At the camp in Mississippi, Cooper and Branson stayed with us. They had been with my parents during our camp. Cooper was pumped that he could play the drums and hang out with some of the students from our church. He was also a stinkin’ ladies man. On the last night he got 9 balloon-a-grams from girls at the camp. (if you don’t know what a balloon-a-gram is…it’s a balloon with a hand written note in it, that the camp sells for like $40 a piece…MONEY MAKER!!!).
Here is a picture of him playing the drums with an audience of sorts…
Early in the spring I received an invitation to come and speak at a Summer Camp in Jackson, MS from July 18-21. Looking at my calendar then, I realized that it started the same day our HS Summer Camp ended, but thought it might be do-able. So Friday, as our kids loaded 2 charter buses headed for Atlanta, I left with a Cargo van and 3 cars full of band members and their equipment. We arrived in Jackson about 3 hours before the first service. Unloading, setting up, and sound-checking in time left me a nervous wreck which usually isn’t good before I’m supposed to speak. But it came together, and this past weekend was a great experience for me and some of the students from our church.
In some ways I was blessed way more than I was able to bless anyone with my speaking. In other ways the Lord gave me great strength and ability when my strength was all dried up…I am still exhausted!!!
I’ve enjoyed sleeping in my own bed the last 2 nights!!!
Thursday afternoon at camp I was studying for that night’s service and there was a knock at my door. Several of my leaders were standing there with a blank look on their face and asked if Corrie was around. I told them she was soaking up a few more rays of sun before coming to get ready for service. They asked me to go get her. After I got back they blindfolded us both and led us all over the place before finally having us take off our blindfolds. We were standing on the balcony of one of our rooms overlooking the beach/ocean. A wonderful dinner for 2 from Carraba’s was sitting on a table with candles as wonderful music played in the background. It was extremely romantic, and so thoughtful. They thanked us for a wonderful week of camp, and all the hard work we had put into the week.
The food was outstanding after a week of camp food. Corrie and I had an awesome time relaxing and talking together. The atmosphere was amazing. But the overriding thought above it all was an appreciation for being appreciated.
Ministry can be such a thankless job, and while I’m not in it for a lot of pats on the back, it was one of the kindest gestures I’ve ever received.
Thanks to an amazing team that I’m so blessed to serve with on a weekly basis!
Wednesday and Thursday capped off an incredible week of camp for us this year. The days themselves were so much fun, and filled with incredible relationship building opportunities. The services each night were a little more subdued and reverent. I don’t mean that in a negative way at all. The worship was almost sweet, as students were reflective, personally responsive, and engaged. The teaching each night was more practical and challenging.
I’m going to give it a few days and then I will reflect over camp in general, but I wanted to put up the final daily recap.
Tuesday was another great day, all day long. Some of the highlights were separate guys and girls Bible Studies where David and my lovely wife Corrie brought the funk (David more so than Corrie, she was all feel good, warm fuzzies, and butterflies).
In the afternoon we had multiple volleyball games going on at the same time, and as you would expect from an ultra competitive person like myself…we won!
Service was again incredible. After an awesome time of worship, I talked about the incredible gift we have been given of prayer. I talked out of 1 Kings 18 where Elijah calls down fire from heaven and rain. James 5:16-17 tells us that he was human like us and that prayers of a righteous man are effective and powerful. I invited the leaders to the front and we had a “good ole fashion prayer line”. Our leaders laid their hands on our students and prayed with them for salvation (theirs or others), healing (theirs or others), deliverance, depression, anxiety…it was awesome. It is my nature to shy away from environments where emotionalism can overtake us, but our students were genuinely seeking the Lord on behalf of friends and family members, and it was awesome.
I was touched by the sincerity of their prayers.
Here are some highlights of the day. Tomorrow’s video will include more of the services as well.
One of our media guys, Matt Weirson, and our bass player, Chris Duncan, are idiots (in a great way). They shot this video for our Late Night Great Event Tuesday night. It’s pretty funny.
