Rick Nier...Woo!

If I told you that you needed to trust in God, you might assume that you already do. After all, you've went to church, or at least you did before a global pandemic hit our planet. Now you watch church and you're doing your best to balance the realities of our new normal with the lessons on trust you remember from your past. After all, God never said you shouldn't go see a doctor, and I'm not advocating that you only practice home healthcare.  But considering all the many amenities available to us, even during a worldwide crisis, it's fair to ask ourselves if we're living lives of trust or simply living with enough less to differentiate ourselves from those gluttonous monsters who never acknowledge God.  Do We Really Want to Compare? If comparisons are your game, let's play this game we can't possibly hope to win. Would you spend 100 years of your life building a boat in preparation for a worldwide flood? Never mind that Noah had previously never heard of...

The other day I was talking with my neighbor, and we were discussing all the raking we had been doing. (Needless to say, I have done more, but that’s not the point.)  I wondered aloud what it would be like if God had designed all the leaves to fall off the trees at the same time. The thought of being under a tree when all of its leaves came down in one big lump amused me. Can you imagine the trauma it might cause kids who are playing outside? The thought amused me even more.  My neighbor, who takes care of his yard to a degree that most of us can only aspire to (and then some) commented that we’d all have dead grass. Thanks, Johnny Raincloud. He might be right. Seeing a pile of leaves waist-deep would be very discouraging and might keep more of us from all the raking that we do. After all, we still rake all the leaves, but the work has been spread out over weeks.  Yes, I’m getting tired of my rake now, but a pile consisting of every leaf my trees ever held would feel insu...

via GIPHY We often ask why Adam and Eve, after having eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, did not eat from the tree of life. After all, surely they knew what was to be gained from doing so. God seems to indicate that He needed to evict them from the garden before they did so in order to keep them from gaining eternal life in a manner that was not intended.  One might, with evil intent, wonder why eating from the tree of life was not their very next move. Again, God admitted they had elevated their nature in knowing good and evil.  I think I found the answer. "At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves." ~Genesis 3:7 They were too busy covering their shame. It makes me wonder... How often do we miss out on life because we are dealing with the consequences of our sin?

Do you know what a whipping boy is? I looked it up. It's  a person who is blamed or punished for the faults or incompetence of others.  The problem with a whipping boy is that he is whipped so often people begin to assume he deserves it. Or the boy just accepts his fate and acts into the very nature of who people believe he is.  But who is defending the whipping boy? Who is taking a second look and asking if the boy really deserves all of the ire he is receiving? Today, it’s me.    via GIPHY Social Media is the Whipping Boy  Social media is just entering its adolescent years, and like many adolescents, it is acting in some strange and unconventional ways that make people question what is going on.  Many words have been written about the dangers of social media, none the least of which would be the supposed separation from real life interactions. But it doesn’t take a highly educated look to put some things together and no...

Have you ever come across someone who was really bold, but not necessarily in the good way? It's the person you agreed to give a ride to, and along the way they ask you if they can make a second stop. It's someone asking for money and then you watch them spend it on something they didn't need. It could be the child who comes to the dinner table and announces why they don't like what you cooked. Maybe it is the people who refuse to help, yet criticize the work being done.  The nerve of some people, right? It's the guy being crucified next to God. This guy being crucified for being a thief. Yeah, the guy who, according to Roman rule, deserved to be there. We're given no indication that this guy, this thief, had anyone there who was about to miss him. That guy. He turns to Jesus and asks if he can get into Heaven.  Can you believe that? via GIPHY The only thing more incredible than his request is the answer he receives from Jesus.  Yes. Ye...

My youngest daughter is in sixth grade, which around here means it is her last year of elementary school. I'm not sure how I can be so young and have children so old, but I guess crazy things still happen. When the papers started coming home, asking for parental involvement, I said yes. This is why I found myself in an elementary school one day, playing games with sixth graders. And it was fun. Exhibit A The challenge was simply explained. The students had to get in pairs and sit back to back against each other. One student was given a simple drawing, like Exhibit A here. The other student was given a pencil and a piece of paper. The student who could see the drawing had to explain to the other student what to draw. There was to be no peeking and no stating what the drawing was. So, in this instance, the student could not tell their partner to draw a dinosaur. While the challenge was simply explained, it was not easily performed. As you can imagine, there was some frust...

Have you ever gone through a big change in your life and wondered how it would work out? Despite my history of working with teenagers, I’m not actually talking about puberty.  I think my biggest struggle with my current career transition is how I assume people will perceive my identity. ( Should my current colleagues read this, they should understand completely that this has nothing to do with them. They are an amazing team of people who are nothing but encouraging. ) This struggle is about moving from a church job to a non-church job. I imagine the struggle was going to come no matter what I found myself doing. After all, what surprised me most was not what I found myself doing, but I found myself not doing. I assumed I would be continuing as a youth pastor...somewhere.  When God opened up unexpected doors, it left me with gratitude...and questions.  Did I burn out? Did I become uncalled? Did I not have what it takes to be a lifer in ministry? Did I sell...

