From 1 Corinthians
I am a fool. A weak fool. I am not of noble birth nor influential. I have not much about which to boast – save Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians reminds me that at have no cause for pride. I have done nothing to earn the assurance I own. It is easy to forget that outside of Jesus we are worthless, that we deserve death and hell.
“Of First Importance”
A response to someone’s question: “Is it necessary for the Christian to believe Jesus was actually raised form the dead?
Paul reminds his readers in no uncertain terms that the actual, physical, historically accurate resurrection of Jesus from the grave following his crucifixion is of first importance. The resurrection is Christianity, and without it there is none. Paul removes any doubt of his opinion in 1 Corinthians 15:14 when he writes, “And if Christ has not been raised from the dead, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” Without a resurrected Christ all of Christendom is moot.
From The Acts of The Apostles
Reading the Book of Acts a clear contrast surfaces between the early church and the American church of today. There is an exception that proves every rule, they say, so this opinion of mine is not meant to include every single church in the land, but I do believe it true of the lion’s share. The early church, as it existed before committees and business meetings, cantatas and 5th Sundays, steeples and Robert’s Rules of Order was motivated by two things: the discipleship of current believers and the evangelism of those who were not. The same holds true of today’s church (universal), on paper at least.
From the Gospel of Luke
Reading the Gospel According to Luke, my attention was captured by Jesus’ words in chapter 6. I will focus on those verses 27-36 and 37-42 here.
Jesus Paid It All
It is critical to understand that Jesus’ death on the cross was a voluntary surrender to redeem you and I. The willful self-sacrifice of Jesus is representative of how we must come to accept that salvation. That does not make it easy, mind you. Jesus knew why he had come, to do the will of his Father who sent him. Jesus alluded to his death, burial, and resurrection repeatedly during his ministry, but as the hour drew close he prayed that God would, if it were His will, take that cup from him. We do the same, you know. Only we are not facing our own execution for crimes of which we are innocent. We say, “God, please this.” and “God, I can’t do that. Something else, please!” Or worse, “God, I refuse.” I do not believe it wrong to ask God for another way, place, or time. Jesus did. We cannot ignore the remaining fact, however. Jesus asked if there might be another way, and then displayed plainly his motive when he prayed, “Not my will but yours be done.” Jesus told his Father that if there was another way he would be glad to hear it, but also stood resolute that whatever God’s will was, that is what he would do. When God again affirmed that the sacrifice of the cross was the only means to save mankind, Jesus willingly accepted. To understand that is to understand the salvation available to you and I. We must WILLINGLY accept what Jesus offers through his WILLING sacrifice. Jesus knew God’s will, but could have chosen to ignore it. (Aren’t I glad he did not…) We can know the facts of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, but if we chose to ignore it we have not salvation. We must willingly respond by, in light of his choice to redeem us with his own life accepting Jesus’ gift of salvation by making him Lord of our lives.
From the Gospel of Mark
The Gospel According to Mark, finding itself among the Synoptic Gospels is predictably similar to the Gospel of Matthew. Reading the Gospel of Mark this week I found my attention captured by chapter 5. Here Jesus and his lot have landed a boat only to find a demon-possessed man. This man had been tormented for a long time. The townspeople knew him well, and if verse 4 is any indication they were troubled by this individual. He was someone who frightened them, someone they shielded their children from. The people had tried chains and irons to control the man to no avail.
1 + 1 =?
Thought I would share a brief response I wrote to the question, “Why is it important that Jesus was actually fully God and fully man?”
It is critical to understand that Jesus is fully God and fully man. Does 100% + 100% add up? No, with the exception of Jesus. Jesus came to earth as a man. He hungered and thirsted. He was certainly tempted, in fact far greater was his temptation than yours or mine. I don’t know about you, but I have yet to be led into the wilderness by Satan for forty days…
If Jesus were not fully man he could not have died at human hands. He knew physical pain. When he knew the hour was near Jesus prayed that God might find another way. Yet only his sacrifice was worthy to redeem mankind, because he was also fully God. Jesus did not inherit the sinful nature that plagues each of us as he was born in a unique way, a miraculous way, of a virgin. If Jesus was not also fully God his sacrifice was meaningless, and we have no hope. Christ proved his humanity in death, and his divinity by raising again from the dead. Were this not true, our faith would be futile. Paul speaks to this in 1 Corinthians 15:19 when he says “If for only this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people to be most pitied.”
