Isn’t it great that Christian students pray for their school once a year! I know that there are students that do more than that but what if we could mobilize students to have a major influence on their campus?

A couple years ago I heard about a new resource for Youth Pastors that would do just that and it is called The LifeBook. To put it simply this little book is the Gospel of John with notes and comments from students that enables students to share it with their friends to begin conversations about their faith. I thought this was brilliant! The best part of this too was that theses are FREE! The LifeBook is funded by the Gideons International so any church can get these for their Student Ministry to saturate the Middle School & High School campuses of their community. Student Ministries can equip their students to be campus missionaries without any impact on their Youth Budget!

That year working alongside our Youth Pastor Network we were able to saturate the Middle School & High School campuses of our community with 15,000 LifeBooks. As a follow-up to SYATP we challenged our students that the week following SYATP that they would pass out The LifeBook to the friends that they were praying for and had prayed for at SYATP. They could share The LifeBook with their friend and put their cell number inside the front cover and tell them if they had any questions or wanted to talk about it to call or text them. By the way The LifeBook has some great resources on their website in how to use this in your community.

This was a great way to do an On-Campus Missions Trip in your own community and taking SYATP to another level. Now students can use this with more intentional, missional purpose and put action behind praying for their unsaved friends at their school.

So what are you doing about equipping your students to have an influence on their school campus? It is not too late to use The Lifebook for the Fall of 2013! You can get 500, 1000, 1500 of these shipped to you this summer to prepare for SYATP 2013 – September 26th! Check it out here to get some sent to you!

I am in a new community and we are making plans to take this to the school campuses of our area…join me in taking SYATP to the Next Level this September 2013!

I started this on June 9th and right now I am 4/4! I have a goal also of at least 180 miles but will be interested to see what my ending mileage will actually be. Want to give me a Birthday Present? Join me and let me know how you do or how many miles you get done!

It was May of 2012 that jump started things for me in the area of health & fitness when a friend put out a challenge called the #30daychallenge…which was to run everyday for the next 30 days. I had just begun getting back into exercising in March & April and had been run/walking 4-5 times a week so this seemed like a good challenge for me. Well 30 days turned to 60, then 90 and so on until I reached 314 days in a row of running. The only thing that stopped me was our transition to moving to Ohio and too much going on. When I look back on the last year I ran 333/365 days which is pretty good for someone who had not been doing anything for regular exercise. I shed about 40 pounds in the last year and hovering in the 190′s now…need to get my eating habits back in check!

So now is time for another challenge for myself…in the last year I have done some different challenges to keep me moving in the right direction and motivated to exercising.

Here is what I am going to do this May:

May Challenge…The goal is to walk/jog/elliptical 50 miles and do 10 hours of weight training during the month of May! Another goal I have is to be at the gym 4-5 times per week. Anyone want to join me in this? There is a group on Facebook doing the May Challenge if you’d like to join look-up: May Challenge

Caused me to think…how can we use it to influence in the right way? How do we use it in the church/ministry to be able to share Christ more effectively?

If you are not sure that Social Media has influence just check out this video…

Even though my start date was on March 1st I have yet to be in the office in Findlay as I started while attending the Simply Youth Ministry Conference last week in Indianapolis – #SYMC

Can I just say…what a way to start out a new ministry! The theme this year was STRONGER and was a great weekend re-focusing on the new ministry God has called us to as we start the transition to Ohio. When you talk about transitioning it all revolves around CHANGE – a word many of us love to do!

In the last month we have put our house up for sale, found a house to buy, sold our house on March 1st and now this week have been packing up since getting back from SYMC. Tomorrow we make the trek across the 2 states and begin our new adventure in Findlay and we are excited. It is tough leaving behind, friends and church family here in the QCA that we have built over the past 6 years, but at the same time excited to see what God has in store for us in Findlay!

