School Year Goals

School Year Goals

Good Morning Everyone,

If you count my interning years then I am coming up on my tenth year in ministry. I have learned many things in these ten years but the one thing that stands out the most is this. When you are in youth ministry you begin to look at a year differently. For the average person the New Year begins on January 1^st but for a youth minister you really think of years in terms of school years. So if one is to follow this line of reasoning then the first day of a year in the life of a youth minister is the first day of school, which for me, was yesterday.

I’m not a New Year’s resolution type of guy because I never seem to follow through on them but I do find goal setting an effective way of gauging progress. Today I want to share with you some personal goals that I have for this new school year. These

are not ministry goals per say (we will save those for another blog) but they are goals for my personal life and therefore will have some effect on my ministry. So without further a due here they are!

#1 Better Personal Bible Study-As a minister you are constantly in the word preparing for the next Bible class, sermon, or tracking down the answer to the question someone has asked you, but sometimes that gets in the way of a real study. To accomplish this goal I am reading the Bible in chronological order. I will probably have some thoughts to share with you from this study at some point.

#2 Write at least 3 blog posts per week-My good friend Ryan Parsons is a social media guru. The man is more plugged in that anyone I know and he does all of these different social media outlets to help further the cause of Christ. I have this great venue to share things about God and ministry but I don’t use it nearly enough. To that end I am going to attempt three blog posts a week. (This makes number two for this week. But who’s couting J)

#3 Write at least 3 encouraging texts to my teens per week-One of the teenagers from the last place I worked began sending out encouraging text messages to his youth group. Like any good minister I plan on stealing this idea. Some days it may be a scripture to think about, some days it may be an encouraging word, and who knows, maybe I will even tell a joke or two. Our teens live in a digital world and we need to cash in on that.

#4 Lead/Participate in a small group Bible study-It is my hope to begin studying with some friends of ours with some material I have written. I will let you know how it goes

#5 Reading/Listening to ministry resources-There are so many good books, blogs, vlogs, podcasts and other resources dedicated to ministry right now. As a minister it is not very often that I get to sit in on a Bible class so I am hoping to build myself up by being fed by others.

Well there you have my five goals for the new school year. The only thing keeping me from accomplishing all of these is myself. God is faithful and I believe he will help me to accomplish these things if I devote my life more and more to him each day.

How about you? What goals are you working on right now? I would love to hear about what you are doing and help you in any way that I can. I hope you are all as blessed by me today as I am by all of you.

Be Strong and Courageous,

Paul