Tag Archives: ministry

Facey Spaces, Tweety Tweets, & Parents

Posted on by
3

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: Dinosaur or Dynamite?

Posted on by
1

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

Super Week

Posted on by
5

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

 

Images of India

Posted on by
5

I’m still trying to wrap my head around all that I saw and experienced in India.  It was such an amazing experience and I am so humbled to have had the opportunity to be a small part of what God is doing in such a dark place.  I’ve been home for a week and I’m still having trouble finding words to express what I experienced over there so I think just let pics and video speak for themselves.

Here is promotional video for Asian Partners International

put together by our fearless team leader Coby Colley:

—————————————————–

Churches

The vision of A.S.S.I.  – the ministry we were working with, (it stands for Asian -Hindi word-Hindi word- International) – is to plant churches without attempting to change the culture so their worship services are like nothing I have ever seen.  All the worship is in the language of Hindi and the style is typical Indian music.  I couldn’t understand a word of it but  worshipping with my Indian brothers and sisters was awesome and some of the sweetest worship experiences I have ever had!  Here are some pics from some of the house churches we worshipped with. Continue reading →

Journal Entry – October 26, 1999

Posted on by
Reply

I have been working my tail off around the house here lately! Since I am gone so much in the summer I have a ton of yard stuff to catch up on!! The last few days I have been planting trees…. I have planted 71 trees in the last three days! We are planting a wind break almost all the way around our 2 acres. If you are not from west Texas, a wind break is a row of trees that blocks the wind because there is absolutely nothing between us and Alaska but a barbed wire fence up around Amarillo! It has been really cool for me to do something like this because rarely in what I do are there tangible results. It is difficult to look back and see something I can put my finger on that is the result of my efforts. I think this is especially true for ministers because we don’t build anything or sell anything – we work with people’s lives. When I was a youth minister, at least I got to see someone follow through on a decision and grow deeper in their relationship with Jesus. But now, I blow in , speak and leave. I get to see what God does initially but none of the long term results. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love what I do. I am blown away every day that God allows me to do this ministry but sometimes I would like to see something tangible that is a result of my work. And I guess that is why I am so pumped about at stupid row of 71 trees!! I go out there at least twice a day and look at them. I feel like an idiot because I know there is not going to be any difference in the trees from the last time I looked at them 20 minutes ago. But I keep going out there hoping that they will be, maybe, a little bit bigger.

trees

Here is a pic of Elli & Nick and the trees

I know it sounds silly but God had taught me several things from this stupid row of trees. He has been reminding me that growth is a process and it takes time, alot of time! I can’t expect those trees to be 20 feet tall over night and neither can I expect myself to be a spiritual giant overnight. Just as it takes a tree a long time to grow to maturity, it also takes us as Christians a long time to grow to maturity. It takes years for us become what God intended for us to be when He saved us. We must not become frustrated or over anxious to be a “super” Christian overnight. We must be patient and seek God every step of the way and depend on Him to take us through the process of growing towards spiritual maturity. Just like I have a responsibity to water, fertilize, and prune my trees, we have a responibility to spend time in God’s Word in study, meditation, and prayer BUT it is God who causes the growth. I can’t make my trees grow but I can do my part to give them the best chance to grow fast and reach maturity. And the same thing is true in our relationship with Jesus – we can’t make growth happen but we can do our part to put ourselves in the best postion for God to make a continuing difference in our lives. Which is what he does best! So I am gonna try and do the same thing with my life that I have to do with my trees. I am gonna hang out with Jesus, spend time in the word and sit back and see what God Does!!!

God bless ya, 
Runks

How was that for a pastoral newsletter article! I just read it and I feel like Pastor Runks from Po dunk Country Church! LOL!!!