YouVersion

What do you think of this?

Link

Do you know this is happening?

Amazing. We should be paying more attention to this my friends.

(photo by a civilian journalist/Mizzima)

(photo by Myo Khin/ Mizzima)

Link

The church doens't own evangelism

It's been this way for years. I've said it before. Business does evangelism better than we do. So, what does this mean for the church?

Link to an Evangelism Conference (for marketing)

Who said this?

"Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world - and stop being its apologist."


A. Bill Gates
B. Rick Warren
C. Bono
D. Bill Hybles

Wink

Youth Front and Sonlife Merge

My friends Mike King and Chris Folmsbee are now working together. I'm excited about what is to come from this merger. This is good news. It will be fun to watch the cool things coming out of KC as these to great leaders (and the other great leaders in each organization) move youth ministry forward.

Here's the press release:

Sonlife Ministries, Inc. has merged with YouthFront, Inc. effective September 1, 2007 in order to “maximize ministry effectiveness” of the two organizations. Formerly a Chicago-based ministry, Sonlife will relocate to Kansas City.

For more than six decades, YouthFront has brought young people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ through camps, campus ministries, mission trips, creative programming, and leadership development. For nearly three decades, Sonlife has provided Christ-centered training for students and adult leaders through training seminars, conferences, and creative resources.

YouthFront President Mike King and Sonlife President Chris Folmsbee share a conviction that “the youth ministry community is pregnant with expectation and desire for fresh and innovative approaches to youth ministry that are both creative and also theologically and ecclesiologically sound,” says King. Folmsbee adds, “We see youth ministry paradigms shifting away from an overemphasis on programmatic/event-oriented and information-focused styles toward a more robust and holistic understanding of Christian formation. The need is greater than ever to guide young people in discovering how to live as Christ in all areas of their lives.”

In 1943, YouthFront began its ministry as Kansas City Youth for Christ, and it has been written about extensively in youth ministry church history books as a catalyst for the development of youth ministry in North America. By the late 1980s, most churches had committed to having an active and intentional youth ministry. So in a revolutionary move for parachurch youth ministry organizations, YouthFront ceased all programming that conflicted with local church youth ministry and began to re-imagine a role that fully cooperated with churches in the development of Christian disciples.

YouthFront shall continue its tradition of developing innovative youth ministry around the world through its commitment to the development of youth ministry philosophy, theology, and practice. Mike King states, “Our mission to bring young people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ is best accomplished by modeling a passionate life and journey with Jesus; engaging in missional evangelism and discipleship. We believe that in order to facilitate transformational spiritual formation of adolescents, we must teach Christian practices and creatively develop environments where students encounter the presence of God. We are devoted to working strategically with those who are passionately committed to the Christian formation of young people—especially youth pastors, volunteer youth leaders, parents, churches, and denominations. These strategic partnerships are developed through deep relationships, training, content development, providing resources, youth ministry research, and quality programming.”

Sonlife will continue to move forward as a church-assisting organization serving youth workers by facilitating networks; developing and providing training; offering coaching, consultation, and spiritual direction; and creating resources and programs for youth workers and students. Chris Folmsbee believes Sonlife’s mission will be enhanced by merging with YouthFront, resulting in “a passionate and catalytic cooperation with God’s Kingdom.” As a ministry of YouthFront, Sonlife will gain access to more than 5,000 students who are deeply connected to discipleship and leadership development programs facilitated by YouthFront, along with direct youth ministry involvement with an additional 25,000 young people through camp and school-based ministries. Out of this environment, Sonlife’s strategy and effectiveness will be enhanced and strengthened.

Through the new YouthFront organization, all present Sonlife training and development programs for youth workers will continue, including Enroute, Shaping a Missional Community, Shepherding in a Culture of Change, Refresh, and Leadership of the Heart. All training experiences for students will continue, as well, including Merge, Awake and Reveal. “With YouthFront’s hands-on youth ministry environment, coupled with Sonlife’s expertise and training tools, we sit on the precipice of amazing opportunities to train an emerging generation of youth workers,” declares YouthFront COO Topher Philgreen.

