RECENT BLOG POSTS

Volunteering Stinks!

Posted on: 04/23/09 1:10 PM | by Jonathan McKee

Yeah… I said it. There are times that it stinks to be a volunteer! (You probably didn’t foresee that coming from a guy who wrote a book about volunteering!)

I volunteer for my daughter’s jr. high track team. Since it’s only jr. high, it’s actually through our local ‘park and rec’ (don’t ask me to explain why. This is California. It probably doesn’t make sense).

Here’s where it gets weird. Since it’s a school track team, I went and got fingerprinted, filled out paperwork at the district, got a background check, etc. No big deal… I expect that as part of volunteering (I just talked about the importance of this in my blog last week about the killer “Sunday School Teacher”). But two weeks into the volunteering… the head coach emails me this email:

I just was notified that park and rec needs you to fill out their paperwork and get fingerprinted for them too. Please take care of this.

Hmmmmmm.

Do you wonder why we have trouble getting volunteers? (Maybe that’s why I’m the only parent out there!)

The volunteer recruiting principal violated here is what I called the “Oh, by the way” jab, in chapter 2 of my book, THE NEW BREED. We shouldn’t bring on volunteers, only to spring all kinds of, “Oh, by the way, I need you to…” obligations on them later.

“2 separate fingerprintings!” Hilarious!

So today I filled out my 8th form, got fingerprinted a second time… and I’m off to track practice!

Posted in Books, Personal, Youth Ministry Philosophy | | Leave A Comment

An American in Canada

Posted on: 04/22/09 9:55 AM | by Jonathan McKee

The Looney, the Tooney, the Canucks, Much More Music, and “Let’s go get a coffee and Timmys!” These are the just some of the everyday things that we American’s don’t know about Canada.

In all actuality, there is A LOT we don’t know about Canada. Funny… it’s our largest neighbor, yet so many of us know so little about the country. (No, you can’t buy beachfront property in Saskatchewan, and no, Tim Horton is NOT their Prime Minister!)

My first surprise was when I passed the first gas station and saw this!

Check out that price!

Yeah… I thought, “Holy Crud! I’m moving here if gas is only 97 cents a gallon!” Then someone explained to me that that was 97 cents per LITER.

Oh… that’s not so good then.

Their TV takes a little getting used to also. It seems to be a little bit less censored than American TV (if you can believe that). They don’t have MTV on cable, just a show called Much More Music. Satalite subscribers can get MTV, but the Canadian MTV can’t play music videos because Much More Music has the rights (so it was explained to me).

Tim Hortons is the Starbucks of Canada. Yes, they have Starbucks also. But when someone says, “let’s go get a Timmys,” they’re referring to Tim Hortons. Tim Hortons is probably a closer match to a Dunkin Donuts. They have good coffee and a bunch of mediocre donuts.

The money up North isn’t that different, but it requires a little thinking. I went to buy a burger and it was 7 bucks. That required math on my part… because 7 bucks is about 5 bucks American… very rough math. At least they take American money- that was cool. I never exchanged money on the whole trip.

The news said the temperature was going to be 20 degrees. Again… it took me a second to realize, “Oh, Celsius.” Someone there told me to simply add 15 and double it and that would be close to the Fahrenheit. (that’s a lot easier than the official way: subtract 32 from the Fahrenheit number, divide the answer by 9, then multiply by 5.)

Cross a bridge? It only costs a Tooney, or two Looneys.

Yeah…that’s what I thought! 🙂

A Looney is a 1 Dollar coin with a picture of a loon on it. So guess what they called the two dollar coin? Yep. There you have it.

I always have a good time in Canada. This was only my third time across our great Northern border (I’ll actually be traveling there this summer also to the East Coast in New Brunswick where I’ll speak at a conference). Matt and John at South Abbotsford Church (an hour East of Vancouver) were great guys and it was fun to spend the weekend with them.

Saturday I taught my CONNECT workshop to a small network of youth workers from surrounding churches. Saturday night and Sunday morning I preached at their church. Sunday afternoon I did my parenting workshop– really neat group of parents. That was probably my favorite time of the whole weekend (I really love doing parenting workshops. Parents seem to be starving for information and ideas helping them understand and connect with their kids). Sunday night I spoke to their high school kids, about 90 something kids. (because the Canucks game ended… if not, there would have been less than half of that!)

