New Series: REFUEL

January 8, 2010 By nick Leave a Comment

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We are kicking off our new series “REFUEL” this Sunday- The series really began last week as we canceled service for “REFUEL Weekend” and asked everyone to take time with their family and with God to prepare for the new year. I am excited about 2010 for New Passion! We are hitting the ground running as we kickoff our 3rd children’s environement, a new group for two year olds in The Grove. We are also kicking off Community Groups for the first time as a church. We’ve had a HUGE response from people interested in sharing life with one another in community! So far we have right at 50% of our weekend attendance signed up for a group. I’m totally blown away by the response. Our groups will correspond with the message series, and each group will be traveling together through the Refuel book by Doug Fields.

I hope to see you this Sunday as we discover how to have uncomplicated connections with God. [Directions]

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Live Blogging PDYM the Conference Final Session

March 27, 2009 By nick Leave a Comment

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Live Blogging Final Session

Doug Fields

  • God has the leaders you just have to find them
  • Who do you think cares more about your ministry? You or God? Don’t you think he has the shepherds ready to equip your ministry?
  • There is a myth in the church that you have to be young and cool to be a good youth worker
  • God has the leaders, we just have to look in the unlikely places to find them
  • 10% of Volunteers will come to you 90% will come because they are asked
  • 2. Raise the Bar, raise healthy leaders
  • Exous 18:17-23 (Jethro’s Leadership Advice)
  • 1 Peter 5:2-3 (NLT)
  • Seek out Humble leaders
  • You must have a screening process for leaders
  • 3. Valued Leaders become Valuable Leaders
  • Be clear with expectations
  • Care for WHO the leader is more than WHAT the leader does
  • Be specific with Praise
  • Commit to develop leaders not just recruit and hire them
  • 4. Volunteers need: Care, Conversation, Confrontation, and Challenge
  • People (Leaders) LEAVE Leaders not Ministries
  • You have to learn to confront to be an effective leader
  • Saddleback Learnings on Volunteers:
  • Training and Meetings are Overrated
  • Great Communication with Volunteers goes a long way
  • Leading Volunteers is a ministry within itself

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Live Blogging PDYM the Conference Session 6

March 26, 2009 By nick Leave a Comment

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Live Blogging Session 6

Doug Fields: Discipleship

  • 1. Discipleship cannot be reduced to programs and people
  • Discipleship can be viewed as 50% Relational 50% Educational
  • If student’s faith is married to a program or a person, when they are gone, their faith is gone
  • 2. An “On Your Own” Discipleship philosophy is a top down philosophy
  • A Discipleship Strategy is the HABITS
  • H = Hangout with God
  • A = Accountability with Another Believer
  • B = Bible Memorization
  • I = Involvement in the Church Body
  • T = Tithing Commitment
  • S = Study Scripture
  • 3. Expectations without experimentation= Frustration
  • Its better to teach people to fish versus giving them a fish
  • 4. Discipleship Never Ends
  • The PDYM model focuses on Discipleship as a Process versus a Program
  • Connecting students to an adult leader makes the difference

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Live Blogging PDYM the Conference Session 5

March 26, 2009 By nick Leave a Comment

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Live Blogging Session 5

Doug Fields: Fellowship

  • 1. Smaller is better when focusing on Fellowship (building relationships)
  • Christ had a group of 12 but invested in 3
  • Figure out how to make “Large” Feel “Small”
  • 2. Volunteer leaders are better than paid leaders.
  • Paid leaders’ main focus should be to develop other volunteer youth workers, the volunteers job is to love on kids.
  • 3. Shepherds are Better than Chaperons
  • 4. Better is Better – Tweak, Twist, Don’t Settle
  • Messy people need a small group
  • “If you build a place where Students can share their hurts and pain, they will come” – Megan Hutchinson
  • “Hurt and abandonment in teenagers in pandemic in our world today and in our youth groups–every single teen hurts.” Megan Hutchinson
  • “Pain is always top down” – Hutchinson
  • If the church doesn’t do anything to help the hurting, who will?
  • There is more than one way to do small groups
  • Small Group leaders need to be set up for success
  • Empower small group leaders to be their kids’ youth pastor
  • Small Groups rise and fall based on their leader
  • Small Groups are the Bridge to the next steps (Discipleship – Ministry)
  • The bottom line is to cultivate relational capital – Ben Taylor

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Live Blogging PDYM the Conference Session 4

March 25, 2009 By nick Leave a Comment

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Live Blogging Session 4

Doug Fields: Worship

  • There is a direct connection between Evangelism and Worship
  • We need to expand our focus of worship to celebrating God
  • Genuine Celebration is attractive and makes a heartfelt connection with unbelievers
  • We have to be careful not to create a “Club” mentality in our environments
  • Be aware of your audience.
  • Work hard for an understandable message.
  • Value Fun…What is our element of “Fun?”
  • A Front door program should be about relationships, relationships, relationships
  • The Entry Level Program can be broken down to 3 key focal areas: 1. The people 2. The place (environment) 3. The program
  • Worship is a part of everything students do. – Latasha Morrison
  • “Dont think like a youth pastor, think like a church planter” – Jason Gerdes

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Live Blogging PDYM the Conference Session 3

