The 2013 Hashtag Video Series

The Hashtag Video Series is a free, brotherhood-sponsored and brotherhood-funded video series for teens in the Churches of Christ. First started in 2012 by Scott Bond at Spring Meadows Church of Christ, the Hashtag Video Series was a set of 12 videos magnifying the Gospel of Christ to teenagers. Over 300 churches signed up to particpate in over 70 countries on 6 continents - over 12,000 teens experienced video messages from the Gospel through Hashtag last year. 

2013 is proving more ambitious as high-profile speakers like Lonnie Jones and David Skidmore provided messages for the series with filming this past week. The quality has been kicked up a notch and you can expect the same great content from the first series. This year the theme for our 13 videos and skits is For His Glory. We hope to spotlight the issues in teenagers’ lives with subjects such as Fighting, Sports, and Relationships - all For His Glory. Lonnie Jones and his SWAT Skit Team from Huntsville, Alabama will add a new dimension to our series and provide extra content to illustrate points as well. By offering videos for free, we believe we can impact a large number of people for Christ.

All this, however, is not free to produce. Daniel Howell, minister for a congregation in Metropolis, Illinois, has provided excellent HD video capture and editing. Speakers are paid for their time and travel. Materials will be produced and promoted for the new series. 

So we need your help. You can help us out in two ways - purchase a subscription to Hashtag Media content at hashtagmedia.us, filled with all sorts of brotherhood content for teens that is current, relevant, and scriptural. Subscriptions get you all the resources that are released every month, and these resources are filled with illustrations, scripture, stories, and loads of content to keep your youth classes going. Subscriptions are $199 a year. 

The second way you can help is to commit to making a yearly donation to Hashtag for $1000. This isn’t cheap by any means, but you will be helping to fund the next generation of high-quality content for our young people. 

We hope that Hashtag has helped your ministries and churches grow, and we hope that we can grow with your help to magnify the Gospel in this world. 

Click here to go to the donation page for Hashtag.

Money, Fear & Hunger - From Ron Swanson

I love the show Parks & Recreation. It's not the most Christian show, and it won't teach me any values for my life, but it's silly and it makes me laugh.

I love the character of Ron Swanson. Ron is a manly, unforgiving, uncompromising individual who will not be derailed from how he wants to live his life. And he's hilarious.

In a recent episode, his character was being forced to talk about motivation, and how to become motivated in the workplace. Ron then said: 

There's only three ways to motivate people: money, fear and hunger.

The quip was meant to be funny, but is it true?

It's true in the world. People will do almost anything for money. We've seen people kill other people for money. We've seen people intimidate with fear to get what they want. We've seen hunger ravage entire nations and motivate people to do what they have to do to live.

What about in the Church? I think in the 1950's, fear was a great motivator for people coming to Christ. Fire and brimstone sermons from high pulpits made lots of people think about the Gospel. But fear doesn't work anymore, in my opinion. Fear as a motivator in the church just doesn't bode well with people and families any more. 

So what does? Some people in the Church say we're losing people right and left. Some people are saying that our kids go off to college and never come back. Others say that those same kids go off to college but go back to church later in their 20's and 30's.

So what are we using as a motivator today in the Church?

Love should be our prime motivator, but often times isn't. Most times it's the need for connectivity and community that brings people to the Church. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that just like the Gospel in the first century, we should always be pressing forward, and in some places, it feels to me like we're still motivating with fear instead of love.

1 John 4.20-21:

If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Do You Have A Plan? [Proverbs 16]

This was a guest post on Michael Whitworth's Start2Finish blog today. For the original post, click here.

In my early days in college I was dating a girl whose father was a preacher, as if I wasn't afraid of going home to visit her parents enough already. I dated this girl for over a year and I went to her home several times. Every time we would go to worship, she had a young man who was a friend of hers who liked to sit beside her every time she was there. He was four or five and loved to color with crayons. 

