student ministry

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#30for30 Homecoming

Posted by Rev. Bro. Coach on January 10, 2018
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Did you know that 62,050 people suffer from food insecurity in Knox county? That means that these people are unable to gain access to enough food to sustain a healthy lifestyle for all household members as defined by the USDA. One of the hardest hit areas and one of the biggest areas in need is the Western Heights Community in North Knoxville. In that community, the Knox County Association of Baptists has a Baptist Center that serves this community. The center provides meals, clothing, hygiene products, after school activities, and worship services where the people and children of the community can feel safe and be served (there is a link to their website at the end of this article). In the spirit of sacrifice and service, I am very excited to announce our student ministry’s 6th annual #30for30 event at City View Baptist Church. This yearly event highlights and brings awareness of hunger in the Knoxville area and donates food, hygiene products, and clothing to the Western Heights Baptist Center for them to better serve the needs of that community.

You may have heard of our event before, but allow me to give you a brief overview of the weekend. We will be gathering on April 7-8 for 30 of the best and hardest hours of our participant’s lives. For 30 hours participants voluntarily go without food, only having Gatorade and water to drink. That’s right, participants give up eating for 30 hours so that we can experience for just a brief time what thousands of Knox County natives experience every day (Don’t worry, if someone can’t give up food for medical reasons, there are alternatives). We begin our famine at 9am on the 7th and continue it to 3pm on the 8th. During that time, participants will be engaged in a series of competitions (food related of course) as they are put into teams to compete for the prize of #30for30 Champion, the coveted Golden Fork Trophy, and the right to eat first at our break the fast banquet.

This year is a special year. Our theme this year is #30for30: Homecoming. To make this the biggest and best event to date, we are inviting EVERYONE who has ever participated in #30for30 to come back and experience the excitement all over again along with new participants wanting to start their tradition of this event with us this year. This year could potentially see us hit the 50-participant mark. Can you imagine 50 people putting aside life, stresses, problems, & differences to come together and participate in something bigger than themselves? We call that CHURCH!!

We will kick #30for30 off with the donation drive that occurs 1 month before the actual event. We will begin collecting items of food, clothes, & hygiene products  beginning March 4. As you all know, sacrifice is a part of following Christ. And the love that we share and pour out on others is a direct physical reflection of Christ to others. I hope you will join us in prayer for this event as we seek to make a real impact on the lives of the Western Heights community and hopefully allow them to have an encounter with Jesus.

In Christ Alone,

Rev. Bro. Coach

 

Western Heights Baptist Center

Video on Western Heights Ministry

Video about Last Year’s #30for30 by Parker Hall

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Do Something

Posted by Rev. Bro. Coach on March 11, 2016
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30for30 LogoWho Cares?  This was the theme of the very first Disciple Now that I had at City View. Our theme verse was out of 1 John 3:17 which says, “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him,how does God’s love abide in him? I truly believe that it was at this event, that my students caught the bug. What I mean is they caught the need to do something about hunger. That year, we did a massive mission project with other churches in the Knoxville area to fill food boxes that would be shipped to hungry people all over the world. By the end of that D-Now, my kids had a drive, a passion to serve the hungry.  We wanted to do something.

It’s strange how God works from experience to experience in order to make His plan known and work for the good of all.  From that D-Now, we decided to do something again.  We decided to partake in World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine. This is an event where students go 30 hours without food to raise awareness and money to send to starving children overseas in need of food. We did 2 of these famines and we all noticed the same thing.  Each year we spent part of the 30 hours working on service projects. I make them work around food for the experience that many children are all to familiar with- knowing food is there, but they can’t get it.  During these mission projects, we all began to notice something else- Knox County, especially our area, was in desperate need. As we worked at 2nd Harvest and other food ministries, we got to witness first hand the need in our own neck of the woods.  People were hungry and they were starving in our own back yard. After our 2nd experience that God gave us, we decided to once again do something and #30for30 was born.

We created our own event, #30for30, where the premise is we want at least 30 people to go 30 hours without food in an effort to experience, even if for only a moment, what many people- especially children- go through each day in Knox County. So each March, we set up our own 30 hour fast. Last year we came up just shy of our goals of 30 people, but this year 33 adults, teenagers, and college students will partake in the fast. The neat thing about this event is the desire of our students to do something real in an effort to affect change. The words to Matthew West’s song Do Something ring true to this. We can complain and we can shake our fist at God and ask him why doesn’t He do something about all of this pain and poverty in the world. Then we are hit right between the eyes with the lyrics that respond “I created YOU!”  God created us to do something.  This year we have 5 teams competing in food events/service projects and each team represents a food ministry in Knoxville.  These teams will be competing for their charity and the winning team’s ministry get all of our donations.