Monday was a great day. The morning Bible Study time included some great interaction. David Bethea and Jim Turner are heading up our recreation and team competitions, and they kicked that off with a bang. The highlight was the vaseline covered watermelon in the pool. Your team has to retrieve it and get it to the other teams side of the pool. As you can imagine it’s a little difficult to hold on too.
The service Monday night an amazing and fitting follow up to Sunday. There were several moments of stilled awe and reverence that were incredible. The fact that teenagers could be still and quiet was impressive in and of itself.
I spoke on Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I talked about their unwillingness to compromise in 2 specific situations and God’s faithfulness to them. Because they were true to their beliefs God continued to elevate and give them more and more responsibility and as a result they were able to make an incredible impact. The challenge to our students was…”yes you want to do great things for God, but can He trust you?” It was not a night of conviction or condemnation. It was a chance to stand up and say I will to do something great for God, because He can trust me. We asked God to put us in positions to prove our trustworthiness, and in return he would position us to bring Him even greater fame.
We are off to a roaring success. The buses arrived Sunday at around 4:30, which was the exact moment a storm, that appeared to be a Class 5 Hurricane, showed up. We unloaded luggage in a torrential downpour. After getting everyone to their respective rooms we had dinner. After dinner everyone got cleaned up and we had our 1st service of the week. It was a great night, and the Lord touched a lot of our students and leaders.
I’m speaking at our camp again this year, and we are looking at stories where God shows up, is revealed, or speaks to us through fire. It goes along with the idea of God igniting something in us to carry out in the world. It is my hope that we can look at these passages and learn something about God’s nature so that when the fire is gone we are still left with the truth of who He is. Last night I spoke out of Genesis 13 and 19, with the story of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah. I talked about Lot’s journey of living near Sodom, to living in Sodom, to working in Sodom, to being reluctant to give Sodom up. I correlated these with our interaction with sin and lifestyle choices. We get near it, we get in it, we defend it, and we struggle to let it go…but then God shows up. The truth that we learned about God is that He is holy-He is pure. In Sodom and Gomorrah he rained down a holy fire and it consumed Lot’s place of struggle and left nothing for him to return too. We prayed for a Holy Fire of God to consume the things in our lives that need to be gone. There was a great time of prayer and celebration at the close.
Late night was great. We had a bunch of food games and a hilarious Top 5 Worst Things About the Start of Camp. The best was #3
When the other groups show up to the facility and you realize that their guys and girls are hotter than the ones in ours!
Here are 2 videos for your amusement. The first is The Adventures of Matt and Trevor, who left our church Saturday at 5am and worked until 1am Sunday morning setting up. I can’t get the video to embed right so you can view it HERE.
The second is a recap of Sunday night’s service and some late night stuff.
As I write this I’m staring out into a beautiful cloudless blue sky with the ocean waves hitting every few seconds. I’m in Panama City, FL awaiting the start of our HS Summer Camp. Within the next 30 minutes our group will fill up 2 charter buses in Atlanta and head this way. It was an eventful day getting here yesterday (which I will post about later), but I cannot wait on these students and leaders to arrive. We have been planning for this camp almost from the time last year’s ended, and I’m believing for a great week.
Our theme this week is “ignite“, and it’s centered around the idea that God can do something inside of you that could impact the world around you.
The economy has forced a lot of our older students to have to work this summer with rising gas prices and college looming, so we are bringing a lot more Freshman and Sophomores than we have in the past, and I’m pumped about that part of it…though I will miss a good number of our Seniors and Juniors who can’t join us.
The forecast for the week doesn’t look as pretty as it is right this second, but hopefully we’ll be spared from much rain.
I will be blogging an update each day, so you can check back in.
A lot has been written around the web about William P Young’s book “The Shack”. I had several people recommend it, so I picked it up for me and my staff.
For those that are all up in arms about the theological implications…IT’S FICTION! There were some things toward the end that I don’t necessarily believe myself, but I don’t think it was some abomination. The take away for me was that I, as a white male, view God as a white male. God’s physical appearance being something else causes me to wonder if there are other areas that I’ve boxed God in.
