Missionaries in America's Public Schools
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Book and CD
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Back At It!
In the last few weeks we've had the opportunity to minister at a few churches during their Sunday morning services (central OH & northern OH), had some assemblies (NW Ohio, SW Ohio, and Kentucky), and were also able to do our first concert of the year last week in SE Ohio. The next few weeks are pretty packed with events, lots of assemblies and concerts. They are all in Ohio as the second Penton baby is due next week. We intentionally scheduled things within a 2-hour radius of Columbus so Joel could get back if we get the call that the baby is coming. I kind of hope I get a call while Joel is speaking - it would make for a great story if I had to bust into a full-school assembly and pull Joel out to get back home! I'm only half kidding.
Things we could use prayer for:
1. A smooth and healthy delivery of Penton's baby
2. Still need to book up the 2010-11 calendar - pray for opportunities to arise as we work towards that goal
3. Pray that churches/ministries would be open to partnering with us for concerts so we can reach the kids with the Gospel
4. I am working on scheduling some time for November/December with a co-writer/producer to crank out some original music that we feel like will be a huge step forward in the music side of our ministry. We think it will enable us to more effectively reach kids - and especially help with the long-term ministry after we leave an area.
God bless,
Ryan & Emily
Friday, July 2, 2010
2009-2010 Recap
NOT JUST THE O-H-I-O...
As Joel has broken into the realm of national speakers, new doors are opening all over the place (literally). This past year, over 38% of our events were outside of Ohio. Contrast that with 2007-08 when less than 1% of our events were outside of the Buckeye state. Joel’s platform as a nationally-respected speaker has grown exponentially in just 2 years! This is extremely encouraging for 2 reasons:
2. As God opens doors all around the country, we have seemingly unlimited opportunities to take the gospel to students. We feel strongly that this ministry is no longer limited to a short-term opportunity. Rather, there is real potential for long-term impact, if the Lord wills.
YOUTUBE!
With students becoming more driven by technology, we made some huge strides in reaching them through websites like Youtube. At each school assembly, Joel makes a short video of the students and directs them to www.youtube.com/joelpenton (you should go here and check them out) where they can watch it – they love to see themselves on Youtube! Once on the site, they can also view FAQ videos that Joel created, many of which have to do with Christianity and Jesus. After our concerts, we also use Youtube to follow up with those that attended. Over the course of a month, we send out videos that accompany a 5-part study for new believers.
SING US A SONG, YOU’RE THE PIANO MAN
This year, we used a new strategy to promote our evening events. We advertised the event as a Ryan Holliday concert with Joel appearing as a featured guest speaker. We held 26 concerts and were thrilled to see over 200 turn out each night. One of the most exciting changes with the new strategy was the composition of the crowd. Whereas in past years about 50% of the audience was HS & MS students, nearly 100% of each crowd this year consisted of students! Best yet – we saw an enormous increase in the number of unchurched students that came out. We’re excited to have taken some big steps in reaching our target audience for Jesus.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Catching Up
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Follow-up System
For those of you that did not know, after the evening outreach concerts, Joel and Ryan gather the students' contact information. They then send out a series of 5 follow-up videos over the next 5 weeks. You can watch them here: http://joelpenton.com/followupoverview.html
Joel and Ryan are in the process of expanding this process. Instead of just 5 e-mails with 'Joel and Ryan' videos, they are planning to do 20 or so. The purpose is to more effectively bridge the gap between the event and them getting plugged into a church somewhere. In a perfect world, the kids would immediately get plugged in to a church. However, we know that is not always the case. Joel gets 2-3 e-mails a day from kids responding to these e-mails that we send out. They ask questions and say how much it helps them grow in their relationship with Jesus. How could we possibly stop with 5?
Please pray that we finish booking the spring with assemblies, and more importantly, book the concerts that are tied to assemblies we already did. It's definitely not easy, and there are a lot of logistics involved.
