by Josh Snodgrass

I have joyfully been spending the last 4 years helping out and leading the high school youth at CTK. About a year and a half ago, I started up the middle school youth group, which brings just as much joy. Because I was putting so much into the youth ministry at CTK Nampa, the church decided to compensate me for my time spent. I was bi-vocational for a while and then I moved into a full-time youth pastor position. About 10 months after the full-time position, I married the love of my life and became the father of an amazing 2-year-old girl (now three). Meanwhile, our church went through 2 associate pastors, our children’s pastor stepped down, we were given a building to meet in, and we were patient. Finally, after much waiting and prayer… and more waiting, we now have two of the most amazing new staff members. Misti Sanders flawlessly stepped into the role of children’s pastor and David Underwood has masterfully filled the associate pastor position overlooking leadership in the church. Change is happening; things are now moving; and it is good…dare I say, great! 

With these changes comes a big shift in my roles as well. Starting the beginning of May, CTK can no longer compensate a full-time youth pastor due to the increase in much needed staff and paying for two buildings a month. With every shift and transition life throws at us, the reevaluation of our daily, monthly, and yearly routines is necessary, as well as the balance of home and work. After looking at what life is offering, I have decided to cut my responsibilities in half as the youth pastor and focus on the middle school youth group. In this transition, two high school leaders, Brett and Jami Wolfe, will be stepping in for the high school youth. I will be staying as a leader for high school until graduations are over, then I will be solely focusing on middle school. 

As much as I am going to miss this role, I am 100% for this during our church’s season of transition, and I am filled with excitement to see where the CTK story goes next! If you have any questions about any of this, you can come find me or talk with Dave Underwood!

Continued from last week, these 8 tips aren't always effective. But put them together, and before you know it, you’ve slipped out of the door and will never have to go to church again. The best thing is that each step is so soft and subtle that no one, not even you or your parents, will have noticed or stopped to challenge you. Here we go:

6. Date a non-Christian
Now that you’re not committed to church, and you’ve found an excuse to not really engage with the truth, this is the real winner. Find someone that is engaged in whatever you chose to do for Point 1, and start dating them. Tell yourself these important half-truths: “The Bible never says clearly not to date a non-Christian, you can use it as evangelism and I’m sure we’ll stay pure.” With those lines in your mind you can swiftly get rid of any other Christians that show any concern.

7. Take a break from Church
If you had gone straight to this point, it’d be really obvious that you had stopped going. But with Points 1-6 slowly and subtly in play, it will be as easy as falling asleep in Maths class. Tell people you need to focus on other things right now. Tell others that you need to find yourself before you find God – it will sound really deep and some people will understand. Make sure you reassure them that you’ll come back later, you’re just taking a breath for a while.

8. Promise to come back when life is simpler 
Life is complicated right now – surely it will be easier later in life. Promise to come back when you’re at uni/have a job/are married/have kids/own a house/retire. So long as you keep telling yourself you’ll come back later, you’ll never have to face up to the fact that you’re no longer part of the church.

If you've made it all the way through Point 8, then you've done it! You’ve left church without anyone noticing. Not even you.

Of course, your other option is to take the Bible’s warning seriously. “Do not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:25).

The choice is yours.

by Josh Snodgrass

By themselves, these following 8 tips aren't always effective. But put them together, and before you know it, you’ve slipped out of the door and will never have to go to church again. The best thing is that each step is so soft and subtle that no one, not even you or your parents, will have noticed or stopped to challenge you. Here we go:

1. Get really involved in something else
Make sure it’s something harmless like a sports team, school play or a job. Ensure it’s not obviously bad, but rather something that parents and friends may even encourage you to be doing. To really hide this, a good tip is to talk about how skipping church could give you an opportunity to tell others about Jesus.

2. Only go to church every other week 
With your new busy schedule, only go to church every other week, so that the talks don’t make sense and the people there don’t have the chance to become your friends.

3. Describe everything as boring 
Your irregularity at church makes the talks confusing, so just call them boring. Then repeat with the songs, prayers, notices and anything else that happens at church. Definitely don’t think it’s your fault that you find it boring.

4. Don’t serve 
There are probably many ways you can help out at church. But make sure you don’t commit to stacking chairs, doing the PowerPoint or sound, welcoming at the door etc. If you served, you’d probably love the place and people more, and that would undo all the good work you’ve done so far.

