February 3, 2010

Concert at Mission Church!

I’ve NEVER put a concert together in my life, so I figured I’d put together a ridiculously good one to kick off my concert-planning career.

Sleeping at Last is on tour with a guy named Jeremy Larson, and they’re coming to Mission on April 23rd! S.A.L has been one of my favorite groups for the past few years… there’s just nobody like them. And then to top it off they’re bringing Jeremy Larson, who I instantly liked once hearing his music for the first time on his website.

And THEN, last but certainly not least… Trevor Davis will be joining the show too! He’s a ridiculously talented musician, and he’s an absolutely brilliant performer. The dude’s dancing ability makes Michael Jackson look like, well, ME.

Here are a few of their videos. If you’re interested in tickets and all that, I haven’t nailed that down yet. $10 is all I know. Oh, and it’ll be the best night of your life.

January 24, 2010

How Many You Got?

It’s the question that 98% of youth pastors hate to get asked:

“How many kids you got coming?”

Why? Because most of us don’t have huge youth groups.

My guess is that most groups have about 15 students coming each week, and that’s probably a combined crowd of Junior High and High School students.

My attendance was in a constant state of flux for years. I became the Golden Boy one year when I hosted an event with over a thousand teenagers in attendance. My title didn’t last long.

We had about 200 kids coming for a while in my Junior High Ministry. Then I transitioned to High School where we’d peak around 160 but then valley in the 60’s at times.

Nothing had changed but the attendance. I was doing the same thing year in and year out. I was working hard. I was committed. I was even putting together “evangelistic” events and teaching through topics that we intended to draw crowds. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

Today I’m the same guy, doing the same thing (sort of), teaching through the same bible… but this year our attendance is way up.

I can’t take the credit because I’m doing the exact same thing I was doing when I got fired for my low attendance just 2 years ago!

Jesus would probably get fired by most churches if he was the youth pastor. He’d spend way too much time with kids and not enough time planning huge events. He’d be horrible using technology. I’m guessing he wouldn’t shop at Buckle. And come on Jesus… 12 students doesn’t really cut it if you’re church is MEGA.

Attendance isn’t everything, faithfulness is.

Hey youth pastors will small youth groups: you’re in pretty good company!

I worked my heart out for years and had 60 kids coming. I’m doing the same thing now and the numbers are up.

I think God is involved. God may have wanted me to have a smaller group for some reason. He might choose to cut my current group in half next year. He’s got the right to do whatever he wants. Or he may double it. Who knows!?

If your success as a youth pastor is based on your attendance, I’d like to introduce you to my friends at Church Staffing. Quit now, and go find a church that wouldn’t fire Jesus. Feel free to send me your resume’.

Don’t give up or give in.

January 17, 2010

Random Acts of Kindness

We had about 50 students and 15 leaders show up for our “Random Acts of Kindness” project on Saturday.

We took a special offering for the event for two weeks, then divvied up the money on the day of the event. We got them all into groups of 10, gave each group $100 three hours to go and do some covert serving in the neighborhood. Everyone seemed to LOVE it! Some of the random acts cost money, others didn’t cost a penny! Here’s a few of them:

They bought…

a necklace and ring for a woman.

movie tickets for a couple.

a Build-A-Bear for a child.

cleaning supplies to wash windows

Dairy Queen

a whole bunch of people Starbucks

a whole bunch of things at Walmart and Goodwill for random shoppers

toys for kids

dropped off flowers at the emergency room and toys for kids in the waiting room

delivered cookies to a mechanic shop, which led one of them to say, “Aww that just made a fat guy happy!”

delivered more cookies to a fire station

gave $6 to the Chik-fil-A cow standing on the side of the road waving at cars

handed out balloons to small children at the mall

There were a whole lot more… The students are anxious to get out and do it again. My hope is that they won’t wait for me to plan it.

January 14, 2010

Haiti Relief Yard Sale

I still really have no idea what to say about the tragic earthquake in Haiti. But I want to help.

I’m just thinking as I type here… I don’t have a whole bunch of money, and time is of the essence. I’ve seen some friends planning a car wash for every Saturday, and they’ll donate the money they make to the rescue and relief efforts.

What about a huge yard sale? What if I got ahold of everyone I know here in the Phoenix area, asked them to donate anything could spare, got some Uhaul trucks (maybe donated) and went around for a couple weeks picking it all up… then promoted it all over the place (Twitter, Facebook, Email, Fliers, Signs, News Stations, etc…).

I think I will.

Is this a crazy idea? Is there a better way?

I think I might put together the biggest yard sale Gilbert, Arizona has ever seen. And give every single penny to The Red Cross.

What do you think? If you live close by would you donate some stuff?

January 8, 2010

Colt McCoy’s Post Game Interview

His team just lost the National Championship.

He’s probably been dreaming about that game for most of his life, and then he gets hurt and doesn’t even get to play.

This is how he responds!

I always give God the glory. I never question why things happen the way they do. God is in control of my life.I know that if nothing else, I’m standing on the Rock.

January 7, 2010

Girl Power

I’m just gonna go ahead and say it: The girls in my High School Ministry are leading the way.


We have some AMAZING guys who are a part of our ministry. But…

More girls serve in Children’s Ministry, 5/6th, Junior High Ministry and other various ministries in the church than guys do.

More girls are plugged into small groups than guys.

