Thanks to Gerrard Fess of Deep Thoughts by Gman for writing this guest post for Life In Student Ministry!

Top 10 things to know a month after being a post-youth pastor.
by Gerrard R. Fess

1. Your investment in teen’s lives wasn’t the number #1 influencer - seems their parents are still influencing them.

2. References from your former church are important! So don’t burn any bridges.

3. Don’t expect to be called on by your former church. After a few weeks they have moved on. It is a little harder for you though since you were there a few years.

4. Learn to spend lots and lots of time in prayer.

5. Remember how important you thought your Bible College and Seminary degree were? Turns out in applying for jobs outside of ministry - it is only worth the paper it is on.

6. Get some counseling. Counseling never hurt anyone. It is good to know where your heart is at. Your relationships with God, family and others are vital. It is best to know one’s self.

7. Network. Network with as many people as possible to get that position. So often it isn’t what you know as to who you know and their contacts. A big source of encouragement as well.

8. Friendships are important. Those volunteers that you invested your life into - let them now invest in you. Your past sponsors can be the best source of encouragement and help you with references, resume help, and just helping with the family.

9. Keep your attitude positive. If God called you to step out on the water, then He’ll help you walk on the water too. Right now I’m stepping - just don’t know about the walking.

10. Just because you are done this chapter of being a “formal” youth worker doesn’t mean youth ministry is totally behind you. God maybe changing your calling but past lessons and helping others goes a long ways. Just like Joseph Wrestled with an Angel. So we too can struggle with our own calling and where God would have us.

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Gerrard Fess recently resigned from his Youth & Family Minister position and is currently searching for where the Lord might be leading him in the mainstream marketplace.

Here’s how you can be featured as a guest blogger at Life In Student Ministry.

We’ve all heard the dilemma about the missing 20-something-year-olds from our churches: students graduate high school, go on to college and don’t seem to connect to a local church until their 30s when they’re starting to have kids of their own. There’s a lot of theories flying around about why this is happening, but here’s one that makes some sense to me:

In the ’70s and ’80s youth workers started telling their church’s leadership, “Hey, we need to get these kids involved in the church, but we have to change church a little in order for them to connect because right now it’s just for adults.” The church leaders considered this and promptly replied, “No, we’ve been doing church a lot longer than you have and we know how it works best.” So, in an attempt to keep the kids in church, youth leaders started having their own little Bible studies instead of sending kids to hear the sermon.

A bit later we said, “Hey, here are some kids who can play instruments and lead worship in church, but it’s not the piano or organ.” Again the leaders said, “No, we like our music exactly the way it is. We’re not going to change it.” So again, youth leaders responded by forming their own worship bands and eventually started having their own worship services, essentially creating a mini-church within the larger church, both of which were grossly disconnected from each other.

Throughout this time teenagers continued to develop relationships with only their youth group peers and adult leaders, and by the time graduation came around they knew no one in the “big church” and had little to no attraction to it because they had spent all their time in the mini youth church.

Fast forward to the end of a student’s first year of college. He returns home, goes back to church, pops in on “youth church” because that’s where he is known and feels comfortable, but quickly realizes he doesn’t belong there anymore. However, he doesn’t feel connected to anything else in the church, so he drops out altogether.

I realize this is a gross over-simplification, but the point is clear: Youth ministry must abandon this “mini youth church” approach and purposefully integrate teenagers into the life of the body as a whole. No more “Youth Sundays” — youth are to be involved every Sunday. No more having youth service during the main church service. No more church leaders who are too stubborn and too comfortable to accept change. No more delegating responsibility and leadership roles only to adults. No more adding 20-something programs that do nothing more than continue to segregate the body.

It won’t solve all our problems, but our fundamental approach to giving students ownership must change nevertheless. Otherwise, we die and pass on a church system that is incredibly broken, disconnected and outdated.

In a couple weeks I’ll be part of a discussion with some other denominational leaders about the missing 20-something age group from churches in our conference. I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue lately as the meeting approaches. As far as I can tell, it seems that we’re drawing wrong and unsuccessful answers because we’re asking the wrong questions. Typically the questions are phrased something like, “How do we attract 20-somethings to church?” or “How do we retain students in our church after high school?” thus unintentionally equating church involvement with spiritual growth. Any of us could attest that this just isn’t necessarily true (i.e. Pharisees). The question also seems to indicate that we’re trying to win people to our church more than to a relationship with God. Granted, I understand what the question implies, but let’s make the question more pointed and specific so we’re not accidentally going down the wrong rabbit trails.

