Foundational Summer Priorities

Summer is rapidly approaching. Typically, for youth ministries, this means summer camps, mission trips, pool parties, etc.

Am I missing something?

It’s never easy to plan summer ministry. Family vacations and sports camps take teenagers away for weeks at a time. This shouldn’t keep you from planning weekly venues where you can connect with kids, but it should prompt you to think about where your time is best spent.

Summer can be a prime time to accomplish 3 Foundational Ministry Practices:

One-on-one Time with Students
Summer often provides the freedom in student’s calendars to just “hang out.” Use this opportunity to “hang out” with them. Let every one of your volunteers know that this is priority-one for the summer. This can be a time where your whole team of adults can invite teenagers to connect in settings that are both fun and provoke face-to-face conversation. Isn’t you atat ministry is all about?

Recruiting Adult Volunteers
Conducting ministry with Young People takes a team approach. If you do not have other adult volunteers helping you, then that should be your top priority this summer. It’s a simple fact: it would be much easier to put adult mentors in one-on-one situations with teenagers if you actually had more adult mentors. Summer is a great time to recruit workers for the harvest (Matthew 9: 37,38). How? Simple. Just give them a taste of ministry. Invite potential adult volunteers to accompany you as you make one-on-one connections with your Young People. Once they get a taste of what all is involved you’d be surprised how easy it is to get them to commit to a year of working with you.

Gathering Student Leaders
As you are spending time with your students during the summer, keep an eye open for the students that   are ready to use their gifts and do ministry. This will probably be a small group, may be even 1 or 2 students that you identify, but that is okay. Not everyone is called to be a leader and to do ministry. While we might offer opportunities for all students to serve, identifying student leaders who will take seriously the responsibility of leadership is something very different. If we look to the example of Jesus we can see this time and time again. Serving helps people temporarily. Ministry allows God to work through us and make a difference for eternity.

This is Discipleship

If you're wanting a simple explanation of what discipleship is all about check out this YouTube video. I think that says it all!

Relational Ministry

Relational ministry might be described as any step toward building a relationship with a student in your ministry. It could be a big step, it could be small—either way, it's simply the effort toward truly living in community and sharing life together.

Ministry with young people should be known for this! Students that are a part of your ministry are there to be known, loved, and cared for. All of these things take time—and time is what we can offer that the world (and too often, parents) isn't giving. 

Relational ministry takes time—but not as much as you might think. Here is a list in order of significance for you to follow.

Be Present - going to a student’s sporting event or school performance such as a band concert or play is major. Other colleagues of mine see this as an opportunity to have a date night with their significant other. The key is staying and making sure that the student knows that you were there.

Talk with Them - in a world of texting and emailing it’s often nice to hear someone’s voice. Take five minutes and give the student a call to check in with how their week is going. This will mean a lot to the student but also to the students family that you care enough to individually call them and ask how their day was.

Send Handwritten Notes - this may sound old-school, but everyone including my 18 month old daughter loves to receive mail. The art of writing a handwritten note is going by the wayside, however, for certain students this could mean the world. Whenever I receive a handwritten note from someone I cherish it, and so will your students.

Connect Through Social Media - if you are not Facebook friends with your students, you should be. If they have a twitter account, you should be following them. From time to time write an encouraging word on their wall or send them a direct message through twitter. You could also use other social media platforms like Insta Graham, Interest and others. This takes very little time but this is the world in which most students live and to see that they have an adult who understands the media and uses it, shows that you care about meeting them WHERE THEY ARE.

Text message them - I’m not talking about a mass text that you sent to all your students, rather, a personal text just to them so that they know that you are thinking about them. Again, text messaging is where most young people live today and it youth and young adult workers are not using that media, we will quickly become irrelevant.

I would offer you this challenge. This week try to begin a habit of relationship building with your students. Relationships are the hardest and most time-consuming part of the Young People’s Ministry, however, I would argue that it is the most important.

PS: don’t forget to encourage your leaders as well. 

So… You’re Going on a Mission Trip This Summer

One of the key spiritual growth engines in a youth ministry is helping students serve-and one of the great ways to get a concentrated burst in that area is to take your students on our short-term mission trip. I led lots of different trips over the years and I’ve learned a few things that I’d like to pass on.

Crawl, Walk, and Run - If possible, design your missions opportunities into 3 steps for students at various spiritual commitment levels. Do a local mission opportunity (Food Drive-one afternoon, easy, free). A long weekend/extended school break trip (4 days, higher cost, some travel). A global trip (international travel, 11 days, very high cost). Doing these incremental steps gives various students and parents options as to how committed both financially and timewise they are to mission opportunities.

