The YouTube Curriculum.

My name is Cory Ball and I am the College Life Director at Brentwood Church in Lynchburg, VA. I was recently blessed with this thriving ministry called College Life. College Life is a year and a half old, and I have only had it for the “half” part. I was delegated the ministry from our Student Focus Pastor, Matt Cote, with a year under it’s belt and was given permission to scrap the programming and restructure it to our perceived needs and the liking of college students.

I will provide you some quick insight into the ministry of College Life. The interesting thing about us is that we are in the back yard of the world’s largest evangelical university, which is Liberty University. Our town also contains three other universities, with one more university in close proximity. So with a combined total of five universities within 25 minutes of our church, only one of which being a Christian university, also being geographically positioned in the “Bible Belt” we are left with very interesting demographics and issues that span across the board of college students “age-staged” issues.

Before this semester of College Life, our ministry met every other Monday. This was not enough for our college students. If you work with college students or the “twenty-something’s” age group, you know better than anyone else that they crrraaaave community. Our answer to this good hearted concern was the obvious… have College Life every Monday night. Right?

The Problem:
I have two married couples on my leadership team with children and a third married couple with a blessing on the way. It would be hard for them to find free childcare or pay for childcare every Monday for almost ten months out of the year.

The Answer:
We decided to meet “on-campus” (@Brentwood Church) every other week, and on the weeks in between we would have small groups “off-campus” (In my Small Group Leader’s homes).

The Issue:
How will each small group be on the same page with curriculum but have the flexibility to answer issues that each individual group may be going through collectively as college students? (Since half of the job in any college ministry is helping college students through their “age-staged” issues.)

The YouTube Curriculum:
One day we met as a leadership team for a creative planning meeting and had the idea to start our own YouTube channel. It wasn’t until a few days after that I realized how much potential this really had. Currently, on the in-between weeks that we meet “off-campus” we are doing something called The YouTube Series. I asked friends to send me videos from YouTube that have spiritually challenged or inspired them to become more like Christ and to share His love and truth. I filtered through them. Some were good, some were great, some… not so much. Then, I “favorited” the ones that really hit home. On the in-between weeks now my small group leaders choose a video off of our “favorites list” and write a few questions pertaining to the video. That is their small groups curriculum for the week.

Pro’s:

• The first and best pro is that a “YouTube Curriculum” is FREEEEEE!
• This is a great way as a ministry leader to lead the small groups without “leading” the small groups.
• Your leaders have the flexibility to provide their own flavor and direction to their small group.
• The students specific “age-staged” issues can and will be confronted on a more individual intimate basis.
• It provides consistency and variety at the same time. (After all it is said, “Variety is the spice of life.”)
• It releases many stresses from your leaders since they are leading from the comfort of their own homes.
• Your students will feel very welcomed as your leaders will provide them with great hospitality and a warm invitation into a clean good smelling home. (Seeing as many of them live in a cluttered old “barracks” we refer to as a dorm.)
• And finally… It is easy to find a video on YouTube that will better articulate a point that you may be struggling to teach yourself.

Con’s:

• It is left up to your leaders to provide any kind of coffee, snacks, or food.
• Your communication must always be clear with highways of information ready and available at all times. This will look different for every ministry.
• Students without cars may find it difficult to get to an “off-campus” small group. Do your best to provide any needed transportation.

I hope this provides you with some ideas and answers to any struggles you may be having within your college age and/or “twenty-something’s” ministry. Below is a link to our YouTube channel. Feel free to use it as you wish. Keep up the good work and never lose sight of the reason you are impacting college students and/or “twenty-something’s”… It’s for Him and His glory. Much Love.

YouTube Channel: Brentwood College Life

Nimrod, More Than A Green Day Album.

Nimrod. A name you rarely hear. Did I say name? Yes I did. Most of us know the name Nimrod only from the famous 90’s Green Day album, but from Scripture?  We find Nimrod first mentioned in Genesis 10. He was the son of another weird named man, Cush.

Genesis 10:8
Cush fathered Nimrod: He was the first on
earth to be a mighty man.

The first? What would it be like to be the first mighty man? On EARTH. EVER. That is a pretty daunting task. What if you messed up? What if you weren’t might all of a sudden? What if you decided to take a break from being mighty? What if when trying to be mighty, you picked up a big rock and dropped it on your big toe, and you cried? Are you no longer mighty? What is mighty anyways, what does it really mean?

Ok I don’t really have answers to those “mighty” questions, but here is my thought: Nimrod was the first to do something. To be mighty. Before Nimrod there was no one else who was mighty. In Genesis there are other instances where men with names like Jubal-Cain were the first to do something, like invent string instruments, forge tools form with bronze and iron, or live in tents. Before these men stepped out risking failure and ridicule these certain things didn’t exist. They lived in the land of the wimpy. They lived in the land of the music-less. They lived in a land of broken wooden hammers. They lived in the land of wet pillows. But then these things changed. You see, they changed everything.

A creative God has created you to be creative. You are called to be inventive, to change things, to better life. So what will you create? What will you do differently? What will you do that others have feared to do, or have failed to do? Have fun being creative, and good luck my friend. I leave you with a quote from Mark Twain.

 

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Big Bank Account ≠ Life Change

My Thought: I worry about a budget. I worry because I want a big budget to run a great ministry. I think, “I could do A LOT if money was never an issue, the sky would be the limit.” But Jesus Christ did not have a million dollar budget, and His ministry was never limited. He was homeless and with his “budget” and resources, lives were changed for eternity. Life change happens through the heart prodding of the Holy Spirit, the sacrifice on the cross by Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father… not the size of my ministries bank account. Truth.