5. Find a problem with something/someone
There are many things wrong with your church and being a Christian can be tough. So pick something not central to the faith and choose to find a problem with that. Good options to take issue with are:

• one of the pastors
  
• the other people your age
  
• a joke someone said upfront
  
• a minor piece of teaching you don't like 
  

Hint: Really take this problem to heart, using it to refute the rest of what Jesus is about. Hopefully you'll eventually be able to drown out that voice inside asking you 'why are you giving up church over such a minor issue?".

by Josh Snodgrass

1. Talk to a newish person

Make them feel welcome. 

If it’s their first time, find out where they’ve come from, why they’re visiting, how they found the service, and how you can help them. If they’ve been around for a while, make sure you introduce them to someone else. Helping them to connect with others is just as important as making them feel welcome in the first place.

2. Talk to a small group / bible study member

Try and touch base with a few of the members in your group. How was their week? Did God answer that prayer? How did that date go? Do they need any prayer for anything else? 

You don’t have to go deep with each person every week, but catching one or two for a quick conversation can go a long way. Doing this each week should enable you to chat to everyone in your group every few weeks.

3. Talk to your friends

Church isn’t a social club, but we’re naturally going to click with some people more than others. That’s fine! In fact it’s necessary ... church is just as much about giving encouragement to others as it is about receiving encouragement ourselves. We need our friends, so talk to them all you like. Just make sure you don’t do it to the exclusion of everyone else.

It’s important to say that this order won’t be possible every time! If you’re sitting with friends, don’t ignore them until you find a new person. You also don’t need to follow this advice religiously either. It’s more about getting you to think about who you talk to, than it is about getting you to follow the order.

Finally, doing this each week will take time. Rather than ducking off every week before the final song, give yourself half an hour to stay and chat. Church is the gathering of God’s people, not just a spiritual shot in the arm. Who knows, you may even make a few friends in the process.

by Josh Snodgrass

I really want to do good...but I will never be a masterpiece when it comes to earthly standards. I am messy, blunt, unorganized, and reactive. I speak without thinking. I’m undisciplined and lazy. I lose my temper, procrastinate, eat too late at night, and have a slight authority issue. Actually, the list goes on and on. It honestly blows my mind how someone like me could even be considered a masterpiece. But, the very things that disqualify me in the earthly standards for being a masterpiece are strangely and gracefully what qualifies me to be a masterpiece in the spiritual world. I can only wrap my mind around the tip of this kind of love, which is probably why I tend to think I come up short more often than not.

So, instead of looking at my negatives, I need to check out my responsibilities. I am a Christian, husband, dad, son, pastor, brother, friend, employee, and counselor. That’s a lot of identities. Yet, I find myself getting caught up in this crazy thing called “life” without even thinking about the roles I have and the lives I affect. Ideally, I would like to master each one, but I don’t think that’s a possibility. It seems all I can do is list the identities, prioritize, try my best, and hope the list is in the right order.

After reading this scripture, I realized I’ve been going about it all wrong. I’ve been making my own ordered lists and trying to create my own masterpiece instead of allowing Christ to sculpt me, and let the Spirit prioritize so that I can be His masterpiece.

More often than not, I really enjoy good things! If He has good things planned for me, why do I keep trying to do everything on my own without constantly being in a conversation with Him? The conversation could be prayer, question, then silence… but I’m not that patient or disciplined yet. I’m going to start out by having Him in the forefront of my mind before I go about my everyday tasks and identities. I need to let the Spirit bring order to my life, not me.

by Josh Snodgrass

One of my favorite Peanuts cartoons starts with Lucy at her five-cent psychology booth, where Charlie Brown has stopped by for advice:

“Life is like a deck chair, Charlie,” she says. “On the cruise ship of life, some people place their deck chair at the rear of the ship so they can see where they’ve been. Others place their deck chair at the front of the ship so they can see where they’re going.”

The good “doctor” looks at her puzzled client and asks, “Which way is your deck chair facing?”

Without hesitating, Charlie replies glumly, “I can’t even get my deck chair unfolded.”

If you’re like me, you may be in the same pickle that Charlie is in. On the cruise ship for Christ, I have a lot of difficulty even opening up my deck chair. I’ve gotten it open a few times, basked in the Son, then folded it up and forgotten how to open it again. For the majority of my life I believed I was doing spirituality wrong or I just wasn’t the type of person to be spiritual. I am slowly starting to figure out that the “chair” is a huge distraction to my spiritual life…so is the ship. The reality is that we are spiritual, and we are in the Kingdom. Each step we take is a destination and God is working in every single thing in my life and yours. 

