First of all, my wife, Dana Schmoyer, will be the featured guest and will share from her experiences of the struggles and rewards of being married to a youth pastor.

Second, rather than her just talking a lot, she would like to do a Q&A format with you all. We’ve never done it this way before in a LIVE YM Talk, so this will be fun! Submit your questions related to being married to a youth pastor and together we will all answer them from our various experiences and perspectives. Also, if you have any questions about marriage and youth ministry in general, feel free to submit those questions, too.

That means two things

1. Submit your questions about being married to a youth pastor and about marriage and youth ministry in general using this form. [UPDATE: form now closed]

2. Make sure you join our LIVE YM Talk on Friday, July 3, at 2:00 PM so we can hear your advice and answers to people’s questions, too.

Even if you can’t join us for the live conversation on Friday, submit your questions anyway and then listen for our response in the recording that will be available on Saturday in our podcast in iTunes.

How to join the LIVE YM Talk

To join our live conversation at 2:00 PM Eastern Time on Friday, call (724) 444-7444 and enter ID 19105# (long distance charges may apply). Or, listen to it online by joining the live chat room and participate there.

Check out the LIVE YM Talk page for more details and to see an archive of past conversations.

After some time to hang out and eat together, we all sat in a circle and discussed some of these questions openly. However, looking back, I see the value in asking these three questions privately with every set of parents represented in the youth ministry on a consistent basis.

1. What’s going on in your family and your kid’s life right now that would help me and the youth leaders know how to best work with your student?
We’re here to partner with parents, but no partnership works very well if the partners are off doing different things without communicating with each other. Ask parents about what they see going in in their kid’s lives that would be helpful information for you and any other appropriate youth leaders to know. What stories are both you and the parents hearing about school? What indicators of spiritual growth do you and the parents see coming from their life? Listen to parents share stories, but be sure you also share with them stories and insights you’ve picked up through their involvement in the ministry.

2. How can the youth ministry support you and your family better?
After you’ve heard a bit about what’s happening in that kid’s life at home, ask parents how they feel the youth ministry can best come alongside and continue to support them. That’s doesn’t mean you should bow to their every request — sometimes their expectations will be unrealistic. Use those times to gently share why you can’t or shouldn’t meet those expectations while giving an alternate suggestion that’s more appropriate.

3. How are YOU doing spiritually right now?
We all know that the spirituality of the parents is often reflected in their students, except their kids don’t try to hide it as much. That’s why the spiritual health of the students is often dependant on the spiritual health of their parents. Kids reflect what they see modeled for them. Ensure that parents are growing spiritually and that it’s overflowing into their family, their children, their teenagers, and their marriages.

See Part 1 of this series.

Mission: Cheapest Date Ever!

Yes, this sounds really “cheap” but it was a lot of fun! One week I was planning a date for my wife who was at that time almost my fiancé! She didn’t know that I happened to be a bit tight financially that week but I decided to not let that hold us back from having a good time. I decided to have fun with planning the date around the idea of being as cheap as possible. I went to a local dollar store and picked up a candle and candle holder. I also got a card and a single rose before the date. I used to make a cd for each date as well that had some crazy title or word that maybe we had talked about before. I tried to pick songs on each cd that I knew we would enjoy together. Some cd’s were very silly and others had a more serious tone to them depending on the tone of the date that I was going for.

Once I picked her up for our date, I explained the whole concept of having the cheapest date ever. We went to a local carousel that only cost a dollar donation to ride, rented a cheap movie together, then ordered food off of a dollar menu at a fast food restaurant. We then went and parked (not the kind of parking you are thinking about!) in a theater parking lot, had a cheap dinner by candlelight and watched our movie rental on my laptop! This date is still one of our favorite dating memories that we share together to this day!

Cost for the date: $10-15

Extravagant, But Not Too Extravagant

This date requires you saving some money over the period of a few weeks or even month or so depending on how much you want to put into this date financially. I really didn’t have to spend a ton of money to do this date but it did require me saving some before I pulled it off. I let my wife know near the end of the week of the date that she needed to have her bags packed for an overnight stay somewhere not too far away from home. It was fun to keep her guessing until the night of the date. A few weeks before, I made reservations at a Hilton Garden Inn that was only twenty minutes from our home. This was convenient for us since my wife and I had a newborn child. My in-laws were already planning to baby-sit for the night of the date! The hotel stay for a suite room was only around $130.00. The day of the date, I checked in at the hotel early and set the room up with roses, small gifts that I worked on myself that were fairly inexpensive and with a song I had written that was displayed in a picture frame. My guitar was placed near the framed song. I also gave her a blank picture album that evening so that we could take pictures on our date and fill the album up later! I spent some time compiling music and pictures that I put together to make a sweet slideshow of us and our baby on Windows Movie Maker.

The night of the date, we went out to eat at a fairly nice restaurant then we retired for the evening early and went to the hotel to enjoy everything that I had put together for her in the hotel room. She walked in, surprised to see that I had already been there and had the “mood” set! I played the song that I had written for her that evening, we watched the movie I put together on our laptop and we had a great time enjoying each other and the luxurious room for the evening. Breakfast was off the chain at the Hilton the next morning too!

Cost for the date: $200.00

Movie Night In The Church Choir Room

About a year ago, I set up a couch, candles, a coffee table, etc. in our church choir room. We have a really sweet and BIG flat-screen tv in this room so it made for yet another great cheap date for the evening! I love the element of surprise so she had no clue that we were about to have a date in the church that night! I told her that I had forgotten to turn off a light in the church and asked her to come in with me for a minute. She came in and noticed the set-up when we walked into the room and was completely caught off guard. I had candles lit, the tv ready to play the movie and everything in place. We popped popcorn and had some cold drinks while we enjoyed our movie together!

