100 Habits That’ll Transform Your Productivity

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March 27, 2018

Let me be clear right up front that I still have a lot to learn in terms of productivity. I certainly have not arrived. I have simply learned how to be more productive from many others, who, over the years, have shared the tips, tools and practices they use. People like Carey Nieuwhof, Jim Wideman and Frank Bealer are great examples of leaders who are extremely productive and have lots of wisdom to share in this area.

This guide is a collection of most of the principles, ideas, tools and practices I have found to be helpful when it comes to making the most of the limited time we have.

PRODUCTIVITY IN KIDMIN: PRINCIPLES

These are some overarching principles I believe in when it comes to learning how to be productive. They are the foundation for everything else in this post.

You can’t manage time. You can only manage your activity.
All hours of the day are not equal, so focus on managing your energy.
Don’t touch things more than once—otherwise, you’re wasting time.
“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” – Parkinson’s Law
Plan your work and work your plan.
As your responsibilities grow, particularly across distinct areas, the more important all of this becomes.

HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE: EVALUATE

Before you jump in and change how you work, it’s important to evaluate how you have worked to get an accurate picture of how well your current system functions (or doesn’t). Here are a few ways you can evaluate your current system:

TRACK TIME

This is tedious and certainly isn’t fun to do for a long time, but I think it’s important to track your time in great detail for two to four weeks to really see where you’re spending it. Create categories for your time, and shoot for six to 10 of these categories. If you have only have two to four, it’s probably not enough. More than 10 will make it hard to track. After two to four weeks, look at it, and see where you’re spending the majority of your time so you can determine if you are using it well.

LIST AND CATEGORIZE

List everything you are responsible for doing. If you track your time like I just mentioned, this should be fairly easy. Break that list down into three categories based on the return on investment of your time and how it matches your gifts/strengths. The three categories are:

Low return on investment
Average return on investment
High return on investment

If that’s not clear enough, it might help to think about this in business terms. If you were the owner of a business, the time you spend could be categorized like this:

$10 return on investment
$100 return on investment
$1000 return on investment

Use the insights from this exercise to make one complete, prioritized list. As you plan your work, make sure you’re spending your best time on the things that give you the highest return.

HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE: PRACTICES

Now that you have evaluated your current system, you’re ready to make it better or consider changing your approach. The following includes some specific practices you can do to help boost your productivity.

PLAN YOUR WORK

One mistake we all make is jumping into each day without really planning our work. Often, we do this simply because we’re so overwhelmed and behind on everything that we don’t even know where to start. We have to begin digging just to figure out how deep the hole needs to be. Regardless of how much there is to do, it is always worth it to plan your work. Here are some tips to help you do that:

Plan Your Day

Take 10 minutes at the end of each day to plan the next day.
Take 10 minutes each morning to review the plan for the day.
Use a one-page productivity or day planning sheet. I like the Storybrand one. You can also Google “1-page productivity planner.”
Create artificial deadlines. See Craig Groeschel’s podcast episodes: It’s About Time 1 and It’s About Time 2.

Big Kingdom, Little Kingdom: Which One Are You Building?

By

Jen Oshman

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March 27, 2018

When I was in Peru last fall, I marveled at the missionary community there. One small town is home to dozens of different mission agencies and outposts. Additionally, there is a missionary kid school and an airport for a handful of mission airplanes.

In other words, nestled in the corner of the Amazon Rainforest is a small town with a whole lot of missionaries. Some live there full-time, while others come and go from their work amongst tribes in the region. Some are engaged in frontline work and some are in supportive roles.

They are busy about many things: equipping indigenous Christians to share Christ with the uncontacted, orphan care, after school programs, training local pastors, planting churches, teaching missionary kids, flying and fixing missionary airplanes, providing pregnancy care, and on and on.

The hundreds of missionaries there are proclaiming Christ in hundreds of different ways.

Not only is their work diverse, but their backgrounds are diverse—both nationally and denominationally. I met workers who hail from all over Europe, North America, South America and even Asia. They’re Baptist, Presbyterian, charismatic, reformed, high church, low church, Lutheran, Anglican, egalitarian, complementarian you name it.

I marveled at this community not because of the vastness and variety of their work and not because of the diversity of their backgrounds and beliefs—that was all to be expected.

I marveled because of the love I witnessed amongst them.

As I spent four full days with the ladies in this community, I witnessed them seek to serve one another above themselves, listen intently to one another’s joys and sorrows, ask one another about projects and children and loved ones far away. I saw women easily crossing cultural lines, denominational lines and ministry strategy lines—deeply dividing lines in (most?) Christian contexts—to pursue one another. My brief glimpse into their community told me that they already had strong bonds across chasms that often divide.

The missionaries in this community clearly prioritize God’s Kingdom over their own kingdoms.

As I listened in to their conversations I heard them encouraging one another in their work, celebrating gospel victories, rejoicing over the health of their kids and marriages, sharing excitement about new teammates and new converts and new workers on the field. Across mission lines, these missionaries praised God for the things he had done in and through one another.

It was a marvel to witness because so often in the Christian community we want to grow our church. Our ministry. Our people. Our program. Our following. Our
platform.

We in ministry tend to compare our numbers and outcomes and strategies to one another. In pursuit of effective work, we are prone to forsaking the bigger picture. Rather than rejoicing with our brothers and sisters when God uses them, we feel a touch of jealousy, inadequacy, even judgement or justification as to why our approach is better.

Missionaries, pastors, Christian leaders, bloggers, authors, even Bible study coordinators and Sunday school teachers can easily be swept way by turf wars. When we focus on ourselves and our own efforts and fruit, we are tempted to clamor to build our own small kingdoms at the expense of joining in the work of God’s big kingdom.

But the missionary community I witnessed stands as a witness to the sweetness that God gives amongst his people when they pursue his big mission together, as one. They rightly prioritize and celebrate the growth of the church universal above and beyond the growth of their own work. And that’s what we’re really called to, isn’t it?

To the Corinthians Paul said, “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4:5).

We are called to be servants. To serve Jesus. To preach his name. To build his church. May we lift our eyes up and off of our own small kingdoms and be reminded of the beauty and grandeur and glory of God’s big kingdom. May our local work be only to that end—to shine the light on Jesus’ name, not our own.

May we ask ourselves, How might I pursue God’s glory in the work of others this week? How might I build up the church universal this week? How might I lift up my eyes off of my project this week, in order to see and rejoice in what God is doing through others?

My husband recently told our church that there are 59 commands in the New Testament to Christians to do something for one another: to love one another, encourage one another, be at peace with one another, rejoice with one another, serve one another, and on. This week let’s you and I—especially we who are in ministry—find some ways to live out a few “one anothers” amongst our brothers and sisters in Christ.

For God’s glory. For his name. For his church. For his kingdom.

This article originally appeared here.

Is Social Media Ripping Apart Society

By

Andrew Walker

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March 27, 2018

The Monthly “Research Institute Forum” is an initiative of the Research Institute of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Learn more about the Research Institute.

