Top 5 Posts Of The First 4 Months

As of today I've been blogging for 4 months. In that time here are the top 5 posts according to hits they've received:

1. Please Pray For The Life Of Tricia, Her Huband Nathan, And Their Unborn Baby (177 hits)
2. Elders & Deacons (100 hits)
3. The Golden Compass Review (81 hits)
4. Skillet, Chris Tomlin, Toby Mac, KJ-52, Barlow Girl, Todd Agnew, and Lifehouse (68 hits)
5. Sunday Review (61 hits)

Here are the tops 5 posts that a lot of time was spent reading them (which means people didn't just come across the page but they also stopped and took interest in what they read):

1. The Preacher And The Teacher
2. Do You Rescue Like Jesus Does?
3. Resigning & Moving
4. Discipleship: Using Our Resources Wisely
5. Elders & Deacons

The gOD They Worship

The Creed of Moralistic Therapeutic Deist:

1. A God exists who created and orders the world.
2. God wants us to be good and fair.
3. Central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life, except when needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

"Preach the word of God. Be persistent, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching. For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to right teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever they want to hear. They will reject the truth and follow strange myths." 2 Timothy 4:2-4

A Few Thoughts On Today's Adolescence

"Our youth love luxury, they have bad manners; contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. . .Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. . . They no longer rise when elders enter the room. . .They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers. . ."

I would think the above quote defines how most of the older generations perceive the younger generations. Interestingly enough, this quote is older than Jesus' birth. It's from a Greek philosopher Socrates (470 -399 BC).

Today's adolescence:

1. is a relationship oriented world.
2. seek an illusion of independence from adults.
3. are struggling to establish identity/self-worth.
4. live in an information overload world.
5. struggle with the tension between head and heart.
6. are attracted to rebellion and rejection.
7. seek an idealistic world.
8. are attracted to risk – “Playing with matches syndrome”
9. desire a world of fun.
10. have a large appetite for a world of fair play.

Business Cards

This week I began spending my youth ministry funds. I first began thinking about a business card. Now, I really don't care for business cards. At my last church I ordered (if I remember correctly) around a thousand and I rarely gave them out. Those were pretty basic. They had my contact info and a nice little scripture verse on the back. I wasn't planning on doing it again, just because I didn't see the effectiveness of it. But two things happened since I've been here that have made me reconsider.

1. I've been asked for a business cards somewhat frequently and when I go to give them my info (because I didn't have a card) I could see the frustration in their eyes. Something that would have taken just a second to pass to them has turned into them looking for a pen and paper.
2. I went to Panera Bread with Sarah (their new Harvest Orchard Salad is unBELievABLE!!) and when I picked up our food I saw a little jar saying "leave your business card for a drawing for you and 4 others to eat free". But I had no business card so I and 4 of my friends potentially just missed out.

I still questioned the effectiveness of a business card in youth ministry. I mean, how many youth really will take a card and use it? But because of items #1 & #2 above I decided to put some real thinking into this. If I make business cards how can I make it as effective as a business card can possibly be. . .

. . .and this is what I came up with. I decided to place on one side a ton of questions (and they fit; and they're readable) that would invoke certain thoughts. I also tried to make it look visually attractive; not sure if I pulled that one off. It could be something that maybe even my youth can hand off to other youth. Even if they're not comfortable calling up or emailing some stranger (even if he is a pastor of students & parents) they could check out the website it advertises. So I spent some time designing and here's what I came up with:It's a lot clearer on the version I sent to the company printing these. That is just a link to the low resolution copy OverNightPrints.com put online. If you click on the image it will bring up one that's a little clearer (the blog blurred it a bit).

Maybe it'll draw some attention and a few youth will come because they want some of these questions answered. Or maybe they'll check out the website. Or maybe it will be totally ineffective. . .I hope not.

OH NO! Now I have to build a website! Here's what I've got on that so far. It's really just a "look" at the moment (no buttons or anything yet).

Youth Ministry Vision Casting, Part 3

Vision is like the cure for cancer in the church. But vision applied incorrectly can do an intense amount of damage. Much like applying the wrong amount of chemotherapy, the wrong type of chemotherapy, or applying the chemotherapy at the wrong time can nearly kill or kill a cancer patient, the same could be done to the church. A church that is already hurting could be hurt far worse. Or a healthy church could be made unhealthy.

