Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

A young girl was learning the fruits of the Spirit, so her father asked her to recite them to him. “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and remote control,” was her reply. That’s not exactly right, but it is much closer to the truth than we may realize. You see, “self” control doesn’t mean that self is IN control. It means that self is UNDER control – under the control of the Holy Spirit.

We are born without self control. Babies can’t control their muscles to walk or to feed themselves, they can’t control their bowels and they certainly can’t control their emotions. Control needs to be learned – physically, emotionally and even spiritually. This fruit really should be called SPIRIT control, not self control.

So what does Spirit control really look like? It is the ability to rule your personal life so that you are not dominated by sin (Romans 6:12). It is the ability to control your self life from within by spiritual means (2 Corinthians 10:3-4).

For the Christian self-control is a spiritual grace. In the secular world we often associate self-control with willpower. Self-control or willpower would embrace such things as dieting, quitting smoking, exercise, gambling, alcohol, work habits, ethics, and living within your means. These are only just a few; each of you can add many others to this list. In our Christian walk nothing is ever accomplished by our own personal works, efforts, or merit. The entire Christian life is a walk of grace in total surrender and dependency upon the Holy Spirit. It comes by grace through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, not by any personal effort on my part other than total surrender and obedience to Him. Christian self-control always honors Jesus, not myself.

Remember, self control (really Spirit control) starts within, not without. It is not just controlling our actions, for it starts with controlling our thoughts. What is in our heart comes out through our mouth. Spirit control doesn’t just help us keep our mouth shut, it shows us how to have a proper attitude in our heart.

Imagine if you started your car and noticed white smoke coming out the tailpipe. You wouldn’t get a new tailpipe because that isn’t the problem. The tailpipe only reveals the problem. Rather, you would do some engine work. In the same way, your habits only reveal what goes on in your heart.

If you have a habit of gossiping, the problem isn’t gossip; the problem is malice or envy. If you have a habit of blowing up, the problem isn’t your temper; the problem is rage, hatred, and bitterness in your heart. If you have a problem with pornography or infidelity to your spouse, the problem is lust in your heart. The base sin in all these is pride which is idolatry. Any time something is put before God it is idolatry, and idolatry begins in the heart.

Everyone needs the fruit of self control. Paul needed it as well (Romans 7:19-21). Victory came when He let the Spirit control him (Romans 8 follows Romans 7). And we need it daily, even hourly (2 Corinthians 4:16). It isn’t just for the “big” things in life but for everyday things like our actions and speech (James 1:26). Spirit control – don’t leave home without it.

Scripture
1 Corinthians 9:24-27, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is self-controlled in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”

II Timothy 1:7, “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.”

Reflect

• How would your life and ministry be different if you were always under the total control of God’s Spirit?
• Think of a time in the past week when you would have responded differently to something in your life or ministry had the Holy Spirit been in total control of you?
• Think of some areas in life where you need God’s Spirit control. Pray specifically for each area and the control you need in it. Remember to pray throughout the day as these issues arise in life.

———————————————————————-
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, Mike King talked with us about adolescent development and some of the implications for that when we teach to teens and how they learn. Mike has done a lot of extensive research in this area and brings a lot of wisdom to the field of youth ministry with his expertise, some of which he shared with us today.

Some of the things we talked about:

• Why do churches have youth ministry in the first place?
• What’s the best approach to youth ministry?
• Some interesting studies on adolescence.
• Both practical and theological implications.
• 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

June 5: Jeff Borton recently wrote a book titled, “Simple Student Ministry”, and will talk with us about some of the concepts he explains about bringing our ministry into clarity, movement, alignment and focus. See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join us.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Sherrie Haldeman, a high school youth director in Louisville, KY, sent me the following idea on Facebook. With summer right around the corner, this sounds like an amazing relationship building time to have with kids! If you’re trying to find more ways to connect with youth group teens this summer, consider her idea:

A mystery ramble is a trip I take my high school youth on. They do not know the destination or the activities. I give them a packing list and a “fake” schedule. The schedule is not subtle clues about what we will be doing. The youth director before me started this and I have was his main chaperon before taking over. We have been to St Louis, Gulf Shores, and Ohio. We have done both a week long and a long weekend (Thursday-Monday) it depends on your group and where you want to go on the length.

