Matt Carter is the pastor of preaching and vision at the Austin Stone Community Church. I first came in contact with him when I was attending the Passion Conference in Atlanta during my winter break of my freshman year of college. After the conference I listened to several of his sermons and have since heard... Continue Reading →

In this short video Matt Chander, pastor of The Village Church in Dallas and President of the Acts 29 Church Planting Network, shares his own decision on how to balance time for his son. It is well worth the time to listen and think through the implications for our own situations. Click on the link... Continue Reading →

If the Bible really is the Word of God, then it would make sense that we want to teach as many people as possible to study it! Over the past year our youth ministry has started to study the Bible in One to One Bible studies.  This includes students reading the Bible twice a week... Continue Reading →

There are many theories about what preaching should be and how it should be executed. This video gives a thorough view of Biblical or Expository Preaching. The lecture is given at a 9marks event by Mike Bullmore. He is a former seminary professor and currently serves as a senior pastor. Click below to watch this... Continue Reading →

As a new semester of college begins, it is important to remember the difference between the local church and campus ministry. The local church is the gathered people of God who sit under godly pastors and elders who lead them by preaching and teaching the Bible in a variety of settings, offering the sacraments of... Continue Reading →

The Trellis and The Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne is a book about a ministry mind shifts that can have enormous effects on local church ministry. In chapter two, the authors write "We will be arguing that structures don't grow ministry any more than trellises grow vines, and that most churches need to... Continue Reading →

It is a goal in our student ministry to have our students serving other students. One way we do this is by having different teams for students to serve other students in our youth ministry. This past year we introduced the idea of having a "welcome" team that we named the Connect Team. These students... Continue Reading →

It is now officially August and millions of students are going to be starting their Fall semester this month! Some students will be walking onto campus as freshman who are exploring a brand new academic and social life that they have been looking forward to for years. Others will be returning to a campus with... Continue Reading →

Several years ago Matt Smethurst, the managing editor of The Gospel Coalition, wrote an article about Michael Jordan turning 50 years old. It was mainly based off of another article written for ESPN's Outside the Lines. In the midst of so much discussion of a man who is known as the greatest basketball player (and... Continue Reading →

We all struggle for control of our own lives. Beyond this we struggle over people, places, and things that we desire to be able to control. However, God calls us to trust Him in the midst of our lives. Paul Tripp beautifully explains this theme in his book New Morning Mercies. He writes the following... Continue Reading →