Something Different Something New

Hey guys I’m heading out bright and early in the morning for The Orange Conference 2010. Check back in for updates and also video of the speakers. I will be hanging around back stage for most of the big session so check this out for a unique point of view when it comes to seeing orange 2010. 

Thanks for checking this out 

Nick

Ok so I’m going to start to answer my First Question i posted with another question. Now i first off don’t want anyone to take this as a easy guide or a “how to” when it comes to starting a ministry.(That’s not my role in this) I just want to cause you to think before you just do. So with that said ….. What kind of Ministry are you Building? Ask the people that are part of your staff and see what they say ? Second what is your Mission statement and are you truly accomplishing it?

See i ask these questions because i have been apart of a ministry that was Built around awesome things like a great, i mean second to none bring in atmosphere. Our Numbers grew from our launching this youth ministry from nothing to well over 400 in the matter of just a year. Now this was nothing short of just one of the amazing things God was doing and blessing us with. Of course we had our fair share of problems. Discipline was always a problem, we even had 2 rival gangs in the church at one point in time (Scary). Now i say that to point toward our mission statement which is… To Lead students to become fully devoted followers of Christ. Now we were bringing students in by the masses but over time the big parties and the Bring in Atmosphere began to Wear off a bit! So we had to go back to the drawing board and really look at the goal we were trying to Accomplish. We wanted to Lead students to become fully devoted followers of Christ, Yet we weren’t totally getting into there lives. This burned with in us until we made a huge culture shift to Becoming a Ministry where Small Groups were the thing that everyone participated in. Yeah trust me trying to Go from a Big bring in ministry to a small group based ministry wasn’t the most fun and we had Tons of resistance. That resistance looked like a Students not wanting to come because they weren’t there for the right reasons in the first place and this just created more accountability in there lives. So we saw a Drop in numbers of Students yet we saw a growth in Leader Numbers.( I think i will talk about that next time)

Now let me Stop and say we haven’t stopped being about bringing in people we have just changed what you get once you get there. This shift in our Style has Cause myself my team and our Group of Leaders to be stretched to very uncomfortable places. I would like to call Small group ministry the Dirty part of ministry. The reason i call it this is because this is were we learned the true dirt that was going on in our students lives and this is where we began to help the Students “clean-up”.

So the Question that I’m ask a lot is, was it worth it? And i reply with Absolutely! We saw a drop in the Number of students yet our numbers after 6 months of doing Small Groups has actually rebounded back up. But, Nothing in this is as important as seeing Students connecting with there leaders and learning about Jesus. Now we can get into the nitty gritty about what kind of ratio do we have or should you have but i think at this point you need to decide what you ministry’s is trying to accomplish and run towards it.

My caution to anyone that is thinking I’m way off the ball here is that one day your ministry will No Longer be the “COOL” place to go unless you adapt and change with culture. God and His Story is the Only Timeless thing we should ever hold on to in ministry.  So don’t wait for the dust to settle and be left with a few. My Challenge to you is seek God and what he has for you even if his answer isn’t the easiest thing to do. Then make that decision and go with it even if it’s super difficult.

My Prayers are with you and your Ministry,

Nick

Just a little question to get everything started and I’m wondering what kind of responses i will get from this question. I will give my thoughts on this and give me experience in this as well in the next following day but im very interested in what you think about this…. Let me know!