Encounters With God: Mark Ashby

Today' guest post comes from Mark Ashby.  Be sure to leave comments and let Mark know how much you appreciate him sharing his heart.  You can also check out his blot at www.markashbyblog.com or follow him on Twitter @markashby11.  I know you will all be blessed by his words.

Failing Forward
God has shown up MANY times in my life. Throughout my life, I have been back and forth with sin and God. It has been a daily battle with me, sometimes hourly. I want to share an experience that God revealed himself to me the most during a few months of my life. Let me preface this story that I had already given my life to Christ, I was in the ministry at a great church, and I fell harder than I ever have before in my entire life. Sin had such a strong hold on my life that I failed, but through God's grace, I was able to fail forward.

I was brought up in a middle class suburban home. I had a father who was a lawyer, a mother who was a nurse, two older brothers and me. We were the perfect family unit from the outsiders perspective. We loved each other, fought with each other, went to church together...we lived next door to the Cleavers. Then one day in October of 2009, I got a random phone call from my father. At this point, I had been at this church for just about 8 months and things were going really well. It was a church that made me think to myself, "I finally hit the big time. People are going to know who MARK ASHBY is." I was arrogant. God found a way to humble me that I never thought would be possible.

My father called me and told me that he was in the area and wanted to drop by. I said sure! It would be great to see my dad, show him my church, meet with my senior pastor. This was a great opportunity to show off to my dad and say look what you raised. I am doing SO WELL! My father showed up about 15 minutes later and I usher him up to my office. He said he wanted to tell me something important (this is when I started thinking that someone in my family passed away). My father sat down silent, about to cry, and I am sitting at my desk looking at him. I have only seen my father cry one other time in my 24 years of existence at this point. He looked me dead in the eye and told me that my mother and him were getting a divorce. My world came crashing down. I told him to quit joking and he sat there with a stone cold look on his face. Tears streaming down my face, I yelled at him. I asked him questions that he would not answer. I called him a quitter. I told him I am more of a man than he will ever be. After 33 years, my world came crashing down. My father, who was my hero, fell from grace. I begged my father to reconsider. I told him I could help him fix it. This was the worst news I have ever heard in my life.

I cried and cried. I cursed at God for letting this happen. I prayed an ANGRY prayer to Him, telling Him how my distaste for Him was growing. How could God, lover of all, let this happen to MY family? Sure other families, but mine? The next few months, my life went into a downward spiral. I tried to sweep my emotions under the rug and go on with life as if nothing happened. God was breaking my shell. I was depressed. I did not want to go to work. Soon after, in March of 2010, I left my church (not on my own accord, of course) and I was certain that my life in ministry was over.

After reading through my Bible, I saw that God truly was guarding me and my family from even more devastation. My father came clean and told everyone that he was unfaithful to my mother for 29 years of their marriage. His whole life was a sham. I now hated my father. How could he treat my mom and HIS family this way? I turned to God and God revealed himself to me in ways that I never thought were possible. It was of Biblical proportions. I was out of ministry, but I started to go back into the church (a different one from the one I "resigned" from). More and more I felt Christ calling me back to youth ministry. After several interviews, many trips, disappointments and much more, I suddenly found God in everything I was doing. Beth Moore is quoted as saying, "It is not a daily battle with Christ and sin. For me and for many, it is a minute by minute, second by second battle to keep Christ alive in your life." 

Satan attacked me at my core. I was arrogant and thought I was the next Big Room Speaker at NYWC. I was off to bigger and greater things. I suddenly started to build my ministry around myself. I was like the Israelite's, I was building a golden statue of me because of how good I was at what I did. God then spoke to me one day, during a meditation time and He said, (not audibly of course) "Mark, you are here to do MY work. You are here to further MY Kingdom. You are here to teach youth about Christ. Remember your day you came into fellowship with Me. "

Suddenly it clicked. I became a believer when I was 17 through a Chrysalis retreat. After that retreat, I was more on fire for Christ than I ever was before. In fact, I remember telling everyone at a night meeting that I was going to "spread a wildfire of Christ to all those who will hear it!" That fire that was inside me never died, I just couldn't see it because I was on my own path.

