Archives For Ministry

I ordered the Voice of the Martyrs DVD entitled “Underground Reality – Vietnam” after hearing that there was a new curriculum based around the DVD and that used clips from the DVD.

From the back of the DVD –

What would happen when eight ordinary teens set out on a mission to meet the underground church in Vietnam? Now you can travel with The Voice of the Martyrs and a group of American and Australian teenagers through the cities, jungles and everyday life of the Vietnamese underground church. A journey that started with a single mission to smuggle Bibles and ended with the dramatic reality of harassment, persecution and a courageous faith like none of them had witnessed before.

I watched all four episodes on this DVD in the last two weeks to review it before showing it in our youth Sunday School setting and was blown away.

I love the raw, real-ness that this disc exemplifies. I love that it includes real-teens with real-emotions and real-conversations.

I hope my students respond to seeing this DVD with their faith reignited.

I just got heart-wrecked by the Holy Spirit during an online-simulcast of the VERGE 2010 conference happening this weekend in Austin, TX. My sister happens to be there enjoying the conference live and in-person.

I caught Francis Chan’s message tonight on what it means to be “missional” and how DOING is much more important than thinking about doing, or talking about doing, or planning on doing.

One point he made is that when he tells his daughter to go clean her room she doesn’t go off to her room and come back with a statement of, “Dad, I heard what you said and I memorized it.” He even joked a bit saying that she wouldn’t come back to him and tell him that she could “even repeat it in the original Greek”…

The opening session of the conference finished with 2000 people at the church on their knees before a Holy God pouring out their hearts and asking Him to lead them to DO. I was 1500 miles away and I was pouring out my heart in the same manner in my own living room.

I know from Scripture that we will be judged on what we’ve done with what we know through the Gospel. Not on how well we’ve studied it, not on how well we have it memorized, but on how we applied it and LIVED it.

So.. Christian brothers and sisters, what are YOU doing with the Truth of the message of Jesus Christ?

If you want to catch the live-stream of the conference like I did tonight – they will be streaming the main sessions on their website here tomorrow and Saturday, too!

UPDATE: Found a great blog post from someone who took EXCELLENT notes during the session here. Seriously – even if you only skimmed my thoughts above, you MUST read this post!

34 students from our youth group (ARMY 6:12) and the Hempfield Church of Christ gathered on Sunday afternoon through Monday evening for our 30 Hour Famine. Together, the students raised nearly $1100, and thanks to World Vision we are able to earmark that donation to go to hungry children in Haiti! I was extremely proud of our students as they suffered through a 30-hour fast to support the needs of others!

Here is our slideshow from the event:

Youth Pastor/Screenwriter Jim Britts sat down with Youth Specialties’ web-guy Adam McLane and filmed a great “behind the movie” interview answering some of the questions surrounding the movie, “To Save A Life” that is coming to theaters on January 22nd.

Here is the link to the video interview.

My buddy Brian Holland just posted this great highlight video from the Louisville, KY LOVE MERCY convention –


Love Mercy 2009 KY from Brian Holland on Vimeo.