Like so many people, I end each year thinking about the year that was, and perhaps even resolving how I want the new year to go. But I guarantee you, no matter how much time I put into thinking last December, I never could have guessed how 2017 was going to go . For starters, here's a couple of sentences I never thought I would speak. I’m dropping the kids off at youth group.  I’m ok being without a job for a few months.  Both sentences go together, because as many of you know, I told the church I had youth pastored at for 15 years that God was telling me it was time to go. Now I know that when someone invokes the voice of God into a decision, it can sound like they're passing the blame onto the Deity. After all, who's going to argue with the voice of the Lord? I imagine people largely fall into 2 categories on this matter. Group #1 imagines the youth pastor just wants a change, but doesn't want people to dislike him for making the choice to leave. Group ...

We often criticize the Israelites for being unfaithful while wandering in the desert, always with sinful attitudes, even while daily receiving miraculous food from Heaven. How could they be so blind? How could they be so stupid? Didn’t they realize they were receiving daily blessings from God? Didn’t they understand that, every single day, God was proving to them that He thought of them, remembered them, and was providing for them? Every. Single. Day. Of course, we could never be so blind. That is, unless we put ourselves in their shoes. Then we might not be so quick to judge. We are told they needed to go out and get the amount of food they needed for that day.  Then the Lord said to Moses, “Look, I’m going to rain down food from heaven for you. Each day the people can go out and pick up as much food as they need for that day. I will test them in this to see whether or not they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they will gather food, and when they prepare it, there...

Since leaving the youth ministry position I had held for 15 years, jumping into a still unknown future, I have been purposeful about some of the books I have picked up. I realized that this season, where I would get to choose what to read and focus on, might not come again for some time. In the words of a pastor, it might be the sabbatical no church was going to give me. So I chose a book on purpose. I chose a book on listening for God’s voice. And my latest read is about measuring success by making choices differently than the average person might. The Last Arrow by Erwin McManus is that and more. The subtitle, Save Nothing For The Next Life , gives you a peek into the direction McManus would take his reader. Using the short story of Elisha and King Jehoash in 2 Kings 13. If you’re not familiar, Jehoash is king of Israel and he is in trouble. Going to Elisha for help, the unique prophet asks the king to strike the ground with a quiver if arrows. The kings does so, strikin...

These days I am a substitute teacher. Given that I am wanting to work as much as possible I have made myself available for every elementary, middle and high school in our area. Some people, forgetting that I have loved being a youth pastor for half my life, cringe at the idea of subbing for middle and high school.  But I know teens to be awesome people. I digress. Let me tell you what I enjoy about being a substitute teacher. Variety. In one week I taught middle school p.e., a first grade class and a fourth grade class. If a sub doesn’t like first graders, just hold on for a day. It’ll change tomorrow. Variety means meeting lots of people and getting to touch the lives of many children. Maybe they struggle with their regular teacher and you can be a breath of grace filled air. On the other hand, I have no idea what to expect each day as I get up. Will the class be full of basically good kids or a room filled with untamed mutants? Will I find myself dealing with little child...

Quiet. It's been so quiet. For someone who has been in youth ministry for almost 20 years, quiet is not something I am accustomed to. Not at work and not even at home. Because, oh yeah, my own children are exceptional at being loud. Even when I am alone with just one of them, I sometimes have to remind them that I'm not deaf yet....despite growing up on 80's rock. Low-talkers my family is not. So you'll forgive me if I tell you that peace and quiet is not something I have experienced a lot of. And now that it has been exceptionally quiet, I'll admit I'm not sure it's always peaceful. See, I ask a lot of questions in conversations. This is a habit people down't always admire in me. Just ask my teenage daughter, who is simply trying to tell me a little story. But I want the details! Which friend made the comment? What did their face look like when they said that? Where were you standing? It's also how I read the Bible. I read these stories ...

It's true, we can find ourselves doing the wrong thing. As I have been in the midst of searching for what's next, I have looked at various opportunities for work and tried to imagine myself doing those things for 40+ hours a week, for the next several years. Because while every job might not be comparable to a day at an amusement park, it beats searching for a job. I asked myself what a youth pastor does when he's no longer vocationally pastoring youth. How do the skills of a pastor translate to a world outside Sunday morning? One such opportunity, a very temporary one, seemed to garner attention from those who know me. They seemed concerned, though not necessarily for me. One such friend was talking with my wife, heard the word construction and immediately asked why anyone would let me build something. To be fair, it's a good question, only bested by, why would anyone pay  me to build something? That's right, people heard I was doing construction and they w...

