Sharing Sermons

January 23, 2012 in Sharing with 0 Comments

You know me. I like sharing.

One thing I wish people would share more of is what sermons they’ve listened to recently that they enjoyed.

 

So in the spirit of the Golden Rule . . .

Here are some sermons I’ve listened to recently that I loved. I’m talking mind-blowing.

Leave a comment and share with all of us what great sermons you’ve listened to recently.

Ranked in order of awesomeness:

Beau Hughes – Learning Contentment (click to go to download/read the transcript – also available in The Village Podcast feed)

Skipped right over this on the Village podcast because, well, it wasn’t Matt Chandler. And Beau is definitely not Matt Chandler. In style, probably his polar opposite. Kind of like Keller (at least in this sermon), somehow enthralling despite its dry delivery.

  • I think it’s good for us to be sobered by how horrible our discontentment is. It’s not just a respectable sin that we can deal with here and there.
  • Contentment= Our highest ambition is to be the Lord’s and to be at His disposal
  • The first sin in the Bible is mankind being discontent with the blessings of God.
  • Discontentment erodes worship, rejects ministry and hinders joyful obedience.
  • It’s really hard to follow someone that you don’t trust, and it’s even harder to follow someone with whom you are angry. So discontentment is not the soil that joyful obedience grows in. Do you think you’re going to be obedient to God when you’re frustrated with Him and you don’t trust Him?

 

Tim Keller – Marriage as Commitment (click to go to podcast in iTunes)

So good (and I assume he unpacks a lot of this in his book that is still sitting on my night stand waiting to be read)

  • Marriage is a commitment first, and a feeling second
  • Marriage requires the ability to hear criticism without being crushed
  • The ability to give criticism without crushing
  • God takes your selfishness in marriage and uses it against you for your own good
  • You finally have to come to grips with your sin/selfishness because its ruining your life in your marriage. For the first time in your life, you can’t run

 

Matt Chandler – A Call to Pray (click to go to download/read the transcript – also available in The Village Podcast feed)

This is how to give a talk on prayer

  • The main issue in our prayerlessness is we have a problem believing and grasping that God likes us, enjoys us and delights in us.
  • “Do you think God delights in, rejoices in and enjoys you right now?”
  • I do not think that you struggle with believing that God likes you ten years from now. Because you ten years from now is awesome.
  • “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden.”
  • You’ve got to hear this invitation as it relates to prayer. Because the invitation isn’t, “Start doing what’s right.” The invitation is, “Come to Me. You’re not doing what’s right.” So the solution to what ails us, what weighs heavy on us and what exhausts us is not us trying harder at overcoming those things, but it’s rather us coming to Jesus, walking with Jesus, being in a relationship with Jesus that overpowers our affection for the struggle.
  • It’s, “Come to Me. Are you a train wreck? Come here. Are you broken? Are you stuck in lust? Are you stuck in anger? Are you stuck in fear? Get over here!”

 

Tim Keller – The Story of the Lamb  (click to go to podcast in iTunes)

Keller helps us “Behold the lamb of God” through unpacking one of THE dominant threads of the Bible.

Brilliant in making clear (even to a secular mind) the need for substitutionary atonement.

 

Tim Keller – God With Us (click to go to podcast in iTunes)

A Christmas message that matters all year long. Tim Keller takes a sometimes trite phrase “God with us” and makes it come alive. Why “God with us” should excite and transform us.

 

Share the wealth – what great sermons have you listened to recently?

 

Be a Barnabas to the Next Paul

January 22, 2012 in Ministry, Movement Building, Sharing with 1 Comment

I shared this with our Leadership students this last week and I think it was really helpful in clarifying what we want them to accomplish.

 

Quick background: We’ve noticed that our student leaders are great at doing ministry but not great at recruiting new leaders to join with us (whether that’s to Winter Conference, Summer Project, to our weekly leadership time, or even initiating with new people at Cru).

 

So we’re seeking to create a culture where Leaders not only do ministry but act as mobilizers.

 

Kind of like “Teach them how to fish”,

“Be a Barnabas” is sticky – it vividly and memorably captures what a leader does.

 

Just wanted to share for others to be able to use/adapt for their leadership times.

