Vision is boss

Vision is boss. This is such a pain. This means that my ego, agenda, and best efforts will never influence the hearts of people. I cannot coerce people into just doing what I say because I have the authority to do so. Because vision is boss I have to cast a compelling vision. Crap!

Hopefully you read the previous paragraph with a sarcastic tone. I got the chance today to hear someone outside of the church “recruit” for something they wanted people to do. There was no vision, only direction, so in turn there was no interest. Only God can move the heart of people and only people’s heart will motivate them to act. It is actually easier to cast compelling vision than to recruit for what we want people to do. As I have heard, “If the dream is big enough, the facts don’t count.”

So what is the dream at MLC? I want students who hate to find love. I want students who hurt to find healing. I want parents who have no hope to find hope they pass on to their children. I have a dream that students of Forsyth County will meet Jesus and be forever changed as a result of that encounter.

Vision is BOSS as long as God gives the vision.

Growth

We have spent the last several months in our ministry making our environments ready for disconnected students. We needed to align some things and change some things and have environments that are more engaging to disconnected students. Now the challenge comes of growth. We need to get out and build relationships with disconnected kids and draw them into relationships becasue we care about them. We need to be authentic and caring and live a life that makes people want to know Jesus becasue that is the the thing we need most for ourselves. To be and live like Jesus is the greatest path and aim in life. Growth in numbers is not the goal, but rather growth as people.

Truth

Truth is constant. It is true whether we believe it or not. It also should influence the way we live and behave. Truth is the greatest pursuit and the most frustrating adventure we can live. It is inconvenient and most often avoided at most turns in life. But at the end of the day, truth is truth.

This is interesting in light of the statement that Jesus makes when he says he is the truth. If Jesus is the truth than wouldn’t all pursuits to that end lead to Jesus. I believe the answer is yes and this is where we must lead people, particularly students. I believe our mission should be one to expose truth so that students might find Jesus. They are so hungry for something real that the only way to lead them to Jesus is on a quest for truth.

Activity does not produce results

As I am sorting through the different activities of the student ministry I am amazed at the sheer number of activities that need to get done on a weekly basis. But juggling activities does not produce results. I am as busy as I have ever been, but some of the results that I have enjoyed in the past have not been produced. Granted most of my activity has been structural and foundational in nature, building systems and such to create opportunities for growth, but it is not the activity that produces results.

The areas that I have seen results and growth are ones that have received focused attention rather than diluted effort. I believe that for me to achieve maximum results I need to focus on the things I was built to do, and enable others to use their gifts and achieve results in their areas. We have great volunteers that are built by God to do some great things and I love that we have so many who want to be a part. If you are serving and want to be more involved, please let me know. I have plenty of things we can work on to achieve what God wants us to be.

Decrease

I have this idea of decreasing floating around in my head. The thought that I must decrease so that Christ might increase is one that is difficult for me to handle. Not because I don’t want Christ to increase, but because I don’t want to decrease. I think this thought is true all the way through who I am and even the programming that we as a ministry have. I feel like Christ is lost in the increase of my life and the increase in our programming and production. I believe there is a need for relevance and sometimes production and such is the only way to accomplish connecting with people. But I really want to make sure that all of our efforts are in the vein of MLC decreasing so that Jesus can increase.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Here are  a few things I am thankful for today:

My family - Farah is an amazing partner in ministry and incredible mother. She takes so much crap from me it’s not even funny. My kids are unbelievable and I love them  more each day. They all teach me so well about life and love. My parents and brothers and sisters are so great and fun that they make the holidays an event.

MLC – I am so glad to be a part of this team. I feel loved and valued and encouraged at every turn of life. We are so thankful for a place to belong and become.

Chris and Bev Maloney – These people are great friends and incredible servants of Christ. Both of them make my family better.

Student Ministry at MLC – I am honored to lead such an awesome group of volunteers and students. All of you add value to my life and my family more than you could know.

I am thankful to God for all of these things in my life a this moment. We believe we are becoming more who God wants us to be in this place. God is working in amazing ways and I excited about the journey.

Pocket Evangelism

I am big fan of pocket evangelism. That is where you try to reach students in pockets rather than individually. The reason for this is that students naturally cluster by interests so if you find something that resonates with one in the cluster it will resonate with the others. The great benefit in this is that disconnected kids cluster with disconnected kids. The best way to reach disconnected kids is through another disconnected kid. Students who are influences in their pocket are the greatest because they bring multiple kids at a time. Some of the students hung out at my house last night with me and the family and some kids I met at a coffee shop brought some friends with them. It was great to meet some new people and begin a relationship and possibly earn the right to invest in their lives.

Catalytic Student Ministry

I was talking with a friend of mine this morning who visited a church this weekend that just canned their middle school programming. Why? Because it was not drawing people into the church. This is a huge step for a church but I think they believe the same thing I do; that student ministry should be a catalyst for church growth. If student ministry does not act as a door for families into the church, it should change or stop.

At MLC I am praying that we will be a catalytic ministry, but we are changing in an effort to accomplish this. Students have changed and their culture has changed so our student ministries have to change. The big production with relevant teaching as we push kids into small groups is loosing its effectiveness in reaching disconnected students. There is a new model yet to be discovered, but we are doing everything we can to discover how to connect to this new generation.

We all believe in this and we are all committed to becoming what God would have us to be.

Students bringing students

I am going to conduct an experiment tonight about the possibilities of students bringing their lost friends. I have been talking to more kids and running that through a filter of where I think the current culture is and I want to see if students at MLC can identify a core need in the life of other students. I think this info is valuable, because if they don’t see a core need of humanity to find redemption in Christ than what motivation do they have to invite them to church or share Christ. I think students have the mentality that none of them need anything, so they don’t offer anything to anyone else. We will see what we find tonight.

Amp’d Middle School

Middle school ministry is tough because there is such a varied level of maturity among the 6th – 8th graders. There are some that want to see some deeper things happen in their life and then most want to just hang out and have fun. Trying to find the balance of spirituality and craziness is hard to do. But I love middle school kids because they are so open. These kids make me feel like a rock star because they know that I love and care for them. They are less guarded than high school kids because they have not been completely stripped of who they are, they still get to act a little goofy.

With all that I want to say I love our middle school environment. I know we have some growth in raising the spiritual temperature, but I love the environment, the volunteer involvement and quite frankly that it is different than anything that anyone else does. We are changing the way middle school students think about church. Thanks to all of you who make it possible, and if you want to know more what we do, give me shout and we can exchange some thoughts.