Growing yourself as a leader is never easy. It takes work. It takes continuous work. But the effort is well worth it, because when you develop your leadership skills, you open up whole new avenues of influence.
Last month, I posted the first two parts in a series that can help you lay a foundation for personal growth in your life. Read the first five ideas here, and the second set of five ideas here.
In this post, I want to warp up this series with four more ideas.
This post is part of the Foundations Of Youth Ministry series. Check out the rest of the series!
I’ve been examining the concept of involving students in the life of the greater church body recently. This is something I’ve determined to be crucial in keeping students involved in church throughout their lives. Simply put, when people feel like they are owners of a ministry, they are much more likely to remain committed to that ministry.
In this series, I’ve examined several different aspects of this idea. I started off with a look at the many benefits of involving students in church. That was followed by some of the challenges you may face in doing so. Most recently, I wrote about the biblical precedent for this type of ministry.
Today, I want to give you a peek at a couple of examples from my ministry experience. These are people who I’ve taught and mentored in my various youth ministries. And I can’t take any credit for any of these successes. God did the work; I just happened to be there to watch. But I do feel responsible for the unsuccessful story below. I’m not sure what else I could have done, but it didn’t work out like I desired.
We are up to week four!
If you are interested in memorizing the Sermon on the Mount, but haven’t started yet, here’s the introductory post. And here’s the first week.
I know I’ve said this before, but I’ve found that keeping an index card in my pocket works best. Each time I reach into my pocket for my keys, I feel the card. Every time I feel the card, I pull it out and read it. I’ve made that my rule, and it seems to be working for me.
Here’s our passage for this week: Matthew 5:9-10.
And here’s a link to the passage at Bible Gateway.
How’s it going for you?
You might have noticed my recent fixation on prayer. I’ve been going back through several books on prayer that I’ve read over the past few years and reviewing some of the more poignant points.
One book that I read for the first time several years ago is Too Busy Not To Pray by Bill Hybels, from Willow Creek.
This post is part of the Foundations Of Youth Ministry series. Check out the rest of the series!
I’m convinced that involving students in the larger church body is essential to keeping them involved in church for the long haul. I think that there are many benefits, although there are a few challenges to the process as well.
I also believe that there is a biblical basis for this type of ministry. I could mention the fact that David was selected for leadership at a very young age, or the possibility that many of the disciples were very young.
But I think it goes deeper than that. I think that there is scriptural support for involving teens in all aspects of the church’s ministry. Here’s why.
Jungle Sunrise was a surprisingly good book. I realize that is a rather cryptic statement. Allow me to explain.
Christian fiction is not a genre that I get too excited about. I’ve had a hard time finding many authors who write on a level with some of my favorite secular authors. When I received this book, and found that it was not only Christian fiction, but missions fiction, I wasn’t really looking forward to reading it.
But I was pleasantly surprised. In Jungle Sunrise, Jonathan Williams tells several stories, woven into one. He tells the story of a struggling author, Jonah Frost, and his brother Noah. Jonah is an unpublished writer who can’t seem to write anything, and has turned to alcohol in order to hide. Jonah finds purpose, and something else.
Another story woven into this narrative is the tale of Memphis and Abigail Jones, missionaries to an indigenous native tribe in Peru, called the Amarakaeri. They have spent the past several years living with this tribe, and are transitioning to begin working with another tribe in the Amazon jungle.
A third story is of Grace Cervantes, a photographer from Madrid. She finds something unexpected while in the jungle.
I’ve been having problems recently with the browser on my BlackBerry Torch. I kept getting a dead end, telling me that my phone “cannot find the requested browser.”
This has been going on pretty much since I got the device in January. But, with my busy schedule, it’s hard to find the time to call in and get this figured out. I did call AT&T in late January or early February; and they fixed the problem for a few days. But it came back.
Earlier this week, I was sitting in the hospital waiting room with my mom. Her husband, my step-dad, was in the ICU, and we were in the waiting room. As a lot of people do when they’re bored, I was messing with my phone: playing games, reading email, FaceBooking. I tried unsuccessfully to browse onto several different websites, getting the dead end dialogue box every time.