Last week a column I wrote for Slant 33 went live on the web in the subject of “Tradition in Youth Ministry.”  Myself and two others wrote about the inherent dangers and strengths that tradition hold. 

SHARED STORIES: If you do an event or have a ritual or keep a tradition over the long haul, then your ministry has a consistent shared journey. Students and staff can say, “Remember that time at summer camp…” and they all have an instant shared story. Sure, each year was different, but there’s camaraderie and unity and ownership in shared language and experience, all of which are like gold in youth ministry.  

THE LOGISTICS CAN BE DONE IN YOUR SLEEP.You already know the family that does the food. You know who plays the music and who your leaders will be. You just call them, confirm a couple of things, and move on because they already know what to do, what to expect, and how to help. The logistics are virtually done before you even start. Tweak the flyer, fix two things you learned last year, make some phone calls, put it up on Facebook. Done.  

WE GET PREDICTABLE.  Tradition can also lead to predictability in a bad way. Instead of keeping your students on the edge of their seats, wondering what will happen next, they start to ditch stuff because they’ve already done it. Even if it was amazing the first time, the second time was okay, and the third time was, um…predictable. When we do and say what everyone thinks we’ll do and say, we lose our leadership edge in the lives of students. 

Our annual desert weekend man trip retreat is now complete and what a BLAST it was.  We took 57 adults and students from 2 churches to the desert for a weekend of bonding, Bible study, and things that go BOOM.

We did the usual stuff like a huge bonfire and shooting ranges for both rifles and shotguns.  Yes, we blew some stuff up. We ate like kings.  We enjoyed one another.  We had some great conversations and saw some students take some renewed steps back to God.

But this year, there were 3 things that really stood out to me.

LIFE WITH GODLY MEN IN MY LIFE IS BETTER.
I love doing life with the men in my ministry.  I’m so thankful for Godly friends who are willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with me and call teens to step it up into manhood.  I loved listening to their conversations, watching them model ministry, and serving along side of them.  I really could not ask for a greater compliment to my own ministry than the character and integrity of the friends and mentors who have willingly chosen to unite with us.  It means the world to me.

ACTIVE AND VISUAL LEARNING IS FLAT OUT BETTER.
This year we used a book called “Dangerous Devotions for Guys” and seriously, it was worth EVERY PENNY we paid for it.  In each of our large group conversations we had we used a visual from this book and had the guys make them in 8 small groups.  I’ll go into more detail on the 4 that we used that were epic in future posts this week, but suffice to say, the visuals were amazing teaching tools.  These images might not mean much to you right now, but trust me, none of the men on this trip will forget them or what they stood for.

Also, on the first night, we gave every guy on the trip a block of wood as a memory tool.  Then for each message or conversation time, we created a “brand logo”.  There were 5 plus one danger symbol that we used for each talk and to shape our weekend.  Jason, our resident metal worker, used a water jet to make steel logos which we heated with torches and branded into their board after each talk.  Epic.  Seriously Epic weekend of POWERFUL visuals.  Here’s my board:

REAL MINISTRY TAKES TIME.  
I think this is my 6th year to the desert with our men in Encounter and each year it gets better.  The men get more confident, the students get more involved, and manhood is literally growing all around us.  Not because we blow stuff up, but because we’re consistent.   The men that go with us to the desert and stay plugged into our small groups through the year are slowly but surely changing into the image of God and it’s powerful stuff to watch and see.  This year, my oldest son TJ got to join me for the first time as well.  That is longevity of another fruit that I’m so blessed to now enjoy.  I’ve waited 14 years for this season of ministry and I’m so blessed beyond words at the long term fruit in my own son’s life at this stage.  I thank God for the way time and the Holy Spirit together change lives.

At the last NYWC in San Diego, myself and Nate Rice and Matt McGill hosted a panel discussion entitled “Retreat Planning 101” and in it, we discussed the what, when, where, how and such of planning your own retreat verses just using the already done program of a retreat center who runs their own camps and subcontracts out spaces to groups.

We decided to do a brief overview and then we selected on person from the audience who had a retreat to plan and we used him as a guinea pig and tried to apply the basic retreat planning process to his one retreat.  That gave us an immediate way to make it practical and a fun way to help someone out.

But before we dug in, we started asking the basic question:  “Why bother?”  I mean really, think about it.  No one has extra time or money these days and planning your own retreat will require both.  Volunteers will have to take time off work, families will have to find room in their budget for the retreat expenses, the work load of the one(s) planning the retreat just went sky high, and the list could go on.  If you were trying to make your life easier or not put pressure on the budget of any family, then you would surely NOT plan a retreat at all.  So again, “Why bother?” Are retreats stills worth it?

I asked myself this question again this week as I’m planning a retreat with our students this weekend.  It’s our annual fall retreat and the guys are going to the desert about an hour east of us and the girls are going to the beach at Carlsbad about an hour north of us.  But while both trips have promising experiences laid out, both trips have also already proven to be a lot of work and a financial hardship for families and even my own church budget. We’re not planning a $300 weekend, but still… everything ads up when I’m calling students and writing on Facebook walls and trying to convince all kinds of people that it will be worth the sacrifice of time and money, I find myself again wondering… am I just trying to convince myself it will be awesome?  Maybe the retreat model is dead for a season and I should quit planning stuff like this.

