Archive for the ‘Youth Ministry Resources’ Category

I believe it was John Maxwell who first coined the phrase “leadership cup.” (This is the same John Maxwell that was arrested for bringing a handgun through security at an airport. Don’t believe me? Google it. I dare you. Funny story. It’s true, and it was an accident.)

A person’s leadership cup is their capacity to lead others. Some people have a huge leadership cup. John Maxwell has sold over 13 million books and trained 2 million leaders worldwide. His leadership cup is massive (although we all make mistakes now and then). Other people have leadership cups of various sizes. How big is yours?

The great thing about your leadership cup is that you can grow and make it bigger. Some people are born with big leadership cups and a natural ability to lead others. But if that’s not you, most of the skills and traits of a good leader can still be learned, and that’s good news for all of us. That means we can always grow our potential.

Man do I love youth ministry. (Did I mention I’m bad at transitions?) I love fighting for students, blessing them, serving them, walking with them, and showing them what it means to know Christ’s love and walk with Him.

I love getting together with youth pastors because we have so much in common, even if we’ve never met. Nothing needs to be said: We’d give it all for students.

And I love youth ministry because, unfortunately, we are sometimes the last line of defense for students. If there is nobody else praying for the students in our communities, we won’t give up. We’ll keep praying, keep loving, and keep serving, in Jesus’ name.

What’s that got to do with your leadership cup? One of the hardest parts about being a youth pastor is balancing your passion for the “one” and for the “multitudes.” Jesus said He would leave the 99 for one lost sheep (Matt 18:12). Another time, when crowds of followers were begging him to say, He told them He must continue on to preach the good news to the other towns too (Luke 4:43).

As disciples of Christ and student leaders, we often have to make similar hard choices: How much time do I devote to individuals, and how much time do I devote to the “multitudes”?

You can grow your leadership cup and reach more students. As a youth pastor, I understand that you are giving everything you have to reach and disciple the students you have today. But you also have a heart to impact the hundreds and even thousands of students in your town that still don’t know the Lord. God’s heart also yearns for both those in your group and those that don’t yet know Him. The good news is that you can grow your leadership cup to make an even greater impact in the future.

Be encouraged. Through prayer, learning, and practice, you can grow your leadership cup—and help grow the leadership cup of your leaders—to reach more students tomorrow. And as we grow closer to Him, we will better understand and fulfill God’s heart, “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

Training Event in Chicago
On Saturday, January 30th, 2010, Called to Youth Ministry is hosting a powerful training event for youth pastors and youth leaders in northwest Chicagoland. This will be a great chance for youth pastors to grow their leadership cup.

After the event, each youth pastor will receive two freebies which we pray will be a huge blessing for you and your students: 1) A free one-on-one youth ministry consultation with a youth ministry coach to discuss the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities of your youth ministry, and 2) two months of additional youth ministry training and coaching.

In addition, several local area youth pastor network leaders will be at the event. If you have not yet plugged into a network, this is your chance.

For info and to register online, visit www.calledtoyouthministry.com/chicago.

I hope you can join us! If you have any questions, feel free to call or email me.

By God’s Grace,
Nathaniel
440-220-5626
nathaniel@calledtoyouthministry.com

Not bad!

(If the video does not appear below, click here.)

And here’s how they did it.

Guest post from my amazing and beautiful wife, Christa.

I just finished another semester of graduate school in my quest to become a professional counselor. Most of my classes are a mix between counseling students and people that want to be youth pastors and pastors. Some of the students are currently in ministry and came back to school because they realized they were doing more counseling than preaching.

It can sometimes be tough to be the go-to-girl or guy when someone has a problem, but dealing with sticky issues is a part of youth ministry. There are a few simple techniques that can very helpful when you are having those deep conversations with students. Read the rest of this entry »

How do youth pastors and parents combat the barrage of imagery in media today telling teen girls that they need to be super skinny to be considered attractive?

The latest controversy is in Australia where a Miss Universe contestant is sparking controversy for her weight (or lack of it). Her body mass index is only 15.1 (18 and below is considered malnourished), and doctors believe she probably has an eating disorder (source).

Read the rest of this entry »

Lex posted a great post on offense and truth, so I got her permission to repost it here:

Dennis brought up an interesting thought during staff prayer time this morning. I’d heard this once before – I think Zahnd preached it – but Dennis emphasized some different aspects.

All of the gospels record Jesus feeding 5000 men (plus women and children), but only John records the exodus that followed.

