One of the big questions that came up this last Sunday morning during a junior-senior girls small group discussion that I was a part of was…”Does God have one specific person picked out for you to marry, or should we just be focused on the type of person that God wants us to marry?” What a provacative question for teeangers to already be thinking about and discussing. I was so proud of the way my girls handled and answered the question…and how the adult leaders listened and offered biblical counsel to the girls. Here’s my two cents on the question…
So does God have a specific person picked out who we’re supposed to find and marry, or does He want us to marry a specific type of person spelled out in Scripture? In other words…am I looking for my soulmate or are there many who will fit into our marriage requirements? Continue reading →
Yeah, we were really impressed with how it all came out, too! This is our set and stage for the book of Ruth. I gotta give all the credit to our media guy Andrew and one of our college students Jacob. Andrew designed and coordinated it all, and Jacob helped Andrew build a lot of it.
We are really enjoying designing and setting up all of this setting and staging for the students. Our goal is to make a memorable set that the students can’t forget. So when they think of the book of Ruth (for example) they’ll think pink hearts…love……Ruth and Boaz…biblical relationships…Christ and the church. Am I living in a fantasy world thinking that? It could be! But we want to do everything possibly to look sharp, to keep the students engaged, all so that they would listen, learn, and grow from the studies we are teaching them. We do all this so that they would trust, worship, grow in, and share Jesus Christ.
We already have a cool new design for our set through the books of 1 and 2 Samuel. In fact, we’re making this a whole minstry. Andrew and I just had lunch with 5 others who are creative and passionate about setting and staging. The goal is for me to float the idea and Christocentric theme of the OT book to Andrew, then he designs the set on his Mac (of course), and then we want to hand off the creative geniuses who make it happen by buying the materials, painting, building the set, and doing their thang!
So that’s our story so far on setting and staging as we move through the storyline of Scripture all about biblical history centered on Christ. Our prayer is that our set and staging helps our students remember what each book is about so that they can continue to apply the truths to their lives and worship Christ in every way imaginable.
I asked our phenomenal worship pastor to come in and handle this last chapter/sermon on Ruth in our series “The Love Connection.” I did this for several reasons. First, the last chapter of Ruth deals a lot with marriage, honeymoon, and having a first kid. None of which I have ever been a part of! So I figured he could speak from a little more experience than I. Secondly, we designed the series to where the last sermon would be a serious challenge to the guys to be real manly dudes for Jesus. Brandon is as manly as a dude can get. The guys hear from me basically every week about how to be a real man who lives for a real King, so I figured it’d be great for them to hear from another dude on how to be this kind of guy. Lastly, Brandon is not only a phenomenal worship leader, but he’s also a super spiritually gifted preacher of God’s Word. I want our students to be blessed by his speaking gifts…so this was the perfect opportunity. I hope you enjoy the mp3, his notes, and more as much as we did when hearing him deliver this spectacular sermon for “All the Single Guys” on “How to get your Ruth.”
I was reminded yet again this Sunday how well this transition away from the traditional model of “Sunday school” and even our previous approach at “Systematic Theology small groups” is working. Since we’ve gone to a model of pure small groups that discuss what God is teaching them through our Wednesday night student worship services, we’ve seen and heard about so much more growth out of their students. I’ve said it more than once and I’ll say it again…it has been HUGE for our students to not just have yet another teaching time. Bible teaching is crucial, but we’ve learned that giving our students an opportunity to discuss, have conversations, ask questions, and struggle through issues they are learning are crazy valuable!
For example, this Sunday I sat in the small group class of our junior and senior girls. I listened to how they were answering the discussions questions asked by their adult small group leaders. One by one they went around the circle answering questions like: Does God have just one perfect person picked out for you to marry? Or is there a type of person that you are to look for to marry? What is dating? Is it okay to date? What is the difference in dating and exclusive relationships? Should you date anyone who you wouldn’t be willing to marry? Continue reading →
The biggest criticism I get about my ministry is that I’m not reaching out enough to our girls. I preach a lot with our guys in mind and hang out with them a lot to make sure they are growing as godly, masculine, and manly kind of guys. Besides, I’d just be one weird and awkward youth pastor if I spent all that kind of time with the girls! Throughout church history, the church has always been filled with godly men who lead the church and their families. But this message is for our ladies to be godly, feminine, and teach them how to get their Boaz. Guys need to read this to get this kind of girl. Continue reading →
For all you youth pastors or other curious blog readers, I’m posting an mp3 and a written service order for an entire student service we do. You can follow along the service order document while listening to the mp3 to see what we do and how we do it…if you’re interested. This was such a fun night with our Price is Right video, or “Come On Down” game, our awesome worship together, and a great time together in God’s Word. I hope you enjoy it! Oh, and the LOVE CONNECTION promo video (by our Student Ministry Media Coordinator) is amazing! We used it as our sermon intro video. Let us know what you think!
It’s the greatest love story of all time! Every time I hear a Christian say that about this movie, it makes me want to vomit…or smack some sense into them (in the name of Jesus of course). The Notebook is NOT a great love story whatsoever. The girl falls in love with a boy, gets moved away by her parents, meets another guy and gets engaged to him, meets back up with first boy, gets into a sexual relationship with him, later breaks up with fiancé, and ends up dying with husband (who is first boy) in nursing home. That is not a great love story, that’s a story of unfaithful cheating to a marriage commitment.
Relationships, dating, and marriage is always on most every teenager’s mind. They are in search for a great love story to inspire them. They need a clear, real, and biblical example of a romantic relationship before marriage. That’s the book of Ruth!
I see 7 helpful hints (truths) regarding a pre-marriage relationship in Ruth 1 – 2. Continue reading →
KTL is our team of 11 guy students in our ministry who either believe they are called to the ministry and desire training, or they are not sure if God has called them to ministry but they desire to be trained in the meantime. Out of the 11 guys, we had 4 (2 seniors and 2 juniors) who had the opportunity to preach through Judges in April for the entire student ministry. The other 7 are getting their opportunity to preach to the KTL Team over the month of May.
The students I’m highlighting this week who got to preach this last Sunday evening for our KTL Team was David Munoz (freshman) and Michael Harris (8th grader). Continue reading →
One of the big questions that came up this last Sunday morning during a junior-senior girls small group discussion that I was a part of was…”Does God have one specific person picked out for you to marry, or should we just be focused on the type of person that God wants us to marry?” What a provacative question for teeangers to already be thinking about and discussing. I was so proud of the way my girls handled and answered the question…and how the adult leaders listened and offered biblical counsel to the girls. Here’s my two cents on the question…
