You Were Made to Make a Difference by Max Lucado and Jenna Lucado Bishop – Book Review

Written by discipleoftheway on April 21, 2011 · Leave a Comment

In their book ‘You were made to make a difference’ Max Lucado and his daughter Jenna Lucado Bishop really challenges and encourages teenagers to go out and make a difference in this world. With the benefit of aged wisdom from Lucado and youthly enthusiasm from Lucado Bishop, this book really provides a holistic outlook and solid advice for how teenagers actually can change this world for the better.

In recent times many leaders within youth ministry have started to challenge the idea that we should encourage teenagers to dream big dreams. They seem to believe that by doing so, we are setting teenagers up to fail. Lucado and Lucado Bishop take a very different approach and suggest every single person was made to make a difference, they just have to discover what that difference is. With a heap of real life stories and recollections from their past and present, they present a compelling argument for taking another step forward in motivating teenagers, rather than taking a step back. I enjoyed this book and found it so helpful I went out and bought a copy for each of my graduating teenager youth members. Thoroughly recommend it.

Categories: books

Sunday Debrief – March 20th

Written by discipleoftheway on March 20, 2011 · Leave a Comment

Wow, it has been a while! A lot has been happening, especially on Sunday afternoons and this has made it difficult to keep up with the briefing. I am also mulling over some other thoughts but don’t want to start discussing them half baked, so you’ll have to wait a little longer for a few more ‘deeper’ posts.

In this next week my big focus is on planning. Planning for The Hub, with the launch now just 21 weeks away. Planning for Sync Youth, which has been growing nicely and is starting to form a really good culture amongst the youth we have coming along.

Amongst all the hussle and bussle I am trying to keep a little ahead so as not to cause any ‘stop’ that doesn’t need to be there. Keeping the dynamics of youth, leaders, parents, effective communication and engaging experiences in line is proving to be a challenge but one that I am enjoying.

God is also talking to me a lot about prayer. Yes, that is right, God is talking to me about prayer, which is kinda what prayer is all about (speaking AND listening!) In particular I have been feeling him say to me that The Hub will not succeed based on whether we do everything ‘right’ or not, but on whether or not we get down on our knees and pray this new church plant into existence. This is hard for someone like me who likes to put shape and structures to things. This isn’t to say we won’t be doing that, but the focus I feel needs to be on prayer, not necessarily getting everything ‘right’.

We’ll see how this week goes :)

Categories: Church

The Sunday Briefing – 27th February

Written by discipleoftheway on February 27, 2011 · Leave a Comment

One of the things that I am starting to enjoy most this year is that I am beginning to be able to spend more time working with people and less time organising programs. Now, I am not as anti-programs as many are. I see their place in ministry. As long as the programs are serving the vision and the vision is not serving the programs, they are ok. When I started last year, where the youth ministry was at required me to spend significant periods of my time making sure the various programs we wanted to run, happened. For most of 2010 my week consisted of putting things together for the weekly youth program, this was just necessary for where we wanted to get to.

Just this past week I spent more time in one of one meetings/catch ups than I spent in the office doing program stuff. This is only going to grow as I continue to find and start to develop young leaders in the ministry. I am also getting the opportunities to get alongside 2-3 youth at a time, as opposed to the whole group. This also will continue to grow as time goes by.

One of the biggest reasons I have started to be able to do this is because I have more people involved across a broader spectrum. Last year we actually had more ‘leaders’, but they were all involved in the one area. This year we have slightly fewer (though that is looking like it is about to change too), but they are involved in a broader spectrum of activities. It isn’t that they are themselves doing more (though a few are), but that we are being specific and strategic about what and how our leaders operate. We’ve looked closely at where they are gifted and passionate and looked at how these things best fit within the ministry.

I spoke about rhythms in a previous briefing, which is very similar to seasons. There clearly are seasons in developing a youth ministry. I just so happen to be really enjoying the current season that we are in! I can see some challenges coming that currently are in the distance, but which I know will arrive. I am already beginning to formulate plans to tackle those challenges when they arrive but for now I really am enjoying being involved in more peoples lives and less administrative matters (as much as I do love to organise things!)

Categories: Youth

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The Sunday Briefing – Feb 20th

Written by discipleoftheway on February 20, 2011

Another Sunday, another briefing. This one will be short as I am both busy and don’t particularly have a lot to share. I will likely have more to share in a week or two, as I reflect on this period of time, but for the moment much of what I am [...] Read more »

$25,000 Worship Resource Give Away from Proclaim

Written by discipleoftheway on February 19, 2011

A new Church Presentation software is coming out soon from the makers of Logos bible software. The name of the presentation software is Proclaim and it sounds really interesting. Basically it will operate from the cloud, allowing multiple people to w[...] Read more »

Does Youth Ministry just train a new group of consumers?

Written by discipleoftheway on February 18, 2011

One of the claims that is often thrown at modern youth ministry is that it just trains a new generation of consumerist Christians, and there is some merit to this claim. Cliff Olsen says, in an article at Youth Specialties.com, During the cleanup, I [...] Read more »