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Are You Challenging Yourself as a Leader – Part Two

January 15, 2013 by 1 Comment

This is Part-Two of a series on Challenging Yourself as a Leader,

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed.  But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.  And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.” Luke 5:37-39 ESV

These verses seem to be a contradiction, Jesus is telling us to change and not to put new wine in old wineskins but then he ends with “The old is good”. Yes, old wine is better than new wine, and the temptation is there that might make you want to just stay the same but there is a couple of problems with this.

First its selfish, if we don’t grow in our faith and stick to our old methods, we’re being selfish. We need new ways of reaching out to students. Imagine when texting was first getting popular with teens as a way of communicating and we as student ministry leaders decided, “No I don’t want to spend the extra $10 a month to add that to my cell phone plan, I can just call them on the phone or see them in person.” Wow, today I can’t even imagine that. I’ve had so many great ministry moments happen in text message conversations!

Second, its shortsighted , you stop growing when you stop looking for the new things Jesus wants to do in your life. Your small group will stop growing when you stop finding ways to challenge them to stretch their faith or make them take a step out in faith and for some of the students in your group it might stop them from accepting Jesus into their lives as their Lord and Savior. All because we don’t want to step out of our comfort zone. Wow, I don’t want to have to answer for that one day! Don’t fall into the trap that the old way, the comfortable way is better and I don’t want to try anything new. God wants to reach into your life and into your heart and do new and better things with you and with your group. But if you don’t challenge yourself, no growth will happen.

Ask yourself, are you willing to challenge yourself to grow, to try new things in your group, in your high school or junior high ministry? Are you willing to step out of your comfort zone? Are you willing to think outside the box, (but still inside the scriptures) and bring more students to Jesus?

For the High School and Junior High Pastors that read this, are you challenging your staff and your volunteers? Are you willing to empower them to try new things? Are you open to having a conversation with them about this or are you weary about thinking outside the box? Are you available to them to help them and support them?

I have some ideas for change in my high school small group and over the new few weeks I’ll be writing about them. Stay tuned, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride but one that is going to be well worth the journey. It’s going to grow the students in my group as well as me and my co-leader.

 

Filed Under: Spriritual Life, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Are you Challenging Yourself as a Leader – Part One

January 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment

This started as a one day post and then the next thing I knew God had put so many ideas in my head, that in order to get you to read this I split this into a two-day post. It might be choppy to read this way, but I was more interested that you read this post and not look at it and say, “Nope, this is too long, not gonna read it.” Come back tomorrow for part-two.

Last week, Steven wrote a really good post about challenging students. He talked about when he has a discussion with a student, he tries to find a way to leave them with a challenge. His post got me thinking over the weekend and I realized that we as leaders also need to be challenged. God is always wanting to do new things in your life, things to grow and stretch you and your faith. But if you try to do new things by using your old ways, you’re probably going to fail. Jesus said it this way:

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed.  But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.  And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.” Luke 5:37-39 ESV

It’s easy to just stay in our comfort zone and not think outside the box when teaching students, or trying to bring new students to Jesus. “The old is good.” But maybe a new way is EVEN better- but we won’t know unless we try. New cannot happen in the “old wineskins”. What are some old wineskins you ask? Well, rules and regulations and a phrase I hate to hear, “Well, we’ve always done it this way.” That’s why we don’t grow, we get comfortable and get afraid of change, and in my case probably a little bit lazy because a new way will require me to do more work and put more time into what I’m doing.

Jesus tells us to put new wine into new wineskins. The new that God wants to put into your life require a new, fresher, better container. You need to be growing in your faith to be a “fresh container”. You need to be living a Godly life, one that will stand out as an example to students. God promises us a new and better life and he also gives us the container to put that new life into. But if we’re not careful it’s easy to buy into Satan’s lie that we need to stay the same, don’t change, just keep doing what you’re doing.

Check back tomorrow for Part Two!

Filed Under: Spriritual Life, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , ,

Dealing with change in our lives

June 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I don’t think I know anyone who likes change in their lives. Even positive change means that there is something new and we always seem to have a fear of the unknown. I know for me change means a very negative thing. Most of the change that occurred in my life was the result of something bad that happened so when I realize that change is on the horizon I go through a whole range of emotions. For students, change can be a very scary thing indeed.

How do you deal with change? Here’s what I do when I start feeling the fear of change, this would be great to share with students to help them go through a time of change:

  • Pray and pray a lot. Ask God to guide you through the entire process. When I start getting scared and worried I just stop and remember that I’m not alone, God is right here with me.
  • My personality is such that I need to process things. This might take me a couple of days. During this time however I have to be careful that I weigh out all the issues, both positive and negative and not just the negative, which is easy to do. I’m also a “list-maker”, I’ll sit down and list out everything I’m processing and try to figure out how to deal with the negative and accentuate the positive. It’s not always easy but it helps to write it all down.
  • Talk to someone! We all need to have someone we can talk frankly with about our fears. Sometimes we just need someone to help point out positive things to change that we might not see on our own. I also ask that person to pray for me as well.
  • Remember that sometimes God will close one door to open a greater door for us. It’s hard to realize it when we are dealing with the fear of change but we need to remember that God knows what is best for us.
  • Think outside the box. Change means something is going to be different; this is a time to think about how things will be because of the change and how to make it better, not a time to remember the past, get stuck there and not move on.
  • Change often equals growth and growth is good. God looks for ways to stretch and grow our faith and often that is done during times of change in our lives.

I’d love to hear your ways to dealing with change. You can comment here.

Filed Under: Encouragement, Spriritual Life Tagged With: , , , ,