From the Gospel of Matthew
This was not my first time to read the Gospel of Matthew. Nor my second. It was not my third or fourth. It was not even my first time to read it this year, but as I read it this time I was struck by a message I had not previously focused my attention upon. I have long been aware that Jesus combatted the hypocrisy of the religious leaders of the day, but this time it became most conspicuous, and perhaps for a different reason.
Who is “Good?”
Here is a quick response I wrote to someone who made a comment along the lines of “I believe everything going on today is God beginning to get rid of the bad people on earth so that only good people will be left.”
I must fundamentally disagree with your belief that God is “getting rid of bad people” in favor of “good people.” While I choose to believe you did not intend this statement to be as egotistical as it is, please be very careful using this sort of language. What you have communicated regardless of your intent is that there are some “bad” people God does not care for while yourself and others are “good” people whom God loves. Please be mindful of the words of Paul in his epistle to the Romans. Beginning in Chapter 3 verse 9 he says “Are we any better? Not at all!” He goes on to quote the Psalms and the prophet Isaiah in verses 10-18, “As it is written: There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” The statement “no not one” certainly includes me therefore I am at my core not a “good” person nor is anyone else. Because God loves all of us in spite of our sin, Peter tells us “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
Great App: Bible Audio Pronunciations
I was waiting to board a flight out of DFW recently when I (as I entertained myself with my iPad) found an app that instantly caught my eye. “Wow.” I thought. Why didn’t I think of that?
The app is called Bible Audio Pronunciations by a company of the same name. The purpose is to help those of us who are not necessarily Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic scholars accurately pronounce difficult biblical names and terms. I quickly reached out to the apps creators and asked to feature them on this site. Here is their story:
My wife and I are the parents of 5 wonderful children. I am a professional musician – a saxophonist in the U.S. Army Band in Washington D.C. My wife, also a musician, is a stay at home mom. We are active in our church and in our community.For many years, we have talked about making an iPhone app – one that could be helpful to others, if even in a small way.In 2011, we determined to make it happen. Neither of us know anything about writing code; however, we found that it was possible to outsource the project via elance.com. We simply had to come up with the concept of the app and flesh it out on paper.After several brainstorming sessions, we came up with many “brilliant” ideas, only to find that these ideas were already converted into apps. Except for one.I said to my wife, “What if there was an app that pronounced all of those challenging words in the Bible? Surely we are not the only ones that struggle with this.”We did a search on the iTunes store for “Bible Pronunciation” in all its various forms, and each search came back with 0 results!Immediately, we purchased as many Bible Pronunciation Guides as we could find and began doing our homework. We settled on a list of 1000 Bible names and began recording them. For better or for worse, it is my voice on the app. 🙂Our target audience for this app was the lay member – families reading the Bible together, members of Bible study groups, and so forth. However, our most enthusiastic customers have been theological students and pastors! (It never occurred to my wife and I that THEY struggled with these words as well. I guess we thought it was covered in seminary!)After version 1.0 was released, we immediately recognized that the app would have to be expanded to include every proper noun in the Bible. There are now over 4100 words included in the app – and counting.We have also had many requests to expand the app to the Android platform. We anticipate that it will be released by the fall of 2012.What challenges have we faced in creating the app?1. The incredible amount of time and energy that goes into recording and editing all of the names. I recorded each word 4-10 times. We would then go back and choose the best one. This has taken thousands of hours! It’s a slow process with a two person team doing this on the side.2. The inherent challenges of compiling a Bible pronunciation guide. As noted in the preface of the HarperCollins Bible Pronunciation Guide, many of the biblical terms that appear in English “are the results of passage through several languages [e.g., Greek and Latin] with their own distinctive patterns of pronunciation. Thus it is impossible to say what is ‘correct’ pronunciation of many biblical terms, especially of names from the Old Testament.”Our goal in creating this app is to provide quick, easy, and accurate access to correct pronunciations of challenging Biblical terms. However, in doing so, I offer the same disclaimer found in the HarperCollins preface: “The editors would not claim that the pronunciations given are, in every case, the only or even necessarily the best pronunciations; they do believe, however, that each pronunciation given is an acceptable and defensible one.”3. Getting the word out! As mentioned before, there is no other app in the Appstore that provides this particular service. This is both good news and bad news. The good news- there is no competition. The bad news- Most people aren’t looking for it because they don’t know it exists.The feedback we have received has been extremely positive. We have been featured on a dozen Christian Radio shows, a TV segment, and numerous newspaper and online articles and blogs. We have been ranked as high as #6 in the Reference Category of the iTunes store in the U.S. We also using Twitter and Facebook, and are still looking for other ways to get the word out.
