Tag Archives: teens

What Is Our Youth Group NOT Advertising?

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What does this sign say? More importantly, what does it NOT say and do we put out things about our youth ministry just like it?

Clearly, the grocery store is going for price point sale. We have cheap stakes, they are not the best steaks, but they are the cheapest. Do we “sell” our youth ministry in a similar fashion? Do we say things like “We are a fun youth group!” We use that to get kids to come and hope they stay. It may be true that our our youth groups are fun but is it a bait and switch tactic?

Jesus told people up front, this thing called discipleship, it’s tough. Now, I am not in favor of pinning a visitor to the wall with an all nothing proposition on their first visit, but I wonder how much this proposition comes up at all in youth groups.

I also do not think we should advertise our youth ministries as the cheapest faith in town, “Come on by, we won’t make you angry by challenging you or preaching the gospel, but heck we’ll have fun.”

What do you think? Do you think youth ministries still practice bait and switch tactics and is this hurting youth ministries (and churches) in the long run in making disciples? Tell me what you think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breaking Down The “Why?” Question In Our Youth Ministries

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I have been reading the book Start With Why By Simone Sinek. The focus of his book is in the title; that people are more about why you do something than what you do or how you do it, so why don’t we start with asking why before we create another ineffective program? I used to think that if I told kids what we did (events, fun, concerts, etc.) and how we did it ( with energy, lots of give aways, food, big crowds) they would be sold, come to the event, and then stick around for a while. Had I stuck to that premise only, I would have left youth ministry a long time ago. The what and the how no longer excite me, but the why is still what has kept me going.

I think most of the kids have stuck with me in the ministry for a while because they know I do not do it for the money, fame, and glory because their isn’t any. They stuck around because I cared about them enough to hang our with them, share the truth with them, and from time to time, discipline them. They figured out that the Why? under current of my life was to see them become fuller followers of Christ while they were under my watch. They knew I was with them for as long as I could be, and I never gave up on them so long as it was within my power.

This does not mean my WHY was not without a few faults. I would slip from time to time back into what we do and how we do it and make that the focus. I would sometimes not do relationships very well, but the kids hung around anyway, God bless’em.

So, how do we take the translate the meaninglessness out of our what and how of youth ministry to give us a compelling story instead of an invitation tag line or bumper for the next video of a  program we’re pushing? I recently re-thought out our worship band and this is my why, what, and how of our youth band. I recently sent this to our band leader.

 

WHY do we have a band? – This is purely philosophical, but if we cannot answer the why then the what and the how do not matter.

Why do we have a band?

  • Because it allows young people to use heir gifts and talents to glorify God rather than be spectators.
  • Because young people need peers to model what worship is. 
  • Because, if we do not create an atmosphere of worship, with the best that we have, that lifts God high, we will never see students step out in faith and worship God in the fulness of the Spirit. 

Simple right? This is WHAT the band is going to do

1. Practice become worship leaders to their peers to the throne room of God, in band practice.
2. Grow deeper in their individual walk with God because of their commitment to worship
3. Become the best they can be at their instrument and vocals.

More simple, right?  This is HOW we are going to do it: We will

1. Expect them to be at practice and on time. Let’s have a few weeks of grace but the rule in the past is: If you do not practice with the band, you do not play with the band that following week. Let’s stick to that.
2. Create an environment of innovation. No idea is too crazy, no song to stupid, no combination of instruments too ludicrous. In other words, if they have an idea, let them share it, weigh it against the feedback of the rest of the band and what you think; and if it is doable, run with it. This means:

a. If someone has a solo, either instrumentally or vocally let’s figure out how to fit that in (special, offering, communion, closing, etc.)
b. Mentor and challenge kids to step up. Don’t let talented kids hide. Encourage them to step out. Really focus on certain kids to be lead worshippers. Here is a four step process I use when mentoring

I do it you watch (this might mean you show them how to pray out loud, move in the Spirit, etc.)
I do it you help (give them opportunities to do what you just did)
You do it and I watch (take the training wheels off and let them ride, even if they crash, they learn something)
You do it I train someone else ( Once that person has to confidence to do it, let them do it and move on to someone else all the while being available for feedback, etc.)

