Tag Archives: youth workers

Living Your Oscar Speech

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Oscars_2013__Who_will_win_what__The_predictions___

photo credit: http://in.socialtimes.me/articles/2013-01-11/official-oscar-app-launched-on-android-and-amazon

I watched about half of the Oscars, after The Walking Dead of course. and I reflected on some of the speeches. I love Jennifer Lawrence of Hunger Games fame and now an Oscar winner for Silver Linings Playbook. She is young and unpretentious and her speech was honest and heartfelt. Some use this speech time to slip in political statements like Marlon Brando’s no show at the 1973 Oscars. As believers in the ultimate rewarder of faith, we should learn from the former rather than grandstand like the latter.

For youth workers, and all believers, our “Oscars” wait for us on the other side of this life, but that does not mean we should not be living our speeches now. Here are a few things we should draw from many of the Oscar speeches of 2013

  • Remember to thank those who got you to where you are (those who believed in you and gave you a chance)
  • Remember to thank those who helped you make it happen (your volunteers)
  • Remember to thank the previous generation of youth workers for blazing a trail for us.
  • Remember to thank your family. These are often the least thanked but most vital to why we are able to do what we do. They sacrifice so we can minister to kids.
  • Remember to be humble for any accolade you may receive. I am thankful for any comment, retweet, and FB like I get. If you see a frog on top of a pole, remember it did not get there by itself.

The best advice of the night came from Ben Affleck, snubbed in the best director category, “They taught me not to hold grudges”. As Christians, we have many opportunities to be offended, bitter, and form grudges. Ben Affleck proved you can be classy and classy wins in the end.

Go out and now live your Oscar speech even if you never win anything. Stay classy youth workers, God has your reward waiting for you.

Did you watch the Oscars? Were you inspired, offended, or amazed with any of the speeches? Let me know below.

A Message For Youth Pastors Over 40: Make Peace With Your Past

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I decided this was the day. The day I would get rid of all that old youth ministry stuff that I have collected for 20 years. It was time to say goodbye to 17 (yes 17) binders of information, forms, messages, and other youth ministry trinkets. It was fun back then, but I don’t live there anymore and neither do the students I minister to today. Heck, the world I lived in does not exist today.

As I sifted though through binders and folders I found typed, yes typed, like on a type writer, messages and forms.  I caught the title of a few , flashed a grin back at them, and in the trash it went. I was merciless. But why so brutal?

As a 44 year old youth pastor I have been able to watch the evolution of student ministry as did those before me witnessed. The past is funny thing, it can comfort you and it can kill you all at the same time. I had to make peace with  the past before it became the enemy of my future. Here are three ways we can make peace and move on to the future God has for us.

Make peace with your past successes

Good is enemy of the best. Past successes are great, but our kids don’t care about those. As much as we try to tell them, “Hey!  I’ve been around!” They just want to know that we care about them, right now. Think about those kids, student leaders, etc. from your past that you treasure in your heart. You worked to get there. You put the time in. Don’t look back and ask why you can’t have that again. Get back to work. Put in the time and three years you’ll have what you want, again.

Make peace with your past messages

We can look back and see all the cool messages we preached, the great illustrations, and some may even be timeless and reusable, but don’t give in to that temptation to bring them back. Messages can be tiny idols we keep in our pocket and while Moses turns his back we pull them out and dance around them. I avoid certain weeks of camp because I know certain speakers will pull a message out of their Summer Messages folder and pretend it’s new. It’s sad. Let’s get on our knees once again and ask God for fresh bread that He has already baked for us.

Make peace with your past programming

The old adage “If you continue to do what you have always done, you will always have what you’ve always had” is true. I have tried to pull old tricks out of my hat in every ministry I have had and I have had to eat dirt every time. Kids know when we are trying to sell them on something we used to do. I think students think it’s insulting. We can get offended when kids baulk at our idea or we can recognize that these kids don’t want to be treated like our old youth group. Embrace who they are and change your style to fit them.

**Note: I am talking about pre-set programs not principles. Principles are transferrable some programs are.

I cleared my physical shelves and my metaphorical shelves. I made room for new successes, new messages, new revelations, and new ideas for reaching kids for Christ. Come along aged warriors, remember the past and smile, but look to the future and rejoice. Our best days are ahead.

 

Did I miss anything? Are you over 40 and found that you had to make peace with something like education, old wounds, etc. What else could we add to this list?

Is Your Library Holding You Back?

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Back in the days of books and large libraries and offices for youth pastors, when I had a need, I would go to my “go to” books on games, lessons, etc. (See Ideas Library from YS) What I found out after the tornado stole our church and my library, I discovered something: I leaned on my library too much.

Libraries are not just books. Libraries are a collection of anything, websites, camps, speakers, conferences, ebooks, etc. The questions is, are our “go to” resources keeping us stupid and outdated. Just because it’s easy to go to our favorites in a pinch doesn’t mean that it should be our first choice.

It’s not just a questions of ease, it’s questions of creativity. When I lost 90% of my library in the tornado, as well as my office, I discovered a new level of creativity. I became much more nimble in my thoughts and had to think more about what was best and not just what was easiest. Loosing my library also freed me up to pray more. It’s amazing how much we  will not pray about something when we feel like we have an ace in the hole somewhere.

I also learned to rely more on people than books or websites. Real people had better ideas than my books. They had current, passionate, and more fun ideas than my books. Shocking right? It only took a natural disaster to show me that.

To this day, one year later, I do not have an office or a library of “go to” resources and I am better because of it.

Challenge: Pack up your “go to” stuff a month (or more) and see what happens.