A Weekend of Special Ocasions:

Well, this weekend is definitely a weekend of special occasions. Here is the run down:

• Thursday: Wedding Rehearsal for Justin Lynch and Kari Pettit Wedding.
  
• Friday: Wedding Ceremony for David Crews and Angela Scroggs at the Wilhite House in Anderson. (This wedding was absolutely beautiful...yes, David did cry when he saw his bride. I love that!!)
  
• Saturday AM: Anderson University Graduation at NewSpring Church. I was able to see so many of my peeps graduate. Congrats to: Bridget Bagwell, Andrew Sentell, Shearer Wludyka, Meagan Gregory, Heather Raffini, Miranda Doolittle, and Whitney White. They are all volunteers in Ignite Middle School Ministry, except for Andrew...he is on staff full-time with Ignite. Congrats! You all rock!
  
• Saturday PM: Wedding Ceremony for Justin Lynch and Kari Pettit.
• Sunday AM: Worship Service at NewSpring...which is always a special occasion in my book. Especially since, Perry is teaching on the vision of the church...should be freakin awesome! Come and join us!!
  
• Sunday PM: Last IGNITE service at the Fusebox, our Student Ministry Facility at the Anderson Mall. We are moving throughout this whole week...you should come and help us move...to our new facility that will be called "The 2Seven."
  

WOW!! A whole lot going on, but a lot of fun and excitement happening! by the way, I love all the special occasions this weekend. They are a whole lot of fun to be apart of! Peace!

IGNITE | 4.15.07

Topic: "PRISON BREAK: Shame & Guilt"

Student Attendance: Above Average
Volunteer Attendance: Above Average
Observer Attendance: Average
Message Length: 21 Minutes
Music: Above Average

We started a new series called PRISON BREAK. In this four week series, we are going to be exploring Shame & Guilt, Jealousy & Envy, Anger, and how Jesus sets us free.

Last night we discussed SHAME & GUILT. Lindsay Owens did the teaching and did an AMAZING job. She rocked out and slammed home the points. She had the students bought into the lesson and the response was amazing from the students. It was also great for our female students to see a female lead and teach everyone. I think that made a HUGE impact on our ladies!

Prison Break....

This Sunday we are beginning a new series called PRISON BREAK. We are going to be exploring some topics that keep us behind bars and from the freedom that Christ gave us through His death.

Here is the breakdown of our new series:

• April 15th - SHAME & GUILT: Lindsay Owens will be teaching and it is going be awesome. I have seen the outline and she is going to rock it out!
  
• April 22th - JEALOUSY & ENVY: I am teaching.
  
• April 29th - ANGER: David Hall will be teaching this, he has some great ideas that we are going to creativity with this Thursday. Should be awesome!
  
• May 6th - CHAINS THAT HOLD US: I will be teaching again to close out the series.

The whole Ignite Staff really believes that God is going to move in this series. I cannot wait to see what God is going to do in the lives of students, when they realize that the shame, guilt, jealousy, and anger that they are holding onto is NOT the way God intended for them to live!

Rising 6th Graders & Easter at NewSpring.....

We finished the first of two or five Easter Services at NewSpring Church. I did not sit in on a service today, but look forward to doing so tomorrow. From what I heard though....the music was jamming and Perry was hitting it out of the park.

The most exciting part of the night was that I got to spend a lot of time in the Theater 2 Room, the room for our 3rd, 4th, and 5th Graders! All I have to say is that NewSpring Church's Children's Ministry Staff is rocking it out! Today, the IGNITE staff made a guest appearance in this room to introduce ourselves to the rising 6th Graders! We gave a way a bunch of t-shirts, stickers, and gift certificates to the students. They were jacked up!

We wanted to get in front of the 5th Graders EARLY before they move up to IGNITE. We truly desire for them to stay connected and involved in the Children's Ministry right up to the point they move up to our ministry. This will not only help the Children's Ministry, but help us as well, so that we can stay connected to the students in a more effective way, instead of a "Welcome Letter" from someone they have never met.

I look forward to having all of them join our ministry...but, I really need to thank Pudge and Howard for giving us the opportunity to come in there and get in front of the students. So many churches and their ministries are territorial. They compete for resources, staff, attention, and so much more, but we don't have to worry about that at NewSpring. Pudge and I consider ourselves a team! We take time out of our busy schedules to talk strategy, to listen to each other's frustrations, hang out, and just chill. I consider it a part of my job to help Pudge and his team succeed. If Pudge is not doing his job of training up the students and getting them excited about coming to IGNITE then I am...well...screwed! I need Pudge, just like he needs Cherie Duffey, Preschool Director and just like Brad Cooper, High School Pastor needs me. We all need each other, we all need to work together to make it happen!

