Not A Mega Church? Building a Youth Ministry that Lasts no matter what size Church you are!

22Feb/102

Planting Seeds

A few weeks ago one of my volunteer leaders called me up and started the conversation saying, "I hope you don't mind, but I went ahead and...". Now, I don't know about you but anytime that phrase or something like "I hope you are not mad at me, but" start a conversation, my mind always ventures to the worst case scenario. Like, "I hope you are not mad at me, but..."

  • I was hanging out with kids and we drank beer together.
  • I got arrested for dealing pot.
  • My girlfriend is pregnant or I am pregnant.
  • I let a kid drive my car and he totaled it. What do I do now?

Even though I have had comments close to these said to me before, I am thankful that I have never had these exact comments reiterated to me. Regardless, my mind, as weird as it is, always ventures to the worst case scenarios when someone begins a statement like the one above.

So, as I'm bracing for a terrible scenario to unfold, my leader floors me as he continues. He said that he went ahead and asked 2 sophomore high school students to start thinking about being leaders down the road! Now that is a conversation starter that I have rarely experienced with another volunteer leader but welcome with open arms. This is a volunteer leader who decided to take it upon himself to plant a few seeds with some youth he has been building relationships with. Don't we all wish we had leaders who did this all the time?

This conversation encouraged me for a few reasons:

  1. The leader took initiative. Not only was he actively involved with these students, but when he saw something in them, he encouraged them and planted a seed. How do you think those students felt that this leader believed in them so much that he asked them to be a leader?
  2. If you were to ask me for some future leaders amongst our current students, I do not know that they would be students I would have picked out first and foremost. This is not to say these are bad students, I just do not know them! Had this leader not done this and planted the seeds, I do not know if these students would have ever been asked to think about being a leader down the road.  Our leadership potential pool just got bigger because of this volunteer leader.

Seed planting is a big part of what we do in youth ministry.  As you know, we spend countless hours with students in hopes that God impacts their lives and they become fully devoted followers of Christ. It is called seed planting because unfortunately for most of us we can pour our lives into students all throughout their adolescent lives and often see little or no fruit for our work. Do not get me wrong, there are definitely times when we see fruit from our efforts, but with the many hours we invest in the lives of students, the fruit seeing is very little compared to the seeding.  Hopefully, one day we will see the fruit of your work by getting a thank you note in the mail or a facebook message saying how much of an impact we made in their lives. So, although we may not see the fruit while we spend time with them, we plant seeds in hopes that God uses our time with them to bring them to Him one day.

Planting seeds is not just limited to instilling Christlike principles into the lives of students.  Planting seeds also means to give students the vision for a ministry to others.  Students at this stage in their lives are looking for direction and a path to follow.  They will either choose a right direction or a wrong one.  By identifying and affirming leadership traits in students, you are encouraging them to make an eternal impact in the lives of others. But, as with building into students, we may never see some students in leadership roles. Keep the end in mind and allow God's timing to take place. Whether God chooses to use them now or down the road, continue to build into them and pray that God uses them in a mighty way.  At the very least you are increasing your potential leader pool for future use.

Just because God may choose to use these students in leadership later does not mean you cannot help them develop and fine tune those qualities while they are still in your youth program.  As I have stated before, working at small to medium size churches, volunteer leaders are not necessarily easy to find. Because of that, you have to get creative in who can help you lead.  So, by encouraging students in their leadership ability, you are not only planting the seeds for future leadership but you can give them an opportunity to demonstrate and test their budding leadership potential in some way while they are still in your youth program. For instance, they could:

  • Give a message to the youth or share a testimony
  • Be apart of a ministry team like a welcome or program team
  • Help out with a younger age group like the middle school or children's ministry

Seed planting is vital in our ministry as it gives students a path to take and affirms qualities in their own lives that can have an eternal impact.  So the question is, are you currently planting seeds? Not just building into students and sharing Christ with them but giving them a vision for an eternal impact they can help make in the lives of others?

TAKE A MINUTE and...

  1. Continue to invest your life into students.  Write down the students you are currently planting seeds in.  Think through how you are encouraging them in Christ and in leadership.
  2. Identify a few other students who you or another leader can start planting leadership seeds into.
  3. Encourage your leaders to be planting seeds in the lives of students they are reaching out to.

If you have a thought or comment about how you have seen seed planting work effectively, post a comment below so we can all benefit.


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24Jul/090

Follow Up after Trips

I just got back from one of our best, if not the best, youth mission trip we have ever done at Cedar Run. I saw God do some amazing things as He pushed and challenged our students in their faith, in how they view others and the blessings they have been given.  And, I saw Him bring together students who did not know each other well.   It was a great experience.

As I have posted before, mission trips are just one of the 4 different types of summer camping: outreach, discipleship, mission trips and high adventure trips.  I believe that there is no right or wrong choice; it just depends on what your intention is and where you want to take your students.  The bigger question that we need to ask ourselves comes after you get back from the trip. That question is how do you capitalize on what God did during that trip?  No matter what kind of trip you go on, you usually come back with students who grew in their faith and are now in closer community with each other.  So, what do you do with them so that you can build off of the momentum and encourage them in Christ while inspiring others to do likewise?  Here are a few suggestions that came to mind.

How do you capitalize?

For starters, you could do a Post-Trip Gathering.  Young Life does a great job with this.  After every summer camp they go to, within 3 weeks, they do a Post-Trip Gathering in which they have invite everyone who went (and their parents) to a dessert or cook.  Then, they show a slide show or video of the trip and then have a few students share about how that experience changed their life.  It is a fantastic way to reinvigorate the students as they reflect on the memories they made and hear about how real life change happened during that time away.  This can be the perfect prelude to introducing a summer time Bible study or inviting the to come back to Church to hear about your latest message sequence.

Another idea is to create a month long Discipleship Follow Up. Often times, students come back from trips on a spiritual high, but return to the realities of the world where they can be spiritually discouraged and crushed – a clear momentum killer.  When they return from a trip, even though they are on these highs, many times they are not equipped or prepared for the realities of the world.  A great way to counter this is to have something already planned out where you can continue to bring the students together and unite and encourage them in Christ.  There are many different ways you can go about this.  Some examples are to invite them to Church, a small group Bible Study, a study designed just for those who are coming back from camp, etc.  By doing this, students can stay on fire for the Lord by getting spiritually fed.  Even though the realities of their lives will impact them to some degree, they will know that there is Truth waiting for them just right around the corner.

You could also build off of the momentum and excitement of the camp trip by spending time at each Sunday morning or at your evening program talking about it. For instance, you can have 1 person each week for a month share about their experience and how it impacted their life.  This way you are indirectly promoting your trip for next year by showing others that life change does happen and that those who didn’t go on the trip missed out on a unique experience.  It also keeps the memories and experiences fresh in their minds and encourages everyone that they can impact and help others for Christ in the local community.

The last and maybe most important key here is to include everyone. This past year, I was very pleased to take 22 students with us on our mission trip.  Although that is a solid number, that represents just about 25% of our total youth program.  If you truly want to capitalize on a powerful experience, you have to include everyone in your group and make them feel that they are still important and can contribute to the youth program in some way.

TAKE A MINUTE and…

  1. Recall past post-camp experiences.  What made that time a success in building  off the camp trip and what were some misses that prevented you from in building from your experience?
  2. What can you do this summer to help capitalize and build upon so this coming year can be one of your best trips ever?

Know this, it’s not too late!  Even if you already did you trip earlier in the summer, you can still capitalize on this trip.  If you don’t have a follow up strategy for your trip already, come up with one so you can build upon this and bring more students into a more mature relationship with Christ.

Questions, thoughts or experiences?  Feel free to post them so we can be encouraging each other.

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18Mar/092

Follow Up with Students

If you went to Church when you were in elementary school, do you remember when your Sunday School teacher would give you all handouts to give to your parents that highlighted what you learned in class?  I remember them because now, as a father, I am getting them from my daughters.

What are the main purposes of those handouts?  Carolyn Covert, the Children's Ministry Director at my Church said that the purpose of those handouts are "to enforce the lesson they learned that day."  Different teachers may expect different things for the students to do with those handouts, but hopefully two actions will become of it:

  • The children will look at it throughout the week as a way to reinforce what they learned on Sunday
  • Parents will sit down with their children and go over it together.  What a great way for parents and children to do together! Parents get to know what their children are learning and it is an activity they can do together as a family.

If reinforcement is the key, then why, when students reach the middle and high school grades, do we stop giving out these handouts?  Most likely it is because they are no longer age appropriate.  If Youth Pastors handed out papers to their youth, odds are that most youth will probably trash them before they even reach their parents.  So, does that mean that there are no effective ways to follow up with the youth to reinforce what they learned on Sunday? Of course not!  But, it does mean that we have to be creative in how we do follow up.  Handouts that talk about little Jimmy and the Toaster that talks probably wouldn't work well with middle and high school students.

Follow up and reinforcing with students is important for a variety of reason.  Most importantly, if we are in the business of life transformation (which is what I think we do, right?), then we cannot expect life transformation to happen just on Sundays.  Life transformation happens when we help them process and apply what they learn on Sundays throughout the week. In addition, when we follow up and pursue the students, it shows them that we care about them and their well being. In a world where students go through a roller coaster of emotional relationships with their peers, it is great for them to have a steady adult-friend relationship in which they know we care about them and who they are. As Youth Pastors we have to find ways to take what they hear and follow up with them throughout the week. But, how do we do that?

I use 4 different ways to follow up with students and reinforce throughout the week.  The first way is a devotional blog I do each week. Each Sunday morning, I will cover a topical series (currently, we are focusing on the Sermon on the Mount and challenges Christ had for us in his sermon).  Then, on Tuesday or Wednesday of the following week, I post a devotional based on the message so that the youth can rediscover the principle again, just in a different format.  This way, the message and application are reinforced when they do this online devotional. I believe this works because we live in a digital world where students spend countless hours on the internet. By creating this devotional blog, my hope is that instead of looking up scores on ESPN or Youtube videos, they can do something more productive by being challenged in Christ and review what they learned earlier in the week.

The second way I follow up and reinforce is similar.  I record my messages and upload them as podcasts on iTunes.  As with the blog, I am taking a media platform that the students are very familiar with - iTunes/podcasting and put our weekly messages on it. Unless you have been living in an underground layer for years, it is hard to walk by any number of students and not see a variety of iPods or mp3 players. Students love them and practically everyone has them.  If they do not have an iPod, most people have computers that they can easily download your message to their computer and listen to it from there. This way, they can review what they heard on Sunday and the application/challenge can be reinforced.

Setting up a blog and/or podcast for FREE are easy to do.  For a free blog, you can go to either www.blogspot.com or www.wordpress.com.  For a free podcast host site, go to www.podomatic.com.  If you want your messages on iTunes for easy downloads, you will then have to go iTunes and submit your podcast.  It takes a few days for them to approve it. Do not be intimated about setting these up. They are fast and easy to do!

The third way is to have students share how God is impacting their life.  At the end of each message, we discuss a challenge for students to take with them and apply to their life.   As our leaders follow up with students throughout the week, we are challenging them to apply what they heard and to see if someone would like to share about their experience to the other students the following week.  What we are looking for is someone who earnestly sought the Lord that week and be able to share how it went. When you have students share about experiencing God in their lives, it inspires others to do likewise. As Rick Beckwith, the Senior Director of Field Initiatives for Young Life said to me, “if we are constantly having kids share what they are learning, how they are being changed, so that becomes ‘normal’, then those who are just letting it go in one ear and out the other will start to feel left out.” Having students share is a great way to reinforce what they learned the week before as it shows that students are doing something about it and desire to be impacted and changed.

The last way is to encourage leaders to be following up with students throughout the week. I believe that this is the most effective way as it promotes the incarnational ministry style that Christ modeled. As much as I love these other ideas, you cannot process with another student or get that great face-to-face time that is needed through a blog, podcast or even someone sharing. It is only through this valuable personal time with a student that real ministry can get done. This can happen through regular contact work or in small groups. What is important is leaders getting together with students to help reinforce teachings and to walk through life with the students.  When we are able to do this, life transformation begins to happen.

These are four ways that I have found to be successful in following up with students and reinforcing what they are learning.

TAKE A MINUTE and...

1. Brainstorm different ways you can follow up regularly with students. Although some ways may be better and more effective than others, think outside the box and look for new ways to follow up with students.  Then, try them out to see how effective they can be.

2. Try a blog! Again, it’s quick and easy. If you want to look at my examples, goto:

  • Devotional Blog - http://tompounder.blogspot.com
  • Podcast - http://tompounder.podomatic.com

What are ways you all are using to follow up with youth?  Post them so we can all benefit and try them out.

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