Last month, a former Facebook executive made headlines for accusing social media of “ripping apart” American society because of how it fosters harassment, tribalism and resentment.

Question: As Christian leaders, how do you evaluate social media? Is it good for America? Is it good for Christians? How have your social media practices changed since you first entered the social media world?

Karen Swallow Prior: I remember the first time I heard the term “social media” being used by a friend. Even after she explained it to me, I still didn’t understand what it meant. That seems like a lifetime ago. Today, I know too well what it means. I’ve been on Facebook for over 10 years and on Twitter for eight. The connections I have made through both of these mediums have changed, enlarged and enriched my life in measurable and immeasurable ways.

But it is exactly because of the good social media accomplishes that we must be attentive to the nature of its power, a power that can bring ill as well as good.

By its very definition, social media is a form of mediated social life. I like to remind people that online life is not the same as real life. Both the form and content of my interactions with the flesh-and-blood people in my life—family, friends, co-workers and neighbors—differs in almost every way from my interactions with people on social media. When I gather socially with my various neighbors, for example, we almost never discuss the topics I discuss on the Internet. The things that bring me into contact with people in my community are entirely different from how people on social media cluster together based on common interests (even when that “commonality” is following people whose views are “opposite” your own).

Intimacy in online relationships is always—inherently, and necessarily—partial, absent the embodiment and social context, and therefore distorted. On social media, popularity is marked visually and publicly by the number of one’s likes, friends, followers and retweets. Interactions are thus characterized primarily quantitatively rather than qualitatively. Even time operates differently in social media, contracting and expanding in ways that are unnatural in real life conversations and relationships.

Yet, beyond these ways in which we think we understand the world of social media, both good and bad, I’m not sure we are capable of understanding what it means for us to exist in a world in the process of being re-formed by social media. We may be in the middle of a shift as dramatic as that which marked the end of the pre-modern world and the beginning of modernity.

Historians mark that shift by what is termed the “turn to the subject.” At its simplest, this philosophical phrase refers to the replacement of external, objective authority (such as God) with individual, subjective phenomenon (such as reason, observation or sensory experience) as the source of knowledge and being. Those who lived during those years (centuries, really) of transition to the modern age could not see from within it the radical nature of that shift as we who are looking back can.

I wonder if social media will be the catalyst for a parallel shift that will, many years in the future, be just as seismic. Increasingly, we understand ourselves based not on an internal, subjective sense of ourselves as in the modern age, nor on a sense of identity and purpose that is mediated through the objectivity of religious authority as in the pre-modern age. Rather, more and more we see ourselves in the images reflected back to us through our social media friends, follows, likes, retweets and pictures. I wonder if we are experiencing because of social media a collective “turn to the objectified,” one that will render our projected selves the objects of our own desires.

In order to minimize this danger of social media and increase its potential for good, I’m becoming more intentional in using it to balance telling the truth, pointing to the good, and displaying the beautiful.

When the Search Committees Say No: The Question to Ask

By

Joe McKeever

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March 27, 2018

The brethren brought (Saul) down to Caesarea and sent him away to Tarsus (his home town). Acts 9:30

So, the great soon-to-be Apostle Paul, but presently still Saul of Tarsus, went home and made tents. Perhaps he moved back into his old room. We can hear his parents saying, “For this we sacrificed for him to attend the rabbinic school in Jerusalem? Why isn’t he working?”

Saul was waiting on the call from the Lord. Hadn’t the Father called him? Hadn’t he prepared himself? Wasn’t he effective in preaching? So, what’s going on here?

Saul had no idea what the Lord was up to. Later, he would write a lesson learned by hard experience: “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).

“Is this normal?”

The young friend has been handed another disappointment from a search committee. This one had looked so promising. The committee member who had called me for a reference three weeks ago indicated they were so impressed by my friend and this might become a reality. “I’ve not heard from them now in three weeks,” he told me. “And yet these committees always promise to call, one way or the other, and I never hear from them. Is this normal?”

I told him unfortunately there is no normal, that every committee does as it pleases based on its makeup, its own agenda and factors within the church that we’ll never know about.

I’m thinking today of him and a number of other colleagues in the ministry who have been unsuccessful in finding church positions. With some, it’s a bad experience two churches ago that is sabotaging their efforts to get up and try again. Committees are so deathly afraid of making mistakes that they refuse to step out on faith and give a good man another chance. And with some, the factors are completely unknown except to the Lord.

But my counsel to the chronically unemployed minister, no matter how strongly he/she wants to get back into church work, is to answer this question: What else does the Lord want you to do? Something that will not depend on a search committee’s agreement and a pastor’s endorsement?

What else would the Father have you do?

Many a servant of the Lord has found a great calling after being turned down by committee after committee. They had answered the Lord’s call expecting—as we all did—that He wanted them to serve a local church in some capacity: pastor, education, pastoral, missions, youth, children. In most cases, they had the opportunity to serve smaller congregations during their years in college, Bible school and/or seminary. But at some point, that all ground to a halt. Now, they sit at home, send out resumes, answer inquiries and wait for the call that never comes.

They are doing the best they can. Some are working at funeral homes or hospice, some volunteer with youth programs or at women’s clinics, and others visit the jails and nursing homes. Each one tries to stay busy doing what the Lord has called and equipped them to do.

It can be a strain waiting for the Lord to open a door that never seems to be there.

So, the minister without portfolio may want to drop back and ask a more basic question: If I were not to serve the local church as pastor or staffer, what else would the Lord have me do?

–Where is your heart, your burden?

–What do you love to do that doesn’t require the approval of a pastor or committee?

–What do you do that others seem to appreciate most? That your spouse encourages?

At first, it’s not necessary to see how this ties in with the Lord’s work, so long as it is positive and good.

As a young man, I had two passions: history and drawing cartoons. The Lord called me into the ministry as a senior in college, about to get the degree in history. What in the world, I wondered, do I need with a history major when I’m going out to pastor churches? And how could I ever use my love for cartooning in the ministry.

On the surface, it appeared that I had wasted the years I’d spent in college studying American and European history, and taking those courses in cartooning. My first thought was to wish I’d gone to the local Baptist college and majored in biblical studies as some of my friends did.

Later, I learned the Lord was a better career counselor than anyone! My love for history has never waned. During seminary, I took all the courses I could on church history. At the moment—I’m about to hit birthday number 78, Lord help us!—I have shelves of books on Lincoln, Churchill, World War II and Harry Truman. The stories and illustrations have often showed up in my sermons, although mostly this love for history is simply there as a gift from the Lord, period. It doesn’t have to have an immediate application to the ministry. Perhaps He sent it to keep me from being one-dimensional.

The Good News About TIME Magazine’s Is God Dead? Cover

By

Franklin Santagate

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March 27, 2018

In April 1966, a shocking TIME magazine cover asked, Is God Dead? and stunned
the country. It sparked a reaction that included thousands of sermons and letters to
the editors, shouting and sharing opinions on both sides of the question.

Is God Dead?

The good news about the question is that God must exist and be alive for Him to be
considered to have met His demise.

If Time, or another iconic publication, emblazon its cover with this proclamation
today, it would be met with a much more muted response.

Almost fifty years later, a Pure Flix film declared that “God’s Not Dead,” answering
the Time magazine cover question. The resounding response from moviegoers
created the number one independent film worldwide in 2014.

God’s Dead Versus God’s Not Dead?
The film’s storyline sees a freshman university student attend a philosophy class,
where the atheist professor requires all students to submit a signed statement that
"God is dead" and, in fact, never existed. The student refuses to sign due to his
Christian beliefs, so the professor challenges him to defend his position that his God
is real. This leads to a series of confrontational presentations between the student
and the professor, with the class as the jury.

In order to defend the faith, the student researches history, philosophy, science and
scripture. He presents intelligent, meaningful and winsome statements and
positions of truth with such convincing clarity that the class agrees with the student.
The final verdict?

God’s Not Dead.
Is this insightful acumen missing from many of a Christian’s arsenal of answering
questions that would start someone on a path of faith to God?

Was Jesus and the Resurrection Real?
This question led to the God’s Not Dead sequel, aptly named God’s Not Dead 2. Here,
a jury verdict in a court of law acquits a history schoolteacher that was accused of
preaching versus teaching about Jesus in her classroom. The expert witnesses in her
defense are a homicide detective and a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter.
The detective specializes in cold cases, and with the techniques used to solve cases
decades later, proves the testimonial validity of the Gospels. The reporter uses all of
his skills to prove the crucifixion, death and resurrection, presenting a mountain of
empirical truth about the historical Jesus from both biblical and non-biblical
sources.

Equipping the Congregants?
As pastors, have we equipped believers to confidently give the reason for their faith
with gentleness and respect? In other words, can our congregants execute a smart
and winsome discussion about the existence of God, the historicity of Jesus, and the
proof of His resurrection (the lynchpin of our faith) in the face of sarcastic, mean-
spirited or demeaning conversation?

Vitriol or Victory?
It seems like this is the culture on many campuses today. Tolerance becomes
intolerance. Accusation replaces acumen. Meanness usurps manners. Preference is
preferred to principle. In the midst of this atmosphere the threequel, God’s Not
Dead: A Light in Darkness shows a pastor that resorts to his strength as he finds his
church destroyed, his congregation silenced, his friendship shattered. The university
campus, where his church is located, is convinced the church has lost its usefulness.
In essence, God is dead to the purposes of the university. But the grace of the gospel
finds the pastor manifest the nature of God in the power of forgiveness, healing and
bringing hope to both sides of this cultural conflict.

Christian Cop Takes Place of Female Hostage in ISIS Terrorist Attack, Dies a Hero

By

Bri Lamm

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March 27, 2018

A French police officer is being hailed a hero this week after going “beyond the call of duty” during a terrorist attack in Southern France on Friday, March 23, 2018.

Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame died Saturday as a result of his wounds, after voluntarily taking the place of a female hostage during a supermarket siege that left three dead and 15 others injured.

Arnaud Beltrame put himself in harm’s way to save another human being. It cost him his life. We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to this hero. pic.twitter.com/SC8Z2cyQjP

— Frans Timmermans (@TimmermansEU) March 24, 2018

An ISIS-inspired gunman, who police have now identified as Radouane Lakdim, hijacked a car and fired shots at four national police officers before storming a Super U supermarket in Trèbes, southern France. After opening fire inside, Lakdim held customers and employees hostage for several hours.

Col. Beltrame entered the supermarket with his cell phone on as a tactical way for his colleagues outside to hear events as they unfold.

Though officials managed to get some of the hostages out of the supermarket safely, the gunman kept one woman as a human shield.

Beltrame proposed a trade-off, in which she would be released, and he would take her place.

“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

A practicing Christian himself, Col. Beltrame lived out the words of Jesus in his final hours on earth.

The 44-year-old was shot and stabbed after trading places with one of the captives.

“He gave his life for strangers,” Beltrame’s brother Cedric told a French radio station Saturday. “He must have known that he didn’t really have a chance. If that doesn’t make him a hero, I don’t know what would.”

Beltrame’s cousin Florence Nicolic echoed Cedric’s claims, telling BBC, ”Even though we were surprised and shocked when we heard what happened we were not surprised in the sense that that’s the thing he would do without hesitation.”

Upon hearing shots fired inside the supermarket via Beltrame’s cell phone, officials stormed the scene and successfully killed the 25-year-old gunman.

Unfortunately, Beltrame succumbed to his life-threatening wounds the following day.

“Arnaud Beltrame died in the service of the nation to which he had already given so much,” French President Emmanuel Macron said, as reported by the Telegraph. “In giving his life to end the deadly plan of a jihadi terrorist, he fell as a hero.”

“The fact is that he did not hide his faith and that he radiated it, he bore witness to it,” added Fr. Dominique Arz in an interview with French Catholic magazine Famille Chrétienne. “We can say that his act of self-offering is consistent with what he believed. He served his country to the very end, and bore witness to his faith to the very end.”

“Skip Church This Easter” Billboard Attracts Unchurched People in Detroit

By

Christine Yount Jones

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March 27, 2018

“Skip Church This Easter” is the headline that has captured thousands of people’s attention in the Detroit area. Ward Church in Northville, Michigan, has capitalized on Easter falling on the same day as April Fool’s Day with three attention-grabbing billboards in western Wayne County.

It’s a surprising message with a picture of a goofy looking guy with pink bunny ears. And it’s working. Close to 4,000 drivers have visited the website skipeaster.com to learn what it’s all about.

And strategically on that website, Ward Church has this message:

NEVER TRUST ANYONE WITH PINK BUNNY EARS ON THEIR HEAD.

Oh no! Our Easter ads were HACKED by the April Fool! That guy is always up to no good…especially when Easter Sunday falls on April 1.

Maybe we should change our password? Or freeze our credit? Or maybe we should just tell you what we really wanted to say…

The truth is, we REALLY DO want you to join us at Ward Church in Northville this Easter. We have an incredible weekend planned and we can’t wait to welcome you.

Of course, the website has all the appropriate information: directions, times and more. They even offer a gift to first-time guests. And end with this:

So don’t skip church. Come to Ward this Easter and tell that April Fool to hop along.

Clever! Ward Senior Pastor Scott McKee told the Detroit Free Press that “just as Jesus did some unexpected things after His resurrection, we thought something unexpected was appropriate. Easter being on April 1 provided a chance to do it. Of course, we want people to join us on Easter.”

Church communications team of Emily Germain and Jeff Mitchell came up with the creative marketing idea.

“We’ve been pleasantly surprised with the traffic and interaction of this SkipEaster.com site,” Germain told the Detroit Free Press. “We’ve had a few webforms submitted. The people responding are those who may not have been inclined to visit a church website.”

