Just finished up coding the free summer newsletter from Purpose Driven Youth Ministry – if you don’t get it you can sign up right here. Good stuff, including a new article from PDYM mentor Dan Gould talking about leaving a church, and how to transition well. Here’s a clip, hit this link or wait for the newsletter to read it all:

Like many of you, my wife and I are reality show junkies. You name it we have probably watched it or know what it’s about. Sometimes there are great life lessons that can be gleaned from watching someone else’s journey. I think that’s why these shows are so popular. They keep us totally captivated with great anticipation of what will happen next!

With that being said, I want to invite you into our journey. Recently, my family and I made the move from Missouri to Texas to begin working with a new church. This was an unexpected move, meaning that it wasn’t on our radar! Especially since my wife was 6 months pregnant, we loved the church and the people we were doing life with, and the timing was just horrible. But we sensed that God was leading us away, and preparing us for a new season of life.

This leads us to a great question “How do you know when God calls you away?” I wish I had a great answer for this one, but I don’t. For us, it all started with a phone call.

Now this wasn’t the first phone call, but this call was different than any other. I remember after getting off the phone this feeling of uncertainty, fear, and a little bit of excitement. I was excited after hearing what God was doing in the church and where they saw the church going in the next couple of years. However, I wasn’t planning on packing my bags anytime soon, but I was open to the fact that maybe God was doing something here.

The next couple of days were filled with high anxiety and restless nights. My wife and I spent much time researching the church and the area as we prayed for guidance, and wisdom.

JG

All the more reason to make sure your church/ministry website is great. A solid article from Time I missed a couple months ago that was interesting. Here’s a clip:

If we have in fact lost our religion, search engines would seem to be the most logical place to look for evidence. On average, religious websites receive 36% of their traffic from the likes of Google, Yahoo! Search and MSN Search. Examining the data behind the search terms shows that some denominations have embraced the Internet and search marketing as a way to reach out to those searching for answers. Take the Mormons for example. The Church of Latter Day Saints purchases sponsored listing advertisements on Google. Searches for “bible,” “free bible,” and “Jesus Christ” display listings for LDS.org, the church’s official website. It’s no coincidence that Internet users in the state of Utah are four times more likely to visit a religious website than the Internet population as a whole. (For those of you keeping score, Vermont ranks as the state with residents least likely to visit religious sites.)

If Internet patterns and search behavior are indicators of religious interest, maybe a better question is: what are we looking for when we search for religion? The answer depends on denomination.

Searches leading to Roman Catholic websites reveal a fascination with saints: from the generic query “saints” to the religious ties to what most of us now consider secular holidays, “St. Valentine’s Day and “St. Patrick’s Day.” Contrast that with the search terms used by seekers of Protestant and other Christian sites. The majority of search terms concentrate on bible study (“bible,” biblical verses” and “bible online”) and evangelical personalities (“Joel Osteen” and “Joyce Meyer”). Information seekers on the Jewish religion are different still, with a mixture of subjects such as Jewish heritage, humor and bio-ethical issues such as “cloning” and “right to die.”

What’s most telling how the nature of religious searches has evolved. If there were a decline in our spiritual conscience, surely it would show in the way religious searches have changed over time. Over the past two years, searches to religious sites have shown no perceptible change. What has changed is the plethora of new activities and information, like MySpace and YouTube, vying for our attention. It’s not that we’re losing our religion, it’s that we’ve gained many more distractions.

JG

This weekend Fields taught big church – started a 2-week series on manhood. Started off with humility, and it was really great. Here’s a clip from the part I thought was the best.

Men–I totally understand that you might even feel unmanly writing down the word “humility.” To take a knee is the posture of submission and guys don’t like to submit. You might even be thinking “humility” is synonymous with “weak.”

That’s not true. Think about it this way… a warrior comes back from battle and stands before the king. The warrior takes a knee, not out of weakness, but out of understanding that there is someone else leading them. He takes a knee and submits to a higher authority.

A strong, studly football player shows up to the game to destroy his opponent and the coach calls them together and says, “Men, take a knee.” The athlete takes a knee, not out of weakness, but out of understanding that the coach is in charge.

JG

Big news today from their official site. No Sean Connery, but still:

Academy Award® winner Cate Blanchett has established herself as one of the preeminent leading actresses in film today, earning her first Best Actress nomination for her title role in Elizabeth, for which she received a BAFTA and Golden Globe Award. She continued to draw acclaim for significant roles in The Talented Mr. Ripley, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Notes on a Scandal and Babel. In 2005, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator, and this year was named one of Time Magazine‘s 100 Most Influential People in the World. Cate is currently filming The Curious Case of Benjamin Button costarring Brad Pitt and directed by David Fincher.

