See You At The Pole has been around more than 25 years now and deserves thoughtful consideration - does this still work? Is it still a good idea? I recently read an article from back in 2008 that strongly said "no, it's outlived its usefulness." I have encouraged students to participate in See You At The Pole for the last twenty years and I recently had to ask myself, why am I still doing that? Here are five reasons why I think it still matters.
See You At The Pole, when done well, helps our students to remember several important things - 1) The body of Christ is bigger than our own congregation/denomination. We don't often encourage our students to do anything with believers from other churches, but when students pray with students from other churches in their community, it's a reminder that they are not the only believers in their school - they need that encouragement! It's a reminder to students that the family of God is bigger than they realized in their own community, let alone the world. And there's a lot of learning, growing, encouragement, and kingdom work that can come from that! 2) We live in a big world and God cares about that world. We generally do "God stuff" with our students at church, unless it's a mission trip where we go somewhere else, but what about the world right around us? I believe See You At The Pole is valuable because it reminds us that the world is bigger than our own little bubble. Our community, let alone the world, is bigger than our own four walls. There are people out there not connected with our church or any church and God cares about them! At one time, the church was the center of our communities. Over time, schools have taken the place of the church as the center of community - just go to a Friday night football game or a spring musical. Praying at school matters because that's where the people are and it's a reminder that our faith is not meant to be kept to ourselves. We are blessed by God to be a blessing to others. See You At The Pole should be a reminder to students to love and serve those we are praying for. 3) God loves the people around them and He wants to show His love through them. By attending public school, students are surrounded by others with different beliefs, attitudes, convictions - and that's a good thing. What a great place to apply the commands of Jesus such as "Love your neighbor", "be salt and light", "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (paraphrased). It's easy to be a Christian at church. Anyone can do that. But if students can be like Jesus at school, that's a good indication that their faith is genuine. See You At The Pole should be a reminder that God's love for them is meant to be shared, it's meant to be given away! Students should be encouraged to pray for their fellow students at SYATP and follow that up with loving, serving, and blessing them, especially those who are different from them. 4) We can't separate the sacred and the secular. In 1 Corinthians 10:31 Paul says "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (NIV). I believe we have a tendency to compartmentalize spiritual activities and "other" activities. But we shouldn't - EVERYTHING we do should be done for God's glory including academics, sports, friendships, leadership, music, art, language, etc! When students pray at their flagpoles, it should be a reminder that everything they do it that school building has spiritual importance (just as much as at Church) and should be done to the glory of God. 5) It illustrates publicly something we desperately need But why do kids have to stand outside the school around a flagpole? Why is a public display necessary? Well, we certainly can do a lot of praying privately behind closed doors. However, I don't remember a time when people were more desperate for answers for the confusion, fear, and turmoil in our world today. Things in our country and around the world have gotten pretty crazy to say the least. I think that the public display of humble, quiet prayer gives people a glimpse of hope in the midst of the multiplicity of tragedies we've seen in recent years. What are people supposed to do in these times? I think teenagers in our country need to see with their own eyes people who have a source of hope that's bigger than the problems we face. In years past we used to use phrases like "take a stand for Christ", "be bold about your faith", "set your school on fire" and so on when we talked about See You At The Pole. While these were helpful at that time, I think some better ways of expressing it now might be "show God's love to your school", "be a blessing because God has blessed you", "don't just tell, but BE good news in your school". However we encourage it, I believe that students who follow Jesus still need concrete, tangible ways to help them remember that following Jesus is an all-the-time, everywhere kind of thing. We take Him with us wherever we go, even to school. For that reason I'll keep encouraging students to go to See You At The Pole.
