Fallen off the wagon

This article was originally a guest post I made for my favorite blog to read morethandodgeball you can click here for the link.

Please take a look at it where it is originally posted HERE:

This week I realized I have done something no Christian wants to admit, I fell off the personal devotional wagon. Now I am not saying I haven't been involved with scripture, quite the opposite actually. I have done something I believe lots of other christian leaders do, started reading our ministry into everything.

Now I will be the first to admit, that a HUGE part of ones job when they teach is to spend time in the Word solely for the purpose of teaching, but sometimes we forget that we need to spend time in the Word for ourselves. We need to be in there digging and learning for our own walk with God.

That's what has happened to me, so how am I going to fix it? I have decided to spend some time in my journal, I will also listen to some worship music. I am going to turn off my phone, my laptop and my tv. I am going to go into solitude. I am going to sit and be still (something I don't do well) and I am going to read my Bible for what God wants to teach with.

Now one thing I have started to do is have a Bible I just use to read for myself out of. This might seem crazy and perhaps even expensive because I already have so many Bibles, but I find if I don't keep things separate I don't shut off easily. So I will use that Bible, not my iPhone, study Bible or teaching Bible for my reading.

I don't know about everyone, but one thing I know is if I do this there are a lot of others out there who fall off the wagon. So how do you stay on the wagon? What are you doing to keep up with your PERSONAL devotional time?

Tweet Savvy or Tweet Dumb

I just got on twitter a couple days ago. I know I seem slow to be getting on it, but there is a reason. Not very many people I know were using it. Now tons of people are.

I am still getting the hang of it and feel a little behind when it comes to figuring everything out.

The really cool thing I have found is that, I am connecting with people I otherwise wouldn't get to have regular communication with. I am talking to people who inspire me who live miles away. I am talking to youth, who otherwise I wouldn't  get a chance to talk to on a regular basis.

This is sweet, but its got me thinking. How do I communicate? Am I doing a good job? Am I behind the times? Am I ahead of people? Am I sending the right message?

Right now, I am setting up a retreat for the end of May, where we are going to a sweet camp to have a fun time and to talk about Sex and Relationship. That's pretty much how I sent it out too. But the problem is that some of my fringe students aren't interested because of the word Relationships.

Okay, so maybe this wasn't my most brilliant marketing strategy but I tried. I know in the past words like Sex getting used in a church context has got teens excited and I hoped it would win the day...but it didn't

I am now having to go to students individually to tell them that it is not just about talking about relationships and we are going to have a fun time.

So I have made my mistake. Okay, I have made yet another mistake. I hope that others can take a silly example like this one, and use it to figure out. When I want to talk to someone about something or invite them to something, how can I paint the right picture while still being authentic?