Here’s my notes:

  • Tell me everything you know about Paul [greatest missionary ever, wrote most of the New Testament, persecutor, dramatic conversion, etc.]
  • Now tell me everything you know about Barnabus [not much- the only response from students: “he was an encourager”]
  • Lets read Acts 9:26-31; 11:19-26
    • What did Barnabas do in each of these situations?
    • Barnabas sought out Paul, Barnabas brought Paul to stuff
    • He saw something in Paul that others did not
    • He gave Paul his start and connected Paul to a missional community that eventually sent him out to become the greatest missionary the world has ever seen
  • Paul’s influence/impact far exceed Barnabas’
  • God may have you here at the University of Arkansas, leading a freshman Bible study, to raise up 3 missionaries to Ethiopia. To raise up the next great leader whom God will use to bring revival to this campus.
  • Your job as a leader is to get as many people on the playing field (doing ministry) as possible.
  • To not only lead for Christ but to raise up as many leaders as possible.
  • To be a Barnabas – To raise up the next Paul.

“Sir Humphry Davy was a distinguished chemist of the nineteenth century. When asked late in life what he considered to be his greatest discovery, he replied, ‘Michael Faraday.’

Davy had found Faraday, the ignorant son of a blacksmith, taking notes at his lectures and longing to study science. As Davy began to teach young Faraday, he found a brilliant mind that promised to eclipse even his own achievements. He knew that no one discovery of his could possibly compare with the many discoveries Faraday would make.”

- From Tim Elmore’s book Nurturing the Leader within your child

 

What sticky metaphors/ideas/phrases do you use to create a missional culture?

 

photo courtesy of  Lawrence OP

Why I like the I Hate Religion video

January 15, 2012 in Culture, Evangelism with 10 Comments

The Christian bloggers haven’t been this worked up since Rob Bell’s Love Wins.

The critiques have been pouring in on the very popular video “Why I hate religion but love Jesus” (you can watch it below).

Mega-blogger Justin Taylor tweeted this good perspective:

  • in 6 days 12 million people have watched @JeffuhsonBethke’s “Why I hate religion” video.
  • In 10 months 650,000 watched the Love Wins trailer.

 

Several differences in the two firestorms:

  • Love Wins was an internal fight among Christians.
  • Why I Hate Religion has reached viral status among the broader world.
  • Love Wins was justifiably critiqued. It’s pretty much heresy.
  • The Why I hate religion but love Jesus video is not flawless in its wording but it’s a great attempt at evangelism

 

Tullian Tchividjian responds to the critics with, I think, a very helpful correction that’s well worth the read.

I’ve found that in college ministry our main battle is definitely what Tullian writes: that the gospel is “going to have to be distinguished from religion because “religion” is what most people outside the church think Christianity is all about—rules and . . . cleaning yourself up and politics . . . and self-salvation”

 

Cru’s “Changing Evangelism” research project found an interesting pattern among most non-Christians:

“They are convinced they’ve already heard.

Regardless of how we adapt our evangelistic approaches, it is significant to know that our audience thinks they’ve already heard the message of Jesus (even if, in fact, they haven’t).

We found that 31 of 34 unbelievers we interviewed felt that they’d already heard the message of Jesus . . .

When in fact, most needed someone to correct misconceptions they had about God.

Many New Believers expressed having had misconceptions and a lack of understanding about what it meant to be a Christian. In fact, though many New Believers grew up around Christianity, they would say that they’d never really heard a clear presentation of the gospel before college.”

 

I have found that when you talk to most college students about Jesus they will immediately think you are talking about religion and they will dismiss you out of hand (and won’t hear anything you’re saying). On our campus, one of our chief goals in evangelism is to contrast religion with the gospel (a la Tim Keller: “there are three ways to approach God: Religion, Irreligion, and the Gospel; which makes me think – what does Keller think about all this fuss?? and how come people are lining up to criticize this video when no one has taken on Keller for his use of “religion” as the word to represent a moralistic approach to God).

 

I think the “Why I hate religion” video, while not perfect, definitely creates tension to where a person might for the first time think:

“Maybe I don’t really understand Christianity and the gospel.”

And that’s a great place to start.

 

To be fair, I have tremendous respect for guys like Kevin Deyoung and others who have criticized the video. And Kevin, et al, have some valid (though I’d say relatively minor) quibbles.

