New Adventures Await

New Adventures Await

I’ve changed the name of my blog to be DennisPoulette.com. The old domain, ymimexico.org, still exists, but all of my content has been imported here.

You probably know we’re going through a major transition as a family. Last weekend I finished selling and getting rid of most of our stuff we had accumulated for 11 years while living in Mexico, got on a plane, and came back to the USA to live and work as the Vice President of Training Operations for our mission organization.

We’re still missionaries. The role and the place have simply changed. This blog will still chronicle things I’m learning about life training youth workers around the world and working to continue to build a world-class organization.

I’m also planning on sharing most of what I write or share in other places here as well. I hope to write on linkedin, Medium, Daddysmac.com, and Ministeriojuvenil.com a little more in the coming months.

We’ll see how well that goes.

I hope that DennisPoulette.com can become an online “home” for me. I’ve got many interests, so for a while this might be a scattered place as I try to sort through thoughts on everything.

Thanks for coming on this ride with me. I’m looking forward to what the future holds.

The Need for youth Ministry

Here’s an excerpt of a video I’m making about the need for youth ministry training in Mexico City.

If you don’t speak Spanish, make sure you have the little CC clicked in the bottom right hand corner of the video.

What it Takes to Grow Something New

What it Takes to Grow Something New

Sometimes what it takes to grow something new is stepping back from what you are doing, but that is scary. We usually like what we’re doing, and that is why stepping away from it or giving it to someone else is difficult. That’s not always bad. If we don’t like it, we wouldn’t be doing it.

However, there are certain major changes in life that require leaving one thing and starting something else. Marriage is like that. When you get married, you leave certain things behind, and that is because you believe in what is ahead. Every beginning starts with an end. But the decision to end certain things is a difficult one.

Our family and ministry is in the process of growing into something new. We’re stepping back from the ministry in Mexico, leaving it in the hands of very capable leaders, and are looking forward to growing Youth Ministry International in the future.

Michael Hyatt is a strong believer in doing what only you can do (see this post), and I tend to agree. When there are other leaders that can do what you are doing, you do a disservice to them and the ministry by holding on too long.

Growth hurts, but it is necessary. It includes loss, but there is way too much to gain to hold on and stop growing.

Practical Youth Ministry

My favorite assignments that I give to my students are the ones where they have to go out and have real life interaction with young people. I feel that these experiences give them more learning opportunities than when they just create something on paper.

One of my all-time favorite assignment of all of the curriculum that we teach as Youth Ministry International is the one where the students break into small groups and have to study a sub-culture. They are basically doing ethnographic research to identify the culture to use it the culture, to reach the culture.

This past bimester I was teaching Youth Culture, and my students have had to go out and do cultural research. One of the groups was studying skaters in Mexico City (one of my all time favorite sub-cultures that brings me back to my days as youth pastor at North Dunedin Baptist Church).

As they were doing their research, my students met a skateboarding young man from Honduras. They asked him, “What could the church do for you?” He responded, “Give me food to eat and help me get off of drugs.”

This is youth ministry. There are thousands of young people just like this guy who need someone to come alongside him and help him practically and spiritually.

The other day in class, they were talking about bringing him a blanket and helping him more. I pray that this is one Seminary assignment that they continue following through with.