Richard Riehn of Eastern European Missions tells the story of exactly how Bibles were smuggled into the Communist Bloc in Germany in the 1960s and 70s - in, believe it or not, cowboy boots. 

Riding a train was the only mode of transportation from West Germany to East Germany at the time, and soldiers would check IDs and ransack bags on the way across. 

A prominent businessman who had business in the Bloc also helped smuggle Bibles into East Germany. The man was a devout Christian. He was on his way one day to the Bloc when the soldiers came in for their customary searches and his heart jumped up in his throat because he realized he had his personal Bible, not one of the smuggled ones, in with his regular bag. 

The man was well-known, and some of the soldiers even knew him. They searched him and his bag and upon finding the Bible, one of the soldiers was greatly surprised. 

"A respected businessman like you, and you read this TRASH?" he said as he threw the Bible out the train window. 

The businessman was allowed to proceed, sans Bible. He was devastated. This was his personal Bible, it had handwritten notes all throughout, and while it just a Bible and he could get another one, everyone knows that personal Bibles are sometimes special. Although it had his name and address inside, it was probably lost for good. 

Two years later, he was on the same train bound for the Bloc when someone returned the Bible to him. As it turns out, two little boys beside the train tracks had found the Bible that day, taken it back to their village, and started making copies for the entire village. They had been reading the Bible and baptizing one another for the last two years. 

I think sometimes we underestimate the true, undiluted power of the Word of God. We underestimate what it can do. We don't need fancy preachers in high-dollar suits giving creative and interesting illustrations, we need the Word. 

We also underestimate the saving power of the Gospel. The story itself cuts us to the heart - there's no need to add to that message. 

This was a nice mid-week pickup for me. I hope it's the same for you. 

To excel at something, you constantly have to evaluate. What am I doing right? What am I doing wrong? What can I improve upon? Below are five specific questions all youth ministers (including myself) should be asking, at least on a yearly, if not monthly and daily basis. 

1. Am I Still Effective? Let’s be honest, it’s about Jesus and His power to save, not ours. But all too often we are not looking at our own strategies, programs, and attitude in ministry as being effective enough to reach kids with the Gospel message. Is your heart just not in it anymore? Are you finding yourself saying “those stinkin’ kids” more and more? Do you dread teaching class or planning youth events? Then you might be burnt out, and burnt out ministers aren’t effective. 

2. Am I Communicating Well? Communication in any relationship is key, and communication in youth ministry is no exception. I would venture to say that you need to communicate more effectively with parents and with the leadership of the church than anyone else, including the kids in your group. Do you use more than three forms of advertising for events? Do you send out emails informing parents of upcoming meetings and activities? I’ve found that you can never have too much information out there for parents and kids to see. There’s so much information being thrown at them that sometimes you have to be insistent about making sure they know about the events and activities. Communication is in and of itself a full-time job. You must constantly working at it. 

3. Am I Focusing On My Work? Something I’m struggling with is side projects. Speaking engagements, blogging and writing, and other things. How much am I focused on my work? Meaning: how much am I focused on being a youth minister and not a preacher? Or speaker? Or writer? Or getting another degree? We can easily get wrapped up in the busyness of what we’ve been asked to do and not focus on what we were hired to do. I am very fortunate that the Elders at the congregation I work for have allowed me to fully focus on the youth. They don’t ask me to coordinate education duties, preach, or do too much outside of my youth focus. The kids and their parents need you to be focused on the youth group. 

4. Am I Taking Time Off? Right now, I have 5 ½ days left on the books to take off this year, with just over 40 calendar days left to do it. If you get to mid-December and you have 12 days left to take off, you’re doing something wrong. TAKE YOUR TIME OFF. You need it, and your family needs it. If you rate a day off during the week and can’t remember the last time you actually had that day off, you’re doing it wrong. Take your time off. The work will be there to do when you get back. 

5. Am I Christ-centered? The most important question you should ask, and this one should be asked every day. Firstly, are you taking care of your own spiritual needs and feeding your own spiritual appetite, and second - are you teaching the Gospel to the kids in your group? In youth ministry, everything we do should be to get kids to come to Christ. If that’s not our objective, we need to do some earnest thinking about just what it is that we're doing. 

What about you? What questions do you think youth ministers should be asking. Sound off in the comments. 

I am sitting here as I write this post typing on a new Macbook Pro with a Retina screen. You've seen a Retina screen before - any iPhone since the 4 has had one, so odds are, if you have an iPhone in your pocket, it has a retina screen.