“This merger seems natural because of the alignment we have, not just between Chris Folmsbee and me, but also between the organizations that we have led,” says Mike King. YouthFront sees Sonlife’s innovation of a new wave of youth worker participation in training and formational experiences. Sonlife sees YouthFront as innovating new ways to do youth ministry and spiritual formation of adolescents. Consequently, merging together will allow each organization to realize greater ministry impact. Folmsbee confidently states, “I am expectant that God is going to do amazing things through our coming together. I believe we will look back a few years from now to identify many things God has done to strengthen the church through the development of youth workers and students.”

Objectives for this merger:

• To be more effective as a national youth ministry training organization, serving a wide variety of youth workers, churches, denominations, and organizations.
• To provide quality youth ministry resources to thousands of youth workers and churches throughout North America.
• To create and facilitate transformational Christian formation experiences for students and youth workers.
• To create an environment where youth ministry ideas, philosophy, concepts, theology, and practices emerge.
• Initiate youth ministry that will benefit hundreds of thousands of young people directly and indirectly; initiating deep Christian formation that leads to a life-long journey with Jesus Christ.
• Provide leadership development for the next generation of youth ministers and ministry practices.
• To act as a collective agency that empowers others toward deep and widespread regional youth ministry impact.

Management Infrastructure:

Mike King will continue as President/CEO of YouthFront. Chris Folmsbee will serve as CMO (Chief Ministry Officer) of YouthFront and President of the Sonlife division. Folmsbee will serve on the Executive Leadership Team of YouthFront, which makes all major decisions regarding mission, personnel, finances, and ministry priorities. Topher Philgreen will continue as COO of YouthFront. Matt Wilks, Director of Youth Worker Initiatives for Sonlife, will serve as Youthfront’s Director of Youth Worker Training and Initiatives. He will continue to build strategic relationships throughout North America and will lead a team of people to deliver quality and effective training to youth workers. Mike Novelli will serve as Director of Merge and will also focus on developing content and resources. Other support staff (i.e., administrative help, marketing, etc.) will be added to the staff of YouthFront.

YouthFront board member Dr. Dean Blevins states, “I believe that the next significant expression of youth ministry will be born out of a committed community of Christ’s followers who engage deeply in spiritual practices and formation, and model a new way of life and missional living.”

More than anything, we ask for prayer that this new venture will honor God, bring youth into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ, and fulfill our calling to cooperate with God’s Kingdom agenda. For questions regarding this merger or to seek more information about the ministry of YouthFront and Sonlife, please contact Andy Garlich at 800-770-4769 or AGarlich@YouthFront.com.

Counting People in a Room

What if every week the schools in your town, maybe the school your kids attend, announced the total number of kids attending the school. It might look like this.

This week at Elementary PS 101 we had 504 kids and 36 teachers/administrators in attendance! This time last year we at Elementary PS 101 we had 404 kids. That's a lot of growth! We are excited about how well we are educating the kids of the city! Next year we hope to grow 20%! In addition during the past week 189 of the kids raised their hand to respond to a question we asked. Success!

If the schools in your area did this you would laugh at them.

What if the the Walco down the street measured like this? What if their business report went something like this?

On Sunday morning at 11:00am we had 800 people in our store. Some even bought something! That's up from 750 on this time last year!

Business people who measure like this primarily would be fired.

Counting people in the room is a pretty lame way to measure success in the church. Anyone can count people in a room. Getting people in your building is not the same thing as spreading the kingdom. It's just getting people in a room. Anyone can get people in a room and count them.

People in the room may or may not care about what you have to say.
People in a room is a pretty low view of success.

Interestingly enough it is the churches who declare themselves most creative (and maybe they are actually really creative) can't come up with a better way to measure than with attendance figures.


