youth ministry
Category Archives: youth ministry
leadership ramblings youth ministry
Boundaries in Ministry
April 13, 2010 – 7:20 am
Got asked this question today from a seminary student — How do you keep boundaries so that your still a father and husband AND do ministry?
Here’s what I wrote him…
Great question. Boundaries are hard to maintain and keep. This issue is not just a clergy issue either. I think all highly relational professions have this problem.
From the outset, this is why it is so important that the spouse is ‘called’ to the job as well. If the wife (spouse) isn’t on the same page in ministry as the other, it sets the family up for a disaster of a train wreck. Any new minister that is thinking about ministry, I ask that question first – where is your spouse in this decision? What does he (or she) think? Are they on board with this? Are they going to be a help/partner with you in this ministry?
If the ‘other’ isn’t on the same page, it’s doubtful they are called in the first place. Furthermore, it will be next to impossible to define and keep the idea of boundaries. It sets up the very real possibility of jealousy and bitterness entering the relationship because ‘he spends so much time with them and not the family.’ (Or she as the case may be.)
Having said that, there are some tips that I wish someone had taught me earlier in my career. It would have saved us some headaches and heartaches. Here are my thoughts — in no particular order.
1. You can’t save/help/mentor everyone. It’s a physical impossibility. Jesus couldn’t do it either. He picked a core ring of 12, then 3 out of those. You do the same. Take people who are learners and WANT to go on the journey with you. It’s okay to tell people – “No, I don’t have the resources to help, guide, mentor you at this time.”
2. Have a day off. A FULL DAY. TAKE IT. Don’t answer the phone, email, text — anything. Get lost. Recharge, rethink. Fish, walk, ride, do something.
3. Date your spouse. Once a week — do something together, just the two of you. Ideally, at least once a month this needs to be a real, go out date. And buy flowers for no reason every now and then.
4. Have a curfew. Student pastors’ houses are havens for kids. They should be. It’s cool and awesome. But have a curfew and keep it. Also have ‘no- kid’ hours. Kick them out at 11 or midnight. Have a weekend (or two) a month where they know your house is off limits.
5. Only disciple students as the same gender as you. Only counsel students as the same gender as you. Many guys have found themselves in an ‘oops’ position of being too close to a student of the opposite sex. And just because it didn’t end in adultery or sex doesn’t mean it was a healthy relationship.
6. Have dinner with your family at least 4 to 5 times a week. Sit down, real plates, face to face, tv off, prayer, talking kind of meal. All of the family around. This will teach boundaries for the WHOLE family, kids included. “Can I go play? Or go to this activity?” “Not right now, we are eating dinner as a family” is a great answer.
7. Make it a family thing whenever you can. Doing ministry, we’ve tried to take the whole family whenever we can. We can’t ALWAYS do that but as often as I can, I try to make it a family.
The last thing I’d say is this, there are going to be seasons where the wheels are off the wagon. Life is busy. The emergency or crisis didn’t happen during office hours. That’s life. Roll with it. And understand that kind of thing doesn’t just happen in ministry either. That’s why it’s so important that the marriage really is a partnership where both are called to ministry.
What else would you add?
The McDonaldization of YS?
October 22, 2009 – 10:16 pm
If you haven’t heard by now, let me help you get the rock that you’re living under off of you. Mark Oestreicher – lovingly referred to as “Marko” – was ‘released’ by Youth Specialties on Monday by Zondervan. I’ll pause a minute and let that sink in.
There’s much that isn’t known at this point. Why? Was this in the plans since day one when Zondervan bought YS? Did the trips to Michigan finally push Marko over the edge where he went through the Zondervan office threatening bodily harm to all suits with a rubber chicken? Will YS now be the newest addition to get your youth version Precious Moments? Does Zondervan have any clue what they’ve just done to themselves?
Here’s what I DO know – I hurt. I hurt for Marko and his family. I think he’s ‘deep’ enough, ‘mature’ enough to know that his value and importance are beyond the title and position he held at YS. Not that this lessens the pain at this moment. In the long run – he and his family are going to be just fine…better than fine.
