level because you delivered it in an entertaining and unexpected way.

Not every truth in God’s Word is appropriate to illustrate with humor, but it’s wise to consider utilizing humor in ones where it works. So laugh a little, and invite others to crack up with you! It’ll bring a bright spot into their day, and it might even give them a glimpse into the joy that comes from following such a great Savior.