Elevating Your Faith: What does the next level look like?

What does taking the next step in our faith look like? I was talking to one of my Student Pastor friends about this the other day and we came to these three conclusions:

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Discipleship: Guiding the Spiritual Temperature of a Youth Group

Take a warm cup of water, add ice, and it becomes cold. The same is true for the opposite. Take a cup of ice, pour hot water in, and it melts. Each cup is determined by the two opposing temperatures that collide into one to give you the temperature of the glass of water. The temperature rises and falls with how we treat the contents of the glass.

5 Reasons Students Leave Their Faith

One of the most daunting tasks of a Student Pastor is to make sure their students continue their faith after high school. The stats are not hard to find, but I’m too lazy to look them up. But they’re there. And it’s staggering. Calling it an epidemic is not out of place. So the obvious question is why?

LuvBuf 2012

I’ve had 3 posts sitting in my iPad for 2.5 months. Here is one regarding Xalt’s Sumemr Mission trip to Buffalo, NY…

This year we took our students to Buffalo, NY for our summer mission trip. We partnered with The Wesleyan Church of Hamburg and took part in their west side service project lovebuffalo.

5 Indispensable Books for Youth Pastors

There are literally a ton of Student Ministry books and resources available. Maybe that’s because in our profession we deal with all sorts of situations and people. With so many to choose from it can be overwhelming and confusing. Nevertheless, if your Student Ministry bookshelf could only hold 5 books, these titles should provide a well rounded scope on some of the most common issues:

5 iPad Apps For Youth Pastors

I prefer the words Student Pastor or Student Ministry, but that has yet to catch on in the “Youth Ministry” world – I’ll save that for another post. So until then, here are my 5 MUST HAVE iPad Apps for Youth Pastors (As of June 2012):

Psalm 66: David’s Worship

Psalm 66 is a powerful prayer written by David proclaiming the awesomeness of God and our responsibility, as His people, to praise Him! This whole passage is great, but recently verses 13-15 have been speaking to me:

What’s a Prezi?

David Drury

David Drury, Executive Pastor at College Wesleyan Church in Marion, Ind and co-author of Soul Shift, introduced me to Prezi a couple months ago. At that time I had no clue what a Prezi was and couldn’t have even told you the name. All I knew was his presentation was awesome and was unlike anything else I had even seen.

Bad Pastor or Bad Leader?

At a Pastor’s Gathering last summer, keynote speaker Dr. Wayne Schmidt, Vice President at Wesley Seminary, said this:

              “There are no bad pastors, just bad leaders.”

After I raised my jaw from the floor, I started reflecting on my pastoral ministry. I realized there were aspects of my leadership that had to change. In order for Xalt to get where we needed to be, I needed to grow as a leader and a pastor.

New Worship Songs?

Why do we sing new songs? At Trinity, we are constantly learning new worship songs. As a worship band, its helps us work on our craft and keep up with the current worship environment and contemporary pulse. As a church, it breathes new life into our time of praise and helps us be mindful of the words we are singing.