Culture | Logos Made Flesh

6 Ways Becoming a School Bus Driver Will Enhance Your Youth Ministry

April 30, 2012 — 2 Comments

Let’s face it. If you’re in ministry you either have or will drive the bus. Here are 6 ways getting a job as a substitute school bus driver will just enhance your ministry potential.

1. Connect with students

It’s time you got out the office and used your time more wisely! By working as a bus driver, you’ll spend way more time connecting with students. You’ll hear their conversation! You’ll see them interact! And you’ll learn about their world. What’s the latest pop culture reference? What are they excited or concerned about? What major events happened during the day? There’s not enough time to learn about this stuff on Sunday morning or Wednesday night. And reading about it only takes your time away from students. More interaction is what you need. Bus driving is the key.

2. Connect with the school officals

Connecting with school officials can be a daunting challenge. You can always connect with students outside school hours but chances are you’ll never meet a school official outside of school. By becoming a bus driver you’ll learn more about the ins and outs of your schools employees and programs. You’ll interact with staff. You’ll get to know them personally. You’ll become intimately acquainted with the school calendar. When’s the next dance or week of testing? This is good stuff to know and all too easy to miss.

3. Receive valuable training and certification

As a youth pastor we require training and certifications which are sometimes hard to come by. Some are just easy to overlook. When was the last time you were trained in CPR and first aid? Others are expensive. My state, for instance, has made it difficult to obtain a bus drivers license. Gone are the days when you could walk into the DMV, read a book and take an exam. It now requires training by certified instructors. Courses run around 2,000 dollars. There’s another option though. School bus barns have these instructors to train their employees. By becoming a school bus driver you can earn a valuable commercial drivers license and stay on top of CPR and first aid.

4. Leave your best time available for students

Secondary jobs can be a pain when you’re in youth ministry. They tie you down and take up valuable hours when students are free from school. But that’s what so cool about working as a substitute school bus driver. You work both a little before and little after school. The heart of the day is free for you to plan your next staff meeting, event or message. You’re also can plan events when students are available. Don’t forget you’re off when students are off – weekends, holidays, summer vacations. Finally as a substitute you’re free to choose days that work best for you. If an emergency arises, just tell them you won’t be available.

5. Supplement your small ministry salary

We do what we do because we love it, not because of the money. But money is still important. Bills are bills and sometimes youth ministry salaries just don’t cut it. School bus driving is a great way to supplement your income without taking away from what you love doing best. The money could also help you to run a little farther.

6. Raise needed youth funds

And of course if money is not an issue for you or your church doesn’t want you moon lighting, the wages you earn could always make a much needed contribution to the youth ministry budget.

Can I hear an “Amen!”

Your thoughts?

In Church, Culture, Life

Hope and Redemption in the Beautiful Letdown

April 17, 2012 — Leave a comment

I can’t tell you how long its been since an album has really reached me. I love music. I love profound words even more. But when great music and profound lyrics mingle at a certain time and place, the heart cannot help but beat in time with both the rythm and the words.

You know what I’m talking about. Think of album or a song that has really reached you. It more than likely was a combination of these three things: music, lyrics, and occasion.

For me Petra’s “Beyond Belief” probably would have been just another album if it hadn’t been for Anggi Finley (now Wakefield) giving me that tape in the early days of my salvation. The music was good, the message was real. But it was the time more than anything that made the album come alive.

Now a new Album has reached me in the same way as Beyond Belief. Switchfoot’s Beautiful Letdown is both great music and a great message. But more than anything it has come at the right time and in the right place.

You may not know this but I work as a Custody Officer in Clark County’s Jail. It’s not your normal place to work. In any given day I see drunks, drug addicts, prostitutes, child molesters, murderers and thieves. It’s easy to classify these people as something other then oneself, beyond hope. The people I work with do it all the time.

I’ve recently changed shifts. Now I work in the pods. And I’m sitting here listening to this album surrounded by 185 inmates. I’m engulfed like an island, feeling the crashing waves of there broken lives beating against my isolation. They can’t hear the music pulsing inside my tower. They can barley see me through the glass. But I can see them.

Just in front of me, not more than 50 feet, is a man whose failed attempt at suicide killed a Clark County Sheriff’s Officer last year. I see a dentist who after two years of separation from his wife, returned to brutally stab her to death in her home. Behind me there is a woman who is locked up and pregnant with her third child. Hooked on heroine, she’s taking methadone in effort to save her babies life. To me these people have become more than just names in the newspaper. I see them as more than the crimes they commit. And as I listen to Beautiful Letdown, I feel their cries for redemption.

