 My family has made our fair share of life altering/game changing decisions. May of 2013 we made yet another game changing decision after a lot of prayer and fasting to move to Oklahoma to be student pastors at the church my grandfather planted back in 2005. We've worked with many students on several different platforms in Waxahachie, TX over the years and I worked with churches a lot working with Network 21 Missions. I had the privilege to sit with some AMAZING and influential pastors and leaders from around the world through the years and learned as much as I could living life with these pastors and leaders. While we were traveling through Europe the month of July, we did a lot of planning, vision and goal setting. Saying that, when we got back from our trip with N21M, we hit the floor running.
After we got settled in as a family and the "new" wore off, things that we thought would work and had planned out started not to work as planned. We pushed through with those plans until one Wednesday night when Val and I started talking about the culture of Elk City and how different it was from what we thought it would be. We knew coming into this that the culture of Elk City was WAY different than the DFW metroplex and after all, this is my hometown, so I thought I knew what it would be like moving back. After stepping back, praying, analyzing and putting my thoughts and agendas aside, God started opening our eyes to how to START ministering to the youth of this area. Here are just a few things that we've learned the last year of ministry in Elk City.
There's MANY other lessons we've learned here but these are the ones that really popped out when I was looking back the last year. We know God had some big plans for us as a family, Gateway Church and The Exchange Youth. I'm forever grateful for the lessons we've learned this past year and the relationships we've built and will continue to build
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 With so many conferences, leadership workshops, coaching bootcamps and blogs we hear and read a lot of different peoples thoughts on church growth and church health but not too many on the topic of youth ministry. A friend of mine that was over a student ministry that is now traveling and speaking at churches, camps and conferences said these 9 things regarding growth in youth ministry and I believe is truth and needs to be shared:
1) Dumbing down the Gospel. 2) You view it as a stepping stone rather than a destination. 3) Weak work ethic. 4) Not involved in the students lives. 5) In denial about things that need to change. 6) Not building teams 7) Just doing ministry FOR students rather than THROUGH them. 8) Not building a current infrastructure that can sustain your future vision. 9) Making excuses for not doing the above. To highlight just a few of these points: as youth pastors, we want to be hip, cool and relevant but lose the message in the mess of all that. We think we have to dumb or water down our messages so we keep a particular group engaged. We must not get to the point of dumbing down or watering down the gospel because that is the foundation you're setting for your students. Statistically speaking, after graduation, most students quit attending church or attend only on occasion...and that's those that attended church and were solid Christians. One thing I believe Bible college does is it doesn't prepare students wanting to go to the ministry to accept or want a job if it's not at a mega church. If God has called you to be a pastor...He called you to pastor. It doesn't matter where or how. Yes, some people go from graduating Bible college and get into a youth ministry that runs 300-500 and has a dream budget to do ministry. BUT the major of churches in America are not the mega churches and pastors don't see it being "sexy" and want to run away from it or use it as a STEPPING STONE to launch them into a dream church. If we chase God and His calling WHERE you are, He will take you WHERE He needs you and what He created you to do. Growth is one of those things as pastors we tend to either not focus on or focus on so much everything else suffers. We must keep Jesus the center of our vision where He has us and not make excuses but make moves. Let these 9 things encourage and speak to you to push your youth ministry to the next level. Be faithful where you are and God will be faithful to you!  I saw this survey a few months back and it made me do some major thinking in "why am I putting limited time, resources and energy in certain things verses others....and what's the value verses the reward".
10,000 Christian teenagers were asked this question: "If you were choosing a church, how important would the following 10 things be?" 1) A welcoming atmosphere where you can be yourself. - 73% 2) Quality relationships with teenagers. - 70% 3) A senior pastor who understands and loves teenagers. - 59% 4) Interesting preaching that tackles key questions. - 53% 5) Spiritual growth experiences that actively involve you. - 51% 6) Fun activities. - 51% 7) Engaging music and worship. - 50% 8) Quality relationships with adults. - 36% 9) Multiple opportunities to lead, teach and serve. - 35% 10) A fast-paced, high-tech, entertaining ministry approach. - 21% What got my attention was how the top two results were relationships and feeling welcomed while the least important is the "wow" factors. When I took over as the student pastor at my church, they had nothing (including a budget). I came in with these big ideas and plans to make our student room as cool and fun as possible. After we got lights, the stage lined with the pallet walls and the Playstation and Wii hooked up...I noticed the students loved what we did but it didn't make their experience any better spiritually speaking. It's about the relationships and the welcoming factor...not the wow factor. Now honestly ask yourself, just as I did, are you allocating your time, resources and attention respectively to what the students actually want or care about? You don't have to have 50 LED lights on a light rack busting out a sweet light show during worship, you don't need a wall full of game consoles connected to 50" flat screens, you don't do things at a fast-pace and you don't have to worry about entertaining your students. If they come for the sole purpose of the game consoles on flat screens, the entertainment and light show...you will not keep them. They are not there for the main thing and that's Jesus. I know the other side of the conversation and YES, I agree, we need to be relevant and offer things that draw students in that normally wouldn't darken the door, BUT the good news is, the students barely care about that stuff. Challenge: Decide the value vs. reward when it comes to how and why you do what you do in your student ministry. If your time, resources and energy (and budget) is limited, is more important to focus on the wow factor vs. relationship and spiritual growth factor? Is it wrong to spend time, resources and energy on the wow factor? Absolutely not...as long as you're putting more time, resources and energy in what the students actually want and NEED...and that's relationship and spiritual growth. What is All In Student Conference?All In Student Conference was not put together to just be "another conference". The vision and mission for this conference is to EMPOWER, EQUIP and ENCOURAGE the pastors, leaders and students! How will All In benefit me as a student pastor or leader? There are conferences all over that can offer many ways to impact a ministry, but we have learned that sometimes its hard to implement those in a ministry with a LIMITED or no budget. In our pastors and leaders session, our goal is to encourage you, the pastor and/or leader, talking about growth, sustainability and leadership in a small town America church with limited to no budget. Along with that, we want to build a network among pastors and leaders that we can encourage each other past the conference and build lasting friendships! How will All In benefit my students? Students seeing other students with the same goal and purpose is a powerful thing! When they see that they're not the "only ones doing it", they tend to be ENCOURAGED! We know that the students have several opportunities to worship with other students at camps, retreat, and rallies so we just want to offer that experience for the students with a purpose. We don't want this to be "another service" but our goal for is to EMPOWER, EQUIP and ENCOURAGE them to impact their world of influence for JESUS! During the Pastors and Leaders Session, we will have a Pre-Rally with the HIGH ENERGY rapper FEDEL! For the General Session, we will have a high energy, powerful worship service leading into our speaker for the night! Pastor Grant Pankratz will push the students to a WHOLE 'NOTHER LEVEL and challenge them to impact their world of influence for Jesus
Click Here to REGISTER your group TODAY!!
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Chad & Valerie TrinkleGod loves you more than you think he does. Archives
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