So many times in our lives, we have everything planned out. We have everything laid out. We want our lives to fit the "american dream". We want to have the perfect family. We want to be the best at what we do. Then I realized something. I am working for an audience of one. Soon after I was hit in the head and heart with this knowledge (AGAIN) I began to seek a new church. I got married. Before my wife and I were married, I told her I feel that God will bless our union first, get me a job second, and provide every step of the way. In September of 2010, I was married. In November of 2010, I was offered a job at a church that follows Christ. It is now, after failing so much in ministry and life, that Christ has shown me the true way. My youth ministry is a branch of our church. We are not our own church and I strive to preach that. We follow the vision handed down by the senior pastor. We pray for our church and our ministry. We really focus on Christ and not so much on me.

After having my hero fall down from grace. After having my idea of a perfect family shattered to pieces. After removing myself off of the Cross and placing Christ there, is when I truly encountered Christ again. I was 17 the first time. The wildfire never died, I just couldn't see it from the path I chose to walk. It is NOW that I follow Christ first. I am in a fellowship with Christ first, a Husband to my bride second, and a youth minister third. However, ask anyone who knows me, I am not shy about telling ANYONE about what Christ has done in my life and what He can do in theirs. Christ is real to me by the experiences I have with Him daily. No one can tell me different. I thank God for tearing down the walls of what I thought was the right way.

If you get anything from this post, get this:  Christ's plan for us is not always our plan for Christ. My God is too big to fit in my calendar on my iPad and iPod Calendar. Christ fits everywhere in our lives and is everywhere in my life. I hope, that through the darkest time in my life, you can see how real God is and how He shows up when you LEAST expect it.

Mark Ashby Youth Minister
FUMC Americus

Encounters With God: Eric Hendrickson

Today's guest post is from Eric Hendrickson.  Please take the time to follow his blog and to follow him on Twitter (links to both follow the post).  And for Eric and all of our guests for the next 2 weeks, please leave comments and let them know how much we appreciate their willingness to share these very personal encounters with God...

When God Showed Up Big and Unexpected
 Almost four years ago, my life was totally flipped upside down in the middle of the night. I received numerous phone calls at 4:45am on December 1, 2007. My parents were trying to get a hold of me. When I finally answered, all I heard was my dad crying and screaming that my little brother was dead. The first thing I screamed was "No...not my best friend!" My brother Michael had been sick over the past couple weeks with a cold and his immune system was down. He somehow got in contact with severe bacterial infection similar to meningitis. http://savannahnow.com/morris-news-service/2007-12-03/infection-likely-killed-uga-student

My brother and I were always close. He looked up to me since the day he was born. We grew up in church together. When I started in youth ministry in 1997, my brother helped me on retreats and with my youth with games, making funny videos, making highlight videos, and more. As he grew older, I relied on my brother to be honest with me. He was the one person I could go to and get an honest answer on what game or skit to play. He gave me great ideas for run-on characters and skits. He was my best man in my wedding earlier in 2007. And with one phone call, he was no longer there.

Looking back at the toughest days of my life in that first week of December 2007, I can see God in so many ways. There were over a thousand people who came to his visitation and funeral. It was so hard to believe that my brother touched so many lives.

To be honest, I have not been the same since then. I have been a different person. There were times that I was really mad at God. There have been times where I have just not been myself. And that made me struggle in ministry. In the beginning of 2010, my wife and I felt God was calling us out of Charlotte, NC. We had no clue where we would end up. But we knew that God was in control.

This past fall things finally started to change. In December 2010 our family made a move. I accepted the Director of Student Ministries at Mt. Hebron United Methodist Church in West Columbia, SC. It was more of move than just a position. First, we moved without selling our house. (Our house in Charlotte is still for sale if you know anyone that might be interested in a 3bedroom ranch!) But the awesome part of letting go...God showed up! The church parsonage was not being used, so we are still currently living in it. We worked out a deal for the time being to have it on our 1099, so we wouldn't have to worry about double rent...even though we have double utilities. But that was just the beginning. When we arrived with our U-haul, there were people there to help unload it. When we went back to Charlotte to get another load, we came back to find that people in the congregation had bought us groceries and prepared meals for us.

For the first time since my brother had passed away, we enjoyed December 1st. December 1st was my first official day of work here. It was no longer a mourning day, but for us a day of new beginnings. After three years, I finally let go of the hurt and pain of losing my brother...and God showed up big. I cannot describe to you how lucky we are to be where we are at and surrounded by amazing church family and staff. And all it took was for us to "LET GO and LET GOD" take control last year when we heard Him calling us somewhere else.