Cost for the date: $3 or $4 for the movie rental

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Jake Waits is the Student Pastor at East Philadelphia Baptist Church in Philadelphia, MS. He has a passion to actively disciple students, loves his wife (Dian) and baby (Emma Grace), and loves pizza more than any other youth minister he has ever met!

Share your stories!

Okay, so I have been skewering the web and local Christian bookstores over the past few months for ANY creative and fun ideas for dates with my wife. It has been a lot of fun coming up with anything that I can do to surprise my wife on our random dates. If you are like me, you may have discovered that there may be a few dating ideas here and there on the web, but I got to thinking about how this concept could be a lot more effective if others posted ideas on a site. I found several sites that did this but they were not Christian sites and the ideas were a bit pricey! If you are like me, you are on a budget right now but you still want to impress your significant other when it comes to planning your dates. If we all pitched in ideas from time to time, this would help ALL of us as we are seeking out ideas for dates. This can be as effective as we allow it to be if everyone will chip in! Please submit some stories and favorite dates in the comments below. I am by no means an expert when it comes to planning the perfect date, but I do have several tips for you to check out.

How to successfully plan a date

• Plan the date around his/her schedule.
• Be sensitive to the fact that they have a life too and make sure that you don’t plan the date on the night or day of something that they might already have going on!
• Surprise your date! Don’t do the average date with them. Dinner and a movie is fine but add some flavor to your date. Randomly give her/him small gifts throughout the date. They can be relatively inexpensive. You can get a coffee mug with a hot chocolate packet in it, give her a small bottle of perfume, or give your man a small bottle of cologne! Just be creative.
• Plan the date around his/her interests. You definitely want to enjoy the date for yourself as well but make sure that you put your spouse or date before yourself when it comes to planning a date for them. What do they enjoy doing? What is their favorite kind of food or restaurant? Is it possible for you to participate in something that they enjoy doing? For instance, if you love going to the movies all the time on dates and your date is okay with it but doesn’t love it, shake things up!

Read Part 2 of this series!

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Jake Waits is the Student Pastor at East Philadelphia Baptist Church in Philadelphia, MS. He has a passion to actively disciple students, loves his wife (Dian) and baby (Emma Grace), and loves pizza more than any other youth minister he has ever met!

Dana blogged about the announcement tonight, too. Read her post about the best Christmas gift.

Thanks to all of you who replied to my Twitter update yesterday when I first made the announcement online. Dana and I both appreciate it that you guys are joining us in our excitement.

How to make a video like this
It only takes about 5 minutes to create a video like this, and it’s extremely simple — anyone can do it! Just upload your pictures to Animoto.com, add some titles and music, and the website does the rest. Sign up at Animoto.com for free using this link so we can share videos together. It also sure beats boring PowerPoint slideshows of youth group events.

4. Set boundaries.

Make sure the two of you are clear on how many nights a week your husband is going to be out. (Tim and I try to keep it to 3 nights a week.) Some weeks we have had something every night, but then we make sure the following week is close to empty. Also protect your home. I have known people to open their house to youth, letting them drop in at any time of the day or night. I highly recommend against this. Your house should be your own private sanctuary. By protecting your house you are protecting your family and spouse time. It’s probably cheaper too if they feel like they have open access to your fridge!

3. Speak carefully.

Yesterday in #6 I mentioned that it is important to surround yourself by godly women. When you do, and feel comfortable around these women sharing everything, that is great, but watch what you say. You can be close and open with friends without sharing intimate details of your marriage and personal issues in ministry. Find a godly woman outside of your church circle who you can share these things with about your life and ministry. If you are dating a youth pastor, don’t share details of your relationship with others in the church. I made that mistake and speak from experience — it can quickly turn into gossip. With this I have also learned that it’s probably wise to hold the same standard in a marriage relationship.

2. Always support your husband publicly.

No matter what, support him in public. If you disagree with something, tell your husband when no one is around. If someone comes to you with a complaint, you can listen, but do not try to fix the problem, they need to go to him with their issue. God put you here to support your husband, not to carry him.

1. Be sexually active with your husband.

Sex is a good stress reliever and fulfills his needs, which helps prevent temptation for him. It shocked me to hear this out of Doug Field’s mouth at NYWC at the marriage seminar with his wife, but it really is important. He said, “The number one job for my wife is to sleep with the youth pastor.”

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This post was written and contributed by my wife, Dana Schmoyer. See Part 1 from yesterday.

9. Have fun and be care free.

Enjoy every moment you can. Don’t let the little stuff stress you out. It takes time to learn which adults work well with which students. Go where the spirit leads, and when he doesn’t, leave it up to others. A great way Tim has helped me to be carefree is by not telling me things that would probably upset me, such as someone either criticizing him or the youth ministry. I take it personally, and then I don’t look at that person the same any more.

8. Try something new.

I have found that youth really enjoy it when you are willing to try something you haven’t done, and when you do it with them. I am terrified of heights, and on our first canoe trip with our youth group we got to the part of the river with a bridge that they always stop at to jump off of. The kids were so excited for me to get up there and jump. It’s a great bonding time and then you have stories to share with them. Also, a great way I have found to bond with the boys is to play video games, and join in on sports games with them. Ask God to show you a new way to build relationships with the youth, and be willing to stretch.

7. Learn to say no.

Your husband needs to learn this too. I learned that if you don’t at least say yes a couple times when invited to something, then you probably wont be invited again, but when you say yes to everything it gets overwhelming. You can’t make it to everything, and that’s okay. It’s good for students to see you at their events, and it’s a good time to get to know their families. It’s also good that they see you model healthy boundaries. Make band concerts and plays a date with your spouse, but not every one. People will understand if you don’t make it to all the student’s extra curricular events.