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Last week, I had the privilege to challenge over 300 teenagers to make this coming school year a 9 month mission trip. Here's the essence of what I shared with them:
1) Your school is a mission field - every public school is filled with students who need to hear the Gospel. There are 26 million teenagers in America, the majority of whom are enrolled in public schools and are unchurched - that's a huge mission field! 2) You are the best person to reach that mission field - no one can reach teenagers like other teenagers. No one else speaks the language, knows the culture, or has the street cred to share the Gospel with students who don't know Christ. If you are a Christian student in a school, God wants to use you there! 3) You don't have to do it alone - Students who want to share Christ in their schools have help! They aren't alone. In 1984 Ronald Reagan signed a law called the Equal Access Act which allows Christian students to meet on campus and to use the resources of the campus the way that other clubs do if the group is student initiated and student led. And that means Christian students can work together easily to share God's love in their schools. And it's more fun that way. 4) It can actually be fun! I shared with students in the workshop many examples of students in the Pittsburgh region who've done fun, creative things to share God's love in their schools. Things like making a spaghetti dinner for the football team, a pizza party for the basketball team, a Christmas party for the band, an after-concert party for the choir, and much more! When students find creative ways to serve their fellow students, it can actually be a blast! And by serving they break through some of the barriers that keep students away from God. A new school year is coming school, or as we like to call it a new 9 Month Mission Trip. Please help us challenge more students to serve God in their schools this coming year. Visit our instagram or our website (www.9monthmissiontrip.com) for encouragement or more ideas. I recently came across this quote that I read 16 years ago, but I think it still is true today...
"Nothing has contributed as greatly to the pursuit of the Great Commission over the past 300 than youth ministry. The reason is simple: youth ministry is effective. An overwhelming majority of those who enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ do so before they leave their teen years. Couple this well-established fact with this trend: the youthfulness of the world’s population is ever increasing. These factors alone should cause every church and youth group to prioritize and expand their efforts to reach youth with the Good News of Jesus Christ." -- Mike King, Millenial Leap: Launching a Strategic Citywide Youth Ministry Model for the 21st Century In the past, when I've gotten discouraged about working this students, this quote has encouraged me and I'm thankful I came across it again. For all of us in youth ministry, what we do matters in the plan of God for reaching the world! I'm also grateful that Mark Matlock and Greg Stier have also recently reaffirmed that value of youth ministry to the church and the kingdom of God (see here and here). YOUTH WORKERS, keep going, keep serving, keep teaching, keep loving teenagers and helping them love God! 1) We have a great diversity of churches here - everything from the mega/cutting edge church to the small town community church can be found here. We've got urban churches, hipster churches, rural farming community churches, and churches of every theological stripe within a hundred mile radius. 2) We have a rich history of youth ministry innovation here - Fellowship of Christian Athletes had its beginnings in Pittsburgh, Young Life has been here since its beginnings and gave birth to the Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation which has given birth to leadership foundations in other cities. The oldest youth ministry network in country, the Pittsburgh Kids Network, was born from that same legacy. The Silver Ring Thing (nation-wide purity ministry) was also born here. 3) We have strong youth ministry networks here - youth pastors in Pittsburgh and all around the city love to connect with each other. There are 8 youth ministry networks functioning around the region currently in connection with the National Network of Youth Ministries. 4) We have active campus ministry organizations here - Youth For Christ, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Young Life, Youth Alive, and Teens For Christ all have a strong presence on high school campuses around the region and are reaching students far from God in creative ways. 5) We have beautiful camping facilities - when it comes to summer camps, fall retreats, and winter weekends, there are a lot of options (at least 12 that we know of) for helping your students get away and get with God. 6) The activities are endless - amusement parks, water parks, bowling, paintball, mini golf, skiing, rock climbing, obstacle courses, and much more is all here and very affordable. 7) The concert / music scene is better than ever - some years ago Pittsburgh was a blackhole of Christian music, but no longer thanks to Generation Exodus, Winter Jam, WORD FM, and KLOVE. Chris Tomlin, Casting Crowns, TobyMac, Skillet, Hillsong United, the Newsboys, Lecrae, Tenth Avenue North, and others have filled our concert venues here for the last several years. 8) We've got excellent service project / short term mission organizations - we have amazing organizations that will help your students serve the community in creative ways like Urban Impact, The Pittsburgh Project, Light of Life Rescue Mission, World Vision Pittsburgh, The Dream Center, Living Ministry, YWAM Pittsburgh, and more. 9) We have a ton of other great resources to help your ministry - there are excellent local bands, several highly recommended professional Christian counselors, talented local speakers, and some awesome t-shirt/graphic design guys in this area. 10) We have the Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins! And if that's not enough, we have Primanti Brothers, Quaker Steak & Lube, and pizza places out the wazoo! So if you're not here already, consider coming to Pittsburgh to do youth ministry! BTW, that's my son Micah in the picture above at the water steps on the north shore. Winter Jam is the largest and most successful Christian music tour going. I've taken my youth group many times and here are 10 reasons you should take yours!
