Along comes Darrin Patrick. I have gotten to know Darrin fairly well the last few years. We have met a few times, I have worshiped at Journey with my son Josh, and we have had him on our campus.  He is one of the more thoughtful young leaders I have met, not only theologically, but also in terms of his understanding of both conventional and novel networks of churches.

Darrin has a new book. You should buy it. It is called Church Planter: The Man, the Message, the Mission. You can order it here. This book, like any great book, does more than simply cover the subject. It teaches, and it teaches beyond the practical tools or even the theological core needed for planting a church.  Darrin is passionate about the same problem I see, that too many young adult men are simply not. Men, that is. Our culture and too often the church, and in particular the brokenness existing in so many homes, has created a circumstance in which becoming a biblical man is about as easy as climbing Mt Everest on one leg.

Darrin blogged from the preface of his book about a new kind of person he calls neither a boy or a man. He calls him a Ban.  Here is some of what he said, but you can read it all here. He writes in part:

“We live in a world full of males who have prolonged their adolescence.
They are neither boys nor men. They live suspended between childhood and
adulthood, between growing up and being a grown-up.

“Let’s call this kind of male Ban, a hybrid of both man and boy. This kind
of male is everywhere, including the church and even vocational ministry.

“Ban is a frightening reality in the church, but he is the best thing that
ever happened to the video game and porn industries.
* Half of American males between the ages of 18 to 34 play video games
every day—for almost 3 hours.
* The average video game buyer is 35 years old.
* Every second, $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography, 28,258 Internet
users view pornography, and 372 Internet users type adult search terms
into search engines.
* To no one’s surprise, men make up nearly 75% of Internet pornography
traffic.

“Our society is overrun with males who aren’t men. Assuming the
responsibilities of husband and father makes a boy into a man, but Ban
doesn’t like responsibility so he extends his adolescence and sets his
focus squarely and supremely on himself.

“These “man-wannabes” must learn how to progress toward manhood and become
what David Gilmore calls “real men.” Real men “give more than they take…
are generous, even to the point of sacrifice.” Being a man is about being
tough and tender.

“The lack of godly men in our world is now a cultural crisis. We are not
going to solve the problem by ignoring Ban and hoping that he eventually
grows up. We are not going to solve the problem by encouraging women to
take up the slack. We might solve the problem by modeling biblical manhood and calling adult boys to forsake their youthful lusts and become the men that God is
calling them to be.  We have Bans in our city, our neighborhoods, our churches, and our families. Ban needs godly men and women to show him that there is more to
life than what he is currently experiencing. Ban needs to be more than
just a male. He needs to be becoming God’s man who is being transformed by
God’s gospel message and is wholeheartedly pursuing God’s mission.”

I could not agree more. I noted just Thursday in class how my generation has created a culture that makes Michael Jackson a pop icon. His tragic life epitomizes adolescence in action: he lived on a ranch called Never Land. You know, the place where kids never grow up. He did not see the problem of sleeping with young boys. Why? He wanted to be Peter Pan. We see the same in Bill Clinton, who as president of the United States had oral sex with a woman young enough to be his daughter. That is juvenile delinquent behavior, and do not think only Democrats do that.

We need to ban the acceptance of Ban. We must confront this cultural reality head on. I am grateful for men like Darrin who will help to do just that.

“A decade ago teens were coming to church youth group to play, coming for the entertainment, coming for the pizza. They’re not even coming for the pizza anymore. They say, ‘We don’t see the church as relevant, as meeting our needs or where we need to be today.’ ” Thom Rainer in USA Today

A few years ago I spoke at a state evangelism conference in another state. A pastor spoke to me during a break. “You are a professor with a PhD, right?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“And you speak to teenagers a lot?” He queried, with a puzzled look on his face.

“Indeed. I love speaking to youth, college students and young adults.”

Then he asked the question that perplexed him. “Do you have to  dumb down your sermons when you speak to youth?” He obviously expected me to say yes.

Sometimes I answer without thinking. “No sir, I only have to dumb down my sermons when I preach in churches on Sunday mornings.”

Oops. Did I mean to say that? After thinking for a moment, I actually did. Sunday morning offers a great opportunity to teach the Word. But it is also the most likely to find people who are simply religious and going through the motions. But when I speak to young adults I have found that not only can I get right up in their faces with the truth, I must do so to reach them.

This generation wants meat. They are tired of silly events that have a little Scripture thrown in, or events where junk food is served up large and the Bible doesn’t make the menu. Look across America and you will see large, growing, mutliple service/multiple site churches teeming with young adults. I have preached in some of these and visited others. These churches have pastors who teach the Bible verse by verse, sometimes an hour or more weekly. But they do more: they understand both the science of preaching the text well AND the art of presenting it in a palatable manner.