The question should be, “How can we help lead 20-somethings into a growing personal relationship with Christ?” If we do this, church involvement becomes a natural outcome, not a primary goal.

Theologically speaking, there’s nothing we can do draw people into a relationship with Christ — that is solely a work of the Holy Spirit. But practically speaking, it’s not an excuse to hopelessly throw our hands in the air and say, “It’s all the Holy Spirit and there’s nothing we can do about it.” It does help alleviate some of the pressure from us, though. Our job is not to make people grow because that’s impossible for us to do. Rather, our job is to lead them to Christ where they make that decision between themselves and God. We can’t be held responsible if they choose to reject Him. We can do everything we can to see that it doesn’t happen, but we’re not going to get down on ourselves and start ranting about the failure of youth ministry because of it. Let’s just talk about how we lead them to that decision and leave the results up to God.

Honestly, as both a growing believer and as someone who is very active in church, there are some things about the church that would push even me away from it. That has to be part of the discussion, as well.

I still think the real issue lies somewhere in the fact that many parents have adopted Christianity as a ritualistic religion instead of a relationship and their facade is passed on to the kids. Parents are willing to fake it at “social club” church, but kids aren’t… and neither am I.

Oh, and by the way, I’m a 20-something myself.

Links to my other posts on this topic:
What I dream for a church
Why church is often a student’s last priority
Why students are dropping out of church
Why graduates drop out of church
Youth group reflects its church
What parents’ actions often teach kids about God

No one is perfect and we all make mistakes, but, as youth pastors, we seem to error in a couple common ways.

1. Only listening to the innovators. As I mentioned yesterday, we tend to only listen to the innovators and wonder why everyone else can’t follow and be exactly like them. If we base church ministry on a group that consists of 2.5% of the people, we’ll never make it. It’s imperative that we build relationships with the early adopters and early majority people, not just the innovators.

2. Starting too soon. What youth pastor hasn’t started in a new position and immediately started itching to make changes (and good ones, at that!)? We all have! But just because we’re ready for change doesn’t mean that everyone else is. Spend at least a year getting to know the current church system, earning trust and building relationships before making any changes at all. Being passionate about a vision is great, but don’t run ahead like a crazy man and later turn around to see that no one was genuinely following.

3. Failing to create a strong guiding coalition. When we move the church and the youth group in new directions, we need to do our best to bring along as many people as possible. Sure, there are the laggers who will always disagree, but at least give them the chance to hop on board. If we have to, there’s nothing wrong with taking extra time to implement something huge when it means gaining more support first.

4. Underestimating the power of vision. If we can’t articulate why something is a good idea because we have a vague sense of why it’s going be great, we’re not going to convince anyone.

5. Under-communicating the vision. We need to repeat the vision over and over again. Not in a way that’s redundant — that’s saying the same thing the same way several times. Redundancy is boring. Rather, repeat a simple message in a variety of different ways.

6. Being too optimistic. Just because we’re the cool youth pastor doesn’t mean everyone will blindly follow us. (Deep, I know.) We need to keep our heads out of the clouds and be realistic about the direction we’re taking the ministry and the pace that will get us there.

7. Not working the process. When we’re excited about something and believe in it 110%, it’s easy to run ahead of everyone and leave them behind. We have to remember that climbing the mountain to the pinnacle of our vision is a process of one step after another, not a single giant leap for one man.

8. Taking resistance personally. Most of the time, resistance to an idea is not about us personally. Often it’s about them. How tired are they? How often have they been burned in the past? Once we take the resistance personally, we can’t have a conversation anymore because the relationship changes.

Read the rest of this series:
Navigating the church system (1 of 5): Youth workers need help!
Navigating the church system (2 of 5): Leadership tensions
Navigating the church system (3 of 5): Why churches change slowly
Navigating the church system (4 of 5): Understanding the adoption curve

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The above material is based on Tiger McLuen’s seminar, “Surviving as a youth worker in an imperfect church.” Used and edited with permission. Thanks, Tiger!