Read the rest of this entry »

This post is part of a series I’m writing as I read the book, Hurt: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers by Chap Clark. You can view the entire series here.

Yesterday, I posted a lot of questions about the impact of lengthening adolescence. Here are the reasons Chap gives for why this is important for us to understand.

1. The freedoms designed for late adolescence now occur during midadolescence. The best example is driving. Originally, this freedom was purposefully given to lateadolescents, those who were almost adults and therefore had a higher level of maturity and responsibility. 

   Now our young drivers are still midadolescents, and, as Chap says, they “retain the residue of self-centered childhood and may not have the developmental acumen to make the kind of choices that make driving, to use this one example, safe” (p. 36). What about the drinking age? Oh my…

2. Because high school students are only midadolescents (as opposed the lateadolescents as they used to be), it’s harder for them to see college and career as a secure and fulfilling future. They’re more concerned about what’s in it for them than making a difference in the world, and appeals to the future from adults are often dismissed.
3. Midadolescents are able to engage in abstract thought. However, this level of thinking is limited to the immediate context. There are “pillars” of deep thought and life context but they do not connect and principles from one do not transfer to others.

   The example Chap gives is a student who will go into great detail describing the love they have for their parents, and the next minute plan to do something which he or she knows will hurt his or her parents deeply.

That third point is huge!

It means that, as it stands today, the majority of your students probably lack the skills of (or they’re just in the habit of not) connecting the biblical principles we teach them to real life.

And the real-life examples we give them probably don’t transfer in their minds to other life circumstances.

Wow.

This post is part of a series I’m writing as I read the book, Hurt: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers by Chap Clark. You can view the entire series here.

What Chap writes about the lengthening of adolescence has really struck a chord with me.

So what exactly is adolescence? According to Chap, it is a drive for uniqueness or separateness, a quest for personal autonomy or self-assertion, and a desire for community, belonging, and interdependence.

“Adolescence, then, is a psychosocial, independent search for a unique identity or separateness, with the end goals being a certain knowledge of who one is in relation to others, a willingness to take responsibility for who one is becoming, and a realized commitment to live with others in community” (p. 28).

As I discussed in my last post about the book, this process of adolescence in our society is lengthening. What used to be a 2-4 year journey that concluded with entrance into adulthood around age 16 (as was the case around 1900) has turned into a process that begins with children as young as ten and does not finish until college or even the “young adult” years.

In other words, our students are “kids” longer and becoming adults later.

This development has huge implications for youth pastors. Youth ministry used to serve as part of the bridge from childhood to adulthood. We used to take in adolescents and graduate them basically as full-fledged adults.

Now, the youth ministry years (for round numbers sake, lets call them ages 12-18) are only a “piece of the pie” of adolescence. Young people are starting this pivotal adolescent journey before they enter youth group, and they aren’t finishing it until sometime many years later.

Youth ministries aren’t really producing Christian adults anymore because the “norm” is for adolescence to last much longer than it used to.

This brings up dozens of questions:

• How do youth pastors respond to this cultural and societal shift?
• Do today’s youth  ministry resources effectively prepare us for these new challenges?
• Do our youth ministries meet the needs of this lengthening adolescence?
• Do we understand what it even means to minister to students in “mid-adolescence”?
• Should the Church’s view of “young people” now expand beyond just children and teens/youth? Does this make college ministry a “must have” for effective churches? Should youth pastors begin to view college ministry as part of their responsibility to young people, or is that for another “department”?

Consider a time years ago when adolescence was shorter, children’s ministry did not go beyond Sunday school and teens’ entrance into adulthood was celebrated by all even without a special “youth service.” Then there came children’s ministry, which is now a staple in most churches. Then there was youth ministry, which is becoming more and more of a necessity for churches. Now there is a growing number of college ministries in churches.

Are these budding church programs meeting the needs of an expanding adolescence? Or are these programs actually contributing to the lengthening of adolescence? If they are, is that a bad thing?

Hopefully there are answers waiting for me in the next couple of chapters.

In his book, Chap does share three specific reasons why the study of “mid-adolescence” is so important, and I believe these begin to answer some of my above questions. I’ll write about those tomorrow.

Every student I have ever spent serious time with eventually complains, “There is nothing to do around here.”

I’ve been around the block a few times so let me tell you: There’s always nothing to do around here. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in the middle of a city, suburbia, or corn fields.  Boredom is part of student life.

Now this sexting trend is running rampant and they’re telling us that 20% of teens have done it.

