Category: Stories
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Healthy Youth Leaders: Know the times
One of the things I do is “watch people” in different contexts that what I normally live in. It has been interesting today to watch the interactions of college students to the 60+ year old cashier here at a taco bell in a college town in Ohio (about as different from my “normal” context as…
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When The Levee Breaks
One of the things I encounter working with rural communitites is bringing awareness to the queston of “what are we going to do to reach and engage the next generation?”. The more I talk with community leaders, the more I hear a response that goes something along the lines of “well, we haven’t really thought…
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Healthy Youth Leaders: PRAY
I asked the following question in a room of 60 people recently. “How many of you are consistently praying for one of the other youth leaders or pastors in your community?” ONE hand. One hand went up. We have to pray for one another. It is beyond important. I have heard too many stories lately…
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@perrynoble and 10 Convictions on the Church…
Today, Perry Noble posted a list on 10 convictions about the church. Some of them I agree with, some I need to think/pray about before I respond openly. However, there are two things to learn from this list: 1) What are your convictions that you operate under? Are they fluid, changing with popular opinion? 2)…
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The Kaskaskia Dragon and Youth Ministry…
One of the interesting things about my new position with NNYM is that I get to see some really wild things that are off the beaten path. One of these gems is the Kaskaskia Dragon. It is located off US 40 in Vandalia, Illinois. According to Roadside America, this creation was originally built for parades,…
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Being a Bystander is Hard…
Last weekend, while we were out of town, my son saw another boy almost killed on a bicycle. There was nothing my son or the friend he was playing with could do to stop it. A car was driving what looked way too fast, the boy jetted across the street at the wrong time without…
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Staging…
A couple weeks ago, I announced that I was embarking on a new ministry adventure. There has been much preparation in the transition (and not all is complete, but we’re getting close). In all the preparation and training, I feel like the driver sitting behind the wheel of a top-fuel dragster, waiting for that little…
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Just Stop It Already!…
“Why do we do this ministry every year?” “Well…kinda because we’ve always been the ones to do It?….” We have all had that conversation in our churches. There seems to be that one ministry in every church that is a sacred cow that happens every year only because it happened the year before. Many times,…
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Getting the Whole Story OR the Meaning of MT on Twitter…
I was reminded of a very important fact the other day. The importance of taking the time to get the whole story before acting on a situation. I had a story happen in a meeting with my new agent from an insurance company that I have dealt with for many years. The previous agent in…
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A Hand for the Mission Field….
The church where I serve has been a long time supporter of a ministry called Seedline International. They are a ministry that prints, produces, and ships Bibles all over the world in many languages. Our church is near enough to one of the production centers that we bring a team of folks to help on…