Things I Don’t Regret When Looking Back Ten Years All of this started with a project to review and organize our family photos over the Christmas break. 15,600 photos later, I sat back in awe of God’s goodness and the fast passing of time. I was overwhelmed by two thoughts. The first had to do [...]
Principles that Rise to the Surface When Looking Back Ten Years Ecclesiastes 3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: Psalm 1:3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also [...]
Reaching Students, Nurturing Life Change, and Seeing Them Stay Faithful for Life If we were sitting at a coffee shop and you asked me, “If you could give one practical word of advice to a youth pastor regarding reaching students, seeing their lives changed, and watching them grow up faithful to God—what would it be?” [...]
Why Have a Student Ministry Dress Standard In our last two articles we began considering the question, “Does God care what we wear?” Again, so many responded positively to these articles! In a day when sloppier and sleezier is finding its way into the church and the Christian home, may we reconsider clear biblical principles [...]
Four Reasons We Fail to Accomplish Our Best Intentions As you are staring at a New Year, you’ve probably started setting some goals, making some decisions, and laying out plans. We all have a TON of good intentions. But, if you really think about it, good intentions never accomplished a thing! When it comes to [...]
Ten Ways to Have a December You Will Never Forget or Regret Several days ago I sat down and wrote out 10 commitments I wanted to make before the Lord this month. I later shared them with our Senior Highers in our Wednesday night Bible study. Perhaps they could encourage you. We hear the word [...]
Are you passionate about living a balanced life—about being a good steward of your life and time? Do you desire to get more done more effectively and yet still have family time, rest, and restoration? I sure do. I’ve tried to be a student of time and life management—to redeem the time that God gives [...]
Taking a Good Look at 2009 Before It Begins Over ten years ago, Pastor Chappell began having our leadership team at Lancaster Baptist Church prepare “ministry planners” for each new year. Our planner meeting is this week and our ministry leaders have spent a good amount of time in recent days preparing their planners. I [...]
A Little Helpful Insight from Our Family Antics Yesterday, a little after noon, we finally loaded up in the car and began our traditional, annual family trek to Northern California for Thanksgiving. We’ve made this trip eighteen times now, so we’ve gone from “middle-of the-night-driving” with kids in diapers to “middle-of-the-day-driving” with kids watching Buzz [...]
Why I Decided to Start Using Twitter Why blog? Why Twitter? Is there a good reason for these things? That is the question I’ve been asking myself for the past year or so. I’m not usually an “early adopter” of potentially harmful things. Rather, I like to study, to watch, to pray, and to consider. [...]
Why Have a Student Ministry Dress Standard In our last issue we began briefly considering the question, “Does God care what we wear?” So many of you responded positively to this series of articles and I appreciate your feedback! In a day when sloppier and sleezier is finding its way into the church and the [...]
Why Have a Student Ministry Dress Standard As a youth pastor I am often asked about dress standards—from teens, from parents, and from other youth leaders. Do we have a dress standard? What is it? How do we enforce it? Why do we have one? What about visitors? The questions and the reasonings sometimes seem [...]
Helping Your Teen through Some of Life’s Toughest Years In the past few articles we have been considering the radical physical changes that all teenagers experience between the ages of twelve and twenty. In this article, I want to turn your attention to the emotional changes. First let’s discuss the symptoms. Have you seen your teenager [...]
Rediscovering that a Godly Life is Still a Good Life! This book/personal study and the accompanying curriculum is designed to help young adults develop not only a godly heart, but a godly lifestyle to match! It exposes the myth that God doesn’t care how we behave, He only cares about our heart. It calls Christians [...]
Helping Your Teen Through Some of Life’s Toughest Years In the past two articles we have begun discussing the radical changes that teenagers experience, and how parents and spiritual leaders should respond to those changes. In the last edition, we focused primarily on external physical changes—which are many. In these next few paragraphs we will [...]
