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

Youth Revivals, hmmm, does anybody really do those anymore? Do they still work? Will students really invite their friends to one? Yes, Yes, and Yes! I know in a lot of youth ministry circles the youth revival is thought of as just another dinosaur of youth ministry programming but I beg to differ. I do a ton of them and they still work. I’ve done them in the Spring, the Fall, and even the Summer. I’ve done them in big towns and small communities. I’ve done them combined with school assemblies. I’ve done them every which way you could possibly imagine. They look different than they used to, they have different names but the format is still basically the same. And believe it or not, students show up, bring their friends, people find Jesus, and lives are changed.

The normal format is Sunday morning or Sunday night through Wednesday night with camp style services each night. From there I’ve seen every variation you could possibly imagine – from blow up games and mud pits to prize give-aways and Super Summer style rec to gallon challenges and, of course, Pizza. Normally, the youth minister and I hit up the school lunches and hang out with students each day. If the youth minister can get me in I do school assemblies which really provides a big boost to the attendance. All of this with the hope of creating a buzz amongst the students that something big is going on down at the church. If you can create that buzz, I promise you students will come out of the woodwork to be there! So if you’re looking for a “new” way to reach teenagers give the youth revival a shot. They still work, they’re tons of fun, and to top it all off teenagers find Christ!

Here’s a video I put together of a youth revival I did last summer with Jeff Scott at Pioneer Drive Baptist Church in Abilene, Texas. Hopefully it will give you some ideas for your next youth revival!

God Bless ya – Runks

Just finished up Super Week at Pioneer Drive Baptist Church in Abilene, Texas.  Jeff Scott, Travis Craver, and their team of really cool interns put on an awesome event.  It was basically a youth revival wrapped up in a camp trapped in a Super Summer.  The students were divided into teams, did ridiculous cheers, played crazy games all leading into awesome worship led by the band Redwise.  God moved powerfully each night with many teenagers finding a new relationship with Jesus.  Who says youth revivals are dead?  This was one of the coolest events I’ve ever been a part of and I’m so humbled to have been a small part of what God is doing at PDBC.  Here is a highlight video of Super Week, which by the way I filmed entirely on an iphone.  Those things are stinking amazing.  I don’t know how I ever lived without it.

PDBC students, you guys rock!  Keep on loving Jesus and Living Weak!  Thanks so much for letting me hang out with y’all this week!

God Bless ya – Runks