trimming off the ministry fat

One of the things that separates a mediocre cut of steak from a great one is how the butcher trimmed it. Is there excess fat on there that just adds weight & bumps up the price, or is it trimmed down to the good stuff? There are so many churches and church staffs that are over stretched in their ministry roles. Sometimes it’s the result of a lot of vision but a lack of administration. Sometimes it’s listening to the wrong people. For many it’s trying to please everyone.

Michael Lukaszewski nailed it today on focus when it comes to ministries.

Kurt Johnston follows it up with a great question – what’s your one thing?

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the weekend

So I had an exceptional weekend…I feel like I don’t get to say that very often. But it was. Exceptional. Spence & Beth’s wedding. My anniversary to the hottest wife I’ve ever had. Said wife’s birthday. More cookouts than you can shake a stick at. And tons of friends. Awesome.

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guest blog – Bethany Fisher

[My wife is awesome. So, she is the first official guest blog of Oh Snap, Brilliance! Check it.]

Well, it’s a big weekend… we’re in Williamsport for Spence and Beth’s wedding and the weekend is almost half over. It’s Friday night and we’ve really been going non stop since arriving yesterday afternoon. Between moving many gifts into their new home to decorating the reception site as well as parties and rehearsals and such I’ll admit I’m tired. It’s been so much fun helping to get everything ready and it really just makes me reflect to Karl’s and my wedding last year. We’re coming up on a 1 year of marriage… crazy huh! Somedays it feels like it was just yesterday while other days I feel like we’ve been married FOREVER!

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dang

Steven Furtick pastors Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. I’ve been reading his blog for a number of months, and I’m always struck by his raw honesty. He says things as a pastor that I sometimes want to say but keep to myself.

His post today smacked me in the face. Dang. It’s good. If it doesn’t connect with you…then read it again.

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quoting: Craig Groeschel

“The difference between where you are and where God wants you to be may be the painful decision you refuse to make.”

Craig Groeschel is the founding and senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv in Edmond, OK. LifeChurch.tv is a multi-site church with 11 campuses, including an internet campus and a campus in the virtual world Second Life. You can read more of Craig’s insight on the Swerve blog.

chocolate world

Heading down to Hershey Park tomorrow for the day with 17 of our jr. & sr. high students. I really haven’t been to amusement parks much at all since I worked three summers at Knoebel’s Grove. That about did me in for a while. Regardless, I’m really pumped to be going. Also going along is our new leader, Jill, who’s a blast. Even with the expected rain tomorrow, I think it’ll be a great day. I realize that when faced with poor weather on a major trip like this, it’s a prime example of how leadership can make or trip a trip. So, in the event of having to can the park later in the day, we’ve got extra plans which include special food stops and a park wide scavenger hunt. This on top of what I’m looking forward to the most: a army man photo challenge. We’ll be splitting the kids into 4-5 teams and giving each about 15 plastic army men and a disposable camera. The point is to take the best/craziest pictures as possible…I can’t wait to see what they do!

So watered down Hershey’s Chocolate World, here we come!

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classic youth minsitry quote

Between me and a student over pizza.

So how do we get to the next level with our youth ministry?
We need more hot chicks.
So what, we just put an ad in the paper?
Yeah. “Are you hot? Come to AYF”

wed night wrap up

attendance: 25 students, 0 new students, 3 leaders)
topic: Life Together : Connecting Your Heart to Others’
fun factor: average
game: lightning ball
music: n/a
lesson quality: average
student response: average

Last night was the second week of our Life Together series. Our focus passage was Hebrews 10:23-25, and how God created life to be done together. In fact, the first time in scripture that God said something was not good was when he saw that Adam was alone! When the author of Hebrews tells us to spur one another on, we realize that growing and getting on the right track can often come with pain and discomfort – you never saw a horse thank its rider for kicking it with spurs, but it was to get the horse going in the right direction.

Next week one of our missionaries will be speaking at AYF. Roberta Clogg is a missionary apprentice to the Balkans, and is a good friend of mine and an AYF alum. Don’t miss next week!

there’s no more room!

I have a feeling that it’s not the best thing when I have low disk space icons for both of my laptop’s hard drives. Hmm. While I’d love to get a new laptop (yes, I’m jealous of my wife’s new MacBook), it might be time to go external hard drive shopping.

In the meantime, I’m better utilizing web-based storage…getting a lot of my pictures uploaded to either Flickr or Picasa web albums, and moving some Photoshop files to Gmail storage. Good times on a Monday morning.

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Quoting: Adrian Rogers

“We live in a day where a hero is a sandwich, life is a magazine,power is a candy bar, joy is a detergent, sin is a perfume, a star is an actress who’s been married three times, and the real thing is a soft drink.”

While I’m not usually one for witty, churchy remarks (I can’t stand the fabled cheesy church sign), a lot of these are pretty good and thought provoking. More on the Monday Morning Insight blog here.