Average Youth Ministry

We are going through a really great series on marriage at our church right now, and I drew the nuts and bolts of marriage.  It would be disingenuous for me to preach this by myself, since everything I know about marriage I have learned from my wife.  So last week both my wife and I preached a sermon on why we don’t want to have a biblical marriage.  I love my job and I can not believe I get the honor to preach, to preach in a way that is fun and free, and to be married to the most amazing woman in the world!  Enjoy.

Over the course of my career I have gone through different seasons of my ministry when I have had from one to half a dozen students who have had some sort of social learning challenges.  We have had students who are autistic, had aspergers, ADD, ADHD, social anxiety, learning handicapped, and many who were never formally diagnosed.

Having students who have these challenges have proven to be a challenge for me in a number of ways.

For one, students who have social learning challenges seem to ruin the amazing, warm fuzzy community that I am trying so hard to develop.  When I look around at many of the youth ministries I strive to have mine look like, I realize that they, as well as me, have made little space for them.  But once I get my head out of my butt, and realize that students with social learning challenges are the exact students that need the love and care that a youth ministry is designed to give.

Instead of being frustrated by these students, instead of shoving them to the side, instead of praying they leave, maybe there is a better option.  What if we actually attempted to understand them as people who are precious to our God and to us as well. What if we spent some time getting some education and training, and then passing that on to your leaders and even your students.

I have found that when I get over myself and seek to actually engage these students and strive to understand them and then make the relativity small tweaks needed,  my ministry can now truly be the community that God has designed it to be.

I realize that I am blessed above all my colleagues for several reason.  But the reason that is most pertinent to this post is that I have the pleasure of working with a great youth pastor who oversees our Jr High Ministry.  He is killing it and I love him to death.  He happens to be married to one of the sharpest women I have had the pleasure to know.  And her area of smartness centers on caring for and equipping people who have social learning challenges and those who love them.

She recently wrote an article that is a MUST READ for every youth worker, on http://www.socialthinking.com/.  It is all about giving youth workers, leaders, and coaches some tools to make life for these students and for the group a win.  Here is the introductory paragraph.  Continue reading for some good wisdom and practical helps so that can truly have a ministry that reaches out and makes space for every and all students!

“As a coach, youth leader, volunteer, or teacher, you may have come across a child in your group who just doesn’t fit in with the other kids. He might be smart, but you notice he has difficulty following the group plan or stays on the sidelines, unsure how to interact with other kids. Maybe she seems anxious in new situations or she’s eager to contribute, but her comments are out of sync given the topic or the conversation. Perhaps the child’s parents mentioned the social difficulties ahead of time. Now what do you do – how do you help?

As a volunteer leader in a youth program myself, I know it’s not easy to run the program, keep everyone motivated and engaged, and support the child with social challenges. However, it is possible to be a positive influence with your group by taking a little time to understand how these individuals think and process information. Then try incorporating some of the practical strategies that follow. They can be used by any adult who interfaces with youth or adults in a group situation, and the strategies can benefit all your students, players, or club members, not just those with social learning challenges!”

Continue Reading . . . 

My friend, Brian Seidel recently finished his book, Flimsy Ministry. Brian is a gifted and brilliant youth worker. He has spent the last decade caring for and training other youth workers in both national and regional settings. He has used his wisdom and experience to put together a really challenging and helpful read.

Flimsy Ministry: Is the foundation of your Youth Ministry on Rock or Sand? is the name of his book, and that is the fundamental question he puts in front of his readers. As a youth worker, this is actually one of my main questions that I secretly wrestle with and am often too scared to even address.

Brian not only addresses this question, but actually gives you the tools and questions to examine the what and why we do ministry. Brian has an incredibly high view of scripture and starts and ends with a biblical foundation. I have not read so much scripture in a book outside of the Bible in a while, if ever. The use of scripture is brutal because I often found myself wanting to push back. But instead of simply disagreeing with Brian, I had to wrestle through the scripture first, then disagree with Brian

Continue Reading…

This week Carey Nieuwhof is launching his brand new book called, Leading Change Without Losing It. This is the first installment in a trilogy of leadership books. Carey is a gifted pastor and leader and throughout these pages he gives us a little picture into his heart as he navigated two different leadership challenges.

This book is a must read for any church leader who is wrestling with living into the dream that God has placed in their heart about their ministry and is experiencing the difficult job of navigating, communicating, and leading through when those around you seem to not be on board. This book is written by a lead pastor and perfectly helpful for other lead pastors preparing to embark in some new and dangerous territory, even better if you have already jumped and are experiencing a little bit of pain and discomfort in this new plan.

I am not a lead pastor or a church planter, and even as a youth pastor in a multiple staff church context and have just a little sliver of the church that I am in leadership of, I found this book to be incredibly helpful and inspirational.

Cary writes in a conversational tone full of grace and encouragement. And the best part of this book is that it is actually really practical. When I finished this book I had gained several more tools in my leadership tool box as well as sharpened and cleaned up some others that have gotten pretty rusty.

In his book, Leading Change Without Losing It, Carey lays out 5 strategies for leading change:

1. Do The Math
2. Choose Your Focus
3. Find a Filter
4. Attack Problems, Not People
5. Don’t Quit

As I read this book, God used Carey and this book to continue to refine some growing edges in my life. I found two transformational take aways for my own faith and ministry context.

Continue Reading…

For the month it has been so fun following our San Francisco Giants comeback from a huge playoff deficit to sweep the Tigers in 4 games.  If you have been following baseball at all you know that Giants’ bullpen has been amazing and deserve a huge amount of credit for the Giants win.

But what you may not know, one of their relievers, Jeremy Affeldt, is a solid Christian.  He has a huge heart for God and for godly values.  He has used his platform as a Major League Baseball pitcher and as a World Series Champ to advocate for some incredible organizations and to encourage the body of Christ in the Bay Area.

In my RSS feed is Jeremy’s blog: http://jeremyaffeldt.wordpress.com, and recently he wrote one of the best blogs I have read in a long, long time and I wanted to share it with you.

He titles it: ARGUE WITH ME:

As iron sharpens iron,
so one person sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17

Sometimes I miss just hanging out and talking with people that want to challenge me. I like a good, tough discussion about different ways of thinking. I like having my moral code challenged, or being asked to explain a piece of reasoning or why I hold a certain opinion. Even in baseball, where guys are really competitive, I’m seeing the level of discussion drop off. Now a guy will just as soon say, “Well, that’s cool,” and that’s it. That’s the end of the conversation.

“That’s cool”? That’s the state of dialogue? What about saying, “I hear you, but what about this perspective?” What happened to getting into strange, fun discussions about different viewpoints? Most people don’t seem to want to deal with that. They just want to say, “That’s cool. I don’t agree, but that’s cool.”

Well if you disagree, then obviously it’s not cool. So why do you say it is? I think there’s an idea growing out there that truth is relative. People have decided, “Well, you know, you can believe that. That’s your own belief. You believe your way, and I’ll believe my way.” There’s just no “iron sharpening iron” going on.

If you think I’m wrong, I have no problem with you challenging me. I wish you would! Don’t say, “That’s cool. To each their own.” No, no. If we did that with everybody, we’d . . .   (continue reading on Jeremy’s blog)

Thanks Jeremy for a great World Series, and even more, thank you for being such an encouragement and example to the body of Christ in the Bay Area!!  Blessings.

Last year’s Orange Conference was totally amazing!  The line up of speakers and break out seminars can not be beat.  And what Orange brings to the table that many other conferences out there is that they see the spiritual development of students is actually a unified plan from children’s ministry through college combined with partnering with parents.  How solid is that!  The only thing that would make the conference better is if you were there.  If you can at all swing it, I hope you join me and 5000 of my closest friends as we are inspired, equipped, and sent out for another year of great ministry!

I am continually thankful for the resource Orange is for me and for our church.  If you have never used Orange or they are not on your radar, their strategy for connecting the church and the family is head and shoulders above anything else out there.

If you went last year, what were some of your highlights?

As you think about how you will be trained this year and how you will train your staff, why don’t you consider joining me in Atlanta, GA this April for the Orange Conference. This is an entire conference designed to wrestle with the intentional partnership between the church and the family.  (Plus, I need a roommate)

If you use something else and/or something better, would you be willing to share.  We as youth workers continually need to be sharpened, so sharpen away.

I have found that it is pretty challenging finding good Christian books to recommend to my students.  They are either miles over their heads and turning on the fire hose of theological content and cultural issues that they are nowhere near ready for.  Or the opposite is true and they are spoon fed patronizing drivel that treats our students and their context as if it was Kansas in the 1950′s.

So you must imagine my surprise when my Amazon order came in with a couple books to preview with the hope that maybe one of them might actually be a good fit for our students; a book that would treat them as the young adults they are and not simplify their issues and not sugar coat their faith, or give them an unrealistic picture of what the Christian life could look like for actual students.

In this batch there was one book that stood head and shoulders above the rest.  The book that I decided to use for a study with my incoming seniors was, Not A Fan. (Teen Edition) This book was written by Kyle Idleman as was originally for adults.  But the teen version is an absolute home run for students.

I normally wouldn’t rave this much about a book, but since we just finished reading it with our students, the impact is fresh.  You see, this isn’t just a book that youth workers like and think will be good for students.  This is a book that has been used and tested with my actual students and their discussion and take-a-ways were incredible!

Because of Kyle Idleman’s simple premise, engaging stories, and clear applications, every chapter made for rich discussion among our students.  We had our students spend 30 minutes reading a chapter and underlining anything that stood out.  Then had them identify any questions that this chapter brought up, and then had them come up with one concrete take away from the chapter.  Some of the things we wrestled through were

• The awful reality that they are probably just fans
• The difference between just knowing a lot about Jesus and actually knowing him.  
• Why it was easier to give up sleep and money and attention to other things and not Jesus?
• When we confess our brokenness it reveals our need for grace and we actually experience love, so lets do that more.
• What are we really called to deny and give up as a high schooler?  
• What are the practical ways we follow Jesus on a high school campus?

If you are looking for a book to read with students to help them take their faith seriously and to the next level, I could not recommend a book more.  Read the adult version, take the challenge, and then help your students not be fans but become followers of Jesus!