SYM Show: Question Me This

Jason and Kurt spend some time talking about a few "frequently asked questions" among the Youth Worker Nation: "Should you have a formal check-in system?", "How do you become a better communicator?" and "What should we do about leaders who are dating?" Tune in for some of Jason's profound thoughts on each topic (Oh, and you'll hear some of Kurt's thoughts, too).

SYM Show: Question Me This

Jason and Kurt spend some time talking about a few "frequently asked questions" among the Youth Worker Nation: "Should you have a formal check-in system?", "How do you become a better communicator?" and "What should we do about leaders who are dating?" Tune in for some of Jason's profound thoughts on each topic (Oh, and you'll hear some of Kurt's thoughts, too).

Random Randomness

- I really liked Rachel Held Evans’ entry concerning the Chick-Fil-A quagmire. I think she makes a level headed appeal to folks on both sides of the issue.

- Red Dawn, the 1984 cult classic, is making a comeback….specifically, they are re-making it and the updated version is set to hit theaters in November!

- This upcoming weekend, I have the honor of speaking in our main worship services at Saddleback. My assigned topic: “Facing My Insecurities”.Kind of a bummer that I don’t have any personal experience on the subject.

- On Monday our junior high team, along with about 400 junior high students, will head off to summer camp. This week they are in full blown “getting ready for camp” mode. Because of various other responsibilities and prepping the adult sermon, I’m totally unable to chip in. I’m actually missing the “all hands on deck” frantic pace of pre-camp week more than I thought I would.

- Have you seen the latest episode of the Simply Youth Ministry Show?Somehow I’m unable to upload the video directly into this post…but you can watch it right here.While you’re there, why not sign up for the Simply Youth Ministry Today newsletter to get some short encouragement every day PLUS the SYM show delivered right to your inbox!

SYM Show: Oh My...It's Katie!

The one and only Katie Edwards joins the fellas this week! In addition to debating just how "Godly" Katie is, the trio talks about a variety of tips, tricks and tid-bits to kicking off an incredible fall. Plus, they spend way too much time on an email from the Youth Worker Nation, and a sponsor sends in two gifts....and somehow Jason ends up with both.

Macro Or Micro?

A few years ago, I heard a fantastic 60-minute presentation on culture and marketing. The portion that stuck out most to me was when the presenter discussed the importance of understanding the difference between macro-trends and micro-trends.She discussed how leveraging micro trends is a great way to make a big, short lived splash while leveraging macro trends has better potential for long-term impact and influence (and, in business language….money).

As her primary examples she used:

SOCIAL NETWORKING: Social networking has every indication of being a MACRO-TREND. It is here to stay, in one form or another. Our culture has simply moved too far down the social networking road to envision a retreat.

FACEBOOK:Facebook, she explained, is a micro-trend within the macro-trend of social networking. It is the primary vehicle for social networking at the moment, but may not always be. A prime example is MySpace…once the major social networking site, it now only caters to a few niche categories of users.Twitter, Instagram, Frendee (a new app coming soon that mashes instagram features with commerce….awesome!), etc. are all other examples of micro-trends within the social media macro-trend. The current struggles at Facebook is another piece of evidence that even big-time micro-trends have a shelf life.

Junior high ministry also has it’s fair share of macro and micro trends….and part of your role as a leader is to try to figure out what stuff is which.Here are some examples:

Small Groups?I would probably say that “helping students build authentic relationships” is the macro-trend, and small groups are a very successful micro-trend within that macro-trend.

Intergenerational approach to ministry?

Multi-site youth ministry?

Hipster youth workers wearing skinny jeans, black glasses and cardigans?

“Deeper”, more theologically reflective approaches to youth ministry?

It makes sense to me that we build our long-term junior high ministry strategies around the macro-trends (obviously, I’m gonna assume building it around the timeless, trend-proof truths of scripture is a given…) and use those as some of the foundational stuff of our ministry; then use the micro-trends as ways we currently build upon the foundation.

What other macro and micro trends do you identify?Would love your thoughts and “push backs”!

SYM Show: Oh My...It's Katie!

The one and only Katie Edwards joins the fellas this week! In addition to debating just how "Godly" Katie is, the trio talks about a variety of tips, tricks and tid-bits to kicking off an incredible fall. Plus, they spend way too much time on an email from the Youth Worker Nation, and a sponsor sends in two gifts....and somehow Jason ends up with both.

How To Build A Team Of Veteran Volunteers

Our junior high ministry has its fair share of what I like to call “transient leaders”; those volunteers who are only with us for a year or two before moving on to another area of ministry. Older high school students who volunteer during their senior year before heading off to college and parents of junior highers who serve for a year or two while their child is in our ministry are the two predominant transient leaders on our team.