Website: http://www.biblepronunciations.comTwitter: http://twitter.com/BibleSpeakiTunes link, both the Lite (free) version and full ($2.99): http://itunes.com/apps/pronunciationappsReviews:
Response to Mr. Stephen Hawking
Just watched the premier of CURIOSITY on THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL. This pilot episode, if that is what they are calling it, featured the renown Professor Stephen Hawking and his attempt to answer the question, “Did GOD create the universe?”
I found Prof. Hawking’s responses a bit under-whelming to be completely honest. Without giving a transcript of the entire hour long episode, let me summarize the prevailing point made on the program:
God cannot have created the universe, nor can He exist at all, because prior to an assumption called the “big bang” there was no time for Him to exist in.
That’s it. This is the best argument that is offered from what the scientific community seems to agree is the greatest mind since Einstein. There must not be a God in Heaven because time is conceivably limited. I really thought there would be more to it. It reminds me of the rare occasions I decide to do some deep cleaning or rearrange a room. I dig in and drag everything out for a big undertaking, and then loose interest and shove everything back where it was. Mr. Hawking celebrates saying it has taken 3000 years of human history to bring us to this milestone, the place where we no longer need to invent “gods” to explain the universe, then seems to loose interest and throw out a ludicrous rationale. The scientific world now enjoys a bully pulpit of sorts, and anyone who would dare oppose these smarter than you types is dubbed a rare breed of idiot. Well, somehow I manage to cross the street all by myself, but I cannot understand this “no time before bang” explanation.
Humor me a moment. Let’s say, for sake of discussion, the GOD of the Bible is real. Why would He be bound by time? Realize that time is not a tangible thing. In fact time is only a human concept invented to explain a given number of earth’s trips around the sun. It is not something GOD or anyone or anything else can exist inside of. The Professor tries to explain himself with an analogy of a clock entering a black hole. Because of the black hole’s intense gravity, time stands still. Clearly, if time is standing still, then the clock would stop it’s motion. If this is the best conclusion the guys in white lab coats can draw, my faith is unshaken. Mr. Hawking, a clock is not the engine of time, it is simply a mechanical device which moves predictably. Time is a measurement, so cannot screech to a halt because of gravity. If we would agree that time is measure of the earth’s orbit, then for time to stop the earth must stop… Maybe you get it. I do not.
Book Review: OUT OF A FAR COUNTRY by Christopher Yuan and Angela Yuan
OUT OF A FAR COUNTRY
Student Ministry Outreach Strategies
We are gearing up to launch a student outreach program within our student ministry. We will be having converstations with other ministries that have been successfully doing student outreach for some time, and are eager to hear what has worked for them and what has not. Do you have a formal outreach strategy in your church or student ministry? What has worked for you?
Book Review: Radical Together by David Platt
RADICAL TOGETHER BY DAVID PLATT
Radical Together by David Platt is something of a sequel to his first book (and New York Times bestseller) Radical. Maybe continuation is a better word, although it does carry the same meaning… All that nonsense aside, here is what you need to know about Platt’s newest installment: READ IT.