1. It’s $10! How easy is that! (disclaimer: They do take up an offering at WJ) 2. You don’t have to order tickets! You just give your $10 at the door. 3. There are 10 artists/bands – $1 per concert is a GREAT price. 4. For King & Country! 5. The Gospel is clearly presented and students are given an invitation to receive Christ. 6. There’s a youth pastors only gathering where you get to hear from a few artists in person. 7. It’s supports a great cause – HOLT International (an adoption agency) 8. It’s in cities all over the place. 9. No planning necessary – just show up! 10. Go to your city’s event this year so they can come back next year! Visit www.jamtour.com for more information! This fall, I took students to the Silver Ring Thing for the second year in a row. It's a relatively new event for my students so their excitement to go and their excitement afterwards was encouraging to me. Here are the top reasons I will take students to SRT again:
1) The topics of sex and dating never go away - youth workers and parents will ALWAYS have to address these topics - why not get some help from a ministry that focuses on this 24/7. 2) It was funny - so many moments for laughter were built into the program. That's important for this topic and my students found lots of humor in the videos, the speaker, and the drama. 3) It was fast-paced multi-media - for 2 hours the SRT program kept the students attention with videos (lots of funny commerical spoofs), dramas, personal testimonies, music clips, audience participation, and a great speaker. 4) The people on stage were young - let's face it, teenagers are going to hear the message of purity better from people closer to their age who are still waiting than from older married people who are having that desire fulfilled already. The presenters on stage were all around 20 and that seemed strategically planned - and it was powerful to hear them share their hearts. 5) They presented the Gospel - sure they were talking about sex, but there was also a clear presentation of the Gospel and how to begin a relationship with Christ. And many responded to the invitation. That was awesome! 6) Clever use of technology - several times students were encouraged to use their cell phones during the program including signing up for ongoing follow up from Silver Ring Thing. Love that! 7) The rings can be bought at the event - as the name implies, silver rings to symbolize their commitment to wait were available for students to buy right after the show. Immediate application of what they were learning through the event - this was powerful. 8) Road trip! It was an hour and a half for us to get there but who doesn't love a road trip? My students do, so that worked out well (plus we ate at Five Guys which ratchets up the level of awesome pretty quickly). 9) The price was right - for only $6 online or $8 at the door, you get a great experience. This is a blessing to budget strapped youth ministries. 10) This decision affects their whole lives! Their future spouse, their future kids, their future grandkids, and their very own souls are impacted by deciding to wait for sex until marriage. Next to deciding to follow up Jesus, this is the biggest life impacting decision that our kids our going to make so we need to do EVERYTHING we can to help them make the right decision now. 11) BONUS: The Silver Ring Thing is a nation-wide ministry conference that was born in Pittsburgh and is headquartered here! How cool is that? They've been doing this 20 years and we need to support our local ministry entrepreneurs! Check out www.silverringthing.com to learn more A good bit, though not enough, has been written about youth pastors serving as a resource to public schools (here’s a recent article by Adam McLane). But I believe that public schools are a great resource to youth pastors.
Generally, a youth pastor’s top priority is to help the students in their churches learn to follow Jesus. But the fact is that your students spend five days a week, seven or more hours a day, 180 days a year at school – at least five times as many hours as they spend at church. School, not church, is the environment they spend the most time in. Becoming followers of Jesus must include following Him all that time they spend at school. But that’s not a bad thing. Here’s why: 1. If your students can live their faith at school, that’s great evidence that their faith is genuine. Scripture speaks a lot about the testing of our faith. In fact, it’s been said that an untested faith is no faith at all. As we all know, anybody can be a Christian at church – that’s easy. But school forces students to decide every day to honor God, or not. School is second only to home as an indicator of how real a student’s faith is. 2. If your students can serve God in their schools, they’ll be able to do it anywhere. We all know Jesus’ pattern for the growth of the church in Acts 1:8 – “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Your students’ schools are their Jerusalem! Whatever God has in store for the rest of their life, nothing will prepare them better than being a witness right now right where they are. In fact, if they can do ministry in that environment, they’ll be ready to go anywhere God sends them! According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, 90% of American kids go to public school. This fact alone makes public schools a great mission field for your students. 