Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Catching up with Jeff Tilson

It's always great to catch up with our alumni. A couple weeks ago I had the chance to interact with Jeff Tillson (Youth Ministry/Adolescent Studies 2004).


What are you up to these days? Living and loving Katy, TX as the Junior High Pastor of Grace Fellowship UMC.  I’m also cranking out as many reviews and articles for Youthworker Journal that I can.  I can’t believe that people would actually care what I think about ministry.  Working on my Masters at Fuller.

What do you love about your ministry?  I love the balance and healthy leadership that Grace Fellowship offers families.  We do Sundays only (the Simple Church model) and our busy community loves it.  How do you do youth ministry without Wednesday nights?!  We do and it works.

What has God been teaching you about ministry?  As I lead a ministry of over 300 kids and a couple hundred volunteers, I must multiply myself.  My volunteers must be doing the work of a youth pastor (mentoring, knowing names, etc.).  I even have high-capacity volunteers for every major ministry thing we do.  I lead the five of them, they lead the rest of my volunteers.  I should have been doing this a long time ago – even in small churches.

What’s the best ministry related book you’ve read in the last year or so? How was it helpful/challenging?  Apologetics for a New Generation by Sean McDowell.  It heightened my view of discipleship and encouraged me to crank up the heat on what I was teaching students. 

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