Youth Personal Worship: (U-Mix)

(Submitted by Travis Jenkins)

Ephesians 4:6
6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

I love to cook; something I gained from my dad. My mom likes to cook and is a good cook, but my dad loves to come up with new recipes and try things out he sees on cooking shows. I am the same way. If you know anything about cooking then you know that a recipe is often made up of multiple ingredients. When you mix the proper amount of each ingredient at the appropriate interval and cook it at the correct temperature and right amount of time then you can turn a bunch of random ingredients into something that tastes awesome!

When I look at a cake that is baked I don’t see individual parts of it such as flour, eggs, baking powder, etc. I just see the cake. The ingredients are over, through, and in all of the cake. I can’t just place all of the ingredients in a pan and expect them to come out looking like a cake though. I have to first mix them together.

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.)

Starting a Family Ministry

(Submitted by Travis Jenkins)

We (Travis and Lynn) are in the process right now of creating a new emphasis on family ministry. We are kicking off the new approach with a family retreat geared towards parents with children of all ages, from 3 months to 18 years old. We are having an "expert" come in and lead some conferences for the parents and having age specific activities for the children. Of course, also we are having family group time with games and other fun time.

As we started talking through the idea of a family approach to ministry we sat down and came up with some purposes and vision for it. I just wanted to share it with you and see what other ideas you may have. Feel free to "borrow" anything we came up with.

Vision:
Connecting families to the heart of God

Purpose:
To equip parents to invest in the spiritual development of their children

Five Foundations of Family Ministry
1. Make life a spiritual adventure
2. Talk about God
3. Create a desire for God's Word
4. Create a culture of prayer
5. Serve as a family

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

Enlisting and Training Youth Workers-Part 3

(Part 3 of an article contributed by Chuck Gartman, Associate Pastor at First Baptist Church in Lubbock, TX and owner of Go To Youth Ministry, a consulting firm specializing in leadership development.)

The Process of Enlistment

Once the needed Sunday School organization is determined, the Sunday School Director and Youth Division Director work together with the church nominating committee to staff the Youth Sunday School. Worker enlistment calls for clear understanding of the job and its requirements.

Youth Personal Worship (Useek)

(Submitted by Travis Jenkins)

Ephesians 4:5

"one Lord, one faith, one baptism;"

In the years since I have become a Christian, I’ve talked to a lot of people about their faith and what they believe. One belief that a number of people I have met is that all of the major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism) basically get you to the same place. They believe that as long as you follow your version of religion like you’re supposed to and are a pretty good person then you will end up in heaven. The tough part about believing like this is that it doesn’t line up with what the truth from scripture. We see in today’s verse that there are not multiple ways to be in right relationship with God. There is only ONE Lord, ONE faith, and ONE baptism. This means seeking after salvation from anything or anyone other than Jesus will only make you fall short.