"I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."-Jeremiah 29:11

God is in control if we allow him to do so. The thing is we have to let go our control and see that through times of pain He is still there. It just took me three years to listen to what I had been preaching and teaching since 1997. And on a side note, it has been awesome to hear and see how much God used my brother in other people's lives and how people continue to know God because of my brother.

My Blog
http://www.uscerock.com

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Encounters With God

The Presence In the Midst

In many ways, the Bible is a history of human beings encountering God.  Adam & Eve encounter God in the Garden of Eden, both before and after they sin.  Joseph (the one with the coat) encounters God through dreams.  Moses encounters God through a burning bush.  Elizabeth, Mary and Saul encounter God through visits from angels.  And thousands of people encountered God through the person of Jesus.  God shows up in a variety of different ways in the scriptures, but know this- God always shows up!

I believe this is still true today.  We encounter the living God (or Jesus or the Holy Spirit; this is not meant to be theological series, it is meant to an experiential series!) in many different ways in our lives, but I firmly believe we do encounter Him.  My experiences go all the way back to high school.  Quaker worship is all about practicing the presence of God and knowing God/Jesus/the Holy Spirit is always with us.  I remember sitting silently in meeting for worship at New Garden Friends Meeting during open worship and suddenly realizing my heart was full with a message to share. A "strange force" would have me on my feet and talking before I knew it- and I knew from whom the message came.  I had a good friend receive a missionary call to go to Belize in that same setting, and she had never heard of Belize before!  I remember sitting on a hillside in Virginia at Sam Levering's orchard and seeing the incredible night sky and knowing God was there with me.  God showed up so many times in so many ways during my years at Quaker Lake Camp, at the campfire circle and on the Vespers Hill.  I remember seeing Jesus show up in the lives of so many students over my years in ministry, as well as at so many worship services.  And I know that in my own darkest hour, God spoke to me and through me to reach out in a way I could have never imagined myself.

But the next 2 weeks are not about me.  They are about the what Rich Mullins called, "the reckless, raging fury that they call the love of God."  Over the coming weeks you will hear from at least 13 different writers sharing their own encounters with God.  I do not know what direction these stories will take us- that is part of the wonder of God.  We do not all experience God in the same way, and I trust that these stories will open our hearts and minds to new possibilities.  My prayer is that they will serve to remind us that if we feel far away from God, it is not God who moved.  I hope that these heart-felt tales will help each of us to to seek to encounter God, to want it so badly that we constantly seek God's presence in our lives. 

Come join us on the journey.  It begins tomorrow with a very moving post from Eric Hendrickson (@uscerock379 on Twitter) and continues with a different writer each day.  God is always in your midst.  Encounter Him...

Because of Jesus,

Youth Ministry Artifact #5- "Come As You Are"

Today's artifact was discovered while digging through a box in my garage that was full of all kinds of discarded youth ministry items from my days at Springfield Friends Meeting (1986-1994).  For those of you who may not recognize the item, it is something called a "Cassette Tape."  It was a form of home recording technology that preceded digital recording by a couple of decades.  While useful, using a tape recorder was quite tedious, especially if your were endeavouring to be creative with the recording process.  Yet discovering this particular tape brought a smile to my face immediately, and reminded me of a few important things.  Trust me when I tell you that this in indeed a RARE artifact...

By the Spring of 1989 the student ministry at SFM had truly taken off.  Springfield was not a large church; the worship attendance rarely broke 200.  We were not located "on the beaten path"- you had to be looking for us to find us.  And yet between our Sunday evening youth fellowship and our Monday night TNT we were seeing 75-100 middle and high school students every week.  It was amazing to watch God work through that ministry.  As I began to plan for the summer of '89, I knew that we needed to do everything we could to keep the dozens of youth who did not attend our church on Sunday mornings involved.  In fact, I was just crazy enough to believe that with prayer and hard work we could actually GROW during the summer.  So that is exactly what we set out to do.

I began to put together a "Summer Packet" to mail to every student who had ever had any contact with our church or our youth ministry.  I created a brochure (at right, complete with our cover boy Zed) with details of every thing that would go on that summer- and I did it without a computer.  I put together a calendar they could put on the wall of their room or on the family refrigerator.  All of this required a ton of work, because we had to do it all in house.  Our TOTAL budget for YM in 1989 was $800.  Just mailing the packets would stretch us.  But I had one more idea, and it was a doozy.  I ordered a bunch of cheap blank tapes, and began to bring in some our student leaders to record skits and messages for the tape.  It was all to advertise our biggest outreach event of the summer, YOUTH WEEK.  It included silly interviews, actual ads for events, and tons of youth-friendly music. We also made it as interactive as we could in those pre-computer days, so they could listen to certain skits and then call our HOTLINE to win prizes.  It took me untold hours to record it and edit it, and then many more hours to make 150 copies to mail out.  But mail them we did.  They were a huge hit, and we had the first of a series of amazing summers.

