Thinking Inside the Box

We constantly hear that we need to, "think outside the box." Looking for the latest and greatest innovative program out there on the market to increase the size and scope and reach of our ministry. While this might need to occur, sometimes what you really need is tried and true, solid stuff. Stuff that is actually totally inside the box.

Ask yourself these questions as you look at planning the season ahead:

1) What has worked really well in the past year?

2) What is "classic" that would be fun to revive?

3) What were people talking about after last summer?

4) What is MY favorite event of the year?

5) Where did we see the most life change in the last season?

6) What is easy to plan but brings the ministry a big win?

Don't ever forget that the church was built around "Tradition." If we lose what we traditionally do for the latest and greatest, we might be doing more harm than good.

How To Plan a Programming/Teaching Calendar

Planning is key to any successful Young People’s Ministry program. A lot of people think that you can just throw something together and that that’s good enough, however, what I have found that the old adage is true “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Here are a few suggestions to get you started on planning a programming/teaching calendar.

Consider Working in “Thirds” - break down your calendar into categories. One example might be: 1) Christian Education; 2) Life Skills; 3) Felt Need. By doing this you will balance your programming/teaching calendar so that you do not focus on any one category too much.

Consider Series/Themes - if you’re leading a program or teaching a Bible study or Small Group choose a series that you will follow for 3 to 6 weeks. A lot of research has been done that the ideal timeframe for a series is no greater than 6 weeks. There are a few exceptions (confirmation class, disciple Bible study, etc.) but for the most part determining theme/series for a season of time is helpful. If you get really good at it you can plan a whole year in advance.

The most important thing to remember about planning is not to get lost in the plan. It is okay to get off schedule. The planning just helps you kind of like a roadmap. It helps students, parents and other leaders know where you are going so that they can plan their lives accordingly.

What do you think is the most important thing when it comes to planning ?

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?

What Would You Do with $1,000,000?

I love sitting down with a team of youth and young adult leaders and encouraging them to think about the future of their ministry. I encourage them to dream big and be as creative as possible as they come up with their ideas. A standard question that I use to get the discussion started is the following:

If we had $1,000,000 to put in to your youth or young adult ministry, what would you do?

The limitless potential allows our brains to not be constrained to logistics and cost, but rather frees them to come up with things that are exceptional and crazy! I make a rule that no idea is wrong, and we just throw out ideas, suggestions and dreams one after another. With a limitless budget and possibilities our minds can go anywhere; and they do, and this is the core of the creative process. It is so important the realists hold back, as the creative dreaming process relies on freedom and safety to say anything!

After 20 to 30 minutes of shooting ideas back and forth the group typically starts to focus in on one or two ideas that can be developed that are not too expensive or a liability nightmare. Often times thinking creatively with no limits will foster ideas that are free or nearly free and you will be blown away by what your team comes up with.

 Coming up with new events, games, skits, and activities does not have to rest on your shoulders. Involve your team and you will be amazed at what they come up with.

So what would you do with $1,000,000

Resource Review: What Did I Sign Up For?

As summer winds down it's a perfect opportunity to do some practical training for your youth mentors and/or volunteers. A great resource that I found to do this is a program called "What Did I Sign Up For?" By Chris Folmsbee. To help you better understand the program I've highlighted the pros and cons that this program has to offer.

Pros

It’s Systematic - What I mean by that is that it deals with training in a very logical step-by-step way. It sets the foundation for learning and gives some practical and programming ideas that can be easily employed by any size youth or young adult program.

It's Interactive - This program is DVD based with the author actually leading the sessions. Each session is not too long and can easily be incorporated into a regular volunteer meeting throughout the year.

It's Makes the Training Relevant to your Situation - a lot of training programs that I have reviewed and used don't take into consideration that every church is different. This one does. And if I might add, does it quite well. It allows you to take the concepts that are thought and helps you process what you're learning and what it will look like in your particular context.

Cons

It's Too Long - if I have one complaint about this program is that it is way too long. Unless you were doing this as a retreat, it will take you nearly half the year to go through this program. You can take bits and pieces of the program but to get the full impact of what it has to teach you really need to do the whole program. However, the 20 sessions that it requires I believe is too long for most volunteers.

