**This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**
Author: Lynn Green
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Stopping the Illegal Cannabis Trade
**This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**
I mentioned in a blog last year that I was watching the consequences of legalizing pot in my home state of Colorado. So I was back there last week with a chance to see how it is working out.
There was a strong argument that changing the law to allow cannabis to be sold openly would stop the illegal trade. That would make everyone safer because the strength and purity of pot could be openly verified.
While I was there, the local paper ran a headline that the police had raided 247 properties where illegal marijuana was being grown. WHY? I thought legalizing would put an end to all that! At least that was the argument.
I stopped to imagine that I had been growing and selling marijuana products illegally before the state made it legal. Would I be happy to register, submit to the regulators and pay taxes on my products? If I had been making a good profit, what would convince me to go to the authorities, register as a grower, welcome the inspectors and pay a good portion of my profits to the state? Would the change of law transform me into a law-abiding citizen? Not likely!
If the police are still busy trying to stop the illegal and unregistered trade in cannabis, what has changed? Well, a lot of pot is being sold legally too and that produces revenue for the State of Colorado.
So, what is the argument for making it legal to sell and use cannabis? Money.
There’s nothing new under the sun.
Lynn Green.
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What are you reading; who are you watching or listening to?
**This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**
I am always grateful when people recommend good sources for learning. Sometimes others ask me what I am reading or watching or listening to, so I thought I would begin posting some of those resources. Some of these will be current and others will be the ones that stand out from all the others over the years.
BOOKS
This biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a classic. I couldn’t put it down! Though it is a long book, every page is important and inspirational. It’s one of those books that is inspiring to the mind and feeds the spirit.
Bonhoeffer’s great book on the true nature of following Jesus stands as a signpost to any who take the Christian faith seriously. He practiced discipleship and articulated the joys and the demands as clearly as anyone has ever done.
Are you feeling like a “victim of the urgent”? Do you wish you could spend more time on the things that are really important? Do you sometimes feel harassed by all the demands on you? Do you often go to bed wondering if you did anything of value today?
I recommend a book that was published many years ago. I read it in the afternoons while I was speaking at a DTS in Aqaba, Jordan. It was one of a few books that immediately changed my life. I devoured it and put it into practice during that week.
Stephen Covey wrote a Number One Bestseller, “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People”, then he wrote this one that was popular but didn’t get the attention that Seven habits got. For me, though, the practical ideas for how to live for those really important things, was priceless. At the time, digital calendars and seamless communication between devices and other electronic helps were not well developed. I started with a paper diary notebook and about half a dozen projects that were important to me. Then I listed all the other priorities for my life, thought about them deeply, prayed for wisdom and began to prioritize my time.
When the better electronic tools came along, it was easy to make the change to digital planning because I had the foundational thinking in place. It has been a huge help! Used copies of this book are available for very little cost.
VIDEOS
For more than a year, I have enjoyed the videos produced by Jordan Peterson. He has become known as the most famous intellectual today, with millions of viewers. My son, Michael, recommended the 30 minute video where Cathy Newman of Channel 4 in the UK interviews him and I watched it when Marti and I were on holiday last year. I was hooked.Of his many videos, one from this past week is outstanding:
PODCASTS
There is so much debate about the Bible and what it teaches about sexuality, sexual identity, same-sex relationship, transsexuality, etc. There is a great series of podcasts from Bridgetown Church, Portland Oregon that was a great help to me and to Marti. We listened to them as we were driving and they made the journey seem too short! -
The Importance of Telling Stories
**This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**
I was about to leave a gathering of about 50 leaders of YWAM in Africa and they asked me to come stand at the front while they told me what impact my being there and my teaching had made. It was a very encouraging few minutes! They were grateful that I had just bothered to come without a specific invitation to teach, that I just wanted to be with them. They often struggle with a sense of isolation. Most of all, they said they loved the stories I told and would always remember them.
In recent months I have had similar comments from younger YWAM leaders in Cambodia (over 150 of them from scores of nations) and Thailand (about 250 for an afternoon) and Malaysia (around 100, I think, from many nations; again younger ones). These events seemed to be among the most appreciated and fruitful activities I have ever done. So, on the plane home from Ethiopia, I was thanking God and reflecting on why these sessions have gone so well.
On the trip, I was reading a book by the former Chief Rabbi of Britain entitled, The Home We Build Together and a sentence stood out:
“Identities are built on values, but they need narratives to make them come alive.”
Aha! That describes exactly what I have been doing. These talks are so very meaningful to people because I am helping them build secure identities as career missionaries, as YWAMers. I don’t just teach ideas or values. Rather, I emphasize a value and then tell stories that illustrate them. For example:
I told them about how Loren Cunningham gave me and my fellow students, in the first Lausanne School of Evangelism (SOE), the opportunity to pray about going to Afghanistan in 1971. Even though I was the only one who felt God was saying go, he took me seriously. I didn’t know where Afghanistan was, had no way of getting there, still owed money on my school fees and had been a Christian less than a year, but when we had talked and prayed together, he agreed that I should go.
Yes, in YWAM we “champion young people”.
I then went on to recount how a team came together in time for the trip, but that it was a fruitless and miserable summer in Afghanistan because the team had a rebel on it who caused division and discontent. I was that rebel—who subsequently had to repent and confess publicly to the other SOE students. Failure is a great teacher!
Another of the stories I tell was a time when I took offence towards Loren Cunningham and held onto that offence for two years. That was a time of serious disobedience to God’s ways and Word and I reaped the consequences for years afterwards.
Every group loves those stories that demonstrate how I have messed up. They give hope and they also teach values in unforgettable ways.
In spite of the fact that Marti and I still feel young and energetic (most of the time), we are actually some of the longest serving YWAMers—102 years between us! We have to remind ourselves that our presence means a lot, particularly when we find the time and resources to travel to far-flung places just to be with groups who are more isolated, or those who are young and just beginning to get used to the weight of leading others.
Our stories and the values we teach with them strengthen the awareness of what a privilege it is to serve in this part of the Body of Christ. I always aim to strengthen the awareness of that privilege, but without tempting anyone to pride or comparison within the Body. After all, even though YWAM has grown way beyond my expectations, it is still a very small fraction of the Body of Christ.
The New Living Translation of John 10:10 quotes Jesus saying:
“My purpose is to give [you] a rich and satisfying life.”
I would never have expected it, but at this stage of my life, I find myself strengthening identity in the lives of hundreds of volunteer missionaries in one of the largest missionary movements in history. It is completely “rich and satisfying”! I thank God for His goodness.
Lynn Green.
Lynn Green 