new series begins Wed night-"Drug Induced"

Kick off a new series designed to guide students through the temptations of drugs and alcohol. Live testimonies from young adults and what we can learn from their mistakes, and live dramas by the rez drama team. Check out the messages via video each week at www.rezlifekc.blip.tv

catch up on my life and ministry

been a while since I blogged, somehow fell out of my weekly schedule. Below you will find some updates, in development, and upcoming in my life and ministry

Looking back....

We had an amazing summer in ministry through missions and camps! Hundreds of students served all over including Dallas, Gulfcoast, and KC. We were forced to cancel the Honduras mission due to the unrest in the country. Hope to resume next summer.

I felt very excited and inspired by the start to fall with all of our gatherings; youth groups, confirmation, MAC track, Sunday School, small groups, rezlife 101, and more. We have so many new and enthusiastic volunteers.

I launched a 4-wk small group video study for our high school small groups on God's desire for our lives in regards to romantic relationships. Got lots of great feedback from students and groups. We filmed in the woods, a movie theatre, on top of the Western Auto building downtown, and finally in the Wesley Chapel here at the Central Campus.

Finally I'll share we had a great family vaca to St. Louis. We did six flags, the Zoo, City Museum, and the famous Arch. Scharme had never been and it was a great time with the girls. Hailey especially liked the ride up into the arch-FREAKY!!



In Development...

Kicked off rezlife 101 courses for the school year. The purpose is to engage our long term volunteer leaders in an annual DNA (design -n- align) gathering, as well as new volunteers and new families to the church. This class serves mostly as an orientation to rezlife ministry as a whole. We had over 15 in our first gathering and received great response. I am excited to see this come together as we have over 350 annual volunteer leaders!

First student/college life mission to Africa next summer partnering with our ministry connection their-SHADE

We have exhausted the numbers we can presently serve in our summer mission strategy. We are looking at a city strategy wherein rez staff leaders plant themselves in that city for local support. We then mobilize and empower many of our adult lay leaders in mission team leadership, up to one van of students, to lead in service throughout a week. We would support the many teams as staff in this area management model as they engage local churches and mission partnerships in that particular city area.

Just this week spent time with Missouri Conference Youth Pastors and Bishop Robert Schnaese in planning strategies and directions to reach the next generation for Jesus. Excited to see where this connection leads, including helping their conference develop a youth pastor training module.

Re-shaping and re-building my wife and I's own personal small group after suffering some struggles over the summer, including two of our own members engaging in an affair with each other. God's grace and renewing spirit are overcoming this tragedy!



Upcoming....

Holy Land trip over spring break week and already have many families interested. I hope this will become a great graduation trip for students and parents, but even beyond that! This trip is designed for, but not limited to, high school students.

Many speaking engagements upcoming including my weekly rezlife messages through youth group, confirmation, some guest speaking here in the church with "Building Better Moms" group (over 100 involved), keynote alongside Mike Slaughter at an event in South Dakota, our rezlife fall retreats (3 weekends), and our first young adult/college life retreat weekend.

Supporting my wife in the Sacred Steps race this weekend. Sign up now!

Finally, considering starting Hailey in gymnastics lessons, and I bought her a putter this past week so we can begin putting together at a course close to our house!

Blogging again soon...

Tonight Health Care Forum live online at Resurrection central campus

gettin' in the mud

Tomorrow my good friend Dave Pullin and I will be 'gettin in the mud", literally. We are running in the dirty duo adventure race at the Kansas City Speed way. Our team name is "shake and bake". I shared my hopes to complete this race beside my good friend, with no injuries, to over 200 students this past week at the first week of summer camp. I want to thank the many students who are praying for my friends. Thanks for all the facebook messages and texts.

This all came about due to my good friend going through a really tough time. As a friend I have feared I wouldn't know what to say, what to do, or even worse, allow my own emotions to become the center of the conversations during this time. Dave is one of the strongest dudes I know. He is the Director of Technical Ministries at Church of the Resurrection and his leadership through his life and with his staff team is something I have always looked up to!

I look forward to the race. It will be exhausting and thrilling! This race reminds me that God works in unique and even humorous ways. One of the cool elements in this race is the very last element-a 40 ft mud pit. Each team must go through it side by side, and that means one of us will be waiting for the other at the end as we alternate biking and running for 6 miles. The challenge to wait and crawl side by side through the mud seems a great metaphor to what church can be for any of us who are going through a tough time. I love that, and I love the mud, so I'll call it good!

Confabulation conference comes to a close

This past week we held our first formal youth ministry training conference at Resurrection. We had a great cross-section of participants from large church staff teams to small rural settings. Some had been in youth ministry 5 years and others for just four months. One had just had their first experience of a late night crisis call from a student. The passion in the group was contagious and reminded me of my first years serving students for God!

Some of the competencies that were covered were;
Strategic Planning
Leadership
Transformational models
Healthy relational boundaries
Programmatic ideas and tactics

It was an awesome week and I can't wait until next May. I think it will be a great annual event that equips new youth pastors as well as sharpening our team here at Resurrection!

40 of my closest friends got on a plane

So we wrapped up our conference of youth pastor's from the largest United Methodist Churches in America. These churches all average over 1200 in worship over a weekend. We had 40 of the 100 invited who came to Church of the Resurrection for the gathering.

We began with a challenging message from my Senior Pastor, Adam Hamilton, of who we are as United Methodists and what role we can play as Youth pastor's of the largest churches in raising up the next generation of ministry leaders.

After sharing in some desserts and conversation we began moving into "business" discussing such topics as; staff structure, team building, org charts and leadership by gifting, discipleship, mentorship, recruiting and equipping of both adult and student leaders. The discussions were insightful, positive, and inspiring for each of us involved.

Some new connections began and this event will continue next year with another church hosting. I am excited to have been a part of "birthing" this idea. it is really great to sit down with other leaders with similar settings in ministry.

Two cool moments....The first would be that one of the participants, Steve Cragg, long time Youth Pastor at Memorial Drive UMC in Houston, TX was celebrated for raising up Dave MaGee, our own High School minister here at Resurrection. The second was Kirk Dana from First UMC in Lakeland, Fl. He has been in full-time youth ministry for 36 years!

Check out UMYouthPastor.com, Jeremy Steele from Christ UMC in Mobile, AL has begun this resource sharing web-site!

God is Good!

large church connection youth pastor's gathering

Tonight I will welcome 40 youth pastors from some of the largest United Methodist Churches in America to a conference here at Resurrection. This is in direct relation to our Senior pastor Adam Hamilton's work with the same gathering that began last year for Senior Pastors.

We will hope to accomplish a few things in this gathering...

1) to connect, support, and encourage one another.

2) to discuss, in round table fashion, what seems to be the greatest obstacles in youth ministry in these settings (as submitted by the participants).
-Staff Structure and Team Building
-Recruiting and Equipping Leaders
-Discipleship
-Connection to the Church Whole

3) Launch this as an annual gathering to be hosted by different churches. I will offer to host it again to be sure it happens. My true hope is that someone is inspired to do so, and I would come beside them as co-leader expecting that to happen with the 2010 host person and the next year's host.

I am excited to connect and conference together starting tonight!