I hope that your church functions this way. I hope your ministries can rely on each other to help each other, encourage each other, and support each other!

::MY FAITH

I just got my copy of ::MY FAITH by Kurt Johnston and Mark Oestreicher.I am loving how they set it up and wrote it as an easy read for any Middle Schooler. Here are a couple of comments about the book so far:

• Each chapter is written in a short, fun to read style, that will keep an INTEREST-SPAN deficit Middle Schooler reading through it.
• They included comments/quotes from Middle School Students.
• At the end of the first section, Kurt is real and honest. He talks about his Middle School days and what struggles he faced!
• They take the questions Middle Schoolers ask and answer them...What is faith? "Faith means believing and trusting in something even though you don't fully understand it, can't see it, and can't prove it completely."
• Also when they give a definition or explanation of something that may sound confusing to a Middle Schooler...see above...they give an example to clarify.
  

That is all I have right now, I just finished the first two mini-chapters of Section 2. Already good stuff.

If you are a Middle School or Junior High Pastor, do yourself and your students a favor and pick up a copy as a resource. After you read it I am sure that you will probably get a couple more to have around for your students to pick up. Click on the image above to go get your copy.

Networking.....

Today, I had the privilege to have lunch with Dustin Hughes, the Student Pastor at Crossroads Community Church in Simpsonville, SC. It was a great time to talk life, family, and ministry. The great thing about the "ministry" part was that it was NOT just about numbers or the biggest event we've held. It was all about how to help each other, encourage one another, share frustrations, etc. In my opinion, that is what we need to be doing when we network with each other. We need to feel open enough to talk life and not just ministry.

Here is a great idea, the next time you try networking with someone do talk ministry, but not ministry in the traditional sense, ministry in the "personal" sense. Ask them how they are doing spiritually, ask them what books they are reading, ask them how they are taking care of their family. If they are doing those things well, then take that and learn from them. But in asking those questions ask in an attitude of humility and a sincere desire to learn, not a desire to hold some accountable or LORD over them so to speak.

Let's learn from each other. Not just the latest fads or tools in ministry, but learn from our lives as well. I believe that if we focus on learning from our lives then it becomes real and the world needs more REALNESS and less tools and gimmicks.

I remember back in December at the National Youth Workers Convention, Kurt Johnston, the Middle School Pastor at Saddleback Church in California, was very gracious and allowed me to sit down and ask him questions about ministry. All my questions were asked in a desire to learn from someone who had maintained longevity and integrity in the ministry. I did not ask him,

• How many students are you averaging?
  
• How can I build a ministry that will be just like yours?
  
• How can I become a nationally known student pastor like you?
  

I asked him questions such as:

• How do you balance the time with your family and ministry?
  
• How do you balance spending time with your staff, leaders, and students?
• What advice would you give to someone just starting out in Middle School Ministry?

Let us have a desire to network, but do that with a sincere desire to learn from people's lives and not just thier professional ministries. Trust me, when we do this we will all be more "successful" in the eyes of Jesus, the one we are ministering for anyway!

Dustin, it was refreshing to sit and talk "ministry" with you today! I will be praying for you, your family, and your ministry. Follow Jesus and do all that he tells you to do! Follow the VISION! You rock dude!

Unleash at NewSpring.....

Today was AWESOME! I witnessed so much today that blessed my heart and continued to build my passion for Jesus and the local church. here are a couple of my thoughts from today:

• Perry rocked in out in both main sessions.
  
• Tony Morgan has posted all of the points from both sessions, so check out his detailed notes over at his blog on Session 1 and Session 2. **You will get a kick out of some of the comments rolling around over there.**
  
• It was great to be able to speak to so many student pastors from all over the country and see the passion they had to reach the students in their community. They asked some great questions during the breakout that Brad Cooper and I led.
  
• I look forward to hanging out with some Student pastors from NorthPoint Community Church, Elevation Church, Brookwood Church, Ridgestone Church, Crossroads Community Church, and many others to continue to network and learn from each other!
  
• NewSpring Volunteers ROCK! Our volunteers rocked the house today. One frequent conference attender told me that our volunteers showed more excitement, willingness to serve, and professionalism than he has ever seen at any other conference! GO NEWSPRING VOLUNTEERS!!
• I love the staff I work with! the NewSpring Staff is AWESOME!! Everyone worked hard this week to make it happen. "Teamwork makes the dreamwork!"
• Lastly, I look forward to hear some of the things that God is going to do in the lives of some of the churches that attended Unleash. It is going to be amazing!
  
