Blog

Here are my thoughts in written form. I hope they are valuable and contribute to your growth.

The Importance of Patience – Podcast 009

As we're helping the next generation succeed, we need to encourage them and remind ourselves of the importance of patience. As we look at Nehemiah, we see him exercise patience and wait on God to show him what to do. Too often we feel the need to push young people...

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The Amazing Teenage Brain

  In this Episode I sit down with Mark Ostreicher and talk about the teenage brain and how a greater understanding of how our kids are developing in this area can help us as we seek to help them.   We talk practical advice about the way that the adolescent brain...

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Sharp Disputes and Relationships

In youth group this Sunday we finished up a series on relationships. We specifically talked about how relationships change over time. Sometimes you step away from people you once had a great relationship with because of a disagreement or a different vision. That was...

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How to Get Planted in a Community

A few weeks ago I preached a sermon titled, "Stop Going to Church." The premise was that simply attending church is not going to lead anyone to the kind of spiritual growth or community that God wants for us. If we are going to really, truly grow in Him, then we need...

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Leading Small

One of the priorities for our student ministry is to connect kids to caring adults who can share and show them that Jesus changes everything. Part of what we value is that our small groups can make a big impact. I've seen it time and time again. More happens in small...

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The Church in France

I recently returned from a trip to France for family vacation, and, while I was there, I remembered what some of my missionary friends had told me about religion in the country.  As my family and I gazed at the Notre Dame Cathedral (which is closed due to the recent...

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An Easy Method to Get to Know People

Sometimes it’s difficult to start conversations with students. Sometimes, you spend what feels like hours with someone without ever actually having a real conversation or learning anything about them. One of our main goals on Sunday nights is to “connect students to...

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Not Everyone Learns the Same

Not everyone learns the same. We recently returned from a camp in which we were trying to teach about serving God by serving others. I have preached or taught a lot in the past about how we need to be serving others. Now I wanted to give our students an opportunity to...

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Thoughts about Greeting Time at Church

I posted a poll on my Facebook page about church greeting times. It got a pretty good reaction and prompted some interesting conversations. I'm not going to rehash all of the conversations we had on Facebook here, but I do want to make a few observations about it...

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