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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”

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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”

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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.

Let’s talk numbers.

Continue reading “Youth Ministry Isn’t Winning – Part 1”

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The thing about celebrity pastors

I hear a lot

about this pastor, or that pastor. I see a lot of people running around from church to church with preset expectations about what preaching should look like in a church based on the awesome pastor they’ve been listening to. It’s interesting. Before we go any further with this..

Let’s talk about basketball

Arguably the most prolific player in the sport, he took the NBA by storm. 30.1 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 5.3 apg, 50% shooting, 33% three-point shooting. All that, and the media ate it up when he changed teams.

LeBron? No Continue reading “The thing about celebrity pastors”

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Values – In Work

I work for an organization that is values driven.

You may have some ideas of what that means already, so I’ll explain a bit to avoid any confusion. You see, we aren’t a not-for-profit organization. We’re a for profit business. “OK, so your’ value is making money?” No, not so much. I mean, we’re certainly profitable and we need to make money in order to keep doing what we do. While at the same, that’s not our highest value. “Values Driven” means Continue reading “Values – In Work”

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Penal-Substitution

Penal Substitutionary Atonement.

It’s a big phrase. To make it simple, it really means we were traded. We were slaves who were traded for a free person. It’s the foundation for a non-works based belief of our status with God. The Christian would say that Jesus lived a sinless life and traded it for our sinful life. Some good verses of reference are: 2 Corinthians 5:21 and Galatians 3:13

Let’s break it down word by word to make it clearer.

Penal

Prescribing the punishment of offenders under the legal system. In other words: Continue reading “Penal-Substitution”