Archive for October 2012

Two A Days 4 The Holidays!

By Steve | Published Wednesday, October 31, 2012

In case you have not noticed, IT"S THE MOST WONDEFUL TIME OF THE YEAR! I'm not sure what I like so much about it, maybe it's the crisp air, falling leaves, colors of trees ( I only dreamed about in kindergarten in El Paso Texas), football, crisp air, apples, apple cider, fire pits, Halloween night seeing friends and neighbors, fall festivals, pumpkins, pumpkin bread, pumpkin spice lattes, carving jack-o-lanterns with my family, corn stalks, corn mazes, hay rides, the smell of fall, scented candles, waking up on Thanksgiving day, pilgrims, roasting marshmallows and Macy's Thanksgiving day parade, or just that... "God is in it all!"


However, if you read into that previous paragraph, there are a lot of calories in that description. There is conflicting research as to what the average amount of weight gain is from Halloween to New years but it averages out to about 7 - 10 pounds. So with a little inspiration from Mean Dean Peters a good friend of mine, who has lost A TON of weight and is doing two weeks of two-a-days.  I'm starting my own version of two-a-days tomorrow, but mine will last until the end of the year. I'm not in this to compete with Dean or one up him, I'm using his two-a-days as inspiration! How am I doing it:

As of tomorrow (when I start) there will be 62 days till the end of the year and most people gain 10 lbs between now and the end of the year. How am I going to keep that off? Simply by working out twice-a-day. Here is what I figured out for myself. On average I burn about 325 calories at the gym every morning, I'm going to double my daily calories burned from now until the end of the year. So daily it will be my goal to burn 650 calories. Nothing complex about that!

What's that? You don't even workout once a day? Well it's time to start!


If you want to find out how I'm doing... Check back here often, check my Facebook or follow me on Twitter @youthguru.

I would also love for you to join me! Who needs to wait for a New Year, let's start tomorrow morning! Who's in... If you are, check in often and let me know how it's going, tell me your progress and tell me what you are doing to exercise each day!  LET'S DO THIS!


PS: If you want a great little app that tracks your weight, caloric intake and calories burned, check out the LoseIt app, it has helped me lose 35 pounds.





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Conflicted between Obama and Romney!

By Steve

This past Sunday I was blessed to sit and listen to a sermon by a youth pastor friend of mine that got to preach in BIG church. His topic was on conflict and at one point he put up the picture to the right. I created the one that is there, not sure of the writing is correct but you get my gist. He went on to talk about what he called the, "Butch Principal" which is basically two people coming together that have a conflict. They simply move the conflict aside. Then come together with things you have in common, like Christ for example, you also own part of the conflict and start to discuss it, but you must move the conflict off to the side first.

As you "own" and "discuss" it you must be:

Open to correction (Proverbs 12:1)
Control Your emotions (Proverbs12:16, Proverbs 15:18)
Willing to listen, because you don;t have all the answers and some of your facts mat be out of whack!

You don't want to own it... Well think about this. You were once in conflict with God... AND HE OWNED IT!  Philippians 2.

As we move closer to the election may we as believers begin to be open to correction, control your emotions and be willing to listen. I'd also encourage you to realize that all 15 people running for office are loved by God and we should be praying for them. May I also remind you that neither the president or Congress has the power to ultimately change this country. I believe that God gave that mandate to the church! So... let's quit bickering, set the conflicts aside and get busy!

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Quit going to your kids lunch!

By Steve | Published Monday, October 22, 2012


I came across this article on the one of the forums that I’m a part of on Facebook and thought it would be a lead in to what I’m about to say.



After reading the article I sense that the Buchanan’s have some serious issues with pastors or youth pastors in general being on campus. They say that, “Allowing the minister to attend lunches with the students when no other person not affiliated with the schools are able to do so represents an endorsement of religious beliefs, according to the lawsuit.”  I speak for myself here but I kind of agree with them. If in fact that no other community leaders are allowed to be there is just plain wrong. After 25 years of student ministry I can honestly say that at times my intentions were not only to meet with my students but to hopefully meet their friends also, which in turn I would hope would break down some walls and allow my students to invite their friends to our youth ministry. Do I think this is all youth pastor's attention... NO! But, right or wrong.. that was “my intention”.