The whole weekend was fun. Thanks to my Canadian brotha’s for bringing me out. I look forward to working with you again.

Monday in my blog I offered a free book to the first person who could give me a little history on the Canucks riot. Dan Kish- contact me (use the CONTACT US button on the top of my blog) to get your free book. Good job. (So did you look it up on the web? or did you know it already? Comment below. We’re all curious.)

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I’m home, eh?

Posted on: 04/20/09 2:33 PM | by Jonathan McKee

I just walked in the door from my trip to Canada, a great time ministering with a church about an hour east of Vancouver in a small town called Abbotsford.

Yes… I was actually in Vancouver last night… not a great time to be in Vancouver. Why, you ask? Because their hockey team won! (I know… I know… it doesn’t make sense). But everytime the team wins, the surrounding towns go crazy! In Abbotsford, it’s a giant “cruise” up and down the streets. I was speaking Sunday night and the pastor asked, “Honestly, if the game was still in overtime, who WOULDN’T be here?” A huge amount of hands went up.

Wow. I’m no match for hockey! These guys accepted the Canucks into their heart at age 5!

I was in a pizza place for dinner when the game started. Everytime the Canucks scored the place errupted. It was like being in Oakland during a Raiders game. It was like being anywhere in WI during… during the entire football season!!!! (let’s be honest… Cheeseheads are a little obsessive about the Packers!)

If you think that’s bad… feel free to research what happened when Vancouver’s Canucks lost the playoffs years ago in game 7. (Okay… quick contest for us Yanks. First American to comment on my blog with the answer gets one of my books free. Your choice.)

I’ll blog more about my Canada trip later. I’ve got a pile of work in my inbox and barely any time to do it.

Gotta go! Off to help with my daughter’s track team!

WINNER NOTE: I approve all comments before adding them. I’m just approving them now, 10 AM Tues morning. So you’ll see them added now. Looks like Dan won- I’ll be emailing him. Funny… most people just did an internet search! 🙂

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Reacting to the Day of Silence?

Posted on: 04/17/09 5:13 PM | by Jonathan McKee

Last year I blogged about the Christian response to “The Day of Silence.” It’s called “The Day of Truth,” and I’ll tell you up front… I’m not a big fan. This year I’ve been getting emails about both days… so in response to the inquiries, I’m reposting last year’s blog. Here goes…

The Day of What? (modified from it’s original 4/21/2008 version)

Why is it that Christians always feel that they need to “stand up for their rights” and speak out against organizations, or governments that are caught up in sin?

Where is this in the Bible?

It’s probably no secret to some of you that today was the pro-homosexual tolerance Day of Silence. This day brings attention to the anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools. I’m not going to address the issue of homo-sexuality in this blog. I’ve addressed it before in blogs and articles. In this blog I’m simply addressing our RESPONSE to the world when we don’t like what we see. (and I’m going to highlight an example of how NOT to respond)

Why do Christians think that picket signs or protesting is the answer?

Let me ask you: name one person you know that accepted Christ because someone “protested” them into the Kingdom.

So why do Christians feel the need to do this?

Oh… I know why. It’s because when Jesus looked at the corrupt government of his day (Are you aware of what was going on in Herod’s house at the time?) he must have responded by gathering a mob and picketing the immoral lifestyle… wait… just a second… you mean… he didn’t? Well maybe he started a website, organizing people to protest in another way? No?

Hmmmmmm.

Well, Christians have created their own day in response to the Day of Silence called The Day of Truth. On Monday, April 20, 2009, some Christians have decided to establish this day to “counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective… The Day of Truth provides an opportunity to publicly exercise our free speech rights.”

