Archives for September 2012

These two videos killed me this week.

My oldest son TJ made his first ever iMovie for a small group announcement in Encounter to a ridiculous rap song by “Krispy Kreme” that I had to listen to 47 times on the way up I-5 with he and his buddies this summer.  Totally cracked me up.  Not bad for his first swing at a video- much less a music video.  Enjoy….

And this “professional” one from Rhett and Link -my favorite youtube channel- just killed me.  You should so subscribe to these guys.  Freaking hysterical.   I thought this was the funniest thing I’ve seen in forever and so worth using for some dating series in the future.  Epic Manliness at it’s best.  Ha ha.

I have a five kids.  One of which is Jake.  He just started fifth grade. So, we re-started our weekly afternoon trip to Joe’s place after we took a break over the summer. That’s not the place’s real name.  It’s just what we call it. I honestly don’t even know the name of the coffee shop cuz Joe is the owner and the only thing we ever call it is Joe’s… or maybe Java Joe’s.

Other than, “When are we going to restart our meetings after school again?”, the only other question Jake kept repeating to me was, “Do you think Joe will be there?”  Joe is like a crazy uncle to my kids or something.  

So over a blended shake and a cookie, I asked Jake how his world was going and he said a bunch including the following:

REGARDING FIFTH GRADE:  “Fifth grade is hard.”

REGARDING MATH:  “You don’t even do math Dad. You have Pam do it all for you.”   (Ha… he got me there.  Pam is my part time admin and all she does almost exclusively the financial stuff and event money recording.  I hate math and budgeting.)

REGARDING THE PRINCIPAL:  “He turned my school into a prison.  We now have gates on the school.  Birthday’s can only have healthy snacks and no cupcakes.  You can only buy ice cream on Friday’s.  It’s a prison.”

REGARDING GIRLS:  “Why do they paint their toes? This is a waste of time and money. I accidentally stepped on some girls toes today.  She got really upset.  She should just wear tennis shoes or something.  Or at least close toed.  You know you had to wear closed toed shoes to summer fun camp this summer.  Really, why do they paint their toes?”

REGARDING CHECKERS ON MY IPHONE:  “I don’t want to play. You always win.”

REGARDING THE RANDOM QUESTION GAME ON MY IPHONE HE LOVES: “Um, are you making this stuff up or is that what it really said?”

REGARDING TYPING:  “I’m not very good at it.  Can you help me type my paragraph tonight.”

REGARDING HIS NEW 5TH/6TH GRADE ROOM AT CHURCH:  “It’s sick.  I want to play guitar. We need indoor soccer balls.”

… love that kid. 🙂

HANDS DOWN… Best parenting move I’ve ever made.  WITHOUT QUESTION.  Regular one-on-one bonding meetings with my kids.  LOVE and cherish these times.

and HANDS DOWN… best moments I’ve ever had with students as a youth pastor are the, the one-on-one conversations with students.

If you’re a parent or you’re a mentor to teens or you coach or teach or whatever… let me remind you to set aside some time and connect one-on-one.  My experience says the dividends will be immeasurable.

If you have a large group program sometime in your week or weekend like we do, then you know that one of the most challenging and yet critical places to put a volunteer is just in the middle of a bunch of students.  The most tempting thing for adults in this situation to do is to sit together in the back. 

To that end, here’s some training tips I suggest and give to those who sign up to be a large group adult volunteer.

INVEST TIME:  Come as early as you can, stay as late as you can.  Lots of times, the best conversations can be had before the service begins and after it’s over.

SPREAD OUT:  Spread out from other adult leaders.  Don’t sit in groups larger than two of you.

BE HABITUAL AND CONSISTENT: Try to sit in the same area each week- teens are creatures of habit and you’ll find it’s easier to get to know them by sitting in the same place- they will likely do the same thing.

MINGLE:  Initiate Conversations.   Remember students are not looking for a hip adult- they’re looking for one who genuinely cares about them.

KNOW A FEW: Don’t try and know everyone.  The goal is not to be the most popular leader or to know the most number of students so you can care for them all, just strive to care for a few.

LOOK FOR THE MISSING: Of those you do know- Look for who is not there and follow up with them.  Make it a priority this week to call, e-mail, or send them a post card.

INVITE: Ask the students about the events we have coming up.  Find out if they’re going.  If they need to sign up- go with them to do that.  Discover if they are in a small group and if they’re not but are interested in one- try introducing them to a small group leader who is there today.

BE AN ACTIVE OBSERVER.  If you see someone who is crying- talk to them.  If they came in soccer clothes- ask how the game was or when they play next.  If they look lonely- sit by them.  If they look normal- find out why they aren’t.

HAVE FUN:  Games or crowd breakers are your chance to laugh with students and have some good clean fun.  Be a kid again.

MODEL IT:  Don’t expect students to do what you’re not.  Don’t forget to take notes and turn in your Bible and sing and put down your cell… you get the picture.  Model good learning skills.