So for what it’s worth, here’s 3 reasons I think planning a retreat is worth it.  Despite the fact that my week is harder than normal and my weekend waaaay busier, here’s why I would still do it again:

GET AWAY & GET OUT OF TOWN FACTOR.  There is no changing it.  When you get away, the mindset is different.  There’s anticipation in the air.  Students listen different. Adults engage different.  I could paint the whole building every weekend and change decor into some new theme, and it still wouldn’t compete with the power of a new environment off our church campus.  When ever we get out of the normal space and into a new one, God meets us there.  Maybe he gets bored just like we do with monotony. Retreats break that up.  Retreats are powerful ethos changers.

BONDING.  There is nothing that can promote bonding like a shared experience.  Go on a road trip.  Build a bonfire.  Have something break and something go ridiculously wrong.  All of it adds up to a memory that again, will always trump whatever stuff happens in our church on Sunday. Getting away creates a community in ways that staying at home simply can’t compete with.  It’s true of family vacations. It’s true of student retreats too.

LIFE CHANGE.  I know it’s cliche to think that when we get away, people connect with God. This truth has gotten a bad rap actually because many times the results are hyped up and short lived.  But the flip side of this coin outweighs this possibility every time.  The fact of the matter is when we take a risk and pour into one another and God like we do when we go on retreats, God does great things.  Sure, you could argue that if we did that each time we met at home, God would do that there too.  It is true God is not spatially impaired.  But you’d also be arguing against reality as well.  The truth is normal is normal.  If you want the abnormal to occur, you have to take a risk and get abnormal.  Retreats set up amazing opportunities where God constantly and consistently works in the lives of those who join God in the abnormal experiences a weekend or weeklong retreat lends itself too.

So go ahead, work hard, pull out your hair, stress over the money, beg spoiled students to go with you, take a risk, trust God, and remind yourself that it’s all worth it.  Every minute and every penny.  Retreats are a great investment of both.  Give it 2 weeks.  It will all be worth it.  Give it 2 years and it will definitely prove to be worth it.

This year we’re trying something new and we put our small groups all in the same space on campus.  We have a dinner and hang out time with volleyball and basketball for 40 minutes from 6:30 to 7:10ish pm.  We come in for a 20 minute large group co-ed time to set up the topic of discussion.  Then we head to gender specific small groups for the remaining hour till 8:30pm in various places on campus.

Tonight, we were talking about money and stuff.  So to start us off thinking about what you would buy if you had the money, we asked 2 questions in our large group.

1. what did you have for lunch today?
2. what was the last fast food item restaurant you went to? 

I was teaching at Recess at Mt. Hermon this last weekend for some youth workers in Nor Cal and during a Q and A session, the subject of being restricted from youth group came up.

Whenever this comes up in my ministry or in a question from another, I have 2 primary thoughts.

FOR PARENTS:  A parent restricts their son or daughter from youth group because their child likes it.  If they didn’t, they wouldn’t restrict them from it.  It’s not like anyone is ever restricted from math class or from eating their vegetables.  But I would say that like grape flavored cough syrup, just because your kid likes it, doesn’t mean it’s not helpful.  If you tell your student they can’t go to church when they are telling you they want to, this will eventually backfire when they don’t want to one day and you try to force them to go.  It is also totally possible to be an A+ student and a D+ Christ-follower.  Take away their cell phone.  Unplug the computer.  Ban them from the school football game. Give them chores at home.  Just don’t tell them they can’t go to church.  There are tons of families who are forcing their son or daughter to go because they won’t go on their own who would trade seats any day of the week.

FOR STUDENTS:  So glad you you like our youth group.  So glad you come.  But evidently whatever is making it fun is not making a transformation at home either.  If every time you came home from being at youth group or small group, your parents saw a difference in you, then you probably wouldn’t be restricted from it.  Oh, and it’s not possible to be an A+ Christian and a D+ student.  Just because you are striving to love Jesus doesn’t mean you can fail at home or at work and God doesn’t care.  Faking that you hate it won’t help either.  Just put away your cell phone, lean into youth group, and go home a different person.  The more transformational your faith becomes to your real life, the less time you’ll spend fighting your parents over it.

So then what?  What should a youth pastor do when a student is restricted from youth group?

• Talk to parents.  Find out what really is going on at home. Don’t tell them they are wrong.  Just shut up and listen.  You don’t live with their son or daughter and it’s totally possible they are different at home than they are with you.  Be a learner. 
• Commit to praying for their family.  Be sympathetic to the difficulty of raising a teen who loves Jesus in the midst of the world we live in today.  
• Meet up.  If you can, offer to meet one-on-one with the parents or their student.  Meet in a safe public place like starbucks and talk about life.  Let them know you care and that you want to be a help to making youth group not just fun, but helpful too.  See if you can’t agree on some good action steps together that could bring about mutual benefit to their home, the student, and youth ministry too.  
• Keep at it.  When they get to come back, don’t assume things will just automatically changed or are fixed because they came back.  Keep asking how things are going and give reminders to the student when it’s appropriate.  Like when they walk out the door every week to go get in their parent’s car!