I thought the book was good. I did feel that the book was a little too long for the story line. Some of the conversation was romanticized and drawn out. Had the book run through the normal rigors of publishing, some parts would have probably been edited down. Having said all that…I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to others. B+
I’m in a grading mood after my post yesterday. So I’ll use that method to grade our mid-week service last night.
Atmosphere - A - I’m amazed every week at what our crew does in a portable set up. We literally had candles everywhere to set the mood for the worship set. It looked awesome.
Worship - A - I’d say this was one of the best nights our band has ever had in my time here. Musically they were solid, song choice was awesome. Our students were led into the presence of God. I asked them to have a little longer set, and they delivered…just awesome. (set list: Our God Reigns, My Savior Lives, My Glorious, Beautiful Jesus, None but Jesus)
Message - B - I was back after 5 weeks off from speaking in HS, and I loved it. I felt the text spoke for itself, and I did an okay job communicating our message for the night. The ending was a little weak though.
Attendance - C - This was the downer on the night. We had a huge storm roll through at about 6 pm and I knew it would keep people away. I don’t have the final numbers yet, but we were down a good bit. With the distance a lot of our kids drive and the ferociousness (is that a word?) of the storm I knew students and/or their parents would keep from driving in it. We took up some of our chairs up about 6:15 in anticipation and that helped us keep a full feel.
Overall - B+ - It really was a great night. It was great being back in the saddle teaching. Camp this next week is going to be great. I can’t wait.
I set out at the beginning of the year to lose 25 lbs. I’m about 1/3 of the way there, but I’m on my way. I didn’t really get serious about it until 6-8 weeks ago when I took advantage of the gym membership my church provides. I’ve settled into a nice rhythm of working out 4 times a week, and it’s working for me. This past week I decided to get a little more focused with my workouts so I scheduled a meeting with a personal trainer to help me line up my workouts with my intended goals.
Here’s what came out of that meeting. - You must set 1 or more long term goals or it’s hard to stay focused. - You must set some short term goals that move you closer to accomplishing your long term goals or you’ll get discouraged. - If your workouts don’t get you closer to accomplishing your short or long term goals they’re really just a waste of time. - No matter how hard you work out, if you eat like crap, you’re wasting your time.
She set me up on a system called FitLinx that allows me to enter my pin at every workout station and cardio machine. It then keeps track of my workout and progress.
Since that meeting I have thought a lot about the crossover that exists between her words and my ministry. It led me to ask 5 questions that I will present to my staff after next week’s camp.
1. What are our long term goals?
2. Do our short term goals push us closer to accomplishing those long term goals?
3. Are we doing some good things that are a waste of time and energy as we pursue these goals?
4. Are there things we’re doing that will be a deterrent to progress no matter how hard we work?
5. Do we have systems in place to hold us accountable and chart our progress?
Some of these we have specific answers, but others haven’t been addresses in a while. It should be a healthy conversation and challenge us to push a little harder as we come out of summer and into the start of school.
I loved the list from THIS BLOG of the 10 Worst Selling Youth Ministry Books.
10. Time Shares and Texas Hold ‘Em: Creative Fundraising Ideas
9. No Halos for Halo: Why Jesus Hates Video Games and Video Gamers
8. The Gaithers: Rockers for Jesus or the Devil’s Marionettes
7. The Care Bears: Leading Teens Down the Dark Road of the Occult
6. SUPERGOOD Life Lessons From SUPERBAD - Includes CD with Video Clips!
5. Budget and Salaries: Youth Ministry on $1 a Day!
4. Defensive Driving Tips for Your 15-Passenger Metal Box of Death On Wheels
3. 101 Flannelgraph Bible Lessons for Teenagers
2. Chubby Bunny: How an Addiction to Marshmellows Ruined My Ministry
1. Junior High Bible Studies: Song of Solomon
Since it’s the first week of July I thought I would do a self check up to see where I stood on the list of goals/resolutions I set out to accomplish in THIS POST on January 2, 2008.