And you should definitely read Kevin Deyoung’s post where Jeff Bethke, the creator of the “I hate religion” video writes to Kevin to thank him (with incredible humility) for his loving critique:

“If I redid the video tomorrow, I’d keep the overall message, but would articulate, elaborate, and expand on the parts where my words and delivery were chosen poorly. . . thankful for your words and more importantly thankful for your tone and fatherly like grace on me as my elder”

 

But one commenter on Tullian’s post says it well:

“This young man should have received a pat on the back, instead he got thrown under the bus by a lot of people who should have known better. Props to him for boldly speaking about Christ in a public medium. Not to mention taking all of the criticism in a humble, teachable way.”

 

As the saying goes: No one has ever built a monument to a critic.

Or to paraphrase another of my favorite sayings: I like the way Jeff is sharing the gospel better than the way they’re not (not saying they don’t share their faith. There just seems to be far more concern for semantics than passion for the lost).

He made a very well produced video that obviously connected with a lot of people (presumably a lot of whom were non-Christians) and created tension on a critical issue, hopefully awakening many to the fact that they really do not understand the amazing news of the gospel.

 

What are your thoughts?

How do you get through to students/others who hear “religion” when you say “Jesus”?

 

 

Teaching How to Fish

January 13, 2012 in Evangelism, Ministry with 1 Comment

A conversation I had this summer with my brother-in-law:

Me: “How was fishing this morning?”

Brother-in-law: “Um, it was fun in a different way. It was a lot of work.”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Brother in law:

“Well, I never got to fish. I took a friend and his kids out fishing.

They’d never been fishing before so I spent the whole time baiting their hooks, netting their fish they caught, retrieving fishing poles the kids dropped overboard. So it wasn’t fun per se. More rewarding than fun- but so fun to see their faces as they caught their first fish.”

What a great metaphor for ministry.

I told my team that story and we used it all fall: “Remember, teach students how to fish even if it means that you don’t get to fish much yourself.”

 

I’m convinced that staff’s primary job is not to do ministry but to equip others to do ministry.

But the problem is that most staff go into full time ministry to fish not to make fishers of men.

 

If you’re interested you can read more thoughts here on how staff’s job is to get more people on the playing field (and how empowered leadership is what Millennials crave)

 

What that’s looked like for us:

  • In the midst of a crazy first week of following up thousands of contacts, Jon (one of our senior staff) spent his first day of follow up with 4 new Community Group leaders walking through how to call contacts and what to do during follow up. He “lost” a valuable afternoon of follow up but was able to equip and mobilize 4 students to pursue freshmen.
  • Staff never share their faith alone. Staff Success in evangelism= sharing the gospel while a student leader watches/learns.

 

What has “Teaching How to Fish” looked like for you and your team?

 

photo courtesy of Tassava

Raising up Bible Study Leaders

January 12, 2012 in Ministry, Movement Building, Sharing with 0 Comments

Great quote from Brian McCollister, Cru director at Ohio University:

 If you’re not growing the number of small group leaders:

    • You either have a problem on the front end – involving more freshmen
    • Or on the back end – of identifying and developing leaders

 

I think the converse holds true:

If you’re not growing the number of freshmen involved, you are not raising up enough small group leaders (we count “involved” as # of freshmen in Bible studies).

 

Either way, the focus remains: I think the primary win for the spring is growing the number of small group leaders who will lead in the fall (here are some thoughts on how we plan to do that).

 

80/6*2=28

Let’s say we want to involve 80 freshmen in the fall. We need to work backward from there:

  • If an average study has 6 students in it. . . we need 14 successful freshmen studies
  • If each study has 2 co-leaders, at the very least we need to have 28 students leading freshmen studies
  • So our goal for the spring should be to raise up 28 freshman Bible study leaders

 

It’s been said: “Good falls begin in the spring.”

Would love to hear: What is your team doing this spring in order to have a good fall?

Top Posts of 2011

January 11, 2012 in Ministry, Movement Building, Sharing with 0 Comments

I started blogging to share. As I stated in my first post:

“Inspired by others who have taken the time to share their thoughts/learnings/resources I thought I would stop mooching and start contributing to the conversation.”

 And blogging has been a better investment than I initially could have imagined. Definitely worth the time.

 

Especially for those of you in college ministry, I’d encourage you to consider how you could contribute to the conversation in 2012. I’d love to see more staff in Cru sharing – always love to see what other campuses are doing and learning. You can read my recent post,

Shares Well With Others, on CruPressGreen for more thoughts on Sharing.

