Jonathan Teague

Not Just Another Wave

2010-03-10T17:23:10Z

God is amazing! That's the first thought that comes to my mind when I think about what's been going on in the life of our student ministry over the last month. Not only at Elevate Weekend, but throughout the month of February God has been doing big things in the lives of students and parents. We saw more visitors than ever before at our Big Game Bash in early February both with our middle school students at the church and our high school students that met in homes throughout our community. We saw students prepare their hearts for Elevate by reading our online devotionals, many of which were written by students in our ministry. I believe the Spirit of God poured out in unbelievable ways at Elevate Weekend. Students were challenged to read their bibles and to love the word of God; to tuck it away in their hearts so they will know it and live it every day. Many of you as parents were encouraged by our Elevate for Parents experience and I know you were challenged to think biblically about your parenting. So many of our students carried on their experience after Elevate into Challenge Week - they practiced spiritual disciples, shared the gospel and so much more. So many people made Elevate and the entire month of February possible and I am so thankful for every one of those who served, opened their home, drove a bus, led small groups, organized our parent track - the list could go on. Everyone from staff to volunteers to parents and to students had a great month full of activity. But we get to the "end" of these times and there is a tendency to slow down, lose focus and maybe even forget all that God has been doing. I've been so blessed to hear story after story from parents and students who are getting up every morning and reading their bibles and thinking spiritually in ways they never have. Parents are praying with their students and talking as a family in ways spiritually that they never have. All of this is great, but we've got to be thinking ahead and asking God, "what's next, where do you want me to go from here?" Earlier this week I was out at Orange Beach, AL taking pictures and meeting with ministry partners in preparation for Beach Camp this summer. It was a beautiful day (a break from our rainy weather) and the sun was shining and I was enjoying a few brief moments between capturing video and pictures to just stop and watch all God has made. I watched the waves come in and go out - they were gone as quickly as they came in. This reminded me that our spiritual lives can't be dependant of riding the waves of programming and events. If there was anything we learned at Elevate it was that God desires relationship with me and me with Him. This is something that must be cultivated EVERY DAY. The normal trend in so many churches is to throw another thing on the calendar, generate a spiritual high from that and hope it sticks for a few months longer. The idea is we'll live off those isolated spiritual highs in hopes that will supplement a daily walk with God. We "ride the wave" of those moments and hope that works. So, where do we go from here? It's spring, the weather is changing, school is dragging on and there will be many days when your student will be staring out the window of history class wanting to be somewhere else. That's natural - - - what's supernatural is when you and I ignore the lull of the day to day, we stop worshipping at the altar of the urgent and we pursue a relationship with God. Today, right where you are, walk with God. Hide his word in your heart (Psalm 119:11) and challenge your student to do the same. Where do we go from here? We are gonig to continue to invite your student to serve with us this month - buy a shirt for Haiti relief, help us during spring break at the friendship house March 17, serve with us at the Forerunner Banquet March 23, come to LIFT, share the gospel - we do all of this not because it's another thing to do to keep us busy but because we believe they have incredible value. We believe they are teaching our students to take what they are learning and live it out every day. Continue to pray for us, pray for our students and pray together with your student. Model the value of God's word in your home and let's see what God will do when students and families and churches embrace these things. Remember, we love you, we're on your side and we're here for you. JT

Elevate Leader Training 1

2010-02-09T03:59:10Z

Elevate Leaders, Here is your first leader training video. Enjoy - more to come this week!

2010

2010-02-04T23:55:33Z

There is a lot going on in our world today - major events that are shaping what our world will look like tomorrow and how you and I live right now. I believe the Church should be on the front line of understanding our world and our culture so we can reach people with the gospel. For teenagers especially, there is so much happening around you everyday it's got to make you stop and really think about what your faith really is and how it should affect how you live everyday. One of the best ways to do this is to examine your passions to see if they line up with what God's Word has told us we should "hunger and thirst for..." So, what do you think our student ministry should be MOST passionate about in 2010? Love to hear your thoughts...

Seeds and Doing Something

2010-01-26T04:02:18Z

Read the story of Charlie Simpson from London, England. Won't take long but it will make you think about the potential that each of us has to make a big impact on our world. http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/01/25/uk.boy.charity.haiti/index.html?hpt=T1 If you agree with Charlie, come help us this Wednesday (January 27) raise money and pray for Haiti and help collect supplies for a new ministry here in Dallas. More on this tomorrow.

