A few weeks ago I mentioned I had a really cool opportunity coming up that I had to make a decision on. Well, I made the decision and some people know about it, but not a ton. Here it is: I'm going to be teaching a youth ministry class at CBU in the spring semester. My feelings about it contain something of the following: excited, challenged, nervous, pumped, scared, good. One of the areas where I think God has shaped me is a desire to develop and help younger leaders. This seems to fit right in there for that. So, in the next month or so I'll be writing a syllabus and getting ready to teach my first college course.

Labels: CBU, youth ministry

I'm stoked right now because it's raining. I know those of you who live in places other than California may say "so what?" But I've been wanting rain for a while now. We've had to run our air conditioner at least a couple times this month and that's lame. So, bring on the rain!

Labels: random

In Lucas Miller fashion, here's my highlights and lowlights of the last few days:

Highlights

• Saw a taping of The Class. This was a total blast. You can read Nicole's post about it here.
• Made a fun intro video for our Errny Awards Sunday night....I'll try to set up a YouTube account today maybe so I can post it.
• Errny Awards - this is a class video competition we did last night. Good turn-out...good involvement in making the videos....people seemed to have a great time

Lowlights

• A volunteer and parent are having conflict....frustrating
• A parent approached me with why her daughter isn't more involved....frustrating....I'm not great with criticism and this didn't help
• I've been in a negative/emotional funk a little bit
• A student stole an ipod Sunday night at the Errny Awards. We thought we knew it was and totally confronted him....looks like it wasn't him....I may bring it up at Midweek and tell whoever it is to step up and own up to it
• Busy weekend of work....put in about 8 or so hours on Saturday and about a 12 hour day on Sunday
• My profile on my computer became corrupted for the second time this year....frustrating
  

Labels: youth ministry

How cool...I'm reading through this magazine that Lifeway puts out for college ministry and found that a former intern of mine wrote some of the devotions for it. Anissa, if you ever read this, way to go!

Labels: random

A few weeks back I read Doug Fields' new book What Matters Most. It's a great book about saying "no" so you that you can "yes" to the things in life that matter most. God's been working on me with this (although I'm far from totally getting it). I just turned down speaking at our Christmas Eve service which would be pretty cool, big crowd, etc. But, we're going to be in Fresno with my family this year. So I said no. Try it sometime. It feels good.

Labels: leadership, youth ministry

As I'd mentioned earlier I'm speaking 4 times this week and was planning on using variations of the same talk for all of them. So, last night I printed up my teaching notes for the chapel at Woodcrest Christian this morning. Got up this morning, started getting ready, and was doing some thinking. I'd heard a message last week from Hebrews 12 that had encouraged me and challenged my thinking some. Now, I've spoken from this passage quite a few times, but hadn't hit one of the applications that was mentioned last week.

Anyways, I'm thinking about this passage personally and all of a sudden I start feeling like that's what I need to share at Woodcrest. If you know me, you'll know this is not super-normal for me. I'm a planner and tend to stick with the plan once it's in motion. But it was one of those senses of "No, you need to talk about Hebrews 12." It was like I knew if I stuck with the original plan it would bomb, fall flat, miss the mark, etc. So, I finished getting ready, sat down at the computer, and started typing. A little bit later I walked out the door with the new message (granted the basic outline was one I'd used before).

Students responded great. I even had one random girl come up and say it really spoke to her a lot (if you work with teenagers you know that is rare). I REALLY enjoyed speaking there also. It was one of those moments where it just feels like you're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. Those are good moments.

Labels: youth ministry

Great post by Joe Thorn on quiet times (or devotions or time with God or whatever you call it). It's the first of several that he'll be posting.

Labels: spiritual growth

I'm putting together a message over at Wanda's at CBU right now. I just had to move seats because my battery was getting low....there's a dude in the chair next to me with a laptop open on his lap, headphones in the ears, and totally sleeping. I hope he doesn't freak out if he wakes up and I'm sitting right here.

UPDATE: Sleepy Dude is awake, typing away, and did not freak out when he woke up.

Labels: random

I have a bit of a crazy week coming up. Lots of speaking stuff. Here it is:

Tuesday - Fellowship of Christian Athletes at Poly High School
Wednesday - Woodcrest Christian chapel
Thursday - Christian club at Rubidoux High School
Thursday night - speaking at our college ministry

I'm hoping to use a variation of the same thing for the last three. Tuesday will have to be different b/c the audience will be very different.