 

With that being said, here’s a look back at what were the

12 most popular posts on my blog in 2011:

 

#1 – Everything you need to know about the Cru name change

  • By far the most visited post of 2011 – more people looked at that post than the rest of the top 12 combined. Still don’t understand what the big deal is re: the name change . . .

 

#2 – Stuff you can use for your weekly meeting

  • An intro video and music playlist to use at a weekly meeting.

 

#3 – How to start well with your staff

  • Practical thoughts on what to cover during staff planning

 

#4 – Should we do more ministry online?

  • Should campus ministers incorporate online presence into our work schedule? Should we ever spend “hot hours” (afternoon hours) online?

 

#5 – Why you shouldn’t go to seminary

  • Aside from the Cru name-change post, this is probably the post that gets the most google search traffic. Proof that sensationalist titles work  : )

 

#6 – Vale la pena

  • Is college ministry worth the pain of enduring humiliation and contempt so that hundreds and thousands of future world changers can encounter Jesus?

 

#7 – 5 Things we want every student to experience

  • Great 2 part guest post on narrowing the focus of what we do with students in discipleship. If you only had 5 appointments with a student, what would you do with them?
  • Part 1  and  Part 2

 

#8 – How we do ministry

  • A one page summary of how we do ministry on our campus. Our ministry philosophy and what we are seeking to accomplish.

 

 #9 – The Generation changing the world.

  • It’s an exciting time to be working with this generation of college students. 2 Posts on this world-changing generation:
  • Post 1 – This generation of Millenials (age 10-30) is the largest American generation (larger than the Baby Boomer generation). They and their global counterparts will change the world.
  • Post 2 - The role of young people in changing the world in 2011

 

#10 – Blogging, Ministry Growth and Ambition 

  • How do you strive for excellence, success, and growth in ministry (and blogging) while remaining humble and God-honoring?

 

#11 – Planning for Year 2023 – Goals

  • How does having a numerical goal (connected to a long term plan) change things?
    • It forces you to plan differently
    • It gives your staff and students hope/vision

 

#12 - Raising AND lowering the bar

  • “We’re constantly raising the bar of what it takes to be a leader, and lowering the bar on what it takes to get involved”

 

photo courtesy of Leo Reynolds

Top 50 Songs of 2011

December 26, 2011 in Culture, Music with 0 Comments

Specifically these are “my favorite songs that I listened to with my wife and kids – cruising in our minivan”.

So it excludes music that’s too heavy/slow/potty-mouthed/grating.

It’s Indie Music for the Masses.

Unlike most “best songs of 2011″ all these songs are very listenable/enjoyable. I feel like most lists are trying to earn their indie street cred by trying to list the most obscure bands that no one has ever heard of.

And here are a few bonus lists:

Click “subscribe” at the top of Spotify if you want to add any of the the playlists to your sidebar of lists.

Here are my 50 favorite songs of 2011 (click to play the full list in Spotify):

50 Seryn – Beach Song

49 Washed Out – Amor Fati

48 The Dodos – Black Night

47 Broken Bells – Meyrin Fields

46 Bright Eyes – Shell Games

45 Pepper Rabbit – Dance Card

44 ANR – Stay Kids

43 James Blake – The Wilhelm Scream

42 The Naked And Famous – Young Blood

41 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. – Nothing But Our Love

40 Young Man – Nothing

39 Death Cab for Cutie – You Are A Tourist

38 Young Galaxy – Cover Your Tracks

37 Geographer – Verona

36 Royal Bangs – TV Tree

35 Tapes ‘n Tapes – Freak Out

34 Alexander – Truth

33 TV On The Radio – Will Do

32 The National – You Were A Kindness

31 Phantogram – Turning Into Stone

30 St. Vincent – Neutered Fruit

29 King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – John Taylor’s Month Away

28 Wye Oak – The Alter

27 Cults – Go Outside

26 MNDR – I Go Away

25 Capital Cities – Safe and Sound

 

24 Cut Copy – Where I’m Going (click to download for free)

 

23 Lykke Li – I Follow Rivers

 

22 Dry the River – No Rest

 

21 Beirut – Santa Fe

 

20 Yeasayer – Swallowing the Decibels (click to download for free)

 

19 My Morning Jacket – Victory Dance

 

