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.

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!

One of my sr. high youth leaders went with me to Youth Specialties’ NYWC last October for the first time and now to the NYMC for the first time, also. The video below is a summary our thoughts comparing the pros and cons of each conference.

NOTE: This video is our very first conversation comparing the two conferences and is solely based on our personal preferences and what we were looking for in a conference. Your experience and values may differ and that’s totally okay. I should also disclose that I was a presenter at the NYMC.

NYMC 2009 Highlights

Tom Roepke posted a couple highlight videos of the NYMC from last week:

• NYMC ‘09 Day 1
• NYMC ‘09 Day 2
• Final morning at NYMC ‘09

Brian Ford’s reflections on the NYMC.

Phil Bell’s recap of the NYMC 2009

Rick Warren like you’ve never seen him

If you’ve been to both conferences, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Communicating with teens and parents throughout the week

My brown bag lunch seminar on Communicating with Teens and Parents Throughout the Week was packed! Ran out of chairs, so people sat around on the floor and stood in the back. It was a great time! Here’s the description of what we covered:

What means of communication do you use with teens and parents throughout the week and how well is it working for your ministry? Tim Schmoyer gives ideas for improvement, shows you how to utilize aspects of communication technology, and shares ways you can evaluate which method works best for your group.

Watch it on Vimeo: Communicating with teens and parents throughout the week

Panel discussion with a few of our favorite youth ministry bloggers

I was also on a panel of youth ministry bloggers, along with Chuck Bomar of collegeministrythoughts.com, Chris Davis of youthministrygeek.com and Joshua Griffin of morethandodgeball.com. We talked about some of the basics of blogging and answered many questions from the audience on just about everything from online video, search engine optimization, and how to get people to visit your site.

Watch it on Vimeo: Panel discussion with a few of our favorite youth ministry bloggers

The Skit Guys performing at the NYMC 2009

We all love The Skit Guys, especially their improv comedy when using guests to make sound effects for them. If you’re ready for a lot of good laughs, here’s one of their skits in HD.

Watch it on Vimeo: The Skit Guys at NYMC 2009

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Join us at 2:00 PM EST this afternoon in our LIVE YM Talk! Info on the LIVE YM Talk page.

This site is a culmination of several things:

1. As much as I love to hear from youth workers via email and Facebook, it is becoming quite unrealistic to respond to every youth ministry question that shows up in my Inbox. In past conversations with guys who run other popular ministry websites, it’s clear that I’m not the only one who stays up late into the night answering ministry questions via email. Ministry Questions provides a better solution for all of us to both ask and answer questions. It’s a place where anyone can ask something and get feedback from more than just one person via email. In fact, Ministry Questions isn’t even limited to text — it thrives on integrated video and audio, as well, providing much more “face-to-face” interaction.

2. It also takes our Youth Ministry Mentorship online to reach the 100s of you who applied but were not selected for the weekly one-on-one phone conversations. Most of the mentorship team of veterans will be active on Ministry Questions, ready and available to give you advice, feedback, and recommendations to all your ministry questions. With the ability to subscribe to other users on the site, it can truly become a one-on-one online mentorship regardless of how large its online community grows.

Ministry Questions is absolutely loaded with features. Check out this video for an overview.

The best way to describe Ministry Questions is to think of Yahoo! Answers except with the added ability to interact via video and audio clips. Lots of other perks definitely make it quite unlike any other website on the Internet. I am very proud of the team of developers who built this site for me, I’m thankful to have such an amazingly helpful webhost, and I am ecstatic about the community of ministry workers who have already embraced Ministry Questions during it’s closed testing phase.

Although my audience is primarily youth workers, the scope of Ministry Questions is certainly not limited to youth ministry. It’s also for worship leaders, pastors, children’s ministry directors, and even teens who are looking for a place to ask a questions to ministry people like you. I encourage you to share Ministry Questions with people who serve in other areas of ministry, too. Please help spread the word!

Visit MinistryQuestions.com!

A HUGE thank-you to MinistryMonkey.com for financially sponsoring some of the cost that Ministry Questions has incurred. MinistryMonkey.com is the perfect place to order any custom apparel for ministry. I can personally vouch that they are a great team, they have great communication, and their prices are some of the lowest I have ever seen for custom t-shirts. Perhaps best of all, though, is their genuine heart to serve ministries however they can, including my own. Check them out at MinistryMonkey.com and on Twitter.

Tip #1: Carefully think through curriculum

You should do this anyway, not just from a financial standpoint, but for the sake of your teenagers’ spiritual development. Are you kinda just hopping from one topic to whatever else they wanna learn about? If so, you must develop a plan and a vision for where you want to take your kids through scripture and how you’re going to do it. Otherwise, you will waste a lot of money on curriculum that really isn’t taking your students in any particular direction.

Also think through your need to purchase it all or if you can write a lot of it in-house (and then donate it as a Freebie Friday, of course). Curriculum is expensive, and honestly, most of it isn’t worth your money. Taking an extra 30 minutes a week to put your own Bible study together is not only free, but may be about 10 times more impactful than a generic, canned, one-size-fits-all, discussion sheet. Try this method of using your own life as a small group curriculum as you develop a plan instead of buying into someone else’s.

Tip #2: Invest into leaders

The best use of any size youth ministry budget is to invest it into your adult leaders. In fact, at my previous church, I saved my entire annual budget each year so I could spend 100% of it in one chunk every year on training and appreciation gifts. A team of adult leaders who are passionate for teens, are well trained, mature, and equipped to be effective tools of the Holy Spirit is by far the greatest blessing your budget can provide for teens. That goes so much farther than a couple free pizzas and some cool youth events.

If you’re the only youth worker in your church, don’t be bashful in using the entire budget on yourself! Use it to buy ministry books, attend youth ministry seminars, and whatever else you can to do train yourself. It may feel selfish, but honestly it will allow you to put so much more back into the ministry. It also will give you a sense of hope, confidence, and direction.

And, as much as possible, plan the budget so that leaders can go on trips and events for free. Adult youth leaders should always go for free.

Tip #3: Plan out expenses for each month

If you only plan an annual budget, that’s a good start, but make sure you designate certain funds in each category for each month of the year so you don’t hit August and realize you’re out of funds until January.

Tip #4: Keep it flexible

For me, the trick has always been to make the budget categories specific enough that expenses clearly have a label, but flexible enough that if I run out of cash in one category I can still fit items into another. Here’s a breakdown of my budget’s categories.

• Local outreach (Allies, service projects)
• Food, drinks, serving supplies, lunch w/ students
• Volunteer appreciation
• Training (National Youth Ministry Conference)
• Graduation gifts
• Curriculum/Resources/Teaching aids/ParentLink
• Promotions/Supplies/Website
• Special Events (Planet Wisdom, CHIC, missions, MUUUCE)

Tip #5: Plan for an income

Most youth ministries take in an income when they do significant events like a student conference or missions trip. Don’t forget to take that into consideration as you put your budget together. For example, let’s say that I estimate that our trip to Planet Wisdom is going to cost us $3,000 total. I put that number in the budget, but I also make a notation that I expect $2,200 to come in from kids paying for the trip. That leaves $800 that has to cover the cost of the adult leaders. Why not just put $800 in the budget and leave it at that? Because very rarely will your actual cost be spot on $3,000 or your income be exactly $2,200. If one of those numbers is different, you budgeted money will obviously not be exactly $800, meaning you have to compensate appropriately. Having a rough estimate to work with at the beginning of the year can help you make sure the funds are flexible by the time Planet Wisdom comes around because you planned ahead for it.

Tip #6: Prioritize the funds

To make sure you don’t spend budget money on something that’s not very important only to find out later that you don’t have money left for what is critical, assign a priority value to each of your categories. In my case, I rank food, volunteer appreciation and training all as a high priority; resources and teaching aids as a medium priority; and local outreach, graduation gifts and promotions as a low priority.

Tip #7: Run it by a couple adult youth leaders

They’re serving in this ministry with you, so let a couple of them look it over and see what they think. Do they recommend that you cut back in one category to add to another? Do they remember an event you need to plan for that was accidentally left out? (If they tell you to pull some money out of the volunteer appreciation category, tell them, “No WAY!” and explain that, without them, nothing else could take place.)

Tip #8: Be careful about mixing your own finances

I know almost every church handles expenses by reimbursing people after they’ve made the purchase from their own pocket, but I feel very strongly against it. I am not the bankroll for the youth expenses. The church’s finances do not have to run through my own. It’s not a big deal for a church to get a debit card for youth expenses. In fact, it’s less paperwork in the long run and it leaves my personal finances intact. The exception, unfortunately, is for my youth leaders. Since it’s not very prudent to give each of them a youth debit card, expenses they incur are submitted for reimbursement. As the youth pastor, though, my personal finances remain my own. I do not keep extra cash in my checking account just to fund youth group purchases. (This issue was actually a prerequisite of mine as I was going through the youth ministry job interviewing process with churches a couple years ago.)

What other tips can you add to this list? Comment below.

No red flags were waved, no sirens were sounded, and no one pulled me aside to sit me down and warn me. The day I answered God’s call to full time youth ministry I really had no clue what I was getting myself into. I’ll admit — if someone had warned me about the struggles of youth ministry I probably would have run the other direction. It’s been over ten years and I love what I do, but it’s come with many lessons not taught in any seminary class or youth ministry seminar.

I remember the first big lessons I learned in youth ministry. I had been serving as a volunteer Youth Director for a church in North Jersey for three years when everything came crashing down. I had turned ministry into a business and soon found myself stepping down from my position. Not because I wanted to, but because I was asked to stepped down.

The focus of “I”

During my three years as their youth director I accomplished some amazing things. Notice the key word: “I.” I was able to organize and prepare winter retreats, summer camps, and many other events. I was able to stand before a group of students and speak. I was able to lead my adult volunteer staff and persuade them to follow me. But what I wasn’t doing was allowing God to lead the team of adult volunteers or plan the right events. I wasn’t allowing God to speak to the students by allowing Him to speak through me. I wasn’t allowing God to train and teach me what I needed to know about youth ministry by deepening my own faith. Everything I did was centered on what I wanted to see happen. My view of youth ministry was based on what I saw in magazines, websites and the occasional youth ministry conference where entertainment was the focal point of the weekend. Bottom-line: I ran the youth ministry like a business. I operated the same way in ministry as I did in my secular job (I was customer business rep for a nation wide copy center).

The conversation that changed everything

It was spring and I was neck deep in planning the 30-Hour Famine. A few days went by and I continued with my agenda, planning the upcoming 30-Hour Famine. Then one night my roommate and youth leader at the time knocked on my door. “Can I talk to you?,” he asked. “We need to talk about this coming weekend and the 30-Hour Famine.” Once again my all business attitude took over as I assumed he wanted to discuss the details of the weekend. So I went into self-centered mode and began to share my thoughts and ideas as well as how awesome (fun) the weekend will be with the many things “I” had planned. In the nicest way he could, he cut me off with these words: “Brian, the Pastor and the leadership has decided you won’t be involved in the 30-Hour Famine. Pastor will be stopping by to speak with you. I’m just here to get any information you have about the event so the leadership team can make a decision whether to cancel or postpone the event.”

I was so wrapped up with my own agenda and my own way because I was a “big shot youth director” I totally missed what I had done. As a result of my pride and self-centeredness the pastor asked me to step down as the youth director for an undetermined amount of time. He said, “Ministry is about your relationship with Christ. I’m afraid you haven’t grasped what that truly means. Ministry is not meant to be run like a business.”

My heart was broken as I realized what I had done. That night after meeting with the Pastor I spent what seemed like hours on my bedroom floor crying out to God asking for forgiveness, asking for restoration, and seeking the Holy Spirit for answers. That night I realized the truth, but I had put planning and organizing ahead of relationships; relationships with people and my relationship with Jesus.

The main point

There’s more to this story, but for the sake of editing and size I’ve shortened it. The point is nothing you do in ministry will ever be more important than your relationship with Jesus. Focus on growing deep in your own faith, not running a business. Youth ministry is not about you.

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Brian Ford began his ministry as the Youth Director for a church in New Jersey over 12 years ago. In 2002 he and his wife Kim joined the ministry of Interim Youth Ministries, Inc. a ministry designed to equip and train youth workers. Brian is also a speaker for youth events as well as writer.

Get the See You At The Pole training PDF here.

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Join our LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation today at 2:00 PM EST! The topic is, “Helping teenagers lead their peers in worship.” Russell Martin, a former youth director, now worship director, will be our featured guest on the topic. Join us using either your telephone or your computer microphone.

The featured speaker was Jeremy Hughey, the Deep & Wide Coach at Dare 2 Share Ministries. He spoke for two sessions to teach us what Deep & Wide ministry strategy is and ideas for what that should look like in our youth groups.

Since the other guys our youth worker network share the same heart I do to train leaders, we video recorded most of the seminars, including Jeremy’s, so we can make the training freely available to other youth workers around the world who might not otherwise have the money or resources to travel someplace to get it.

These are the seminars available:

• Deep & Wide: Session 1
• Deep & Wide: Session 2
• How to lead a small group
• Answering the tough questions
• Using music in youth ministry
• Panel discussion on teen issues

You can find detailed descriptions of each seminar here.

All the youth ministry training videos are available to view and download on our Allies website. I pray they encourage and bless your ministry.

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Join our LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation today at 2:00 PM EST! The topic is, “Working with students who suffer from depression and eating disorders.” Dave Huizing, a Christian counselor from Word of Life in New York, has a lot of experience in this area and will be joining the conversation to train us on this topic. Join us using either your telephone or your computer microphone.

The Mentor Team
The mentorship program is opening up once again starting right now! But this time I have a whole team of youth ministry veterans on board. I’m very excited about this Youth Ministry Mentor Team because most of them have been in youth ministry for over a decade and are passionate about teaching and training other youth workers like yourself. Their backgrounds range from volunteer to full-time paid youth pastors to even a sr. pastor.

Apply!
If you’ve been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer and would like to have a FREE one-on-one youth ministry mentor for 10 weeks, read the official Youth Ministry Mentorship page. The link to the application is there. It’s open to anyone who serves in youth ministry in any capacity, whether that be on a volunteer basis or as a full-time youth pastor.

The application period is open for only 2 weeks. After Tuesday, September 9, no further applications will be accepted. Read an overview of the mentorship and apply there.

As you can understand, we have a limited number of mentors, so you may not be one of the 10 chosen this time around, but keep your eye on this site because we plan to make this an on-going program. The next round will be in January 2009 sometime. Subscribe to the RSS feed or by email to stay up-to-date.

The sponsor who makes this FREE!

Thanks to YouthBytes.org’s sponsorship, this program is offered free of charge to everyone who participates! They’re covering the cost of purchasing and shipping all the necessary books and resources you get as an accepted participant of the mentorship.

YouthBytes.org creates video curriculum for youth groups that contains some of the most outrageous stunts I’ve ever seen, all for the purpose of illustrating Biblical truth. Check out some of these crazy video clips to see what I mean.

Jeremy Hughey from Dare 2 Share Ministries will be our featured speaker as he helps us understand how to feed teenagers who have no spiritual appetite. Other local youth workers, including myself, will teach workshop sessions:

• Moving students from spiritual apathy to spiritual passion.
• Dealing with the difficult and disruptive student.
• Answering the tough questions.
• Youth ministry for the right reasons.
• How to lead a small group.
• Using music in ministry.

Plus, there will be breakout discussion sessions to process the information with other youth workers and a panel of Christian counselors to publicly answer your questions on teen issues like depression, cutting, abuse, and more. Oh, and lunch is provided!

The Allies Conference is on Saturday, August 23, 2008, at my church from about 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. For more information and to register, visit our website at AlliesForYouth.com. If you can’t make it, but know of someone else in our area who could benefit from this training, please pass the information along to them. Thanks!

For a while now I’ve had the idea of developing a one-on-one mentorship program for new youth workers. Then I heard from some of you rookies asking for it, so I knew there was a need. I searched and couldn’t find anyone already doing it, which seemed kinda odd to me. Why don’t the people who are mentoring youth have mentors themselves? With all the Web 2.0 stuff that’s being developed, this should be easier now than ever before, especially over great distances.

I’ve talked with some people I know and have decided to put together a mentorship program for youth workers and offer it online. There’s a potential that some of the mentors who come on board will be youth ministry college and seminary professors along with some other life-long youth workers from a variety of backgrounds. I’m very excited about all the experience that will be on the mentorship team!

Right now I’m in the process of developing the program, which is very difficult since every mentoree will come with different needs, different values and different gifts in ministry. The trick is to make it flexible for each individual, yet still take each individual from goal A to goal B by whatever path is appropriate.

As I work on all this, I need two things from you all:

1. Leave your thoughts and ideas about a mentorship program for youth workers in the comments below. What would you like to see in this program? What outcomes would you expect from it? What specific issues should be addressed?
2. If you have been in youth ministry for two years or less, I’m looking for two people who would like to go through the mentorship program as “guinea pigs” to be mentored by me personally.

If you missed the live video feed, but still want to watch the seminar, I have the video archived on Blip.tv, so feel free to check it out there. I also have it embedding at the end of this post.

Unfortunately, I had a LOT more content to review than I thought I did. Ten pages of notes is a lot, I know, but the demonstrations took longer than I anticipated. The seminar ended up lasting two and a half hours and that’s even with skipping the entire World of Warcraft section and several other sites I planned to show. I should have just stuck to one or two basic sites, like Facebook and MySpace, rather than making parents feel overloaded with information. Oh well. You live and learn, I guess. A couple other churches in the area have asked me to come give the presentation at their church, so I’ll have more chances to make it better. Too bad my youth group’s parents had to be the guinea pigs, though.

About getting my notes
A lot of people have asked that I make my notes available, but I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to or not. It’s clearly not because I want to just keep them to myself because you all know I give away pretty much anything of quality that passes through my hands. My concern is that people will take these notes and teach from them while not really knowing what in the world they’re talking about. If anyone teaches on this subject, it’s critical that they don’t circumvent the learning and research process involved. I’m not trying to be snotty or anything, I just want to set anyone up to do a disservice to the parents in their group. I dunno. What do you think?