3. We’re going to bang the drum in all these areas. We will  say it, write it, practice it, show it, paint it, sing it, or any other method that will keep our WHY at the forefront.

4. We will start each practice with a short devotion about worship, more story driven than principle driven but not leaving out either. The devotion will be short with interactive (open ended) questions and we will let kids struggle with the answers to  ”what does this mean for me personally?” and “what does this mean for us as a band and a youth ministry?”

5. Recruit fantastic musicians and singers, from inside and outside the church, to mentor our kids in their instruments and vocals.

 

That took me about 15 minutes to think through and write out. Feel free to steal it, rework it to make it your own, or come up with your own.

 

Part II Coming Soon: Steps To Coming Up With Your Why Statement

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is There Hope For The Un-Relational Youth Pastor?

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We all know that youth ministry and ministry in general is driven by relationships, but what about those of us who are not anti-social but growing relationally challenged? I will say that early on in my life I felt like I had to be the life of the party and entertain everyone around me, now that I am older I don’t feel the need to do so, but I look at relationships, especially with young people differently.

I grew up an only child, so I am used to having alone time. In fact, the older I get, the more I like to be alone. I like to read, study, you know, all those things many of did not like when were younger. How has my relationship style changed with students and just about everyone else? Here are a few things I am practicing:

  • Shorter burst of relational time but more meaningful.
  • Say things that matter and skip the fluff.
  • Longer periods of quiet and reflection so when I do jump in to the thick of it I am charged and ready for it.
  • More texting (short encouragements).
  • Less Facebook time (especially chatting)
  • More meal time with students.
  • Not feeling guilty if I am not always there.
  • Letting others step into the spot light.

These are not just tips from a guy who is growing older in his profession, they are nuggets for anyone who thinks they have to be “on” all the time. I don’t think am losing a step in the area of relationships but as choosing my steps more wisely.

Do you struggle in building/maintaining relationships with students? Tell us about it. Have some more tips for the relationally challenged? Share those too.

Good Youth Ministry Begins With Asking Why

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I have been reading a book by Simon Sinek called Start With Why. It is a marketing/leadership book for businesses but it really challenges the reasons why we don’t ask why and why we should be asking why more. The premise is simple: People are not attracted to what we do or how we do it, but why we do what we do. He challenges us to always begin our endeavors with Why?

For youth ministries, this means getting away from selling our long list of programs to students and getting down to telling a better story of why we created the programs in the first place.

Let me offer seven questions we should be asking about our youth ministries and ourselves:

1. Why do I do, or still do, youth ministry?

“Because I am called” or “Because I can’t do anything else” are both sad answers and do not inspire anyone. Dig deeper.

2. Why do I preach what I preach? 

“It’s my job” is lame and keeps you from changing the way you lead your group. Dig deeper

3. Why do I have daily devotions and prayer?

Is it because you feel guilty or you think God may punish you if you do not? Reflect not on the what or how long, but the discipline itself. Healthy youth ministry begins with healthy leaders.

4. Why do we meet?

If you can answer this question, programming will be a breze.

5. Why do we have small groups?

By asking why, we eliminate false answers such as “Because everyone else has them”

6. Why do we have outreaches?

Is it about the numbers? Go deeper and you’l find a better reason to reach our to your community.

7. Why do I do or should I do family ministry?

We do not ask this questions often enough because many ministries do not do this well, so we don’t ask.

Asking why makes us uncomfortable and it should. It reveals how little foundation we have for doing what we do. Asking why makes us unhappy in the short term but if we ask and reflect on it, it could lead us to reformulating what we do.

We cannot coast along in youth ministry with out asking why. If we’ll start with why we may just avoid the disappointing question, “What happened?”

