4 things students can give back to church

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I get it, you don’t have a full time job. You are busy with sports and school. You’re not even confident of what you are good at and you always have something coming up. So how on earth can you contribute to your local church? Well here are 4 things that if you gave to your local church now as a student.
1. Your time
     I know you are busy. I know some adults don’t understand this but you are busy. But I also know that there are times when you are bored… especially during the summer. So a huge gift to your church, your youth pastor and to God is your time. Besides asking for the nights of your youth service off from work you can also give your time by helping your youth pastor or church out. Just call ahead and schedule a time to stop in and volunteer. If you ever wanted to know what a youth pastor does during the week, come find out. By the way, two minutes after service while someone is smoking in the parking lot, parents are complaining that the service went long and a junior high girl is crying because the message touched her for the third week in a row is not the time to schedule when you are coming in the office to help.  Continue reading
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Outsiders: 5 Questions to ask yourself when reaching unchurched students

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Working in Atlanta, my team and the children’s ministry team had the privilege of going to Orange Conference 2013 last month. Over the course of this month, I’m looking forward to sharing my notes from the sessions I attended. If you find these posts helpful be sure to check out the speakers from which the content came from and visit my colleague and friend Ryan Stigile ‘s blog as he also posted his notes from the conference. (www.ryanstigile.com) Enjoy!

Am I inviting them to invite?

     Do our students have the same burden?
     Publicly ask our students to invite
          end the service with “If you had a great time tonight, do me a favor and pull out your phones and text someone to service next Sunday”
     God loves using our students to reach other students
     Advantages of inviting other students
          responsibility
          relationship building
          ownership
     Insiders get ownership Outsiders get belonging Continue reading
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Am I called to ministry?

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This is a question I have often been asked, “How do you know if you are called into ministry?” While there is no flow chart or procedure that will guarantee the right answer to this, I do have three action steps that may help you in your long and prayer-filled decision making process.

 

Identify the difference between calling and craving.

 

Let me give you the short list of desired occupations I wanted to have. Doctor, Vet, Zoologist, Professional Wrestler, Professional Soccer Player, Professional Basketball Player, English Teacher, Writer, and Entrepreneur. I have had all these cravings at one time or another but I am called into ministry. A calling grows while a craving fades. People can be talked out of a craving, but not a calling. A calling is a choice when there are other options while a craving is a choice out of convenience. I craved all these things because of what I like to do. I am in ministry because that is what I was born to do. A great test to see if ministry is a calling or a craving is if you are willing to do it for free. If your job is keeping you from ministry then that is a good sign. If you don’t have a job then ministry is not the first place you should look. Continue reading

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Jaws

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This is the last in my series of video posts for youth pastors. I wanted to play with the medium of blogging so today we will start with a brief movie clip and talk about it. I hope the information adds value to you and the new format inspires you to re-think how you can creatively change how you communicate. Enjoy! Continue reading

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