Seven months ago, I never saw this coming. We had just told our kids that we were going on an adventure , one that began with informing the church we'd been a part of for 15 years that God was moving us elsewhere. We told our kids that we didn't know yet where we were going, but that we would trust God to lead us where He wanted us. We acknowledged there would be difficult parts of this adventure. We knew saying goodbye to friends would be hard. My wife and I prayed about the transition and what impact it would have on our children. There were parts of this adventure I'd have preferred not to have experienced. There were hard conversations, doubts, lots of prayer and more conversations. I've shared some of the experiences here , here and here . Actually, there's a few more, but you can find them for yourself. I wouldn't want to be accused of over-linking. The entire time, whenever I prayed, I told God an answer would be a good thing, because He would rece...

Trust Me. That was the message God gave us. Trust Me. Anything else, God?  *Crickets I mean, God I am trusting you. I took this first step in faith. It wasn't easy. Perhaps you would like to expound further upon what you want me to do, to learn, to experience? Nope. Just. Trust. Me. I'm learning that asking to have more faith or trust in God is akin to asking for more patience. There's only one way to get it, and it's going to take time. So while I am waiting, I have been reading about Moses and the Israelites in the book of Exodus. I knew this would give me both good and bad examples of how to learn to trust in God. The Bad Example: The Israelites In Exodus 19, we learn that their trek from Egypt to Mount Sinai had taken ' exactly two months .' Have you ever considered some of the timeline of the Israelites and their transition from Egypt to the Promised Land? Yeah, we're familiar with the fact that it ended up taking 40 years, due to thei...

One day Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock far into the wilderness and came to Sinai, the mountain of God. ~Exodus 3:1 I have already acknowledged that it is I who must seek out God , no matter His purpose or His timing. Moses is a great example of this. He may not have intended to seek out God, but he found himself at the mountain of God. And that's when God started to move. God appears in the form of a bush that burned but didn't burn up. This intrigued Moses, and why not? But check out what happens next; When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!” ~Exodus 3:4 Do you see what's happening here? First, one had to go 'far into the wilderness' to get to the mountain of God. Too often we miss this and assume God can be accessed right around the corner. And while God is everywhere, I believe He wants us to make more effort to be whe...

I would like some on-the-job training. This, of course, requires a job, which I don't currently have . It wouldn't even have to be that difficult. Hire me as your youth pastor. Show me the youth room. Introduce me to a few teens. I'll take it from there.  And if God has some more lessons to teach me, He could certainly feel free to do so. Train me up while I am on the job. This makes sense to me, because then I would be providing for my family once again, our future would be more certain (certainly more than it is right now) and I could be passing along those lessons to any who would listen (or read, like you fine people!). Why couldn't God do that? Maybe because He isn't as concerned with how my family will be taken care of as I am. Sounds scandalous, right? Did this guy just try to say he cares more than God? Actually....no, that's not what I am saying.  What I am saying is that I am more concerned. To be concerned means to worry. It means to have anxie...

15 years. In most areas of life, that might not seem like a long time. But in the world of youth ministry, that can seem like a couple of lifetimes. I saw 7th graders become high school graduates and then repeated that cycle. 15 years. That's 780 Sundays, not accounting for vacations and other days missed for any number of reasons. Granted, in a church where many people have lived their whole lives in this community, I was still on the young side, but still, I became a mainstay. It began in July of 2002 and ended just this year, in June of 2017. Now that I'm on the other side of it all, it seems that it was both all too brief while also, at times, felt much longer than it actually was. There is so much that can be said, that I feel should be said, that it seemed appropriate to share in this space. Even if no one were to read this, I find that my thoughts find a way of easily being leaked through my fingers as I write. 15 years. What lessons would I pass along that I hav...

This isn't what I expected when I made the announcement . To be fair, I'm not sure exactly what I expected. I knew I was taking a step out in faith. Whereas Lebron James was able to famously say he was taking his talents to South Beach, all I could say was that I was taking my talents... To where? Who knows! So yes, I have sent out resumes and cover letters. Yes, I have followed up on those contacts. I have done my due diligence. Nothing yet. I have been to an interview that looked promising . I have heard back from churches where I didn't make the next step of interviews. Meanwhile, I'm left with my unwritten expectations of what searching for a job would look like. As it turns out, not getting a job right away to move towards might be the best thing that's ever happened to my family. And it might be the best thing for your family too. Let me explain. When I first started having this conversation with people, I got lots of strange looks. So you...

God is so much higher than we are, we can't even comprehend the difference. This very thought should lead us to worship a God who is incomprehensibly greater than us. Rather, it too often leads us to scoff. We attempt to make God in our own image, instead of the other way around. This is why Jesus was without honor in Mark 6. Jesus left that part of the country and returned with his disciples to Nazareth, his hometown. 2 The next Sabbath he began teaching in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. They asked, “Where did he get all this wisdom and the power to perform such miracles?” 3 Then they scoffed, “He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us.” They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him. ~Mark 6:1-3 Verse 2 says they were amazed, and then in verse 2b the people attempt to bring Jesus back down to Earth. Do you see this? This isn't a little bit later in the stor...