This weekend I will be heading up to the San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival. The SAICFF is in its 5th year and this year Stephen Kendrick of Sherwood Pictures and Kirk Cameron will share with the audience about the making of fireproof.

Here are 4 things I hope to take away from the experience
1. see new and upcoming short and feature films that are being produced by fellow Christians
2. be inspired to puruse my aspirations to create short and feature films
3. connect with other film-makers who I might be able to colloborate with in the future
4. here from Stephen Kendrick on just how he focuses his church to create films

Will you be there?

Being a film grad and working in a youth ministry I tend to use my film analysis knowledge when it comes to working with teenagers.  The premise behind this is that  if you want to be really good at something you study it and learn as much as you can about that subject. I wanted to make films and so off I went to film school to learn as much as I could about film-making. A lot of people want to work in a youth ministry so they get a degree in theology or biblical studies.

But lets just say for a minute that I want to disciple teenagers.  There is really no degree in discipleship or the knowing of teenagers, however we can study methods of discipleship and we can study teenagers.  One of the ways we can study teenagers is to be around them.  Another way we can really learn how teenagers think, feel and experience life is to read articles or in this case watch movies about them.  Below I am going to list five movies every youth ministry leader should watch that is truly serious about discipling teenagers and is therefore serious about understanding teenagers.

1. Thirteen

This film is edgy and holds nothing back.  It is probably one of the most real-to-life films that showcases rebellious teen girls at their worst. (A thirteen-year-old girl’s relationship with her mother is put to the test as she discovers drugs, sex, and petty crime in the company of her cool but troubled best friend. imdb)

2. 12 and Holding

This film explores issues such as peer pressure, dis-joined parents, obesity, sexuality, true friendship, siblings and death. These issues and more all collide to show the many facets teens face today. (After his twin brother is accidentally killed by vengeful bullies, a disfigured 12-year old boy and his friends face the harsh realities of death, hormones, and family dysfunction imdb)

3. Home Room

This film explores the aftermath of a school shooting and attempts to ask questions through the eyes of the students affected. (A high school shooting has repercussions on the town and students imdb)

4. Rocket Science

This film explores issues such as fear and overcoming obstacles by telling the story of one 15 year old boy who has a severe stuttering problem and despite is problem attempts to be apart of the debate team at his school. (Looking for answers to life’s big questions, a stuttering boy joins his high school debate team. imdb)

5. American Teen

This fresh documentary looks closely into the lives of 5 high school students as they live thier last year out in high school. (A documentary on seniors at a high school in a small Indiana town and their various cliques. imdb)

Movie and Discussion
While I’ve never done this with fellow youth leaders, I think picking one of these movies and having a serious discussion could greatly benefit your youth ministry leaders as they attempt to disciple teenagers.  Equiping leaders to get a better picture of what kinds of situations they may face or what kinds of lifestyles teens may lead will help them to better contextualize and apply the Word of God to students lives. Plus it will be fun….

****disclaimer****
some of these films may not be approporiate for young audiences

“Ministries should be failing more”
This is a statement I have heard Andy Stanley mention several times both in person and on one his leadership podcasts (i highly recommend them if you have yet to check them out). The idea isn’t that its better to fail than to succeed, the idea however is that we are always praying and thinking and coming up with new ideas and ways to reach people and aren’t afraid to try them…even if we aren’t 100% sure they will work. The ideas is that if we are never failing at anything than we are probably playing it too safe for the most part.

10 ways I might fail this year in ministry
1. starting an online bible study
2. helping students start an online bible study
3. integrating new technologies such as facebook connect and sms messaging into our existing website
4. developing a spiritual assessment tool for students to help them assess where they are and where they should go spiritually
5. creating a campaign to close the back door in our ministry and help people know we exists
6. figure out a strategy to partner with parents more effectively
7. developing a media team that can produce videos without me
8. getting a new logo approved
9.  helping develop an internship program at our church
10. helping our creative team create a short film

