podcast notes
I am opening another night of coaching, Tuesday Sept. 10 – November 19th. Six one hour sessions to talk about how to make your youth grow, improving your leadership skills, how to handle church politics, whatever area you want to grow in, we’ll talk about.
I’ll put the link in the show notes, but before you click that link, ask yourself, what if I do nothing? What if I don’t get coaching, the help I need, someone to guide me? Then ask, what if I do, how will I improve? What will I learn that will help me minister to students and church better? Think about it and then click the link for more info.
The unexamined life is not worth living – Socrates
The unexamined youth ministry is not worth running.
The Relational Way
Pastor, stock up or down?
Parents, Stock up or down? (varies)
Students, stock up or down (varies)
Church, stock up or down (varies)
in the church (stock up or down)
The Diagnostic Way
The diagnostic way is simply using a tool looking to diagnose a problem. X-Rays and MRI’s are diagnostic tools. For your youth ministry, I recommend using the S.W.O.T tool. (there are others I’ll get to in the future.
S.W.O.T stands for
Strengths – What do we do well, what makes us unique, in-house resources, external resources
Weaknesses – What do we lack, what are other youth groups doing better, where are we limited, what do we offer teenagers?
Opportunities – where can we expand, who are we not reaching but could if we made changes, how can we influence the communities perception of us
Threats – other churches moving in, shifting power inside the youth ministry or church, how the community perceives us, shifting culture (are we preparing or flatfooted)
I recommend doing one of these, by yourself, for a program or your youth ministry but not revealing the results until you do it with your team to see what results they come up with. Compare notes and see where it takes you.
The Scriptural Way
The Bible is our mirror. It’s what we look at to see if we match to Jesus’ example of love, kindness, etc. It is also the mirror by which we hold our youth ministry up to. How much does our youth ministry look like what we see the early church doing and being? Through scripture we can examine our discipleship methods, our meeting strategy, what we should be teaching and to who.
The Cost of Discipleship Luke 14:25-33
Large crowds were now traveling with Jesus, and He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple.
Which of you, wishing to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost to see if he has the resources to complete it? 29Otherwise, if he lays the foundation and is unable to finish the work, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This man could not finish what he started to build.’
Or what king on his way to war with another king will not first sit down and consider whether he can engage with ten thousand men the one coming against him with twenty thousand? And if he is unable, he will send a delegation while the other king is still far off, to ask for terms of peace.
In the same way, any one of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be My disciple.
You probably didn’t ask these questions when you first started in youth ministry, but you might be asking them now or should be asking them now.
How much social capital do you have to make a change? Who backs you and who will oppose you?
Do I have the resources? The guts? The time? The passion? The thick skin? The courage? The determination?
If you liked today’s episode, I’d love of you went over to iTunes and left some stars and a review. Thanks in advance.