Monthly Archives: November 2011

11.30.11
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How to start a student ministry from scratch

When I graduated from Bible college in 2007, I went back to my home church to be the student pastor. I had mixed emotions about going back to my home church, but over time it became evident that this was exactly the plan that God had for me. The student ministry was very small. We had not had a full time youth pastor in years, and the youth group had diminished. They really had nothing for the students at all. So, I was called upon to change this, and build a thriving student ministry at the church. We had 3 students in our first youth service. You try speaking to 3 students and no leaders. Yeah, as you can tell, it was extremely difficult to get a ministry off of the ground, but it is possible, and I wanted to share a few thoughts from experience of how to get the thing rolling.

  1. Pray & personal Bible study- Ministry starts with prayer! Let me blunt with you, it is impossible for your ministry to be a success without daily bathing it in prayer. Like it or not, we will create students who will go as far as their leadership go. So, if you are constantly growing in your personal walk, the chances of the students following into this are good. If you are not growing or spending time with Jesus, do not expect your students too.
  2. Develop a purpose statement- This will be the vision and heartbeat of your ministry. Everything that you do should be a reflection of your purpose.
  3. Develop a plan and vision for your ministry- This is where dreams come into play. I think we sometimes are scared to dream big for our ministry, but Jesus wants us to dream big. Read “Sun Stand Still” by Steven Furtick.
  4. Prepare a parent Night- The toughest part of your ministry, but also the most important part of your ministry is ministering to and with the parents of your students. It is vital for you to get them attached to your vision at the beginning. You will be glad you did down the road.
  5. Recruit dedicated leaders- You must invest in leaders. If you have 3 students like I started out with, you must have a couple of leaders to help you grow it. Also, you must share your vision and heart with them. Make sure that they are sold out and desire life change in these students.
  6. Plan a Student Ministry calendar of events- Try and formulate a year calendar if possible. I am a big time scheduling guy. I like to schedule things well in advance, and hate procrastinating. I know, this is not a typical youth pastor’s habits, but this is me. It is important for your parents and students to see the vision being carried out long term. Also, the students get excited about big events down the road, etc. They can then begin inviting their friends.
  7. Create a student service- This is a time for you to teach the students about your vision, desires, goals, and also practical teaching on practical issues that they may face. This is always a time for you to build healthy relationships with your students and leaders. We did ours on Wednesday night! We came together and sang a couple of songs, and I led in a Bible study. I tried to be creative with props and my teaching. I wanted the teens to “get something” every time that they came. I led the music when we began, and it was without instruments, because we had no leaders yet.
  8. Create a small group ministry- Now, you might be thinking, this is what our entire group is at the beginning. Exactly! A small group ministry is extremely interactive and keeps the students accountable. Students thrive in this type of environment more than a teaching environment. Create this type of atmosphere at some point with your students.
  9. Get in the schools- Find creative ways to get your foot in the door in the public and christian schools in your area. This is a way to keep a better relationship with your students as well as meet new students.
  10. Pray some more- Like I said before, prayer starts ministry, and it needs to be the ending as well. Start off your ministry with prayer, and “pray without ceasing” through your ministry.
11.29.11
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The Millennials- Book Review

I just finished an amazing book called, “The Millennials” by Thom Rainer and Jess Rainer. Thom is the president and CEO of Lifeway resources. Jess is his son and is the administration and outreach pastor at Grace Church in Hendersonville, TN where Ed Stetzer is the lead pastor. This book is about the generation of people who were born between 1980 and 2000. I fall under this category so it interested me. Also, we minister to this age group of people as well so we need to study who they are and what drives them.

As a student pastor, I am constantly looking for ways to better communicate and reach the generation in which I am ministering too. Finally, here is a book that is written from a humble and practical perspective on this generation. Thom and Jess wrote this book based upon a collection of stats and interviews from people of this generation. They look at the most important things that have formed the identity and culture in which they live. I want to give you a few thoughts about the book.