Every time my girlfriend's father would preach, he had a handout. These would be passed out to the congregation at the start of the sermon and the people could follow along with notes and fill in the blanks. 

The young man who was sitting beside us would immediately get the paper and turn it over and start scribbling on the blank side opposite the nicely formatted notes on the other side. He would "draw" pictures of ships, planes, or cars. He would even sometimes give them to me or my girlfriend to keep after services. 

Proverbs 16 begins by talking about plans. Verse 3 specifically says that if we commit our work to the Lord that our plans will be established. 

How do we make plans in our lives? How do we go about all the planning and figuring and saving for all the different things we want to do? 

And, in those plans, is God a factor? 

We live in a horribly busy world. I kind of get irritated when kids in my youth group complain about boredom. I can't remember the last time I was truly bored with nothing to do. And when I think about where I've been, I've been busy making plans for years. I've been going to college, getting married, having children, running a ministry, getting caught up in events and hobbies - you get the point. Most of us are incredibly busy people. 

The Bible in many ways says that, in a nutshell: if your plans don't involve God, then they really don't even matter in the long run. 

If you're making plans without God, it's like drawing on the opposite side of the paper. After we're done, our crayon scratches and lines look like foolishness. God's plans were neatly put on the front side of the paper, we just didn't bother to look at it. We wanted to do it ourselves. We wanted to make our own plans without consulting God. 

At this time of the year, we honor those who graduate from high school. Do we ask our 18 year olds how God factors into their plans? What college they will attend? How they intend to grow as a Christian away from the nest?

What about choosing a spouse? Do we ask if this person is going to help me get to heaven? Of do we just think they are " the one" we're supposed to be with?

Maybe you or members of your family have health concerns. Have you prayed to God about it? Have you asked Him for His will to be done? 

You see, we can get carried away in life making plans for our future and forget to factor God in, to make Him the center of our plans for life. We forget that God is one who delivers us, watches out for us, and keeps us safe. 

One of the big overall themes of Proverbs is wisdom. Having wisdom, making good decisions. A wise man or woman seeks God's plans for their life first. If we do that, then we can know that everything in our lives will fall into place. 

Big Updates for Big Apps

There were two big updates to two big apps that I use everyday released in the last 24 hours.

The first is an update to Textastic, a great text editor for OSX. They have added tab support so now instead of having multiple windows open with my text floating around, I can have them in one big, unified window. Although I love this feature, I wish they would enable the hiding of tabs if there's just one file open in the window. Otherwise, a great update.

The second is an update to Drafts, now version 3.0. The two most notable additions to this already-wonderful do-anything text app are the addition of Actions Backup and tabbed tasks. 

Actions Backup is exactly what it says it is - it adds the ability to make a manual backup of all your actions so you can restore them to any other device running Drafts. For instance, I have lots of different lists that I append to, and I don't want to have to manually add those on my iPad. Enter Actions Backup. I just back up the actions on my iPhone, then go to my iPad and Restore from Actions Backup over there. Viola, they're all there, safe and sound. 

The second is tabbed grouping of tasks. Very simple interface - when I hit the share button, I now have little Roman numbered tabs for my task groups. You can arrange how you want them in Settings. For example, all actions in Tab I I have all my Dropbox actions. Tab II houses all my searching actions, Tab III all my email and messaging, and Tab IV is for Evernote actions. 

Overall, a great update for these two apps. If you're not using either, you should give them a try. They're both fantastic and have changed my Youth Minister workflow for the better.

Summer Camp Checklist

From YouthMinistry360:

Early Prep Work

  1. Decide where you want to go for camp, sign up, and send in any deposits.
  2. Begin signing-up your students and adult leaders for the camp. There are some great software programs for youth ministry that make this process easier. Of course, there's always Excell, and old-fashioned notebooks work, too!
  3. Let your students know how much camp will cost, get them to put down a deposit, and set a date for final payment. Be very specific about your policies for refunding deposits and/or fees.
  4. Plan your transportation to and from camp.
  5. Check on the daily schedule at your camp, what you will be responsible for teaching and leading, and what the camp leaders will do. Make plans for any free time. (I try to find the balance between enough time to have fun and too-much free time. Too much unstructured free time is rarely a good thing!)