In 1950 a group of television producers funded a research project to evaluate the effectiveness of TV commercials. Part of the project’s findings, conducted by the University of Chicago, was later generalized by Everett M. Rogers in his 1962 book, Diffusion of Innovations, where he describes five groups of people who adopt new ideas, products and technology. Although youth pastors aren’t trying to sell a product, being aware of these groups is helpful when understanding how to implement change and navigate the church system.

Rogers’ Adoption Curve

Innovators 2.5%. These are the brave people who are willing to jump into something head-first and think about it later. As youth workers, we tend to only listen to these people because they’re the ones that will support and agree with almost any idea we present. Although they like new ideas and are eager to follow, they don’t typically lead change. If we listen only to these people, we will be fired pretty quickly.

Early Adopters 13.5%. These are the respectable people with opinions. They like to try out new ideas, but are careful along the way. Even though they like to think through the new idea first, they’ll come on board and try it out even if no one else has tested it yet. Unlike the Innovators, they see the vision, acknowledge the benefits and are willing to work through any challenges it might present.

Early Majority 34%. These people are also careful about change and new ideas, but they’ll only give in after they’ve seen enough other people do it. They appreciate the benefits of the new idea and the change it suggests, but the risk factor makes them a little nervous, so they’re content to sit back a little and see how others fair before they jump on board.

Late Majority 34%. These people are skeptical and reluctant to move ahead. They’ll eventually adopt the new idea, but only after they’ve seen it be successful for a majority of other people. Even so, they still prefer their old ideas and would rather stick with them.

Laggards 16%. These are the traditional people who love their old ideas. They’re critical toward almost anything new and will only accept the new idea if it becomes mainstream or even tradition.

iPhone Example
To put this in current product terms, let’s use the iPhone for example. The Innovators are the ones who waited in line outside the Apple stores for two days just to be one of the first to get their hands on the new product. The Early Adopters wanted an iPhone pretty badly, but weren’t hardcore enough to spend two days sitting in line outside, so they waited a couple days for the lines to die down and then picked up their iPhone. By now, a lot of the Early Adopters have their iPhones, too, because they waited a longer while to read reviews, check reports and see how it worked for the others first. However, the Late Majority don’t feel like learning how to use a new product and will stick with their current phones for a couple more years. As for the Laggards, they are just now coming into the world of color TV, kicking and screaming all the way.

Ministry Application
To implement change, youth workers have to build relationships with the early adopters and early majority people, not just the innovators. These people will ask more questions and will require more from us, but it is critical to work with them if we are to navigate the church system and facilitate the changes necessary for promoting spiritual growth while keeping our jobs intact.

Read the rest of this series:
Navigating the church system (1 of 5): Youth workers need help!
Navigating the church system (2 of 5): Leadership tensions
Navigating the church system (3 of 5): Why churches change slowly
Navigating the church system (5 of 5): Common mistakes by youth pastors

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The above material is based on Tiger McLuen’s seminar, “Surviving as a youth worker in an imperfect church.” Used and edited with permission. Thanks, Tiger!

It’s ironic that churches are all about promoting change in people’s lives, but change in its own ministry is often met with great resistance. The church strives for changing lives, but rarely for changing ministry. This often frustrates youth workers to no end because we’re typically young, arrogant, full of new ideas, adventurous and willing to take risks if for no other reason than to get a good adrenaline rush.

Youth ministry, more than any other area of ministry, continually changes. The faces in our youth groups change, the teenagers themselves are in a constant state of physical and emotional change, youth culture changes month to month, and often we spend a considerable amount of time thinking of ways to make this week’s youth meeting different from the last. It’s no wonder that youth ministries are naturally used to change, but we have to remember that youth ministry is unique from the rest of the church in this regard. Change is never neutral for the church. We cannot promote change without expecting some side affects.

Why do churches change so slowly?

