“You have to learn to fight with tools.” One of my ministry mentors said this cryptically early on and it has taken me years to learn it’s value.  Here’s what I think he meant: In the fight for ministry excellence and longevity, our capacity for faithful discipline, spiritual practices, ...
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"So much of who I was as an individual was wrapped up in the ministry. In these seven months, I was able to pull back and say I don't have a ministry anymore, so what will I be defined by." - Paul Sitka Paul Spitka is the Pastor of Discipleship and Outreach at First Baptist Sapulpa in ...
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Discouragement is a part of life and leadership for you and the people you lead. As leaders, we can become so focused on achieving the task in front of us that we fail to recognize the struggles of people on our teams. A challenge for me is to see that caring for people is as much the role of a ...
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There’s only one problem with dissent: a lot of people don’t want to hear it.  All week long we are focusing our attention on what it means to be a dissenting voice for your team, and a discerning team with a powerful voice. It’s not an easy conversation, but a necessary practice for the ...
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A rule of thumb is to never devalue someone just to make your point. The moment I devalue another human being, I am not firmly planted in biblical conviction, - Brent Crowe Brent Crowe is a thought-provoking visionary and communicator who has a passion to present the life-changing ...
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It’s senior season and next month you should be celebrating your graduating seniors. But how? Last year was a mad-dash of just trying to come up with something, anything that we could do in light of being on lockdown. This year let’s take what we innovated last year, couple it with what we have ...
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We need to change the way we do student ministry for our seniors than what we do for our juniors. We need to engage them. - Brian Mills Help prepare seniors for where they are going instead of preparing them for how to end.  - Brian Mills Brian Mills is the Senior Pastor of Trinity Baptist ...
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I'm not great at celebrating the wins. It's something I've learned about my leadership over the years as I've often moved onto the next mountain to climb rather than stopping to celebrate the climb we've just finished. Celebration is a critical part of leadership, and is healthy for you and for ...
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It’s been a year. This month marks a year of revisiting everything that we knew about gathering in groups, working outside the home, and doing student ministry. It’s been hard.  And it often feels impossible to celebrate in really difficult seasons, but in some ways that makes it even ...
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Join Ben and the podcast crew as they talk with Allison Yandell of Feed. an initiative of OneHope, and Andrew Prescott, youth pastor at Oaks Church in Red Oak TX, about how understanding stats about Gen Z can make an impact on discipleship. "Youth pastors love crowds, students of this generation ...
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