Getting Closer

  1. Get any camp promotional material and promote, promote, promote. If you or your adult leaders will be teaching any small group time, get the material to your leaders at least one month ahead of time.
  2. The dreaded rooming list! This is the one I always struggle with the most. Get your rooming list to your camp leaders on time.
  3. Make sure you have a medical release form on every student and adult attending camp. There are plenty of forms available on the Internet.
  4. Three of four weeks before camp send out an information letter outlining what time you will leave, what time you will return, where you are going, and include a list of everything the student needs to bring to camp. Also be clear of what is not allowed at camp.

Last Minute Prep

  1. Think through what you want to do about cell phones. I've found them to be a major distraction, but I also know parents do not want to send their child away without one. [I tell ours if I see their cell phone I get it until we go home, but that's just me. :) ]
  2. Send in your final payment to your camp.
  3. Some extra things I always take to camp: an iron, petty cash, 2 or 3 rolls of quarters, laundry detergent if facilities are available, a laundry bag, shower shoes, squirt soap, extra toothbrushes, extra pens, lanyards, kitchen size garbage bags for students dirty clothes, a medical kit with basic items for accidents, female hygiene items, Catch Phrase, notebook paper, and note cards.

Patton Oswalt on the bombings in Boston

"I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths. But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. [...] This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.
But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago. So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, 'The good outnumber you, and we always will.'"

Amen, and thank you God for gifting the world with sane people who possess the virtue of cheer.

Drafts: My Go-To iOS App

As a youth minister, I take lots of notes. I jot down emails and phone numbers. I send emails. I write articles, lessons and sermons. I make lists, and lists of lists for planning projects. 

All of that involves text. 

As I am an uber-nerd, I use plain text for pretty much everything. As I type this now, I'm using Textastic on the Mac. But I store everything in plain text, and I'll briefly tell you why. 

Because plain text is future-proof. I can take plain text and put it anywhere, and I can then format that text how I want it. For example - I wrote this original post on the Squarespace internet site, and I had no backup. This post got summarily deleted because of my stupidity (and maybe a bug in the Squarespace iPad app). If I would have originally written this article in a text editor on my Mac (and by the way, if you have a Mac, everyone has a text editor - it's called TextEdit - and Wordpad for Windows) all I would have had to do was copy and paste the text instead of rewriting the post like I am now. 

Plain text is powerful because computers have been using it since their inception. I could literally take this text right now and put it on an old 1982 green-screened NCR if I wanted to. Or I could use this text in MS Word 2024 if I want. Granted, you are limited in formatting with plain text, and that's why they invented Markdown. If you really need to prettify something, a Word Processor should be your app of choice. 

But I digress. 

The reason for this post was not to tell you about the benefits of plain text, but to tell you how plain text and a little app called Drafts has changes my entire youth minister workflow. 

Drafts is a little app that does a lot of stuff, and it's highly customizable. 

The app opens ready to write - cursor blinking and keyboard ready. There's no start or splash screen - the app seems to be designed to do one thing very effiecently, and that's capture quick text when you want to the fastest way possible and send it to exactly where you want it. 

I haven't messed around with URL actions yet, but the Dropbox actions are really where I get my work done. 

I have a list for just about everything. For example, I have a text file named Log.txt and it's just random thoughts, links I've pasted in, and other stuff that comes to my mind. I open the app, type my text, hit the Share button on the lower right just above the keyboard, and I hit 'Append to Log.'

Here's the cool part: when I append a file, it simply adds that new line of text to the existing Log.txt file. I can then pull up that file on my Mac or on my mobile device and look at the list. It's incredibly helpful to be able to append to certain lists and not have to created new text files. You can create a new file, and that's what I do if I am starting an article or something. Drafts will automatically drop it into my Drafts folder on Dropbox and put a UNIX timestamp on it. It even gives you a little green bar and checkmark along with a little sound to let you know it's finished its work. 

