Last week Adam McLane posted a short video where he challenges youth workers to step back and reconsider where we spend all our time, and if it really matters. Since I’ve been struggling through a lot of those thoughts anyway, I decided to take his challenge and publicly state how I spend some of my time in youth ministry and evaluate each task on a scale of, “Absolutely worth my time; it changes lives” to, “Not worth my time; it does not change lives.” Of course, this list is not exhaustive — I stopped listing things after it was a page long.

My goal in this was: 1) to refocus on how I can best spend the limited and valuable time I have with teens while they’re still in jr. high and high school; and 2) to find what was in common with the tasks I felt change lives and use that common denominator to help focus and refine the ministry for our big launch in the fall. Not surprisingly, most of the things in the “Absolutely worth my time” category are relational and are not task-oriented.

You may disagree with how I rated some of my tasks, and that’s fine. I go back and forth on some of them myself. If you and I were able to sit down and have a face to face conversation, you could hear my heart and why I evaluate some things the way I do. For most of them, I just went with my first gut reaction without wrestling back and forth a whole lot. Otherwise, it would get way too complicated.

Regardless, I’d love to hear your reaction to some of the tasks below. How would you rate them for you and your ministry? What day-to-day ministry items are totally worth your time and what items are just busy-work to appease tithers, your sr. pastor, or even yourself?

[ RSS and email subscribers, you may need to visit this post to see the embedded list. ]

This week is a crazy busy week for me. The culmination of a ton of stuff comes down to this weekend and next week.

• This Sunday 56 jr. highers are giving their testimonies in church via video that I have to finish shooting and editing.
• There’s an end-of-the-year jr. high party next week I’ve barely starting planning
• Sr. high ministry evaluations need to be written and handed out
• My youth budget receipts need to be balanced and turned in (they were due last Monday)
• The summer youth schedule needs to be handed out next and I haven’t even started putting it together
• A news email needs to go out with reminders and updates about things going on this Sunday and next week
• I need to write my lesson for Sunday night’s sr. high large-group meeting

And that’s just the beginning of it!

So this afternoon when a prayer meeting with other local youth pastors was drawing closer, I looked at the clock and thought to myself, “There is no way I can make it to that meeting this afternoon. I have way too much to do. I don’t have time to pray today.” Then I paused and thought, “Wait, did I seriously just think that?” I chuckled to myself and realized my priorities were totally out of wack. Just the fact that a thought like that crossed my mind was very convicting. What else could possibly be a better use of my time than spending time in prayer? Sure, I’m busy and a bit stressed right now, but shouldn’t that be the very time I stop to pray instead of trying to haul through it in my own strength?

Needless to say, I put everything on hold and went to that prayer meeting. It was great! Us youth pastors met at a local church and car-pooled to a park where we talked, shared, and prayed together. Then, to top off the day, I destressed by meeting up with brother and cranked out a 37 mile bike ride with him in the country farm land. Nothing like riding through God’s creation to put everything back in perspective again.

Are you too busy to pray today?

Eleven weeks ago I launched MinistryQuestions.com to the public. Thanks to a lot of word-of-mouth and social networking, it launched with 30,000 visitors in the very first week! Not bad for not spending a dime on marketing. Thank you all!

I love the community that has surrounded the site! It’s such a wide variety of men and women who are serving in the trenches, encouraging each other, supporting each other, and investing into each other’s ministries. It’s already been an invaluable resource to me as I am challenged by other people’s challenges and forced to think through ministry scenarios I never considered before. And the longer time goes on, the more it grows into an incredible bank of collective wisdom and experiences.

Here are some great questions to check out. Some of these questions are resolved or closed, meaning the question is no longer open to new answers, but some of them are still open for your input.

• How do I tell my teens I’m resigning? [closed]
• Student stopped coming: give it time or approach him about it? [closed]
• Has anyone ever took their graduating seniors on a senior trip? [closed]
• Pregnant teen
• Dealing with suicide
• Do you allow volunteers to take their kids on youth events?
• Girl cutting herself after her mom’s death [closed]
• Implementing change [closed]

Here’s my own latest question: How do you help jr. highers transition into high school ministry?

Here’s a couple interesting debates, too.

• Large group format is a necessary component of youth ministry
• To drink or not to drink? [closed]
• A youth pastor should be the servant of the senior pastor, and execute his vision for the youth department. [closed]

Stop by MinistryQuestions.com and ask your questions, give your input, and bless others as they bless you.

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

Who can figure God out? First, He says His people need to be holy and set apart from sin. Then He says that a man who was an adultery, murderer and admittedly poor father is a man after His own heart? So which is it? How can both be true? Yet they are, aren’t they. David is called a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14; Acts 13:22). Yet David’s sins are apparent, and they aren’t minor.

