Archive for January, 2009

Youth ministry is different in different parts of the world. That shouldn’t be any big surprise. Youth ministry is different in two churches in the same town. However, are there some things youth leaders are trying to accomplish in churches all over the world? My Ph.D. research has been focused on that question.

Over 110 youth leaders in 29 countries on six continents agree that these seven statements are essential objectives for youth ministry:

1. Lead youth to repent and turn to faith in Christ for their salvation.
2. Disciple youth to follow Christ in every area of their lives.
3. Teach youth to see Christianity as a relationship with Jesus Christ.
4. Guide youth to spend time with Jesus in prayer and Bible study as a way of developing their relationship with him.
5. Guide youth to build faith that will last for a lifetime.
6. Disciple youth to the point that they can disciple others.
7. As youth leaders, be honest, genuine, and sincere in relating to youth.

Perhaps these essentials are good things for us to invest ourselves in as we minister to youth in small churches.

The youth group in a small church can really seem like a big family. When students bring boyfriends and girlfriends from other churches, it can be fun. However, when students in the youth group start dating each other, it can be a challenge. When there are only a few kids in the group, how does it affect the group when two of them start dating each other?

On the one hand, students in the youth group dating each other is a positive thing. We encourage students to date believers, and the youth group is the best place for them to meet other Christians.

On the other hand, there can be some challenges for the small youth group when group members start dating each other.

Challenge 1: When students are dating, they may separate themselves from the rest of the group.They may pay less attention to their other friends in the group, leading some students to feel left out or frustrated.

Challenge 2: When students who have been dating break up, it can create some real discomfort for them . . . and for others in the group. One of the students may decide not to be involved in the youth group because the other is there.

What do you do when kids in the youth group are dating? The relationship may be over before you find out about it. In many cases, the relationship won’t have much affect on the youth group. However, if you find that a dating relationship is having some negative affect on your youth group, here are some thoughts to keep in mind.

1. Encourage them to continue to spend time with their other friends in the youth group and not focus all of their attention on the person they are dating.
2. It is usually best not to encourage or discourage a relationship. Encouraging kids to break up can end up with neither student trusting you. Affirm biblical principles for relationships . . . and listen.
3. Teach appropriate ways to relate to a person they are dating, but avoid embarrassing them in the group. Generally, using kids who are dating as examples of how to date . . . or how not to . . . is a bad idea.
4. Be available to both students. Avoid taking sides in a relationship.

Add your ideas: What problems have you encountered with students in the youth group dating? How would you suggest youth leaders deal with these relational issues? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Note: Because of the prevalence of online spam, all comments have to be approved before they will be posted.

I read this quote by Henri Nouwen this week: “Solitude in prayer is not privacy. And the differences between privacy and solitude are profound. Privacy is our attempt to insulate the self from interference; solitude leaves the company of others for a time in order to listen to them more deeply. . . . Private prayers are selfish and thin; prayer in solitude enrolls in a multi-voiced, century-layered community.”*

I was raised on John Wayne movies. In those movies you tend to learn that real heroes don’t need anyone. They just live their lives on their own terms. When I read about Jesus heading into the mountains for some private prayer time, it makes sense to me. Even Jesus needed to get away from the crowds of yapping people.

We do need solitude. If the only prayer time we get is when we are surrounded by a noisy group of middle schoolers, we are not going to be very strong spiritually. But solitude is not about shutting out the noise. It’s not about finding our “me time.” Solitude is about doing the hard work of prayer to line ourselves up with God so that we have something to offer the ones Jesus has sent us to minister to. It is about hearing from the King of kings so that we can touch the lives of his children with his hands.

If that is really solitude, I wonder how well we practice it. For me, it needs some work.

* Henri Nouwen, Christianity Today (April 5, 1985, page 32). Quoted in Mark DeVries, Family-Based Youth Ministry, revised and expanded. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

It’s hard to lead a discussion when you are the only one talking. What do you do when youth just won’t talk?

How you deal with this depends a lot on what is happening in your class. Ask yourself: Why is the group quiet?

