From Competing to Completing

Can we really change the course of things?

2011-11-23T01:59:00.001-08:00

I got to spend some time today with my four year old nephew Leland. I found myself wondering what can I do to keep Leland busy? (He's got a lot of energy!) So, knowing a stream was nearby, we headed that way and I remembered something I loved to do as a kid - building dams in streams. We came to a spot where the water could go one of two ways. Immediately I felt the challenge. If we build a dam on the one side, we can make the water go down the other side! My nephew, being too young to question my enthusiasm for a ridiculous project jumped right in with me. We started grabbing rocks and tossing them into a long pile across the stream.

All of this got me thinking - many of us see our culture heading in a bad direction and we wonder is it really possible to change the course of things? Can the church make any difference at all? Well, the process of building this dam gave me a few ideas about that...

1) Changing the course of the stream was going to take a LOT of rocks. In fact, we needed as many rocks as we could get. We needed mega-rocks, small rocks, even seemingly insignificant pebbles were going to be important.

2) No one rock, not even a bunch of large rocks, could stem the flow of water alone. The large rocks needed the small rocks (even if they didn't think they did).

3) Rocks of all shapes, colors, and sizes were needed. If we only used small rocks, it would take forever to get the job done. But with large and small rocks, the dam came together quickly.

4) Even dead things could be recycled to serve the purpose (dead leaves, sticks, unidentifiable things)

If we are going to change the course of culture in America, we are going to need EVERYBODY! Large churches, small churches, in between churches, even dead churches! No one is insignificant. No one is unnecessary. Every believer, every church has a role and a part to play.

My nephew and I took great satisfaction in seeing the water rise behind our dam and flow into the other side of the creek bed. We had made a difference. And the church can make a difference. If we all realize our world needs Jesus and we need each other to take Jesus to our world!

Being Amazed at Who Jesus Is All Over Again!

2011-10-05T14:17:00.001-07:00

Beautiful Outlaw OFFICIAL TRAILER from Ransomed Heart on Vimeo.

"Courageous" Movie Had A Great Opening Weekend

2011-10-03T07:31:00.000-07:00

I have been pretty passionate about this film for several reasons - 1) I love youth ministry and nothing will help kids grow in Christ more than if their fathers become spiritual leaders in their homes. 2) The movie is very well done - it's funny, it's got action, and it's entertaining. 3) I want to see more good movies made with Christ-centered messages!

So here's what Box Office Mojo said about Courageous' opening weekend...

"Sherwood Pictures' Courageous was the only one of the new releases to improve from estimates to actuals, and it passed 50/50 in the process to take fourth place. The movie debuted to $9.1 million from just 1,161 theaters for a strong per-theater average of $7,806. That's up from the studio's last movie Fireproof ($6.8 million), though the average was off just a bit. The opening ranks fifth all-time for a Christian movie, and only trails The Passion of the Christ and the three Narnia movies. Courageous scored a rare "A+" CinemaScore, and the audience was 53 percent female and 77 percent over the age of 25."

Courageous was the #4 movie of weekend! Making the Top 10 at the box office is a big deal, so making the top 5 is awesome! Finally, here are some comments from people in our area who saw the movie...

The movie courageous a must see – Tom Snyir, Sutersville

You've GOT to see the movie "Courageous"!!!!!!.....bring your tissues, don't say I didn't warn you! ;) - Shelby Young, Irwin

Just got back from Courageous! What a great movie! And I got to see it with my favorite people- my family – Kristy McCoy Clements, Uniontown

Two thumbs up! :) – Amy O’Brien Craig, Greensburg

Courageous is such a good movie! I recommend it to everyone. – Patrick Benjamin Slagle, Uniontown

Just saw COURAGEOUS...I ran out of kleenex....so good!!! – Kerri Pellicione, Greensburg

"Courageous" was so very life changing!...Please see! It is an awsome movie! – Jodi Lee Barnes Cottom, McKeesport

I saw it today! Don't miss it! – Charles King, Dawson

“If you are a dad, I challenge you to go see the movie,"Courageous". I just did. My impression: Life Changing! Go on, go see it! I dare you! – Guy LeVeille, Irwin

It was an awesome movie!! the 7:30 showing at Lowes Theater in the waterfront was sold out too!!! Changing lifes!! – Jonathan Edwards

Really enjoyed "Courageous" eventhough I had trouble hearing it over my wife's crying. It will get those tears flowing... – Drew Patrick, Harrison City

COURAGEOUS is an awesome movie - if you haven't seen it - GO and experience it!! - Bo Pratt, Irwin

Just got home from seeing the movie Courageous...wow, what an amazing film! I highly recommend it. – Sharon Ross, Greensburg

We saw the movie "Courageous" with some of our church friends and I encourage everyone to see it....what a fantastic movie! Nancy Pinon Smith, Melcroft

What an awesome movie!!!! Super i give it 10 stars!! As the wife of a police officer its finally great to c a movie tht shows not only thr daily struggles of being a dad but also men who really love the lord and risk there lives to protect us and be right for there families!!!!! Love this!! – Kristy Bell, Uniontown

Courageous gets an A, GO SEE IT., Mat Slagle, Uniontown

LOVED the COURAGEOUS movie!!! I plan on seeing it again soon with my kids and some other families! – Jennifer O’Brien, Elizabeth

Courageous" is a great movie! It was really nice to see a movie that is true to life, very funny and deeply moving, while at the same time also clearly communicating the greatest message of all, the good news of Jesus Christ. Very glad our church took the risk of buying out a whole showing in the local theater to help bring the movie to our town. We filled the whole theater and had a great time watching the film. If you haven't seen it, be sure to get to it when you can. It's definitely worth the time and effort.s a great movie! - Pastor Jack Herman, Uniontown

There's no one like Jesus!

2011-09-06T20:15:00.000-07:00

Check out this AMAZING video about Jesus! I don't know who made this, but illustrating and scoring old sermons is genius. This reminds me of why I'm a Christian. Please watch it!

A Prayer Letter from Travis & Judy Deans

2011-09-02T11:54:00.001-07:00

Check out our latest quarterly prayer letter! And thank you for your prayers!

Would your church consider supporting Teens For Christ?

2011-09-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

Would you church consider adopting Teens For Christ as a local mission?

Dear friends,
Teens For Christ exists to assist local churches in reaching and discipling teenagers for Jesus Christ. We've been around for over 50 years and are doing more now than we've ever done. Here's what we do...

YOUTH MINISTRY BULLETIN BOARD - a website that provides 1500 churches in western Pennsylvania with information about upcoming youth events and activities in western Pennsylvania.

YOUTH MINISTRY CONSULTATIONS and TRAINING - we meet with youth leaders in churches to help them examine their youth ministries and help them strategize for more effective ministry. We also sponsor and help promote youth ministry training events.

YOUTH MINISTRY NETWORKS - we facilitate youth ministry networks in Fayette and Westmoreland Counties and we promote youth ministry network in Somerset, Allegheny, Beaver, Washington, and other counties.

9 MONTH MISSION TRIP COACHING - we equp students to share their faith and reach out to their friends at school

ADOPT-A-SCHOOL - we do presentations for churches encouraging them to 'adopt' the schools in their communities

All of these things are made possible by friends, churches, and businesses who support us financially. Please check out www.teensforchrist.org/donate.aspx to see a list of churches that already support us. If you want more information, please give me a call at 724.322.1130. Thank you so much!

Until Every Student Hears,Travis Deanswww.teensforchrist.org

The 9 Month Mission Trip - Episode 1

2010-09-01T19:32:00.000-07:00

Students in western Pennsylvana are reaching their schools in some creative ways! Check it out here!

Why We Work Together #10: Because Our Students Need Inspired and Equipped

2010-08-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

I work for a youth ministry network - we facilitate churches working together to reach teenagers for Christ. We assume, hopefully correctly, that students are being discipled in their churches and so the emphasis of our network is on evangelism. We believe that there are two big things that church youth ministries need to do together -

1) equip, inspire, and challenge Christian teenagers to share their faith and
2) provide opportunities for them to do so.

On that first objective, eight youth pastors from various churches in Greensburg, Pennsylvania sponsored a student evangelism conference back on Saturday, August 21st, 2010. They gave students a choice of six out of eight twenty minutes workshops on various aspects of evangelism.

At our first planning meeting for this event, we went around the room and asked the question (inspired by The Nines), "If you could talk to students about one aspect of evangelism in one word, what would that be?" The words that came up were service, love, culture, identity, confidence, dialogue, work, and pary. And those themes became our workshops.

Another fun part of the day was our two Q & A sessions with the youth pastors who were the workshop presenters. We got some great questions like "What is your great witnessing failure/success story?" "How do you witness to a Muslim?" "How do you talk with someone who has been hurt by a church?"

We had students from five school districts come and we ended the day by commissioning them to be missionaries to their friends and schools. Once again, I was amazed to see what great things can happen when youth pastors bring what God has given them to the table. He takes a little and does a lot!

20 Years of Students Praying for Their Schools

2010-08-06T08:27:00.000-07:00

In 1991, I participated in my first See You At The Pole - I didn't know it at the time, but that was the first nation-wide SYATP gathering. I was a junior in high school at the time and some friends and I had started a Christian club at our school the year before. Now 20 years later, See You At The Pole is ready for fresh restart with the launch of it's new website (www.syatp.com) to inspire of new generation of teenagers to cry out to God on behalf of their friends, their schools, and their country. Revival has almost always come from young people called by God to do the extraordinary and I believe we have an exceptional generation of students today who are loving God and serving God like no generation before them. I am excited to see what God is going to do through them!

A Day in the Life of a Youth Pastor

2010-07-16T07:41:00.000-07:00

Why We Work Together #9: Because sometimes we need a good laugh!

2010-07-15T17:24:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you just need a good laugh - there's no better place for a youth pastor to get that than when they are with a group of youth pastors who need to vent a little bit. Well, at our Murrysville/Monroeville Youth Network meeting today, Pastor Lu had us laughing our heads off. Unfortunately what happens at network meetings stays at network meetings! Just believe me when I say, youth pastors are funny guys!

Why We Work Together #8: Because We Are One Body

2010-07-14T07:39:00.000-07:00

Our last Fayette County Youth Network meeting was our largest one ever! And we had United Methodists, Baptists, Non-denominationals, Pentecostals, Free Methodists, and C&MA people all in the same room - but talking about one thing: helping teenagers know and grow in Jesus. This group is planning to do six or seven events together over the course of the upcoming school year. Why?

1) To help reinforce the spiritual truths that all of us want to hammer home to our students

2) To reach out to students with the Gospel in ways that no one church could do on their own

3) To help connect our students so that when they see each other at school there is encouragement and accountability

Although we have many theological and methodological differences, we all have the same ultimate goal - to see God transforming young people's lives and to see the body of Christ grow. We ARE one body and it is always exciting to see that spiritual truth actually happening. I'm looking forward to a great year with these great friends.

Why We Work Together #7: Because It Unleashes Creativity!

2010-07-11T22:59:00.000-07:00

Pictured Above: The Greensburg Youth Network

For five years our Westmoreland County Youth Network has done a student evangelism conference each August to equip and inspire students to share Christ with their friends at school. This year's conference needed revamping on several levels, so we approached a different group of youth pastors in the area and asked them what they would want to see a conference of this type look like for their students. The part of the brainstorming that excited me the most was when we went around the room and asked, "If you could share one concept related to evangelism with students for 15 minutes, in one word what would that be?". The words that came out were: service, confidence, love, culture, individuality, dialogue, and party. So these words are going to be our workshop topics for this conference on August 21st - a few of them seem obviously important, but several of those are unclear enough that I think students' curiosity will get the best of them and they'll go just to find out "What's that all about?". The different youth pastors in the group contributed not only content ideas, but resources that I believe will make this one of the best student evangelism conferences we've ever had. I'm always amazed to see what comes about when God's people put their minds and hearts together!