After all, a tough steak may have protein but it does not digest so well.

At my church, Richland Creek Community Church, we had almost 300 show up Wednesday night at our TwoFour Collegiate/Young Pros worship time. Two years ago we began with a handful. We are not next to a major university. We do have a lot of SEBTS students, but we also have young professionals as well as students from a variety of community colleges and major universities (we had students from NC State and UNC there).  We had a time of passionate worship and a great, bibilcal message by college pastor Jared Via.

There is a younger generation of believers who are tired of “do the minimum” Christianity. They want it straight, they want it real, and they want it now. If you teach the Bible, and if young adults you teach sense you genuiely love them and love Jesus, you can get right in their grills. In fact, you must. If however they perceive you as a smart aleck, or you stereotype them to the extreme, you will lose them. And you will never have a chance with unchurched  young adults.

We have the largest number of young adults in America in our history. Telling them to follow Jesus because they are supposed to will not reach them. Show them how a movement of God has changed your life and you just might.

But don’t throw them a Krispy Kreme version of truth. Give them a big, fat prime rib of gospel truth, and watch them grow.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” Darwin

“The animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has attained the greatest development, are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, and the most open to further progress.” Peter Kropotkin of Darwinism

“Go with the flow.” Queens of the Stone Age

Contrast the above with:

“I press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” The Apostle Paul

“We make it our aim, then, to please Him.” Paul

Evolutionary theory came to us through the work of Charles Darwin. Darwinism, a term coined by Thomas Huxley, among other things argues that survival serves as a core value of life. Lived out practically, one who takes risks, lives on edge, and attempts radical endeavors would struggle to survive when compared to those who live a more stable, safe, and risk-free existence (see the quote by Peter Kropotkin above). Live on the edge and face possible extinction. “The unsociable species are doomed to decay,” Kropotkin argued. Learn to go with the flow, adapt to the times, and play it safe to survive.

Fine. But there is a problem if you are a follower of Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to another way of living, a dying to self, risk-everything kind of life. It beckons its adherents to live in such a way that many in history died a martyr’s death. It goes against the grain of the world system, so Paul called the gospel a stumbling block to Jews and a scandal to Greeks, hardly a “go with the flow” concept.

And yet the gospel continued to expand, and as Tertullian put it, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”  The church expands in China in the face of persecution.  The church survives in some Muslim lands where following Christ can lead to death. Darwinism seems not to work when applied to radical Christianity, for the more surrendered Christ followers tend to be, the more outside the status quo of a given culture they tend to live, and the more they thrive.

Yet believers in the Western church too often function like Darwinists. “Don’t rock the boat,” “We’ve never done it that way before,” “Let’s form a committee to talk about this;” these kinds of expressions seem more common than examples of radical faith in our day.

Enter Seth Godin the evolutionist. If you read his works his devotion to evolutionary theory is quite clear.  And yet in his writings he sounds to me often like an evangelical calling people to live lives that matter. Yes, his reasoning is different, and his evolutionary theory clouds things at times. But reading a book like Linchpin, where he argues each of us is an artist, and challenges every person to live valuable lives, sounds strangely reminiscent at times of Paul.

Of course Godin and Paul are not talking about the same thing. But it strikes me as I speak to youth group after youth group, encountering so many students who never seem to do anything of note for Jesus other than showing up at the youth rally and helping to serve Pizza, that we have in effect created a survivalist mentality in the church. I think about businessmen I meet who have learned how to compartmentalize their faith so that church and life exist in separate silos. These same men who love Jesus want so much more out of Christianity than showing up on Sundays and serving as an usher. I wonder about the unchurched friend of mine who sees Christianity as one more thing to add to a checklist of an already busy life rather than a radical transformation that takes us to the place we were created for in the first place—to worship the Most High God.  We seem to send the message that a good Christian is one who does not cause a stir, who fits in, and who goes with the flow. So we teach evangelism in a way that would hardly offend a heretic and worry that our efforts at godly character might somehow hinder the very work of God we claim to be advancing.

We sometimes seem to make very good Darwinists in the way we live our lives. Be conventional, not radical. Live sensible rather than compelling lives.

But when Paul entered a city as recorded in Acts he caused a revival or a riot or both. He seemed to live and teach as if he believed every follower of Christ should so live as to make an impact for the gospel. Godin says each of us should stop acting like a cog in a wheel that turns incessantly and become an artist, creating beauty in our time. He argues we should reject life as a factory — showing up, checking in, and doing the minimum – and instead do something that matters.

The evolutionist sounds like an evangelist.  Fascinating.