• Maybe they are just a rare group of introverted kids. They aren’t talking because they are quiet by nature. It is frustrating for you and for your students when you try to make introverts behave like extroverts. Watch the kids in other situations. Are they quiet when they are in the hallway? Are the quiet when you see them at Starbuck’s or school functions? If so, then you just need to learn to teach in other ways besides discussion. Try using more pen and paper activities. Engage them in drawing illustrations. When you ask them to pray, suggest that they pray silently or use one spoken word to sum up their prayers.
• Maybe they are bored. Sometimes kids figure if they just stay quiet, you will hurry up and get finished. If they seem like they are bored, trying kicking the lesson off with things that will capture their attention. Get them playing a game or doing some kind of simulation. Invite them into a little good-natured competition. Get them telling you stories about their lives that you can use as a springboard into the lesson. Above all, be quick to laugh. Nothing beats boredom quicker than laughter.
• Maybe they don’t trust each other well enough to stick their necks out and answer one of your questions. No one likes to be embarrassed by giving something that turns out to be a stupid answer. Combine the sense of most teenagers that everyone is looking at them with their developing minds, and offering opinions or deductions can be very scary. If this seems to be the case with your group, spend more time with group building and affirmation tools. Get them to work together to overcome an obstacle. Or ask them to share what they most admire about each person in the group. As they start to feel safer in the room, it will be easier for them to open up and talk.

On the other hand, maybe your students are willing to answer, but you don’t really give them enough time. I think a lot of discussion in Youth Bible Study goes like this:

Teacher: Why did Jesus have to die?
Student (thinking): I think the answer is that he was going to save us from our sins. Isn’t that what the Bible says. I’m pretty sure that’s the answer.
Teacher: Anyone?
Student (still thinking): No one else is answering. Maybe that means the answer is harder than that. I bet I’ve got it wrong.
Teacher: It was to save us from our sins, wasn’t it?
Student nods.

Students may have to think a question through, then buck up the courage to voice their answer. Sometimes you just need to wait.

Teacher: Why did Jesus have to die?
Student (thinking): I think the answer is that he was going to save us from our sins. Isn’t that what the Bible says. I’m pretty sure that’s the answer.
Teacher: What do you think?
Student (still thinking): No one else is answering. Maybe that means the answer is harder than that. I bet I’ve got it wrong. I’m pretty sure that is the answer, but what if I’m wrong?
Teacher: Why did he have to die?
Student (thinking): Well, let’s give it a whirl. No one else it saying anything. (finally speaking) I think it was to save us from our sins.
Teacher: Yes, exactly. Do you see how important that is?
Student (thinking): Wow, I’m pretty cool. Did you hear that? I got it ‘exactly.’”

If students think you are going to break down and give them the answer, they will probably not venture a thought. But, if you give them time to think about the answer, formulate it into words, and then gather the courage to speak up, you may get some real discussion started.

Ever have one of those times when only two kids show up for your fun night? Awful, right? Well, maybe not.

A fun time with two students can be fun, but you will have to throw out all of those games that have kids break up into teams of four. Here are a couple of ideas that have been around a while, but you can play them anywhere with no set-up . . . and they work with two kids.

1. Play Thumb Wars. Two people interlock the fingers of their right hands with thumbs sticking up. Then, each person tries to “pin” the thumb of his or her opponent using only their thumb. First one to hold the thumb of the other down for the count of three wins.
2. Play a giant game of Dots. Cover a page with dots that align in rows and columns. Each player places a line between two adjoining dots, either up and down or side to side. (No horizontal lines.) Any time a player creates a box, he or she puts an initial in the box and gets a point. The object of the game is to keep from leaving three sides of a box for your opponent. You can do it on the back of an envelope or on a giant sheet of paper on the wall.
3. Play the Double Letter game. This is a guessing game that works best if students don’t know the game. Begin by saying two related things. The first one has a double letter, the second doesn’t. For example, It’s apples but not oranges, or It’s rabbits but not hares. Each student should offer an example. Tell them if they are right and wrong. Keep going around the circle of three until they figure it out.
4. Going to the Moon. Like the game above, this is a guessing game. Each person says, “I’m going to the moon and I’m going to take . . . ” and they complete the sentence with something that begins with their first initial. Keep going until they both figure it out.
5. Hangman. Come up with a title (like a book or movie) or a person’s name and draw a space for every letter. Make sure to separate words. Draw a gallows and allow the kids to take turns guessing letters. If the letter exists in your title, write it in. If it doesn’t, begin drawing the person who is being hanged. When the head, body, both arms and both legs are drawn, they hang. If someone guesses the answer, he or she wins.
6. Boggle. If you don’t have the board game, just write a list of seven random letters and give students a minute to write as many words as they can with those letters.

So, anyone have great games to play with two kids? If so, add them in a comment below.

The Bible has a lot to say about discipleship. Jesus gives us some great pictures of discipleship as he teaches, guides, and equips his closest followers. Paul models discipleship for us in powerful ways as we examine his relationships with people like Timothy and Titus. But, I’m convinced John the Baptizer demonstrates the most important issue in discipleship.

In John 1, we meet two disciples of John the Baptist. Apparently, they had traveled from their homes to learn from John as he called people to repentence along the Jordan River. One of them was Andrew. The other is not identified, but some writers have suggested it was John himself. These two disciples were with the Baptizer when Jesus walked by. “Look,” John told them, “the Lamb of God.” And the two fellows left John and ended up spending the day with Jesus.

