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So I confess, I stole this idea from Johnathan Cliff. He is writing a series called Dear Parents, where he writes a letter to parents urging them to pay attention to specific areas in their child’s spiritual life.

So I am going to do the same thing this week. I just want to write some things that you need to know about Student Ministry.

First I want you to tell you that 72%-75% of our students at Brookwood Church come from a difficult home situation. We want to do everything in our power to teach our kids that there is a family here that loves them and cares for them.

This Sunday the 30th of January we will be having our first C-Group leader meeting. We have been praying and working and brainstorming and creating to help dramatically reduce that crazy 75% number. We need couples, yes couples, to show our students what a healthy God-loving, God-fearing, life-living, Christian marriage looks like. To show them that it is possible to live a life of faith for the long haul not just in high school and to love those students like they were their own children.

We fully believe this verse in Titus 2:3-5:

3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

Our young people need mentors. It’s why Brookwood supports programs like Kids Hope USA and takes very seriously the people that we put into our young people’s lives to guide them in the way they should live.

If I could tell you one thing it’s that our kids need to see what Godliness is in the example of a human being. It’s why I will never be shy in recruiting someone for student ministry. I fully believe that what we are doing is pointing people to the cross of Jesus and saying students, this is the gospel. These students need adults that are living in an authentic way to love on them and pray for them and bring them into their family.

It’s not a small task. It’s difficult. It’s why we are praying consistently for God to give us people sold out to providing a family for students in their C-Groups for those that don’t have one.

We have a great work ahead of us. Programming, Events, or any amount of money will not fix it. Only the love from the people of God mentoring young students will.

Will you pray for our students consistently?

cash-stack-piles-hundreds-bills, originally uploaded by welendcashhouston.

Ok so today I thought we would play a fun little game. I’ve got some questions about money. We all say we want more of it. But would you know what to do with it if you got it?

So today answer these questions. By the end of this week, Friday at 5:30pm EST, I will give away a $20 Starbucks Card to the person with the most creative/inspiring comment.

If you were given $20 for your student ministry, what would you spend it on?

If you were given $100 for your student ministry, what would you spend it on?

If you were given $1000 for your student ministry, what would you spend it on?

If you had all the money in the world, what would you do for your student ministry?

Must answer all four and really make the most of it.

The Choices

You know I love pointing people to things that might work for them. This is no different. Most student ministries by now have found some sort of presentation software for their venues. A few of the options that they might be using:

• MediaShout (church oriented)
• ProPresenter4 (church oriented)
• PowerPoint (all purpose office use)

All these programs accomplish the goal. PowerPoint in my experience hasn’t been powerful enough for worship settings but for speakers and presenters it’s great entry level, if you know how to use PowerPoint . So for most worship environments PP4 and MS work wonders. But there are some things that both programs just don’t have.

The Problems

I know that MS and PP4 are both designed for those that have the responsibility of being behind the screen, keeping up with the pastor. There are some necessary things about the layout. It’s geared towards linear styles of worship. One slide to the next. Built for one specific machine to specialize. Also for those of you with multiple worship venues are always traveling to different machines, exporting, downloading, importing to each of your areas of responsibility.

• Elementary & Preschool
• Middle School & High School
• Preteen and your other responsibilities
• Multiple campuses

And what about your teaching notes. Most of these softwares are designed to allow the techs to push a note to the pastor. The note update in PP4 was a welcome addition but is designed more for those behind the screens to let the pastor know that they need to stop talking

A Solution?

That’s why I am excited when I saw Proclaim. I am pumped about the software because I feel as if it’s being designed with the Pastor in mind, rather than the worship producer. It might not be exactly what you need but I hope the others are watching what they are doing.

Some of the features that they claim to pour into their build:

• Web Based Presentations
• Mac and PC
• Notes Integration w/ Slides Overview (THANK YOU)

Tough market to get into. I know a ton of faithful on both sides. I really love ProPresenter but am so excited about the notes and slide integration and being able to build a presentation on the web and then download onto a machine.