Here's my friendly challenge to these churches. If you really want to pave the way for the church to make a difference in the world, then find a different way to measure and then use that measurement to broadcast your enthusiasm to the world. You are creative. Will you rise to the challenge.

Look, I get it, I know you spend a lot of time and money to get people to show up in the room so you can do the show, but that's not really all that creative in the big picture is it? Rearranging the furniture, maybe, but not a make-over.

If you really want to be innovative rethink measurement.

What you measure is what you value. Show you value life change more than numbers.
Schools value learning.
Businesses value profit.
Churches value the kingdom being built. Will you lead us with something other than numbers?

Chipotle Post 2

Did I mention that I can't wait for this?

Why would I want to come to your church?

After you've been in the church for a while it becomes something of a habit. It's just something you do. It's normal. After a while, most of the people you know probably go to church too. It's just something they do.

After a while you know what to expect. Who will say hi and who won't. You know more than faces, you know names and stories that accompany each name. You belong. It's normal. It's natural. It's just something you do and you know how you fit. You know that 6 months ago they changed the 4th grade classroom from the room that actually says, "4th Grade" on it, to an unmarked steel fire door down the hall and around the corner. You know that you need to bring your own Bible, or which book of prayer you need to use or when to refer to the church bulletin. All of this is normal. Even the things that confuse you have become normal. You know how to drink from the cup or to signal dipping the bread. You know that the bread will taste more like styrofoam or a doughy tic-tac. It's normal. It's just what you do.

After a while you are a family. After a while you find deep meaning in worshiping God together. or maybe you don't find meaning in the worship, but you attend out of duty. It's just normal. It's what you should do, so you do it. Some kind of compliance with your parents who may or may not be alive any longer. You do what you do because it's normal. You always have.


But when I show up, none of this is normal. I'm not even sure why I'm here and since this is normal for you, you assume I'm there for the same reasons you are.

I'm not.

I don't know how to dismiss my kids to "children's church" and I'm not really sure what "childrens' church" is. I don't trust you with my kids, so I walk my kid to the 4th Grade class. It's empty. We keep walking and discover another room with a lot of kids in it. This is normal for you. But it's not to me and I'm trusting you less and less each moment.

My kid REALLY doesn't want to walk into a room full of chaos and since I can't find the teacher I make the decision to take him back to the service with me. My mind is racing about my experience and I'm confused by other things happening in the service. All I can think is, this can't be normal. Assuming I don't bail on you after my first week and write off the church thing all-together. (Which is a big assumption that you should not make because in today's world you get one chance to connect with a visiting family. One. ) But let's assume I'm stubborn and I'm willing to overlook the chaos of the children's ministry, the stubbornness of my kids who throw no less than 3 fits during the morning because they don't want to go and don't understand why we are going, to which I have no real response.

Let's say I overcome all that.
Why would I want to come to your church?
Duty won't do it. I'm not going to do something simply because someone tells me I should. That kind of guilt and manipulation won't work for me.

Since I don't know you, feeling like I belong isn't the answer.

I know it's normal for you, but why would anyone come to your church? Really?

If you can't answer that question I'm either going to quit looking for a church, or I'm going somewhere else.

I know this is normal for you. But this isn't normal to me.

It really just comes down to...

Dino's post reminded me of a situation from years ago.

I was serving at a church here in town and wanted to support a local For Christ Club at a local middle school. I was willing to put time and energy into supporting this club and the volunteers who lead it.

I initiated several conversations with the woman who was leading the For Christ Club (and was warned by others about her).

I was attempting to help connect kids to each other, support kids who were creating an environment in which they could bring their friends and talk about God. I had a lot of kids in the For Christ Club who were leading it and a whole lot of kids who simply attended. I wanted to support them.

It took several conversations, but after helping her unearth her (and my) assumptions about why the FCC was meeting, it became apparent we where on different pages.

