Ministry Transitions

I just started at a new church and am in the midst of all of the normal ministry transition things. From one youth worker to the next, what are tips you would share for anyone as they prepare to leave and start somewhere else? As you think about it...and hopefully respond so I can repost all of your awesome answers...I will share a few of my tips and insights about ministry transitions.

1. Make sure you prepare the place you're leaving for your departure. If everything was built around you then it will crumble when you leave.
2. Leave with humility, grace, and always above reproach.
3. Don't linger around too long after you have announced the move, and don't linger after you've gone to check on how the new guy is doing...just so you can point out how you would do things different.
4. Enter your new position with excitement and energy, but don't demo the walls right away to the ministry that has already been built.
5. Start building relationships as quickly as you can. Sacrifice planning programs if you have too in order to build relationships that matter the most. You'll have time to plan programs, so don't worry.
6. Set the vision and get the people on board...this includes students, leaders, parents, and even the rest of the staff (remember to keep the student ministry vision in line with the overall church vision. No silos here.)
7. Pray. Pray. Pray. This should have been number one, but I didn't want to make it so obvious. No doubt though, prayer has got to be a part of every transition. 

(Travis Jenkins serves as Student Ministry Director at Lake Forest Church in Huntersville, NC.)

BARF Evangelism

(Submitted by Travis Jenkins)

We have been going through a church-wide emphasis on personal evangelism and on Sunday nights is when we have been sharing the curriculum with the students. The long-standing acronym for understanding how to be a Christian uses the "ABC's": Admit, Believe, Confess. As we talked about this idea this past week, we discussed a small error in the understanding of the ABC's and the students decided to come up with a new acronym. They decided that you can't admit you are sinner and need God if you don't first believe in Him. With that determined they decided to move "B" to the beginning and after a few minutes of brainstorming one of the students shouted out, "BARF": Believe, Admit, Repent, and Follow. I just thought this was a funny and cool idea that students came up with all on their own.

Family Retreat Promo

Here is a video that Lynn and I (Travis) made to promote Central Baptist's family retreat. We literally recorded them on our webcams at the same time in adjacent rooms and then I edited together the footage to make it look like a video chat. Hope somebody likes it.




(Travis Jenkins and Lynn Puryear serve as Minister to Students and Minister to Children respectively at Central Baptist Church in Carthage, TX.)