THE STAND

Last Sunday was a very exciting time around good ole' LakeviewCC. We launch our new youth service/ministry called THE STAND.

Doors open at 5:15 for free food and hang out time. We have several game tables and seating areas for people to hang out. At about 6:00pm the service starts with videos, skits, worship, and I preach. For the first week, it went extremely well! I cannot thank God enough for what He has done. We had several guest (who don't have home churches!!!) and they felt our warm atmosphere. Here are a few pics :)

Our entire idea is to create a safe, comfortable atmosphere, where youth feel loved and accepted! Praise God for working through THE STAND!!!!

Media; Some free, some not

I was in the market today for some new and updated media to use with our youth worship services. I found some great countdown clips over at WorshipHouseMedia. I also found some great stuff at Igniter Media. I settled on the IgniterBacks Vol. 2. It includes 10 countdown clips, 20 motion loops and over 90 stills. All for $80. I thought it was a pretty good deal considering stills go for about a buck a piece and motions for up to 10 a piece.

So there you go...2 wonderful sites you may or may not have known about for high quality media.

Then I followed a link over to a site called Vine Resources. While you'll find much less here, it is all still very high quality and it is all FREE. Not to mention, these are resources coming from a student ministry that uses them specifically for their own series' of messages. So, if you're like me its a double benefit of 1) using their ideas as well as 2) using the media. It's good stuff.

I hope this is useful. Are there any other good resources you've been using for media or stock photos?

Series Planning

I'm spending a chunk of this week brainstorming and planning our 707 gatherings (our main programming time) for the rest of the school year and into early summer. Today I'm in the brainstorming process, taking down any and all ideas, thoughts and possible themes. I'm curious if any of you have had success with any specific themes, focuses (foci?), topics or sermon series. I'd love to hear your ideas. I'll post some of my brainstorming as well as the process going along.

UPDATE: I wanted to go ahead and throw out some of what I've been thinking about. Comments, additions, thoughts all welcome.

Topic: "Religion Sucks."
a. Busyness (why waste time with religion?)
b. In-authenticity (based on book Messy Spirituality, why hide our human side? Masks.)
c. Breaking the Stereotype (Christian or Christ follower? We're often seen as narrow minded, rule loving, hypocrites. Lets shake things up a bit)

Topic: "Apologetics"
a. Why Apologize?
b. Does God Exist?
c. Problem of Evil
d. Reliability of the Bible

Topic: "Other World Religions"
-under construction

Topic: "Unlikely Heroes"
-Lesser known OT characters. Under construction

10 Questions: Ministry

This is taken from Craig Groeschel's blog. Craig is the founder and senior pastor of Lifechurch.tv and one of the church leaders/bloggers that I subscribe to. He periodically uses the "10 Question" format and I felt that this one was worth passing along.

1. Are the people closest to me in ministry lifting me higher or dragging me down?
2. How have I intentionally developed the leaders around me in the past week?
3. Am I speaking transparently with at least two other close trusted friends on a weekly basis?
4. Am I submitting myself to the correction and coaching of at least two mentors?
5. Am I holding a grudge against someone?
6. Am I speaking well of other ministers?
7. Am I falling for the temptation of comparing, complaining, criticizing or gossiping?
8. Are my words and relationships characterized by words of faith or negativity?
9. Do people enjoy being around me or am I often “down”?
10. Have a made at least three new ministry friends in the last year?


What about it? Do you find any of these particularly insightful to your life/ministry/experience? I'm definitely lacking in more than one of these areas, yet can really see how piercing questions like these, although difficult (personally, see #'s 2,3,7), have the potential to push the ministry I'm involved with into the next level, making it less and less about me and my skills and more and more about equipping others to invest and involve themselves in ministry.

Just stuff to think about and keep in mind while we're out "doing ministry."