Admin Note: Transferring to WordPress

I will be transferring my blog to WordPress this weekend; this site may be up and down for a few hours.

Thanks for visiting; I appreciate your patience!

-Benjer

10 Ideas for Developing Student Leaders

Last week, I posted 10 ideas for developing leaders on your youth ministry team. The list was focused on developing adult leaders on our teams, but you and I know it's important to develop student leaders, too. Here are 10 ideas for developing student leaders in your youth ministry:

Ask a student to share their story. Have a student share in front of the group how they came to know Jesus or how they were impacted by a recent service project or retreat.

Make a list of things at youth group that adults don't have to do. You'd be surprised at how many things you do each week that you can ask some students to do, whether it's running the computer or greeting students as they arrive. Have students do those things instead; they'll be honored that you asked them to help.

Ask students to serve in small ways. Whether it's stacking chairs after youth group or vacuuming up a mess, students will learn that leading means serving.

10 Ideas For Developing Leaders on Your Youth Ministry Team

Starting in January, we're going to try an experiment that will give a few people on our youth ministry team an opportunity to gain some additional training and experience in speaking "up front" to teenagers. The books our teaching team will read together arrived in the mail this week, and it got me thinking about what other small things we could do in our youth ministry that could have a big impact on developing the adult volunteers on our team. Here are ten ideas for developing leaders on your youth ministry team:

Ask others to speak/teach once a month. Whether you put together a teaching team like we're doing or you simply make sure someone besides you is "up front" once a month, handing over the teaching time to others will give them the opportunity to grow in the area of speaking.

Have a volunteer lead a game. You might be the youth pastor, but you don't have the corner on games. Ask a volunteer to lead a game or activity at your next event or youth group.

Take a leader to school. If you visit a high school campus or go to an athletic event at a school, take a leader with you.

Free Thanksgiving Youth Group Lessons and Games

Looking for content for youth group leading up to Thanksgiving? The folks over at youthministry360 have just launched another round of free resources, just in time for Thanksgiving. They're giving away 4 different Thanksgiving Bible study lessons, PLUS a set of Thanksgiving games.

These resources will help you lead students to reflect on what it means to be thankful as Christ-followers.

To download these free resources, head on over to ym360: https://youthministry360.com/blog/free-thanksgiving-content-ym360.

And if for any reason you need help or have questions, their team is great about helping out, just let them know!

Make Your Kids Glad That You're a Pastor

October was a crazy month for our family for a number of reasons, and this past weekend was the first weekend in a while that felt "normal." I took the opportunity to do something with my two daughters they had been asking to do for a while: go on a behind-the-scenes tour of our church (or as they put it, "explore the church"). There were no ministry events going on, so they had fun running around the church, exploring "hidden" (i.e. locked) rooms, and seeing what the children's building looks like when no one's around.

The best part about our adventure was this: they thought it was really cool that their dad is a pastor. They knew that other kids don't get to mess around in our church's prop room (they thought it smelled funny) or play unlimited air hockey in the youth wing. It was a fun moment, because they are--even at the ages of four and five--aware that there are also times when my role takes me to overnight youth events or causes me to miss dinner because I need to care for someone or another family.

I hope that they always think that me being a pastor is cool. Because from their perspective, there will always be costs associated with my role: pastoral emergencies, having youth events on Saturdays (their favorite day to spend with me), or missing out on bedtime to be at my ninth grade guys small group. For every one of those things, I hope there's at least one upside they can enjoy because I'm a pastor. Here are a few ideas to make sure that happens:

Full access to the church grounds. Let your kids enjoy your church building in ways other kids normally wouldn't be able to. My kids loved exploring the empty buildings. Other ideas I've heard include having a picnic on the auditorium platform and allowing them to invite friends to enjoy the game room when no one else is around.

Allow your kids a free pass into your office. My girls know that they can interrupt anything going on in my office at any time. The only exception is if someone is seeing me for pastoral counseling. When they knock, I stop what I'm doing to hug them and have a conversation. They even have their own whiteboard (right under mine) that they get to draw on. And if I'm in a meeting that can't be interrupted for a few minutes, they still get to come give me a big hug.

Allow them to be friends with other staff members. Sometimes I think my girls love visiting me at the office more for seeing all their "friends" than seeing me. I'm grateful to serve with a team that doesn't mind when my girls wander into their office or cubicle to say "hi" and sometimes get a treat. When they visit our church during office hours, they feel like a blessing, not a distraction.

Invite your family to youth events. Since my kids are so young, they haven't gotten to do this much, but they enjoy it when they get to come to hang out with the teenagers. Our girls came and played in a mud pit during our fall kickoff, and my family visited our fall retreat a few weeks ago for lunch on Saturday. They feel pretty special getting to come to things that only high school students are invited to.