My main resources for this seminar
Here’s a list of the main resources I used for preparing for this seminar. I HIGHLY recommend Anastasia Goodstein’s book, “Totally Wired,” linked below to all parents and anyone who works with youth, regardless of whether you plan to teach on the subject or not.

• Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online by Anastasia Goodstein
• Teens and the Internet CNN interview with Anastasia Goodstein
• Internet Caucus Advisory to Congress
• World of Warcraft FAQs for Christians
• My own experience from being a user of each of these sites.

Click To Play

Watch the video feed using this direct link to the video feed or the embeded stream below.

Originally Dana and I decided to leave right after the last general session, but we were both really tired and wanted to get home early enough to get a good night’s rest. She has to go to work in the morning and I need to set up for the Teen Internet Workshop for Parents, so after meeting Greg, we packed up and came straight home. Eleven hours later, here we are. Hopefully I’ll have pictures and video clips from the NYWC online for you all within the next couple days.

The speaker at the first general session was Ralph Winter, the director of five Star Trek movies, all three X-Men films, Fantastic Four and more. Although I didn’t end up taking too many notes and his speaking style wasn’t really that dynamic, his message about the importance of storytelling was fantastic. We all have stories to share, stories permeate the scripture and people connect with well-told stories on a very personal and emotional level.

General Session Notes: Ralph Winter

• We have to learn the skills of storytelling and master the skills.
• We have to market it and reach the audience.
• Barna reports that most people cannot remember the theme of a sermon 2 hours later, but most people can quote lines from a movie 2 months later.
• YouTube and other online sources are people sharing their stories. People have stories to share and want to share them.
• If we see Hollywood only as a harmful media and not an opportunity we will miss the point and not connect with culture.

During the general session they also announced that they are giving away Doug Field’s general session talk from the NYWC 2005 as a free mp3 download at YSunderground.com. I remember hearing him give it know it’s a great talk on What Matters Most. Get it here.

I attended two seminars this afternoon and, as usual, here are my notes. The first one was by Tic Long on leadership and the second one was by Andy Braner called, Building Bridges: Helping parents and their teenagers have a better relationship.

Tic Long – Lessons on Leadership notes

Andy Braner – Building Bridges Between Parents and Students notes

After having dinner with Mike, Greg Stier taught at the evening general session encouraging us to keep the gospel in the forefront of our ministries to students. I always appreciate Greg’s passion and solid foundation on the Word. His talk from last year’s NYWC still rings in my head and has left a huge impact on my prayer life.

Greg Stier – Preach Christ Crucified notes

Dana and I went to the late night Comedy Club option with Lost and Found, Rob Stromsberg and The Skit Guys. Video and pictures will come later.

Walt Mueller – Smoke and Mirrors notes

And then tonight Doug Fields gave an excellent talk in the general session about envy in ministry, something we all experience. Unfortunately I can’t post the audio here, but again, here are my notes:

Doug Fields – Ministry Envy notes

A couple highlights from today:

1. Dana won three drawings in the Exhibit Hall today! It was crazy. This morning she won a stack of books from Dare 2 Share and then this evening she won a free screening of the upcoming Expelled movie to be shown at our church before the release date in February. We went back over to Dare 2 Share again where she won another drawing for an evangelism training curriculum kit. Now if I could only get her to win me one of the many iPod or Wii giveaways because so far my name hasn’t been drawn for anything.
2. This afternoon Dana and I pretty much took it easy, enjoying a trip to the St. Louis Gateway Arch and then a drive into Illinois to grab dinner at Chick ‘Fil A since there aren’t any in Minnesota. And speaking of free stuff, she also got us tickets for two free chicken sandwiches because our order took too long. I’m tellin’ ya, my wife was on a roll for getting free stuff today!
3. I also met a couple more blog readers today, including Jake Bouma and Roy Probus. That’s always fun.
4. Dana ran into her old youth pastor from when she was in jr. high. Kinda cool to meet a guy who’s been in youth ministry so long that he now runs into his former students at youth worker conventions.

The wifi connection in our hotel is so bogged down that it’s really a pain to get online. Even when it does connect, it moves so slow that I think I’m going to wait until we get home to post any pictures.

I met Mike of Reflection Ministry blog and also ran into a couple other people I don’t know who read this blog. It cracks me up when that happens because I still can’t believe people actually read this stuff. One guy tried to coax me into selling the resources I currently make available for free and gave me his whole plan for how I could make lots of money off it, but don’t worry, I didn’t start this blog to make money and I have no intention on ever changing that. I just want to do whatever I can to help build up the Kingdom, not get rich off other people’s ministry budgets (or the lack thereof).

Attached below are my notes from a seminar I attended, “Resuscitating Sunday School: If you have to do it, you might as well do it right,” by Marv Penner. I recorded the audio on my Mac, too, but I’m waiting for permission to see if I can make that available to you all or not. Guess we’ll find out.

Resuscitating Sunday School notes

My wife took some pictures during the general sessions, but I’ll get them up later. It’s late, I’m tired and I’m getting up early for an 8:00 AM seminar.

My wife already posted her list of seminars she wants to attend. In past years my schedule usually seems to change at the last minute, but here’s what I’m planning on right now anyway.

Friday, November 2

• 10:00 AM — What Monks Can Teach Us: Helping Students Discover the Ancient Art of Listening to the Voice of God, by Dave Ambrose.
• 1:00 PM — General session #1
• 4:00 PM — Resuscitating Sunday School: If You’ve Got To Do It, Do It Right! by Marv Penner
• 7:30 PM — General session #2
• 10:15 PM — So You Want to Get Published, by Jay Howver

Saturday, November 3

• 8:00 AM — Smoke and Mirrors: How Marketing Shapes and Manipulates Your Students and What You Can Do About It, by Walt Mueller
• 10:00 AM — General Session #3
• 2:00 PM — The Heart and Soul of 3Story: Students Reaching Students, by Jenny Morgan
• 7:30 PM — General Session #4
• 10:00 PM — Comedy Club with Bill Arnold, Dave & Brian, Thor Ramsey and Taylor Mason.

Sunday, November 4

• 10:00 AM — General Session #5
• 1:30 PM — Lessons on Leadership, by Tic Long
• 3:30 PM — Building Bridges: Helping Parents and Their Teenagers Have a Better Relationship, by Andy Braner
• 8:00 PM — General Session #6
• 10:15 PM — Late Night Live: The Skit Guys, Bob Stromberg, Lost And Found

Monday, November 5

• 11:00 AM — General Session #7

DOWNLOAD HERE

While at the seminar, I met up with Steve Blanchard of youthministryideas.net.

(I’m not really that little, Steve is just really that tall.) Great to meet ya, Steve!

[tags]Youth Specialties, The CORE[/tags]

I can’t seem to get my leaders fired up about being relational with our students. It’s so frustrating. We have over 150 students in our student ministry and I’m really feeling like I’m getting to the point of burn-out with trying to connect to everyone myself. I see the changes we need to make but I don’t feel like my leaders are ready or willing to make the necessary change. Do you have any suggestions?

What suggestions do you have for this fellow youth worker?

Here’s my response. Please leave yours, as well.

1. Try meeting with each of the leaders one-on-one (or as a couple if they’re married). Talk about their dream for youth ministry. What is their passion in youth ministry? What vision do they have for it? Why are they youth leaders in the first place? Model the relational side with them and create opportunities for them to exercise their giftedness and passion for students. If there is no passion, love or “spark” for students, then they really have no business being a volunteer. Try casting a vision with them for what you want the youth ministry to look like. Make them feel a part of the process. Then, when discussing the strategy and relationships becomes a part of it, they feel like they have ownership over it.

2. Make sure you say “no” to any unrealistic expectations. Your emotional health is more important than the youth ministry. Besides, if you’re burning out, you won’t do anyone else a bit of good anyway. The best thing you can do for the students is to protect yourself so you can continue working with them for the long haul.

3. Start the leaders off with little steps. First ask them to do something as simple as contact one student a week outside of church. It only takes 5 or 10 minutes, but that simple phone call/e-mail/IM communicates the world to them. After the leaders are comfortable with that, challenge them to contact every student in their small group each week. Later, have each leader attend one student’s extra-curricular game/performance during the semester. Before long, move them on to attending more students events. You get the idea.

Again, if volunteers are resistant to connecting with students, I’d seriously question their reasons for working with the youth group in the first place.

In 2005 I took several students in my youth group with me to help work as counselors (pictures here). Here are some of the tips I gave them for working with inner-city children. If you’re venturing to work with inner-city children for the first time, some of these might prove to be helpful for you, too.

CAMP TIPS FOR WORKING WITH INNER-CITY KIDS

1. Love on them, even when it’s tough. Set a Christlike example of Christian love.

2. Discipline! There’s no free time (too many fights occur with down-time), so take away minutes of swim time as consequences.

3. Campers are sent home for fights. No exceptions. We usually send one or two home during the first 24 hours. The rest shape up pretty quickly after that.

