We’re starting a new series this weekend in Encounter.  It’s our annual sexuality and dating series and like many youth ministries, we tag team on February’s love temperature to chat about this with students.  This year it’s 5 weeks long and is called “Flirt”

I have taught a series like this way too many times to count now.  Every time we do so, we try and give fresh eyes and ears to the subject.  We consider our current culture, survey the latest music and media trends, ask our students about the pressures they are facing, and look to the Bible to speak to those issues in relevant and truthful ways.

As the series goes on, I’ll try and use this blog to update you on what we’re teaching and how it is received, but at the outset, let me say a few things you won’t be hearing.

WE DON’T DO PURITY PLEDGES.  I’ve done them before.  I participated in “True Love Waits” lots of times and had my students sign cards and sent them to some national gathering where they would pepper the great lawn in DC or lift to the roof of some super dome in a long string or something.  But while I suppose they helped say something in mass, on a personal level, they just don’t work.  No one in the heat of some opportunity to explore the sexual intimacies of the human body stops to ponder the commitment card they signed in youth group.  Plenty of rings and necklaces and pendants all with good intentions have been worn during plenty of “activities” they did not propose to support.  We will give students a chance to covenant their heart to God- to love God and love others with all their being.  We’ll encourage them to talk that through with friends, family, and mentors and to be open and honest about it.  If they do that, their sexuality will follow accordingly; with or without a signed card.

WE DON’T ANSWER THE “HOW FAR IS TOO FAR?” QUESTION.   Some prefer the proximity limit thing and say you should “leave room enough for the Holy Spirit” (which evidently means the Holy Spirit is a fat guy who wants to sit between you).  I’ve told students in the past that if a bathing suit covers it, you shouldn’t be touchin’ it.  I heard someone this week say, “If anything is in anything, then you crossed the line”.  Come on people, now that one is funny!

Regardless of what arbitrary rule or cute quote we throw at this subject, for the past several years, I have simply refused to answer the question out of principle.  It comes up all the time.  But despite the fact that rules don’t motivate, it’s also not a question that is rooted in devotion to God.  By default, the question is “how far can I go without making God angry?” A better question is “How can I honor God with my sexuality?”  One is about pushing curiosity with God in the rear view mirror.  The other is about celebrating sexuality in cooperation with the Creator.

WE DON’T CATEGORIZE SEXUAL SINS OR SINGLE OUT THE ISSUE.  We love to do this in our society.  My guess is you think rape is worse than funding a porn addiction. I’m an American so I do to. My problem is, I don’t think God does.  I also know that in our society we talk about our “sex life” as a separate entity of it’s own.  But I don’t think that’s Biblical either.  I don’t have a “sex life”, I just have a life of which my sexuality is part of it.  We will teach students that sexual desires are an intimate and integral part of their life.  We also will challenge students to discern which desires should be fed and which ones should be starved to death.  We all have both.

WE DON’T TEACH STUDENTS WHAT TO THINK.  We teach them HOW to think.  As a goal, I have no desire to get students to adhere to my standards or even to Biblical commands regarding sexuality.  I’m really not primarily interested in students knowing what the Bible says about sexual behavior.  Truth is the average person on the street, even in a largely Biblically illiterate America could get pretty close to telling us what the Bible says we should or should not do sexually.  What I don’t think they’d even come close to getting is WHY it says that.  I believe that knowing WHY is the critical task of adolescence.  If we don’t help students answer WHY, then the what becomes merely arbitrary rules that have no value… especially when it comes to sexuality.  Ironically, I think a failure to understand and own the WHY of sexuality is WHY we see so much disregard for a Biblical concept of sexuality in the first place.

I’m sorry overflow. You’re lovely and nice and I like you, but like 12 people in the world follow you. So I confess, I cheated on you.

I wrote two posts for a friends blog.  He was in Kenya and asked for some guest posts and I thought… hey, that might be fun.

