get it done? or get it done right?
0 Comments Published by Steven Anderson on Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 8:37 AM.
I was challenged with this question after reading Craig Groeschel's post on the swerve blog called "cool is no longer cool." I was hit with the question, what are we committed to? I'm a big advocate for creating creative fun environments for our middle school students and doing catchy fun lessons and we have done are fair share of stupid videos. I do have to ask myself were we just getting it done?
The base of any ministry is Christ. How close is the leader to Him, is he or she leading others closer to Him? How are we coming up with our great ideas, from others, books or an overflow of time spent with Him? All questions that Craig raises in his post.
Some thoughts about getting it done and getting it done right -
1) Are we focussed on the task or the task giver? I'm convinced that there has to be a balance here. What happens, gets planned, talked about and everyone on board with should be a direct result of time spent with God. Most bosses don't want you asking questions every 5 minutes and relying on them for everything, but God does. We have to retrain ourselves to be more dependent on God.
2) Are we pointing people to the task or the task giver? When we here about an event or service "I can't wait until I can do that again!" it is really exciting, but the deal is that alone doesn't make our ministries successful. I want people excited and coming back, but when someone is leaving for the night (or after a morning service) it would be better to hear them saying I can't wait to do (insert service opportunity, bible study, personal time with God, telling others about Christ, inviting my friends, repenting from sin, etc.) If your mnistry results in someone coming closer to God you will see them back, or better yet you'll see them leading!
3) What is the task from the task giver? What does God want us to do? Come close to Him and let him work out the details, then work real hard to accomplish His details.
Matthew 6:33
The base of any ministry is Christ. How close is the leader to Him, is he or she leading others closer to Him? How are we coming up with our great ideas, from others, books or an overflow of time spent with Him? All questions that Craig raises in his post.
Some thoughts about getting it done and getting it done right -
1) Are we focussed on the task or the task giver? I'm convinced that there has to be a balance here. What happens, gets planned, talked about and everyone on board with should be a direct result of time spent with God. Most bosses don't want you asking questions every 5 minutes and relying on them for everything, but God does. We have to retrain ourselves to be more dependent on God.
2) Are we pointing people to the task or the task giver? When we here about an event or service "I can't wait until I can do that again!" it is really exciting, but the deal is that alone doesn't make our ministries successful. I want people excited and coming back, but when someone is leaving for the night (or after a morning service) it would be better to hear them saying I can't wait to do (insert service opportunity, bible study, personal time with God, telling others about Christ, inviting my friends, repenting from sin, etc.) If your mnistry results in someone coming closer to God you will see them back, or better yet you'll see them leading!
3) What is the task from the task giver? What does God want us to do? Come close to Him and let him work out the details, then work real hard to accomplish His details.
Matthew 6:33
pre-teens, tweens and the rest...
0 Comments Published by Steven Anderson on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 9:01 AM.
I've always tried to fight labels as much as possible... Who am I kidding, our culture is about labeling things. Throughout the 90's everyone had to come up with the most PC labels and for the most part these pretty much took. This is something that I'm incredibly happy about because no minister wants their title to be "minister to immature, stinky, body changing, trying to find out where they fit, sometimes super energetic and sometimes way to cool kids." Then someone would probably take that and make it into some sort of acronym because that is what we do as churches.
As it relates to my ministry I was having a conversation last week with some leaders about pre-teens and tweens. We were both discussing how we don't like to think of our students as pre-teens and tweens, we both agreed that in our ministry they would be called middle schoolers.
There were two things that I thought about since that conversation. I was asking myself two important questions: (1) Why don't I like the terms Pre-teen and tween? (2) How are we doing (in our ministry) in preparing students to be teens?
My answer to the first question -
These seem like children's terms for kids that are in a transitional stage of life. As a middle school pastor I think that they should be labeled something cool and exciting, but I'm still thinking about that. I like what Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX has done with naming their ministries to this age group as Merge and Surge. Those two words do justice to defining this stage in life. Merge because it is a time to grow up (not all the way) and start taking on major spiritual responsibility and Surge because once they get it God can do some amazing things in and through them.
My answer to the second question -
This is a totally new perspective for me. I've always known that students are becoming teenagers in my ministry, but I can't say that I've ever done anything super-intentionally aimed at just that specific time with someone isn't 12 anymore. Maybe it is worth the extra hour of thought and extra layer of discussion to see how we can better and more intentionally guide students and parents not just into their High School years but their teen years too.
This could be just a fresh perspective change for me, but one that I find challenging.
As it relates to my ministry I was having a conversation last week with some leaders about pre-teens and tweens. We were both discussing how we don't like to think of our students as pre-teens and tweens, we both agreed that in our ministry they would be called middle schoolers.
There were two things that I thought about since that conversation. I was asking myself two important questions: (1) Why don't I like the terms Pre-teen and tween? (2) How are we doing (in our ministry) in preparing students to be teens?
My answer to the first question -
These seem like children's terms for kids that are in a transitional stage of life. As a middle school pastor I think that they should be labeled something cool and exciting, but I'm still thinking about that. I like what Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX has done with naming their ministries to this age group as Merge and Surge. Those two words do justice to defining this stage in life. Merge because it is a time to grow up (not all the way) and start taking on major spiritual responsibility and Surge because once they get it God can do some amazing things in and through them.
My answer to the second question -
This is a totally new perspective for me. I've always known that students are becoming teenagers in my ministry, but I can't say that I've ever done anything super-intentionally aimed at just that specific time with someone isn't 12 anymore. Maybe it is worth the extra hour of thought and extra layer of discussion to see how we can better and more intentionally guide students and parents not just into their High School years but their teen years too.
This could be just a fresh perspective change for me, but one that I find challenging.