4. Be consistent and earn their respect. If you say something, make sure you follow through with it. No empty threats. (“If you don’t stop that there’s no dinner for you tonight!”)

5. Teams are split up differently every game in order to avoid any gang-like alliances.

6. They’re scared of the dark, even the teenagers. Be sensitive.

7. Never mention or talk about home with homesick campers. Avoid the H-word. Get them focused on all the fun things planned and remind them of all the fun activities they’ve enjoyed already.

8. NO racist or sexist comments, jokes or innuendos! Period.

9. Don’t try to act like an African-American or like a stereotype of them. Just be yourself. No “tough ghetto slang” talk.

10. Absolutely NO swearing. This includes “crap” and “sucks.”

11. Do not tease, make fun, or joke about another camper. See #1.

12. Show them respect. Listen to what they have to say. They have struggles and experiences you’ve never imagined. What can you learn from these children?

13. Being tired is not an excuse for slacking. There’s plenty of time for rest when the week is over. Give these kids 110% while learning to run on God’s strength.

14. Enforce sleep. Walk around the room at night until they’re all asleep and take swimming minutes for any talking/whispering/unnecessary noises.

15. Be tough, especially for the first couple days. I know this list might sound like it’s too hard on the kids, but they come from extremely hard city areas and will run you over if you’re not tougher than they are. Remember, you’re here to be their leader, not necessarily their friend. At the end of the week they’ll love you for it.

Last Monday I attended a seminar by Todd Hall, Ph.D., and Mark Matlock’s Wisdom Works addressing issues of spiritual transformation in youth ministry. Why is it that what we teach just doesn’t seem to stick?

MY SEMINAR NOTES:

• We are created in the image of God = relationally.
• Relationships have just as big of an impact on the brain as medications.
• In youth group, relationships have a greater impact than lectures/teaching.
• Parent relationships are vitally important for any other relationships in the future. The physical biology of the brain is affected by these relationships.
• Faith sticks to people through relationships. When we’re attached to someone, their opinions and values matter.
• Our souls naturally desire, or are hard-wired, for relational connections and it is through these connections with God and others that we are spiritually transformed to increase our capacity to love.
• Our brains use 2 ways to make sense of the world: head knowledge (slow) and gut knowledge (very fast).
• Knowing about God with our head is not the same as knowing God with our gut. We can intuitively know something that our mind does not understand. Emotion is a powerful system for knowing.
• Truth is validated through experiences. Experiences teach much more than studying something (Bible, Shakespeare, knowing what a cathedral looks like in a picture is different than knowing what it smells like in experience). Some knowledge only comes through experiences.
• Our emotions shape both our internal experiences and our experiences with God and other people. They give us a sense of what is meaningful.
• Our emotions are determined much quicker than head knowledge and determines how we think. Emotion is how we evaluate meaning in a matter of milliseconds.
• Emotion and meaning of values are processed in the same part of the brain.
• Gut level knowledge wins out when in conflict with head knowledge. A college professor can easily refute Christianity to a student who knows God only as head knowledge, but can never refute a student who knows God with their gut. Or, a student will commit suicide even if they know in their head that God loves them. Or, a woman will continually return to a man who will always reject her even she knows in her head what will happen.
• Gut level knowledge of God is influenced by experiences with significant caregivers (i.e. relationships).

MARK MATLOCK’S APPLICATIONS:

• Experience is Biology. It literally alters DNA and thought patterns.
• Realizing that experience in biology, we probably have more biologically wounded students than we think we do.
• Realize I may need to think differently about how I approach those wounds. “Jesus still loves you…” just doesn’t just it.
• Get kids to tell their stories by asking well-crafted questions. Get them to put it on paper.
• We need to increase the relational surface area of our youth ministries. Youth ministry has too long been a one-man-band. Students will otherwise create a series of negative connections together about youth ministries and the church.
• Parent/student relationships are key. Kids consistently say that parents are the most important.

MY APPLICATIONS:

• Youth ministry must be highly relational.
• Youth ministry must be very experiential.
• Significant spiritual growth happens through experiences, very rarely through head knowledge studying or teaching.
• We can’t think of an abstract idea of “fruit.” We can only think of instances of fruit, like an apple, orange or banana. Likewise, when we teach about “God,” an abstract idea, students need to learn it in experiential sensory instances.

Todd Hall and Wisdom Works are developing a tool to help youth workers evaluate spiritual transformation in their youth groups and provide resources for implementing change in weak areas through experiential means. Find more information about it here.

[tags]Wisdom Works, Mark Matlock, Todd Hall, STI, Planet Wisdom[/tags]

No matter what position someone holds in ministry — whether it be in music, youth, children, adults, administrative, whatever — as long as you’re working with real people, counseling is a very necessary skill. I’m not even a counselor but I talk with parents and students all the time and, after earning a little bit of trust, issues always come up.

I’m looking forward to [tag]Youth Specialties[/tag]‘ theCORE this year because apparently it’s supposed to deal with part of this issue by training youth leaders to work with hurting kids. Even though I was the administrative director for Teenhopeline.com and may have more experience than some, I still wish I had a lot more training than I currently do. We all need it. And the people we talk to probably appreciate it when we have it, too.

Here’s a bunch of video clips of the music at the [tag]National Youth Workers Convention[/tag] all rolled together as one. It includes:
– [tag]David Crowder Band[/tag]
– [tag]Hawk Nelson[/tag]
– [tag]Ceili Rain[/tag]
– [tag]Shane and Shane[/tag]
– [tag]Building 429[/tag]
– [tag]Jars of Clay[/tag]
– [tag]Jeremy Camp[/tag]
– [tag]Thousand Foot Krutch[/tag]

[tags]NYWC, Youth Specialties[/tags]

I also have a good amount of video from the convention that I’ll make available online within a day or two, but for now here are some highlight pictures from the last day of the convention. Visit my photo album to see all my pictures from the convention.

Dana and me with Tic Long

Left: Tic encouraging a brand new youth pastor | Right: Lost and Found comedy

Left: Jeremy Camp leading worship | Right: Me and Dana

Left: Marko teaching about humility | Right: Tic

[tags]NYWC, National Youth Workers Convention, Youth Specialties, Tic Long, Lost and Found, Jeremy Camp, Marko[/tags]

She said, “We need to create a personal space for people to worship however they want. People today don’t know how to worship on their own.”

Lilly moved on from there, but I didn’t. That’s such a huge statement! We’ve raised a church of people that need someone up front telling them when to stand, what to sing, when to sit, when to stop singing, when to pray and when to stop praying. It’s more like playing “follow the leader” than anything else. Many of us are more focused on the person telling us what to do than we are on worshipping our Savior. What about the person who really just needs to linger in God’s presence? In church worship we’re all pulled along at the same pace. In a perfect world people would worship privately at home at their own pace and this wouldn’t really be an issue, but it’s obviously not a perfect world. So again, as I asked in a previous blog post, what’s the church’s responsibility in leading the congregation in worship?

Our culture is so loud, so noisy, so intense. We’re so deeply immersed in it that we don’t really notice the screaming volume until we intentionally take time to focus quietly on the Lord. If students aren’t intentionally making this time in their lives, should we create it for them at youth group? Or is there some other kind of transformation that needs to take place in their lives first before a “sacred space” can be worthwhile?

Jeremy Camp just started leading worship in the last general session here, so maybe I’ll continue this later.

[tags]Lilly Lewin, NYWC, National Youth Workers Convention, Youth Specialties[/tags]

Right: Thor Ramsey, comedian | Left: Ceili Rain Band

The Skit Guys performing

Ron Pearson, stand-up comedian

Shane and Shane leading worship

Building 429 in concert

Donald Miller, speaker for general session #5

[tags]Youth Specialties, National Youth Workers Convention, NYWC, Marko, Shane and Shane, Building 429, Donald Miller, Thor Ramsey, Ron Pearson, The Skit Guys, Ceili Rain[/tags]

LEADING CHANGE IN YOUR YOUTH MINISTRY, BY MARK OESTREICHER
I really enjoyed Marko’s seminar because most of it came from personal stories of failure and mistakes. He wasn’t afraid to say, “Here’s how I messed up big-time and here’s what I learned from it.” It was kinda refreshing in a way to know that I’m not the only youth pastor that makes mistakes and learns the hard way. I just hope I can avoid some mistakes in the future by learning from people like him.

Last week I thought to myself, “If I could back up two and a half years and start everything over again at my youth ministry, what would I do differently?” Two things come to mind that I would change if I could start over. First, I’d make outreach a priority rather than letting students become comfortable with their own little group. Second, I’d be more intentional about making sure communication was clear and complete between students, parents, volunteers and church leadership. I can’t go back and change them, but following Marko’s example I can learn for the future and start to make the necessary changes now.

One thing Marko’s learning about leadership right now is that people are more comfortable with change when they know and see that we’re around and available to their lives. This doesn’t mean scheduling time to meet with someone — this means normal, unscheduled time spent together.

