Connecting With Young People

Young people crave relationships. The fastest way to make a connection with young people is to form a relationship with them. However, some people don't think they have the skills to know how to relate to young people. They often get tongue tied or feel awkward talking, so here is an easy acronym to remember when talking with the young person on how to connect with specific meanings in their life. The acronym is F.R.O.M. (as in "where are they from")

F stands for Friends - One of the easiest things to do to get to know young people and to make a connection with young people is to ask about their friends. Who are they? Where did they go to school? Do they go to our church? Etc. If you show an interest in who their friends are, it's an easy doorway into their lives.

R stands for Relatives - Another very important part of getting to know young person is knowing who their family is. Asking things like, who is their mother and father? Do you have living grandparents? Aunts and uncles?  You need to be careful in asking a lot of these questions because they may be embarrassed about the family they come from. They may come from a nontraditional family where they are being raised by a single parent or they maybe living with grandparents because their parents can't take care of them. But if you can find out this information in a nonthreatening way, it will tell you a lot about the young person and how better to relate to them.

O stands for Occupation - This can get a bit tricky because a lot of kids don't work, however there are kids who do work. If they work at a local restaurant, making time to visit the restaurant when they're working can be a great "in" to their lives. If they're too young to work, ask them about their hobbies or interests. Did they play sports? What sports did they play? Again if you can find out some of this information, you can use it by visiting them at a game or by making a connection with a particular hobby like hunting or fishing.

M stands for Memories - This gives you an opportunity to ask a young person about moments in their life. Examples could be a favorite holiday, a favorite vacation, a favorite place to eat, etc. This then gives you an opportunity for you to share one of your favorite memories. Maybe you have similar memories and you can make a very strong connection with a young person.

Now you don't have to go in order asking them first about their friends than about their relatives and so on. Nor do you have to cover all four in any one conversation. This acronym is only there to help you touch on various aspects of a young person's life when you are stuck with what you say. Have fun! Who knows you just might make a difference in a young person's life.

Bullying: Learning How to Love

When I was growing up, bullying was a problem in my community. I remember as a child being bullied after school or on the playground by other kids. But it seems that in recent years bullying has become an even greater problem and continues to get worse year after year. It used to be, that people only had to worry about being bullied when they were at school. But with the rise of mobile technology like cell phones, twitter and Facebook, bullying becomes a 24-hour, 7 days a week, 365 days a year event. Essentially, there is no safe place to escape being bullied.

This constant bombardment of bullying is known as "Cyber Bullying." Essentially, cyber bullying is having harmful statements or pictures posted to websites, Facebook pages, text messages, etc. The reason it is so pervasive is that in a matter of seconds by a simple touch of a button, hundreds of thousands of people are exposed to these harmful statements. No longer is bullying limited to a small community or school. Now bullying can be worldwide in a matter of seconds.  

I recently attended a training event sponsored by the United Methodist Church where the issue of bullying was discussed. One of the presenters lifted up a passage from the Bible which is commonly known as "The Golden Rule." This passage states, that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind and to love our neighbors as ourselves; the key being the last part love our neighbors as we love ourselves. I believe, and so did the presenter of this workshop, that bullying is on the rise because kids and adults are having difficulty loving themselves. It's as though they find themselves unlovable and to help lift themselves up, they tear others down.

We who work with children, youth and young adults can help by teaching people that they are loved by God and that they should love who they are. I have always believed that if you don't get anything else out of church, you should get the fact that we should be about loving others and ourselves. So if you know of those persons who are being bullied, surround them with your love and support as much as you can but most importantly remember bully, they need love too!

Game Ideas: Minute To Win It

One of the most difficult things to come up with in youth ministry is fresh new games for youth group to do. Well it seems that network television has come to our rescue. If you have not seen the show "Minute To Win It" on NBC, then you truly are missing a great opportunity to get some great ideas on fresh new games that you can play with any size group. I'm not the first to blog about this phenomenal program. In fact, if you were to type in Google “blogs on Minute To Win It”, you would probably end up with hundreds. So let me tell you just a little bit about the show.

Essentially it is a game show, modeled after the game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”, where contestants are invited to play a variety of different games in which they only have a minute to complete. If they complete it, they move on. The more games they complete the more money they win. What's great is that most of their games use simple household items that you can buy very cheaply and use (ideal for youth budgets.) What's also really neat about this game show is that it has an interactive website where you can play games as well. The show airs on Wednesday nights at 8 PM Eastern on NBC and if you are currently not watching it or DVRing it, I highly recommend. The website for the game is below and I hope you'll check it out.

http://www.nbc.com/minute-to-win-it/games/

Love Isn't Love, Till You Give It Away

Recently I've been listening to some old school Christian rock that I grew up with. Specifically, some old school Michael W Smith. (In case you're unaware of him, Michael W Smith is a Christian artist that had the height of his popularity in the late 80s and early 90s). One of the songs that I have been listening to is entitled “Give It Away” from his Change Your World album. A reoccurring line at the end of each verse is, "love isn't love until you give it away."

This song has got me thinking about our job as Christians specifically working with youth and young adults. Let's face it, there are some youth and young adults that are very trying and are very difficult to love. If I were truly honest, these individuals would be my least favorite to be around and I would look for any excuse not to be around them. But I am sure Jesus experienced the same with the people he dealt with in his ministry on earth. Not everyone that he formed a relationship with could have been easy to love, yet he did it all the same. Loving people who are easy to love, is no problem; we do that almost out of reflex. But loving those persons who are the hardest to love, can take great patience and skill.

Because one of the most important aspects of youth and young adult ministry is forming relationships with youth and young adults who crave them, this means that we need to practice loving the unlovable. I know a camp director who made a comment to a youth director who had brought his junior high youth to their camp. Her comment to him went something like this, "Oh I hate junior high youth… They are so difficult to deal with!" I often wondered if one of the junior high youth had overheard that camp director making that comment to my friend. How would they have taken that? What would they have thought?

The chorus of that Michael W Smith song is just below. I offer it up as a prayer for all of us to realize that there will be those youth and young adults that are the hardest to love. However, our responsibility as Christians (especially Christian leaders) is to go the extra mile and try our hardest to overcome those difficulties. When you find yourself having a hard time dealing with those persons who are hardest to love, I would invite you to listen to this Michael W Smith song and use it as a prayer.

As we live… Moving side-by-side…

May we learn to live…learn to sacrifice!

Resource Review: Videos That Teach

I am always on the lookout for good resources that youth directors and youth pastors can use. One that is been around for a while is called "Videos That Teach” by Doug Fields and Eddie James . The basic premise of this resource is to take teachable moments from modern-day movies that you can use as discussion starters, sermon illustrations, r complete programs on various topics.

Currently there are four volumes of this resource that cover about 75 modern films in each volume. They are broken down by movies (in alphabetical order) or quick clip locators by topic or Bible reference. There's a section on how to best use this resource in each volume written by the authors. Each clip gives you information on the movie (specifically what the rating), when the clip starts and when the clip ends), Bible passages that relate to the clip and a list of 6 to 8 questions that you can use to help get the discussion started.

What makes this resource so appealing is its versatility.  If you are teaching on a specific Bible verse or topic you can search very quickly to see if there is a video clip that can be used to help drive your point home. Another appealing aspect to these resources are that they are very affordable costing about $13 per book. If you are in a local church within the Susquehanna Conference of the United Methodist Church our resource center, Discovery Place, has all four volumes available to be checked out.

I highly recommend these resources and wish you luck in your creativity in how to use them in your youth ministry.