• Churches view themselves as guardians of tradition. They see a lot of change around them and most of it is negative. Unfortunately, they become guardians of cultural traditions, not Biblical or doctrinal traditions. Whenever churches have a history that they appreciate, there is an emotional bond to hold on to that.
• We operate like “family” in church. When we’re hired, we sometimes feel like an outsider for a while because there’s a system in place that is unfamiliar to us. It takes some time to learn the system, just like we’d expect if we joined a new family. Families are weird sometimes.
• We have a fuzzy bottom line. Many churches are wrestling with big questions, like, “What does success look like?” The church’s vision is often weak, it’s sense of identity is unclear and it’s direction is stagnant. When they hire a new youth pastor, they do so with a certain set of criteria, but what criteria will they use in two years to say, “We’re really glad our new youth pastor is here.” The same criteria or something different? The bottom line is fuzzy.
• Church members are tired. “Church system people” are tired of change. Most people in their 50s and older are scared and tired of change. They want church, unlike their workplace, to feel stable. Youth pastors often don’t have enough track record to compel these people to invite change. When we say to someone, “I have a new idea,” we have to realize two things. First, change will require work from them and most people are already tired. Secondly, when we suggest change, it will require more work for us. We can only make it through the change if we believe that the short-term pain will be worth it in the end.
• Few pastors consider themselves gifted leaders. Interesting, but true. Pastors see themselves as caregivers, teachers, and relational ministers, not always as leaders. Thus, some pastors lack the courage and desire to implement change in the first place. They feel quite comfortable doing what they love and are best at — loving people.
• We have an intergenerational church. Some youth pastors become so frustrated that we leave the church, call ourselves church planters and start our own church thinking that we can finally build the church of our dreams without the older people who resist our ideas for change. What we fail to realize is that if the church actually lasts, in 20 years it’ll be intergenerational again. The church was meant to be intergenerational! We need to embrace the diversity and learn to work with our brothers and sisters in Christ rather than canning them in order to build an institution of our own ideologies. If we don’t like the diversity here, we’ll hate heaven!

Church people are guardians of tradition. If we inadvertently communicate that their old way is bad and that our new way is good, the resistance will skyrocket. Don’t do that! We need to be careful how we approach change. Both the process and communication are huge. As youth workers, we tend to be driven by the results, not the process. We’re excited and motivated to rush for the end result, but if we ever want to see that end result, we have to be willing to progress slowly down the path that will take us there, always communicating and expressing value and appreciation for the old idea while embracing the new. Remember, we’re not leaders if no one is following, so go slow.

Read the rest of this series:
Navigating the church system (1 of 5): Youth workers need help!
Navigating the church system (2 of 5): Leadership tensions
Navigating the church system (4 of 5): Understanding the adoption curve
Navigating the church system (5 of 5): Common mistakes by youth pastors

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The above material is based on Tiger McLuen’s seminar, “Surviving as a youth worker in an imperfect church.” Used and edited with permission. Thanks, Tiger!

In the summer of 2000 I was ecstatic to lead my very first youth group at a church in Virginia Beach, Virginia. With two years of Bible college and a 1-year internship under my belt, I thought I was ready to take this group by storm and radically change every life for Christ. I was pumped! Although it started well despite my unrealistic expectations, I quickly learned a very important lesson about ministry leadership: almost everyone has a different idea of what ministry looks like and how it should be done and somehow I needed to work with them all. Everyone in the church agreed with my game plan at the very beginning, but only a few short weeks later I was so frustrated, hurt and angry that I wanted to quit and go home. The pastor asked me to do all the “dirty work” he didn’t want to do, parents complained to the deacons that the group wasn’t growing larger yet, the kids wanted me to go play basketball, the elderly banned us from half the church building because we broke too much stuff, and no one thought I was putting in enough work hours. There was so much tension and opposing expectations from so many different people that I felt I might collapse under all the pressure.

The tensions of leadership
1. The tension of results. (What?) This tension comes from various sources. Some of it comes from the people in our ministry who want to know what we’re doing and what it’s going to produce. Other times it is self-inflicted, thinking, “I need to produce results so people think I’m worth something in this position.” Unfortunately, attendance growth become the default results we look for, but it could also be a myriad of other things, such as a perceived level of acceptance and approval from church members and other community youth workers. We need to lead with people who push for results, results, and more results.

2. The tension of relationships. (Who?) There’s also time that needs to be invested into people. Of course there’s students, but there’s also parents, our Sr. Pastor, church members, other co-workers, community organizations, businesses that offer donations, school teachers, athletic coaches, not to mention our own families. Spending adequate time building all these relationships could be a full-time job all by itself!

3. The tension of the process. (How?) Results are one thing, but getting those results is a tension of formulating a plan and getting others on board. Building relationships also takes a plan. Nothing just happens by itself. If the ministry is going exist at all, it will require that there’s a process for reaching goals, even if the goals aren’t explicitly stated.