There are plenty of things in my youth group that need to change. Marko mentioned that change works best when it’s a continual cycle that people are used to. When people start to feel comfortable and settle into a routine, change becomes more difficult and needs to be approached differently. This is true because there is a major weakness of our youth ministry that I’m trying hard to change, but it feels like little ground is being made because I let it go too long. Everyone feels too “stable” and I know now that I need to address these things before they become the norm.

Marko left us with a practical process for future-dreaming and evaluating ministry that they use for Youth Specialties. It has 5 steps and should be done thoroughly with a team of people.

1. Dream up a long list of “Imagine if…” statements. Dream way bigger than what you actually want to do.

2. What are the things we clearly value in this ministry? Which old values do we want to hold on to and what new ones do we want to adopt?

3. What characteristics define who your ministry is? Give your ministry a name and think of it as a living human. What characteristics does your ministry posses? What is the ministry like? Where do we want this ministry to move?

4. Identify the “sacred cows.” What are some road-blocks to changing these things? Most sacred cows are unspoken in our ministries. There are three levels to the sacred cows: red light = this will never change, it’s non-negotiable; yellow light = this might be changeable, but changing it will be costly; green light = this cow is easy to slaughter.

Marko gave us some time to start discussing these things with our church group, so Dana, Jessica and myself did so. Here’s a couple items from our “Imagine if…” list:
– Imagine if every student brought a friend to church on the same day.
– Imagine if students were more concerned for others than themselves.
– Imagine if students had a passion to worship God genuinely and publicly.
– Imagine if students had a burden for unsaved people and were missional-minded.
– Imagine if all the youth group students were unified together.

After attending Marko’s session I think I feel a little more confident to tackle some of these issues and do my best to make change take place.

EVENING GENERAL SESSION, DONALD MILLER
Donald Miller, the author of Blue Like Jazz, wasn’t a very dynamic kinda guy as I anticipated he would be, but after I got over the fact that he’s pretty introverted and soft-spoken, man, that guy is loaded with insights!

Donald Miller really challenged me to be more intentional about building relationships with unsaved people and leading them to Christ. Unfortunately, I am pretty wrapped up in a Christian bubble. The most contact I have with unbelievers is when I get online to play Guild Wars with about 10 other guys. It’s a double-standard for me to encourage students to get to know unbelievers at their school and invite them to Christ if I’m not doing the same.

Donald said two things clearly. First, the church needs to change. How we “do church” must be taken back to scripture and evaluated. Unfortunately, the only thing scripture tells us about how to “do church” is how to pick elders for it, that’s it. We have a blank slate on pretty much everything else concerning “doing church.” The example we have is bunch of people sitting around a table as a family breaking bread and drinking wine together. If the church should be like a family, then it’s going to be pretty small, messy, hard and it’s going to take time.

Second, Christians are taught to stay inside the Christian culture in order to stay safe and avoid people who disagree with us. In Acts, though, the apostles went so far out into culture that they were killed for it! Donald used the traditional passage of Paul in Athens in Acts 17 to point out that Paul discussed the gospel to the people of Athens in their meeting place. Then he went to the streets and talked with anyone who came along and the people loved him!

Darwin’s influence on the church is the survival of the fittest — if they don’t agree with you, starve them out. But Paul does the opposite. He seeks them out and intentionally builds relationships with them. Because of this, he’s invited to speak more and, in this meeting, he opens with a complement, “I see that you are deeply spiritual.” He looks at them and thinks, “What do we have in common?” People have 99% of everything on common, so build relationships on these things.

Paul was also involved in their culture by memorizing poetry. Some say that this was Paul’s strategy, but Donald Miller thinks it was because Paul actually liked these people. He enjoyed them and invested time into what they were all about.

The personal application is clear.

[tags]National Youth Workers Convention, NYWC, Youth Specialties, Rollie Martinson, Donald Miller, Mark Oestreicher, church[/tags]

Last year in Nashville I felt very rushed and almost stressed, but this year I feel very relaxed and am just soaking in the whole experience. Maybe it’s because the weather is just so nice, maybe it’s because Dana is here with me as my wife, or maybe because the convention this year feels smaller than other years. I don’t know what it is, but that’s okay — I’ll enjoy it either way.

The second general session for the day just started and now Shane and Shane are leading worship. After this we’ll head to the late night comedy club with Taylor Mason, Thor Ramsey and Ron Pearson. I’ll update later tonight with notes from the sessions and workshops as well as add more pictures from today.

[tags]National Youth Workers Convention, NYWC, Taylor Mason, Thor Ramsey, Ron Pearson, Youth Specialties[/tags]

Shifting from a youth ministry to a group of youth missionaries, by Dan Kimball
Despite the fact that Dan was functioning on only a couple hours of sleep from the night before, he presented this seminar very well. He addressed a big question many of us have thought before, “Why do teenagers get so passionate and excited about serving God and being evangelistic on Mexico mission trips (and other trips like that), but when they are back home fall into more of a routine and neutral passion about evangelism?”

His answer was basically this: We need to intentionally view our town as a mission field and model a lifestyle that actively seeks to reach others for Christ.

In Matthew 4:17-20 Jesus calls the disciples to follow Him and be fishers of people. Their primary role is the worship God, their secondary roll is to reach people. Acts 1:8 carries this same message. When we start reading the Bible through a missional lens, the whole book is missional, too.

Evangelism in Christian sub-culture becomes events and concerts. My personal observation is that Christians attend Christian outreach events more than non-Christians. What’s supposed to be an event for reaching the lost becomes entertainment for those already saved. Even though outreach events may reach some, I’ve seen relational outreach be much more effective. The success rate of relational evangelism seems to be so much higher than that of big events that I sometimes wonder why we still bother with them. Relational evangelism is just so much easier, too!

Unfortunately, the longer we’re Christians the more we stop socializing and hanging out with non-Christian friends, so by the time we reach a ripe old age and have grown to be mature in our faith, the only people who see it are other believers.

Dan said he thinks the reason teens drop out of church after high school is because they’re bored with the “bunny slope” (short-term missions) and they don’t know that the black diamond slope even exists (our life is on a mission). If they lived like they’re on a mission in a mission field their prayer lives would increase, their spirituality would be strengthened and their knowledge of scripture would abound. Our kids have skis but they need to put them on an go down the hill!

Some ideas and questions in creating guilt-free and non-awkward missionaries
1. Do an experiment of presenting your local town as a mission field. Give demographic stats, the perks, the struggles, what previous missionaries have tried there and what it will cost them (free!), but present it initially as if it were a village somewhere.

2. Personally re-think our role. Are we “youth group leaders” or “leaders of youth missionaries?” Do we see ourselves as youth leaders or just hang out with church kids? We need to intentionally go to the unsaved community and use our teens to reach them.

3. Write missionary letters or missionary journals as an exercise. Send newsletters and mission updates and prayer support letters just like we would for any short-term missions trip.

4. Teach and train youth to better understand how to think about critical key issues in our culture, such as the trustworthiness of scripture and other apologetics.

BOTTOM LINE FOR ME: Relational ministry is the most effective form of evangelism, which obviously indicates it must be an ongoing visible lifestyle, not a calendar event.

General Session #1: Buster Soaries
Normal faith is not what we need — it’s inadequate. We need to pray for astonishing faith if we want to see what God has in store for us.

In Matthew 8:5-10 the Centurion had faith that God could heal his servant from a distance. Whenever God is revealed, something happens!

How did the Centurion know Jesus could heal from a distance It had never been done before. Jesus touched other sick people or was in the presence in some way. The Centurion’s faith was so astonishing. He believed God could do what He’s never done before. God specializes in things that have never happened before, not reruns.

BOTTOM LINE FOR ME: Faith involves risk. When I ask the Lord to interact with my life I then need to trust Him with it. God wants to do things through me that He’s never done before and He needs me to take my hands off!

The importance of theology in youth ministry (or any ministry in a church), by Dan Kimball
Dan’s main roll in this seminar was to raise a lot of questions about why we do what we do in church. Most of it is not based on scripture but rather has just passed down through tradition. Whether we like it or not, the way we do church communicates a lot about our theology and values. A lot of his questions and conclusions are some of the exact same ones I’ve been wrestling with personally and blogging about the past several months. Some people may read my skepticism about the current model for this thing we call church and be immediately label me a heretic, so it was refreshing for me to sit in Dan’s seminar and hear all my same questions being asked by someone who’s more well-known and respected than me.

The modern church has fallen into a subtle trap that has caused some people to re-think what church is supposed to look like. Dan said it goes through several phases.

Phase 1: First we re-think our methodology. How are ministry methods supposed to change as culture changed? Rethinking methods usually begins with changing the worship gathering, as I kinda thought through in a blog post earlier this week. Why do we do what we do?

Phase 2: We then re-think the youth ministry, realizing that it is not in isolation and culture and theology is beyond an age group. Discipleship is not something limited to just certain age groups.

Phase 3: Next we rethink our ecclesiology. What is church? (It’s not a building or a place. It’s not some place we go. WE are the church, I am a part of it.) Our theology about church is indicated in many ways, including how we set up a room. Pews separate the speaker from the audience, raising him to some “more important” status of the church. Pews also make the church service a performance with spectators. It doesn’t teach community as we stare at that backs of people’s heads. Our ecclesiology is also indicated by what we teach about worship. We don’t go to church to worship (as I also blogged about two weeks ago), as if what takes place at church is something different than what should take place at home. We also equate worship with singing and thereby ignore many other forms of worship in services.

