Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

When God rates the requirements of those who serve Him, He elaborates on one characteristic specifically and explains it in more detail than any of the others: the one about family (1 Timothy 3:4; Titus 1:6). Clearly, this trait is very significant. Why is it so important to manage one’s family well? What does Paul mean when he says that the way we relate to our mate and children is the way we will relate to those to whom we minister? Maybe because our “real” self comes out most vividly at home and God is concerned with who we really are. He is not impressed with the face we show others — He knows that face is just a veneer and will one day crack and fall off. He knows if we use anger to get our way at home, we will eventually do this with others outside the home. He knows that if we avoid difficult situations, if we use others as a means for our purposes, if we manipulate guilt, whatever we do, that it will inevitably creap in our ministry, as well. Even the best hypocrite will slip up sooner or later.

Sadly, often our mate and family get the worst side of us. When was the last time that you were having a heated discussion with your mate, and the phone rang; you answered in a tone of voice completely different than that which you were using just a moment ago with your mate. Doesn’t our mate deserve our best behavior? Shouldn’t they be treated as well, or even better, than strangers? They know us better than anyone, and yet they love us unconditionally. They will be a part of our lives long after everyone else has gone. That relationship is the one that must come first. Sure it is harder because our spouse knows us as we truly are. It is much easier to be nice to the young teens in our group who are easily impressed with us. The young teens gives us an ego boost, but it is our mate at home that really matters.

So remember, God does not look to see how we treat the teens that admire us, but how we treat our mate and family. That is how He evaluates our growth and maturity. What kind of score is He giving you?

Scripture
1 Timothy 3:4, “He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)”

Titus 1:6, “An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.”

Ephesians 5:21-33, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord… Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself…. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

Reflect

• As God looks at your relationship with your mate, where would He give you good marks? What are you doing right?
• Where would God say there is room for improvement?
• What would your mate change about you if they could? Maybe you should have that hard conversation with him/her to find out honestly.
• Write down 3 things you can do to improve your relationship with your mate, starting now.

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Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Ok, so this has nothing to do with basketball or even sports in general, but whatever — that’s still what I call it when I play these four games with my youth group. Each game is played in a mall or shopping center. While in the parking lot, I allow the students to form teams and we synchronize watches. Then I explain the rules and tell them to meet in the food court at a specific time to determine a winner. For every minute they’re late, they lose points. When the winning team is decided in the food court, everyone grabs something to eat. Winners eat free (paid by me).

Mall Madness #1: Cheapskate

Give every team an envelop with $2.00 cash. Whoever buys the most stuff with it wins. Receipts are required to prove they purchased it. No free stuff allowed.

Lest you think there’s nothing for $2.00 in the entire mall, there always is — kids just have to get creative and ask to buy things that aren’t normally for sale, like a drinking straw, crushed Oreos from an ice cream stand, a single eyeglasses screw or someone’s promo brochure.

Mall Madness #2: Professional Prowl

This game takes place inside a department store. Each team has a brief time limit (10 minutes) to pick 10 items from around the store and return to you with their items. Teams then switch baskets and race to be the first team to return the items to their proper places. The first team back with an empty basket wins.

Hint 1: You may want to send an adult leader with each team to make sure items are actually returned to their appropriate shelves and hooks.

Hint 2: Playing this in Home Depot or a large hardware store is only for hardcore groups. Returning individual screws and washers back to their little boxes takes FOREVER.

Hint 3: Let the kids loose before security knows what’s going on. Seriously. lol

Mall Madness #3: Who Am I?

Sometime before the event, walk around the mall and make a list of “scavenger hunt” ideas and assign a point value to each quesiton based on it’s level of difficulty. Make copies of it. The night of the event, hand out the sheets to teams in the parking lot, set a time to meet in the food court and let ‘em loose. The team with the most points wins and eats free.

Download one of my old sheets if you want to see an example.

Hint: Only make questions based on store names, advertisements, window displays and other things found in the mall’s hallways. Otherwise it takes forever and students end up scrounging through every shelf and hanger… and they usually don’t do it in a neat and calm fashion. Make sure kids know not to look inside stores.

Mall Madness #4: Mystery Men

This one is probably the most fun of them all! Arrange for about 8 people to be wandering the mall at your designated event time. Use 4 people the kids know and 4 people they’ve never seen before, like out-of-town friends of yours or something. Encourage these people to dress in a disguise of some sort. For example, one of my characters that the kids didn’t know dressed all Gothic (because he really is Gothic outside of the workplace). One of the guys the kids actually knew wore thick glasses, a goofy hat, grew a beard that he dyed gray, and made himself look about 50 pounds heavier with padding. He also went around the mall in a wheelchair sitting on one leg pretending to be lame.