I might also say that we as youth pastors need to take a different approach to this. Here is what I propose:

#1 Take on the attitude of a servant, humble yourself and ask if the principal will allow you to take them to lunch or coffee. In my last position I took the principal out to lunch and she said to me, “In the 25 years I have been a principal no youth pastor has ever asked me to lunch!:” That was the start of a great relationship because she did not think I had an agenda. Honestly... I didn't! While at this meeting explain that you serve students also and want to be a resource for him/her. At this point you have several options:

- Volunteer to coach a sport of you have experience in that area.
- Volunteer to cut out paper planes or whatever needs to be done.
- Volunteer to help out at after prom or football games. (For years now we have    worked the allnighters at after prom.

#2 Volunteer to help out with PTSO. They are always looking for volunteers, and you get to minister to adults not just students at all kind’s of events.

#3 Start a teen center! I know this is a radical idea, but because we built a teen center we have set ourselves up to serve our community and the teens that live in it. This center also affords us to go to school assemblies to promote the center, to back to school night to talk to parents. It has even allowed us to work with the administration and teachers and allow us to take the community service program off their plates. We have taken well over 1000 students in community service projects in our community for their benefit. You can check out the center at: EDGE

These are just a few ideas that go beyond the one sided, “Hey can I have lunch with my kids dilemma!”

Now... Let me hear your thoughts and ideas you have used!

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Bullying Is Real?

By Steve | Published Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Today is National Bully Prevention Day and in honor of that I’d thought I’d share a story from one of the programs I participate in.

Several weeks ago I was one of the speakers at a program called ID Project. It is a program that was presented at a local junior high by ChangePoint. ChangePoint creates learning experiences to create environments where students discover themselves, their peers and empathy at a deeper level. These discoveries unlock innate compassion for others creating a radical positive change in the social climate of a school.

During this program we have a time at the very end called, “Open Mic,” this is where we allow students to take a few moments to go and apologize to someone else in the room they may have wronged. This is a tough thing to do for an ordinary adult, even tougher for an 8th grader sitting in a room of 150 other 8th grade boys!

After a LONG pause the time began and a boy stood up next to me and told me whom he needed to apologize to. So we walked across the room and he began to say, John Smith (names have been changed) I just want to apologize for ______________, I won’t do it again. Would you accept my apology? Then John has the right to say yes or no.

This went on several more minutes before we began to see a pattern, a pattern of people apologizing to John Smith! After the 5th boy stood up and wanted to apologize, (Mind you John is in tears and the boys that are apologizing are tearing up!) Pete stopped and said, “Who else in this room needs to apologize to John? Because... this is not fair to him! If you need to apologize please come over here and stand.” After that statement over 20 boys stood up and headed Pete’s direction. I looked at Pete, he looked at me in disbelief! In my head I’m thinking, this is unbelievable... this kid is a ticking time bomb about to go off! I just want to lay into all of these boy’s... LET’S GO! But then I remembered what we keep telling kids during this time... “HURT PEOPLE... HURT PEOPLE!” and I wondered what had happened in these boys lives to make them do this? Pete had each of these boy’s apologize to John, one by one. Then as if on cue, after the 15th or 16th boy finished, 20 more boys stood up and walked and stood next to Pete. I was not sure what was happening! But, surely they did not need to apologize also? As these new boys took the mic, they each simply said, “John, I want to apologize. Apologize for not being there for you, not sticking up for you and being clueless as to what was happening to you! It will never happen again! Would you accept my apology?”

We were blown away... as time wound down on this portion of the program we gave them a 15 minute break and we chatted with some of the teachers in the room, they had no idea this was happening. As a matter of fact we found out at our closing evaluation that John’s youth pastor was one of the leaders that day, he had no idea either. The next day when we did the girls program John’s mom was one of the small group leaders. After she had finished the day we explained to her what had happened the day before with John, she was shocked and in tears.

Many of you may have the feeling that teens and kids just need to toughen up, be stronger, quit whining, honestly I don’t disagree with some of those statements. But the real truth is, bullying is real... kids face it every day, many times it goes untold to anyone in authority for fear of payback. You see unlike us, that used party lines to talk to friends this is a highly connected generation of teens. They have to deal with social media and texting the bullying continues when they reach, what is supposed to be the safe haven of their homes!

If you really believe that something needs to change and if you want to do more than where orange, repost this on Facebook, then call or text someone that you have been mean or rude to, even if it was years ago. Even if it was the smallest, most insignificant thing. Call or text that person, right now, and apologize.

Now for the shameless plug... If you want to take it a step further, tell your administrators, counselors, principals and congressman about ChangePoint. We would love to come to the schools in your area. We have some compelling evidence as well as stories of major shifts in students' perspectives after participating in this program from a study done in a local school district.

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