Family
- become a better steward of God’s money (less debt, more giving, more saving) we have less debt, we’ve given more, but we haven’t saved hardly at all…overall B-
- date my wife We haven’t been out as much, but we’ve been more strategic in our time together, especially recently…overall B
- spend more time with my boys I feel this is probably been my biggest accomplishment this year. I have benefitted more than anyone because of the additional time spent with them…overall A
Personal
- read 30 books on a variety of topics I’ve read 12 so far, and my topics haven’t been as varied as I would like…I’ve got some work to do here…overall C-
- read the New Testament I’m stinkin’ this up big time. Nuff said…overall D
- lose 25 pounds I got a late jump, and didn’t really go to the gym until about 8 weeks ago, but I’m locked in now. I’ve lost 7 lbs since then and probably 10 since January…overall C+
- leave my work at work and enjoy my time at home Doing better. I’ve actually been leaving my Macbook at the office some nights…though I occasionally check email on my phone…overall B-
- finish my book project …overall F-
- be a better friend The scorecard is still out on this one. I’ve strengthened several friendships but drifted away from others…overall I
Ministry
- 5/3/9God’s laid a lot of foundation so far this year. With next week’s camp theme revolving around impacting the world and school starting back in a few weeks, I believe we’ll see a huge leap in the fulfillment of 5/3/9…overall I
- streamline discipleship process We are rolling out some prototype groups for home based small groups this fall. This will combine our small group and discipleships processes into 1 step, decrease the handoffs (thanks JG for that phrase), and create more buy in from leaders…overall I
- invest more time with my staff and volunteer leaders I haven’t been as strong here as I would like, and commit to do better in the 2nd half…overall C-
- spend more time with students About where I want to be, but still room for more improvement…overall B
- lead with integrity Not trying to toot my own horn, but with the Lord’s help…overall A
Overall, I think I’d give myself a C+ or a B-, but I can definitely see some areas that I need to step up for the rest of the year.
27 years ago I entered this world, and man it has been a great ride so far.
I used to enjoy getting birthday presents at my party.
Then I enjoyed getting cards in the mail with money.
Now I just enjoy getting all the Facebook birthday wishes. Thanks to all my Facebook friends.
If anybody wants to get me the new iPhone that comes out Friday I promise I won’t hate it.
We recently crossed over the 50 subscriber mark. While I’m sure some of you aren’t subscribers and just come by for a quick visit every now and again, I thought it would be a great chance to get to know you. Post a comment answering these 3 questions…
1) Where are you from?
2) What is your age?
3) What reader do you use (bloglines, google, newsgator, etc.)?
It should be fun to see who’s hanging around, and all you RSS readers, just click this post and come participate for once…jeez!
Our church hosts a celebration every year on July 3rd (I can’t remember why, but they’ve done it forever). This year was a huge success. We had a great show in the Sanctuary at 7:30. I was the host and had a blast with Billy on stage all night. It was standing room only which I think means about 2000 or so. One of the highlights was when the choir and orchestra sang the song for each branch of the military and men and women who’ve served or are serving in them came to the front. I’ll be honest and say my eyes moistened as I watched what seemed like several hundred men and women with no other connection celebrate the bond that they share of service. After the show, everyone went outside to join another 1500 people for a great fireworks show. It was a great night.
Over the weekend, we had some great family time. We went to a really good outlet mall where I bought a bunch of shirts real cheap. We played putt putt, road bumper boats, we went to the pool, and to Chuck E Cheese. It was a much needed break for me.
Sunday my Pastor delivered an awesome message out of 2 Corinthians. I literally wrote all over my Bible taking notes. Last night I concluded a 2 week talk with our college students based on Leonard Sweet’s book “11″. We talked about the indispensable relationships in our lives. I absolutely love hanging out with this group of students.
Today I hit the ground running with several meetings and finalizing all the details for our High School Summer Camp which begins this coming Sunday. It’s going to be a great week, and I can’t hardly wait for the weekend to get here.
Set aside about 10-12 minutes and watch these 2 videos. The first one is the story behind the song, and the 2nd is the performance that is on the new Hillsong album.
I had a really cool meeting yesterday about utilizing Second Life for ministry. Most of you tech savvy people know all about second life, but for those who don’t here’s a run down.
Second Life is an Internet-based 3-D virtual world which enables its users to explore, socialize, participate in individual or group activities, and create and trade items and services from one another. In Second Life, users create avatars (3-D characters) that they use to interact and communicate with each other via text or audio chat or by making gestures.
Second Life was launched in 2003 and has grown significantly in recent months. In October 2006, Second Life reached the 1 million registered accounts mark and quickly grew to over 6 million registered accounts by May 2007.
The meeting was set up by Ed Stone, our Director of Information and Communication Services. He invited Dr. David Stone who works at THIS PLACE, to come talk to us about what they do and how we might be able to work with them. Long story short, they have a Therapy Center in Second Life where they meet with patients trying to overcome alcohol abuse. You can read all about it on their website. The flexibility of being able to meet with clients from all over the world or who may be traveling is so interesting to me.
We brainstormed about how our counseling ministry could utilize Second Life in a similar manner. We also talked about an online campus similar to THIS CHURCH and others. Our Missions Pastor explored the possibility of online meetings, collaboration, and ministry training through a variety of venues in Second Life.
I don’t know where we’ll land in all this, but it was fun to explore the possibilities.
July 2, 2008 at 12:46 pm · Filed under Blog, Link, Humor
For those of you who have been to Catalyst, Orange Conference, BigStuf or other conferences with ties to Northpoint you know Lanny Donoho. Lanny can be extremely funny, very creative, a little annoying, and a great source of timely interruptions. He is however a great part of their “productions”. He has recently started blogging, and I have been following for several weeks now. Some of his stuff is extremely touching, and some of it gives you a glimpse into his psyche. Here is a video from NPCC on a July 4th several years ago.
Well, he’s not really new, but I want to introduce you to a great musician I had the pleasure of hearing at our church. Last Sunday Jason Gray sang a few songs in our morning worship services and then did a concert at 6pm. He was in town to sing at Atlanta Fest.
He is an incredible performer, and I can say that because I’ve heard a lot. He’s a great songwriter, guitar player, and singer. I had the pleasure of talking to him for a few minutes before the concert, and he’s a genuinely nice guy.
Check out his website, and buy his music. You’ll be supporting a really great guy.
…and no I’m not getting a bit of kickback for this…
I saw found this by way of a Google alert for Student Ministry. It sent me to THIS GUY’S blog. Watch the video below. It’s a really cool way of showing how our students, especially our girls are fed a bill of goods about beauty.
I saw this on a couple of blogs last week. I don’t know who started it, though I’m pretty sure it was THIS GUY.
438 emails received
1 round of golf at an AMAZING GOLF COURSE
8 meetings
4 trips to the Y to work out
6 fillings for Cooper’s cavities when I took him to the dentist
40 middle schoolers we sent to Myrtle Beach camp
2 go karts that finished in front of me at Andretti’s Indoor Speedway
1 awesome message from THIS GUY
Since I returned from vacation I’ve been so busy that I think I need another one soon. I am committed to getting back to blogging. I miss it…and frankly I think it misses me. Whether any of you have noticed or not, I’m not sure.
June 17, 2008 at 11:37 am · Filed under Leadership
Along with millions of others this weekend I watched the US Open Golf Tournament. I spent some time Monday watching live coverage of the playoff online (I love technology).
Saturday I watched Tiger Woods “gut it out” as his recently surgically repaired knee attempted to derail a stellar round of golf. Sunday he again had to hit shots and wince in pain because of his knee. I’ve talked to several people about these rounds and Tiger’s ability to play through the pain. The response has been mixed.
Some agree with me, that it was a great round by someone in pain, and incredible to watch. Others have said, “it’s a good thing he had the knee thing to cover up the fact that he hit bad shots.” They accused him of wincing only after hitting bad shots…FAKING IT.
