As graduation is descending all around us I thought it would be great to post a great blog I found about using your 20′s, which isn’t to far off from our graduating Seniors, to it’s fullest potential.

This is great advice for however old we are but it really will speak to those in their 20′s and just about to graduate.

This is a post from Brad at Relevant.

1. Use your 20′s to build a foundation for your 70′s. Create deep roots that will give you a foundation for when you are older. Finishing well means starting well.

2. Don’t worry about climbing the ladder. There’s no longer a ladder anyway. It’s more like one of those spiral staircases. And sometimes you are going across or down when you think you might be climbing. So don’t worry about it. Spend your 20′s learning and having life experiences. Travel, explore the world, take on projects that seem fun.

3. If your “career” path doesn’t make sense to anyone except for you, it’s okay. My 20′s: college at University of Oklahoma, wrangler on a guest ranch in Colorado, management consultant, business development officer, Magazine and media company, strategic business plan developer. Leadership development facilitator. WOW. That is all over the map. But God was orchestrating steps very clearly for what was next in my story. And continues to do so.

4. Be diligent and aggressive in developing your friendships and relationships. Create a core group of close friends who you want to do like with. This group may change a bit over the years, but it is imperative to find a circle of trust that you are committed to and they to you.

5. Figure out who you want to be, not what you want to do. Who you are is more important that what you do or where you live. Spiritually, financially, family, emotionally, relationally. Find two or three older, wise “sages” that you can learn from and count on as help.

6. Say yes to as much as you can. Your 2o’s are typically a decade with minimum responsibilities. So because of that, say yes to everything you can. Global mission trip… yes. Mentoring from a respected leader…. yes. Chance to learn from a top notch CEO…. yes. Spend a season working in London or Hong Kong or Sydney or New York… yes. You get the point. Pursue lots of opportunities- it will help you refine and define your calling.

Student who are still in High school take the pearls of wisdom from that post, and find someone who is a little older than you and just learn as much as you can! Lets continue to leave a Legacy that will go further than we ever will!

P.A.

I was listening to an interview of Rich Mullins from 16 years ago and he was talking about how complicated we can make things. In the end he said, we all die and what matters to God is to just be who God made you to be.

That stopped me in my tracks. When you boil it all down to that, life feels a lot simpler. All you really have to do is to figure out, “Who did God create me to be?” And then you design your life to be that person.

God designed me to be a father, a builder and a friend. When I get to love my kids and their generation as a father does, I do it very well. When I build enterprises and make friends, I feel God’s pleasure.

As I walk in that design, I’m following an assignment to help a generation join God in building his kingdom around the world. There are a lot of other things I’m interested in, but not much else that I feel compelled to do.

Whew! That clarity washes away a lot of potential anxieties. Provision is up to God. Plans are up to him. He has my back. It would be so easy to feel overwhelmed otherwise.

What about you? Do you know who God made you to be? If he is the great designer, it stands to reason that he’d work from a design when he made you.

Figuring out the design and living according to it may be the most important thing you’ll ever do.

Every time leadership goes bad it can be traced back to one of two things: balance or value. Let’s take balance first. When a leader is out of balance between skills and character leadership is going to go bad. When a leader thinks his character has nothing to do with getting the job done, trouble is around the corner. If a leader thinks he should just focus on character and never on the mission, weak leadership will follow. Leaders must be in balance or leadership will go bad.

Value is much the same. If a leader places a high value on people and neglects the task, leadership will go bad. If a leader only focuses on the task and not on caring for people, followers will leave and the leader will be ineffective.

Remember balance and value are the keys to effective and long lasting leadership.

Hey there everyone, I hope you guys are doing great. Today’s blog post is another challenge for those who read this AWESOME blog.

Challenge:

Contact the person who has spurred you on in your faith. In other words, contact the person who has had the most influence in your spiritual life.

Alright!

1….2….3….GO!

Every month each pastor takes a day where they are Pastor on Call. Today is my day where I get to take my turn where my Cell phone is next to me the entire day.

Today I am spending most of the day in the creative suite updating my calendar, emailing, and getting caught up. Most of the time when I am doing mindless things I try to watch, or listen to something motivating so I keep my energy up and make sure I avoid the dreaded wall.

I turned on a TV show called Survive the Cut on discovery channel where guys are trying to make the cut to become some sort of specialist in our countries military.

One of the main themes I keep hearing the instructors is Precision. If you don’t have precision in what you are doing people will die, or be injured. Precision before hand, during and afterwards.

It got me thinking of our prep for our weekend celebration.

The way we look at our weekend celebration needs to be with precision and breaking down all aspects so when we  send our volunteers and student leaders into our celebrations knowing exactly what they need to do.

As a leader my role is to make sure everyone know’s exactly what they are doing, and make sure every person who is talking with students, running lights or sound, or is getting up with a microphone uses precision to make our celebrations awesome!

Afterwards using precise questions with your team is a great way to get better, and move forward. Growing is essential and if we aren’t growing we aren’t doing our jobs as leaders.

It’s amazing what you can learn from just watching people use precision in tactical military projects.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

—Aristotle

Have you noticed this yet? That the more you do something, the more you are it? Although we are certainly more than what we do, we do indeed become what we practice.

To be sure, we are more than the mere sum of our actions. There’s something incredibly intangible about being human. That we large, animate pieces of meat can not only conjure ideas but transmit them to each other.

But let’s not for a second delude ourselves into thinking our actions don’t matter, that discipline and devotion aren’t essential to the formation of character and value systems. They are.

