Posts made in January, 2014

*This post is not about someone’s near death experience.  It is about middle school ministry! I love middle school students.  I just do.  They are some of my favorite people on the planet.   I love their raw honesty.  I love their “here and now” approach to life.  I love them…and they drive me nuts! I want to lead them well, but they have an amazing way of exposing my weakness as a leader.  It is frustrating as I desperately want to...

  It was not your choice to be born into ministry, but you were nonetheless.  It is a shared life we live.  Our hearts and lives are not defined by ministry, but they are certainly shaped by it.  And so I pray this prayer for you, my beloved children… I pray that you know my fierce love for you even as you share me with a host of others. I pray that as I seek to meet the needs of others that you do not experience that I am overlooking...

We used to not take formal attendance. We relied on the often unreliable memory of our adult leaders. In an effort to follow-up with missing students, I sent postcards emblazoned (in great font!) with WE MISSED YOU. Except one postcard went to a student who was present. I fell all over myself to explain the oversight. But my lack of administrative excellence communicated something powerful to the student: we didn’t notice you...

Have you resolved to be a better preacher in 2014? Keep reading… ———————————————————————————————————————————- What if we stopped preaching? What if we eliminated outlines,...

Growing up, I was fascinated by teams. The comics I bought were team-ups of the best heroes. My favorite teams consisted of, not superstar driven spinning scoreboards, but the perfect hand-in-glove-harmony of people working together to achieve a common goal. Jesus himself believed in teams, forming a a dynamic dozen that would change the world in his name.  Teamwork is the offspring of team health. As the team-leader, you are not only...