Which of these questions challenge you most?

Is there a why question you have been pondering? Tell us what part of youth ministry we should being asking why about.

 

Do Mega Youth Groups Have A Mega Responsibility?

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I got a call the other day from a mega youth movement in our city. They were inviting me to an end of school rally. I appreciated the call and thanked him. A few days later I received another call inviting me to the same event. I had been thinking about mega-churches and mega youth movements and their responsibility to the rest of the body of believers within the community.

Mega churches are, dynamically, like Wal-Mart. When a Wal-Mart moves into a community , it has an adverse effect on mom and  pop stores, usually resulting in them closing. Mega-churches have a similar effect. I define a mega church or youth ministry of over 100, since the average church congregation is about 100. Wal-Mart has no responsibility to mom and pop stores, but what if they did? What if they shared marketing secrets or better customer service tips? This would level the playing field to some degree and then it would be up to those owners to change to get a chance to compete within the market place.

What if Mega-Churches or groups did the same? Rather than gutting our youth ministries or young adult programs and saying too bad, teach us how to thrive. Now, I know the mega’s have events that equip the body. They host larger speakers, conferences,  and concerts that smaller groups could not afford. That certainly helps, but there are some other things I’d like to see them do.

I’d like to see mega movement youth leaders and youth pastors

  • Join a local network- Many times these leaders will say they do not have time. Bunk! Come hang out with us.
  • Teach us something- Share what you know with us. Teach us how to draw students or have an awesome camp.
  • Partner with us- Bring your awesome drama team or band to our group.
  • Reach out to us- I want to hear from you, not your people. Mega groups draw criticism because of isolationism. Break down the walls.
This is not sour grapes, just an observation. I am also not a spiritual socialist, believing all things should be equal among us.  I think Mega youth groups have a mega responsibility to the rest of the body within a community, unless they want to be Wal-Mart.  At the very least, don’t ignore us. We may be mom and pop churches but we have purpose. Invest in us, build relationships with us, and then let us stand on our own and we ‘ll see what God will do. Next time, don’t call me to come to your event, call me to come into relationship with you.
What do you think? Do Mega-Youth Ministries or movements have a responsibility to the rest of the body within a community or is it all cut-throat and the strongest survive? Tell me what you think.

Weighing Your Waste

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I spent two days with my son at a camp recently. Spending time with and being a counselor for 100 5th graders was an experience in itself. Something that impressed me, but also irked me were the meal times. The food was good but the process of clean up was so tedious it was almost maddening; but there was one feature that caught my attention and that was the weighing of the left-over food. They weighed the waste. It was pretty cool on multiple levels:

1. It showed kids how much food they were wasting in any given meal. The first weigh in was 8 pounds among 100 kids.

2. The waste included orange juice and milk because it came from living things

3. They challenged the kids to decrease the waste at each meal By the end of the weekend we had reduced our waste to 2 pounds. Pretty good, considering the finicky-ness of 5th graders.

This experience got me thinking about how much money, time, and resources, I’ve wasted in youth ministry over the years. Some would argue that their is no waste in youth ministry, it’s all of value,  but I disagree. Think about your last few events. How much did you spend? Was the outcome worth cost? How do you know? Take how much you spent and divide it by how many kids participated. Now, if it was a paid event, like a retreat, and it was a wash, then it’s even. The events I am focusing on are the vents where we throw the Hail Mary event and hope for the best. So, how do you measure your waste? Take these four areas and throw them on the scale.

Time We all do this. Whether it’s Angry Birds or if you are like me, Empire Avenue lately. What should be on your scales?

  • face time vs social media time with kids
  • office time vs personal interaction time
  • serving time vs relaxing time
  • reading/study time vs t.v. time
  • phone calls vs e-mails
  • student leaders vs the new kids

The list can go on, add yours in a comment section of the post. We waste a lot of time rather than investing time where it counts.

