5/12/2009

Believe 2010 Messiah Tour Dates

It has been a long time since Believe was a Spring only loaded tour. i have been apart of nine tours and this will be my first ever all spring schedule. This past year's Speak Tour about Jeremiah was completely awesome and I'm looking forward to the next year. Here are the official dates set to be on the CIY Web site and our publicity in the weeks ahead. If you came here, you got'em first!

Spring 2010

January 29-30 - Anaheim, CA

February 5-6 - Tulsa, OK

February 12-13 - Cincinnati, OH

February 19-20 - Chicago, IL

February 26-27

March 5-6 - St Louis, MO

March 12-13 - Kissimmee, FL

March 19-20 - Arlington, TX

March 26-27

April 2-3 - EASTER

April 9-10 - Atlanta, GA

April 16-17/17-18 - Anderson, IN

April 23-24 - Holland, MI

April 30 - May1 - Portland, OR


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2/16/2009

Trends in Youth Ministry Tools

I had a great opportunity to hang out in San Antonio Texas last week with a bunch of youth pastors. It was a refreshing week with lots of hanging out and late night coffee sessions. For those of you who were involved with the discussion on trends in youth ministry and youth pop culture below are the notes I promised to post. I also put the link to Student Ministry Connect. This is a relatively new social network just for those of us involved in student ministry! I know that the last thing we all need is another web site to manage BUT this one is actually worth the time and has a great feel. Log on and sign up. You will see Yancy and other pre-teen/ jr high banner wavers!

It can be difficult, even when you hang out with students in your ministry every week, and we have all made that mistake where we incorrectly reference something in pop culture and kids look at us like we have suddenly become completely out of touch. At the end of the day, I'm in the camp that says loving students is more important that knowing every nuance of a student's subculture . . . but it doesn't hurt to do some quick homework. Paul modeled this for us in his travels. Here are some links and tools that could help you with just a few minutes a week.

trendwatching.com
cypu.org
mryouth.com
repnation.com
simplyyouthministry.com
Student Ministry Connect

tools for texting students:
constantcontact.com
eztext.com





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1/29/2009

Believe Team Van Wreck


It has been a crazy start to the Believe spring tour Travel . . .

In 40 years of Christ in Youth travel history we have never had a staff vehicle wreck. We were blessed yesterday to have no injuries as one of our 15 passenger vans rolled 50 miles west of Joplin Missouri. I was scheduled to fly out on Friday morning and meet the team in Anaheim for our second Believe stop this spring on the Speak Tour. I quickly met up with our team and am on the road with them now in somewhere west of Amarillo, TX.


Last weekend our speaker, and my good buddy, Jason Raitz’ house burnt to the ground the day before our Flagstaff AZ event. No one was injured severely in that situation either. Jason’s family was at the Church and his little brother, who was at the house at the time of the fire, was treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation. Jason tells the whole story and how the church has come around them during this storm in his blog.

Next week the Believe Team travels to Tulsa, OK and I’m somewhat anxious and nervously looking forward to a quiet normal Believe weekend.

On other fronts, may people have been emailing in asking about Foundation Red set lists for the current Believe Tour. Here is a link to a published set list for the Speak Tour.


2008 - 2009 Jr High Believe Speak Tour

Also, others have been asking about next year’s theme, Messiah Tour 2009 2010. The following is a published version of our artist and speaker theme working document. It will be morphing over the next few months as we continue to pray, evaluate and listen to comments from this spring tour.

Believe 2009 – 2010 Messiah Theme Document

12/04/2008

Scott Family Christmas Pictures







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7/15/2008

build a fire, dance around it, speak into the life of kids, reapeat

Yesterday I had a phone interview for an article to appear in a Christian magazine. One of the questions that the writer submitted prior to the interview was, “why do tweens and jr high students need their own music when they can just listen to the music now that they will eventually listen to when they are teenagers?” I intended to steer the interview as much as possible to the underlying theme of what is wrong with our current systems and practices for walking beside the youth in our churches as they grow up. We have traded many traditions in our faith for rearing children for a ‘just get through it’ mentality. In so doing, the real damage done is a failure to equip students with a faith that holds together during life’s crisis moments. (AKA Jr High)

I feel like the greatest lesson for transition into tween ministry within the church came from the Disney Movie "Brother Bear". I know, forget about all the stupid new age overtones and see how the community walked their young through a process of maturing into adult hood. The key to me was how they were all involved. Remember the party around the camp fire when the whole community presented the young Indians with their tokens. How awesome would it be if we were constantly be sitting our students down and affirming the gifts that we see in them. We need to let them know that those gifts are needed in the Body. (NOW and when they graduate)

I firmly feel there is great significance in the concrete right of passage they had set up on the movie. You were allowed to put your hand on the wall and join the larger adult community (or in our case, join this more mature age group of tween ministry in the church) when the whole community gathered around you and acknowledge your growth. They made it a BIG STINKING deal.

Rights of passage are a strong force in so many cultures around the world. Have we neglected the purpose and shaping power in these corporate faith traditions in protestant America?

Furthermore, we all know that the most important things happen in Big Church and the Sr. Pastor says it . . . perhaps this would be the best place to start. HEY! ALL you SR. Pastors out there reading this discussion (that you find fascinating) on transitions in student ministry: Make this important. Let's build a fire, dance in big church and hand out wooden tokens to our kids.

Rent the freaking movie! It's awesome.