Last Minute Easter Resources You Can Use NOW

Racial Reconciliation and Cultural Diversity in the Church

By

J.D. Greear

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March 26, 2018

In theory, very few people in the American church are opposed to the idea of racial and cultural diversity. But experience would suggest that on this issue good intentions do not equal forward progress.

A number of recent articles portend even more difficult days. A recent article, for instance, in the New York Times describes “a quiet exodus” of African Americans from predominantly white evangelical churches. Once hopeful about the prospects of racial reconciliation, many believers of color—those who were bold enough to enter “white church” settings as pioneers—have grown disheartened and weary by the lack of progress. Some have silently slipped out to re-join congregations that more closely reflect their culture.

The challenges we face regarding diversity and reconciliation are not new, but for many people—like me—in the majority culture, they possess a new urgency. Sadly, we have been late to the game, insensitive to concerns that don’t affect our families as directly or as acutely as they have affected brothers and sisters of color. For that alone, we have reason to repent. I thank God for the progress he has made in my own heart regarding this and for the progress I am seeing in a number of friends—both in our church and in churches like ours across the nation. Far too many of us white Christians assumed that racial disparity was an issue only past generations needed to deal with. Recent turmoil has made it obvious to all of us that we still live in a very racialized society. That’s tough to accept, but it’s necessary if we’re going to move forward.

Fortunately for Christians, I don’t think the situation is quite as bleak as many make it out to be. God has declared that diversity is his intention for the church, and he has given his Spirit with the promise that he will make it happen (Ephesians 3:1-13; 4:4-5). Racial reconciliation is a reality that God has declared over us in Christ. Inter-racial harmony was one of the distinguishing marks of gospel proclamation in the ancient world, and the unifying power of the gospel hasn’t faded.

Declare the Diversity of the Kingdom

Our efforts at The Summit Church along this line are guided by the plumb line, “The church should reflect the diversity of its community and declare the diversity of the kingdom.” Unity across race and ethnicity is one of the hallmarks of the gospel, a sign to the world that the gospel has real power (Ephesians 2). Our congregations should bespeak a unity that goes beyond a shared cultural and religious heritage. It should point to a divine unity, established by our common problem, sin; our common hope, salvation; and our common life, the Spirit. Furthermore, our unity is to be a sign, preview, and firstfruits of the coming kingdom, in which every tribe, tongue, language, and nation will gather around Christ’s throne in all their resplendent cultural distinctives (Revelation 5).

Our journey toward this goal hasn’t been easy—true diversification never is. But we’ve learned that pursuing racial reconciliation isn’t a niche “project” for a select few; rather, it is an essential part of discipleship and the responsibility of every follower of Jesus.

For those of us in the majority culture, this process has begun with a posture of listening, not talking. The definition of a blind spot, after all, is a weakness that we don’t know that we have. Historically, the most insidious blind spots result from positions of privilege and power. If we are serious about discovering these blind spots, it means committing ourselves to uncomfortable conversations where we seek more to understand that we do to be understood.

Not only will we find the experience of listening uncomfortable, we will also likely find that some of the changes necessary to reflect the diversity of the body of Christ are uncomfortable, too. If we want the SBC to be a homogeneous, conservative, white Anglo-Saxon movement, then cultural hegemony is fine. But if we want to reach the diverse communities throughout the U.S., then we better get ready to change our cultural and leadership structures.

Why the Next Generation Doesn’t Know Christianity Is True

By

Dale Hudson

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March 26, 2018

Why do 13 percent of Gen Z kids say they are atheists?

Why do 37 percent of Gen Z kids say you can’t know for sure if God is real?

Why do 58 percent of Gen Z kids say there is more than one way to God?

Why did 78 percent of nones (those who claim no religion) grow up in church?

Why do so many kids get to college and walk away from the faith?

All of this points to one burning question that they church must face.

Why does the next generation not know that Christianity is true?

Which leads to the answer that the church must face.

The next generation doesn’t know Christianity is true, because we haven’t been showing them that Christianity is true.

Gen Z may not always know how to verbalize it or even have the courage to say it. But internally, they desperately want you to show them evidence that what you are telling them about Christianity is true.

46 percent of Gen Z kids say they need factual evidence to support their beliefs.

49 percent of Gen Z kids say the church seems to reject much of what science tells us about the world.

27 percent of Gen Z kids say the church is not a safe place to express doubts.

24 percent of Gen Z kids say the teaching they are exposed to is shallow.

If the church wants to reach the next generation…if the church wants to stop the exodus of kids walking away from the faith…if the church wants to see kids have a faith that can withstand the reasoning of agnostics and atheists…then we must show them the factual foundation that the faith is built upon.

The Bible is very clear about this.

But in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you. –I Peter 3:15

We cannot leave kids spiritually defenseless and then just hope they will grow up to follow Jesus.

Teaching kids to be “kind to each other” is a good thing, but it won’t equip kids to know why they believe Jesus is the Son of God.

Teaching kids to “be responsible” is a good thing, but it won’t equip kids to be able to articulate the proof of Jesus’ resurrection.

Teaching kids to “be fair with others” is a noble undertaking, but it won’t equip them to answer questions like “How can a fair God allow innocent children to starve?”

Helping kids memorize the books of the Bible is great, but it won’t equip them to defend why they believe those books are true.

Showing kids the 10 commandments is important, but it won’t equip them to defend why they believe there is a God who gave us the 10 commandments.

I’m afraid, in many cases, we are spending the little time we have on Sundays, teaching kids general character traits that they already hear at school and other places like the boy scouts. Character traits that are not going to sustain their faith when it is attacked. “Treating your neighbor right” is not going to sustain a child’s faith one day when he or she is hearing a professor say that it’s ludicrous to believe God created the world based on scientific evidence.

Why Mister Rogers (Still) Matters

By

Russell Moore

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March 26, 2018

This year marks the 50th anniversary of public television’s Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The milestone will bring with it a major book, a feature film (starring Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers), and even a U.S. postage stamp. When one considers all the ephemera of children’s programming, the ongoing cultural resonance of this show is staggering. Fifty years from now will anyone note the anniversary of Gumball or Clarence? I doubt it. So why does Mr. Rogers, even long after his death, still beckon us into his neighborhood?

Fred Rogers, after all, is hardly the sort of person one would choose to “connect with the next generation.” He was a Presbyterian minister, of all things. Those cardigan sweaters and loafers would have seemed out-of-date in all 50 of the years since the first broadcast aired. Mister Rogers had no zaniness or charisma or celebrity pull that one would audition if one were looking for someone to speak to children.

But that is why he persists in the public imagination. Mister Rogers was never “Fred.” He was Mister Rogers. He was a grown-up, and that’s exactly what children loved.