This leads to start rethinking spiritual formation, evangelism, community, preaching, church “membership,” and the roll of a “pastor.” What is a pastor? What’s a youth pastor? In scripture “pastor” is a spiritual gift, but we’ve turned it into a title.

Phase 4: No we start rethinking our theology (without losing truth). This means changes are more than just contemporary music and adding some candles. More questions are bound to come up and thus we MUST know what we believe and why. Students need to know the Bible, its origin, inspiration, how to handle difficult passages and how to understand it holistically. They also need a theology of human sexuality, marriage, homosexuality and divorce. Furthermore, they need to understand the church, the roll of women, what “church” is, the roll of the Holy Spirit and more.

Phase 5: We start being the church rather than going to church.

BOTTOM LINE FOR ME: Dan Kimball: “Getting the latest youth ministry fad materials lasts for only minutes, but theology will last students their lifetime.” I also walked away feeling more confident about my critical questions concerning church and that I need to continue exploring scripture’s intent and how that plays out for us today.

General Session #2: Mike Pilavachi
Jesus didn’t try to entertain anyone into the kingdom. He just had them hang out with Him through daily life and He taught them along the way. He had the disciples feed the 5,000 from 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes. Jesus likes to perform miracles through His disciples. The disciples finally cast out a demon and they were excited. Jesus said, “Rejoice not that demons flee, but that your names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” Jesus taught them as they went.

BOTTOM LINE FOR ME: It confirms the importance for relational ministry and teaching through real-life situations.

[tags]Evangelism, Dan Kimball, Youth Specialties, National Youth Workers Convention, NYWC, Outreach, Mike Pilavachi, Buster Soaries, church, missions[/tags]

Touching Dan Kimball’s hair!!! Woo hoo! The poor guy only had 2 hours of sleep last night.

Left: Tic Long | Right: David Crowder leading worship

Left: Hawk Nelson in concert | Right: Jared Hall the illusionist

Left: Buster Soaries teaching general session #1 | Right: Mike Pilavachi teaching general session #2

Left: David Crowder Band | Right: Marko

Left: Mike Lewis, The Jesus Painter | Right: David Crowder

[tags]National Youth Workers Convention, NYWC, Youth Specialties, Dan Kimball, David Crowder, Hawk Nelson, Jared Hall[/tags]

Looks like we’re about to get started. Some crazy horn guy just got on stage. Here’s a pic of him from my cell phone (click to see it larger):

[tags]National Youth Workers Convention, NYWC, Youth Specialties[/tags]

Here are the seminars I’ll probably attend:

Changing Youth Group Kids into Youth Missionaries, by [tag]Dan Kimball[/tag]
Isn’t it interesting how students get so excited—passionate about God and their faith—when they’re going on a cross-cultural mission trip? Is it possible to see the same passion for missions and evangelism during the rest of the year when they’re back in their own local schools and communities? We’ll discuss how to take an inward-focused youth group and help them become outward-focused youth missionaries, but without memorizing a few Scripture verses so they can awkwardly “witness” to their friends out of a sense of guilt and pressure.

The Importance of Theology in Youth Ministry, by Dan Kimball
Everything we do in youth ministry methodology stems from some theological belief, whether we realize it or not. We’ll explore why thinking theologically is critical in the life of the youth leader, but we’ll also discuss why students can enjoy and learn theology too. Finally, we’ll look at some important theological topics that perhaps we should be teaching our students during their teenage years to prepare them for life after high school.

Reaching Out to Unchurched Teenagers, by [tag]Jonathan McKee[/tag]
Based on Jonathan’s hit book, this training will help you get into the mind of the unchurched teen and look at your ministry more objectively so you can see what you need to do to proactively reach students who aren’t making it to church.
– Learn the top five “beliefs” that resonate in today’s postmodern, paganistic, and pluralistic society and have begun to creep their way into the church.
– Learn how MTV, movies, music, and celebrities affect youth culture and are a megaphone for these five beliefs.
– Learn three essentials for reaching out to the “unchurched”.

Leading Change in Your Youth Ministry, by [tag]Mark Oestreicher[/tag]
Change is great. But poorly conceived or executed changes in ministry can result in frustration, misdirection, conflict, and failure (sounds fun, huh?). This Super Seminar allows a bit of extra time to learn a handful of exercises to help you consider change in your youth ministry. We won’t formalize your possible changes, but we’ll prepare you to do the thinking and preparation necessary to effectively lead change.

Marriage, Ministry and Family Q&A, by Doug and Cathy Fields
Are you ready for a change from the typical seminar or workshop format? If so, come hang out with Cathy and Doug Fields as they talk about marriage, ministry, and family life. Cathy and Doug have spent almost three decades doing ministry together. They’ve also been married for 22 years and have three fairly normal kids (ages 17, 15, and 11) who are now a part of their mom and dad’s youth ministry at Saddleback. You’ll set the pace for this interactive seminar, as Cathy and Doug come prepared to answer your questions from their own personal experiences, making your agenda their agenda.

Creating Sacred Spaces: A Practical Introduction to Experiential Worship, by [tag]Lilly Lewin[/tag]
Just what are the elements that make worship experiential and how do you start? Using a passage of Scripture, we’ll go through the process of creating experiential worship. We’ll look at how to incorporate experiential elements into our teaching or gathering times and help students interact and engage in the Bible with all of their senses—going beyond just listening to interacting with and applying God’s Word to their real lives.

[tags]NYWC, Doug Fields, Youth Specialties[/tags]

We’re both big fans of [tag]Youth Specialties[/tag]‘ [tag]National Youth Workers Convention[/tag] and have attended several of them over the years. This year I was especially glad to see the [tag]NYWC[/tag] coming to [tag]Austin[/tag] since it’s relatively close to us here in Dallas and would save us a lot of transportation costs (driving 10 hours to Nashville last year was pretty rough). However, a quick estimate of the registration costs, food, lodging and gas easily went way over this year’s youth budget. My wife and I evaluated whether or not we could cover the expenses out of our own pocket, but there’s just no way. So, knowing we wouldn’t get there on our own, we decided to trust God with the details.

To make a long story short, Marko, president of Youth Specialties, heard about my request to find an affordable way to attend the convention this weekend and e-mailed me yesterday saying he’ll cover the registration costs for me and Dana if we can still make the trip! I read the e-mail and my heart stopped. I re-read it and then read it again just to make sure it was real. Dana worked it out with her job to take Friday and Monday off work, our interim pastor gave me the go-ahead, God lead us to a quality hotel at a dirt-cheap price and now we’re set to go! Woo hoo! Thanks [tag]Marko[/tag]!

I’ll do my best to blog throughout the convention about what the Lord’s teaching me, new youth ministry ideas, cool resources, pictures, etc, so check back often.

Thanks God! I can’t wait for Friday!

Topics include forming your identity in youth ministry, understanding youth culture, developing a vision statement, building a ministry team, relational youth ministry skills, administration and more.

It’s all right here.

(ht to SamR)

Yesterday I attended Youth Specialties’ “The CORE” youth workers seminar with a couple volunteers from Redeemer. We had a good time and came away with a lot of new insights, ideas, and tools for effective ministry. I personally walked away with four challenges.

1. I need to find a way to spend less time in the office and more time on student’s turf.
It’s so easy to spend most of my time in the office planning events, preparing Bible lessons, and envisioning the future direction of the ministry that all my time becomes consumed with that and the actual students themselves are neglected. Although I have a lot preparation work to finish for Acquire The Fire and summer camp, this week of spring break is the perfect time to start balancing office time and student time. There’s one student in particular I feel I need to devote most of my one-on-one time towards.

2. Youth group needs to be a more emotional place than it currently is.
Students can be very emotional people. They are drawn to having different emotions stirred through mediums such as movies, music, and even to the extreme of sex, drugs, and alcohol. By nature I am not a very emotional person, so how I run a youth ministry tends to follow my personality in this respect, but somehow it needs to change. I’m not talking about tear-jerking stories, emotional experiences meetings or guild-laden tactics, but a balanced element of some kind where there is more emotional involvement than there is now. Exactly what this is supposed to look like for us, I’m not quite sure yet, but I’ll keep thinking about it and see what the Lord brings to mind.

3. I need to spend less time thinking, “What should I teach them?” and more time thinking, “How can I get to know them better?”
Back to the first lesson I mentioned, I probably spend too much time in my office thinking how I can most effectively communicate whatever they need to know and at the same time meet their perceived and actual needs. Although this is important and necessary, equally as important is knowing the students on a daily, personal, individual basis. Again, this is another area where I need more balance. I need to remind myself again that “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

4. Our youth room needs to resemble a place of belonging.
Our youth room isn’t that bad, but it could use a lot of work. We have two couches, a ping-pong table, foosball table, a TV, and a bunch of deflated bean-bag chairs. The kids and myself have talked a lot about remodeling it, but we’ve never acted on our dream for the room. I think now that this is probably more important than I originally thought. These kids need a place where they can take ownership and shape however they want, to create their own place of belonging in the church.