Last year we ended up in Ohio in Amish country. They toured an Amish house, rode in a horse and buggy and really got to know about their culture and religion. We ended at the Alive Festival.

I find churches or friends along the [route] to house us [and] cut down on the cost.

We always try to do some kind of service project in the community we stay in: clean up trash, help with a church function etc.

This is an amazing trip to get kids to know each other better, work as a team, and see unique places along the way. Its fun to find unique things to do in other states.

On the day that we leave I give all the parents a sealed envelope with all the details of the trip. When and where we will be and all the contact stuff.

———————————————————————-
Join us at 2:00 PM EST this afternoon in our LIVE YM Talk. Our featured guest is Mike King from YouthFront. He’ll lead us in a discussion about adolescent development and how it impacts growth and learning. See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join the call and/or the live chat.

This guest post is contributed by Chris Szulwach. We all love movie nights with the youth group, but most of us are unaware of the legal issues surrounding such events. Chris is a youth pastor who has done a lot of research in this area, including consultation with copyright lawyers and experts. The following is a summary of his research.

Ok, raise your hand if you’ve ever actually read that little FBI warning at the beginning of a movie! Well, lucky (and unlucky) for us that little warning has absolutely nothing to do with showing a movie in a youth ministry setting.

Over my years in youth ministry I have moved through the following progression when it comes to the issue of movies and copyrights.

• intentional ignorance on the matter of copyright law
• learning a little about it and then not really caring too much
• taking the copyright issue pretty seriously

About 7 or 8 years ago, when everyone was rocking Napster (the illegal predecessor to napster.com) I began to do some research on the reasons why breaking the music copyright was so bad. Hopefully, all of us are now on board with that issue by now, but that issue got me thinking about other areas of copyright law.

I’ve realized that as a representative of Christ in my community and as a model for my church, I need to “play by the rules” in order to not only live a “life that is above reproach,” but simply so I’m not stealing from others.

On to talking about movies, though…

Common Misconceptions

1. The FBI warning says that I can’t charge money for people to watch the movie so my event is ok.
The FBI warning actually pertains to an individual showing a movie within their home.

2. As long I am using the movie as a church event I am within the copyright laws.
This is a false statement because the only instance in which a movie may be screened, outside of a home, without a license, is in a non-profit educational setting with “face-to-face instruction.”

3. If I make a lesson out of the movie I want to show I will be within the copyright laws.
A non-profit educational setting has previously been specifically defined as a non-profit academic institution. The main activity of a church is not academics.

4. My church has the CVLI license, so we can show movies at any church event that we do.
This license only pertains to a church showing movies “in its facility(ies.)” This means that if you have a current CVLI license, you may show any legally obtained movie in your church property. (See points 1 and 4 on this page at CVLI.com.)

Also, the CVLI license only covers those movies “produced and/or distributed by CVLI affiliated motion picture companies only,” according to point 6. But you may be able to contact the motion picture company and get written permission to show the movie. As the copyright holder, if it is the copyright holder, it can waive its rights and grant a church or ministry permission to show the movie. If you want to do this, do it well in advance, the process is s l o w.

5. I can throw up a sheet, a PA system, and a projector to show the movie in the back yard of the church because I am within the church property.
The CVLI license specifically says that movies can be screened in its facilities. Upon speaking to a representative at CVLI, I pressed for clarification of “in facilities.” The answer that I got was that you would most likely be within the spirit of the agreement if the movie was screened outdoors only if in a secluded area where there was no chance that someone from the general public would see or hear any portion of the movie that was being screened.

6. Since I’m not charging a fee, I am showing the movie inside of my church, and I have the CVLI license, I can advertise my event in any fashion that I want.
In case you missed reading point 4 of the CVLI terms, “No specific titles, or any characters from such titles, or producers’ names will be advertised or publicized to the general public unless authorized by certain producers.”