What if we taught and lived the gospel before a younger generation so that they would see it as a normal thing to be loving their friends to Christ, to risk their reputation and ultimately their finances, their vocation, everything for the gospel? What if we challenged them to consider options other than the conventional approach to life, like spending a year after high school overseas, or finding a career that may not pay as much but may actually allow them to do what God created them to do for the gospel? What if we treated men like Jim Elliot and William Carey not as the one in a million exceptional Christian (so we do not have to be like them), and instead as examples of what a follower of Christ should be?  What if we expected every person in our churches to see all of life from the lens of the gospel, so that everything in life, not just their compartmentalized church life, reflected the radical grace seen in Christ?

If we did so, we might be doing more than survive in this culture. We may actually change it.

We affirm the biblical teaching that we were not formed out of a series of random acts, but by the will of God, to enjoy remarkable, amazing grace, and to worship that God with all of life. Perhaps we will see more gospel fruit if we actually lived that way.

remember the question. But I remember the way he asked it, and something

more.

I remember the look in his eyes. You know, the look someone has when

they want something so badly, almost to the point of desperation. Matt had the

look of someone who just HAD to know Jesus more, how to love people more,

and how to serve God more effectively.

I remember that look.

Years later, Matt still has it.

He took every class with me he could. He hung out with me at every

opportunity. And, in the Providence of God, a young lady in our college named

Laura had started hanging out with our Hannah, a middle schooler at the time.

Matt and Laura started dating. You guessed it, they are now married, and

parents, and Matt is one of the most effective young ministers I have ever known.

In fact, right as Matt was about to graduate, I got a call from a friend

named Allan Taylor, the Minister of Education at the great First Baptist Church

of Woodstock, Georgia. “We need a high school minister, and we need a great

one,” he said. Matt’s name came to mind. He really did not have a lot of

experience, and none for a ministry the size of Woodstock. His resume had no

“wow” factor (if all you have is a cool resume, you don’t have much). But he had

IT, whatever you want to call it. He had that amazing capacity to learn, and I

believed deeply he could do the job.

I called Allan and told him I had a name. I said I believed Matt could do it,

but he would need Allan to mentor him some early on. Matt and Laura went to

Woodstock.

FBC Woodstock pastor Johnny Hunt, a great leader and recent president

of the Southern Baptist Convention, has told me more than once he has never

seen a student pastor more effective than Matt.

I do not claim credit for Matt’s effectiveness; that belongs to God. But I do

give Matt credit for his tenacious desire to be mentored. I am still mentoring him

in fact, and in some ways, he now mentors me. Matt needed the education

Southeastern gave him. But even more, he needed to be with someone, in this

case with me.

Jesus came to be with us. His name Immanuel means that. The

Incarnation declares this fact. As soon as His public ministry inaugurated He

called men to be with Him in ministry. These men did not attend a weekly class,

though Jesus taught them much. They did not enlist; He chose them. They did

not pass some external test to qualify, but it cost them everything to follow, even

their own lives.

You cannot read the Gospels without seeing how much Jesus valued time

with His disciples.

We read of the earliest days of Jesus’ ministry in John’s Gospel. In chapter

one Jesus invites some fishermen to spend the day with Him. But all four Gospels

record much of our Lord’s time with the twelve.

In Matthew 4 we read how Jesus called these same men from John 1 to be

with Him at a much deeper level. Perhaps there are people in your life you see as

potential mentees. Before you know for sure you need to spend a little time with

them, as Jesus did. You cannot mentor well people you hardly know. Note the

following from the Be With Factor:

“Jesus selected twelve, and we know that there were a few others in this

inner circle, including at least three women (Luke 8:1-3).”2

“We know from history that it was common for a Jewish teacher (called a

rabbi) to gather around himself a small cluster of people who would

become his disciples (the word means “learners”). Jesus used a similar

technique of close association in daily life to teach his young disciples. He

knew the power of modeling. He knew it would take more than a

classroom, book, or conferences—more than thirty minutes of training a

week—to transform his followers into his image and set into motion a new

world movement.”3

What can we learn from the informal mentoring of Jesus? A whole book

could be written on that. In fact, one has. Robert Coleman penned The Master

Plan of Evangelism to detail our Lord’s investment in the 12. He observed eight

features of Jesus’ work with the disciples:

1. Selection. Men were His method: “His concern was not with programs

to reach the multitudes, but with men whom the multitudes would

follow.”

2. Association. He stayed with them: “His disciples were distinguished, not

by outward conformity to certain rituals, but by being with Him, and

thereby participating in His doctrine.”

3. Consecration. He required obedience: “[The disciples] were not

required to be smart, but they had to be loyal. This became the

distinguishing mark by which they were known.”

