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What a Pastor Can Learn from a Drug Dealer
This is a very intersting article that was in the Toronto Star last week.. it was brought to my attention this week by a friend..
What drug dealers can teach us
Published March 17, 2010
Vanessa Lu
Staff Reporter
It’s a provocative idea: What Toronto can learn from a drug dealer.
On the Your City My City blog, Rev. Jim Parker, who is minister at the Bethany Baptist Church on Pape Ave. in East York, recounts a story he heard often about a Boston preacher who went to a drug dealer for advice on appealing to youth.
“Sir,” he said, “I want to help the youth of this community, but nothing I do seems to attract any youth.”
“Yes,” the drug dealer replied.
“But I notice,” responded the preacher, “that your youth ministry is doing quite well.”
“Yes,” replied the drug dealer.
The preacher then asked his question: “What, may I ask, is your secret?”
“You really want to know?”
“I do,” the preacher nodded emphatically, “I really want to know what makes you so successful.”
“It’s simple,” declared the drug dealer sincerely, “I’m there … and you’re not. When Jamal comes home from school, I’m there and you’re not. When Susie wants excitement, I’m there and you’re not. When Mark wants a job, I’m there and you’re not.”
This is a true story from Eugene Rivers, who helped rid his Boston neighbourhood of gangs, said Parker. And it speaks volumes about what ordinary citizens and elected officials can do to make our city better.
While Parker had heard the drug dealer story many times, he didn’t know it involved Rivers until the minister visited Toronto in January 2006, invited by a local faith alliance after a previous summer of shocking gun violence.
The YouTube *Broadcast My Life* Phenom
I don’t get it.. it seems like every day a new person/family has decided that they are going to put their families life on YouTube… I love YouTube.. I use it to check stuff out, get reviews, watch trailers, all that fun stuff.. but it seems more and more people are creating daily vlogs of their life.. it shows their family and all the stuff they go through in the run of a day.
Personally I am subscribed to only 1 YouTube users site.. and thats sxephil (please note, its usually NSFW due to language) I subscribe to Phil’s videos because I find them hilarious.. its always a funny way of hearing the interesting news that happened in a day.. I’m not really a news guy, I don’t like to sit down and watch the 10 o’clock news, because I find it very bland, so I watch things like sxephil, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and The Colbert Report.. (obviously sxephil is NOT on the same level as the other 2, but its still one I watch).
Today I was hunting around on YouTube and I stumbled onto a feed called The Shaytards.. which is a family who just broadcast their lives daily.. also a friend of mine has recently started doing a daily family vlog as well.
The thing that confuses me is.. why? I’m sorry, but I just don’t care about your trip to Best Buy, or WalMart, or who you had over last night for dinner.. unless it was like James Bond.. why is it that people think we care? BUT ALSO why is it that there are people who do care so much about an “uncensored” look at someones life that you will spend hours filming, and then even more hours editing a video… For example.. the most recent ShayTards video has nearly 700,000 views.. and its so lame..
Can someone explain this to me? Are YouTube daily vlogs the new Reality TV show? I know that many people ask this same question even of a blog.. but the fact is a blog doesn’t take NEARLY the amount of time a daily vlog takes.. this post for example has taken me 5 minutes to write, and you maybe 2-3 minutes to read.. but a “good” vlog takes HOURS.. are people really making that much money with youtube partnerships and google adsense that they are basically spending a typical working day on a vlog? Am I missing something here? I just know that my life is far to unexciting for me to waste that kind of time.. and the reality is, no one would watch it.. heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if no one was reading this..
The Way We Communicate
Yesterday I was walking through the halls at the highschool, on my way to bible study, when I saw a guy a girl (clearly bf and gf) walking down the hall towards me, holding hands.. a pretty common scene to see in a high school.. but the thing that threw me off was, they were both wearing headphones, listening to music.
It made me remember a time a couple years ago, when I had a bunch of students over at my house. We were sitting in my living room playing video games, we were hanging out together, having fun. Then at one point, I stopped what I was doing, and looked around the room at the mass of students who were in my house, and noticed something, no one was talking. In fact, no one was really communicating at all. I only had 3 controllers for my PS2, so 3 people were playing the game, 2 of the 3 had headphones in their ears, with the music blaringly loud, then as i looked around the rest of the room, 2 students were on my computer, one was sitting on the couch on my laptop, and another one was sitting at the table, just sitting there.
This caused me to think about the way we communicate. When I was a kid, even as a teenager, when you hung out with friends, you usually sat around the living room and talked about things like your week, what you were doing on the weekend, you talked.. that was the point. But, we had a big group of students sitting in my house, they would all say that “we were all hanging out together” but yet there was not one word being spoken, and in fact no one was even paying attention to the others.. they were really in their own world, for those playing the video game, it was more like they were playing against the computer, because they weren’t talking with each other.. no one poking fun at the other, no one talking smack.. and for those around the rest of the room, they were in their own world, with music on so loud that even if I did try to speak to them, they wouldn’t have heard me.
What happened? When did we become so independent that we don’t even talk to our friends? When did “hanging out” become merely a group of people just sitting in a room with each other?
New Trailer for To Save a Life
It’s all the rage right now in youth ministry circles.. There have already been screenings of it at some different conferences, some of my buddies got to see it, and said it was a great movie, and I trust their judgement. It doesn’t officially hit theatres until January 22nd.. if I had to take a guess, our theatre won’t be screening it.. but, the Quinte Area Youth Network is working on a way to get a local screening.. one way or another, I’m sure it will happen.
Anyways, enough yapping.. heres the trailer:
Twitter and Me.. Whats the Point?
Working in Christian ministry, I hear the following question on almost a daily basis, from students, parents of students, and other people in ministry; “what the heck is twitter, and why do you use it so much?” In fact, theres been a few times when our pastor has even made jokes, from the pulpit about twitter, while looking at me smiling, because he knows I use it, and he thinks everything tech is pointless.. its great!
In the past few months, twitter has really made a growth spurt, news channels are using it, talk show hosts, bands, marketing companies, cities use it to advertise jobs and tourist information.. however, I didn’t start using it when Oprah announced she was using it, nor did I use it so I could get the latest scoop on John Mayer.. infact, its only until recently that I actually started following a couple celebs on twitter..
I started using twitter before it really became popular.. I thought it was a neat way to meet some people who do the same thing I do.. because I was able to search for tweets based on certain words.. so I would search for words like Youth for Christ, Worship and things of that nature, and still to this day, I’m one of 2 people in my town who use twitter, but the only one who uses it on a regular basis.. the other person is a student, who posts a few times a month..
So why do I use Twitter.. the simple answer is, I use it to meet people. One of the first people I followed on twitter was @chrisfromcanada he’s a worship leader here in Ontario, and he and I have chatted quite a bit since then, talking about worship and things of that nature… I use twitter to “meet” people who are interested in similar things to me.. Continue Reading…
Chris Burke Husband to Jennifer, father to Seth and Micah.
Worship Pastor at Madoc Baptist and director of Centre Hastings Youth Unlimited. Photographer, Geek and lover of all things Apple 
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