Life of a youth pastor .

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What if students baptized their friends?

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baptism

Just a few weeks ago I had the amazing opportunity to witness fifteen high school students be baptized at our high school program. Some of them were baptized by me, some of them by their small group leaders and yes even some of them by their Christ-following friend that invited them!

Recently I did a personal study on the phrase “follow me” that Jesus used a handful of times and reiterated it in different ways with his disciples. This eventually lead me to doing a three week series with our high school students on this very thought which comes to complete fruition in [Read more…]

3 ways to avoid living in the past.

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The glory days.

I remember back in 6th grade I had hit my prime on the football team. I racked up 26 touchdowns that year, I thought I was headed to the NFL. Then I stopped growing and oddly enough stopped being good at football. Sometimes I wish I could go back and relive that season, but that’s not going to happen and I have to live with the fact that it’s a different season of life and no matter how badly I wish to be in the NFL it’s simply not going to happen, I need to focus on what I can do with the gifts and strengths I have now.

We hear senior pastors and youth pastors reminisce about the good old days when they had 500 students show up for a camp way back when or people bring up what happened when “that” person was on staff. Or perhaps they hang on to “one of the best moments ever in our church was when…”

The past. It’s a slippery slope. The longer we live in the past the harder it is to strive for the unseen success of the future.

A mission/vision statement should be able to tell us if we have done our job in the past and keep us focused on what we are chasing after next. Strategy will shift and morph along the way with culture to help accomplish the said vision, this part can be frustrating for those that like consistency and to some point you do indeed need consistency to have the necessary traction to move forward.

So, how do we stay focused on what’s next rather than dwell on what was? Here’s 3 thoughts. [Read more…]

Small Group Leaders: Listen before you lead.

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I stood in the courtyard after church one Sunday and saw something that every youth pastor dreams of seeing. The services were over (yes we dream of that haha!) yet an entire middle school boys small group was still hanging out…with their leader.  They weren’t “meeting” as a small group, just talking with their leader…not throwing a football, not playing tag, not making farting noises…though this happens most of the time. In this moment theses students were relationally engaged with their leader, looking up to him, and incredibly fixed on him.

What was different about this leader than many of my other leaders? Sure, he was “cool” but even still there was something different in the way these boys just continued in conversation beyond service letting out.

After doing some digging I came to find out that THIS SMALL GROUP LEADER IS A GREAT LISTENER.

He didn’t show up to tell them how to do life better. He didn’t show up to punch a volunteer clock. He certainly didn’t do it to feel better about himself. He wanted to hear, know and empathize with these middle school boys. No doubt, it worked. These boys opened up in a way that I didn’t see other boys opening up. Because these boys knew their small group leader cared more about them as a person rather than pushing an agenda the listening became mutual.

Many small group leaders and even youth pastors are trying to figure out how to “make this small group work” because the kids are way off topic, always making jokes, not respecting the leader, etc. We try to implement rules for the small group, come up with behavior agreements, and even get parents involved to help reinforce the idea of authority. I suggest we begin with listening. If our students/kids are feeling heard I strongly believe they are more likely to listen to the leader during and more importantly AFTER small group is over.

 

Get creative with promotion. Interview a Yeti!

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It’s that time of year we are recruiting students to sign up for our winter camp. It’s been really neat to watch our camp grow by about 20% each year. Although this is cool we want to keep things fresh. How can you take camp promotion to the next level? This year we interviewed a Yeti! Despite the language barrier, it went over really well. We showed this commercial in the main auditorium to encourage parents to sign their kids up. There was lots of laughing and a buzz about how well it was composed. Sure, it took some extra time to make this happen and I stepped outside of my weekly routine of things – but it was SO worth it!

When is your next event? Get creative. Do something loud, something fresh, something that will make people look twice…something that hasn’t been done at your church before. Oh, and if you need someone that speaks Yetish, let me know! 🙂

What have been your most successful recruiting/promotion strategies? Share your ideas in the comment section below!

Checking for leaks in your ministry.

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I’m in the trenches of dumping money into my truck for maintenance issues. At this point I’m ready to wipe my hands clean and start again with another vehicle, which will come with it’s own problems I’m sure…sadly that’s how cars are unless you can buy a new one every year. So, how did I know my truck needed maintenance?

The leak.

I spotted it one evening after an oil change. Thinking it was residual oil I kept an eye on the leak…it got bigger overnight. A day or two after watching it and looking for the source I found it was something bigger, which lead to another repair needing to be made. I think you might see where I’m going with this so I’ll jump out of the analogy and speak straightforward as a pastor and leader overseeing many.

I’m in the people business. Just as a mechanic knows cars because they have been around their fair share of vehicles, I know people. In student ministry I deal with teenagers, college aged leaders, adult leaders and parents…pretty much the entire gamut. When you work daily with various age groups you are constantly troubleshooting problems, re-arranging leaders, consoling a depressed student, or listening to an irate parent. What do all of these people have in common? Maintenance and maintenance indicators. Just as a warning light would display low fuel, or low tire pressure, people do the same thing.

