Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Who'd Win In a Fight?

Some of my fondest memories from my 12 years of youth ministry occurred in a church van. I loved driving on long trips with a van of full of frontal lobotomy-like teens. The conversations that would crop up after their CD players ran out of batteries were classic! Walls would come down and hearts would open up after 4 or 5 hours in a rolling sardine can (smell & seating situation) and Kim and I would be privy to some of the funniest comments ever.

7th grade boy to no one in particular: "Hey does your mom fart because mine does and it is nasty."

9th grade girl to her 'new best friend forever': "When I first met you I thought you were a slut but now I think you're way cool."

Senior boy to Jr. High boy: "When we get to In & Out Burger you go save my place in line cuz I got to hit the bathroom and take care of the "out" before I take care of the "in" ... okay dork?

Jr. High boy in reply: "Well since your mom works there you can just get her to wait in line for you!"

In an effort to take the conversation to a more intellectually stimulating height, I invented the game, "Who'd Win in a Fight?"

The object of this game was to throw out two random people that would not likely be paired to fight by anyone, ever. Then others could chime in with their picks and give a defense of their choice. I'll give you a few examples of my favorites:

"Who'd win in a fight, Lois Brown (75+ yr old lady at our church in CA) or Matt Alvarez (16 yr old in our youth group)? Replies went something like, "Lois, cuz she goes hunting and would shoot Alvarez!" or "Matt, because he plays video games non stop and has quick reflexes."

"Who'd win in a fight, Shaq or J-Lo?" Replies included, "Shaq because he could bust out his genie magic (Kazaam reference) on J-Lo!" or "J-Lo, because she could distract him with her booty and then slap him upside his head!"

So you get the idea...

A blogging contemporary offering might be: "Who'd win in a fight, Mike Cope or Grant Boone?" Some replies could come, "Mike because he could summon the Zoe Group to help" or "Grant because he could stab Mike with his sharp wit!"

I'm sure you can think of others (both possible matches and possible outcomes) and in fact will.

But here is the question of the day (at least for me and on my blog) which I will attempt to answer in a post tomorrow:

Who'd win in a fight ... the Church ... or ... Christ?

I believe that the two are currently in conflict and yet should never be. I believe that we (church leaders and church goers) are responsible too. We have misled people into thinking the Church would be the answer to all their problems - that it would save them, change them, and fill their needs.

Stay tuned.

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