I just finished reading Rick Lawrence's Jesus Centered Youth Ministry so this may be a little rough, but I have to put down some thoughts.

The main thing I got out of the whole book is the absolute necessity to talk about, teach about, sing about, and live about...Christ.  I know that seems as obvious as The Avengers being AMAZING, but it's something that sadly wasn't being done with enough intention in my leading.

So to make things easier for me in my teaching, I chose a teaching series called "When People Meet Jesus" from Simply Youth.  It's a great resource and I highly recommend it.  The reason I picked it was because it's easy to make a B-Line to Jesus when you're subject and passage is centered around Him already.  Yeah, I know, it's a little bit of a cop-out, but I needed a way to ease into changing my teaching style.

The hard part will be in a couple of weeks when the series is over and we're moving into summer small groups (another post).

I will say this though, having a few weeks (heck, even months) to start training my heart and mind to look for Jesus in everything, I have much more confidence that the transition will happen more smoothly.

I will give away one tip that I've developed in my study times.  It starts with reminding myself that the Bible was given to us in order to reveal the character of God.  Jesus lived among us to show us the character of God.  So when I'm studying a passage, my question is always "What aspect of God's character is He trying to reveal, and did Christ also reveal this attribute in the Gospels?"

So that's what I've been learning.  How to take ANY passage and point it back to Christ. 

Everything has a design.  The water bottle you drink from was designed by someone.  The TV that you watch was once a design concept.  In the church, we often overlook design because we just need to relay information.  Relaying information is important, but we live in a visual culture.  I'm not going to get into the importance of good design and how it enhances communication.  This is just a reminder to not get stuck in a design rut that is too familiar it loses its effectiveness.

1) Think of your most common "design" elements.  This might be your bulletin, church signage, website...whatever.  Then try to remember the last time those elements got a "face lift".  For most of us, it's been a while since we've looked at our church's website much less redesigned it.

2)  Tear it down and start from scratch.  The best way I've found to give something a new look is to throw out the old and start over.  This can be painful but it's necessary for the new design to be independent.  There's a temptation to just change a few colors and fonts so it will have "consistency".  Fight it and just start over!

The good thing is, for digital media, this process doesn't have to cost a fortune (unless you have to hire a professional graphic designer).  Things like bulletins, email newsletters, and webpages aren't tangible so it's easy and affordable to change them up.

The point is...design spoils.  So, find the bad fruit and REPLACE it!