I also know the reason so many youth workers loved YS because they knew they were getting a quality product that spoke to youth culture relevantly. YS was committed to ministering to the hearts of youth pastors and youthworkers. Not because it was a ministry plan but because people like Yac and Marko knew that relationships matter most, more than curriculum.
On the other side of the fence, Zondervan hasn’t published a relevant youth ministry book on their own in years. The “Big Boys” of Christian publishing have been irrelevant in student ministry for years. Graphically, subject wise, language, the vanilla-ness of it all. They still write for white, suburb, upper-middle class, non-divorced families that live in the south. Most of us haven’t noticed it or been bothered by it because of YS.
I wonder if that’s changed now. I wonder if the future of YS is really a “Back to the Future” for the rest of us. And to me this is the real tragedy of the week. I’m completely confident that Marko will find a place to land, to minister, to continue his impact on student ministry for the Kingdom. He’s not the loser here.
Zondervan are losers in this. Not that kind of loser…well…okay, that kind as well. They’ve lost/fired a prophetic voice for student ministry. In an arena where relational equity is everything, they just shoved that out the door and who knows when they’ll earn that back.
I wonder if the real losers in all of this mess is us. Will we get yet another few years of safe, irrelevant, vanilla curriculum from a company that is going to do its best to not offend anyone? Will we go ‘back to Egypt?’ Or will two crazy guys start making books in their garage again and on their Macs and start the revolution all over?
Here’s hoping that happens…again.
Fields of Faith
October 15, 2009 – 8:36 am
I got the honor and privilege to talk to a bunch of high school students tonight at the FCA Fields of Faith event…which due to the rain and cold ended up being a Gym for Jesus. This is a shorten version of the talk last night:
“Every generation has a chance to change the world” U2 tells us. I believe that’s true but why then has so little of the world changed? The ’60′s generation tried to change the world by proclaiming what they were against. Didn’t really change the world because now they teach history in high schools.
The 70′s and 80′s come along and they tried to change the world be focusing on themselves and their lack of a clear identity – Generation X. The 90′s was about GREED. 2000 forward is you and the lie we’re trying to sell you is that you can change the world if you have enough information.
The problem is none of this has really worked and it’s not going to work in the halls of your high school. I think the secret to changing the world around you is found in John 9. The man was born blind. Jesus comes along and makes two mudballs big enough to cover his eyes with his SPIT. The man is blind, not deaf. He can hear Jesus coughing up spit to make these mudballs. He can FEEL the slimy mud made of another person’s spit on his face.
Disgusting. Right? Huge insult in that culture to put saliva on another person’s face. Even though the man was blind, he had dignity, right? This is the secret for changing the world.
The man wanted whatever it was from Jesus’ hands more than he wanted anything that he already had. Dignity. Blindness. Possessions. Whatever he had, as valuable as it MIGHT have been, he was willing to trade it all in for whatever Jesus had in his hands – as disgusting, messy, degrading, and nasty as MAY have appeared. He trusted Jesus that much.
If you want to change your home, start trading with Jesus with whatever of value you think you have for WHATEVER is in His hands. Follow him, trust him, desire him first. That will change your character which in turn will change your world.
An Ebenezer By Any Other Name
July 28, 2009 – 4:28 pm
Ebenezer: name of Hebrew origin meaning “Stone of the help” (derived from the phrase “Eben ha-Ezer”).
Stone of the help. “Here I raise my stone of the help.” A marker to help us remember the provision or presence of God.
Our students are having their own “Ebenezer Moment” this coming Sunday night. (6 pm, at Western Hills, whole church is invited). They’ve had an incredible summer. We had a few of our students lead a small group, help lead and staff our VBS, as well two weeks of Super Summer where over 6 students made Jesus the Lord of their life. Two other students feel like they are called to full-time missions. Then there are the life change stories of students making major decisions about their life because of Jesus.
I’ve been fortunate to be a part of all this. Now the rest of the church is going to be invited to get in on it as well. Student Ministry Team came up with this idea of having a worship service where the stories could be told…from the students themselves. And that’s what is coming on August 2nd. I’m amped to hear the God-stories from our students.