3. If they face challenge of living and sharing their faith at school, they will feel the need of what you teach them at youth group. As Greg Stier points out, evangelism fuels and creates a hunger for discipleship - “…challenging our teens to take the risk of evangelism can lead to the reward of our teens growing deeper in their faith faster than we could have ever imagined. Evangelism, especially among one’s friends, makes you desperately dependent on God’s Spirit. And it is this dependency which produces spiritual growth (John 15:1-8.).” I believe Jesus sent his disciples on short term mission trips for this very reason. They came back wanting to learn more! Obviously, public school is not the right place for all students, but I believe that encouraging your students in school to live their faith there is one of the greatest ways to apply everything you teach them. Here are just a few practical ideas to help them live out their faith. • Carry their Bible to school (a great conversation starter) • Sit with the kid at lunch who is always alone • Ask their friends, “How can I pray for you?” • Pray over their food at lunch time • Start a campus ministry (a great way to develop their leadership skills) • Lead outreaches on campus Do you want to make sure your students are following Jesus after they leave your youth ministry? Public schools give you a chance to help them follow Jesus when you aren’t around right now. Last year, I read Mark Oestreichers ‘manifesto’, Youth Ministry 3.0, and I loved the concept of Youth Ministry 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 as a way to understand the history of youth ministry. It was like this book was an answer to Mark Senter’s book, “The Coming Revolution in Youth Ministry” (that’s for all you old youth ministry guys). And I think the book is timely – it seems like many in youth ministry are unsatisfied with where we are and are looking for a way forward. Charting the Course Something that I found very helpful was that in each section of the book, Marko (as he is known throughout the youth ministry world) builds a chart that lists and compares/contrasts various characteristics of the three different youth ministry eras (pages 49, 61, 78) including youth culture fixation, cultural influence on youth ministry, key themes, driver, and theme verse. By the time I got to the end of the book, I found myself wanting to add another characteristic to his chart, namely the ‘relationship of youth ministry to the church’. A. Youth Ministry Outside the Local Church Marko does talk about youth ministry’s relationship to the local church in Youth Ministry 1.0 and 2.0. On page 46, Marko says “So those early youth ministry pioneers who knew they had to be true to their calling found – in large measure – that they had to do youth ministry outside the context of the local church.” In other words, the primary context of youth ministry 1.0 was outside of local churches. Although this doesn’t appear in Marko’s chart, I think it’s an important enough observation that it could. As Marko points out, Youth Ministry 1.0 was the birth of groups like YFC, Young Life, FCA, etc. (parachurch youth ministries), but a shift happens in Youth Ministry 2.0. B. Youth Ministry Inside the Local Church On page 53, Marko says “Churches [in the late 70’s and 80’s] were finally waking up to the need for youth ministry and moving beyond offering only a ‘young persons’ Sunday School class. Youth groups sprang onto the church scene, and churches started hiring youth pastors left and right.” So the primary context of Youth Ministry 2.0 was inside local churches. C. Youth Ministry Connecting Local Churches When he gets to Youth Ministry 3.0, the context continues to be youth ministry inside local churches, but I found myself wondering – couldn’t the primary context of youth ministry (relationship to the local church) also be changing just as it had between YM 1.0 and 2.0? And Marko’s descriptions of Youth Ministry 3.0 actually hint at what I believe could be the next primary context of youth ministry – youth ministry connecting local churches. On page 93, he says “But what might this look like, to have a youth ministry of the various youth subcultures in your church and community, acknowledging the uniqueness and value of each-including the styles and preferences of each-but moving toward a supra-cultural taste of the kingdom of God?” (emphasis mine). Could we be heading into a time when youth ministry needs to break out from the four walls of the local church and spill over into the whole community including other local churches? To be more about the Kingdom of God than buildings, denominations or theological distinctives? I believe that this is the case, and I believe that Marko’s description of Youth Ministry 3.0’s characteristics support that. 1) To reach multiple cultures For example, he says that in Youth Ministry 3.0, there should be multiple youth ministries to multiple subcultures – that could be done in a single church, but what if all the churches in a community recognized this need and different churches were strategically focusing on reaching those different subcultures. What if we had an attitude that we need other youth ministries in our community to reach the entire youth population of our community? 2) To be true to our context Another characteristic is contextualized youth ministry – the context of the students in your community is important, but doesn’t that context include other churches and youth ministries? What affect do other churches have on each other and what effect should they have. Could some good come of acknowledging that ‘our church is not the only church in this town’? 