Planting Seeds of Faith

2010-01-12T05:56:16Z

Recently at our parent lunch (Jan 10, 2010) I talked about the need for parents to plant seeds of faith in the lives of their children. I had a neat experience the other day with my oldest daughter that illustrates this. For Christmas, she received a Larry Burkett money bank. It looks like a big blue plastic bank and at first I didn't know quite what to do with it. What's cool about it, though, is that it has three sections for the child to place their money. One is for the bank, one is for the store and one is for church. Now, if you know anything about Larry Burkett stuff, you know he was big on teaching money habits early. As Katelyn and I sat down together and looked at what basically amounts to a piggy-bank, I saw an opportunity you don't always get with Christmas presents. I took some loose change from my dresser and laid it out on her table in front of the bank. For the next several minutes we took quarters and nickels, dimes and pennies and dropped them in each section. As we did, I talked with her about why we give to our church, why we save money in the bank and when we can spend money at the store. Now, my daughter is 4 and likely only barely grasped these concepts. But, she was interested and involved, even if she didn't understand it all. Isn't that the key for us as parents, keep your child interested and involved in the things of God. Be creative and intentional and use every moment as an opportunity to teach and prepare because even if they don't understand it all now, they are watching and listening to you and it's in those "precious moments" that your faith can rub off just a little bit onto them and before you know it, a seed is planted. So look for seed-planting opportunities this week, they may be closer than you think.

For Leaders - Making your Personal Story Personal

2009-11-13T19:18:45Z

This weekend we've asked you as leaders to pray over, prepare and share your personal faith story with your students. As is often the case for many of us who want to do a "good job" with our students, we want to rely on notes, funny stories, something to connect with our students. Now, I will be the first in line to emphasize that when we share with our students we need to be relevant - we've got to know them as our audience. We have to recognize where they are, listen to their hearts and think about their spiritual needs. That word relevant gets thrown around a lot, especially in church circles. But can I challenge you to define the word relevant this way - REAL. For this Sunday's session (week 3 of our Evangelism curriculum) you received a brief outline that is designed to help guide you through your time of sharing with your students. Unlike most weeks where you have specific material, questions, application, etc we are asking this week that you think about three simple elements to sharing your personal faith story. What we want you to do is incorporate these elements into your story as a model for what you will teach your groups in Week 4 (where they will learn to write their faith story). I want to give you these elements again and I've added some personal things myself to help show you how this can be done. The first element to any faith story should answer the question, what was your life like before Christ? If it was me sharing, I'd say "I grew up in a strong Christian home and through the influence of family and their testimony for Christ I realized there was something different about my parents. When I asked them what it was, they taught me how Jesus had saved and changed them and I knew, even at the age of 8 that not only did I desire to be a person who followed Christ, I also realized my need to be saved because of my sin." That was my life before I was saved. I hadn't lived long enough to do a whole lot one way or the other, but I knew what was true. Your story may be similar, or it may be different. Maybe you were saved later in life and you were drawn to Christ BECAUSE of the life you were living. Either way, BE HONEST and REAL with your students. Use wisdom and tact as you share (Daniel 2:14) but be willing to tell the story - who you were before Christ came into your life. Second, be able to talk about the moment when you realized you needed to be saved and what happened as a result. For me, I was standing on the front row of Hunter's Glen Baptist Church in Plano and I knew beyond any doubt I wanted to follow Christ. I saw what I had seen in my home, I had been taught scripture and I knew there was no other way for me to be saved. So, I left my pew, walked up to my dad (who was one of the ministers at the church) and told him I wanted to know Jesus. What was that moment for you? That day, that conversation, that tragedy, that crisis, that confirmation when you realized your need for a savior? Maybe it's been a while since you've thought about this moment in your life but, remember, this was the moment when God called you and saved you. It should be the most vivid, easy to talk about moment of your life. Bigger than your wedding day, the birth of your kids, when the Cowboys won the Super Bowl - the greatest day of your eternity. For some of you, this may be an extension of the first part of your story. Your life before Christ may provide all the answer that's needed for why you became saved, and that's awesome. Again, the goal of sharing your faith story with someone is so that through the sharing of your life's experiences they begin to look at their own life and see their need for Christ. Third, answer the question, "what changed?" Many people profess Christ in the church but nothing in their life has changed in such a way as to confirm the presence of Christ in their life. So, when you became a Christian, what changed in your life? Did you quit an addiction, see your marriage restored, watch your relationships change? Did you have more joy, more peace and a deeper assurance about life and eternity? Did the words of scripture come alive as you read them and did you sense a deep longing to know God more and more? For me, because I was saved at a young age, much of my life didn't change. In fact, I kept doing what I had been doing. I went to church, read my bible, prayed and even shared my faith with others. It was only later in my early days of college that I realized that was exactly what was supposed to happen in my life. I was growing in my faith. But for a long time I didn't FEEL like I was saved because my story wasn't like some of my friends who had been rescued from drugs, alcohol, etc. It was in college that I realized and understood God's plan and call for my life and I now see, looking back, what God was doing to prepare me for the life I lead now. It was a process and a journey. I truly believe that had I not made that decision to follow Christ my life would be totally different. So what changed in your life? This is the part of your story where we get to talk about the change Christ brings i n our lives. Again, be as specific and real as you can and keep the focus on what CHRIST has done in your life. A lot of our students have grown up in church and that's a good thing - it's part of my story. But there comes a point for all of us where we have to take ownership of our faith - where we express our walk with Christ on a personal level. This was one of my challenges as a "christian kid" - learning to make my faith my own. One of the greatest ways we find that ownership is when we are able to reflect back on what Christ has really done in OUR lives. A walk with Christ is personal and the story of that journey is something you and I are called to share with those around us (see 2 Corinthians 5:15-20). That's our message this weekend so share your story boldly and honestly and remember, as you're sharing you're really teaching your students that a walk with Christ can be real. JT

