Youth Workers: The Honeymoon Is Over!!!

Do ministry on purpose! –  What use to be done automatically must now be done purposefully.  When you start dating someone everything is new and exciting. The time you put into the relationship seems effortless and everything flows perfectly.  Well, after a couple of weeks/months/years things aren’t as new as they once were and all the things that were cute early on become common.  All the things you did early on which came automatically now must be done purposefully.  Being thoughtful and considerate towards one another has to be done purposefully.  Because the more the relationship becomes common the more you lose those things. I believe it’s the same in ministry.  When you are young in the game of youth ministry everything is exciting. Loving on students is easy and when you see God doing something in their life, you are screaming “that’s awesome” and it gets you so pumped.  Then you get a few weeks/months/years into it and things become common.

• You no longer reach out to the new students.
• When God does something awesome in a student’s life you act excited but you’ve seen it happen a million times, so the enthusiasm and appreciation is not from the heart.
• You stop fervently praying for students.
• You no longer show genuine interest in the lives of students.
• You become the “high-fiver’ that ask students, “how are you?” and hope they say fine so you don’t have to hear about their problems.

The list goes on and on.  When the newness of something goes away you have to become purposeful about it or you become noneffective.

Some areas you might have to be more purposeful in:

• Reaching out to new students.
• Being genuine in your enthusiasm and appreciation when a students life is changed.  Know that you are being used by God to change the course of someone’s life forever.
• Praying for students fervently and expectantly. If you are spending 8 hours a day programming and only 5 minutes praying and seeking God for your students, ministry has possibly become to common.
• Show a genuine interest in all the lives of your students not just the ones you know.
• Seek out students who need your time and love.  Ask more detailed questions than just “how are you”.  Ask: how’s your family or how’s your walk with Christ?

What has helped me do ministry purposefully has been keeping a heart of thankfulness.  I have this exercise I do that helps me stay thankful.  I play three of my favorite worship songs and while they are playing I write down everything that I am thankful for.  The first song I write down the things I am thankful for concerning my family. The second song I write down the things I am thankful for concerning individual students, and then the third song I write down the things that I’m thankful for concerning ministry.  When I am done I can visually see all things I have to be thankful for.  Seeing how God has used me in the lives of others gets me excited about what else God can do with my life.  Knowing that I don’t deserve the blessings God has chosen to bless me with reignites the fire for ministry and life in Christ for me.  I do ministry purposefully when I’m reflective and thankful.

So if you can see yourself in this post and you feel like you are just going through the motions, think about what areas you need to do ministry purposefully.  My prayer is that this post starts conversations that moves people back into a healthy place in ministry.  The honeymoon phase of ministry is over, now what?

hope it helps

ac

Youth Worker: 5 Reasons Volunteer Leaders Are Valuable!!

We just launched small groups in our high school ministry.  Everything went so great and I feel very good about this year of small groups.  We have some awesome leaders that are ready to love on and pastor our students this fall.  Talking about our leaders got me thinking about how important they are to our ministry.  The  volunteer leaders within a ministry are sooo important.  So I thought I ‘d share 5 reasons why volunteers are so important.  I know there are more than just five reasons, so feel free to comment and add to the list.

1. The ability to duplicate yourself. – Sometimes we can under utilize our leaders and miss a great opportunity to care, mentor and pastor more students than we could by just doing it ourselves.  I’m sure your leaders have the potential to do more than just setup and tare down.  I’m not saying that’s not important but don’t assume that’s all they want to do or have the ability to do.  Challenge them. You will be surprised.
2. The health of your youth group goes up. – The more leaders you have available to meet, talk and just love on your students the better.  Also, having more leaders eases the burden of the one or two staff persons doing everything.  You feel less guilty, less outnumbered when you have volunteer leaders to help you.
3. The look and feel of the ministry is better. – To have someone buy into the mission of your youth group is a huge deal we should never take that lightly.  When I look around at our leaders engaging with their small groups or our weekend leaders meeting and hanging with students on the weekend it feels good and it just looks good.  When I see this at my youth group I feel like this is how it’s suppose to be.  Couldn’t do it without my leaders!
4. Prayer. – You can never have enough people praying for your ministry.  Your leaders are also able to pray for specifics.  You also can have them praying strategically.
5. Building up church leaders. – just because they start in student ministries doesn’t mean they are going to stay.  We could take this time and make sure that they understand the values of the church.  You have a great opportunity to develop everyone that comes through your ministry for the good of the entire church. Don’t waste it.

What are some other reasons volunteer leaders are important?

hope it helps

ac

Youth Worker: Gotta Prove Myself!!

I had lunch with another youth worker who just started a new job as a youth pastor.  We were talking about his transition and he made an honest statement that got me thinking. He said, “when I got to the new job I felt like I had to prove that they made the right choice by hiring me”.  His statement got me thinking because in ministry we can easily do that with God. God starts to use us in changing students lives and students start to respond.  Everything is going good and  instead of having this continual heart of surrender and thankfulness that we are being used, pride comes in and disguises self gratification with proving ourselves to God and others. Because we think they need to know they made the right choice by choosing us. We start off motivated by the need to serve others and share the gospel. Then somewhere along the line we get hooked on the accolades given when lives are changed.  It feels good to be doing something right, with something you could see yourself doing for the rest of your life.  So we start doing things in our own strength, we seek to fix problems or do things to gain recognition all in the name of proving ourselves (gratifying self).  We have to give all the right answers and give the right feedback.  We go beyond the call of duty just to prove we are needed.  I definitely do not believe we start off with the intention to seek self gratification, but neither did Adam, Samson or David but they all found themselves in a place they probably thought they’d never be.

When we lose focus of what should motivate us to do what we do, we open ourselves up to being deceived.  When Nathan confronted David of the sins he had committed all for the sake of self gratification, David’s eyes were open to the deception that had overtaken him.  David was awaken to the fact that he was far from where he started.  I know we’ve all been there before, where our need for approval/self gratification was disguised as a healthy benefit to ourselves or others (self-deception).  Here are a few questions I ask myself and things that I do to avoid self deception.  Thought I’d share them:

• Ask yourself- Do I have a Nathan in my life? Have I given someone permission to call me out? Do I have someone in my life that will call me out despite what it would do to them or our relationship?
• Ask yourself- Am I trusting in myself to live the life God has called me to live? – Psalm 118:8 says for us to put no confidence in man.  I must remind myself that I can do nothing good apart from Christ.  I want to live everyday focused on the fact that it’s only by God’s mercy and grace I am here and can do anything.  He has given me every ability I have, and as I use them, He gets the glory, not me.
• Ask yourself- Am I motivated by anything other than what Christ did on the Cross? – Avoid the hypocrisy and review the motives of your actions and not just your actions.  Be honest about your feelings of pride and entitlement if any.
• Frequent Spiritual Checkups. – The bible warns us in 2 Corinthians 13:5 to examine ourselves to make sure we are in the faith.  We have to examine our deeds as well as our motives to make sure that our actions are of God.  Good intentions does not equal right and the heart is desperately wicked. Allow God’s word to be the authority for what’s true and right.  Examine yourself.

Never  think you are beyond being deceived.  Trust Christ more than yourself.

hope it helps

ac

9 Ways to Keep Your Volunteer Youth Leaders Motivated!

This is not the end all be all to this topic.  I love starting conversations and getting people thinking.  I was just thinking about when I was a volunteer leader for two years and how I now lead a few of our volunteer leaders.  I know how easy it is to become unmotivated when it comes to being a volunteer. So I thought I’d write some ideas on how to keep them motivated.  I’m pulling from my experience as a volunteer and also as a person who has and is managing  volunteer leaders.

Here are a few ways to keep your leaders motivated and engaged in my humbled opinion:

1. Allow your volunteer leaders input into the planning process. – This does not mean that they have to be at all the meetings for something you are programming.  You want them to feel invested so figure out an area they can own and allow them to take ownership.
2. Try to be specific when you are celebrating and encouraging your volunteer leaders. – When I was a volunteer it meant a lot to me when I would get a complement that was related to something that I did specifically.  Example: Ac..it was awesome how you made that student feel so comfortable with being here, even though they didn’t know no anyone.  It didn’t mean a lot because I needed the complement, it meant a lot because it was confirming that God is using me just as he created me.  We all need that from time to time.
3. Be consistent in meeting or connecting with them. – whether it’s a meeting monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly.  However you connect, be consistent with it.  The more you put into your volunteer leader program, the more it shows them that they are valued.
4. Make sure that their duties are worth their time being there. – Plan very carefully what they will be doing, if possible let them know in advance.  There is nothing worse than showing up to serve and you end up doing something because things where not planned out.  I know things are never perfect but just be a wise steward of their time and yours.
5. Avoid having them serve at multiple events if at all possible. – As you plan your calendar think about how not to burn your leaders out, because it’s super easy to do.
6. Build Community – plan something fun to do together.  Plan a picnic and invite their families, bowling night, pot luck dinner, etc. Whatever you do make it informal and highly relational.  Which means make sure you all are doing something where conversations can be had.
7. Lead by example and not the iron fist. – Don’t tell them to greet, meet, connect and pray with students if you are not doing it.  We are in this together, so don’t treat them as hired help.
8. Offer Training and/or Resources related to their job – It says you care about their success.  I wanted to be the best at what was asked of me as a leader.  Training and resources that can better assist them in doing their best is a win win for everyone.  Even if you just have people who setup the youth group room, have a time of encouraging them, and pouring into them whatever God lays on your heart.
9. Acknowledge their sacrifice and their families sacrifice – They are definitely not looking for you to do this, but when you acknowledge their sacrifice it lets them know that you do not take their them for granted.

Any thoughts?

hope it helps

ac

Friday Quick Tip: A Way to Use Facebook for Pastoral Care!

Thought I’d share this with you.  Creating a culture of students who pray for each other.  My first idea was to do a traditional prayer area that students could go get prayer.  I would staff the area with leaders and students.  I really wanted students to experience the value having people praying for them.  My first idea didn’t go the way I expected.  I would get a few students a month to the prayer area, where I would have leaders and students standing post.

Then I had the idea to use Facebook as the area for prayer and use that area for organic connections and prayer.  Since students are already on Facebook it was a matter of meeting them where they are.  So I created HSMiPRAY where students are praying for students.  The only people that can join  are high school students and our youth group leaders.  When a student joins they read the description and are free to start posting prayer request and praying for other students who post in the group.

Here’s the description:

iPRAY Ministry (Students Praying for Students) – We are devoted to praying for others and our ministry. Without self-gaining motives and we are thankful for the means of communication by which we can talk to God. God never intended for people to walk alone in life, but in community with him and others. So this group was created for us to walk together in prayer. Praying for each other and our ministry.

There is no prayer too SMALL that God is too busy to hear and there is also no prayer too BIG and CRAZY that God isn’t big enough to handle. From school work to parents divorcing, God cares about it all.

You can message us your prayer request and the iPRAY team will pray for you. hsmIPRAY@groups.facebook.com

or post it on our wall…if you don’t mind others that have joined the group to see and pray with you.

AGAIN – There is no prayer too SMALL that God is too busy to hear and there is also no prayer too BIG and CRAZY that God isn’t big enough to handle. From school work to parents divorcing, God cares about it all.

I would ask that we’re all mindful of people’s request…and just encourage others if comments are made.

When a prayer request is posted students either (like it) or post as a comment (“praying for you” or something encouraging).  We do not encourage or allow advice giving.  If a student posts a prayer request that might need attention, our pastoral care team will contact that student through Facebook and offer to meet with them and talk.  So if we see someone give advice (even if it’s good) we delete it.  I actually contact the student via Facebook and say “great advice but we want this to be just for prayer and encouragement because if everybody gave advice it could get out of hand”.  Usually it’s a close friend who’s giving the advice so I encourage them to contact them directly with the advice.

We have 150 students added and we have not advertised it at all.  It’s really just been word of mouth, friends adding their friends, etc.  We’ve had prayer requests from students who are struggling in their faith to students who’s parents are divorcing.  It is an awesome sight to see students who aren’t even Facebook friends praying for each other.  They know they don’t have to wait til youth group to get prayer.  They can post at anytime and have people praying for them at anytime.

hope this helps

ac

Pastoral Care for Student Ministries!

In youth ministry the concept of pastoral care for students can be a little unclear.  I would love to start a conversation about what pastoral care for students should look like.  I’ve talked with a lot of youth workers and leaders about this and I usually get one or two answers.

• “Well, it’s on a case by case bases.” – what does that even mean?!?!
• “Who ever knows the kid well enough and their personalities kind of click handles pastoral care.”

For most of us, if we are honest with ourselves, we are just winging it. I can tell you that if there isn’t an intentional plan it is most likely not being done. I like to think pastoral care is a proactive response of ministry.  We think about what is the ministries response to students who are going through tough situations in their faith and life, and how can we be proactive in our response.  Most of the time when we give the answers above it’s because we have made some assumptions by default.

A few assumptions we make about our ministry when it comes to Pastoral Care are:

1. Our programs are good enough.
2. Our kids are serving so they must be on the right path.
3. Attendance equals growth – students who come to every event you have are healthy.
4. Our small group leaders are handling it.

I definitely believe this is an area we must be intentional about and we must make this just as much of a priority as the programs we create for fellowship, evangelism, etc…  I learned from my own ministry that there are students I will over look who are struggling with their faith or are having major issues going on at home because of my assumptions and lack of intentionality.  So what are the steps I took towards being intentional in this area? Well, first I had to ask myself some questions about the ministry.

• Have we made pastoral care a priority?
• Within the programs we do have,  how can we create opportunities to care for students better?
• Are we training our leaders to care for students, or are we assuming since they signed up that they know what to do? – most of the time if we are winging it than they are to.
• Are we assuming that our core students have it all together because of participation?

Here are a few ideas that we’ve implemented:

1. Our large group time volunteers have been trained to be proactive. We have really maximized our time with our students by commissioning our leaders to not just be available but be active. Check out – Active or Just Available?
2. Prayer during service for students that is tied into the service. – We’ve also had them fill out a “contact me” card just so we can follow up for continue care if needed.  Most of the time you will get students who need prayer but also some guidance, so being able to follow-up is critical.
3. We also give each student a prayer request card so they can fill it out and request prayer.  We are intentional about not being super generic about those who need to fill them out. Example: If the message is about students making bad decisions, then we will ask those students who have done so to write “contact me” on the back of the card if they need someone to talk with.  We work that part into the message because it carries more weight than just making an announcement.
4. We used a “text in” if you are dealing with porn.  So students were able to text in for someone to contact them and talk with them about their struggle with porn.
5. Grab a group of trusted volunteers to meet with core students one on one.  Your core students would love it.  I can tell you from experience, the students who are there all the time need to be met with.  Those are the students who get the less care because of the attendance equals growth factor.
6. Start a prayer chain with your leaders for the ministry and students. – This can be open to any church member who is willing to spend a few minutes in prayer a week for the ministry. – If I was listing in order of importance this would definitely be at the top.
7. Training our staff and volunteers on how we will respond to students who are dealing with hot topic issues like same sex attraction, self harming, etc…

These are some super simple things that we’ve added to our ministry.  These are just examples of what we’ve done.  You know your ministry better than me, so come up with your own ideas for your students.  The point I want you to get out of this post is to be intentional about caring for your students.  Just because the students are coming out and sharing things voluntarily doesn’t mean it is not going on.  We have have to think proactively.

Would love to hear more ideas on how you are caring for your students.

Any thoughts?

hope it helps

ac

Youth Group Leaders Active or Just Available?

I have had the pleasure of revamping our volunteer youth group leader program. I can’t tell you enough how awesome it has been dreaming about how to make our weekend youth group services more relational.  Now, I know that youth group volunteer leaders are nothing new.  Probably every youth group has some form of adult volunteers serving in their youth ministry.  I definitely applaud and commend any adult who takes on the task of being a leader in youth ministry.  It can be tough at times, as students can be everything but friendly and open.

When I first begin this process I looked at our current program and kind of surveyed a few other ministries.  I really felt like we were all in the same boat in terms of expectations and the actual duties of the youth group leader.  The model consisted more about the leader being comfortable, present and available.  Leaders were asked to do the setting up and the labor of the youth group more so than the connecting with students.

So I had an idea to challenge our leaders to be proactive in connecting with students.  Instead of them waiting for students to approach them, they would approach students.  I definitely understand how hard it is so I basically trained them on how to approach new and core students.  I created a simple four step model for them to use.  The four steps are greet, meet, connect and pray.

1. Greet – We want to greet students.  We will greet students instead of wait in a corner for them to come to us.  We will reach out to them instead of waiting for them to reach out to us.
2. Meet – We want to make sure that we genuinely meet them.  Refer to the hand out “Hand Shake Hi to a Hug Goodbye/”.  I also had them refer to this handout I created to help them really connect with the students “Conversation tactics for youth workers“.
3. Connect – We want to make sure that we are intentional about our conversation with students.  We want to look for ways in the conversation to suggest a next step.  For new students we want to guide them towards community.  That could range from life groups to serving opportunities within the ministry or summer camp.  You can even suggest grabbing coffee, lunch or ice cream with them sometime.  For students who are already in life groups, you can suggest serving in a ministry, missions or summer camp.  We want to make sure students are getting connected.
4. Pray – We want to pray for students.  While you are connecting through conversations, once an area of struggle, pain, disappointment, hardship and trial appears offer prayer.  We want to avoid saying “I’ll be praying for you”.  Pray for the student right there on the spot.  Even pray for the core students you already know that have been met, greeted and connected.  Go deeper in conversation and pray for them.  Just because they are a part of our core students doesn’t mean they have everything together.  Every situation will be different but when the opportunity presents itself feel free to pray.

I also added a small after service snacks to slow students down so that we could have a chance to connect with them.  I explained to our leaders that success would be just getting to greet the students.  So if you walked away from your service and all you were able to do is say hi to students then I consider your time at service successful.  Never underestimate the power of hi and a smile when the intention is to show God’s love to someone.  The great thing about it is that most of the students will be back the next week.  So now you can build relationships with those students who you have already greeted. If the leaders have the privilege to move on to the next 3 steps then I would consider that a bonus.

Yes, this definitely stretched our volunteers so it’s important that you stress the difference between what success is and what’s the added bonus.  Success being the hi and a smile, and the bonus being meeting, connecting and praying for students.  We launched this last weekend and it was a great success.  Our leaders rose to the challenge and did an awesome job.  The very site of leaders proactively greeting, meeting, connecting and praying for students was super encouraging.

I believe the key to volunteer leaders being able to really move forward in the 4 steps with confidence is making sure they feel and students know they are fully apart of leadership. We are doing 2 things to make that happen.

1. Our leaders were introduced from stage so students would know that they exist and would understand their purpose. This gives the leaders license and confidence to speak into the lives of the students and spiritually lead them.
2. They will also have the opportunity to be a part of the service (could be a video, announcement or handling communion).  We want students to know that they are a part of the student ministry leadership team and getting to know them is just like getting to know staff.

How does your weekend leaders differ or resemble this process?

Hope it helps!

Part 1/2 Don’t Graduate!!

Heard a story the other night that motivated this post.  A student sent their leader a text full of concern and uneasiness.  This student was accepted into the college that they’ve always wanted to go to.  The issue comes with it being out of state. The students concerns are:

• They are a new Christian and won’t have the support of their life group who has been like family to them.
• They might stray away from Christ because they don’t feel strong enough to be on their own.

Statistics came out that if you filled 100 students in a room 65 of them would leave the faith after high school.  This has literally set off a student ministry wide search to come up with answers.  People are writing books, workshops and even doing podcast about it. Some are doing the blame game and others are pushing that they have the solution.  To be honest, I think it’s a great thing that we are trying to figure out our part in this as your youth ministry.  It’s definitely different for everyone and so we need to take different looks at the issue for sure.
My angle in this post is really to push you to think about the student in the story.  I hope that every student will have these concerns, but it’s not enough just to be concerned, but to have actions to follow.  Whether you feel like you have it all together or not, ask yourself these questions and be honest in your answers.

• Do you know what it means to have a relationship with Christ?
• How faithful are you in pursuing to be more like Christ?
• Do you find it easy to get caught up in doing the wrong thing?
• How committed are you to getting connected and growing in your life group or church group?
• Do you feel like you have a solid foundation for what you should believe as a Christ follower?
• Do you feel like God would be pleased with your life if it ended tomorrow?

These questions are definitely not about making you feel guilty.  God wants to be in relationship with you and has a purpose for your life.  No one plans to get to a point where they are just drifting out of relationship with God.  Even though some people give the excuse that it just happened, that’s not just the case.  There is a reason why out of a 100 students 65 drift off and out of relationship with Christ.  So as the youth ministry world makes this a priority in doing their part, I would ask you to do the same and check your walk/journey with Christ. Do the things that would strengthen the foundation of your relationship with Christ.  So that when the day comes for you to graduate from high school you don’t include your faith.

Your relationship with Christ is meant to be a relationship that lasts for eternity.  The choices you make today about your faith will impact your life either way in the future.  I would advise you to talk with your parents or your church group leaders about these questions and your response to them.  Find someone that you know will tell you the truth and give you sound advice.  Allow someone to walk with you as you build a faith that will last.  Just because you’re graduating from high school doesn’t mean you have to graduate from your faith.