But over the years, we have also had tremendous success creating a ministry atmosphere that excels at keeping folks on board for long periods of time. We have tons of 5-year veterans, numerous 10-year veterans, an occasional 15-year veteran and one volunteer who has been on our junior high team for over 20 years.

While those certainly no “silver bullet” for creating a team of JH ministry veterans, I do think there are some things we’ve done real well over the years that have contributed to our success.Here are a few that come to mind.

- We focus on relationships more than on formal training.If relational ministry is the type of youth ministry we acknowledge is best, then it makes sense that a relational approach to building a leadership team would take the same approach.

- We empower like crazy!We believe in the power of giving ministry away. As long as it fits within our purpose/strategy/paradigm…go for it!Our team tries to view ourselves more as coaches, encouragers etc. of the team instead of a ball-hogging quarterback.

- We share life.As your team grows this becomes harder to do, but we’ve found that a good chunk of our veteran leaders have stuck around because of the friendships that we have formed outside the walls of the church and activities of the junior high ministry.

- We are professional. Quality leaders want to be part of something the perceive as being somewhat professional. We do background checks, we have good training, we have clear guidelines, we have their backs, we clearly articulate the various ministry opportunities, we have a purpose statement and values that we can point to. One of our volunteers is the CFO for the western region of UPS. Somehow we’ve managed to convince him that we sorta know what we’re doing.

We’ve been around a while ourselves.I’ve been involved in our junior high ministry for 15 years. Katie Edwards, who leads our ministry, has been involved for almost 20. Jason Pogue, one of our JH Pastors has been on our team for about 10 years (first as a volunteer himself, then on our paid team). Because folks can look around and see a handful of people who have invested in our ministry for decades, it sends the message that it may be worth their long-term investment, too.

Healthy, veteran volunteer leadership teams don’t happen overnight. Be patient, be intentional in your efforts and don’t quit when the going gets tough. Building a team of veterans is hard work….but it might be the most important, and most rewarding hard work you do!

SYM Show: We're Thinking... We're Thinking...

Jason and Kurt share a few things they're thinking about as the fall looms....specifically how to better empower volunteers and give away ministry. Kurt shares a weird "box" analogy, they talk old-school christian bands and they still don't have a properly functioning timer (Bring back the pig!).

SYM Show: We're Thinking... We're Thinking...

Jason and Kurt share a few things they're thinking about as the fall looms....specifically how to better empower volunteers and give away ministry. Kurt shares a weird "box" analogy, they talk old-school christian bands and they still don't have a properly functioning timer (Bring back the pig!).

Even More Randomness!

I don’t think I’ve ever posted a back-to-back Random Randomness, but there’s just too much good stuff happening. WARNING: This post is full of “plugs” for various things that I’m excited about!

First, have you been watching the Simply Youth Ministry Show?Here’s the latest episode. If you want it delivered to your inbox, just subscribe to the Simply Youth Ministry Today newsletter and, in addition to three fresh articles every week, you’ll get that week’s episode of the SYM Show.

But today, you can watch it right here.

Next, Go over to Marko’s blog for a fun reminder that the early-bird deadline for the Middle School Ministry Campference is fast approaching.

Then, consider being part of the ReGroup Summit at the Group/Simply Youth Ministry headquarters out in Loveland, CO this upcoming August!This is a rare opportunity to gather with less than 100 other youth workers to discuss key issues in youth ministry. This year Mark Oestreicher, Rick Lawrence and myself will lead the discussions that will include topics such as: “8 Things that are actually RIGHT about youth ministry”, “transitional leadership”, “imagining a new job description” etc. If you are REALLY lucky, Rick Lawrence might even give you your very own indian name!

- I’m having lunch today with Andy Brazelton who was, for years, most of the brainpower behind Simply Youth Ministry. He recently resigned so he could move home to California to be closer to family. First, I’ll punch him (or flick his ears) for leaving, then I’ll give him a hug (things I rarely give out) for his kingdom impact over the past decade.

- Who do you need to hug today?

SYM Show: Kid Stuff

On this week's episode, Jason and Kurt talk about their own approach to raising kids as youth workers. Should you give your own kids special privileges? Should you take them to youth group events? How do you handle the pressure they feel as "Pastors Kids"? And....the typical hijinks happen: they struggle with their new timer, proudly mention a sponsor and introduce a contest worth $5,000!

SYM Show: Kid Stuff

On this week's episode, Jason and Kurt talk about their own approach to raising kids as youth workers. Should you give your own kids special privileges? Should you take them to youth group events? How do you handle the pressure they feel as "Pastors Kids"? And....the typical hijinks happen: they struggle with their new timer, proudly mention a sponsor and introduce a contest worth $5,000!

Random Randomness

- Simply Youth Ministry has a great special TODAY ONLY on a couple of student leadership resources by Dan Webster…who always produces great leadership stuff. Check it out!