As we go about the spiritual todays of our lives, we have to choose to accept the inevitable fact that we are already there and that it isn’t about “how to” or “why not” it’s about right now, every single day. 

Thank You, Lord, for erring on grace when I err on distractions. 

Have you passed on a chance to share your faith with a friend or family member? You were probably thinking, “Oh, I’m not good at sharing my faith. It’s not my gift, it’s just not my thing.” The above passage states that God is not looking for capable servants – He is looking for willing servants. God is in the business of making willing servants capable.

The Lord countered all of Moses’ doubts, but Moses still refused to think he was able to deliver Israel. Surprisingly, God does send someone else, Moses’ brother Aaron. God’s mercy and grace overcame in spite of Moses’ insecurities.

What are you telling yourself that is getting in the way of taking action?

You might be able to haggle with God a little bit. And ya never know, just being in the conversation with him may bring a little clarity.

by Josh Snodgrass

Today, four out of five teens are using social media, so that means that the world is growing more social, right? Sadly, no! Research is actually showing us the opposite is happening. The more time teens spend communicating through screens, the fewer close friends they have, and the more they struggle with communicating face to face. Communication takes practice, and the more we are in front of our screens, the less likely we are to want to talk with people face to face! 

We are naturally social beings. When we separate ourselves from what we are meant to do (be around people), we get insecure, depressed, emotional, confused, fearful, anxious, and/or just plain weird.

Summer break is here, and it’s the perfect breeding ground for teenagers to become socially awkward, especially with the abundance of new social networking apps that have come out this last year! When teens stay up until 3 AM with the bright glow of a screen illuminating their face, they will develop sleep disorders. They will lose friends, and believe it or not, they can become cranky when asked to participate in family time. Teens actually lose the desire to communicate face to face.

We as parents and teachers (Since Josh is not actually a parent of a teen, it seems a better way to say this by adding “and teachers”.) can help protect our kids from the impending social media harm by introducing them to the world—the real world around them. We can go against the media stream and teach our kids how to be socially confident and engaging. I would like to encourage you to explore the many activities that our community provides, and create a plan of action to keep you and your teen socially active this summer!

by Josh Snodgrass

The reality is, it just takes one…but teens need other teens in their lives. It is a very important part of life that a lot of people miss out on. A light bulb, if working properly, can give new light/perspectives on dark/difficult situations. That is what we are facilitating and growing in our youth group! We are all helping one another grow in a deeper understand of God’s love and casting new light into each other’s difficult situations.

If you have a youth or know a teenager, I really want to encourage you to introduce them to the idea that they are not alone or weird. It is important to share that likeness with others! If it’s CTK’s YTHGRP or another church down the road, they need to be around other Christian teens! Get them involved and out of their comfort zone.

by Josh Snodgrass

Lets face it; we have transitioned comfortably into the digital age with scientists and philosophers fighting to create the name for the new technological era that is fast advancing. But with the comforts of technology, there seems to be an underlying discomfort, especially if you are a parent of a teenager. 

Our teenagers have grown up without knowing what life is like without information at our fingertips or being able to connect to anyone, anywhere, at any time. This kind of technology is a very new thing, but to them, this is how it has always been. No social interaction, the half-hearted skill of texting while maintaining eye contact, or the always-changing online lingo can feel annoying, distracting, consuming and detaching.

I know that as a parent it can be very difficult, and sometimes scary, to promote and limit (at the same time) the use of these technologies. Here are some helpful tips I have found to get your teen back!

Show by Example: When you get home from work and you connect with your technology more than your teen, they will end up doing the same.

Create Sanctuaries: Bring back sacred spaces and situations. Create physical boundaries with the usage of your electronics at home. Relationships are vital and when we minimize the importance of them by bringing in handheld distractions, it devalues one another. 

Don’t be Afraid to Take Away: Teenagers are notorious for overreacting when punished. Don’t let your child’s reactions dissuade your punishment.

Research and Know: There are new apps, videos, music, and websites popping up everyday. Be aware of what your teen is into by researching and staying in the loop. Ask your teen questions like, “What does this song mean to you?”, “How does this app support what you value in life?”, or “Why do you approve of this website?”. Allow for deeper ideas and conversations by asking open-ended, follow-up questions.