Another great question showed up in my Inbox last week. The author wishes to remain anonymous, but would love to have your feedback.

I am in my first year of Youth Ministry…. My biggest headache has been that all of my volunteers including my wife are super busy and they don’t have much time to really invest in these kids. We don’t have a huge youth group (20 or so) but I can’t invest in them all or I’ll just be another statistic. Some have said, “If your volunteers don’t have time then they shouldn’t be youth leaders.” But if I do that then I won’t have anybody. I have kids that are excited about the Lord and ready to go, but my people don’t have the time to do that well. I can do it with some but not all. Do you have some thoughts?

You have a couple options:

1. You can try to do it all yourself and burn out faster than belly button lint in a forest fire.
2. You can continue trying to suck more time out of your volunteers.
3. You can invest into a couple kids on your own knowing that it’s better to impact a few than none at all.

Your message indicates that you’re wise enough not to do #1 and you’ve already figured out that #2 doesn’t work, so it sounds like #3 is the best option you have left. If you don’t have enough leaders to be able to invest into every student individually, then you’ll have to start with a couple yourself and pour your life into them. Don’t worry about the critics who accuse you of playing favorites. Read about that here.

As you set the example and invest into a couple students on your own, here are some suggestions that might help the other adults come on board with their priorities and commitments:

1. Share stories with the other leaders about your time with the students.
Tell them about the life-change you see taking place, show them how excited you are, talk about the ways God has rewarded you and stretched you through it. In essence, make them feel like they’re missing out on a HUGE opportunity — because they are. The opportunity to change lives for Christ.

2. Hold the standard high for your volunteers.
Nothing communicates to a student “you’re not that important to me” more than showing them that “I don’t have time for you.” For the sake of your kids, don’t let adults do that to them if you have the authority to prevent it. For adults who commit to the higher standard, hold them to it. It’s better to have one or two committed adults than 10 half-committed ones.

3. Pray for God to raise adult leaders in your community.
And don’t just pray with the same passion most people equate with standing in line at the DMV. Beg God for leaders, plead with Him. Present your case in prayer and desperately ask God to supply role models to partner with you. But in the meantime, be willing to accept His answer of, “Right now I just want to use you in this community of students even though you’re outnumbered like Gideon.”

4. Lovingly challenge their priorities.
Only you know if you have a relationship with the adults that will permit you to do that, and even if you do, make sure you talk with your Sr. Pastor or supervisor first. Seek their advice on how to best approach this.

I got this email a couple weeks ago and was encouraged by the recipient to share my response publicly. Feel free to chime in your two cents, as well. Here ya go!

We moved to a very small town in KY this summer and are attending the church my parents go to because of the people there. The problem is our daughter (6th grade) is the only youth in the church…. We tried going to a church a town over that had a youth group, but the people were not very friendly. Do you have any suggestions on how to handle the single youth church? I end up teaching her Sunday school class, like your article said about teaching the ones who are there, but it is hard to find someone willing to give up going to Sunday School to teach just one child. Do you suggest to keep trying other churches? We have suggested they hire a part time youth director (the church is inheriting a sizable sum) to find other kids in the community. Any other ideas to get other adults involved or to make sure our daughter gets the knowledge she needs? We do a devotion each night at home, but I think having other adults help with her Christian education is a good idea.

I totally understand your situation because I grew up in a church with a story similar to yours. The only difference was that I wasn’t the only teenager because I had a couple of my brothers with me.

While it’s honorable that you see the value in youth ministry and are striving to start one in your church, I must say that there’s nothing wrong with not having your daughter in a youth group. Many parents have raised their teenagers quite well without the influence of a church youth ministry. If your main reason for wanting to have a youth group is just so your daughter had some cool activities to do with some Christian friends, I’d tell you not to start it because it will probably cause you more headaches than anything else with that kind of purpose in mind (even if that purpose isn’t the one that’s explicitly stated). However, it seems that your reason for wanting a youth group is because you know that other adults can leave a big spiritual impact on your daughter’s life. That I agree with 100% because that’s how I got kick started in youth ministry in the first place. A adult from a local high school campus ministry started meeting with me for lunch, picking me up to tag along as he did normal errands and meetings, and eventually his passion for students became contagious. It’s because of that relationship that I’m in youth ministry today, not because I grew up in some dynamic youth group.