I was awarded this advance copy of one of Christendom’s most anticipated books because of my review of it’s predecessor, and RADICAL TOGETHER did not disappoint. Rather, it continued to reveal that I am often the disappointment. In RADICAL, Platt challenges the church to take back our faith from the American Dream, something that hit me hard and left me changed. In RADICAL TOGETHER, the author intends to unleash the people of God for the purpose of God and draws our attention to the fact that we as the church, at least as it exists in our country, are often in our own way. Pastor Platt wastes no time, in the first paragraphs of chapter one which is subtitled,” The worst enemy of Christians is good things in the church” he says this:
“The last thing you and I want to do is waste our lives on religious activity that is devoid of spiritual productivity— being active in the church but not advancing the kingdom of God. We don’t want to come to the end of our days on earth, only to realize we have had little impact on more people going to heaven. Yet if we are not careful, we spend our lives doing good things in the church while we ultimately miss out on the great purposes for which we are created.
That’s why I say the worst enemy of Christians is good things in the church.”
That says it all. I cannot attempt to further explain this book, I can only tell you that if you are a Christian you should read this book, and then read it again.
This book was provided as an advance copy from the publisher in exchange for this review.
Book Review: Couples Who Pray by SQuire Rushnell and Louise DuArt
Couples Who Pray: The Most Intimate Act Between a Man and a Woman
That’s not a typo in the title, the “Q” in SQuire is capitalized. Don’t know why. What I do know is I have just finished reading Couples Who Pray: The Most Intimate Act Between a Man and a Woman by husband and wife team SQuire Rushnell and Louise DuArt.
I chose this book after being drawn in by the title. Having received it I was eager to get started, and found this book to be a quick and easy read, I read it in it’s entirety in one setting. The premise is this: couples who not only pray, but pray together are statistically proven to far and away more successful marriages than those who do not. By what standard do we deem a marriage successful you might ask? Not getting divorced is high on the list. This book demonstrates clearly that couples who pray together, stay together.
One of the things I appreciate most about this book is it’s inclusion of hard, measurable, provable data. The scoffers and nay-sayers cannot disagree with the information found in this book obtained by the likes of polling giant Gallup. The author’s prove their point, and do it well.
The reader will find several “big names” included in the author’s research, including Denzel Washington and Kathie Lee Gifford with their respective spouses. These couples and many others have taken the author’s 40 day prayer challenge, and share it’s most intimate results. The reader is then challenged to do the same using the books included resources.
If I must find a point of disagreement with the content of this book, it might be with the author’s teaching on tithing. The book does a fine job of outlining the benefits of biblical tithing and giving case-study like examples of it’s blessings from real couples, but SQuire and Louise go on to imply, somewhat strongly, that tithing needn’t be defined as giving 10% of monetary income, but could be giving of time or other resources as well. I must disagree. I believe scripture teaches that a biblical tithe is 10% of income, and that giving of other resources should be considered above and beyond our tithe.
All in all this is an excellent book, and I would recommend it without reservation to any couple. In fact I will likely add this to the materials to be included in pre-marital counseling.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program.
Organized Atheism In Schools
Found this article at usatoday.com this morning, and I have mixed feelings about the truth it displays: atheism is on the rise, and it has our students on it’s radar.
Reading this informative piece, my first response is what you would expect from a youth pastor, evangelical christian, or just plain anyone at all concerned with the eternity of those we share this planet with. I’m very troubled. It is tragic enough when people choose to live a life without Christ, but this is group of atheists who are out to gain followers. For those of us in student ministry, we have a monumental task. We have so many obstacles already, now the obstacles have organized themselves to campaign against us.
I have to think to myself, though, and realize that part of what makes this campaign possible is the freedom of religion we enjoy in America. The freedom that allows us to reach out to students with the Gospel (with more and more legal restraints) also allows those opposed to it their voice. Is this crossing the line though? Should these groups be banned in schools? Let me be very clear, I absolutely want Secular Student Alliance to stay out of schools. But how do we do that?