Perhaps this night will be an ebenezer of another kind for the rest of us, huh? Maybe we ought to have an all-church ebenezer night? I’m liking that idea…but for now – I’ll see you Sunday night.
How Coolness Is Lost
July 19, 2009 – 8:53 pm
Went to a youth event tonight at Sherwood Lake. It was fun, awesome, great, wonderful as is almost anytime I get to hang with teens.
Below is the actual conversation I had with a teen tonight who shall remain nameless…for now.
GE: So…if you had $15 to waste on either music or the movies, which would you choose? (Which by the way, is a great question that all youthworkers should have in their arsenal. In fact, you need about 5 questions in your back pocket so you can start and have a conversation with any teen.)
NS (Nameless Student to protect guilty): Hmmm. Have to be music.
GE: What songs or album would you buy?
NS: Hard question! I don’t really know.
GE: Okay, give me a couple of artists that you have the most of in your itunes.
NS: (Sticking the dagger in my heart) Well…I’m guessing that most of the stuff I like you’ve never heard of….like Dave Matthews Band.
GE: (Stunned in silence. I holler at Amy.) Do I really look that old with the goatee now? I mean, really? Dave Matthews Band? (I look back at NS who is now laughing very hard at me or with me, not sure.) Do you honestly think I live under a rock or something?
A Taste of Brazil
July 13, 2009 – 10:29 pm
Thomas, Agnes, and Melissa Schneider were in town this weekend. I first met the Schneiders in 2002. I just arrived at Grace Church in Little Rock as the new youth pastor and a group was taking off for Brazil that November. So I went. It’s been 7 years, 4 more trips with dozens of students later and I can’t wait to go back.
We’ve watched each other kids grow up through email and pictures, catching each other whenever they are stateside. There are some people you meet once and your friends forever – that is the Schneiders.
My Western Hills family got to meet 3 of the 5 this weekend. What a blessing for me to see the connection between the two.
Let me quickly preach why we’ve stay connected to them.
They are about seeing teenagers meet Jesus.
They are about reproducing leaders who love introducing teenagers to Jesus.
They are about serving their community schools with educational programs they couldn’t otherwise afford so they can introduce teens to Jesus.
They are about serving and helping small, local churches do youth ministry so they can introduce teenagers to Jesus.
They are funny and cool as heck.
I think that pretty much sums it all up. Some of favorite pics of the weekend.
Super Summer 2009 Video Clip
July 11, 2009 – 9:57 am
We’ll show this in the morning at church but it gives some pictures to what I was talking about yesterday.
Why Student Ministry Is STILL Important
July 10, 2009 – 12:21 pm
Yes, I’ve been quiet over the last few weeks. A much needed time of recharging and DOING life instead of just writing about it.
This past year in Christian Education (don’t get me started on that term) circles there has been some debate over the need/effectiveness of student ministry in the ‘new culture.’ There is always room to critique and change HOW we’ve done student ministry. In fact, that should happen every year inside every youth ministry. We’re in the middle of doing that right now at Western Hills. That’s healthy, freeing, smart, and will force a team to keep their vision in the center versus their calendar.
However, to move to the point of saying we no longer need it but need to focus on adults instead is throwing out the baby with the bath water. I always thought that. After my experience yesterday…I’m even more convinced how important student ministry is inside a local church.
The fam and I loaded up and spent the day in Salina, KS where our high school students were spending Super Summer this year. 27 girls, 3 guys, 6 sponsors, and 2 nurses went from Western Hills. (Note to all Topeka area high school boys…do the math. That’s all I’m sayin’.)
Let me jot down my random observations of yesterday…
Brandon Gunn, our intern, is a freakin’ beast. I’m watching this guy explode in his giftedness and calling. He’s grown so much in his walk with the Lord over the last 5 months. I’m humbled and bless he’s a part of this team. Students talk…so do staff. And what they are saying about how he leads is good. Questioner, encourager, teachable, passionate, relational. All of that is good. But what is impressing me more about this young man is this – you can see him falling more in love with Jesus than student ministry or the church or students or a position. THAT is what being a great leader is really about.