Perhaps we should ask just what it means to be a man after God’s heart, for that is something for which we all should aspire. Obviously we’re not talking about sinless perfection. Paul seems to come the closest to this in the New Testament, and clearly wasn’t sinless, either – before or after salvation. So what does it mean to be a person after God’s own heart.

I think it means having a heart the same as God’s. Therefore having our desires, our motives, our goals, our values and our priorities line up with God’s. It means loving what He loves, hating what He hates, and looking at life as He looks at life. It is having His biblical world view of things in our minds and His love or righteousness and hate of sin in our hearts. You may see it differently, but I’ll stick with that definition because, in effect, it means being like Jesus. That is God’s ultimate goal for all of us – to be more Christ-like.

So can we be a man or woman who is after God’s own heart but still sin? Of course. John clearly reminds us that we won’t stop sinning (I John 1:8, 10) and Paul experienced this in his life as well (Romans 7). That means that you and I can be after God’s own heart. After all, a heart is internal, so its not external actions God is most concerned about. Just being like God externally is hypocrisy and we know how God feels about that. But if my heart beats with His heart, for the things His heart beats for, then I am after God’s own heart.

Oh what a wonderful goal in life, what a worthy dream to follow, to have a heart like God. That should be the desire of each and every one of us. What could be better than to have the mind of Christ and the heart of God?

Scripture
1 Samuel 13:14, “But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the Lord’s command.”

Acts 13:22, “After removing Saul, he made David their king. He testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’”

1 Peter 3:3-4, “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”

1 Corinthians 2:16, “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”

Reflect

• In what ways have you seen your values and goals line up with God’s in the years since you became a Christian?
• Where do you struggle most with being Christ like in thoughts and actions? What can you do about it today?
• Spend some time in worship thanking God that you can become more like Him and for His perfect, wonderful character to emulate.

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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!

Today in our LIVE YM Talk, Matt McAlack, Director of Youth Ministries at Philadelphia Biblical University, talked with us about the academic side of youth ministry training.

Some of the things we talked about:

• The value of an academic ministry training
• How to find training if you can’t afford Bible college or seminary
• If you really need formal youth ministry training
• How to know what school to go to for training
• The most influential aspects of formal training
• Teens who are deciding between Bible college versus secular college
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Download this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next week’s discussion

May 1: Next week’s featured guest is Mike Kupferer and he’ll lead us in a discussion about finding the right youth ministry position.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Paul Turner, a 15 year youth ministry veteran, emailed me this past week with an interesting projected called, The Cure for the Common Youth Ministry. Just shy of 100 pages long, his ebook begins by venting about his frustrations with youth ministry, many of which we all are very familiar with. He covers everything from church rivalry to families and apathetic kids. But, unlike most youth ministry blog rants, he actually gives some answers. Furthermore, almost half the ebook consists of worksheets for you and your youth staff to work through together to come to your own answers and conclusions. Personally, I’m not sure I agree with all his answers nor the direction of some of the worksheets, but at least he’s offering answers and helping us think through the issues. That’s more than a lot of people are doing right now, including myself. (I admit, I’m still in the “this is totally not working and I have almost no idea what to do about it” category.)

Paul will most likely publish his work, so download it while it’s still free.

Download “The Cure for the Common Youth Ministry” ebook

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Join us at 2:00 PM EST this afternoon in our LIVE YM Talk. Matt McAlack, a youth ministry professor, will lead us in a discussion about academic youth ministry training. College, seminary, do you need it, where should you go, what happens afterwards, and more. We’ll also talk about the future of formal youth ministry training. See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join the call and/or the live chat.

The following guest post is contributed by a high school friend of mine, Kira Dacanay. She is passionate for maintaining a global environment that is as clean and healthy as possible for everything that lives in it. This post contains some of her many ideas for how youth ministries can do their part. The best part is, most of them are very easy to do and will still have a very significant impact.

Activity Ideas

• Community tree-plantings: municipal parks, side-walk shade trees, urban tree plantings, etc.; also flower gardens
• Trash pick-ups: local parks, “Adopt A Spot” public-right-of-ways, stream banks, etc. Always wear protective gloves!
• Flower or Veggie garden: community designated spot or church property