For you guys, I would recommend not pushing the youth group thing if that’s not a huge need of your church. Instead, I would push the adult relationships. If your daughter has one or two adult women she seems to enjoy and respect at church, ask those ladies if they’d be interested in spending time with your daughter outside of church. If your daughter doesn’t seem to naturally connect with any adults there, pick a couple Godly ladies yourself and talk with them about investing into your daughter. Maybe start by having a “girls night out” where you and those ladies just go do something fun together. Invite your daughter along as if she’s one of the “big girls.” As she starts to feel comfortable with them, start to back out a little and let your daughter go alone with them. Also, if you’re involved in a women’s bible study, take your daughter to that. Furthermore, find unique ways she can serve the body as the only teenager in the church in order to teach her that youth ministry isn’t just what the church does for her, but youth ministry is youth doing ministry.

Essentially, forget the youth ministry thing and pull her up to the adult ministry stuff where that eventually becomes the “youth ministry” to her. Hope that helps a little. God bless you guys!

I accidentally came across this on my computer the other day. It’s a presentation I made back in seminary for one of my Family Life classes. It makes a great follow-up from my post last week about what parents actions often teach kids about God. Kind of ironic that I do some of this in my ministry already, but never defined it as well as I did several years ago in this presentation.

The Need
Teenagers can sometimes be difficult for parents to understand. A teen’s entire generation functions differently from any of the ones before them: different attitudes, ideas, dreams, values, goals, and spiritual disciplines. With each emerging generation comes a culture that is unique from the rest, providing its own resources and new thinking, but it also comes with new challenges for the ones guiding them toward maturity. A disconnect often takes place between the generation gaps due to a lack of understanding and commitment to knowing each other better, how they think, how they act, and the reasons behind such actions.

In more concrete terms, it’s nearly impossible to fix something you don’t understand, like a computer, a car, or a dishwasher. Personally, I would never attempt to open my watch and fix the little components and gears inside because I have no understanding of those parts or how they work. Even if I tried for days, it would be unlikely that I could ever make a broken watch function properly again simply because I do not understand it. Likewise, it is essential that we understand the parts that make up our teenagers, their culture, and the things that make them “tick” so parents can intelligently work with them on their playing field as teammates.

The Putty
Silly Putty is a lot of fun! It is very impressionable and can be manipulated and flexed to take almost any shape the user wants. It can be stretched very thin, but fortunately it can also be returned to its normal state as a rolled up ball.

Teenagers are like Silly Putty – they are at a very impressionable time in their lives. The values they adopt now will be the ones they often hold to for the rest of their lives. Thus, it is essential that these teenagers have parents and older adults around who will mold them and shape them into the spiritually mature individuals they are called to be. We want whatever rubs off us to stick to them and to become a part of who they are.

However, often stretched-out parents feel that they’re probably better related to Silly Putty. As they raise their teens, issues arise that they’ve never dealt with before. New culture values, new dress standards and new attitudes can cause parents to feel pretty lost when it comes to relating to their teenager.

The Bible
Scripture has much to say about a parent’s ministry to their students. This is what forms the foundation of the youth ministry’s desire to equip parents.

Colossians 2:2, “My goal is that they will be encouraged and knit together by strong ties of love.” (NLT)

Our goal is that all families would look like this. As the youth ministry encourages families we want them to develop a greater understanding of each other that leads to “strong ties of love.” Not just casual cohabitation, but a strong love that is knit and interwoven together.

1 Corinthians 12:27, “Now all of you together are Christ’s body, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it.” (NLT)

The body of Christ is made up both of the group of believers collectively as well as the individual members in it. We see the family as a picture of this body, formed to function together as a body but also as individual members who contribute to that body. Thus it is important to minister to the parents and teenagers on an individual level, providing resources to the parents to better lead and nourish the body of their family.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7, “And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up.”

Colossians 2:7, “Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught.” (NLT)

It is the responsibility of the parents to teach and train their teenagers in the works of God. The youth ministry is here to make sure that they are well-equipped and that they have all they need to be successful at their calling.

So then how can stretched-out parents begin to bridge all the gaps that sometimes exist between them and their student in order to be most effective in their rolls as parents? How can they become the effective Godly parents the Lord has called them to be? This is where the youth ministry wants to help.

