From Sampler to Sower

At Water’s Edge, we believe in friendship evangelism, and we understand that our job it to equip teenagers to share their faith with their friends. Our goal is to design a weekly youth program which makes sharing your faith is as easy as saying “Hey, do you want to come to Water’s Edge with me?” But how does a youth ministry make sure they are equipping their teens to reach out in this way, rather than using a professed faith in friendship evangelism as a way to pass the buck of responsibility for evangelism to their teens?

This weekend I’ll be leading a couple workshops entitled “Building a Friend-Friendly Youth Event” at our District’s fall retreat.  That really has me thinking about friendship evangelism and how we equip our teens for it.  In my mind there are two closely related aspects to success in this area.  The first is to unleash the power of the personal invitation.  The second is to practice hospitality so that when the invitation is accepted, guests are more likely to stick.  I’ll be tackling these two topics in a couple of posts.  And I’d love to have some feedback before I head off to retreat.  Sound off in the comments below.

Now, as for harnessing the power of friendship: (more…)

Recently, Richard Reising of BeyondRelevance.com posted a new video which asked the question “What would happen if Starbucks marketed itself like Starbucks?”

The point of the video, in Richard’s words:

Have you ever tried really hard to make a point and when people say they get it, you are just not sure they do? Sometimes it takes us seeing our world through new eyes–something that it is hard to do as believers. Sometimes a little bit of juxtaposition does the trick.

So granted, he’s not trying to suggest that the Church should be more like Starbucks, but to point out the awkwardness of so much of what we do.  However, that got me thinking.  What could the church learn from Starbucks about creating an attractive and friendly atmosphere?

So I went on a research trip to Starbucks.  No seriously, it was all about the research.

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My friend and colleague, Todd Owens, recently had an interesting idea on his blog: set your iPod to random shuffle and list the first 15 songs that play.  Seemed like an interesting way to get a look into one’s musical tastes.  Of course, I put everything and anything on my 160GB iPod classic.  And given the fact that our youth ministry subscribes to YLO: the works from Interlinc, everything and anything ends up being a lot of things, many of which have nothing to do with my personal tastes.  (If they did, I can guarantee there wouldn’t be any KJ-52 albums on there.)  So I tweaked the challenge a little.  Here’s a random shuffle of the 197 songs in my “My Top Rated” playlist: (more…)

I suppose you may be wondering why I chose to call this blog “Sampler to Sower”.  And a smart alec would probably tell you, “Because ‘pastorbuhro.com’ sounded way too boring.”  But since everyone knows I’m no smart alec, here’s the real scoop:

My philosophy of ministry states “I minister in order to help teens on the journey of eight steps, from sampler to sower.”  As the blog grows, I’ll write more about this journey, because it lies at the heart of everything I do as a youth pastor.  But here’s the short and the sweet: (more…)