It really is all about perspective and personal opinion, and everyone has their own. As a leader I realize that there are people who view me in this same duplicit way. Some will view an action or decision as honest and forthright, while others may question my motives and integrity.
In my development as a leader this further drives home the point that you can’t please everyone…and wouldn’t you know it…that’s one of my biggest struggles. I’m a people pleaser, and it’s hard for me to make decisions that I know others won’t like. Early on I felt the need to justify every decision, and try and explain my motives for every move. It was exhausting.
The picture above is from my dad’s college graduation back in December. It was a great moment for him, as he walked across the stage more than 30 years after he started the journey…because he promised his mom he would.
In a nutshell, that’s my dad. He’s a man of his word. He’s not perfect. I’m sure he made some mistakes in raising my brother and me, though I can’t remember any. He was always there for me.
He has filled a lot of roles in my life: father, provider, coach, driving instructor, math tudor, pastor, youth director, golf instructor, role model, book recommender, and so many more.
One of my favorite stories about my dad involves our shared passion for baseball, and his constant presence at my games growing up. To appreciate it, you have to understand that he was at every game he could be at. He would catch red-eye flights from the West Coast to be at an 8 am game on a Saturday morning (he actually did that). I knew if he wasn’t there…it just wasn’t possible.
So the last game of my senior year of high school, my dad couldn’t be there. With it being Senior Day he was supposed to join my mom in walking me out on the field during introductions, but he had to miss it. There just wasn’t any getting around it. So my mom accompanied me out on the field, and as we walked back to the dugout she hands me a piece of paper. I opened it up to find that my dad had written me a letter for that day. In the letter he said all the things I’m sure he would have said in person. He helped me to pause and reflect over my “illustrious” career, and be thankful for all of the experience that the game of baseball had provided me.
It was heartfelt. It was authentic. It was my dad.
Obviously since I’m on vacation I wasn’t at service last night. So to get a good rundown of the night you can go HERE.
Justin, “the intern”, spoke for me last night. I received a copy of the audio before I went to bed last night and he did an excellent job. He will also be speaking this coming week to get the feel and rhythm of speaking weekly. This 2 week series on Spiritual complacency is called “Lazy Summer” and is off to a great start.
Here is a video that preceded the message featuring one of our students. Watch it all the way to the end, it’s pretty funny…
I am on vacation this week in lovely Florida. We arrived on Saturday to Seacrest Beach, FL which is about half way between Destin and Panama City. This yearly trip is a get together where we meet up with my brother and his wife, my dad and mom, and my grandparents from both sides. One of the things I enjoy most is that my grandparents get to spend time for this 1 week out of the year with my kids. When I was growing up they were all such a big part of my life, I’m glad they are getting the chance to spend time with my kids.
The house we rented this week has a private pool which is so nice. We are also right on the beach so I have enjoyed hanging out in the pool and at the beach with Corrie and the boys too. Cooper and I jumped waves for almost an hour yesterday.
The annual Isaacs’ Golf Tourney is going strong. We’ve played 2 rounds so far with my dad leading and my brother, me, and my 72 year old grandfather close behind. It should be a fun end of the week.
Wednesday night was awesome. We completed our Hotline series looking at some really intense issues: DEPRESSION, SUICIDE, and CUTTING. I asked Dr. Marcy Hardy who serves on staff with us here at MPN as our Director of Pastoral Care and Counseling to speak for us. Dr. Hardy runs The Center, our counseling ministry, and they see over 300 patients a week. She did an incredible job communicating in layman’s terms some of the issues that lead to depression, cutting, and thoughts of suicide.
We had 2 main objectives for the night as we’ve been planning for the last few weeks. We wanted to 1) help students struggling with these issues to understand the issues and not feel like they were the only ones facing them. We also wanted to 2) provide a place of hope and support for them by exposing them to The Center.
We provided a place for students to come and talk after it was over, and had several students respond.
Thank you Dr. Hardy for helping us have a great night!
