Courtney Lien

INTRO to CLASS: Most influential person in regard to my faith: There was not a person who is older than me who influenced me in regard to my faith, however, one of my friends (who grew up in a very Godly and devoted home) had discussions with me, prayed with me, and became my best friend.

Courtney was hired initially at Glad Tidings as an Administrative Assistant. She did a partially dual role by working as a secretary and doing pastoral care things as well. Courtney was hired as a pastor at Glad Tidings at the age of 24.

Real Life youth ministry: Aaron Holt (Student ministries head), Varsity, Junior Varsity, and someone is in charge of fundraising events. Courtney says that she did have to watch what she said and did because of the way people watched her. I like that she said this because it's not necessarily true that her character wasn't right but other people have different convictions or even scrupals than she may.

Because Courtney is young, mostly because she is in ministry, there are a lot of holiness issues when it comes to music and dealing with the teenagers. Glad Tidings greatly uses the idea of small groups in their youth group (there are 200 teens). They don't do so much large-sized evangelism as they used to because the kids weren't being discipled throughout the year.

I like that Real Life ministry decided to conduct a survey of the students who attend Real Life. This shows that they're not just assuming that what they're doing is working, they're expecting that they need to change a few things. Make sure that any goals you set for your leaders are measurable goals. With their small groups, there is a leader and a small group assistant leader. Once the group is too big, the assistant leader (who has been training under the head leader), then heads up the new team.

Glad Tidings used to head up Invasion, but now they go on missions trips instead and focus their efforts on them. I like that this ministry tries to emphasize the fact that they're family. Also, Courtney said that you have to guard your time off. I can relate to this because I was an intern this summer and though I was given time off, I often didn't take it so that I could get more work done and be more creative with different things.