  

Matrix Pics...

Andrew & the Band ROCKIN it out!

One of the plasmas that is running Matrix Code!

Crazy Middle School Pastor teaching on truth!

Shot of the band, be sure to check out that we had a projector running the code on the ceiling as well! AWESOME!

Thanks to Sean Gaffney and Lloyd Gibson for the great pictures!

Volunteer Leaders in Action....

We just finished a series at IGNITE called MADE. Our volunteers wanted to do a video series for the intro of the sessions, so we gave them the FREEDOM and let them run with it. It is a claymation. Most Awesome. It is amazing and this is volunteers using thier gifts for the kingdom!!

Do yourself a favor and check them out! Yes, this was done by our volunteer leaders!!!!

Week 1: Iggy's New Heelys


Week 2: Iggy's Suprise


Week 3: Iggy's Friend from Space


Ryan, Matt, Caleb...You Rock My FACE OFF!!!

Random Things from SHIFT Conference....

Here are some cool things from SHIFT Conference:

• Got to see Wes Wilson, Program Director for Elevate, Jr. High Ministry at Willow Creek. I met Wes at NYWC in Charlotte this past December. Awesome Guy. Look forward to hanging out with him tomorrow.
  
• Got to meet Jason Raitz, Groups Life Pastor for Elevate, Jr. High Ministry at Willow Creek. Jason and I meet in BLOGWORLD. He is very down to earth. It was great to meet him face to face after reading his blog, post on forums, and emailing back and forth. I look forward to hanging out with him and others tomorrow night for dinner.
• Got to hear Dr. Henry Cloud, author of Integrity, teach at Willow's New Community Service.
• SHOUT OUT: Willow's Association has done an AWESOME job putting together this conference. They have paid attention to the details!
  

Time to go to bed...although it has been an awesome day of learning...I am tired. Conferences tend to drain you...well, at least I get drained! PEACE!

SHIFT Session #3: Bo Boshears

Bo Boshears, Executive Director of Student Ministries for Willow Creek Association, led Session # 3: "A Student Leader's Guide to Preparing for the Long Haul"

Here are some notes:

Psalm 71:17-19: "Since my youth, o God, you have taught me, and to this dayI declare your marvelous deeds. Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your ower to the next generation, your might to all who are to come."

3 Common Warning Signs for Youth Leaders:

1. Your Heart is Becoming to Proud:

• Youth Ministry has become so professional and so competitive.
• Focusing on this will steal your joy.
• When this happens you focus on YOURSELF and NOT God.
• Lead with humility and protect your heart.

2. You are No Longer Teachable:

• We need to stay sharp: learn, grow, increase your ministry skills.
• Ask good questions, learn from others.
• How are you doing by modeling God's Word to others?
  
• Are you modeling a checklist or a deep passion for Jesus?
• You must slow down and hear God's voice!
• Who are you allowing to mentor you?
• Philippians 4:9: How can students put into practice what they have not seen up close?(This messed me up and challenge me in who I should be mentoring within our ministry.)
  

3. Are You Losing Home Field Advantage?:

• Our ministry can't distract us from the ones we love so much.
• We should be at home a MINIMUM of 4 nights a week.
• Learn to say, "NO ONE CAN PRESSURE ME WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!"
• Being present is not just being there in physical form, but bring there in mind, body, heart, and spirit.
  

SHIFT Session #2: Donald Miller

Donald Miller led Session #2: "How to Share the Gospel Without Weirding People Out":

Here are some notes:

• Christianity is easy when it is just us, but when others come into the conversation-its something else. Why? Is it because I am ashamed?
  
• When a culture is only influenced by itself, when they do not communicate, share ideas with the outside it becomes goofier. It gets to the point where they cannot communicate.
  
• Jesus never took the time to explain the story/give the point. It was done in the story, by the story, through the story.
  
• The human heart desires a story.
• Erosion of values has caused the story to decline.
• Never underestimate your role in the story.
• Evangelism in a nutshell is: inviting people into a better story.
• "Write every day, line by line, page by page, hour by hour. Do this despite fear. For above all else, beyond imagination and skill, what the world asks of you is courage, courage to risk rejection, ridicule and failure. As you follow the quest for stories told with meaning and beauty, study thoughtfully but write boldly. Then, like the hero of the fable, your dance will dazzle the world.” - Robert McKee

SHIFT Session #1: Darren Whitehead

Darren Whitehead kicked off the SHIFT Conference. He is the Director of Student Impact, the High School Ministry at Willow Creek Community Church.