Conclusion

I would definitely recommend this program even though it’s long in length. The principles it teaches and the way it helps you relate it back to your specific situation is great. There is another bonus as well, it's not that expensive. So if you're looking for instances way to train your nervous volunteers and/or mentors I would highly recommend this program. If your church is within the Susquehanna Conference of the United Methodist Church, you can borrow the program from our resource center Discovery Place (discovery-place.org)

The Importance of Summer Young People's Ministry

Summer can be one of the most influential seasons in ministry—here’s why I love it and why your summer activities matter so much.

Plan things to be ultra-relational.
Summer activities are an excuse to hang out with students. Take advantage of that opportunity. Dial down the program and work hard to create space for conversations and real life to be exposed. You might be surprised how the barriers come down when it isn’t over-programmed. Keep a journal and at the end of summer it will be exciting to see how God worked.

Make sure you make some “me” time.
This is really important! If you’re not careful, you could plan out every waking minute of the summer and end up burned out by August. You have to set a priority and limit for yourself. You need any kind of ministry, there is always one more person to help, one more event to plan, or one more phone call to make. Don’t make this mistake; usually youth workers make it once and learn from it.

Embrace the change of pace.
When things change, people pay more attention. When you shake things up over the summer you’ve got a chance to be creative in your teaching style, or give guest speakers a new voice to your students (and we don’t mean expensive guest speakers…we mean student leaders, the dad with a cool testimony, etc.). Don’t let the summer be the same old thing—time to experiment!

Summer activities build momentum for the kickoff of the school year.
A great summer makes for a great fall—work hard to invest in your people this summer and the returns will last until Christmas.

(I got some these ideas from a weekly e-mail that I get about youth and young adult ministry)

Planning A Great Summer Calendar

Here are a few great tips to have a great summer youth ministry program.

Plan Ahead - Here’s some good news right up front: If you’re thinking about summer now, you’re in good shape. Next year, start even earlier! If you plan in advance, even in broad strokes, it will greatly improve the chances of your summer’s big ideas becoming a reality. Resist the false belief that waiting until the pressure is on makes you better—it doesn’t; it just makes you more frantic.

Change Things Up - Get out of the school year rhythms and programs and shake things up. Always have youth group inside? What about taking it "under the stars." Always have small group? Change it up and go with midweek Bible study. Some are allowed to try some new things and experiment in the short term effectively. If it doesn't work out, you don't have to keep doing it. You might even stumble onto something that will make your youth ministry even better.

Free is Always Better - Summer events can get very expensive. Try to find as many free or low-cost activities and programs that you can. Your parents will love you for it.

Focus on Central Event - Summer is a great opportunity to do a big event and get excitement for the fall. Summer music festivals, a weeklong camp are great examples of this.

If it Worked, Use it Again - If you did something in previous summers that was a hit, then bring it back. When I was in the local church my students loved going to this one Christian music festival. So every year we kept it on the schedule.

Borrow from Everyone Else - Why reinvent the wheel? Scour the Internet for youth ministry blogs, game ideas, tips and anything else you can find and use it. Ask members of your congregation about their favorite memories of things they did during the summer as a student, you might be able to re-create it.

Don't Forget Your Family - We had youth and young adult ministry spend a good bit of time in the summer running from one activity to the next. Take care of yourself and make time for your family. There is always one more ministry thing you can do, however, if you don't set boundaries you'll burn out and hurt the one’s you love the most.

Start Planning Your Back-to-School Event - I know this is supposed to be about summer calendaring, but if you don't make a plan now for the fall kickoff, your summer and winter may just swallow it whole. You don't have to plan every little detail, but you need to start getting an idea of what you want to do and make the necessary preparation in advance.

Maximize Relationships - Your students are out of school. If you spend your entire summer running yourself ragged, you're gonna miss that sweet one-on-one time that you can only get during the summer. Find a safe way that you can hang out with your students. Go out for ice cream or invite them to help with your planning. Don't miss this opportunity to form relationships that will pay big dividends later on.