Visit www.wcyn.org if you're interested in bringing students to this conference!

For all of you volunteer youth leaders...

2010-06-29T13:39:00.001-07:00

Our friends at Youth Specialties have created a video in honor of those who volunteer in youth ministry. Thank you what you do for teenagers...

A new kind of structure for the church as a whole

2010-06-29T13:13:00.001-07:00

Over the course of church history, we've tried the monolithic one-church-for-all structure and we've tried the every man (or every church) for himself structure. I think both have had serious shortcomings. Now pastors in Argentina are modeling a structure that I think could be the key to churches REALLY making a difference in the world, making the body of Christ relevant again.

'Something Better Than Revival' | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Women in Youth Ministry Working Together

2010-06-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

Most of our youth ministry networks are made up of guys in full-time youth ministry. But our Fayette County Youth Network is a mixture of full-time, part-time, and volunteer youth leaders. And the group is made up of several couples. So it is a unique but really active group. Over this past school year they have done 8 events together (almost once a month) – a See You At The Pole concert, a rock-climbing day, a bus trip to a concert, two movie outreaches, a purity event, school assemblies, and a conference for teenage girls. In addition to our monthly network meetings, our ladies have Youth Pastors Wives Club meetings which they started a year or so ago. This group of ladies felt led by God to do a conference for teenage girls together – it took place back on Saturday, June 5th and it was an amazing event. The day included dramas, testimonies, a Christian version of “The View”, a q & a time with a panel made up of the ladies’ husbands, times of prayer ministry, worship, videos, and a concert by Francesca Battistelli. We had 250 girls from five counties come to the conference and we heard so many great comments afterwards such as what this mom said: “My daughter and I had a most blessed time. You hit home on so many things. I could see the Holy Spirit working in so many girls and moms, including myself! It was an eye opening, life changing experience. Thanks so much for all your efforts and obedience to the Lord.” Incredibly these ladies pulled off a $15,000 event and, by God’s grace, came out in the black. During the process of putting this conference together, we got the sense that there is a big need for gender specific events in youth ministry. To get 250 girls to an event that no one had ever been to before was an indication that there is a hunger for ministry with a focus on what girls deal with. We’re also thinking about what we can do specifically for our guys, but that’s a whole other blog post. I want to end by thanking Michelle Georgiana, Heather Rankin, Starla Beachy, Shelly Jenkins, Lauren Ellsworth, Joy Hertlein, Leigh Hudson, Denise Swenglish, and Melissa Toomey for making history by doing something that’s never been before in our area. You ladies most definitely rocked what you got!

You can visit www.facebook.com/rockwhatugot to see pictures/video from the event.

A new resource for youth ministries in western Pennsylvania

2010-06-10T17:21:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago, we totally revamped our website so that it would be more helpful and useful to youth pastors, parents, and students anywhere in western Pennsylvania. Now you'll find regional and national events on our front page with links to local areas and events, as well as resources that are specific to youth ministry in this area. Please let us know what you think!

www.youthministrybulletinboard.com

YMBB on Twitter
YMBB on Facebook

My Take on Youth Ministry 3.0

2010-01-03T16:23:00.000-08:00

Last year, I read Mark Oestreichers ‘manifesto’, Youth Ministry 3.0, and I loved the concept of Youth Ministry 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 as a way to understand the history of youth ministry. It was like this book was an answer to Mark Senter’s book, “The Coming Revolution in Youth Ministry” (that’s for all you old youth ministry guys). And I think the book is timely – it seems like many in youth ministry are unsatisfied with where we are and are looking for a way forward.

Charting the Course

Something that I found very helpful was that in each section of the book, Marko (as he is known throughout the youth ministry world) builds a chart that lists and compares/contrasts various characteristics of the three different youth ministry eras (pages 49, 61, 78) including youth culture fixation, cultural influence on youth ministry, key themes, driver, and theme verse. By the time I got to the end of the book, I found myself wanting to add another characteristic to his chart, namely the ‘relationship of youth ministry to the church’.

A. Youth Ministry Outside the Local Church

Marko does talk about youth ministry’s relationship to the local church in Youth Ministry 1.0 and 2.0. On page 46, Marko says “So those early youth ministry pioneers who knew they had to be true to their calling found – in large measure – that they had to do youth ministry outside the context of the local church.” In other words, the primary context of youth ministry 1.0 was outside of local churches. Although this doesn’t appear in Marko’s chart, I think it’s an important enough observation that it could. As Marko points out, Youth Ministry 1.0 was the birth of groups like YFC, Young Life, FCA, etc. (parachurch youth ministries), but a shift happens in Youth Ministry 2.0.

B. Youth Ministry Inside the Local Church

On page 53, Marko says “Churches [in the late 70’s and 80’s] were finally waking up to the need for youth ministry and moving beyond offering only a ‘young persons’ Sunday School class. Youth groups sprang onto the church scene, and churches started hiring youth pastors left and right.” So the primary context of Youth Ministry 2.0 was inside local churches.

C. Youth Ministry Connecting Local Churches

When he gets to Youth Ministry 3.0, the context continues to be youth ministry inside local churches, but I found myself wondering – couldn’t the primary context of youth ministry (relationship to the local church) also be changing just as it had between YM 1.0 and 2.0? And Marko’s descriptions of Youth Ministry 3.0 actually hint at what I believe could be the next primary context of youth ministry – youth ministry connecting local churches.

On page 93, he says “But what might this look like, to have a youth ministry of the various youth subcultures in your church and community, acknowledging the uniqueness and value of each-including the styles and preferences of each-but moving toward a supra-cultural taste of the kingdom of God?” (emphasis mine).

Could we be heading into a time when youth ministry needs to break out from the four walls of the local church and spill over into the whole community including other local churches? To be more about the Kingdom of God than buildings, denominations or theological distinctives? I believe that this is the case, and I believe that Marko’s description of Youth Ministry 3.0’s characteristics support that.

1) To reach multiple cultures

For example, he says that in Youth Ministry 3.0, there should be multiple youth ministries to multiple subcultures – that could be done in a single church, but what if all the churches in a community recognized this need and different churches were strategically focusing on reaching those different subcultures. What if we had an attitude that we need other youth ministries in our community to reach the entire youth population of our community?

2) To be true to our context

Another characteristic is contextualized youth ministry – the context of the students in your community is important, but doesn’t that context include other churches and youth ministries? What affect do other churches have on each other and what effect should they have. Could some good come of acknowledging that ‘our church is not the only church in this town’?

3) To be free from being overwhelmed

Doing less and getting small is another characteristic of Youth Ministry 3.0 – imagine the freedom in realizing ‘Hey, I’m not the only person trying to reach teenagers in my community. There are others out there doing the same thing. I’m not alone.” I think that realization could take some of the pressure off of youth leaders and we could feel free to not feel bad about being small knowing that there are many groups out there doing the same thing. A whole lot of smalls make for something big!

4) To be communal and missional

The two key words that Marko gives for Youth Ministry 3.0 are communal and missional. I love that – what fresh ways of looking at what we do. But again, wouldn’t communal youth ministry also mean that the youth pastor needs a community of like-minded people? His community needs to be bigger than the students he/she ministers to – he or she needs a community of people who understand their passion, struggles, goals, etc. And nothing is quite as encouraging as knowing that the mission you are passionate about is shared by others.

In the early chapter of Youth Ministry 3.0, Marko describe the tasks of adolescence as identity, autonomy, and affinity. I think that church history has played itself out in this way, especially since the protestant reformation (the church’s rebellious years?). At first, the church struggled with a sense of identity: What is the church? What are we supposed to be about? And then for several centuries, the church has been all about autonomy — How are we unique and different from other churches? I think it’s about time the church started moving more toward affinity – What do we have in common? How can we connect?

In Youth Ministry 3.0, We Need Each Other

Youth Ministry 1.0 took place outside of local churches because churches hadn’t caught on. In Youth Ministry 2.0, churches took hold that responsibility they should’ve had all along and made it core to what they do. In Youth Ministry 3.0, I think that they overwhelming forces of culture, economics, media, technology, globalization, and spiritual decline are going to force churches to see that we need each other to successfully reach future generations for Christ (see Jason Pauli’s recent blog post). In fact, as my friend Nick Arnold recently reminded me, youth workers from parachurch ministries started in the 1.0 era and church youth pastors from the 2.0 era also need each other to reach this generation of young people. I’m excited about Youth Ministry 3.0 and I’m thankful to Mark Oestreicher for helping us see what this exciting new time can look like. My hope is that, more and more, we’ll make this new chapter of Youth Ministry something we do together.

Thinking about the BIG PICTURE

2009-12-30T23:32:00.000-08:00

As we roll into 2010, I wanted to remind myself of why I do what I do. Our ministry, Teens For Christ, works in two counties in Pennsylvania (and some surroudning areas). A simple Google search gave the the following information:

There are 143,925 people living in Fayette County (we know that 12,000+ of those are teenagers). We would need all 150 churches in the county to have 1000 people in them in order to reach all of these people!

There are 361,589 people living in Westmoreland County (including 35,000+ teenagers). If the 300 churches that we know of in this area each had 1000 people in them, we still would not be reaching everyone in this county!

We all know that our church attendances (save 1 or 2) are no where near those numbers. And we know that not everyone will follow Jesus - the road is narrow and few are those that find it - but I believe it is God's will that every person hears the Gospel. So the fact is, we need EVERY CHURCH to make EVERY effort to reach EVERY person in EVERY community in these areas. If we don't make every effort to reach them, we might as well be saying "Go to hell" to all of those people. These facts, but more importantly the call of Jesus Christ (the Great Commission), should compel us all to reprioritize our lives and realign ourselves with the great mission of God in this new year.

Help us bring TO SAVE A LIFE to western Pennsylvania

2009-12-17T22:27:00.000-08:00

This amazing movie is coming to theaters January 22nd, and we are making an effort to bring it to southwestern Pennsylvania. As of now, we've made a deposit on 100 tickets sales but we need to guarantee 1000 ticket sales for opening weekend (so far we have 550 ticket sales pledged by 20 local churches). Next, the movie producers will decide soon if the film will be offered to our area and then they'll contact our local theaters to make it happen.

Please pray that God would open the doors for this movie to come to our area and powerfully impact the lives of literally thousands of teenagers, which I believe it will. And please ask everyone you know to watch the movie preview at www.tosavealifemovie.com. Thanks very much!

Why We Work Together #6: Because it is a LOT of fun!

2009-11-12T22:26:00.001-08:00

If you go to the Eat N Park in Murrysville, PA for breakfast on the second Thursday morning of the month, chances are you'll hear a group of guys in the back of the restaurant laughing their heads off. And it's probably the youth pastors in the Murrysville Youth Network listening to Lu (youth pastor at Murrysville Alliance - pictured right) telling some hilarious story of his youth ministry exploits. The guy just has a thousand funny stories to tell! We had a new guy come to our network meeting today and Lu's "Find the Youth Leaders at the Mall" stories were his introduction to our network. And I was loving it (I think he did too). There's just someone great about sharing those stories of the funny things that happen when you work with teenagers. If you ever meet Lu, ask him about his favorite game, "Dunking for Dollars". Unbelievable. We have another guy with great stories in our network named Frank. There's a story he tells that gets re-told every year at our annual "Welcome to the Area" lunch for youth pastors. It's so well-known that it's become sort of become an urban legend now.

The point is, people in ministry need friends they can share a laugh with. It's good for the heart, good for the soul, and you just can't buy entertainment like that!

