Posts in ministry

Psalm 40:1-10 – MSG –

• I waited, waited, waited, and waited
• Drama – Rom 7:18-19 – lady who can’t stop lying at work, guy addicted to porn, teenager who binge eats in bathroom and throws up – then broke out into a song. Awesome Drama!
• Can’t sing a “new song” until we acknowledge the pit we are in.
• Time for reflection – what kind of pit are you in now or if not in a pit, what pit might the devil use to catch you?
• vs 2 – David tells us that God pulled him out of the pit
  • Nancy’s pit is usually laziness and apathy

  How many times has God rescued me from a pit – some I may not even know about (what happened to my bullet)

• We need to put ourselves in a place of surrender and a place of waiting on the Lord – to sit and hear his voice – his still small voice
• move from solitude to surrender to ministry
• When we realize, during that time of solitude, we are reminded of his awesomeness and surrender to Him again
• Last part verse 3, 9, 10 – He taught me how to sing the latest God-song.
• We need to remember the people at our church may look ok, but they are in a deep pit.
• We need to offer them our new song God gives us – whatever that may be. Song, poem, lights, video, message, testimony
• What happens when we do that? A Miracle

Mark Batterson – “If we are not careful we will do ministry out of memory instead of imagination”

• Where are all the new songs? At a panel at last years conference one concern was all the new worship songs sounded the same
• Chased a rabbit 🙂
• What are you proclaiming to your people? What new songs are you proclaiming? He loves the church more than we do.
• Craig’s Story – very creative, voice over video of b/w scenes featuring craig with dancing on stage
• St Patricks prayer

• John 10:10 – the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
• Pretending that i’ve never been to America! What do they think of Jesus?
• There is a growing interest in Jesus in our emerging culture
•  showed this and the Answer me Jesus – magic 8 ball style
• 
• There is a growing disinterest n “christianity” and “church”
• Video clip – on the U.S.C.S campus people have a positive view of Jesus even though it is not as a savior, Extremely negative of Christians
• Received a magnet – Jesus is Cool but some of His followers give me the creeps
• “Pastors are creepy” quote from lady he met at gym
• How did we get to this place? Why do so many like Jesus but not the church?
  • As we move into what is more of a post-christian culture… and more and more people are born in new culture
  • John 17:1 – “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.”
    • Remain the culture but not be transformed by the culture
• As we get so busy with church activity and planning
• Who are you praying for outside of church – your prayer life reflects your heart
• “I have vowed to never have a christian cut my hair – because I can hang with that person”
• Lizard man is married to one of Satan’s Cheerleaders
• The Good News: Most churches and Christians are not what the perceptions are
• “The Hope of Heaven” Norman Bright? Book recommendation

Misc.

• I HAVE TO BE IN THE WORLD MORE!!!!  WAY MORE!!!!! 

• Team – Know what you are looking for
• Team Members must have:
  • Heart – a heart for Jesus
  • Passion – must have a passion for students
  • Availability – must be available for the students
  • Chemistry – must be like-minded people and must “fit” with the team. Not an age thing.  Say no to volunteers.
    • questions to ask in interview –
      • Their story
      • what do they like to do for fun
      • some hard things they have been through
• What kind of people are you looking for?
• The real pastors – are the volunteers
  • Must train them – 
    • provide a field manual with how to lead a small group, ask the right questions, etc
    • Once a month have training
    • Once a year go on a retreat – share stories
    • Families – has a family leader that loves on 8 leaders
  • Live – goes through the way that they are living
  • Show up – page of what they have to show up for 
    • program
    • all-nighters
    • emotionally show up
    • spiritually show up
  • relate – build relationships with students
    • pray for them
    • get to them
    • what they are excited about
    • what their families are like
  • pastor – 

Misc. Notes:

• 2 training sessions before the year session started after recruiting new volunteers
• Field Manual stuff:
  • clear expectations
• Training
  • 2 2 hour sessions
    • goes over field book
    • what the topics will be for the year
    • How to talk to students without giving them the answers, let them figure it out themselves
• They have a thing called the forum during the student service where parents come together and talk about issues. It is led by a trusted parent.

 Everything must change

• Used to recruit teenagers to go to heaven, instead we need to recruit teenagers for missions and getting involved. Because lot’s of people are waking up trying to recruit students for money, fame, etc.
• (this was from the 70’s when he was a volunteer) What issues are going on in your church? – charismatic movement, jeans in church, drums and guitar in church, freewill destination
• (this was from the 70’s when he was a volunteer) What issues keep you up at night? over population, nuclear war, famine, disease
• Every kid he recruited to get serious about church he felt he was doing wrong b/c they would grow up to argue about church things instead of the other list!
• 2 questions from his book, “everything must change”: what are the top 5 global issues. What did Jesus say about global issues
• Went over the 8 Millennium Development Goals from the UN – never heard of it
• 4 Global Crises: 
• Social machine – what do humans want? Prosperity.  Then comes Security to protect the Prosperity. Equity to pay for prosperity and security.
  • 1st Crises: Planetary/Prosperity Crises – the planet cannot handle our way of life. Global Warming, oil, water
  • 2nd Crises: Equity Crises – 
  • 3rd Crises: Security Crises – instead of the rich saying let’s help those poor people they say let’s get more guns because they are going to come after us.
  • 4th Crises: Religious/Framing Story – Our cells are all unified in the story of me.  Usually stories come from religion.  Very often our religions are very often driving us to baptize our own story people
• Four Stories:
  • Domination/Empire – We’re in charge and it’s going to be great
  • Revolution/Redemptive War – We’re not in charge but we should be
  • Revenge/Scapegoating – we’re in charge but the reasons things aren’t going well is because it is (fill in the blank’s) fault
  • Isolation/Withdrawal – Forget it, it’s all going down let’s withdrawal and get in our own bubble make it right for us
• Very close to Jesus’ day:
  • Domination/Empire – Sadducees, Heodians
  • Revolution – Zealots
  • Revenge – Pharisees
  • Isolation – Essenes
• Jesus Proclaimed a radically different framing story (another word for story is news) Jesus said I have a better story/news, “Good News”
• All of those stories lead to nowhere.  Caesar cannot meet all of those needs and it won’t work.