Here are some thoughts from his talk titled, "Where It Is, Where It's Going, and What We Can Do About It":

Churches are now irrelevant to mainstream culture, similar to the cultural phenomena called cultural freeze.

Gospel is timeless but our methods and strategies are time-sensitive.

Not just youth culture but the entire world has changed. We live in World 2.0 and we can't do Youth Ministry in World 1.0, church for kids grown up in a church environment.

Here are some specific SHIFTS that they have implemented at Willow Creek:

1. Less Leader Generated Content to More User Generated Content.

• They are looking for less professional and more PERSONAL.
• They want to interact and participate.
• Teenagers are the experts on teen culture.
  

2. Less Travel Agent to More Tour Guide.

• Don't tell them where to go, but go WITH them. Walk with them in life.

3. Less Imitation to More Imagination

• We've created a co-dependent spoon fed culture that is spiritually malnourished, starving themselves, but getting fed once a week.
• We have to stop limiting what following/serving Jesus looks like. We must free them in their personality to be themselves and who God called them to be.
  

SHIFT CONFERENCE DAY 1....

Willow Creek is amazing. I am sitting in the auditorium right now and it looks great! Darren Whitehead and Donald Miller hit it hard. I will not post my thoughts until tonight, but feel free to read what they are talking about over at the SHIFT ONLINE EXPERIENCE. This is a great addition to the conference, especially for those who want to check out from afar! PEACE!!

Jet Plane.....

I am sitting in the Knoxville, TN Airport waiting to board a plane to take us to Chicago, IL for the SHIFT Conference put on by Willow Creek. I am looking forward to hanging out with the rest of the Student Ministry Team while we are in Chicago, learning from so many other people. Continue to pray for us as we travel, also pray that we learn a lot and have the time to continue to dream while we are here.

Anyway, it is quite boring in airports! Long lines of seats, long lines of people waiting to board the plane, people laying on the floor sleeping, people reading magazines, people acting like they are praying, but actually sleeping, etc. Sort of boring! Here is what I mean:

SHIFT CONFERENCE TEASER.....

Busy.....

It has been some time since I posted on this blog. Lately, I have been really busy with some many things pulling me in many different directions. In that busyness, I have also been reading a small, but powerful book. The title of the book is, "What Matters Most...When No is Better than Yes."

Needless to say, I have been giving so much of myself to MANY tasks and all of them not getting the best. I decided that it would be best to say NO to this blog. I took the time and tried to finish up some things, refocus on the things that have to have my attention, and give away what does not.

Here is a description of the book from SimplyYouthMinistry.com:

Every youth worker should read this book!

If you can't remember the last time you said no to the senior pastor, the custodian, the church secretary, or the parents of that annoying kid, you're on the road to... well... to nowhere. Actually, you're on the road to death--the death of your passion, your ministry, you joy, your family, your long-term ministry effectiveness, and maybe even your faith.

It may sound dramatic, but the truth is, ministry often makes us feel like we have to say yes to everything for the sake of Jesus. We're asked to sacrifice our time, our energy, our personal resources, and often our families. And we usually make these sacrifices for others who believe they know what really matters for us. But if it's all in t he name of Jesus, do you think Jesus would really ask us to do it all?

Probably not, because Jesus said no on a regular basis. He said no to important people and significant opportunities. He took time to focus on what mattered most. He said no when he needed to refuel or refocus. In fact, Jesus was effective in his ministry because he occasionally said no. Can you imagine what your ministry could be if you took the opportunities to refuel and refocus from time to time?

This is your chance. Doug Fields, author of What Matters Most and a youth ministry survivor for more than 25 years, is giving you permission--no, he's telling you--to learn to say no and say it often so you can say yes to what's most important. If you want to do more than just survive, if you want to thrive in youth ministry, this may be the most important lesson you'll learn.

This book will provide you with encouragement to stay the course, reignite you passion for ministry, and most importantly, nurture your passion for Jesus. After all, isn't that what matters most?

Do yourself a favor buy the book, spend hour reading, and say NO!! You can do it and if you do it will change you and free you!

PHENOMENAL AWARDS.....

By the way, sorry for the break in posting. Been busy traveling checking out a potential resort for our summer youth camp!

Tonight, we started a tradition where we are going to give away awards to our volunteer leaders at the beginning of each month. It was WELL received!