Why We Work Together #5: Because the problems we face are just too big to solve on our own

2009-11-12T22:10:00.000-08:00

Last night, I had the opportunity to hear a local pastor* teaching on Richard Stearns' book, "The Hole in Our Gospel." The pastor was talking about the 12 BIG challenges in our world today. The statistics that he shared in each of these areas were mind-blowing. Here they are...

1) Poverty (as he said, a very complex problem)
2) Hunger
3) Water (lack of clean water specifically)
4) Disease
5) HIV / AIDS
6) Tyrannical Leaders (I was so glad he talked about this one)
7) Illiteracy
8) Sex Trafficking/Treatment of Women
9) War
10) Abortion (again, glad he mentioned this one)
11) Spiritual Emptiness
12) Apathy and Selfishness of the Church (OUCH!)

These 12 enormous problems demand our attention, but I also think they demand our cooperation. More and more churches seem to be responding to these needs these days, but as I sat there listening I could not help but think that these things are just too big for any one church or any one organization or even any one country to tackle on their own. WE NEED TO WORK TOGETHER to effectively address these big issues in our world today. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the stubborn insistence we have of operating independently from each other only exacerbates many of these problems. Duplication of efforts, redundant spending, overlap, and lack of adequate resources are just a few of the issues we could eliminate if we came to the table together, each bringing the resources that we have, and seeking God's solutions.

Anyone have further thoughts on this? I'd love to hear if you've seen cooperation among churches or organizations make a difference in any of these areas.

* Dr. Donn Chapman, Cornerstone Ministries, Export, PA

Why We Work Together #4: Because we can't afford not to!

2009-10-24T20:04:00.000-07:00

The Westmoreland County Youth Network has five community networks - one of those, the Penn Trafford Youth Network, started meeting last February. By summer, they were deep into planning an event to reach out to students in their school district. They decided to bring a BMX stunt bike team (ProTown BMX from Greenville, NC) to their area. Problem was it was going to cost $4500. (including the Crucified Ministries skateboard team). None of the three churches involved (another church joined in later) could afford all of that by themselves. But by combining their resources, as well as finding concerned adults who also made donations, they were able to do together what they couldn't have done alone. ProTown BMX (pictured below with our Youth Pastors and the Skateboard guys) came to Harrison City on Oct. 24th and they were AWESOME! They gave a great presentation of the Gospel and did some incredible jumps. We highly recommend them.

On a side note, we have to give praise to God - it was raining that morning, but stopped when the event was scheduled to begin. It took some time to dry off the parking lot (using towels and a leaf blower), but everyone got to see the show. The rain and wind kicked back in just when the event was ending. God is good to us!

Why We Work Together #3: To discover resources we didn't know were there!

2009-10-24T19:50:00.001-07:00

Back during the summer, the directors of a local camp asked us how they could let youth pastors in the area know about the great climbing walls they have at their camp's adventure center. Our group of youth pastors in the Fayette County Youth Network had an event planned for October, but in early September those plans fell through. So we asked the camp directors if we could have our event at their place - that way they could show it off to the youth pastors in the area and we could still have our event together. 80 students from 10 youth groups got to experience the climbing walls and a lot of the other cool stuff that this camp has to offer youth groups. Our network youth pastors enjoyed the climbing walls as well as you can see pictured above. If we hadn't already been working together and if we hadn't been willing to work with these camp folks, we would have missed out on a great experience!

Why We Work Together #2: We've got great resources to share with each other

2009-10-22T18:10:00.000-07:00

At our Greensburg Youth Network meeting a couple months ago (pictured above), we were talking and discovered that some of us had curriculum that others of us really wanted to use, but couldn't afford to buy at the time. So we started making a Curriculum list of stuff that the guys are willing to share with each other on our Greensburg Youth Network Facebook group (which needs updated right now) . There's so much great stuff out there and it would be impossible for any one church to buy it all - so why not share what we have. So that's another reason we work together - because we all have stuff that can be helpful to each other!

Why We Work Together #1: We share the same burning passion

2009-10-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

We find that youth pastors work together so well and so easily because we share the same burning passion - for teenagers to know, worship, love and serve Jesus. That drives us - it's why we do what we do. The desire to help students know Jesus simply outweighs all other things that might divide us.

Our youth pastor networks started out the 2009 school year with two events (same event different locations) designed to equip, inspire, and challenge Christian teenagers to share their faith with their friends at school, to look at school as if it were a 9 Month Mission Trip. Between the two events youth pastors extended that challenge to 800 students from 40 youth groups and at least that many schools.

Thing is, while helping teenagers know Jesus is a passion we all share, we all also know that Christian teenagers are by far the best ones to express the truth and love of God to their friends. So the passion that drives us, also motivates us to work together on the best ways to get this job done including equipping our students.

And the fact is, they will do that job better when they know they are not alone. There is strength in numbers - it's just a fact. It's the reason the author of Hebrews tells us not to forsake assembling together. We need the strength we gain from being together, and teenagers need that strength perhaps much more so.

There's just something empowering, strengthening, renewing, refreshing, energizing, and encouraging about coming together with those whose hearts burn with the same desire that your does - whether it's a group of youth pastors together over lunch or an auditorium full of worshiping teenagers.

Pictured top: Youth pastors from the The Murrysville (PA) Youth Network with Revive at their school year kick off
Pictured below: The Fayette County Youth Network's school year kick off with Rush of Fools leading worship

I love days like today!

2009-09-10T12:57:00.000-07:00

Today was an exciting day!

THIS MORNING - Youth Pastors in Murrysville got together to finalize plans for our School Year Kick Off event, IGNITION, which they sponsor at the beginning of each school year. Those guys are a lot of fun and they have a heart for the Kingdom of God. We're expecting a thousand students at that event.

LUNCH - Next I had lunch with the Greensburg Youth Pastors Network. Those guys love to share ideas, resources, as well as funny stories. They are praying about and considering doing a large scale outreach with The Freedom Experience - Brock Gill (Christian Illusionist), BMX stunt bikes, and more.

THIS AFTERNOON - The Christian Club at Franklin Regional Senior High in Murrysville met today. They have a lot of new students there and needed a little inspiration. So I arranged to have Frank Audia, a youth pastor and Christian Club coach of nearby Penn Trafford High School, to come and talk about the outreach events they do for different groups of students in their school (mostly sports teams). First of all, Frank is a tough, built, tattooed guy who is just really cool. And he is passionate about students reaching their friends for Christ. The students asked Frank questions and agreed at the end that they wanted to be serious about reaching outreach this school year.

I love days like today!

30 Ways that Adults Can Spiritually Impact Schools

2009-09-07T00:13:00.000-07:00

We've heard the mantra of 'separation of church and state' for so long that we often think there's nothing we can do to make a difference. In fact, there's a lot we can and should do!

Prayer Ideas
1. Organize prayer walks at local schools (www.reviveprayerwalk.org)
2. Pray as you drive near/through school zones (www.prayerzonepartners.com)
3. Start a Moms in Touch prayer group (www.momsintouch.org)
4. Make sure Christian students know about See You At The Pole (www.syatp.com)
5. Adopt a School (www.everyschool.com)
6. Claim Your Campus (www.claimyourcampus.com)
7. Copy pages out of a school's yearbook and ask adults in your church to pray for a page.
8. Dedicate a bulletin board in your church to encouraging prayer for schools.
9. Create prayer magnets to remind people to remember schools in their prayers.
10. Plan a commissioning service at your church to pray over, encourage, and support Christian teenagers in your church as “missionaries” to their schools.

Outreach Ideas
11. Encourage Christian students you know to start a Christian Club, prayer group, FCA, Youth Alive, Club 121, or First Priority Club at their school (www.gocampus.org, www.catchthis.net, www.campusmissions.org,
www.fca.org, www.fpoa.org).
12. Buy resources to help students have a successful See You At The Pole event (www.syatp.com)
13. Buy Bibles, Gospels of John, tracts, etc. for Christian students to distribute at school (www.ibsdirect.com, www.pocketpower.com, www.bookofhope.com, www.atstracts.org).
14. Buy tickets to Christian concerts that students can give out to friends at school. (www.genexconcerts.com – western PA only)
15. Buy pizzas for the Christian club at a local school to do an outreach to their friends.
16. Help bring school assembly programs to local schools (there are many out there sponsored by Christian ministries – www.feelthepower.org, www.reachyourcity.com, www.thesevenproject.com, www.sevenfaith.com).
17. Encourage Christian students you know to participate in Fields of Faith outreach event (www.fieldsoffaith.com)
18. Encourage Christian students you know participate in MBA day on January 22 (www.teensforchrist.org/mba.aspx).
19. Equip Christian teenagers with knowledge of their legal rights on the public school campus (www.aclj.org).
20. Become a mentor to a teenager (www.mentoryouth.com) in your church or in your community.

Serving Ideas
21. Join your school district's PTA group.
22. Organize parent meetings on a regular basis to pray for schools, communicate prayer needs, resource needs, and volunteer needs.
23. Meet with school administrators and ask about ways to volunteer.
24. Run for election on the School Board.

Ideas for Youth Pastors
25. Make an appointment to meet with principals, guidance counselors. Ask them what help they need.
26. Work with other youth pastors to bring school assembly programs to schools.
27. Become an assistant coach for a sports team.
28. Do the Campus Checkup your students and other youth groups.
(www.everyschool.com)
29. Sponsor an evangelism and/or campus ministry training event with other youth pastors in your community.
30. Connect with other youth pastors in your community to share ideas, create a common strategy, etc.

If you have other ideas about what adults can do, please comment below. To download a PDF version of these ideas, please go to www.teensforchrist.org.

The 9 Month Mission Trip begins this week!

2009-08-24T00:45:00.000-07:00

This is it! Students go back to school this week all over the country - the unofficial signaling of the end of summer, but the beginning of a great adventure. Teenagers see the new school year differently - for some it's a new football season, for other it's time for a new girlfriend or boyfriend, and for still others it's the beginning of a new prison sentence. We are challenging Christian students to see the new school year as a 9 Month Mission Trip. Think about it - transportation is already provided, students still get to eat strange and exotic food, and the people there already speak their own language. Our schools are a great mission fields and Christian teenagers are the best missionaries to that field. A girl from a local youth group (Lia Fischer) posted on her facebook status this week - "I'm dedicating this school year to proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ! Who's with me!?!?" Please pray with me that God will raise up many more students like this in the days and weeks to come.

Find others going on the 9 Month Mission Trip - www.facebook.conm/9monthmissiontrip

Find upcoming Back-to-School events - www.teensforchrist.org
(Unleashed: Student Evangelism Conference, Ignition: School Year Kick Off event, and Connect: School Year Kick Off event)

Read our new resource - 30 Ways Adults Can Have a Spiritual Impact on Schools - www.teensforchrist.org

What to do when your students go to another youth group

2009-08-12T07:31:00.000-07:00

Just read a great blog post this morning from Neil Young, a youth worker in Ireland, on Morethandodgeball.com. He's talking about what our attitue should be toward other churches in our communities. Great stuff! We all need to see the BIGGER picture!

http://www.morethandodgeball.com/guest-post-the-youth-work-franchise

The brand new www.YouthWorkers.net - very cool!

2009-08-08T21:29:00.000-07:00

For all of you Youth Pastors, Youth Leaders, or Youth Workers of another kind, I want to invite you to check out the National Network of Youth Ministries' updated www.youthworkers.net. The new format makes it easier than ever to connect with fellow youth pastors in your community and around the country.

Our local youth ministry networks here in Pennsylvania are affiliated with the National Network of Youth Ministries, an organization filled with people passionate about building the Kingdom of God by connecting the Body of Christ.

