My first two years...

So I borrowed this idea and format from Mark Ostreicher's blog (http://www.ysmarko.com/) tweeking it and personalizing it as I'd like. Check it!

Location:
Apartment

Procrastinating:
I have parent mail-outs for the kick off of our high school and middle school ministry.

Reading:
Youth Ministry 3.0 (review to come soon)

Quote of the week:
"Adults want young people to be conformed to the comfortable instead of transformed by the uncomfortable."- Mike Yaconelli

Praises:
We just upped one of the former interns hours and renamed his position, and its been amazing working with him and having him around, it's taken so much weight off of my shoulders....

Our facilities are absolutely amazing. Don't get me wrong it's not all about them, but they sure don't hurt having them. I'll post pictures later on when I buy a digital camera for the group, two story building, couches, a fireplace, nice big office... (we can spill kool-aid where ever we want, but not really.)

Steve. This guy has such a huge heart and desire to come in and make things happen for the student ministries, he's our go to guy when we run into a walls.

obviously sooo much more but I'll keep it at that and well if you wanna hear more let's get coffee. (agill23@gmail.com)

Scripture of the Week:
My friend and I started up a multi church night of worship with a handful of other youth pastors and I recently came across this verse and am highly convicted as to how we have run and will continue to run this night of worship. After reading through this it looks like there’ll be BIG time changes.

Moment of the week:
So many to choose from! Praise God! But if I had to narrow it down to just one, it’d be when I was sitting next to the fire place in the youth room just living in the moment watching all the high schoolers laugh, eat, and just hang out with each other at our Christmas party… though a very different group of kids they were all building relationships with each other, genuine friendships were growing... In other ministries I’d been in it took a year to get to this point, if I were being completely honest I’m not 100% sure we ever did reach this point.

Prayer Requests:
Guidance and wisdom, as I am brand new to being the go to guy I pray that God will continue to guide this ministry to where he desires it to go.

Female leaders, for the high school group we desperately need female leaders, seeing as we have none and a majority of our group is female.

Am I crazy? Or am I passionate? I honestly don’t know. I think I’m crazy passionate, or maybe passionately crazy? Or maybe I’m just really socially inept, lol.

I started to recently think about this when I walked up to a pastor and bluntly asked him if his church had an “unstoppable community”. I mean looking back at this conversation I don’t regret it at all. I thought it was a legitimate question considering the sermon was on the book of Acts and the apostle’s inheritance of an “unstoppable force’. I just wanted to know if the church had a community of people possessing this unstoppable force.

I’m just a really passionate guy. I mean honestly, to say one is a passionless Christian is almost like saying you’re a crippled jogger, it doesn’t make sense, that just can’t be, or at least if it can be I don’t understand it at all. But that’s the thing, have I gone over board recently? Have I entered into the realm of insanity, have I got it all wrong? I mean when I walked up to that pastor I couldn’t help but sense him being slightly freaked out, yeah I know there are a lot of other things that I could have done that freaked him out like my body language, bad breath, extreme good looks… (j/k).

For a non Christian I am led to say, yes I would totally understand why one would be freaked out by such an intense question, but from a Christian’s perspective I believe that a Christian should feel a huge sense of relief or joy that he had found a brother who also wanted to passionately follow Christ. I know that’s how I would feel. Why? Because it seems today that Passionate Christians are becoming few and far apart.

In the churches I’ve attended recently “the normal Christian” is pretty lame. I don’t know, reading the bible and then going to church is like watching an episode of ER, and then actually experiencing an ER off the television screen, they’re nothing alike. (thanks Tyler) This should not be the case when it comes to scripture and church, sometimes I question whether or not we even want the same spirit that the apostles inherited. It’d be to “radical” for us.

I mean the more and more I think about this, the more I begin to think maybe “crazy” is the goal. Just read the book of acts, I mean if we’re going to be honest just read throughout the whole bible, from Noah claiming floods were coming for decades while he built a boat and gathered animals aboard, to the disciples such as Stephen who stood up and infuriated the crowds so deeply that they gnashed their teeth, covered their ears, and ran at him yelling at the top of their voices, and proceeded to stone him to death. But, we (we as in the local churches I’ve worked for and/or attended consistently) have left this all to the “characters of scripture”, we have created buildings and environments that are okay with talking about biblical radicals but not actually becoming a “biblical radical”, because well that’d just be too radical...

What I'm saying is appearing insane, stupid, crazy, or even coming across socially inept goes with being a Christian. I mean much of the bible is going against what we would consider to be "culturally acceptable"... We can't let cultural acceptance take precedance over our walk with Christ... So let's be crazy, insanely, stupid in love with Christ til the point of which it at many times will make us look, socially inept.

Came across this video on a NYWC bloggers blog, it's his 3 year old singing to Tomlin's "Sing, Sing, Sing..." Cutest thing ever... and for those who don't think this is the cutest thing ever, well... we call you people... "heartless". haha j/k. but seriously.


Kella Sings Tomlin from Shawn Michael Shoup on Vimeo.

So, being in my first few months of being a youth director at a local church, just thought it'd be fun to share with ya'll a few things I've learned here starting off. So here ya go:

1. No matter how hard I try I can’t grow a goatee
2. Long Beach and Newport Beach = polar opposites
3. Receipts are like gold.
4. I’m not “Mr. SuperYouthLeaderDude”. Slow and steady. Pace yourself. It’s going to take years.
5. I can get free meals if I plan meetings during lunch. J
6. Fast food will be my cause of death.
7. Guard your day off.
8. I’m going to live in poverty for the rest of my life.
9. I need good, honest, well intentioned people around me…
10. Don’t sell out. Watering things down (as in the gospel) is not an option.
11. No matter how many times I bomb, in the end Jesus still wins, and the church will still exist.

"I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a **** (a bad word). What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said **** (a bad word) than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night. " - Tony Campolo

I've had quite a few conversations with friends, family, and bosses about the use of harsh words, and have had my share of trouble because of my use of harsh words... (What can I say, I'm from Jersey) On the most part I would agree with what Driscol is saying in the video below. We cannot deny the use of harsh words in scriptures, from the examples Mark uses to Steven's words in which led to his stoning. Though it is all about the right time and the right place in which it is appropriate to use these tones and words. I'd keep going but Driscol says, all that I'd say, so check it out...

Posts will be coming soon...