the high school pastor at my church was over for coffee this morning and he told me a great story. last week, he was having dinner with a group of students, and asked if anyone had anything cool happen to them this week. one kid said, “well, i got a new truck.” brian asked how that happened, and the kid went on to tell this story…

he has to drive past three golf courses every day from home to school. driving past one, a golf ball flew over a fence, from behind him, and hit his rear-view mirror. the little mirror’s glass shattered and flew through his open driver window into the car. he stopped and checked out the car, but nothing else was wrong.

he and his parents took his (old, beater) truck in to a local dealership to have the rear-view mirror replaced. when the dealership started the work, they didn’t want their workers in the truck with the pieces of glass (safety first!), and sent the truck to a local detailer to have it cleaned out first.

a few days later, the teenager and his parents saw his little truck driving around town. they followed the truck, called the dealership — police got involved and an 8 police-car chase ensued. turns out one of the workers at the detailing place, who also happened to be an illegal alien, had been “borrowing” the truck for personal use, and had put a couple-hundred miles on it.

when the parents and teenager went back to the dealership, the owner (of the dealership) asked to meet with them. he said, “what can i do to make this right?” The mom responded (just thinking out loud) that she wasn’t excited about her son driving around town in a truck that had been stolen and resulted in a guy getting arrested for theft. the dealership owner said, “i totally understand; go out back and choose any new [ford] F150 you want.” the kid got a brand-new truck for free. then the dealership owner says to the parents, “what are you driving?” and they tell him they’re driving a 2003 explorer. he says, “well, give me your explorer and go pick a new one.”

so… i’ll be driving past golf courses on a more regular basis in the future. here’s hoping!

tic (ys’ pres of events) lives on the side of a hill, and has a deck that faces west. you can’t quite see the ocean from his deck, because there’s another hill several miles away, blocking the view. but there are still amazing sunset views. and since yaconelli loved sunsets so much (his hawaii trip pix would always be 90% sunset shots), we’ve gathered as a ys staff a few times in the last couple years to watch the sunset together.

last night was perfect — we’ve had santa ana winds, so the weather is extremely warm and clear. and the sunset last night was fantastic. about 5 minutes before it hit the horizon, we all gathered around in silence and thought of mike. a few sniffles were heard here and there; but otherwise, it was totally silent as the yellow to orange to red giant orb slipped below the horizon. then, in that after-moment of silence, karla yaconelli let out a “WOO-HOO!”, and we all raised our glasses.

immediately following the toast, i talked about how — with two years under our grief-belts, and so many good things — we’ve had the opportunity to experience some perspective on mike’s death. but there’s an “in your face” shock and grief — that we all know because of our experience two years ago — that so many of our friends are going through this weekend.

our good friend and free-lance editor, randy southern, lost his wife after a multi-year struggle with cancer, friday night. randy has 9-, 7-, and 4-year-old kids.

our good friends chris and lisa seay, david and toni crowder, jack, mike h, mike d, jason and jeremy (the david crowder band) have lost a very dear friend in kyle lake. not to mention the hundreds of people in kyle’s church, and his wife and little kids.

and our good friend and perennial convention volunteer, dave pentecost, was living through the one-year anniversary of his own wife’s death yesterday.

so we prayed. we prayed for our friends, and for those we don’t know. we prayed for strength and peace. we prayed that god wouldn’t feel distant to them at this time, but that they would have a tangible sense of god’s closeness, god’s care, god’s embrace.

then we went inside, had fantastic pizza (we ARE youth workers, after all), and watched the DVD of yaconelli’s last talk at the charlotte youth workers convention two years ago — which was just wonderful.

and how it’s halloween. weird.

this morning during church, my phone buzzed, and showed that i had an incoming call from chris seay (of ecclessia in houston, and an emergentYS author). i didn’t take it at the time, but called him back as soon as church got out.