How to Avoid Train Wrecks in Networking

2009-08-04T22:25:00.000-07:00

Nine years ago, I attended a conference for Youth Ministry Network Coordinators (people who help churches connect and work together) sponsored by the National Network of Youth Ministries (www.youthworkers.net). One of the key things we learned was this: an effective network of youth pastors carefully balances strategy and relationships - like the two rails of a train track, they keep a network moving smoothly. You can't run a train without two rails and you can't lead a network of youth pastors without strong relationships and purposeful strategy.

I've seen this principle play out many times over the years since then. Sometimes you have a group of youth pastors who are all business - they want to get something done. I'm all for that, but without the trust and camaraderie that relationships provide, heavy-strategy networks seems to only last as long as whatever event or project they are doing and they leave people feeling drained, not refreshed.

I've also seen networks of youth pastors who were all about connecting and not much else. Those groups are a lot of fun, but I believe that they are missing out on so much that God could do through them. A relationship-only network becomes a little too me-focused (Am I getting something out of this? If not, I'm outta here). The strategy element keeps the relationships purposeful and missional.

One group of youth pastors we work with plans two events a year - the events are strategic and exciting (a school year kick off event attended by 700+ kids, and a baccalaureate service for graduating seniors). But the events really just provide an excuse for the guys to get together and hang out - and they have a GREAT time together. No notes are taken, no minutes, no agendas handed out. We just work on our projects as we can fit between joking around.

Another group of youth pastors we work with has several big events which they do together throughout the year, but all of that was born out of friendships and sharing the same passion for teenagers. That group of youth leaders also throws baby showers for each other, has dinners together, and constantly keep in touch via facebook and twitter. They make their work a lot of fun.

The two rails of relationship and strategy (or maybe they're more like the two ends of a balance pole carried by a tightrope walker) exist in a sort of tension, but carefully balancing these things makes working together work well.

From a Senior Pastor's Viewpoint

2009-07-29T23:09:00.000-07:00

Found this quote from Geoff Surratt, Pastor of Ministries at Seacoast Church, SC. This was from an interview with Ed Stetzer where Ed asks the question...

What are some other ideas you have for increasing the fruit of the local church and not just the growth?
"...Finally, fruit will be increased when churches lower their force shields and begin to work together. At one of our Seacoast locations we go out into the very tough neighborhood once a month to be a blessing to people who have very little in life. We take them clothes, food, work in their yards, pick up their trash, anything that will show the love of Jesus in a tangible way. The cool part of the deal is that we have several churches who join together every month to minister to this neighborhood. We aren't worried about where the people go to church or if we can win them for our scorecard; we're all just trying to be the hands and feet of Jesus. There is powerful fruit in dropping our defenses and joining hands to make Jesus famous."

Amen!

Another story of youth ministries working together!

2009-07-29T22:37:00.001-07:00

Check out this newspaper article (thanks again to Nick Arnold) about churches in Kansas City that are doing mission projects together. Imagine not only reaching our communities together, but reaching the world together!

Kansas City Youth Groups Partner to Serve Others

8 Benefits of Youth Ministry Networking

2009-07-29T22:10:00.001-07:00

Wow! My blog was found today by someone with a similar passion - churches working together to reach teenagers for Christ. I want to recommend Nick Arnold's blog as a very nice youth ministry networking resource! (www.ministryallies.com)

Check out their recent article - 8 Benefits of Youth Ministry Networking.

Thanks Nick for connecting and thanks for your heart for the Kingdom of God and for reaching teenagers for Christ.

Dunk a Youth Pastor!

2009-07-24T22:23:00.000-07:00

A couple Saturdays ago, our group of youth pastors in Fayette County did an event together which they called "FULLY ALIVE". The idea was to have something fun to do in the summer, yet something to keep spiritual fires burning. So we had inflatable games, food (of course), worship, a speaker (we recommend Nikita Koloff, former WWF wrestler!), and the highlight of the day - the Youth Pastor Dunk Tank. What was great about this was that all of us have developed relationships to the point where we all felt comfortable getting in that crazy thing and even made a point to dunk each other. It was great! I guess it's just one more way to see that youth ministry is FUN! But, even truer, doing youth ministry TOGETHER is WAY FUN! Until you fall into that cold, nasty water for the 10th time. :)

Pictured here is Ron Hudson, youth pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Uniontown. We want to say a special thanks to Matt Swenglish and Abundant Life Church, where Matt is the youth pastor, for hosting this great event for us!

Great blog posts about Youth Ministry Networking!

2009-07-10T21:05:00.001-07:00

I came across three blog posts from www.youthminblog.com - one from David Hertweck, a Korean youth pastor in Syracuse, NY about the benefits of youth minsitry networking and another by Mike Kupferer about what makes a great network, and another by Shawn Michael about not doing life alone! This is great stuff!

Networks Make You Bigger

4 Qualities of a Good Youth Worker Network

Get Your Act Together!

I couldn't have stated these things any better myself.

"Intro to Youth Ministry" class starting this fall

2009-07-02T19:20:00.000-07:00

I have the privilege of teaching a class this fall for the Westmoreland School of Ministry - "Intro to Youth Ministry". I'm really excited that this class will be available in our area (every Monday, starting Sept. 7 at New Stanton Assembly of God). The class will go for 13 thirteen weeks. Students can take it for three college credits or audit the class. I'm planning to feature a different youth pastor each week who is "in the field" - that will be fun. Just yesterday, I got hold of a couple of the textbooks of the class, one of which is pictured here - Starting Right: Thinking Theologically About Youth Ministry. Whether you're a college-age student who wants to works with students or if you're an adult volunteer who already is discipling teenagers, this class will help! Hope to see you there. You can download the schedule and registration information at www.teensforchrist.org.

What I'm Reading This Summer

2009-06-29T21:52:00.000-07:00

I'm working on two different books right now. The first is brand new - Evangelism Remixed by Dave Rahn (YFC VP) and Terry Linhart. What I love about this book is that it reports from actual research what youth ministries look like in which students are actively sharing their faith. The authors share what specific approaches are providing the best foundation for students to tell their friends about Christ. Very worthwhile read if you want to help your students reach their friends for Christ.

The other book I just started might not sound real interesting, but I find it fascinating - the 12th Edition Handbook of Denominations in the United States. We have so many different kinds of churches and since TFC works with many different kinds of churches, I wanted to increase my understanding of what different churches believe and where they came from. I think that's the most interesting part - how did we get to have so many different varieties of Christianity? It's pretty wild stuff. Sometimes good. Sometimes bad. I learned a lot of this stuff in Church History class at MBI, but I needed a refresher course, having been out in the field for over a decade now.

So what are you reading these days? I'd love to hear about it.

We Need Each Other!

2009-05-14T22:30:00.001-07:00

These two videos share the vision and mission of Teens For Christ. Enjoy!

Youth Pastors Preparing for Next School Year!

2009-05-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

Well one school year is ending but the next one will be here before we know it! So at our recent network meetings youth pastors have been making plans for working together next school year...

Murrysville - youth pastors are planning the next IGNITION school year kick off event.

Latrobe/Derry - youth pastors are working on a monthly youth worship night for youth groups to come together in their community

Fayette County - youth pastors have a series of events that they are taking turns on leading for the network including Connect, Fall Fusion, iPromise, 3V, and more!

Penn Trafford - youth pastors are working on a pre-school outreach with BMX stunt bikes, a fall tailgate party, and next year's post-prom event.

Mon Valley - youth pastors are talking about a school year kick off event at Belle Vernon High School

I am always amazed at the great things God's people can do when we work together! The 2008-2009 school year was one of the best I've ever seen. I can't wait to see what happens next year.

A short story of God's provision for us

2009-05-01T16:18:00.000-07:00

It's one of those things that happens from time to time - our gas got shut off yesterday. I was waiting until I got my May paycheck to make a payment, but the bill was past due. So I called today to make a payment, but I didn't have near enough to pay the whole thing (not to mention to the reconnect fee). The woman on the other end of the phone said that, based on our income, we could have our gas turned back on for only $240.00. Amazing, I had just deposited $240.00 in the bank the day before (some gift money we had received). God provided exactly what we needed. Thank You Father God!

Remembering Columbine - 10 Years Later

2009-04-21T05:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the 10 Year Anniversary of the Columbine shootings. I'd like to quote from the blog of my friend Nick Poole - Nick was a high school student (Derry Sr. High)I was working with at the time of the shootings:

"This event was formational in my life and it greatly impacted my future involvement in high school Bible Clubs both as a student and later a youth pastor. As a teenager and young adult, it was a reminder that life is short, we need to live it to the full! Ten years later, the world has continued to change. We are now living in a post-911 world. One of suspicion, uncertainty and violence. We don’t know what terror lies around the next turn. In the midst of all of this, I know I can have the same peace I had 10 years ago sitting in class. Regardless of what’s down the hall or down the street, I know that my God is on the throne. I can experience the peace that passes all understanding, not because of my power, ability, 0r insight, but because I serve a God who is greater and in the end has already conquered sin, death and the grave! Regardless of what terror or uncertainty you are facing today, remember God will see you through."

Here's a video that Nick shared on his blog as well. This is great.

Remembering how it all got started...10 years ago

2009-04-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

The Westmoreland County Youth Network is turning 10 Years Old this summer!

2009-04-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

10 years ago I got a phone call from a guy in Latrobe, Pennyslvania telling me that there was going to be a Billy Graham Crusade in Latrobe (Celebration '99) and he asked if I could serve as the student ministry chairman. I had been with Teens For Christ full time for 3 years by that time and Pete Malik and I were busy helping churches in Fayette County work together to reach teenagers for Christ. Working with the great Celebration '99 people in Westmoreland County turned out to be very similar to what I was already doing - working with youth pastors and Christian Clubs in local high schools - but on a much larger scale! The first Celebration '99 meeting I attended was at Cornerstone Ministries. The first three youth pastors I met were Dan Knight (Latrobe First Church of God), Todd Nevue (Calvary Assembly Ministries), and Paul Peternel (Jeannette Assembly). Months of planning went by and in May we had David Nasser and Al Densen (yeah, remember him?) come to do school assemblies to help build up excitement. On April 20th, all of us were shocked at the news of the Columbine shootings and given a powerful reminder of why we were doing all of this. The actual outreach event, with Billy Graham associate Ralph Bell, took place in June of '99. The student day outreach featured a concert by Third Day, inflatable games, and thousands of pizzas! 300+ students came forward at the invitation and were followed up on by local youth pastors. Later that summer all the youth pastors who were involved in Celebration '99 got together and decided that they wanted to keep on working together. And so, the Westmoreland County Youth Network was born. For the past 10 years, we have continued helping youth pastors get to know each other, build friendships, and work together on all kinds of youth ministry events and outreaches. We've worked with hundreds of students in local schools helping them reach their friends for Christ (some of those students, like Dave Grimm and Tom Shrum, are youth pastors now!). So many students, and even many youth pastors have come and gone since that time, but working in Westmoreland County has been a great privilege and a lot of fun. I've met so many of my best friends over this past ten years and I met my wife there too (which made Sharon Poole very happy!). She was working at Majesty Christian store in the fall of 2001 and I walked in one day looking for a book and I found her. Over and over again, I have become more and more convinced that God does great and mighty things when His people work together. My thanks to all of those I've had the privilege of serving and serving with these past ten years.

"10 Days to inTENtionally help your friends experience Jesus" begins today!

