I am a slave...

Jesus says in John 8:34 that "everyone who sins is a slave to sin."  He says this because sinners cannot break free by their own strength.

In the book of Romans (chapter 6 verse 18), the Apostle Paul writes this: "You have been set free from sin (AMEN!) and have become slaves to righteousness."

As Christians, we have changed masters.  Instead of being mastered by our sins, we are slaves to obedience to Christ and His will for our lives.  

What I really like is the word that is used there for slaves.  That words literally means "willing servants."  The picture there is so beautiful because in Jesus' time slaves had to serve their masters for a period of time and then they were set free.  However, after being set free, many of the slaves became "willing servants" beause their masters were so good to them.  How beautiful and true is that picture of our lives and relationship with Christ Jesus...

My first funeral...

Today I conducted my first ever funeral.  "Thankfully" it was not for one of my students.  I say "thankfully" because funerals are tough no matter who they are for.  I think funerals are always hard; whether you are the one conducting it or just attending.  I never know what to say because I know that there is nothing I can say that will truly make them feel better.  While I know that isn't the goal, I think it is just my personality.  I like to "fix" things.

RIP Mr. Frank Barnhart.  The good news is that your battle with cancer is finally over.  For you, there is no more pain and no more sorrow.  Now dance on those streets of gold like you've never danced before.

Congratulations and Thank You...

A few days ago, I asked via twitter and Facebook if anyone would be willing to create a nice looking banner for the top of my blog.  I was tired of it looking plain.  Well, two of my friends from my days in California came through with some pretty nice stuff.  While both submissions were great, I ended up picking the one submitted by my good friend Jeremiah Vik:

Jeremiah is the director at Youth for Christ in El Centro, CA.  He's been in youth ministry since before youth ministry was even "cool." He and his wife Debbie had their first baby boy, Josiah, on January 22nd, 2009.

Both Jeremiah and Debbie were good friends of mine in CA and I can say that my life has truly been blessed by having them in my life.

Let the revolution begin!

The longer that I work in student ministry, the more I realize the HUGE importance that needs to be placed on relationships.  A very humbling revelation that I stumbled across in reading Jeanne Mayo's "Thriving Youth Groups" is that students will hardly ever commit to your student ministry because of the music, the sermon, etc.  9 times out of 10, students will commit to your student ministry (and more importantly to God) because of the relationships that are fostered within your student ministry.

Knowing this, I sat down with 30 of our core students and shared with them my heart and vision for our student ministry.  I shared with them how important it is that students (new and old) feel loved and accepted or they will not continue to attend our student ministry.  From there, I laid out a game plan with some key elements that we will begin implementing this weekend at our student ministry gathering.  Some of these essential key elements were:

• Greeters
  
• "Tour Guides"
  
• Row leaders
  
• A guest reception
  
• A strategic follow-up plan

While very basic, these elements can go a long way in helping new students feel like our student ministry is a warm and welcoming place.  

I can tell you that in my 10 years in student ministry, I have NEVER had students cheer in the middle of a meeting like they did as I unfolded the future.  On top of that, we ended the meeting by doing an old-fashioned group huddle and stacked our hands in the middle.  I loved the feeling because I knew that these 30 students were committed to this revolution.

So let the revolution begin!

Are you willing to go "out of your way" to tell others about Jesus?

This morning I was reading the story in the Bible of Jesus and the woman at the well (John 4:1-26).  I have read this story what seems like 100 times now and for some reason this morning a few things jumped out at me.

Jesus goes out of His way...

1.) It was custom for Jews to cross over the Jordan river and NOT pass through Samaria because the Jews and the Samaritans didn't really get along.  John 4:4 says, "Now He (Jesus) had to go through Samaria."  Perhaps the necessity lay in Jesus' mission rather than in geography?

2.) Jews and Samaritans didn't associate with one another.  There was a lot of bad blood between the Jews and the Samaritans so Jesus' request to this woman was unheard of in those days.

3.) John 4:7 says, "Jesus said to her, 'Will you give me a drink?'"  This was even more interesting because the Jews believed that they would become ceremonially unclean if they used a drinking vessel handled by a Samaritan, since they held that all Samaritans were ceremonially unclean.

4.) Jewish religious teachers rarely spoke with women in public.

You may be asking yourself at this point, "What is he getting at?"  It just occurred to me how much Jesus was willing to go "out of His way" and against the cultural "norm" to share His love with anyone and everyone.

How often am I willing to go "out of my way" to tell others about Christ?