  1. I love the way that it was written- I love the perspective from a baby boomer (Thom Rainer) and a Millennial (Jess Rainer). It was a brilliant decision to co-author the book so that you can have an unbiased opinion and perspective of this generation.
  2. The Millennials are family oriented- This is their number one thing that drives them according to the statistics given in the book. I would not have assumed this by ministering to them regularly, but it looks this way according to the many statistics and research done by the Rainers. This is a very encouraging point to me. The family has been destroyed lately, and the divorce rate is up in the air. I would love to see this generation be used to bring the family back into exactly what God intended for it to be about. This is helpful when ministering to students!
  3. The Millennials are interested in changing the world- I love this part of the book. Bottom line, the generation coming up wants to see change. They thought that they had it when they elected Obama as president, but the desire and heartbeat of this generation desires change in our nation. They want to be used to change a person’s life!
  4. The Millennials are community driven- I see this so much in our students. Some of our largest attended events are events where we get together and serve our community in some way. They love doing things for others! If we can grasp this, and allow this principle to shape us, our nation would be a much better place!
  5. The Millennials need Jesus- One thing that the “baby boomer” generation did not follow through on was teaching the generation after them about Jesus and how to have a personal relationship with Him. I believe that for so long, we have taught standards, legalism, and doing things thinking they are Biblical, but not in the Bible; and therefore the generation now is fed up with this thinking. This has brought about a generation who cares little about God. If we could teach them Jesus and how to have a personal relationship with Him, then their heart for community and family would be Biblically based! How amazing would that be for their desire to change the world to be for Jesus rather than just political. How amazing would it be for their desire to be a blessing to our community come out of a heart to reach them with the Gospel?

The book is a must read for anyone who works with this generation. It was a book that I picked up, and read in a few days. I could hardly put it down, because the interviews and statistics fascinated me. It motivates me to know where this generation is coming from so I can better minister to them. I definitely give this book a high rating on the scale. You can purchase the book here.

11.28.11
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Learning to be Humble

Have you ever heard the acrostic for Joy. Jesus, others, yourself. I remember my parents drilling that into my mind growing up. I remember the teachers at my Christian school would do it as well. There is a lot of truth to that acrostic, but I feel we are not living like it. I feel if we were asked to admit that this is the way it should be, we would all agree, “Yes,” but are our attitude, decisions, and actions backing up what we believe. Remember how you behave determines how you believe.

The culture and heartbeat of our student ministry must be Jesus, others, ourselves! This is where the source for true joy is located. How can we do this?

  1. Put other people’s needs ahead of your own- Philippians 2:4 can be translated, Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interest of others!”John Piper said, “Let each of you look not only to your own financial affairs, or your own property, or your own family, or your own health, or your own reputation, or your own education, or your own success, or your own happiness—don’t just think about that, don’t just have desires about that, don’t just strategize about that, don’t just work toward that; but look to the financial affairs and property and family and health, and reputation, and education, and success, and happiness of others.”Matthew 22:39- Love the Lord and love otherWhen I was in Florida for college, I worked at an Elementary school in the Extended Education program. This happened after school until the students got picked up which was always around 6:00 pm. We had about 300 students in our after school program, and this ranged from kindergarten through 6th grade. When we would call water break, they all would come running from the playground up front, and many of them would push and shove to be first in line. They wanted to be first.We do not act like this in these type of situations, but we often do in terms of our decisions. Make the good of others the focus of your interest and strategy

    2. Learn to enjoy serving others 

    Philippians 2:6 shows us that He was in the form of God. He was like God. He is God! He possesses the nature of God. Then in verse 7, we see He made Himself of no reputation. He emptied Himself not of His deity. He did not demand His rights to His deity. He set aside His rights for you!

    Jesus’ Christ ministry was completely for others! He was not here for Himself, He was here for others. He came for others. He did not come to be ministered unto, but to minister! He came to serve the sinners of this world and radically change their life! He came to die for us, and we are not even willing to limit ourselves for the needs of someone else.
    Warren Wiersbe said, “What grace! From Heaven to earth, from glory to shame, from master to servant, from life to death, even the death of the cross.”

             3. Try and sacrifice for others- V. 8

Stop worrying about, how is this going to benefit me?

Dr. J.H. Jowett said, “Ministry that costs nothing accomplishes nothing.”

He went as far to sacrifice His life so that you and I could have life and life more abundantly!

Are you humble?

