One of the most important relationships in the spiritual development of a Christian Teenager, is the relationship between Parents and the Youth Ministry the teenager attends. God has ordained both the Family and the Local Church, and when both of these entities work together to impact the life of a teenager, that is when true life change begins to occur. Because of this, we at Oneighty are doing a few things to partner with parents. One simple way that we are building bridges with our families is by launching a parent page where I give a weekly video recap of... Continue reading

Eight years ago my family and I were living the dream. I was a Youth Pastor of a growing church, my family was healthy, my finances were secure, all was well in life and ministry. Then one day God called us to move away from our family and friends to become the Youth Pastor’s of a church five hours away from everything we knew as home. God had confirmed to my wife and I so strongly that we were suppose to leave that we both knew that if we did not go we would be out of God’s perfect will... Continue reading

Zombies are so big right now aren't they? Michael kicked off the Zombie craze back in the 80's with his Thriller video, and today Zombies are bigger than ever. They just don't seem to ever die. Shoot them, cut off their arm, shove a shovel thru their stomach and they just keep coming and coming and coming. How in the world do you kill a Zombie? Well teenagers face Zombies every single day. They face the Zombies of their PAST. Like a Zombie, past sins, relationships, friendships, and harmful things that happened just keep following them every single day. And... Continue reading

Nineteen years ago my father came up to me and said "Kevin, Barry (our volunteer youth pastor) is moving, so he can't lead the youth group anymore, do you want to be the youth pastor?" At the time I was helping out in the youth group every week, so I thought "Well, I'm going to be here anyway, why not do it?". Nineteen years, four churches, and three cities later, I'm still doing youth ministry. This Wednesday night just like the past 988 Wednesday nights, I will be standing in front of a group of teenagers teaching them about the... Continue reading

Dumb and Dumber is my favorite movie. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's in the top five favorite movies of all time for every dude between the ages of 25 to 45 in America. Dumb and Dumber has to be the most quoted movie in cinema history. I mean when was the last time you were at a party and someone said one line from the movie and the next thing you know, it's 30 minutes later and dudes from all over the room are sitting at a table spouting out famous phrases from Lloyd and Harry. In fact, you... Continue reading

Hey Kevin! I just wanted to say that I enjoy your books sooo much! They're awesome! I have read all of them and some of them I have read multiple times. It's kinda funny because I realized not too long ago that when I talk to my friends, I'm starting to quote little passages from your books into my conversations. I especially like the book about friends and God. Thanks so much, Natalie Find out more about WHAT DO I DO WHEN? Continue reading

1) Your hair is messed up and you have at least two plaid western shirts from Urban Outfitters. 2) You secretly desire to look just like the dude from Hillsong United. 3) You've ever scheduled a big outreach event, just so you could get free food. 4) Every time you want to "go deeper", the first thing you do is read a book by Mark Driscoll. 5) You can always come up with 3 legit reasons to do it later. (and it doesn't matter what "it" is) 6) Your car catches on fire and the first thing that comes to... Continue reading

Everything in life has rules. Rules are written, spoken and unspoken. However they are portrayed, rules govern everything we do. If you learn the rules, and play by them you are going to go far. If you don't know the rules or know them and refuse to play along, well your life is going to be far less than you ever hoped. When you are young, it is easy to have a misguided view of how life is to be lived. However, a few months out in the REAL WORLD will wake you up very quickly. Here are some rules... Continue reading

The best conversations you will ever have are the conversations that you have with yourself. Because of this it is very important that you target the places where you THINK (talk with yourself) the best and most creatively. I do my best thinking when... I'm in my office. I love my office, it has very modern furniture, open feel, bright colors, it is a perfect place to sit and think about the future and all God has for me and our ministry here at Oneighty. I'm mowing my lawn. I know it sounds crazy, but I get some of my... Continue reading

I'm about three weeks into a series here at Oneighty called "The Biggies" in which I am endeavoring to answer some of teenagers biggest questions about God, Faith, Christianity, Eternity and more. This has been an incredible series that I've really enjoyed. Specifically because I've had to jump into the deep end of the theological swimming pool. Here are some of the books I've dove into. Worldviews - Think for yourself about how we see God. A Case for a Creator - Lee Strobel A Case for Christ - Lee Strobel Reason for God - Tim Keller These books have... Continue reading

Over the weekend my son Logan found an old VHS video of my days as a youth pastor in Ligonier, Indiana. The video was of our Grand Opening to the all new XTREME Youth Center, back in 2002. The weeks prior to the Grand Opening, I had challenged the group of 115 teenagers, that if they were to have 200 students in attendance at our Grand Opening, I would dye my hair blond and pink and keep it that way for a month. That night 205 students showed up. I've never been so happy to look like a complete idiot.... Continue reading