Observing a leak or warning light is one thing, identifying the source of the problem and fixing it is entirely different. That takes work and experience. We need to roll up our sleeves and get under the hood constantly to identify the leaks in our ministry. If a leader [Read more…]

Theme revealed for Orange Conference 2016!

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MONDAY is when reality hits.
MONDAY is when Sunday is tested.
MONDAY is when faith has to work.

Monday is a big deal for students, it can make or break their week. It’s the day that they forgot they had that test, their girlfriend dumped them, they got cut to second string on the team. Monday is the day the student enters back into “real life” the reality that the weekend isn’t going to last forever and the hat of responsibility must be worn well to succeed in school, sports, friendships, etc.

As a youth worker do ever ask yourself on Mondays “I wonder if they are living it out today? I wonder if it really stuck with them?”

Monday is an important day and I couldn’t be more thrilled that we will aim at this day of the week during the Orange Conference.

Join me and the thousands of others that have committed to love the next generation with the love of Jesus. Let’s learn together. I hope to see you there!

Registration opens this Thursday, October 8. Set a reminder now to register on opening day and save $80 off regular rates + get INSIDER FIRST ACCESS to breakouts! FOR ONE DAY ONLY!

Join the conversation on Twitter using #OC16

The reasons why we changed our program time, and how we did it

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Before you get all fired up about changing your program time… here’s the best advice I can give you, approach this change with a level head, humility and above all perseverance. Going about making a change like this can upset a lot of people and you have the potential of losing students and parents.

I had been wanting to change our high school program time for 2 years. I will never forget the day that moment had finally arrived. As I watched the clock inch closer and closer to the new program time I became extremely nervous…only one student was present. I had thoughts like, “I just killed our youth group”,  “I’m out of job now”, “Can I change it back?”…

While all these thoughts haunted me for a few minutes, sure enough, every student and more showed up to our new program time! This begs a couple questions that every youth pastor asks in this area: Why should I change my program time? How should I go about changing my program time?

Here are the reasons why we changed our program time:

  • We wanted to maximize our potential to reach more students.
  • We wanted to better partner with the parents, a more optimal drop-off and pick-up time.
  • We wanted to maximize relational time on the back end of program.
  • We wanted to protect our staff and key volunteers, this new time would help prevent burnout.

Here are some key milestones for making the time change:

  • Make a good pitch to your manager or staff that need to be involved.
  • Cast vision to your leaders first and make sure they are on board.
  • Conduct a parent/leader survey with the time options you are considering.
  • Write an email to your whole parent roster making them aware of a potential change, months ahead of time.
  • Pilot (don’t commit yet) the new program time for two-three months to help people adjust the idea, this is a true litmus test to see if people are willing.
  • Send out a formal email updating staff, parents and student on the time change and when it will officially take place.
  • Market the heck out of your new time via social media, celebrate it, make it fun.

Some history on my program change:

3 years ago when I inherited our HS group, we met on Wednesday nights. Through a survey and checking school practice/game schedules I knew I could not reach the same amount of students if we kept meeting on Wednesday nights. I wanted to move it to the time with the least amount of competition for school and family schedules, this lead me to Sunday afternoons…through a series of hoops with leadership I had to jump through (you know how that goes) I compromised to meet on Sunday nights 6pm-8pm. This was ending a bit late for students on school night and not what I wanted originally….something about program ending after dark does something to parents physiologically I believe. They don’t want to get out to pick up kids after dark. For freshmen and underclassmen, we saw parents wanted them home before dark on a school night.

After a year of doing the things listed above, we have arrived at a 4pm-6pm program time for high school students on Sunday afternoons. I copied the young life idea of doing something fun with the time…we meet at 3:59pm, this encourages them to be on time and it’s memorable.

Our program time outline:

  • 3:30 – Small Group Leaders Meeting
  • 3:59 – Large Group Program Start (Worship and Teaching)
  • 4:45 – Breakout to Small Groups
  • 5:30 – Dinner (Skinny budget dinner ideas coming soon!)
  • 6:00 – Dismissal

Ending at this time on a Sunday allows our students and leaders to capitalize on hangout and relationship building via one off hangouts directly after church. Students are doing it and I myself have already taken advantage of hanging out with leaders after a program, going to the lake for a swim, out for ice cream, etc.

A book that helped me lead the charge on making this change along with other major shifts in student ministry was a book by Carey Nieuwhof, thanks so much Carey for this book…it gave me the courage, boldness and perseverance to press forward in sticking to my convictions and persevering until there was resolution.

You can get Carey’s book here…it’s a quick read and I recommend it for any church or business that are considering making a change.

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Any questions on program times? Best practices you have used in making a change? What have been some of your best tactics or worse failures you have learned from along the way?