chris gave me absolutely tragic news. kyle lake is the pastor of university baptist church in waco. this is the church that chris started years ago, before moving to houston to start ecclessia. it remains a very important church in the emerging church movement. it’s also the home church for david crowder and his entire band, and they regularly lead worship when they are home. this morning, kyle was in the baptismal tank during the church service, and was somehow electrocuted (it’s a bit unclear how this happened, at this point). he shouted out for help and went under. doctors in the congregation immediately came up to try to help, and kyle was transported to a local hospital. but he didn’t make it — he passed away.

as you can imagine, this is an incredible loss for chris and lisa seay, for david and toni crowder (and all the crowder band-mates: jeremy, mike h, mike d, jack and jason), and an enormous loss for the church (as well as truly horrible thing for those who were present).

kyle has written a couple fantastic books, including a brand-new one on prayer that he just sent me this week. i emailed him on friday (two days ago) and thanked him, saying that i have a sense that the two of us would become good friends if we could ever spend some time together. he responded that he feels the same way, and would love to do so. we tentatively agreed to hang out, at the latest, at our convention in austin next fall.

today is the 2nd anniversary of mike yaconelli’s death. i have a sense that i’m going to really start to dread this weekend in future years. as readers of this blog know, i have a fondness for questions over answers (that gets me in trouble with some people). but this is a day when i would sure appreciate some answers.

please pray for all who will be so dramatically affected by this tragedy.

tomorrow is the 2nd anniversary of yac’s death. it’s a heavy day. i handled it really poorly last year; and hope i can be a bit more mature about it this year. it’s a bit compounded, emotionally, by the fact that the wife of an old friend of mine died — after a multi-year, up-and-down battle with cancer — last night. and it’s halloween weekend, which is a bit silly, but the whole weekend now has a death feel to it. i still miss mike in fits and starts. i’ll go days, even weeks, without thinking much about him. then i’ll have a strong memory or sense-of-his-presence, or longing for his input or laugh or smile, and i’ll feel the heaviness of heart (or other emotions, some very positive). of course, living life with karla yaconelli keeps mike in the forefront of memory many days, as she is still hip-deep in grief (not the first-few-months’ wailing kind of grief, but the protracted “will it always be this way?” kind of grief).

on a good note: i have almost nothing on this weekend. last night we had a family movie night (watched liar, liar). today i have a “honey do” list, and am taking max to the park to teach him to ride his bike without training wheels (he’s a bit behind on this — really hasn’t wanted to do it). tomorrow, church and our small group.

and tomorrow night, a bunch of us from YS are getting together at tic’s house to “toast the sunset” and watch the DVD of mike’s last talk at the charlotte NYWC two years ago (days before his death).

a dear friend of mine from across the big pond (sounds like “dances with wolves”, huh?), wrote me the other day. he had attached a photo of a new green shoot pushing up in the middle of some snow and frost. and he wrote:

This reminds me of our much loved and missed, grizzled, beloved Mike, when I read this yesterday I wept…. I hadn’t cried over him for a while…… then when I put samuel to bed last night and asked him what story he wanted he picked ‘The Three Trees’, when i got to the line ‘…… and the trees nearly forgot their dreams’ i lost it. samuel asked why I was crying. I told him I missed my friend, and then with
the assurance only 2 year olds can have he said ‘don’t worry daddy you will see him again, and then you can drink wine’…… now where the heck did that come from?