6. Surround yourself with other godly women.

It is good to have fellowship with other women, especially since most of us like to chat, and sometimes our husbands can’t handle all that we want/need to talk about. Plus, after living with a man 24/7 it is nice to be around a female to relate to with all of our womanly quirks. Make sure the women are godly so you can lift each other up in prayer, encouragement and accountability.

5. Be present.

It is very easy for a teen girl to develop a crush on her youth pastor, especially if he is hot (like my husband!). The spiritual aspect of any relationship becomes intimate, that is why we are to surround ourselves with other godly women, not men. Wives, if the students see you regularly (I know this is probably harder if you have kids) and see that your public interaction with your husband shows that you two are totally in love, this will help girls know he’s romantically interested in you, not them. Husbands, if you aren’t quick to catch on, then let your wife help you notice signs of a crush. Be careful with how often they call or text message you, and be careful with how frequently you respond. If you reply or answer the phone every time or almost every time, they will more than likely contact you even more. I have seen a few girls crush on Tim, which is tough, because my feelings towards them change. I am not as friendly, I try to hide it, and then I have a bad heart issue. Another sign of flirting is girls who like to take boy’s hats. I’m pretty sure any girl that has gone through jr. high knows that is a for-sure sign of flirting. Tim doesn’t make a big deal of it when girls do it to him. He just ignores the action, and it soon stops. Wives, let your husband minister to the boys, and you get to know the girls and be a positive spiritual role model to them. This allows a girl to feel comfortable with you, and when she wants to talk with your husband you can be present. Tim and I love to take a girl out to eat together when they need closer attention. If you’ve already been present, it’s not weird for you to be there as a “chaperon.”

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This post was written and contributed by my wife, Dana Schmoyer. Part 2 is coming tomorrow. Part 2 is now posted.

Wes Olsen of Seattle, WA, is currently leaving his Christian school junior high teaching position to enter full-time vocational youth ministry. As he and his family begin the transition, he asks:

What is the strain that being a youth pastor has had on your family?

Hey Wes! That’s a great question. The strain youth ministry has on my relationship with Dana is actually pretty minimal. I think there’s a couple reasons for this.

1. Before we met, we were both youth workers at different churches. I was working part-time at a church while attending seminary and she was the interim youth director at a church near Houston. When we started dating we both already had an idea about the demands of ministry, expectations, and pressure of working in a church environment. There wasn’t a whole lot of adjustment required for her except to shift from being the main Youth Director to being my main supporter.

2. We’re both P.K.’s (Preacher’s Kids), so we each grew up having a “behind the scenes” outlook on ministry. We married somewhat knowing what to expect and how Pastor marriages work.

3. We’re intentional about not letting it strain our marriage. I say “no” all the time, not because I don’t love people or want to serve them, but because I already spent 5 hours in the office and 3 hours out with kids that day. It’s time to go home and hang out with Dana. Rarely do I have meetings in the evenings. In fact, I have an evening meeting at church about once every 3 months or so and that’s it. I arrange my schedule so I’m either home with her or she’s out doing ministry with me.

4. She’s involved in the youth ministry with me, so she has a handle on what’s going on, personalities I work with, and has the same heart for the kids that I do. She understands what I’m talking about when I ask her opinion on various issues we’re facing. Since we do ministry together, it’s less of a strain and more of a mutual affection.

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Have a youth ministry question you’d like me and other readers to answer? E-mail it to me! Please keep your question brief and to-the-point. Thanks!

Dear parent,

It seems like more and more of your kids are coming to church without you. I know you see this as a pretty good deal for your student since you get some quiet time at home and most of the events we do are paid-for, but you should know that there is no greater influence in your child’s life than you. Whether they tell you or not, your kid actually wants you involved in their life, even here at church. Come visit us sometime with your student and see how your relationship can grow together!

And then there’s some of you who actually forbid your teenager from attending youth Bible studies. You should know that the church is one of the last places on earth where basic morality and values are still taught, since schools are now forbidden to do so. We teach your teenager to obey you and respect you because that’s what the Lord expects from them. We also help your teenager address matters like relationships, making good choices, and setting priorities. With all the negativity and lies the media is using to bombard teenagers, we remain a light to help steer your student toward a growing relationship with the Lord.

Parents, please guide your child to be faithful in church attendance. Teenagers aren’t allowed to choose whether or not they want to go to school. Neither should you assume that they are mature enough to decide for themselves about church. Please, do not enable them to form the idea that church involvement should be based on the level of entertainment it provides. Teach your student not develop a consumerism mindset of, “What can the church do for me?” but instead approach church with the biblical mindset of, “How can I serve the body?”

What I don’t understand is how you’ll never ground your student from school, yet grounding him/her from church is acceptable, as if academic education is more important than spiritual training. You keep your student at home to watch TV, play on the Internet and listen to the radio when they actually need a good dose of spiritual encouragement. Maybe you should ground them to church instead of away from it.

We love going on trips and pulling off events for your student, but please ensure that he/she honors their commitment. The church invests many resources into these activities and when your child drops out at the last minute, it wastes money that was sacrificially provided by others.

The most important thing you can do is communicate with your student’s youth leaders. If you’re struggling with your child in a specific way, we’d love to pray for you! If you’re trying to teach him/her something at home, we’d love to help reinforce that at church. What you have to share with us can be critically important to how we interact and teach the student at church. Plus, the youth leaders may see and hear things that you should know about, too. Team up with us!