A youth pastor’s relationships
As leaders it’s critical that we have a healthy self-image because others will often be more than happy to challenge it. If it’s dependent on what other people think and say, navigating the church system will be impossible. We’ll always be running around with our tail between our legs, trying to please everyone, saying YES to everything, and burning out faster than a cardboard match. That’s not being a leader — that’s following everyone else.

When our own self-identity is secure, all the other relationships surround it.

• Students. Most of the time when youth workers are released from their jobs it’s because we’re struggling in an area outside of the kids. We aren’t usually fired because we’re bad with students. Actually, this is usually where we excel because the reason we go into youth ministry in the first place is because we love kids so much. Most of our problems in ministry lie elsewhere.
• Parents. We have a unique relationship with parents because they pay our salary, they have a clear perception of what they want from the youth ministry and we try our best to partner with them. When one of those latter two aspects gets a little out of sync, it can be a big mess.
• Sr. Pastor. The greatest variable to a youth pastor’s long-term success is the relationship with the Sr. Pastor. They will either be our biggest ally or our worst enemy. Respect their wisdom and communicate often.
• Other staff. Hopefully our co-workers see us as professionals because we treat them with respect and handle ourselves with maturity. Sometimes we have to wear a different hat with each person, but that goes along with the ministry territory anyway.
• Other adults. There are committee members, parents, leadership team, board members, volunteers, senior citizens, etc. We speak at women’s meetings, board meetings, and annual meetings not because it’s just another “speed bump,” but because that’s where we earn respect and establish credibility in their eyes.
• Peers. Hopefully we all have personal friends whether they’re ministry related or not. If we don’t have those personal friendships, then we need to make some friends outside the church ASAP!
• Family. Perhaps of highest priority is the wife and then the children.
• Community. The impression you leave in the community is the impression they will develop about your church and its ministry.
• Christ. All of these relationships are encompassed by the most vital relationship of all — our personal relationship with Christ.

Navigating the church system requires that we keep the tensions in check and our relationships healthy.

Read the rest of this series:
Navigating the church system (1 of 5): Youth workers need help!
Navigating the church system (3 of 5): Why churches change slowly
Navigating the church system (4 of 5): Understanding the adoption curve
Navigating the church system (5 of 5): Common mistakes by youth pastors

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The above material is based on Tiger McLuen’s seminar, “Surviving as a youth worker in an imperfect church.” Used and edited with permission. Thanks, Tiger!

Youth leaders need help! Most of us are just normal people who love kids and want to see lives changed for Christ, but that often means we have to get caught up in a church system that’s extremely political, confusing, demanding, stressful and sometimes even detrimental to the life-change we seek. When we, as youth workers, are fired, very rarely is it because we’re accused of being apathetic toward kids or mishandling the Word of God. Rather, it’s usually because of personal conflicts and ministry values that aren’t aligned with the church or the Sr. Pastor. We love kids, want to reach them for Christ and wish we didn’t have to deal with all the junk many churches throw at us. This week’s series won’t solve all our issues, but it will help us understand a little bit about how the church system works and how we can avoid the common pitfalls that short-circuit our dreams of life-long service in youth ministry.

Two views of youth ministry
Many youth workers have a speed bump approach to student ministry. We know we are called to youth ministry and we focus so intently on it that anything else along the way feels like a road bump. We hit the road bump and keep going except we’re a little more annoyed on the other side of the bump than we were before we hit it: committee meetings, board meetings, parents, paperwork, reports, etc.

Many churches have a light bulb approach to student ministry. To them, youth ministry is simply buying a light bulb from the youth ministry rack. The rack used to be empty, but now it’s filled with people from Bible colleges and seminaries. Every church wants a flood light youth minister, not a small 100 watt bulb. Eventually the bulb burns out, the church throws it away and buys another bulb until it also starts to flicker.

Youth workers need help:

• Our focus is on students, not church systems.
• We sometimes don’t stay focused on a task from start to finish.
• We often take on too much, making us look even more unorganized because we say YES to way too much.
• We are more people oriented than task oriented.
• We are cool, which is a problem for a lot of established churches. We are the edge. We’re the innovators. We prompt change and challenge the status quo.
• We often don’t follow through on menial tasks, such as cleaning the church van after a trip.
• We feel pressure from a variety of sources. There’s a lot of different expectations placed on us by a lot of different people and too often those expectations conflict! (”Get out of the office and hang with kids.” “Get in your office and return those phone calls.”)
• We often lack a clear vision. We tend to love kids and love Jesus and think that’s enough, but it’s not. Vagueness is killing the church: vague gospel, vague vision, vague direction, and we have no sense of when we get somewhere.)