The Strategy: E3
As the primary ministry in the church that works with teenagers, part of our responsibility becomes to Equip, Encourage, and Excite the parents and adults of the church to be effective in their relationships with teenagers.

• Equip: No parent is perfect. Every parent out there has the potential to improve and somehow become a better parent to their teenagers in some way or another. For those seeking to grow in parenthood, we want to have material to give them, sources to lead them to, and even other parents to talk to in order for them to receive the necessary instruction.
• Encourage: Many parents are facing difficult times with their students. Teenagers often rebel, make bad decisions, and heed to ungodly wisdom, all making a parent’s job that much harder. When things like this take place in the life of a teenager, a parent’s heart just breaks. They need to be encouraged that bad things that happen to their kids are not always their fault and that they’re still doing a great job as parents. Even the parents who seem to have “perfect families” need to be encouraged and motivated to continue what they’re doing and encouraged to make it stronger.
• Excite: The youth ministry wants the parenting stage in life to be an exciting time, both for the parents and for the students. Family relationships do not have to be stressful and negative. We would love to see families having fun together, taking adventures, and enjoying each other the way God intended.

The Name
Taking after the putty analogy, it is fitting to call this branch of the youth ministry P.U.T.T.Y.

Parents
Understanding
Their
Teenager’s
Youth

The Mission
“To encourage healthy family relationships through resources that unite teenagers with their families, both inside the church and out.”

• To encourage healthy family relationships: A family approach always keeps in focus the teenager’s family and explores ways to support individual family members along with the teen.
• Through resources that unite teenagers with their families: Resources that encourage communication, equip with understanding, and excite cooperation between youth group members and their individual family members are the primary weapons in the family battle plan.
• Both inside the church and out. Successful relationships and resources should be expressed in the home and in the community, as well as in the church. It is our belief that healthier families in the church will result in healthier communities. A teenage girl whose friends see her demonstrate a clear love for her parents will undoubtedly create a ripple effect in those other families.

The Plan
The youth pastor, as overseer and implementer of P.U.T.T.Y., will make the following plan available to all parents in the church:

• Youth culture newsletters: Either bi-monthly or monthly updates into the lives of the teenage world. It will consist of music reviews, movie briefings, culture trends, shifts in values and attitudes, and more.
• Family Bible Studies: The youth ministry will make available Bible studies for families to do together that intentionally promote stronger relationships. For those families who cannot find time to get the family together during the week, they will be given opportunity to do so on Sunday morning in place of breaking up the family for Sunday School.
• Parenting helps: Articles will be made available on various parenting topics, such as, “How to talk with your teenager about sex” or “What to do when you think your student is depressed.” These articles will provide practical advice on how parents can best handle situations that may arise.
• Counseling network: The youth ministry will also develop a list of recommended Christian counselors to make available to parents who experience issues outside the scope of the church’s resources and training.
• Share stories: Families need a way to share what God’s doing with their lives, what they’re struggling with, and to find encouragement and input from other families. This can either take place in a small group setting or on an online discussion forum.
• Frequent communication between youth leaders and parents: Youth leaders will take the responsibility of making frequent contact with parents. The youth ministry’s small group leaders will share with the parents what is being discussed in their groups and the parents can share with the youth leader what’s going on in the home. In this way the youth ministry and parents can team together.

The Cost
The specific resources we plan to provide:

• Youth culture newsletters: TheParentLink.com $99/12 months
• Family Bible Studies: Written in-house, so they’re FREE
• Parenting helps: FREE articles and resources from around the Internet
• Counseling network: FREE
• Share stories: FREE
• Frequent communication between youth leaders and parents: PRICELESS

Youth leaders need help! Most of us are just normal people who love kids and want to see lives changed for Christ, but that often means we have to get caught up in a church system that’s extremely political, confusing, demanding, stressful and sometimes even detrimental to the life-change we seek. When we, as youth workers, are fired, very rarely is it because we’re accused of being apathetic toward kids or mishandling the Word of God. Rather, it’s usually because of personal conflicts and ministry values that aren’t aligned with the church or the Sr. Pastor. We love kids, want to reach them for Christ and wish we didn’t have to deal with all the junk many churches throw at us. This week’s series won’t solve all our issues, but it will help us understand a little bit about how the church system works and how we can avoid the common pitfalls that short-circuit our dreams of life-long service in youth ministry.