18 Bon Iver – Calgary (right click to download for free)

 

17 Phantogram – When I’m Small

 

16 Lykke Li – Love Out Of Lust

 

15 St. Vincent – Strange Mercy (click the black box to play/stop)

 

14 The Antlers – No Widows (click the black box to play/stop)

 

13 Beirut – The Rip Tide

 

12 Digits – Lost Dream (click to download the whole album for free)

 

11 ANR – It’s Around You (right click to download for free)

 

10 Phantogram – Don’t Move (click to download for free)

 

9 Cults – You Know What I Mean

 

8 Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues (click to download for free)

 

7 King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Bats In The Attic (sorry, couldn’t find this one to stream – you’ll have to listen to it on Spotify)

 

6 M83 – Midnight City

 

5 Active Child – Hanging On (click to download for free)

 

4 Lana Del Rey – Video Games (click the black box to play/stop)

 

3 Geographer – Kites

 

2 Bon Iver – Holocene

 

1 Wye Oak – ‘Civilian’ (click to download for free)

 

What were your favorite songs of 2011? What did I miss?

 

Top 10 Albums of 2011

December 15, 2011 in Music with 3 Comments

It’s the most wonderful time of they year – time for everyone to release their “Best of 2011” lists. I hope to post a few different posts:

  • Top 10 Albums of 2011
  • Top 50 Songs of 201
  • Top Books of 2011
  • Top Thoughts from 2011
  • Top Posts of 2011

Today’s Best of 2011 list:

Top 10 Albums of 2011

It’s been a good, not great year for albums. It’s hard to top last year’s trifecta of Sufjan, Arcade Fire, and The National (here is my Top Albums list from last year)

Really this year there’s one great album – Bon Iver – and 9 good albums. One theme this year (at least in my top 10) seems to be albums that sound like they were made in a different era:

  • King Creosote – the 1800’s in Scotland
  • Cults – 50’s doo-wop
  • Beirut (though hailing from exotic Arizona) – early 1900’s Italy
  • M83 is straight out of the 80’s
  • My Morning Jacket’s 1970’s classic rock album

Top Albums/Songs lists are great ways to discover new music. You can click on any of the Albums below to listen to the full album, for free, on Spotify. I highly recommend Spotify – it takes about a minute to download (I use the free version) and let’s you listen to practically any song/album in the world for free. PLUS it lets you listen to playlists that your friends make – i.e. – the Top 50 Songs of the Year list I’ll put on there. Just click “subscribe” at the top of Spotify if you want to add anyone’s lists to your sidebar of lists (and you can delete any lists if you later get tired of them).

Quick aside – any song listed for free on here is 100% legal. And I don’t make any money off any of the links or Spotify or anything. I just like connecting friends to good music and good deals.

 

Top 10 Albums of 2011

#10 My Morning Jacket – Circuital

A few really good songs on this slow-building, classic-rock sounding album. Love the songs Victory Dance, Circuital and You Wanna Freak Out. $5 right now on Amazon.

 

 

#9 Beirut – The Rip Tide

I’m pretty sure Beirut is the only band on this list with a flugelhorn and the ukulele as lead instruments. This is the most upbeat, accessible album from a great band.

Two phenomenal songs from the album: Rip Tide, Santa Fe. $5 right now on Amazon.

 

#8 Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes

Swedish singer songwriter Lykke Li trades bubblegum pop for heartbreak and regret. But it’s toe-tapping heartbreak. You could call it heartbreak pop. $7.99 on Amazon.

Two amazing songs from the album: Love out of Lust, I Follow Rivers.

 

#7 M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.

a. The first double album I’ve ever bought. And it’s not your typical album with long stretches of instrumental music. M83 has had great songs in the past but I’ve found their albums to be a little painful to endure. But this album never drags and feels like a cohesive whole – a great 80’s indie pop album.

Midnight City is topping many people’s best song of 2011 lists (definitely in my top 10)

 

#6  The Antlers – Burst Apart

Kind of a downer of an album – but a great, moving album. $5 on Amazon.

Get the two most popular songs (though No Widows is my favorite) off the album for free on Amazon:

I Don’t Want Love

Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out

 

#5 Cults – Cults

The doo-wop vibe eventually wears a bit thin at times but it has 5-6 really incredible, addictive songs on it. Great pop-rock. $5 right now on Amazon.

 

#4 St. Vincent – Strange Mercy

Angst filled, passionate music throughout. Great hooks, great turn of phrase, great music. Only $5 right now on Amazon

Get one of the songs from the album for free – Surgeon (right click to download).

 

#3 King Creosote & Jon Hopkins-Diamond Mine

King Creosote transports you to another time with his beautiful Scottish songs. Great for the gray days of winter.

 

#2 Wye Oak – Civilian

Reminds me of a female version of The Nationals – dark, moody and great. Give this one some time – it will grow on you. $5 right now on Amazon

Get the best song on the album (and . . . SPOILER ALERT! . . . as you’ll see on my top songs post, my favorite song of 2011!) – Civilian – for free on Amazon.

 

#1 Bon Iver – Bon Iver

Without a doubt the best album of 2011. I never jumped on the Bon Iver bandwagon when their first album – For Emma, Forever Ago – swept the indie world. It was too slow and sparse for my tastes. But every song on Justin Vernon’s sophomore effort is amazing.

Get one of the best songs on the album, Calgary (right click to save), for free from Pitchfork.

Click below to listen to the entire album for free (so you can be convinced you need to buy it – $4.99 right now on Amazon):

 

 

Two Honorable Mention EP’s

  • Phantogram – Nightlife – I just wish this were full length – every song is REALLY good.
    • Get the incredibly good, best song on the album for free – Don’t Move (right click to download)

 

What were your favorite albums of 2011?

The Leadership Pledge

December 15, 2011 in Ministry, Movement Building, Sharing with 2 Comments

Continuing a series of posts on putting together a Spring Gameplan. Click to read Post #1 on our Timeline for the Spring and #2 on a couple of shifts we made to better raise up a reaching freshmen team.

 

One of the most effective things we did last Spring was something we dubbed the Leadership Pledge.

Hopefully it’s helpful, if only for the thorough description of how to set up a good 5 Things Discussion (at the bottom of the post).

 

Here’s how the Leadership Pledge worked:

  • We had a speaker from the Travelling Team speak at our first Cru of the spring on how God has used college students to change the world.
  • After the talk I stood up and gave a short 3 minute challenge to the effect of:
    • Hudson talked about young people who have been used greatly by God
    • They put their yes on the table
    • This semester you have things pulling for your time and attention
    • Will you allow God to use you in the lives of students around you?
    • Would you be willing to be used by God here at the U of A?
    • Hudson asked the question, “will you be used by God?
    • If you’re willing to say yes to that, please sign your name
    • That you would lead on this campus for God
    • If you sign your name, one of our staff or student leaders will meet with you one on one to help you figure out how you can lead for God on this campus
      • If you have a vision for how God can use you here, we’d love to hear it and help you use your passions for God
      • Or if this is a new idea and you’re still trying to figure out how God is going to use you in your next 2, 3 or 4 years on campus, we’d love to come alongside you and help you figure out your next step.
    • Don’t check it if you don’t want to talk to a staff!
  • We passed out VERY simple cards and gave students a minute in silence to sign if they wanted to.

 

What we did for follow up:

  • We trained staff and key student leaders in how to use the 5 Things – what to say to start the conversation (after small talk), what parts to emphasize, what questions to skip, etc (for more on that, I included detailed notes at the bottom of the post)
  • We made a Google Doc with all who signed the Pledge and let trained student leaders and staff assign themselves to follow up with students
  • We set up 1on1 appointments with every student who signed. Ideally, we take a student we’re discipling to do the appointment with us (Because we want to connect these students to other key leaders. So it will be 2 on 1)
  • The Goal of the appointment – Give them vision for living missionally using the 5 Things pamphlet and find out where they’re at in regard to that
  • Actions Steps  –
  • If you discern that they’re not ready to lead (spiritually, socially, maturity, etc) – Strongly encourage them to get in a Community Group where they can grow (help them find a group that works for them)
  • If they could be a Key Leader:
    • Job 1: Get a 2nd appt with them
    • Job 2: Use your discernment as to the next step.  You’re options (in order of priority):
      • Get them on Leadership Retreat (say, “I’ll bring you next week”)
      • Invite them to Leadership Hour (say, “I’ll bring you next week”)
      • Invite them to M29 Evangelism-Track

 

A couple notes:

  • We intentionally didn’t put Cru anywhere on the Pledge card nor did we push Cru when we met one-on-one. We really hope to be able to help students connect with God’s mission, not ours.
  • The 5 Things is really good at setting up all that Cru offers.
    • For example, it clearly communicates the need for equipping. “So you want to be equipped? We just happen to do a weekly equipping time on Tuesday nights you should check out!”
    • It keeps a Kingdom focus and then we offer Cru as a solution to helping students make an impact for the Kingdom, which is exactly our role. Getting “plugged into Cru” is not the end, but a means to an end- equipping and mobilizing laborers for God’s glory.