The first thing I noticed when I walked in my apartment door yesterday was the notebook I crammed full of thoughts and ideas during the National Youth Worker’s Convention in Nashville two weeks ago. I meant to take it home with me and blog about some of its contents, but, as mentioned in an earlier post, I accidentally left it behind. So, although this may be old news now, the information is still relevant.

Every evening over dinner the youth staff from Redeemer and myself discussed the information from the various seminars we attended, what we learned, how it applies to our ministry here in Carrollton, and personal areas of life that the Lord was challenging through it. Here’s a summary of what we discussed and it’s implications for us at Redeemer Covenant Church:

– We need to spend more time listening to Jr. Highers than talking to them. We shouldn’t feel a need to have to come every Wednesday night with something deep and profound to communicate to them.

– We need to make a big deal out of “little” accomplishments in our small groups and set low bars of achievement. We need to celebrate everything, even if it’s just the fact that someone remembered to bring their Bible.

– It’s okay to be drawn to one student to mentor more than another. God places us in different people’s lives at different times for different purposes. We should not allow guilt or a false conception of “favoritism” to prevent us from investing more into one student than another. Follow the burden God places on your heart. Even little investments leave a lasting impression.

– “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer. It communicates we are not know-it-alls. We should be willing to use it as a teaching moment both for the student and for ourselves when investigating the answer together.

– Give the students an attainable challenge each time we meet. It doesn’t have to be something big or difficult — just something for them to work toward during the week and report about later.

– We need to find ways to make worship more participatory, not just lead by someone up front. We need to be creative with ways to help engage students in worship and challenge their understanding of what worship really is. There needs to be a paradigm shift that views worship as not only singing, but using gifts and abilities, prayer, witnessing, honoring and respecting parents, etc.

– Both the leaders and the students need to move from childish faith to child-like faith.

– Youth ministry is not the end for our students. We need to remember that God will continue to work in their lives after they graduate from high school. Just because they leave and we think there was no fruit from our labor, God will continue to work in their lives through other people. Remembering that life-change is ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit takes a lot of unnecessary pressure off us as leaders.

– We need to be a presence in students’ lives by intentionally creating moments of contact, such as inviting them to run errands with us, helping us make dinner, inviting them to assist when working on the car, etc. Building relationships is key!

– We need to let the students talk and we need to make sure we listen. We need to listen to what’s going on in their lives, what they’re thinking, their opinions and viewpoints, what makes them laugh, and what makes them upset.

– Distractions are okay. We should not be afraid of them. It is more important to hear what the students have to say about what they’re thinking rather than promote our own agenda to complete something by a certain time. It’s okay if we don’t finish the lesson.

As I continually stare at the unending road ahead of us, I’m thinking back to yesterday’s seminar with Doug Fields. He talked about helping students become involved in ministry, which seems to me to revolve more around creating a youth ministry that is conducive for this to take place rather than just finding a student and trying to plug them into something. His S.H.A.P.E. acronym came up when talking about the role of the adults in the process and, although the context of the discussion addressed student leaders, I think the same is true for implementing adult volunteers in ministry. I briefly discussed my general philosophy about this on an earlier blog post and Doug’s S.H.A.P.E. confirms that I’m on the right track. He suggests following this model for exploring the best area in which to utilize a leader.

S – Spiritual Gifts: How has God gifted you?
H – Heart: What do you love?
A – Abilities: What are you good at?
P – Personality: How are you unique?
E – Experience: Where have you been? (especially in reference to pain)

Discussing these areas with a volunteer prior to initiation will allow the ministry leader to utilize their full potential in a specific area, give them an opportunity to effectively serve with their gifts, and thus maximize their impact on people’s lives. Too often volunteer utilization begins with the youth pastor thinking, “What holes in my ministry that this person can fill” or “What can they do that I don’t feel like doing” Instead, youth pastors should think, “How can our ministry edify this believer by filling the servanthood holes in this individual’s life?” The first question focuses on using the volunteer to meet the needs of the ministry whereas the latter focuses on using the ministry to meet the needs of the individual by providing an environment for them to flex their giftedness and passion.

When someone approaches me and says that God is leading them to work with our youth ministry, I hand them our youth volunteer information/application packet, which includes the process we usually follow for introducing new volunteers to the youth ministry. Maybe it can be a help to others. Here’s what it says.

Express Interest: You may have an interest in serving God by loving students, but are unsure as to where you can help. We will help you with this. Most of the time “unlikely people” make the greatest youth workers, so take the next step as you prayerfully consider this ministry.

Initial Contact with Tim: This is an opportunity for us to briefly connect and hear your desire to be involved in ministry. We will also give you a general overview of the ministry and arrange for you to visit and observe our programs.

Receive Youth Ministry Material: Read over all the pages and information in this staff application. This packet gives you the basic information that you will you make decisions about our ministry. We have tried to give you a good idea of what it’s like, but the clear picture happens when you observe a program.

Surf over to www.redeemercrew.com and take a cruise of the site: Our youth ministry is not limited only to weekly meetings and periodic events. The Internet is changing the way people work and function, especially for this younger generation. Check out a little bit of how we connect with students and parents on the information highway.

Observe Programs: Before you fill out the application, we encourage you to observe a program or event. This is a good opportunity to get a better feel for the ministry without having expectations and responsibilities placed on you. You will have a chance to meet students, other staff, and write down any questions you may have for our future meeting. It WILL be natural for you to feel uncomfortable while observing a program (students don’t typically go out of their way to make you feel welcome until you get to know them), so keep that in mind.

Complete Application Package: This application package was developed to obtain appropriate information for our screening process. This process not only protects us and our students, but it protects YOU. In the unfortunate case that false accusations are made concerning a staff member’s integrity, we have this process to show that you are creditable and have a clean history. We require that all the pages in this packet be filled out and returned to Tim, as well as two references. You can choose a (1) pastor, (2) close friend, and/or (3) an employer within the last year.

Interview with Tim: This is an opportunity for you to share your thoughts from your observations, describe your spiritual journey, and communicate your gifts and desires for working with the CREW. We will also discuss your application and a more specific job description. (This is when I take the perspective volunteer through the SHAPE discussion.)

Prayerfully Consider your Commitment: We want you to take time to pray and think through your commitment. We encourage you to seek the counsel of family and/or friends regarding your commitment.

Commitment Sheet and Criminal Record Check: Sign the Time to Commit sheet and turn it in to Tim along with the Consent for Criminal Record Search. Your application process does not go any further until your criminal record check is received. Don’t worry; when it comes all your information will be kept securely under strict confidence.

Beginning Ministry: After you turn in the Time to Commit sheet and we have received the criminal background check, we will discuss a beginning date. This date may vary depending on your intended involvement.

Evaluation Meeting: At your two month and four month mark, we will meet to evaluate your feelings and perceptions regarding your involvement with the CREW. We will continue to evaluate throughout the year and adjust your role to better fit your style, personality, and strengths.

Since today has obviously been a long day and there’s another one coming tomorrow, I’m just gonna hit some highlights and go to bed.

– Attended Walt Mueller’s workshop on how marketing is shaping youth culture. Pretty interesting. Nothing too new to me since I keep up with the materials his ministry produces anyway, but still worth my time.

– Walked out on Mike King’s workshop on nurturing a presence-centered youth ministry because, from what I could tell, he hardly addressed the issue at all. What he did have to say on the matter could’ve been summarized into one or two sentences. Oh well.

– Enjoyed an insightful debriefing/discussion time with the youth staff over dinner. (I’ll post some points of our discussion at a later time.)

– Tonight we hung out with Bill Scott, a friend of mine who’s house we’re all staying at the for the weekend. We sat in on part of his radio show, ZJam, and then took a brief tour of the new office building.

Two things I observed today:
1. Why is it that almost every seminar speaker feels a need to give us “fill in the blank” notes? It almost feels like it’s an insult against our intelligence or something. Last time I checked, our church’s bulletin included a sermon outline like this for the little kids. I mean, it gives us something to do while we sit there and maybe some feel a sense of accomplishment when it’s complete, but seriously, is this the best idea everyone has for providing “interactive” notes? I’d rather just have a straight-forward outline with lots of white space for my own thoughts rather than a dinky, “Write what I say in the following blanks.”

2. Worship was great again tonight. The David Crowder Band does an excellent job of creating an environment that’s fun and light-hearted in worship. Tonight, however, the other youth workers around me kinda ruined the moment that I was experiencing. David Crowder had finished the set and was leaving the stage. Everyone was cheering and screaming, asking for one more song. That part is fine with me, but why did they start chanting, “David Crowder?” Why weren’t they chanting, “Jesus Christ?” Why was the focus instantly on David and not on what we were singing about just seconds before? I hate to be cynical, but it makes me wonder who everyone was really worshiping. I mean, I know we were all worshiping God and everyone really just wanted David Crowder to continue leading us, but still… That’s the affect it had on me, anyway.

Guy sculpting an image of Jesus during worship.

David Crowder leading worship.

