So it’s true, i wrote and self-published a little book. The book is a little devotional piece on Lent, which if your not familiar is the 40 days leading up to Easter. So essentially it’s a devotional book that leads and prepares the reader for Easter Sunday, the resurrection of Jesus.

Here’s what the back of the book says;

This isn’t just another devotional book. This is a guide to a 40-day journey to resurrection.

Maybe you don’t even know what Lent is. Maybe you’re thinking it’s that stuff you pick out of the depths of your pants pockets. Maybe when you hear Lent, you think it’s something only Catholics do.

Even if you’re not familiar with Lent or have a negative association with it, I think we would all agree that Easter is essential to the life of the Church. It’s the time of year when we are intentional about retelling and rehearing the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

And because Christ invites His followers to not just hear about resurrection but to participate in it, we have historically taken the 40 days leading up to Easter to prepare our hearts and minds to enter into the story of Christ.

This little book is a guide, a help, a companion on that 40-day journey of prayer and Christian practice known as Lent. On this journey, we will practice the disciplines of addition, subtraction and introspection so that we may more fully participate in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We call this journey Lent.

And we take this journey because we all need a resurrection.

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I would love to offer this little devotional book to you as you as you make your way to Easter Sunday.

If you order the book by this Friday at noon i can guarantee it’s arrival by Wednesday the 22nd, which is when this Lenten journey will start for most of us.

At my church we are using this book to guide our middle school and senior high students on a Lenten journey. There are a handful of other churches that are using this resource to help their students as well.

There are themes for every week of the journey which we will all be using as preaching topics during this next 7 weeks. And if you interested, some of us are going to join a conversation to help each other as we craft messages and services for our students during this time. That conversation will mostly happen via email and i would love to include in that as well.

You can get the book here and checkout the Web Guide (an online resource to supplement the book) here.

My prayer is that this resource would help you and your ministry as you make your way through the desert of Lent to the brilliance of resurrection!

Would love to have you on this journey with us!

Grace and peace
erik

And here is the book cover if you want to see / read it all!
(thanks to Aaron VanStrien for his skills, which he donated to this project!)

How do you think of a good message or series for students? There’s the argument of “topical” or “expositional”. Or maybe you just get a good idea, find some bible verses and your ready to preach. Maybe you think your students need to hear about a particular topic so you craft some messages to fit. Maybe you preach the lectionary or some other version of predetermined passages.

How do you think of a good message or series messages for students?

I probably do a mix of all the above. Some methods are better than others but none is right or wrong, in my opinion.

The current series we are doing, Never Too Early was a mix. I really wanted to dive into some scripture with my students and 1 Timothy kept coming to mind. My initial thought was to walk verse by verse through it. But then i started reading through the Old Testament as a new years resolutions and some of those stories really began to pop. So instead of just looking at Timothy as a young leaders i thought, let’s look at the life of a handful of young people in the bible who God used to accomplish his purposes. Almost immediately after this was the route i decided to go i ran across this video at church, PERFECT!

That’s was how this one came together and so far so good. 
We focused the first message on the disciples in general and how most of them were probably teenagers and the very core of Jesus’ movement to change the world.
The second week we took a look at David. He’s a no brainer. The older brothers overlooked because, as the scripture says, “humans look at the outward appearance (things like age and experience) but God looks at the heart.” And then we talked about David taking off the armor given him to face the giant because he realized the only way he would win the battle was by faith in his God, not by trying to be someone else and living in someone else’s armor or shadow.

Next week we will look at Timothy and focuses on the verse “Do not let anyone look down on you because you are young but set an example…” This will be followed by Samuel and then a wrap up message to the series.

Doing this gig has it’s challenges. One of them is coming up stellar content that really connects with students… EVERY WEEK! The advantage i had in my previous gig was that i spend a couple months crafting messages and was then able to deliver them multiple times over a few months. And if a message was REALLY good i could keep in the rotation for up to a year. 

Things are a bit different now but i’m excited about how it’s stretching me and i look forward to working with other youth pastors like myself to collaborate in providing high quality biblical content to students and their families.

If you up for some collaboration let me know!

Grace and peace
erik

It’s true I pastor students, middle school students to be specific. It’s a new gig for me and one i enter into with excitement and some biblical fear and trembling.

I read student ministry blogs here and there. I want to do that more; there are so many great ideas and encouraging people out there.
What student ministry blogs should I be reading?

And i’m looking forward to sharing some of the things we are doing here in the student ministry at Christ Church Plano.

Christ Church is a really great place! It’s also a really interesting mix of a liturgical church, rooted in tradition, history and beauty, and an evangelical bible church kinda feel with a high value on scripture and a personal relationship with Jesus. Most of the things you typically think of from a liturgical church and a bible church both find themselves being gracefully lived out right here in one place. Geographically we are in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, a place called Plano that has its own kind of charm and plenty of suburban challenges.

I’m pretty new around here, just into my 3rd month, but I think this mix of things is going to make for some great but unique ministry in the student ministry world. I still know a lot of folks who are doing event-based attractional ministry, i know folks who are doing strong small group ministry, and i know folks who are trying to do missional youth ministry. I even know some folks who are doing a mix of all the above. The journey i’m on is to figure out how to do youth ministry in a liturgically sensible, biblically formative, socially conscious, and above all disciple-making kind of way.
Maybe there are some folks out there trying to do similar kinds of things. WHO ARE YOU? We need to talk!

Basically i’m excited to talk about student ministry, middle school ministry, failures, successes, and all the crazy stories in between. Student ministry is a wild ride but i’m excited to be a part of this community of people in a new kind of way. I’m excited to dive deeper into the conversation.

