LESS is (more)

If clarity is the communicators trump card [click here for that post] then this should be the communicators golden rule:  Less is more.  I’m sure that you’ve either attended a conference, heard a coach, or listened to a preacher and came away asking yourself or someone else, “What did they say?”  More often than not the reason is that the communicator sinned against the rule of less is more.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked away from my own communications and said, “I spoke for 40 minutes, and I didn’t have a point.”  I probably had MANY points, but not one, singular, clear, focused main point.  I don’t know why we, as communicators, think that the more content we have, the more points we make, or the more we talk; the more we think we will be heard.  marketing people [who are way more intelligent about this stuff than I am] will tell you that a sure way to lose an audience with someone is to give them too much information.  So the next time you are going to communicate something to a group of people, give a sales pitch, or motivate a team, ask yourself 2 questions:

1) what am I trying to say? &

2) how could I say it using less, yet more effective, wording?

OSM Christmas Party

We had a blast at the Oakbrook Student Ministries Christmas party.  Here are some shots from the night:

we had a great night of food, talent show, and games.  Merry Christmas.

what if starbucks marketed like the church…

saw this video on DC Curry’s blog… thought it was hilarious!!!  check it out:

All you need is love – pt. 2

if you’d like to hear what I believe God said about love vs. what the Beatles said about love… go here.

TXT – a 2 wk advntr in God’s Word

For the next two weeks I’ll be teaching in Oakbrook Church’s main service a series called TXT.  The whole idea behind it is this: “If God sent you a text message, would you read it?”  We got the idea from Northpoint church in Alpharetta, Ga.  I’ll give you a sneak peak into week one:  Text messaging is taking over the communication world.  It is becoming a huge phenomenon in our culture.  In 2005 there were over 55 million cell phone users and over 37 Billion text messages sent and received.  You can just imagine what those statistics are today… 3 years later.  If you text, then you know one thing to be true: WE ALWAYS READ OUR TEXT MESSAGES… without excuse.  We even excuse ourselves from face to face conversations to read our text messages.  No one ever says “I got your text… but I’m just not a big reader… so I don’t know what it said.”  If this is true, then why do we make that excuse when it comes to reading God’s text message, the Bible?  This weekend I am going to explore 6 MAJOR LIFE-CHANGING EXPERIENCES that happen when you engage, interface, and interact with God’s Word.  RYB!

youth ministry minute – # i forget

It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these… so I forget which one I’m on.  Summer is a great time to pause, slow down, and reflect on what new changes and directions your youth ministry needs to take.  It’s also a great time to look back over the past year and celebrate wins.  That’s what I’ve been doing today.  I’ve really been feeling the need in our student ministry to create SPACE.  We (youth pastors) are great at creating content and context… but often not very good at creating space for students to reflect.  We’ve got songs to sing, sermons to preach, games to play… but how often do we create space for students to slow down and absorb?  I can’t remember the last time I pushed the pause button long enough for students to reflect on what’s going on in their life.  I guess I started to think about this today because we are in the process of decking out one of our break-out rooms and I started dreaming about what this space would be used for… small groups? check.  Pizza hang outs?  check.  massive video game parties?  check.  spiritual reflective space?  WHAT?!?  the more I thought about it though… the more I realized that is what students {and you and I} need.  We need all of the above.  Let’s get great at creating SPACE for reflection and absorption.

“who is Jesus” – week one

tonight was week one of our OSM summer series “who is Jesus?”  There was a pretty decent crowd for the summer.  we are basically running after 1 question for 3 weeks… “with all the different views and opinions of who Jesus is out there… Who is Jesus?  Who is the REAL Jesus?”  We talked about 4 different opinions out there about Jesus… the pop-culture/media Jesus, the painted Jesus, the TV church Jesus, and the vintage Jesus.  It was an  awesome opportunity to teach students about what the Bible says about who Jesus really is.  in the next two weeks of the series we will answer some FAQ’s about what the Bible says about Jesus.

my talk from sunday morning.

if you wanted to hear the talk I gave in church sunday morning about “shocking secrets your teens aren’t sharing” then go here.

i wonder…

I was store hopping after playing a little BBALL this afternoon… and I came across this little gem.  I just had to take a picture of it.  I often wonder what Jesus would actually think of Christian subculture.  Would he applaud it?  Would he think about it the same way 90% of the rest of Americans think about it {lame, out of touch, out of date, annoying, etc…}?  would he be angered by it?  I really don’t know… but I do know this… I work with teenagers who are more and more starting to NOT want to become Christians because of this kind of stuff.  does this kind of stuff make me laugh?  well… yes.  does it make my heart hurt for those teenagers?  You better believe it.

under 18 poll…

okay… same thing. but this time answer if you are under 18… {click the link and it will take you to the poll}

what worries you most? {under 18}
( surveys)