Why I don't hate the church - and neither should you! Part 1

2009-07-28T03:58:08Z

Recently I've been listening to different people share their commentary on the state of the Church. Friends and acquaintances from various walks of life have surprised and challenged me with their thoughts. Maybe it's just me, but a lot of people seem to be "down" on the Church. What I mean is, there seems to be this deep restlessness with "church people" about what the Church is doing - or maybe just their overall experience - or maybe they've just never really liked it - I don't know. Maybe I need to get out more but it just seems like when you get people, especially people who go to church regularly, talking about church, it just always seems to quickly become a frustrating conversation. It's fascinating because you would think that the people that go to church would love the church. Yet it's mostly these people (and I'd have to include myself at different times in my life in this assessment) who have the fewest compliments to give about their church situation. Instead it's, "I don't agree with leadership" or "they're always asking for money but we never do anything" or "there's nothing here for me". The reasons for church dissatisfaction can vary and, in our minds, are almost always valid. I was watching a very popular pastor on YouTube a few days ago and he was talking about the demise of denominationalism in American churches. Better said, people are tired of celebrating what divides them (this was his point). He commented that the only real distinction for say, the baptists, is that they dunk people in baptism while others might sprinkle. This got me thinking - for a lot of church people, the kind of church they go to should be a big deal. People choose the "brand" of church they attend for a defined list of reasons, right? Maybe not anymore. Maybe now, more than ever, we have a generation of people who have grown up and done church for maybe their entire life and what used to draw them to their particular church doesn't, well, draw them anymore. What's more scary, maybe it never did. For some, I'm sure this was true - they saw the name on the sign, associated that name with certain beliefs, met some people like them, liked the preaching or the music and, boom, they were plugged in. These were what I've heard some call "the golden days" of ministry. When things were less difficult and drawing people to come to church had way more to do with that list I just gave you than anything else. Parents engaged their kids into church life because it was the "right thing to do" and this seemed to gel with the generational mantra that church-going builds "the right character". But was it real for those parents, those kids? I don't know - only God can really answer that question. What I do know, and this was not nor is not true for everyone, is those experiences and feelings birthed a deep discord with what you and I now call church. That is why I believe we see some "new" churches growing and overtaking established churches in different communities not just in attendance but in the individual personal passion index of it's attenders. Not because God no longer loves people in older, established churches but because some of the people in those churches have become stale and have lost their vision. The monotiny of the routine of their church has lulled them into a casual attitude that ultimately has produced a diminished desire to serve, lead, pray for and love their church. What's crazy is, if you asked them if they loved their church, they would emphatically answer "yes". So where's the disconnect? Why doesn't that love translate into their church experience. Why do those same people complain and get frustrated about their church and, sometimes, end up leaving the church they say they love? Part Two...coming soon