2009-04-09T22:55:00.000-07:00

One of our goals as a youth network is to invite Christian students to connect with the bigger picture, with larger things, so that they have a sense of belonging to something much bigger than themselves. Hopefully, they get that at church, but it's one thing to say, I'm part of my church - it's a whole other thing to say, I'm part of something that MANY churches are doing. Our local network has been working with Youth Alive to challenge thousands of Christian students around Pennsylvania to participate in "10 Days" an intentional, near-the-end-of-the-school-year, Easter-based outreach which takes place at their schools. Students are challenged to do something different each of the 10 days to help their friends at school experience who Jesus is and what He is like. This year's "10 Days" ideas are based on Matthew 25:31-46 where Jesus talks about the sheep and the goats and reaching out to the least of these.

10 Days began 15 or so years ago as a youth pastor's idea - since students have Spirit Weeks at school (usually in the fall), the idea was to do a "Jesus Week" as an outreach. Local youth pastors and high school Bible clubs in our networks have kept the idea going ever since.

Please pray with us that God will use many students in our region, our state, and beyond to share Jesus' truth and love with their friends. Students can see ideas and share their testimonies at www.teensforchrist.org/10Days.aspx.

Skillet comes to Greensburg, Pa.

2009-04-07T12:14:00.000-07:00

Crowd Cam-Greensburg, PA 4.5.09

The Westmoreland County Youth Network partnered with Generation Exodus, a new and local concert production company, to bring the Comatose Tour with Skillet, Disciple and Decypher Down to the Palace Theatre in Greensburg, Pa. This was another successful example of the great things that can happen when Christians work together. The show was SOLD OUT! 1400 people packed the place out. And it was one AMAZING concert! We want to congratulate Jj Marconi, from Greensburg Alliance Church, for winning the electric guitar signed by Skillet. John Cooper took this video at the Skillet concert on Sunday night. God was good to us all that night.

Youth Pastors bring 3V school assemblies to their community - Part 2

2009-04-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

Last night was the culmination of the 3V Tour which youth pastors in Fayette County brought to their area this week. 1000 students crowded into Uniontown High School gymnasium for 2 hours of dramas, a concert, and bmx stunt riding (and jumping). Paul May (from Clearer Vision Drama Company and coordinator of the 3V Tour) gave a challenging presentation of the Gospel and invited students to give their lives to Jesus Christ. 165 students responded! Now we begin the process of having youth leaders follow up on these students. Please pray with us and for us that we'll be able to get many, if not all, of these students connected with local churches.

Youth Pastors bring 3V school assemblies to their community - Part 1

2009-03-31T08:21:00.000-07:00

Youth Pastors in Fayette County have been working together for several months to bring the 3V School Assembly program - vision, volume, velocity (coordinatred by Paul May - Clearer Vision Drama Company) - to schools in their area.

So far they have been to four schools (three more to go) and it's going great. The students are loving the hilarious dramas, the rockin' band, and the BMX bike stunt guy. Check out www.teensforchrist.org/3V.aspx for pictures and a video of the BMX guy. Something like 5000 students will experience the 3V Tour before it's over this week. The culmination of the 3V Tour will be a huge outreach event at Uniontown High School on Wednesday, April 1st (we had a sneak peek of the big outreach last night at a local church and 10 students came to Christ! Way to go Mike and Starla!). We are expecting 800-1000 students to be there - they'll experience the dramas, concert, and BMX stunt guys as well as a clear presentation of the Gospel and an invitation to receive Christ.

We still need to raise $2000 to help pay for this event. If you could make a donation of any amount (large or small), please visit www.teensforchrist.org/3V.aspx - we have credit card donation set up through paypal. Your help would be greatly appreciated! Please KEEP PRAYING! Thanks so much! I'll post again on Thursday to share how the outreach event goes.

One more thing - we want to thank Ron & Leigh Hudson and Art & Christine David, youth leaders at Calvary Baptist Church in Uniontown, for spearheading this network outreach for us. We love you guys!

Great youth network meeting last night!

2009-03-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

Our Fayette County Youth Network met last night at the home of Larry & Michelle Georgiana - that had to be one of the best meetings we've ever had - it was just fun! This group of people (mostly couples) is really bonding together. It was like a small group meeting last night. There were youth leaders from five churches there and these folks are preparing for a huge outreach next week - the 3V school assemblies (vision, velocity, and volume). They've done several other things this school year including a school year kick off event in September, a fall get together, a Christmas party, and the iPromise purity event in February. I really believe that God reveals Himself in special ways when His people come together and work together for the Kingdom. I just want to say to my friends in this network, it is a great privilege working with all of you! And thanks for Larry and Michelle for opening your home.

Exciting speaking opportunity

2009-03-22T10:33:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of teaching a couple of workshops at SPARK, the United Methodist Youth Conference at the Westin in Pittsburgh yesterday afternoon. I was talking with students about the fact that God IS present and working in their schools. They just need to look for what God is doing and join Him in that. I shared some of my story of how God called me to be a missionary to my high school (Go Turkeyfoot!) when I was a freshmen. There were probably 75 students between the two workshops. I hope that some of them will go and make a difference in their schools. Thanks to Renaye Hoffman for inviting me to come!

Why do we need denominations?

2009-03-20T11:44:00.001-07:00

Occassionally, I hear the question asked, "Why do we even need denominations?" Although the primary focus of my blog is helping Christians work together across denominational lines, I do believe that denominations serve several good purposes. (DISCLAIMER: I'm making lots of generalizations here and these are non-research based opinions).

First, local churches need some kind of structure and accountability. Denominations provide local churches with an oversight, resources, and a kind of stability. And as I think about the history of the church, it seems like a de-centralized authority structure is necessary to provide checks and balances for the entire Body which we'll need until Jesus returns to earth. I think only Jesus could rule the entire Church.

Second, I think denominations help keep the whole church balanced theologically. When one part of the church emphasizes one aspect of the spiritual life too much, another part of the church brings emphasis back to forgotten aspects. It's so easy for us to go off on theological tangents that we need other believers to remind us of the other importants parts of the gospel (i.e., truth and grace, faith and works, God's part, our part, etc.).

Third, and this is similar to point 2, I think God uses different churches to bring good things to the rest of the body. Reformed churches have given all of us some solid theological thinking. Baptist churches remind us to keep winning souls. Pentecostal and Charismatic churches have given us fresh forms of worship and reminded us of how much we need the Holy Spirit. Anglican and Lutheran churches help us connect with our history (including emphasis on the practice of communion). Methodist churches have helped us keep our social conscience. Non-denominational churches have inspired us to stay on the cutting edge. My point is God has a lot of gifts for the whole body of Christ in these different churches.

Let me be clear that I realize there are tares in the wheat. Some people, some churches, and some entire denominations have left the faith. I'm just saying lets not burn the wheat because there are some tares in amongst it. Lets diligently stand for truth AND diligently connect with others who are doing the same even if they are in a different church. And let's appreciate what the different parts of the Body of Christ have to offer to the rest of us! Instead of focusing on what divides us, let's focus on how God has blessed other churches and what we can learn from each other.

churches reaching schools

2009-03-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

The mantra of "separation of church and state" has so infiltrated our culture and even the church that many Christians feel like they cannot have any influence or positive impact on our public schools. Over the past several months, I've seen several examples of Christians (particularly youth pastors) reaching schools in different ways. 1) Youth pastors in Latrobe/Derry and in Uniontown are working together to bring school assembly programs to schools in their communities. 2) Youth pastors in Murrysville are helping coach local sports programs - and they aren't telling kids about Jesus at practices, they are building relationships with kids. 3) Youth pastors in Greensburg (pictured here) recently met with a local high school principal to hear about what is happening with students from her perspective - and it was really eye-opening. 4) Youth pastors in the Penn Trafford school district are creating a monthly bulletin-insert-size newsletter to share with their churches to encourage their churches to pray for the local schools and for the Christian students who are doing exciting things to reach their friends. 5) I, and a very good friend of mine, do a Release Time Education program for high school students in Brownsville (RTE is one of Pennsylvania's best kept secrets). 6) A youth pastor from Somerset is helping students in his youth group form a Christian club at their school that will focus on reaching their friends for Christ. There's a lot we can't do, but there is a lot that we CAN and must do for our public schools. This is where most of our students spend most of their time. America's public schools are a great mission field.

In the spirit of Martin Luther, I offer my 9.5 theses

2009-03-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

I suppose that, like Martin Luther five hundred years ago, most of us in ministry have strong feelings about what we'd like to change about the church. These are some of the convictions I've developed over the past decade of ministry. These are somewhat untried and untested ideas, but I really believe these things.

1. No one one church is or should act like it's the whole body of Christ.
2. The value of denominations is in what the uniquely offer to the Body of Christ not what separates them from the rest of the Body.
3. "When God looks at a city, He doesn't see many churches; He sees one church in many congregations." - Ed Silvoso
4. For the good of the kingdom and for the wise use of God's resources small churches need to join forces, pool resources, even merge together! (heresy, I know.)
5. God has blessed large churches to be a blessing to the rest of the body of Christ.
6. "The purpose of unity is not 'unity for the sake of unity' but to demonstrate that God's truth is true." - Mike King
7. A divided Body of Christ is a defeated Body of Christ.
8. Youth pastors and young pastors are the best candidates for forging unity (new wine and new wineskins and all that).
9. A church united is extremely difficult requiring, and thus demonstrating, the supernatural love of God.
9.5. This kind of love is what the world is waiting to see.

Those are my thoughts about building a better church. I'd love to hear yours.

Invitation from Doug Fields to Pittsburgh area youth pastors

2009-03-06T05:40:00.000-08:00

The surprising thing that Doug Fields said...

2009-03-04T02:46:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, you just wish that someone would see and really understand what it is that you are passionate about. Well that happened to me and some friends at the Doug Fields/Group Publishing "National Youth Ministry Conference" this past weekend. A bunch of guys from the National Network of Youth Ministries were there helping youth pastors connect with local networks back home in their communities. Group even had us do a workshop on youth ministry networking - that was very exciting. We were all blown away, though, on Sunday night when Doug Fields said from the main stage that he can't believe how many youth pastors he talks with who are trying to do youth ministry all alone. He said that he had been telling lots of youth pastors to go and connect with the National Network of Youth Ministries because he is a big fan of what they do. That was a very encouraging moment for all of us - someone who is that well-known gets the importance of coming together and working together. So, it's official, Doug Fields says youth pastors should get connected - thanks Doug for the affirmation and encouragement!(www.youthworkers.net).

Amazing group of students!

2009-03-04T02:41:00.000-08:00

A couple Saturdays ago, Christian students from Hempfield, Penn Trafford, Greensburg Salem, Franklin Regional and Mt. Pleasant high schools in Westmoreland County came together to share stories of what God is doing in their schools. As we went around the table, we heard very different stories, but very encouraging - God is at work in our schools! My favorite part of this was seeing these students connect with each other and encourage each other. The video here is of three students from Penn Trafford talking about what they had done to reach out to different groups of students in their school.

Uniontown churches sponsor Fireproof movie event together

2009-02-27T21:53:00.000-08:00

I had the opportunity to work with pastors in Uniontown on a special project - the churches in the community showed the movie Fireproof at the State Theater downtown. A single church could've done this easily, but at least six churches were involved and the result was that 800 people attended! The folks at the State Theater were surprised by such a great attendance. It just confirmed to me again that we can do so much more when we do it together.

Youth Pastors in Fayette County create purity event

2009-02-24T05:08:00.000-08:00

I've seen this happen several times in my ministry - God gives a vision to someone that is too big for them to accomplish alone. So they bring it to their network of youth pastors - and find that some of them were thinking the very same thing. And then they work together on it and pull off something bigger than any of them could've dreamed! That happened this past weekend. A youth pastor's wife had a vision for doing a purity event, and she brought it to the network last fall. iPromise, as the event became called, far exceeded our expectations. We were hoping for 75, we had room for 140, and 189 showed up! It was a powerful evening of helping students grasp God's plan for love, dating, and sex. A city skyline was the backdrop for the worship, drama, speakers, and video. Appetizers, a chocolate fountain, fruit punch, and lots of mingling made up the front end of the night. A challenge to commit to sexual purity closed the night out. We want to say a very big thank you to Larry & Michelle Georgiana for all of their hard work on this event!