4. Impartation. He gave Himself away: “His was a life of giving—giving

away what the Father had given Him.”

5. Demonstration. He showed them how to live: “Surely it was no accident

that Jesus often let His disciples see Him conversing with the Father. . . .

Jesus did not force that lesson on them, but rather He kept praying until

at last the disciples got so hungry that they asked Him to teach them

what He was doing.”

6. Delegation. He assigned them work: “Jesus was always building His

ministry for the time when His disciples would have to take over His

work, and go out into the world with the redeeming Gospel.”

7. Supervision. He kept check on them: “Jesus made it a point to meet

with His disciples following their tours of service to hear their reports

and to share with them the blessedness of His ministry in doing the

same thing.”

8. Reproduction. He expected them to reproduce: “Jesus intended for the

disciples to produce His likeness in and through the church being

gathered out of the world.”

We have for a generation tried to make disciples primarily through classes and curriculum. Perhaps we should spend a little more time on living life together, with less people and more focus. We may influence smaller numbers, but the long-term impact could be remarkable.

NOTE: This was excerpted from my new, free ebook With. Download it for free here.

After that I went to lunch with two of our finest at SEBTS. They will be married in just over a month. They met here, and now they will build a life together for the glory of God.

I met Brittany Donald at Student Leadership University in Orlando, a great ministry at which I speak every year. Hannah went that time, so it was great to meet a sharp college student like Brittany as we went through the entire conference.  I saw in Brittany a fire, a passion for God, and a focus that I rarely see.  So, we stayed in touch.  In the providence of God we ran into one another a couple of times, and of course we kept up on Facebook.

As Brittany finished Cedarville University, she wrote me about moving to Raleigh to find work and perhaps attend grad school at NCSU.  She had friends who lived in Raleigh and thought it would be a great place to relocate (it is).  I knew of a job in our Center for Great Commission Studies, so I recommended her.

Next thing you know she is at the CGCS and to her surprise, enrolled in the Masters program at SEBTS.  Because her place of work is in my building we had lots of times of fellowship and encouragement. Brittany is a focused young lady and saw herself soon on the international mission field. I became an adopted dad to an extent as her dad, a great pastor in Kentucky, lived a long away off.  She told me one day she was not really interested in marriage because of her passion for the nations. I told her not so fast, that God might in fact use marriage in her life, and not to be so focused on one area she might miss God’s work in another. Being a good daughter, she listened (smile).

Then she met Ben. They jogged together (clever move bro).  I did not know Ben, but I soon would. One day Brittany asked me to stand in for her dad and meet with this young man to offer my approval (or disproval).  We met at my home office, the Wake Forest Coffee Company.

My bias is to be overprotective of the young ladies here and suspicious of men (hey, I am one), especially when the young lady is as adorable as Brittany.  But I was immediately impressed with Ben. I did not know him, but I knew the men who had invested in him at Providence Baptist Church, a great church in our area.  I saw in Ben a young man truly interested in living hard for Jesus, and who saw what a blessing it was to have Brittany in his life. I walked away and immediately texted Brittany to say how impressed I was with Ben.

And now they will be married, and soon. So we had lunch yesterday. Sometimes I need to meet with a student to challenge or rebuke.  But sometimes I just get to meet with students to rejoice. Yesterday was one of those days.

I married Michelle and quickly we moved to seminary. I relive our early days, now 28 years ago, through students like Brit and Ben.  Our great God knew what He was doing when He made us to need Him, and to need others. Marriage can be compared to nothing else in this life, because nothing is as wonderful in terms of human relationships. But marriage is so amazing that God Himself used it as a way to describe His relationship to the church.

Far too many young adults today, even those in the church, have let their own past or circumstances create their vision of marriage more than the Scriptures they claim to believe. Others see marriage through the lens of the latest movie or pop cultural idea.  I pray that if you are a single young adult you will study God’s Word to get a vision of marriage. And if God gives you that blessing, you will see it as what it is, the most wonderful of human relationships.

You probably know the little joke:

Sam; “What does a 500 pound gorilla do?”

Jim: “I don’t know, what does a 500 pound gorilla do?”

Sam: “Anything he wants!”

That just doesn’t work if you substitute “marmoset” for “gorilla.”

Gorillas become King Kong; chimpanzees become Cheetah.  Tarzan is king of the apes, not king of the merkats.

At the Rotterdam Zoo the gorilla enclosure has an interesting feature. When people enter the area to see the apes, each person receives a unique pair of glasses. On the front of the glasses eyes appear, all pointing to the side. This way you can peer directly at the apes, but they think you are looking away.  Why?

