Life of a youth pastor .

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Gift yourself – free book for first commenter.

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Your a student pastor, perhaps a dad, a coach, a part-timer at Starbucks, or just someone looking to dive deeper into the student ministry realm. For those that want to be a better youth pastor…yes that’s all of us, then you need to gift yourself this book. Whether it’s with your church budget (they will thank you for reading this book) or your own money (you will thank yourself for reading this book) you must read Make Believe. Once I picked it up I couldn’t put it down, this book builds a strong case for why the larger nation wide student ministry could be suffering and how you can be part of reversing that statistic by building a ministry that outlasts you. I tell you what, I believe in this book so much that I want to give one away for FREE, I want to buy you a copy. The first student pastor/director to leave a comment that doesn’t have this book, I will ship you a copy.

In this book you will find that Ben and Kevin (both leading very successful student ministries) hit the nail on the head. Once again, I think this could be the best book out there for student pastors right now…other than the Bible of course 🙂

Reading 1-2-1

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Can the Bible be used as an evangelism tool? Your answer, “We’d be lost without it!” But what I’m getting at is actually inviting someone who is far from God or unfamiliar with the Bible to study it with you. I presented this challenge to my adult leaders in student ministry. Some latched on to the idea and a few ran with it. One man in particular who has been a leader for many years felt so compelled by the Spirit during my challenge that his neighbor came to mind. That very week, with the Bible in hand, he walked across the street and asked his neighbor to meet with him and read the Bible…his neighbor agreed! They started with the gospel of Luke and read the whole thing! The neighbor proceeded with, “Shouldn’t we start at the beginning?” They read through Genesis and now are working through the Old Testament, and may I remind you that this man does not have a relationship with Christ! Can you imagine what it would be like to learn how to study the Bible before coming to faith? He will know how to feed himself the Word of truth and where to go for answers about life and faith.

A quote from the book One-to-One Bible Reading that I gave each of my leaders and some choice student leaders:

“We asked a total of 1,000 twenty-something unchurched people; 900 American, 100 Canadian. And we compared them to a sample of 500 older unchurched (30 or above)…
One of the questions that we asked them to agree or disagree with was: ‘I would be willing to study the Bible if a friend asked me to?’ Among twenty-somethings, 61-percent said, ‘Yes.’ Among their older counterparts of 30 and above, 42-percent said, ‘Yes.’ And that was a statistically significant difference, telling us there’s something going on, there’s an openness that’s there. So we’re seeing that as an opportunity–that in the midst of some negative views of the church, there is also some openness to the things of God.”

In a previous post I did talk about the dropout rate of high school students walking away from their church and faith. Let this be an encouragement that their are many that are thirsty for the truth, but more importantly are awaiting the ask, “Will you study the Bible with me?”

Who in your life could you invite to read the Bible with you that might be far from God and unfamiliar with His love for them.

Pray for opportunities.

Watch for opportunities.

Act on opportunities.

Grab your copy of One-to-One Bible Reading

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I’m addicted 2 things…

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The truth is that I’m addicted to some things.

ad·dict·ed – to become physiologically or psychologically dependent on a habit-forming substance.

Every morning when I wake up I find myself gravitating toward TWO things I depend on for my day, without them my day falls apart…

1) COFFEE. Typical for the youth pastor trying to keep that crazy schedule of hanging out with students and leaders, healthy though?! I would think not…surely it can’t be healthy when one is addicted to a caffeinated, acidic, beverage of this sort. I know the headache at 1pm all too well – it hurts REALLY bad! This means I didn’t get my one mug fill for the morning…perhaps in another post I’ll talk about fighting addictions but for now I’m just confessing mine. Check out some stuff I found on us coffee drinkers, or even those of you who think drinking coffee is unhealthy!

I found a poll that questioned 4,700 people…

Overall, about 34% of those people say they need coffee to get through the workday. I’m victim of the 34%…the people who are addicted and get headaches early afternoon without their “fix” of the double shot espresso or venti mocha, I personally like my coffee with a little white mocha!

Of those who drink coffee,

  • 46% say they are less productive without it.
  • 61% drink two or more cups a day
  • 28% drink three or more cups a day
  • I drink one cup…okay sometimes two

While coffee was once considered bad for your health, it’s now thought to have many benefits besides simply jolting you awake in the morning.

  • Heavy coffee drinkers may be half as likely to get diabetes as light drinkers or nondrinkers, perhaps because coffee may contain chemicals that lower blood sugar.
  • Coffee might also help protect against cancer. Coffee drinkers are 50% less likely to get liver cancer than those who don’t drink it, and a few studies have found ties to lower rates of colon, breast, and rectal cancers among coffee enthusiasts.
  • There is some evidence that coffee may protect men, but not women, against Parkinson’s disease.

How would you like that?

  • Attorneys and judges are most likely to take their coffee black, as are hotel workers
  • Human resources professionals and personal caretakers are most likely to take their coffee with cream and sugar
  • Editors, writers, government workers and teachers are most likely to favor flavored coffees

2) SHOWER. I know this one may seem odd but it’s the truth. If I don’t get my shower in the morning I’m just not awake and ready for my day…it’s not the piping hot, well water that smells like sulfur and rotten eggs, nor my old spice body wash that does it for me. It’s my WATER PROOF BIBLE! Yup, believe it or not I do have a waterproof Bible I keep in the shower and have had it for over a year now. I’m addicted to it. Show this thing off at your small group, students love it! It does cause me to take longer showers, and highlighting my favorite verses doesn’t really work well, but it is one of the only places in life I can get away from it all…no phone, no computer, no TV, nothing…absolutely nothing, just me and the waterproof Bible. Being addicted to the Word is a good thing I suppose, without a little pep-talk with God my day seems empty and can quickly become about me rather than the one I serve. I have become dependent on it, the shower that is…I know it is the first thing I must do when I wake up. Okay okay, so sometimes I have my coffee first!

  • Do you have a favorite place you connect with God?
  • What are you addicted to?
  • Is it healthy?