Travis Deans is resigning from Youth Ministry

2009-01-19T04:27:00.000-08:00

I've been doing youth ministry for twelve years now (that's me this past Saturday) and every so often, usually a couple times a year, I start asking myself "Why am I doing this?", "What is it that I'm really supposed to be doing here?", "Why don't I go get a real job flippin' burgers or something?" I have to admit, discouragement creeps in at times! The pay is not good, things never go like you plan them to, people don't often see the "vital" importance of what we do, and youth ministry feels a lot like herding cats. Why should I keep doing this stuff?

Well, when those dark moods come over me, four big ideas keep bringing me back into focus...

1) "The local church is the hope of the world" - Bill Hybels

Of all our nations' institutions, the church offers something very unique. Schools provide education, doctors provide medication, hospitals provide operations, government provides legislation, prisons provide incarceration, but only the church offers transformation of the human heart through a relationship with Jesus Christ. Therefore, I believe with all my heart that every church needs a healthy, growing youth ministry - because every teenagers needs Jesus and a church family.

2) "When God looks at a city, he does not see many churches, He sees one church in many congregations." - Ed Silvoso

For the past four hundred years churches have been competing with each other. The splintering of the body of Christ into thousands of pieces has been a long, sad story. I believe passionately that someday the church will move away from competing against each other to completing each other - realizing that no one church/denomination is the whole body and that we will never fulfill the great commission alone. We must work together! Some competition is good to challenge us and keep us from becoming mediocre, but we need to see churches communicating with each other, cooperating with each other and completing each other in building the Kingdom. Therefore, I believe that every community needs a network of church youth ministries - because we can do this better when we do it together! Here's an article I wrote three years ago called "From Competing to Completing" if you'd like to read more about this idea.

3) "Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell." - C.T. Studd

All missionaries have known for centuries that to reach a group of people you have to go where they are and the group of people that youth pastors want to reach spend most of their time all together in one place - school. Kids spend five days a week, 180 days a year, 7 or 8 hours a day (or more if they're in any kind of activity) at school. And all of our churches have students in public schools - what happens at local schools affects all of our kids. Therefore, I'm convinced that every school needs reached by a network of churches. When youth pastors/youth leaders come together one of big questions should be, "What can we do together to serve our local schools and to reach students in that place?" A youth pastor named Mark Moder observed in article called "Where Students Are" that if we are called to be fishers of men, we should remember that fish swim in schools.

4) "If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for." - C H Spurgeon

I love this quote - it just reminds me that we can never say "we have a lot of people in our church, that's good enough". Every person needs to hear about Jesus. I believe passionately that every students needs an opportunity to hear about Jesus and to get connected with a local church. There are 50,000 teenagers in this part of southwestern Pennsylvania - that's serious job security - I'm never going to run out of work here!

So, no, I'm definitely not resigning from youth ministry. I have four great reasons to get out of bed every morning and to keep doing what I'm doing. Most of all, I want to do it because Jesus loves me and calls me to follow Him no matter how hard it is, no matter what happens. Jesus is worth it all. Sometimes I just need to remind myself what this is all about. I have to say a big "Thank You!" to my wife, Judy, who keeps encouraging to do this and to my partner in Teens For Christ, Pete Malik, who helped me find God's calling for my life. And I thank you to for letting me express my heart to you in this post.

Youth Ministry Consultations

2009-01-19T04:11:00.000-08:00

This past Saturday, Pete Malik and I had the privilege of doing a youth ministry consultation with members of Mill Run United Methodist Church who want to start a youth ministry at their church. In these consultations, we talk about building a youth ministry image, structure, and substance. The substance, which is communicating God's truth to see students' lives transformed, is what we want to get to, but the image/structure aspects of youth ministry help us get there. If your church's youth ministry needs a little shot in the arm or maybe a complete overhaul, let us know. We would love to come and help. The great thing about this meeting is that the guy who contacted us about meeting with them was part of our ministry when he was a teenager twenty years ago. Now he'll be doing youth ministry. It's amazing how things come full circle!

Fayette County Youth Pastors working on 3 projects

2009-01-19T04:07:00.001-08:00

Youth Pastors in Fayette County are working together on three different projects - 1) iPromise semi-formal purity event for students, 2) 3V school assemblies and outreach, and 3) Benefit concert for Africa. This group of youth leaders did three youth events together this past fall as well. After not having a youth network in Fayette County for two years, the 2008-2009 school year is turning into an amazing time. The iPromise event scheduled to take place on February 21st, 2009 will be similar to True Love Waits events we used to do, but with some clever new twists. We love working with these great youth leaders!

Youth Pastors Summit - January 2009

2009-01-19T03:52:00.000-08:00

On January 8th, 2009 youth pastors from around Westmoreland County gathered together to connect with each other and to do a little thinking about what we can do together to reach teenagers in Westmoreland County for Christ. There are 35,000 students in this county and we need to work together to reach them. Pictured here are youth pastors from Murrysville, Greensburg, Derry, Ligonier, and New Stanton. Just these ten youth pastors probably have at least 1000 teenagers that they have some kind of connection with. What powerful potential each one has, and what greater potential we all have when we work together!

A legend of Youth Ministry visits our area

2008-11-20T00:04:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm sure Duffy Robbins would disagree, but I don't think I exaggerate when I say that Duffy Robbins has 'legendary' status in the world of youth ministry. Yeah, I know, you shouldn't put people on a pedestal, but Duffy does have that "youth ministry guru" aura about him. Anyway, we were able to have him here on November 15th to do an "Understanding Your Teenager" workshop (attended by 150 parents who were laughing almost 3 hours straight) and he spoke at our 2nd Annual Youth Pastors Appreciation Dinner at the Word of Life Banquet Room. His message to us that night was that even in the ugly, messy things that happen, God can be creating new life. God works in the most surprising ways and when we least expect Him to do so. About 60 youth leaders were present and were encouraged to not let what you see keep you from experiencing what God is doing where we can't see. Duffy is pictured here with two of our newest youth pastors in the area - Stevan Sheets at Armbrust Wesleyan and Rigel Holmes at Greensburg Alliance Church.

Hanging out with youth leaders

2008-11-02T00:21:00.000-07:00

The National Youth Workers Convention has been a blast these past couple of days. It's been great to see so many youth pastors and youth leaders from our area there enjoying themselves and learning tons of great stuff (like how to make money eating hot peppers which the Murrysville Alliance Church youth leaders did on Saturday - pictured here) and it's been great to catch up with and meet with other youth ministry folks from around the country such as a college professor I had at Moody Bible Institute, Dave Veerman. He was one of my youth ministry professors. Francis Chan's message this morning blew me away. That was powerful. Two days left and I can't wait to experience it all.

I'm at the National Youth Workers Convention

2008-10-30T08:11:00.000-07:00

A few thousand youth pastors/youth leaders are descending upon Pittsburgh this weekend for the National Youth Workers Convention sponsored by Youth Specialties. I'm on the volunteer registration team so I'm excited about maybe seeing a lot of my youth pastor friends this weekend. I'm praying that God will encourage, strengthen, and provide all that youth workers coming here need to go back and keep working with kids. NYWC is a great place for networking (hobnobbing as my wife likes to call it!). I'm expecting to see friends from all over the country. It's gonna be fun!

Why we do this

2008-10-23T22:42:00.000-07:00

The Murrysville Youth Network met last Thursday and what struck me was our brief discussion about why we network together. Jon Price who has been with us three years now said that for him, it wasn't about events, although he loves the Ignition event we do, but he just likes being together with the group. Lu, the veteran of group appreciates the fact that we don't talk about how many students we have in our groups - in fact, there's no comparison's at all, except for how we're all jealous of Brent Squires' new student facility. :) Anyway, the point is, we gain strength and encouragement from being together - plus it's so dang fun! We welcomed a "new" youth pastor to the group that day. Tom Shrum who is the new guy at First Presbyterian in Murrysville. Tom was part of our Greensburg Youth Network for a few years. There's nothing as much fun as hanging out with youth pastors!

Frustrations with the church

2008-10-14T22:36:00.000-07:00

Among many frustrations that one could mention about churches, the one that gets me the most is that nearly all churches/denominations function as if they are the only church that God is using or cares about. I know most churches wouldn't say they feel that way, but I noticed it again today. A church I work with is making plans as if there are no other churches in their community and I have to say, that is frustrating. Of course, I have not walked in those people's shoes, and I believe that God does bless some churches and not others in ways that that I don't understand. I'm just weary of the idea that what our church is doing is all that matters. There is a great big body of Christ out there and we should all care about what is good for the entire body, not just our little chunk of it. I apologize for the rant, but I believe God has great blessings in store for churches who want to be a blessing to the other churches around them.

youth pastors begin working on school assembly outreach

2008-10-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

A couple Tuesdays ago, Judy and I met with youth leaders from a church in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. They had a vision of bringing Bob Lenz (Life Promotions, WI) to do school assemblies and an outreach event in our area, but they wanted to work together with other churches to make it happen (it will take $9000 to pull this off and many students will need to be followed up on at the conclusion of this thing). The very next day, by God's providence, it worked out that I was meeting with three other youth pastors in the Latrobe/Derry area who all said they were on board with making this happen. Incredibly, one of those youth leaders, a school teacher, has already gotten the assemblies booked at Latrobe and Derry middle and senior high schools - amazing! And $2000 has already come in from local businesses to support these assemblies. IT IS AMAZING TO WATCH GOD WORK! So today, we had a our first "team" meeting today to strategize. We'll be meeting the 2nd Monday of each month to and we'll keep you posted on how this "experiment in the body of Christ working together" goes.

Doing together what we couldn't do alone.

2008-10-08T21:29:00.000-07:00

Last March, a group of youth pastors who barely knew each other met together at Applebees for lunch. After a couple monthly lunch meetings, we sensed that this was a group of believers who wanted to work together and do some big things for the Kingdom. So we asked them in May to consider doing a school year kick off event. We had an idea for a band. That idea didn't work out - but something better did. One of our youth pastors, Larry Georgiana from New Life Covenant Church of God in Markleysburg, had seen a band at Acquire The Fire and had contacted them about coming to his church. However, his church was too small and the price tag too large. So he brought the idea to the next youth network meeting (June). We agreed that this was the band we needed to pursue (Michael Gungor Band) and found out later that they were actually the opening band for Downhere and that our event would be the first stop on their tour. Another youth pastor used his connections to get us a great venue at a fraction of the cost and that fraction was covered by someone he knew. Then we needed a little more help - a downpayment of $1750 was needed to secure the bands. That was half the total fee. So we asked churches to pre-buy 10 tickets at $10 per ticket. Around 10 churches did so with some of those purchasing more than 10. That enabled us to pay the deposit - praise God! After this, we divided up the work (many volunteers were needed) among our churches and that night 350 students came (exactly what we needed to pay for the bands. A local Christian University, Waynesburg University, co-sponsored the event with a generous grant that covered the lodging and meals. At least 20 youth groups brought students who were challenged to participate in See You At The Pole (we had some of our highest numbers ever this year) and to pray/reach out to their friends at school who don't know Christ. No one church could've pulled all of this off, but God blessed the efforts of His people working together!

This same basic thing has been done by a group of four youth pastors in the Murrysville area for the past three years now. That event is called IGNITION and we had 700 students from 30+ youth groups at the one this past September. These guys have proven that working together over the long haul is even more effective. This has become a $6000 budget event - and we've made a profit the past couple years! Together, these two events impacted 1000 students - our vision is to see that thousand take the gospel to school with them everyday this school year and to impact thousands more.

