YLS 07 — Session 3 -Jeff Kossack

Caffeinated Youth Ministry

Does our youth ministry have a Kick? Does it have a lasting affect? Or do we look the part and don’t make a difference?

Are we making life long Christ Followers?

Matt 5:13-16

If we are going to be an emerging church we need to get out of the walls and engage the church.

We can’t be counter-culture, we need to be driving culture.

Evangelism should happen outside the church instead of just inside the sanctuary. We have created a generation of Ambulance driving christians.

We need to become personally involved in Evangelism.

Dangerous Truths about Decaf Youth Ministry

1. What’s the Point? Would I have started drinking coffee if it weren’t for the caffeine. If it wasn’t for the difference it made would we have ever started.

If we are just providing weekly Childcare, why do it?

God called us to be finishers (Acts 20:24)

The only way we are going to finish the race is if we understand the life that God has called us to.

You will face adversity, it is the steadfastness in God that will see us through.

2. You have to wait and see if there are any results.

Fruit takes time.

You can’t tell what’s inside an orange until you squeeze it. When we get squeezed the real us comes out. That’s how we find out what we are really made of.

How do we react with adversity?

We need to:

  • Stay Fresh daily
    • we should be willing to throw out the old stuff
    • We should be more creative
    • The world can tell if we are staying fresh
  • Use a good Filter
    • Keeps the grounds from getting your coffee nasty.
    • Youth Leaders are the filter
    • Titus 1:15-16
    • Phillippians 4:8
    • 1 Corinthians 11:1
    • We need to set an example on following Christ, not just doing stuff, we need to show them how to be with God.
  • Keep it Hot
    • Rev 3:15-16
    • A useless christian/youth ministry makes God sick.
    • The biggest key is Longevity – this is the only way we are going to see lasting fruit
  • We need to Live like it’s an addiction
    • One of the problems is that we have become event driven- Spiritual high to spiiritual high. We send students into the stratosphere and then they crash hard becuase that high is not something they are accustomed to.
    • I notice my caffeine intake when I don’t have it. Is this the same way we live with the presence of God in our lives? In our student’s lives? They need to learn how to experience the presence of God.

YLS 07 — Session 2 – Nate Ruch

The Voice

We all go through a process of drift from experience to today.

If you add 40 percent more weight to your skeleton it will begin to bow under the weight. The same thing happens with our life. We are only supposed to handle a certain amount of weight.

The weight that we bear can keep us from hearing from God. It’s not sin, it’s not rebellion, it’s life.

If I’m where I need to be right now, but I want to be somewhere else, what signal is God going to be able to give me?

How did I get here?

We start to question and it has nothing to do with how God got us into this ministry.

We have a fixation on the location!

are we called to the location or are we called to the voice?

Were we called to a role or were we called to Him?

The figures that did great stuff for God were not called to a title, they were more responsible to follow God to where he lead them to be.

We hold up our call until some one else picks us. We feel like we can’t feel the call of God until we do a certain thing. But really we are fulfilling the voice of God with where we are right now.

We lose the sense of the voice of God because we are waiting for the destination that we think will fulfill the call on our lives.

If we don’t watch it we can become hooked on the title or labels, then they can define us, but we need to realized that we are not just whatever label we wear, we are children of God and he moves us and places us where he wants us.

The mission he’s called us to is his voice. We won’t worry if we are disappointing him if we are confident in the fact that he’s placed us where he wants us.

At the Core there has to be a sense that I am hearing God’s voice. It doesn’t matter what we are doing as long as we are hearing the voice of God.

1 Kings 19 (Elijah)

Elijah hit the wall and felt like God had left him.  But when he vented and heard God’s voice, then he could go back and do the work that God called him to do.

We have to be striving to hear God’s voice.

YLS-07 — Session 1 – Les Welk

Les is the Northwest Ministry Network SuperIntendent (He’s also a Ninja!)

The one thing that God has in mind for us is His Mission to redeem the world.

God made us to be reflections of his goodness.

Joshua 1

The passing of a generation – Nothing causes a leader to rise like the passing of the predecessor.

The mantle to reach a generation is falling on us as young leaders.

Joshua is no longer an emerging leader, he has the man now.

Handing over leadership is difficult. Like letting your teenagers drive. It’s nervous, hopeful but nervous.

(God lays out the vision for His people.)

There were people in Joshua’s way, the Hittites for example.

Who is in our way? Who is it that is keeping us from possessing God’s country? The earth is the Lord’s and all that dwells therein.

Sometimes what keeps us from possessing the land is our disbelief that everything is God’s.

“No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life.”

That’s a promise to hold to.

THE ONE POINT: “As I was with Moses so I will be with you, I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

As I was with your predecessors so I will be with you.

take inventory of what God has done to see what God is going to do.

Where have I been? Where has God moved in my life? I need to remember those things.

Example: The Rocks at the Jordan, served as a reminder of God parting the river.

