Worship or Boxing Match?

I read the following verses this morning and thought is sounded like a descriptions of many churches today:

17  Your worship services do you more harm than good. I am certainly not going to praise you for this. 18 I am told that you can’t get along with each other when you worship, and I am sure that some of what I have heard is true. 19 You are bound to argue with each other, but it is easy to see which of you have God’s approval.  1 Corinthians 11:17-19

Your worship services do you more harm than good.  Ouch!  You can't get along with each other when you worship.  Apparently some of these church members could have used 2 years in Mrs. Tillet's pre-school to learn how to get along with others and play nicely.  You are bound to argue with each other.  Ever been around those people that argue everything?  I like to argue but often I just keep my mouth shut (not always successful at that either).

Since I'm a part of the SBC, what I know is SBC, I know that this description sadly fits a large portion of SBC churches.  Church split in SBC = Church plant.  This happens all too often and usually not because of doctrinal issues but because someone didn't like what the preacher said or the color of the new carpet isn't to their liking, etc.

Here's a novel idea!  Don't let the church choose the color of the carpet.  Just lay the carpet and say, "Look at our beautiful new carpet!"  Business meetings are nothing more than a set up for a church split.  At a business meeting, as a member,  you are forced to take sides.  Why do that in a church?  Why set up for division?  Makes no sense but somewhere along the way many churches and denominations have decided that they like the idea of "majority rules".  What if the majority hasn't spent a minute in God's word that week?  Month?  Year?  Years?  How can someone out of sync with the Father make a godly decision?

Makes no sense.

I'm glad has placed me at NHC.  I have four pastors who I trust.  God put them in leadership positions to lead.  At NHC we don't vote on much of anything.  We built an entire building without voting on the design, interior decor, color of the carpet.  We had to demolish the old building, didn't vote on that either.  We didn't lose any members in that process, but I know of churches who have lost members during a building program.  Plus process was faster because we didn't have to wait on a committee to bring it before the church, we trusted our building team and turned them loose to get the job done.

The only time I find a vote in the Bible is when Moses sent out the spies.  Ten (the majority) said "No way!".  Two (the minority) said, "Let's take the land!".  There were giants in the land!  What were they thinking?  They weren't thinking, they were trusting.  This is where the heart of most issues in churches today.  People don't trust.  They don't trust God.  They don't trust leadership (sometimes for a good reason).  They don't trust each other.

I pray it can never be said of our worship services, "they do more harm than good".

Last NIght at Contagious

Each summer we move our weekly youth group meeting to the beach.  Last night was our first youth group on the beach for this year.  We had a whole bunch of students come to Contagious on the beach last night.  We turned Seth, the master griller, loose on the new grill last night.  We consumed 60 hot dogs and chef Seth says we will need more than 60 dogs next week.  

Students spent Hang Time playing volleyball, tossing a football and swimming in the ocean.  A few went surfing with Mike, one of our family group leaders.  Waves were good, ocean temp was in the low 70's.  

We wrapped up our study on stress.  For the past several weeks we have been studying the life of Abraham and how he handled stressful events in his life.  Last night we looked at the stress that comes from loss as we studied how Abraham handled the loss of his wife, Sarah, his companion for a long time, his friend, in a land where he had no home but lived in a tent and had no property to give Sarah a proper burial.  You can read more about this in Genesis 23

The Parent Pod had several parents hanging out together.  Over the summer the Parent Pod will be visited by each of our pastors and our worship leader, Nate, as they share how parents can help students learn the purpose God has for us as followers of Christ.

It was a beautiful evening on the beach.  I'm already looking forward to next week as we reach even more students to discover life in Christ!  Maybe we will get some pics to post next week.

Party With Your Team

Let me tell you a little bit about our team.  We have 15 partners serving on our team.  All are volunteers, I'm the only paid guy.  Our team serves every Sunday night.  Most of the team are our "family group" leaders and then we have a few kitchen queens.  Kitchen queens are the ladies responsible for keeping us fed, they also clean the place up while the Bible study is going on.  They love serving and encouraging students.  Our family group leaders basically are our youth ministers.  There is no way I could do effective youth ministry without the team.  I love our team, they rock!