Whether you’re supportive of the youth ministry or not, please do not gossip about it or spread your negativity unless you’re speaking directly to me about it. Especially do not share your “critical evaluation” of the ministry or about individuals in it when you’re at home. You’ll only raise your children to be cynical and negative toward the church. They will grow up viewing church with the perspectives you model, so please be a gracious in your speech and attitude.

I’m actually not against criticism at all. In fact, I embrace your loving and respectful feedback since you can often see important issues I may never notice. However, please come straight to me with your concerns. Going to anyone else first is what the Bible calls gossip. When you come to me with a problem, also come prepared to offer a solution and the willingness to be a part of resolving the issue.

Thank you for your support! I pray for you regularly and hope we can continue to partner together in seeing your students’ lives transformed into a reflection of Christ.

– Your Youth Pastor

One question that’s popped up several times lately is what to do when parents use church as a form of punishment and ground their kids from youth group activities. GiGi Logan, the Children’s and Youth Ministry Director at All Saint’s Episcopal Church in North Carolina, writes in an email, “…parents don’t realize that they’re teaching their kids that church is like a cell phone, TV, etc. and that’s SO NOT COOL!”

Honestly, I don’t really have a lot of advice on this subject, so I’m hoping many of you will pool your wisdom in the comments below. I’ll just make a couple observations:

1. While I’m excited that a teenager enjoys youth group enough for the parents to see it as a significant loss for their child, it’s still exactly that — a significant loss. Kids are not usually grounded from going to school because it’s both a privilege and a responsibility. Church is no different. In fact, maybe if a parent is having trouble with their kid at home they should send him or her to more church, not less. (As long as that’s not perceived as cruel punishment to the opposite extreme! lol!)

2. I’m against using church as punishment not because I’m the youth pastor and youth group happens to be “my baby.” I’m against it because the church is instituted by God and every student here is part of the body.

3. My dad is a pastor and despite my parents’ stance on enforcing church attendance over anything else, there was a time during my early teen years when they grounded me to my room for an entire month, including no church. In that case, it communicated that my punishment was a HUGE deal.

What do YOU do when a youth group student is grounded from church? Your advice on the matter is greatly appreciated.

All the hype over the past couple years about the student drop-out rate from church seems to be focused at the church, specifically the youth workers. Almost every other week I see a new Chicken Little article about how the sky is falling and that youth ministry is failing miserably. However, the biblical structure of raising kids is through the parents, not church youth workers. Statistically, the kids who graduate from high school and stay in the church are not those who had a super-dynamic youth group. Rather, it’s those whose parents have intentionally passed on the faith. Of course, this assumes that parents have a living and vital faith that’s worth passing on. As much as we hate to admit it, we have a lot of parents who are sold out to the world and give lip-service in church, so their kids see that and do the same. Teenagers reflect what they see in the church.

According to the Family Driven Faith audio series by Dr. Voddie Baucham Jr., 92% of families don’t have devotions together even once a year. He also says that the average Christian family has less than 30 minutes of spiritual discussion each week. Maybe the church should focus more on discipling parents who will in turn pass that on to their kids.

I wish we heard more Deuteronomy 6:1-9 values being passed along to students by parents, but instead youth workers hear, “We won’t be at church for the next couple weeks because Jonny made the traveling baseball team.” Actions speak louder than words! Students learn that sports trump God so they can collect trophies that will collect dust in the basement in 40 years. And then we say idolatry isn’t alive in our churches? No wonder church is often a student’s last priority.

Even our homes communicate something about priorities. In most American families, the TV is the focal point of the living room. Notice that all the furniture is arranged around the room to focus on it, as if it’s the alter of our homes. Maybe family priorities need to change, not just “We go to church once a week unless something better comes up,” thinking that will somehow teach our kids that God is important, but in integrating God into daily life and decisions.

Lest I be misunderstood, I am not trying to blame parents as many have done to youth workers. Rather, youth workers need to consider parents as a vital contact for reaching students for Christ knowing that they have a much bigger impact in their lives than we ever will.

My Personal Story
My parents definitely didn’t do everything right, but one thing they did get right: they communicated by their actions and decisions that God always comes first. As kids, we noticed that and learn valuable lessons from it. When my brother was invited to join the travel soccer team, my parents made him turn it down because their games were on Sunday mornings. When we had wrestling matches on Sunday mornings, we’d always go to church instead. We often saw financial priorities when they spent money on helping other people even though we knew money was very tight at home. My dad taught us the Bible almost every day, including lots of scripture memorization (that I still use today!). Now that we’re grown and out of the house, every one of us are leaders in either vocational or volunteer ministry. Coincidence?

I understand this is all by God’s grace, not a formula with guaranteed results, but following God’s family principles definitely seems to have a better rate of return than any other alternative.

Overall, it has a good theme about the importance of family and spending time with your children, but it seemed to be shadowed by making light of physical abuse and marital disrespect.

Although a plot line was definitely present and very random at times, as The Simpsons are notorious for, it wasn’t as gripping as your average movie. Fortunately, there’s a lot of consistent laughs and chuckles throughout the film, which holds your attention for the hour and a half.

The wit and “Dumb and Dumber”-like humor definitely shines in The Simpsons Movie, but if you plan to see the movie you can probably get away with waiting to rent it on DVD.

[tags]The Simpsons Movie[/tags]

Here ya go:

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It looks like I was tagged by Chris at serialyouthpastor.com to list the first 10 songs that come up on shuffle in iTunes. I normally don’t really do these blog tag things (they remind me of lame email forwards from back in the 90s), but for Chris I figured, why not? Here ya go, Chris, just for you:

1. How deep the father’s love — Skillet
2. Mighty good leader — Audio Adrenaline
3. Now I sing — Out of Eden
4. Drunk in tha spirit — T-Bone
5. My hell — Disciple
6. Pressing on — Relient K
7. Blessed be your name — Tree63
8. Readyfuels — Amberlin
9. Bring it on – Steven Curtis Chapman
10. Violently — The Benjamin Gate

If anyone else wants to do it, consider yourself tagged by me.