11.27.11
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How to start out in Vocational Student Ministry

I began reading the book this past weekend, “Life in student ministry” by Tim Schmoyer. Tim is the founder of studentministry.org which is an incredible resource for student pastors to use. They provide helpful articles, blog posts, and freebies that can be a huge training tool or resource for you to use in your student ministry. It has got my mind a racing, and I wanted to share a quick excerpt from his book from the chapter, “starting a youth ministry.” Bottom line, pick up his book TODAY! It is worth it. You can purchase it here.

How to start out in vocational student ministry:

1. Pray

2. Study the Word

3. Set boundaries

4. Talk with your supervisor regularly

5. Invest in volunteers

6. Spend time with your teens, not your office

7. Don’t change everything right away

8. Keep your motives in check

9. Be transparent

10. Stay in shape

This is just a taste of what you see in his book.

11.18.11
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7 reasons you may not accomplish anything significant

Pastor Perry Noble is the lead pastor at Newspring church! This is a multi site church thriving for Jesus. He has some great thoughts on leadership, and I share them on my blog regularly. Here is a good post that he posted recently.

Seven Reasons You May Not Ever Accomplish Anything Significant In Life! November 2, 2011

#1 – Procrastination!  (Remember, procrastination is assassination on the amazing future God has for you – James 1:22!)

#2 – You are allowing your past to identify you rather than Christ to identify you!  (See I Corinthians 6:9-11!)  You are not who you were…you are who you are in Christ (II Corinthians 5:17) and if you don’t let your past die then it won’t let you live.

#3 – You are more obsessed with what others think about you rather than what Christ thinks about you!  (See Colossians 3:2-3, Galatians 1:10)

#4 – You do not understand the fact that God’s Holy Spirit lives inside of you (Ephesians 1:13-14) and has gifted you and is calling you to do something greater than you could ever imagine (Ephesians 2:10, Ephesians 3:20)

#5 – You are afraid (see Isaiah 41:10) – and remember, no one who ever accomplished anything significant for Christ didn’t have to take a significant step of faith (Hebrews 11:6!)

#6 – You believe the lie from hell that says you are an accident when Scripture says that God custom designed you (Psalm 139:13-16) and that you were clearly created on purpose, with a purpose and for a purpose.

#7 – You are obsessed with things that have ZERO significance when it comes to eternity (I John 2:17).

11.16.11
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Creating a Thankful Spirit

Next week is the holiday of Thanksgiving. I typically wish that we viewed everyday like we do that one time of year, but sometimes we do not. If I were to ask everyone if they considered themselves to be thankful for what they have, they would all probably emphatically say, “Yes.”. Why then we do not act like it? Remember what you believe (say) dictates the way that you behave so if we are truly thankful, it will show. So, why isn’t it? It begs the question, are we really thankful? Do we really have a thankful spirit?

As I look at students and even adults, I see a very unthankful generation for the things that God has blessed them with. I see students complain about their parents, the rules, their pastor, their youth pastor, their youth group, their small group leader, their Bible fellowship teacher, the fact that they do not have the new phone, gaming system, clothes, etc. Students seem to be ungrateful about what they have, and wish they had more. Students seem to be ungrateful for the work that takes place to give them what they have, and their ungrateful spirit shows in the way that they respond.

What I want for our student ministry and you is to create in each one of us a thankful spirit. Let’s create a spirit that is thankful in everything.

I Thessalonians 5:18 says, “ In everything, give thanks: for this is the will of God.” There are no excuses for ungratefulness! Whatever situation or circumstance you are in, give thanks!

John MacCarthur said, “we must remind ourselves that thanksgiving is the essence of Christian living and attitude. And being unthankful is the very essence of an unregenerate heart.”

John Piper said, “Gratitude is the echo of grace as it reverberates through the hollows of the human heart. It is the unashamed acceptance of a free gift and the heartfelt declaration that we cherish what we cannot buy.”

I am writing about a few ways that you can create a thankful spirit in your life. The thoughts come from the 10 lepers that Jesus cleansed in Luke 17. Out of the 10, only 1 came back to glorify and thank the Lord for what He had done.

        I.            We must grasp the reality that we were once the outcast- V. 12

  1. These lepers were isolated
  2. These lepers were humiliated
  3. These lepers had a disease that was going to kill them

I Corinthians 15:9 says, “For I am the least of the Apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”
I Timothy 1:15 says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.”