Rev. Barry Lynn
The article quotes Rev. Barry W. Lynn who is the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, lending his support to the atheists. Rev. Lynn is hardly an evangelical Christian. He is more a politician that clergyman in my opinion, and an extreme leftist at that. The Right Reverend has even supported pro-abortion legislation. (source)
Here is what I do know, the Secular Students Alliance, and groups like them are doing our job. They are often more motivated with falsities than we are with the Truth. We need to really raise the bar and start reaching some people. If nothing else, these sort of groups can help us know who to start with.
Please share your thoughts!
Do you Txt Blast? My review of two youth ministry txt message services
If your too young to vote, email is a thing of the past. Actually, today’s teens would probably never have an email account at all if it wasn’t necessary to create a facebook page… So how do you stay connected with your students? How do you notify kids, parents, and volunteers of this and that? For example: North Texas is in the throws of a winter storm which has canceled life as we know it for two days, and it’s Wednesday, so although it’s not been decided yet the question on many minds is “Will we have church tonight?” As soon as the powers that be make a call I can send one text message to all my students and leaders and everyone is on the same page instantly.
Some people are using resources like facebook or twitter to accomplish this task. While I can see the benefit, I find that both have a few shortfalls, at least for this purpose. Everyone is on facebook it seems, but people must log in to check your update. I know, I know, the iPhone app supports push notifications and facebook will send txt updates if enabled, but that will probably not include the majority of your involved people. I love twitter, but I seems to be a social experience embraced by the older crowd. Maybe your experience is different, but at least in my student ministry, almost none of our students use twitter. For us, text messaging has been a fantastic solution. We have used a couple different services to accomplish this, and I’ll share the pros and cons of each.
Simply Txt from Doug Fields' Simply Youth Ministry
The first text messaging service we used was Simply Txt from Doug Fields’ Simply Youth Ministry. I first became aware of Simply Txt at a Simply Youth Ministry Conference a couple years ago, and was excited to give it a try. I was not disappointed. In fact, it really improved the way we notified students, parents, and leaders of what was going on. Registration for an event due soon? Text blast to everyone. Guest speaker or worship leader tomorrow night? Everyone gets a text. Want to just send everyone a quick little encouragement? Well, you get it. Here is a screen cast from the guys at Simply Txt showing off their product.
Ok there are some great features there. After using Simply Txt for almost two years though I can tell you, having first hand experience how much of this is true. Simply Txt is a overall great product. I did have some reliability issues however, primarily in exactly when a message or blast would be delivered. The way Simply Txt works is they are actually sending an email to your carrier which is being delivered to your mobile device via SMS. You can actually do the same thing with your mail client of choice, such as Outlook or in my case Apple’s Mail.app, but it’s slightly too involved to be practical in my opinion. You probably would never care how it’s delivered, and your students certainly won’t, to them it’s just a text. The significance is however that delivering this way is sometimes, not always, unpredictable. I have seen it take hours, or in extreme cases even days for messages to arrive. More than once a message sent the previous day has shown up on everyone’s device in the wee hours of the morning, which doesn’t always bode well, especially with parents. Also if you are trying to communicate time-sensitive information you might be very disappointed. Let me be clear, the service worked as designed much of the time. I would estimate, and this is only an estimation, that in my experience message delivery was significantly delayed 15-20% of the time.
Another very mild complaint I could voice is that Simply Txt always shows as coming from a different number. Let’s be honest, this is probably not a deal breaker for most, but it can be an inconvenience. I’ve found many students want to add the number in their contacts so that it clearly displays who it from, this would also help with devices which log message conversations. If the number is always the same, it shows up as coming from your student ministry (I do this on my own device with texts from Twitter). Simply Txt always shows up as something different, which I assume has to do with the email delivery discussed above.
Now some of the really cool features of Simply Txt:
1. When you send a txt blast, you can have it go to a linked facebook or twitter account as well.
This is an amazing feature. In my case, my twitter updates go directly to my facebook, so I can have a blast go to my twitter which then goes to my facebook. Txt blast, twitter update, facebook status all with one click. This was not available when we first started using Simply Txt, but when they added it, I was very impressed. This is not available on Duffled.com, which will be discussed later.
2. Student replies sent to your device as a text.
Another incredible feature. You send a message and a kid has a question or comment. He/she can simply reply to your text, and it goes straight to your mobile device. This is great because your usually not logged into Simply Txt and staring at your screen waiting to see if any replies pour in. Another great feature. I have often used this with giveaways and contest, “the 4th person to reply to this wins such and such.” Also a great way to have students sign up for the text service.
3. Cost.
With plans starting at just $10 per month, Simply txt is simply the most affordable product I’ve found.
Duffled.com
We are currently using Duffled.com. I first heard of this service over at Saddleback High School Pastor Josh Griffin’s MORETHANDODGEBALL.COM . Duffled is a very cool service designed for anyone with a need for marketing, not specifically youth ministry. Below is a video from Duffled about what they “bring to the party.”
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Duffled-What will YOU do with it? from Duffled.com on Vimeo.
We have been using Duffled.com for around eight months, and like our experience with Simply Txt, we have been very happy. Some of the key improvements have been:
1. Reliability. Messages delivered instantly. Every time.
Text blasts sent via Duffled have arrived on time every time. Whether a message is scheduled for delivery sometime in the future or right now, I have never had a message delayed. I believe this is due to Duffled’s delivery method. Unlike Simply’s email system, Duffled actually sends via SMS, resulting in much greater reliability. This method is more expensive, however, which we will see soon.
2. Text to join.
A big selling point for us was students or other interested parties can simply send a text to enroll in your text service. It’s very easy to put up an announcement on a screen or on a poster saying “Text SUBMERGE to 33970 to receive txt updates.” Simply Txt requires you to log in and fill out a form for each member.
3. Birthdays
Duffled allows you to enter your students birthdays, and will automatically send them a happy birthday text, without waiting for you to forget. Even better, with one mouse click you can have Duffled send each of your students a message asking their birthday and/or name if you don’t already have it without you having to enter it all.
Duffled is great, and so is Simply Txt. I must warn you though, Duffled is much more expensive. Duffled begins at $35 a month, but if you go over your allotted messages (which can happen quite easily) your automatically bumped up an additional $35, whether you send one message over or up to the allotted number until you get to the next price bracket. In other words, you buy messages in blocks, and use what you will.
If we could take the great features of both these services and combine them into one product we would hardly be able to contain ourselves. Reality dictates, however, that you weight the pros and cons of each and see what works best for you. One thing I can say though is that a text blast service of any kind has vastly improved the way we communicate in our student ministry.
UPDATE: We are in a new church/new student ministry, and for budget reasons chose to go with Simply Txt this time. We are only a couple weeks into this user experience, but so far it has been flawless. The folks at Simply Txt seem to be constantly improving their product, and while I was certainly a fan before, we have not experienced any of the reliability concerns mentioned above. Well played Simply.
UPDATE 6/12/2011: Maybe I spoke too soon? After sending a sum total of 19 messages since we have been using Simply Txt this go around, we have experienced our first major failure. I sent a message at 3:15PM today to all involved in our student ministry reminding them about our outreach service tonight. All messages are sent to my device as well so I can monitor the delivery, which sadly in this case happened exactly 5 hours late. The message arrived shortly after 8Pm, a full 3 hours after the event it was intend to inform students and volunteers about. I am sorely disappointed in this, and this just might be a deal breaker, AGAIN. I plan on calling Simply tomorrow. NOTE: It seems the message that was delivered 5 hours to late was posted to Twitter on time…
Book Review: The Truth About Dating, Love, and Just Being Friends by Chad Eastham
The Truth About Dating, Love & Just Being Friends
This book is one of the latest sent to me for review from Thomas Nelson. I chose this book from a queue primarily because I had opportunity to met the author, Chad Eastham a couple years ago when he spoke at Revolve Tour stop in Dallas, and because the content appeared to be something my students are always dealing with, DATING.
Let me begin by pointing out, and perhaps cautioning you that this book is written for a teenage reader. I wanted to read this book so that I could have it in my library ready to loan to a heartbroken or struggling student in our youth ministry, and thus would require a proof-read. I did find it hard to gain momentum in my reading. This is not a book that kept me super interested and blazing on to the next page, but I believe that is 100% due to the fact that I’m an old married guy and no longer dealing with high school romance in my own life. My students, however, are doing just that.
The information and advice in this book is spot on. In fact it echos my response to many students seeking guidance with these same issues. I found myself a bit critical early on in the book, wondering why Eastham, a Christian author and speaker did not include scripture or basically any other reference to God in his advice. I mean it’s when we chose not to live our romantic lives according to God’s guidelines that things go wrong, right? Well, let not your hearts be troubled. The author does include much scripture and references to his own relationship with God, but he holds his cards rather close at first. As the book progresses, Chad included more and more faith-based prospective, and I believe he starts small and then gains momentum so that he does not immediately turn away a non-christian teen, after gaining their trust shares his faith in a way that is both appropriate and I feel will prove effective.
While this was not a page turner for me, I’m certain it would be for a teenager, which is the target audience of this book. Having read it, I would quickly recommend it to any young person with questions about love, dating, or relationships. And as anyone who works with teenagers or has ever been one can attest, that should be around 100% of them.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Great Student Ministry Resource
Ok. So this resource is a book, but I didn’t want to post it as yet another book review. This particular book is not one of the many sent to me from publishers for preview, it has actually been on the self in my office for two years. I picked it up at the National Youth Ministry Conference (now called Simply Youth Ministry Conference) in Columbus, Ohio in 2009, only to lose it in a well intentioned pile of “stuff to read.” I finally rediscovered it a couple days ago.
This book is an easy, interesting read, that is of course if your interested or maybe even obsessed with youth ministry. It outlines what should be common-sense student ministry strategy, but is so often overlooked. The author, Jeanne Mayo spend the entire book urging readers to build a “friendship culture” in their student ministries. As lame as that sounds, it really, really makes sense when you read it.
We youth workers are armed with the best intentions, but I know if I’m being honest with you and myself, it can be very intimidating for a teenager to visit our student ministry. When a new student walks in I make sure I go greet them. Tell them how great it is that they are here. Make sure that they fill out the student info card, which we all know is high on the Lord’s priority list. But then what. Maybe they are with a friend, and at least they have someone to sit with and follow around when everyone else know’s exactly what’s happening when. But what if they are solo? The very next Wednesday night after reading this book a new, not there with a friend student walked into our youth building a few minutes before the service began. An adult youth worker came to get me to let me know she was there, and I rushed out to say hello and meet mom. With Jeanne’s words fresh in my mind, I decided to behave exactly as I normally would, and watch things play out. Kind of a pop-quiz, gauging how effective we are as a student ministry to newcomers. Truthfully, it didn’t look good. After our exchange, no one greeted her. No one offered to sit next to her. No one asked her name. I can only hang my head when I consider how awkward it must have been for her.
After a call and a facebook to the new girl after the service doing my very best to communicate to her how much we enjoyed having her visit and how we hope she will be back again, with the insight of this book in tow, I have determined to COMPLETELY change the way I do ministry. If your in student ministry, I strongly recommend you grab this book and actually read it, like I should have two years ago, and let Jeanne Mayo point out the should be obvious.
Thriving Youth Groups by Jeanne Mayo
You can learn more about Jeanne Mayo at http://www.youthsource.com
Check out more titles from Group Publishing at http://www.group.com
Book Review: Radical by David Platt
Radical by David Platt
I opted to read Radical by David Platt after hearing some friends who are also in ministry talking about the book and how much it had challenged them. I believe one said it “wrecked” him, meaning the subject matter of the book had turned his life upside down. I knew I had to see what all the fuss was about so I ordered a copy (yes, I actually paid for this book) and dug in.