Bible Fellowship Vision 2009-2010

2009-07-15T22:17:40Z

Something hit me pretty hard while we were in Boston - we serve an incredible group of students! As I saw our students labor in ministry together, I recognized our students love being together, they love being challenged, and they DESIRE real community and authentic experiences when they come to church. This summer the staff and I really pondered how to continue to provide real community and authentic experiences on Sunday mornings and have come up with some next steps we want you to help us apply in our groups this year. This year we want your commitment to be centered on the particular group of students you feel called to lead. For some of you, this may mean "moving up" with the group you led this year, continuing to walk with them and build deeper relationships and trust. Others of you primarily filled a teaching role this year or the group you've led for several years has graduated - perhaps there is a group of students you have a burden for and feel called to serve. Just as we believe strongly that our teaching this year helped lay a great foundation of knowledge for our students, now this year we want to grow our vision by flowing the experience of Sunday morning through your direct, consistent and ongoing presence as the leader(s) for your group of students. So many of you expressed your giftedness of teaching and/or care ministry this year. We want you to continue doing this as you direct that gifted onto one group of students for the entire year (and possibly longer if God leads you in that direction). Through your continued and identifiable presence each week, we believe your ability to communicate and lead your students will be strengthened as they grow to know and trust you more. So many of our leaders could tell stories of how walking with a group of students for several years enabled them to build deep and lasting relationships that you can see the richness of during times like our Senior Robing ceremony and Senior service on Choir Tour. Those moments are waiting for all of you - as you commit to walk closely with a group of students for one or two years or maybe all of their high school experience. We will continue to provide you curriculum that will be taught in 6 to 8 week blocks. To provide more consistency, we'll be asking that all our groups study the same block of material at the same time. This will allow us to better define the first 10-15 minutes of the BF hour and present opportunities to build more creativity into that time. We will still provide "breaks" in the schedule for you and use those times for our Fundamentals track. We are still moving forward on the teaching plan we launched last year. Our topics this year will include: a study on how to share your faith effectively, a study of the book "UnChristian," bible book studies over Esther and James and a study on Biblical Ethics. As you make a renewed and deeper commitment to our ministry and students this year, I want you to know that we are going to make a deeper commitment to develop you as a leader. This will come in the form of large group meetings, one on one times with staff, blogs, emails, videos and other resources. These will be put in place to help you grow as a leader so you can better fulfill what God has called you to do in the lives of students. I want our focus this year to be on this question: where is God inviting me to join him and am I prepared to follow Him? I believe many of you already know the answer to that question and many more of you, through prayer and thought, will arrive at God's answer for you. In all this, be praying for our students and know that I am specifically, by name, praying for you. Leading students is not always easy, it often requires patience, a listening heart and a lot of love. Our students will push us with the craziness of being a teenager and then blow us away with their passion for Christ all at the same time. As I've told many friends over the years, there's nothing like working with students! Let's make this a great year on Sunday mornings - where we come prepared to see God move every week and come excited to lead the students God has called us to help grow deeper in their walk with Him. This means all of us will need to commit to grow deeper in our own walk, to lay down any barriers and hindrances that may keep us from fulfilling God's call and plan for the students He's given us. Consecrate yourselves as leaders; bathe your ministry in prayer and then stand back and see what all a great God can do when we let go and trust Him. I can't wait to work with you this year and I can't wait to see and experience what all He is going to do.

John and Kate plus 1 (for Parents)