Should be fun to see anyway. Click here and watch the video, then enter your email for  a free trial version when it releases.

What is missing in your presentation software?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWtDpGM36J8

Feel free to use this video as an illustration on distraction or focus. Try not to spit anything on your computer screen while watching, haha.

worship, originally uploaded by kterwilliger.

Student Ministry is full of attraction based models for church growth. It’s something that a ton of student ministry people are searching for:

That new hot topic.
New way of communicating that we’re awesome
New technologically savvy cool thing.

But I think there is something that might just be better in the long run for your student ministry in 2011.

Be the Church….Better

Do that and I think you’ll see some things that you never thought possible.

Pray-better
Worship-better
Give-better
Serve-better
Love-better
Live-better

What could happen in your student ministry this year, if you could Be the Church-better?

Sam had a great post yesterday about how they were using XP3 for their 5th and 6th graders. He’s an incredible Children’s Pastor and I’ve learned a ton from him. Think really hard about his last three points.

I think that I echo Sam when I say that we need to be “programming” more towards the next stage than adapting from the previous.

I love Orange and their philosophy of ministry and am really excited to help in a lot that they do. This however, is not a crafted statement from Orange. This is me letting you know that people are using XP3 for Preteen Ministry and it’s working well.

Kudos to Sam and his team for all they do and thumbs up for tweaking for the Preteeners out there!!

I am seeing a disturbing trend in Family Ministry/Children’s Ministry. It’s that if you minister to families, you neglect the kids, and if you minister to kids then you neglect the parents. I think in Preteen Ministry it’s something that I’ve gotten a chance to experience firsthand because of the children’s-students gap.

Both are incredibly necessary.

You will always battle with your vision and focus for ministry.

It is something that you must continually watch over with your people, your time and your efforts. Besides your connection with God in a personal level, the vision for your ministry is the most important part of your ministry role. It’s something that takes time, hard work, and pleading with God to get right.

As things continue to grow and change with technology and curriculum and personalities, you will continue to battle with your vision.

Always know that God’s call on your life and your ministry is always to remain numero uno.

This is non-negotiable. If God has called you to minister to parents to the best of your ability then do it and be awesome. If God has called you to teach preteens how to be missionaries in their world, then do it and be awesome.

Don’t ever sacrifice God’s call on your ministry for the latest fad or the oldest tradition.

God’s call should now be the primary influencer in your life. New things will come and old things will become new, but God’s call should remain your anchor.

Harnessing the power of “And” in Preteen Ministry

I think it’s a tough thing to get right, but I think if you can pull it off then roll with it. There are so many things pulling us in opposite directions:

• Programs vs Connections
• Home vs Church Activities
• Attractional vs Missional
• Evangelism vs Discipleship
• Message Development vs People Development

But what if you could exercise the power of And a little bit more. What if you could minister to both parents and children in an effective manner? What if you could pull off and incredible Evangelism and Discipleship program at the same time? What if you could attract new families and then be able to develop them and send them back into the community as an effective minister and missionary for Christ?

So Preteen Leaders, you already know this but you aren’t a students leader or a children’s leader…. YOU’RE BOTH!

I challenge you today to really ask God for your focus and call to the context of where you are ministering. After you get that, find a way to exercise some balance in the areas that you feel so passionate about.

Children’s Leaders you can minister to Parents and effectively minister to the kids you serve.

Student Leaders you can attract a ton of students and disciple them effectively.

Family Pastors you can gameplan for families and develop programs that effectively reach kids and students.

Work some AND into your ministry in the coming weeks.

Wendy Douglas was the only one to enter. Pretty great chance of winning that way! She’s going to get a killer album that will work wonders in any preteen ministry environment. So Wendy if you could shoot me an email and I will send it that way! Can’t wait for you to get it in your hands!!!

Congratulations!