 

5 ways to make your youth group more accessible

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www.harvestlifechangers.com

  1. Develop a social media plan. Communicate and communicate often across all platforms. Hootsuite, Onlypult, Buffer. These are some tools you can use to develop a social media plan. Schedule posts ahead of time so if you have a busy season of ministry stuff is still getting out there.
  2. A visitor follow up process. I suck at this quite frankly…ok, maybe that’s too harsh but I have dreams of WOWING students with how much we care that they showed up and show them how much we want them to come back. Currently we send a postcard…but I want a gift basket with their name on it and balloons attached to appear on their front porch (too much?)
  3. Get mom and dad on board. Introducing yourself to the parents is worth its weight in gold. When parents know who you are and who their kids are being influenced by, it is much more likely they will bring their kid back to youth group. If not you, rally your leaders to introduce themselves to mom or dad during drop off or pick up. Send a follow up email directly to the parents welcoming them to your church.
  4. Be willing to change your program time. I didn’t say change your program time…be willing. Wednesday night youth group is fading out. Only churches that have been doing this a long time may have a culture of it…is it most likely poised for reaching new kids? I’d argue the answer is no. Conducting surveys of families and most available times can help you offer the least competitive time for students to attend youth group in your area. My high school students gather on Sunday evenings from 4pm-6pm. There are no school conflicts and it allows them to be home earlier on a school night (which most parents are fond of). I share more about this idea in another post.
  5. Create a space for students to call their own. Students care about ownership, they like the club idea, a place to belong… a safe haven with cool vibes. Not everyone understands this nor do I expect it of them. My youth group operates in a shared space…a couple of shared spaces. I make it my aim to make this space appealing to students. There are probably a hundred ways to do this…even in a shared space. Creativity is king and sky is the limit. Start with that mentality and see where you end up, probably in a better place than you are now. I can give you a virtual tour and talk through our shared space and some practices we use every week, anyone interested? Stay tuned.

How have you made your youth group more accessible? What does your visitor follow up process look like? Let’s hear it!

Disciple: Be One. Make One.

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We are all familiar with the great commission. Especially during mission trips, we let the words of Jesus be a beckoning for students and adults to participate…”GO! And make disciples of all nations…” yet we also understand this should not be merely a seasonal advertisement at the local department store. Let the words sink in…GO….MAKE DISCIPLES….OF ALL NATIONS.

There is nothing in the phrases of Jesus that reduce the vision to a short-term trip, it’s communicated as a directive in lifestyle and mission. The aim. Jesus asked his disciples and followers to make this their aim and let everything else fall into place…the cost of following Christ is great. In the days of the early church roots it meant leaving your home, not continuing in the family business, traveling great distances to spread the word. The aim was clear.

This mantra of “Disciple: Be One. Make One.” was introduced to me by my youth pastor (Bobby Pruitt/love that guy), it was the slogan of our youth group in which we clarified all activities, retreats and new opportunities through. We were challenged constantly about our “aim” and if it truly was our aim to be a disciple of Christ and if we were living on mission to make other disciples.

Confession. The more I have become involved with vocational ministry the harder it seems to make this my aim. I find myself doing “good” things for the kingdom: recruiting and training leaders, preaching to MS and HS students, creating momentum for parents to feel the support of the church, bettering our environments for kids and students, and dreaming big dreams for the next generation….

but this is not discipleship.

All of these things can be a means to discipleship, but will not suffice as discipleship in the way Jesus intended. He defined discipleship by setting the example. He shared meals with them, spent hours of time discussing life, traveling together, camping trips, excursions, answering weird questions that people had…

Here’s my personal conviction. Over the years in vocational ministry I have had seasons of intentional discipleship. Sometimes I am being intentional to disciple a leader and a student, other times just a student but still other times nobody…zilch, nada, none – but man oh man, that camp we did was awesome!

I think this is something everyone who works for a church or ministry should be aware of, you can be incredibly busy, booked and burned out…for really, really good things. Even though that’s the case, I still think we may miss the mark because of what we’ve been told to aim at by Jesus himself, “GO MAKE DISCIPLES.”

Today I meet with Zach. He’s a middle school small group leader in my ministry. We have been discussing the holy spirit and prayer and will continue down that road for a few weeks. Let me set the record straight by saying Zach reached out to me, not the other way around. It was a conviction moment when he asked, “Would you disciple me?” I quickly answered yes because I knew I needed too…but deep down I quickly went to the craziness of my to-do list to see where this might “fit-in”. Sad.

Make it your aim to disciple someone…always. Never be too busy that a discipleship relationship would take precedent over other important things your church deems as important. If you want your church, your ministry, your flock to be disciples that are making disciples then you need to set the pace for them.

So, I leave you with these questions to wrestle with and pray over today.

  • “To whom is Jesus asking you to GO?”
  • “Do you let weekly “church stuff” take precedence over a discipleship relationship?”
  • Who will you ask to hold you accountable to discipling others?