20somethingpastor.com

So… recently I started my own YouTube channel. It’s kind of fun. I only have five videos up right now but there will be more soon. It is a combination of personal home videos (mostly of my son doing silly things) or of videos made for church. Check it out, and tell me what you think!

www.youtube.com/AdamDeanYoung

After more thought on this subject and reading scripture, I don’t claim to know all or have the ultimate answer for every church. But I will list some scriptures that have impacted my thoughts and then tell you what I have concluded.

• Genesis 41:35-36  Instruction for Egypt to store excess so they won’t be “ruined” during the famine.
• Proverbs 6:6-8  Even the animals understand that you store up in harvest time to prepare for winter.
• Proverbs 21:20  The wise store up excess but “a foolish man devours all he has.”
• Ecclesiates 11:2  Be obedient because “you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.”
• 1 Timothy 5:8  Our first responsibility is to our own “family”

Read the story of the “Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:25-37) on your own. Answer this question, “Could this man have provided all the medical care and housing if he had no money in the bank?”

I think there is a fine line between having money for low-giving periods or money to help out people in time of emergency or catastrophe and hoarding money. But I think it’s Biblical and necessary to have an “emergency fund” or whatever you want to call it.

I will leave you with this: swerve.lifechurch.tv is a great blog. Recently, they asked a question about How Economic Uncertainty Affect the Church? It breaks my heart when I read a pastor commenting about how it was making an impact on his church to the point that they were a matter of, ”two to three weeks from shutting the church down.”

What do you think would be the pastor’s response to this topic?

Please welcome my wife, Alaina Young, to the blogging world!!!!! You can find her blog, 20 Something Mom at alainayoung.blogspot.com!

I love you, babe!

So I had an interesting conversation the other day with some pastors about church cushion (Money). One of the pastors who is very passionate about following God in faith and actually has spend his entire life (is almost at retirement age) either in the Mission Field or as a Missions Pastor. He was saying that the church should act more on faith and give more money to mission trips, organizations, missionaries, etc. as opposed to sitting on a large amount of money for emergencies or for cushion in times of low giving. 

I didn’t say anything cause he is much older, wiser and has much more ministry experience. But I was thinking… “Isn’t wise to have an ‘emergency fund’ (Thank you Dave Ramsey) and not put your self in a vulnerable position that could lead to the church having to close its doors?” But then again, maybe we should live on more faith that if your church were following God’s direction, He would provide.

What do you think? What does your church do?

If you are like me, you do everything in your power to NOT to do things that are considered popular or mainstream. Have you ever wanted to do something because you enjoyed it, were passionate about it, or just cause you wanted to? Then you realize that that thing is considered mainstream and very popular. Now you are at a tough crossroads. It’s time to self-wrestle. 

I was there:

• I made fun of facebook… then I started a facebook account. 
• I liked reading blogs, but thought there were way too many… I now have my own.
• I thought buying jeans that looked dirty and already had holes in them was dumb… now I own some.

I have heard some great things about this documentary/film. A member of our church approached me this Sunday and told me that he saw this in theaters and LOVED it. He offered to pay for everyone of our students in FUEL to see this film in theaters. So we are taking them to see it, hopefully, sometime this coming weekend. Check it out. Thanks Jason Mick for the video post!

I have to admit up front on this one, this is not my original idea. No shame in using something from someone else as long as you give credit where credit is due. I took this from my former employer LifeChurch.tv. They refer to their “services” as “experiences.” I love that. As the Church, our goal is not to provide a service but to organize, plan and execute everything we do so that people can experience God and community with other believers. 

So in FUEL Student Ministry, on Wednesday Nights, we have “The Experience,” NOT a youth service. 

This is the video I created to introduce our new student ministry name/philosophy.

Enjoy!

When my wife and I arrived in January, I did not want to be the pastor who shows up and changes everything. What has worked in the past may not work now and what worked in Oklahoma may not work in Colorado. I just wanted to add my personality to what was already happening. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a foundation or anything really happening. 

So… we started with some simple things. There was no identity and nothing for our students to be proud of. So we created FUEL Student Ministries. I know, I know. Not incredibly creative or original. But we wanted something simple but “cool” and something our students could identify with. 

So today, I am officially introducing FUEL Student Ministries: FUEL Logo

This past weekend we took our students to the Planet Wisdom Student Conference led by Mark Matlock. I have had some experience with this conference before from when I was in Oklahoma, so I knew what the experience would be like. I highly recommend this to any youth ministry. 

Planet Wisdom is much different than most conferences. It is not hyped up by five different speakers and eight different bands. The teaching is significantly deeper and teaching oriented than most conferences that are surrounded by humor and motivational topics. Our students had a great experience and learned a lot. Planet Wisdom Student Conference gets a high recommendation from me! Check it out -> planetwisdom.com