2009-06-25T20:25:36Z

Proverbs 18:22 (The Message): Find a good spouse and you find a good life - and even more: the favor of God! This past week, my wife and I sat down to watch one of our favorite shows, "John and Kate Plus 8". If you've been following the news even remotely, you know what's been going on in the lives of these two parents and this family. The intent of this show, and why Michelle and I like it so much, was to highlight the uniqueness of raising "multiples" in today's culture. The focus always seems to be the kids: the victories, stories, stresses, wins and losses that come with that and parenting in general. John and Kate often refer to it as a "journey", and I'm sure that's what it's been. But this week's episode brought to the forefront the reality of life and our consummate inability to see that marriage can become a very broken thing but also one that doesn't have to be held together by spiritual duct tape. The breakdown of this most recent celebrity marriage is one that, as Kate put it, can be added to the statistics column of our culture. Parents who just couldn't make it work and the kids who will now have to live with it. A husband who struggled to communicate and a wife who struggled to let go of the control she worked so hard to obtain. Does this sound familiar to anyone else in the room? This really isn't a new story - it's been happening to families and marriages forever and the answers to why and the strategies for prevention don't always come easy. I know everyone has their opinions and maybe a certain measure of distaste for the way things have ended up for this family and this couple. But there is a deeper reality for marriage that as Christ-followers we should consider...marriage is a sacred thing. A combining of two people into one; the joining of two lives, backgrounds, families, experiences, beliefs, values and habits into one. This is usually, and maybe by design, a messy and exciting process and one that requires patience, understanding, a little arguing and the preeminence of the love of Christ. For those of us whose lives are not judged throught the lens of our fame like John and Kate's (whether that was their choice or not), it's easy for us to sit on the side line of non-primetime TV life and speculate as to why this couple didn't make it. In considering the title for the show, I think they got it right - John and Kate are presented as one person, one unit, one team as they often called it, doing life together surrounded by this little community of people they simply call their "kids". Whether they meant to communicat this or not, it's there. Here's my question - would you be willing to invite a camera into your house? Watch you raise your kids, live your life and practice the art of marital oneness for millions to critique? And even if you did, what would you adjust or tweek about how you went about your day to present the image that you had things under control? Would you and I have the courage to do life out in the open and be ready to live with the consequences and reap the rewards? What you and i need to remember is that is already happening. God sees who we are because he knows who we are because he made us. And, he made marriage with a very defined goal - to make two people one and, in doing so, reflect his glory and his goodness. This is not an instantaneous process and it takes work - concepts our culture struggles with mightily. I'm sad for this couple and I hope they reconcile and find restoration; but not just for their kid's sake. I think more often than not in our culture, people stay married for the wrong reasons (maybe because they got married for the wrong reasons). I don't know if that's the case for this couple, but if you're married and struggling to stay connected in oneness with your spouse, recognize that you don't HAVE to give up. Marriage is a covenant not mean to be broken. That's not a slam on this couple or anyone out there who's been divorced or is going through that process right now. That's just what scripture says. I have no idea if anyone shared this concept with John and Kate Gosselin. Several times throughout the course of the show they quietly and not-so-quietly presented themselves as a Christian family. So you and I should pray for them but also consider the truth that must be gleaned - this TV show is going to have to search for a new title because what used to be one couple and eight children has now become two parents and eight children. We should also see that there must be hope, whether it's for John and Kate or you or someone you know who is struggling in their marriage today. There is hope in Christ for any marriage, any broken relationship. Don't give up; choose to ground your life and marriage in Christ. In a world where it is tempting to live as two, strive to live as one.

Are you on the Journey (part 3)...

2009-06-25T20:24:05Z

Take a minute and listen to Charlie Foster's story about what Christ has done in his life. Charlie was baptized Sunday, June 28 at our church and we are very proud of him.

Charlie's Journey from FBCC Students on Vimeo.

For Bible Fellowship Leaders

2009-06-04T20:18:31Z

Leaders, thanks for checking out some important summer teaching information, I hope this helps you prepare for the month of June. As you know, June 7 marked the end of our last 6 weeks set of classes for this school year. Which leaves the question, what's next? Here's your answer: beginning Sunday, June 14, we are going to be showing a series on video-driven lessons designed to keep our students thinking and growing even in the summer months. The series is called "Nooma" - some of you may have heard of it and/or used it before or you've heard of it's "author", Rob Bell. Nooma is a video-driven teaching tool that makes subtle biblical points through the dynamic medium of video. You can look into the Nooma website for more details about this ministry. I think our students are really going to enjoy these topics. I want to help develop your role for this initiative which will last from Sunday, June 14 to Sunday, August 16. That totals 9 lessons (I'm not counting July 5 because a vast majority of our High School students and leaders will be in Boston). We'll begin each week with what we'll call the set-up time. During this time, we'll highlight important ministry reminders and then quickly set up the theme for the day. This will take about 10 minutes. Then, we'll show the Nooma video for that day. Each video is about 10-12 minutes in length. After the video, we'll dismiss our students to their breakout groups for discussion and reflection. The groups will be organized by Care Group. So, 9th girls together, 11th guys together and so on. Whether you were assigned to be a care group leader or a course teacher this year, I need you ready to help facilitate these groups. If you were only a course teacher this year, let me know what care group you'd like to help with ASAP. You will be provided with a lesson plan each week to help you prepare. Many of you may be asking, "can we watch the video ahead of time?" Though we would love to provide that for you, copyright features will not alow us to do so. Instead, when I send out your lesson plan each week, we'll include a brief description of the video to help preparep you as best as we can. If that can change, I'll let you know and we will provide it for you. So, that's it. I look forward to seeing how God is going to use this tool this summer to minister to our students. Please let me know if you have any questions or just leave me a comment below. Thank you for all your guys do to love our students!