That’s the part of Fred Rogers’s work that is probably the easiest to misunderstand. One can listen to the songs he sang… “It’s such a good feeling to know you’re alive…” or “I like you just the way you are…” and assume that Rogers was a live-action version of a sappy self-esteem curriculum. Rogers, though, would talk to children about the darkest topics possible, addressing children’s fears directly, whether those fears were about being sucked down the drain in a bathtub or parents’ divorcing or the death of grandparents. He even helped children think through terrorist attacks and war, in a way that neither waved away the darkness of violence nor surrendered to fear or anger.

When one listens to those old broadcasts, what is striking is that Rogers, while not startling children with graphic details inappropriate for them, deals honestly both with the children and the subject he’s addressing. There is reassurance, but it seems to be an earned reassurance—the reassurance of one who is a diplomat from the world of grown-ups.

I think often of the account I read of a man who grew up in extreme neglect and abuse but found a few minutes of respite every day when he entered Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. “When he said, ‘I like you just the way you are,’ it was as though he was speaking directly to me.” Rogers transcends generational differences and media trends because he had a unique ability to break through the fourth wall of the screen, to seem to be actually talking to his audience, to actually almost see them.

The idea of being seen, of being acknowledged, is almost universally recognized by early childhood development scholars as necessary for the healthy emotional and mental growth of a child. As a Christian, I think this need points not only to the foundations of nature, but beyond nature. At the baptism of Jesus, the Father’s voice announces, “You are My beloved Son, and with you I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17).

Children were drawn to Rogers not because he was a spectacle; he wasn’t. They were drawn to him because an adult seemed to look over that glass divide and say to them that their value was not in their striving and doing and buying and consuming. “It’s you I like. It’s not the things you wear. It’s not the way you do your hair. But it’s you I like. The way you are right now. The way down deep inside you, not the things that hide you. Not your toys; they’re just beside you… But it’s you I like.”

Sappy? Yes. Awkward? Kind of. Mister Rogers would probably plead guilty to all of that. But, for at least 50 years of children, he never seemed to be selling anything. In an era in which whirl is king, Fred Rogers provided a little vision of stability. He had the same house, the same mailman, the same puppets, and in his personal life, the same wife. In a world of fractured neighborhoods and splintered families, who can honestly say that we don’t need to see, somewhere, that such is possible?

In 1997, Rogers received an Emmy Award for lifetime achievement. His acceptance speech went viral, and is widely viewed even now. What made it so was not some sort of explosive antic, but his request to the crowd to take 10 seconds, in silence (“dead air” in television-speak) to think about the people in their lives, living or dead, who had believed in them, helped them along the way. Those 10 seconds were filled with images of world-renowned celebrities wiping away tears. That, I think, is why Mister Rogers still matters.

His program reminded us that we are not alone. He reminded us that no matter how we display and act tough, however much we “win,” that what we really want is to be known and to be loved. Mister Rogers never seemed to care whether people thought he was old-fashioned or irrelevant or not “edgy enough.” He remembered what it was like to be a child, but he had loved being a grown-up, and he knew we could too.

We are looking, ultimately, for the weight of the glory of the kingdom of the reigning Christ. But, sometimes, along the way, it’s good to be reminded that, despite all the brokenness and loneliness of a fallen world, it can be a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

This article originally appeared here.

The Slow Burn of Bitterness

By

Nancy Guthrie

-

March 26, 2018

No one ever says, “When I grow up, I want to be bitter.” But life has a way of handing us hurts that can collect, insults and offenses that seem to stick to our souls and refuse to let go. Of course, we don’t want to see ourselves as bitter. And yet, when the word “forgiveness” comes up, we sometimes find ourselves becoming uncomfortable. We sense we’re about to be asked to do something we really don’t want to do. A face comes into view in our mind’s eye. A fire reignites inside us at the thought of what happened or what didn’t happen, what was said or what went unsaid, revealing that there are embers of unforgiveness smoldering inside us that threaten to burn forever if they are not doused for good.

But how will that ever happen? I can tell you how it happened for me.

THROWING LOGS ON THE FIRE

I was awake in the middle of the night doing what I had done many nights before—rehearsing the wrongs done to me by someone who had hurt me deeply. I had been studying John 16 that week, where Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would come to convict the world of sin and guide His people into truth. Sure enough, that night as I lay awake, the Holy Spirit came to convict. I wanted to make it all about what had been done to me, but the Holy Spirit guided me into the truth of seeing the sin I was responsible for, the sin I needed to repent of—the sin of unforgiveness.

“I’ve tried to forgive,” I remember saying to God, “but these feelings just keep coming back.” I knew that on my own I could not work up what was needed to forgive and keep on forgiving. But, of course, if the Holy Spirit dwells in us, we are not on our own. I told God through tears that I would walk out my repentance by taking steps toward the person who had hurt me, and I asked Him for supernatural power to do what, to me, seemed impossible.

A week later, when I talked to that person, I was kind instead of cold, affirming instead of insulting, open to seeing the good instead of entrenched in assuming the worst. Over the months that followed, I kept choosing to refuse to throw logs on the fire of bitterness. I kept choosing to believe that pleasing God would be more delicious to me than the familiar taste of all of my angry feelings. The middle-of-the-night churning and rehearsing of wrongs stopped. And I was free.

DOUSING THE FIRE WITH MERCY

Of course, what often trips us up on the pathway toward forgiveness is our sense of justice. It doesn’t seem fair that we should have to bear the burden of the offense. So, how can we find our footing to forgive someone who, in our estimation, doesn’t deserve to be forgiven? That happens only when we come to see ourselves as people who don’t deserve to be forgiven but who have been granted a generous forgiveness. It’s only when we begin to see clearly the enormity of our offense against God, as well as the generosity of His forgiveness toward us, that the bitterness that has gripped our hearts can begin to be dislodged.

That’s no doubt what Jesus had in mind when He told the parable of the unforgiving debtor found in Matthew 18. There are really two debtors in the story, and the difference is in the amount they owe. The debt the servant owed the king was not just large; it was an incomprehensible amount of money, more than the servant could earn in a lifetime. The debt owed to the servant by a fellow servant was a mere three months’ wages.

The king’s generous forgiveness toward the servant illustrates the abundance of God’s forgiveness toward us. His mercy sets us free from the prison of an unpayable debt. Likewise, the unwillingness of the servant to forgive the small debt of a fellow servant is an unflattering portrayal of our unrelinquished resentments and our determination to make others pay for what they’ve done to us. The debts of others that loom so large in our estimation are dwarfed when we see them in comparison to our unpayable debt to God.

The parable ends, “Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.” Then Jesus adds, “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart” (Matt. 18:34–35). Can Jesus really mean this? Can He really mean that our unwillingness to forgive has something to do with our eternal destiny?

This doesn’t fit into our formulas for what it means to be a part of God’s family, yet we simply can’t water it down to weaken its clear and convicting message. Jesus is saying that if we’ve really come into His kingdom, where we’re breathing in an atmosphere of forgiveness, we’ll naturally be extending that forgiveness toward others. A person who has truly experienced the mercy of God will be merciful.