Now the next challenge for the year is a 5K Lent Challenge. Basically it is to run, walk, jog, use the elliptical and get in 30 5K’s in the next 40 days. Also if you exercise for 1 hour it counts for a 5K. So a 30for40 Challenge. It is an interesting challenge because for the most part people give up something for Lent and this is adding…unless you count giving up laziness/inactivity as something you are giving up

I love being part of the community of others doing these challenges over the past few months especially the FB Groups of encouraging others on this journey. In the midst of this challenge I have another personal challenge of my own happening simultaneously as it goes back to the very first challenge that I took last May in a #30daychallenge. I am just over 80 days away of running everyday for 365 days…that is 1 year of running everyday!

Looking forward to keeping these challenges going and seeing how I do…want to join me and others on the 5K Lent Challenge? It starts on Tuesday, February 12th. There is also a FB Group that I can add you to…just comment here and I will add you to our group and let the 5k”s begin!

This got me to thinking…we all need to get stronger. For the past 8+ months I have felt myself getting stronger in my health…this took work but as I look back I have gotten stronger in my eating habits and exercise habits. It started out weak but I have seen myself get stronger and some of the ways that has happened for me are:

• Being encouraged by my wife and others around me (community)
• Learning from others who are a little further than me
• Setting goals and keeping them in front of me (reminding myself)
• Celebrating the small wins and little victories in my journey

As I write these down they also remind me of my own journey as a youthworker and the need to get stronger…even before being a youthworker it also describes my journey as a Christ-follower. I want to get stronger in my relationship with God, in my relationship with my wife and kids, and in my relationship with students/families in my church ministry. This happens by being in community with others, taking time to get equipped and taking that training and putting it into practice in my own life…I need to get stronger!

That is why I love going to SYMC each year because I can get STRONGER while being there. It is a conference that is truly “for youthworkers….by youthworkers” because that is a value in their DNA. I get to be in community with others, equipped and learn from others who have gone before me.

Do you want to get STRONGER? If you are a youthworker I encourage you to join us in Indy this March 1-4, 2013 and let’s do it together! Today is the last day to get a great deal and save some $ on your registration so take the minute or two to click and get it done!

Register for SYMC 2013

My challenges so far…

#30DayChallenge – during the month of May took a challenge from other youthworkers to run everyday for 30 days straight. I accomplished this one and liked it so much I have not stopped since May and have now completed 8 months of #30daychallenge!
#100MileChallenge – On November 25th joined others from the inspiration of Buddy Shuh to run 100 miles before December 31, 2012. I completed this one and have gone beyond the 100 miles and getting close to being a Double Centurion of 200 miles between November 25 – December 31, 2012. I shared this challenge with friends on FB & Twitter and have been able to journey with them over the last 30+ days.
#50DayChallenge – following our Challenge Conference in New Orleans this summer students and adults took a challenge to be in God’s Word for the 50 days following Challenge using the devotional given to us…many students and adults used this to help take what we experienced in New Orleans continue at home.

So we are now approaching a New Year – 2013 and to start the year off right I have a new Challenge that I will be doing called the #40for40Challenge again instigated by my friend Buddy Shuh! What the #40for40Challenge involves is for the first 40 days of 2013 to exercise for 1 hour per day for 40 days…from January 1 – February 9, 2013. That goes beyond what the experts say of 21 days to create a habit!

So who wants in? Anyone else want to do the #40for40Challenge? There is a FB Group that I can add you to where we can log/post and encourage one another along the way.

What has been encouraging to me is that specifically in the Youth Ministry World there has been some great “voices” added to the “old timers”. Yes there are the usual “Big Names” or “Youth Ministry Yodas” but there are some great In The Trenches Youthworkers that we can learn from and interact with each day. It caused me to look through my Google Reader and add some to my reading list and also add some new subscriptions.

So who are you listening to? What are some blogs that I should consider adding to my Google Reader?

Here are some that I am listening to…

http://youthworktalk.com/

http://www.dougfields.com/

http://www.ymtechstuff.com/

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

http://www.studentministry.org/

http://www.morethandodgeball.com/

http://lovegodlovestudents.com/