Our second priority

Now that I am no longer in the youth department, I can write what I am about to write without being accused of self-centeredness.

How badly does a church need a minister of music? Out of tradition and habit, we have a tendency to believe that need is greater than it is. I love music. I believe it is an essential element of worship, the first purpose of the church. I love ministers of music (that’s you, Unc ;) ). But, having said those things, I believe a minister of music should be, at best, the third priority on a church’s list of paid staff. First, a church needs a pastor to shepherd the church in the direction of her Savior. After a pastor and before a minister of music, a church needs a man whose job is to minister to youth. In churches too small to hire three staff members, a youth minister is more important than a music minister. Moreover, the two jobs are too big in themselves to be combined into a single job description. The church as a whole benefits more from an on-fire youth group than from a perfectly tuned choir. A great choir special may have toes tapping or hearts worshipping for a moment, but a youth group sold out to Christ transforms a church and a community now and for generations to come.

The adults in my church do not seem to understand this concept as well as they should. My parents’ generation were some of the most fortunate youth in our church’s history. When they, themselves, were youth, they experienced the benefits that come with a minister wholly devoted to their discipleship. Their children, my generation, have seen the continued benefit; we have parents who were discipled. Unfortunately, we had to grow up only hearing about their youth minister. We heard about all the great experiences we were denied. Most of today’s youth, who are just a few years younger than I, have parents who are too young to be able to share those stories. Their parents were not discipled; therefore, the youth have not even known the second-generational benefits of a great youth minister. Why does my parents’ generation refuse to grant to their children the great opportunities for Christian growth that they themselves were afforded?

Our nominating committee is already seeing the results. We are growing whole generations of adults who have not been taught the joy of service. Even those who want to serve and/or who do serve, really do not know the Bible well enough to teach it to others. We are seeing the flipside of the statements I wrote above about the benefit to a church of a strong youth program. When we do not provide for the discipleship of our youth, our church dies.

So, my questions for small churches are as follows: what good is a music minister when a congregation is too dead to sing? What good is a music minister when a congregation fades away? Why are we willing to sit by and watch our youth fall victim to all the world’s enticing offers while we insist that we must hire someone to wave his arms behind a music stand?

Volunteer youth ministers certainly are blessings for which I am thankful, but I am sure those volunteers would be some of the first to admit that they simply cannot invest the time it takes to build a quality youth program. So, I say, let the volunteers pick the songs and wave their arms! If we rearrange our priorities such that youth come before music, I think there is a good chance that our church will grow enough that we will be able to afford a fabulous music program as well. We can sing with no one to lead, but in their most vital years of spiritual development, our youth need direction. Will we be faithful to see that their potential becomes reality? Will we teach them that whether or not we have a formal music program they have a real reason to sing? Will we fill in the cracks so they do not continue to fall through? Will we love them? What a difference we could make in our church, our community, our world if we would!
-mo
Moville

"A Biblical Response...

...to the Pro-Gay Movement"
http://www.exodus.to/content/view/129/35/
from the website of Exodus International

-mo
Moville

"The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done...

...is keep belivin' there's someone in this crazy world for me."
-Karen Carpenter, dittoed by mo
Moville

Vacation Pictures

Launch pictures: http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029283&l=b1018&id=12820171
Description: July 4, 2006. STS-121 Pre-launch and Post-launch pictures. During launch, all we have is video.
Location: Titusville, FL
Other vacation pictures: http://git.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029160&l=4872c&id=12820171
Location: Florida

If you hold your mouse pointer over one of the names in the “In this photo” list, you will see a box around the person/thing you are pointing to. Enjoy!
-mo
Moville

Counting the Cost

"But the king replied to Araunah, 'No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.' So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen and paid fifty shekels of silver for them." (2 Samuel 24.24 NIV, emphasis added)

If it costs me nothing, is it a sacrifice?
The difference between an offering and a sacrifice: cost.
-mo
Moville

Swing with me

Today (actually, yesterday, according to the clock), I played. I visited the playground on which I spent countless recesses sitting on my "thinking rock" watching my classmates play. The rock is long gone, but the same wooden structure, as we called it, is there, the same swings, slide, tunnel, monkey bars, metal climby things, and wooden balance beam. I walked across the swinging bridge and slid down the fireman's pole. The trip down the pole was shorter than I remembered it. I walked across the balance beam, which was closer to the ground than I remembered it. I climbed to the top of the round, green, metal climby thing. We used to get in trouble for climbing to the top. A classmate of mine fell and broke his arm when he broke that rule. Today, I was safe. The climb was not as high as I remembered it. I walked under the monkey bars and grabbed them without having to jump. They were not as tall as I remembered them. I visited the cluster of trees that was so obviously a house to us, a fort to the boys. I was disappointed that it looked so much like trees today - not at all like I remembered it. The one redeeming factor of my trip to my childhood playground: whoever came along and changed all the rest of that stuff did not oil the swings. Those old, screechy swings were exactly as I remembered them. To the familiar tune of their screechy lullaby, I drifted into a nostalgic dreamland. Would that I could swing forever...
-mo
Moville

June 23, 1926

Eighty years ago today, Roy Everett Trussell breathed his first breath, nine months or so after his life began.

Many of my earliest memories are of being with him. He taught me that the best way to make a kid stop crying is to pretend to cry more loudly than the kid. (The kid - one of my sisters or I - is so confused that she just stops and stares.) On one of our many three-wheeler rides to feed the cows, he taught me to spit. (I am not sure he meant to teach that lesson, but I learned by modeling his tobacco-spitting.) He taught me to call the cows for feeding time: "Hey, cows, c'mon." (You can't really spell it like we said it... For a demo, call me or ask me to do it in person sometime.) He let me experience the tugging of a calf on the other end of a bottle I held. (He had to hold onto my hands to keep the calf from stealing the bottle.) He taught me that a ride in a pickup truck is not complete without some good, toe-tappin' southern gospel, and the rides were always better with a little dog named Tina. (After I demonstrate calling the cows, I can teach you how we asked Tina if she wanted to ride.) By his quiet example, he taught me that worship is appreciating the small stuff.

Thank You, God, for the life and legacy of Granddaddy.
-mo
Moville