Tomorrow’s LIVE YM Talk is going to be a lot of fun!

First of all, my wife, Dana Schmoyer, will be the featured guest and will share from her experiences of the struggles and rewards of being married to a youth pastor.

Second, rather than her just talking a lot, she would like to do a Q&A format with you all. We’ve never done it this way before in a LIVE YM Talk, so this will be fun! Submit your questions related to being married to a youth pastor and together we will all answer them from our various experiences and perspectives. Also, if you have any questions about marriage and youth ministry in general, feel free to submit those questions, too.

That means two things

1. Submit your questions about being married to a youth pastor and about marriage and youth ministry in general using this form. [UPDATE: form now closed]

2. Make sure you join our LIVE YM Talk on Friday, July 3, at 2:00 PM so we can hear your advice and answers to people’s questions, too.

Even if you can’t join us for the live conversation on Friday, submit your questions anyway and then listen for our response in the recording that will be available on Saturday in our podcast in iTunes.

How to join the LIVE YM Talk

To join our live conversation at 2:00 PM Eastern Time on Friday, call (724) 444-7444 and enter ID 19105# (long distance charges may apply). Or, listen to it online by joining the live chat room and participate there.

Check out the LIVE YM Talk page for more details and to see an archive of past conversations.

A couple days ago someone asked a question about connecting with parents at MinistryQuestions.com. It reminded me of last summer when I had two open-house dinners at my house for parents in our youth group. Neither meeting was very large. In fact, there was even some overlap between the two dinners of parents who came both times. But the one-on-one time with parents without kids around was still very valuable.

After some time to hang out and eat together, we all sat in a circle and discussed some of these questions openly. However, looking back, I see the value in asking these three questions privately with every set of parents represented in the youth ministry on a consistent basis.

1. What’s going on in your family and your kid’s life right now that would help me and the youth leaders know how to best work with your student?
We’re here to partner with parents, but no partnership works very well if the partners are off doing different things without communicating with each other. Ask parents about what they see going in in their kid’s lives that would be helpful information for you and any other appropriate youth leaders to know. What stories are both you and the parents hearing about school? What indicators of spiritual growth do you and the parents see coming from their life? Listen to parents share stories, but be sure you also share with them stories and insights you’ve picked up through their involvement in the ministry.

2. How can the youth ministry support you and your family better?
After you’ve heard a bit about what’s happening in that kid’s life at home, ask parents how they feel the youth ministry can best come alongside and continue to support them. That’s doesn’t mean you should bow to their every request — sometimes their expectations will be unrealistic. Use those times to gently share why you can’t or shouldn’t meet those expectations while giving an alternate suggestion that’s more appropriate.

3. How are YOU doing spiritually right now?
We all know that the spirituality of the parents is often reflected in their students, except their kids don’t try to hide it as much. That’s why the spiritual health of the students is often dependant on the spiritual health of their parents. Kids reflect what they see modeled for them. Ensure that parents are growing spiritually and that it’s overflowing into their family, their children, their teenagers, and their marriages.

The following 2-part guest series is contributed by Jake Waits. He has some great ideas for romancing your spouse and keeping your marriage alive throughout the demands and pressures of ministry. Oh, and you men, remember Valentines Day is this Saturday!

See Part 1 of this series.

Mission: Cheapest Date Ever!

Yes, this sounds really “cheap” but it was a lot of fun! One week I was planning a date for my wife who was at that time almost my fiancé! She didn’t know that I happened to be a bit tight financially that week but I decided to not let that hold us back from having a good time. I decided to have fun with planning the date around the idea of being as cheap as possible. I went to a local dollar store and picked up a candle and candle holder. I also got a card and a single rose before the date. I used to make a cd for each date as well that had some crazy title or word that maybe we had talked about before. I tried to pick songs on each cd that I knew we would enjoy together. Some cd’s were very silly and others had a more serious tone to them depending on the tone of the date that I was going for.

