Now that my usual new years resolutions are being accomplished I can now make some different ones that will help me a better man of God, husband, father, and youth pastor. My ultimate goal of this year is to be more disciplined. More disciplined in personal time with God, in continuing to do date nights with my wife, in consistently being the greatest dad in the world, in eating more healthy, in finishing my weight loss all the way to my goal (75 lbs.), in buying our first house, in getting out of debt, in always mentoring students, in attending school lunches to hang out with students, in remembering everyone’s name in our church, in writing more blogs, in reading more books, and in finishing my bachelor’s degree by spring of 2011.

What are you striving for this new year? Are you able to reach those goals by your own effort? If you are then maybe you should expan your goals to something that will require mountain-moving faith. Never give up on yourself. Continue to improve!

Have a great day,
James Reine

I wanted to take a few moments this morning to share with you the vision, mission, and strategy for 2010 in our youth ministry. I believe that as the youth pastor it is my responsibility to hear from the Lord a clear, concise, and defined vision for the ministry that he has placed me over. Along with that great responsibility of hearing God’s plan comes another responsibility of verbalizing that plan to the various audiences of our youth ministry. As parents of the Community you are one of the audiences that must know and react to the vision that God has for this youth ministry. I consider vision casting a vital task for any leader doing the Lord’s work so here it is:

Vision Statement: Disciples making disciples.

Every single thing that we do will be hinged on achieving this vision; to see our youth ministry become a place where disciples of Christ are making other disciples of Christ. Every event, service, hang-out, meeting, etc. is strategically in place to see that vision come to pass. Right now our youth ministry is doing this on some level but I would like to see us get to the point that we see every member of our youth ministry be committed to discipleship and be committed to begin discipling others.

The vision statement is an ideal; something that are we are not yet but soon will be. The mission statement is a short, clear statement that reflects exactly who we are and what we do. The mission is how we will reach the vision.

Mission Statement: Community Student Ministries exists to see students CONNECT with God through relationship and with friends through fellowship, to see students ENCOUNTER the power and presence of God through worship, and to see students RESPOND to the direction of God through discipleship and outreach.

Our threefold mission serves as our values. Every sermon I preach will target one of the three-fold mission (connect, encounter, respond). We will never sacrifice one of these principles to be culturally relevant or to do with the youth group across town is doing. This is what we stand for and nothing will thwart our principles.

The mission statement is our principles; the very core of who we are but without practical steps that fit in line with our mission we will never achieve our vision. So here is our strategic plan for 2010 that will help us reach our vision while staying in the bounds of our mission.

Strategy:

1. Ministry Teams

Ministry teams serve as our small groups in the Community. Right now we have a media team, worship team, drama team, and photography team. My hopes is that in the very near future we will have students step up to start a resource team (cafe workers, resource booth workers), a network team (phone calls, text messages, facebook, myspace, twitter, and visitation) an usher team (collect and count offering, clean up after youth service, and close building), and many more. The great part about ministry teams is that it is unlimited.

2. F.I.R.E. Institute

Beginning in January 2010 we will meet in the youth building on Sunday nights at 6pm for a discipleship course called the Fire Institute. This will be open for everyone but I realize that not everyone will want to come to this

3. Age-Based Services

Beginning in January 2010 we will have a separate young adult service on Wednesday nights after youth service starting at 9pm and ending at 10pm in the Community Café. This service will be open for anyone 18 and up. This will be called Community Life

Beginning in September of 2010 we will have a separate service for Junior High Students on Wednesday nights at the same time but in a different location. The location for this service is still uncertain but it will specifically designed for students in grades 6^th through 8^th. This will be called Community 68. The Senior High Student Ministry will be called Community 912.

4. Strategic Events

Connect Events – Newbie Nights: specific fun nights each three months with just the visitors in those three months. Community 68, 912, and Life hangouts every month. Other fun trips include: Canoe Trip, Crawfish Boil, Senior Trip, Junior High Lock-In, Extra Point, and Christmas and Thanksgiving Parties.

Encounter Events – Every Wednesday night service is an encounter event; it is an opportunity to encounter the power of God through worship. Nights of Worship: we will have several nights that we open up the youth building on a Saturday and just enter in the presence of God through worship. Different trips or events with an Encounter emphasis are Youth Camp, Youth Convention/Fine Arts, Beach Retreat, and a Leadership Retreat with Youth Staff and Ministry Team Leaders.

Respond Events – Different trips or events with an emphasis on Respond is Young Ministers Institute, Leader Workshops, LYM Launch, Home Missions Trip, Foreign Missions Trip, Widows Workday, Community Project clean-up, ministry with senior citizens, and Football Outreach where we will serve the various high school football teams during the summer practices.

I am truly excited to see where God will take us in 2010. I believe that it will be a year of great increase in our students both numerically and spiritually. Thank you for being apart of the Community!

Have a great day,

James Reine

Pastor of Community Student Ministries

For some of you the thought of me, a 23 year old new parent, doing this parents blog for our youth ministry is ludicrous because my lack of years of experience in parenting. I will admit, I thought it to be ludicrous too but God spoke to do this because I think I have some insight to give you about your student. When I see your son or your daughter come into our youth ministry I don’t see them as my baby; I see the potential for God to do anything in their life regardless of their age, maturity, talent, or stature. I don’t intend for this to be a slam on the way you view your son or daughter but I just think that you may be at a slight disadvantage because you have seen them in their formative years whereas I see them only in the present. You’ve seen them covered in nastiness with a football shaped head like I have seen my son and that might skew our view of them as favored by God.

I want to challenge you this week to read Luke 1:26-38. It is the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus being visited by the angel Gabriel to announce that she would be used by God to carry God’s son. When reading this do not picture Mary as she is depicted in paintings throughout history with the light blue robe, fair skin, 30′s, straight hair, and a golden crown; try to picture Mary for what she really was – a scared “junior-high” virgin with no clue about what was about to happen. Historians agree that Mary would have been roughly 13 to 15 years old when God considered her to be favored enough to carry His only son. Can you trust your son or daughter with that much responsibility? Do you see them as being favored by God at their current age? Do you think that they need to “grow-up” some more before God can truly use them? God looked down at a poor, junior-high girl and said, “that’s the one who will birth the Messiah!”

If you think that God can only use adults then you are sadly mistaken. The Bible is full of individuals that God used at an early age to do something incredible – David, Josiah, Samuel, Mary, John the Beloved (probably 12-13 years old when he became a disciple), all of the disciples (mostly all were teenagers), and many more. God never considers age to be a determining factor when He will use someone. Just look at your son or daughter today and really believe that God can use them to bring revival to their school this year! See your kids as God sees them – highly favored!

Thanks,

James Reine

Pastor of Community Student Ministries

Well I hope that you received our postcard informing you about this site that will be available for public view. I am really excited about this site because I really believe that it will be a great resource for you as parents. I will be posting once a week on Tuesday about various topics that relate to parents better understanding their teenagers. I will be writing some of these posts but I will also have various different authors write articles that will help resource you with some great information. The topics will vary from youth culture, current news in our youth ministry (The Community), parenting tips, Bible based devotions that will encourage and challenge, and some key information about pressing issues that surround your children.

I hope that this will be a site in which you take the liberty to write comments, ask questions, or share viewpoints on the various posts that will be uploaded. This site is specifically for you; please take full advantage of it!

Thanks,

James Reine

Pastor of Community Student Ministries