Read the rest of the series:
Navigating the church system (2 of 5): Leadership tensions
Navigating the church system (3 of 5): Why churches change slowly
Navigating the church system (4 of 5): Understanding the adoption curve
Navigating the church system (5 of 5): Common mistakes by youth pastors

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The above material is based on Tiger McLuen’s seminar, “Surviving as a youth worker in an imperfect church.” Used and edited with permission. Thanks, Tiger!

Every couple weeks I tend to get an email from a church asking me to recommended candidates for their youth ministry position. Although I have made recommendations in the past when I know of youth workers who are looking for a job, most of the time I my “youth pastor bank” is pretty dry. So, rather than trying to play matchmaker like some kind of eharmony for churches and youth workers, I may post some of those job opportunities here in case any of you guys looking. I probably won’t make a habit out of this, though, since there’s plenty of ways out there already for these kinds of connections to be made.

I’ve been in dialog over email with Prairie Lakes Church for a couple days now and from what I can tell, they seem like a solid church with a healthy perspective on ministry. Contact Terry directly if you’re interested.

DIRECTOR OF STUDENT MINISTRIES
Nestled in the heart of the Cedar Valley, Prairie Lakes Church is a growing, evangelical church with a mission to Point People to God. We are seeking a catalytic leader to develop and administer all facets of student ministries for grades 6-12, focusing primarily on small groups, Bible studies and discipleship. This position is responsible for planning, coordinating and overseeing activities for teens to promote fun, fellowship, spiritual development and ministry involvement.

Non-negotiables:

• Must be passionate about teenagers and totally sold out to the mission and vision of reaching teenagers for Christ.
• Must be a leader of leaders, willing and able to train and equip other adults.
• Must be convinced this is your life calling and vocation, not a stepping-stone to your real dream job.
• Must be technology-savvy.
• Must have keen insight into the youth culture and issues facing youth today.
• Must be creative and have excellent communication skills.
• Must have large church experience (1500+).
• Must be able to respond to this ad by Dec. 31, 2007.

This is an immediate, full-time position offering competitive salary and benefits. If you have been yearning for a healthy environment where you can play to your strengths, please submit your resume today, with cover letter including salary history.

Terry Kampman, HR Director
Prairie Lakes Church
1907 Viking Road
Cedar Falls, IA 50613

Phone: 319-266-2655
Email: terry.kampman@prairielakeschurch.org
Church site: www.prairielakeschurch.org
Youth group site: www.plcstudents.com

My church is going through the whole vision casting thing right now. Our current vision is pretty old and no longer reflects who we are. We’ve been hashing through a new vision every week in our staff meetings and it’s actually been a very stretching process. The vision has to be detailed enough to evaluate ministries and point our church in the right direction, but it has to be simple enough for everyone in the congregation to remember and articulate.

The hardest part is that vision must start with identity (who we are) and move to function (what we do). Usually churches put the cart before the horse and go straight to function (i.e. programs to accomplish such-and-such) without really thinking through who they are and why they do what they do. Identity is hard to grasp, but, in our opinion, it starts with Ephesians and then must move to, “What is our unique identity that makes us different from every other church out there?” Unfortunately, many church’s just find some other big church’s mission, vision, strategy, etc and adopt it for their own, thinking it will grow their numbers or make them like the other church, but nothing could be more crippling! We need to discover our own unique identity as a congregation in our specific town and context and then let our ministry flow out of who we are.

One of our associate pastors led the church staff through a discussion where we brainstormed “who we are” and “what we are becoming” based on key passages in Ephesians. He was gracious enough to provide me with those study notes to share with you all.

A book most of the pastors at my church have read is called, “Simple Church: Returning to God’s process for making disciples” by Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger. I haven’t read it yet, but they speak highly of it as we’re going through this process. I have the book here in front of me, I just need to sit down and read it sometime soon.

Bible study notes from Ephesians about our identity and our “becoming”