A gorilla perceives a stare as a threatening gesture. My friend Dan Breeding of dantheanimalman.com, a Christian and an animal expert, has baboons. The big male named Calvin hates me. When I go to see Dan, I never stare directly at Calvin, because he goes into a tizzy, rapidly raising and lowering his eyebrows back at me.

When Alvin stares at Calvin, Calvin wants to fight. I do not want to fight a baboon. I have held venomous snakes, ridden elephants, and once went into an enclosure with grown tigers (I signed a waiver). But I do not want to mess with an angry baboon. I certainly would never want to be alone with an angry gorilla.

Apes such as gorillas and large monkeys like baboons do not appreciate stares. Were they capable of playing poker they would be awful.  But the truth is, we do not like stares either.

How man times have you dreamed something, maybe something significant, maybe something great for God, but in your mind’s eye began to feel the stares—the stares of the naysayers, the gaze of the conformists, the glare of the institutional watchdog?  Certainly we need accountability, and we all know people who fire off like loose canons, doing more harm than good.

I am not talking about those people. I am talking about you. I am asking you to think about those times you want to do something that matters, something risky, something sacrificial, not to call attention to your own supposed spirituality, but because of a deep conviction that you only have one shot at this life and you must make the most of it for things that matter, things much bigger than you.

Keep your mentors close. Listen carefully to them. But stop paying attention to the stares.

We have a heavy pull in our culture to fit in, to conform, to be like everyone else.  Just go to the mall and watch people. See young people obviously obsessed about how the outfit they are wearing so they would be sure to stand out, and then see how they look remarkably like the other teens trying to stand out too—you will see the Goth look, the preps, etc. Not all are like this, but too many live in a daily prison of bars made of the imagined stares of others.

But you are not a gorilla. You do not need to imagine people in glasses never looking at you. God has made you uniquely, and imprinted in you the Image of God.

Think about this: what is the one thing you would do for God and for good, not for yourself, not for fame or personal glory, but for the One you worship, the one thing you would do if you could do so apart from the stares of those who tell you to be cautious, to be safe, to conform?

I met a young man at a camp recently. He is in high school. He started an evangelistic effort in his community that seemed to be having success. But he had a fear.

“What if I fail?” He asked me.

“What if you do?” I replied. “The world will not end. You will not be cast away from God. The people who matter in your life will not reject you.”  In other words, ignore the stares.

As a young man I went to a small university to teach. I had well known Christian leaders, more than one, tell me that was a mistake, that no one knew of that school, that I had a lot of potential, and I should put myself in a place where many could see me.

The stares surrounded me.  But I had a dream of teaching young men and women about things that matter, about the gospel and the mission. I wanted to fight against the opportunism that waged war in my soul and instead give myself to serving Jesus. So I went. But I had to ignore some stares.

You will always have people staring at you. The question is whether or not you will be a gorilla and respond with anger or frustration, or worse, with conformity. Or, will you be a follower of Jesus who looks beyond the stares into His face, living as Paul did, to please Him (II Cor. 5:9).

Ignore the stares. Reach for the stars. Do something that matters.

I watched Emmitt Smith give his acceptance speech for the Pro Football Hall of Fame last night. He talked about how he yearned to be a Dallas Cowboy from age six, how his life seemed to be marked by destiny. God created and crafted me to be a teacher. I am quite aware of my imperfections to this day and all my shortcomings as a teacher. But I know this is the destiny for which God has created me. Other opportunities have come which would have paid me a lot more money and arguably provided me more notoriety, as if that were why someone should be in ministry.  But I just want to teach, to help people GET it.

Notice I said 15 years ago I began to teach at SEBTS. But 15 years and a few days ago something happened that changed my attitude toward teaching specifically and ministry in general.  My family—Michelle, Josh at age 7, and Hannah age 2—traveled with me to Alabama from Houston en route to North Carolina. We stopped at my parents’ home, where Michelle and the kids would stay until I got things rolling in Wake Forest.

A long flatbed trailer sat in the edge of the pasture at the farm where my parents lived. I walked out to look at it, stepped over the big tongue, and walked up the middle of the bed.  You know what happens when you walk over the axle of a trailer—it flips. So I was in the process of flipping the trailer by walking over the axle when I heard a blood-curdling scream.

My Hannah, now 17, has always enjoyed doing things with me. So as I went out to investigate the trailer, she hurried after me. Unaware of her pursuit, I simply went about my business. When I heard my Mom’s scream, I turned to see Hannah had followed me to the trailer. She had just climbed on the tongue when I turned to see her. Out of the corner of my eye I caught her form fall off the tongue as the trailer flipped.