The greatest thing about this event is realizing you are part of something bigger. Many students are a part of the 2nd Harvest Backpack Program that sends a bag of “kid friendly” groceries home each weekend for children who need it. I love this idea, but there are times that not even that program can help. We all love snow days as students & teachers.  Let me tell you, I live for them; but as a pastor in inner-city Knoxville, there are many children who don’t eat regularly or at all when school is called off. These students are fed through a program in the summer, but its not available for snow days.  I have had many students come through my ministry that were part of these assistance programs and I feed my students in some way, shape, or form each time we meet so that I know they have the opportunity to eat. I can also tell you through experience, there is nothing more heart warming than to watch one of those students give everything they have to this event because for them, what we are fighting is a reality. They want to do something!

So, what about you? Will you do something? Your passion may not be hunger. it may be something else. Will you do something the way God has commanded us? You can be a part of our weekend. We are currently collecting non-perishable food items, hygiene products, and clothes to donate to the winning charity.  You can follow us and our progress on social media through the hashtag #30for30. One of our challenges will be a food drive outside local grocery stores from 12-2 on the 19th. Create your own movement or feel free to support our cause, but by all means do something.  We wonder and we plead with God to do something about all the violence, all the poverty, all the need, and all the starvation in the world, but we really need to remember that the answer is found in us. Affect change whenever and wherever you can because I can promise you this- change won’t happen unless we DO SOMETHING!!

In Christ Alone,

Rev. Bro. Coach

No Better Time Than Now

Posted by Rev. Bro. Coach on September 13, 2015
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Now LaterHey I’m back behind the keyboard and it feels really good. The goal is to write smaller articles, more often, and give myself fewer excuses as to why I can’t write.  Not sure how often, I’ll be writing, but I can tell you that it feels good to be doing this again.

As a pastor, you get to hear why people choose to do their activities, who they dread spending the holidays with, etc.. You also get a lot of questions about why church members act the way they do. This often opens up a conversation about why that person has not been in church in weeks, months, or even years. Whether I am asking a student or an adult, the answers are a lot alike in their nature. I started a practice, just today in my student ministry. I noticed that we had several students who had just silently slipped away and had stopped coming to church. So, this morning, I decided that each Sunday morning after announcements, I would sit down in my office and text all of my students who were no longer coming. On day one, God started to move. Three of them showed up for church today, and I had a quality conversation with one that gave us both perspective on why people are leaving the church and not coming back.

In my conversation today, and coupled with similar conversations I have had in the past month, I learned two things: 1) People leave church for a variety of reasons and many times it was not something that happened at church or to them. It is usually personal, and often deals with basic life getting in the way and the person simply falling out of the habit of church. And 2) Even though the reasons for leaving were wide and varied, the reasons they don’t come back are almost all identical- they are afraid of being judged for being away for so long that it is too uncomfortable to come back. This is a reason and an answer that I have struggled with as I have prayed about it and asked for wisdom. The biggest reason that it is a struggle is the fact that to some degree, they are absolutely right and that is something that all of us who call Christ our Lord need to work on in our daily walk. Yet, after a month of thinking on this, having these conversations, and asking God to grant me wisdom on the matter, I have come to the conclusion that God wants me to deliver the truth- so here it is.

To all of my friends, family, acquaintances, and whoever reads this that is hesitant about returning to church: I understand that the reason you are so reluctant to return is the fear of being judged for being away for so long. Here is the truth- someone WILL do it. I’m sorry- that’s the truth, I wish there was a way around it, but there isn’t. We are always going to be faced with people who are going to forget that God’s Grace extends past them onto us. We are always going to come across people who have forgotten what all they have been forgiven for and they will direct their self-righteousness on us. It is going to happen…….BUT…………..(oh c’mon you knew there was going to be but in here)…………You also endure the same type of hypocritical person at your workplace too don’t you? You also endure the same type of hypocritical person at school don’t you? You also endure the same type of hypocritical person in your family don’t you?  I feel confident the answer is yes. However, we still go to work, we still go to school, and we still hang around and see family. Why then do we tolerate the minority of ignorance there, but not at church? You go to work because you need money, you go to school because you need an education, you see family because we need family- stands to reason that we should go to church because we need Jesus in our lives.

Let me encourage you to get back into church. I am willing to bet that the overwhelming response to your return will be that of excitement and rejoicing; much like I am willing to bet what judgment you will be getting from a select few will be minimal and if you think about it, inconsequential. Now is a great time to return to church and get reacquainted with your savior or better yet, establish a relationship with Him for the first time. I think that once you give it a chance, it will be the best thing you’ve done for yourself in a long time.  There is no better time than now. God is waiting and He is excited that you are coming home.