Work the Cost for Leaders into the Cost per Student-A common question is what do you do about leaders cost, especially when budgets are tight-if you’re fortunate to have access to one in the first place. Several churches that I’m aware of work the leaders cost into the price of the missions trip, team or event. We don’t like asking our volunteers to pay to minister alongside students on a big event like a missions trip, because they are probably already taking hard earned vacation time. That’s just one philosophy… Yours may very.

Don’t Get Lost in Fundraising - Speaking of money, aggressively plan the price for the trip so that you don’t take the joy out of the trip by getting lost in fundraising help. It would be better to take a trip that cost less rather than getting stuck with a huge bill that can only be satisfied by 432 car washes and bake sales. Finding creative ways to fund raise will help take a lot of the burden off of taking a big trip. (Fundraising is a blog article in and of itself)

Bring the Family - If you have a family and it is appropriate I highly encourage you to incorporate your family on your mission trip. While your kids may be too young for the trip, they can learn a lot by watching other students in missions. Plus, it gives you some good family time together and an experience that could change your family’s life forever.

These are just a few of the things that I’ve learned, what would you add to this list?

Beg, Borrow or Steal Ideas

Where do you get your ideas for ministry? For me I use a variety of ways, here are a few.

Borrow - Use a local church youth pastor network to get a hold of some great ideas or resources. Challenge everyone to email around their latest series or start a shared drop box of goodies for everyone to borrow from regularly. Don’t be afraid to borrow a great event idea from someone else, or use a resource that seems outside of the norm for your group-you might just stumble onto something that really works well.

Beg-this is really just an extension of “borrow.” Have you noticed that some folks just aren’t as generous with their ideas and ministry tips as others? If your first attempt at borrowing and isn’t met with the enthusiasm you hope for… crank it up a notch! When someone has information you know your ministry needs, be like the persistent widow and beg until you get what you need!

Steal-I don’t mean literally going into a store and stealing items off the shelf. What I mean to say is taking an idea without their permission. Personally, all of my information is up for grabs. I’m honored when someone steals an idea from me, that’s why I do what I do. I realize that not everyone is as open and as generous as I am, so you need to be careful. If you steal an idea, at least give credit to where you got the idea. Most often the person you stole it from, will see it as a form of flattery. Furthermore, I have never stolen an idea that I haven’t had to tweak in some way or another to make it work in my particular setting.

"Do's" and "Don'ts" of Young People's Ministry

Here is a short list of some “Do’s” and Don’ts” that I have learned in doing ministry with young people:

DON'T Be Ignorant of Your Perception - Perception is reality and it is never more true than when we apply it to young People’s ministry. Know your reputation, know your weaknesses, and work to get better on the stuff you fail at. Don’t get blindsided by things you could have avoided.

DO the Basics- Youth ministry isn’t rocket science. In fact, some of the most important parts of a healthy youth ministry are actually quite simple: learning the names of your students, following up on newcomers, visiting sick students who are in the hospital, sending birthday cards, remembering to follow-up on prayer requests, etc. I’ve also heard this referred to it as “Paying the Rent.”

DON'T Miss the Small Things - be on time. Fill the church van back up with gas. Let someone know about the problem before they stumble onto it. Cleanup the youth room. Pick up the trash as you walk in from the parking lot. There are lots of people in the congregation who will notice the small things. If you do them well it will gain you big equity.

DO Work with Parents - Kurt Johnson of Simple Youth Ministry has a favorite saying, “If parents are for you, who can be against you?” When you are doing ministry with young people you’re also doing ministry with their parents. Keeping the parents informed with proper communication, loving their children as though they were your own, and having a transparent ministry where parents are not afraid to ask questions of the youth leadership are all key ingredients to working well with parents.

DON'T Avoid Difficult Things - Follow up with that parent who might have a problem with something the young People’s ministry did. Don’t leave someone hanging. Report major problems to the leadership structure of the church as well as the authorities (problems don’t just disappear). Receive criticism well and be a learner (everyone hates a know it all!)

DO Get out of the Church - As strange as it may be, many youth ministries focus on the young people with-in the congregation, while neglecting the hundreds of young people who are in the community where the church is located. Many of these young people outside the church are the ones in the greatest of need. Having an active outreach to young people who are not affiliated with your church is key. It lets the community know that you care about the young people not just in your church community, but in the community at large. If you have the opportunity to get involved in local schools through organizations like Young Life and Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) I would highly encourage it.