When I saw this I immediately thought of a few conversations I’ve had with Dan Kimball on the subject. Dan is a Christian speaker and author who believes engaging in homosexual acts is a sin, but shows incredible compassion and love to the homosexual community (He touches on this in our podcast with him, Podcast Episode #12 and in his powerful book, They Like Jesus, But Not the Church). I asked Dan his opinion about this Christian response- The Day of Truth. Dan gave me some quick thoughts:

i think those types of things end up doing more harm than good. i would encourage parents to be talking with their teenagers and youth leaders addressing it wisely in their ministries, but doing a public event at a high school i am not sure is beneficial to the direction of hope. i would encourage the Christian teenagers to simply be friends with gay students and pro-gay students, and in the context of friendships the message of jesus will come through. I don’t know if formalizing a date to do it only reinforces things and we lose our voice.

I can’t agree more.

Earlier this year many of us saw statistics of just how bad we look to the rest of the world. Only 16% of unchurched people had positive things to say about Christians. The majority of them used words like “hypocrite” and “judgemental” to describe us. The other term they use is “anti-homosexual.”

It all comes down to this. The Day of Truth web site is not without good intentions. They seem to be seeking conversation with homosexuals. Their cards bear this as part of their message:

It’s time for an honest conversation about homosexuality.
There’s freedom to change if you want to.
Let’s talk.

I think talking is good. But here’s what I’ll leave you with: If our goal is conversations, do you really think a formal day of “speaking out” will create conversations with homo-sexuals? Or will it build walls?

Some great comments to this blog last year here.

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Pose Nude… Wait… Don’t! Post Pics… Wait… Don’t!

Posted on: 04/16/09 11:06 AM | by Jonathan McKee

And we wonder why our kids are making bad decisions.

Let me start by highlighting a story from my son’s high school that made national news. I’m referring to the cheerleading coach, Carlie Beck, that was just fired after it was discovered that she posed nude for Playboy.

The website of one of my local Sacramento news stations reports the story with feedback from parents. One parent, Sue Feather, said…

…she felt sorry for Beck, but added it was a lesson for students, including her own freshman daughter at Casa Roble.

“Be careful what you get out there because it will follow you all the way through your life. And this is a great example for this gal and it’s a great teaching moment as a mom for my child,” Feather said.

I guess life is just full of these examples right now… ask your local Dominos Pizza employee (that article here).

Hmmmm.

So it seems that today’s message from the media is simply, “Be careful what you take pictures of!”

Is this the correct message? Is this even the message our kids always here? I’m not sure. Because just a little while ago Jennifer Aniston got naked on the front of GQ magazine and CNN said, “Good for her!” (I blogged about that here.)

Everyone has a different opinion on what’s okay. Cheerleading coach Beck added her two cents to the issue. Take it from her, I quote from the Sacramento Bee this morning:

“As far as Playboy pictures, people categorize them as being pornographic,” she said. “I kind of disagree. I think it’s artistic … We all shower naked. We all do a lot of things naked.”

Wow… it’s hard to ever respond to that. (So many cheerleader jokes are coming to mind right now…)

Joking aside… our kids are probably a little confused. Which is it? “Shame on you!” or “Good for you!” Our kids certainly don’t know…

…which leads to this article, Vermont Lawmakers Look to Legalize Teen ‘Sexting.’ I’ve heard both sides of the issue, and maybe child pornography charges might sound severe… but come on folks. What are our kids to think when we’re actually going as far as passing laws saying, “It’s now legal for kids to send graphic sexual images of ourselves to each other.”

Sigh.

So what can we take away from all of this?

Parents… let’s talk with our kids. Engage in healthy conversations about these issues. Use life lessons like these to dialogue about integrity, character and the consequences of our behavior. Don’t be afraid to use discussion starters that point to the Biblical truth about these issues.

Or… you could leave it up to the media to teach these lessons.

You choose.

Posted in Internet, Jonathan's Rant, Sexuality, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment

Does Street Evangelism Work? Part II

Posted on: 04/15/09 11:00 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Last week I blogged about an intriguing article from Salon.com written by a non Christian college student who went undercover as a believer on a missions trip with Liberty University, reaching out to the “lost” people partying during spring break at Daytona Beach, FL . This guy actually enrolled at Liberty (as in “Jerry Falwell’s” Liberty) to learn the inside scoop about evangelicals first hand. (apparently, this is an excerpt of Kevin’s book, The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University)

The article was really amazing… and as I already shared in my previous blog… I was compelled to ask my friend Greg Stier to write a response to it. Greg is the “evangelism guru”… a true authority on the subject.

