The value of a skit?

I'm not sure I like this. I don't think it adequately explains God, Jesus sin and us. It would be difficult to do so in a 3 minute skit, granted... I like the way in which it reminded me that I'm constantly struggling with sin... But it portrayed the sinner fighting their way back to God and making it. Ok I know it's just a skit but... Well I have seen skits performed and liked them. But I don't like this one. I think there are too many things wrong with it.

Public service announcement.

Recently I've realised something. I'm quiet. I never would have described myself as such but people have been bringing to my attention of late that I have a tendency to remain silent and for some reason it is disconcerting (to them).

Here are some of the reasons why I think I am quiet sometimes.

1) I'm listening. Properly.
2) I don't think I have anything relevant or helpful to say. I'm not a massive fan of talking crap, regardless of the impression my blog gives.
3) I'm not sure of my opinion and don't want to sound silly.
4) I'm tired.
5) I disapprove and am thinking of the most tactful way to say so.
6) I'm comfortable. I enjoy your company. Must we speak?

It's down to you to figure out which one applies to any given situation. Oh and one more, if I'm not talking and just kind of staring into the distance, I'm most definitely thinking about something so if you really feel uncomfortable because of my prolonged silence maybe a quick way to break the ice would be to just ask me what's on my mind.

Ramblings of the 6am kind.

Dear politics, you are ruining me.

Dear blackboard, you are fail at 6.26am in the morning.

Dear Christine, it's your own stupid fault.

So sometimes I wonder what stops us from just telling people the Gospel. I was singing lyrics last night something along the vein of: I know the truth, I'll tell everyone I know etc. etc.

But I don't tell everyone I meet and so much of our focus is on how to make the truth more attractive or how to get people in or whatever and sometimes I just think it's a cop out. Amy Carmichael rebuked a colleague who suggested starting a knitting group to gather women around her so that 'they would love her and listen to the Gospel.' To which Amy replied, the truth needs no extra frills it will speak for itself. When I first read this I kinda thought that Amy was way hardcore, well she was, but she does have a point. Newsflash: the Gospel is offensive no matter which way you put it. Whether you dress it up in a high tea or beer tasting or whatever. We're always trying to show the world that we're normal somehow, trying to fit in but we're not apart of this world, we are different and we will be mocked and shunned and time is short and anyone who really truly cared about evangelism didn't sit around planning evangelistic events they went out and told people.

I'm in one of those really convicted moods where I know I should be better and bolder than I am but the mot frustrating thing is that I'm not and I won't do any walk-up evangelism this week like I haven't for the whole of semester and it's pretty much lame.

The end.

I hear MTS is good for that.

Youth group has been such a challenge for me this year. I think it's the most humbling ministry I've ever been apart of. I have been looking forward to leading for years and now that I'm here, I feel ridiculously inadequate. As though I don't have the right personality, enough patience, creativity...

It would be silly to expect that I would just fit right in and find myself in my element. Something as small as planning games stresses me out. And the kids - how to get into their worlds and show them you genuinely care without stifling them or how to join in their conversations without killing them instantaneously with cliched questions...

Most of the kids at youth group struggle with Christianity. Friday nights are a social event, or it's something that they're forced into by their parents. When your kids are hiding from you in the next room hoping not to be found when youth group starts, you know you've got trouble. Christianity to them is pathetic and irrelevant. And even to the older kids who have grown up going to church, thanking God for Jesus is an amusing afterthought. I have spent so much time telling other leaders that God will be the one to move the hearts of whom he chooses in any manner of ways but now I feel that I could end up blaming myself. What aren't I doing? What can I be doing better? Is it me? Gosh. Self-absorbed much.

Experiences like this make the idea of MTS more attractive. Best to make the mistakes and figure out ministry during a time when it's expected that you'll make mistakes and there are people there to help you figure it out.

I know perfectly well how I breathe.

In the car listening to Richard Mercer's love song dedications tonight. Kind of dig it just because it's been around for pretty much forever and I like nostalgia. But I've struggled to listen to love songs in general lately. Not because my heart is breaking or anything, but because, well, I feel as though the lyrics can sometimes be... idolatrous. Think I'm being dramatic? Well then.

Exhibit A:

How do I breathe
Without you here by my side
How will I see
When your love brought me to the light
Where do I go
When your hearts where I lay my head
When you're not with me
How do I breathe
How do I breathe

I really don't like these words at all. Not if they're dedicated to another human being. A lot of the time I don't feel I can sing the lyrics of love songs to any one but God. God is the centre of my world and the reason why I breathe and 'the one' I'm looking for and the one who 'completes me' and [insert lovers cliche here]. It's kind of frustrating to listen to. Jesus! I want to shout at the singer. What you really, truly want is Jesus! People are so desperate for an all-fulfilling and faithful relationship but often find nothing but pain and disappointment because humans are sinners and fragile, temporary beings. I couldn't rest my entire reason for being in another human. Don't get me wrong, I know that we're made for relationships and they're wonderful and feelings are strong but if I get to the stage where I'm singing lyrics like that about a guy and really mean them please do me a favour and snap me out of it.

