Rick Nier...Woo!

This year I am helping preschoolers memorize some verses in the Bible that talk about love. They are found in 1 Corinthians 13. It had been a month since the previous chapel time I led, so I wasn't expecting much when I asked them if they recalled what we talked about before. But one kid quickly called out, 'Love is patient.' I told that young boy he won the day. Then I told them I was going to talk about the next aspect of love, kindness, by telling them a story. Once there were these 5 guys that were friends. But one of those friends was paralyzed. Do you know what that means? It means he couldn’t move his arms or legs. Let’s pretend we can’t move our arms and legs. Just as an aside, I'm going to figure out how I can include this story in every chapel. Those kids all sat frozen while I told the story.  One day those friends heard that Jesus was in town. So the four friends that could move decided to pick up their friend, carry him on his bed all the way to Jes...

So, the next time you see a snowfall and your first instinct isn't to pause and stand in awe f the Creator, you may want to check yourself. Listen, I get it. I was born and raised in Florida. Snow was what my grandparents talked about. Snow was something we saw in movies. But now I have lived over half of my life in these places where the white tundra is just expected for half the year. You call it North. I've asked God for forgiveness for what I call it. Recently some guy I've never heard of (I'll give him credit below*) took amazingly close up shot of individual snowflakes. What I see is evidence of a Creator. But not just a Creator. A Creator that doesn't seem to care what you and I give Him credit for. Take a look at these and consider that, for thousands of years, these flakes have been falling on the ground, mostly unnoticed for their stunning beauty and individual style.                 These unique flakes, all beauti...

You could call this a portion of a book review, or you could call this my attempt to bring something more scholarly to this space. Either way, it is likely best described as my acknowledgement that I am not the first, such as Sir Isaac Newton recognized when he said “if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” See, though I know it was not original with me, I began my youth ministry career by repeating that what I do is not about a religion, but about a relationship. At times I imagined it seeped into my brain from some of my youth ministry mentors. But I have been reading In Search of Adolescence: A New Look at an Old Idea by Crystal Kirgiss. Now I see the idea goes back much further. In this book, Crystal battles the idea that adolescence is a modern day construct. Showing how previous generations dealt with the people we know as teenagers, she proves her point well. At one point she quotes John Greene and Solomon Stoddard, a couple of preachers from the e...

In a discussion with college students I led recently, we stumbled across the title of what will need to be a future book I write. For now it will simply have to be this blog post. Doing Your Daily Duties: How to Avoid Becoming Spiritually Constipated . I know, I know, you would totally buy this book. Just let me write it first. Our discussion, when it wasn't appealing to my third grade sense of humor, touched on the matters we say we want to accomplish each and every day. Things like prayer and Bible study to be sure. But also an unrelenting focus on the things that matter to God. We acknowledged that we want these things to matter to us, but often times Netflix and the desire for a nap crowd out the time we have. I think it goes almost without saying (though I'm typing it right now) that the matters of God carry more for us than anything else we find to do. And yet? Had we a Savior tapping on our shoulder to remind us of what we say we value, it would be easy to let Earthly th...

When I became  youth pastor at my current church, I had a job description that probably looks very similar to many other youth ministry job descriptions. Maybe all job descriptions. There was a line towards the end of the list of my roles that said; other duties as assigned . It's a bad thing to have that line in a youth ministry job description for two reasons. First, you shouldn't use the duty  around youth pastors. After all, we hang around middle schoolers and this just begs us to chuckle at the use of words that can have double meanings.  Secondly, and more importantly, those other duties ( snicker) can begin to swallow your time whole. I digress.  I was leading in worship and shared some thoughts, but I thought I would use this space to expound. Have you ever had one of those Sundays when you simply wanted to get into the worship time? Maybe most Sundays are a battle between how your reality looked the rest of the week and your desire to engage ...

From time to time I will be posting a short teaching moment I had with the young children who attend our church preschool. This one involved a purposely mistaken drawing of my home. I say purpose;ly mistaken so you don't think I live in some weird world. So, I started coloring again. I was going to wait to show anyone, but I just couldn’t wait. I’m going to show you a picture of me at my house on a sunny day. Doesn’t this look good? What do you think? Am I a natural artist? These kids, who I've noticed struggle with staying in the lines, were quick to notice my mistakes. Of course, that was the point. It looks like I got a lot of things mixed up in my drawing. Sometimes we get things all mixed up in life. Do you ever fight with your brother or sister? Have you ever told your mom or dad no? Have you ever refused to share? Ever been grumpy? Did you know that sometimes even moms and dads get things mixed up? Even adults get angry, sometimes we fight and say things we should ...

Have you ever been called out in church? I have and I’ll never forget it. I was sitting in the back row of church, safely away from my parents and, I thought, anyone who could see me not listening to the sermon. That particular Sunday, an older leader in our church was filling in while the pastor was away. A teenager at the time, I was doing what I’m sure none of the teens in our church do. I was passing notes and making jokes with my friends, who were very clearly being a negative influence on me. (Insert tongue in cheek here.) That’s when it happened. The substitute-preacher called out, “You boys may think this is funny, but death is a serious thing!” Fortunately he did not call us out by name, although that did not end up keeping me out of trouble from my parents after church was over. Since I could not actually tell them what the sermon was about, I had no defense. The only solace is that I’m sure I won’t be the last person to have been called out in church. Nor was I the...