Your not leading if no one is following

Leading YOUR students

2012-01-22T21:00:00.000-08:00

Parenting is the toughest youth ministry there is, but it is also the most rewarding. I have been ministering to students for over 13 years. Now my three kids are 16,17 & 18 years old and boy is parenting tough. I would have much more compassion to parents now than I did before. I couldn't understand why parents couldn't force their students to go on trips, study their bibles, and even regularly attend youth service. Now I understand. A parent does all they can to encourage, equip, and empower their kids to follow Christ, but I am not sure a parent can force them to? Don't get me wrong, I believe it is the parents main responsibility to disciple their kids, not the church or First Priority. You see when they are young we read bible stories to them and do all we can to raise them in Christ. But their comes a time in their life where they have to embrace Christianity. You can't force them to love Christ. I have even offered to do daily devotions with my three teens when they slip and forget for a few days.

So how do we lead our students? Model a Christ like spirit and be a follower of Him. Not just when you are at church, but everywhere. At home, on the job, at the in laws, and when you do your taxes. Teach them their whole life the "value" of a relationship with Christ and the importance of knowing Him more by studying the bible. Pray with them and for them everyday. Eventually letting them lead the prayers. As they mature, you buy them daily devotions and keep them accountable. I even text bible verses to my kids a couple of times a week. The church should have the youth pastor teach the parents small group (Sunday school) bible studies, and offer parenting classes to help. But then what? This is the toughest part, you have to leave the results up to God. The hardest part of being a parent is . . . watching them make their own decisions. Some are the same you would make for them, some are not. You must give freedom, but not to much. You see it's kind of like you have been teaching them their whole life and now, they are taking a test. I don't know about you but it's when they take the test that I worry how well I have taught them?

I have been asking my kids since they were about 12 years old, "what is the one thing I would want you to remember about me?" So far they all have responded,"that you loved Jesus." Then I tell them, "that is the one thing I want for you to be remembered for." The bible helps calm our fears in Proverbs 22:6 it says "Train up a child in the way they should go; even when they are old they will not depart from it." Then we are reminded in Ephesians 6:4 "Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the disciple and instruction of the Lord."

You can lead tens at work or hundreds in the community, but if you are not leading your family. You have failed God's First Priority for your life.

See You at the Pole 2011

2011-09-28T09:25:00.001-07:00

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Twitter Mania !

2011-08-29T12:09:00.000-07:00

Twitter, did it just come out? or has it been around for a while? Well it has been around a few years but it is just now going viral with the students. Why? Well it's pretty simple, but sad.

Facebook came out and at first you had to have an educational email address from a college to join. Then they opened it up and students left MySpace and went to Facebook. Now mom, dad, and grandparents are all on Facebook and students have discovered Twitter. They are running from the parental oversight of mom and dad hindering them posting their true feelings with true and sometimes bad language. In the last 3 months we have went from 28 followers to 256 on twitter. Now we are not that popular, but the trend with twitter is if you follow someone, they usually follow you back. Students update twitter several times an hour compared to using Facebook a couple of times a day.

What does this mean for adults? Well firs of all get on twitter. It is easy and you can actually see your child’s status even if you are not following them (unless they block you). If they block you be the parent and ask them to unblock you. You should monitor all social networking by your students. But there is more to this . . .

Just look at the influence students have. First MySpace, then Facebook and now Twitter goes viral or spread like crazy when middle and high school students get it. This proves there is an army out there that just needs some direction and they can change the world. It's no wonder the ad agencies spend millions to the teens. They have the power of influence.

Take this mobile army and influence and train them to reach the world for Christ. A great example of this is last night. I was watching twitter and saw where the MTV awards were being watched by most teens. Then all of the sudden Justin B gives a shout out to God & Jesus. Boom within minutes "God & Jesus' was trending on twitter. What that means is students where quoting Justin B or commenting about "God & Jesus." Most in a very positive way. You see when you put # by a word it is called hash tagging and then you can search by clicking on it. If enough people search it, then twitter lists it on your homepage as a trend. I am glad God & Jesus were trending, even if it came thru MTV awards & Justin B.