Saturday evening our youth ministry team got together as a team and hung out around a fire pit.  We ate some great food and enjoyed sitting around the fire and talking and hanging out together.  It was fun to do something as a team without the students there.  A few things come to mind as I think about our team getting together.

• Minister with a team.  If you aren't doing youth ministry in a team setting you are hurting yourself, your family, your church, your students.  Ministry is more fun and effective when accomplished with other believers.
• Express to your team how much you value them and how vital they are to the ministry.
• Offer training to your team.  Utilize e-mail, web sites, podcasts, seminars and books.  
• Encourage your team.  Look for opportunities to encourage them as they encourage students.
• Party with your team.  Look for opportunities to have fun together without any "meeting" involved in the party.
• Pray for your team.  This should be a no brainer.  I pray for our team but I'm thinking it would be good to let them know individually that they are being prayed for.  I know I feel good when someone tells me that they are praying for me or ask for prayer requests.

Tonight at Contagious

Tonight was great.  We had a great time during Hang Time playing ping pong, volleyball, farkle and just chillin on the balcony.

I kicked youth group off with some good hawaiian music then we play a power play game on the big screen with some thumpin rap music in the background.   After that we dove into the lesson.  We are still in our series about stress.  Abraham in Genesis 22 was in a very stressful situation as God asked him to sacrifice Isaac.   Many times in life we want to have our test to be over immediately and everything smoothed out.  We don't want the trial we want instant gratification. This instant gratification is actually failing the test of faith.   I heard a lot of good discussion going on in their "family" groups tonight.

Abraham went through this not to strengthen his faith.  Abraham went through this to test his faith.   Read Genesis 22 and think about what you would do and how you would react if you were in Abraham's sandals.

Next week we hit the beach for Contagious on the beach.  We will have youth group on the beach every Sunday night (except Father's Day) until October.  We love the beach!  Parents, we will kick off the Parent Pod next Sunday night.  

Thursday Afternoon Thoughts on Ministry

Ministry is not something only the "paid" professionals do.  Ministers aren't just the dudes that get up and preach on Sunday morning.  Every believer is a minister, or at least should be.

Every part needs to do function as God has placed the parts in order for a church to be effective in ministry. 

Ministry is serving Christ and his church.  To say you don't have time to minister is to say you don't have time to serve the bride of Christ.  Ministry shouldn't be confused with mission.  If I mow my neighbor's lawn I'm doing mission.   (unless he is a member of the church, then that would be ministry)  If I love my church (that's the people, not the building) I should want to serve my church.

To be a balanced, spiritually healthy, believer a follower of Christ must be actively involved in ministry in their local church.  I'm spiritually unhealthy if I'm not giving of my time, talents, personality, resources.  How much time in ministry is enough time in ministry?  Great question!  You tell me.  Some of the busiest people I know in their business, work and families are some of the ones who are most involved in ministry also.

Great joy is found in serving where God has SHAPED you to serve.  Your church is in poor shape when every part isn't functioning where God has placed him/her.

Where do you serve in your church?  Is it a fit?  Does is fit your spiritual gift(s), your personality, your experiences?  Are you passionate about the ministry you are involved in?

Investing in Adult Leaders

developing your adult volunteers as leaders

Having good adult volunteers in your youth ministry makes all the difference. It’s a great feeling when you have a few people that get it” and ...

Tonight at Contagious

Tonight was "game night" we extended Hang Time and extra 35 minutes.  Had lots of good food and fun together.  Students were out in the front "lawn" playing bocci ball and corn hole.

Inside we had games of farkle and ping pong and a couple of dudes up on the balcony playing guitars together.

Since we were breaking from the normal routine we did not have family (small) groups.  We just gathered together in a bunch and I talked for about 20 minutes about why our youth group exists on the face of planet earth.  Below is the simple outline:

It is easy to get distracted from the purpose.

1.  Remember our Purpose

Our purpose:  Reaching Students to Discover Life in Christ.