Much more info on this topic can be found at:

• http://www.cvli.com/about/terms.cfm
• http://www.copyright.gov
• http://www.mplc.org/faq.php

So what should you do!?

• Make sure that your church has a current CVLI license.
• Only show movies at a youth ministry event within your church or at a camp location that has its own license since the license is restricted to a physical location.
• Invite a few students over to your house, where you show a movie inside, with out any advertising of any sort through your church.

It is possible to still do a movie event for the public, you’ll need to procure a license from mplc.org but make sure you follow their guidelines.

I hope this helps clear up some of the movie copyright confusion. Of course, there are a ton of other areas that I could have addressed, but I’m not a copyright lawyer, I’m a youth pastor. So, I am not giving you any legal advice on this matter, just a few tips and pointers. If you have questions about your situation it would be best to chat with your church’s attorney or speak directly with an attorney who specializes in copyright law since this is a very in depth area of law (which you noticed if you checked out copyright.gov).

———————————————————————-
Chris Szulwach is a youth pastor in Liverpool, NY. Chris has 11 years experience as a volunteer, para-church staff, and as a pastor.
Blog: CoffeeWithChris.com | YouthMinBlog.com
Twitter: twitter.com/CoffeeWithChris

After all the comments from last week’s post about Seven Benefits of Shutting Down Youth Ministry Programs for the Summer, I figured I’d add a little clarification about what my summer schedule does look like, rather than only what it does not look like.

“Programs” does not equal “ministry”

First of all, I didn’t mention this in my previous post, but notice that the title was not, Seven Benefits of Shutting Down Youth Ministry for the Summer, with the absence of the word “programs.” In no way am I advocating that we stop ministry, just that was slow down our programming. Remember, programs do not equal ministry. Programs are tools of ministry. They’re here to help us do ministry, but programs are not the ministry.

Programming slows down, not ministry

Second, notice that I said that we don’t stop ministry programming altogether during the summer, we just slow it down. Putting programs on hold does not mean that we put ministry on hold, too. Ministry takes place in a variety of ways outside of programming, like one-on-one time with kids, hangouts at your house, or just stopping to pray for them. Some would say that this kind of ministry is much more effective than the programming aspect of ministry.

Some critics of my previous post say that Jesus never stopped his ministry and neither should we. I totally agree. If you want to use Jesus as an example, though, I’d also point out that He never ran any programs from his church/synagogue either. That’s not to say that programs are bad or that they’re not found elsewhere in scripture, just that there’s nothing wrong with emphasizing different tools during the summer than the highly programmatic ones. We’ll be going on bike rides, having kids over to play Xbox, spontaneously meeting at the bowling ally, grabbing ice cream at Dairy Queen, playing Ultimate Frisbee, going to the movies, taking road trips, swimming in the lakes, etc. None of it is scheduled, we just wake up one morning, call up a couple people and go for it. And while we’re together, us adults model Christlikeness and speak Truth into teens’ lives through our normal conversations. That kinda sounds more like Jesus’ style of ministry to me anyway.

For the programmatic people…

That said, here’s what the programming side of our youth ministry will look like this summer:

Weekly Jr. High Bible studies at my house: My wife and I lead these together. Attendance is typically pretty low with about 5-8 teens, but that’s the way we like it. The kids who comes are sometimes different kids each week, too, depending on their family’s vacation schedules and what else is going on in their lives. The Bible study is pretty laid-back and relaxed.

Weekly Sr. High Bible studies at someone else’s house: One of the high school groups has opted to continue throughout the summer meeting in someone’s house. The group will be open to any 9th-12th grader who wants to participate.

Monthly Wake ‘n Ski: As I mentioned in a comment on my previous post, our community has a lot of lakes, so many of our church members have boats and big-boy water toys. One Sunday a month our group gets together to spend the afternoon out on a lake water skiing, wake boarding, tubing, wake surfing, etc. We stop for dinner to have burgers while I or another leader shares a short faith story with everyone.

