youth ministry

If you’ve noticed… I haven’t been posting regularly for about 2 weeks. This is the season of spinning plates in my life. Between family and ministry, things have been pretty busy.

Our annual Youth Dynamics fundraising dinner kicks off tomorrow night. We have a goal to raise $17,000 and we believe that God can do this! There’s been tons of prep and lots of hours of work by staff and volunteers. But it’s also been a great season of watching the Lord work.

Pray for this event!

If you want to donate towards our efforts to reach out to at-risk youth with the hope of Christ…

Donate here

www.yd.org

What’s your life… in a six word story?

Smith Magazine has “Six-Word Memoir” series and is asking:

“Everyone has a story. Can you tell yours in six words?”

Here’s mine:

I’m asking, seeking. knocking these days.

What’s your six-word story?

I’m going to say this upfront. I haven’t seen the new Christian movie “To Save a Life.” And I’m probably not going to. I’m biased, and jaded towards Christian media. But for those of you who have seen it, I’d love to have your reviews here.

My only request: be honest. Don’t handicap your review because it’s a Christian film. Be honest.

Here’s a video response to Billy Graham Association’s “I Believe.com” campaign. It’s all over the net and Facebook (and being pushed by Christianity.com). They’re calling for us to “take a stand!”

Really? Do we need to take yet another stand?

[HT: YS]

I think that Craig is on to something here.

Think of this. How much of your youth ministry is “fun and games” and how much of it is discipling teenagers in their faith? Are we just entertaining in the hopes of slipping the Gospel in? Is this the “bait and switch” Gospel? Or simply put… is your youth ministry contributing to the stupidity of teenagers?

I noticed this a few years back. We’d promo a trip by saying it was a snowboarding weekend, but fail to mention that our real [subversive] purpose was to share Christ. Once I realized how we were packaging our faith (90% fun and 10% Jesus) I repented and changed my ways. Do we still have fun? Absolutely. But am I clear about the focus of what we do? You bettcha.

Ministry for us has changed to something more about pursuing life change and less about events and entertainment. Is it an easy switch? No. Are we still refining the process with? Uh huh. Is it a necessary one? Yes it completely is.

What are your thoughts?

It’s fixed. It’s ready. It’s up!

Once you’ve got the sign up, you’re official right?

Somedays I feel crazy. Sometimes I act crazy. Somedays I work with crazy teenagers. Sometimes they drive me crazy.

So what exactly does crazy look like?

Samuel (my four year old son) gives us a definitive answer to that question.