In the parking lot, give each team a sheet that shows what each person normally looks like. Assign a point value to each person depending on the “difficulty” of their disguise, too. The goal is to find as many of these people as possible within the allotted time limit. Students are to approach these “strangers” and ask if they are the person in the picture. If they are, the mystery person puts their special sticker on the picture of their face and quickly moves on. Encourage students not to linger around the person either so other groups who may be walking by don’t see it. The fun part is watching the kids approach complete strangers and get it wrong!

Tell the mystery people to meet you back at the food court when the game ends so the kids can see who they missed. Let the kids watch them take the disguises off. It’s funny to watch their reactions (and those of the bystanders around you!). Whoever has the most points wins.

CONTRIBUTE TO FREEBIE FRIDAY: If you’ve benefited from others who have freely shared their youth ministry resources online, consider giving back to the community by sharing your own materials here. Send me your donations for review and if I publish them in a Freebie Friday, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.

PlugRug around the web:
– My post about PlugRug from earlier in case you missed it.
– Brandon has a nice summary of it here.
– Jordan covers PlugRug, too.
– YMX asks a couple questions that I answer in the comments.
– Mike compares PlugRug to a 6th grade boy!
– Shawn announces PlugRug on his blog, too.
– A repost of the message I sent out to the Youth Pastors Only group on Facebook.

If you use any of these social bookmarking sites, use these links to easily add PlugRug and help drive new users to the site.
– Add PlugRug.com to StumbleUpon
– Add PlugRug.com to del.icio.us
– Add PlugRug.com to BlinkList
– Add PlugRug.com to Furl
– Add PlugRug.com to ma.gnolia
– Add PlugRug.com to Newsvine

Persistance
Short and sweet. So many implications for ministry. Typical Seth Godin style.

My job
Ever been frustrated with kids’ wavering commitment to a Christ-like lifestyle? Craig’s perspective is absolutely correct.

Abstract Youth Ministry
I’m still mulling over this one. Thought provoking. I appreciate Steve’s perspective.

When to quit
How do you decide when it’s time to pull the plug on a ministry or just make changes?

Stinky Junior High
lol! What a great idea!

Halo, Rock Band, and Student Ministry
If your youth group doesn’t play Halo, maybe Rock Band is a good alternative for the reasons Justin lists.

Help…
If you have suggestions for a resource that could help people with creating Bible lessons for students, contact Jason.

100 blog topics I hope YOU write
I wrote this last year and so far many people have taken advantage of it. Check out the list for a lot of great links. There’s still plenty of openings available for your blog articles, too.

Life in Student Ministry on Facebook
If you’re on Facebook and haven’t joined the Life in Student Ministry Facebook Page yet, check it out. It’s where I communicate “behind the scenes” stuff that I don’t post here on the blog.

Indoor Game; All Ages; 4 or more kids

Supplies: One Twister mat for every 4-5 students. One Twister spinner.

Tonight with the Jr. High students we played Twister with a twist. Instead of laying the mats flat on the floor, I taped them to the walls of the gym and we played it standing up. Since the competition was your mat versus all the other mats, I allowed some of the students on teach team to sit out and support teammates against the wall. They helped hold people up, acted as human stools and supported those who were falling. It worked pretty well for the most part. It worked better when I allowed everyone to stand and substituted “left foot” and “right foot” for “left ear” and “right ear.” Eventually, though, we took the mats off the wall and played a normal game of Twister on the floor.

Here are some pictures of it from my cell phone.

SUBMIT YOUR GAME: If you have a favorite youth group game, tell me about it. If I publish it, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.

We all use backgrounds images for PowerPoint and MediaShout, but unfortunately a lot of people don’t know anything better than to use an image with plain text titles. Not only is this sometimes difficult to read, but it almost annoying to look at. Here’s an example of how you can easily turn a digital photo into a slick background image.

For our example, we’ll use a picture my wife randomly took of some markers. Right-click here and “Save File As/Save Target As” if you want to play around with the original image. I’m using PhotoShop CS2 in the screenshots below, but these tools are also available in the slimmed down PhotoShop Elements (available for Windows and Mac) and other image editing applications.

Screen shot #1 and #2. Open the image you want to use as a PowerPoint or MediaShout background and change the image size to the screen resolution you’ll use with the projector. In my case, I’ll use the typical 1024×768, which is probably sufficient for 95% of the cases. (This helps keep your PowerPoint file size smaller so you’re not embedding an 8.0 megapixel image into your slide show.)

Screen shot #3. The text should stand out from the background image, not blend into it, so let’s lighten the image a little. There are various ways to do this, but in the example below I create a new layer, use the Paint Bucket tool to paint it white and then change the layer’s Opacity to 66% so the background layer beneath shows through a little.