CHIC: This is our denomination’s tri-annual international high school student conference in Knoxville, TN. I won’t be going this year since my wife is due with our first baby two weeks later, but a full busload of our high school kids are attending the week-long conference in July with an outstanding team of adult youth leaders.

MUUUCE: Every August we take a busload of jr. highers away for a three-day retreat. We meet up with many other denominational jr. high youth groups and have a blast together. We go to a baseball game, a water park, amusement park, play on inflatables, and just have an incredible time bonding. It’s perfect for the incoming 7th graders to connect with us, get to know us, feel comfortable with us, and be super energized for the school year of jr. high ministry.

Two Parent Dinners: I blogged about this back in March, so check out that post for more details, but basically we have two open-house dinners planned at my house for parents to come hang out with me and Dana. We get to listen to them, answer questions, and also challenge them.

Monthly Worship Experiences: The youth ministry is not in charge of this, but we do partner with our church’s worship director to pull it off. Every month we have a night of worship at church that’s intended to be highly participatory and experiential. It’s open to the entire church and our community at large, so I really like the inter-generational mix that shows up to worship. Our teens do a fabulous job leading different aspects of the experience.

One Outdoor Movie Night on the BIG screen: We hang a big white sheet on the side of our house and setup a projector and sound system from church in the driveway. Kids to come over at dusk and watch a movie on the BIG screen with their own lawn chairs, blankets, bug spray and snacks. Here’s a picture of my setup I posted on Twitter last year. Always fun!

Canoe Trips: There is also one jr. high canoe trip and one sr. high canoe trip this summer. We all car pool to a river, rent a couple canoes, they drive us upstream and we paddle back. Another great time to bond, talk, and help kids transition into jr. high or high school ministries.

Rock The River Tour: A couple kids and parents thought the Billy Graham’s Rock The River Tour fit well with our strategy to take kids deep and wide, and since one high school student was willing to head it up, I let her go for it. That will happen in August.

One Parent Information Meeting: Before the school year starts up again, we have our big annual parent meeting where we recap last year’s ministry, talk about what we learned, and, based on that, what’s changing for next year. We give an overview of the calendar, answer questions, introduce the other youth leaders, and do a whole lot of vision casting.

Youth Leader meetings: I usually don’t do too many of these during the summer, but a couple years ago we made some significant changes to certain aspects of our ministry and the fruition of that starts next year. So, we need to have a couple youth leader meetings to make sure the train’s momentum keeps moving in the right direction. We also have a mini youth leader training conference with a couple of other churches in our community.

Other summer ideas

Looking for other summer youth event ideas? Check out my blog post from last year on the top 5 summer youth events that cost under $5 total.

Today in our LIVE YM Talk, Joshua Griffin, high school pastor at Saddleback Church, talked with us about working with high school students. The present both unique challenges and opportunities that are unlike anything else in jr. high ministry, college ministry or even adult or childrens ministry. Josh answered questions of other youth workers from his heart and experience.

Some of the things we talked about:

• Unique challenges and opportunities of high school ministry
• Helping freshman transition into high school
• Ways to keep upperclassmen engaged in youth group
• Balancing marriage and ministry
• 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 29: Mike King is talking with us next week about adolescent development and how it impacts their growth and learning. It should be a great discussion to help us know how teenagers grow and learn and how we can best capitalize on that in youth ministry. See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join us.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Luke Trouten, Youth Pastor at Northwood Church in Maple Grove, MN, donated the instructions for the game Whip ‘n Strip for you all! It looks like it has the potential to become a pretty violent game, so it must be fun! The name alone makes you a bit curious about how to play. Fortunately, you can just download Luke’s PDF of the game’s instructions below.

Luke has this to say about the game:

This game works better outside, but can be played in a gym. A single game can take anywhere between 5 minutes and an hour depending on how strategic the students get. I’ve brought this to every camp/youth group I’ve worked at and it’s always been a hit. In the summer we get face paint and go Braveheart style, it’s pretty intense.