We’re finally back from our trip to New Jersey where we put on a camp for inner-city Angel Tree children and I have to say, my youth group kids did an absolutely outstanding job of working with the children. They stepped up to the plate during stressful times, handled difficult situations with great wisdom and poured 110% of themselves into the campers. The most encouraging part was that the impact they made on the kids’ lives was visibly evident throughout the week. We could literally see the life-change taking place as some of them heard about God for the first time and experienced love an affection from the nine youth group counselors. I posted several hundred pictures of the trip on my youth group website, for anyone who’s interested.

We returned to Minneapolis Thursday evening and now, after one canceled flight and another delayed two hours, Dana and I are in Oklahoma for her family reunion for a couple days. We’ll also spend some time in Dallas visiting friends and our old church before heading back to Minnesota next week. Until then, it will probably be quiet around my site here. Time for some good ol’ vacation.

Every Sunday throughout the summer my youth group is doing an event called “Wake ‘n Ski” where we take kids out water skiing, tubing, knee boarding and wake boarding, stop for a cookout and an evangelistic message, and then maybe ski a little more or wrap up depending on how everyone feels. We pray many students will come to know Christ through this outreach.

Here’s a video clip of Katelin’s first time water tubing.

Started off with dinner. Man, so much good food.

Dana’s checking out the desert table operated by a couple students.

Several students teamed up together to lead a couple worship songs. They did a great job, too!

The Sr. Pastor re-wrote the lyrics to the song, “Deep in the heart of Texas,” and had my former pastor from Texas and his wife lead it.

Then we had a head-to-head text messaging competition. Looks like I have the fastest thumbs this side of the Missisip (thanks to Verizon’s T9 text-entry method)!

A FUNNY STORY HERE: I also had to identify several text message abbreviations, such as LOL and G2G, that our pastor got off some website somewhere. Well, POS came up and I was like, “Uhhh, you really want me to identify that one?” Several students in the audience started laughing so hard they could hardly contain themselves, which confused our pastor and the adults. Apparently this website said that it meant “Parent Over Shoulder,” so I just played along with that. Monday morning I told him what POS really stands for and why it made the kids laugh so hard, to which he started laughing hysterically, too! Ahhh, good ol’ innocent church bloopers.

They tested our our Texas BBQ sauce tasting skills by having us identify which sauce was which. Alas, Dana is clearly the true Texan.

Story time with Tim! I shared a brief version of my testimony and life story.

Before closing several youth volunteers came up and prayed for us as we begin in our new ministry.

Me and Dana front of our welcome sign.

Sunday, February 11: It was our last church service at our old church. The youth group put a little desert reception together for us after church where we took plenty of pictures and said our final goodbyes. Dana and I then went out to lunch with some church friends, turned in our apartment keys and drove three hours to Oklahoma City where we spent the night at her grandparent’s house.

Monday, February 12: We hit the road around 9:30 AM and drove through heavy rain the entire 10 hours to De Moines. Unfortunately the U-Haul only got about 8 MPG, so we had to stop every 200 miles to fill up the thirsty tank.

Tuesday, February 13: A big snow storm came through while we spent the night at a hotel in De Moines and kinda messed up the city by morning time. Schools were closed and people were advised not to go out except for emergencies. Traveling the final leg of our trip to Minnesota wasn’t really an emergency, but we left anyway, choosing the risk of the road over the boredom of a hotel room. It was slow at first since the roads were cluttered with accidents and cars stranded in ditches, but once we drove a couple hours and got outside of Iowa the going was pretty smooth.

We arrived at our house at 3:30 PM and were greeted by about 15 youth group members and several adults who helped unload our stuff into the house. We set up the essentials, like the bed and bathroom, ate dinner at our neighbor’s house (who are also our landlords and youth group volunteers), and went to sleep.

Wednesday, February 14: Dana and I spent all morning unpacking, but then left in the afternoon to enjoy Valentines Day plans together. First we returned the U-Haul and then took a ride in a little private plane to check out the area from an aerial view. We took lots of pictures, including ones of our own house on the lake. After the plane ride, we went to a local resort where we checked into a very nice room, enjoyed a great dinner and soaked in a hot whirlpool. Unfortunately, we ended up with some loud neighbors and couldn’t sleep that night. After some complaints and then listening to our hotel neighbors try to get into our room through the adjoining door, Dana and I just packed up and went home at about 3:30 AM. Fortunately, the resort was very sympathetic, didn’t charge us for our stay and also offered to give us another free night.

Thursday, February 15: From here on out we’re just unpacking and settling into the area. So far we’ve made good progress. We’d like to be mostly finished by this Sunday, my first day at the church, so we’ll see how that works out.

Thanks again for all your prayers and encouragement while we were on the road making this transition!

P.S. I haven’t had time to go through my RSS reader for almost a month now, so I knew I’d be very far behind with many of the blogs and sites I read, but 1,442 new posts?! Whew, it’ll take a while to catch up on that.

More pictures of our move from TX to MN
More pictures of our Valentines Day plane ride and resort stay

A nice shot of me loading the U-Haul

Saying goodbye to our old church

Our U-Haul towing my car

Dana and me going out for a ride around town in MN

The indoor water park at the resort we stayed at for Valentines Day

If you think of it, I’d appreciate prayer while we’re on the road: for the vehicles, our safety, and all our stuff. Thanks guys!

More pictures of the house
Video of the house on YouTube

[youtube]JHhXWwq0XOM[/youtube]

So now comes the crazy time of packing, saying goodbyes, leaving security and venturing out into something new. Pray for us as all this continues to unfold and I use my final couple weeks here in Dallas to set up as smooth of a transition as possible. Our last Sunday here is Sunday, February 11, and I officially start at Alexandria Evangelical Covenant Church the very next week, February 18, as their new Youth Pastor.

You can check out my wife’s blog post about it here.

Thanks, Dad, for everything and your influence that has helped shape me into the person I am today!

• You’ve modeled servanthood to me.
• You’ve shown me what it means to be the spiritual leader of a family.
• You’ve demonstrated that church and God should always be our #1 priority.
• You’ve instilled positive spiritual experiences within me.
• You listen to our tough decisions and respond with wisdom.
• You set an example for humility.
• You’re dedicated to your family.
• You’ve shown me that serving others is more important than serving myself.
• You’ve challenged me to take every situation to God in prayer.
• You showed us respect by listening to us while disciplining.
• Your love and support for me is very evident in all that I do.
• Thanks for teaching us family values and investing into me personally.
• Thanks for modeling diligence and faithfulness in spite of difficulties and opposition.
• You’ve challenged me to pray about every decision, big and small.
• Your love and support is always evident.
• You taught me that scripture is dependable and is the foundation of life.
• You’re a great model of the necessary balance between ministry, family, relaxation and staying fit.
• Thanks for caring so much about our upbringing that you invested countless hours into home schooling us.
• Your continued quest for knowledge and understanding inspires me to do the same.
• You willingness to try new and sometimes uncomfortable things challenges me to do the same.
• I pray that one day I will be able to pass on to my children the abundance of spiritual knowledge and insight that you’ve passed on to me.
• Thanks for modeling a life that is devoted to God.
• Your constant availability to your young children shows how much you care for us in being a stable presence in our lives.
• Thanks for immediately changing your ministry responsibilities when I asked you to attend my wrestling matches.
• You helped me choose friends wisely and encouraged me to be the one to influence them.
• You taught me that the heart and romance are immensely valuable and should always be addressed with prayerful consideration.
• You demonstrated that your wife always comes before children and ministry.
• I figure if you can find time to exercise and stay in shape, then there’s no excuse why I can’t either.
• Through your example I’ve learned to be wise with the financial resources God’s provided, as small or large as they might be.
• While growing up I was greatly influenced by watching you trust God with little details.
• You’ve shown me that gifts from the Lord are always meant to be shared with others.

He’s been the [tag]pastor[/tag] at Main Street [tag]Baptist Church[/tag] in Doylestown, Pennsylvania for 25 years now and mostly blogs about [tag]pastoral ministry[/tag], [tag]spiritual growth[/tag], [tag]prayer[/tag], and other related topics. His heart is for training and discipling young church leaders and pastors, so if that’s of interest to you, check him out: http://www.mainstreetbaptist.org/blog/

Mr. Luce responded: “If the 4 percent is true, or even the 5 percent, it’s an indictment of youth ministry. So certainly they’re going to want different data.”

Why do youth ministries take so much blame for this statistic? C’mon, [tag]Run Luce[/tag]! Yes, some youth ministries can stand to be re-evaluated and changed, but it can’t be entirely our fault. There is a lot more to this than just ineffective youth groups.

I think it involves the following:

1. If students aren’t returning to [tag]church[/tag], then maybe the church needs to rethink what they’re doing and how they “do church.” What is it about the church that students don’t want to be a part of?

2. Students need to see genuine godliness lived out by parents at home and in the lives of their youth workers. The truth is, many parents in our churches wouldn’t even meet the standard of spiritual maturity that I require for volunteers who are in this role model position.

3. Students need to have a solid understanding of bibliology and why then can trust [tag]scripture[/tag]. The Bible needs to be a reliable source as the foundation of everything they do and how they live their lives, not just a book of stories. Churches are filled with biblically illiterate people and it shows.

[tags]parenting[/tags]

LEADING CHANGE IN YOUR YOUTH MINISTRY, BY MARK OESTREICHER
I really enjoyed Marko’s seminar because most of it came from personal stories of failure and mistakes. He wasn’t afraid to say, “Here’s how I messed up big-time and here’s what I learned from it.” It was kinda refreshing in a way to know that I’m not the only youth pastor that makes mistakes and learns the hard way. I just hope I can avoid some mistakes in the future by learning from people like him.

Last week I thought to myself, “If I could back up two and a half years and start everything over again at my youth ministry, what would I do differently?” Two things come to mind that I would change if I could start over. First, I’d make outreach a priority rather than letting students become comfortable with their own little group. Second, I’d be more intentional about making sure communication was clear and complete between students, parents, volunteers and church leadership. I can’t go back and change them, but following Marko’s example I can learn for the future and start to make the necessary changes now.

One thing Marko’s learning about leadership right now is that people are more comfortable with change when they know and see that we’re around and available to their lives. This doesn’t mean scheduling time to meet with someone — this means normal, unscheduled time spent together.

There are plenty of things in my youth group that need to change. Marko mentioned that change works best when it’s a continual cycle that people are used to. When people start to feel comfortable and settle into a routine, change becomes more difficult and needs to be approached differently. This is true because there is a major weakness of our youth ministry that I’m trying hard to change, but it feels like little ground is being made because I let it go too long. Everyone feels too “stable” and I know now that I need to address these things before they become the norm.

Marko left us with a practical process for future-dreaming and evaluating ministry that they use for Youth Specialties. It has 5 steps and should be done thoroughly with a team of people.