General Tips/Tricks

• Connect with local and state authorities; NGO’s or wildlife refuges for activity ideas or jumping on board an established one. NGO’s and wildlife refuges always welcome volunteers and are often planning events themselves.
• Always get explicit permission from the municipality if public lands involved.
• Check out Americorps, the “domestic Peace Corps” where I served. Trained personnel are available at no charge to help plan your own project or get you involved with one of theirs.
• Donations: Large companies have budgets for “social responsibility” requirements. Search their web pages or talk to the store manager. Giants like Home Depot and Lowes are will be able to provide you with lawn/leaf bags, plants, shovels etc., also grant money for larger projects. Contacting the store manager for simple items like lawn/leaf bags. Ask for donations from local “mom and pop” garden centers, too.
• Other local businesses may contribute if you have a set plan and give them proper credit for their contribution. By telling other members of the community that this local business supported a community project, it sends a strong message about that business’s commitment to the well-being of its customers.
• Fostering Stewardship: Set the example! You, as a youth leader are responsible for feeling a strong sense of stewardship in the first place and passing in on to your group. Not everyone may bite, but guaranteed you’ll at least a few who really latch on. Do background research on the project and similar projects, and give examples to your group about successful projects elsewhere and how that community has benefited. Before/after photos are especially helpful! Also, keep track of the process. If you are doing tree plantings for example, take photos before, during, after, and waaay after to show your group and new members how your trees have grown. Talk about difficulties encountered and how it makes each person feel to see the positive changes they’ve contributed to their environment.

Schedule activities on a yearly basis (i.e. every Earth Day have an activity). Or every October have one just because. If it becomes and annual event, you are more likely to keep youths interested and involved, and new ones will see that the older kids think it’s cool too. Eventually, parents and other church members will become more supportive of your efforts as they see their children looking forward to “this year’s event.” You can also solicit the general public to volunteer at an event as well. Ask them to bring a non-perishable food item too.

Also, connect with the spiritual side of embracing the world around you. Take some time to reflect on the day’s activities. Put your palm on the trunk of an old tree or young sapling. Think about the many years that old tree has “seen” come and go, how it has weathered the impacts of humans on earth, “seen” changes in it’s landscape, and been powerless to defend itself in a changing environment. Think of how this new, young sapling has so much life to live, and could very well outlive you. Give it hope for a long, healthy life by promising to do your part by keeping the air, water, and soil it needs to live clean. In turn, that tree will help keep the air, water, and soil you need to live, clean, too. We’re all connected in one-way or another. God put us on this earth to do great things, and He gave us a magnificent planet to work with. Respect the earth and care for it as God would have you nurture your own children.

I would love to share ideas with you, I have many!! Contact me at kdacanay2@yahoo.com.

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Kira Dacanay is a Master’s Candidate at the University of Rhode Island in the Department of Marine Affairs, and holds a Bachelor of Science in Natural Resource Management from Rutgers University, NJ. She completed 1700 hours of community service work with the AmeriCorps NJ Watershed Ambassador Program in 2007 and worked nearly 2 years with the NJ Department of Environmental Protection prior to beginning her Master’s degree. She enjoys connecting spiritually with the natural world and strives to improve her stewardship of the great resource that God has provided.

I’m not sure passing laws and focusing on education will change anything. It’s not a major deterrent to stopping drug usage, so why should it stop kids from sexting? The solution definitely has to go back to having parents who are actually in touch with their kids lives and who are teaching them openly, honestly and biblically about sexuality from a younger age. Otherwise, what’s next? Safe-sexting?

This MSNBC news video is worth watching.

[ht Inetta Smith via email]

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

We all have choices to make in life: decisions about how we will adjust to what happens to us and attitude modifications as our faith gets stretched. For most of us these come in the form of negative, painful life experiences. For a few, though, like Saul, it comes through very good things happening.

Saul’s only claim to fame was that he was tall and good-looking, so everyone thought he would make a good king. But Samuel was a shy introvert, insecure and fearful of the spotlight. That’s why he hid when they wanted to make him king. We all know his story, how he was impatient and disobedient and eventually lost his life and his throne because of not obeying God. Instead of trusting God when he found himself in an rough place, outside his comfort zone, and asking God to help him rule the people, he let his fear and insecurity control him.

Thus his whole focus was on protecting himself, keeping control of his power, watching out for anyone who may have been a threat to him and reacting instead of acting. Envy, jealousy and manipulation characterized his life. Some times he would turn to God’s prophets for guidance, but more often he would turn to pagan gods for help. What a sad waste of a life.

So why did God choose him to be king? God wanted to show the people that judging a person solely by their outward appearance is wrong. God also wants to teach Saul that He could be trusted to be there for Saul and to help him rule as God wanted him to. Sadly, neither Saul nor the people learned their lesson.

Sscripture
1 Samuel 16:7, “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’”

Philippians 4:19, “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

Psalms 23:1-5, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”

Reflect

• How often do you form opinions of someone by their appearance and your first impression of their personality? How often have you been wrong about the person when doing so?
• When are you most guilty of judging someone by outward appearances?
• How do you respond when put in a situation that is outside your comfort zone?
• How sensitive are you to criticism? How often do you find yourself jealous or envious?
• Ask God to help you see today’s challenges as opportunities to trust Him for your needs.

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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!