An “Orange” NextGen Leader Handbook
We’ve put together a handbook for all the leaders and staff in NextGen Ministries at our church. While every church is different in scope, size, and culture, some ideas are scalable and cross-platform. Here’s what we do in our church. Maybe there’s something helpful here for you? Maybe not. We just like to share. It begins with […]
NextGen Policies for Safe & Healthy Ministry
Developing policies is time consuming but super important for purposes of safety and risk management as well as the continuity of healthy practices. We require that every volunteer read and sign an agreement to abide by these policies. These policies continue to develop and evolve every year. But here’s a snapshot of our current policies as […]
The Do’s and Don’ts of NextGen Ministry
I was a youth pastor for 20 years before our church adopted a NextGen model and I became the NextGen Pastor. The transition has been challenging but totally worth it! Here, I’d like to dive in a little deeper and get more specific about some do’s and don’ts that I’ve learned in my own journey into NextGen Ministry.
Defining the Wins
It can be really hard to tell if you’re #winning as a small group leader. Showing up week after week to lead sometimes seemingly meaningless discussions only to have kids bounce around in the conversation to whatever happens to be on their mind, or even literally bouncing around on the floor. A small group leader may not […]
4 Pressure Points on Every Pastor
It seems to me that there are four pressure points I experience on a weekly basis that seems to be common to all pastors and ministry leaders. These pressure points have no regard for person, giftedness, experience or size of church or ministry. Note: I’m not complaining here. I’m just acknowledging what we all experience. […]
Gungor vs. “A Matter of Faith”
Well, this isn’t really about a battle between Gungor and the upcoming movie, “A Matter of Faith.” Rather, its about the tension that we experience within our community of faith. Let me set the stage. Gungor I’m part of a small circle of people who work to bring big name Christian concerts to our little town […]
A New Way to Manage My Work Schedule
I’ve decided to develop some new routines in my schedule. Along with these routines, I’ve decided to take a new approach to keeping on track with these routines in my calendar. If you’re good at just looking at a picture and figuring it out from there, go ahead and skip the detailed explanation below. But be sure to […]
Let it Grow
I can’t help it…I’m humming the now famous song “Let it Go” performed by Idina Mensel, the voice of Elsa in Disney’s Frozen. We’ve seen it probably four times now. And every time I hear the song I honestly think of the Church. We need to “Let it Grow!” We need to unlock the doors […]
Defining Roles on our Youth Ministry Team
The more recent conversation in our Student Life Leadership Team has been about defining our roles (this post) and focusing our meetings (next post). Now that we’ve established some large-frame infrastructures to support our ministry, we’ve developed some new growing edges around our roles and the need to more clearly define them. Here’s what we’ve […]
Sticky Faith: Get Students Involved
If you were to visit our church, you’d see students involved in just about every area of ministry at just about every level. On Wednesday nights you’d see students helping in the kitchen serving the family dinner. You’d see students greeting other students as they enter into the worship center. You’d see students on the […]
Growth Changes Everything (Part 3): What I Didn’t See Coming
My personality is the type that’s always looking ahead. I have vision documents with goals and objectives from four years ago with projections that are almost on the money today. I think it’s just how I’m wired. But I gotta tell ya…there are some things that I just didn’t see coming with growth of our […]
Pastoral Whiplash
Plan for my youth sermon. Then trouble shoot the sound system. Then meet with a volunteer to recruit them to be a team leader. Then meet with a student to talk about their alcohol addiction. Then try to figure out why my Mac isn’t printing to our printer over Wi-Fi lately. Then meet with the […]
Jim Murphy