Once I picked her up for our date, I explained the whole concept of having the cheapest date ever. We went to a local carousel that only cost a dollar donation to ride, rented a cheap movie together, then ordered food off of a dollar menu at a fast food restaurant. We then went and parked (not the kind of parking you are thinking about!) in a theater parking lot, had a cheap dinner by candlelight and watched our movie rental on my laptop! This date is still one of our favorite dating memories that we share together to this day!

Cost for the date: $10-15

Extravagant, But Not Too Extravagant

This date requires you saving some money over the period of a few weeks or even month or so depending on how much you want to put into this date financially. I really didn’t have to spend a ton of money to do this date but it did require me saving some before I pulled it off. I let my wife know near the end of the week of the date that she needed to have her bags packed for an overnight stay somewhere not too far away from home. It was fun to keep her guessing until the night of the date. A few weeks before, I made reservations at a Hilton Garden Inn that was only twenty minutes from our home. This was convenient for us since my wife and I had a newborn child. My in-laws were already planning to baby-sit for the night of the date! The hotel stay for a suite room was only around $130.00. The day of the date, I checked in at the hotel early and set the room up with roses, small gifts that I worked on myself that were fairly inexpensive and with a song I had written that was displayed in a picture frame. My guitar was placed near the framed song. I also gave her a blank picture album that evening so that we could take pictures on our date and fill the album up later! I spent some time compiling music and pictures that I put together to make a sweet slideshow of us and our baby on Windows Movie Maker.

The night of the date, we went out to eat at a fairly nice restaurant then we retired for the evening early and went to the hotel to enjoy everything that I had put together for her in the hotel room. She walked in, surprised to see that I had already been there and had the “mood” set! I played the song that I had written for her that evening, we watched the movie I put together on our laptop and we had a great time enjoying each other and the luxurious room for the evening. Breakfast was off the chain at the Hilton the next morning too!

Cost for the date: $200.00

Movie Night In The Church Choir Room

About a year ago, I set up a couch, candles, a coffee table, etc. in our church choir room. We have a really sweet and BIG flat-screen tv in this room so it made for yet another great cheap date for the evening! I love the element of surprise so she had no clue that we were about to have a date in the church that night! I told her that I had forgotten to turn off a light in the church and asked her to come in with me for a minute. She came in and noticed the set-up when we walked into the room and was completely caught off guard. I had candles lit, the tv ready to play the movie and everything in place. We popped popcorn and had some cold drinks while we enjoyed our movie together!

Cost for the date: $3 or $4 for the movie rental

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Jake Waits is the Student Pastor at East Philadelphia Baptist Church in Philadelphia, MS. He has a passion to actively disciple students, loves his wife (Dian) and baby (Emma Grace), and loves pizza more than any other youth minister he has ever met!

The following 2-part guest series is contributed by Jake Waits. He has some great ideas for romancing your spouse and keeping your marriage alive throughout the demands and pressures of ministry. Oh, and you men, remember Valentines Day is a little over a week away!

Share your stories!

Okay, so I have been skewering the web and local Christian bookstores over the past few months for ANY creative and fun ideas for dates with my wife. It has been a lot of fun coming up with anything that I can do to surprise my wife on our random dates. If you are like me, you may have discovered that there may be a few dating ideas here and there on the web, but I got to thinking about how this concept could be a lot more effective if others posted ideas on a site. I found several sites that did this but they were not Christian sites and the ideas were a bit pricey! If you are like me, you are on a budget right now but you still want to impress your significant other when it comes to planning your dates. If we all pitched in ideas from time to time, this would help ALL of us as we are seeking out ideas for dates. This can be as effective as we allow it to be if everyone will chip in! Please submit some stories and favorite dates in the comments below. I am by no means an expert when it comes to planning the perfect date, but I do have several tips for you to check out.

