Life of a youth pastor .

Wrap up the mac cord!

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Apple makes a beautiful product both by looks and performance. Although Apple succeeds in many areas, when it comes to wrapping up the macbook power cable, I’m sure you have thought, “There has to be a better way to keep this thing from becoming a tangled mess!” While I am a Apple product user at heart, I think they dropped the ball here. The fold-out, wrap assist brackets on the charger do not keep the cord attached 90% of the time. My supervisor Kenny over at childrensministryonline.com showed me his special way to wrap up the cord, it still tangled…I know there are a few different theories, but if tangled cords annoy you like they do me, this is an answer you would be willing to spend a few bucks on. The answer was so cheap I bought one for myself, my wife and Kenny.

The PowerCurl is an extension cord assist, helping keep things neat and tidy…ready for it’s next plug-in at Starbucks, office or home. On amazon the Quirky PowerCurl lists at $9.99 but I found mine at Tuesday Morning for $5.99. Be sure to order the one that fits your charger, there are different sizes.

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Teach your mom how to use a computer!

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When I went away to college I’ll never forget how many times my parents would call and ask questions about the computer…how to attach a file, make a new folder, or even how to turn on the computer! Our parents didn’t grow up with computers, why blame them when you can help them?!

Help them answer questions like this:

  • Copy & Paste
  • Change background/screensaver
  • Create an online calendar
  • Chat & Video chat
  • Attach files to email

I was introduced to a website recently that google put together, I’m sure you will have fun organizing your own little tech care package for mom, dad, or the grandparents. The video tutorials are extremely helpful, I’m hoping to put together something similar  for new volunteers serving in my ministry – giving them specific video tutorials that are helpful for their area of serving – greeting, visitor check-in, leading a small group, etc.

Send some tech love to mom or dad HERE.

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Are you ready to plant a church?

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Church planting has a special place in my heart; it is found in the DNA of both my home church Hill Country Bible Church and my current church, Gateway. I was a bit confused when I was asked to take a church planting survey while in my interview process. In the words of my senior pastor, “If we offer you this position I need to know that you understand church planting.” Not just this youth ministry, but almost every youth ministry and every youth pastor will experience this similar pressure at some point…to grow the ministry both spiritually and numerically. I believe that many veteran youth pastors make excellent candidates for church planting. Student ministry is full to the brim of church planting essentials: equipping people to lead, casting vision, working with budgets, hiring and leading staff, organizing serving opportunities and mission trips, leading small group movements, dedicating oneself to a weekly program of teaching and worship, the list goes on and on.

The assessment given to me was issued by ELI Church Planting. “ELI is mobilizing leaders to start new churches out of the culture – churches molded from messy people rising up out of the culture to become the Body of Christ.”

So, are you ready to plant a church? Check out ELI’s website for the free assessment and learn more about your areas of strength and needs for improvement when it comes to church planting.

One of my current reads on church planting is “Church Planter” by Darrin Patrick.

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Caring for Volunteers.

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It’s a task for sure. My wife and I are doing our best to have a one-to-one meeting with each of our leaders and volunteers as we hit the ground running. It is important to give individual attention and care to each sheep in the flock. This comes naturally for some, but is difficult to follow through for anyone. My calendar is quickly filling up with back to back meetings for the next month! I would ask the question, “What are your priorities? Are they on your calendar?” As the shepherd of a flock, you must prioritize your sheep, all of them. If you aren’t caring for them, I hope someone is leading them to food and water! Sure, some eat more than others and some like to sleep all day, but being handed the duty of shepherd the initiation is on you to reach out and care for them. Eventually you should provide a good shepherd to sheep ratio by developing other shepherds, you cannot provide quality care for 30+ people. A quote for the day from a book I’m reading, “The Way of the Shepherd”

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

While developing a team and sharing vision, it doesn’t matter if you know how to build a rocket ship…go out of your way to show sincere encouragement, compassion, and love for your staff and volunteer team. Think about serving them before you think about leading them.

 

The bird’s eye view.

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I bought wi-fi on the plane for the first time…it is very slow, I’d advise against it and actually want my $5 back. Nonetheless, this posting comes to you from 30,000 feet in the air!  We put man on the moon, so I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised.

How often do you look at your ministry from a bird’s eye view? Student ministry and really any ministry in the church is due a good look from a bird’s eye view. Up here I can see everything going on…cars and trucks, highways and interstates, farms and cities, rivers and forests, you get the idea. I just made this trip a couple months ago in a different  fashion – Chicago to Austin via the interstate…it was a very different experience. On the road you can pick out details and give very special focus to particular exits, restaurants, pick out and dissect the hotel you may want to stay in, even play that license plate game for 1000 miles! When you are on the ground in ministry you get sucked into the nitty-gritty details of one program, one leader’s concerns, a game that needs to planned, a message that needs to be written…and this happens everyday one thing after another, non-stop. Getting stuck on one topic, problem point, or program may take you miles in the wrong direction when you are looking at the big picture. We have people on the ground that have extremely specific serving roles that need direction and vision. We need to know where we are leading our team and how we are getting there. This requires a bird’s eye view…often.

How often do we take a two hour flight, get up in the sky and examine our ministry’s journey?

Juggling the many tasks that ministry demands becomes somewhat natural for someone that has been doing it for a while. You can think, “I’m doing it!” But at what point do you put all of those things down to pray, evaluate, and take a good look from a bird’s eye view at the whole picture?

Take 20 minutes to answer the following questions to get your own bird’s eye view of ministry…write your answers down and keep them in a place where you can see them throughout the day. Repeat the exercise at least once a month.

  • Pray for an honest heart in evaluating yourself and your ministry.
  • Where is my ministry bearing fruit?
  • How can I thank God for what He is doing among my flock?
  • Is my team driving the same direction I feel God calling us? Why or why not?
  • Do the passengers trust the pilot? How can I continue to build trust with my team?
  • What stories can be captured that will fuel my leaders with encouragement?
  • What people or areas of ministry need more attention or focus from me?
  • What item(s) am I spending too much time on?
  • Pray for a willing heart to follow through on the questions you have answered.

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Vision, start up strategies, & my volunteer handbook.

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theSamePage

Where do you start in getting people on the same page? Within two months coming into my position of student pastor I quickly realized that many of my leaders had a heart for students and community. Though that might be a good thing, I also realized that the definition of student ministry and community was very different for each individual. At the same time we had just done a pancake push to recruit more leaders. With an updated roster containing more than 60 names the last thing I wanted to do was shake things up and lose leaders. I knew that clarity, direction and vision was desperately needed as we move ahead together in aligning our efforts to maximize our potential. We offered a vision lunch and 30 of our leaders showed up. Getting them on the same page, I gave them a vision statement and a student ministry handbook. While it may seem like shuffling papers at times, this stuff is a must for any ministry!

VISION. You need something short, simple, easy to remember but all encompassing to what you are about as a ministry. This vision should be a rally point for leaders and students alike. Anyone should be able to critique your programs, small groups, outreach nights, camps, retreats, etc. against your vision and see that they line up. What are you striving for in ministry? What is the end goal for your staff, leaders, volunteers, and students? Does it match your churches philosophy of ministry? I am still tweaking the statement, but this what we have landed on for now.

 Get connected to God. Get connected to people. Stay connected to both.

If we were successful in doing this as a ministry I think the end result would be an alive and thriving student ministry. The following vision of student ministry was a benchmark that was passed on to me from Bobby Pruitt, my high school youth pastor.

Student ministry is not student ministry until the student is doing ministry.

My desire would be that my leaders understand that small groups, teaching, music, and dynamic programs are all good things but these things are not the end result we are chasing after. Student ministry is not a 4-7 year sprint spiritually, crossing the finish line when the student graduates high school. We pray the individual student will be equipped to take every opportunity for the rest of their lives starting in middle school to look to the interest of others and display the attitude of Jesus, as found in Philippians 2.

STUDENT MINISTRY HANDBOOK. I think phrasing it like that sounds a bit less constrictive than a policy manual or rules to follow…but it is what it sounds like. To both our veteran leaders of 8+ years and those new leaders just expressing interest, this handbook provides in greater detail how we are going to accomplish the vision. The handbook provides the reality of expected duties that a leader will sign off on claiming they understand we are on the same page. It contains specific serving role protocol along with descriptions, requirements/expectations of  a leader/volunteer, and a section on child abuse protocol and procedure. Prior to going over sealing the deal with the handbook there is an online application they are asked to fill out that covers references and background checks. Here is a sample of our most current Student Ministry Handbook.

Here are a few things I think should be included in any handbook and discussed with any leader or volunteer serving in student ministry:

  • A welcome letter.
  • Vision statement.
  • Their involvement in a community that is encouraging their personal spiritual walk. If they aren’t being poured into how can you expect them to pour into the lives of students?
  • Age requirements of those serving. (I’ll write more on this later)
  • Meeting with and driving students.
  • Sleepovers and students at your house.
  • Romantic relationships across the board.
  • Child abuse policy and procedure.
  • Be above reproach. This is a catch all phrase, holding leaders/volunteers to a higher standard to ensure both the safety of them and the student.

Get your ministry on the same page. Give them a vision to follow and handbook to go to when questions come up or they want to know where you stand on situations that will occur in ministry. Subscribe via email to lifeofayouthpastor.com in the upper right hand corner of this page.

A youth pastor’s dream…

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A youth pastor’s dream: To partner each student with a dedicated, Christ-following adult step-by-step through the teenage years into college.

Why is this a dream of mine? I believe a healthy ministry model will allow students to graduate high school but not graduate their faith and leave it behind with their alma mater or letterman jacket. I would hope my youth ministry isn’t known for a cool building, fun games, or even great teaching…although those things are important! I hope my ministry would someday be known by it’s leader to student depth of connection, a depth measured by years of intentional discipleship.

Just imagine, rewind the tape back to 13 years old…what if you had a mature, Christ-following adult who was pursuing you 6th grade through your college graduation? Someone other than your parents that you could count on- a mentor, a coach, a confidant. As a 6th grader you might seem shy to the idea of someone older wanting to meet over a slice of pizza or a milkshake, but think about the impact someone could have on a life if they are invested for over 10 years!

I think this is incredibly rare in youth ministry… If the average youth pastor stays at a church for 18 months, I’d like to know how long the average youth leader/volunteer sticks around? From what I have seen I’d estimate the average run for someone serving is 2.5 years. I come up with this number by looking realistically at those few veterans that have been around 10 years, the many that are established in relationships and pouring into students by their high school graduation – putting in 4 years, and those that “try it out” making that one year commitment, but then say, “Sorry, this isn’t for me.”

Building traction and trust with students is essential, and it takes time…a lot of time! If we think about how much time students spend with one another before they share a deep secret, struggle or start talking “life” we can begin to understand just how much intentional time an adult will need to spend in order to get to the core of a student’s spiritual life, life at home, or life at school.

Today I witnessed a 5th grade girl’s small group leader move up with the girls to 6th grade, from children’s ministry into middle school ministry. It was awesome! Despite both the girls and the leader being in a new room with loud music and all the distracting happenings a middle school ministry could bring, all of the girl’s eyes were fixed on their leader. They have a consistent and established Christ-following adult invested in their life. I’m not sure what this leader does in her free time (still getting to know my leaders) but I’m sure that if she is investing an hour at a school volleyball game, an hour at Starbucks, an hour on the phone here and there…she will almost guarantee a higher connection rate, a higher attendance at church rate, a higher vulnerability rate in helping make rational decisions, and most importantly a much more likely chance of her girl’s understanding the person of Jesus Christ.

Throughout my school years I had five different youth leaders. My parents were consistent, Christ-following, church-attending people who invested into me during my teenage years – and I thank God for that. Unfortunately, there are many broken homes, with many teenagers who have been abandoned and are desperately searching for love and attention in all the wrong places. They need that 10 year leader. That teenager needs someone to jump into their life beginning in the 6th grade, or earlier, and live life to the fullest with them through studying the Bible, asking hard questions, attending their high school games, maintaining contact through college and cheering for them at graduation!

The largest dropout rate in the church occurs during a students Freshmen year of college. Just because a student graduates from your church ministry does that mean they also graduate from your personal ministry to them? We live in an era of easy connectivity. Stay engaged. Pursue their life. Point them to the finish line of faith.

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The Neti Pot

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Here I am on day two of a sinus infection. I went to the doctor yesterday when I knew it wasn’t going away any time soon. I was given antibiotics but I’m trying everything under the sun to kick this thing. I have two messages I have to give to middle school students tomorrow at church. I have been drinking tons of water, trying my best to sleep, and taking the antibiotics regularly.

I’m also using the ‘Neti Pot’ every couple of hours, it’s a nasal irrigation device that cleans out your sinuses. Perhaps you have heard of this contraption and can’t stand the thought of it. It is a little bit uncomfortable in the moment but extremely refreshing  afterwards. The neti pot works in such a way that will clean out your entire sinus system in a matter of seconds, if you’re okay for some invasive water up and through the nose. I hear that some people use this thing once a week just to keep their sinuses clean! I thought this video was pretty funny and shows you how to use a neti pot. (I don’t do the exercises!)

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The Neti Pot

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Here I am on day two of a sinus infection. I went to the doctor yesterday when I knew it wasn’t going away any time soon. I was given antibiotics but I’m trying everything under the sun to kick this thing. I have two messages I have to give to middle school students tomorrow at church. I have been drinking tons of water, trying my best to sleep, and taking the antibiotics regularly.

I’m also using the ‘Neti Pot’ every couple of hours, it’s a nasal irrigation device that cleans out your sinuses. Perhaps you have heard of this contraption and can’t stand the thought of it. It is a little bit uncomfortable in the moment but extremely refreshing  afterwards. The neti pot works in such a way that will clean out your entire sinus system in a matter of seconds, if you’re okay for some invasive water up and through the nose. I hear that some people use this thing once a week just to keep their sinuses clean! I thought this video was pretty funny and shows you how to use a neti pot. (I don’t do the exercises!)

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Changing Oil + Lucas Oil Stabilizer!

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Yesterday I took the day off to rest and get some things done that I had been putting off…one of them was changing the oil in my 2002 Toyota Tacoma. This truck is 10 years old with 106k miles on it…I have really put some preventive maintenance into it over the past year – new tires, changed the timing belt, new spark plugs, and a new muffler. These trucks are known for going 300k+ but the oil should be changed regularly. I usually just run the truck up to a Jiffy Lube for an oil change but will never do that again.

I decided to roll up my sleeves and get a little dirty. For the same price of going to Jiffy Lube I bought a better name brand oil and a nicer oil filter, not to mention the Lucas Oil Stabilizer. I am really happy about this little adventure. The project was super easy, I learned more about my truck and it is running better than ever before!

I heard and felt a difference in my engine performance after putting in the Lucas Oil Stabilizer.

Always read your owners manual and make sure you buy and use the right kind of oil, my Tacoma takes SAE 5w-30. You should never switch weights of oil, switching brands is okay but shouldn’t happen very often. I just made the switch from Pennzoil to Castrol GTX High Mileage.

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