I proceeded to do a very, very stupid thing. I turned and ran straight up the bed of the trailer to get her.  While it was the most direct route, my sudden reaction caused the massive metal tongue to crash down on top of her. I grabbed the tongue and pulled it off her, and saw her limp, pale, form, her eyes rolling back into her head.

I thought I had just killed my daughter.

Josh screamed, “Is she dead?” as I scooped her up and yelled to my mom to call 911.  The paramedics came and worked on her. She is obviously fine now, as somehow her body was spared the full brunt of the trailer’s weight.  But for a while that day, everything came into rare focus.

I had just finished my first book. I could not have cared less. I was about to embark on a journey to teach some of the greatest leaders of the church in our time.  Did not matter.  I would be able to travel the world and preach in some of the greatest churches in the United States.  I would trade it all in a heartbeat for my daughter’s heart to continue bringing her life.

None of my accomplishments or my hopes mattered at that moment. I just wanted my girl to live.

When is the last time you have felt that kind of urgency?  In Matthew 9:35-38 we read of the urgency of Jesus. He saw the crowd, the multitude, and was moved with compassion. Do we see people as Jesus did? Do we too often see groups as we like to tag them—jocks, nerds, wealthy, poor, in crowd or out crowd, our kind or not—or do we see as Jesus did, that all around us there are those spiritually blind, like sheep with no shepherd?

Do the things that moved Jesus deeply move us?  He was moved with compassion. The Greek word means the viscera, the gut. Think about things that so move you, you feel it in your gut. When is the last time you had that kind of ache for someone who does not know Christ?

Do we pray like Jesus prayed?  He prayed for harvesters. We pray too much for temporal needs and too rarely for eternal matters. Do you find yourself praying for a movement of God to spur believers to tell the world about their Lord?

Do we do what Jesus said? He said to pray for workers. Will we be the answer to that prayer? When I lead someone to Christ I often ask him or her to tell me someone who would love to know this. I love to hear the new Christ follower tell me of someone they know had been praying for them—a man in Franklinton, NC, who said he knew of his wife’s prayers, a man in another state who said his mom had prayed for him since his childhood.

I want to be the answer to a precious saint’s prayers. You can be that too. Live with urgency. But be sure that urgency is about things that matter.

“Be imitators of me, as I also am of Christ.” Paul, in I Cor. 11:1

Great men lead people, but greater men train leaders.” Bill Bright

Andy had only been a believer a short time when he came to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Young, fiery, and full of zeal, I liked him from the first day of class. He had another feature I greatly value in students: he was hungry to learn.

Teachable men make for great leaders.

So, I invited Andy to go with me on a trip. He asked questions you would expect from a hungry young Christ follower. He came from an unchurched background and wanted to focus every fiber of his life on following Christ. He knew he had much to learn and eagerly sought to grow.

I took him to Virginia for a weekend while I spoke at a church in the Tidewater area. We drove back through a hurricane (I made him drive my car, which was good for his faith development).  On Saturday morning I got up early, as is my custom, to spend time with the Lord and to begin working on a project.

He sat up, looked around, and crawled out of his bed.  He didn’t say anything (I am a gregarious person, but what I am focused on a project I become antisocial). A little later he looked at me and said, “You know, if you get up on Saturday morning instead of sleeping till noon, you can get a lot of school work done.”

I resisted saying “Way to go, Captain Obvious,” or “Nice job, Einstein.” Andy to that point had been a typical young man who felt entitled to stay out all hours at night and goof off all weekend. You know, like the college student who claims to be passionate for Jesus but really just loves to hang out.

I never gave him a lecture on study habits. I did not give him an inspiring talk on how to be the next great scholar.  I simply got out of bed and got after it, and he was with me to see it.

So much of life is caught more than taught. Or better, taught by being caught. I learned more from my father and from mentors by watching than from listening, although both matter. I learned how to share Christ by going with someone and watching them.

Andy and some other students traveled with me for the next couple of years. We became so close that when I went on trips out of town in which he did not join me, Andy would go over and play with our then-young children.  He took every class he could with me. In one particular class he met a young lady my wife and I knew very well. Her name was Tanya. She had lost her husband Ray, whom I had taught my first year at Southeastern, to a brain tumor.  She asked me to speak at an event. I could not, but I had come to have a great deal of confidence in Andy, so I recommended him. Next thing you know, they were married, and now they have planted a vibrant church in Delaware and have some beautiful children of their own.

I am a killer matchmaker when I do not know what I am doing.

Andy represents the best teaching I have ever done. Yes, I have won various recognitions for my work as a classroom teacher. But the greatest award comes in the lives of men like Andy. As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:2, “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, recognized and read by everyone.”

Who are the Andy’s in your life? Who do you currently mentor?