…… right from the heart of heaven is my guess

and even with all those needless elipses, i was likewise moved.

for those who didn’t know mike, it’s not too late. two of his books — , and – have been a life-line of hope to thousands of normal people. certainly, two of the most influential books in my own life. and, the yaconelli tribute section of our website that we put together after his death is still there, with tons of great stuff on it. here’s a link to that.

i miss you mike. i can’t wait to see you again someday. my priorities might change between now and my own death, someday. but for now, you get the #2 spot on my “must see as soon as i get there” list; right behind jesus.

oh, us church people. we’re especially adept at creating red-tape, aren’t we? a truly congregational church (not the denomination, but the structure) can sure make it obvoius why so few socialist governments can really make a go of it.

a loyal ysmarko reader sent this to me today. he and another pastor on staff had asked their church leadership if it would be possible to link to their blogs from the church website. this is the written response they received:

Hi [name] and [name],

The “task force” considered your requests to provide links to your blogs on the Church web site at our last meeting. The following conveys the committee’s thinking on the subject at this point.

Whereas blogs are typically personal and should not be controlled, censored, or managed by anyone other than the owner of the blog; and

Whereas links and/or sub-links which may be placed on a blog could have content inappropriate to the purpose and audience of the church web site;

Therefore, the “Information Policy Task Force” of our church states that unless and until the IPTF is able to produce standards to which blogs must conform in order to be consistent with the purpose of the church web site, no blog references will be identified on the church web site.

If you need any further information, please call me.

i’m not arguing for church websites linking to every youth pastor’s blog. but: an IPTF? and, two “whereas’s” and a “therefore”? i bet they used Roberts Rules of Order (more sacred than leviticus in most protestant churches) to make this decision. and i bet the IPTF have cool matching logo shirts.

saw this funny, self-centered, googly idea over at claudia’s blog. go to google and write your name and the word ‘needs’, in quotes — as in “marko needs”. notice the first 10 sensical sentences that come up. here’s what i got:

it’s good to see a great band spread their wings like this.

(ht to jonny baker, who no longer seems to actually blog, but does like to post links to things)

oh, and while i’m posting baker-like links, i might as well link to this addictive game.

ok, and (ht to dan roth)

we’ve been getting a bit of heat from a web article accusing us of embracing eastern religions (here’s the article). This isn’t the first time, of course. Sabbath took tons of hits. Yac did also. And YS has been maligned for years by the LighthouseTrails “research” website .

A couple days ago I got an email from a youth worker who’s been adding some contemplative elements to his youth ministry, and taking a bunch of heat for it. this week, a church member sent him the above article. This youth worker was just looking for some help, and asked three questions (that I thought were good questions). So I took the time to write a fairly long response; partly because I thought we should help him; and partly because I wanted to form some thoughts and responses for what i expect to be an ongoing parade of these complaints and questions.

The youth worker’s questions are in bold; my responses in normal text.

I received this link from a church member today. In her note and in a previous meeting, she brings up the proximity of emergent practices to New Age and eastern mysticism, which I respectfully disagree as a thought pattern grounded firmly in 20th century fundamentalism and in absence of 19 centuries of church histories.

I was wondering how you respond to this type of criticism. I am all about listening to all sides of arguments since I surely am not an authority on everything. At the same time, the more I try to educate and introduce old things responsibly, the more flack I get. So here are a couple of things I wonder about this article.

1. Do you think that the statement “that you introduce students to yoga or to contemplative prayer practices where you say a word over and over again to put yourself into what Youth Specialties says is a ’semi-conscious state” is something that came from YS or was that something misread from something you’ve published?

Well, first of all, the only place we ever offered “yoga” (it was called “yoga and stretching”) was at the National Pastors Convention. It’s never appeared as a suggestion in any Youth Specialties materials (for youth ministry), nor have we had it at our National Youth Workers Convention. So it is a bit ludicrous (actually, flat out false) to say that YS introduces students to yoga. But that said, yoga is really just about stretching and slowing down. Sure, yoga, I suppose, could focus on Hindi or Buddhist gods or something – but it can also focus on Christ. We received a couple stomping-mad complaints about the yoga at the National Pastors Convention, saying “putting your body in those positions invites Hindi gods to enter your body.” I’m sorry – this just sounds like heresy to me. If we don’t believe Hindi gods actually exist, then why are we concerned about them entering our bodies? And even for those who would say this is about other dark spiritual forces in the world; well, as believers, we have no fear of them. So the whole “don’t put yourself at risk by doing these stretching exercises” argument is just lost on me.