Grace and peace
erik

I tweeted the other day about the Advent Experience i was doing with my students. I ended the tweet & facebook post with “… just wait!” A clever pun on the idea of experiencing advent. I had one person say something but other than that i’m not sure anybody really caught the start to my Advent Experience but then again i don’t think many people really catch Advent in general. Which is why we had an Advent Experience!

And if your wondering what i’m talking about… you’re not catching it either! Just wait

Advent is all about waiting, anticipating, it’s all about getting ready for the One who was, and is, and is to come! I decided that i could just preach a message about this, there are TONS of scriptures about Advent, about waiting and anticipating but i wanted my students to experience it!

So here’s what we did…

We started our service off with with a countdown, all the student with one robust voice counted down the last 10 seconds and then… another countdown started. They WAITED 3 more minutes, counted down once again and we continued.

Then we played a game, kinda. I picked students, had them come up on the platform, picked some random pieces that they thought were going to be apart of the game and then i told them i had forget some of the pieces to the game and they were going to have to WAIT.

I also had one student come on the platform, I had found out his absolute favorite snack, honey BBQ wings from Pizza Hut. I told him we were going play a little game, he had to sit with the wings in front of him but we weren’t ready yet… he would have to WAIT!

I let all the students sit down, they would have to be PATIENT. I let the student stay on the platform with his wings though. Our worship leader came forward to lead us. He tuned… and tuned… and tuned some more. He continued to say, “Sorry guys, just be PATIENT, HOLD ON, we’ll be ready SOON.”

I then came up and said i would just give the message and we’ll worship later. By this time, those that were really paying attention (and most of them actually were) began to realize the theme.

I opened my bible and began to flip through, trying to find the passage i was looking for, “my bookmark must have fallen out, just HOLD ON, i’ll find it.” “I think i actually left my notes in my office, just be PATIENT.” I walked of the platform and this little video i make began to play.

When the video was done i walked up and began to share. My middle school students were engaged, they got it, they knew what we were talking about. Matthew, the student on the stage with his favorite wings quickly became my goto illustration. Because sometimes it’s really hard to wait, isn’t it! I preached, we worship together, it was a really great night!

The one nugget i wanted to communicate through my message and through the experience was that we know as Christians we need to learn to pray, to read our bible, even to live in community… but how often do we teach students the art of waiting, being patient, holding on for the Lord. We don’t’ typically see this as a Christian practice worth giving any attention to but the more i studied and looked around bible the art of waiting is central to the Christian life. And what better time then Advent to usher our students and our churches in the Christian practice of patience.

We talked a bit about the double Advent we embrace. First we WAIT for the birth of Christ but we also WAIT for the return of Christ, knowing that He will return and make all things new, redeem our suffering, and quench our thirst once and for all.

We talked about trust and faith. It’s easy to think that God must not know what he’s doing because things aren’t happening on our timeframe or the way we think they should go. But learning to WAIT is essential for the Christian life, it teaches us to trust that God actually knows what he’s doing, he has a plan, that God is actually good and is with us! It’s not always easy to wait but often times that which we wait for is far better then what we could have had sooner. Our culture teaches immediate gratification but our Lord teaches us to WAIT! To Trust! To have faith that God has a plan!

There are a lot of culture implication that we talked about. Faith implication and a general challenge to WAIT ON THE LORD because he promises to hear our cries!

Here some some scriptures that i used…

Isaiah 64:1     //    Luke 1:78-79     //     Psalm 40:1     // Proverbs 16:32

Romans 8:25     //     James 5:8     //      Revelations 1:7-8

You can also check out some of my Advent posts from last year…

Advent :: I Can’t Wait!  #1

Advent :: I Can’t Wait!  #2

Advent :: I Can’t Wait!  #3

Advent :: I Can’t Wait!  #4

And finally if you looking from some great Advent ideas & videos check out Advent Conspiracy – they do some great stuff!

And look at their old stuff on YouTube — really good!

Hold On!

w/Grace and peace

erik

To my faithful blog followers, all 2 of you (my wife and… CRAP, there’s only one)

Anyway, to my faithful follower(s), you know i tend to be a blog slacker most times but times are a changen (maybe).

I’m anticipating A LOT of changes these days, here are a few of them…

#1. I’ve got an office, and no i didn’t just find a new coffee shop on the other side of town, i’ve actually have an office that i go to and can sit at my desk and do work. I anticipate this rhythm helping my blogging life.

#2. I live in TX! It still blows my mind when i think about it. But i’m excited to share some  of my new found Texas spirit with ya’ll. I mean EVERYBODY i know who is from Texas thinks it’s the greatest country in the world. Not sure i will get there but so far the Texans are winning me over.

#3. I’m a youth pastor / student minister / how ever you want to say it… i get to hang out with amazing students, share life, follow Jesus, have fun, and learn about ministry in an entirely new context. For the past 10 years i’ve shared here and there about my traveling ministry, speaking to thousands of students every year and the wild journey that has been but now i get to share about the 100 or so students i see every week and what we are doing to help these students know and love Jesus. I hope this journey will be helpful as i share with friends and ministry partners that i’ve met along the way. And hopefully we can interact and bounce ideas around right here on this blog.

#4. I’ve got a new blog / website coming! Hopefully it will be done in the next couple weeks. It’s always a bit of motivation to write when you’ve got new new real estate to write on!

#5. Life in general is changing. I’ve haven’t kept up with sharing that very well over the past year but hopefully that will change. From being a dad, to being a youth pastor, to being a traveling speaker (part-time now), to being a Texan, to being a simple man trying to follwo Jesus well… life is changing and sharing our journey with each other is to journey together. I don’t think there is a better way to do it!

Life’s a chanen… and i’m excited to share.

Grace and peace

erik

Youth Pastor // Speaker // Blogger