 

Here’s what we did to equip our staff and student leaders to lead a 5 Things Discussion (I think this is pretty helpful):

  • The 5 Things is a pamphlet designed to help students figure out what it would look like for them to have an impact for God on campus and for the rest of their life
  • Click to view the trainer’s guide on Facilitating 5 Things Discussions
  • Don’t have an appointment until you read thru the trainer’s guide and are comfortable going thru it
  • The best way to open the conversation (included in the guide):
    • “I’d like to go over 5 key principles that when applied to your life help you figure out what it would look like for them to have an impact for God on campus. And not only that but I believe these 5 things lay the foundation for knowing and serving God for a lifetime.”
    • Before you get into The 5 Things, talk about Surrender (there’s a how-to on that in the Guide). I would use the verse – “you are not your own – you have been bought with a price” I Cor. 19-20 and ask some of the questions from the guide
    • Before you get into the first Thing – Kingdom Vision, I would steal some of the content from the Discipleship Challenge and ask:
      • Before we get into our vision for our lives, what do you think is God’s vision for our lives as believers?
      • His final words on earth are found in Matt 28:18-20 – let’s look at that
      • That is God’s will for all Christians that they would spend their life making disciples of all nations
      • So any plan we have for our lives needs to fit into this greater plan

Shifts in Focus in the Spring

December 14, 2011 in Ministry, Movement Building, Sharing with 4 Comments

part 2 of 3 in a series on Spring Ministry – click here to read posts 1 & 3. 

Yesterday I shared our Spring Timeline – our game plan for the entire spring semester.

The conviction behind it is this: The spring is the time to get your “reaching-freshmen-team” together and everything you do in the spring should contribute to assembling this team of leaders.

So last year we took a hard look at our spring and thought through what we needed to drop and what needed to add so that when August rolled around we would have a huge team of equipped students who want to invest themselves in reaching the freshmen class. Increasing our leadership base both in quantity and quality.

So here’s some changes we made in terms of:

 

Quantity

We stopped passing out FSK’s in the first week of the spring. I may get kicked off Cru staff for saying that. FSK’s are a Cru staple- a laundry bag filled with a Bible, a book, and some other swag- that we pass out in order to do spiritual interest surveys and generate new contacts.

  • But Staff and student leaders have limited time. And we decided that we could either invest our first 3 weeks of the spring in following up FSK contacts OR spend our first 3 weeks surfacing the next generation of leaders. It’s definitely a tradeoff.
  • But we have a semester worth of new people who attend our weekly meeting. Instead of running around crazy trying to turn over new rocks, why not invest heavily in those who are already in our ministry.
  • I’ll share tomorrow one of the primary things that helped us surface that next generation of leaders – the Leadership Pledge.

 

Quality

In thinking through what new CG leaders have to be good at, we arrived at this:

  • Primarily they need to be good at doing follow ups and initiating with freshmen. They need to be gospel pursuers. And we’d love for them to be adept at this before the craziness of the first weeks of the fall
    • So during the second half of the spring, we committed to taking every new Community Group leader (who will be leading a study in the fall) out to share their faith at least once (preferably twice).
  • Second, they need to know how to lead a study
    • We required all new Community Group Leaders to take a 5 week course- “How to Lead a Bible Study”
  • Third, they need to be good leaders
    • We implemented an application to lead and a one page leader expectation sheet
    • Staff interviewed every applicant one-on-one and had hard conversations with those who may not be quite ready to lead a study
The result?
Last spring was we doubled the number of Community Group leaders compared to the year before (without sacrificing quality) which has resulted in a lot more freshmen’s lives being changed this fall!

 

What do you think about staff focusing on raising up laborers the first 3 weeks of spring instead of a more outreach focus?



photo courtesy of ihtatho

Page 1 of 1612345»10...Last »