How to successfully plan a date

• Plan the date around his/her schedule.
• Be sensitive to the fact that they have a life too and make sure that you don’t plan the date on the night or day of something that they might already have going on!
• Surprise your date! Don’t do the average date with them. Dinner and a movie is fine but add some flavor to your date. Randomly give her/him small gifts throughout the date. They can be relatively inexpensive. You can get a coffee mug with a hot chocolate packet in it, give her a small bottle of perfume, or give your man a small bottle of cologne! Just be creative.
• Plan the date around his/her interests. You definitely want to enjoy the date for yourself as well but make sure that you put your spouse or date before yourself when it comes to planning a date for them. What do they enjoy doing? What is their favorite kind of food or restaurant? Is it possible for you to participate in something that they enjoy doing? For instance, if you love going to the movies all the time on dates and your date is okay with it but doesn’t love it, shake things up!

Read Part 2 of this series!

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Jake Waits is the Student Pastor at East Philadelphia Baptist Church in Philadelphia, MS. He has a passion to actively disciple students, loves his wife (Dian) and baby (Emma Grace), and loves pizza more than any other youth minister he has ever met!

I’ll just jump to the chase: I’M GOING TO BE A DADDY! That’s right! This Christmas the Lord has blessed me and Dana with the news of having a kid, due to arrive sometime around August 6th. We’re both super excited and can’t wait for August to be here. In the meantime, we’re doing our best to prepare for the huge transition (if that’s even possible).

Dana blogged about the announcement tonight, too. Read her post about the best Christmas gift.

Thanks to all of you who replied to my Twitter update yesterday when I first made the announcement online. Dana and I both appreciate it that you guys are joining us in our excitement.

Dana and I sent this video “Christmas card” to friends and family, and now to you, too! Merry Christmas from me and Dana!

How to make a video like this
It only takes about 5 minutes to create a video like this, and it’s extremely simple — anyone can do it! Just upload your pictures to Animoto.com, add some titles and music, and the website does the rest. Sign up at Animoto.com for free using this link so we can share videos together. It also sure beats boring PowerPoint slideshows of youth group events.

The following post is contributed by my beautiful wife, Dana Schmoyer (pictured to the left, holding me shortly after I proposed). She often blogs about youth ministry from the perspective of a youth pastor’s wife at DanaSchmoyer.com and is pretty active on Twitter.. She put a lot of thought into this post for you all. If you have questions, she’d love to answer them in the comments below.

4. Set boundaries.

Make sure the two of you are clear on how many nights a week your husband is going to be out. (Tim and I try to keep it to 3 nights a week.) Some weeks we have had something every night, but then we make sure the following week is close to empty. Also protect your home. I have known people to open their house to youth, letting them drop in at any time of the day or night. I highly recommend against this. Your house should be your own private sanctuary. By protecting your house you are protecting your family and spouse time. It’s probably cheaper too if they feel like they have open access to your fridge!

3. Speak carefully.

Yesterday in #6 I mentioned that it is important to surround yourself by godly women. When you do, and feel comfortable around these women sharing everything, that is great, but watch what you say. You can be close and open with friends without sharing intimate details of your marriage and personal issues in ministry. Find a godly woman outside of your church circle who you can share these things with about your life and ministry. If you are dating a youth pastor, don’t share details of your relationship with others in the church. I made that mistake and speak from experience — it can quickly turn into gossip. With this I have also learned that it’s probably wise to hold the same standard in a marriage relationship.

2. Always support your husband publicly.

No matter what, support him in public. If you disagree with something, tell your husband when no one is around. If someone comes to you with a complaint, you can listen, but do not try to fix the problem, they need to go to him with their issue. God put you here to support your husband, not to carry him.

1. Be sexually active with your husband.

Sex is a good stress reliever and fulfills his needs, which helps prevent temptation for him. It shocked me to hear this out of Doug Field’s mouth at NYWC at the marriage seminar with his wife, but it really is important. He said, “The number one job for my wife is to sleep with the youth pastor.”

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This post was written and contributed by my wife, Dana Schmoyer. See Part 1 from yesterday.

The following post is contributed by my beautiful wife, Dana Schmoyer (pictured to the left, holding me shortly after I proposed). She often blogs about youth ministry from the perspective of a youth pastor’s wife at DanaSchmoyer.com and is pretty active on Twitter.. She put a lot of thought into this post for you all. If you have questions, she’d love to answer them in the comments below.