Two views of youth ministry
Many youth workers have a speed bump approach to student ministry. We know we are called to youth ministry and we focus so intently on it that anything else along the way feels like a road bump. We hit the road bump and keep going except we’re a little more annoyed on the other side of the bump than we were before we hit it: committee meetings, board meetings, parents, paperwork, reports, etc.

Many churches have a light bulb approach to student ministry. To them, youth ministry is simply buying a light bulb from the youth ministry rack. The rack used to be empty, but now it’s filled with people from Bible colleges and seminaries. Every church wants a flood light youth minister, not a small 100 watt bulb. Eventually the bulb burns out, the church throws it away and buys another bulb until it also starts to flicker.

Youth workers need help:

• Our focus is on students, not church systems.
• We sometimes don’t stay focused on a task from start to finish.
• We often take on too much, making us look even more unorganized because we say YES to way too much.
• We are more people oriented than task oriented.
• We are cool, which is a problem for a lot of established churches. We are the edge. We’re the innovators. We prompt change and challenge the status quo.
• We often don’t follow through on menial tasks, such as cleaning the church van after a trip.
• We feel pressure from a variety of sources. There’s a lot of different expectations placed on us by a lot of different people and too often those expectations conflict! (”Get out of the office and hang with kids.” “Get in your office and return those phone calls.”)
• We often lack a clear vision. We tend to love kids and love Jesus and think that’s enough, but it’s not. Vagueness is killing the church: vague gospel, vague vision, vague direction, and we have no sense of when we get somewhere.)

Read the rest of the series:
Navigating the church system (2 of 5): Leadership tensions
Navigating the church system (3 of 5): Why churches change slowly
Navigating the church system (4 of 5): Understanding the adoption curve
Navigating the church system (5 of 5): Common mistakes by youth pastors

———————————————————————————
The above material is based on Tiger McLuen’s seminar, “Surviving as a youth worker in an imperfect church.” Used and edited with permission. Thanks, Tiger!

I was thinking back over 2007 and realized that I have a lot of really neat ministry stories from this past year. Of course there’s been a lot of stretching times and growing experiences personally as my wife and I moved to this church in Minnesota last February, but it’s also been a year of seeing incredible life change in some of the most unexpected places. I had an encouraging story about a student last June, but another incredible story took place about two months ago that I’m still excited to share with anyone I can.

One of my stories
Two unchurched middle school girls were invited by a friend to come to our Wednesday night small group discipleship class. The discipleship small groups are pretty intense and dig fairly deep into the Word as they cover the entire Old Testament in one year and the entire New Testament the next year. By the time our jr. highers enter high school, they’re decently grounded in scripture and it’s interaction with daily life, which is incredible for our church kids, but not really the entry point you’d normally expect for unbelievers. Even so, these two girls started attending on a regular basis to listen to their small group’s discussion of Christ and the Bible. Soon they started asking questions (”You mean Mary had a kid without doing anything nasty?!”) and before long they even grew interested in the sermon notes the other jr. highers were taking as part of the discipleship program. On one Sunday morning, one of the girls tried to wake up her mom to get a ride to church, but her mom refused and went back to sleep. So, the girl called her small group leader instead and asked if she would pick her and her friend up and take them to church. Of course the small group leader was excited to do so and has been bringing them to church every Sunday since then. No formal profession of faith has taken place yet, but I’m confident that the interest these girls express for God and His Word will continue to grow and soon they’ll make decisions to trust Christ. It’s stories like this that keep me energized and passionate about youth ministry!

Your turn!
I’d love to hear your stories about how you’ve seen God work in students’ lives this past year or how God has worked in your life through them. Post in the comments below and share your stories with all of us. What did God do in your students during 2007? How did God use students to change YOU?

Unfortunately, it’s too often that I hear about youth pastors who are going through bad church situations and have thus decided to pull out of ministry for good. I can completely identify with this feeling — I’ve felt it many times before (see here, here, and here) and I’m sure it’ll come again in the future. But each time there’s been a couple things holding me back, reasons why I’m still in ministry today despite the ministry trash I’ve been through.