How far am I willing to go to tell others about Christ?

What books have had an affect on your life?

This weekend we are talking about the spiritual discipline of Bible study.  I am opening up the message talking about books (other than the Bible) that have had a dramatic affect on my life; and not just spiritually.  Which raised this question: What books have truly had a dramatic affect on MY life?

[Here on mine, but not in any specific order]

1.      Never The Same – By: Steven James – This book was incredible for me because it made the stories of Jesus’ life and His ministry really make sense.  Before, I thought they were just some cool stories.  This book helped me grow closer to God and to deepen my faith.

2.      Living a Life That Matters – By: Mark Matlock – The book is written entirely on the life of Solomon and his pursuit of all that the world has to offer.  With each encounter, Solomon claimed that the things of this world are “Meaningless.”

3.      Enjoy the Silence – By: Maggie & Duffy Robbins – This book was a 30 day experiment in learning how to listen to God.  My life got flipped upside down the summer of 2007…and this book was where it all began.

4.   I Can’t Accept Not Trying – By: Michael Jordan – This book may be the only book that I pick up and read every year.  It is written entirely by Michael Jordan and he shares some of his successes and failures in his pursuit of excellence…but not just on the basketball court, but in every aspect of his life.

What are your books?

Resurrection Monday?

The POWER of THE GOSPEL…

...Is still as potent

...is just as relevant

….is just as life changing

...on Monday as it was on Sunday.

Why do we act as if Easter is that much more important than any other day of the year?  Have you ever wondered that?

     Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand that Resurrection Sunday had to happen so that the Gospel could still be potent, relevant and life changing.  As Christians, we know that.  It has always just been a peculiar thing to me that so much more emphasis is put on that one Sunday a year.  It is the one Sunday that everyone feels more compelled to invite a friend.  It is the one Sunday that those who don’t attend church regularly feel the need or desire to be in attendance.  Why?  Isn’t the Gospel just as important every other Sunday?  For that matter, isn’t the Gospel just as important every other day of the week?  Of the year?  How different would our churches be if everyone invested in every day of their lives as if it were Resurrection Sunday?

Pushing without Shoving

     Ministry is tough!  There is no doubt about that.  Personally, I believe that student ministry is so much harder than ministering to adults. 

     My reasoning?  By the time that students become adults, most of them are already set in their ways.  If they believe in God and are pursuing Him, it is hard (though not impossible) to change their mind about that.

     When it comes to students, we get them at a very fragile stage in their lives where they are asking a lot of questions and trying to work out the “concrete” things in their lives.  With that in mind, I believe that it paralyzes us at times from teaching them what we know to be right.  We are afraid that they might decide NOT to follow Jesus because we ask them to put their cell phones away or to pay attention during worship.

     That is why we have to become masters at “Pushing without Shoving. “  Students don’t mind a push here or there if you are pushing them in the right direction.  I believe that has to be our primary focus in our ministry...pushing students into a deeper understanding of God and how to live the way that He has called us to live.  We must do this without shoving, though, because no one likes to be shoved!

Book Review: Venti Jesus Please

Venti Jesus Please is written by Greg Stier, president of Dare 2 Share.  The book is such a great read.  Will it transform your ministry?  It sure could.  The book shows that talking about God to your friends can be absolutely scary but it CAN be done.  There are some very honest and real questions that students could encounter from their friends with some very practical answers.  However, this is not the "answer all" book to student evangelism.

One of the things that I truly enjoyed about the book is that it doesn't paint the picture that by simply doing friendship evangelism that all conversations lead people to Christ.  As bad as it may sound, I like that one of the students at the end of the book was still skeptical but at least interested in God.  I think that kept the book more on the reality side of things.  Great read! 

Are you a spiritual loser? - Part 2

If the information in Part 1 of this series describes you, then take heart; you are not alone!  Your problem isn't the lack of desire.  You truly do crave a connection with God.  You want your heart to be full.  You long to know God more deeply and to be more connected to Him.

So what's wrong?  Why does connecting with God seem so difficult to do?

Answer: Unrealistic expectations and an unrealistic plan

Every person you come across is in a different place in their relationship with God.  This lesson could not have become more clear to me than when I started working with students.  I would get frustrated with them because they weren't growing like I thought they should (or if I'm more honest, like I wish I was).  I kept heaping these unrealistic expectations on them and coupled it with an unrealistic plan to "Read the Bible Through In A Year."  To that point in my life (age 20), I still hadn't read the Bible through in its entirety.  Yet, that didn't keep me from challenging them to read it through as 13, 14 and 15 year old students.

