Archive for April, 2008
· Categories Student Ministry
Click HERE to read my earlier post on Systems
Click HERE to read my earlier post on Personal and Spiritual Systems
My official title at Mt. Paran North is Director of Student Ministries. Therefore I am responsible for all Student Ministry related events, ministries, etc, but I don’t lead them all. So we have a few systems in place to create some specific behaviors with our staff.
1. Weekly Staff Meeting
– this meeting takes place on Tuesday afternoons at 1pm. It is agenda driven to take full advantage of our time, and I lead this meeting. All Student Ministry employees are present (currently that is 5 full timers, this summer we will add 3-4 interns). We have a specific time up front designated as “Catch up”. This is set aside to share stories, both ministry and personal, and interact with each other on a personal level. The next item is always a “Thought of the Week”. Sometimes this is a scripture passage that’s been speaking to me, a blog post I liked, etc. Just something to get us thinking. Then we deal with the issues of the week. We don’t talk much about the specifics of the next night’s services unless there is something really special happening (I’ll explain why in a minute). This meeting is extremely important for us to stay on the same page.
2. Monthly Volunteer Meeting
– Some months we combine MS, HS, and college together and I’ll share, but most months these meetings are separate. We vary the location, sometimes meeting at the church, sometimes at a centrally located home. This is a time to recast Vision, discuss areas of ministry that need attention, brainstorm new ideas, and pray together. This is probably the most important meeting I have all month.
3. Weekly Creative Team Meeting
– Each of our ministry areas does this differently. The rest of this deals specifically with High School. Every Thursday morning we have a team of people that comes together to plan, dream, and implement our weekly worship services. The have some very specific roles that they fill on this team. Billy (our Director of Student Music and Fine Arts) leads this meeting. Matt is our Media guy. Danee thinks drama, atmosphere, and decorations. Connie is the go-getter. If we are using props, building stuff, or giving things away she handles that. Kim is in the details. She has the calendar, budget, set up forms, etc, etc, etc in hand. She also takes notes and emails them to everyone once we’re through meeting. David and Helene try to take all of our ideas and connect them to our small group time. I present the big ideas and try to stay out of the way. We start with a review of the previous night’s service. Good, bad, and ugly we try to get it all out on the table. We then move on to 4 weeks out. I present the message theme, idea, Scripture, series, etc. We brainstorm for a few minutes, and move on. Then we discuss the service that is 3 weeks away. This idea is what was presented last week. We spend the majority of our time here. We dream about dramas, music, take aways, and decor. We delegate responsibility for each task, and move on. Next we look at 2 weeks out. This is mostly each person presenting what they’ve accumulated or created from the previous week’s discussion. Next we move to next week’s service. This involves a fine tuning of the order of service because we already know everything that is being done in the service. Then we’re done. This doesn’t work for everyone I’m sure, and we’ve only been doing it this way for a little while, but it’s working for us.
This post is already too long. I’ll post the rest later.
April 25, 2008
· Categories Church
Perry quotes TD Jakes today on his blog…
I once heard TD Jakes say, “The problem with most pastors is that they never leave the locker room–they always feel the need to compare!” WHEW!
Ouch!!!
April 24, 2008
· Categories Student Ministry
One of my favorite services ever. We combined our Middle School and High School students together in the gym. We are going to do this 4-5 more times throughout the year. It gives us a lot of energy, and is good to create unity within Student Ministry.
Since we were together, we created the “geezer band”, and gave our student bands the night off. Billy, Markus, Josh, Sheldon, Cole Ledford, and I led worship, and we had a blast. It was fun playing with those guys. As a part of the series Me and the Mirror we did some thematic songs in the set, Everything Glorious, Friend of God, and closed it out with Our God Reigns which was really powerful. We also did a Barlow Girls song, “Mirror” to set up the drama and message.
Danee, Andrew, and Danielle did an awesome job on the drama, dealing with the expectations of others and the images that produces in us.