Money

As I said earlier, we waste a lot of money on events and stuff, that does not work. Try a personal budget audit. Look at the last few events you had, and see if they were pluses or minuses. Then compare them to last year, if it is a yearly event, were they pluses or minuses? Take stock of the curriculum you bought. Have you used them? Were they effective? Throw it on the scale and make some changes.

People  Capital

This is an important item to put on the scale. How much man power capital have we wasted because of personal conflict, inner turmoil, prejudices, and other factors. Are we wasting our own time because we are not investing in others? What goes on the scale?

  • Pastor Capital
  • Board Capital
  • Your Team or Youth Team Recruitment Capital
  • Congregation Capital
  • Community Capital

Each of these are resources we could be ignoring and it could be a waste of our time and of the personal capital we own. In other words, do you find yourself working too hard because you are unwilling or unable to use your relationship time more effectively. Most of my problems can be solved with a 10 min phone call. But if I don’t make those calls, it leads to hours, days, or months of wasted time managing the problem vs solving it.

Facilities

I am in the midst of  a youth room make over. I don’t like wasted space, so I am trying to fill it with usefulness. Do you have couches where a cafe could go? Do you have old equipment where a counseling are could go? How often do you use your youth hall or gym? Once a week? Once a month? How much of that space is wasted? What new ministries could you start (not run) to fill that space? Our motto should be: No Space Put To Waste.

Step On The Scale and Take The Poll

Are You Overexposing Yourself?

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I examined my week and I decided I was spending too much time with kids. Is that possible? I think it is. I saw kids on Sunday and Wednesday, I had a student leadership meeting on Monday, I was taking homeschool kids to lunch, Facbooking, and on and on. I don’t think kids need us that much. It’s us who think kids need us that much.
I think overexposure:
  • Dulls our voice. They hear us all the time.
  • Makes us a buddy more than a leader.
  • Keeps us from being objective in some cases.
  • Keeps us from valuable think time.
  • Depletes us emotionally.

Examine your schedule. Where can you cut back on being overexposed? What do you think, can you spend too much time with kids?

Buying Into The Next Level

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Before launching anything, you have to have a certain level of buy in. Whether it is a small group, discipleship group, evangelistic event, or a leadership group you need kids to buy in. You have to have kids who are interested, that have some want to. How do we get that? How do we do that? We have to get students to buy in with:

  1. Hearts (they have to feel it)
  2. Minds (they have to think it will be worth it, and t will be)
  3. Souls (they have to believe it will affect their walk with Christ and could have a greater impact on the youth group and the Kingdom of God)
  4. Bodies (they have to show up, sometimes just by faith)

So, what can we do to help our kids buy into the next level of their spiritual growth?

1. Make it a practice of telling kids you believe they can make it to the next level.

The students may not be ready now, but they can be and will be if they know someone believes in them.

2. Invite kids to taste the next level.

Jesus invited Peter, James, and John on special trips where they experienced things (mount of transfiguration, personal prayer time with Jesus in the garden). Find ways to invite kids to experience that next level of maturity.

3. Cast a vision of what life could like for them at the next level.

Kids need to see what’s in it for them and for the Kingdom. I know we want every choice to be altruistic, but most kids don’t have that. Their choices can be Spirit prompted, if they can see it with the heart and their imagination.

Jesus painted great pictures. We can too.

  • Paint a picture of the rewards at the next level (eternity, crowns, presence of God)
  • Paint a picture of the consequences at the next level (they will reject or persecute you)
  • Paint a picture of the dangers at the next level (most guys are enticed by an element of danger)
  • Paint a picture of the joy they will experience at the next level (the positive emotions will keep them coming back to that level)

4. Tell them there is a task custom made for them at the next level.

Jesus told Peter “Feed my sheep”. You have to show young people that their are important things to be done at the next level and they can do them if they step out in faith.