More girls show up to events, trips, and camps. Example: As of now we have 16 students signed up for a mission trip later this year. 13 girls.

More girls have found creative ways to own their faith than guys have. I can’t measure this one mathematically, but I’m pretty observant.

The list goes on and on.

My guys are doing great things… but if this was a spiritual Battle of the Sexes, the fellas would be losing!

For those pastors and churches who limit the role of women in ministry, and treat them as second-hand citizens in the Kingdom of God: come hang out in the Mission High School Ministry some time. You’ll be eating your words.

DOES YOUR CHURCH/MINISTRY LOOK SIMILAR TO MINE? ARE THE LADIES DOMINATING?

{the foxy buff woman in the picture is my lovely wife}

January 5, 2010

Memorize Colossians

I’ve made this offer a bunch of times, but so far none of my students completed the mission:

If one of my high school students can memorize the book of Colossians before summer camp I’ll let them go for FREE. That’s about a $500 prize. We’re headed to Forest Home for a week, which would be an amazing amazing amazing thing to win for anyone of any age.

This should be easy. It takes about 10 minutes to read all four chapters of Colossians out loud, which is what… 2 and 1/2 songs? We all now 10x that many songs by heart, so our brains are fully capable of doing it.

The rules: Any translation, word perfect, all at one time, before camp, one winner.

COULD YOU DO IT? WOULD YOU TRY OR WOULD YOU JUST DISH OUT THE CASH?

The most I’ve ever memorized was Psalm 101 back in 2001.


{Side note: I include an additional $3  for the cost of each student’s camp to raise enough money to cover this spot. It’s a much more creative way to do a giveaway than dishing out a bunch of cash from your ministry budget}.

January 1, 2010

Communication Avenues

We use all sorts of communication avenues in my high school ministry.

Text Messaging is our primary means of communicating with students. We text students at least once a week with reminders about events we’ve announced. We use a company called “Boom Text“.

Facebook is our second most used avenue. We have a “fan page”, which isn’t ideal. It doesn’t allow us to send messages to our students and parents that are fans, just “updates”, which they don’t see unless they click their Inbox and look at the updates. I am friends with all of our students on my personal account, and I have them in groups of 20 so that I can send them messages. So I set them up like “Mission Students 1″, “Mission Students 2″, etc… Then I just copy/paste the same message into group messages. I’d like to just set up a page for the ministry that behaves like a normal profile, but Facebook doesn’t allow it. We utilize a few tabs on the page too (Events, Videos, etc…). We also tag every student in our photos, which draws them to the page.

We use fliers for everything. How many of them actually make it home? Who knows… but I can’t give up on this one yet. We could probably go paperless, but I’m old fashioned I guess.

We create a quarterly calendar, on paper, which is also saved as a picture and pdf and posted everywhere.

We have a Twitter account, but only a handful of our students are on their, so we primarily use it to update our Faceboook. It also posts to our website.

Email is last and least. I use it as my primary means of communication with my volunteers, but I usually copy every email with a Facebook message to them too.

We also have an “Announcements” time during each gathering on Sundays- they sure do seem like they’re listening, but who knows!

WHICH ONE(S) OF THESE DO YOU USE IN YOUR MINISTRY?

December 31, 2009

Soul City Church

I’m excited to see what God does in 2010 through a church plant called Soul City Church. They’re scheduled to launch this Spring in Chicago, and they’ve already got a great team in place! If I didn’t absolutely love my job I’d be dropping a resume’ on the doorstep of Jarrett and Jeanne Stevens!

Don’t worry Mark, I love my job! A lot.

Planting a church can seem like such a sexy thing to do. These guys are doing all of the sexy things with social networking, websites, etc… but when you dig deeper into what they’re doing you can see that they’re actually ready to shepherd people. I’ve seen a lot of church plants to do the fun stuff well, but then tank when it comes to sustaining the momentum they created pre-launch.

Kudos to them for planting in Chicago. That’s obedience right there.

Check them out, and consider supporting them as they get started by making a donation right here: Year End Start.

December 27, 2009

Digging deep… into my thigh.

I’m on vacation, so today I went and got a one-hour massage at Massage Envy. I’ve had quite a few massages in the past, but it’s been about a year. And it’s been a rough year for my body. I’ve been seeing a chiropractor at least once a week to fix my hips, back, legs, and everything else that is messed up for no reason whatsoever.

Every time I get a massage I always get the same line. They start to work out the knots and abnormalities and they always say something like, “Whoa, that’s weird. How long has it been like this?” or maybe “So when did you dislocate your shoulder?” which was never. I feel like a freak every time I get worked on. Kinda like this…

Today I decided that I really wanted them to give me my money’s worth, so I checked a box that I’ve never checked before:

“DEEP TISSUE”

I’m sitting here, a few hours later, and I am EXHAUSTED. I got beat down by the massage therapist Greg. Don’t let anyone tell you that dudes that work at massage place are wimps. That dude was a ninja. He hit something in my leg, the flux capacitor or something, and I jumped like a shark in a row boat.

I squirmed and squealed for most of it. Honestly, I really didn’t enjoy it, in fact I hated it…  but I knew I needed it. A Swedish massage would have been shooting a squirt gun at a forest fire.

Have you endured this “deep tissue” punishment before?

Oh, and one more question…

Do you prefer to get a massage from the same sex or the opposite?