After ever Sunday of ministry, I’m left with several questions:

Yesterday I wrote about brainstorming our core values and how we processed them with our team.  A while back I wrote about how I was no longer interested in asking my volunteers to sign a commitment of behaviors.  I want them to sign onto values and beliefs that necessitate certain behaviors and rule out others.

So we flushed out with our generation ministries staff team (those working with infants thru 29 yr olds) a set of statements that we then boiled down to 9 words and then expanded again in a few sentences for clarity.  Here’s what we’re asking our generation ministries volunteers to stack hands on this fall.  It’s still in process and may continue to be word-smithed, but here’s what we’ve come up with so far.  If you haven’t wrestled with why you do what you do in a while, maybe this will spur you on to ponder it and create your own set of ministry values to rally your team around.

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TRINITY  
We believe and teach the Biblical truth that God is mysteriously triune.  We embrace the plan of the Father, the sacrifice and example of Jesus, and encourage obedience and attention to the voice of the Holy Spirit.  Our love for God is our primary motivation and our first loyalty.

JOURNEY
We are a unified body, supportive of, and integral with the work God is doing in and through the greater community of Jesus followers and the local body at JCC.  It is mission critical that we are supportive of all JCC ministries, attending weekend adult services, and are invested in a common vision.

COMPASSION
We are a grace filled community, accepting failure as part of the learning process and loving others before ourselves.  Understanding we are all in process and there is no fast track to discipleship, we humbly listen to one another and work together to become who God is calling us to be.

ENCOURAGEMENT
We strive to create spaces that reflect a positive attitude and seek opportunities to cheer one another on in our pursuit of Christlikeness.

LAUGHTER
Loving God is not a burden.  Laughter is good for the body and the soul and a gift from God.  We work to creatively and intentionally create spaces for joy and laughter.

RELEVANCY
We teach and interact in age appropriate ways.  We seek to be relevant in all ways in our teaching methods and plans, encouraging this generation to learn how to think intelligently about the intersection of faith and daily life.  In this, we want to teach them how to think first, learning what that changes second.

COMMUNICATION
We value regular communication.  We don’t bury our problems or ignore our responsibilities.  We strive to communicate clearly and graciously with one another as we address conflict and cast vision.  We are committed to mutual accountability and authenticity, talking directly to one another and avoiding gossip.

OWNERSHIP 
We own this ministry as a part of our calling from God.  We are committed to what we say we will do, regularly showing up and performing our responsibilities in a God-honoring way.

SAFETY
We believe it is our responsibility to create spaces that are both physically safe from predators and unnecessary risk, but also spiritually safe spaces where all phases of spiritual development are encouraged.

We had a kids ministry volunteer training last night.  My goal was to introduce some rallying points around some core values we wanted to introduce.  But our paid staff had already come up with our “core values” so I wanted to give the volunteers a chance to own and create them too.  So to set the stage, we did a brainstorming activity and it ended up being fun an very encouraging. So I thought I’d share it with you.  If you’re a youth pastor or a small group leader or teacher… it might work in some context for you too.

Here’s what we did.  First, we brainstormed 2 questions:

1. What do you love about kids ministry?
2. What are the needs kids have at JCC on the weekend?

Week by week?
Month by month?
Quarter by quarter?

This question gets asked a lot in ministry and while there may be very good reasons for a variety of methods,  I think that as youth pastors in particular, we have a lot of work to do in this area.  As a group we have a reputation for predominantly being young, flying by the seat of our pants, doing administration poorly, dropping details, and a general lack of planning.  It makes us hard to work with, difficult to get volunteers for, and constantly rushed.  Like all stereotypes, this reputation is both true of some and not of others.  But bottom line, when it is true, it is just plain unprofessional.

I’m not perfect at this, but it is a passion of mine.  I’ve written and taught a seminar on this at YS for several years now, though it’s not offered this year, I’m stoked that it made it onto the radar of the questions being asked at slant 33 this year.

Here’s 3 responses from 3 guys in the trenches. One from Josh Griffin, one from Lars Rood, and my own experience in how we get r done.  I think it’s worth your read and would love your comments.

You can read our responses here. 

As a youth pastor and a Dad I have an underlying principal that guides me in both those roles.  It’s this: “I want to teach them how to think, not what to think.”

But despite my passion for it, that’s going to remain a nice t-shirt motto unless I’m really intentional about it.    So, if it rings true to you and that’s what you want to do as a parent or youth leader too, here’s a few reminders for both of us.

YOU’RE NOT SAFE:  As a default, your role has made you unapproachable.  Ok, maybe you’re an aces parent and super cape wearing youth leader, but everyone around you is not. So that means that the title has baggage.  If you want students to ask real questions then they need multiple places to ask those questions from lots of mentors and voices.  Student will tell parents some things they won’t tell youth leaders and friends some things they won’t tell either and stuff they’ll tell youth leaders they won’t tell anyone else and around it goes.  It takes a community.  We must find and create one if we want real questions asked.

FOSTER DOUBT:  You and I don’t have all the answers- to anything.  So, if you want students to ask questions, then share some of your own.  Play the role of devil’s advocate and flip a theological rock over every now and again.  Ask some hard questions like “So, why would you pray to a God you can’t see?” or “If God can control an earthquake, then is God unloving when one kills hundreds of thousands of men, women, and kids?” Dig in and dig in deep.  If we don’t create spaces where we can doubt and wrestle with real questions, we’ll only be teaching them what to think and not helping them learn how to think.  Be ok with the unknown and the hard questions.. go digging for both.  It’s where the real spiritual growth lies.

PROVIDE ANONYMOUS QUESTION CARDS:  I’m always amazed at what students will write down and ask me in a group of 10 or 100, that they won’t ask directly.  Our church staff even uses “anonymous question cards” when tough issues come up so people who ask what they’re really wondering.  This is both weird and understandable to me. I really want safe places but I also have to acknowledge that 99% of environments are not safe from judgment and the fear of ridicule.  We did this again last Sunday and I’ve decided a staple in my student ministry from here out will be anonymous question cards that students can write down and we’ll periodically address in youth group.

MEET ONE ON ONE:  If you want to become safe, then there’s no substitute for relationship.  There’s also no fast track to relationship. If I could challenge you to do just one thing on this list it’d be this. One on one times with my kids or students are the best way to foster and ask questions.  They are the best time for me to both strive to become safe and to dig for deeper questions. They also don’t just happen and are rarely initiated by students or my kids.  If I want them to be a priority, then they must be my priority and be intentionally sought out.