Drafts helps me remember things so well. Riding down the road in the car, I can pull up the app, hit the Siri button, say a note, and hit 'Append to Whatever' and it's there waiting for me on the desktop when I get back to the office. I have a text file called Today.txt for my running to-do list, Camp.txt for notes regarding our summer camp this year, and a Comics.txt list that I can append to when someone tells me a great comic to buy. 

Drafts isn't limited to Dropbox actions, though. Built right in are actions to Send To services like Messages, Evernote, Elements, Email, and lots of other system apps. And by searching the Drafts Action Directory, you can find many more URL and Dropbox actions that you can install from your Safari browser. 

Basically here's what I'm saying - you need to check out this app. They have seperate versions for the iPhone and iPad, and they are $2.99 and $3.99, respectively. [App Store Link]

Try it out, and I bet you won't be disappointed. 

Special Post: Podcast Blog Hop

Today's post is very special, because it is a "blog hop." Five blogs are all writing on the same topic, and we hope you will check each one out.

The topic today is simply podcasting. Five writers are each listing the podcasts (by category) they listen to, and linking to where you can find the information about that podcast. At the bottom of the post is the link to the other writers who are involved.

Before I begin my list, I want to point out that 99% of my listening is done with the excellent iOS app Instacast. It syncs between your devices at play positions, it keeps what shows I've listened to in sync, and has a great UI on both iPhone and iPad. It's not free ($4.99), but I'll pay for a great app like this. 

MY PODCAST LIST

Brotherhood Podcasts (produced by members of Churches of Christ)

Preachers In Training - Preachers in Training is part of the Light Network produced by Robert Hatfield in Pulaski, Tennessee. . Robert offers great insights to teaching and preaching, and I've even been fortunate enough to be a guest for tech topics on the show.

Biblical Manliness - Also on the Light Network and hosted by Chris Clevenger of Chapel Hill, Tennessee, this podcast is great for topics on what a a true man of God should be.

Other Religious Podcasts

Daily Hope with Rick Warren - I like Rick and his insights into the Bible. He makes good points and has good ideas - taking the Bible at an angle that you may have never thought about.

The Simply Youth Ministry Show - Jason and Kurt do a wonderful job with this podcast. They're a little crazy at times, but they have some great content.

News and Information

I rely primarily on the TWiT (This Week In Tech) network for my tech news. I subscribe to MacBreak Weekly, This Week In Tech, iFive for the iPhone, Know How, and iPad Today. I am a tech news uber-geek, as you can see. The News from 5by5 is also an excellent daily podcast that's less than 10 minutes for you to keep up with some tech news.

Sports and Hobbies

The Herd - Colin Cowherd is a genius in the sports world, in my opinion. It's basically the only sports podcast I listen to. He talks a little too much about USC, but I can get over that. 

Star Trek Comic Book Review - If you didn't think I was enough of a geek earlier, you do now. One of my hobbies is enjoying Star Trek, specifically Trek comic books. It's a cheap hobby and because I like Trek so much I can afford it. It's a pretty small niche too. 

The Retro League - Again with the geekiness. I love retro video games, games I played when I was a kid. It's fun rediscovering them and playing them again, and these guys give great commentary on retro gaming news. 

Other

Mac Power Users - David Sparks and Katie Floyd do a fantastic job of detailing apps and services that help me as a youth minister working on my Mac every day. If you have a Mac or iPad at all, check out this podcast.

Back To Work - Merlin Mann is one of my favorite funny people. And I don't even get half his jokes. His show on 5by5 is one of my favorites, because they talk about everything from shaving to apps for productivity.

The Ihnatko Almanac - Andy Ihnatko is a tech writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, but he's also a blogger and podcaster. I love his podcast where he basically talks about anything and everything - from movies to apps to tech and comic books.