So what's the lesson of this artifact?  It's simple really- summers can be amazing times for student ministry, but you have to be willing to put in the work.  Events must be special and creative, even knowing the crowds might be small.  Programs must fit the needs of the students and depend on who can be there, not who won't be.  Summers should say to the kids that you love them so much that you are going to help them fill those long, boring days that we all know happen in summer.  You have to find creative ways to advertise what you are doing- and then you have to find more creative ways.  You have to convince the youth of your community that they are missing wild, crazy, fantastic things (including spending time getting to know Jesus!) if they are missing your events and programs.  All of that publicity is hard work- but so worth it.  In fact, summers were my favorite times to be a youth pastor, because it was when we had time to build real relationships.  Our theme for YOUTH WEEK in 1989 (and the first song on the tape) was Peter Wolf's Come As You Are.  The chorus goes as follows:  "Come as you are, now come on!  Come as you are and we'll have a ball!  Ain't gonna' be no masquerade (HOO-HOO),  Come as you are or don't come at all!"   We tried to live that message.  And come they did...

Most of us who have ever worked in youth ministry complain at some point that we just don't get enough time with our students.  I hope this artifact can serve as a reminder that it doesn't need to be that way.  You may not do 75 Days of Summer like I often did, but I hope that whatever you do this summer, you will do it BIG!  Your students deserve it- and so does our God.

Because of Jesus,

"It's the End of the World..."

It is absolutely amazing the things that we can get upset over and worry about.  For the past 20 hours or so, Google Blogger, which hosts this particular blog, was not functioning.  Normally I write the next day's post the night before, and last night I could not do that.  I have blogged for nearly 650 days in a row, and I worried that my streak might be in jeopardy.  I kept checking my computer to see if it was fixed yet.  Plus it is Friday the 13th.   I was seriously concerned.

What an idiot I am.  Let's look at the facts.  No one's day would be ruined if I didn't post.  No one is sitting at home nervously waiting to see if I would come through with some witty or inspirational words.  And no one (besides me) cares how many days in a row I have written posts.  We somehow manage to work ourselves in to a frenzy over things that could not matter less.  And we do it all the time.

Jesus cautioned us about worrying.  In Matthew 6:25-28 he reminds to trust in God for the things we need.  Yet we want to fix things and take care of ourselves.  It seems to be a human trait that we just can't shake.  We like to worry- and usually about things that we have no control over.

There are people who are very worried that next Saturday, May 21st, is the day that Jesus is coming back. There are billboards proclaiming this all over our nation.  I find this very interesting, since Jesus himself told us "no one will know the day or the time"- which pretty much rules out predictions.  I also find it funny that this is a concern for anyone. If you are a Christ-follower, then you should always be ready for Jesus' return.  If you are not, then you don't believe he's coming back- or that it matters that he was ever here!  Either way, seems to me you have nothing to worry about.  And yet we do.

So anyway, Blogger is fixed, I'm ready for Jesus, and I am going to try to do better and live my life trusting God.  It may seem like "the end of the world as we know it"...but I really do feel fine!

Because of Jesus,

Mangled Movie Lines

I love watching reruns of  Drew Carey's  Whose Line Is It Anyway? on ABC Family (actually Will and I DVR them each night and watch when he gets home from school) and one of their games recently inspired me to ask this question:  What if your favorite movie lines had been delivered at church or youth group instead of in their original scene? How might they be different? I have come up with a few- I hope my readers will come up with many more!  Here we go!

