My son, Nick aka “BigRunkDaddy 6″ is playing varsity quarterback this fall for the Levelland Lobos and I’m determined not to miss a single game for three reasons: 1. I’m his dad and he wants me there. 2. he’s really good and I want to see him play, and 3. its just the right thing to do.  So we are simply trusting that God will provide unique opportunities of ministry this Fall that will work around Nick’s games.

As a result my Fall Schedule through November will be limited to Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday events or Sunday – Wednesday type events.  I only have two full weekends available until November because of a Thursday night game and the bye week.  So if you’re interested in booking me for a weekend before November, I will only be available The weekends of August 27 & October 1.

Fall weekends available prior to November:

August 27-29

October 1-3

Other than that let’s get creative and do some one nighters, short weekends, or maybe even a souped up, modernized youth revival!

So give me a call and let’s get together and make some unique plans to reach teenagers for Jesus!!

God Bless Y’all

Runks

Want to get parents more involved in your student ministry or at least help them be included in the experiences their teens have in your ministry?? Northview Baptist Church in Lewisville, Texas may have found a way to do just that. During their recent DiscipleNow they tweeted out updates about what was happening during the weekend. It was a blow by blow explanation of just about everything that happened during the weekend including the crazy games being played, the worship songs we sang, and even snippets of my messages – all in real time! They had done this from their camp last summer and the parents told me it was awesome to be able to keep up with what was happening with their kids while they were away and made it easier to get them to share their experience when they got home.

Northview just used twitter for this but I think it would be a great idea to use your student ministry fan page for updates as well since most parents are on facebook anyway and you wouldn’t have to convince them to join twitter to participate.

As a parent of teenagers myself, it drives me nuts how hard it is to get two words out of my kids about their experiences in the student ministry. Tweeting out what is happening would give us parents some specific information to ask about and hopefully better engage our kids when they get home. I’d love it if I could ask them what they thought about the message on the Prodigal Son on Tuesday night or the mud pit relays on Thursday afternoon instead of being limited to just asking, “how was camp?” I really hope our Student Pastor is reading this! hint, hint…. hahaha

God Bless Y’all – Runks

Here is a stupid video about eating turkey, giving thanks, and Tony Romo.

Have fun, I know I did!

Stuff I’m thankful for:

Jesus for loving me enough to die for me and live in me!

More freedom every day from the baggage of the abuse in my past!

A really awesome wife who loves me even though I’m an idiot!

Both my kids love Jesus!

Elli because she is so much fun and always makes me laugh!

Elli, thanks for riding go karts! hahaha

Nick because he loves the things I love!

Dude, thanks for going hunting with me and Wreck’em Tech!!

A godly Mom who has always been such an amazing example of who Jesus is!

Joanna still sorta thinks I’m funny!

God walking with us through the loss of my Dad to cancer 11 years ago!

An awesome Dad that invested his life in me!

Thanks Dad for always taking me with you!  Tell Jesus I said what up!

Joanna for believing in me and supporting my ministry completely!

That God still lets me do what I do!

The privilege of pouring my life into teenagers!

I got to go to India this past summer!

Joanna for being everything I could ever need or want!

Mike Pinkston!

I get to live in Levelland, Texas!

I have legs, dude!

I’m finally learning to love myself!

Friends that love me and hang out with me!

And Jesus for providing this stuff and these people I have to be thankful for!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!!!! – Runks

My son Nick, aka @BigRunkDaddy in the twittosphere, and I are on our annual Thanksgiving week deer hunt. We’re sleeping in a ratty old camper, eating insanely unhealthy food, and having the time of our lives! It is one of the coolest blessings of my life that my 15 year old son wants to spend a week in the woods with his Dad.

Having a shared passion with your teenager is one of the greatest parenting tools any parent can have. It gives you the opportunity to have the “quantity” of time required to open the door for “quality” time to happen. I think the old adage, “quality time is more important than quantity time” is a load of bull because you can’t just decide to have quality time and magically make it happen. If you want to have quality time with your kids you have to make the effort to spend a ton of “quantity” time to get there. That’s why a shared passion is so important.

When I was a teenager I always thought my Dad was the biggest dork on the planet except when we were hunting together because we both loved it so much. Somwhere in the middle of all that “quantity” time in the woods the walls would come down and “quality” time happened. Some of the most important talks I ever had with my Dad during my crazy teen years took place over the hood of a pick-up in the middle of nowhere. Now I’m having that same experience all over again from the other side of the pick- up. As cool as I like to think I am I’m almost certain that Nick thinks I’m an idiot most of the time but when we’re out in the boonies sharing our passion for hunting I’m still his hero and that has opened the doors to some pretty awesome life changing conversations.

If I have any parenting advice to offer its this: include your kids in the passions of your life. Never leave them at home when you go do whatever it is you love to do. Figure out what they’re passionate about, get passionate about it, and get ready for some awesome, life changing experiences with your kids. Trust me, it is so worth the effort for them and you!!

Now, I’ve got to get out of this deer blind and go help Nick clean the hog he just shot. Maybe we’ll get to have a talk about life while we’re at it.

God Bless Y’all – Runks