Download “Whip ‘n Strip” instructions

———————————————————————-
Join us at 2:00 PM EST this afternoon in our LIVE YM Talk. Our featured guest is Joshua Griffin, high school pastor at Saddleback Church, and he’ll lead us in a discussion about working with high school students. See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join the call and/or the live chat.

When I first came to this church two years ago, all Christian Education pretty much came to a halt during the summer — no Sunday school, no small groups, no large-groups, no regular youth meetings at all. I had never heard of a church that did that before and thought, “Why in the world would you stop youth ministry programs during the summer? Don’t teenagers need Jesus just as much during the summer as they do during the school year?” My church’s response was that most people are gone during the summer and have such irregular schedules that it is very difficult to run any programs. Attendance is low and it’s difficult to get adult leaders on board. Although it made me raise an eyebrow a bit, I went along with the tradition as the newbie at the church.

Since then we’ve added weekly summer Bible studies at my house that my wife and I lead without the help of other adult leaders, so at least there’s something regular for kids throughout the season, but that’s about it except for a couple big trips (one for sr. high, one for jr. high). Still no Sunday School or traditional youth group meetings.

I actually converted to being a strong supporter of slowing down and even ending youth ministry programs during the summer for several reasons besides low attendance and irregular schedules.

1. It provides time for me to pull back to a birds-eye view and refocus on the big picture. All year long I’m staring at the ministry from so close-up that I get cross-eyed and don’t always remember the big picture of our ministry. It’s easy to get bogged down in running individual programs and loose sight of the overall direction of our ministry as a whole. When you drive at full-throttle for so long, it’s hard to notice subtle shifts in direction until you stop to widen your perspective and take a look at the map.

2. It gives me time to properly evaluate the ministry. It’s hard to work in an annual evaluation of the entire ministry when there’s no real break for doing so. It’s even harder to think objectively, pray and talk through necessary adjustments and changes when the programs just keep running and running without a pause. You don’t fix a car without first shutting it off.

3. It gives adult leaders a well-deserved break so they’re rested and energized for the fall. There’s no substitute for a team of rested and energized youth leaders! They all work so hard during the school year, they serve so sacrificially, and give so much of themselves to teens that the summer is a great time for them to just relax and recharge. They tend to stay on the youth team longer and avoid burnout when they have the summer break. And anyone who works in youth ministry knows that longevity for youth workers is essential to life-change.

4. It allows me to do a lot of vision-casting for the fall. After proper evaluations have been conducted and we have a plan for improvement to take kids deeper and wider, I have most of July and August left to cast that vision, communicate it with parents, teens and leaders. It’s a time for everyone else zoom out to a birds-eye view of the ministry, too.

5. It provides a natural transition when we re-launch in the fall. It kind of provides us with a clean slate for when normal ministry programs do start up again. We can make changes, cut things and add other things to the ministry without a lot of complaints because everything is new again. Plus, when we launch everything in the fall, there’s always much more excitement and energy. Momentum builds very quickly.

6. It provides sufficient time to hang out with kids while they’re not in school. You could say, “Kids aren’t in school during the summer, so that’s the time to rev up your youth ministry!” That may be true in your community, but here in Alexandria, Minnesota, it doesn’t really work that way. So instead I see it as a goldmine of opportunities to spend one-on-one time with kids every day. Instead of trying to keep kids busy with programs that may or may not be spiritually influential, I’d rather focus on relationship building with individuals and in ways I know will be spiritually influential.

7. It’s my time to read, self-educate, and do miscellaneous projects. The school year is so busy that I tend to put “continuing education” off to the side. Youth and adolescence changes so rapidly that it’s different almost every 6 months! What I learned about youth ministry back in Bible college years ago hardly applies to today anymore. It’s very important that I continue to read, study, learn and don’t become an obsolete youth leader. It’s also a great time to jump on those projects that otherwise would always be on back burner (like rebuilding our group’s website, organizing the office and cleaning out storage closets).

Do your youth ministry programs slow down or pause completely during the summer? We’d all love to hear why in the comments below.

[ UPDATE: To add some clarification to this post, read the follow-up of what our summer youth schedule DOES look like. ]