Screen shot #4. Next, create another new layer, select the Type Tool and type your title on the image. Change the text color to be something that easily stands out. In my case, I’ll use black. You can change the font and size in the toolbar at the top.

Screen shot #5 and #6. To make the title stand out a bit from the rest of the text that will be displayed in PowerPoint, l’ll add a new layer style to the text layer. First I zoom in to 100% under the View menu so I can see the title at it’s full resolution as I manipulate it. Now let’s try Bevel and Emboss. (Play around with the other layer styles in the left column sometime, too.) In this image I’m using the Inner Bevel style with the Chisel Hard technique to add a bit of 2D perception to the title. Click OK when you’re finished setting the layer style the way you like it. (Hint: Simple is better. Don’t use too many styles together.)

Screen shot #7. Now save the image as a JPEG. In PhotoShop, go to File, Save As, and change the drop-down format menu to JPEG. Give the image a name, save it and use it as your new PowerPoint or MediaShout background!

Here’s my final image if you’d like to see it full-screen or even use it for an upcoming presentation.

The other advantage to this is that you don’t lose your special fonts styles when you transfer the presentation to a computer that doesn’t have the same fonts installed. Everything stays in-tact perfectly.

In a couple weeks I’ll be part of a discussion with some other denominational leaders about the missing 20-something age group from churches in our conference. I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue lately as the meeting approaches. As far as I can tell, it seems that we’re drawing wrong and unsuccessful answers because we’re asking the wrong questions. Typically the questions are phrased something like, “How do we attract 20-somethings to church?” or “How do we retain students in our church after high school?” thus unintentionally equating church involvement with spiritual growth. Any of us could attest that this just isn’t necessarily true (i.e. Pharisees). The question also seems to indicate that we’re trying to win people to our church more than to a relationship with God. Granted, I understand what the question implies, but let’s make the question more pointed and specific so we’re not accidentally going down the wrong rabbit trails.

The question should be, “How can we help lead 20-somethings into a growing personal relationship with Christ?” If we do this, church involvement becomes a natural outcome, not a primary goal.

Theologically speaking, there’s nothing we can do draw people into a relationship with Christ — that is solely a work of the Holy Spirit. But practically speaking, it’s not an excuse to hopelessly throw our hands in the air and say, “It’s all the Holy Spirit and there’s nothing we can do about it.” It does help alleviate some of the pressure from us, though. Our job is not to make people grow because that’s impossible for us to do. Rather, our job is to lead them to Christ where they make that decision between themselves and God. We can’t be held responsible if they choose to reject Him. We can do everything we can to see that it doesn’t happen, but we’re not going to get down on ourselves and start ranting about the failure of youth ministry because of it. Let’s just talk about how we lead them to that decision and leave the results up to God.

Honestly, as both a growing believer and as someone who is very active in church, there are some things about the church that would push even me away from it. That has to be part of the discussion, as well.

I still think the real issue lies somewhere in the fact that many parents have adopted Christianity as a ritualistic religion instead of a relationship and their facade is passed on to the kids. Parents are willing to fake it at “social club” church, but kids aren’t… and neither am I.

Oh, and by the way, I’m a 20-something myself.

Links to my other posts on this topic:
What I dream for a church
Why church is often a student’s last priority
Why students are dropping out of church
Why graduates drop out of church
Youth group reflects its church
What parents’ actions often teach kids about God

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

Black and white are distinct colors that are easy to distinguish. But not everything in life is black and white. Many times we see shades of gray, and sometimes it is very hard to decipher which option, or shade, is better than the other. Some decisions are not easy to make; the better option is not always apparent and the consequences may not always be popular. When our popularity, and even our ministry’s future are involved, decision-making becomes very confusing. Some decisions are extremely difficult. As ministers, what do we do?

1. Be certain that your mind is making the decision, and not just your emotions. Feelings can have their say, but they should not make the final choice. If they do, the choice will be a reaction, and not a pro-action. Allow your mind to explain the reality of things to your emotions.

2. Make sure fear is not controlling your thought-process. God does not give us fear, (2 Timothy 1:7; Romans 8:15) therefore, we cannot let fear influence our decisions.

3. Putting off a decision is not good either. Avoiding a decision is itself a decision. To do nothing is a decision to go with the flow, or the status quo, (no rhyme intended). Thus, no decision is really a decision.

4. Get advice from a mature and experienced person whom you trust and respect.

5. Pray about the decision. God promises wisdom; trust Him, and He will guide you.

6. When it is time, make the decision and trust that God is behind that decision. Trust Him to be with you through it all, as He Himself promises (Proverbs 3:5-6).

