Social Media: Good or Bad?
Reality #1: Social Media is here to stay.
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat…and the list of social media continues to grow. It is not a fad. It is not going away.
Reality #2: Social Media is powerful.
As a medium, social media has a the power to mobilize many. Sure, it also has the power to distract. But it has the power spread a message –whether good or evil—fast and broad. Read the rest of this entry
A Parent’s Primer to Internet Pornography
One of the questions our team loves to ask is: What does 1st century disciplemaking looking like in a 21st century context? One of the realities of our 21st century digital context is the unreal availability and access children and teens have to pornography.
Our friends at CYPU have developed FREE and thorough primer for parents in regards to internet pornography which you can download from Digital Kids Initiative Website.
This seven page document covers the following:
- What is Pornography?
- Facts and Data?
- What drives addiction?
- What are the affects on children and teens?
- What are the affects on adults?
- What are the signs of addiction?
- What are pornography lies?
- What are steps to freedom?
- What to do when your child has accessed pornography?
- Recommended Resources
It’s a great resource to get into the hands of your parents of both your children and youth ministries.
Trend Watch: The Thigh Gap Obsession
You are probably aware of the new teen body obsession called “thigh gap”. It’s just one more thing in the endless body image struggle. This ABC News video will give you a quick glimpse about what “thigh gap” is all about from mouths of teen girls.
Who knows if it will become the “next big body image thing”, but what we do know is that body image is one of the topics that youth workers and parents need to be talking about. Read the rest of this entry
Every Family Needs One of These
Is it really a right?
Have you seen the Sprint commercial below for the iphone5 which at the ends states:
“I need to upload all of me. I need, no, I have the right to be unlimited.”
Marketers spend a lot of time and money researching their target audience’ values in order to sell their product. I find it interesting that they chose to describe uploading as a “need” and being unlimited as a “right”. Is uploading really a need? Are unlimited data plans really a human right? Read the rest of this entry
Talking to Students about Same-Sex Attraction
[UPDATED April20,2013]
It was about 12 years ago that I first talked to students about homosexuality. I used a “Jigsaw Genius” approach that evening. I broke students up into the four different groups. They went to four different rooms where one of our adults took 15 minutes to address one aspect of the lesson that evening.
Students then came back into small groups and shared what they had heard. This gave each student something to contribute to the conversation. Some great dialogues came out of that evening. At the time, I didn’t know of any other youth pastor in our town that was talking about the issue.
But, I made a terrible mistake that evening. Read the rest of this entry
Equipping Students for Evangelism
Being disciples that make disciples that make disciples who also go on to make disciples requires intentionality, equipping, and the alongside support of other disciplemakers.
This is why I love this video from Jason Lamb from Grace Fellowship Church in Johnson City, TN.
Find a Tool!
First, it informs us of a great little resource to help put in the hands of students to help them share the gospel with their friends. I love helpful tools. Read the rest of this entry
Disciplemaking is Imitation
Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church. 1 Corinthians 4:16-17
Disciplemaking is not just about a body of teaching. Disicplemaking is about a way of life.
You can’t pass a way of life onto a crowd. Therefore, preaching and teaching alone will never make disciples.
Our disciplemaking deficiency in the American church is not a problem of lack of information. It is a lack of imitation. Read the rest of this entry