3) To be free from being overwhelmed Doing less and getting small is another characteristic of Youth Ministry 3.0 – imagine the freedom in realizing ‘Hey, I’m not the only person trying to reach teenagers in my community. There are others out there doing the same thing. I’m not alone.” I think that realization could take some of the pressure off of youth leaders and we could feel free to not feel bad about being small knowing that there are many groups out there doing the same thing. A whole lot of smalls make for something big! 4) To be communal and missional The two key words that Marko gives for Youth Ministry 3.0 are communal and missional. I love that – what fresh ways of looking at what we do. But again, wouldn’t communal youth ministry also mean that the youth pastor needs a community of like-minded people? His community needs to be bigger than the students he/she ministers to – he or she needs a community of people who understand their passion, struggles, goals, etc. And nothing is quite as encouraging as knowing that the mission you are passionate about is shared by others. In the early chapter of Youth Ministry 3.0, Marko describe the tasks of adolescence as identity, autonomy, and affinity. I think that church history has played itself out in this way, especially since the protestant reformation (the church’s rebellious years?). At first, the church struggled with a sense of identity: What is the church? What are we supposed to be about? And then for several centuries, the church has been all about autonomy — How are we unique and different from other churches? I think it’s about time the church started moving more toward affinity – What do we have in common? How can we connect? In Youth Ministry 3.0, We Need Each Other Youth Ministry 1.0 took place outside of local churches because churches hadn’t caught on. In Youth Ministry 2.0, churches took hold that responsibility they should’ve had all along and made it core to what they do. In Youth Ministry 3.0, I think that they overwhelming forces of culture, economics, media, technology, globalization, and spiritual decline are going to force churches to see that we need each other to successfully reach future generations for Christ (see Jason Pauli’s recent blog post). In fact, as my friend Nick Arnold recently reminded me, youth workers from parachurch ministries started in the 1.0 era and church youth pastors from the 2.0 era also need each other to reach this generation of young people. I’m excited about Youth Ministry 3.0 and I’m thankful to Mark Oestreicher for helping us see what this exciting new time can look like. My hope is that, more and more, we’ll make this new chapter of Youth Ministry something we do together. We've heard the mantra of 'separation of church and state' for so long that we often think there's nothing we can do to make a difference. In fact, there's a lot we can and should do!
Prayer Ideas 1. Organize prayer walks at local schools (www.reviveprayerwalk.org) 2. Pray as you drive near/through school zones (www.prayerzonepartners.com) 3. Start a Moms in Touch prayer group (www.momsintouch.org) 4. Make sure Christian students know about See You At The Pole (www.syatp.com) 5. Adopt a School (www.everyschool.com) 6. Claim Your Campus (www.claimyourcampus.com) 7. Copy pages out of a school's yearbook and ask adults in your church to pray for a page. 8. Dedicate a bulletin board in your church to encouraging prayer for schools. 9. Create prayer magnets to remind people to remember schools in their prayers. 10. Plan a commissioning service at your church to pray over, encourage, and support Christian teenagers in your church as “missionaries” to their schools. Outreach Ideas 11. Encourage Christian students you know to start a Christian Club, prayer group, FCA, Youth Alive, Club 121, or First Priority Club at their school (www.gocampus.org, www.catchthis.net, www.campusmissions.org, www.fca.org, www.fpoa.org). 12. Buy resources to help students have a successful See You At The Pole event (www.syatp.com) 13. Buy Bibles, Gospels of John, tracts, etc. for Christian students to distribute at school (www.ibsdirect.com, www.pocketpower.com, www.bookofhope.com, www.atstracts.org). 14. Buy tickets to Christian concerts that students can give out to friends at school. (www.genexconcerts.com – western PA only) 15. Buy pizzas for the Christian club at a local school to do an outreach to their friends. 16. Help bring school assembly programs to local schools (there are many out there sponsored by Christian ministries – www.feelthepower.org, www.reachyourcity.com, www.thesevenproject.com, www.sevenfaith.com). 17. Encourage Christian students you know to participate in Fields of Faith outreach event (www.fieldsoffaith.com) 18. Encourage Christian students you know participate in MBA day on January 22 (www.teensforchrist.org/mba.aspx). 19. Equip Christian teenagers with knowledge of their legal rights on the public school campus (www.aclj.org). 20. Become a mentor to a teenager (www.mentoryouth.com) in your church or in your community. Serving Ideas 21. Join your school district's PTA group. 22. Organize parent meetings on a regular basis to pray for schools, communicate prayer needs, resource needs, and volunteer needs. 23. Meet with school administrators and ask about ways to volunteer. 24. Run for election on the School Board. Ideas for Youth Pastors 25. Make an appointment to meet with principals, guidance counselors. Ask them what help they need. 26. Work with other youth pastors to bring school assembly programs to schools. 27. Become an assistant coach for a sports team. 28. Do the Campus Checkup your students and other youth groups. (www.everyschool.com) 29. Sponsor an evangelism and/or campus ministry training event with other youth pastors in your community. 30. Connect with other youth pastors in your community to share ideas, create a common strategy, etc. If you have other ideas about what adults can do, please comment below. To download a PDF version of these ideas, please go to www.teensforchrist.org. I've been doing youth ministry for twelve years now (that's me this past Saturday) and every so often, usually a couple times a year, I start asking myself "Why am I doing this?", "What is it that I'm really supposed to be doing here?", "Why don't I go get a real job flippin' burgers or something?" I have to admit, discouragement creeps in at times! The pay is not good, things never go like you plan them to, people don't often see the "vital" importance of what we do, and youth ministry feels a lot like herding cats. Why should I keep doing this stuff?