I actually don’t believe in resolutions, however I do like to set goals for all areas of my life. I counted more than 30 goals that I want to achieve this year. The more goals I’ve added the more time they will take to complete.  One thing I always wrestle with is time and trying to fit all these good things into my schedule while still maintaining balance and margin.  This year in 2009 the biggest goal I want to achieve is to become an early riser and to really develop my inner life. To have more time to write, read, meditate and walk with God on a consistent basis is a goal in my opinion worth only getting x number of hours of sleep. Getting up two hours earlier a day would essentially give me 14 hours a week where I can really take advantage of essential things that often I put off or don’t ever get to.  I am writing this publicly in hopes that some of you may hold me accountable and encourage me in this endeavour to become an early riser even though this concept seems foreign to me.

Shift is a student ministry conference hosted by the willow creek association and will be April 22nd-24th of 2009.

This year’s conference in my opinion looks like one of the best put together student ministry conferences in the last several years.

Speakers such as Francis Chan (Breaking Free From Complacency), Mark Holmen, Bubba Thurman (Connecting the Church and Home), David Kinnamen, Mark Matlock (Engaging Culture for Effective Ministry),  Scott Rubin, Kara Powell (Transformation that Sticks), Bill Hybels (Leadership Axioms) and Marcus Buckingham (The Truth About You) will all be there and will challenge us to the next level of where we are.

While at the Shift conference you will be able to attend 3 different breakout sessions with 14 options for each session. Okay I going to be bias and urge you to attend the following breakout session if you attend shift. C066 Developing Teenagers Through Spiritual Formation. In this session Richy Fisher, my boss and friend will help us discover what we need to do to assess spiritual formation in our youth groups.  Oh and I’ll also be there so come and say hi.

Idea:
About a month ago I had the opportunity to participate in some online training (thanks to Tony Steward) to prepare for an online bible study I will hopefully launch in about a week.  Using TokBox’s video conferencing capabilities video conferencing has never been easier or cooler.  TokBox allows you to have multiple cameras on one screen (don’t forget the headphones).

The Plan:
As of present I am working on polishing off a series on philippians to go through with the group.   I find that personal insight from scripture often times carries over much better than pre-packaged curriculum you get in the stores.  As far as advertising I am going to create a facebook group and then send out invites to everyone on our facebook fan page in our youth ministry. I also might do some print advertising, however my thought is that the tech savvy kids are probably going to be the one’s interested anyways.  We are going to meet every Wednesday night from 9pm-10pm starting the first week of school online.  When we start the sessions my hope is to spend some time in prayer, general discussion, bible study and then really challenge everyone to live their faith out practically throughout the week with a takeaway.  The hope is that at the end of the first 6 weeks in the study some of the people in the online group will be able to start their own studies with their own friends.

The Need:
The more I think about this idea and this plan, the more I feel that this ought to be a strategy that every youth ministry in the world should use for the cause of Christ.  While I’m not arguing that we should move everything online and avoid personal relationships because I’m not. I’m arguing that we ought to be using the tools God has given us to reach a people that that may be connected online but not to Christ.

sidenote: let me know if you are interested in being apart of the study even if you are just curious of how to lead one

Glue (Noun) a hard, impure, protein gelatin, obtained by boiling skins, hoofs, and other animal substances in water, that when melted or diluted is a strong adhesive.

More than 50 years ago Elmers figured out the perfect ingredients to making glue in the commercial industry.  Nothing has radically changed over these 50 years with the exception of their marketing strategy. The ingredients worked and the glue did what it needed to do ….stick to things.  These wierd yet odd substances for some reason make an extremely powerful combination that left by themselves would simply remain water and animal parts.

In today’s world, youth and college ministries need just that.  They need substances that work together to form a powerful substance, that in the end we might refer to as mature followers of Christ.  Never before has a civilization had the potential to use technology to enhance relationships through (twitter, facebook, webcams, blogs, texting, email etc….).  These  ingredients when mixed with raw genuine relationships have the potential to sustain viable relationships that are the foundational piece to disciplemaking.

As we start a new year in 2009 and as we begin to cultivate long lasting disciplemaking relationships, what ingredients will we use?