rhythm, recovery, and the systems thinking theory

Well, I am new to this whole blog thing and thought I would give it a try. No promises on keeping it well updated or maintained, I just thought this could be a good way to keep up with friends and family.

I had a pretty interesting weekend. The youth group I have been working with had their Disciple Now this weekend, and I would have to say, I was deeply impacted. Its funny how God chooses to reveal things at just the right timing. I had lately been feeling frustrated at this whole way of life in what we all to commonly refer to as the "bible belt." For those of of you who have never experienced this, you are blessed. To see people live in a culture where they go to the same church their great grandparents went to, sit on the same pew, and wear the same clothes (ok, well maybe not exactly, but seriously women, must we still wear the same floral dresses with the ginormous shoulder pads?) In all seriousness though, this is quite literal here in the south, and quite frankly I am so bothered by it. Don't get me wrong, I love tradition, I love hymms, I love expositional teaching of the Word (thank God for a Pastor who truly knows and lives God's word) but when tradition becomes repitition and ritualistic, I stand strongly in opposition. I know this has all been said before, and I am not suggesting some radical change or "lets all jump on the bandwagon with Donald Miller and Shane Claiborne" but I do believe there needs to be a paradigm shift.

(woah, having a place to just write out my thoughts is incredible...i do believe i am going to like this whole blogging thing)

anyways, my frustration over the past semester of working with a youth group was beginning to grow and over Christmas break I had some real revelation and insight from my parents and my pastor from home about how to make youth group appealing and fun, yet be serious about Jesus and teach that our lives need to be His, fully and completely.

God decided to use this D-Now weekend to smack me over the head with simple teaching and to begin to give these students a real thirst for Him. The "theme" of the weekend was Rhythm and I was honestly blown away with the caliber of thought that was put into the messages by our speaker, Jared Herd. (who by the way is awesome...this may sound strange but I felt like I was watching Dane Cook [ a radically changed and filtered Dane Cook that is] really fight for these students hearts and minds) He spoke so simply of how our lives have rhythm, that they were created with rhythm and God desires for that rhythm to include him. When our rhythm with God is off, our rhythm in all other areas of our lives is off.

Everything is connected.

And what was so great about hearing this simple message was that it was exactly what I had been learning in my Understanding Families class. I think this is what I really love about my major (religion and psychology): I learn about it all the time, in the classroom, in a D-now service, in just my day to day life dealing with friends and family. Everything really is connected. And this is what "systems theory thinking" is. Its fluid and circular, not the usual linear way we are taught to think. Our relationships with our families are all connected. If two family members are in a fight, everyone in the family is affected. If one person's rhythm is off, it affects the rhythm of the family as a whole and each individual. Our families are connected to other groups. These other groups are connected to others. And eventually we see that everything is connected. But why? Because God created us, he created this world, and he created us to be in relationship with Him. Its simple and beautiful. And its just straight up fun to hear it from a professor who has multiple doctorates, a speaker who easily relates to middle school and high school students, and from those same middle schoolers who begin to see that their relationship with God is connected to how they treat their parents and friends. Life really is such a fluid and fun thing.

So as far as my weekend goes, I loved being challenged by God by having to sit back and let someone else teach my students. I so often just want to jump in a be like "ahhhh, you girls are going to grow up with just a complacent belief in Jesus, no real relationship and turn into your moms who sit on the same row and wear the same horrible dresses with huge shoulder pads!!" and then I have to step back and let God control my tongue and use weekends like this to gently nudge at the hearts of this next generation and nudge at my heart as well. So my recovery on this beautiful MLK day has been more than just physical rest from a very fast paced weekend but also recovery of my heart and my actions and my love for all people, even though I may get easily frustrated.

And so as I finish up this first post my heart is already lighter as I feel that God really was at work this weekend, in fact, he is always at work, and even though we can so easily get off rhythm, God is right there waiting, ready to step back in as composer to this connected symphony we are all a part of.