Thanks for reading! We appreciate you and would love to hear from you..
Emily
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Live from Florida
Thought this was funny....Joel controls the computer and lights during my portion of the concert and he usually has an auditorium curtain to hide behind. Obviously that was not the case tonight. We built a hillbilly (no offense to any hillbillies reading this) tent for him to hide behind with bed sheets and ladders.
Joel REALLY had fun in his little tent cave.
A clip from the assembly today at the high school. Joel's exact words to me when he saw this video: "It's too bad you walked in during my least favorite line of the whole talk. You should have come in at a classic time when kids are laughing and we're all having a good time. We should time that up better next time."
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Florida!! sorta
Joel and Ryan made the trek down to Fort Walton Beach, FL on Monday. They have 2 assemblies and a concert each day they are there (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday)--which is exciting! They are actually finishing up a concert right now as I type. Please pray that lots of kids come to these concerts and hear the Gospel. Please for receptive hearts and minds.
Assembly at Fort Walton Beach High School.... this morning.
On Friday, we get to go to the Wuerffel Trophy banquet. They were able to get all of these bookings this week because of it. If you didn't know, Joel won the Wuerffel Trophy his senior of college which is basically the Humanitarian Heisman of college football. http://www.wuerffeltrophy.org/ We get to participate in all of the festivities for that.... which I hear is quite an ordeal. I think I am going to feel a little out of place considering I am the wife of the guy that works with Joel, but it was nice of our friend John Watts to invite us.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Sick and Snow
Well, I think they have recuperated from all the traveling--- approximately 60 hours over 2 weeks. Ryan came home with a nasty cold and Joel came home and woke up in the night with food poisioning! But I think they are both 90%.
Everything went incredibly well over the 2 weeks. One school in particular was the best experience they have had yet. They really had a chance to develop some neat relationships with the kids throughout the day through some breakout sessions at school. Ryan got to run with some cross country boys after school and Joel got to lift with some other guys. (Joel LOVES lifting and hates running. Ryan LOVES running and hates lifting. ha.) They also went to dinner with a group of guys that evening. They don't have an evening concert set up but plan to get it scheduled to go back soon. They are already looking forward to it!
Joel at the North Dakota state line...
Ryan is busy catching up on bookings....... please pray for the Spring bookings. We are actually going to be heading over to the Pentons in a little bit to have a meeting to prioritize the million things that seem to go on. Hopefully it is productive!
This is my 2nd day home from school because of snow. Thank you Lord for beautiful snow that gives us a day off!
Happy winter wonderland...
Emily
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Travel, Travel, Travel
Like I said in the last post, Joel and Ryan have been doing some serious traveling. Last night, after finishing up an awesome concert in northern Ohio, they started on their journey to North Dakota. They are currently still on their way, but I just talked to Ryan and they are less than an hour away... woo hoo!
After the evening events where the gospel is shared, Ryan and Joel have the students fill out cards to respond to what they heard and also to get their contact information so that they can follow up with them.
I wanted to share some responses that students wrote from last night's concert:
Most Random: "I really liked the concert tonight. Joel and Ryan are cool like the other side of a pillow."
One that reminded them why they do what they do: "I really love the music that Ryan sang. Joel is an excellent speaker and he spoke to me so much. I realize now that God has been tugging at my heart. I don't know what about yet but I am going to find out."
Cutest: A girl said she rededicated her life to Jesus, then drew a smiley face next to it :)
One that needs prayer: (Pray for this 18-year old guy) "I am not convinced. If my "soul" is so important, I need to be persuaded that there is a God, and that I need to believe in it. If I refuse to bow my head, convince me that my life depends on it. Otherwise, I still have no reason to belive in a story such as God."
One that made me laugh: (Sorry, buddy.) "Good job. The blue lights hurt my eyes."
Stay tuned for a video from last week's Georgia concert.... for some reason, I am computer illiterate right now and need to go to bed!
Emily