7. Afterward, do not keep remaking the decision in your mind, wondering if you chose correctly — that will drive a person crazy! Instead, look ahead and do not look back.

Remember, Jesus knows how tough decision-making can be. He faced a difficult one in the Garden of Gethsemane, but He looked ahead and did what He knew was right even though it was hard. Follow His example, and you will be just fine.

Scripture
James 1:5-8, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.”

Joshua 1:7-9, “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Reflect

1. What are some of the hardest decisions you have ever had to make? Why were they so hard?
2. Why are some decisions harder for you than others?
3. Whom can you go to for advice about a tough decision?
4. Are you facing any really touch decisions now? What principles can you apply to help you make a wise and godly choice?

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Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Doug Jones is offering a youth ministry resource unlike any I’ve ever offered or linked to here at Life in Student Ministry. It’s called A Journey with Jesus. What’s unique about this journey is that it’s not just a “sit-down and talk” Bible study. It’s an experience of Jesus’ life broken up into 13 scenes/stations, each interactive and meditative. Here’s a little bit of his summary:

It is an active process where I envision groups physically walking through the “scenes” in a manner similar to the Stations of the Cross. It is meant to be done with each station lasting on average of no more than 5 minutes so that you can complete the experience in a little more than an hour or take a bit more time and complete it in two 35-40 minute sessions (you could divide it fairly neatly between the “Public Teaching of Jesus” and “The Lord’s Supper”). You could also use this effectively on a retreat where you were teaching on the life of Jesus.

Visit Doug’s website to read more about it and get the free download. While you’re there, post a quick comment saying thanks for his generosity in sharing this so freely with all of us.

Also, be sure to plug his resource on PlugRug.

[ht Chris]

CONTRIBUTE TO FREEBIE FRIDAY: If you’ve benefited from others who have freely shared their youth ministry resources online, consider giving back to the community by sharing your own materials here. Send me your donations for review and if I publish them in a Freebie Friday, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.

Because…

1. It’s not about you.

2. Poor decisions are made without the company of others.

3. Pride or discouragement easily sink in.

4. There’s no accountability.

5. You can only reach a limited number of students.

6. Burnout.

7. There’s no one to continue the ministry when you leave.

8. The ministry is unbalanced because it’s based on only one person’s gifts.

Lest you think your ministry isn’t a one-man-show, better make sure and ask those around you.

Last December I mentioned that an upcoming feature of Life in Student Ministry would be a promotional tool for your ministry-related content. Well, it’s here, but it’s much bigger than I originally anticipated, so much so that I decided to make it a separate website: PlugRug.com.

How It Works
If you’re familiar with Digg, PlugRug works exactly the same way. Basically, you submit links that you think are great ministry tools, resources, podcasts, video clips, etc. Others see the “Upcoming Stories” and if they also like it, they’ll “plug it” by casting a vote for it. Conversely, people can also “sweep it under the rug” by burying it if they think it’s old news, irrelevant, or whatever. After a story becomes popular enough, it is promoted to the front page of the website for a period of time as one of best current ministry links on the web, as determined by people like you from around the world. It’s an innovative way to both share and discover new ministry ideas, resources, tools and material because recommendations are no longer based on just one person’s opinion. For a more detailed explanation on the site’s features and how it works, visit PlugRug’s About page.

Benefits For Content Creators
If you’re a blogger, podcaster, video creator, or someone who generates any kind of web content for ministry, a site like this can be an invaluable tool for you.

• Plug your content and generate traffic to your site, especially if it’s voted to the front page.
• Be discovered by potential new readers and subscribers.
• Connect with other content creators.
• Stay up-to-date on what others find valuable in your specific ministry niche.

You can also add a Plug Box to your site template to make it easy for visitors to see how popular a your specific article is on PlugRug and make it easy for them to vote for it, too. Check out a post on my site to see a live example. To add the Plug Box to your site, get the code from here.

Benefits For Ministry Workers
If you don’t create content, but want to find the best current ministry stuff online as recommended by other ministry workers, this site has the potential to be a goldmine for you. Not only can you find what others deem to be the best, coolest and most relevant material right now in a variety of categories, but you can add your comments and place your votes on upcoming stories to help others discover something cool that you found there.

It Needs You
The only way this tool will work is if a community of people embrace it: submitting material, plugging the good stuff, burying the lame stuff, and promoting the site to others. There’s incredible potential here to share and collaborate on ministry content from all over the web at one central location, but it will only be successful if people like you contribute and make it happen.

If you have a website, feel free to steal the PlugRug graphic above and post it on your site. If you podcast, I appreciate your mentions. Your email newsletters, your conversations with other people, your social bookmarking — however you spread the word, it’s appreciated.