The church is dying. Literally. I don’t have a plethora of stats to back this up, at least not on the rural level. I just use my own two eyes. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a statistician) to see that rural churches are aging and younger people just […]
Bible Study , Christian Leadership , Family Stuff , Resources , Stories
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A Youth Ministry Prayer for Today
“Be still and know that I am God – Psalm 46:10” In our society we have a hard time slowing down, to relax , to wait. We want it our way and right now. STOP IT. Just sit here and rest in the next sentence. God is. That’s it. Not […]
Bible Study , Christian Leadership , Stories
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On Suffering
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have. Philipians 1:29-30 One of the biggest questions […]
Christian Leadership , Evangelism , Ministry , Stories
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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 […]
Ministry , Rural Ministry , Stories , Student Ministry
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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 […]
Evangelism , Ministry , Missions , Student Ministry
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What’s the Point of Arguing?
Recently, I read this article about Bart Campolo. He’s the son of author and preacher Tony Campolo. Bart, who originally followed in his father’s footsteps, now serves as the Secular Humanist chaplain at the University of Southern California. He does a lot of the pastoral care pastors do for churches, […]
Ministry , Money , Resources , Rural Ministry
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A New Perspective on Budgets
So, I’ve been away from MinistryPlace.net for a while. It was sort of by choice. You see, I’ve had a lot of changes in the past few months. We had a new baby. I moved six hours away. I started my senior pastor position in Illinois. I began my work […]
Christian Leadership , Evangelism , Ministry , Rural Ministry , Student Ministry
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A New Adventure…
I have exciting news. I have taken a position with National Network of Youth Ministries in the Great Lakes region. I will be serving as a Rural Ministry Specialist working with youth worker networks in Illinois and Western Indiana. This position involves resourcing and encouraging youth workers in both paid and volunteer […]
Christian Leadership , Ministry , Money , Resources , Rural Ministry , Student Ministry , YM For Cheap!
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A Simple Approach to Youth Ministry Budgets…
Its that time of the year again!! Time to start looking at next year’s budget. I know some of you are asking “what’s a budget?”, I will get into that in a future post. Preparing a budget seems to be a necessary evil of Youth Ministry, but here are a […]
Christian Leadership , Ministry , Missions , Rural Ministry , Stories
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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 […]
Ministry , Student Ministry
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Campus Ministry
As schools across the country have started back and fall is in the air, youth ministers around the country are shifting their thinking to campus ministry. If you are a youth minister and you do not have a presence on your local school campus you are missing out on a […]
Ministry , Social Media , Student Ministry , Technology
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Lets Start a Facebook Prayer Meeting…
I received an interesting Facbook notification first thing this morning. Late last night Kevin Patterson tagged me and 9 other people, stating that he was challenged by a friend to choose 10 people publicly on social media to pray for in the coming week. Kevin added the ministries those people […]