The first was called, “LIFE IS HARD, TAKE A NAP AND FIGHT BACK.”

Life is hard. Ministry is hard. Balancing ministry and family and school and my own soul is hard. It just is… and it’s so hard, that life has a way of knocking good people out of the game. I’ve been in ministry long enough to have seen first hand the casualties of marriages, careers, families, and personal faith all destroyed by hard stuff and poor choices that followed.

In an effort to not become a casualty of the same statistics, I had to confess this past December that I was becoming a victim of my own bad habits and neglecting the care of me for the care of others. I know this to be theologically and practically wrong, but I still was doing it. First to go was exercise. Then reading. Then sleep. Then eating right. Then…. I started kicking the dog. It was bad.

So I have had to make the following adjustments before my kids call dog protective services on me:

you can read the rest here.

The second was called, “RETHINKING RETREAT PLANNING.”

Like many of you, when I signed up to be a youth pastor, I signed up to help students do life with God. I also believed then, and still do today, that there is no shortcut. It simply takes time. I also know that there is no greater way to spend big chunks of quantity time with students than the retreat setting.

So far, so good.

But what I didn’t know was that in order to do those retreats, I’d have to sign contracts that would cause me countless nights of stress leading up to them. I had no idea that 12 months out I’d be asking my church to leverage thousands of dollar on the belief that students will eventually express interest and sign up. And for me, times have been a changin’…

you can read the rest of it here.

Ok overflow. I’ll keep spilling my thoughts on you. But come on… like 10 billion people read that other blog. I had to cheat a little.

I’ve done a ton of trips to the snow with high school students and firmly proven that no two are identical.  For starters, there’s massive differences in mindset and expectations between a snow trip in Nor Cal and San Diego. I’ve had trips to the hospital, weather craziness, and everything from 10 students in a day trip to 140 in buses and cargo trailers.  But this last weekend, despite 20+ yrs of going to the snow with high school students, I had 3 firsts.  

1. WE DIDN’T RUSH.  This is borderline sinning what I’m about to say, but we were in Big Bear for 2 days and only were on the slopes for one and um… it was nice.  Hear this:  I LOVE snow boarding and the reason we only did one day was because not enough of us could afford to board 2 days.  But it allowed us to have a truly lazy Sunday.  We got up… many of us sore.  Had breakfast, enjoyed a “chapel” time together, then packed up, went to starbucks, stopped for lunch on the way home and got back in town around 3pm.  Normally, we rush to pack early in the morning, slam down some breakfast, and hurry back to the slopes.  Then I’m not home until 10pm and we’re all seriously dragging.  I thought to myself, “I must be getting old or finally getting smart. I really liked this pace.”  I think I had better convos, my soul was filled, and I really enjoyed myself.

2. I DIDN’T DRIVE.  I don’t really know why.  But for the last 17 years, I don’t think I’ve ever been on a high school student retreat where I didn’t drive at least part of the trip.  For years it was because we had buses and I was one of the only drivers.  Other times it’s because we have limited drivers and I needed to drive.  But this time, I had 3 vehicles and way more than 3 very capable and trusted adults. I asked 3 of them if they wanted to drive.  They all said yes. So, I sat down for the very first time, all weekend in the passenger seat.  I NEVER touched the wheel… and it was nice. I played digital DJ.  I looked at the map.  I laughed with students and talked to people with eye contact.  I think I might do it again 🙂

3. WE PLAYED MINUTE TO WIN IT.  I know, I’m late to the party.  But oh my did we have fun.  I went to the minute to win it website and downloaded instructions for 20 games.  I gathered supplies around my house, the church, and a couple of quick trips to the store.  Then Saturday night after dinner and some rest, we divided up into 4 teams of 7 and then we laughed so hard the people “praying next door” at the camp we were at told us we were too loud.  Been way too long since my youth ministry laughed hard enough to disrupt praying people next door! Thank you NBC for making my life super easy and for creating a “print button” on your page.  Simply amazing and dang good times.