BuzzNet Tags: Money,Life Change,Ministry,Jesus Christ,God,Holy Spirit,Budget

A Lasting Legacy.

BuzzNet Tags: Noah,The Ark,Noah’s Ark,Genesis,God,Blameless,Righteous,Walk with God,A Lasting Legacy

I will be reading through the Old Testament in 2011. Naturally I began in Genesis, and inevitably I came to the story of Noah. Everyone knows this story, he builds a massive boat (the ark), and collects all species of all animals to fill the ark and re-populate the earth, after surviving a worldwide flood… at 600 years old might I add. Phenomenal.

The thing that impresses me through this whole story isn’t necessarily that Noah was 600 years old, although that is impressive, rather something that stuck out to me in verse 9&10 of chapter 6. Check it out.

“These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”

Wait a minute. That is interesting. The author of Genesis decides to throw a few good comments into the middle of a memo about Noah and his lineage. After saying “These are the generations of Noah.” He comments, saying “ Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.” Then he continues, “And Noah had three sons…”

I find these comments very surprising. (Other than the fact that I feel the writer chose a bad bad literary technique in the placement of those two sentences). There are very few men and women throughout Scripture who have had these comments made about them or similar comments made about them, but we see that Noah was privileged to be one of them. He was righteous, and blameless, and he walked with God in a time period of overwhelming sinfulness and a human plague of pure evil.

My prayer today is that I, just like Noah, can be counted as one who is righteous and blameless before a holy God. That I would be characterized as one who walks with God in constant daily fellowship. These things are priceless and will last for eternity. Their worth far out-weights money and fame. So pursue them. Unbridled, unchained, with unquenchable passion! What are you leaving behind you? Like Noah strive to  leave a lasting legacy, and nothing less.

The Porn Detour.

Scripture is very clear on many things. One of those things is the effects of a seductive woman on a man and the heart of a man. The Bible does not water this message down by no means. Instead it speaks often about the wayward women and the devastating damage done to many men by her.

Today, in 2010 the forbidden women that Scripture speaks of does not take on the form of a prostitute or a loose woman for the average man in today’s American society. Instead the forbidden women is the women a man never meets and yet still spends an evening with through viewing her on the computer screen. The pornography industry is an 87 BILLION dollar industry! (Oh wait that was a 2006 statistic.) Who knows how much money they bring in each year in revenue now?

I am writing this blog to the average Christian male because a 2007 statistic put out by XXXchurch.com shows that 70% of today’s Christian males have admitted to viewing internet pornography on a DAILY basis! Oh and I am also writing to women because 1 out of every 3 people who visit pornographic websites as of 2009 are women.

This morning I was reading in Proverbs 2 and I read this in verses 16-19:

So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman,
   from the adulteress with her smooth words,
who forsakes the companion of her youth
   and forgets the covenant of her God;
for her house sinks down to death,
   and her paths to the departed;
none who go to her come back,
   nor do they regain the paths of life.

If you think internet pornography is a joke and that is harmless, I want to tell you that statistically  and biblically that belief is based on total ignorance. Scripture says in verse 19 of Proverbs 2 that “none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life!” Internet pornography will mess you up. It will rape you of your ability to live a normal intimate life with others who love and care for you. So if you go on the porn detour and you go “her” way, Scripture says you won’t come back. That phrase sends chills throughout my entire body.

One more thing, Proverbs 7:26-27:

For she has cast down many wounded,
      And all who were slain by her were strong men.
Her house is the way to hell,
      Descending to the chambers of death.

The men and women who "were slain by her (Internet Pornography)” were STRONG men! No matter how “strong” you think you are, “her” house is a way to hell and will drop you deep into the chambers of death. You will not make it out of her house, the house of internet pornography alive! Take this warning seriously! Don’t be a FOOL! Pray that God will save you, your current relationships, and your future relationships from the evil of internet pornography, and get off of the Porn Detour!

America The Idolater.

About a year ago a best friend of mine, Eric Hoke, sent me this video on Facebook and I counted it as nonsense, watch the video and then read on.

 

Since seeing this video many months ago my view on Driscoll’s thoughts and words have drastically changed. On January 3rd, 2009 I went to the Panthers, Saints NFL football game. Standing in line to enter Bank of America stadium I was overwhelmed when I found myself standing underneath two mammoth statues of panthers. There were sound systems set up in each of the panther statues and ever so often there would be a loud shriek like roar that came from the statues simulating the sound a panther would make in the wild. When this would happen, the crowd would cheer loudly.

I found myself standing there with my friend Josh Grubbs thinking, this is exactly what the Israelites did when they built and worshiped the golden calf. Those panthers are just two of many of America’s golden calf’s. I love sports, music, and movies just as much as the next guy… but I am coming to understand a sad reality that America is filled with idols everywhere we look, and the idols that we as American serve are found in sports, music, and movies. Check yourself to be sure that God is assuming his rightful role in your life and that HE is the only idol whom you worship!

Get Dirty.

Recently I spoke at Collide,  Brentwood’s student ministry. The topic, Get Dirty! Jesus Christ didn’t sit back on a marble throne with mistresses fanning him with peacock feathers eating steak, lobsters, cucumbers and hummus. Jesus came to a Dirty world filled with Dirty people, and served those Dirty people. He himself Got Dirty when He was covered in blood on an old Dirty rugged cross. We need to serve those around us by following this model, because when you are serving the Lord and other people this is the bottom line… Getting Dirty Is Expected! Check out the video in the link below!

Cory Ball Speaks @ Collide Wk. 1 Get Dirty