Rick Nier...Woo!

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...

I told you I would be sharing how my preschool chapel times go throughout the year. I'm attempting to teach God's love, which is actually a bigger topic than we ever give it credit for. Here was my introduction to the topic. I like to play games that involve a ball. One of the reasons is because balls do not have an end. See this ruler? It has a beginning and an end. A ball does not have an end. It just keeps going and going. That’s like God’s love for us. God’s love has no end. He has loved us ever since He made us. He will always love us, no matter what. There is a second reason I like this ball. You can share it. A ball is more fun when you play games with it with other people. With a ball, you don’t keep it to yourself. You share it with others. God’s love is the same way. It’s better when we share it. We’re going to try an experiment. I want to toss this ball around. If we want to show love, we will toss it to someone else. But in order to show love, we will toss...

Every year I share in the chapel duties for our Church preschool. Being a type-A, I like to plan it out for the entire year. I will be given 12 opportunities (give or take) to grab and keep the attention of 60 preschoolers. Yes, I am willing to be crazy and loud and funny in order to accomplish this. Sometimes it works. Other times my wife, who is the preschool director, just gives me the nod as my signal to pray and close and hope for better the next time. After all, sometimes leading a mini-Bible study with little ones is like herding cats, although I've never actually tried this. To give you an idea, I have tried many extreme object lessons; juggling, dancing, playing guitar, telling silly stories, etc. Mid-stream I will have one of these young kids raise their hands. I mistakenly assume they are about to ask some good theological question based on my amazing teaching. More often I hear their new dog's name or some silly comment about bodily functions. Sigh. The chal...