1. Confidence in God’s calling on my life.

2. Knowing that the greatest rewards are often on the other side of the greatest trials.

3. What doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger.

4. Working with sinful people is always messy, of which I am the worst.

5. I know the enemy wants me out.

Guest blogger series this week
This week Bill Allison will be featured as a guest blogger sharing a 4-part series called, Leading When You Want to Quit. As the Executive Director for Cadre Ministries — a faith-based missionary team with almost 100 years of combined youth ministry experience — he and his team pour their lives into helping churches equip students and volunteers to do ministry in Ephesians 4:11-12 fashion. He’s worked with hundreds of churches and youth workers all over the world, many of whom are on the brink of quitting the ministry for various reasons. This week Bill is gracious enough to share his wisdom and expertise of how to lead a ministry when you really just want to quit.

Leading When You Want to Quit Series
Leading When You Want to Quit (Part 1 of 4)
Leading When You Want to Quit (Part 2 of 4)
Leading When You Want to Quit (Part 3 of 4)
Leading When You Want to Quit (Part 4 of 4)

1. Set boundaries. Say things like “no” and “It’s time for you all to go home.” The natural tendency is to become over-involved at the very beginning just because you’re so excited to be there and change lives for Christ. The passion is great, but don’t let it set a work-load precedence you can’t sustain over a period of time. Remember, it’s better to do a few things will than a lot of things half-way.

2. Talk with your supervisor regularly. Whether that be your Sr. Pastor or someone else, make sure you’re communicating often, both when things are going well and when they’re not. I recommend meeting once a week to talk about what’s going on in the youth ministry and how you can work together as a team. It also creates accountability and builds trust, and believe me, you can never have too much trust built when tough times strike.

3. Pray. You cannot serve the Lord without regularly talking with Him about it! Pray for wisdom, guidance, and vision. Pray for students, yourself, your family, and those you serve. Saturate the ministry and prayer. Get others to pray for it, too. You cannot have a successful ministry without His involvement. Period.

4. Study God’s Word. Youth group isn’t just a place to teach scripture to others, it’s one of the few jobs in the world where you actually get paid to study the Bible. How cool is that?! As a leader, you cannot lead people to someplace you’ve never been yourself, so make sure you’re continuing to grow before taking the responsibility to help others grow.

5. Invest into volunteers. If you don’t have adult youth workers yet, get some. Even if your group consists of only 1 student, you need help. If you already have a team of youth leaders in place, invest into them like crazy. Train them, build relationships with them, and include them in all your plans. Without them you’ll make a lot of dumb decisions. Plus, see #1 — don’t attempt to do everything yourself.

6. Spend time with kids, not your office. The temptation is to get the youth ministry organized and all the programming straightened out, but, especially at the beginning, kids don’t care what you do in the office all day. They have a brand new youth pastor and they want to know who you are and what you’re like before they want to know what your organized youth ministry is like. Invite them over to your house or apartment (not alone!), go to their sports games and concerts, go out to eat after school and make yourself available online.

7. Don’t change everything right away. Every youth pastor has their own unique style, giftedness, passion and talents, so every youth ministry will be different. It’s important that you mold the ministry according to how God has created you, but don’t do it all right away. Take at least a year to get to know the people and the ministry before making any major changes. Once you’ve built trust and taken time to know “the system” first, you’ll have much more support to make those big changes later without alienating people from what they’ve already known for so long.

8. Keep your motives in check. There’s a lot of pressure to start your new youth ministry position with a bang. Expectations are high, regardless of whether they’re self-inflicted or from the church itself. It’s important that you keep your motives in check and remember why you’re in ministry in the first place. Don’t plan something big just so it’ll impress people or make them think they have some super-star youth pastor now. Never do ministry to please or impress people. Ministry is always about pleasing and serving God.

9. Be transparent. No one knows everything and no one can have extensive experience in every situation. Admit your weaknesses. Be honest when you’re not sure how to handle a situation. The fear is that it will erode authority and respect, but actually the exact opposite will happen. It’s okay if you don’t have all the answers. The key isn’t being a know-it-all, it’s knowing where to find the answers. Again, that’s why you surround yourself with a team of other youth workers.

10. Stay in shape. Not just because it’s fun to keep up with dodgeball, but because it reduces stress, gives you more energy, and keeps you alert. Seriously, the difference exercise makes in ministry is unbelievable. Yeah, it requires discipline for most of us, but exercising discipline is just as healthy as the actual exercise. Do it if for no other reason than to be a good steward of your temple.

