Author Archives: Alan Ramsey

About Alan Ramsey

Alan Ramsey is the Student Ministries Lead Pastor at Fellowship Church in Knoxville, TN. He’s been working with students (specifically middle school students) for over 20 years and is honored to play a small part in God’s plan for their futures. Before joining Fellowship Church, Alan was the Assistant Middle School Pastor at Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego, California. He and his wife Diane have been married since May 1997 and have 5 children: Madison, Abigail, Kayla Ray, Rusten and Favour, who they recently adopted from Uganda, Africa. Let’s just say they have their own youth group at home!

The Power of Presence

by on in Leadership.

When you spend time in the trenches of Middle School Ministry, you will eventually face situations and circumstances with your students and their families that you just don’t feel qualified for.

Sometimes, when families are faced with trials, pain, or suffering, we feel as though we can’t help.

Have you ever felt like you were thrown into a situation with a family where no training could have prepared you to adequately care for them?

I have.

But I’ve learned, over the years, that helping families through these difficult moments isn’t actually as hard as I thought.

The best help, though, hasn’t come from any bag of tricks that I’ve kept in my office.

The best help for these moments, I’ve found, has simply been “the power of presence.”

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Caring for Yourself in Ministry

by on in Leadership.

I want to talk about self care.

Now hang on. “Self care” isn’t as bad as it sounds. It seems as though “self care” is often equated with “self help,” and those words do not resonate well for most evangelical Christians.

I think it’s time to change how we view self care. Especially if you are in the trenches of Middle School Ministry.

To do ministry well, and for the long haul, we must care for ourselves. This is something very close to the heart of our Father for his children.

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Helping Parents Rest

by on in Parents.

As the parent of two teenage girls, I think one of the biggest mistakes parents of young teens can make is thinking we need to control the behavior of our kids. We can feel pressured to tell them what kind of people they need to be, so we can keep our kids from moving outside God’s moral boundaries. But this is dangerous.

When we focus on trying to control the outward behavior of our young teens, we actually hinder their development and cause a great deal of stress for ourselves.

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