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Researchers from SAMHSA and RTI International discovered that an alarming number of teenagers experience major depression. In fact, 1 in every 12 teenagers (8.5%) aged 12 to 17 experienced a major depressive episode (MDE) within a one year period.

• 1 in 8 teen girls (12.7%) experienced a major depressive episode
• 1 in 21 teen boys (4.6%) experienced a major depressive episode

The likelihood of a teenager experiencing a MDE increases with age.

Among teens with a past year MDE, how many are impaired by the MDE in at least one of four role domains (i.e., home, school/work, family relationships, or social life)?

• 1 in 5 (21.0%) reported very severe impairment lasting an average 58.4 days
• 1 in 2 (48.3%) reported severe impairment lasting an average 25.8 days
• 1 in 4 (25.0%) reported moderate impairment lasting an average 14.1 days
• 1 in 19 (5.3%) reported mild impairment lasting an average 11.7 days
• 1 in 250 (0.4%) reported no impairment

For more details, read the full report. It is saddening to see so many teenagers being crippled by depression. Based on these statistics, there is a good chance someone in your youth group is experiencing a major depressive episode.

For Discussion:
- Aside from prayer, what are some effective ways to help teens prevent or cope with depression?

[via MSNBC]

I spent part of my childhood as a missionary’s kid in Lima, Peru. In the early years, my parents taught Bible school classes at a mission. It was a big blue building with a courtyard for parking vehicles. Near the front gate were some stairs that led up to a small room with a couch and a kitchen. Attached to that was a much smaller room that was barely large enough to fit a mattress. This is where Timoteo lived with his wife and two children.

Timoteo was a Bible student but also worked at the mission as a groundskeeper and night watchman. He had come from the jungle with not much more than his family and a passion to study the Bible. Hoping to make life easier, we gave them clothes. But as a kid, I thought our gift was lacking something, so I added a bright yellow fly eye kaleidoscope. It wasn’t much. I won it years earlier with skee-ball tickets at a pizza joint. And all it did was multiply whatever you looked at into “hundreds” of images just like a fly’s eye.

It was a novelty trinket, but Timoteo loved it. He kept walking around the mission looking through it. Some people might consider it to be an insignificant piece of junk, but to Timoteo and his family, it was a treasure.

THE MINISTRY LESSON:
What seems small to you can make a big difference to someone else.

The Intangible
To a non-Christian, an authentic smile from a church parking lot attendant will probably make a bigger impact than the style of the worship music. Your next door neighbor is more likely to attend your church because you are friendly than because the sermon series is “cool.” Sometimes something as small as listening with genuine interest after asking someone about their day is enough to make their day.

The Tangible
According to Kids Against Hunger, a child dies every 2 seconds from malnutrition, starvation, and hunger-related diseases. It only costs $0.23 to buy a child a meal. According to Living Water International, a child dies every 15 seconds because of a lack of clean water. It only costs $0.98 to provide clean, safe water to one person for one year.

A little bit can go a long way.

In case you are wondering what happened to Timoteo, he eventually sold the fly eye kaleidoscope to raise money for ministry. He is a phenomenal Christian example to me. As a pastor, terrorists came to his church and demanded support. He refused. At gun point, they threatened to shoot him, his wife, and children. He said, “It does not matter. We are already dead in Christ.” The terrorists assumed he was crazy and left without harming anyone.

For Discussion:
- What are some little things that you have found make big impacts?

Quite a few pastors use Post-it notes in their Bibles as preaching aids. If you are one of those pastors, you will probably enjoy 3M’s new Post-it Notes in sheer colors. They are transparent and allow you to make notes while still being able to read text underneath.

I could not find any online retailers who sell these transparent Post-it notes, so perhaps they are not yet available.

[via Cool Hunting]

The weakening value of the U.S. dollar and the rising global costs of food and oil are creating a money crisis for many on the mission field. Missionaries typically do not have big budgets. And as the dollar weakens, some are faced with the difficult decision of cutting something effective for survival’s sake.

If you had a 10% pay cut, that would be significant. Basically, that’s what those people are feeling right now.
George Salloum :: CFO :: Serving In Mission

Prayer and financial support for missionaries is always important but particularly so during times like these.