5. Let them know they will learn something they do not know at the next level.

We have a responsibility (on a program level) to make each level interesting, challenging, and educational. The disciples went from fishermen to walking on water, healing the sick, experiencing the power of the Spirit, proclaiming the gospel to Gentiles, and ultimately, giving their life. We have to make sure each level is not just fishing in different lake but deeper lakes with bigger fish to be caught.

6. Pursue and Live At Your Next Level

Before we invite kids to the next level, let’s make sure we are heading to the next level God has for us. We can’t invite kids where we have not been or are not heading. They will know if we are stuck at or scared of the next level in our own lives.

Your Assignment:

  • Take your program apart into small pieces.
  • Divide it into levels of deeper maturity (where do you want them to go?)
  • Decide which kids to invite to which level. (invite them consistently)
  • What rewards and consequences await at each level?

First Church of Awww-kward

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If I could have banned a word last year it would have been the word: awkward. From sit-coms to general conversation, the word just creeped in to describe anything uncomfortable to talk about. Although I don’t like the over use of the word it completely describes my youth ministry and just about every other youth ministry in America. But awkwardness can be the catalyst for learning.

Consider this, we are trying to build a community and a church and the church, out of awkwardness. We have kids with no filters from brain to mouth, kid who are shy, kids who figuring out who they are. I struggle on a weekly basis to connect jocks with nerds, cheerleaders with anime chicks, and I wonder why the group doesn’t grow or achieve certain goals.

Every youth meeting is fueled with awkwardness. From trying to get kids involved in games to getting up and sharing a testimony or announcements. We are flying in the face of adolescent angst. So, what do we do? Nothing. There is nothing we can do. I’m not sure we need to.

The disciples, I’m sure, could recall some awkward moments:

  • Peter sinking right in front of Jesus
  • James and John’s mother requesting special favors for her kids
  • Jesus talking with women
  • Jesus arguing with Pharisees
  • Jesus healing lepers
  • Judas running out on the last supper
  • The woman challenging Jesus about dogs getting crumbs of bread

The list goes on. Jesus was a master of creating awkward situations. Jesus did not avoid them, he embraced them. Maybe, instead of trying to avoid awkwardness or abolish it , we should capitalize on it. It is the awkward moments that create teachable moments.

You know what is really awkward? Trying to explain all this in a staff meeting.

For your pleasure: awkward family pictures

A Few Of My Favorite Things- 20 Plus Ideas For Volunteer Gifts

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I wanted to show some love to the people, place, and things that have helped me or my youth ministry out this past year. These might make great gifts for your students or volunteer leaders. Don’t know what to get your volunteers or leader? I have provided and handy dandy for form you can use for Christmas or anytime this year. This idea came out of a conversation about Christmas on the weekly show Life In Student Ministry with my friend @Tim Schmoyer. Enjoy.

Gifts For Volunteers

  • Food Cards (subway, etc.)
  • Books (for personal or professional edification)
  • Movie Passes
  • Babysitting (if they need it.)
  • A home cooked meal at your house
  • A gift basket filled with their Favorite Things (from the free form)
  • Time off
  • Pay for a maid service for one day (this is for the busy family volunteer)
  • Time with them- Take them to lunch or just hang out
  • A Coupon Book (free car wash etc. students in your group could volunteer for various chores
  • Card games or games in general (this way they always have something to play when kids come over)
  • A coupon filled with discounts for next years trips
  • A thank you card (with items from the Free Questionnaire)
  • Gift them some songs from itunes or itune cards
  • Art (framed pictures or paintings, or something you make for them)
  • A poem written by you
  • A video on you tube thanking them or kids thanking them.
  • Tickets to a sporting event
  • Tickets to a play
  • Tickets to a concert
  • Yourself- offer to pray with them or e-mail them daily prayers of affirmation up until Christmas

Nothing is too outlandish. If you are meeting a need for that volunteer you are giving a great gift. That is round one of gift giving ideas. I may have more as I go along. Do you have any ideas? Please leave your suggestion in the comments.