Another cool aspect of the My Ministry Network is the potential for sidewalk/children church ministries to “network”. Check out the site if you get a chance.

The sidewalk truck that I was on was equipped with a box that had an assortment of toys, kickballs, footballs, hoola hoops, and jump ropes. This box was placed by the tarps so the kids could play with them before Yogi Bear started. It was a form of entertainment while the team set up the truck. Various team members would join in and play with the kids. I’m going to put boxes like this on our trucks.

I never considered having several people run the teaching time. At Yogi Bear, there would be at least 3 people who would teach the lesson. They did this to keep the kids engaged. Their lesson was on rejection. One person would tell the life story, another person would bring it home by telling a story of how they were rejected as a child, and another person might come in with an object lesson. Each part of the lesson was like steps. As they got closer to the end of the lesson, you knew that they were building up to a point of decision (altar call). I would like to experiment with this style of teaching at Power House. The only thing I think you have to be careful of is that the lesson doesn’t get “dropped” when the different people come in to teach the lesson. I mean there shouldn’t be any dead time. And the next teacher needs to take the lesson to another level, building it towards the point of decision.

Each Yogi Bear team would do 3 sites a night. Wouldn’t it be cool to have each team do 2 to 3 sites a night? One thing that I noticed was after each site they would debrief. They would discuss what went well and what didn’t. This is something that we need to do more of. How can you do your site better if you never review what you did?

I noticed that Yogi Bear had a much wider variety of music. They would play a latin mix or something classic, and then some rap. I would like to get more variety of music for each site.

I talked about this in the last post, but the biggest thing I noticed was the attitude and energy level. These people were working around 12 -13 hours a day 6 days a week. They kept up their energy level and they had great attitudes. I admired that.

Anyone else who went on the trip, want to share what they learned or noticed? Comment here.

(I just had to put the picture of the Jewish guy up. Char kept taking pictures of every Jewish guy she saw)

1. Relationships

People don’t care what you know until they know how much you care. It is vital to develop strong relationships with your LITs. When we lived in Tulsa, we would frequently take our LIT to get a soda from Quick Trip. (If you don’t know about QT, you haven’t experienced the finer things of life. Quick Trip is more than a gas station.) It is amazing how much a kid can open up to you just because you got them a soda from the store. We would take our LIT just about everywhere with us.  She would come over for dinner and hang out, and we would go over to her house for dinner. We built such a relationship with our LIT and her family that there was a total open door for ministry.

2. Involvement

It is very important for your LIT to be involved at your site. There is something about doing ministry that just changes your life. God never meant for any of us to live an unproductive Christian life. We were all created to give of ourselves. We were created to be others-focused and not me-focused. Give your LIT a job to do. It can be the games, the sound, or helping to lead the songs. Your LIT’s involvement will give them a sense of confidence. For some, it will be the only confidence builder they have in their life.

3. The Word

You can have a great relationship with your LIT, your LIT can be involved, but without God’s Word in their life, there won’t be a total transformation (Romans 12:2). Only God’s Word can change the hearts of men. Our goal is to disciple these young men and women in such a way that by the time they reach adulthood they are making quality decisions for their lives. Using God’s Word for their road map, our LITs will be able to make these decisions.

This year I want to get our LITs here to the church as much as possible, especially those who don’t have home churches. We are putting together an LIT Party at the end of the month to start this process. I’ll keep you posted.

• vision for the new year
• review of Power House Christmas
• mission trip to Metro Ministries
• upcoming news and events
• things that need to be fixed
• LITs

If you are reading this post and would like to volunteer for Power House, feel free to stop by our meeting. Just send me an email to let me know that you plan on coming. jonl@reslife.org

This trip is going to be a life changing experience for any of the volunteers who come.  I’ve personally been to Metro Ministries twice.  I was serving at a different church at the time.    We drove a bus all the way from Tulsa,  Oklahoma to Brooklyn.  It was a long, yet fun drive.  The drive itself was a team building experience   After seeing Metro in action, we all came back with new ideas and a renewed passion to reach the lost.  The trip really transformed our ministry.  Volunteers who are reading this post be sure to get your deposits in.  You don’t want to miss this trip.