We've Got Issues Part 2 - Addictions

2009-06-03T17:19:12Z

I hope that you had a chance to hear Joey and Allison speak about the issue of abortion last week. They did a great job and definitely laid out the issue in a thought-provoking way. If you haven't had a chance yet, check out his blog notes. This week I'll be speaking to you on the topic of addictions. No, this is not going to be a self-help recovery talk or look anything like a 12 step program. Those are not bad things and have helped a lot of people. But remember the premise of this series is to help you as a Christ-follower know how to engage these topics through the lens of your faith and help you as you start and participate in spiritual conversations with friends, family or whoever. We'll cover this issue from a biblical standpoint, so we'll be living in Galatians 5:1, "it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Interpretively, Paul is speaking about several things here including the insufficiency of the Law to save us, why we don't have to be circumcised anymore as a sign of covenant, etc. This would have been important for his Jewish readers because by saying Christ has set us free, it means I am released from the pursuit of a checklist in order to be right with God. Now, I simply come to Christ and let his redeeming work take hold in me. As we look at the topic of addictions, in teenager culture especially, it's easy to see that they can become a "yoke of slavery" in our lives; just like religious activity, misunderstanding scripture and works-based salvation. These things can be just as addictive and enslaving to us as any substance can. The goal, then, is to see that since Christ set us free to be free, we need to live free. That doesn't mean we live outside of boundaries or "do whatever we want". That's not freedom, that reckless rebellion and it can be destructive. No, we rest in the freedom of Christ knowing that in Him, I have everything I need, therefore I no longer need to puruse things that, by their nature, if I allow them, will enslave me through the master of addiction. And don't think addictions are just the easy ones to identify like drugs, pornography or alcohol. Addictions can creep into our lives in many different ways. Their source is my flesh and my tendency to sin but their existnece in my life is a result of me not resting in Christ's freedom but believing the lie that I need something else to fulfill me and give me peace. There are a lot of reasons why people turn to addictive things or do addictive things and we'll explore those tomorrow night. We'll also look at how to break addictions, specifically as Christians, and how to avoid them altogether. I hope you can make it, I'll see you then!

Are you on The Journey?

2009-05-04T21:59:31Z

This past Sunday I baptized three people, two of them are students in the Student Ministry. Both are in high school and both have amazing stories of how God took their lives and changed them forever. We talk a lot about stories and testimonies, things God has done and ways we are thankful. I don't think we do enough in church anymore of actually letting you hear those stories. So, rather than me write about these students, I thought I'd let you listen to them tell their story of how their journeys with Christ started. Pay attention and listen closely, it might make you ask the question, am I on The Journey? Watch Miranda's story Watch Todd's story

Seven Words

2009-03-13T19:53:00Z

Lots of people are doing the 'blog' thing now more than ever. It's become a pretty dynamic tool for marketing and pushing ideas forward. As we think and plan as a staff team, we want to place in front of you creative and relevant avenues to move the message and mission of our church. That's my goal with this particular blog. I promise random family vacation pictures will not be an element of this piece but, from time to time, I am going to land stories, principles and ideas here for us to contemplate together. I'd like for this to be a place where students, parents and leaders can interact with me as a pastor and staff leader but also as a co-laborer in Christ. I really hope you'll feel free to drop a comment or counter argument as I try to present an honest reflection of this Journey Christ has called us to. Some weeks will be targeted to ministry leaders, providing training and challenge for the work God has given us. Other weeks will be a call to deeper family life for parents and their teenagers. Still other weeks might just be my responses to cultural trends, their place in the Church and their impact on families in and outside of church. I hope this will be a useful, informative and thought-provoking platform of ideas and insights that is useful to you in your walk. I'll try to land a post as close to every week as possible but our goal is quality of content over quantity of content so please keep that in mind. For today, I'll leave you with what has become one of the most challenging passages of scripture in my life; John 3:30 which says, "he must increase, but I must decrease". Seven words that should drive the core of my faith and beg the question, who is this life for, me or Christ? If it's not me, then I have to surrender to the alternative and the answer, Jesus Christ and him crucified. The challenge, the Journey, becomes moving the message of my life away from me letting the focus fall on Him. Jude 24-25, Jonathan