Allow me to share with you how the name for the award originated. At the end of each IGNITE; we gather the leaders together for a meeting to share any important information, training, etc. Well, I typically always take that opportunity to encourage and cast vision. (Side Note: Ministry leaders, anytime you get the opportunity to have the ear of all your leaders: CAST VISION! When you finish…CAST VISION some more.) Most of the time while encouraging the leaders, I would typically use the word PHENOMENAL. The leaders caught on to it and basically HARASSED me when I would use the word. It became a HUGE inside joke between me and our leaders.

So, I told my staff that I wanted to recognize our leaders once a month. I asked how we could do that and this is what we decided to do each month.

The IGNITE Staff is on the front row and the reciepents are on the second row (left to right): Scott Murray, Shelley Dixon, Brandon Long, Matt Feiling.

Tonight, we gave away 4 awards! Here are the recipients and the reason for their award:

• Scott Murray for Phenomenal Attitude. A couple of weeks ago, we started a time for our Team leaders to spend intentional time with their small group leaders. At the end, Scott was so excited about that time. His expression was something close to, “WOW! That was awesome. That was a great time to connect with my leaders. Thank you so much!”

• Shelley Dixon for Phenomenal Leadership. Shelley has done an AWESOME job at a Team Leader. Each week she makes an intentional effort to lead by example for her leaders, she also makes the effort to contact her leaders each week to pray for them and with them. Shelly is a mother of one of our students, by the way, her son LOVES is that his mom is involved.
  

• Brandon Long for Phenomenal Service. Brandon has made the intentional effort to put up chairs for the past couple of weeks at the end of our service. Not only did he put up the chairs, but he also took upon himself without being asked to MOP the floors. That is HUGE!!!
  

• Matt Feiling (first from right on second row) for Phenomenal Ability. Where do I begin? This dude it the man! Anyone ever heard of DDR (Dance, Dance, Revolution)? Well, this guy can tear it up! Some of you would say that is not that big of a deal, but this guy is 6’7” with a size 17 shoe! This is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I am amazed each time that I see him do DDR. I am hoping that this will be a video soon for IGNITE. Also he plays a great GIANT in our videos we shot for IGNITE.
  

To each of you: THANK YOU for loving Jesus and loving middle school students! You rock and are PHENOMENAL Leaders!

If you don’t already do something like this, take the time to brainstorm what would be the best thing for you to do and DO IT! Take the time to honor your leaders for all that they pour into the ministry! They deserve it!

IGNITE | 1.28.07

Topic: "From the Ground Up - Loneliness"
First-Time Visitors: 7
Student Attendance: Above Average
Volunteer Attendance: Average
Observer Attendance: Above Average
Message Length: 16 Minutes
Music: Above Average

Last night we continued our series called "From the Ground Up" and talked about Loneliness. I told the students that there were two types of lonely people: 1) lonely people who are along; 2) lonely people who are in a crowd. We also discussed loneliness from the aspect of the family. It is a pretty good chance that over 60% of our students have experienced a broken /dysfunctional home. That hit a lot of students in the face.

The Good News was two fold: 1) They did not have to be either; 2) God did not plan for them to be lonely.

Psalm 68:6, "God sets the lonely in families..." We challenged them to join the family, spiritual family of Ignite, and their small group.

Next week, we are going to challenge them with what their purpose is in the family and how it works best when they are involved and doing their part. Also, drawing a correlation from the Super Bowl and how teams become championship teams when everyone does their part!

IGNITE | 1.21.07

The past Sunday at IGNITE was great! It was a last minute pull together on the set and actually the message. I talked about why it was important to have a foundation based on Jesus Christ. Check out these pictures of the set (I stole them from Ryan Sutherland's Blog):


The creativity team did an awesome job of getting it together. On Sunday, it was really neat to see about 5-8 people working on putting the setup and then tearing it down after we were finished (we have to get the FUSEBOX ready for FUSE on Wednesday Night.)

Quick Notes from Sunday Night:

• 4 Salvations
• 8 First Time Student Visitors
  
• Average Attendance (Pretty good considering the constant rain/weather conditions)
• Average Leader Attendance
• Above Average Observer Attendance
• Message was 24 minutes, little long for us, but was still engaging and the students hung with it.

Closing, Sunday night was the first night for intentional time for our Team Leaders to meet with their Small Group Leaders. We heard a lot of good feedback from both our Team Leaders and Small Group Leaders. I think that this is going to really help us expand our ministry and give volunteers more opportunities to serve and use their gifts! Go GOD!!