Now that you have seen the podcasts that I enjoy, take a few moments to "hop" over to the other writers who are doing the same thing:

Adam Faughn has his podcast list here.

Robert Hatfield lists his podcasts here.

Daniel Howell shows you his playlist here.

QUESTIONS: Do you like the "blog hop" idea? What other podcasts do you recommend? Share your thoughts in the comments.

My iPhone Home Screen: April 2013

Click for larger

Click for larger

From the bottom up:

Drafts - This app is my go-to now for virtually anything involving text on my phone. I'll have more on this app in a post this week (maybe even a screencast) and you'll see that using this app for sharing any kind of text between apps is awesome. From Dropbox to Messages to searching Google, it's become my go-to app of choice. More on this great app later this week. 

In the 'Get It Done' folder

Dropbox - new UI update a few months ago makes it easier than ever to use.

Google Drive - Use for all my Google Docs, and today's update even features widescreen editing of Spreadsheets. Nice.

Cloudier - Cloudapp client for links, images, and text sharing. I use it for all my links as it's tied to my Twitter/Tweetbot.

Instashare - Wonderful too for moving files instantly from one device to another,. For example, the screenshot photo of my iPhone in this post was move by opening the app on my phone, dragging the picture out of my Library, placing it on my Macbook icon with my Mac running the same free software, and my 1.3 Mb image was transferred over Wi-Fi instantly. Great for files you would normally email to yourself.

Teambox - Great little service for teams up to five users. I use it to coordinate with Hashtag Media peoples. Project management, to-do lists, conversations - great for small teams. Paid tiers as well for bigger companies. iPhone, iPad, and web apps. Web app works great in Fluid as a dedicated app on the Mac.

Elements - My plain text repository. Where I use Drafts for quick text and lists, I use Elements for long-form text like class and teaching docs. Syncs with Dropbox and talks to Drafts as well. Anything I compose in Drafts can be directly shared with Elements. 

Mailbox - Been using the hot new mail service for about two months now. Very good. They've worked out some bugs, and the service is great for eradicating and acting on every email.

Feedly - Since Google Reader is shutting down, I just moved all my feeds to Feedly. The app has great design and will seamlessly work for you after the Reader shutdown on July 1.

Sunrise - wonderful calendar app that syncs with Google Calendar. See my previous post for a review.

Instacast - There's a lot of podcatchers (podcast-catching apps) out there, but in my opinion, Instacast is the best. iPad version as well.

Tweetbot - greatest app for Twitter you'll find on iOS, both for iPad and iPhone. 

Instapaper - great service and app by Marco Arment that simply lets you save articles for reading later. Safari and bookmark extensions available as well as integration into Feedly.

ScoreCenter - ESPN has greatly improved this app from it's beginnings in 2009. Now supports the iPhone 5 and will let you make favorite teams a get push alerts.

In the Photo / Video folder:

Snapseed - this is a great little Google app that lets you do lots of simple stuff with photos. Not bad for free either.

Vine - the Twitter-owned 6-second video sharing service. Great UI. When teens figure out what this is, they're going to be excited.

YouTube Capture & YouTube - Great for capturing and uploading youth video or videos of my son for all to see.

Redbox - Redbox redesigned their app just last week, and it's prettier, faster, and much easier to use. Redbox is everywhere now and is very convenient.

Google Maps - I never actually used Apple Maps on my phone, I've always stuck with Google Maps. Improvements have made this app great in the past year.

Forecast - This is actually a web app that runs like a App Store app. If you go to Forecast.io in Safari, you can "Install" it on your device. It's a great weather app from the makers of Dark Sky. Wonderful UI with little animations and a dedicated iPad version as well.

Encouraging Bible Passages for a Discouraging Day

Everybody has discouraging days. Mine is today.

You may need these passages today as well.

Romans 12:12 - Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

Colossians 4:2 - Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

Romans 8:31-39 - What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 

Jeremiah 29:11-13 - For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Ephesians 5.8 - ...For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. 

Galatians 6.9 - Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not give up. 

