Better than Drugs

As many of you know it is one of my life goals to be "flown in" by some organization for a speaking engagement. Sadly, after twenty two years of failure I can only report that my last speaking engagement also refused to spring for my plane ticket. Perhaps this is because it was 4 miles away from my house. But I'm still offended.

Last Friday I was a guest speaker at the "Encounter" youth rally at Highland highschool. And even though I am narcissisticly obsessed with my own words this post will not be about that.

There was another speaker there that day who was possibly more influential than I was. I don't remember his real name but his friends called him "shaggs."

This was your regular "hipster doofus" highschool kid that gave off the impression that he might have woken up from a deep sleep in the last 5 minutes and that cutting holes in his jeans was a higher priority than cutting his hair.

But somehow, his bumbling stumbling fumbling rant turned for forty amazing seconds of lucidity into something beautiful. And he gave the best explanation I've ever heard for the difference between happiness and joy.

His testimony was fresh and authentic. What he really conveyed to me was that he was a young man who usually wasn't very good at expressing himself, but believed so fully in what he experienced that he was willing to do whatever it took to share it with his friends. He told us about a life of drugs and hate. But he was brought out of that life by something better. "If drugs were better than God" he said "I would do drugs." But he doesn't any more, because he knows a better way.

And this kid, this "Shaggs" really moved me. For real. And here I was about to give a half hour speech that I had prepared and practice and that I thought was going to knock the socks off of Highland highschool. But I didn't even feel like I was necessary anymore, I didn't know what else I could say that was worth saying after him.

I saw such a stark contrast between Shaggs and the highly polished and prepared services we see at church. And I saw within myself an ugly feeling of "ownership" over ministry. WE are the ministers. WE have training and technique and paychecks and software. We might even know a smatering of Greek. People ask us questions and take our opinions as "educated" because ministry and God are our business.

Seriously? Do we think that? Of course we would never admit it but as Shaggs took the stage I thought to myself that I was about to witness amiture hour. And instead what I saw was the Holy Spirit move. I recommend that anyone who is in or thinking about becoming involved in ministry to constantly remind ourselves that we do not have the corner of the market on God, and that even though ministry might be our business, God has business that is much bigger than us.