9. Have fun and be care free.

Enjoy every moment you can. Don’t let the little stuff stress you out. It takes time to learn which adults work well with which students. Go where the spirit leads, and when he doesn’t, leave it up to others. A great way Tim has helped me to be carefree is by not telling me things that would probably upset me, such as someone either criticizing him or the youth ministry. I take it personally, and then I don’t look at that person the same any more.

8. Try something new.

I have found that youth really enjoy it when you are willing to try something you haven’t done, and when you do it with them. I am terrified of heights, and on our first canoe trip with our youth group we got to the part of the river with a bridge that they always stop at to jump off of. The kids were so excited for me to get up there and jump. It’s a great bonding time and then you have stories to share with them. Also, a great way I have found to bond with the boys is to play video games, and join in on sports games with them. Ask God to show you a new way to build relationships with the youth, and be willing to stretch.

7. Learn to say no.

Your husband needs to learn this too. I learned that if you don’t at least say yes a couple times when invited to something, then you probably wont be invited again, but when you say yes to everything it gets overwhelming. You can’t make it to everything, and that’s okay. It’s good for students to see you at their events, and it’s a good time to get to know their families. It’s also good that they see you model healthy boundaries. Make band concerts and plays a date with your spouse, but not every one. People will understand if you don’t make it to all the student’s extra curricular events.

6. Surround yourself with other godly women.

It is good to have fellowship with other women, especially since most of us like to chat, and sometimes our husbands can’t handle all that we want/need to talk about. Plus, after living with a man 24/7 it is nice to be around a female to relate to with all of our womanly quirks. Make sure the women are godly so you can lift each other up in prayer, encouragement and accountability.

5. Be present.

It is very easy for a teen girl to develop a crush on her youth pastor, especially if he is hot (like my husband!). The spiritual aspect of any relationship becomes intimate, that is why we are to surround ourselves with other godly women, not men. Wives, if the students see you regularly (I know this is probably harder if you have kids) and see that your public interaction with your husband shows that you two are totally in love, this will help girls know he’s romantically interested in you, not them. Husbands, if you aren’t quick to catch on, then let your wife help you notice signs of a crush. Be careful with how often they call or text message you, and be careful with how frequently you respond. If you reply or answer the phone every time or almost every time, they will more than likely contact you even more. I have seen a few girls crush on Tim, which is tough, because my feelings towards them change. I am not as friendly, I try to hide it, and then I have a bad heart issue. Another sign of flirting is girls who like to take boy’s hats. I’m pretty sure any girl that has gone through jr. high knows that is a for-sure sign of flirting. Tim doesn’t make a big deal of it when girls do it to him. He just ignores the action, and it soon stops. Wives, let your husband minister to the boys, and you get to know the girls and be a positive spiritual role model to them. This allows a girl to feel comfortable with you, and when she wants to talk with your husband you can be present. Tim and I love to take a girl out to eat together when they need closer attention. If you’ve already been present, it’s not weird for you to be there as a “chaperon.”

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This post was written and contributed by my wife, Dana Schmoyer. Part 2 is coming tomorrow. Part 2 is now posted.

I sometimes post the youth ministry questions readers submit, with permission, of course. Figured I’d turn it into a regular series starting today. Please voice your answer in the comments below.

Wes Olsen of Seattle, WA, is currently leaving his Christian school junior high teaching position to enter full-time vocational youth ministry. As he and his family begin the transition, he asks:

What is the strain that being a youth pastor has had on your family?

Hey Wes! That’s a great question. The strain youth ministry has on my relationship with Dana is actually pretty minimal. I think there’s a couple reasons for this.

1. Before we met, we were both youth workers at different churches. I was working part-time at a church while attending seminary and she was the interim youth director at a church near Houston. When we started dating we both already had an idea about the demands of ministry, expectations, and pressure of working in a church environment. There wasn’t a whole lot of adjustment required for her except to shift from being the main Youth Director to being my main supporter.

