As a Youth Minister and Church Planter, we have to navigate technology and faith. Social media has made this more complicated than ever. Inspired by the TED talk The Innovation of Loneliness Kyle Sapp (Youth Minister) and Chris Morton (Church Planter) discuss their own struggles to connect, and what to do about it.
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Legend has it that Karl Barth once said that preachers should have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in another. I’d like to think that if he were alive today, Karl would say that we should have a Bible in hand and a podcast in our ears.
I won’t mention the obvious listens like This American Life or Radiolab. Chances are if you don’t listen to them already it’s because you don’t own earbuds.
If you are a Church Planter, Pastor or just a reflective follower of Jesus, you should be listening to the following podcasts: Continue Reading…
In their book The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World authors Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk state that “discontinuous change” is the defining feature of the environment where church leadership takes place. Such change requires new, rather than simply adjusted, forms of leadership. The book describes the course a church takes as it navigates change, and describes the type of leadership that such change requires.
The sting of Robin Williams’ death strikes a sore place in the cultural subconscious next to the memories of Phillip Seymore Hoffman and Mitch Hedberg.
All death is tragic. Suicide especially.
The death of Robin casts a particular shadow on those of my generation. Aladdin and Hook are the stories of our childhood. Patch Adams, Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting taught us how to grow up.
Depression is tragic. When it affects someone like Robin, we are all hurt.
Depression is also normal, natural and must be responded to within the church.
We can’t eliminate depression or suicide. But we can, and we must, become a refuge for those who experience it.
Depression has been a lifelong companion for me. It makes up some of my earliest and strongest memories. It hovers on the horizon of my future.
The High School I grew up in was in a white neighborhood.
So was my church.
So were my friends.
I got my first job at 18 in a call center on the other side of town. It was only a 15 minute drive away, but it was a different world. The majority of those I worked with were other races, many African American. For the first time in my life, I heard real stories of being pulled over by cops for “driving while being black,” and worse.
Like most in my Gen Y cohort, I would have adamantly told you “I’m not a racist.” The fact was, I was actually ignorant about the systems that enabled the racial divide in our society.
That’s how I feel when I read the #YesAllWomen hashtag.
Growth and Mission provides tangible observations and actionable methods for living more like Jesus, as individuals and the Church. Please take a moment to subscribe below.
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