- Today as I drove into the parking lot of a coffee shop, I found myself (why, I’m not sure) feeling a little bit discouraged. Mostly just a sour, moping attitude. Walking through the parking lot, I glanced into a car to see a young man asleep in his passenger seat. By the makeshift housing he had turned his car into, it was obvious he had been displaced for a little while. Holy Spirit gut check. I’m a turd.

- Even though the NY Jets are participating in what is called “Jets West” at a local high school, I purposely decided NOT to go and try to talk to Tebow….for two reasons:
1. A 46 year old man working that hard to talk to a professional athlete feels a bit odd.
2. Seeing him from a distance wouldn’t satisfy me….and I would find myself tempted to participate in the above-mentioned oddness.

- My last post was about our first-ever worship together weekend at Saddleback. Since writing it, I’ve received a few stories from people on our youth team….including:
* We talked to a mom and her teenage son who have attended our church faithfully for six years. It was the FIRST time in all those years the teenager had ever stepped foot in the worship center!
* One of our regional campuses got a brand new youth volunteer who didn’t really know we had a youth ministry until she saw all the teenagers in the auditorium.She saw kids greeting, helping lead worship etc. and decided she should help out!
* One of our small group leaders was on vacation, but during the service a few of his guys sent him text messages saying that being in “big church” was fun, they enjoyed it, etc.

- In October I’m speaking at a youth ministry conference in Germany. Yesterday Rachel and I met with one of the organizers of the event to get some details. Listening to this guy describe the church and youth ministry culture in Germany got me really excited about being part of what God is doing over there.

Things Are Getting Sticky At Saddleback!

Like most youth workers I have been wrestling with the reality that too many of the students who are highly involved in the church as teenagers fade away after high school or college graduation.I’ve been completely turned off by the hyperbole and rhetoric surrounding the issue. I often wonder if some of the voices in this conversation are more interested in being edgy and controversial than they are about realistically trying to help churches navigate the issue. I say “realistically”, because that is what is missing in so much of the pontificating; realistic approaches.

“Quit doing things the old way…it’s okay to get fired from your church” Say people not employed by a church.
“Tell your 65 year old Pastor that his way of measuring success is outdated!” Say the people who don’t work for a 65 year old pastor.

And the un-realistic advice goes on and on and on and on and on……mostly proposed by folks who don’t have a ton to lose when some 24-year old youth worker actually tries one of their ideas in a real-life church scenario.

That’s a long introduction to a blog post!And a long introduction to why I’m so thankful to Kara Powell and the folks at the Fuller Youth Institute for their Sticky Faith research and resources!Kara, as somebody not employed by a church and somebody with a platform to build and resources to sell, could very easily have gone the “The Youth Ministry Sky Is Falling….Run For Your Lives!” route, but she didn’t.Instead, F.Y.I. took a healthy, research-driven approach to a problem that all of us are vitally concerned about.

This weekend Saddleback took a massive step in the right direction…an attempt to begin to break down the silo between our youth ministry and the rest of the church…an attempt to get some sort of multi-generational shoulder rubbing happening. It wasn’t revolutionary, and it will certainly get a few yawns and eye-rolls from those who think we are in some sort of Youth Ministry Armageddon, but it was a big deal to us; and one I’m actually quite proud of and excited about.

Saddleback has always been a “one hour” church in which everybody goes to church for one service or program….the adults go to big church, the kids go to kids church and the teenagers go to youth church. Then everybody meets in the car and goes to lunch together. Obviously, especially in light of knowing what we have all come to know in the past couple of years, this completely segregated approach to church isn’t the healthiest of models.

But what do you do when that paradigm is a primary reason the church grew to 20,000 people?
What do you do when it is one of the reasons the youth ministry has grown to over 2,000 teenagers?
What do you do when your church just built a $20 million youth facility…a bigger, better “silo”?
What do you do when your worship center is so packed there isn’t room for teenagers?

Seriously. I’m wondering what the voices calling for “radical change” would really do if they were in this scenario?

Here’s what I did:

- About a year ago, I started really digging into the Sticky Faith research and asking myself some tough questions.
- About 10 months ago, I started using my allotted “report back” time in our executive meetings to share some of my learnings, to let the senior leadership of my church know that I saw some changes on the horizon.
- About 6 months ago, I suggested the radical idea (radical in our setting) of taking tangible steps to get our teenagers more involved in the overall life of the church.These ideas included combined missions trips, ministry teams, discipleship classes, etc.
- At the same time, I suggested the idea of creating a monthly “Worship Together Weekend”. I pitched the idea that on the first full weekend of every month we cancel our JH and HS church services, completely shut down our youth building and encourage families to go to “big church” together.In essence I proposed that we spend 25% of our time NOT doing the type of ministry that our church has been built upon.