Train your students to be leaders for Christ and they will change the world! Philippians 3:21 says: "Who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself." (ESV)

Leading is Serving !

2011-07-12T14:06:00.000-07:00

This past year was an excellent year for our First Priority clubs. At our annual training back in September 2010 we spoke and taught about being a servant leader, and evidentally it worked!

Whitley North First Priority club along with the PTC at Whitley North raised over & $1200.00 in money in order to purchase Pillow Pets for the children at UK Children’s Hospital that are currently undergoing Cancer treatments. This was started in honor of a student they currently have at Whitley North that is undergoing Cancer treatments at UK Children’s Hospital.

The G.R. Hampton First Priority requested to sell ice creams in hopes of making money to buy decorations for the Spring FP Coronation. This coronation is our primary fundraiser for this year, and we had hoped to use the proceeds to pay for a field trip for our First Priority Students. It was important to raise money for the coronation so so that we did not have to deplete what little funding we had in our account to cover expenses for the DJ and decorating. The week of our ice cream sale, one of our First Priority students lost his home to a house fire. All of our children were so concerned for this family and wanted to find a way to help out. So, at the weekly meeting, our students felt led to donate the proceeds from the ice cream, to the family that lost their home in the fire! What big hearts our students had! We sold over $200 in ice cream and donated every penny to the family in need!

All First Priority clubs of the Whitley County School District introduced a week-long project to participate in. After thinking about ways that we could be of assistance to Mr. Dewayne Bunch (a teacher who was critically injured during a student fight) and his family, in addition to our prayers, we have come up with a way to help them financially. We are wanting to challenge every student and teacher in our school district to donate ten cents a day for five days - thus, our slogan "A Dime A Day for Dewayne". They raised $2509.84 that week.

As you can see our students have gotten it ! There are many more stories to share, but there isn't enough space here to do it. Many schools and churches collecting items that were delivered to Alabama after the tragic tornado destroyed miles of homes and communities. Students understand serving others is much more important than serving themselves. In this culture of me first, it is refreshing to see students letting others in front of them in order to honor God.

"If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour." John 12:25-27

Summer is Here, where are the students?

2011-06-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

Summer is here. I love warm weather and with my new hairstyle I have learned the hard way how to use sunscreen effectively. But where are the students? Most stay up all night doing nothing, then sleep all day. I have 3 teens at my house and this seems to be the standard. Even tho I like summer and agree the kids need a break from school, I just wonder how many of them stay plugged in with their spiritual side?

Being a former youth pastor I always dreaded the summer break. Students go MIA. You can't find them even with the assistance of the FBI. With many of their home being broken up by divorce and parents living in different areas, many of them go out of town. Also many go on vacation with every friend they have lol. But I am afraid most of our teenagers sit around doing nothing in the summer.

This brings me to another question, "Do our students need challenged more?" My answer is yes. I feel students are under-challenged. We as parents and leaders are afraid to ask them to over commit. But let's look at this a little closer. Students are committed. Think about all of their "extra-curriculum activities." They commit to whatever they are asked to do. We as adults get frustrated with all the practices, camps, and booster meetings, but not the students. We are afraid of over committing them, but they want more . . . they want to be challenged more than they are now.

Don't just excuse your students attendance in the summer as if giving them a free pass. Keep them accountable to the spiritual things. Just think, since they have a free pass from school, they should be able to concentrate on God even more! Be creative and think of some ways to schedule things during the day when they are absolutely bored to death.

Colossians 3:23-24; "And whatever you do, do it with all your heart, as if your are doing it for the Lord, and not to men; Knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for you serve the Lord Christ.

Where do I go in the Bible for comfort and peace?

2011-04-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

This past week has been a tough week for me and my family. We lost our grandmother at age 93 after a massive stroke. Then the very next morning we lost my sister in law to cancer at age 41. Both of these great women were in different stages of their lives, but death is no respecter of person. As the week went on the hard things started coming in. Going to the funeral home to make arrangements, planning the funeral services, deciding when and where to have visitation. I found myself as a Christian looking for God's comfort, especially to share with my brother and his 3 sons ages 19, 14, and 10. As a minister and a family member you are looked to as the spiritual leader.