See You At The Pole 2008

2008-09-24T11:30:00.001-07:00

This morning was exciting! I got at least 50 text messages within a half hour time span! See You At The Pole was different for every school, but it really sounds like God was present today. Below are some attendance #’s as well as some testimonies students shared this morning. Also, there are links below for pictures from today's SYATP at different schools as well as a video from Laurel Highlands High School. If anyone has more #’s, pictures, or videos, please e-mail, facebook, or text us! (724.322.1130). Also you can share testimonies and pictures with the national See You At The Pole office by going to www.syatp.com/report.

39 – Albert Gallatin
6 – Albert Gallatin North Middle
44 - Brownsville
1 – California
20 – Laurel Highlands
20 – Uniontown
18 – Belle Vernon
15 - Penn State Fayette Campus

20 - Apollo Ridge Senior High
12 – Burrell Senior High
35 – East Allegheny
32 - Franklin Regional Senior High
6 - Franklin Regional Middle School
8 - Jeannette Senior High
70 – Kiski Senior High
23 - Hempfield Senior High
82 - Latrobe Senior High
35 – Mt. Pleasant Senior High
23 – Norwin Senior High
17 – Norwin Middle School
90 – Penn Trafford Senior High
12 - Penn Middle School
17 - Plum Senior High
12 - Yough Senior High

“See You At The Pole went so amazing. So many showed up!” - Penn Trafford Student

“I wanted to let you know that we had 87 kids this morning at the pole and that’s like half our high school. How awesome!” – Hannah, Trinity Christian

“Hey! Our See You At The Pole was awesome! We had 70 people show up!” – Kiski student

“Dear Ignition, See You At The Pole was sooo AMAZING! I met people I have known for years and I didn’t even know they were Christians! We read Scripture and did so many amazing things! It was such a witness and it was great! PRAISE THE LORD! GOD IS SO GOOD!” – Annie Polka, East Allegheny High School

“See You At The Pole went well. There were 12 of us…we sang and read a little from the Psalms and then we prayed. The bell for first period rang or we would’ve kept going!” – Tyler Menhart, Burrell

“See You At The Pole went great at Norwin Middle School and High School.” – Kelsey Gibbs

“I just got back in my homeroom from c u at the pole. it was just me and Jesus.” – California Senior High Student

“Hey we went to the pole this morning and we had about seventy people it was really awesome. Kids walked past laughing at us. But it went well.” – student from Kiski Senior High

"See You At The Pole ent great. We got to pray about our school and Bible Club and churches and also connect with other Christian students." - Dominic Clifford, Uniontown Senior High

"I went to See You At The Pole this morning and we had about 70 students show up. It was awesome to see all the people that wanted to worship on a school campus. We got asked a lot of questions about why we went, but over all it was awesome!" - Jess, student at Penn Trafford

All of this is just the beginning of a 9 Month Mission Trip - please continue to pray with us that God will use Christian students to make a big impact for the Kingdom of God this school year.

SEE PICTURES ON FACEBOOK

VIDEO FROM LAUREL HIGHLANDS SENIOR HIGH

IGNITION 2008 school year kick off event

2008-09-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

On September 20th and 21st we had 2 school year kick off events - CONNECT 2008 in Uniontown on Saturday and IGNITION 2008 in Murrysville on Sunday night. Between the two events, we had 1000+ students that were challenged to reach their friends and schools for Christ over the next nine months. Below is a video from IGNITION.

Unleashed: Student Evangelism Conference (#2)

2008-09-15T23:33:00.000-07:00

The 9 Month Mission Trip begins...

2008-08-19T21:38:00.000-07:00

The 4th annual Unleashed conference was this past Saturday in Irwin. Our Norwin Youth Network and other local youth pastors equipped 30 students from 7 local high schools to share their faith, defend their faith, and to lead campus ministries/outreaches in their schools. The day included workshops, strategic planning time, great resources, and lunch of course! As we said to the students at the end of the day, this was the beginning of a 9 Month Mission Trip for them - to a place where they already have to go, it's already paid for, they have to eat strange food, and there are tons of lost people who need to hear about Jesus. Our goal is to help Christian students see the coming school year as a calling to serve God by loving their friends in Jesus' name. I want to thank Bo Pratt and the other youth leaders who helped plan this event as well as the youth pastors who taught the workshops - James Llewellyn (Murrysville Alliance), Frank Audia (Community United Methodist), Wayne Heckman (Calvary Assembly), and Paul Peternel (Jeannette Assembly of God). I pray that at the end of this school year we will have some amazing stories to tell of the great things that God has done through these students.

The Ebb and Flow of Youth Ministry Networking

2008-08-19T05:39:00.000-07:00

Depending on the year we have a varying number of Youth Pastor networks with which we meet. From 2000-2005 we had a great youth ministry network in Fayette County. Then three key youth pastors left and we had no network until this past March when, seemingly from out of nowhere(!), a group of youth pastors came together and now we have a big school year kick off happening in September in Uniontown. It happened without us doing anything - it must've been God.

On the other hand, we have had a great network of youth pastors in Greensburg for a few years now and within the past six months three key youth pastors have left and that network is, for the moment, gone! In some ways, the body of Christ is ever flowing, ebbing, the tide going in and out. Sometimes nothing is happening, sometimes we can't keep up with it all! This September we have three school year kick off events taking place - for Westmoreland County, Fayette County, and the Mon Valley. It is just fascinating to watch how God works.

Unfortunately, I know that some of the changes we see in youth ministry in our area is not the result of the will of God, but the poor value people place on youth ministry and youth pastors. Nevertheless, God uses it all for good. I am happy for my youth pastors friends who have left and found better youth ministry situations and are happier in them. It was hard to see them suffering. May God bless you guys.

We never know what it's going to look like from year to year, but we always enjoy making new friends and, inevitably, we know we will have to say good-bye to some old ones. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away - blessed be the Name of the Lord!

Mission Accomplished

2008-05-19T08:08:00.000-07:00

May 15th, and 16th was the culmination of a whole year's worth of work. We began this past school year last August with Unleashed: the Student Leadership Conference, equipping students to be spiritual leaders in their schools. Then we had Ignition 2007, our school year kick off event at which we were mobilizing almost 700 students to participate in See You At The Pole and to pray for 5 of their friends who don't know Christ throughout the school year. In January, we had the Campus Checkup events at which students, teachers, and youth pastors got together to talk about the spiritual condition of our schools. The purpose of the campus checkups was to encourage students to finish the school year well. And last Thursday and Friday nights we had Released to Reach the World dinners in Uniontown and Greensburg - we were celebrating the end of the school year. It was amazing to hear students at both events share what God has been doing in their schools this past year. I think the adults who came were amazed to hear such things coming out of such young people (I know, I sounded old right there!). In between those events, we and youth pastors in the area have been busy helping students lead their campus ministries, doing outreach events, and helping new Christian clubs get started.

And now we are busy preparing for next school year - another year of equipping, mobilizing, encouraging, and celebrating with students as they see God work through them to reach their generation for Christ.

a great quote!

2007-08-22T14:25:00.000-07:00

My friend, Brian Coday, had this quote on his blog and I had to add it...

“Christianity has always been a youth movement. As we look over the pages of church history, we find, more often than not, that brave thrusts into the unknown have been led by the young. Can we not see in them the most powerful potential the church has? We must consider the child or young person as a dynamic personality, capable, under God, of realizing his/her best self. We must lead these souls to the point where they are set aflame with the adventure of serving Christ.” --Henrietta Mears

AMEN!

the joy of living out one's calling

2007-08-22T14:16:00.000-07:00

Three times in the past five days, I've been able to experience the joy of fulfilling the passion of my heart - getting people connected with each other. On Saturday at Unleashed: the Student Leadership Conference, I was able to introduce a girl who's is starting to lead her to school's Bible Club this year with another girl in the next school over who is leading her Bible club this year. They really hit it off. I know they'll encourage and spur each other on through this school year (pictured right).

All summer, I've been trying to set up a meeting with one of our local high school principals and some youth pastors. We finally got to have that meeting on Monday. Only one of the guys was able to make it, but the principal was so open to us and gave us some great insight into what's happening at that school. We left really excited and encouraged. I loved being able to help connect my youth pastor friend with the principal at the school where most of his kids go.

Then yesterday, I met a couple youth pastors for lunch for the express purpose of helping them get to know each other. They're both in the same town, but didn't really know each other. Now they're gonna play raquetball together sometime soon. Man, I love this job. This is what I was born to do.

we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up

2007-08-16T13:31:00.000-07:00

A new school year is beginning and last night I had the opportunity to speak about the principles that the book of Daniel has for students going back to school. My good friend, Dave Grimm and his wife were on vacation, so I spoke at his youth group for him (pictured right). Daniel and Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego demonstrated great courage, strength, and honor in the face of dangerous opposition. What great examples they are for Christian teenagers today. We have our "Unleashed" conference this coming Saturday at which we train and equip students to serve God in their schools. I'm looking forward to seeing many Christian students resolve in their hearts to worship nothing but the one true God. May God give all our Christian teenagers a great year of making a difference for Him!

Youth Pastors Cookout and Cornhole Tournament

2007-08-08T22:26:00.000-07:00

Ah yes...the ancient game played by our ancestors in the old world - cornhole (?) What? Oh yes, cornhole-to-the-death (just kidding) was the game of choice at the annual Youth Pastors Picnic on Saturday August 4th at the home of Tom & Shannon Shrum. Pictured here are Jon Price from Murrysville Community Church and Eric Simpson from New Stanton Alliance. Jon is demonstrating proper form and throwing technique (I think...). Eric is thinking to himself, "He's way off - there's no way." The stakes were raised this year as the prize for winning the championship was a gift certificate for Cracker Barrell. The battle to dominate the cornhole field was on. At the end of the day, our gracious hosts became the envy of all when they won the coveted prize of cornhole champions. Tom and Shannon are below holding the prize. Oh the weeping and gnashing of teeth that we who lost experienced. Our hopes dashed, we finished eating and left having had a great time together.

becoming men of courage and strength

2007-06-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

I had the great opportunity to be a small group leader at a camp this past week with Cornerstone Ministries from Export, PA. This picture is of our small group. Probably the best thing that happened in our group is that we experienced the Bible coming to life in a new way - by reading it with movie soundtrack music in the background. The 1st and 2nd chapters of Nahum sound amazing with the music of Gladiator (1st track and forward) playing. We read Genesis 22, the story of Abraham obeying God's command to sacrifice Isaac, to the next to the last track on the Braveheart score. It was good stuff! The theme of the week was about students developing spiritual habits and I was trying to help the Bible come alive for these guys. We also talked about the need to have masculine expression and understanding of our faith. So often, when we talk about our relationship with God, it's usually in words that girls understand and so guys feel at a loss. We talked about Jesus, the strong and courageous man of God using the book of Mark to help us see Jesus in a fresh light.

I had so much fun with these guys. They are hilarious. They come up with the funniest things. At the end of the week they gave me this picture framed with stuff they had written to me on the matting. That was awesome! (with a little helpful from my beautiful wife). Anyway, I'm thanking God for a great week!

a sad and yet great week of youth ministry!

2007-06-15T23:26:00.000-07:00

This past week started with a sad note - Judy and I attended the going away party of our dear friend Nick Poole who was the youth pastor at Calvary Assembly in Irwin. Pete Malik and I knew Nick when he was a Bible club leader in his high school. It was awesome when Nick came back here to do youth ministry after graduating from college and he has been a HUGE help to our youth networks since he has been back here. Nick's event coordinating skills and graphic design skills (and numchuck skills) have been a blessing! Thanks Nick for all you did for us here. We're going to miss you.