One of the biggest drawbacks of the iPad mini was its lack of a retina screen. It has the same resolution as an iPad 2, only squeezed into a size that was almost 2 inches smaller. Lots of people love the smallness of the iPad mini, and some have even said that the iPad mini outsold the iPad 4 two to one. People really like it. 

Now the iPad mini has a retina screen, and the resolution on it is even better than the new iPad Air. I haven't seen one yet, and the word is that supplies this holiday season may be severely constrained, but this very well may be the best iPad for preaching, teaching and writing yet. 

Why? Because of text. 

Text rendering on Retina screens is extraordinary. And if you're a preacher, teacher, writer, or anything in between, you live in text. You take notes in text. You read and write in text. 

There are lots of great apps for the iPad mini out there - Simplenote and Editorial are a few of my favorites - that take complete advantage of the sharp, un-pixelated text rendering you find on a Retina screen. The best part is that the text rendering is built into the system, so as long as your app runs and has been updated for a retina iPad (which most of the have and are now required to by Apple), the text in any app will look crisp and clean. 

For example, in my workflow as a youth minister, I do a lot of writing, copying and pasting, reading, and presenting. I have all my notes in Simplenote (which has a really nice Mac app as well). I compose my lessons and sermons in Simplenote and they're automatically synced to my iPad mini. I can't wait to see what my words look like on a Retina screen, not to mention how much easier it will be to read while presenting. 

If you need to format your work and make it look great, Apple's Pages is also a great place to start. You can even print to several cloud-enabled printers using AirPrint. 

I won't be getting a Retina iPad mini immediately, but I'll definitely be checking them out as soon as I can. If you're in the market for a 7-inch tablet, the resolution on the Retina iPad mini is certain to please. 

Hebrews 4.12:

"For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart."

In other words, the Gospel cuts. 

The true, unadulterated, unbiased message of the story of Jesus cuts us to the heart. The Gospel can do its work. Our own wisdom cannot do this - the Gospel can. 

When was the last time you spent a significant amount of time in the Gospel? When was the last time you dove into the Word?  

Martin Luther said this about the Gospel:

"[It is] is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold of me."

Sometimes we need to just get out of the Gospel's way and let it work. 

Then Jonathan said to David: ‘Tomorrow is the New Moon festival. You will be missed, because your seat will be empty.’ - 1 Samuel 20:18

Growing up, I was made to go to worship. Every time the church doors were open, I was there. My mother would (almost) let me miss school before she’d let me miss church. It was engrained into my mind that I would be there.

This carried over to later in my life when I found a purpose in worship. I found that it wasn’t just about me getting what I could get out of it, it was about participating in the worship of our Lord and giving what I could to Him.

I think that maybe a lot of us fail to understand that these days.

As a youth minister, I see it a lot. If there is something better to do, then that certain kid won’t be at worship services, whether it’s sports, a concert, or homework. So what are we raising our kids to think their priorities are?

Without getting too much into the actual importance of being at worship, I just want to say one thing: that when you’re not there, believe it or not, you are missed.

In 1 Samuel 20 Jonathan says this to David, talking about the New Moon festival. Without reading the context of this verse, we may think, “Aw that’s sweet. Jonathan was concerned for his friend.” But if you read into it, you’ll understand that David was staying away from the festival because he was sure that Saul would try to kill him.

Every true worshiper needs to understand this verse – You will be missed, because you seat will be empty. If they do not understand this, perhaps the rest of us need to remind them.

As Christians, we have a lot of things in our job description. Be an example of Christ. Care for those less fortunate than you. Preach the Gospel to everyone. But another part of our job that we sometimes overlook is something I like to call Retention.

During my time spent in the Marine Corps, I learned that every base of large unit has something called a Retention Officer. This officer’s only job was to make sure that Marines were staying in the Corps past their allotted time of duty. He would call us from time to time to see if we were thinking about reenlisting and what those reenlistment options were. Sometimes, big incentives were given to high-value occupations.

As Christians, in our local churches, in our local communities, what are we doing to keep people there? Do people know you care? Do people know that they are missed when they’re not there?

I encourage you - members, youth ministers, ministers, what have you - to start making an effort to see where the empty seats are located. Christians need to be with other Christians. Christians need to worship.

It may sound like just one more thing we have to do, but the rewards of finding that one lost sheep among the ninety-nine will be incredible.