Tonight we start a new series at Oneighty titled “The Biggies”. In this series we are going to tackle the big questions that “un-churched” teenagers have in a way that gives the “churched” teenagers the WHY’s of WHAT they believe. In week one we are going to tackled the question “Is there a God?” This question is at the very foundation of truth; faith, Christianity, morality, eternity and all other big questions teenagers struggle with. Here are a few of my notes for this message. People who don’t believe in any form of “Creator / God” typically subscribe to these... Continue reading

Sometimes in life, we have the idea that everything is all about us. It's my car, my kids, my church, my vision, my salvation, my walk with God. If we are not careful the words I, me, and mine will come out of our mouths more than any other words that we speak. This is a real shame, because "It" is not about you. No matter what the "It" is, its not about you. Whether it is your family, your finances or your faith, it's not about you. We see this played out in the words written in Hebrews 12:1-2... Continue reading

Snakes! from Oneighty.com on Vimeo. Continue reading

Myself and my entire staff at Oneighty had such an excitement about what God was going to do in 2010. To be honest in my 17 years of student ministry, I don't know if I've ever been this focused and motivated to role up my sleeves and work in God's harvest field. We came into the year focused on what God had called us to do, and have worked tirelessly to make an impact on teenagers from the Tulsa area. It's been a really good year so far. Here are some highlights from January 1 - March 20 of 2010.... Continue reading

I love speaking. For the past 17 years I've had the honor of standing in front of small groups, large groups, teenagers, adults and leaders and talking to them about Faith, God, Christianity, Love, Leadership and more. To me there is nothing like standing in front of a group of people opening my mouth and letting my heart speak out. I love to speak. Over the past several years, I've really began to study the art of communicating. While watching and listening to great communicators deliver their talks, I've picked up several things that have helped me hone in on... Continue reading

Last night at Oneighty I talked about the Totally Random object of Duct Tape. To illustrate how helpful Duct Tape can be, I took Winnie the Pooh hostage. The poor guy never saw it coming. Anyways. Here's the main vibe of the message. Duct Tape is the handy mans secret weapon, its a mans best friend. So when in doubt...Duct Tape. The same can be said for prayer. Prayer is the Christian man (woman) secret weapon. Its a mans best friend. So when in doubt....Pray. The key verses we used were. Ephesians 6:10-18 ....We talked about how the armor of... Continue reading

Proverbs 10:4 Lazy hands make a man poor,but diligent hands bring wealth. This is one of my foundational scriptures in life. I have never had anything handed to me? I've always had to work very hard for everything I have. Anytime I've ever achieved anything worth while, it's because I got up and worked my tail end off. When I wanted to learn, I devoured books. When I wanted to grow physically, I worked out for hours at a time. When I wanted to reach more students, I visited schools, and did outreach events. When I wanted to speak to... Continue reading

In my bible reading today I came across this scripture. Proverbs 25:28 says "Like a city whose walls are broken down, is a man who lacks self control." Back in the day the only thing that kept a city's enemies from coming in and stealing the woman and children, destroying the buildings and killing the King was a wall. A city with a strong wall was a safe city. A city with a weak wall was a targeted city. A city with no wall, was a destroyed city. God makes an interesting parallel in this passage. He compares a man... Continue reading

This photo was taken on Saturday March 13th, 2010. In this photo I'm sitting in Mardels, a very large Christian bookstore that has several locations in Tulsa. This particular store is located on 71st street. Almost five years before this photo was taken, I walked into this Mardels for the very first time. As I walked the aisles, I started thinking of the books I wanted to write someday and how cool it would be if I could do a book signing here in the future. In fact I specifically remember saying out loud (to myself of course) "One day... Continue reading

Here are some reasons to do a big event. Give students that have never come to your youth ministry a reason to show up. Get students that have not attended in a while to come back for that evenings services. Give your hard-core Christian students a reason to bring a friend with them to church. Give your volunteers something to rally around, pray for and be excited about. How to use events to build momentum in your ministry. Put the BIG event at the end of a teaching series. Take three weeks to preach on reaching out to the lost... Continue reading

We are getting ready to launch a brand new Oneighty.com and one of the final pieces to the new site is staff photos. So we all went out on location to shoot some sweet snap shots of the team. Here are some photos of the shoot. Continue reading

At Oneighty I oversee three ministries that range from students in 6th grade all the way to College Senior. Our entire staff absolutely loves coming up with ideas and opportunities that allow teenagers and young adults to have a great time, be a are part of the family and most importantly hear the good news of Jesus Christ. Tonight is one of those opportunities. Varsity is our ministry to 11th grade thru College Senior and we are having a Movie Night. We served a complete meal from a terrific Italian restaurant, showed the Dark Night, and rapped things up by... Continue reading