Do you wonder why the Apostle Paul could say these things after Salvation? It is solely based upon the fact that Paul grasped the reality that he once was the outcast. He once was the isolated, humiliated, and a dying man!

I think the ungrateful spirit that many Christians have is because many Christians believe that they are somewhat better than others after they get saved. We tend to think that we are better because of our social status, our education, our money, our clothes, our looks, our family, our popularity, or race.

II Samuel 9- Mephibosheth (crippled and an outcast) becoming David’s son. You see, he went from being a crippled man that had no social status now that his dad and granddad had died to becoming a child of the King!

When the life in Jesus is flowing through me, I not only notice the individual value that every person has, but I also come to an awareness and acknowledgement that when I came to God I was a reject, outcast, destitute, helpless, I came with nothing in my hands to bring, and Jesus was totally okay with that! He changed me at my worst, and made me my best by placing the righteousness of His own Son on me. To create a thankful spirit, you must grasp the reality that you were the outcast, the lame man, the reject, and the leper, but it is because of Jesus you are now alive and a child of the King!

      II.            We must acknowledge that the gift was only through His working, not ours- V. 14-15

Jesus tells them to go and shew themselves unto the priest. This was according to the law back in Leviticus. . They then would have a chance to be healed. So, Jesus sends them away, and they go in obedience to the voice of Jesus. As they left, they were miraculously healed. As the one saw this, he turned back to thank and praise Jesus! Remember you were a reject, now you are a child of the King, and you did not nothing to earn it. All you have to do is place your faith and trust in Jesus and what He has already completed! Salvation is an act that the Spirit does in you!

    III.            We learn to exercise an active faith- V. 19

Verse 19: “thy faith hath made thee whole.” I think what Jesus is saying by that statement is much deeper than a saving faith. I believe that a thankful spirit results in an active faith. Your outward life is a result of your inward life. You say, what do you mean by that? An ungrateful spirit is a result of an inactive faith, and a grateful spirit is a result of an active faith.
The ground is level at the foot of the Cross. It did not take any less of God’s redeeming grace to save you than it did anyone else. It took enough faith to save you as it did this leper. It takes the same amount of faith to save anyone. The gift that God so generously gives to you can be accepted by you to change you!

The way that you respond to the blessings given to you is a result of what is happening inwardly in you. Therefore, because of what Jesus has done inwardly in us, He changed our life, we now can respond and have a grateful spirit about whatever comes our way, because of the change that God has done in our life! You show me someone who is ungrateful for the people and things that they have in life, I will show you someone who is not actively using their faith that God has freely given them.

Let me remind you that life is not always going to be easy, but remember, my worst day in Jesus is better than my absolute best day without Jesus!

He changed my life and as a result I am eternally grateful and indebted to Him!

Are you thankful? Stop for a moment and look at the many blessings that you have been given and say Thank You, Lord!

11.16.11
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12 Things A Leader Simply CANNOT Do

Once again, Perry Noble blew me away with his leadership thoughts today! He writes in such a direct and practical way. I try and read all of his stuff on leadership. He pastors a multi site campus church! Here is his latest post: “12 Things A Leader Simply CANNOT Do:”

#1 – You Cannot Make Everyone Happy (Jesus didn’t…it wasn’t His goal, see Galatians 1:10)

#2 – You Cannot Think That You Can Argue/Defend Yourself All Of The Time (Especially on the internet, arguing on the internet is like taking a pee into the wind, it feels good at first but always ends up in a mess!)

#3 – You Cannot Ignore A Problem & Believe By Doing So It Will Go Away.

#4 – You Cannot Just Pray A Problem Away (David had to walk down into the valley and whip Goliath’s rear-end!)

#5 – You Cannot Fall In Love With The Way Things Are (if you do then the word “change” will become a bad word!)

#6 – You Cannot Compromise Your Integrity–EVER!

#7 – You Cannot Believe That You Always Have The Best Ideas And The People You Are Working With Would Not Be Able To Function Without You.

#8 – You Cannot Hold Back From Speaking The Truth In Love Because It May Hurt Someone’s Feelings.

