21st Century Parables: November 2006

On November 11, 2006, I had a difficult decision to make. I could stick to my plan and run one of the premiere trail races in North Texas, the Rockledge Rumble. Or I could participate in Re-Ignite, a youth ministry conference put on by Group Magazine Live. Having prayed about the situation, I made up my mind and emailed the race director just days before the event:

Dear Tom,

I am extremely disappointed that I won't be able to participate in the Rockledge Rumble this year. It's my favorite local race and I look forward to it all year long. However, as a youth pastor in my church we have an important conference going on that day this year.

I take both trail running and my faith very seriously but in this case my loyalty to Christ and strengthening our teen’s relationship with Him comes first ...

I knew I had made the right decision and the conference was exactly what I needed to “reignite” my passion for youth ministry.

At the conference, the other Grace Family teen leaders (Nancy Newkirk and Corinne Brunet) and I participated in an exercise called “parable-mining” where we took everyday experiences from our lives and tied in the Gospel message. The lesson learned from the activity was that experiences provide our deepest, longest-lasting lessons in life. That's why we're so fascinated by stories, and why Jesus used stories - called parables - so often in His ministry.

The conference hosts were even selling little journals where these personal parables could be documented. I didn't want to shell out the dough for a paper-based parable-diary so I decided to put a modern-day twist on the journal idea. After some nifty webpage development, I setup an internet “blog” (short for web-log) entitled, “21st Century Parables”. The blog is dedicated to “parable-mining” from my life experience in an effort to reveal the character and compassion of Jesus Christ and what life is like in His Kingdom.

Since I’m only able to meet with our Grace Family youth group once a week during Sunday’s discipleship class, I wanted to provide a mid-week “pick-me-up” to let the teens know that I am thinking about them and praying for them.
I hope that you will laugh and learn with me on this journey. I’m going to try to publish one devotional per week (generally on Wednesdays) so everyone is invited to bookmark the site and return often to read my latest musings.