The volunteer leader had a different agenda and she was clear. We want kids to bring their bibles to school so that kids could see the bibles and that would lead to kids sharing their faith with their friends.

She said, "It really just comes down to the kids taking their bibles to school and taking them to every class on the days that we have club."

Dino's See You @ the Pole Alternative - I dig it!

Dino has written about his frustration with what SY@TP has become. So he's proposing an alternative.

Here's his suggestion:

I still find it odd and perplexing that many still insist that Jesus’ diatribe on prayer in Matt 6 is out of context when applied to SYATP.

So I have come up with a challenge for youth pastors (including myself), youth workers and volunteers, parents, and students especially. The challenge is this (in the spirit of Matthew 6) to ask students NOT to attend SYATP this year. But rather get up early and find a closet to go into and pray specifically for your school, your communities, teachers, friends, national leaders, world leaders, nations, world peace, ect. They can go by themselves or they can ask one or two friends to pray with them. No more than three though. They can meet at someone’s house or in a room at school, or a quiet remote place with no one else around. They are to tell nobody what they are doing or where they are at. Then they continue to meet and pray in the same place once a week for a month or more.

So who is up for the challenge?

Here's the Link.

Story

So for years there was a story of a kid in high school with cancer losing his hair during chemo treatments and being very self conscious about being bald. Then his friends all shaved their heads in solidarity. This story may be or may not be true.

But this story is real.

We need more of this in our world.

A Priest walks into a Bar

My friend Father Rob wrote this on his blog today. Being with people makes a difference. This is a powerful story to me on many levels. It's power for what it doesn't say as much as what it does. We need more stories like this.

"Last night I sat at a bar for a couple hours, nursing a drink.

I realized it is the first time I’ve ever done that.

It’s not that I haven’t been in bars before, but that I don’t think I’ve actually sat at the bar, where the hormones of the men and women gathered there flow like the alcohol they are drinking, and where the air is opaque with smoke. I don’t consider myself a particularly sheltered soul, so the realization was rather startling.

I sat there with a person who had a very difficult week; who had seen a good friend die, and who indeed had pulled a blanket over his head so that the dead man’s wife and kids who were also present (it was their wedding anniversary) wouldn’t see what had just happened.

What I was drinking was water, but after hearing his story, I was sorely tempted to switch to whiskey instead."

Thanks for telling us this story Rob.

10th Anniversay of Rich Mullins Death

Has it really been ten years?

Rich was ahead of his time. He was "real" before real was cool. He was real in a way that would make people uncomfortable.

I met Rich a year or so before his death. It was controversial to have him at camp, even though he was the "Awesome God" guy.

Rich was a paradox.
A guy who made music who preferred silence.
A guy who desired peace with the world, but often intentionally caused controversy.
A guy who was passionate about God and who was often a jerk.
A guy who lived in extremes.

So someone approached Rich and tried to pay him a complement. She said, "I listen to you all the time when I'm having my quiet times with God."

Rich's response. "That's too bad."

The woman looked confused.

Rich continued. "I guess it's not very quiet then is it?"

Theres a song Andrew Peterson wrote years ago upon hearing about Rich's death.

Three Day's Before Autumn amazing song.

It starts:

Three days before autumn
A cold winter came
Blew in a telephone call when my friend went away
And I swear I heard thunder at the sound of his name
He never knew me at all, but I loved him the same

And it's easy enough
To say he's better off
Chalk it up
To the luck of the draw
Life is tough
It was his time to go and that's all
I don't know about that, Œcause

I'm broken and breathless and bent to the ground
And I'm listening; Lord, but I don't hear a sound
Though the angels in heaven are dancing around
To the music that I want to hear
And I'm watching and wishing and wondering why
But this silence is louder the harder I try
And I cant believe it, but I can't deny
That the winter came early this year

I stood in the kitchen
And I stared at the wall
And I prayed for some wisdom
So I could make a little sense of it all

And I thought about the seasons
How quickly they pass
How there's little to do but hope
That the good ones will last

And this night is beautiful
I see the sky above the rain
And I think I hear the wild wind howling
Come to blow me away

And I take comfort in know that this ain't my home
And I know when I'm lonely
That I ain't alone
And I know that he's singing at the foot of the throne
But that don't seem to matter down here
Because the winter came early this year
Three days before autumn

Ahead of Schedule.. maybe

I just sent my Randy, my one and only editor, my first shot at a first draft. I'm new at this and have no idea how good it is.