DON’T QUIT WHEN THE PROGRAM ENDS:  When you have sat with a student for an hour and they’re heading to the parking lot- go with them.  If they drove- you’ll discover what kinda car they drive.  Students love to talk about their cars.  If a parent is picking them up- never underestimate the power of that relationship.  Introduce yourself and say hi.  Thank them for entrusting their student to us and remind them how much we appreciate their willingness to drive to make it happen.  Without them- they wouldn’t have been there today.

PRAY AND PREPARE: Come prayed up and prepared.  Set a goal for yourself regarding your role with students.  What is the next step in your effectiveness.  Pray and act on it.

Like many youth groups around the country, we’re launching our small groups this fall.  We also have made some changes based on learnings from the flow of groups last year.  As a result, we have decided that the first 10 weeks will be largely-if not almost exclusively- focused on getting to know our students.  Then in January, after the Christmas break, we’ll then build on those relationships and begin a process to dive more fully into the Scriptures together each week in a more “traditional Bible Study”.

But what this means in the short term is that from late September through Christmas, we’ll be spending a lot of time (like an hour or so) pouring into the life of just one student in each small group each night.  Not like a hot seat where a small group grills one member with questions, but more like a moment where we say, “We really want to get to know you more… but for reals.  So tell us all about yourself.”

If the small group you lead is made up of outgoing bubbly teenage girls, well that might be all you need.  You’ll be lucky if you get them to stop talking 60 minutes later with that one intro.

But if you’re leading freshman guys, it’s gonna take some more work.

So in order to help, we put together a packet of stuff to keep a conversation going with a student.  Here’s 6 tips we’re using to train our leaders.

START YOUR SMALL GROUP EACH WEEK WITH A BUCKET TESTIMONY.  Pick an item (bucket, purse, backpack, suitcase, basket, etc) and have a different person each week come with 10 items inside.   As they pull each item out, they tell you why they put it in there and what it means to them.  As leaders, you do this first, choosing a wide range of items from serious to funny and set the tone.  Then have someone volunteer or choose a student who can do this next week.  Don’t forget to call and remind them in the days leading up to your next meeting so they don’t forget.

EMBRACE TANGENTS:  If they tell you their favorite food is their grandma’s French toast, ask them to tell you more about their Grandma.  Take the bait and run with whatever other material they give you.

ASK OPEN ENDED QUESTIONS:  Avoid questions that can be answered with yes/no.  Try why, how, and when questions instead of “Do you like _________”  kind of questions.  Try things like:

• “How did that make you feel?”
• “Why do you like that?”
• etc..

DON’T GIVE UP:  It takes about 6 questions before they even think you really care.  Here’s a set of common questions that are essentially intro questions whenever you meet a student in our ministry.  Keep going when these questions are done:

• Hey, How are you?  
• What’s your name?
• What school do you go to?
• How did you hear about our youth group?  
• What do you like to do in your free time? 

PLAY DEVIL’S ADVOCATE:  Don’t do this with sarcasm, but feel free to push at a student’s answers to get them to talk more.   If they say “God is so good”, you could say “How do you know God is good? Would you say that to a friend whose mom was diagnosed with cancer? ”   Or if they say, “I think sex before marriage is wrong.”  You could say, “Ok.  So do you think people should get married just to have sex?”  etc…  A great time to do this is when a student says something that appears to have unanimous agreement in your group but you also know the rest of the world outside this group will not necessarily agree.

GIVE SPACE:  Let your question sit before you follow up with another question.  Sometimes rapid firing a question is fun.  Other times, it just shuts them down.  Embrace the silence and give them some time to think about their answer.  If you do break the silence, try clarifying your question before abandoning it or thinking they are not going to answer.

Additionally, we also gave our leaders a couple of sheets with tons of other ideas to ask about and resources to keep the conversation going. Some more of them will be added soon to my Small Group Administrative Tools on Download Youth Ministry in an update shortly.  You might want to pick them up, and a bunch more stuff you might find helpful in small groups if you’re launching this fall and want some more ideas or tools.

Praying for great conversations and deep relationships in my ministry and yours.

If it ain’t broken…  you probably have one eye closed.

In my world, the broken is part of my life.  It’s everywhere.

• 2 weeks ago my dishwasher broke and destroyed my kitchen cabinets.
• I now have broken cabinets and I re-installed my chipped and stained 25 year old sink in 2×4’s. 
• my truck’s power steering is broken
• my wife’s car has a fan that only works of mach 5.  settings 1-4 no longer work.  So it’s all air or no air.  The back glass latch is busted.  The passenger door spring is busted.  
• my yard sprinklers are still busted and we have watered by hand all summer cuz I don’t have the time or money to fix them yet. 
• my wife’s macbook mousepad is broken.
• my boys have broken lamp shades in their bedrooms from various “events”.