Nov 7th Big Wednesday 6-8pm

Lunch with FCA

Today we had lunch with Jeff who leads FCA. FCA is a great organization and I love working with them to impact the Kingdom. I believe we can work together to make a create impact.

Jeff reminds me of a good friend who leads the FCA in the Tulsa area named Chris Keiser. Both are men of great vision and a great passion to impact coaches and players for Christ.

Michael, Jeremiah and I had a great time spending time w/ Jeff today.

9th Grade @ my House

This Sunday night we had the last of our HS in our home. The Freshman came over. What a great group of students.

As we watch all these areas grow I believe we are going to see great things happen in our student ministry. We have a some great young leaders with great vision and they are ready to run.

We want to take their passion and release them to do ministry and to watch them “become” the ministry.

Volunteer Meeting this Sunday

We had a great Sunday this past Sunday. We had all 210 student ministry Volunteers stay after for some good food and some vision casting.

I love to cast the vision. The volunteers are excited and I can’t wait to see Hab 1:5 come to life. We believe God wants to do something bigger than we could dream!!!

We are going with 3 words in our student ministry.

Belong
Believe
Become.

Students should know where they fall in this vision.

It is estimated that 60,000 students live in the Katy Area. Stats will also tell you that 40,000 of them are un-churched. That is amazing!!! 40,000 students!!!

That makes Hab 1:5 so true and we are praying for it. We are praying Nov 7th God begins the Journey here with our Big Wednesday Night!!!

Please pray for 210 Students Ministries @ www.second.org west campus. Pray God will allow us to watch Hab 1:5 come to life…

A Big thanks to all the Volunteers to taking time out to be at the meeting and to hear where we are going as a student ministry!!!

Katy vs Cinco Ranch

I just got back from the Katy HS vs Cinco Ranch HS football game. As many of you know Katy football is a league all over America and I now understand why.

Cinco Ranch is a great football program and work very hard on the field but just could not keep up with the powerhouse Katy.

Both have great coaches and great leadership. I look fwd to continue to watch both programs continue to work hard to make it to the top!!!

Going to a Katy game is like going to a small college football game. We could learn a lot about an environment by going to the Katy Game.

Here are some quick thoughts I gained:

Everyone had a smile and said hello
We had a very warm welcome – My daughter
had 2 pom poms in her hand within 5 seconds of walking in the gate.
Everyone was so excited
Everyone was welcome – as long as you had on
Red!!!
There are no seats – Everyone was there
Security is Great!!!
Both Schools Branded themselves well all over the place
All was done with
Excellence!!!

Jeremiah, Bret, McKenna and I had a great time at the game. WE had the chance to set with some of our Cinco Students and enjoyed it!!

Another Tailgate Party!!!

We just did another tail gate party. This year I believe we are setting ourselves up for next year. They seem to be very successful and very useful. Jeremiah said tonight, and I agree, that next year they will be even larger.

We are seeing God do something unique. I believe he is setting us up for great success. The Key is
#1 Keeping it all about God
#2 Remaining Humble before our God
#3 Keeping the vision alive and in front of the students

We have a great team and I cant’ wait to see what all God does in our J High and High School Ministries!!!

Dinner @ Jeremiah and Tessa's

Tonight was a great night of hanging out with some of my staff. Jeremiah and Tessa (Our HS Pastor and his wife) had us, the heads (New Jr High Pastor), Crystal and Bret to their house for dinner.

It was great to hang out with them as our friendship grows. I believe God is putting a team together that God is ready to use in a major way!!! I pray we stay humbly broken before God and watch God do major things. I’m honored to be on this team and to have a roll of leadership in it.

Watch and Learn

Watching and Learning is so important when you are working on building a long term successful student ministry.

It is good to set back and watch what happens and determine what you need to do.

Here are some things to look for. These are in no certain order just gives you a process to start with. There are many others, if you have a good one please send to me to so I can continue to learn!!!