Take advantage of a flexible schedule. Some seasons in ministry require extra time from us that can make it seem like we're cheating our family. During seasons that aren't as demanding on your time, make sure you cheat your job instead and spend more time with your kids. I'm well aware that not everyone has a job that offers the flexibility to go on field trips with their kids or take off a few minutes early to have a special "movie night" with their kids. And when you take some time off to spend more time with your kids, let them know that you've chosen to take off work in order to spend time with them. You don't have to make a show of it, but it's important for them to see concrete examples of you choosing them over ministry.

What are some other ways to make your kids glad that you're a pastor?

Lead So They Won't Miss You

A couple of circumstances in the past few weeks prevented me from doing some things in ministry that I had been looking forward to. The first one was at our annual fall retreat, which might be my favorite event we do all year. A few days before the retreat, I got sick with a bad cold. I wasn’t going to allow a cold to keep me from the retreat, but by the end of the first night, my voice was gone and I was not feeling well at all. Thankfully, we had hired a guest speaker, but I couldn’t run our team meetings well, lead any of the up-front games, or really even talk much with students. Thankfully, we have a great youth ministry team, and a youth director at one of our campuses stepped in and handled my responsibilities for the retreat. I spent most of the weekend in the back of the room with a cup of tea to nurse my throat.

The second circumstance was the start of a six-week series in our high school large group. Every fall, we plan a series that digs into some difficult topics for teenagers, and I had been planning the first week’s message in my head for about four months. When we finalized the dates for the series, the kick-off Sunday for the series I was so excited to speak at fell on a Sunday when I was already scheduled to preach in our main services. Another pastor wasn’t readily available to switch dates with me, so someone else got to give the message to our high school students.

On the other side of both of those events, I realized something: My presence wasn’t really missed. At the retreat, all of our sessions ran smoothly without me holding a microphone. And every student I’ve talked to raved about the woman who spoke to our high school students on the Sunday while I was preaching.

I also realized this: the fact that I wasn’t missed is a really, really good thing.

That might sound counter-intuitive to you. Shouldn’t the people you serve with and lead care when you’re not there? Not necessarily. If you take a year-long vacation, it might be a bad sign if no one really cares that you’re gone. But if you lead your ministry, church or organization in a way that it all falls apart when you’re not at the helm for a short time, that might be just as bad. A good leader leads in such a way that things keep clicking along when you’re not there. Here are some reasons why:

If everything falls apart when you’re not there, then you’ve made it all about you. If every youth group, every event, every week of ministry hinges on your presence, then maybe you're at the center of your youth ministry instead of Jesus. You should lead your ministry so that things can go on when you're on vacation or if you get sick. Our junior high pastor taught me this. A few years ago, he got sick right before our summer trip and was unable to come with us. His junior high leadership team didn't miss a beat. His leaders loved the students, an intern stepped into the role of point person for the junior high ministry, and everyone had a great week.

Video of the Week: Waterboy with down syndrome scores touchdown

Such a cool picture of grace...especially from the opposing team. Check it out:

Video of the Week: Quit Outsourcing Your Kids to Youth Group

Another awesome conversation on youth ministry from the Gospel Coalition. The full article (found here) highlights the Rooted conference, which looks really cool. Check it out:

Quit Outsourcing Your Kids to Youth Group from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

Jesus First, Everything Else Second

Occasionally, I'll be contacted by a parent or someone else in our church who is concerned that we are "losing our teenagers" because of the prevalence of evolution being taught in public schools, the passage of some same-sex marriage act in another state, or some other "hot button" secondary issue they are worried about. Usually, I'm asked about what our youth group is doing to keep students on track. In the past, I didn't have a really good answer, probably because I was more intimidated about the issue (and the person talking to me) than anything else. Now, my response is usually simple: We'll continue to make much of Jesus, because Jesus is in the business of transforming lives, not to mention changing hearts and minds.

There are some secondary issues that youth workers should include in their teaching rotation. However, it's easy to feel like we have to address so many of those issues that Jesus gets pushed to the margin in our teaching times and in small groups. The unintentional (or perhaps intentional, in some cases) result is that we communicate to teenagers it's more important to know what the Bible says about homosexuality, popular music, and other "hot button" issues than it is to know Jesus.

Understand me clearly: Helping teenagers embrace a Christ-centered, biblical worldview is important. Part of maturing in our relationship with Jesus is learning to take God's lead as we navigate through some of the "hot-button" issues of our day.

But when you talk about those secondary issues more than you talk about Jesus, you're missing the point.

Here's why you shouldn't make a bigger deal about secondary issues than you do about Jesus:

Students who don't know Jesus don't care about your secondary issues. Really. And if you do decide to harp on those issues, you'll either just 1) Tell them something they already agree with or 2) Anger them to the point they never want to come back. Stick with Jesus, and you'll tell them something that might actually transform their life.

Video of the Week: Bill Hybels on the Work Habits of a Leader

I'd say that a lot of youth workers struggle with how to manage their time and prioritize the things that are the most important. Bill Hybels has an interesting take on how to do that, and I'm trying it out as I head into a really busy season in my personal and ministry life. Check it out: