Tag: truth
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I like Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream
Currently, Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream is top 10 on iTunes. It’s huge. And I am not ashamed to admit that when it pops up on my iTunes I listen to it 3-4 times in a row. While I’m sure most youth workers groan when they hear this song… I take a totally different perspective. I…
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Myth: God opens and closes doors
I’ve heard this phrase to the point where I think people actually believe this is somehow a biblical concept. God has opened the door for me to ____. I was pursuing something I really felt called to, but God closed the door. That’s not in the Bible folks. It is a non-biblical, non-Christian philosophy called…
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Is this a safe place?
About 10 months ago a group of people sat on Chris’ back porch talking about starting a youth ministry for our church, Harbor Mid-City. As we chatted, dreamt, and prayed about this ministry one of the things that came out was… “We want it to be a safe place for students to explore a relationship…
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The Goal of the Staffless Church
Which came first? The staff who ran the programs or the programs which required the hiring of staff? No offense to my friends who work at churches– but I wonder if their goal is to secure a job for life or to work themselves out of a job as quickly as possible? When I read…
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What to Say When the Youth Pastor Leaves
It’s June. Professional youth ministries most dangerous month. I’ve served in three churches and all the hiring, firing, quitting, and retiring with the youth ministry seems to happen in June. It’s a wicked combination of the end of the school year and for a lot of churches, the end of the budget year. I could…
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Don’t Promise, Deliver
If you live in the United States, you are the proud owner of the second largest pool of retirees next to the federal government. And as a bonus you also get a small and dying breed of cars formally known as General Motors. We just spent over $80 billion to bailout a company that is…
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How to respond to critics of your ministry?
So you’re minding your own business and doing your thing. Then the phone rings and a friend calls saying something like this, “Did you know that someone in the church wrote about you on their blog? They didn’t say nice things! What are you going to do about it?” I can understand. For one thing,…