I found THIS ARTICLE earlier in the week. It’s very basic in revealing any new information, but it’s still a great article for awareness for youth leaders and parents. Here is a portion of the article.
A funny picture or a flirty message on your phone may seem innocent enough, but what is your teen really saying when they send a text.
“Teenagers are having sex by the phone, sending flirty messages, meeting up to have sex,” says 16 year old Rochellie Garcia.
“On the one hand it can be kind of fun to get an erotic message over your email or on the phone,” says Certified Sex Therapist Joyce Joseph. “But on the other hand none of that is really safe or private.”
It’s known to teens as sexting, and though it doesn’t always lead to a physical act, Joseph says it can confuse teenagers emotionally.
Billy leads worship for our High School ministry and oversees our Student Music and Fine Arts program. I have mentioned Billy before, but I wanted to pass along a great resource he’s providing this week.
First, let me say that Billy is one of the most talented musicians I have ever been around. He can play a multitude of instruments very well, and is an accomplished song writer. He is currently mixing and producing our Student Ministry worship album.
Today he made available some really great resources that he uses on a weekly basis in our Student Ministry. He also made downloadable links available to all of his click tracks, loops, etc that our HS band uses. I think those links expire in a week or so, so you may want to hurry and get them.
If you are a Student Pastor who reads my blog I would encourage you to pass this along to your worship leader. If you are your worship leader, check it out yourself. The website we use for our service planning, order, creative team, etc is an excellent resource that he explains a lot better than I do, but it allows us to have up to 20 users who can view our service orders, chord charts, videos or audio of the songs and/or dramas, schedule, etc. It has been a great addition to our planning process.
May 27, 2008 at 8:01 pm · Filed under Culture, Church
Beginning June 8th at MPN we are beginning a new series around Oprah’s newest book club book A New Earth. The book immediately jumped to the top of bestseller lists after her endorsement. She also partnered with the author, Ekhard Tolle in a 10 week online teaching of the principles in the book. While some called these online gatherings Oprah’s church, it has generated a new conversation about spirituality and life purpose, which I think is extremely positive.
One of the things I love about our Pastor is that he is not afraid to address socially sensitive topics, but he does it with an authentic desire to model Jesus in presenting “grace and truth”. We dedicated an entire Sunday last year to Homosexuality. He stopped a series to address the bones of Jesus documentary. There are a lot of other examples, and these are not canned responses. In my opinion it is a shepherd helping steer his sheep away from danger and toward Truth.
I’ll keep you posted to the success of the series.
Last Wednesday night we talked about sexual issues in our Hotline series. As a part of that talk I dealt very candidly with the questions our students asked about homosexuality, oral sex, pornography, and sex before marriage. I talked about the very nature of sexual relationships, did so with a firm conviction about my subject matter, and a clear understanding as to who my target audience is.
At the end of the night one of my leaders who served in ministry prior to coming to MPN said to me, “great job tonight. You said things tonight I never had the guts to say in 13 years of preaching.” Because I know the man, and because I have the context of our entire conversation to know his motivation, I took it as an extremely high compliment. However, during my talk I felt the need to say verbally to my kids, “I’m not saying this so you’ll think ‘man I can’t believe he said that.’” When I got home I went back over it in my head to make sure I hadn’t said some things only to shock them, and I don’t believe I did.
I hope that can always be said of me. I feel like there are times when we as preachers/teachers/communicators sensationalize topics to get a reaction or shock the crowd. I absolutely believe we need to be truthful, and I understand that especially in Student Ministry, “they are hearing it in school anyway”. I just wonder…
A man I respect asked recently, “what ever happened to just preaching Jesus?” I believe that’s a very simplistic question to which there is no simple response.
When was the last time you made that statement? I had a meeting today with some great people from a wonderful church oversees. At one point, as talked about a possible joint ministry venture one of the men said, “what we’re talking about today could literally change the world. This is how it starts…a conversation between people.”
