I have been going back to school for the past two years to get my 2 year degree and eventually my four year degree. Part of this journey is taking Algebra. I hate algebra. I am a right brain kind of guy so numbers scare me. I tried to make the argument, to myself,…
Trying something new can be scary. It might fail, worse, it might succeed and then you have to keep succeeding. Recently I started doing announcements via Facebook (example above). Although I do not shy away from the spot light, it was still scary because I knew I would be judged on it. My fear was,…
When I was a young youth pastor, I thought it was my job, neigh, my obligation to change the church for the glory of God. I thought it was my job to be the radical all the time and to drag these spiritual neanderthals out of the 19th Century (or earlier) and into the…
I was driving my 17 year old son to school the other day. There are two roads to his school. One involves a traffic light and the other involves a stop sign. I usually take him the way of the stop light. My route involves going straight and then making a left. The other…
Think about hearing the gospel for the first time. Those of us who have been Christians for a while, can’t really imagine this. We heard it, accepted it, and joined the rank and file. Maybe that’s the problem with the model church and it’s frailty. We didn’t have to find an underground church to hear…
I had a great conversation with a parent yesterday because we were on the same page (I know, shocking!), but she shared how her daughter and another came to them after a recent service and said that youth group that night was lame. A little back story. This youth group has had everything handed…
I recently did a session for our kids ministry about the building blocks of outreach. Each principle builds upon another. Feel free to use this session with your leaders Outreach Building Blocks 1. Passion drives everything. Key Questions Why did you get involved with this program? Tell me your story? That story drives everything you…
If you are not familiar with the History Channel show Top Shot, it is a show about guys in a multi-week shooting competition to become the seasons Top Shot. I took this simple premise and let the Bible do the rest. You get to shoot things and study the Bible? This is a guys bible…
If you have read though many of my posts, you know I am a big proponent of student-led ministry. This is good in theory, but it requires, if they are new to the concept, hard work to retrain their mindset and the mindset of the church who might have certain expectations for you. In…
If you blow up the picture above, Captain America is waxing eloquently about how America should be. He ends with the phrase “no, you move.” Idealism works for Cap, he’s a comic book character, he does not live in the real world, we do. Idealism says “you move”. Cap would not make it as…