Well, when those dark moods come over me, four big ideas keep bringing me back into focus... 1) "The local church is the hope of the world" - Bill Hybels Of all our nations' institutions, the church offers something very unique. Schools provide education, doctors provide medication, hospitals provide operations, government provides legislation, prisons provide incarceration, but only the church offers transformation of the human heart through a relationship with Jesus Christ. Therefore, I believe with all my heart that every church needs a healthy, growing youth ministry - because every teenagers needs Jesus and a church family. 2) "When God looks at a city, he does not see many churches, He sees one church in many congregations." - Ed Silvoso For the past four hundred years churches have been competing with each other. The splintering of the body of Christ into thousands of pieces has been a long, sad story. I believe passionately that someday the church will move away from competing against each other to completing each other - realizing that no one church/denomination is the whole body and that we will never fulfill the great commission alone. We must work together! Some competition is good to challenge us and keep us from becoming mediocre, but we need to see churches communicating with each other, cooperating with each other and completing each other in building the Kingdom. Therefore, I believe that every community needs a network of church youth ministries - because we can do this better when we do it together! Here's an article I wrote three years ago called "From Competing to Completing" if you'd like to read more about this idea. 3) Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell." - C.T. Studd All missionaries have known for centuries that to reach a group of people you have to go where they are and the group of people that youth pastors want to reach spend most of their time all together in one place - school. Kids spend five days a week, 180 days a year, 7 or 8 hours a day (or more if they're in any kind of activity) at school. And all of our churches have students in public schools - what happens at local schools affects all of our kids. Therefore, I'm convinced that every school needs reached by a network of churches. When youth pastors/youth leaders come together one of big questions should be, "What can we do together to serve our local schools and to reach students in that place?" A youth pastor named Mark Moder observed in article called "Where Students Are" that if we are called to be fishers of men, we should remember that fish swim in schools. 4) "If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for." - C H Spurgeon I love this quote - it just reminds me that we can never say "we have a lot of people in our church, that's good enough". Every person needs to hear about Jesus. I believe passionately that every students needs an opportunity to hear about Jesus and to get connected with a local church. There are 50,000 teenagers in this part of southwestern Pennsylvania - that's serious job security - I'm never going to run out of work here! So, no, I'm definitely not resigning from youth ministry. I have four great reasons to get out of bed every morning and to keep doing what I'm doing. Most of all, I want to do it because Jesus loves me and calls me to follow Him no matter how hard it is, no matter what happens. Jesus is worth it all. Sometimes I just need to remind myself what this is all about. I have to say a big "Thank You!" to my wife, Judy, who keeps encouraging to do this and to my partner in Teens For Christ, Pete Malik, who helped me find God's calling for my life. And I thank you to for letting me express my heart to you in this post. |
WHO I AM
I'm a follower of Jesus, husband to my lovely wife Judy, father of Evangelina, Micah, Josiah, and Jeremiah, missionary to the northeast United States and advocate for all things youth ministry. WHAT I DO
I am the northeast regional coordinator for the National Network of Youth Ministries. I've worked for the last 24 years as the co-executive director of Teens For Christ, a ministry that equips teenagers to share their faith in their schools. I also served on staff at Cherry Tree Alliance Church for 15 years as youth pastor and family life pastor. My Websites
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