Book recommendation: If you’re starting out in youth ministry, I highly recommend a book by Doug Fields called, “Your first two years in youth ministry.” It covers the essentials of youth ministry, how to handle discouragement, staying spiritually fresh, working with parents, dealing with conflict, building a team of adult youth workers, evaluating your effectiveness, determining realistic expectations and a whole lot more.

Upcoming mentorship program: For those of you who are interested, a reader of Life in Student Ministry suggested that we start a mentorship program for those of you in your first or second year of youth ministry. What a great idea! I’ll work to integrate this with our upcoming online small groups and book studies for youth workers, so stay tuned.

If you have any other ideas for Life in Student Ministry, please post in the comments or let me know directly.

Anyone who’s read me long enough knows that I always push identity over function in ministry. Who you are in ministry should determine what you do in ministry, but unfortunately a lot of us get that backwards. As the task-driven people we are, we look at what youth ministry should do rather than what it should be and therefore we’re always looking for the next best curriculum, the next big event, and next cool game that will hopefully keep kids interested and involved.

If we’re honest, this approach is sometimes tiresome, but then we approach our job as youth workers with the same task-oriented perspective. It’s easy to approach ministry from a “doing” perspective because it creates a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day when the to-do list has several items checked off (nevermind the 10 additional tasks we added in the meantime).

What if our youth ministries were known more for what they are rather than what they do? What if every kid in town knew our ministry as, “Yeah, that’s the place where everyone feels loved and accepted,” instead of, “Oh yeah, that’s the church that goes on the ski trip every year, right?” Ski trips are fine and all, but we don’t do ski trips just because that’s what youth group’s do. We go on ski trips because there’s something about us that compels us to do it.

The ideal youth ministry starts with us, the leaders. The ideal youth pastor isn’t the person who can fulfill the longest bullet-point list job description of functions; it’s the person who knows who he/she is in ministry and let’s everything else in ministry flow from that. For this person, everything stems from two things: love and passion.

The ideal youth pastor…

Passionately loves God. They are devoted to studying scripture for themselves, to constant prayer, worship and sharing Him with others.

Passionately loves their family. They place their family before ministry and invest time into them more than anyone or anything else.

Passionately loves students. A gimme, yes, but not to be taken for granted.

Passionately loves free time. They regularly take time off from ministry to relax and re-energize and they don’t feel bad about it!

Passionately leaves a legacy. They know people are watching them and they live the godly example contagiously.

Passionately leads the ministry. They set the tone and vision for the ministry and remember that they’re a leader before they’re a friend.

If you can be that and let ministry flow from it, you’ll do exactly what your ministry needs.

I know a lot of youth workers struggle with trying to help their students take ownership over their youth group. Sometimes it’s because it’s not clearly understood by either the youth worker or the student what it is exactly they’re taking ownership of. Other times it’s because “taking ownership” is really a fancy way of getting kids to do some work.

In my experience I’ve noticed that most ownership comes naturally to students when they know you, trust you and even love you. This means you have to get involved in their lives. Invite kids over for a meal, go to their games and concerts, take them out for pizza after school, etc. This year I’m even helping to coach the high school wrestling team, so now I’m on their campus every day after school.

Here’s two recent examples of how students have taken ownership in my youth group based on our relationship.

Story 1. I meet with a high school guy every Wednesday after school to go out to eat and do one-on-one discipleship stuff. Because of the relationship we’ve developed, I asked him last night at youth group, “Hey Kyle, here’s the game I’m thinking about leading, but I’m not sure if it’ll work or not. What do you think?” He told me it was lame and offered a different idea, which was great! So I asked him if he’d lead his game idea for us. He agreed and took over and everyone had a lot of fun.

Story 2. Another girl in the youth group is close to my wife. This girl really has a heart for people who are less fortunate and thereby is a huge fan of 30-Hour Famine. Rather than me planning the whole thing, she agreed to help with it, but now she’s taking charge of the whole thing without me. She just needed to see that she has our support.

So I think it works like this:
1. Develop the relationship.
2. Have them join you in ministry.
3. Give them ownership of it.

Jumping to #3 doesn’t work.

From time to time I get emails from youth workers asking for advice on how to help kids who cut. I’m certainly no expert nor do I have any licenses or degrees that permit me to speak on the matter with any kind of authority, but I have worked with several cutters in the past and have learned a bit both through those experiences and my own personal research. Maybe some of these tips will help some of you, as well.

1. Listen to their pain
There’s usually something deeper in a student’s life that’s causing them so much pain that they’re not even sure how to deal with it. They take the emotional pain they feel and express it physically on their body and in doing so create a visual of what they feel inside. For those several minutes, they’re no longer focused on the internal pain and that feels good. For some cutters, there’s not necessarily a “painful experience” in their lives or their past, it’s just that cutting is the only thing they feel they can control in their life. Or, they feel so much pressure to succeed and do well in school that cutting becomes their coping mechanism. So when you meet a cutter, listen to them. Don’t make judgments, jump to conclusions or offer advice, just let them speak and share their stories. That outlet alone can work miracles.

2. Ask questions
The flip-side to this is that sometimes a cutter doesn’t even know where to start talking about their their pain or their addiction to cutting. In cases like this, some questions can help prompt a response and get you both headed in the right direction. Try some of these:

• Why do you feel that you need to hurt yourself? What has brought you to this point?
• Have you been here before? What did you do to deal with it? How did you feel then?
• What have you done to ease this discomfort so far? What else can you do that won’t hurt you?
• How do you feel right now?
• How do you feel when you are hurting yourself?
• How will you feel after hurting yourself? How will you feel tomorrow morning?
• How will hurting yourself affect others that care about you?
• How will it affect your relationship with God?
• Can you avoid this stressor or deal with it better in the future?
• Do you need to hurt yourself?

3. Cutting can become a chemical addiction
Expecting someone to stop cutting just because it’s bad for them is like asking a smoker to just stop smoking. The chemical addiction is hard to break. When someone cuts, it releases endorphins into the blood stream, which produce a sense of well-being, like a natural pain killer. It’s easy to become addicted to that feeling and those chemicals in the blood, but unfortunately, like most addictions, it can lead to a downward spiral of needing more and more to feel the same “natural high” as before. This leads to more frequent and deeper cutting even though the cutter may no longer remember what caused him/her to start cutting in the first place.

4. Find good Christian counseling for the student
Never try to be a hero and think you can help a student like this on your own. Most youth workers are not clinically trained to handle situations like this, so partner with a professional Christian counselor in your area. Unfortunately, I’ve found this to be a pretty sticky process because some students cut because of situations at home involving their parents. Since the student is a minor, they can’t see a Christian counselor without their parent’s consent, but on the other hand, if the parent finds out their daughter is cutting, they might backlash on her even more. So call the Christian counselor and seek their advice.

5. Encourage them spiritually
Never underestimate the power of prayer. Pray for the person! Depending on confidentiality, gather others to pray. Whether they want to cut because of anger, frustration, sorrow, to feel the pain, numbness, whatever, God knows about it. Their prayer is not going to surprise Him at all. Encourage them to tell God why they want to cut. Encourage them to go into details if that helps, just let it all out. Also teach the cutter how to spend time with God, how to read the Bible and how to take their pain to Him. Do your best to help the cutter mature spiritually and use the power of the Holy Spirit to live for Him in all areas of life.

6. Surround the cutter with encouragement
In one of my past youth groups a cutter attended who didn’t feel like she was very special to anyone, but whenever she walked through the door at youth group everyone always clapped and got excited saying, “Hey, Melissa is here!” (as we did for everyone who walked through the door). It was at that moment that a smile would creep across her face, the only smile she’d have all week. Through that environment and the feeling of safety and love, she began to talk about her problems and found a group of other girls who would support her and encourage her. What a difference that made in her struggle with cutting!

7. Research cutting yourself
Amy Sondova, Editor of YMExchange.com and YMX: All Access, wrote an extensive and very helpful handbook for youth workers on the issue of self-harm called, When Cutting Comes to Church: How Youth Workers can help teens who self-injure. Download her ebook free of charge from here.

Here are some other sites that might prove to be helpful, as well.

• Self help: tips for stopping yourself from making that cut or burn or bruise right now
• Self-injury.org
• Stopping self-injury

8. Offer some alternatives
I’ve found that encouraging exercise can be somewhat helpful if the cutter isn’t already a hardcore athlete because exercise also releases endorphins and may give them that temporary “high” without having to cut.

Below are some other suggestions you can offer to someone who struggles with cutting, categorized according to the reason the person wants to cut. This list was sent to me via email several years ago by a ministry that no longer exists. I’m not sure I’d recommend all these alternatives, especially since none of them actually deal with the root issues of pain, but maybe they could be helpful as a temporary substitute for self-injury in a severe situation.

Angry, Frustrated, Restless
Try something physical and violent, something not directed at a living thing:

• Slash an empty plastic soda bottle or a piece of heavy cardboard or an old shirt or sock.
• Make a soft cloth doll to represent the things you are angry at. Cut and tear it instead of yourself.
• Flatten aluminum cans for recycling, seeing how fast you can go.
• Hit a punching bag.
• Use a pillow to hit a wall, pillow-fight style.
• Rip up an old newspaper or phone book.
• On a sketch or photo of yourself, mark in red ink (non-toxic) what you want to do. Cut and tear the picture.
• Make Play-Doh or Sculpey or other clay models and cut or smash them.
• Throw ice into the bathtub or against a brick wall hard enough to shatter it.
• Break sticks.
• Crank up the music and dance.
• Clean your room (or your whole house).
• Go for a walk/jog/run.
• Stomp around in heavy shoes.
• Play handball or tennis.

Sad, Soft, Melancholy, Depressed, Unhappy
Do something slow and soothing:

• Take a hot bath with bath oil or bubbles
• Curl up under a comforter with hot cocoa and a good book, babying yourself somehow.
• Light sweet-smelling incense.
• Listen to soothing music.
• Smooth nice body lotion into the parts or yourself you want to hurt.
• Call a friend and just talk about things that you like.
• Make a tray of special treats and tuck yourself into bed with it and watch TV or read.
• Visit a friend.
• Do whatever makes you feel taken care of and comforted.

Craving sensation, Feeling depersonalized, Dissociating, Feeling unreal
Do something that creates a sharp physical sensation:

• Squeeze ice hard (this really hurts). (Note: putting ice on a spot you want to burn gives you a strong painful sensation and leaves a red mark afterward, kind of like burning would.)
• Put a finger into a frozen food (like ice cream) for a minute.
• Bite into a hot pepper or chew a piece of ginger root.
• Rub liniment under your nose.
• Slap a tabletop hard.
• Snap your wrist with a rubber band.
• Take a cold bath.
• Stomp your feet on the ground.
• Focus on how it feels to breathe. Notice the way your chest and stomach move with each breath.
• (NOTE: Some people report that being online while dissociating increases their sense of unreality; be cautious about logging on in a dissociative state until you know how it affects you.)

Wanting focus

• Do a task (like Tetris or Minesweeper, writing a computer program, needlework, etc) that is exacting and requires focus and concentration.
• Eat a raisin mindfully. Pick it up, noticing how it feels in your hand. Look at it carefully; see the asymmetries and think about the changes the grape went through. Roll the raisin in your fingers and notice the texture; try to describe it. Bring the raisin up to your mouth, paying attention to how it feels to move your hand that way. Smell the raisin; what does it remind you of? How does a raisin smell? Notice that you’re beginning to salivate, and see how that feels. Open your mouth and put the raisin in, taking time to think about how the raisin feels to your tongue. Chew slowly, noticing how the texture and even the taste of the raisin change as you chew it. Are there little seeds or stems? How is the inside different from the outside? Finally, swallow.
• Choose an object in the room. Examine it carefully and then write as detailed a description of it as you can. Include everything: size, weight, texture, shape, color, possible uses, feel, etc.
• Choose a random object, like a paper clip, and try to list 30 different uses for it.
• Pick a subject and research it on the web.
• Try playing some games.

Wanting to see blood

• Draw on yourself with a red felt-tip pen.
• Take a small bottle of liquid red food coloring and warm it slightly by dropping it into a cup of hot water for a few minutes. Uncap the bottle and press its tip against the place you want to cut. Draw the bottle in a cutting motion while squeezing it slightly to let the food color trickle out.
• Draw on the areas you want to cut using ice that you’ve made by dropping six or seven drops of red food color into each of the ice-cube tray wells.
• Paint yourself with red tempera paint.

Wanting to see scars or pick scabs
Get a henna tattoo kit. You put the henna on as a paste and leave it overnight; the next day you can pick it off as you would a scab and it leaves an orange-red mark behind.