Energizing An Initiative

Want people to get excited about something?

Get some kids and youth involved! 

Yesterday our Student Ministry (for students grades 8-12) baked goodies for a baking fundraiser for our new building project. They came together for 3 hours and baked up a storm, and then today after our church service they gave their goods away by donation. 

People young and old were eating it up (pun intended). They thought it was so cool that our students were involved in this project so they wanted to support it. In fact they raised a couple hundred dollars more what I had projected for us to raise. And this was because our students were excited about what they did and their excitement for the project was contagious.

I'm pretty sure anyone wanted to bring excitement to a campaign, cause or initiative of any kind, if they just found a few young and energetic people who were passionate about the cause and then brought them on board they would have far greater success than they originally projected.

So think about it, how do you incorporate young people in what you do?

5 ways to succeed as a Christian

Two weeks ago I posted about 5 ways to fail as a Christian Leader , it was a slightly sarcastic post that pointed out some things I think a lot of Christian leaders do.  Today I wanted to post about ways anyone as a Christian (leaders are lumped in there too) can succeed in their walk with Christ.

1. Read your Bible
Boom! I thought I'd kick this one off as a really hard challenge. No seriously, it's hard. If you are honest right now, how often do you READ the Bible. Not skim it, not read it with your mind somewhere else. How often do you dig in and lose yourself in the text? My guess is for some of us it happens on occasion and others basically never.

If you are honest you will admit, that you don't read your Bible enough. But the challenge is hidden within it's pages (Joshua 1:8)- That's right I'm going to make you look it up.

2. Pray
Seriously, this stuff isn't rocket science. Prayer is a MUST when it comes to having a relationship with God. A phrase I have begun to use with my students is, are you a friend of God or a stalker? Sounds weird but lets look at the difference. A friend is someone who knows things about someone but also has a relationship and a big portion of having a relationship is communicating. A stalker is someone who follows someone knows lots about them, but doesn't communicate with them. Which one are you. Jesus even shows us how to pray. (Matthew 6:9-13)

3. Memorize Scripture
There is no test, no one is going to force you to recite scripture off the top of your head - unless you are in Bible school or some type of competition. But when talking to people or going through something in our own lives, we may not have the opportunity to whip out a Bible. By having God's words in us, we give ourselves a leg up.

4. Fellowship
Fellowship is a funny word that we throw around in churches and Christian Sub-culture a lot. But what we are really talking about is having friendships/relationships with other Christians and interacting with them. We often have fellowship after church- which for a lot of people means drinking coffee and talking about sports. But I would challenge you, take the time to talk to others about their faith after Church.  Proverbs 27:17  says "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another" It isn't talking about quick wit here. It is saying that we can sharpen each other in our relationship with Christ.

5. Tithe
This one is the one that always hurts. We like to ignore it in church, but the fact of the matter is it's something we are called to do. God wants some of what He gifts to us back! The amazing thing is that if you do this, He will also bless you. (Malachi 3:10) This doesn't necessarily mean suddenly you will be rolling in your swimming pool full of cash, but you will see a lot of blessings.
Amy and I have seen this in our lives, we can be on and off again with tithing, but every time we go back to tithing God provides something we need. Recently, I was blessed with a change in a local paramedic regulation which allowed me to retain my license without having to spend another $200 to go back to school to redo my test.

 I know people might look at this list and brush it aside because it seems to be redundant with what we always hear. There is nothing new and profound here. But I bet everyone who reads this; and even I as I wrote this; needs to work on at least one or more of these things.

So take up the challenge because our success as a Christian is not to do with being nice people, its everything to do with following and bringing glory to God.

-Kyle

Camp Visit

Get up at 6 am, follow with a 30 minutes in a car, 1 hr on a ferry, 20 minutes in a second ferry and suddenly I am at a local camp Keats Camp. Its a camp I have never attended or worked at, so I find myself pondering, why am I really doing this.

2 Reasons: 1) Giving my intern an experience that she will really appreciate as she was a camper and worker at this camp in the past and she may enjoy going out.

2) This one is the most important thing- I headed to camp to visit some of the students from my youth group. 2 of my students were working and 4 younger ones were campers.

Visiting camp for a day is an interesting thing if you aren't connected. You really want it to succeed to show your students you care, but at the same time you realize it may be a huge failure.

My day a combination of both success and failure.

It was a success because one of my students working was super pumped on my being there, I got to hang out with her and go dock jumping with a big group of people, and got to hang out at dinner time.

My second student working was also a success, while I equally wanted to see this student I wasn't able to spend as much time, but got some quality time at dock jumping with her.

So there are my two success' so the failures must have been with the campers.
- This was a failure not because I didn't hang out with them, but because I got totally rejected by them. They were nervous their youth pastor would humiliate them. They waved at me from a distance but they totally treated me as an outsider. It hurt! But I will get past it.

Failure #2 was the camps- They invited myself and two other youth pastors out to visit, we all were their the same day. The failure wasn't the inviting it was the fact they asked one of the youth pastors to get involved and get on stage and be a big presence (he is from the camp and has a huge ministry)
The second youth pastor and I were left to hang out in the background, simply because we weren't as connected. This was a reminder for me, that if I ever invite outsiders to something that you need to be aware of them and make them feel welcome once they are there.

This also got me thinking about what is it like for an "outsider to visit" are my students different with outside friends around or are they themselves, do they make their friends feel welcome. Do I give equal attention to all new students? - I hope so and I will definitely work on it for the future.