1. Do you have Greeters welcoming people?
2. Is your environment warm and inviting?
3. Is your program a program you would bring one of your friends too
or is it embarrassing?
4. Do you have excellence in all you do? (ie: worship, 5. speaking, games, slides on screen, etc…)
5. What would an un-churched person think of your ministry? Would they understand the language? Would they fit in?
6. How is your adult base?
7. Is your ministry set up to be a ministry larger than what it is or are you operating like a ministry your size or smaller? If the dream is to do the unthinkable and
watch God work set up your ministry this way weekly! (ie: if you are a ministry of 25 act like one of 50, if a ministry of 50 act like one of 150 etc...)
8. Are you and your staff accessible or are you too busy when all
your students are around?

There are many other thoughts that you could add to this. We are in the middle of doing a lot of this right now. Michael Head our new Jr High pastor did a lot of this tonight learning our J High Ministry.

Be honest and work hard and watch God do big things!!!

Global Youth Staff Meetings

Every other week we have the opportunity to attend a Global Youth Staff Meeting. Eric Hystad is our Global Youth Pastor. Our Global ministry consist of our 5 churches student ministries.

It is so beneficial to spend time with these guys and learn from each other and hear what works and what does not.

It is always good to learn new things or just be reminded of old ones. It is a blessing to be a part of a team like this.

Michael Head new Jr High Pastor

I am very excited that we are adding to our staff @ Second Baptist Houston West campus. Michael Head is starting this week as our Jr High Pastor. Michael is an exceptional man and has great vision for student ministry.

This will be a great addition to a great team that God has put together in Katy Texas. Michael will be in the office this coming Wednesday and his 1st Sunday will be next Sunday.

Michael is married Jessica Head.

Please pray for us as we are all new and very excited to See Hab 1:5 come true in our student ministry.

Sean Mills Big Wednesday

My brother, Sean Mills, is the Youth Pastor @ Beech Street Baptist Church in Texarkana, AR. If you are in a church and think "can we do that?", you should call Sean. He is 100% proof that YES you can!!!! God is doing incredible work in their church. He has a great pastor, Craig Jenkins and they have the heart to see this church take off. Weekly they are watching the church grow!!! What an awesome church and staff team!!! Check it out!!!

He had his Grand Opening of their new youth room this past week. What a night. They sank some money into this and wanted to have one big Wednesday where they had huge success.

Check out his blog where he wrote about it and check out the picts….
http://seanmillsh2o.blogspot.com/2007/10/h2o-grand-opening-huge-success.html

Cinco and Mayde Creek Tailgate

Tonight we had a great time tailgating @ Cinco Ranch and Mayde Creek Game.

We had a good crowd and had a lot of fun. This is a great way for us to get our name out there and to get us out of the office.

Coach Gary Joseph @ Katy HS

I was privileged today to take Coach Gary Joseph from Katy HS to lunch. What a great time it was setting down and learning about his family and connecting with him.

Jeremiah and I had no agenda but to sit down and get to know him. When you network, the best thing you can remember is many times to go in with NO AGENDA. Don’t start asking for things right off. That is a major turn off!!! Get to know someone first.

Many of you probably have heard of Katy High School football. It is one of the greatest programs out there. They have great leadership all the way around.

Jennifer is back to Painting

You can now order again from Jennifer. She is back to painting. check out http://www.jennifermills921.blogspot.com/

She has already done some here for people in Arkansas and Chicago.... Place your order now!!!

Here is a brif look at what she did in McKenna's room

Seven Lakes Tailgate Party

What a day.. I spent a lot of times in meetings today but ended the day well….

We went to the seven lakes football game and did some tailgating out front. Jeremiah and our HS staff did a great job at putting this together.

This is a great way to get out of the office and begin to takes steps at reaching the students on their campus and in their world.