The term “mentor” actually comes from Greek mythology. Before going away to fight the Trojan War, Odysseus sought to find a man who would care for his son Telemachus. Odysseus wanted a man to raise his son just as he would if he were there.  He found a man who did just that.

Mentoring provides a higher form of leadership; a remarkable means to lead future (and current) leaders. The old saying, “he who thinks he is leading and no one is following, is only taking a walk,” can be applied to mentoring as well.

Consider this sobering question: If you stand before people as a pastor, a teacher, or a leader, and no one you teach or lead ever comes to you to be mentored, what of worth are you saying? If you live a life that demonstrates Jesus, you will have plenty of people who want to be mentored. Mentoring is not an institution to manage–it is a lifestyle to emulate.

If you are a pastor, you simply cannot reduce all your influence and teaching to the time in the pulpit, as vital as that time is. If you are a student pastor you surely want your impact to be greater than serving as a glorified social planner.  You desire to invest in students, not just run a ministry.  If you teach a Bible study, lead people in any capacity, and especially if you are a parent, mentoring should be a priority.

Paul sounded this advice to Timothy when he declared, “And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:2).  Paul mentored Timothy, and Timothy mentored others. Such multiplication is one of the great needs of the contemporary church.

I believe in formal mentoring. This fall I will meet weekly with a group of men from Southeastern who are also at my church in a weekly mentoring group. But I believe informal mentoring is an untapped resource to many.

Informal mentoring means simply involving individuals you seek to mentor in the regular, normal aspects of your life. Informal mentoring lets you see the person as they live life—how they respond to people, to circumstances, etc.  But beware: it also lets them see you for who you are. If you as the mentor are better at talking than living, you will not long enjoy informal mentoring. It’s not either-or but both-and. As I noted I do both. But I can say without any hesitancy that the greatest impact God has given me in young adults whom I have mentored came through informal mentoring. There are some advantages to informal mentoring.  Over the years I have mentored a host of students through both methods. One of the things I have learned about people I mentored is this: some want to be mentored because they want to be pushed, stretched, and challenged. Others think they want that, but what they really seek is approval.  They prefer approval rather to admonition, and desire encouragement without rebuke.

But one cannot have true community, in a family, in a church, or in a mentoring relationship, without both encouragement and rebuke.  A mentoring relationship implies the protégé has much to learn and seeks to learn from the mentor.  But when the mentor realizes the person he mentors truly seeks encouragement and affirmation but will not take the hard lessons of stretching and rebuke, the mentoring relationship has hit a wall. Informal mentoring helps to discern just where that wall lies as you do life together outside the more sterile environment of a weekly group.

I have a remarkably busy schedule. Do you? The thing I love about informal mentoring is it allows me to pour my life into two or three young men (or more) in the course of life. It adds little extra time. There will certainly be some times when you plan specific meetings for one purpose or another, but they will be rare.  And, sometimes your student may need you at a time that is not best for you. But can you truly think of something more important than to invest in someone else?

Informal mentoring also allows me to mentor people occasionally and yet effectively. For instance, if I take half a dozen people with me on a two hour trip to a college campus where I am speaking, we have four hours round trip time to talk about life and godliness.

Where are you going and what are you doing that could easily involve another person you seek to mentor? Pick up the phone. Give that one a call. And go do life together.

A while back my friend, co-author, and colleague Mark Liederbach spoke in chapel at SEBTS. In his message he spoke with great eloquence on the importance of the local church in the life of the believer, even noting he served as professor at Southeastern with the permission of the leadership of his church. That message functioned in my life like a tiller churning up a field to make it more productive. It coincided with other forces in my life pushing me to bring my life to a more holistic focus.  That journey took a major turn yesterday.

Yesterday morning I taught a class at my home church, Richland Creek Community Church. Speaking on a Sunday morning is no surprise as I have had the honor of preaching in over 1700 churches throughout my adult life.  But this Sunday was different.

Today for the first time in 21 years — since our son Josh was a baby and before Hannah was born — I am serving on staff in my local church, Richland Creek Community Church. Part time to be sure, as I serve with great vigor and joy at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. But the local church, not a seminary, not a parachurch ministry, not a solo itinerant ministry, is the plan of God to reach people and build disciples. Beyond a believer’s biological family, the local church family should be our priority. Everything else supports that (or should). We should see our local church family as that–a family. Moving to another church or barely being involved makes no sense if we understand our commitment to the church reflects both our love for Jesus, the head of the church, and its members, our family.

I realized a while back that my life actually epitomized what I thought to be a central problem in the Western Church, that of compartmentalization.  We have too often created a culture that proves fertile for selfishness, divisiveness, for each one to look out for his or her own interests.  But I believe we should do more together, not separately. Not too long ago my local church experience, my preaching ministry in churches, my writing ministry, and my ministry as a professor operated far too separately. That has changed.