[via The Charlotte Observer]

I spent part of my childhood as a missionary’s kid in Lima, Peru. I still have quite a few souvenirs from my time there, including some intis I have tucked away in a box in my closet. In 1990, intis were Peru’s currency.

What I like about intis is they come in big numbers. I have a bill for 50,000 intis and another for 10,000 intis. They even made a 5,000,000 intis bill. It is a neat feeling to hold millions of monies in your hand, especially if you are a kid.

But the problem with intis is they are worthless. They stopped using them in 1991. And even when they did have value, 5,000,000 intis was comparable to $2.50.

Sometimes big numbers are meaningless.

THE MINISTRY LESSON:
Sometimes big numbers are meaningless. Does it really matter how many ADDYs your church wins or how many eggs you hid at your Easter event? Not really.

But what about church attendance and membership? Do they matter? To some extent, yes. Membership and attendance can be great indicators of how effective your church is. But the perceived value of these numbers can also be falsely inflated.

While attendance and membership are important, we cannot lose focus on which numbers truly matter. We cannot forget that the most important numbers are those that measure spiritual gains for God’s Kingdom. How many people came to Christ? How many people came back to Christ? How many people are growing in their spiritual maturity? Lives changed are what matter.

Which is greater? An inward-focused, stagnate church of 5,000 or a passionately selfless Christian who reaches just one of society’s untouchables?

Living in a statistics-loving culture where “bigger is better,” it can be tough to shake the perceived importance of big numbers, even when they don’t really matter. It was thrilling to find obsolete inti coins in the dirt. Psychologically, the coins seemed valuable, but in the real world, they were just worthless big numbered intis.

Numbers are important. But some numbers are more important than others. Focus on the numbers that really count. Focus on the most important measurements - changed lives.

For Discussion:
- What “numbers” does your church measure, and how do you measure them?

[Photo Credit: José Félix Arias Ynche]

I spent part of my childhood as a missionary’s kid in Lima, Peru. It wasn’t the mud huts and jungle you see on National Geographic. Lima is actually an urban metropolis with 8 million residents.

THE STORY:
Less than a block from our house was a large park with grassy fields that were perfect for soccer. My brother and I went to play a game with some other boys from the neighborhood. There were German boys, an Asian boy, and a few Peruvians, and they all spoke Spanish.

Being new to Peru, my brother and I hardly spoke any Spanish. But despite the language barrier, we somehow found a way to interact and start a game. As we kicked the ball around the field, we quickly learned that they did know some English.

“F@%$ you!” one boy said, quite pleased with himself. And after that, a slew of other surprising words followed. They had nothing against us. In fact, they liked us because we were Americans. They wanted to impress us with their English cussing.

But as a nine-year-old boy, I was not impressed. I was shocked. And I did not interact with them much after that. They knew English, but they did not know the right words.

THE MINISTRY LESSON:
We live in an age with many cultures and subcultures. And effectively reaching them often requires learning how speak a culture’s language. But just because you can speak a few words of a culture’s language, does not mean you know how to effectively reach and communicate with them. In fact, you could do more harm than good.

For example, it is common for youth ministers to try to “speak” the language of youth culture by dressing like the teens they are trying to reach. Many youth pastors can pull this off. But there are some who end up looking like they are in a mid-life crisis. Authenticity speaks volumes to teenagers, and without it, a youth pastor just looks like a poser.

Knowing a culture’s language is useless if you do not have the right “words” to say.

And vice versa:

Having the right “words” to say is useless if you do not know a culture’s language.

I struggled to learn Spanish, and consequently, I got little value out of attending Spanish Sunday School. I’m sure it was good, but it was useless since I did not speak the language. Likewise, a ministry can say all the right things but still be ineffective if people do not understand the cultural language being used.

I do believe there are exceptions to these rules. But in most cases, effectively reaching a culture requires:

1. Knowing how to speak the culture’s language.
2. Knowing the right words to say.

At this year’s Exponential Conference, Rick Warren of Saddleback Church (Lake Forest, CA) agreed to be interviewed by Todd Rhoades, Scott Hodge, and Chris Elrod. Rick Warren begins with eight minutes of valuable insight into creating effective discipleship. Below are highlights from the interview, which began with the following question:

Have you read the Reveal Study, and what is your take on the whole thing? (4:05)

The first year of the church I focused on growing the church. But then after I crashed and burned at the end of the first year, I said, “Okay, Lord. What do you want me to do?” And He said, “I want you to grow people.”

