Lifeway Young Adults

Threads Research

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At Threads, our goal is to minister directly to young adults and partner with leaders who are seeking to do the same. In order to do this effectively, it’s important for us to actually understand who young adults are. We need to know how they think and what they believe. It’s our desire to accurately capture the voice of this generation so we can better minister to them. Drawing from our own opinions alone simply isn’t enough. Instead, we are committed to crossing every “T” and dotting every … [Read more...]

Priorities for Part-time Ministers

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This week we’re answering the following question raised at last year’s Connect Conference: Since I am part-time in ministry, what are the top three things I should commit to in order to make ministry happen? I just finished a part-time ministry position in a church, so this is one question I can answer with pretty good clarity. Make sure you are on the same page as the full-time ministers in your church. Because you won’t spend endless hours with the ministerial staff, you need to make sure expectations and … [Read more...]

Stories They Can Tell Themselves

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People don’t believe what you tell them. They rarely believe what you show them. They often believe what their friends tell them. They always believe what they tell themselves. What leaders do: they give people stories they can tell themselves. Stories about the future and about change. from Tribes by Seth Godin About a month ago I was reading through Tribes by Seth Godin and was really inspired by the above quotation. Godin has the ability to take concepts you think you already know and word them in a manner like … [Read more...]

Does God Love Me?

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"Yes," we would be quick to answer. After all: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. But how do we know God loves us? There are a host of other reasons, but here are 2 from Scripture, one we would expect and maybe one we wouldn’t. The first reason is this: the cross. The death of Christ is a fact, regardless of what you might believe its implications are. This is also the demonstration of God’s love for us. In the cross, we don’t have the words, “I love you,” but we have the action of God that validates his words. … [Read more...]

Influential Reads

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Community Creating Community by Andy Stanley and Bill Willits The Connecting Church by Randy Frazee, Larry Crabb, George Gallup, and Dallas Willard Essential Church?: Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts by Thom S. Rainer and Sam S. Rainer Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church by Nelson Searcy & Jennifer Henson Generation We by Eric Greenberg with Karl Weber (Editor’s Note: This book is not written from a Christian perspective.) The Gospel According to Starbucks by Leonard Sweet In Real … [Read more...]

Wealth: The Real American Idol

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When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. Matthew 19:22, NIV It's said an economic recession is when your neighbor loses his job; a depression is when you lose yours. If that's the case, a lot of us are depressed these days. Some of us can't pay our rent or mortgage; others are wondering where the next meal is coming from. People once set on retiring are frowning at dried-up investments, while students are finding it harder to pay for college, and 20-somethings, harder to repay loans. I … [Read more...]