This book is certainly true to it’s name. Platt sets out to challenge the status quo, as it were, at least as it relates to the Christian faith. The sub-title reads “Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream, ” and Radical takes a stab at everything that encompasses our modern view of that dream.
His premiss is simply the “radical” idea that Christ has called us to more than white picket fences and credit card debt. More than SUVs and second mortgages. Maybe God is not nearly as concerned with the interest rate of our Sears Card as he is with our motivation to meet physical and spiritual needs globally. Platt tells of a newsletter that features a church’s grand new worship center which cost tens of millions, and on the same page celebrates that local churches have raised $5000 to go toward a mission goal. That’s a pretty accurate cross-section of our American churches. He tells of churches elsewhere who risk torture and death to come to meetings where they study the bible for hours on end because their hunger for the Word is so great. Compare that with our local churches, where we often can only be motivated to attend a padded-pewed, climate controlled worship service sporadically.
If asked, I would say this book should be whisked straight to the top of any christian’s to-read list. This is probably the best book I’ve read outside of scripture, not because it left me feeling warm and fuzzy, but because I too was “wrecked.” As someone who has been blessed with the middle-class, suburban answer to the American Dream, this book was a wake-up call, maybe even a slap in the face, and I plan on reading it again very soon.
Get your copy and find out more at www.radicalthebook.com
My sermon “The Day After Christmas”
It’s a month later. The fray has passed. If your missing the Christmas Season, check out my sermon from December 26, 2010.
Keeping track of our student ministry
FOR MY FIRST FEW YEARS IN STUDENT MINISTRY I admittedly struggled with keeping up with student data. How long has it been since we’ve seen so and so? Do we have a current address on this kid? Did anyone get a head-count at tonight’s service? I brainstormed this strategy and that, but nothing ever worked really well…
PLEASE WELCOME TO THE STAGE YOUTHTRACKER.NET. This is a completely web-based service which allows tracking of student data in ways that I could never accomplish on my own. Because it is web-based, there is no software to install, and your data can be accessed via any computer with an internet connection. I have even taken attendance with my iPhone at remote events!
youthtracker.net
For years I have toggled between contact information on hand-written “hard copies” of student info cards and data entered in address book on my Mac. It’s amazing how many times someone’s handwriting has rendered an address illegible. “Is that a seven?” “What is that street name?” No more! With YOUTHTRACKER.NET students simply type in their information, and there it is. No more deciphering. Also great is the fact that all my student data is virtually always at my fingertips. Let’s be honest, there is no such thing as 9 to 5 ministry, and every pastor I know finds himself working here and there in what was intended to be “off time.” No more late night trips to the office to grab addresses for mailers that must go out tomorrow. Granted, many people are successfully using Outlook or Address Book or some other resource, but in YOUTHTRACKER.NET everything is contained in one page for each student: family names, emergency contacts, dad’s cell number, t-shirt size, facebook, email, event attendance, recent spiritual decisions, event account balances. This service will even allow students to make payments for event registrations online!
youthtracker.net sign in screen
Perhaps one of my favorite features of YOUTHTRACKER.NET is the student sign-in feature. We have a “check-in” table as students enter our youth room, complete with a computer logged into YOUTHTRACKER.NET. Kids just type their name, and they are signed into the event, or if they are a new student, they are prompted to enter their info to create a new account. We have another computer in our sound booth that we use to send YOUTHTRACKER.NET to the screen onstage, and we use another cool feature which will randomly select a student who is signed in to the current event. Game contestants made simple! This also has an ulterior motivation to encourage kids to sign in. They always sign in because they want to play the game!
What about cost? When I was shopping around for a software resource to help me on the administrative end of youth ministry, I saw several price tags in the few hundred dollars neighborhood. YOUTHTRACKER.NET is a subscription, and we are currently paying just $19.99 a month. I know, in a year or so the pay-once software is eventually cheaper, but for me, $19.99 a month is a much easier sell than a $400.00 upfront cost. Plus I love the flexibility of knowing I can change services if this no longer suits our needs, although I really expect to be using YOUTHTRACKER.NET for years to come.
delighted to share. 