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Transitions
Transitions are always interesting.
I’ve learned from writing here that, as time passes we are moved from one place to another. I see it in my writing. As I look at what I’ve written about over time, I see where I’m moving. Blogging is Continue reading “Transitions”
The Trinity – Part 5
This is the 5th and final post on the Trinity. For anyone who wants to catch up you can read the other posts from the links below.
The Trinity – Part 1
The Trinity – Part 2
The Trinity – Part 3
The Trinity – Part 4
Honestly, there’s not much Continue reading “The Trinity – Part 5”
Team Wins
Sometimes there are things that are so culturally polarizing, they create such hatred and arguments, that you want to avoid it. In this season where our nation is so polarized I almost hate to broach the subject. I’m afraid of who I might alienate by the next statements on this post.
The Spurs are the best example of team I’ve ever found. I don’t just mean basketball, I mean the best team. Now I have to address all the Miami fans out there, then I’ll come back.
A friend of mine and I were talking about the Finals and he put it aptly: Continue reading “Team Wins”
The Trinity – Part 4
The last several weeks, we’ve talked about the concept of the Trinity. You can read those posts here, here, and here. This week we’re going to look at God the Holy Spirit.
He’s a person.
The Holy Spirit is a person in the Godhead. Continue reading “The Trinity – Part 4”
Youth Ministry Isn’t Winning – Part 3
The last few weeks we’ve talked about youth ministry as it has been and why it isn’t working. You can read those posts here and here. Last week I introduced the concept of a discipleship movement. Today I want to explore that concept a bit more and explain what we changed on a ground level in our ministry.
Where do you start?
First, you have to start with an acknowledgement that we, as youth workers, won’t be able to start or continue a movement of Junior and Senior High students without having key leaders from that age group. Once you’ve acknowledged that, there’s also the reality that, in a general sense, 20-30% of most towns is in the Junior and Senior High School. That’s not an entirely across the board statement as I know of towns where those numbers are different. Either way you have to begin to realize that , for most of us, there are way too many teenagers to fit them in your building.
This is where discipleship being the foundational element of the church and having most of “church” (discipleship) take place outside of the “church” (building), makes more sense. Simply on a logistical level, if the goal is to see entire schools reached then fundamentally moving your youth ministry outside a building and specific meeting time will eliminate a ton of obstacles that would otherwise hinder a movement. [Tweet That]
What do you do?
For us, it began with cancelling our main gathering. Honestly, it wasn’t working as well as I’d like and we were never able to make it be the center point of our ministry anyway. The center point happened to be our small groups anyway. So we went smaller, back to only small groups. I just couldn’t figure out how to make it work better than it was, and I don’t mind cancelling stuff that isn’t working. Smaller is how we built, so it worked better.
Sometimes you have to think smaller to go bigger. [Tweet That]
As our efforts in small groups increased, I continued to see how it wasn’t working like I wanted. Discipleship is the bigger deal. Seeing this, I began to push harder. We identified some potential leaders, cancelled the groups they were in, and began attempting meetings outside of our small groups with the understanding that they would start their own. (I’d change this strategy if I were to do it again.) I also started working with another existing small group. I began it with the intention in mind that the members of this group (junior high students) will be able to continue it and lead it without an adult. I’ve even intentionally missed some nights while helping them plan the next weeks group.
What would you change?
I’d keep the groups together and adjust them into leaders huddles from Mike Breen’s Building a Discipling Culture. Then, after 6 months I’d require anyone in that group to start a huddle of their own. Doing a cold turkey cut over is quick, but most people can’t deal with it and are more suited to a transition over time.
The Trinity – Part 3
The past few weeks we’ve been talking about the Trinity. You can read those posts here and here. This week we’re going to dive into God the Son.
God…As Son
The how of Christ being the firstborn is a hairy theological situation, the likes of which should only be addressed by those with way more brain power than I posses. Continue reading “The Trinity – Part 3”
Youth Ministry Isn’t Winning – Part 2
Last week we talked about the reality that youth ministry isn’t winning. You can read that here. I introduced the term “Discipleship Movement”. I’ll come back to that.
Most students graduate.
Most students graduate high school. The most recent percentage on dropouts I could find had it hovering right above 7%. Today the rate is lower, but it’s still between 50% and 75% of those who graduate high school will also stop being involved in a local expression of church and following Jesus. We like to call this “Graduating from their faith.”
The ROI isn’t great.
The reality is that Youth Ministry costs Continue reading “Youth Ministry Isn’t Winning – Part 2”
The Trinity – Part 2
Last week we talked about the initial concept of the Trinity. You can read that here. This week we’re going to dive a bit deeper into God the Father.
God….as Father
This is big. Huge. This means that God is revealed as a loving Father. This implies that earthly dad’s like me are meant to reflect God to our children. So your Dad will always impact your view of God. God is the first Father and so He isn’t called that by a relation of mankind, rather man is and earthly Fatherhood is called such by a comparison to God. i.e. Fatherhood came from God to man and wasn’t a title given from man to God.
How He’s Father
God is creator of Continue reading “The Trinity – Part 2”
Youth Ministry Isn’t Winning – Part 1
Chances are
your youth ministry isn’t as great as you think. No, I’m not saying it’s not good, I’m saying your still going to deal with the same stuff everyone else deals with. Even if you have a big group and they all actually love Jesus. You probably aren’t winning. What? Joshua, why are you hating the youth pastors. Glad you asked.
I’m a youth pastor.
3 years ago, our church didn’t have a youth ministry. My wife and I were asked to start one. So we did. It grew too. Our church is a bit smaller, yet we ended up having 3 small groups and 40 kids at the biggest event we did. That’s actually pretty good comparatively. It’s also a problem for me. Why? Context, it’s all context.