In Christ Alone,

Rev. Bro. Coach

 

Surviving Bi-vocational Student Ministry- part 3: For Better or Worse

Posted by Rev. Bro. Coach on January 9, 2015
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Photo Dec 30, 11 40 51 AM

I would not be the Student Pastor I am today without this Godly woman in my life to encourage, love, and occasionally smack me. Praise God, I am blessed better than I deserve.

I can’t tell you how excited I am for this segment of my series on surviving Bi-Vocational Student Ministry. For this very special segment, we look at and explore an often thankless and overlooked aspect of Student Ministry- the role of the Student Pastor’s wife. Let’s face it, these ladies are practically super human in all that they do. They are wife, mom, ministry partner, prayer partner, encourager, accountant, fundraising expert, hostess, counselor…the list goes on and on. I can tell you from my own experience, my ministry WOULD NOT survive, exist, or even run without my wife.  She is my hero and I can not begin to fathom all that she does and still manages to find the will, strength, and time to love me. That is why, tonight, I have asked my wonderful, beautiful, and loving bride to be a guest blogger on the Mindful Minute so that you can get a true picture of what it’s like to be married to a Bi-Vocational Student Pastor; and maybe uncover some helpful hints on how to survive both the ministry and the often overworked, overstretched student pastor/husband on your hands.  Ladies and Gentlemen- my wife…Jan Jones

 

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So my husband asked me to write an article about being the wife of a bi-vocational student minister.  I am not the eloquent writer that he is, so I apologize ahead of time.

First I need to explain that not only is my husband bi-vocational, he is up to his elbows in teenagers all the time.  Both jobs deal with teens, just in completely different ways.  It is interesting to see how he interacts with the different groups because they come from drastically different backgrounds. It is important that you understand how much teenagers play a role in our lives because it shapes the way we live, teach, and raise our own family.  Working in a church, no matter the role, affects every part of your life, not just that one part that happens in the church building. It curls and winds its way into every part of your being.  Sunday lunches are no longer just our family; we have teens that go with us because we are as much their family as they are ours. Calendar planning is centered around the student ministry as are vacations and conversations in the car. These are not complaints, we wouldn’t have it any other way, we love our teenagers and all that comes with it.  We chose this path knowing it was not going to be easy. That being said, the struggle comes with maintaining our identity as a family.

We joke that our boys spend more time in the car going to church or church events than they do at their own home.  However, that is not entirely a joke.  Being bi-vocational comes with sacrifices – mostly time.  We have worked really hard to maintain a schedule where our boys are involved in something for just them like cub scouts, baseball, or basketball without teenagers there to take our attention away from them.  We have purposefully made time so they can stay home at least one night a week and just play.  We also take the chance to let the boys spend the night at friends and families houses so Keith and I can have a date night or time to just ourselves. If you let your teens know that these are important to you, they will respect those times and you will be amazed at the lengths they will go to protect those times for you.  These are things that you HAVE to do or you will get so burned out and fail in your ministry because you feel you are failing as a parent or spouse.

As far as being a bi-vocational student minster’s wife, I don’t feel like there is any other way to live my life.  Church and student ministry in particular have always played a huge part in my life growing up, it seems only natural that I would find myself in this place.  Sure I am tired after work and then have to go to church, or I have spent an entire Sunday from 9:00 to 8:00 at church with teenagers plus my own kids, or I have to be encouraging to others when I am not feeling particularly encouraging, but that is okay because all the good things completely outweigh the bad days. You have to understand that being the wife of a Bi-Vocational Student Pastor isn’t about simply surviving, and it isn’t even about your husband- it’s about you as a family. The decision to accept this life is one that the FAMILY makes, the FAMILY accepts, and the FAMILY chooses to live.  I know I am leading the life I am supposed to be living and I feel I am raising my kids the way God wants me to.

As I said, this is not any easy life – but it is the life we have been called to live as a family and as long as we are in God’s will it will work out

-jan 🙂

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In Christ Alone,

Rev. Bro. Coach

Surviving Bi-vocational Student Ministry- part 2: You Can’t Do it Alone

Posted by Rev. Bro. Coach on January 2, 2015
Posted in: The Mindful Minute. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

help_wanted-neonOne is definitely the loneliest number especially when you are talking about Student Ministry.  The one unequivocal truth is that part-time student pastors CAN NOT do it by themselves; so, stop trying.  As we look at the second installment of this series on surviving Bi-vocational student ministry, this is probably one of the biggest mistakes we make as part-time “youth guys.”  You see we are trying to do what the full-time guys don’t even try.  EVERY successful student ministry has a team of people who volunteer their time to make the ministry work.  I have been on the end where I was teaching Sunday school, bible study on Sunday nights, and bible study on Wednesday nights.  You add in all the events that everyone expects you to do AND your other full-time job and you get one very burned out student pastor. Here are some tips on how to avoid this problem:

FIRST: Find people who are willing to help- even in the smallest capacity and GIVE SOMETHING UP.  One of the most freeing things I ever did as a Student Pastor was giving up teaching Sunday School.  Now, if that is your only bible study for the week, by all means teach it.  However, I was teaching 3 times per week.  It was exhausting- especially since I teach high school all week long.  Finding someone to take one of your meeting times will do wonders for you & your group.  My good friend and Super Student Pastor, Jarred Morgan (seriously- I think the man has an S emblazoned on his chest, he is that good, but I digress), he wrote a blog this last year to help student pastors and he was quite frank when he said that most of our students come because of us- at least at first.  We would like to think that Jesus is the driving force behind them coming, but honestly, most students come because you care about them. This does not mean you have to be in front of them every second you are with them.  Other perspectives from people who also care is very important.  This frees you up to counsel those students who need you or disciple those who are new to the faith. Trust me, you are still doing your job and you are not cheating the students. In fact, by not teaching all the time, you are doing your job more so by being available to love on and care for your students when they need you. After all, that is why they come and that is why you put the time in.

SECOND: Sometimes the answer is “NO“, especially if you do not have the people in your congregation willing to help out and teach.  Let me reiterate, YOU CAN NOT DO THIS ALONE!!! If I was in the same situation now that I was in when I started, I would give up one of the services.  Now, I know what you are thinking, but believe it or not, no one is going to condemn you to Hell for this- in fact, you’d be surprised how many volunteers tend to pop up when this is a possibility.  Truth is, if you are doing your job well, most congregations and yes, even your Pastor will forget that you are only part-time.  I have had countless conversations with my pastor where I have to look at him say, “You do remember that I am only part time and I’m not in the office everyday right?” And there are members of my congregation who still think that the student ministry is my only job (I have a great story about one of our elderly members calling me in the middle of one of my class lecture on the Byzantines to give them a ride to the store- but that’s for a later date).  None of it is intentional- in fact, if you are getting that, it probably means you are doing your job very well. Without help, however, you must say no or other parts of your life will begin to suffer (more on that in a later post in the series). Saying NO is one of the healthiest things you can do for your ministry as we will see in a later installment.  Remember this simple guideline- the more help you have, the more you can say YES.

LASTLY: Delegate and let them run with it.  No one likes helping a micro-manager. I know how protective of our ministries we can get.  For the longest time, I had the approach that since I have to answer for everything that happens, I must control everything.  The object is to get volunteers to help, not drive them off.  I had to learn this thanks to my wife, who explained to me that she was not going to help me anymore if I didn’t stop micro-managing.  To give you an idea of what that meant to me- my student ministry DOES NOT OPERATE without her. If I am the motor, she is the anchor that steadies everything that happens in my ministry- me, the students, I mean everything (ask my students- they will say the same thing).  I understand you want the best for your students, and by all means, don’t accept just anyone’s help.  It is your job to make sure that the people who stand before your students are biblically & theologically sound.  However, if you trust them to be in front of your students, teaching, then trust them to do just that.  Leave them alone with them, go plan, listen to their ideas, several brains are better than just one. In my case, I have 3 remarkable Sunday School teachers (HS boys, HS girls, and Middle School).  They take them to do things without me. All I ask is that they let me know they are doing something so I can answer questions if asked about it and so that I don’t schedule anything over them.  In the end, your students are better off because now they have several people pouring into them and they don’t have a grumpy, overworked student pastor who runs around too busy to be with them because of all the “stuff” they have to do.

In the end- it’s not about competing with the other student ministries to keep up. It is about pouring into the lives of the students that pulled you into ministry in the first place.  Don’t do them a disservice by trying to “keep up.” Love them, that is all they are asking for and find the people to help you make that happen.  After all, you can’t do it alone.

**A SPECIAL NOTE TO CHURCH MEMBERS WHO HAVE PART-TIME STUDENT PASTORS**  Please seek God’s will for your life in terms of the student ministry in your church.  These pastors are trying to meet a very important need and they can not do it alone. Seek how God would use you to help these special people who have effectively taken on another full time job simply because they care about the lives of their teenagers.

 

In Christ Alone,

Rev. Bro. Coach

 

**Please check out my good friend Jarred Morgan’s blog (which is far superior to mine) at http://jarredamorgan.com/