2. We’re both P.K.’s (Preacher’s Kids), so we each grew up having a “behind the scenes” outlook on ministry. We married somewhat knowing what to expect and how Pastor marriages work.

3. We’re intentional about not letting it strain our marriage. I say “no” all the time, not because I don’t love people or want to serve them, but because I already spent 5 hours in the office and 3 hours out with kids that day. It’s time to go home and hang out with Dana. Rarely do I have meetings in the evenings. In fact, I have an evening meeting at church about once every 3 months or so and that’s it. I arrange my schedule so I’m either home with her or she’s out doing ministry with me.

4. She’s involved in the youth ministry with me, so she has a handle on what’s going on, personalities I work with, and has the same heart for the kids that I do. She understands what I’m talking about when I ask her opinion on various issues we’re facing. Since we do ministry together, it’s less of a strain and more of a mutual affection.

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Have a youth ministry question you’d like me and other readers to answer? E-mail it to me! Please keep your question brief and to-the-point. Thanks!

NOTE: This is not an actual letter I ever plan to send to my youth group parents, nor do I currently experience all of these problems in my youth ministry in the first place. It is a fictitious letter based on common issues many youth workers would love to address but often don’t have the guts nor freedom to express.

Dear parent,

It seems like more and more of your kids are coming to church without you. I know you see this as a pretty good deal for your student since you get some quiet time at home and most of the events we do are paid-for, but you should know that there is no greater influence in your child’s life than you. Whether they tell you or not, your kid actually wants you involved in their life, even here at church. Come visit us sometime with your student and see how your relationship can grow together!

And then there’s some of you who actually forbid your teenager from attending youth Bible studies. You should know that the church is one of the last places on earth where basic morality and values are still taught, since schools are now forbidden to do so. We teach your teenager to obey you and respect you because that’s what the Lord expects from them. We also help your teenager address matters like relationships, making good choices, and setting priorities. With all the negativity and lies the media is using to bombard teenagers, we remain a light to help steer your student toward a growing relationship with the Lord.

Parents, please guide your child to be faithful in church attendance. Teenagers aren’t allowed to choose whether or not they want to go to school. Neither should you assume that they are mature enough to decide for themselves about church. Please, do not enable them to form the idea that church involvement should be based on the level of entertainment it provides. Teach your student not develop a consumerism mindset of, “What can the church do for me?” but instead approach church with the biblical mindset of, “How can I serve the body?”

What I don’t understand is how you’ll never ground your student from school, yet grounding him/her from church is acceptable, as if academic education is more important than spiritual training. You keep your student at home to watch TV, play on the Internet and listen to the radio when they actually need a good dose of spiritual encouragement. Maybe you should ground them to church instead of away from it.

We love going on trips and pulling off events for your student, but please ensure that he/she honors their commitment. The church invests many resources into these activities and when your child drops out at the last minute, it wastes money that was sacrificially provided by others.

The most important thing you can do is communicate with your student’s youth leaders. If you’re struggling with your child in a specific way, we’d love to pray for you! If you’re trying to teach him/her something at home, we’d love to help reinforce that at church. What you have to share with us can be critically important to how we interact and teach the student at church. Plus, the youth leaders may see and hear things that you should know about, too. Team up with us!

Whether you’re supportive of the youth ministry or not, please do not gossip about it or spread your negativity unless you’re speaking directly to me about it. Especially do not share your “critical evaluation” of the ministry or about individuals in it when you’re at home. You’ll only raise your children to be cynical and negative toward the church. They will grow up viewing church with the perspectives you model, so please be a gracious in your speech and attitude.

I’m actually not against criticism at all. In fact, I embrace your loving and respectful feedback since you can often see important issues I may never notice. However, please come straight to me with your concerns. Going to anyone else first is what the Bible calls gossip. When you come to me with a problem, also come prepared to offer a solution and the willingness to be a part of resolving the issue.

Thank you for your support! I pray for you regularly and hope we can continue to partner together in seeing your students’ lives transformed into a reflection of Christ.

– Your Youth Pastor