Acts 20.24 - But I do not acount my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I recieved from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. 

John 3.16 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 

#truth

What Matter(ed) To You?

It's been a rough few months for the church I work with. We've had over a dozen people pass away who have been members here or connected here in some way.

I've been to a lot of visitations in the last three months, and it's amazing what you hear both at the funerals and the visitations about the deceased. 

"He was a good man."

"She was one amazing woman."

"He sure did love his sports." 

I've heard predominately what the person loved. His or her family, their cars, their sports, both local and abroad. And that got me thinking. 

Ask this question: If someone were to say something about you at your funeral if you died today, what would it be? Would it be that you were a hardcore Tennessee Vols fan? Or that you lived and breathed baseball? Or that you really liked Star Trek?

What will people remember you by? Your hobbies? Or who you really were?

What will people say that mattered to you? 

As much as some of us hate to admit it, what we spend our time doing is what matters to us the most. You spend most of your time working? It isn't because you have to work, it's because that's what matters to you the most. Spend most of your time in hobbies or collecting? That's what matters to you the most. 

Time management is a scary thing. You only have 10,800 minutes a week to fit things in. That's everything - sleep, work, play, family, hobbies, eating - everything. The truth: What you spend your time on matters the most to you. 

Ecclesiastes 3 is the famous "There is a time for everything" passage, and it rings so true today, even though it was written over 2500 years ago. There is a time for everything.

There is a time when my little boy won't be a little boy anymore, so maybe I need to prioritize my time off from work and not be distracted when I'm with my family. Maybe I need to spend less time playing retro video games and more time playing with my young son. Maybe I need to focus on my wife instead of the thousand other things that I have to do - all of which will still be there for me to do tomorrow (Matthew 6.34). 

I spend way too much time obsessing about my time. Once it's gone though, we'll never get it back. So let's use our time wisely, and live in the moment. Because when we're gone and people are talking over our casket, we want them to say that we were Godly and that we loved our families more than anything. 

Smarter iPhone Calendars with Sunrise

Sunrise [App Store, Free] is a relatively new app that's great for keeping track of your life. I've been using it for a month now and I'm very happy with it. 

Sunrise interface.

Sunrise interface. 

What's best for me about Sunrise is that I can add calendar events quickly with natural language input. What that means in English is that I can tap and hold the '+' button on the top right and it gives me a dialog box where I can type "Lunch with Scott next Tuesday at 11:30AM at Jimmy's" and it will know exactly what I want to do with that. It will put the entry as "Lunch with Scott" next Tuesday, April 9, at 11:30 AM. It will even look up Jimmy's here in Lewisburg and give me a map if I need directions.

Sunrise syncs with Google Calendar, Facebook birthdays, and LinkedIn calendar. It's free and you should give it a try.

❯ Sunrise Website

Men: What Have We Become?

Men:

We have become a bunch of macho idiots. We have put girls in bikinis and idolized the beautiful ones and hated on the ones that don't meet society's definition of beauty. We have made sports more important than relationships - both with God and with others. We prioritize work and "getting ahead" more so than we prioritze our relationships with wives, husbands, sons, and daughters. We have set aside time for hobbies, movies, and video games - but not for family. We have degraded sex so much that it is now the equivalent of going to the mailbox. And we have done all this with a smile on our face and money in our bank accounts. 

It is time for us to be Gentlemen - gentle men.

</rant>

Just a little excerpt from something I'm working on for our new guy's split class tomorrow. Harsh, but so true for most men.

Choices

In 1 Kings 3 we find a story of the beginning of King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived. 

In chapter 3 verse 5 something happens that doesn't happen very often - God asks a man what he wants from Him. God literally asks Solomon in a dream, "Ask what I shall give you."

As I said, that doesn’t happen very much in scripture. Moses wasn’t given a choice to lead the Israelites out of Egypt - he was told by God how he was to do it. Even God’s own son, Jesus, wasn’t given a choice in the matter of his earthly death. Sure, Jesus was God on earth and could have called 10,000 angels to rescue him, but God’s plan was absolute and Jesus had no other viable choice - the Savior had to die for our sins on the cross. 

