This shot is a shot taken by a good friend of mine in Bogota Colombia turns out we both took the same shot but his turned out better. I don't know why, this stop sign happens to be on the corner of the street where a ministry that works with street kids is located and I liked the color contrast the sign offers with the mute tones of the concrete sidewalks and buildings along with the paved streets.
It is amazing to me that in all the countries I have been in the stop signs are the same. The shape and the color have made them universally stand out and understood. So while you may not know Spanish I would bet that before getting this far in this blog you understood what the sign in the pic was saying just by it's color and shape. "PARE" or "STOP"
Now all of us know that the sign doesn't literally mean to stop. If it did then there would be all sorts of accidents because people would be stopping as soon as they saw the sign regardless of where they were on the street. Not only that but I have never seen one who is walking along the side walk stop walking when they came up on the sign. No, most of us know from early on that this is a traffic sign although it doesn't say that anywhere on the sign itself. Likewise, most of us know that it means to stop once we get up too the sign. Literally to stop just before or right at the sign but not after the sign. None of these rules are spelled out on the sign either. Now we know that to place all of those rules on the sign would make the print so small that it wouldn't be legible from a distance, so the law has resorted to an abbreviated version of the law itself. thus rather than saying Stop immediately before or right at this sign, come to a complete stop, look both ways before proceeding, then go on if no oncoming traffic is cumming. Instead the sign reads STOP and the rest is implied or assumed that anyone intelligible enough to read the sign and have a drivers license is smart enough to know the law that is being abbreviated.
The words I have typed out here are not my thoughts, no, but they are a completion of letters that form words that describe my thoughts and you interpret them as such. I would think that this logic is fairly plain and simple and understood. Yet I read a facebook post from a fellow minister today that troubled me some what. The post actually was a quote from Derek Webb that this fellow minister was quoting.
"saying "wtf" is cussing is like saying " :( " is emotion"
The troubling part of this quote for me isn't that Derek Webb said it. I have come to expect quotes like these from Derek Webb and I must say I really like his music but this is a guy that has learned to make a living off of being a rebel with a cause. Derek has used shock value in many of his albums to stir things up and quite frankly it helps sales. For his latest album he even played of of his edgy rep to bolster hype about his new album before it came out by telling his fans that there was trouble with the label and that they needed to stay tuned for updates because he was going to get his music out no matter what. In fact it turns out that it was a marketing tool and now after the album went on sale you can buy the labels version or go to his website and download the explicit version of his latest album. Like I said earlier I'm not troubled by Derek this is the persona he portrays and it works for him. What does trouble me is the fellow youth pastors I know that take there cue from such a guy and think that being edgy makes them Cool or more in touch and there by more effective. When the reality is that it does just the opposite.
I beg to differ with Derek on this one and with all my youth pastor friends that think that being "edgy" is what we are called to as ministers. We live in a social networking world today and the "shorthand" or abbreviated texting type of literary methods are becoming a legitimate form of communication even if my mother would disagree with it. In fact just last week Oxford dictionary named its new word of the year "unfriend" as in to delete someone from your list of friends. In 2007 the runner up for word of the year by Merriam Websters Dictionary was the verb "facebook". Yes Derek is right saying "wtf" is cussing is like saying " :( " is emotion. "WTF" might not be the actual words and thus might not technically be cussing but the implication is there just as a stop sign only says stop. The entire law need not be spelled out for its implication to be made. And when we as youth pastors try and justify our unwillingness to live lives that are constantly being sanctified and thus challenging this generation to be submitting their lives to God and His standard of living as well we are doing them a tremendous disservice.
And we wonder why our teens struggle so much... well we were not having sex, I mean oral sex isn't really sex.... well It's not like I am addicted so as long as I am not addicted its OK.
I'm sorry guys but I have to call it like I see it on this one. God doesn't expect perfection from us but he does expect us to submit to Him and allow Him to change us from who we were when we were in the world to who He wants us to be in Him (Phil. 2:13, John 14:15, Rom 12:1, I Pt. 1:15) This generation doesn't need us to be edgy, relevant, be a rebel, trendy... They need Christ! If you want to be a man of God and lead His people then man up and leave the world and its struggles behind and quit trying to justify our sins as though acknowledging them gave us licence to live in them further. Or in this case if you struggle with your language just admit that you struggle with it don't try and justify it.
