Youth from ground zero

These days I have been unusually busy! What with meetings at our church every night this week and spending a lot of time at our H

igh school I have been having to make sure to spend time with my family and God!! So right now with all that is going on I need to REALLY look for inspiration! I hope this helps!! So the first place I always look is a Bible. That should be where most of your inspiration comes from. I get inspiration from just about anywhere. Use the newspaper; current events are always good to keep your messages relevant. The TV; the shows that they are watching are great to use. It tells them that you und

erstand them and their culture. They will relate to you better knowing that you can relate to them. The local schools; Use the schools in their communities to help bring ho

me your point. Using an illustration from their school paper, use their school teams in your message. Use other ministries; yes it is OK to borrow other

guys stuff! Like I have said before borrow their stuff make it look like your own and make you look like a genius! They will think you are great! I even use MTV! Not too often but again use what you can to let them know that you are not some old geezer who still uses the old story that goes, “when I was your age” Let them know that you mostly understand their culture and lives! But my biggest form of inspiration if from the Word! You cannot give what you don’t have! Give out of your excess not your lack! The more filled up you are, the more effective communicator you will be! If you really have revelation of what you are telling your youth they will get it! If you don’t you will loose them! I went through a time where I was so busy doing “life” that I did not have time to prepare my sermons. I was working full time at my regular job and only barely part time as a youth pastor. It was so frustrating to try to come up with a world changing message every week in a couple of hrs! I found that getting the inspiration in the 2 hrs I had allotted for my sermon writing time was not nearly adequate. So for a while my youth either got a “canned” message or we watched a video. I did not like it, the canned message or the video. The whole concept of trying to make the meetings filet mignon and ending up with canned ham drove me nuts! Something had to be done! But what? I decided that I simply needed to set more time aside for inspiration! I had no more time! Then it came to me. An epiphany! Inspiration and sermons did not always come when I set aside time so I used any time I had to #1 Pray, #2 meditate on the youth group & the Word and #3 write down anything I came up with anytime it came to me! At first I wrote on scrap paper, napkins, toilet paper, anywhere inspiration struck I would write it down! I eventually switched to a palm pilot, day timer, computer or whatever, but the point is I learned to use what time and resources I had! Even when I became full time at my church I still found myself running out of “inspiration” time. When I first started especially I was doing the youth less then half of the time I was at work! So even full time I still had to search for time. These tips on inspiration will work no matter where you are in ministry!

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