#9 – You Cannot Stop Learning, Growing & Developing.

#10 – You Cannot Be Good At Everything…Stop Trying!

#11 – You Cannot Be Fair (Jesus wasn’t, He had a group of 70, out of them He had a group of 12, out of that group He had three that He spent the most time with and out of that group the Bible says that there was one who He loved.  Hmmm…looks like “fairness” wasn’t one of His core values!)

#12 – You Cannot Lead Through Manipulation & Intimidation And Expect To Have Long Term Impact And Significance

11.15.11
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Ways to Connect students to your local Church

Each year, I try to set many different goals that I feel God would want us to achieve in our student ministry. Many of these goals are a result of seeing something that we could do better the year before. This year, one of our goals is to integrate our students into our local church (Union Grove). We have been working at this, and still have a long way to go, and I felt led to blog about this issue. Tim Schmoyer (founder of studentministry.org) blogged about this same thing, and he had some interesting thoughts and tips on how to integrate the students into your church. You can about his thoughts here.

Each Wednesday, we average about 70-75 students in our service. Some nights we have more, and other nights, we have less. It is booming. The place is filled with excitement, and everyone loves it. They look forward to coming to the Grove! Then, something happens between then and Sunday. We will have like 25 students on Sunday morning. Now, that is not a good percentage at all. In fact, it is kind of disappointing. Now, several of our students on Wednesday nights do in fact attend other churches with their parents on Sunday’s, but many just stay at home. You may be having this same problem in your student ministry, and wondering what to do. We are in the process of changing this statistic, and we have implemented several steps. Here they are:

  1.  Teach on the importance of being in a local church – Students need to hear why this is important. It is Bible, just read Hebrews 10:25. God wants us in church, and it is a Bible truth that we must learn here. If I am part of a church who has a Sunday morning service, it is my duty to the Lord and to that church that I am there if at all possible. It is a Biblical principle that should drive our decisions.
  2. Encourage students to serve in their local church – One of the primary reasons students get excited about Wednesdays, is because we believe in ownership. I give them ownership over the set up, order of service at times, song selections, etc. They have a huge part in pulling our student ministry off each night. On Sundays, then, they have no ownership and no responsibility! We almost view students on Sunday’s as worthless and less of importance because of their age and assumed immaturity. Look, we pull off a pretty big deal on Wednesday nights and rely on students. So, I guarantee you that they can do a pretty legit job on Sundays as well. I try to get my students serving in our media ministry, choir ministry, and children’s ministry on Sunday.
  3. Create a Student takeover – Now, you can call it whatever you like, but we chose to call ours, “Student Takeover!” We did our first one recently, and it was awesome! I look forward to doing many of these in the future. What we did was we allowed our students to run and direct the entire service for the adults on a Sunday night. We have video announcements that the students did and edited. We had a student choir that sang. We had a praise team that led worship who were all students. We had a student testimony given that night. All of the special music was from our students. We even had a student preach as well. It helped connect them to our church and connect the church to them. Not only that, we saw a couple of families come to watch their student who had not come to our church in the past.
  4. Encourage your lead Pastor to fellowship with the students – This is something that we already had at our church. Our pastor has a solid relationship with our students, and spends time with them at activities and church. This is a must if you want your students connected to your local church.
  5. Make your Sunday School Program dynamic – We call ours “Bible Fellowship,” but I went to a more traditional model for you to understand what I was blogging about. We are in the process of getting ideas and creating our Bible fellowship ministry to be much more dynamic and exciting. We have goals for it to be relational and interactive. This is a great way to get students coming on Sunday’s to be a part of this Bible study hour.
  6. Hold events that bring the two together – We hold a Y.A.A.C. which stands for Youth Activity After Church. We take the entire student ministry to someone’s house to fellowship. Any church member can volunteer to host this event. We do one a month and it connects our students to a specific family in the church. Also, hold events for your adults that your students attend and serve at. Make sure there can be interaction between your students and the adults.