How did they do?  They failed.  How did I do?  I failed.  Why?

It was unrealistic.  Growing in your relationship with God is about baby steps.  If you aren't reading your Bible and praying every night, then starting a plan of having a "quiet time" with God for an hour each day is unrealistic.  Start off with 5 minutes.  Read a passage of scripture and then chew on it for a while.  Don't just read the Bible to say that you've done it.  Glean from it.  Abide in it.

Start small, but start somewhere.  As long as you are constantly taking those baby steps you are headed in the right direction.  Don't get discouraged when you miss an appointment with God either.  God understands but don't allow that missed appointment to steer you off the path of a deeper relationship with God.

Where will you start today?  What baby step do you need to take?

Are you a spiritual loser?

It's fair to assume that most of us have heard a sermon or two (or maybe even hundreds) on the importance of connecting with God.  Often the words used in church are things like "quiet time" or "devotions."  You've heard these sermons with their "magic" formulas that we leave feeling convinced that THIS is what I have been looking for all along.  I will finally get my relationship with God on track.  Here is what it really looks like though:

Day 1: You do it.  You check off that you read and prayed.  Way to go!

Day 2: You do it again.  Well done!  Connecting with God is easy, right?

Day 3: You have a "quiet time" for a third day in a row.  Now you're AWESOME!  Well, kind of, but since you read so fast, you don't really remember anything an hour later.

Day 4: You want to do it, but you're so tired that you tell yourself you'll do it later in the day...but you don't.  It was a long day, and now your favorite show is on TV.

Day 5: It's Sunday, so you have yourself a "bye day," because church is basically an extended quiet time where you're getting spiritually filled.  You'll get back on track with your new disciplines tomorrow morning.  (Plus, Monday is the same day you always start your new diet.)

Day 6: Monday.  Too tired after a long weekend.  Need the extra sleep.  Hit snooze button.  Feel a little guilty, but the tiredness drowns out the guilt.

Day 7 and following: During the next week or so, you find some victory with your program, but you meet more defeat.  Guilt reemerges because you're not as consistent as you want to be.  Even when you do connect with God, you're tired and unfocused.  It feels more forced, more like obligation than desire.  You're just going through the motions in order to check off that box that will haunt you if it's empty.

Sound familiar?  I know that there has been more than one time in my life, even recently, where that EXACTLY describes my "spiritual life."  It is things like this that makes me feel like a spiritual loser.  I just can't seem to get it right.

Tomorrow, I'll come back and tie this up with what Doug Fields suggests that we do so that we stop feeling like a "Spiritual Loser."

[Thoughts in this post are inspired by Doug Fields' new book titled REFUEL]

Book Review: Sustainable Youth Ministry

Mark Devires writes an amazing book about how too many youth ministries are built on things that just don't last.  Churches and youth pastors alike are too quick to jump on the bandwagon of the "latest and greatest thing" only to find themselves and their ministries still lacking shortly thereafter.

If you want to find success in youth ministry, you have to start with the foundation and build up from there.  Mark gives you tangible things that can be done to help you and your youth ministry last for the long haul.  

Great read!

Book Review: Thriving Youth Groups

Jeanne Mayo does an AWESOME job of taking her 30+ years in student ministry and breaking down the success that she has seen to one thing...RELATIONSHIPS.

Sounds simple enough, huh?  Yea, I thought so too until I picked up this book.  Jeanne challenged me in so many ways to rethink the way that we do things in our student ministry and even some of the phrase-ology that I use from the stage.  For example, how often have you called a first time guest a visitor?  I've done it 100's of times over the last 10 years.  However, Jeanne challenges youth pastors to change that phrase to "guest" as it is more inviting.

I'm very impressed with this book and have already started working on putting some of it's major points "in play" in our ministry.  Please take the time to answer the questions at the end of each chapter.  It will really help you process what you are reading.

Opening Thoughts

I am still very new to the blogging world.  I feel like there is so much to say and yet I never seem to really capture what it is I want to say.  I think I buy in to the "status quo" too often.  I see all of these other youth ministry "guru's" writing articles that are really shaping the culture of youth ministry and I feel like that is the kind of stuff that I need to write.  And yet, I don't necessarily feel like the Lord has called me to shape the youth ministry culture, but to simply lay my heart out there and voice the things that are going on in my life and in my ministry.  If that help in shaping the culture of youth ministry, GREAT!  If not, that is quite alright with me.

So, with that said...sit back, relax, and enjoy the show :)