As we lean into and cherish that mercy, we begin to find it dislodging the bitterness that has made its home in our hearts. As we welcome the Spirit’s work in our lives, we find the fires of bitterness are being replaced by the fruit of the Spirit—love replacing contempt, joy replacing irritability, peace replacing angry thoughts, patience replacing our tendency to be so easily offended. We find ourselves increasingly able to be kind instead of cold, appreciating the good rather than looking for the bad, responding with gentleness instead of harsh words, faithful in friendship instead of settling for ongoing alienation, self-controlled instead of being forever controlled by bitterness. The fire goes out, and we are free.

This article originally appeared here.

Jim Caviezel: Refreshing Stories That Will Strengthen Your Faith

By

Christine Yount Jones

-

March 26, 2018

Jim Caviezel who portrayed Jesus Christ in the 2004 The Passion of the Christ now co-stars in the upcoming movie Paul, Apostle of Christ. And Mel Gibson has announced that Caviezel will also play the role of Jesus in The Passion of the Christ 2 (tentatively titled The Resurrection).

Jim Caviezel Stands for His Faith

Some may not realize the devout faith that carries Caviezel through a challenging career in Hollywood. In a People.com interview, Caviezel said that he is drawn to roles that enable him to be the light. He says, “The light is much brighter in the darkest of places. In those darkest of places, I want to be the center of it. I was drawn to that.”

For example, Caviezel stuck to his convictions in shooting scenes with famous actresses. Out of respect to his wife, Caviezel has refused to do nude love scenes in the movies Angel Eyes with Jennifer Lopez and High Crimes with Ashley Judd.

A devout Catholic, Caviezel opposes abortion. And he and his wife, Kerri Browitt, have adopted three children from China who had cancer. Caviezel told People.com of his children Bo, 18, Lyn, 16, and David, 7: “Two of them had brain tumors and one had cancer sarcoma. Their chance of survival wasn’t great, but I wanted to help…They make me want to be a better man. Love is a decision.”

Watch this CBS 19 exclusive interview with Caviezel about his children.

Jim Caviezel Challenges Christians to Stand Strong

Caviezel has used his acting success to speak out for pro-life causes and to challenge the church to stand strong. On People.com, Caviezel said that “he feels a calling to spread the Word of God through his work, and is drawn to projects that ‘speak the truth’ and aim to make a difference in the world.”

From his role as Jesus in the Passion, Caviezel says that he almost died while filming the movie: “I thought I would put the makeup on and prepare the same way and we would shoot it in studio and suddenly I realized I was in a fight for my life. It was very cold and I got hypothermia. The makeup burned my skin and I caught pneumonia in both lungs. I was struck by lightning and eventually had two heart surgeries including open-heart.”

Even so, playing Jesus was an important part of his faith journey. Caviezel says: “I need him every day. I feel the lack of love in the world and in myself at times and I’m looking for purpose like everyone else. In this business that doesn’t suffer fools, when the world kicks you, I know that I have my personal Savior right there with me and he feels the pain that I feel.”

Watch this video about Jim Caviezel’s testimony.

Jim Caviezel plays the physical Luke in the movie Paul, Apostle of Christ.

And playing this role also challenged Caviezel’s faith to see God’s greatness in being able to use mere humans. “This film to me is one that goes out to the world,” Caviezel says. “It goes out to this is what these guys were. And the people that are going to watch it are going to say, ‘wow! They’re a sinner like me.’ “

Caviezel is set to reprise his role as Jesus–the Resurrected–in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ 2 (tentative release in 2019) Caviezel hasn’t said much about the film other than that “the film is going to be the biggest film in history.”

Earlier this year, Jim Caviezel addressed a gathering of students in Chicago with a challenge to embrace suffering and pain for the sake of Christ. Caviezel said: “Embrace your cross and race toward your goal. I want you to go out to this pagan world…and shamelessly express your faith in public. The world needs proud warriors animated by their faith. Warriors like Saint Paul and Saint Luke who risked their lives and reputations…”

From someone who’s played the roles of our Savior and our greatest missionary, we find great inspiration and encouragement from his perspective.

Wisely, Jim Caviezel challenged the students–and us–with these words:

“We are…a people in danger of succumbing to our excesses…Set yourself apart from this corrupt generation. Be saints…Freedom exists not to do what you like, but to do what you ought.”

Don’t miss Jim Caviezel’s latest role as the physician Luke in Paul, Apostle of Christ.

Who is Jim Caviezel?

James Patrick Caviezel was born September 26, 1968. Caviezel was born in Mount Vernon, Washington, the son of Margaret (née Lavery), a former stage actress and homemaker, and James Caviezel, a chiropractor. He has a younger brother, Timothy, and three sisters, Ann, Amy, and Erin. He was raised in a tightly knit Catholic family in Conway, Washington.

Jim Caviezel movies:

Sound of Freedom (pre-production)
Tim Ballard

2018 Paul, Apostle of Christ
Luke

2017 Jo, the Medicine Runner
Reyes

2017 The Ballad of Lefty Brown
Jimmy Bierce

2011-2016 Person of Interest (TV Series)
John Reese

– Return 0 (2016) … John Reese

– .exe (2016) … John Reese

– Synecdoche (2016) … John Reese

– The Day the World Went Away (2016) … John Reese

– Sotto Voce (2016) … John Reese

Show all 103 episodes

2014 When the Game Stands Tall
Bob Ladouceur

2013 Escape Plan
Hobbes

2013 Savannah
Ward Allen

2012/I Transit
Nate

2009 The Prisoner (TV Mini-Series)
6 / Michael

– Episode 6: Checkmate (2009) … 6 / Michael

– Episode 5: Schizoid (2009) … 6 / Michael

– Episode 4: Darling (2009) … 6 / Michael

– Episode 3: Anvil (2009) … 6 / Michael

– Episode 2: Harmony (2009) … 6 / Michael

Show all 6 episodes

2008 Long Weekend
Peter

2008 The Stoning of Soraya M.
Freidoune Sahebjam

2008 Outlander
Kainan

2006 Deja Vu
Carroll Oerstadt

2006 Unknown
Jean Jacket

2004 Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius
Bobby Jones

2004 The Passion of the Christ
Jesus

2004 Highwaymen
James ‘Rennie’ Cray

2004 The Final Cut
Fletcher

2003 I Am David
Johannes

2002 High Crimes
Tom Kubik / Sgt. Ron Chapman

2002 The Count of Monte Cristo
Edmond Dantes

2001 Angel Eyes
Steven ‘Catch’ Lambert

2001 Madison
Jim McCormick

2000 Pay It Forward
Jerry (as James Caviezel)

2000 Frequency
John Sullivan

1999/I Ride with the Devil
Black John (as James Caviezel)

1998 The Thin Red Line
Pvt. Witt

1997 G.I. Jane
Slovnik

1996 The Rock
Rear F-18 Pilot (as James Caviezel)

1996 Ed
Dizzy Anderson

1995 Children of the Dust (TV Mini-Series)
Dexter

– Episode #1.2 (1995) … Dexter

– Episode #1.1 (1995) … Dexter

1995 Murder, She Wrote (TV Series)
Darryl Harding

– Film Flam (1995) … Darryl Harding (as James Caviezel)