But Solomon was given a choice - and he chooses wisely. 

Selfishly, I know exactly what my first instinct would be to ask for: I would ask God for myself, my children, and my children's children to never have to worry about money. Ever. 

Solomon could have asked for that. He could have asked for power, or status, or riches, or long life, but he doesn't. He simply asks for wisdom to govern his nation - God's people - wisely. He asks for wisdom. 

Believe it or not, God gives you a choice every day. And in terms of serving Him, there's only two choices - we either do or we don't. God has given us the free will to choose what we do with our lives, and every day is an opportunity to show people who we serve. 

What choice are you making? Are you serving God with all your heart or are you serving him half-heartedly? Because there's really no in-between.

Blessed Beyond Measure

I realty was able to take part in the Revival Youth Minister's retreat in Columbia, and it has left me feeling energized, encouraged, but most of all, incredibly blessed.

Just a quick shout out to Chris Webb, Craig Evans, and Scott Bond for working so hard to put all this together.

We had excellent speakers and classes, great discussions and phenomenal material that was covered. A short list of topics that we heard about:

  • Building Student Leaders (Reed Henson)
  • Event Planning/Communicating Your Ministry (Jerry Elder)
  • Team Building in Ministry (Lonnie Jones)
  • Weapons of Warfare in Student Ministry (Lonnie Jones)
  • Grief and Suicide (Bill MacDonald)
  • Simplify Your Ministry (Robbie Mackenzie)
  • Digging Deeper in God's Word (JD Schwartz)
  • Middle School Ministry (Rusty Pettus)
  • Keeping a Blog in Ministry (Robbie Mackenzie)
  • Teaching a Parent/Teen Joined Class (Barry Throneberry)
  • Service-Oriented Youth Programs and Ideas (Chris Webb)
  • Is Your Ministry Miserable or Meaningful? (Craig Evans)
  • The Female Self-Image (Nicole Scott)
  • Keeping Your Faith Under Fire (Nicole Scott)
  • Raising Teens Through Difficult Times (Ralph Gilmore)
  • Teaching Teens Heritage of the Church (Ralph Gilmore)

As you can see, the material and the speakers were amazing.

If you're a youth worker, this is the workshop you need to attend. Tremendous.

Evernote for Non-Tech Folks [Video]

Adam Faughn has a wonderful post over at his blog, Faughn Family of Four, entitled "Evernote for Non-Tech Folks". If you know an older preacher or someone who's just not technical, this is a great post for them to introduce them to Evernote. 

Go take a look!

Missional Youth Ministry Logo Identity

I've recently had lots of opportunities to stretch my creative muscles in the design department. If you don't know me very well, design is really my first love - web and print design are really my bread and butter. Take a look at my most recent project below.

Robbie Mackenzie, a youth minister at the Main Street Church of Christ in Springfield, Tennessee contacted me and wanted a logo designed for his new ministry: Missional Youth Ministry. I was more than happy to help him out. 

He wanted something that conveyed the idea of multiplying disciples, which was what MYM was going to be all about. He also wanted something simple and not complex and busy, and something he could use across a wide variety of formats from printed materials to web interfaces.

I played around with this idea intensely for almost a week. I did sketches, used 'MYM' in every configuration I could think of, and then, like it always, an idea hit me in the head with the simple stick. 

I was trying to evoke a symbol of multiplication and growing, and it was difficult. Then I go the idea to turn the two M's of MYM on their sides facing toward one another and use a complementary color scheme to overlap some slanted rectangles. So simple and so effective. 

Robbie was very pleased. He now uses the logo on his website as well as on his Twitter account. You can follow him at @MIssionalYM. 

If you have any design work you would like done, whether it be a website, logo design, flyers, or t-shirts, feel free to contact me at chad.landman@gmail.com.