For more on Derek Webb's latest album check here:
Jeff, great blog. I guess I think of it in a little different way. I have never tried to be "edgy". I don't think of "wtf" as trying to be "egdy". I don't say "wtf" around youth (or hopefully at all!) although I have said it to God. I believe there is a place for honest discussion in the kingdom. I believe there might be times when the words "wtf" represents might be an honest, gut-level response to some of the places we find oursleves in life. I believe that God is not afraid of or put off by a gut-level response to Him or to life.
ReplyDeleteI believe in honesty, transparency, and integrity. There are phrases uttered by the psalmist that I am uncomfortable saying to God. I don't advocate the use of "wtf", especially as an attempt to be "edgy". I think "edgy" is just another word for fake. I just want to be real. Thanks for your blog today and your addition to this particular conversation.
I absolutely love this part of your blog, "If you want to be a man of God and lead His people then man up and leave the world and its struggles behind and quit trying to justify our sins as though acknowledging them gave us licence to live in them further."
Yes, let this be true of us. Hope you and Kim are well.
dave
I agree with you whole heartedly we can not only be honest with God but I believe He desires that over a fake religious relationship as well. Hopefully in our honest relationship with God He works in Us to change us and make us more like Him as Phil. 2:13 would indicate and we have less and less need of reacting as we did once in the past to any given situation. I particularly struggle with my language at times, it is one of the things that still carries over from my past and Gods grace is sufficient to cover me but by no means does that mean that it is appropriate nor that I shouldn’t be submitting that part of my life to the Lord so that one day He can work it out of me. By no means will I ever justify it sin is sin and thank God His grace covers me in the process of sanctification but that doesn’t give me the right to flaunt it or minimize it for what it is.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments we need to get together some time it has been to long my friend
Jeff, thank you for a helathy and good response to an issue that is rampant and frustrating wihtin the Body of Christ. How is it that being "culturally relevant" has become an excuse for behaving as the culture dictates rather than living life in a manner that glorifies and brings more honor to the Lord.
ReplyDeleteWhen we as youth ministers, who like myself, have been at this for a decade or more cannot point to any real cultural impact, we need to be very careful about who we give attnation to. I'm really sorry Derek Webb is mad at all the "weaknesses" and failure to repsond as he deems appropriate to issues that mean a great deal to him. His opinion of the American church is about as important as mine - not at all. But while he dcries the Church for its problems, who else could he be angry with and still have a decent career?
Hey, man. Good post. I remember how annoyed I used to get as a youth minister with all the "replacement" cussing that went on in the church. One year at camp (after a sleepless night at the hospital with a kid, so I wasn't at 100%) I got so fed up with everyone saying "bolshevik" and thinking they were being funny that I blew up. "If you mean bull shit then just say it, but if you have a problem with cussing then stop it!" Wow. I've never seen so many dropped jaws!
ReplyDeleteThe problem we face here in Germany is the cultural difference. German is a harsh language and as such has a harsher standard. Whereas we use euphemisms, when Germans want to talk about poop they pretty much have one word and it starts with an s. We and our kids still hold to our higher standard, but even Christians here have no problem using harsh language. It is especially hard when they use the English words. Ironically, the stronger Christians here prefer to cuss in English because it "seems" less meaningful to them.
Then there is the biggest problem, the English language itself. I have been told by Germans trying to teach me my own language that f-ing as an adjective is not bad! Whereas the F word in German is never used because it only means what it literally means and to use it is a rare truly offensive word, they point out that in English it has become something akin to "very." It is simply used for emphasis. I tell them they are wrong, but the sad thing is they aren't. Sure, Germans say "Scheiße" all the time but in a sense our language has become far nastier. WTF is another one of these aspects of English. For a lot of adults, as far as they know it is just a way of saying ??? Ask a bunch of older adults if they know what WTF stands for. Pretty soon it will be like the word "snafu" which a lot of people use to mean mistake.