• "I'll be back...as long as the church next door doesn't get a Starbucks."   Terminator
• "I'm going to give them an offering they can't refuse..."   The Godfather
• "Oh no, it wasn't the airplanes.  "Twas the youth group that killed the beast."   King Kong
• "You shouldn't make me play Fluffy Bunny, Johnny.  My mother made me play Fluffy Bunny once...ONCE."   Johnny Dangerously
• "Have fun storming the sanctuary!"   The Princess Bride
• "What we have here is a failure to communicate... (OOPS- didn't change that one!)    Cool Hand Luke
• "There are two types of people in the world- those who like Rob Bell, and those who don't..."    What About Bob?
• "Frankly my dear, I don't give a dad blast the gosh darn blankety heck..."  Gone With the Wind
• "When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a church on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Bro, the strongest church in all of Nashvegas."  Monty Python & the Holy Grail
• "Cinderella story, from outta' nowhere, about to become Trustees Chairman..."   Caddyshack 
• "They've done studies, you know.  Be purpose driven.  60% of the time it works, every time."    Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
• "Jesus is King of the World!"   Titanic

Let's face it, friends- sometimes the institution of the church is funny.  It OK to laugh.  I've said it before and I'll say it again-  I cannot survive a day without Jesus or laughter.  And they ARE NOT mutually exclusive.  Now let's hear your movie favorites, mangled for a little church humor!  I'll Tweet the best ones.  Have a great day!

Because of Jesus,

Another Word of Caution

Summers ruled at FUMC-Kissimmee!

A couple of months back I sounded a Word of Caution to my brothers and sisters in Christ who still work in the very demanding field of student ministry.  As an aging ex-youth pastor I am not sure I had any right to do so, but I offered up my thoughts anyway.   Today, I sound another alarm that is on my heart. This past weekend I read a blog post from someone I really respect chronicling why their youth would not meet on Mother's Day, as well as a number of other special occasions.  The reasons for these "days off" were mostly family related.  Students need to spend more time with their parents.  Youth Pastors need to spend more time with their families.  These are the same reasons I hear over and over again when I ask why so many churches are moving their weekly youth meetings away from Sunday evenings (often the only night of the week when a teenager's schedule is clear).  In a perfect world, I would have no issue with that kind of logic.  But I never served a church in that perfect world, and I doubt you have either.

In the real world, there are lots and lots of teenagers whose primary need for us as a church is to rescue them from their family and find them a new home in the family of God.  I hope that you have many of these students involved in your youth ministries; if not, that is a whole separate concern.  For these youth the special days that we think of as "family days" are often times of depression and pain.  There are no Mother's Day lunches or Sunday after Thanksgiving family gatherings.  There are no family Super Bowl parties.  There are no summer vacation family trips.  In this broken and sinful world, these families barely survive.  For many of their teenage children, youth group is the one place they can feel the love and acceptance so many of us feel at home.  So what do many of us do on these most painful of occasions?  We close our doors.

It's my belief that we have arrived at this place through some faulty thinking.  Many churches have begun to plan their ministries to avoid times when people might have conflicts.  It seems logical.  The thinking errors come when we begin to worry more about who will not be there than who will be!  When we do this, we begin to make the kids who NEED us to open the doors feel like the man at the psychiatrist's office who was told he was, "a paranoid schizophrenic who needs to be institutionalized immediately."  When he said he wanted a second opinion, the doctor replied, "OK- I think you're ugly too!"  The very students who will almost never be out of town and who almost never have family events on Sundays are the very youth we need to be reaching for Jesus. 

Every ministry is different, and I would never presume to tell anyone how to best minister to their own students.  But I will tell you this- some of the very best things that ever happened at youth groups in my 28 years of ministry happened at times when many choose not to meet.  We had breakthrough sessions talking about parents on Mother's and Father's Days.  We had amazing (and quite memorable) Super Bowl parties.  Our "No Turkey Thanksgiving Feast" on the Sunday after Thanksgiving was a grand tradition.  Our massive summer calendars (75 days of programs in a 80 day period at a couple of locations) worked well for two reasons.  One, we made the big events so important (and so well advertised so far in advance) that our families who did travel planned around them.  And two, we planned most of the events assuming we would have smaller crowds, thereby eliminating any "numbers disappointment" and allowing time for relationships to be built.   Summers were what set us apart from the other churches in town because all of the "fringe" kids knew we would be open for business when no one else was!  We were a place they could belong.  And isn't that what every teenager is looking for?

I hope you will take one thing away from this rant- when you sit down to plan your 2011-12 youth calendars, remember those who have no place else to "belong" when you close your doors.  Plan for them, because they are the lost and least Jesus calls us to find.  I could list 100 youth from my past who would sound a loud AMEN to that.  Come back tomorrow when I yell "GET OFF MY LAWN!" at some young youth pastors.  Hehe.....

Because of Jesus,