What happens if the leaders have vision but they lack strategy? Or if they have strategy but they lack vision? Or is they have both vision and strategy, but they're unable to clearly convey to others why they're doing what they're doing. There IS a right and wrong recipe to vision-casting. I strongly feel it includes the following elements and, for the most part, it needs to happen in this order:

1. What? People need to know they are not a random act of God. When they were created they were given a purpose.
2. Why? People need to understand why they're supposed to do this or that. They need to know that the plan is worth the effort and they need to know for themselves that what they're doing is important.
3. Where? People need to have a compelling glimpse of the future.
   
4. How? People need to know their part in how we accomplish the What, Why, and Where? They need to see the steps, maybe not perfectly, but clearly.
   
5. Which? The right people need to be placed in the right jobs, not just according to experience and availability, but more so from where God has gifted them.

This is something that must begin in the minds and hearts of the leadership and then they must be effective communicators/motivators to present this vision casting to the partners/team (some people like to call them "members of the church", but I'm not fond of that term).

Next post. . .I'll begin to take each one of these (What, Why, Where, How, and Which) and break them down one by one.

Having A Hard Time Getting Back To The Blog

Since I've began this new position I've been hard at work with how to introduce the church to youth ministry. If you haven't caught it from previous posts, I've accepted a position as pastor of youth where I'm literally starting from scratch. This has been requiring a lot of me in the area of research and writing.

I've been working hard on what's turned into a 29 page document for adult leaders (finished the rough draft last week) and a 37 page document for introducing the church to youth ministry (complete with student and leader copies, each 37 pages, and PowerPoint with nearly 300 slides; finished the rough draft yesterday).

When I come home from the office the only thing I do with a computer is check Nathan's blog and play games. I also have been enjoying a few movies, recently Sarah (my wife) has got me working a puzzle, or playing with the dog.

But I after spending many, many hours stretching my brain on developing the foundation for youth ministry I find it hard to blog about it. Maybe I'm just not disciplined enough and I need to just make myself blog anyway, but I'm worried I'll only end up giving you babble and you'll never come back.

Anyway, give me some time and I'm sure I'll be back to blogging 3-5 times a week soon. Who knows, I might be blogging more about vision tomorrow!

Youth Ministry Vision Casting, Part 2

A vision is like staring off into the future and seeing where you're going. It's like getting into your car and knowing where you're planning to drive to. The problem, for many, is vision often requires you to imagine a place you've never been (real places, not science fiction). So it's sort of like trying to get to New York, NY from Houston,TX without the use of a map and without having been there before.

Okay. . .that's a vision to go and see places. What about a vision that will take people places in their walk with Christ? The kind of leadership and direction that really drives people toward the likeness of Christ. . .that's the kind of vision we're talking about.

I see it sort of like this. . .we were all once lost. We didn't know Christ. And then we were found and discovered something totally different. Many of us are in Christ but we're still lost. We have no direction and the Church hasn't given us any direction. I really think most Christians believe Christianity is about walking down an isle, getting dunked in water (or sprinkled for my Methodist friends), taking up space on a pew on Sunday morning, and listening to someone talk about living a "good" life. That's it! That's all the Church has to offer. Or at least that's about all its been offering for too long.

For too long the Church has chased after lofty goals and has proven to the un-Churched that the Church really doesn't know what it's doing and really doesn't have the answers. The Church may "know" the truth but it really doesn't have a clue of what to do with it or how to communicate it. Satan has his part in this, but I'm not about to give him the credit for the Church's great folly. We've messed it up and it's our fault.

More than anything I believe teenagers (adults too) struggle with vision in their life. They have very little direction and the wrong direction they end up following leaves them chasing after the things that will destroy them. Our young boys don't know how to become men, so they make up their own set of "rites of passage" to manhood, which often equates to manhood meaning (to them) going all the way with a girl. The Church may have tried to combat that, with it's "talks about living the 'good' life" but talking about it doesn't fix the problem. We need to take greater action and we need ever member of the Church to do the same but they need vision.

The church has failed to do the following:

1. Show the world that they were created with a purpose so they know their part in God's plan.
2. Give people a passion for the Church by showing them why we do what we do (showing them what we're for more than what we're against).
3. Give them a glimpse of the future, letting them know what the future holds through sharing where we're going.
4. Showing them how we're going to get there!

Over the next few blogs that's my topic! I'll be looking at what I strongly feel needs to be brought back into the Church, especially in how this applies to Youth Ministry. And just so you know, I'm not sitting up on a high pedestal looking down on the mistakes of everyone else (the Church). It's only over the past few year or so that I've began to see that change is needed, and I plan to implement what God is showing me in the ministry where I serve.

I firmly believe that vision is like the cure for cancer for the Church.