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Facebook and social media in general are where students spend a majority of their time. In fact, here is an infographic via Online Schools that should tell you a bit about where our teens spend a lot of their time:

Courtesy of: Online Schools

So with technology and specifically, social media, being something that preteens are interested in, what stance should we take?

Continue Reading…

As a pastor to preteens, I often see parents worried and anxious about having certain conversations with their child. It’s so important to make the most of these moments. These are conversations that every parent needs to have and every child wants to have with their parents. No matter how much these kids whine, complain, and try to run (in some cases) you must push thru to have those conversations.

So here are 3 talks that you should be thinking about having with your children very, very soon. Continue Reading…

I was given an opportunity to talk about Preteen Ministry this year at the Orange Conference. I was so thankful to connect with over 300 leaders who desired to talk about the challenges and opportunities that this age group presents. If you were at my session please give me a comment below so I can say hi and thank you!!

My breakout was really sort of an overview of why the conversation needs to be bigger than just Children’s Ministry or bigger than just Youth ministry. How can you look at the students and the context that God has placed you in at your church and make the most of this unique age group.

Here are some things that might help you out:

Continue Reading…

Just for a moment, think and answer these two questions:

Which it more polarizing Jesus or the Church?

Why?

I wonder if we live our lives in a way that brings glory to Christ or more to our church. I wonder if church staff talked more about how to live their lives as Christ called us to rather than church strategy how would our ministries look to our students and families? What if we allowed our preteens to ask more questions that hear what we have to say, yet still leading them toward Jesus?

I would hope that the church becomes less and less so that He becomes more and more. Then our churches might be less in the limelight and instead Jesus would be.

I have a long way to go…

[image via FR Antunes

I had an opportunity to visit my sister in law’s church. I got to witness 23 young people, college students, get baptized and I heard their stories via video on why they are getting baptized and what Jesus has done in their life. A startling number of them started with this statement:

“I grew up in church”

They were disconnected from the gospel of Jesus and they grew up in church. Not only that but around the same number shared that they had never heard the gospel before… I was shocked. Literally shocked. So many thoughts racing through my head

Where did they grow up?

What kind of church did they attend?

What kind of gospel was shared if Jesus wasn’t?

How in the world could someone not have taught them the gospel?

What did their parents model to them?

What about my students?

Do my students know the gospel?

I’ve had a great opportunity to think on my life over the past few weeks. What exactly are we doing with our students? Do our students know the gospel? Do they know of the cost to commit their life to Christ? Are they having it modeled somewhere in front of them?

I’m sure that some of these students used the church as a scapegoat for their sin and lack of response to the gospel… However, that many of them…

It was a shot in the arm for what we are doing with our Preteen Ministry at Brookwood. A challenge for my tweens not to be able to say we never heard the gospel. A challenge for me not only to speak the gospel but find men and women who live it everyday. To present an environment where students can ask questions and be heard and yet also find answers from God’s word and the lives of those living it. A challenge to invest in students and create disciples more than the challenge to create “just cool” environments.

I pray that in the next year we would take it upon ourselves as the Church of the Living, Resurrected God to live out the Gospel and present it fiercely to our students. Don’t allow students to be robbed of the opportunity to respond to the single most important call in the world. The call to follow after Christ in response to His sacrificial death.

Let’s make Easter last more than a weekend. Let’s make it the number one thing in our lives.

[image via Cristiano Betta]

This week was Spring Break in our area. I love Spring Break. I got to go fishing with some middle schoolers, have some intentional conversation with students, and we had some time to play Ultimate Frisbee yesterday with some students. There is nothing like Spring Break for me, because of these reasons.

Weeks like this are really refreshing for me.

In the midst of planning, creating, dreaming, and writing, there is nothing like investing in students

My role as a follower of Christ is to make disciples. Spring Break offers and opportunity to spend a lot more of my time with students rather than with the process. Don’t get me wrong, the process isn’t evil or bad, in fact the process helps us to spread the gospel and the love of Christ. But I would exchange the process for discipling students every day of the week.

So for you, take some time and think through the conversations that you are having with students. Think through the time that you are spending with them. In what ways are you making disciples of your students apart from the process.

This week, Invest in your students.

[image via visualpanic]