Since Marko is linking to my blog for the duration of the convention, I thought I’d include a picture of his ever-so-stunning handsome self.

This picture of Toby Mac just cracks me up. lol

Toby Mac in concert.

Toby doin’ something that looks like a chicken dance.

Toby Mac, again.

Hangin’ out in the studio with Bill Scott for ZJam’s live broadcast.

The Redeemer CREW volunteers chillin’ in the radio studio.

Myself with Bill Scott.

I’ll start with Dan Kimball’s workshop on Issues we need to address that our emerging culture is asking. His main idea was that people are respectful and open to Jesus, but not to Christians or the church. He then proceeded to takes us through six main misconceptions outsiders have when viewing the church and how youth leaders can respond.

1. The church and Christianity is an “organized religion” with a political agenda.
2. The church has leaders who think they know all the answers and there is no room to question them.
3. The church takes the Bible too literally and the Bible has been corrupted and not of divine origin.
4. The church is male dominated and oppresses females.
5. The church is homophobic and sexually uptight — Jesus didn’t talk about sexual issues.
6. The church is narrow-minded and arrogant for thinking they have the exclusive way to God and everyone else is wrong.

His message really vibed with something I’ve been thinking more seriously about for a couple weeks now based on personal experiences with students: We teach a lot about prayer and reading the Bible in youth group, but we need to start thinking about the questions our students are asking and prepare them for the challenges that lie ahead. Last week I purchased several copies of Reasons for Believing by Frank Harber a book I highly recommend for a quick read on popular apologetical issues. After several recent discussions with students who are asking, “How do we know the Bible is God’s Word?” and “How do we know Christianity is the religion that’s got it right?” or “How do we KNOW Jesus was God?” Too often our youth groups just assume that these concepts will not be challenged and we create an environment where students do not feel the freedom to discuss such matters. However, in my opinion, challenging these issues and coming to grips with them on a personal level should be encouraged because that’s when a teenager’s faith stops being their parent’s faith and becomes their own. So, I purchased copies of Frank’s book with the intention of using his content as a resource for writing Sunday morning lessons. Dan Kimball’s message confirmed a lot of what I was thinking, affirming that all this is much bigger than just my local youth ministry, and giving me a clearer direction of how to address the matters. I intend to teach through his list of misconceptions about the church, explaining all the different viewpoints, the positive and negative aspects of each one, and then presenting our position and why we believe what we believe on the matter. My prayer is that this will prepare them for stages ahead in life, especially as they move on to secular universities.

Secondly, Doug Field’s message tonight in the general session addressed boundaries in youth ministry and the necessity of saying “no.” Fortunately, I tend to know my limits and I stick to it. This was ingrained into me through courses in both Bible college and seminary. However, one of his “warning lights” to someone who needs to slow down was Addiction to Speed. As he elaborated, I realized that this warning light applied to me and that I’m not doing as good as I thought I was with setting boundaries. I realized that I often feel that parents and students expect more “speed” in a youth ministry than what I’m offering. As it is, my part-time position sometimes makes it a struggle to successfully pull off even one youth event each month. I am not satisfied with this level of activity and my perception is that students and parents aren’t either (although none have actually said anything about it). Even though I see all the in-office work that’s done, the behind the scenes responsibilities, all the weekly meetings with church staff and interns, the lesson planning and other tasks to keep week-to-week ministry going, most other people don’t see that, so I’m left feeling like I need to defend my position at the church by creating more public events. Maybe this is all self-inflicted and totally a false perception of what parents and students are really thinking, and maybe I’m too concerned with what other people think. I really WANT to do more, but current limitations force me to say “no” and stick with what we’ve got. I need to worry less about how others perceive my work-load and do only what can be done within my set boundaries.

Here are some pictures I took today from the convention, too. Hopefully they’re all pretty self-explanatory. I’m finally off to bed now for a five hour sleep before waking up again to shower and head over for an 8:00 AM workshop.

We left at around 9:00 PM last night and arrived at Bill’s house outside Nashville at 8:00 this morning. After quickly unloading our belongings, most of us took a quick nap for an hour before coming here to the convention center.

I’m currently writing from the “Digital Lounge” at the convention and just wanted to post a quick update. We’re about to grab some dinner and share some discussion and debriefing on our thoughts and ideas so far and their implication for our lives and ministry, but I’ll try to update in more details about my specific thoughts later tonight from Bill’s house… if I can stay awake that long. Hopefully I can get some pictures posted, too.

I will encourage other youth workers in any way possible.

I will listen more than speak.

I will write down every idea I have for improving the ministry at Redeemer.

I will use this as an opportunity to challenge the Redeemer volunteers in weak areas.

I will use this as an opportunity to encourage and affirm the Redeemer volunteers in areas of strength.

I will be willing to make myself vulnerable and privately share ministry struggles with at least one other youth pastor.

I will not compare my ministry to anyone else’s ministry.

I will spend more time reading my Bible than the schedule.

I will pray each day for every individual student, every volunteer, and for our Sr. Pastor, Roland Boyce.

I will humble myself and assume that everyone there has something to teach me.

I will allow myself to relax and not feel pressured by the schedule.

I will always keep my heart open to the change God wants to make there.

Friday, November 18
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM — General session (Mark Yaconelli, David Crowder Band, Ted and Lee , Jars of Clay , Skit Guys)
4:00 PM to 5:30 PM — New Generations, New Questions: Issues We Need to Address that Our Emerging Culture is Asking (Dan Kimball)

Most teenagers are no longer being raised in a Judeo-Christian culture, but a post-Christian one. This means we need to be thinking through the prominent emerging questions and issues that teenagers have today in regards to spirituality, Christianity, and the church. We will look at the hard questions young people are asking and other criticisms teenagers and young adults have today about the church and Christianity.

6:30 PM to 7:00 PM — Debriefing and discussion with Redeemer leaders
7:30 PM to 10:00 PM — General session (Doug Fields, David Crowder Band)
10:15 PM to 11:30 PM — Hawk Nelson , Thousand Foot Krutch

Saturday, November 19
8:00 AM to 9:30 AM — It All Ads Up: How Marketing and Madison Avenue are Shaping Youth Culture (Walt Mueller)

This generation of students is the most marketing-targeted generation of all time. Consequently, marketers know them, pursue them, and reach them with advertising efforts that are shaping students’ worldviews and behaviors in significant ways. It’s not a stretch to say that marketing is raising the kids. In this session, Walt will examine the role marketing plays in student development, the messages and methods of advertising to teens, how marketing is shaping their values, attitudes, and behaviors, and what we can do to help our kids manage marketing’s influence “Christianly” rather than letting marketing’s influence manage them.

10:00 AM to 12:00 PM — General session (Doug Pagitt, David Crowder Band)
2:00 PM to 4:30 PM — Youth Worker as Spiritual Guide: Nurturing a Presence-Centered Youth Ministry (Mike King)

Most youth walk away from the church when they reach late adolescence and don’t come back. Are they walking away from Jesus, or from the way we do church and youth ministry? Youth ministry must move away from behavioral modification and focus on creating environments for spiritual transformation. This must happen first with youth workers who live out of the wholeness of their souls, who nurture a personal spirituality that makes Jesus Christ central. This seminar will look at spiritual formation, Rule of Life, creating sacred space for encountering God, and exposing your youth to contemplative and transcendent practices without freaking them out.

6:00 PM to 7:00 PM — Debriefing and discussion with Redeemer leaders
7:30 PM to 9:45 PM – General session (David Nasser, David Crowder Band, tobyMac , The Skit Guys)
10:00 PM to 11:30 PM — Comedy Club (Daren Streblow , Taylor Mason , Joby Saad , Thor Ramsey)

Sunday, November 20
8:00 AM to 9:30 AM — The Marks of a Passionate Youth Ministry (Brock Morgan)

They’re passionate about their music, fanatical about their team, fired up about the latest video game and nuts about their friends. Intensity and adolescence seem to go hand in hand. But does any of that energy and enthusiasm find its way into their youth group world? If you’re tired of the blank stares and one syllable grunts that mark your interaction with students you’ll want to discover what makes for a passionate youth group. This seminar will identify the marks of youth groups that make a difference. Based on recent research and the experiences of youth groups across the country we’ll find ways to make your youth group something kids just won’t want to miss.

10:00 AM to 12:00 PM — General session (Alise Barrymore, Chris Tomlin, The Skit Guys)
2:00 PM to 3:30 PM — Cultivating Student Leaders (Doug Fields)

One element of a healthy youth ministry is the presence of students who minister. Student leadership isn’t about electing the cute, fun, and popular; rather, it’s about finding students who have the right heart, believing in them, and then empowering them to serve God in their unique ways. In this session, we’ll talk about finding those students, developing them, and creating a leadership team of students who will shape your ministry.

4:00 PM to 5:45 PM — General session (Louie Giglio, Chris Tomlin Band, Bob Stromberg)
7:00 PM to 8:00 PM — Debriefing and discussion with Redeemer leaders
8:30 PM to 10:00 PM — Special concert (Third Day , Starfield)
10:15 PM to 12:00 AM — Late Night Live (Bob Stromberg , The Skit Guys , Lost And Found)