Matthew and Lizi Bailey

Jeremiah, Tyler and I had lunch with a good friend of mine today name Matthew Bailey. Matthew and his wife just put out a new cd…

You can check him out @ http://www.myspace.com/matthewandlizi

It is crazy he lives like a block from my church. Matthew and Lizi are leading worship for us Nov 7th @ our big night. We are hoping to give some giveaways away and see a lot of students baptized that night.

Can’t wait.

J High Intents Weekend

We had Intents weekend this weekend for J High.

All the J high and volunteers brought tents to the church and camped out last night. We had a great turn out for this event. Kenny and Emily, associates in the j high ministry, did an amazing job pulling this off.

Tyler and our HS band lead worship which is always great.

I then had the opportunity to speak to the students. We ended up seeing 34 students give their lives to Christ.

Nov 7th we are doing a big Wednesday night where we will also do a big baptism celebration. We hope to see many of these students Baptized Nov 7th.

Birkman Test

Every Thursday we are in meetings all afternoon for new staff member orientation. This is simply to get us on the same page as the rest of the staff.

This past Thursday we went over the Birkman Test. This is a great way to learn about your self and staff team. It was very insightful.

This will not only make you a better leader but also a better husband. The better you know the people you work with the better you can be a team.

Wednesday Night

We had a great Wednesday night with our Jr High. We had 2 decisions. We are pushing for Nov 7th doing a Big Wednesday Night where we want more J High students than we have ever had on a Wednesday night.

Matthew and Lizi Bailey are leading worship that night for us. Michael Head will be here as our J High pastor.

We are working hard at just building relationships and make great connections so starting in January we can launch an A+ program that will reach 1000’s of students weekly.

The key ingredient to all of all of this is prayer.

Lunch w/ FCA

Today I had the chance to join my campus pastor Keith and the FCA man over our Region Jeff and one of his board Mike for lunch.

I love FCA and working with FCA. In the past we have seen God do some amazing things working with FCA.

Senior's @ my house

We had all the Sr’s and our HS ministry staff over last night to our house. What a great time of connection with them. We have an amazing group of seniors that are ready to take leadership and to drive our student ministry.

I can’t wait to see all God is going to do in our HS ministry this year and how that will flow down into our Jr High….

Check out our prayer time Jeremiah Ramar, my HS pastor, lead.

Jr High Volunteer Meeting

My Jr High Associate did a fantastic job yesterday pulling off a party for our Jr High Volunteer workers. They had some great food and a lot of fun. This also gave me a chance to share a lot of vision with them and introduce myself.

The point of this was just to have a good time. It is good to build those memories and relationships with each other.

1st Impression Importance

As I have watched the past week in our student ministry I have been reminded how important 1st impressions are. Students will decide if they want to stay in your youth ministry in 15 seconds. They start deciding when they get out of their car.

So what are we doing to make that better? Do you have greeters @ the door? Do you have an effective check in system? When students are greeted as they come in do you have someone to walk them around and introduce them to other students? Is it a warm atmosphere they can hang out in? Do you have music or video in the lobby/hang out area? Are your small groups leaders their to connect?

These are just some questions I am asking myself about our student ministries 1st impression. We are working over the next 2 weeks at creating this team and training this team so we can make a great impact in 15 seconds.

You can be the best preacher and have the best worship and have no 1st impression and I think you will struggle with your growth.

A friendly warm atmosphere will overflow into the students why they are at school and events.

This is just one area we are working on right now.

Here is a brif video we did back @ www.grandfamily.net that gives a little look at 1st impressions

Best of Brian Mills

Great Night

We are off to a fast start…

Just some highlights..

We have an awesome Youth Staff…

Had a great Sunday AM with a lot of learning. 1st impressions is a very big deal and we are working at creating one in our student ministry.

Wednesday was good. We saw 5-7 students give their life to Christ and Tyler Hennessey (sp?) did an awesome job leading worship. He is on our youth staff and is a great worship leader.

I will blog very little for the next few months but will keep you up to speed.

Once we slow down I will type all I have learned and what some keys to developing your student ministry from the beginning are.