Our executive team…and more importantly, Pastor Rick Warren…bit on the idea. And as a result, this past weekend was our first “Worship Together Weekend”. This weekend everybody CRAMMED into the worship center together…and it was awesome!We had teenagers sprinkled into the adult worship team, our youth staff was roaming around meeting parents who had never stepped foot into our youth building, Pastor Rick wrote a message that somehow managed to be perfect for everybody in the room, and asked me and our college Pastor to help deliver it.

I think this is my longest post ever.But that’s because it’s the result of over a year’s worth of reading, praying, dreaming, debating and wondering.

Contrary to what the folks typing away on blogs, writing in magazines or creating fake documentaries say, those of you neck-deep in the trenches of local church youth ministry don’t have to do anything radical or risk your job to influence healthy change in your church. Keep doing what your doing, and prayerfully ask God if there might be some things that need to be adjusted in order to be more effective in bearing long-term fruit (which is what this is all about). Be aware of your church culture, and boldly move forward in the direction you feel God is nudging you!

And if that results in your firing….so be it. Just don’t get fired doing something some dude(s) you’ve never met, who has no idea of your church context and culture, and has nothing to lose when you lose your position or paycheck wants you to do!

SYM Show: When Pigs Fly

In this jam-packed episode Jason swings and misses, We discover who wins the "How Much Will Spider Man Make On Opening Day?" contest, A new contest worth $5,000 is started, the guys sport some sweet SWAG from a sponsor and read some emails from the Youth Ministry Nation. You might be thinking to yourself, "there's no way this all happens in twelve(ish) minutes. You would be wrong....especially if you take the "ISH" into consideration!

SYM Show: When Pigs Fly

In this jam-packed episode Jason swings and misses, We discover who wins the "How Much Will Spider Man Make On Opening Day?" contest, A new contest worth $5,000 is started, the guys sport some sweet SWAG from a sponsor and read some emails from the Youth Ministry Nation. You might be thinking to yourself, "there's no way this all happens in twelve(ish) minutes. You would be wrong....especially if you take the "ISH" into consideration!

The Middle School Ministry Campference…You Going?

This upcoming October, you have the opportunity to be part of something unique and very special. Mark Oestreicher’s Youth Cartel will host its second annual Middle School Ministry Campference…and it promises to be fantastic!

I was there last year, and I will be there again. And while part of the reason for my involvement and enthusiasm is because Marko is a good friend, I’d be there regardless! Why? Because I’ve never experienced a better event for people of our “middle school ministry tribe” to connect with, learn from, sharpen and encourage one another. The size (probably just north of 100 or so) makes it just big enough to feel like an event, but small enough for intimacy, conversation, and friendship to foster.

Plus, we do all sorts of “campy” things like zip lines, paintball, camp fires etc.  If you have ever wondered what it would be like to go to junior high camp WITHOUT the junior highers, this is your chance!

Below is a link to a fun little video The Youth Cartel put together to promo the event. Will you consider joining us in October?

Campference

SYM Show: Valuing Volunteers

Jason and Kurt discuss the ongoing challenge of caring for and encouraging volunteers. Also, is there such a thing as "organically organized"? And why can't Kurt name one Supertones song?

SYM Show: Valuing Volunteers

Jason and Kurt discuss the ongoing challenge of caring for and encouraging volunteers. Also, is there such a thing as "organically organized"? And why can't Kurt name one Supertones song?

Are You Teachable?

What makes somebody “teachable”?

In my experience there are two primary attributes of somebody who is teachable….who truly wants to learn and grow.

1) Somebody who is curious, and asks lots of good questions. They KNOW they need to learn and use the answers to those questions to propel themselves forward.

2) Somebody who allows others to speak into their life through exhortation, encouragement, correction, coaching etc. even when they aren’t asking any questions….when they don’t KNOW they need to learn! Yet they use these moments to propel themselves forward.

Attribute #1 is easy. Obviously some folks are more inquisitive, and better at asking questions, but almost everybody enjoys learning life lessons and having teachable moments that they initiated!

Attribute #2 is tough. And I’d make the argument that you aren’t truly teachable unless you have the ability to learn when you aren’t expecting to. To be open to correction you didn’t know you needed. To be coached in areas you thought you had already mastered. To be pushed in directions you don’t think you want (or need) to go. To learn from people who don’t know as much as you do.

Chances are the older, more experienced, more educated and more “successful” you are….the less teachable you are, too. While this is natural, it doesn’t make sense. In the fast-paced, ever-changing world of ministry leaders simply can’t afford to quit learning.What I’ve discovered about so many of my youth ministry friends…and about myself…is that while we are quick to ask questions and learn stuff we WANT to learn, we are sometimes a little slower to become truly teachable.