God uses plain stuff. Wherever we are in our leadership he can use us. We don’t have to be fancied up, we don’t have to be perfect, he can use us just as we are.

It’s easier for les to hand over the keys when he looks back and sees all that God has done.

Man Les always brings it!

Winter Wonderland Adventure

So we are heading out today to youth leaders summit.  I’m going to try to blog while we are there but no guarantees.  I am really looking forward to this gathering.  I’m hoping that this will be a really time of refreshing, encouraging and equipping.  Last year I was introduced to Earl Creps, and he continues to rock my world.  So this year I am hoping to get rocked again.

It snowed all over the state yesterday so it’s going to be interesting.  I don’t remember ever having snow in March.  This is very weird.

Well I gotta go clean out our car.  Peace.

Snowing . . . Again, February 28th — Huh?

So here we are a day before March, when the Seattle area is generally raining and warming up. But here we are yet again with snow. I can’t figure out what’s going on this year with weather. It’s crazy, and it always seems to be snowing on Wednesdays which has messed up Transit more than once.

img_2137.JPG

Slowing down the pace of youth ministry

Really youth ministry happens through relationships.  Tonight I was privledge to hang out with one of our guys, Jordan, who rocks.  We played some Wii and we talked about our cell groups.  I thought it was good, and I need to do more of this kind of ministry, slowed down, relationship oriented type things.

I think it would be interesting to see what percentage of effective youth ministry is done scaled back.  The show and production is great, but that isn’t really how you connect people to Jesus in a lasting way.

Excited for Youth Leaders Summit

So this week is our Regional Leaders Summit. I love this event, in the past we brought a team and it worked really well, but this year we are just going Kathy, Judah, Myself and Emily Millard, who got the time off work. So it’s a smaller group but it’s going to be dope!

Josh from Simply Youth Ministry linked to this video so I thought I would share it with you as well. Tis Funny!

When it rains it pours

I’m feeling rather reflective today.  I have been really wrestling with the state of our student ministry.  We meet in cell groups 3 out of 4 weeks and it’s happening but it’s not really working the way I want it to. I received an email from one of our students and I also talked with a parent this morning about what’s going on.  And we have some wins here and there, but we are struggling with our corporate gathering times, and we have been even before we switched to cell groups.

I want what we are doing to be something that blows the doors off of hell and rescues lost people. I want to equip students to experience life change, and lead others in life change in Christ.  And I want to be surprised by what God can do through us.  So I’m very quiet today, and reflective and I keep reading stuff that challenges and encourages me and I just have to post at least one more thing, from Seth Godin

If you want the word to spread, if you expect me to take action I’ve never taken before, it seems to me that you need to do something that hasn’t been done before. It might not feel safe, but if you do the safe thing, I guarantee you won’t surprise anyone. And if you don’t surprise anyone, the word isn’t going to spread.

I had a little silent motto that I used when I was dreaming of how I would be doing youth ministry, “Do something that would surprise God.”  Now I know that’s impossible, but it challenged me.  The thought behind it was people expect a certain level of acheivement from others, and I wanted to surpass all of their expectations and start encroaching in God’s expectations and live in such a way that He would always be giving me new dreams and bigger goals and visions.  Somewhere I think I lost that, I’m too busy, I’m too tired, I’m comfortable.

Sound Familiar?

Well I’m tired of that, so if you are praying for me, and I beg and covet your prayers, pray for that.  I’m not ready to give up on Cell Groups, I really think they can blow the doors down, but I need God to do something, I need some fresh inspiration to flow through our ministry, our leaders, our students, to see that we don’t have to do things the way we’ve always done them.  That’s part of the reason that we moved to Cell Groups.  We don’t have to be what people expect us to be.

I love Jesus for many reasons but one of the main reasons is he took losers and equipped them to turn the world upside down.  And when I look at my own life, I could be a prime candidate for that kind of discipleship from Jesus.  Use me, Use Us!

I’m Rambling now, but what do you expect from the title of this blog?

Church Innovation

Here’s a great post about innovation in churches Church Marketing Sucks.

Innovative Churches: Does Size Matter?

By Brad Abare on Philosophy

Part 9 in a series on Innovative Churches. Be sure to contribute to the Most Innovative Churches list.

Does size matter? What about smaller churches and those with limited financial resources? Or, is innovation more difficult for larger, more established churches?

Innovation is difficult for every church because it is not natural for groups to be innovative. By nature we’re drawn to the lowest common denominator of a group, so innovation can sometimes be squelched for the sake of unity. History is riddled with individuals who are known for innovation. It’s been only recently that companies have started to provide outlets for innovation, realizing that some people need to be alone and others want to be in groups. Either way, innovation is always a challenge because it takes time, commitment, resources and failure.

Yep, failure is typically a huge part of the innovation process. And what churches are OK with failing? I am encouraged by the increasing amount of church cultures that do foster innovation, but the size of these churches has run the gamut.