Everything changed for them in that day. Andrew left, found his brother, and told him, “We have found the Messiah.” I don’t know what happened as Andrew and the othe disciple of the Baptizer talked to Jesus, but by the end of that day, they were no longer disciples of John; they were disciples of Jesus.

John understood that disciple-making was not about gathering disciples to himself. It was about pointing disciples to Jesus. In a selfless way, John sacrificed his own following. He sent his disciples–the guys he was teaching about kingdom life–to Jesus.

As a youth leader, my job is not to build a great following for myself, my youth ministry, or my church. The truth is, I want students to connect with me. I want to be part of my discipleship groups and Bible studies. I want them to want to be at my church. I don’t know why, but sometimes Jesus takes students I have invested in, and he places them in other ministries to serve and grow. Sometimes students I work hard to connect with don’t ever connect with me. Another leader (in our church or somewhere else) is able to capture their attention. The point is, they are not my discples. My job is not to grow them to be Christian adults. My job is to faithfully lead them to Jesus . . . who can supply all they need.

Ever feel like you are beating your head against the wall in youth ministry? I know I do. You invest your time and energy in the youth group and you just don’t see any change. You start to wonder if it is time to give up.

Here’s my latest analogy. God blessed me with the opportunity to attend the International Association for the Study of Youth Ministry meeting in England this month. Since I have friends in Scotland, I flew into Glasgow and trained down to Cambridge for the meeting. I found a cheap train ticket on the Internet and booked it without looking at it too close. So, I left Glasgow on a train to York. I got to York at about midnight and had a lay-over of almost four hours. It was freezing cold and I couldn’t find any place in the station to get warm. So, I got creative. I wandered into a nearby hotel; the night manager had pity on me and let me sit there for a few hours. (It felt a little like a “no room at the inn” story.) At 3:50 A.M. I got back on the train . . . this time to Leeds. You would think I went to sleep, but I was so concerned about missing the stop that I kept my eyes open. At Leeds, I had a 30-minute layover and boarded a train bound for Peterborough. I had about an hour at the Peterborough Station, but I knew I was about to board the final train to Cambridge. I started feeling pretty good. So good that I boarded a train headed the wrong way and ended up in Stamford. The conductor was helpful and suggested I train to Ely and then connect into Cambridge.

Okay, so what does this prove except that I am a total idiot when it comes to travel? Well, I made it to the conference. I made it because of two things: I knew where I was going and I didn’t give up.

Youth ministry is like that. You need to know where you are going. I think that means three primary things for those of us in youth ministry in a small church:

1. You want to see your kids become mature followers of Christ.
2. You want to develop a community of faith that reaches out to lost kids and builds up the saved kids.
3. You want to see the kingdom of God advance by making the love of Christ known in words and actions.

None of that will happen overnight. There will be sleepless nights. There will be times you get on the wrong train. There will be missed opportunities and mismanaged relationships.

But don’t give up.

Be faithful and trust God and he will work through you.

What does it take to be a leader with youth? In his simple little book, Next Generation Leader, Andy Stanley said leadership involves five things and they all begin with “C.” This guy is definitely a preacher.

Here is his list:

1. Competence—Stanley suggests that we focus on our strengths and find other people to do the things we aren’t good at. That’s not always easy in a small church. We all have to be the Jack-of-all-trades. But try to spend most of the time you devote to the youth group doing the things you love to do. If you love to teach, get someone else to plan the events. If you love hanging out and loving on kids, start looking for someone else to prepare the lessons.
2. Courage—Stanley says that courage is not the lack of fear but the willingness to act despite our fear.
3. Clarity—Stanley says leaders have to be willing to choose a direction and lead even when the situation is full of uncertainty. Not a bad definition of youth ministry.
4. Coaching—According to Stanley, every leader needs a coach, someone to whom he or she listens. Sometimes it is hard to know how to work with youth. We all need someone to help us process what is happening in the youth ministry and see how our actions are helping . . . or hurting.
5. Character—Here is Stanley’s definition of character: “the will to do what’s right even when it’s hard” (p. 135). Of course, our character is not only revealed by how we interact with youth, but how we handle the relationship with the pastor, how we deal with co-workers at the office, and how we manage our families.

Not a bad list. The fact that someone gave you the job of youth leader at the church doesn’t necessarily make you a leader youth follow. I think students will follow a leader that challenges their thinking, inspires their hearts, and affirms them as human beings. They follow a leader they can trust to love them and tell them the truth. I think Stanley’s short list is worth considering as we seek to be the kind of leaders God has called us to be with young people.