What it takes to leave a legacy

The more you do, the more you become. And the more you dream, the more you build castles in the sky.

So what do you want to be known for?

If you want to do meaningful work in this life — to be someone who makes an impact, who leaves a legacy and is remembered for greatness — then you’d better start acting like it. Now.

I mean it.

We regret what we fail to practice

There’s nothing noble about an unlived life you thought of living. There’s nothing romantic about audacious, unrealized dreams. Nothing honorable about sacrifices made begrudgingly for a life you end up resenting.

If you want to be something, why not begin by doing it? If you long to be a writer, then write. If an actor, then act. And if a runner, run.

This is what determines all great endeavors — not just another interesting idea to talk about a coffee shop, but the decision to act, to move. One small step after another.

That’s what a habit is all about

Sometimes, in an effort to be more relevant and connectional with teenagers, we’ll create a student worship service.  We utilize examples and media in our messages that are more ‘student-friendly’; we engage students in a way that sometimes doesn’t happen in our regular worship services; of course we have an amazing student band doing to most current worship tunes from everyone’s favorite contemporary worship leaders, while subtly including music from other genres that they might even have playing on their iPods.

We do all that for an exceptional reason.  We want to soften the soil so the transforming message of Christ finds fertile ground in the hearts and minds of students.

Our unintended message is this:  Worship in the student ministry is better because we use better songs and YouTube videos.  We accidentally boil worship down to its simplest form – we get a sin immunization by singing music we like one hour a week.

Worship is more than a preferred music style.  It’s more than a relevant message.  And it’s way more than an hour in any given week.  Worship is life.  It’s an existence dedicated to maintaining and relaying to others a connection with God.

That connection comes through more than the media thrust upon us by well-intentioned organizers of what should be an experience designed to celebrate all that God has done through our week of life-worship in the previous 167 hours.

According to Romans, our lives are the worship service.  Conveying anything less than that to our students, intentionally or by accident, sells short the call of Christ and the command to live our lives as an act of worship…regardless of what the student band is playing on Saturday and Sunday morning.

P.A.

From time to time we get asked why we do what we do here the Student Union. The other day we got asked about our small group training. Here is just a little  bit of our training:

This is not only for our small group volunteers, but every small group leader must do these 6 things to be effective:

• Be there for the right reasons- Students know if you are there for any other reason than to love them. If you are there watching your own kids, or you feel guilty for not being involved in a ministry of the local church, or if you are doing it out of routine. Students can pick up on it from a mile away so be there for the right reasons.
• Genuinely Love your Students- Once again, students will know if you are forcing or faking your love for them. They will know so make sure it is genuine.
• Contact your kids weekly outside of your small group time- Students might act like they are annoyed by this, or they might act like they do not care if you contact them or not, but THEY DO. They remember these things. The best small groups are the ones that have relationships with their leaders outside of youth group.
• Attend large group events as much as possible- I understand that we have families, and it is difficult to find a baby sitter, etc, but try to attend events with your students. Once again, the best small groups are usually because the students have a strong relationship with their leader. One of the best ways to build this relationship is through youth group events.
• Have a balance of discipleship and relationship- Relationships are the bridge to discipleship. You will never disciple a student if you do not have a relationship with them, but too many leaders have relationships, but are not discipling their students. Make sure that you are having a balance.
• Get to know their parents- Parent ministry is not just something for the youth pastor. It is equally the responsibility of the small group leaders to minister to the parents as well. If you have a small group, one of the first things that you must do is meet their parents. If you have had a small group, and you have not met your parents, make that your next top priority!

P.A.

I was flipping through the Book “The Pursuit of God” by A.W. Tozer and was struck by a simple sentence.

” The man is ‘saved’ but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact, he is specifically taught to be satisfied and is encouraged to be content with little.”

Does that summarise you? It certainly summarises me a little here and there, and often for longer periods than I would care to admit.

I think one of the signs we are falling short as Christians is by not being hungry. We live in a culture that says eat until your stomach is full, consume until you cannot take anymore. But when it comes to faith we are happy with just skimming the surface.

If you aren’t filling yourself up with God, his word and his life giving bread, you are running out of anything you can possibly give. How can we possibly help lead others to Christ when we ourselves aren’t filled to the brim with Christ?

If you truly want to connect with God, you need to increase your hunger. And as easy as that sounds for eating food here on earth, it is harder with our spiritual diet. It probably means that you need to eat as much as you can to expand your spiritual stomach. Once your Spiritual stomach has been expanded you will grow a deeper sense of hunger.

So what are you doing to do today to increase your hunger for God? For me, I am going to crack open the word and read more than I planned on reading today. Because I want to not be satisfied with a little but to always be hungry for more of God.

I love our student leadership team, I believe God has put a major call on their life to serve other students while they are here at the Student Union.

In this position as the director of high school ministries I get to talk with other youth pastors, and volunteers about how we develop our student leaders. This process has mainly been talked about with our staff members, and student leaders, but I believe it would be beneficial for others to know and look at what we do here at the Student Union.

Here are the top 10 things we teach:

1.    Leadership is crucial
2.    Behavior online and offline has to reflect Christ.
3.    Accountability is a must.
4.    You can make a difference in someone’s life today.
5.    Even the smallest tasks mean something.
6.    Your relationship with Christ will effect your leadership abilities.
7.    Mentoring, and being mentored is crucial for the success of the team.
8.    Ownership comes with responsibilities.
9.    Christ must remain the center of all we do.
10.  You can do the unthinkable if you step with Christ.

P.A.