Labels: youth ministry

Highlights of my weekend:

• Touring the new Saddleback student ministry offices and seeing some old friends
• Hanging out with the Shinners after that
• Killing a few hours by just cruising around and doing whatever I wanted on Saturday
• Hanging out with some college students at our senior pastor's house (even though I got my butt kicked at this Apples to Apples game)
• Being amused by watching said senior pastor enjoy every minute of watching Texas get beat (he's an A&M fan)
  
• Playing SimCity for several hours this afternoon
  

Labels: random

Series: Developing HABITS That Will Change Your Life
Message: Study Scripture
Game: Above Average. We did Cell Phone Olympics....whose phone could spin the longest, oldest phone, and a fastest texting contest. Ben and Jon did a great job running this.
Music: Average. Songs: Forever, Beautiful One, Holiness, All who are Thirsty, Here is our King. Song set was pretty good. Our student running MediaShout had a tough time and there were lots of spots where the words were off. We need to do some more training there.
Message Length: 25-ish minutes
Message Quality: Average...I felt like it went well. This series has been pretty good, but I'm glad we're done. I always feel like that with anything over 4 weeks or so.
Volunteer Interaction: Average.
Student Response: Average
Attendance: Above Average.
1st Time Guests: A bunch of them...and I forgot to mention our info cards....and none filled them out.

Labels: youth ministry

I love my wife. She’s super cool. Yesterday morning, I stood over our bed just watching her sleep...super cute as she's sleeping. Unfortunately, she woke up and was like, “What are you doing?” since I looked like creepy stalker guy standing over the bed. If you don’t know Nicole, you should. Here’s some cool stuff I like about her:

Heart for God: She has a heart to follow Jesus. She spends time with God and is committed to living her faith out.

Sense of humor: She has this super funny, goofy side to her. Most people don’t get to experience this side of her, but I do. When she busts out the comedy she totally makes me laugh.

Heart for students: High school girls are drawn to her. They just seem to naturally connect with her.

Grace: She puts up with me….my busyness, my rudeness, my selfishness, and my sinfulness. She’s the best living picture of God’s grace that I’ve seen.

Loves ministry: She’s along for this crazy ride of ministry we’re on. She allowed me to serve as an intern for two years where we had to raise our own support (read: she made a big chunk of the money by working). She puts up with a lot of the junk that comes with being a pastor’s wife (as I much as I want and try to protect her, there’s still junk).

Loves me: I know that she’s committed to me and to our marriage no matter what. I’m not always sure what she saw in me, but I’m glad she saw it!

Labels: random

Check out this post from Mark Batterson this morning in reference to all that's been going on with Ted Haggard. Good stuff.

Labels: leadership

There is a time to clean. That's right, right now is that time. Just put on some Fold Zandura (bonus points if you know who they are) and am about to tackle the piles of crap that I try not to let accumulate. I know, it's gross that there are literally piles of crap on my desk. I'm going to clean that up along with the papers and stuff that are there.

Labels: random

Series: Developing HABITS That Will Change Your Life
Message: Tithing
Game: Average. Table game called "Cha-ching" about money. It went well...game itself was nothing special. Nicole ran it with a student though and they both did a good job so that was cool.
Music: Average. Songs: Let Everything that Has Breath, Holy is the Lord, Wonderful Cross, From the Inside Out. Jon moved himself to the back of the stage and had students up-front in more of a leadership role. That was cool. He's really focusing in on developing worship leaders who can carry it without him.
Message Length: 30-ish minutes
Message Quality: Average. I had one encouraging comment from a student afterwards and that's always huge.
Volunteer Interaction: Average.
Student Response: Above average. Seemed to be a good energy....good remarks afterwards....they seemed engaged during the talk.
Attendance: Below Average.
1st Time Guests: None that turned in cards.

Labels: youth ministry

Spent tonight at the Lester Oaks Field Tournament at Ramona High School with Nicole, her dad, and her brother. It was pretty cool to see some creative marching stuff. It's definitely not just walking around the field while playing an instrument. Some of the groups had huge props like giant Pandora's boxes, pipe organs, piano keys...Nicole's sister is in the color guard at King High School so we were there to support. Their band is going to be in the Rose Parade so make sure to watch for them.

I think my favorite part of the night though was the RCC marching band. This is my first time seeing the whole deal together (I'd seen the winter guard and drum line before). They are AMAZING. Super fun, super good. They did their routine to some songs from Moulin Rouge and it was high-energy and lots of fun. If you ever get the chance to see them you need to. They'll be marching in the Macy's Thanksgiving parade this year in New York.

Labels: random

Ok, I'm definitely not one of those anti-numbers guys...like we should never count how many people are attending, etc. But, I don't want to be consumed by numbers where it's the only thing that matters.

So today when someone said to me, "Tell me about your student ministry" - why did I go straight to the numbers? Maybe it's because it's an easy answer. Maybe it's because I care about them more than I should.

If someone asked you to tell them about your ministry, how would you respond?

Labels: youth ministry