Celtic Christianity and the Spirituality of Beer

I’m currently working on a project that draws lines of connection between St. Patrick of Ireland, Celtic Christianity and New Monasticism.  It has been a fascinating study, but when I came across this Celtic prayer I couldn’t help but pass the word.  The Celtic Christians would create “everyday prayers” that created a space to acknowledge and commune with God throughout both the tedious and hopeful experiences in life.  They range from topics of making the bed to petitions for God’s protection.  The prayer below (author unknown) is a prayer of praise for their favorite beverage:

I would like to have the men of Heaven

In my own house:

With vats of good cheer

Laid out for them . . .

I would like a great lake of beer

For the King of Kings,

I would like to be watching Heaven’s family

Drinking it through all eternity.

My Book is Taking New Form!

While the e-book format of my book Teaching Through the Art of Storytelling (available here) was released this past December, Zondervan has made it official that the book will make a second release as a paperback! This is big news as many (myself included) are still a bit averse to the idea of reading a book on a screen and the paperback should allow the message to spread to a wider audience.  It doesn’t yet have an exact release date, but it looks like late April or early May.  You can pre-order the paperback through the Youth Specialities website here.

As a guy who abhors (yep, I just used the word abhor) self promotion, please help me pass the word by sharing/tweeting this post.

Here are a few recent endorsements of the book and a series of short videos explaining its contents:

What I found fascinating about this book is that I assumed I’d encounter nothing but ideas for teaching youth; but I found myself wrapped up in its pages and receiving a personal learning experience as well. It isn’t just a collection of theories either; Jon also relates incredibly helpful real-life examples and illustrations that will stretch and challenge you as you adapt them to your own youth ministry. I’m thankful for this book—it’s a rarity in youth ministry as it has the potential of impacting not only youth but also their youth leaders.”

Dan Kimball – author of They Like Jesus but Not the Church

“Jon Huckins’ Teaching Through the Art of Storytelling is right on time for today’s busy youth worker. At a time in human history where 140 characters on Twitter is enough to maintain friendship or a Facebook status update is as good as a birthday card, we need this reminder that God expresses His story to us in long-form. Filled with both the sound biblical philosophy and practical tips, this book belongs in the backpack of every youth worker.”

~ Adam McLane, Youth Specialties

“As we seek to find the most helpful ways to reveal the message and mission of Jesus, locating storytelling in the center of our methods will remain of primary significance.  this book will inspire you towards firing the imagination of your youth in very reachable, experiential and practical ways.  Well done, Jon!”

Chris Folmsbee, author of A New Kind of Youth Ministry

Why Did You Write Teaching Through the Art of Storytelling? from Jon Huckins on Vimeo.

Why Did You Write Teaching Through the Art of Storytelling? from Jon Huckins on Vimeo.

A Really Loud Silence

Embacing silence is an art. In fact, it is a lost art for many.  How many of us can embrace or even enjoy the silence in a conversation that has run dry of relevant topics?  Do we turn the radio on as soon as we sit in our car?  How about exercising with an iPod?  I don’t believe any of these realities are inherently bad, but I am discovering that the majority (I am the worst of these!) of people in our society aren’t comfortable with silence.  Rather than silence being the default reality, “noise” has become the default.

The Carthusians (of the Benedictine tradition) are a monastic order who believe that silence is foundational to all meaningful spirituality.  With the exception of shared liturgy and prayer, they live lives of complete silence.  They work in silence, eat in silence, walk in silence…For the Carthusians, God doesn’t speak to them because of the silence, instead they experience God speaking to them within the silence. The recent documentary (which I still haven’t seen) Into Great Silence chronicles the life of a community living in a Carthusian monastery.

A couple weeks ago I went on a day long silent retreat to a local monastery.  It was a requirement for a Spiritual Disciplines course I am currently taking, but I was really looking forward to the extended silence.  Sadly, it seems that it takes something “forced” upon me to slow down long enough to experience such silence. I prayed that the time would be loud in ways other than sound.

After an opening shared liturgy and prayer, I entered into my time of complete silence.  To be honest, it was a bit terrifying.  20 minutes of silence can feel like an eternity, so staring 6 hours in the face was a daunting prospect.  Further, when left only with the option of introspection, your mind starts to dig up stuff that has been buried by distraction and busyness for a long time.  It took the first hour to go through a disciplined inventory/evaluation of my heart and mind in an effort to be centered in silence before Jesus.  I sensed the need to simply be present, rather than move forward with any agenda or asking.