Greg obliged, and I promised you that I’d post Greg’s response. Well… yesterday we sent out his response to all our web site’s EZINE subscribers, encouraging them to take the time to read that original article from the “unlikely disciple,” then Greg’s response.

I encourage you to do the same.

Here’s the original article from the non believer.

Here’s Greg’s response as per our EZINE newsletter.

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Are these numbers inflated?

Posted on: 04/14/09 12:07 PM | by Jonathan McKee

We’ve been hearing a whole lot of hype about “sexting” and stats in the news lately. Today I found a fascinating article giving us a little bit of “behind the scenes” on some of these polls.

First we heard about the huge numbers of kids involved in this sexting trend; then we heard from “experts” saying we shouldn’t worry. That prompted my Youth Culture Window article on the subject this week, Fact or Fiction. After all… who can we believe?

In my article I provided three suggestions for you when navigating the world of statistics and percentages, one of those being “looking how the study was done.”

Today I stumbled across an article from last week’s Wall Street Journal that gave further insight about how these studies were done, specifically the validity of “online polls” and the type of audience that might draw.

Just a snippet:

“These kinds of samples select Internet cowboys and cowgirls,” says David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, who has used the telephone for his studies of teens and online behavior. “These are more likely to be the kind of people who engage in this kind of activity.” He guesses that online poll-takers might be two to four times more likely to send nude photos of themselves than the average teen.

Funny… most of the “experts” who were already “doubting” that sexting was a real problem (such as in this article) … most of them failed to make this observation, one that I think would have been a valid argument for their side.

The Wall Street Journal article goes on to suggest that alternate methods such as phone or snail mail might be more representative of the whole of teenagers. But the researchers who did the online poll plead their case, saying, “Who the hell answers a telephone survey these days, especially if you’re a teen on Mom and Dad’s landline phones?” 🙂

Fascinating stuff. I encourage you to check out the whole article here.

Posted in Entertainment Media, Internet, Youth Culture | | Leave A Comment

A Sunday School Teacher

Posted on: 04/13/09 9:18 AM | by Jonathan McKee

It seems that the words “pastor,” “priest” or “Sunday school teacher” used to bring good thoughts to mind. Unfortunately, it seems that the headlines of late are filled with bad examples of people that hold these titles.

Many of you have probably followed the story of the 8-year-old girl that disappeared on March 27th, only to be found last week in a piece of luggage pulled from an irrigation pond near her home in Tracy, CA… about an hour from my house. Sad story. Keep the family of this little girl in your prayers.

Last Saturday I woke up to reports from my local news announcing that her Sunday school teacher was just arrested in the slaying of the 8-year-old. The next morning, newspapers were filled with headlines like this article : Sunday School Teacher Arrested In Cantu’s Death.

Two thoughts about these headlines:

1. Regardless of how this turns out, the church’s reputation is being dragged through the mud once again. Thanks to a small percentage of weirdos, It’s getting more and more difficult to place positive adult role models in the lives of kids because of incidents like these. If a female Sunday School teacher- also a mom– isn’t safe… who is? (I touched on this before is this blog)

2. The church needs to be better about screening volunteers. It’s sad, but we sometimes get either too lazy or too desperate for help to go through the proper steps of recruiting and screening volunteers. I go through these steps in great detail in my book THE NEW BREED, a book about Recruiting, Training, Managing and Occasionally Even Firing Today’s Volunteers.

My dad, who co-authored that volunteer book with me, recently pastored a church where they needed to implement some policies and procedures to screen volunteers. They all used GROUP’s Church Volunteer Central – an online package for background checks, etc. I highly recommend using something like this to screen our volunteers.

I just started coaching track as a volunteer for my daughter’s middle school. I had to get fingerprinted, a background check, the whole deal. As churches, we need to provide the same sort of care and professionalism with our volunteers.

Posted in Church, News, Youth Ministry Philosophy | | Leave A Comment

Does Street Evangelism Work?