As they left I thought, I don’t think that way enough. I’m not saying I should claim that every series we do is the greatest thing that’s ever happened as some bloggers do and apologize for and continue to do it anyway(which I love by the way), but I think my dreams could be bigger.
Do you any of your dreams have the potential to change the world?
With the end of school and the start of summer it’s time to think about transitions. I ran across this article from Youthministry.com dealing with the transition from MS to HS.
If you’ve read much, talked much or listened much about youth ministry lately, you are certainly aware of the growing concern over the vast number of students who walk away from church during, or shortly after, their high school years.
Last night was awesome. The band did a great job leading worship. They opened with the Matchbox 20 song “How Far We’ve Come”. There worship set included “Salvation is Here”, “Glory of it all”, “Lift High” and a tag of “Rescue”.
We continued our Hotline series by addressing all of the sex questions. These included “Can you be gay and be a Christian?”, “Is oral sex really sex?”, “Is masturbation a sin?”, “What’s so wrong with premarital sex?”, “Porn, always wrong?”. We made the students stand up and choose a side on every one of these issues. Then we allowed people from each group to defend their position. It was great conversation and interaction. Then I attempted to bring some Biblical perspective to each of these topics. After working through passages of significance, I abandoned my notes and spoke from the heart. I attempted, and feel that with the Lord’s help was successful, in talking about dropping all the other labels and striving for purity. We talked about what Christianity is about, and what it means to call yourself a Christian. I closed by talking specifically to the people who felt as if they’d “blown it” and fallen to one or more of these sexual temptations and issues in their lives. The band came and closed with one of my new favorite songs as dozens of students came forward to pray for forgiveness and strength to overcome sexual addictions/attitudes/actions. I encouraged students to go to the Hotline blog and post their thoughts on their sexual desires and topics. So far we have some great comments.
After worship we showed this video to set up the night’s issues. We got it from LifeChurch. It is a little provocative, but really set the tone for how sex has been perverted by culture.
The last 2 days Steven Furtick has written exceptional posts.
Yesterday he wrote about the creative process and allowing even your unfinished ideas to be included in the conversation.
So I’d just put it out there: “I have an idea for the next line. Not this, but something like (insert clumsy line).” This is where a good co-writing partner will jump in and see it from a different angle, providing a different perspective, and, over 50% of the time, refining your mediocre idea until it’s actually a feasible line. This phrase has helped me solicit help for sermon illustrations. I’ll tell my team: “Hey guys, I have this idea for an illustration for tithing using piggy banks. This isn’t exactly it, but something like (describe idea). How do you think we could make this work?”
Today he builds on a quote from Stephen King about sermon prep. He talks about his inability to talk about sermon prep as writing a sermon. He’s not writing something new. He is trying to unearth nuggets of wisdom that are already present.
“I’m approaching the living Word of God to uncover a Word from God from the Word of God.
i still laugh every time i see the parenthetical verse in numbers 12:3: (Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.) i laugh, of course, because moses wrote this. nice, mo.
In case you want to check the verse to make sure it actually says that (I did). You can click below.
I’m doing some fact finding and research about home based small groups and discipleship for our Student Ministry. Currently we have small groups that meet together within the context of our Wednesday night services, and they work well, but could be better.
This summer we are trying to get as much information as we can as we formulate a strategy for this fall. We are thinking of creating a few select “proto-type” groups that will help us learn. Some of these groups we might determine how the students are grouped (grade, school, location, etc), while letting others create themselves, some may feature video curriculum, some may follow up the weekly messages. We are open to any and all ideas. We would take the best of these models and launch them with all of our students beginning in January ‘09.
Do you have experience with these types of groups in your church or student ministry? Are there formats that worked/didn’t work for you? Do you know of some resources or contacts that we should consider in our search?
Anything you’ve got would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help.
This past Sunday turned into Student Ministry day. We honored our Senior graduates and gave away 2 scholarships for next year. Our high school band led worship, and I spoke in the 10:30 service. It was a great day for our kids and for Student Ministry.
If you’d like to view the service you can do so HERE. Or if you want to listen to the podcast you can do so