(5:10) The Purpose Driven strategy is not a church growth strategy. It is a spiritual maturity strategy. It’s bringing people closer and closer to Christ. First, you get them to know Christ, then to love Christ, then to love Christ’s family, then to grow in Christ, then to serve Christ, and then to share Christ. We’ve been doing this process for 28 years.

(6:00) The biggest mistake that churches make is we think that sermons will produce spiritual maturity. If people don’t take notes, they forget 95% of what they hear within 72 hours. That is not going to produce spiritual maturity.

(6:25) There are simple tools that Saddleback developed early on that have produced spiritual maturity. One of them was the outline. In our church for 28 years, people take notes every week, which means they go home with far more than they would if they didn’t take notes.

(7:10) The second thing is Saddleback is built on a series of five covenants. Jesus had a process by which He took people from no faith in Christ to deep disciple. The very first words of Jesus that He says to His disciples are “Come and see.” Now that’s the entry point for faith. What is the commitment level of “Come and see?” Nothing. Just show up. Sit in the back. Don’t sing anything, say anything, sacrifice anything. Just show up. But Jesus never left them there.

(8:10) And from “Come and see,” He took them through consistent steps. And all through the three and a half years of ministry, he is turning up the heat. And as they begin to follow Him, He starts saying, “You’re my disciple if…” And He redefines commitment. “You’re my disciple if you love one another.” “You’re my disciple if you bear fruit.” “You’re my disciple if you take up your cross, deny yourself, and follow Me.” And on and on, He’s turning up the heat.

(9:10) In those days, nobody took up a cross unless the Romans were going to nail him to it. So He’s saying, “Come and die.” There’s a huge difference in commitment between “Come and see” and “Come and die.” He doesn’t say “Come and die” at the very first. He takes three years into a relationship with them. And He’s moving them.

(9:50) Churches have not understood that commitment is sequential, systematic, and processed. And to move them from “Come and see” to “Come and die” is what Purpose Driven is all about.

(10:10) What happens is churches tend to be one or the other. You’re either a “Come and see” church or a “Come and die” church. And the “Come and see” churches bring them in the front door and win a lot of people to Christ, but they don’t deepen them to deeper levels of maturity. The “Come and die” church doesn’t reach anybody for Christ, and they’ve got their frozen chosen that they keep taking deeper and deeper and deeper. But those people have koinitis. They’re so close no one else can break into it.

(10:40) What a church has to do is see that “Come and see” and “Come and die” is the whole spectrum. And how do you get people from “Come and see” to “Come and die?” There are classes. There are covenants. There are commitments. There are cells. There’s coaching.

(11:05) It’s not just one-on-one. It’s not just one to small group. It’s not just one to big crowd. There is a combination. And you have to take into account that people learn in different ways. Most churches have not built the levels of learning into discipleship.

For more insights, watch the interview video. It also includes Rick Warren’s thoughts on the Southern Baptist Convention’s membership decline and more.

For Discussion:
- What are your tips for effective discipleship?

A few years ago, I discussed The Barna Group’s 2005 Protestant church technology report. This week, they released the 2007 Protestant church technology report. Here are some highlights:

65% used a large-screen projection system in 2007.
>> 62% in 2005
>> 39% in 2000

62% had a website in 2007.
>> 57% in 2005
>> 34% in 2000

Other interesting church technology statistics:

• 56% are using email blasts
  >> 56% in 2005
  >> N/A in 2000
• 26% are using social networking
• 16% are podcasting
• 13% are blogging
• 8% are using a satellite dish to receive broadcasts and training
  >> 8% in 2005
  >> 7% in 2000

Smaller churches with attendance of less than 100 use technology significantly less than larger churches. This is not surprising, but it is interesting to see how churches that are twice as large are substantially more likely to use technology.

For Discussion:
- How large is your church?
- What technology do you find essential for ministering to that size?