Church is supposed to be relational! Therefore, it is important that the students have relationships with the church members if you expect them to attend! I welcome your thoughts and feedback…

11.14.11
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How Do I prepare a Sermon

Sermon Central is a great resource that I use regularly. They provide a collection of sermons, illustrations, visuals, and videos that can be a major help to you for your sermon prep. They also send out blogs regularly. Recently I came across a blog entitled, “How Mark Driscoll prepares his sermons.” This caught my eye quick, because I like Mark Driscoll and I like preaching. So, I read it, and it brought about some great thoughts. You can read the blog here. It gave me the topic for my next blog post and here it is. How do I prepare a sermon? Here is how I go about preparing a sermon:

  1. Pray – Every good sermon must start with prayer. Prayer is our connection to God and the Word is His connection to us. Before every sermon, I spend a great deal of time in prayer. What do I pray for? I pray for what topic/passage to speak on. I pray that God would give me the main thought that He wants me to communicate to the people. I pray for lost souls and how I can include the Gospel in this message. I pray for the saints who need to be challenged but also encouraged. I pray for decisions to be made. I pray for clarity of the passage as well as effective communication of the truth that God wants me to deliver! We have tons of things to pray for, and prayer is where preaching begins! By the way, your personal quiet time is extremely important for God to speak to you and give you direction on preaching and sermons.
  2. Collect – I spend time collecting articles, statistics, books, resources, illustrations, visuals, videos, and blog posts about the sermon that I will be speaking on. For instance, I speak every Wednesday to our students. So, on Thursday, I will begin collecting these things up until the next Wednesday when I preach. It brings about much thought and direction for your message during the week before sitting down and writing it all out.
  3. Decide – By Monday, I most definitely have a really good idea of where God is taking the sermon. This is where you need to get your main idea and thought nailed down in your mind so everything around it and can point people to that main thought.
  4. Study – I read an estimate of about 7 commentaries of each passage that I speak on. I also look online at resources and sermons. Here are some of my favorite commentators: Warren Wiersbe, H.A. Ironside, John MacArthur, John Piper, Oliver Green, J. Vernon McGee, Matthew Henry, and The Bible Knowledge Commentary. Some resources online that I use are Desiring God, Grace to you, The Resurgence, Blue Letter Bible,  Sermon Central, and of course Google. Here are some of the resources that I use for media: Sermon Central, Youtube, The Skit Guys, Share Faith, and Graceway Media.
  5. Examine – I spend specific time as I prepare my sermons examining my heart to make sure I am living what I am speaking. This is where most preachers go wrong. If you are not living what you are speaking, it is invalid and ultimately vain. I am not saying you must be perfect, but God should be developing the main idea you are speaking on in your life. Normally, I am convicted before I speak. Do not run from this, this is a very good thing.
  6. Write – I write about 70% of what I believe God wants me to say down on a script. I bold the main point down on my script. I typically bring it all up to preach, and God just brings the thoughts to my mind, which is great so I am not tied down to my notes. I am big on points. I think a message should have action points. People should leave church with a challenge or a reminder. So, during this, I create my action points.
  7. Prepare – When the script of my sermon is complete, I then create my power-point and outline for our students. This is important to do after you are completely done with your script. The reason is if you try to do both at the same time, you may change it on the script, and not on the power-point, and things get messed up. I use power-point and an outline for our students every Wednesday. The students are very visual, and so seeing the thoughts on the screen along with writing down things themselves is extremely helpful and beneficial.
  8. Invitation – I try to prepare what the Lord wants during the response time (invitation) ahead of time.
  9. Pray – Prayer should begin your sermon prep, be the center of your prep, and should conclude your prep. Prayer is where it starts and ends!
  10. Deliver – This is where you rely solely on the Spirit to speak through you!

Sermon Prep is different with every person. So, I am not saying my method is the best or only method. I think it is one of the many methods. It works for me. If you have any thoughts or just want to share how you prepare a sermon, let me know. I do encourage you to read the post about how Mark Driscoll prepares a sermon. You can read it here.

11.10.11
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Ice Skating Promo

THIS Saturday, the Grove goes Ice Skating! We will be going to the Greensboro Ice House. We leave the church at 5:45 pm and return at 10:45 pm. The cost for the event is $5 per person + you will need to bring money for fast food. It is going to be off the chain ya’ll! If you are not signed up, I most definitely encurage you to sign up today. You can text me or email me at joshhevans@gmail.com! If you need a promo video to convince you, check this one out: