simplyinsider.com

$3.99 Book Sale

We are moving warehouses and that means we want to move as few books as possible. To make that happen we are having a crazy 3.99 book sale. There are over 70 titles and it’s good while supplies last. Hurry, I don’t know how long some of them will last. Also for orders over 99, use the promo code: COLDOUTSIDE for free shipping.

simplykurt.com

Cleaning Up The Clutter

In Tuesday’s post, I mentioned that I have asked our JH and HS teams to begin to brainstorm what a cleaner, more streamlined ministry plan might look like. There was only one comment left in the comments section, but I thought it was a powerful one:

“Perhaps a bigger ?what if? for most of us is what if we were allowed to try that.”

I really don’t know of many churches that give the leaders and pastors more freedom to try new stuff than Saddleback. Throughout the years, Pastor Rick has encouraged us to think differently, try new things, make changes, and make mistakes…and he has led by example. But, with that being said, change is ALWAYS tough and it will be tough for us to make significant changes to our ministry, but we simply have to try. And I think that would be my response to the comment above. You may not be allowed to try to make changes, but as a leader, you have to try to try!

In our setting, ministry has simply become too cluttered. Our calendar of events and programs is cluttered, our infrastructure is cluttered, our team is cluttered (and I’m not talking about my office!), and our work days are cluttered. There’s lots and lots of really good stuff happening, but much of it has beenoverrun by all the clutter.

It won’t be easy, and I’m sure we will hit some obstacles along the way (both internal and external). But God is doingsomething specialin our ministry and [...]

youthministrygeek.com

Crowd Sourced Video Projects

Over the last week, I’ve come across two different video projects online that are using or used the power and reach of the internet to produce them. The first one is a group that setting out to remake Star Wars, but letting people pick their favorite scene and recreate it however they want. The second is a music video that that was written, produced and shot by user submissions to the creators youtube channel. He also has a bigger vision of getting this song on the UK music charts to raise money for charity.

Here are the videos:

Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

I just love the idea, and really enjoyed the results. I was thinking this could be a fun youth group project. Getting different groups of kids to shoot different parts of video and putting them all together could be a really fun activity. I used to volunteer in a ministry that had a film festival of student made films every year and something like this would have been a great addition. And with the availability of cameras like the Flip

simplyurbanministry.com

Soul Food! If you love yourself, feed yourself!!!

collegeministrythoughts.com

Simple Ministry

This fall has been filled with conferences. Some experiences have been better than others for me, but I’ve been able to have some really good conversations with dozens of leaders from across the country. There is one thing that seems to come up when I talk to people in ministry – and more often than I’d like.

People thinking they should be doing more than they already are.

Desiring to do more for those we work with certainly isn’t a bad thing. We just need to make sure “more” doesn’t come at the expense of what’s important. People.

Sometimes we think by doing more we’ll have a greater impact on people. That can be true, but often the opposite happens. If we’re not careful “more” actually comes at the expense of people. For instance, we can often think that we need to do more in our programs to be effective. Another video, a better game, a better sermon, etcetera. But the reality is people just need to be invested in, they don’t need more programming. Programs can be helpful, but if putting them together are at the expense of living life with people we can easily lose focus on what’s important.

To me, ministry is simple. Loving God and investing in individual people. We have a horrible tendency to make it more difficult than that. And then our definition of effectiveness gets all messed up…leading us to believe that we need to do more than just investing in individual people.

I want to issue some encouragements to those who feel they need to do more than this. For those possibly discouraged because of a seemingly more effective ministry in town. Or, possibly, to those that don’t have a type A personality and not the most gifted teacher in the world. Here are 4 things that, if you’re already doing in ministry, tell you nothing more needs to be implemented:

1. Simply helping people love God with all of their being
2. Simply helping people biblically navigate the waters they are in personally
3. Simply providing a safe place for people to express thoughts and not be judged
4. Simply helping people learn what it means to live out what they say they believe

Putting together another program – or doing more in the one you already have – might be helpful in accomplishing these things. But maybe it’s not what’s needed. Maybe doing less is best to make sure we’re staying focused on what’s important. People.

marriedtoayouthpastor.com

God runs through it!