¹⁶Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  Matthew 18:16-20

2.  Commit to our Purpose

Students are committed to many things in life, school, athletics, jobs, friends, relationships. Tonight I asked them to be committed to our purpose, to share their faith with their friends.  "How committed are you?"

3.  It's Not About You

We need to have the "It's not about me" attitude in life when it comes to living out our purpose.  

"Listen, I hate to pop your little bubble but life is not about you.  Some of us are spoiled rotten brats, right?  You know the little kid that lives in your neighborhood that gets everything he or she wants.  The kid that throws the fit in the store for the toy and the parents cave in because the parents think, “Life is all about my little one and I just want him or her to be happy.”  If you are a Christian, someone that has put their faith in Jesus Christ, life is not about you.  You don’t get your way."

²⁰I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” Galatians 2:20

Next week we pick up on our series about dealing with stress again.

Our Kitchen Queens gave me some stats from tonight.  With half the youth group gone and half the YM team gone for the holiday weekend we still consumed:

2 large bags of Wavy chips

1 large bag of BBQ chips

3 bags of tortilla chips

2 tubs of french onion dip

2 gallons of lemonade

1 gallon of water

1 giant concession size can of nacho cheese

44 hot dogs

2.5 packages of cookies

New Habits

Ten things to do with your children every day.

Herb Owen shared this at our parenting seminar last month:

1. Give your child regular responsibilities
2. Hold your child accountable
3. Provide unconditional love
4. Have daily family devotions
5. Share your life and reproduce what you are
6. Earn your child's heart teach him to imitate your Godly lifestyle
7. Determine that your child is under the protection of godly authority at all times
8. Initiate two way conversation/communication
9. Shepherd your child by building on the grid of responsibility (should have been at the seminar :) )
10. Lead your child every day one more step in the journey of being totally dependent on you to becoming totally dependent on God

• teach them to pray
• teach them to go to God's word on their own
• teach them to trust God and not self
  

Ain't Nothing Free

Oh?  Really?

If you are on church staff  or have time I would encourage you to check this out.  Totally free seminar that will be full of useful stuffs for your church and you don't have to leave the comfort of your office or home.  I'm attending this morning!

http://www.saddleback.com/pdns

Tonight at Contagious

Tonight was a much fun.  It's cool to see students hanging out together.  I saw students playing Apples to Apples up on the balcony, students and leaders playing farkle and ping pong.  We had lots of great leftover food from Rich and Lauren's wedding shower. (two former youth who are now adults and getting married very soon.  makes me feel really old.  both will be serving on the YM team which is super cool.)

Our lesson tonight was about dealing with stress that comes from circumstances that are beyond our control.    Abraham in Genesis 14 (lots of fun names in that chapter) goes up against incredible odds.  His little band of 318 men go against a 4 king army. . .and win!

Students today deal with a lot more stress than I did back in the good old days of spiked hair and Michael Jackson jackets.  Some stress is brought on by poor choices, some comes from family pressure, other stress comes from circumstances beyond their control.   This week as you think about the students in your life whether they are your children or members or your church's youth ministry stop and pray for the stress that they might be under.

Next week is Memorial Day weekend.  We are going to have lots of good junk food, a whole bunch of games and a look and a reminder of our group's purpose.

Flip

I'm pretty stoked!  I just opened a box from Student Life and the box contained Flip "31 verses every teenager should know" books.  I'll be giving each student going to camp a copy a month before we depart for camp.  Flip is the camp theme at Student Life this summer and so the daily devos and verses tie support the theme and will lay a foundation for us before we get to camp. 

Camp is a great place to take students out of their normal everyday routine, away from TV, friends, media, texting and place them in an environment that is saturated with worship.  We are going to use Flip to help us prepare our hearts and lives for camp.   It's sort of like packing for camp for the soul.  Student Life is an excellent camp and they hold them from the east coast to the west coast every summer.  

If your teen doesn't attend summer camp with your church youth group I would highly encourage you to plug him or her in.  If your church has students but don't do summer camp I would suggest you check into Student Life, they are affordable and the highest quality.  I trust Student Life with our students.