Known for his layered and nuanced performances of tough guys, Ray Winstone drew international praise for his role as Gal Dove in Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast. His recent screen credits include Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur, and Anthony Minghella’s Breaking & Entering. Winstone’s voice can be heard as Mr. Beaver in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Ray will next be seen in the title role of Beowulf opening November 16, 2007 directed by Robert Zemeckis.

Academy Award nominee John Hurt, whose career in film spans more than 40 years, has played memorable roles in movies both big and small. His impressive body of work includes such films as V for Vendetta, Elephant Man, 1984, Midnight Express, Contact, and Alien. On television, he won world-wide acclaim for his role of Caligula in “I, Claudius” and Quentin Crisp, in “The Naked Civil Servant”.

JG

Just checking the OC Register and saw an article on the results from the Well Done Awards from the other night. It was a great time, with some serious funds raised to start new Kingdom Assignments, too. Here’s a clip:

The Well Done Awards should get its own award: Most Eclectic Award Show.

Within the span of three hours, mop-top, funny-guy “American Idol” finalist Chris Sligh skipped down a catwalk, modeling a new line of clothes printed with catchy Bible verses.

“American Idol” 2006 runner-up Katharine McPhee sang barefoot with a rock band.

Christian radio personality Steve Arterburn paced the stage like an auctioneer, challenging 50 people in the audience to raise their hands and pledge to seed a new church — for $1,000 a pop. (Done deal in less than three minutes.)

The Groovaloos, a hip-hop, street dance troupe tore it up, spinning on their heads to rap music.

And pastor Denny Bellesi, who kicked off the show by bursting through a paper banner in a cheerleading uniform, started to cry when he said goodnight.

In between, audience members twirled rally towels (handed out at the door) to cheer on 30 award recipients who had heard the calling to do something for their fellow man — and actually answered it.

Check out their new website, too. Looks nice!

JG

Here’s a rundown of my latest additions to the iTunes library. And as always, pretty random:

• Buddy Holly – Weezer
• This is My Now – Jordin Sparks
• The Great Escape – Boys Like Girls
• Home – Katharine McPhee
• You Carried Me – Building 429
• My Wish – Rascal Flatts
• Pleading the 5th – Relient K
• Must Have Done Something Right – Relient K
• The Best Thing – Relient K

JG

Just posted a fantastic new article from Judy Gregory over on PDYM’s website. If you’re heading into a season of change here’s a great story and some principles to communicate it to your church. Excerpt:

The more people involved, the longer it takes to make a directional change. For example, a couple of months ago, the Senior Management Team (SMT) member overseeing the high school and middle school ministries changed. The transition was quick and clean because of the number of people it affected — a total of six. In essence, we really didn’t make a directional change, but simply changed one of our behind the scenes drivers. There was no need to inform parents or students because it didn’t impact them in any way. If you were to ask students or parents who Corey, Judy and John report to, most would never have had a clue to begin with.

In the coming days, however, the organizational chart for our youth ministry is going to take on a radical new look that will impact everyone. We’ll go from staffing based on program to staffing based on shape (or gifting). I’m excited about this change and, if it were possible, I’d make the official switch tomorrow. Personally, it will free me up to do some youth ministry stuff that I’ve wanted to invest myself in for a really long time. However, realistically, it will take months to make the transition. Why? Because in addition to title changes, the “way” we do youth ministry is going to change as well. It’s not just about who is in the driver’s seat – everyone in the vehicle, including staff, students and parents – will have to make a turn. The whole youth ministry will reposition itself to move in a new direction. In light of that, here are a few things we found that we need to obtain or navigate in order to lead change effectively.

1. Approval. We need to cast vision vertically by ensuring that that those above us are on board with the change.

2. Advice. We need to talk about it horizontally. Who do you know that has a “youth ministry mindset” that can provide great words of wisdom? These need to be people who live and breathe youth ministry and probably have been around the block a few more times than you. I talked about our change with a friend of mine down south. His words, “Judy this is an incredible idea on paper. In fact, I’ve wanted to move this direction for a really long time in my own youth ministry. However, I haven’t seen it work anywhere yet for one reason and one reason alone…in order for it to succeed, your youth ministry staff has to trust each other. Most youth ministries don’t have that level of trust among their staff members.” Those were great words that stuck.

JG