In the words of Jon Foreman, the voice of Switchfoot,

THE BEAUTIFUL LETDOWN is about real life: the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s an honest attempt to reflect on the great and terrible aspects of being human, the tension of existence. A lot of people run away from this tension because the problems in our world are too hard to face. But the tension of being human is where we live and think and breathe. In fact, the very lowest moments in our lives are when we stand toe to toe with the truth about ourselves and our world. The way I see it, hope means nothing at all if hope doesn’t reach to the core of our need. THE BEAUTIFUL LETDOWN is where meaning and hope invade our greatest and worst moments. THE BEAUTIFUL LETDOWN is where we live, who we are, and where the future begins.

As I sit in my tower I see the tension expressed in stark detail. The beauty of God’s redemption is that it was meant for them. The beauty is that it is meant for me.

Originally posted February 16, 2006

In Culture, Life

Can a film which is rated R for a host of obscenities, produced by an entire cast and crew of nonbelievers, and which paints the only Christian as an evil hypocrite be the greatest Christian movie ever? Absolutely! Here are 5 reasons why the Shawshank Redemption is the greatest Christian movie of all time.

1. Mass Public Appeal.

Polls matter. Who cares that it was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture. What do the majority of people think? According to the Internet Movie Database the Shawshank Redemption ranks as the number one movie of all time. Of course this doesn’t mean its everyones favorite movie but it does mean that its consistently among the top movies for the vast majority of people. Ask a person what their favorite movies are and chances are the Shawshank Redemption will rank at the top or near the top of that list.

2. Retelling the Story of Jesus

Watch for this! Andy’s unexpected escape is a clear and intensional allusion to the death and resurrection of Jesus. “Oh my holy God.” Just as Red and others go looking for Andy’s dead body, the disciples went looking for Christ’s. Just as Red and the guards found the cell empty and Andy alive so too did Jesus’ followers. But the comparisons don’t end here.

The entire film is meaningful in light of the gospel. Andy’s resurrection redeems Red, “the only guilty man in Shawshank.” In a clear reversal of its prison film genre (think of Cool Hand Luke or Escape from Alcatraz), the Shawshank Redemption depicts prisoners dreading NOT imprisonment, BUT freedom. And they dread it as they would death itself. Brooks, for instance, tries to kill Haywood when he finds he’s been paroled and later kills himself because of it. The prisoners of Shawshank are “Institutionalized.” Freedom for them means only to be empty and alone.

But there is life outside, a point Andy, Shawshank’s only innocent man, wants his fellow prisoners to see. He offers them rare and extraordinary reminders of the outside world, like a beer on a hot roof, angelic music over the prison’s speakers, and a library, built by breaking down the walls of the prison. In the process, Andy suffers greatly for these acts. But its Andy’s ultimate miraculous escape and life on the outside which means hope for Red. Because Andy lives Red will live also. He waits for Red, working the wood of a fishermen’s boat. All before a eternal sea.

3. Doesn’t Hide the Bad News

Should brutality, suggestive rape, and a constant stream of vulgarity cause us to shy away from this film? The Shawshank Redemption is rated R and for good reason. But so was the Passion of the Christ. And as with the later film, we find that the beauty of God’s redemption is often powerfully revealed in triumph over such evil things. The Shawshank Redemption shows the world in all its wretchedness and in so doing reveals the answer to be the more powerful.

4. Mirrors the Teaching of Jesus

So you think the Christian message should be more overt. Turn your attention to Jesus use of parables. Didn’t he teach in a way that concealed as much as it revealed? The parables were a kernel of judgement (Mark 4:11-12). Ones understanding and acceptance of them demonstrated who you were. Like the seed in the parable of the Sower (Mark 4:1-20), a person is judged by the way in which the word takes root. Like the parables of Jesus, the Shawshank Redemption is seed looking for the right soil.

5. A Common Reference for Believers and Nonbelievers.

Because the Shawshank Redemption is well loved by Chriristians and non-Christians alike its the perfect starting point for a conversation about the Good News. With peoples knowledge of the Bible ever diminishing and cultural references becoming all the more readily available, the Shawshank Redemption is an easily accessible gospel track. Like Don Richardson’s Peace Child or Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day, its evidence of God’s continuing witness to a cultural that appears to have rejected Him.

If you’re looking for more secular films to dialogue with friends about your faith check out 10 Resurrection Films to Watch Before Easter.

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