The message was simple. You have a God-sized destiny in front of you. You were created to do something for God. It’s the middle part of our theme verse in Ephesians 2, “to do good works in Christ Jesus…” The problem comes when we allow the image we see in the mirror to disqualify us. We looked at the examples of Peter and Moses. Both had murky pasts, and pretty big mistakes. Neither was really qualified to do the job they were asked to do. Peter stepped up and spoke the words of God in Acts 2. You and I can do that too. God is not requiring us to have all the answers on our own. We can use His words. Moses was full of excuses, and God assured Him, “I will rescue the people, I just need you to go with me.” He wasn’t looking for great ability, He was looking for great availability.
Really great night. I cannot wait for next week. It could be one of the most impactful services we’ve ever had.
April 24, 2008
· Categories Personal, Spirituality
I try not to justify my statements a lot, because I don’t feel it’s necessary. But I want to preface this post by saying, I don’t have it all figured out. The things in this post are works in progress, or models that I admire. Some of them are in place for me, while others are goals.
1. Daily devotions or quiet time with the Lord.
– this is the most important system. It must be protected and defended or it will get passed over.
2. Regular, scheduled date nights with my wife.
– Admittedly I struggle with this one. It is one of my new years resolution in ’08 to date my wife more. Business tries to steal this, ministry tries to steal this, our kids try to steal this (though they don’t know it), and laziness try to steal this.
3. X3 Watch internet protection/accountability to guard my integrity.
– I told our students recently on a Wednesday night that I do several things in regards to the internet for my own protection. I have X3 installed and the results emailed to an accountability partner. I don’t get on the computer after Corrie goes to bed.
This is obviously not an exhaustive list, but captures some of my passions. I want to serve with the Lord with full out abandonment. I want have a successful marriage, and be able to experience a 50th and 75th wedding anniversary. And I want to model a life of integrity for my family and students.
What other personal and spiritual systems are there?
April 24, 2008
· Categories Church, Leadership, Personal, Student Ministry
At the Catalyst conference this past October Andy Stanley spoke on systems. He made the statement
“Preaching doesn’t create behavior, systems do.”
If the people in your church don’t invite people to church, it’s because you don’t have a system in place that creates that behavior. It’s not enough to say, well winning the lost is a part of our Mission Statement. He went on to say
There is usually a disconnect between Mission/Vision and Systems…Systems always win out.
I would like to unpack this idea over the next several days. In my ongoing journey to improve as a husband, father, pastor, etc I want there to be systems in place that create the kind of behaviors in and around me that are beneficial.
The first thing I understand is that systems don’t just happen. Just as I don’t believe in the Big Bang Theory, I don’t believe that I can just continue living my life and expect everything to just fall into place. I must create systems.
Tomorrow we will discuss Personal and Spiritual Systems and Thursday we will look at Student Ministry Systems.
What are some systems that you use to create a desired behavior?
April 22, 2008
· Categories Sports
I posted HERE about the opportunity I had to serve as the assistant baseball coach for 15-18 year old baseball team this year. I have given several updates on our team since then, but I have a confession to make…
In the post I mentioned earlier I jokingly stated that the over-under on me getting kicked out of a game was 5 games. I made it to 9. Monday night I was thrown out of a game for “arguing balls and strikes” with the umpire. Arguing is a loose term that actually means “asked a question”.
I realize it’s not a great thing that some of my player’s youth pastor got kicked out of a baseball game, but it was a funny experience. I didn’t yell, cuss, spit, scream, or even raise my voice. I really did just ask if the pitch was high or outside so that I could tell my pitcher. I had been doing this most of the game, and I guess the umpire was tired of it, and felt that I was trying to call attention to the fact that he was terrible, blind as a bat, doing the best he could to call the game.
The funniest part of the whole story is that once I was thrown out, our head coach called time to ask why I had been thrown out for asking a question and the ump threw him out too. So we watched the last inning and half from the parking lot, together.
It’s been a great season so far. We are 7-2, having lost to the same team twice, but I think we get them once more at our place and we’ll set things straight. I really am having a blast!
April 18, 2008
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