Our volunteers get it. We’ve had 4 students trust Jesus as their Lord and Savior this week. I asked every one of them the same question yesterday – what turned the light on for you? What made it clear that this was the decision you needed to make? Every one of them mentioned one of our volunteer leaders. The music and the preaching and the atmosphere – helpful? Sure. But our adult volunteers made it clear. THAT is huge – another adult that isn’t mom and dad that they can unpack questions with and trust.
Shared experiences help create momentum. A couple of the students that accepted Christ wanted to be baptized immediately. I gotta be honest…I didn’t want to do it. That’s a big deal, didn’t want to steal that opportunity and moment from parents or our home church. It’s a huge celebration for us as a local church. I had my list of reasons.
Then I listened to their particular stories. I can’t/won’t get into the particulars here but it would have been more wrong and damaging of me to NOT baptize them in the lake at Webster yesterday. The whole time I’m hearing their stories, I KNOW that God is just hammering on my pride and list of reasons. HE’s telling me – shut up and obey me. Baptize these girls.
Our students are getting it. When we actually baptized them, I had the other students that were instrumental on their journey with me in the water. I told them that when they come out of the water, the journey is starting, not ending. Before we do this, I gotta know are you willing to keep walking on this journey with them AFTER they come up?
You could see the light bulbs come on. For many students, the youth group is the only context they have to walk with Jesus with other people. They may have complacent or even combative contexts when they go back home and if they don’t have others to walk with Jesus with, they’ll die on the vine. It stresses the importance of smaller groups of lifewalking than ever before.
What students really need in an adult volunteer… Spend a week at a youth camp, and you quickly feel your age. It’s exhausting – physically, emotionally, spiritually. It’s work. It’s fun, it’s awesome, it’s rewarding beyond words but there is no denying it…it’s work. And as an adult it’s easy to see what we DON’T bring to the table. We can’t run as fast or as long as we used to. We’re not as physically talented as we once thought we were. We aren’t as cool as we thought. All of these thoughts can get exposed when you spend time with students.
I honest believe that these thoughts are from the enemy. I don’t talk like that alot – maybe I should. But the reality is that teens need wiser, deeper adults around them. Someone other than mom and dad to listen, speak, and question Jesus in their life. Safe places for them to unpack their questions, to figure out their faith. They need to see it in somebody other than their parents. They don’t need an athletic trainer, a running buddy, someone who can win at sports or tug-of-war. That’s fun but not eternal.
And this is why student ministry is STILL important.
Last As Student Pastor
December 18, 2008 – 11:26 am
It’s been 10 days since I last blogged. It was good to have a break. Now time to break the fast.
Last night we had our Christmas Party/Junk Food/Gift Exchange Extravaganza. It was a blast. Couple of highlights for me.
First, commissioning Toby. I got Toby a real shepherd’s crook as well as a copy of My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers. I know I surprised him. Told him that every shepherd needed a crook. (There’s a joke in there somewhere…) They use it for three main things, first is to guide the sheep. A nudge there, a nudge there and they’ll go there – as long as they know your voice. Second is to rescue sheep. Their necks fit in the crook perfectly. The third thing – support. A leaning staff, if you will.
Which led me to the devotional by Oswald Chambers. My mom gave me my first copy of this book. I wore it out. I still have it. I still read it. It’s been the second single most important resource of my life (next to the Bible).
This is pretty much what I wrote to Toby inside the cover:
Pastoring is hard. No one tells you how hard it is when you start. You figure that out along the way. One of those sleepless, tossing, turning nights when you realize no other job did this to you.
Student Pastoring is double hard. Yes, it’s also twice the fun but it comes at high cost. No one tells you how alone you will feel at times. We know in our head we are not, but it doesn’t seem to translate at times in our stomachs.
And after doing this for all these years, I keep coming back to this simple principle: You are what you eat. Your best ministry will come out of the overflow of what you feed your soul.
