I love stuff like this..

Bobby Gruenewald over at Lifechurch.tv had this to say and it is just what i was thinking...

I would never use Google if it required me to leave my house and travel to an unfamiliar building on Sunday only once a week…listen to 30 minutes of unrecognizable music, followed by a person talking for 30-40 minutes, and still possibly have to try to find a person who looked “official” just to find “results” for my search. That would be absurd! But, that is a substantially abbreviated version of what so many churches put people through who are searching.

Great Information

Read this from Kurt Johnston's blog this afternoon and really learned a great deal about handling difficult situations. Hopefully, you will as well.

Handling Conflictfrom Simply Kurt by Kurt JohnstonI've mentioned our new monthly outreach event that took place last Friday night called "The 3". It was an amazing event that turned out almost exactly how our team envisioned it would. However, while parents were picking up their kids, a very upset mom grabbed one of our volunteers and frustratingly blurted something along the lines of, "I thought this was a church event! Why was there freak dancing? My daughter won't be coming back!" By the time the volunteer leader found one of our paid team, the mom was long gone.

But she wasn't gone for long. The following morning she shot an email off to Pastor Rick who forwarded it to me. I share the following email exchange in the hopes that it will encourage you as you deal with conflict in your ministry setting. while I've certainly learned that not everybody response the way we hope they will, this exchange was a powerful reminder of the importance of quickly dealing with concerned parents.

SHE WROTE:
Pastor Rick,
Why are our youth leaders allowing "freak dancing" at the youth activities??? My daughter was at the Refinery last night and came home with this disappointing news. She won't be going back.

I WROTE:
Dear Mrs. O’Brian,
My name is Kurt Johnston and I’m the junior high Pastor here at Saddleback. I wanted to shoot you a quick note thanking you for expressing your concern over the dancing at last night’s junior high event. You would be surprised at how few parents are willing to let us know when they have a concern. I’m the parent of two young teens myself and, like you, I expect church events to be an appropriate place for them to attend.

It’s important that you hear from me personally that our ministry in no way “allowed” freak dancing to be part of last night’s activities. There were leaders in the room and whenever we saw anything that bordered on inappropriate, we addressed it right away (in fact the dancing was a very minimal part of the night…maybe 50 kids participated). Obviously with over 700 students at an outreach event, many of whom have never stepped foot in a church before, there will be some students who push the envelope and who don’t have the same boundaries as our “church” kids do.

In fact, that’s why last night’s event was created; as a monthly front door experience for un-churched kids. If, out of 700 students, there were zero instances of cursing or rebelling or even freak dancing, then I would be a bit saddened because it would mean that we did an outreach event and nobody showed up who needed to be reached. Our student ministry department is committed to helping junior highers grow in their faith and in their walk with Christ, and we are also committed to reaching out to students who have yet to experience God’s amazing grace. In an interesting twist, I asked two first-timers last night if they had fun, and their response was a strong “NO!” When I asked them why they said because we played music that was too clean and didn’t let them dance the way they wanted.

Last night was an amazing night. We had food, a skate park, smores at the fire pits, a scavenger hunt, giant earthball games, outdoor volleyball, and classic tv shows in the theater. Yes, we had a few students who danced inappropriately at times, but our staff worked hard to keep that to a minimum. I understand your decision to not allow your daughter to return to “The 3” next month, but I also ask you to pray for our junior high ministry as we continue our efforts to expose lost kids to the good news of Jesus Christ.

Please feel free to call me should you have additional questions or concerns about our junior high ministry.

God Bless,
Kurt Johnston
Pastor To Students

SHE WROTE:
Hi Kurt,
Thanks so much for your reply. I appreciate the time you took and the information you gave. I feel a lot better about our church and youth group now that I have read it. My daughter brought three girlfriends last night to "The 3" and we brought the same girls tonight to the 6:30 service. Hopefully they will continue to attend, hear the power of God's Word and have changed lives!
Thank you for your commitment to the youth and thanks again for your response. I will definitely be lifting you, your team, and the jr high ministry in prayer.
In Him,

I WROTE:
WOW....3 friends to church last night, awesome! Hopefully 'The 3' will continue to open doors like that. Please tell your daughter that wildside is proud of her...that is exactly what we hoped students would do. Good for her!
kj

Yesterday @ 12Stone

great service at 12stone yesterday morning. here's the video that we did to cap off our "awakening," service.


Awake O'Sleeper from Brandon McCormick on Vimeo.

Saturday Night Question

I'm going to begin posing a question each Saturday night in order to see if you guys can help me come up with some answers.

Tonight's question is this:

How do you know when you're being selfish?

I should have thought of that

Introducing a regular-looking pizza box with a special touch. The difference is that the box can come apart once it's delivered by your local pie dealer. While it starts out the size of a standard pizza box, customers can break the platter-size square into four plate-size sections using scoring and perforations.

And of course...we all know who really invented it, Al Gore. (not really but it seems like another idea he could take credit for.)

new sunday morning series for middle school

much thanks to Ryer for the bumper/promo video for the new Sunday morning Encounter series that we are doing in middle school. 6 weeks. all about jesus.

I um...I just..What is...Just Watch: Part 2

oh yeah. this is happening.

theosthetics

Ray Boltz...You've got to be kidding me!!!

I'll admit it. I have been to a Ray Boltz concert. I even raised my fist high in the air when he sang my favorite hit, "the anchor holds." Years later, when I should have known better, I was moved to tears when a Honduran pastor that I was serving with on a mission trip decided to sing our group the song, "thank you," our last night in the country.

But all this to say, I thought that I would never blog about or read blogs about Ray Boltz again...at least apart from the "stuff christians like," satirical site.

But today I hear about this. Ray Boltz has come out of the closet to announce his personal life to the world. I am blown away. Shocked. Really.

You can read about the story in Christianity Today

I um...I just...What is...Just Watch...

words are not there...but all this to say, we must continue to evolve. or i'm out.



my favorite part is at 1:55

+ or -

On Recruiting

Best thing I learned yesterday...

Vision Based Recruiting is the opportunity to participate in something bigger than he/she could accomplish on his/her own.

It is:

1.) Redemptive- because it values people.
2.) Strategic- because it advances the kingdom.
3.) Empowering- because it sets people free.

-Dan Reiland- Full Circle Leadership

why i believe in you...

baptizing some middle schoolers this morning as part of our church's open baptism/restoration sunday. read this quote this morning and remembered why i love working with middle school students.

"Is it not too extravagant to say that out of an individual believer rivers are going to flow? "I do not see the rivers," you say. Never look at yourself from the standpoint of - Who am I? In the history of God's work you will nearly always find that it has started from the obscure, the unknown, the ignored, but the steadfastly true to Jesus Christ." - Oswald Chambers

really?

ladies and gentlemen. i implore you. when will the insanity end?


Guitar Praise songlist includes:

Darrell Evans- So Good To Me
Paul Baloche- Rock of Ages
Paul Baloche- All The Earth Will Sing Your Praises
Petra- Backsliding Blues

Things that have happened since Friday morning...

1.) hung out all weekend with my parents
2.) got to go to the Decatur book festival. (yes...it's as good as it sounds)
3.) apologized.
4.) took my mom to church at 12stone for the first time
5.) watched college football. (oh yeah!!!)