The pastor is told, " Tim will go with us, pray with us and help us spiritually." So where did I go? I went to the Psalms. Just thinking about what David went thru as he wrote most of the psalms enlightened me. He had many struggles in life and probably dealt with death as much as anyone in the Bible. I just started in the first chapter. I found the scripture to be just what everyone needed. We can say many things, but nothing no one else hasn't already said. Our words are empty no matter how nice we say them. But God's Words are full of life, peace, and hope.

So when (not if) tragedy strikes your family, go to the Psalms and see what God has to say. I am still reading daily in the Psalms. It is full of life, joy, assurance, and peace for everyone. And we need it. I found out yesterday, my wife's uncle passed away. So here we go again.

Seeing How Big God Is

2011-03-25T11:14:00.000-07:00

This past week I traveled to visit all 27 schools we have clubs active in.

On Monday I went to Knox County and was moved by the stories of first priority students with a passion to help others. One of our schools there did a fundraiser for a field trip they plan to take.
The students came in the next school day to learn one of their peers home and caught fire and been destroyed. They went to the faculty sponsor and asked the money be given to the family.

On Tuesday I went to Whitley County and was again moved by the stories of first priority students. One of 6th grade clubs also did a fundraiser. Then they approched their faculty about a 1st grade student that had been diagnosed with Leukemia. They were so moved with compassion they gave their money to family to help out with the expenses of the treatments. They plan on doing monthly fundraisers in order to give the family gas money each week to travel for treatments. They are plannig how to continue this even thru the summer when school is out.

Story after story I heard all week long, too many to write here. But another highlight of the week was when I found out one of our schools did an evagnelistic meeting and 16 students received Christ.

Our students get the BIG picture of who God is. They have humility and want to unite to do more than just a little to get by. Oh how our adults should learn from this. Our students are not the church of tomorrow, they are being the church today! As I travel visiting our tri county area, I too see just how BIG our God is and what He is doing daily everywhere. We can get so consumed working in our one church, with our family, we forget to see how BIG God is, and that He is at work everywhere.

Luke 10:2; And he said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

To serve or not to serve is that the question ?

2011-03-08T21:24:00.000-08:00

Serving is not popular today. Most Americans want others to serve them. Let's face it, most of us would never think," wow I would love to wait on some one else." The only problem with that is in the new testament times Jesus commanded His followers to serve. We are told over and over in scripture to put others needs in front of our own. But our American culture tells us we deserve to be waited on or "served."

This past week our ministry had an awesome opportunity to serve. Our local high school basketball regional tournament director ask us for help. We organized six different churches to come in and serve the players, coaches, and cheerleaders food after each game. Yes we found six, but we ask over twenty. Most of them were youth groups or youth pastors. It seems they are the ones the church expects to do the serving. As the week went one, we found out a great biblical truth is still in existence today. "When the church serves the community with hospitality, compassion, and a smile. The community stands in awe."

By the end of the week, we were praised on the public address system without asking for it; we were asked to offer bibles to the ones we served, we were asked to put up a booth, and to do halftime entertainment with the students. You see we put others first and God allowed us to be out front without asking. The real question is not; "to serve or not to serve," it is who will we serve?

If you are serving then you are leading. A shining example to others of putting them first, and yourself last. Christ himself said,"if you want to be first put yourself last."
Read:
Luke 22:25-27
Galatians 5:13-14
Matthew 10:42

Freedom

2011-02-11T14:31:00.000-08:00

Leadership, we all want it, but no one wants to earn it. Leadership isn't just earned, it is given. Others give you leadership. So if you are training leaders (and you should be), then you must be giving your responsibilities away. I know they can't do things just like you do, that isn't always a bad thing. We must give people freedom to lead as they are wired by God. As long as the results are the same.

We spend most of our time as leaders police-ing what others are doing, they are afraid of messing up. We must allow others to participate in the making of decisions. We must five freedom to lead away or we crush any creative thinking. Then we end up with a bunch of people like robots, not thinking for themselves, but just trying to please us.This doesn't sound too bad if you are a prideful person interested in being "the boss." A leader never has the need to tell others they are "the boss." My favorite phrase is " I am the lead servant" of ......... organization.