1. Dream up a long list of “Imagine if…” statements. Dream way bigger than what you actually want to do.

2. What are the things we clearly value in this ministry? Which old values do we want to hold on to and what new ones do we want to adopt?

3. What characteristics define who your ministry is? Give your ministry a name and think of it as a living human. What characteristics does your ministry posses? What is the ministry like? Where do we want this ministry to move?

4. Identify the “sacred cows.” What are some road-blocks to changing these things? Most sacred cows are unspoken in our ministries. There are three levels to the sacred cows: red light = this will never change, it’s non-negotiable; yellow light = this might be changeable, but changing it will be costly; green light = this cow is easy to slaughter.

Marko gave us some time to start discussing these things with our church group, so Dana, Jessica and myself did so. Here’s a couple items from our “Imagine if…” list:
– Imagine if every student brought a friend to church on the same day.
– Imagine if students were more concerned for others than themselves.
– Imagine if students had a passion to worship God genuinely and publicly.
– Imagine if students had a burden for unsaved people and were missional-minded.
– Imagine if all the youth group students were unified together.

After attending Marko’s session I think I feel a little more confident to tackle some of these issues and do my best to make change take place.

EVENING GENERAL SESSION, DONALD MILLER
Donald Miller, the author of Blue Like Jazz, wasn’t a very dynamic kinda guy as I anticipated he would be, but after I got over the fact that he’s pretty introverted and soft-spoken, man, that guy is loaded with insights!

Donald Miller really challenged me to be more intentional about building relationships with unsaved people and leading them to Christ. Unfortunately, I am pretty wrapped up in a Christian bubble. The most contact I have with unbelievers is when I get online to play Guild Wars with about 10 other guys. It’s a double-standard for me to encourage students to get to know unbelievers at their school and invite them to Christ if I’m not doing the same.

Donald said two things clearly. First, the church needs to change. How we “do church” must be taken back to scripture and evaluated. Unfortunately, the only thing scripture tells us about how to “do church” is how to pick elders for it, that’s it. We have a blank slate on pretty much everything else concerning “doing church.” The example we have is bunch of people sitting around a table as a family breaking bread and drinking wine together. If the church should be like a family, then it’s going to be pretty small, messy, hard and it’s going to take time.

Second, Christians are taught to stay inside the Christian culture in order to stay safe and avoid people who disagree with us. In Acts, though, the apostles went so far out into culture that they were killed for it! Donald used the traditional passage of Paul in Athens in Acts 17 to point out that Paul discussed the gospel to the people of Athens in their meeting place. Then he went to the streets and talked with anyone who came along and the people loved him!

Darwin’s influence on the church is the survival of the fittest — if they don’t agree with you, starve them out. But Paul does the opposite. He seeks them out and intentionally builds relationships with them. Because of this, he’s invited to speak more and, in this meeting, he opens with a complement, “I see that you are deeply spiritual.” He looks at them and thinks, “What do we have in common?” People have 99% of everything on common, so build relationships on these things.

Paul was also involved in their culture by memorizing poetry. Some say that this was Paul’s strategy, but Donald Miller thinks it was because Paul actually liked these people. He enjoyed them and invested time into what they were all about.

The personal application is clear.

[tags]National Youth Workers Convention, NYWC, Youth Specialties, Rollie Martinson, Donald Miller, Mark Oestreicher, church[/tags]

Barna says this:

One of the more significant outcomes of the study was the challenge to churches. While most kids in the 8-to-12 age range are involved in a church, relatively few of them consider church experiences to be valuable. That is confirmed by the fact that so few kids consider prayer to be a critical part of their life. Parents must take the lead in establishing the centrality of faith experiences and practices for their children. That begins with parents modeling the significance of faith in their lives. It also highlights the importance of families taking the lead in the spiritual development process, rather than expecting or waiting for a church to produce spiritual growth in adolescents.

[tags]parenting[/tags]

Sometimes God’s blessings come in disguise.

I’m now using Google’s Picasa Web Albums for storing and organizing pictures since it integrates so nicely with Picasa, a free photo management tool from Google that I’ve come to love. Earlier today I uploaded our honeymoon pictures, which can be seen here: http://picasaweb.google.com/rockinyp We’re still waiting for our wedding pictures, but be assured that they’ll be posted just as soon as we get our hands on ‘em. Feel free to post any comments on our pictures!

The honeymoon went great. We spent the wedding night at a hotel in Little Rock and then Sunday drove to Eureka Springs, AR where we spent a week in a little cabin that overlooked Beaver Lake. It was such a relaxing and restful time for both of us. We enjoyed touring caverns, swimming in the lake, riding wave runners, canoe trips, hiking, riding trains, and just walking around the historic district of town. The pictures will give a better idea of how wonderful everything was.

Dana posted some other pictures on her blog and wrote more about the wedding and honeymoon. Check ‘em out!

All through this week I’ve gone through the different phases of feeling nervous, scared, excited, intimidated and back to nervous. I mean, this a HUGE commitment I’m making here! After the wedding there’s no turning back for the rest of our lives. Life as I know it will never be the same. Caring for someone else, putting my needs and desires aside for her’s, providing for her emotionally and spiritually, and taking someone else into consideration in all my decisions, that’s a lot of pressure! I’m so used to living by myself and only being responsible for me. The transition from being self-centered to Dana-centered is one that I desperately want to see happen, but as a depraved human being I’m sure it will only take place smoothly with God’s intervention.

Anyone who wants to keep Dana and I in your prayers is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

On Friday Dana graduated from Texas Wesleyan University with a B.S. in Elementary Education.

On Saturday my dad graduated from Dallas Theological Seminary with a Doctorate of Ministry.

