Live Blog From The Orange Conference – 25 Leadership Quotes From Doug Fields

This week I am live blogging from the Orange Conference in Atlanta, GA.  Orange is the most innovative and relevant deliver of age-appropriate Christian content.  And they also put on an absolutely amazing conference.

Injoy Stewardship Solutions has dispatched me to attend this amazing event as a way to invest in your growth.  They also want to invest in your leadership by offering you our latest FREE ebook Breaking The Next Growth Barrier: 10 Things Pastors Can Do To Break Down Growth Barriers by clicking HERE for your complimentary copy.

Friday’s opening session was conducted by Doug Fields.  Doug is a youth ministry veteran of over 30 years. He is the author of more than 50 books, founder of Simply Youth Ministry, speaker, pastor, advisor to Youth Specialties, executive director of the HomeWord Center for Youth and Family at Azusa Pacific University and a partner in DownloadYouthMinistry.com.  The following are 25 leadership quotes I captured during his challenging session:

1. 50% of all churched kids will leave when they graduate.
2. They become program dependent and person dependent. And when the programs and people are gone, so is their faith.
3. We can’t just teach them what to believe on Sunday. We have to teach them to serve on Monday.
4. I want them to graduate as ministers. A minister sees a need and meets it.
5. 80 minutes on Sunday is not enough. Walking with Jesus is 10,080 minutes.
6. What if changed the measuring stick from sitting on Sunday to serving on Monday?
7. We count people because that’s what we’ve always done. We count people because we’re lazy and that’s what we’ve always done. We count people because we’re insecure and we need attendance numbers to validate ourselves and give us something to tweet.
8. Attendance numbers are a crack pipe for an addict.
9. I can get distracted from my ministry calling by my ministry numbers.
10. The yardstick is those who are missing, not those who are present.
11. Attendance numbers and offering numbers are the true Alpha and Omega.
12. What if we changed our language and painted a verbal picture of what our kids could be?
13. As a leader, the language you choose to utilize are important. Words matter. Words can alter a person’s life.
14. What if we called them ministers instead of graduates?
15. What if we stopped telling children they are the future of the church? What if we told them they are the church?
16. Leadership is not being cute, fun and popular. Leadership is serving.
17. When you engage non-Christian students into serving opportunities, you ignite something in that kid.
18. What a kid does affects what a kid believes. – Reggie Joiner
19. When a kid does what they were created to do they acknowledge there might be a creator.
20. You don’t disciple kids from a stage. You disciple kids up close.
21. What if we changed our emphasis from eternal life when you die to Kingdom life when you’re alive?
22. The church has been strong on communicating the path to Heaven.
23. Kingdom living is available today.
24. Jesus never said, “Lead me.” He said, “Follow me.”
25. You’re never more like Jesus than when you serve.

More to come with Perry Noble later today.

As previously mentioned, INJOY Stewardship Solutions would like to offer you the FREE resource Breaking The Next Growth Barrier: 10 Things Pastors Can Do To Break Down Growth Barriers.  Click HERE or on the image to the left for your complimentary copy.