On saying words over and over again: well that sure is taken out of context. It’s not like we would suggest someone grab any word (“Tree!” “Towel!” “Beer!”) and chant it over and over again – which is her implication. There is a wonderful spiritual practice, however, of repeating a phrase from the Bible and seeing what God reveals to you about it (or about Him, or about you). It’s prayer: not a chant. I think of this as similar to rolling a really good piece of chocolate around your mouth to get the full flavor. The argument against this I’ve heard is the scriptural passage about not praying idle words. But these aren’t idle words – they’re the God-breathed, inspired words of scripture! Again, the application of this line of reasoning against praying scripture sounds darn close to heretical to me.

Short answer: yes, I think they’ve completely misread and misrepresented what we’ve suggested in publications, and what we offer at events. But even if they hadn’t misrepresented things, they would probably still not “like” what we ARE suggesting!

2. Were you or anyone at YS contacted for this story?

No, certainly not. I’ll be honest: this type of article is RARELY researched. Had we been contacted, we would have been more than happy to engage in dialogue about what we are and aren’t promoting. There’s a website (lighthouse trails research) that has been maligning us for years on this issue (I’m sure it was one of the sources for the article you forwarded). Look at the list of people and ministries they malign, under the heading “Avenues Through Which Contemplative Spirituality is Entering the Church … “:

I’m not sure whether to laugh at this (I mean, how did YS ever get on the same list – any list! — as some of these people? And, The Message and Rick Warren and Willow Creek are somehow ushering in Eastern Religion? And, how did Robert Schuller get on the list twice?) or be honored that we’re lumped together with some of these people and organizations.

This organization (lighthouse trails), as well as the book referenced in the agape press “news” piece (I find the name of that news agency to be highly ironic) have a few very interesting (and revealing, and not very helpful) approaches:

3. Surely you’ve heard this argument against ancient spiritual disciplines… especially since there are some which share names with Eastern practices, how do you combat the differences between Eastern mysticism and the upsurge in popularity of Christian disciplines?

A few responses:

To wrap it up a bit: Youth Specialties exists to serve youth workers; and we are driven by our passion for Jesus, and for helping youth workers expose teenagers to the passionate Jesus who loves them so perfectly. We serve the whole church, from every imaginable denominational persuasion. We’d love to serve the people who are accusing us of ushering in eastern religions – though I doubt they’ll want to be served by us.

there is a certain muscle on my backside that is not relaxing. our largest youth workers convention ever was last year in atlanta — just under 6400. that was a wild ride, and we figured it would never happen again: so we blissfully planned for 5000 in nashville this year. early on in the reg process, the numbers were extrapolating out to 7400 — and we all laughed at that, and said it was a fluke; an error in the extrapolation or something.

when we crossed 7000 on monday morning (the reg deadline was friday), we realized the 7400 projection was likely — with three weeks of trickle-in registrations. but we crossed 7350 yesterday at the end of the day. so we’ve set a cap at 7500, which we’ll likely reach this week.

i’m blown away that we had room for 7500 and are still going to have to turn people away. i just kills me to turn people away. i know that some of the last to register are those who were just able to scrape together the money. we’re fine for space in the general sessions, as they’ll be in the gaylord arena this year. but we don’t want people to have a terrible experience trying to get into seminars. and even with addtional seminar spaces added in two churches a block away, and a hotel a few blocks away, we’re at max.

i barely know how to explain this phenomenon. but i know i can’t WAIT to worship with 7500 other youth workers!

josh sargent has a very interesting blog project that’s been building steam for some time now, called the leadership blog. he asks the same seven questions of a variety of leaders in the church world, and posts their responses. there’s some very interesting reading in the responses. he asked me to respond, and posted my answers today.