Sunday we spent the day at the home of life-long family friends of ours. Their son was baptized in their backyard pool in front of many close friends.

Tomorrow (Monday) is pretty unscheduled and therefore will hopefully be a little more relaxing.

Those who are looking for Dana’s blog, go here.

It’s 1:10 AM now and I just finished making honeymoon reservations. I’m off to bed.

– The date is finalized for July 22, 2006.
– The church facility is secured for that date.
– The reception area is secured.
– Wedding reception arrangements are made.
– Decorating ideas are complete and already underway.
– Dana’s uncle committed to performing the ceremony.
– The wedding party is finalized.
– Wedding colors are picked out.
– Bride’s Maid dresses have been selected and purchased.
– Dana has her wedding dress selected and paid for.
– Invitations are ordered.
– Wedding bands are narrowed to two choices.
– We had our first pre-marital counseling session with our pastor.
– I’ve secured two ushers and will talk to two others tomorrow.
– The honeymoon location is selected. We’ll try to reserve it tomorrow. If it’s already booked, we’ll go with our second choice.
– The rehearsal dinner is down to two options and will be finalized tomorrow.
– Tomorrow we’ll also create our registry at Target and pick out a tux for me and the groomsmen.
– Oh, and Dana has a lingerie party scheduled already, too!

Yes, all this in 10 days (11 days including tomorrow’s plans). It’s amazing how easily everything is falling into place for us. Dana’s not one of those girls who had her wedding planned out at age 12 either. Most of this is from scratch. We’re blessed to have families who are really stepping up to the plate and doing a lot to help, too. The support and quick responses have been great.

Tonight I gave my credit card info to Dana. Now THAT’S commitment!

It looks like our wedding will probably be on July 29, 2006. That’s REALLY soon. I guess Dana feels comfortable pulling it off, though. There’s not really a better time anyway since we’d like to be married before she starts teaching full-time this fall. Whew. This is gonna be a crazy summer.

Yup, she said “Yes” last Saturday when I popped the big question. For those who are only interested in the photos, here they are. I’ll have a little video of it posted in the next day or two, as well.

THE STORY
I guess the story officially starts with my phone call last Monday to Dana’s father to schedule a time to meet with him. We settled on Wednesday at 11:00 AM in his office at the church. So, Wednesday morning I got up early and made the 3-hour drive up to Texarkana and asked for his blessing on marrying his daughter. Thankfully, he gave his blessing and we enjoyed a good talk afterwards. Dana’s mom also came in a couple minutes later and gave her blessing for us to marry, as well. We prayed together for Dana and me and then I returned home before Dana had a clue I was gone all day.

With Monday being Dana’s birthday, what better time to propose than the weekend before she turns 23 years old? The plan was to get her to Sylvan Beach in La Porte, TX, the site of our first kiss, without suspecting a proposal. Since our schedule for the weekend was pretty tight with different people to see at different times, there really was no good way for me to just suggest that we stop by and walk around a little. So Wednesday I stole the phone number of Dana’s friend, Brianne, from Dana’s phone when she wasn’t looking and gave her a call. Thursday night Brianne and I planned that she would call Dana on Saturday and decide on a place for the three of us to have dinner that was somewhat close to Sylvan Beach. Then, on our way to meet her, Brianne would call Dana, say she’s been delayed, and thereby give Dana and I some unscheduled time to kill close to our special spot. The plan worked perfectly, except that Dana and I arrived at the beach to find it very crowded, not exactly the setting I wanted for a proposal. I insisted on giving Dana her birthday present in a more private area, so we drove down the road a couple miles to a private area where she used to go running when she lived down there.

Since her birthday present required a little assembly, I told her to go on ahead without me while I prepared it. She did so with my camera and took a couple random pictures that are included in our engagement photo album. While she waited, I took a little treasure chest I made earlier in the week, placed the ring upright in it, poured in a little sand, placed some tiny sea shells, and gently closed the lid.

Doing my best to hide the chest behind my back, I walked over to her and waited patiently for her to finish her photo shooting session. I then extended the treasure chest and she read aloud what I had painted on the lid, “Your heart. My Treasure.” She thought it cute and proceeded to undo the latch and lift the lid. When she did so, she saw the writing beneath it that said, “Will you marry me?” Her eyes immediately glanced at the ring and then at me as I got down on one knee.

I said, “Dana, I love you with all my heart and want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?” She did nothing. Not a flinch, a movement, nor gesture of any kind. After a little bit of silence she slowly nodded her head but her expression remained unchanged. I figured a nod was good enough for me, so I got up off my knee, took the ring out of the box, and put it on her left ring finger. It was then that she finally moved by giving me a big hug, instantly crying and saying, “Oh my goodness!!” and “Are you serious?!” for about 15 minutes straight (no lie), as if she couldn’t believe this was actually happening to her.

After the initial shock wore off, I told Dana that Brianne wasn’t actually delayed at all and was probably waiting for us (that obviously took a little explaining), so we went to meet her right away. The three of us then went back to our engagement spot and took several more pictures that are also in our engagement album.

We ate some dinner together at an old favorite restaurant of Dana’s, Joe Lee’s, and then got snow cones at Dana’s favorite snow cone place. After saying goodbye to Brianne, Dana and I drove to my brother and sister-in-law’s house in Katy and enjoyed a little celebration with them. We also went to church with them in the morning and helped in their children’s ministry.

THE RING
My life-long friend’s husband made the ring for me. I won’t post the ring’s specs here so no one is tempted to steal it, but know that Jason Mister did an excellent job making the ring and selecting the best diamond for me. Thanks, Kym and Jason, for all your help in putting together the right ring for Dana that she’ll have for the rest of her life! I love you guys!