1995 77 Sunset Strip (TV Movie)
Scott Baker

1994 Wyatt Earp
Warren Earp

1994Blue Chips
Basketball Player (uncredited)

1992 Diggstown
Billy Hargrove

1992 Human Target (TV Series)
Squad Leader

– Second Chance (1992) … Squad Leader

1992 The Wonder Years (TV Series)
Bobby Riddle

– Hero (1992) … Bobby Riddle (as James Caviezel)

1991 My Own Private Idaho
Airline Clerk

Jim Caviezel Wife

Caviezel is married to Kerri Browitt, a high school English teacher, and flutist. Isn’t it a wonder how an actor got married to a high school teacher? We’ll solve that puzzle for you. Jim’s sister, Amy, set them up on a blind date in 1993. It may not have been love at first sight, but their relationship blossomed after the date and led to many other dates.

Three years later, on July 20, 1996, they got married at the Immaculate Conception Church in Roslynn, Washington, and their love has endured into a marriage of more than two decades with no rumor of divorce in sight.

Jim Caviezel children

They have adopted three children from China who had cancer, saying, “They are people, just like we.”

David: Born- March 2010, China
Lyn: Born – September 2001, China
Bo: Born – December 1999, China

A 98-Year-Old Nun Steals the Show at the NCAA Tournament

By

Bob Ditmer

-

March 26, 2018

The Loyola-Chicago Ramblers haven’t made a NCAA Final Four appearance since 1963 but the biggest story out of the college arguably could be Sister Jean Dolores-Schmidt, the team’s 98-year-old chaplain.

With each tournament win by the 11th seeded Ramblers, Sister Jean’s notoriety has grown.

Bill Behrns, Loyola’s basketball sports information director, estimates that he received “at least” 15 interview requests for Sister Jean this week, and that doesn’t count other interviews that he might not have known about, likely bringing the number closer to 20. The New York Times profiled her earlier this week.

Her name became a popular topic on Twitter, to the point that even former President Barack Obama gave her a shoutout.

On Friday, less than 24 hours after the Ramblers’ thrilling victory to advance to the Final Four, she fielded one interview after another at the team hotel. During a brief stretch on Friday afternoon, she did three interviews in succession: one with a television crew, a one-on-one with ESPN.com then a phone interview with the Washington Post.

She has become so popular and synonymous with the team that Loyola-Chicago officials licensed her name and image.

Sister Jean is not a fair weather fan who has come alongside the Ramblers in the midst of a championship run. She’s been following the team since 1961. That was the year she took a teaching job at an all-women’s Catholic school, Mundelein College, which neighbored Loyola. While preparing young women to teach in Chicago’s public and Catholic schools, she attended athletic events at both Mundelein and Loyola. She remembers when Loyola won the 1963 men’s basketball national championship over Cincinnati in an overtime buzzer-beater. She watched a tape-delayed broadcast of the game on an 11-inch black-and-white television.

Sports have always been a part of Sister Jean’s life. She was born in 1919 and played basketball at her San Francisco high school in the 1930s. Back then, the game was more similar to soccer. The court was divided into three sections for women, with no player being allowed to traverse the whole court, and only certain ones allowed to shoot.

In 1991, Mundelein merged with Loyola and three years later Sister Jean became the Rambler’s chaplain. Her prayers with the team before the game are a mixture of pleas for divine help and coaching tips. Junior guard Clayton Custer told ESPN, “The way she prayed just stuck out. In the middle of her prayer there’s a scouting report mixed in. She tells us who their best players are and what to watch out for. Sometimes she’ll pray for the referee to make the right calls. And at the end, she’ll literally pray that we come out on top.”

Before Loyola home games she stands on the court with a microphone and reads her pre-game prayer. At a recent game against Bradley University she prayed “that both teams play with respect toward each other and strive to put into practice what they have learned from their coaches.”

She continued, with no attempt to hide her Loyola loyalty: “We Ramblers are asking you, our God, to give us a good start, to earn points early in the game, so that we can slow the pace as the game clock ticks away. We ask also that the numbers at the sound of the final buzzer indicate a big ‘W’ for the Ramblers.”

Sister Jean prays that there are no injuries and blesses the fans, cheerleaders and bands. Lastly, “please help the referees to call the game with precision for each team. Amen. And Go Ramblers.”

Sister Jean also supports the team in less public ways. She sends email notes to players with words of wisdom and encouragement. By all accounts, she has made an indelible mark on the team’s young men.

The players have displayed her words “Worship, work, win” in the team’s weight room. Another saying that is prominently displayed on a wall outside the Rambler’s arena is a quote from St. Ignatius of Loyola that coach Porter Moser feels “exemplifies” Sister Jean: “Go forth and set the world on fire.”

5 Steps to Starting a Student Leadership Team From Scratch

By

Todd Jones

-

March 25, 2018

Starting a student leadership team can be scary, hard, intimidating and confusing. You may have no clue where to even start, but hopefully you know that having a student leadership team is necessary. If not, check out this post “Why Student Leadership” to dig into the need for a student leadership team. But for now here are the five very simple steps for starting a student leadership team from scratch.

1. Identify Leaders

Pick out the students who show leadership qualities. This can be a bit difficult, because as you know, not all leaders are the upfront crazy ones, and sometimes those ones are not leaders. But try to identify who might be a good candidate for your leadership team. Ask God for discernment as you try and identify these leaders. Be open to who He is guiding you to because they may not be who you would choose. Look for students who are willing to serve, and try hard to identify leadership potential. Again, it is not easy because chances are they are not leaders yet, they are followers with potential to lead.

2. Assemble Them

Once you have identified some of the leaders, or potential leaders, in your group, now it is time to bring them together. At this point I highly suggest putting them through an application process. In my ministry we open it up to everyone, but give specific invites to those students that we have identified.

We make them fill out an application (you can download this for free right here), make them get letters of recommendation, and put them through an interview. We do this for a few reasons. First, we want to make sure the students on leadership are actually serious about being there. Most of the time the application process itself helps weed out the students who wouldn’t be able to handle leadership because they won’t even finish the application. Second, it allows us to get the information we need on the students to see where they are in their walk and leadership development. Third, it gives them some life skills. When they go in for their first job application/interview it will hopefully be a little less stressful because they have already experienced something similar.

If students are willing to go through the application and interview process, and if there are no major red flags, then we let them on student leadership. We want to see students succeed, but also want to see them willing to put in the work.

3. Create Teams

The way we run our student leadership team is by putting students in charge of different areas of ministry. We want our students to work inside the gifting God has given them so we try to provide different opportunities for them to do this. We accomplish this by creating teams: tech team, greeter team, snack bar team, on stage team, planning team, worship team, prayer team, admin team, etc.

We create these teams and then have our student leaders lead each team. We don’t just want our students to work them, but to lead them. For instance the snack bar team is not there to work the snack bar (although I do require that they work at least one week a month so they are not just the ‘boss’) but to recruit, schedule and train other students from the youth ministry to work the snack bar.

Each student on the student leadership team picks a ministry team to lead or co-lead. They then, with our adult leader guidance (if needed), lead that area in our ministry by recruiting their peers to serve under their leadership.

Developing teams is a really easy way to give students opportunities to lead, and also take the responsibility off of yourself.

4. Let Them Lead

Step back so they will learn to lead. Don’t abandon them, but give them space to allow them to lead. They need to be given opportunities to put into practice their newly learned leadership skills. Chances are when you give them that space and allow them opportunities they will come up with some amazing ideas that you may not have thought of without them.

5. Continue to teach, reinforce and guide

Yes, you may have established a leadership team, but just because you gave them a title does not mean that they will know what to do. Continue to teach them and help them. We do monthly leadership lunches after church where I teach a leadership lesson, we plan the next few weeks, and then we break into our teams and discuss how we can improve and where we are headed.

If you are unsure how to teach leadership, don’t panic, there are plenty of tools, videos and curriculum you can use to sharpen your student’s leadership skills. Just make sure you are giving them the HOW to lead, remember that they are new to leading and they will need some help. Be there for them, let them fly, but also let them know that they can always come back to the nest to get guidance.

Student leadership teams are awesome and we hope that you are able to create a thriving team. If you have questions or need help, email Stokedonyouthminsitry@gmail.com .

This article originally appeared here.

Giving Parents Personalized Steps to Take With Their Kids Every Week

By

Brandon Horst

-

March 25, 2018

Does this sound familiar?

“We believe in partnering with parents!”

“That’s awesome! So how exactly do you partner with parents on a weekly basis?”

“Well, we send home a handout that has key points about the lesson and our memory verse.”

“Great! How else do you partner with parents on a weekly basis?”

“Well…that’s it at the moment, but we’re trying to figure out some other ways…”

That was how the conversation went at the church where I serve for a long time.

We wanted to partner with parents, and we did what we could, but we felt like we were never quite doing as good as a job as we could.

We felt like something was missing.

As we continued to talk about this, one day there was an epiphany.

In our Small Groups, we were really good at getting kids’ prayer requests and having them answer a big application question, so all we had to do was figure out how to get that information from the Small Group leaders to the parents.

At first, we tried having Small Group leaders text parents the prayer requests and question answers because we thought it might also foster some relationships, but our leaders either forgot to or felt uncomfortable texting parents, plus accountability was really hard to do.

We tossed around some others ideas and finally settled on what we currently do.

Before you read what we do, there are some things you should know:

It’s very simple to implement, and will most likely only require a few small tweaks to what you currently do.

It’s easy to keep leaders accountable to do it.

It’s scalable.

It makes what you do for families extremely personal on a weekly basis.

And it gives parents something super practical and very tangible to work with their kids on every week.

OK, so here’s the idea:

We used to have our leaders write prayer requests and kids application question answers on a piece of paper, and keep the papers.

So what we started doing instead is giving leaders a sheet of 4″x2″ sticky mailing labels to write prayer requests and question answers on.

At the top, leaders write the child’s name.

Below the name, they write each child’s application question answer.

And at the bottom, they write each child’s prayer request.

Once a Small Groups has completed a label for each student, we have a volunteer who collects the label sheets.

Then at the top of the handout we send home with parents, we’ve written the application question on the left side and have a place for the label next to it on the right side.

The volunteer who collected the label sheets will then place one label on each handout and set the handouts on a table to be given to parents at pickup.

(See the picture here)

At pickup, when parents tell our checkout volunteer what name to call to have them come out of the kid’s area, a volunteer will locate the child’s name from the handouts and give it to the pickup parent.

By doing this, we let parents know what their children want prayer for and very specifically how their kids want to apply the lesson from that day.

Applying this will have to be tweaked in different ways to work within your ministry setting, but my biggest hope is that this has helped you to think about how you can do more to partner with parents and personalize that partnership.

This article originally appeared here.

How to Inspire a Response from Stage Announcements with Adam McLaughlin

By

Carl Barnhill

-

March 25, 2018

Listen to podcast here.

Show Notes:

Welcome back Adam McLaughlin to the show. Adam’s new book Snorkelfork is all about inspiring a response from your stage announcements. We’re going to completely dissect the book today on the show. Adam will share why he wrote it and we’ll walk through all the major concepts he discusses in the book and we’ll tell you how you can pick it up for free later in the show.

More from Adam McLaughlin: adammclaughlin.net

Sharable Content

I want you to have the resources you need to lead your volunteer team well. That’s why in nearly every episode of the podcast I like to provide you with downloadable, shareable content that you can take back and use as you lead your teams. This content is absolutely FREE of charge. You can take it, copy it, and distribute it to your team members. May God bless your ministry as you serve Him.

Click Here to Download a FREE Show Outline of this Episode.

Follow Carl Barnhill
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Follow Carl Barnhill on Twitter: @carlbarnhill
Follow Carl Barnhill on Instagram: carlbarnhill

Follow Adam McLaughlin
Follow Adam McLaughlin on Facebook: fb.com/adam.mclaughlin.52
Follow Adam McLaughlin on Twitter: @Adam_McLaughlin
Follow Adam McLaughlin on Instagram: adam_mclaughlin

Share these Tweetable Quotes from this Episode:

How to Inspire a Response from Stage Announcements w/ @Adam_McLaughlin #churchmediapodcast

Announcements are an opportunity to tell people not just what we do, but who we are. @Adam_McLaughlin

Try to stick with 5 announcements – people can only retain so much, don’t overwhelm them. @Adam_McLaughlin

9 Common Sins in the Church

1) Fear

Why illegal wireless?

Is this really impacting the church? YES!

What will my microphone do if T-Mobile starts using the space?

So how did we do this? Here are three ways we make this budget work for us:

DON’T SPEND MONEY EVERY WEEK.

SAVE UP FOR BIGGER EVENTS.

SOW INTO YOUTH FOR YOURSELF.

Make It Textual

PRODUCTIVITY IN KIDMIN: PRINCIPLES

HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE: EVALUATE

HOW TO BE PRODUCTIVE: PRACTICES

PLAN YOUR WORK

Plan Your Day

Is God Dead?

Declare the Diversity of the Kingdom

THROWING LOGS ON THE FIRE

DOUSING THE FIRE WITH MERCY

Jim Caviezel Stands for His Faith

Who is Jim Caviezel?

Jim Caviezel movies:

Jim Caviezel Wife

Jim Caviezel children

1. Identify Leaders

2. Assemble Them

3. Create Teams

4. Let Them Lead

5. Continue to teach, reinforce and guide

OK, so here’s the idea:

Listen to podcast here.

Show Notes:

Sharable Content

Share these Tweetable Quotes from this Episode:

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