I feel like these are some things that we have got to be on the watch for constantly in our lives.  At times we can get stuck into thinking “well I am not in ministry” I don’t have to live that way.  Or I am in ministry and I am just constantly doing it so I will be alright.  Jesus has called us to be Holy, to be set apart.

Here are a few warning signs…

- You are not in worship, you have no way of being challenged and fed in your walk with the Lord.

- You have spent more time on Social Media/Phone/Computer (Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, etc) then on your face and in the word before God. Or when home you spend all your time on these things then you do with your own family.

- You are spending more time with people of the opposite sex then you do your own wife or husband. Sharing things with them that you should be sharing with your spouse.

- You worry about saving other families when in reality you are losing yours.

- You don’t see light at the end of the tunnel, you are just so stressed and anxious and never know which way is up.

- You have stopped working out, when it used to be a vital part of your life.

- You have no idea where your Bible is, and when you do read your Bible it is only for sermon prep or to teach a upcoming Bible Study.

If any of these happen to rise up on your radar I strongly encourage you to get some help and lets all be on the “Look Out” for these and many other signs!

A quote from Keith Carmichael (Campus Pastor of Second Baptist West Campus), as he was meeting with our entire West Youth Staff.

As he said that it hit me, that is exactly what we work hard to do in youth ministry, but never carry it out.  I feel like I am constantly saying, “Hey, we got to mix it up.”  Which is good, but I like tilling the soil so much more.  If we never change-up what we are doing then how will we ever prepare the students for what we want to plant.  We will just continue to do what worked back in the day and get into a huge rut.  We desire to “feed them Jesus” I belive that He is the best thing we need to give them. We make it extremely difficult to do that when we stay in that rut and make the ground hard.  We must constantly be preparing the soil and if we don’t do that with our programming, calendar, etc then the ground will just get hard and be almost impossible to plant anything in. 

Students are constantly changing and doing new things, especially when it comes to technology.  As soon as one new product comes out, it changes and something else comes out.  Same thing with Facebook, it is constantly making changes, that cause people to complain at first but realize it is so much better that way. If the world around us is tilling, then why aren’t more churches doing that as well?

So, why do we keep doing the same thing over and over in student ministry, it could be as easy as just doing your service in a different order.  We must constantly be thinking of ways to till the ground.  I have found that when we do this it causes students to desire to come back the next week because they never know what they are going to get. I will give you a few examples below of what we have done in our ministry, but I think you need to come up with a few on your own as well.  As you are planning out your services ask the question – “What do we need to do to TILL THE SOIL?”

Examples:

Move your music set, Move your announcements, Change your walk-in set up, During teaching time have worship songs that break up your teaching many times throughout the talk, Student testimonies, whole new set up on stage, do chairs in different way, don’t have chairs, Do a talk show type set up.

We end up showing the video lesson and have a great morning, and as I am getting ready to leave a student comes up to me and says,”hey your lesson really spoke to me and I accepted Christ and want to get baptised NOW!” (BTW, we said NOTHING about Baptism at all, all morning) He said that the video really spoke to him and helped him to make up his mind to follow through and accept Christ and follow-up with Baptism NOW!

I start thinking uhhhh did you see the same video I saw? Then just stood there in amazement and was reminded again that God can use anything for His Glory!  Thank you Jesus!!

I was seriously very excited! We had great seats, we were in the first section,last row right in the middle! Amazing seats, then the lights go dark and it starts.  She is just chillin, with a few quiet noises and no one is looking at us at all.  I then start to realize that I am the only one in that huge auditorium with a baby.  I am now “That Guy.” I start to get nervous. Then Emersyn’s small quiet noises start to get a little louder than Louder than BOOOM LOUD, and now everyone is looking at us, and NOT looking like awww what a cute baby! I feel as that Emersyn is saying either I HATE OKLAHOMA, I HATE MUSICALS or I NEED TO GO TO BED!!! I will go with the last one, so what do I do?

I stand up in front of everyone and take the crying 6 Month old up the middle aisle in front of the whole audience! As I get outside I feel like I have just had a major workout, with as much sweat that is pouring down my face, and we go to the car and take it to the house… Needless to say I learned some lessons.

2 Lessons Learned:

1. Good seats aren’t good if you have a 6 month old and are sitting in the middle of the front section.

2. Never ever ever take a 6 month old to a musical EVER!

 I recently watched a great movie – 7 Days in Utopia.

 7 Days in Utopia is a great movie on how Luke Chisolm is a golfer and puts so much into his life when in the end the truth is it doesn’t matter! It absolutely shattered me! I stared at my TV screen as if I had just watched Passion of Christ again for the first time.  It was amazing! Then convicting as God started saying in that moment “Why do I (Michael) care so much about things that don’t matter.” Things that don’t matter in the big picture of life can at time consume us and take us captive. I am working on things that don’t matter and focusing on things that do matter. Family, Time with God, Mental and Physical Health. I hope that we can all realize how many things we live our life for that don’t truly matter and focus on what really does!