ALEX | Dream Higher!

The majority of churches…which have broken growth barrier after growth barrier are churches which have stressed home cell groups. –C. Peter Wagner Great small groups celebrate success, suffer with one another, and expect God to do more than they can do themselves. – Rick Howerton We all know that small groups have played a vital role in the history of the church. Jesus had a small group of followers around him whom he shared intimately with.  Most of the churches in the New Testament were "small" in comparison to size of our churches today.  For the most part they were house churches and houses back then were waaaaaay smaller than they are today.  From the time of Christ to today, these values have changed countless lives and helped the church to grow and reach thousands while at the same time give the closeness of a well knitted community. Small groups create an intimate space within the larger body of church.  As the church grows larger it can also grow smaller and th

Are you barking up the wrong tree?!? Working with teens is a tricky thing.  You want to earn their trust, but there is a fine line between earning their trust and forgetting that your primary responsibility is to keep them safe.  And yes sometimes keeping them safe means breaking confidentiality.  After 14 years in ministry I know that at times it can be trick and that each situation is needs to be handled differently, but there are some basic guidelines to help us navigate these tricky times. "So I've been smoking with some friends lately." James tone seemed to indicated that he wasn't talking about cigarettes. "You mean you were smoking pot?" "Yeah." Then a pause. "Wait, are you going to tell my parents, come on I trust you, your not going to tell my parents are you?" How might you respond to a question like that?... Do we tell the parents right away... Do we work with the student in hopes they will tell their parents?... Do

"The unexamined life is not worth living." -Socrates Everything we do for some reason.  The way I raise my kids has some philosophical reason behind it.  Perhaps my parents raised me this way, or perhaps I read a book on it, or I saw it in action and wanted to replicate it, or I thought this was something that would benefit my kids.  My reasoning for doing things will be totally different than yours.  We may do things different because we philosophically disagree on how to raise children but to everything there is a reason. I'm not going to keep discipling my children the same way you do if it doesn't work even if the way you do it works perfectly for you. The same is true of ministry.  Each group and context is uniquely different.  I've worked a variety of churches and each time I have to rethink how I do ministry within that context.  What I may or may not have done in the last church can not be directly applied to my new context.  I tried that a few time