Now, I teach at Southeastern and minister to young professionals at my church,. Many (though not all) in the latter ministry are also students of mine at SEBTS. I have given my life to the younger generation, so this is a great fit. I still travel some, but the main folks I travel with are also integrally involved in that same church and at SEBTS.  My writing has a much greater focus on the local church. So much of my writing focuses on the next generation, whom I now observe daily through both my school and my church.  I will also be a better teacher to my students because I see things even more through the lens of the local church.

This fall I am meeting with a group of men in a small group, a mentoring group.  I have done so most semesters for many years now. Mentoring is a big deal to me (see my brand new and free ebook With: A Guide to Informal Ministry at alvinreid.com). But this time it is different; this time all the men are a part of my church and students at my seminary. And, several of them are also involved in the young pros ministry.

We do well to bring the body of Christ together so that we can build real community. I am not opposed to times of segregation for certain reasons: we do have a specific young pros class, a weekly time for middle/high school students, a weekly time of worship for college and young pros called two-four, and so on. But the more we can integrate the better, and the more we do, the more accountable we are to one another, which is a crucial part of building biblical community.

Once you have traveled and preached for a while if you have any ability at all you learn it is really not that hard to preach at a big megachurch or speak to a large group of youth. The challenge of weekly building a ministry is much harder. I am ready for the challenge.  Stay tuned.

I will not take the time to elaborate on the more famous phrase by Descartes as this is a blog article and not a philosophy text. But my phrase, given to me by former student and friend John Seago, has a particular meaning I hope to unpack. (Shout out to Brandy Seago and little Nahum as well!)

What do I mean by “non laboro ergo cogito?” We live excessively busy lives. Sometimes we Christ-followers live as though busyness marks our godliness: the more crowded our calendar, the more like Jesus, we imply.  I think part of this comes from our American culture. After all, how many other nations have a Mount RUSHmore? If you go to a third world country you see life moving at a much slower pace. But friendship can be made very quickly, and deep friendships at that. But in the West, life moves at an accelerated pace. Connections are easily made, but deep friendships seem much harder to find.

I think part of the problem of our excessive pace is theological. We affirm that salvation comes by grace through faith, but we act as though our sanctification comes by the number of activities in which we participate. This surely misses the fact that the gospel guides not only the unbeliever to Christ, but also guides the believer as he or she follows Christ. If one generation thought cleanliness leads to godliness, we seem to think busyness leads to godliness.

Regardless the reason, the point in my little Latin phrase is this: we do not value the importance of time set aside simply to think. The first time I took a six-month sabbatical I had been teaching for a long time, both at Houston Baptist University and my early years at Southeastern. I had developed a routine of teaching, speaking in churches, and writing, a rhythm if you will. But when I took the sabbatical, I actually had time to, well, just think. Yes, I worked on a writing project and new lectures. I read a lot of books. But for the first time in a long time I took some lengthy times on certain days with no agenda but to think.

The mind truly is a terrible thing to waste.  And sometimes the best thing we can do is to get off the ferris wheel of a busy life and think.  Not to sit around like a snotty snob and imagine our superiority because we fancy ourselves to be thinkers. And certainly some people sit around and think too much and do too little. But that does not seem to be my problem.

Sometime take a Bible, a notebook, and a pen. Go to a place where you are not easily distracted. CUT OFF YOUR PHONE. Just read and think. It may seem hard at first. An activist by nature like me has to be trained to do this.  I love rigorous activity, am passionate about time with people, and find sitting still to be contemplative grates against my nature.  But I also find that when I take time to do so it gives me perspective I can find no other way.

When do you take time simply to think? No agenda, no huge goal, no book to write, sermon to prepare, test to master, or crisis to conquer. Just think, about life, about what matters. Think about the gospel and what you are doing with your life.

If we are honest we know how easy it is to get other’s opinions about a decision we must make than to get away, clear our minds, and think for ourselves. Sometimes I think our desire to “seek wise counsel” is a disguise for the shallowness of our own ability to hear the voice of God speaking into our lives. We need others, but we need to hear from God more.

Taking time to think gives fresh perspective: you realize how much you are given to foolish things, to petty things, to things that may seem really important, but that actually matter very little. You can think not only about the immediate things in your life but also about the trajectory of life. You can step away from a situation pressing in on your life and think holistically about it.  You can evaluate relationships and value cherished relationships afresh.

So sometime, stop doing. Instead, think. You may find you actually get more done as a result. Remember our great God tells us to be still and know that He is God.