EDIT

Ok, thought about this a little more. My comments now seem kind of naive, or at least could come across that way. I still think those lyrics are stupid and that mostly people are singing of relationships and significant others as though there really is no other purpose to life and obviously this is antithetical to the Christian worldview. But, I suppose in another sense when a man and woman are married they do complete each other - they're one flesh. I don't want to take that for granted either. All I'm saying is, the ultimate relationsip is the one between a sinner and God made possible by the blood of Jesus. And that is all I'm going to say about that.

Catharsis.

Perhaps I should have gone to bed earlier last night. Perhaps I should have had something more substantial for breakfast. Perhaps I could have prepared myself better. I can't stand the thought that I could be so weak.

But yes, it happened.

I sit down in a chair, the back of which is promptly lowered until I am stretched out. The lamp above me is switched on and immediately blinds me but I can't help but keep my eyes open. The dentist wastes no time in forcing open my mouth and jabbing the relevant teeth with her silver tool. "Do you have panadol?" she asks, as later on in the day I will certainly need it to aid the pain. Without explanation, without ceremony at all, it begins. Her assistant calls over: "the short one or the long one?" "Long one," she replies. Passed over in front of my eyes is the longest needle I have ever seen, just as silver and sinister looking as the rest of the dentist's tools but infinitely more frightening because I know it's purpose. Suddenly I feel it, penetrating my gum and my hands act of their own accord, the nails of my right hand start to dig into the flesh of the left. "Can you feel your lip tingling?" "A little," I answer and I wonder whether the anaesthetic will really do it's job. At the very least, it is making me feel nauseous and I try to block out that distinct feeling that I associate with being on my knees in front of a toilet... At this point I realise it will help to close my eyes and try to block it all out but too late - I know what's coming and before I can compose myself the needle plunges in once more...

Suddenly I'm awaking and I remember snatches of a dream, but I'm dizzy and this is unfamiliar and cold hard reality hits me. Something isn't right. My clothes are soaked through with sweat, I can hardly breathe and begin to gasp and to add insult to injury, I start to sob. I'm turned over on my side and my mother's hand clasps over one of my own. I hear snatches of conversation, "ambulance" my mother says and even in this state I know she's overreacting as usual. But ambulance or not, I'm terrified. My hands are shaking, I feel limp, and half of my face has finally succumbed to the anaesthetic, the metallic taste of which is still on my tongue. A part of me wants to be rational about this, to pull myself together and not frighten those in the waiting room, but the child in me prevails and I cling to my mother and continue to cry because it feels better than not. "You passed out, love," mum tells me. Pass out? From fear? Me?

All I know is, this could make for a killer bible talk illustration.

Bittersweet.

I adored being in Wellington over the weekend. It is only very rarely that I have the opportunity to be surrounded by family. I cherish the experience. We are scattered and so it is only in the event of death or celebration that we see each other. Despite the fact that I only see the lot of them every few years, I love them so much. I really wish that we could have somehow spent more time together than this, that we could know everything about each other's lives and that we could talk and laugh with some familiarity. I wish they knew who I was, that they could understand the person I have become and the person that I so want to be.

Inevitably talk turns to the future. 'Ministry' I answer and the replies are hollow, polite but ultimately confused. I begin to explain to others my hopes almost apologetically because I know it is not what they are expecting. And for a moment I wish I could say: "well I'm in my third year of international studies and doing advanced french by now which is just as well because I'll be heading to the University of Paris in July for a year-long study abroad program and I'd like to do honours and when I'm done? Well, diplomacy, policy-making or something of the like, naturally..."

Which is honestly where I would be if my first MYC hadn't turned my world completely upside down and I knew that my priorities had to be changed. I'm not the first to make such a decision, in fact I know people all over the place who are making choices that the world thinks are mad. I just gave up a glorified BA, I shudder to think what my family might have thought if I'd given up a Med degree...

But I refuse to regret it. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose - Jim Eliott, of course.

But what hurts even more is that although we have the same blood running through our veins, I will never have the depth of relationship required to explain why I made this decision, why I will keep making these decisions, why this is more than just religious fanatacism, that I'm not the same child they once knew, but different and better and happier because I'm free. Because I'm saved. Why are the people closest to us the very hardest to reach?