Ministry
It is NOT about Relationships
At least not just ANY relationship. We can develop relationships all day long but if as Christians we are not modeling our relationship building after Christ then we ARE going to FAIL! We see in Matt 9, Mark 2, Luke 5 and 19 the types of relationships Jesus invested in, relationships with people who were hurting, [...]
Book Review: Urgent by Joe Donahue
My friend Joe Donahue has written his first book and in order to build awareness he has allowed me to get an advanced reading of the book in order to do a review. Now I have to say that at first I was worried about doing a review for a friend but after reading the [...]
New Christmas Tear Jerker
I heard this on my way back from Nashville. I am glad it was dark because I was balling like a baby and people would have thought I was crazy if they could have seen me.
Loving All, All the Time
I had the privilege of serving with a man named Chris at NYWC 201o. Chris is a youth ministry vet who has been loving on kids for 20+ years and to call him a character would be the understatement of the century. Personality is this man’s middle name and you cannot help but smile [...]
Opened with Expectation and Closed in Profit
That is a good book which is opened with expectation and closed in profit. ~ Amos Bronson Alcott ~ To really get your leaders on board with the vision that God has given you you are going to have to shape not only their thoughts but how they form them. Through the years countless books [...]
They Don’t Think Like You
One of the biggest mistakes that I have seen church leaders make is to walk into a situation and assume that the people who they are leading are on the same page. This tends to lead to conflict and confusion down the road when the leader starts moving in a direction that no one understands [...]
The Nails
We studied Isaiah 53:1-5 this week in Collide, our Wednesday youth service. It was a powerful time and God really spoke through me and I was wiped afterwards. Week in and week out we see people come in to the church and leave completely unchanged. They profess Christianity but they wallow in their sins daily [...]
Troubled
I spent the first three years of being a bonafide paid youth minister working in a church that was nestled in one of the worst communities in our city. At its height, the community was a middle class , blue collar, family oriented community. Through the years it became a rental community full of transients [...]
Down from the Mountain
Having just come back from an amazing weekend with our youth group it is an easy thing to get down. After all we experienced coming back down to reality is a little depressing. Most of us in the ministry recognize this as a mountaintop experience and understand the brutality of the realization that we have [...]
Acquire the Fire 2010
It is Monday morning and along with the typical spiritual hang-over I am also trying to sort out all the thoughts in my head from our trip to Acquire the Fire. Let me run down some thoughts that are circulating off the top of my head. We tripled our attendance from this time last year. [...]
