When was the last time you…
- Called a fringe student?
- Said a hard word to a student or leader?
- Took a day off?
- Recognize a leader for all their hard work?
- Went on a date with your significant other or spouse?
- Turned off your phone or computer?
- Lead someone to the Lord?
- Went up to the school after school or during lunch to hang with students?
- Spent time actually studying scripture for yourself and not for others?
- Sacrificed your own plans so that another department (i.e. Children's ministry) can do something instead?
- Did contact work with parents?
- Exercised?
There are many times when we get caught up in the day-to-day administrative activities of being a "youth minister" that we forget some really important things that we need to do. This is just a small sample of things that many of us love to do but get sidetracked from doing.
So right now, TAKE A MINUTE and re-read this list. Is there something on this list that you haven't done in a while? If so, do it this week. Then see how God impacts your life, another person's life and/or your ministry this week because you did 1 or more of these items you may have forgotten about.
Also, if I missed something on this list, feel free to add it so that we can be encouraging each other to not just be better youth ministers but better followers of Christ as well.
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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:
- 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?
- 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...
- 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.
- Identify a few other students who you or another leader can start planting leadership seeds into.
- 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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Walking with our Students and Reinforcing Ideas
Recently, my family and I went to Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, VA. If you have never been to a Great Wolf Lodge before, check them out as it's a great family place. Basically, it's an indoor water park attached to a hotel! It is pretty amazing and extremely exhausting.
While were there, I had an interesting experience with my 3 year old that lead me to come to 2 conclusions about youth ministry. She reminded me how important it is to be walking with our students regularly and the value of reinforcement.
Walking with our Students
My 3 year old is very adventurous and bold. She loves to try new things and can be very independent from my wife and I, which as you can imagine, can be very heart-wrenching for a parent. However, when we got to the water park inside the Lodge, she immediately froze up and didn't know what to do with all the water, slides and things to do. She became very timid and scared on taking a step in any one direction. We eventually decided to go to the kiddie slides. When we got there, she did not want to go down, even though she had been on those types of slides before. So, I showed her what to do by going down the slide myself and waited for her to come afterwards. She was still very hesitant, but eventually sat down on the slide, ready to go. But, before she would allow herself to go down the slide she made sure that I had my arms out at the end of the slide, ready to catch her. She came down, I caught her and she said, "Let's do it again"! So, we did it again, and again, and again, til, eventually, she didn't need me to help her anymore. She was fully comfortable doing it herself.
This act shows the importance of us, Youth Pastors and Head Youth Leaders, walking through life with our students. As their leaders, we are in charge of presenting Christ to them and in case you didn't know, that is not one of the top 3 most popular things to do as a tween or teenager. Therefore, we have our work cut out for us. But, if we walk with our students by building relationships with them and showing them how to live their life for Christ through our example, we can help them know and understand the great value of being in a relationship with Him. My daughter was scared to death to go down the slide by herself, but because she saw me go down it and she trusted me to catch her when she came down, that helped her overcome that fear.
The same can be true when we walk with our students and help show them how to live for Christ by the way we live our lives and do things. Christ models this clearly in Matthew 4:19 when he says to come follow him, for he will make them fishers of men. How do you think he made them fishers of men? Do you think he relied on their great fishing ability to hook men and women? No, he helped them become fishers of men by walking through life with them and modeling how to live their lives. He didn't just teach them, he showed them how to do it. We need to be walking through life with our students and modeling Christ to them.
Reinforcement is Key
The very next day, I had a similar experience with my daughter which revealed another powerful truth about youth ministry. As we came into the water park, my daughter decided she wanted to go down those slides again. I thought to myself, "Great, she's going to be able to go down by herself and all I have to do is watch and make sure something drastic doesn't happen". Well, that's not exactly what happened. As soon as we got to the stairs to go up the slide, she became scared and timid again. It was like she never went on the slide before! I quickly became very frustrated with her because I couldn't figure out why she wouldn't go down. But, non-the-less, I walked her up and went down the slide again to show her it was ok. Then, before she would come down, I had to hold out my arms to catch her, just like I had to do the day earlier. When she came down, she realized how fun it was and then pick up right where we left the day before - not needing my help to go up and down the slides, just be an observer.
My daughter had completely forgotten what it meant to go down that slide and the fun she had until she experienced it again. She needed that joy reinforced. In the same way, our students tend to forget the joys and benefits of following Christ on a daily basis. It is a tough world we live in today where trials and struggles happen daily. When we experience those trials, it can zap out all we know to be true about Christ. It's not suppose to happen that way, but depending on the trail, our students can become very discouraged and forget about all Christ has done for them and others.
Therefore, we have to keep on reminding them and reinforcing the material and experiences they have. Christ is the perfect model of this as well. Throughout the gospels, Christ taught numerous times on love and service. Then, in John 13:1-17, he reinforced his teaching with actions. He showed just how important these teachings were by reinforcing them later. Spiritual highs and lows will come and go for the students. But, if we are there affirming them and reinforcing the greatness of God, they have the opportunity to never forget the power of the living God and benefit greatly!
TAKE A MINUTE and...
- Examine who you are walking with. Which students are benefiting from spending time with you ? If you are not currently investing in any students, make a list of students you would like to begin to invest in and seek to begin to build those relationships.
- How are you reinforcing material learned and giving your students experiences that will encourage them and help them constantly know the joys and benefits of following Christ? If you are not currently reinforcing ideas, now, with the of school here, it is a great time to review and reinforce ideas and teaching from earlier in the year.
Questions, experiences or thoughts? Feel free to post them here so we can be encouraging each other.
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Being Strategic: Curriculum and Experiences
After I looked at our vision statement, I had to decide where we were going to take students. By that I mean, what were we, the Cedar Run Youth Leaders, going to teach them. What knowledge, information and experiences did we want a 6th grader, just entering our program, leave with when he/she graduates high school? Up until this point, I had never formed a complete plan. I had some things in my head, but with all things, until you write it down, nothing is final.
The strategy I came up with has 2 parts to it – curriculum and experiences.
Curriculum:
Have you ever had a parent or member of your church come up to you and say, “You have to read this book. This will help you so much”? This has happened to me a variety of times and my response has always been, “Ok, great. I will have to check that out”. However, rarely did I look into it.
That changed about 2 ½ years ago when I had a parent come up and ask me to read a particular book. This time, instead of responding the way I typically did, I said to her, “Ok, I will read this book if you read it with me”. I was tired of having parents tell me to read this book and think that their job was done. I thought that if this person really wanted me to read this book and benefit from it, they would take the time to read it with me and process it so that we could apply it to our ministry, if needed. She gladly accepted and we agreed to read a chapter a week and meet to process. The book she recommended was “The Seven Checkpoints” by Andy Stanley.
The Seven Checkpoints is about curriculum. It talks about what and how we present material to students. Up until I read this book, I cannot say that I never had a clear strategy for curriculum. But, I never intentionally looked at what I wanted to communicate to the youth over the course of the year or more. I never had an official long-term plan. That all changed when I read this book.
This book was exactly what I needed and helped me in a variety of ways. For starters, it provided me with 7 primary topics that I could and should teach from. As the book points out, these are not the only 7 topics you can teach on, but they are the core topics. The topics are broad enough that you can get more specific from week to week.
Secondly, it helped me plan more in advance. Usually, when thinking through what we would cover from week to week or month to month, I examined where our students were personally and spiritually. Then, I would process through and plan topics that would go with that evaluation. Not that this is a bad thing to do, but, by doing this, I was failing to plan strategically for the long-term. For example, one of Andy’s checkpoints is “spiritual disciplines”. According to Richard Foster, there are at least 12 them. Normally, when I would talk about spiritual disciplines, I would try to cram all of them into a neat 2-3 week series. But, why try to cram all the spiritual disciplines into a short time when you can specifically focus on each one and have at least 12 weeks worth of talks. Now, I am not advocating, nor is Andy Stanley, that you do a 12 continuous week series on spiritual disciplines, but at least you have a some topics to strategically place in your curriculum plan.
Thinking strategically and intentionally about what you want to communicate to your youth will help your stress level go down and your effectiveness in speaking the truth of Christ to your youth go up. But, speaking the truth is just one way that you can and should communicate to your youth.
Experiences:
The second way to communicate is through experiences. As my friend Rick Beckwith has encouraged me so many times, we teach our youth in so many ways other than just verbal communication. When you give them experiences, you can reinforce what they were learning and give them an opportunity to put them into practice.
For example, Mike Miller from Young Life and I just finished a day long discipleship focused day with our students called Next Step. During the day, we had worship and offered some great teaching. But, we didn’t limit their learning to just verbal teaching. We gave them an opportunity to learn through experiencing. One of our teachings included us going out into the neighborhood to pick up trash. Once we finished picking up the trash, we met at the Church dumpster. At that time, Mike led the youth in a time of examining their own lives and the potential garbage they put into it that might prohibit Christ from making an impact in it. He had them write the garbage down on a piece of paper, give it over to God through prayer and then throw it away in the dumpster. It was a powerful time that words cannot describe.
By giving your students experiences, they have an opportunity to remember what you taught for a longer period of time. Do you think the students at Next Step were impacted more by the trash pick up and self examination or if we had just verbally communicated that garbage in equals garbage out? The more experiences you can give your students, the greater likelihood that they will remember it and be impacted longer.
Youth Pastors and Ministers are responsible for so much. However, planning curriculum and experiences often seems to be put on the back burner when it comes to priorities. I have found that too often Youth Pastors and Ministers are either planning talks at the last minute or rely on recycled talks over and over again. The problem with this is that you are not allowing God to speak to and move you as you process what you need to communicate to the youth. In addition, you fail to bring out your creative juices that will help you communicate more effectively. If Mike Miller and I had we planned our service project just an hour or two before Next Step, we would have had to rush to get all the supplies needed and may not have been able to pull it off. But, since we processed and planned this activity 2 weeks before the event, we were able to get the necessary material to make the experience awesome.
Be strategic! Don't wait to the last minute to plan and organize your curriculum and experiences for your students. Plan ahead and allow God to speak to and guide what you share with the students. Student will learn better as we are providing them with our best.
TAKE A MINUTE and...
- Examine where are you taking your students? What are you communicating to your students and how are you doing it?
- Are your offering experiences to reinforce your teachings? What are some experiences you can offer that will aid your students' learning and reinforce the teaching points?
Sources:
- Andy Stanley, "The Seven Checkpoints"
- Richard Foster, "The Celebration of Discipline"
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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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Tom's Twitter Updates
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Past Posts
- The Youth & V.B.S. at work – Days 4 & 5
- The Youth & V.B.S. at work – Day 3
- The Youth & V.B.S. at work – Day 2
- The Youth & V.B.S. at work – Day 1
- GUEST POST: Beyond our Sandbox
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