Tag: Travel

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The Sweater Poll

Fall is here. That means cold mornings throughout most of the country. So, I’m just wondering, have you brought out your sweaters yet? I’m just curious because in the south, God’s country, it’s cold in the mornings, in the mid to upper 70’s in the afternoon, and then cool in the evenings. Yesterday on my way home I noticed a guy sitting in the car next to me at the red light wearing a thick, winter style sweater. I had my window down because it was hot! I think some people feel a little cold and dive right into their winter clothes, so how about you? Fill out the poll below to let us know!

[polldaddy poll=1033622]

Thanks for Participating!

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PDYM: The Conference

Purpose Driven Youth Ministry: The Conference is rocking back on to the student ministry conference scene in a big…but small way in 2009. The PDYM Conference took a couple of years off due to some busyness in their ministry and after experimenting with two very successful regional conferences in Florida and Texas.

In 2009 the conference will return, but its going back to some of its roots by focusing on an intamate atmosphere. Even when the conference got big, I always felt it had a much more intimate feel than YS or anyother large youth conference. The Conference is only going to register around 650 649 people for the conference, so if you plan on attending, now’s the time to register yourself and your team. You can register now by clicking HERE. For more information on the conference such as pricing, travel information, Click HERE.

Why PDYM?

  • Balance
  • Simplification
  • Biblical
  • Effective

There has been a lot that has been misunderstood and incorrectly conveyed about PDYM and about Purpose Driven in general, this has led to a lot of assumptions and misconceptions. Here is a little of how PDYM helped me and why I believe in its principles.

PDYM is not program driven or program heavy. In fact when I first started looking at PDYM and started to implement it, our student ministry reduced the number of programs we were doing. We looked at the 5 basic principles that PD emphasises and determined what those looked like in our ministry and what we would do to weave them into our ministry. Where our church had people strongly focused on evangelism through a program, we emphasised evangelism being a lifestyle, something that should happen all the time not just in a program. Where our church had a Sunday School program and dabbled in Small groups that focused on discipleship, we simplified our focus and utilized discipleship tools through our small groups to focus on spiritual growth. We did not want to teach the mentality that spiritual growth happens in a program, rather it has to happen on our own, and by providing tools, we encouraged that personal growth, while our small group leaders were there to assist students through that process.

We transitioned our traditional “come and watch while we feed and entertain you” youth group into a student ministry where we encouraged students to own it and to serve the students in the community that we were reaching and those we hoped to reach. We provided opportunities for students to serve and encouraged students to create their own ministries surrounding their passions. We cut out monthly “Events” and “activities” and focused on periodic larger events (Fall Retreat, Summer Camp, Etc.) that emphasized relationships and a theme for our students to grow spiritually around. Instead of providing a baby sitting service we encouraged our small group leaders to invest in their students’ lives by going to their ball games, taking them to lunch, and being a central part of their life as a caring adult.

As a State Mentor I hear a lot of criticisms of PDYM, when I ask, “Have you read the book?” The typical response is, “I’ve read some of it, I’ve read half of it, or No, I have not read it.” Basically, they are saying, I formed my own opinion based on a couple of chapters or they are saying I have formed my opinion based on the opinion of someone else. Typically I hear this when discussing the use of other strategies within PDYM. It is highly recommended that you solely use PDYM if you want to be a student ministry that is balanced (structurally) around Evangelism, Discipleship, Ministry (or Service), Fellowship (or Relationships), and Worship. Some people say they prefer “The Seven Checkpoints” over “PDYM,” and that is great, however I have examined the Seven Checkpoints extensively and it will not do anything for your ministry outside of discipleship. It is not something you would use to build a structure by unless you are going to focus heavily on discipleship. The Seven Checkpoints is great for spiritual growth and we have used it within our small groups and we have taught from them, but it is not strong on structuring to help balance out all of the purposes for the church. A lot of churches are strong on one or some of the purposes, but come up short on balance. Are you there? Do you do a lot of activities, but maybe you are not seeing life change through salvations and spiritual growth? Or are you seeing a lot of salvations, yet you have nothing in place to see those students mature spiritually? PDYM can help!

The Conference is worth going to. You will not walk away without learning something, and if you can carry a team of volunteers I highly recommend you do it, they will come home pumped up and ready to share Jesus with students all throughout your community. The breakouts are awesome and this year if you are attend I hope you will come by the breakout for Kingdom Day.

Remember only 650 spots are available to Register Today!

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Another Small Step to Make Huge Impacts

Back in June I posted about an opportunity to help a friend of mine with the adoption of her daughter and/or siblings with your purchase of an everyday item, coffee. You can check that post out HERE. Neely and Josh have recently been informed that they are 27th on the list to get a girl and 10th on the list to get siblings.

Today I come to you with a new opportunity to help them out by purchasing another everyday item. Adopting a baby from a foreign country is expensive, but with everyone taking small steps, we can help make it happen and essentially re-write a baby or potentially two babies life stories, as well as a families. Neely and Josh have had some really cool T-shirts made up to help raise money for the expenses of the adoption. I am sporting mine in the picture at the top of the post. The T-shirt reads “Adoption Rocks” in an Africa logo and comes in black with a white logo or White with a red logo. The T-shirts are $15 each, and you should buy one for yourself and everyone in your family (yes they have children’s sizes)!

Click HERE to go to Neely’s page to order your T-shirt. She has an order form on her right hand sidebar or Email her HERE to place your order.

For Coffee lovers or family and friends of Coffee lovers…Click HERE to place your Coffee order. Remember, you must order through the link for them to get credit for your purchase.

Thanks for Re-writing little children’s life stories!

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The Refinery at Saddleback

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 Ronald Reagan Library

After my airline ticket was purchased for the Gathering my uncle moved from L.A. back to Atlanta, so I got stuck in California for a couple of extra days alone. My friend Tom suggested that I go check out the Reagan Library, so I did. Reagan was my President. He was in office from the time I was born until I was 8 years old, and what a great President he was. I was blown away by this place, it is not ultra exciting as it is a museum of sorts, but the videos, the pictures, the letters, and the audio of Reagan playing throughout the building are awesome! The historical items they have on display are very cool. I got to see the very x-ray taken when Reagan was shot. I walked away thinking to myself three thoughts: #1 Reagan was a great leader, #2 Reagan loved his wife, and #3 Reagan loved this country…even if it was at the expense of losing popularity in the world. If you ever get an opportunity…go see it! Semi Valley is beautiful and when you look out at the land surrounding the library, it helps put into perspective how BIG God is and how small we are.

One final personal note. Neither one of our Presidential candidates could stand toe to toe with Reagan. I know McCain likes to say he is a foot soldier in Reagan’s army, but Reagan would probably disagree. On the other hand, if you are an Obama supporter, Reagan would eat your candidate for lunch and still need dessert. The words of Reagan echoing through this Library are powerful, and I could not help but to think how much trouble we will be in if Obama is elected. I will do a post in the coming days about a great story I heard from one of the videos that I watched at the Library, its powerful. Until then, check out the photos below. They are not the greatest as they are from my cell phone camera (Nicki would not let me take her camera). If you click the photo for a second time it will expand into a larger photo.