I've had a few youth pastor folks look at it and the response was positive.

I'll let you know what he says... maybe... if I can take it...

Observation

Old people especially women over 80, should not wear their hair in pig tails.

- made at Panera Monday Sept. 17th 2007

Reggie McNeal Conference

A couple folks have asked me to blog more about the Reggie McNeal conference I attended on Monday. I'll do so quickly.

Reggie is a nice guy who likes to undermine his listeners assumptions.

The gist of his message was:
Get out of the church business.
Get into the kingdom business.
God is already out there go join him.
Stop doing ministry/ buildings for yourself, build them for your community.
People will lead you in how to lead them into the kingdom.

Here's what resonated with me but wasn't all that new:
The kingdom is bigger than the church.
The church is out of touch with the world outside it's walls. (ie. my conversation about being unchurched)

Here's what I really wanted to ask Reggie.

How does it feel for you to come in a give a seminar and then afterwards no one really does what you suggest.

Kick'n it Old School

Dino has a great post on Old School Youth Ministry and the things he used to do and say in youth ministry. Have you ever done/said these things?

Great stuff.

Link

Chipotle

Tulsa is getting a Chipotle. 71st street next to the Cinemark.

Life is good.

chipotle is good too.

Writing Music

My writing music today is:

Feist
Waterdeep (This album is so good.) - Heart attack time machine
Matt Kearney

Unchurched Me

OK. So today I went to a seminar. Reggie McNeal is in town and my friend tells me that he won't say anything revolutionary, but that I might like it. It cost $10 which includes lunch, so I go. I discover this is a "baptist thing" when I hit the parking lot.

I approach the registration table.
Here's how the conversation goes:

Registration Lady (RL): Hi
Me: HI
RL: What's your name? (as she looks down on a list of printed names)
ME: Oh, I didn't register in advance.
RL: It's ok. What's your name?
ME: Mark Riddle
RL: What church are you with?
ME: I'm not with a church.
RL: Oh. You're unchurched.
ME: ?
RL: Do you got to church anywhere?
ME: uh. Sometimes.
RL: Well. With all these pastors here, maybe you can find a church you can go to!
ME: (as I'm walking away) If I was looking to do that.

I should also say that I have some good friends who were there, some southern baptist. we all had a laugh.

Father vs. Son

Fantasy Football begins tonight.
As I've mentioned before part of the people I spend a lot of time with are dads of my kids friends. This year there are six dads and their 4th grade sons in a league. 12 teams.

This weekend I play Zach's team. He's talking trash. But will he win?
You tell me. who do you think will win? Who are you rooting for? Here's our rosters.

ME Zach
QB Jon Kitna (detroit) Chad Pennington (NYJ)
WR Marvin Harrison (INDY) Chad Johnson (CIN)
WR Roy Williams (detroit) Torry Holt (StL)
RB Rudi Johnson (cin) Joseph Addai (Indy)
RB Carnell Williams (tampa) Adrian Peterson (Minn)
TE Jeremy Shockey (NYG) Chris Cooley (was)
W/R Anquan Boldin (ari) Marty Booker (miami)
K Olindo Mare (New Orleans) Nate Keading (San diego)
DEF Miami Chicago


Dang. Am I in trouble?

UPDATE:
Zach wins. man am I hearing about it.

A close call.

Go check this out. The truck accident was almost really really bad.