Posted on: 04/10/09 2:22 PM | by Jonathan McKee

A few weeks ago I read an amazing article from Salon.com written by a non Christian college student who went undercover as a believer on a missions trip with Liberty University, reaching out to the “lost” people partying during spring break at Daytona Beach, FL . This guy actually enrolled at Liberty (as in “Jerry Falwell’s” Liberty) to learn the inside scoop about evangelicals first hand.

After a few paragraphs I was hooked. I read every word of the lengthy testimonial. This amazing article not only provided amazing insight into the mind of an unbeliever, it proposed glaring questions about the success of this kind of evangelism methodology.

Here’s just a snippet of the article:

When we get to Daytona, Scott guides us through an all-morning training session on the whys and hows of evangelism. We sit on folding chairs in the Sunday School room of First Baptist Church of Daytona Beach, our makeshift headquarters, and eat snack-size bags of pretzels while Scott recites the “Great Commission,” the verse that serves as the architectural frame for all missionary work. It’s found in Matthew 28:19, when Jesus says to his disciples, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

“The first thing you should think when you meet anyone,” Scott says, “is ‘Are they saved?'” It’s safe to assume that almost everyone coming to Daytona for Spring Break is unsaved, he says, adding, “It’s a very dark place out there.”

Before we take our evangelical Delta Force to the beach, though, we need to learn how to witness.

There are several words for what, exactly, will be transpiring here. “Spreading the gospel,” “sharing the faith,” and “evangelizing” are all common terms for the act of attempting to convert non-believers, but “witnessing” seems to be the most all-purpose. (I should say, also, that what we’re doing would strike many Christians as odd. Proselytizing to strangers, which one Christian I know calls “cold-turkey evangelism,” is a dying art, and many evangelicals prefer less confrontational methods of proselytizing. But on this trip, it’s all strangers, all confrontation, all day.)

Fascinating stuff! Well worth the 10 to 15 minutes it could take you to read the whole thing.

When I finished the article, I immediately sent it to my friend Greg Stier from Dare2Share, calling him a few minutes later. Greg is passionate about evangelism and I respect his opinion on the subject (many of you have heard our recent podcast together where we talked about evangelism vs. social justice). After a short conversation about the article I told Greg, “You have to write an article responding to this article, because this article demands answers.”

A few days later I had an 8-page response from Greg in my inbox.

I’ll post Greg’s response next week. But I wanted to give you a head start with the Salon article linked above… I encourage you to read it.

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The Day the Earth Stood Still

Posted on: 04/7/09 10:40 AM | by Jonathan McKee

Tuesday is the day new releases always hit the video store. The question I always have is… is there anything new actually worth watching?

This week I think there is.

Maybe I’m biased just because I really like this director- I admit that. But I really enjoyed the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. The film stars Keanu Reeves (not my favorite actor), Jennifer Connelly (very good) and Jaden Smith (Will’s son… great young actor). This PG-13 film was totally clean. The rating was for “sci-fi violence.” As I said in my official movie review of this film, conservatives would probably have more problems with Shrek 3 than this film.

This isn’t my favorite movie, but it was really entertaining. And the aspect I enjoyed the most was something that this director excels at… he makes films that are entertaining, but also stimulate you to think. This film is a great discussion piece about “redemption.”

I talk a little about the film and the director in my movie review, linking my interviews with him:

Is it possible to entertain audiences and stimulate them to think about important issues without sacrificing the film’s enjoyability or coming across as preachy? I guess 2008 is the year to do it. Wall-E did it, and so did The Day the Earth Stood Still, Scott Derrickson’s remake of the 1951 classic.

I really like the director of this film. I interviewed him when his The Exorcism of Emily Rose came out two years ago. Scott is an interesting guy. He’s a Biola grad (a Christian school in Southern California) with films like Hellraiser on his director’s resume. So when he tackled “Emily Rose,” I was excited to talk with him about the horror medium. After all, a bunch of Christians would consider horror films pure evil. Right? Scott and I had an interesting dialogue about that very subject.

Note: The link above is to my first interview with Scott. I actually got a chance to interview him a second time and released it as a special podcast. If you haven’t listened to that quick 15 minute podcast where I interview Scott… I encourage you to. We talk about everything from working with Jaden Smith, to the development of his next project, Paradise Lost. (How cool is that!)

Pop some popcorn and rent this one this week.

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