This book has been a staple of my diet. Oswald has become a mentor, a Yoda for me within these pages.
That’s my prayer for you. Be a Yoda, dripping with Jesus.
And you’re not alone.
The coolest part of the evening – our gift from the students. It’s a huge book with notes and letters from them, scattered in there are pictures. What a great gift.
In a moment of irony, our first youth group (12th Avenue) did the same thing – gave us a huge book of notes and pictures – that I still have and display in my office.
I was asked after the party – “How does it feel to be done with your last official duty as a student pastor?”
I didn’t really have an answer at the time. I was just enjoying the moment and the party.
This morning…it feels awesome.
Here’s why…it’s what we’re supposed to do. Toby is exactly the right guy for Pinecrest. We’re exactly the right family for Western Hills. It’s all good and right. So I’ll miss the relationships – sure.
But I can’t help but think God is pleased with this whole process – the decisions, how the decisions were made, and how it’s all playing out.
And that’s awesome.
Failure
November 24, 2008 – 3:55 pm
This was the topic of our Downtown Lunch Club. It was the last one for me here in Denver. I guess I’ll have to crank one up in Topeka.
How is failure framed in your work culture? Is it seen as an event? I stole this straight from Seth Godin’s blog. Is failure seen as a learning experience or something that should always be avoided? How do you create a culture where it is okay to fail? Are there limits to how much failure is tolerated?
How did Jesus deal with failure? How many different ways did Jesus deal with failure? How could that be translated in the workplace?
Lots of great insights and stories hit the table.
One question I had as I left the lunch was this – why in the business world failure is seen differently than in the church world? Let’s say we started a program that halfway through it we realized was a failure (it cost too much, demanded too much volunteer time, had little to no ‘bang’, wasn’t accomplishing the set out goals). In the business realm, it appears easier to stop that program and reallocate the resources to something else or create a new something else that would accomplish the goals.
In ministry, why is the general response to be keep that program on life support until the very end? Is it the relational investment? Don’t businesses have the same kind of relational investment? Or is it the culture that the program is started in? Would it be possible to do ministry where the mission so marinates everything we do that we are able to evaluate, change, reallocate resources, maybe even end certain programs so that we could continue to do (or improve) other things that DO accomplish our goals without the dramatic explosion of emotions that normally encompass change inside a church?
I’ve always tried to create a culture where failure isn’t the worst thing that can happen. In fact, I try to embrace failure as an opportunity for something better. It’s gotten dicey a couple of times. One particular instance comes to mind immediately. I’m pretty sure I’ve posted this story before but I can’t find the link and besides that – it’s worth retelling.
We had a middle school lock-in and we had a couple of our upperclassmen help with the entertainment. These two guys were juniors in high school at the time, were leading their own small group. By 10 am the morning after the lock-in, I started hearing from some parents who were very angry about the night before.
Turns out that these guys showed a PG-13 movie. Not just any PG-13 movie, but Austin Powers: Goldmember at a middle school church lock-in. It was a dumb, bad decision. Quite a few parents were ready for blood and on a certain level, I didn’t blame them.
I had two meetings that week. The first meeting was with the two students. It wasn’t pretty. They got lit up pretty hard by me. I let them read the emails I was getting from parents. They understood.
I then turned around and met with the parents and I took responsibility for it. Told them it was my fault. It was – I left those guys in charge, trusted their leadership and it turned out badly. But it also allowed me to tell those parents that I would take the risk again because I believed if students were given the opportunity to lead, we’d see awesome things take place for God. So while I was sorry, while I had made a mistake this time, I wouldn’t stop putting students in charge of ministry.
We actually had a few families leave the church because of this.
Fast forward 1 year later and the same two guys are feeding the homeless underneath the Broadway Bridge in Little Rock. They take their whole small group of teenage guys to do this every other Tuesday night. That turns into a youth group project making beds for a shelter.
All of that to say – leaders must be able to see past the failure to the value beyond it, to the possibilities beyond it. It’s on us to create cultures where failures are not the final word but rather opportunities for something greater.
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