Time With Alvin Reid

I had the privilege of sitting with some of the great minds in Youth Ministry over the past few days. And so I’ll share with you over a couple blogs some nuggets of truth I gleaned from them.

Dr. Alvin Reid spoke for an hour to us and here’s some notes that I took from that.

“Don’t let your kids graduate high school without going to a 3rd world country. Let them see the world that is out there.”

Acts 11:22-26 22News of this reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23When he arrived and saw the evidence of the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. 24He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord. 25Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

**this is a significant turning point in the scriptures.
**there was a movement that was beginning with lay people (verse 19).

Barnabas gives a great model for what the leader must have or exemplify:
1) Vision- verse 23- Barnabas saw the vision because he was looking for it.
2) Faith-you have great faith because of the vision.
3) Encourage- he rejoiced and encouraged them
4) Example- verse 24- Be a Godly example to others. “I want to plant trees that I never sit under”-Dr. Reid
5) Life on Life- verse 25- mentoring. Barnabas took a guy named Saul and mentored him for a year.
6) Instruction- verse 26- taught the people for 1 year
7) Impact- first called Christians. Understood missional living.

A Week with Brian Mills

Keith and I had the privilege of spending 4 days with one of the top youth pastors in America, Brian Mills of Second Baptist Houston. It was great time of hanging out and just getting inside this guys head and getting his thoughts on all things youth ministry. It's so great to get a fresh take on this whole world of students, and to get that from a guy like Brian was amazing.
He's the real deal.
It's been awhile since my last blog, and I kinda got convicted since Brian blogs 5 times a day(and they're all really good). So, I decided to add some entries. Here's just some of the stuff that I gleaned from my time with Brian.

Brian has been at 2nd Baptist for about 14 months now so I asked him, "what were some of the first things you did when you got to 2nd Baptist in Houston?"

He said that the first meeting he had with his youth staff he did 3 things:
1) Set the vision and purpose for the ministry. “Everything flows from the vision.”
2) Set expectations for the youth staff. He gave them goals and requirements to be apart of that staff.
3) He began meeting with 3 people every week. He would meet with a principal, a coach and a volunteer youth worker every week.

**He said that you have to be very intentional with what you do. It must have purpose behind it.

He also made an analogy about the direction of his youth ministry, but I felt it's true in all cases. He said that in his youth ministry they’re on a 8 lane highway headed to downtown Houston. “We’re headed the right way, but I want to get us into the HOV lane. We need to be more focused with what we are doing. We’re not going to teach 2 topics a week, one on Sunday and one on Wednesday, but 1 topic for the whole week on Sunday and Wednesday."

You've got to be intentional in everything you do.