March 25, 2009 By nick Leave a Comment

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Live Blogging Session 3

Doug Fields: Evangelism

  • An evangelistic student ministry will have evangelistic adult leaders
  • Evangelistic leaders  NEVER stop ringing the evangelistic bell
  • You can either be a “best friend” or you can be a leader
  • No one values what you value as much as you value it.
  • Evangelistic baby steps create momentum
  • There is not just one way to be evangelical in your ministry
  • R: Reveal
  • E: Extend an Invitation
  • A: Ask if you can share your story
  • C: Communicate the How and Why of beginning a Relationship with Christ
  • H: Help them
  • Changed Lives are Evangelistic
  • Allow students to own the responsibility of sharing Christ with their friends

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Live Blogging PDYM the Conference Session 2

March 25, 2009 By nick Leave a Comment

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Live Blogging Session 2

Doug Fields

  • Purpose Driven Ministry has Godly leaders.
  • If your Ministry is bottle necked take a look at your ministry, it may be because of you.
  • Discovering God’s Purposes Begin with God’s Word. (The Great Commission & The Great Commandment)
  • You have to own the Purposes of your ministry, no one will bleed it like you!
  • If we push people to be evangelistic, we have to be that way ourselves
  • Biblical Purposes will clarify a ministries existence
  • There are several ways to say the same thing
  • Biblical Purposes will minimize conflict in your ministry
  • Biblical Purposes will help create excitement
  • A ministry guided by Biblical purposes is not easy to build…but its healthy
  • People unite under a vision that is bigger than their own
  • Will your ministry pursue Biblical Purposes?
  • Evaluate: Do the people in your ministry get the Biblical Purposes for your Ministry? (Leaders, Students, Parents, Staff, Etc.)
  • You cannot fit all of the Biblical Purposes into one Program. Make sure each Program/Process has 1 Primary & 1 Secondary purpose
  • A lot of churches are using a discipleship method on students who are being forced to be at church, so it doesn’t work.

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Live Blogging PDYM the Conference Session 1

March 24, 2009 By nick 1 Comment

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Live Blogging Session 1

Doug Fields

  • Food is a value in student ministry at Saddleback
  • Their Student Ministry was not built around theater seats and a Refinery Student Building
  • Student Ministry should be simply built on a dependence of God’s Power
  • There are a lot of Small Values for Student Ministry:
  • #1 Be Faithful in the Small Things
  • #2 Have Small Faith
  • Saddleback could give their new building back and still do student ministry
  • Value a God who is Sovereign
  • Value providing Students Opportunities to serve where they are gifted and passionate
  • Value Volunteers
  • Value Longevity, people not giving up.
  • Value Relationships:
  • Value an Intimate Relationship with Christ
  • Value Relationships with Parents
  • Value Relationships with other Leaders
  • Value Relationships with Students
  • Saddleback does not want you to be like them, they want you to be who God wants you to be.
  • What is important to you right now in ministry?
  • Do people know what’s important to you?

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The Refinery at Saddleback

October 13, 2008 By nick 3 Comments

One of the cool things that we got to do while in California was tour the Refinery; we also held our daily meetings there. Doug expressed his love/hate relationship with the building and I think every youth worker who has a solid focus on growing their students spiritually through relationships would agree with his premise, although we would also love to have a building like the Refinery :) . Doug shared that he has been doing student ministry for over 25 years without a “student building” and in that time he has come to the realization that student ministry can be done outside of a permenant building. I think most of us realize it can be done in a living room, in a gym, outisde under a tree, or where ever else students convene. If we ‘think’ our student ministries can only be effective in a nice building, we run the risk of narrowing our focus of ministry to be program driven. That is not my heart and I know it is not the heart of focus of PDYM. Doug said he made it clear that he did not want the Refinery to be considered the “Student” building, though it has a student ministry theme throughout, he wants it to be considered a “Community Center,” and by the looks of what happens throughout the week, its exactly that. They are using this beast of a building to reach out to their community…and that is awesome! They also host their new service FUSE in the high school auditorium, from what I’ve heard that service for 20 somethings to 30 somethings has exploded and God is blessing it in a huge way.

I’ve included some pictures of the Refinery below, I ripped them from my friend Tom’s Facebook and my friend Dan’s blog (My wife would not let me take her camera). Click HERE to go to the Extending the Vision Blog for more Refinery pics and stories.

By the way, this picture shows a little more about what the Gathering is. Its not a big conference and really not a big youth pastor’s event. (Its big to us) It is a “Gathering” of PDYM like minded youth pastors who Doug Fields and Neely have selected to represent the PDYM philosophy/paradigm for student ministry in their states. Like Proverbs 27:17, we sharpen each other, pray for each other, and have a lot of fun. When its time to say goodbye we are like a bunch of school girls crying that it would not end.

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The Gathering in One Picture

October 5, 2008 By nick Leave a Comment

The 2008 Gathering is over. I hate having to type those words. I think Doug tweeted it best, I wish we were all neighbors. Every year I make new friends and deepen my relationship with those who I am already connected with. My favorite part of these few days together is pictured above, sharing life with some of the sharpest leaders in student ministry. We do not discuss numbers, we don’t flaunt successes, we sharpen each other, we stretch each other, we pray for one another and we have tons of fun! I cannot describe the power of the authenticity that takes place around our tables during our various sessions, but I can say, its good.

Check back…I’ll be posting more about the Gathering and my week in California…right now I’m getting ready to fly home to my family who I greatly miss. California is great, but it stinks without them! California with my family would = Heaven :)

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