Although there were a couple of spiritual exercises (Centering Prayer and Stations of the Cross), the time was spent purely in a place of introspective silence…and it was hard.  It is a discipline that I have far from mastered, but was made aware of the formative place such a discipline should have in my life.  I can see why the Desert Fathers considered their time in isolation to be a profound experience of temptation.  How can one be tempted when removed from society? When we leave ourselves exposed to the realities of our inner being, we run into all sorts of stuff that tempts us to entertain thoughts, emotions and memories that lead down destructive paths.  It is in facing those temptations and wading through them that we find ourselves more present before our Maker than ever before. I think Jesus experienced and embodied this reality in his 40 days in the desert (Matt. 4).

My time was blanketed in silence, but it was really loud.

Is the art of embracing silence something that you have wrested with?  What is it that keeps us from such a discipline?  What are some practices that may be helpful as we create room for silence in our daily/weekly rhythm’s of life?

Lead By Position or Through Influence?

I recently wrote an article chronicling some of the key tensions I faced while working in the formal position of Youth Pastor.  It was published on the Youth Specialties site today.  Can you relate or have you experienced this tension?

It was my first day working in the local public high school.  The teenagers walk into my classroom, 70% listening to their iPods while the other 30% are busy texting.  They turn the chairs from their desks and face them towards their friends so they can carry on the conversation they were having on the bus.  Trying not to show my inner panic, I calmly walk around the room and keep a stern face while thinking, “I’m sure they will all focus once the final bell rings for class to start.”  One minute later the bell rings.  It might as well have been their mom asking them to take out the trash…no response.  I think, “What have I gotten myself into?”

I had worked at churches and been in youth ministry my whole adult life.  I owned the title of “youth pastor” and was pretty good at it.  Most little boys want to be baseball players or astronauts when they are little.  I wanted to be a youth pastor.  Weird?  Maybe, but there was some truth to that dream and aspiration.  I loved teenagers and being a youth pastor was a great context to serve them.

My time as a youth pastor was full of authentic relationships, generally; the teenagers came to me and I was the guy that was supposed to have all the answers and create a good time.  Everything was going smoothly until I started asking myself some hard questions…Read Complete Article Here

Turning the Page of a Generation

It’s been a week since my last post and it wouldn’t make sense for me to jump back in without processing a bit of the past week.  After all, blogging is as much a devotional time for me as it is a writing discipline.

My wife and I lost both of our last two remaining grandparents. After a last minute flight to Omaha and a 4 hour drive to the small farming town of Red Cloud, we made it to the bedside of Jan’s grandpa.  Although he was extremely weak, we trust that he heard our voices and little Ruby’s cry.  Jan’s mom (Char) told him that we had all made it to be with him and that he was free to finally let go.  The next morning, with Jan, Ruby and Char at his side, he took his last breath.

The night before we left for Kansas we spent an extended time with my 93 year old grandma who lives down here in San Diego.  Her health was also deteriorating quickly and in our goodbye’s that evening, we had a sense it would be our last time with her.  After all the family made it to her bedside, her son (my uncle) told her that we would be OK and she was free to finally let go.  A couple days later, while in the Omaha airport to fly back to San Diego, I got the call that she had taken her last breath.

It was a week where the Entangled Theology of life and death was made a present reality.

The Pain

It’s strange turning the page on a whole generation.  Our parents are now the grandparents and the page turns.  The lives of our grandparents connected us to our heritage.  With a combined 180 years of life, they were around when WWI was at its peak and the Model T had only recently hit the road.  Further, they not only symbolize our roots in Ireland (Jan) and Sweden (me), but our childhood.  Driving around the small farm town of Red Cloud, Janny reflected on all the summers she spent riding tractors, swimming in the community pool and running around her grandparent’s farmhouse.  I think back to playing Little League and looking in the stands to see my grandma dialed into the action or when she would wake me up in the middle of the night to eat ice cream and play cards.  It will be strange not having Ruby know these two like we did.

The Joy

These two lived relationally rich and long lives.  To be honest, in their suffering towards the end, we prayed for a peaceful release from this life.   While it hurts not to have them physically present, we have years of experiences to reflect on and share with our children.  Further, it was incredible to be present with them in these final days.  We have no regrets and are now realizing that one of the central purposes for our move to San Diego was to be able to spend so much time with my grandma in these final months as representatives of our whole family.  Finally, as followers of the resurrected Jesus, we can’t help but be stirred to joy as we anticipate a reunion at the culmination of God’s restoration project for humanity.

Although a whirlwind of experiences and emotions that we would rather not have to endure anytime soon, we are reminded of the value of being fully present with those we love.  May we represent and extend the legacy that our loved ones pass on to each of us.