Why Can't We All Get Along?

I am going to jump into the political side of things for a while.  I consider myself an independent on most everything.  I don't follow people blindly or because they align with a couple of my beliefs.  I live my life as a Christians but believe that we are all sinners and need God's love.  I believe what I believe because of years of searching myself, scripture and listening to God.  I know that people don't agree 100% with me, even within my own church or denomination.

What Is Going On - Part 2

Yesterday, I brought everyone up to date on what has been going on with us over the last 18 months.  It has been a roller coaster ride of life.  In those 18 months, we had resigned from two positions and moved to a new city.  Our life was a mess and there didn't seem to be anything in site.


After we left Newburgh UMC, we had no idea what God wanted from me.  I thought this would be the perfect church but now I wasn't sure.  We were financially strapped from just moving and my wife was only making $120 a week, not enough for us to live on.  I immediately began looking for local and regional positions.  I thought maybe a new job would come fast but it never did.  


I kept questioning God about why He was allowing this to happen.  I kept thinking of what I could have done better or what I did wrong to be tested in this way.  Didn't I follow where God had called me to?  Was I supposed to move to Newburgh or was there another church that God wanted me at?  How in the world would I pay our bills on what little was coming in?  What was God really wanting me to do?


In all these questions, I began to think harder about becoming an ordained pastor.  I had thought about the move from youth pastor to lead pastor before but didn't feel ready for it or that this was were God wanted me.  I still felt called to youth ministry, so making the move didn't seem to make sense.  The more doors closed on us moving to another ministry position, the more I realized that God was asking me to make the decision.  I wasn't looking forward to the long road ahead to become an ordained pastor.


The path would take years and will require me to go back to college and get a Master's of Divinity degree.  All I could think was ugh...  But God continued to push me in that direction, so I made the move.  I spoke with our district rep regarding the process and filled out the paper work.  I had officially entered the process and was ready for what needed to be done.  I hoped this move would lead me to a new ministry position, and it kind of did...

Going Retro: Know when to say Sorry...

I posted this on 08/10/06


I messed up last night. And it took a parent letting me know it to realize my mistake. You see, yesterday was my birthday, so instead of having a normal service with the teens, I figured we would have cake and ice cream and karaoke. It seemed like a good idea at the time. We had done this before and had no problems, but we only had Christmas Karaoke music. This time I went out and bought some Cd's. Thinking that they would be the clean versions of the songs, so I didn't worry or review them before hand.

SYMC Conference - Day 3

The second day of the Simply Youth Ministry Conference was a great time of wrap up. We had some amazing worship in the general session with Shane & Shane, Tim Timmons, OC Supertones and Gungor. I loved it and almost lost my voice.


The second half of the Indispensable Youth Pastor was about keeping and loving your job. We started off the second day with a quote from Andy Stanley talking about mediocrity. "Momentum is never created by tweaking something old... get new choir robes. You can't tweak yourself into momentum. New triggers momentum. New is expensive and risky, so we default to tweak tweak tweak. Minor improvements doesn't create momentum. It just takes what's mediocre and makes it a little better." I think this says a lot about how some ministries and churches try to just change up the little rather than taking the big steps needed to reach people.