Why is sexting even an issue? I think it’s the same reason students get so bored.

Forgive my broad generalizations and help me get to the point here. When their kids are young, most parents put a lot of energy into keeping them happy. We want to protect them from the hardships of life and let them enjoy their childhood.

By the time the time they are teenagers, and sometimes not even until college or after college, most students have had very little (real-life) responsibility. For many, their basic needs are taken care of and a majority of their time is spent finding entertainment and having a good time.

This me-centric period of life leaves students wanting. That’s why they can be surrounded by movie theaters and coffee houses and still be convinced that there is nothing to do while grandparents rant about this ungrateful generation. When such a great majority of your life is consumed with making yourself happy, you soon find that selfish pleasure can only take you so far.

Unfortunately, the barrage of media and culture only enforces these misconceptions and keeps students from digging deep to discover what’s really going on. All they hear, and consequently all they think, is “do this, buy that, experience this, and you will be popular and happy… tomorrow.”

This very simplistic view of adolescent life uncovers part of the root of so many issues students deal with, from sexting to drinking to drugs to sheer boredom. It’s all part of the relentless drive for fulfillment that students constantly believe is right around the corner.

Youth ministry often strives to pull students out of the snares of sin by telling, teaching, loving, discipling and encouraging, “don’t sin.”  But for some youth, that leaves a huge void: So what else should I do with all this time and energy on my hands?

Do Hard Things has some great suggestions for this. I like their approach and what it means for the broader efforts of youth ministry.

Students are passionate and ready to give themselves to a purpose. Is your youth group giving them something to live for, both in theory and in practice?

It’s easy to be an insecure youth pastor.

Think about it. You are the only one in the entire church that “does youth ministry.”  There’s nobody to compare yourself to. There’s no “standard” to say you’re doing a good job, great job, or terrible job.

At the end of the week, who’s to say you did everything you were supposed to? What shows you that your priorities were straight and that you spent your time wisely?

Better yet, what tells you that you did a good job and made a difference?

That’s when insecurity can so quickly set in. With nobody giving you a thumbs up or thumbs down, there’s a temptation to just feel like you’re not doing it right and all your efforts are in vain.

Plus, with no shared standards or common expectations, every expectation any leader or parent might have, quickly becomes the standard they hold you to. You’ll never live up to all their expectations, so a lot of the feedback you actually do hear is, “Why didn’t you do this?” or “How could you possibly let that happen?”

I’m just being honest here. This is tough stuff. So how do you deal with this pressure?

I pray for the Lord’s favor in each of our lives so that we can survive and thrive because of His love, and in spite of our environment. And I know that His mercy and blessing is greater than all the worst the world could throw at us.

I began reading Hurt: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers by Chap Clark this weekend have been absolutely blown away so far. I decided to blog about what I’m reading as I read it, and after only 15 pages I think I have enough for a dozen posts!

Needless to say, it’s an amazing book. I’m taking it slow so I can soak it all in.

In chapter one, Chap makes the case that the common adult view of adolescents is fundamentally flawed. Most adults see “kids” today as pretty much the same kids they’ve always been, just different on the surface. They’re more selfish, more spoiled, or lazier than ever before, but those surface issues are not the only difference between this generation and previous generations.

In reality, adolescents today are completely different than any other generation before them, and the nature of adolescents in our culture is rapidly changing.

How exactly is adolescence changing?

• Adolescence is an invention of Western culture that did not exist before 1900.
• Prior to 1900, “kids” assumed adult roles in society around age 16.
• Children used to be treated as society’s most valuable treasure.
• The cultural revolution of the 1960’s marked the death of adult-led institutions focus on youth.
• The cultural shifts between 1960 and the late 1990’s left adults scrambling for their own safety, security and rest.
• Society continues to stretch out and lengthen adolescence.
• It is difficult to even find an accepted definition of adolescence. We can’t figure out what we can’t even define.

“No longer was there energy and health available for giving to others. Instead, adults waged a fight for emotional and relational survival, and this in turn spilled over into the developmental longings of adolescents…

“As society in general moved from being a relatively stable and cohesive adult community intent on caring for the needs of the young to a free-for-all of independent and fragmented adults seeking their own survival, individual adolescents found themselves in a deepening hole of systemic rejection.” (p. 33, emphasis mine)

That rejection, Chap argues, has become the foundation for the unique struggles our youth face today.

I’m looking forward to reading more and will keep you posted. If this caught your attention, pick up a copy and join me.