Tonight I went to a local charter high school in our area to learn about sending TJ there this fall as a freshman.  In the process, after all the talking and slide shows were done, the entire crowd of about 400 parents and students were lead around campus in groups of 25 or so for a campus tour.  But not just any campus tour.  A campus tour led by students who are ginormous fans of the school.

So I wandered around for 45 minutes listening to Amber, an active sophomore high school student in our youth group RAVE about her school.  She bragged about how her teachers were her friends.  She claimed the place is like family and how she loves to spend hour upon hour there in all kinds of activity.  She really did a great job.  I almost enrolled myself in high school when it was over.  Seriously, she’s gonna sell a lot of something some day for sure.

About 20 minutes into it though, I started wondering if I have students that would say the same things about our church’s high school ministry?  Would they brag and tell their friends they eagerly can’t wait to go?  If I handed several of them the chance to tell others about our ministry, would they walk around our campus backwards enthusiastically talking to a crowd of parents about every facet of our ministry, virtually begging them to get their incoming freshmen involved in our program next year?

Seriously, is there any better press than the honest joy of a raving fan?  Is there anything more compelling than a word of mouth testimony?

Here’s what I was reminded of tonight.

1. there is no more powerful voice than the changed life of a raving fan. 
2. students are eager to lead their peers.
3. when students get excited, it is contagious.
4. ownership of a vision is a beautiful thing people will sacrifice all kinds of stuff for. 
5. students long to be passionate.  I need to give them ample opportunity to express their passion. 
6. I know lots has changed since I was in high school.  But… the whole scene was intensely familiar too.  Lots has not changed as well. 

Nothing in all the world beats a one-on-one conversation.  NOTHING.

You can’t top it with a seminar.  You can’t top it with a nice family dinner. You can’t top it for focus.  You can’t top it for influence.  You can’t top it in investment.  There simply is nothing more powerful in all of leadership than a one-on-one conversation.

Honestly, as a youth pastor, if I could do nothing but line up one-on-one conversations and never “preach another sermon”, I swear I’d get more done for the Kingdom of God than ever before.  On Sunday, I had two one-on-one conversations with students after church that were significant.  I know they grew out of the “preaching” or “weekend service” they experienced that morning, but I honestly believe that if I had not had them, the most significant moment of life change this past weekend would have been missed.

So, here’s my reminder to me and my encouragement to you…

MAKE TIME FOR ONE-ON-ONE TIME.  It won’t happen by accident.  It requires ruthless devotion to the priority.  So….  take your kid on a ride with you to run an errand and “accidentally” end up having a convo over ice cream while you’re at it.  Take a spouse on a date and skip the movie in favor of a meal you can enjoy at a place with really great food and lousy service so it takes forever.  Grab a friend and say, “hey, got some time for java this week?”… and then make it happen.

BUILD ONE-ON-ONE TIME INTO “GROUP TIME”.   When planning a retreat or even a family vacation, I can make sure to make time for this.  This might mean having intentional conversations on the bus or van ride on a retreat.  This weekend, in our high school program, we’ll have almost a 1 to 2 ratio ration of adult to students on our trip to the snow.  Truth is, if we don’t maximize this trip for significant and intentional one-on-one conversation time, then we’ve missed it.  My most significant student ministry moments as a teen myself were one-on-one times I had with my leaders at summer camp, retreats, and weekly meetings.

DON’T SUBSTITUTE ANYTHING FOR PRESENT TENSE ONE-ON-ONE TIME.  I simply cannot allow facebook or a txting conversation or e-mail or a phone call or anything else to replace a face-to-face one-on-one conversation. It is the most powerful and focused tool in my leadership influence toolbox.  I cannot allow that to be replaced by any modern technological impostor.  Good ol’ fashion one-on-one time simply cannot be faked or trumped.  EVER.