We have a brand new start to finish resource we’d love to share with you: Girls Ministry from Start to Finish. Here’s what it’s covers:
Each week, you look at the girls in your church, and you dream about the opportunity to make a bigger impact in their lives. You envision a team of women coming alongside you, investing their time and talents to help teenage girls discover how beautiful and valuable they truly are. You imagine groups of girls gathering to talk about their life experiences and offering support and encouragement to one another. You picture moms and daughters experiencing healed relationships and new beginnings.
It?s just a dream?for now. But you can turn that dream into reality with the tools, tips, and training you?ll find in Girls Ministry from Start To Finish.
This resource is divided into two parts.
Part 1: The Strategy Who will lead your girls ministry? How will you structure it? How will it benefit your church? What impact can you have on the girls in your congregation and community? This section takes you from ?big picture? thinking all the way to hitting the ground running.
Part 2: The Tools and Resources This includes stuff that will save you tons of times: event ideas, sample Bible studies, and suggestions for curriculum. Use them as-is or customize them for your ministry. They?re all yours. We?ve also tossed in some extra training resources on the challenges facing girls in today?s [...]
- After spending the better part of 3 days with middle school youth workers at SYMC, I am (once again) convinced that many of the sharpest minds in youth ministry are found in middle school ministry!
- At a conference like SYMC (or YS or any other large gathering of youth workers) you meet lots and lots of people. It’s always such a great reminder to me that God uses an amazingly vast array of people to pour into students. I’m so thankful that the stereotypical youth worker (young, cool, plays guitar, surfs, rides skateboards, has a tattoo….) is no longer the “norm”.
- We are starting a 3-week series this weekend called “STUFF”. We are using household stuff as object lessons to teach a biblical truth. It’s a series we have done once before with great success. This week’s lesson: Take Out The Trash!
- Quite a few people tracked me down at the conference to ask me about regional campuses (basically church plants that are still part of the mother ship). Questions about how we structure etc. My simple answer: “Treat them like a franchise with freedom” They are a franchise in that there are certainly some things that they have to do in line with the main campus because they are the same church. But there shouldn’t be an overly large amount of control…they need freedom to tweak the ministry to their context.
- Dear Denver Broncos, Please get rid of Brandon Marshall.
- Dear senate and house leadership, Please either sign [...]
Jeff Atherstone is a friend of mine from seminary. We also worked together for a few years at Cornerstone – he was the pastor of student ministries in one of our church plants. Cool and very sharp guy.
A few years ago he left the ministry at Cornerstone and went out to Uganda to be a part of training leaders there. Church leaders. Pastors. There is a video here that has some very interesting statistics that honestly kind of surprised me. But in this video Jeff articulated a vision for what they are doing. He sees the big picture and is trying to get people behind it. He has been challenged by some questions by pastors of churches in Uganda:
Do I feed the orphans in the church or my own children? Do I pay for the widow?s hospital bills or do I take my own wife to the hospital? How can I find something to teach when I have never been taught?
Deep and penetrating questions. I wanted to post this video for three main reasons:
Anyway, watch and enjoy this short 2 minute video….it’s very well done.
SYMC is a wrap. A couple people asked about our sample timeline for big event fundraising stuff. Here it is. My usually witty commentary, and simultaneous harassing of Andy, will have to wait for tonight. I am beat.
Sample Schedule:
Fall Event ? Yard Clean up for church and others
Sports stadium venue (running concessions)
2 Christmas events (Parents Night Out, and a vendor-based Christmas bazaar)
January missions appeal to the congregation, including direct support letters
Valentines night out
Sports stadium venue
Pre-selling bags of mulch, and/or installing it
Spring Auction
This Sunday at church we were talking about the fact vs fiction surrounding the birth of Jesus. It reminded me of this video clip from the old Mr Bean TV show. It’s a great exaggeration of the secular mythology surrounding Christmas. It surprises me how much students don’t know what’s in the Bible vs. Popular thought.
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Very funny clip. And good thoughts on Bible vs popular thought.
It’s so true. Most teens are so confused about absolute truth, not to mention the basic facts of Scripture. It’s a sad state–that drives me to prayer!