Then from Sunday night through Thursday night I had the privilege of working with my good friend, Lu, youth pastor at Murrysville Alliance at the C&MA senior high camp at Mahaffey, PA. I spoke on John Eldredge's book, "Epic" - talking about the story that God is telling and how we can find our part in God's story. That was so much fun and it was a great blessing to be out in the woods away from the computer, from meetings, from busyness and the normal hectic things of life. Judy came up for a couple days too and she got recruited into helping lead worship with the kids (btw, she did an incredible job at leading the youth worship band in leading the worship at Cornerstone this past Sunday - June 10th).

Today (Friday) was our end of the school year celebration event, Summer Slam, organized by another great friend, Dave Grimm, at Harvest Assembly church in Derry. We had over 200 students from at least 10 different churcehs that came out for the waterslide, extreme games, concerts with Breaking The Silence and Everlife, a great dinner, the ice cream sundae bar, and much more. It was a lot of fun. You can see more pictures of Summer Slam at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29529&l=518b5&id=514945211

I also got to have breakfast this morning with a new youth pastor in Greensburg, Frank Nemeth (Word of Life). Frank is a great guy. Man, I love this job! Thank you God for the privilege of serving You in this way.

How Teenagers Transformed the Church!

2007-05-23T00:16:00.000-07:00

Recently discovered this series of 3 great articles called, "How Teenagers Transformed the Church". I think this will really encourage Youth Leaders out there and to give the rest of us some needed perspective.

First Article -http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2007/05/how_teenagers_t.html
Second Article - http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2007/05/how_teenagers_t_1.html
Third Article - http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2007/05/how_teenagers_t_2.html

I'd love to hear what you think of these. Thanks!

welcoming new youth pastors

2007-05-15T20:53:00.000-07:00

This past Friday (May 11th) we had a "welcome lunch" in Westmoreland County for new youth pastors in the area - pictured right. It was a great time. When you ask youth pastors to share their funny stories, you are in for a big laugh! We gained at least six new youth leaders in WC this past school year - in addition to the eight new guys that came last year! We talked briefly about plans for a series of youth network events for next school year and it is shaping up to be very exciting. In Fayette County, strangely enough, our network there is made up of a group of folks who are not youth leaders, but really want to work together to reach teenagers for Christ and we're preparing for a concert outreach at the county fair this summer. It's amazing how all of that came together - Pete and I didn't do anything - people came to us and now we have this really exciting outreach coming up. It's wild to see how God works.

what happens when churches combine their resources?

2007-05-04T03:14:00.000-07:00

This past April, we had The Seven Project come to Westmoreland County. 400 students came out for an amazing experience - huge inflatable games, free pizza, professional skate boarder Zach Wenrich, former Harlem Globe trotter Seth Franco, great prizes, and an opportunity to hear about Jesus. This event was preceded by three school assemblies. A couple people have asked me how this was possible - it happened because several churches combined their resources! When churches work together, amazing things can happen. The picture here is of the crowd at Jeannette High School. 114 people responded to the invitation to give their lives to Jesus Christ. But it couldn't have happened without a group of churches working together.

Youth Leaders Working Together Works!

2007-03-02T20:43:00.000-08:00

A group of youth leaders in the Alle-Kiski area (New Kensington, Lower Burrell) brought a great band to do an outreach called "Broken Yoke". Broken Yoke played at Cornerstone Ministries for the Ignition school kick off last September. Anyway, it was an awesome concert and another testimony to the fact that God's people can accomplish great things when they work together!

2007-02-24T10:21:00.000-08:00

Last night, we had the kick off for The Seven Project, a special outreach that youth pastors in Greensburg, Irwin, and Jeannette are working on together. Zach Wenrich, a professional skateboarder was at the kick off last night doing some incredible jumps with a couple friends of his. Over 100 students from 10 churches came out to the event to get ready for the Seven Project outreach taking place on April 13th, 2007. At the end of the night, a bunch of kids gave their lives to Christ and many more committed themselves to being part of this outreach. It was incredible. I want to say thanks to Nick Poole, Bo Pratt, and Jason Lamer for making this happen!

2007-02-15T07:46:00.000-08:00

Reading a great book now about the Gospel of Mark. This is a great look at the life of Jesus with a fresh pair of eyes! Mark portrays Jesus as a man of action who causes a ruckus everywhere He goes. I like that. I want to be more like that. Not obnoxious or cruel (Greg House, M.D. anybody?), but more truthful, bold, and willing to enter the fray. There are times to keep quiet and to hold back. But when the time is right to do that which takes courage and which will be good for other people's lives I want to do that. Being timid and cowardly are not godly virtues. Anyway, if you'd like a fresh look at Jesus, check out this book!

this picture speaks for itself

2007-02-12T19:27:00.000-08:00

A picture is worth a thousand words...

for all you fans of the Chronicles of Narnia

2007-02-10T20:45:00.000-08:00

According to one of my favorite websites, www.narniaweb.com, filming of the next Chronicles of Narnia movie, "Prince Caspian", begins Monday, February 12, 2007! The movie is scheduled to release May 2008. If you can't get enough information about this movie, check back to narniaweb.com often. I have heard that this Narnia movie is supposed to be a little darker and more intense. Sounds good to me. "For Narnia! And for Aslan!"

i love this job!

2007-02-10T19:35:00.000-08:00

Today, Pete Malik and I met with a couple who lead a youth group in the area and two of their students who want to start a Bible Club at their high school. We talked them through the basic steps of launching a campus ministry and being campus missionaries to their schools. I love this stuff! Those kids are inspiring to me. They want to see their friends come to know Christ. It is an honor to do this stuff.

what I'm reading right now

2007-02-01T21:10:00.000-08:00

I'm working a number of books at the moment. I'm always reading 5 or more books at once. Anyway, a couple high school guys from church loaned me the new book, "Hood" by Stephen Lawhead. Man, that thing is awesome - I can hardly put it down. It's a great and very imaginative retelling of the Robin Hood story. I can't believe I haven't read this guy's stuff before now.

The story of a man who was born to be a king brings me to the other book I'm working through which is "Way of the Wild Heart" by John Eldredge. I'm actually doing the workbook along with rereading the book. He lays out the masculine journey with powerful, compelling imagery, and really helps you see it modeled in Scripture, especially King David, but also Joseph, Moses, Jesus, and others. And I see it in many of the stories that I love. What he writes about God initiating a man and fathering unfinished men makes so much sense. After reading that, the past 10 years of my life make so much more sense. The trials and difficulties are God initiating me, training me, fathering me. I love this book! I recommend to every guy.

my 33rd birthday

2007-02-01T21:00:00.000-08:00

I have a great wife. She knows that I love "Pirates of the Caribbean" and so my birthday was everything Pirates including the dvd, the soundtrack, the Pirates version of the board game Life, a pirates of the caribbean cake, a pirate sword, and more! We had lunch at Long John Silvers and dinner at Red Lobster. It was a killer birthday! Not too much blood was shed. And the loot was great.

equipping student missionaries

2007-01-29T22:07:00.000-08:00

Ever since my freshmen year of high school I have believed that God calls students to be missionaries to their high schools. I believe He called me to that and I love challenging and equipping students to be missionaries to their schools now. Pete and I have been visiting a number of clubs lately to share resources to help students serve God in their schools - we had a lot of great stuff leftover from our Campus Missionary Conference last August. Lately we've been to Yough, Belle Vernon, Burrell, Hempfield, and we've got more coming up. This is a picture at the Belle Vernon Campus Ministry which we visited today (Monday, Jan. 29th). Our good friend, and youth pastor Matt Swenglish, is the "coach" at this club and he is doing an incredible job of leading these students. Pete and I also had the privilege of speaking to students at the Free Methodist District Winter Youth Retreat a couple weeks ago about being campus missionaries. I love this stuff!

Strategic Gathering

2007-01-21T04:33:00.000-08:00

Youth pastors from our different networks of youth pastors in West- moreland County got together back on January 12th to map out ideas for working together next school year. It was a lot of fun seeing these guys whom I know well get to know each other and talk about issues important to them. These are all top-notch, first rate youth pastors that I am very honored to work with in their communities and in the county. The one big idea that came out of this gathering was the concept of doing a winter retreat together. Pete Malik, my coworker in TFC, and I were pretty excited as we went back to the office after this meeting.

Christmas 2006

2007-01-03T01:35:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah...this is Christmas in North Carolina. Instead of sled riding, we go sailing. Judy and I had a great time with her family on Christmas Eve and the days before. We went to the Christmas Eve service that Judy was singing in (amazing time!) and then we had the traditional Christmas eve "game". On Christmas day Judy and I drove down to my folks in NC for a few days. We had a great time with my parents, Justin and Jessica, Davy, and Tre' (my 1 1/2 year old nephew), including the obligatory sail in the sound. The water was a little rough, but it was too nice out not to go. Then we went with my parents to Indiana for my brother Jake's wedding. We ended our 'Christmas vacation' by stopping by Judy's sisters in Ohio and enjoyed an evening with her and Ty (our nephew) at Dave & Busters.

i love it when a plan comes together

2006-12-07T22:11:00.000-08:00

I had the privilege of speaking at my friend Frank Audia's youth group tonight about students living for Christ at their schools (based on the book of Daniel). It was a lot of fun worshiping with those guys. As a great bonus, another youth pastor friend, Brent Squires, joined me and we tag-teamed the meeting. He gave a great application challenge at the end. I love seeing youth pastors connect with each other! We were really excited about the great worship time those guys had.

We had the Murrysville Youth Network meeting this morning at 9am at Eat N Park in Murrysville (those are so much fun!). They are going to start doing a monthly youth worship night together beginning in January. Then we had the Mon Valley Youth Network meeting at noon at Little Bamboo in Belle Vernon. Tomorrow youth pastors in Penn Trafford and Greensburg are having their monthly network lunches. The Greensburg guys are still talking about bringing "The Seven Project" school assemblies. I'm praying that God will lead that way if it is His will.

article published!

2006-12-01T00:07:00.000-08:00

Something cool happened this week - I got an article published in "The Network Magazine" published by NNYM. It's called "From Competing to Completing" and it's about how churches relate to each other. I have to thank Pete Malik, my partner in TFC, and my wife Judy for encouraging me to send this in. Also, my good friend, Mark Kovscek, from Brownsville, contributed a significant idea which became the whole structure for the writing of the article. So thanks Mark! Anyway, it's at www.youthworkers.net. My hope is that this might help the body of Christ become better connected. Other people, who are way more qualified than me, have written much better stuff on this topic, but I hope this helps. I pray that God will be glorified.

Youth Specialties Convention in Cincinnati

2006-11-30T23:47:00.000-08:00

Judy and I went out to Cincinnati for the Youth Specialties National Youth Workers Convention the weekend before Thanksgiving. I helped the National Network of Youth Ministries guys (which we - TFC - are a local chapter of) with the registration process (they do the orientation for first-timers and introduce them to the Network). These conventions are amazing. Imagine hanging out with 5000 youth leaders for 4 days!! It is fun and God is there. We ran into a lot of friends including Dave & Kelly Grimm from Harvest Assembly in Derry (Dave is our Latrobe/Derry network coordinator), Tom & Shannon Shrum from Armbrust Wesleyan in Greensburg (Tom is our Greensburg Network coordinator), and Roseann Sworts, Jason Freyer, and Abby Rissler from various presbyterian churches in Westmoreland County (Roseann is our Alle-Kiski area network coordinator). Judy and I are pictured on the left with Dave & Kelly Grimm and the picture on the right is of the main stage where the general sessions took place. If you are a youth leaders who has never been to one of these, you've got to do it sometime.