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Pratice What You Preach!

May 31, 2011 by Leave a Comment

 

This week I had one of those “come to Jesus moments” when I realized I really need to practice what I preach, and I also came to realize that God has placed some pretty amazing people in my life. It’s ironic that the week I write a post about not giving up, I actually gave up on something in my life.  Instead of giving it up to God, I just gave up. I felt defeated; I felt alone, I felt like I had failed.

Sometimes when we’re being a butthead, we realize that our real friends will call you on the carpet and not let you get away with it, and that’s exactly what happened to me. After a two hour conversation I realized I had over reacted and needed to turn to God. I had a great quiet time and gave up to God what was on my heart, asked for His help in growing in this area, and being better able to realize when Satan is getting in my head and pushing my buttons. I think I’m good at giving problems up to God, but I seem to take them back also! I need to give them up to God…and leave them there.

God knows what we need; God knows how to grow us. Today I’m looking at my experience yesterday as a growing and stretching process. God used that problem to grow my faith, and grow me as a person. Today I feel much better, I feel re-charged and ready to fight the good fight, but I know if I hadn’t taken the time to share this problem with someone, and given it up to God, I’d still be troubled and stressed today.

Here’s the bottom line:  No matter how strong you are in your walk with God, there are times when we all need help and support. Make sure you have a support system around you…AND USE IT!

Filed Under: Encouragement, Spriritual Life Tagged With: , , ,

What does the Bible do for our relationship with God?

May 30, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Steven: The Bible is the lifeline to all that we know about God. Without it, we could clearly see that God exists. Just look around – God is everywhere. We can see His creation everywhere we look, we see His majesty in all places. Yet, something would be missing if it weren’t for the Bible. We still wouldn’t get a feel for God’s heart. We wouldn’t know what God’s will is for our lives. We wouldn’t understand that He created us for a higher purpose than we grant ourselves.

The Bible is the one true way that students can tell you’re actively seeking God. When I bring my Bible to small group every week, it’s not just a tool that I’m using to take something out of the instruction book God left for us. I’m showing my students that I’m not content with just knowing God exists – it shows that I want to know God. We cannot know God without reading the letter he wrote to us. If I were to die tomorrow, people would know I existed because there’s proof: pictures of me on the walls in my house, people’s memories of me, etc. But people would only have an opportunity to know what I’m about and what my passions are if they have the opportunity to see something I left behind for them specifically.

My prayer is that you don’t let your students be content with just knowing that God exists. Knowing He exists is too easy. Instead, show them that there’s so much more He has left for us to discover about Him – His love, His mercy, His kindness, His passions, His heart, His Son. These are all things that we discover through His Word. Don’t let your students be content with knowing about God. Let them know God.

Matt: To know God’s wisdom for our lives we need to know God’s Word. I don’t think we truly understand God’s love for us and all that He wants for our lives if we don’t study His Word. I know the more I read my Bible, the more I want to know more about God. This journey we are all on can be void of a lot of meaning if we don’t know and understand all that God wants for us and just how much He loves us. The more we know of Jesus’ sacrifice, the more willing we are to sacrifice for Him.

How do you help students want that same kind of knowledge? First off, you need to be the example for them. They need to know that you read your Bible on a regular basis. You might not have all the answers to their Bible questions but it helps if you know where to look. Second, I always make sure I have my Bible with me at Small Group. It’s hard to get after students for not bringing their Bibles if you don’t bring yours. Third, when you find a Bible verse that makes you sit back and say, “Wow that’s interesting, I never knew that verse meant that.” Share that with your students.

Here’s the bottom line, students emulate what they see. If they see you hungry for God’s Word they will want to see what all the fuss is about. If you don’t show that, then Bible reading for them will be hit or miss. Speaking for myself, I really grew in my faith when I got serious about regular quiet time and Bible reading. I want students to do the same.

What do you do to encourage your students to spend time in God’s Word?

Filed Under: Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , ,

A note to parents of teens, part 2

May 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

On Wednesday I posted a note to parents of teens. After that went live, I had a few people ask me to write a follow-up to that post addressing the question, “What steps you can follow to ensure that your child is on the right path toward having God in their lives?” To answer that question, here are a few things I think you can do as a parent to make sure your child is on the right track.

1. Talk to them. I hear about so many parents that aren’t involved in their kids’ lives, and then they wonder why they’re not connecting with the kids. Kids strive to be heard. They want to have someone to tell about their day, the funny thing Johnny did in class, the thing Suzie did that made them mad.

2. Don’t try to be their friend. There are a lot of parents who strive for their child’s acceptance. They want so badly to be the “cool mom” that they forget about their primary responsibility – parenting. First and foremost, your job as a parent is to do just that, parent. Kids have friends at school, they don’t need one more at home. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to be friends with your kids by any means. My parents are two of my best friends, but that’s because they chose to be parents to me first.

3. Don’t shy away from the uncomfortable conversations. Let’s face it, there are some conversations you don’t want to have with your kids. I don’t need to go into detail about what those conversations look like, but the important thing to remember is that those are discussions that need to happen. If you have a concern about something your child is doing, bring it up. Don’t let the opportunity pass by.

4. Make sure your child has a relationship with Jesus. This is probably the most obvious, yet in my opinion, the most overlooked. Families that have spent their whole lives in the church and have had their kids there since they were infants have a tendency to assume that their child has a relationship with Christ. We sometimes do this as youth leaders as well. Don’t let there be any doubt in your mind if your child has accepted Christ as their Lord. As a parent, this is the best thing you can do for your child to ensure a solid life foundation and an eternity in heaven.

Note: I definitely do not consider myself a parenting expert. I have never had kids of my own, and I don’t plan to for a long time. The information I write about is taken from two places: my experience with my own parents and parents of my students, and parenting series that have been put on at Saddleback Church.

Question: What are some other things you do to ensure your child is on the right track with God in their lives?

Filed Under: Parent ministry Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Retro Friday // Real Relationships

May 27, 2011 by Leave a Comment

This is the fourth week in the Generation to Generation series of posts on Dennis Beckner’s VolunteerYouthMinistry.com. The original post can be found here.

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It’s important that we as leaders model to students that we have godly relationships in our personal lives. We should emphasize to students the benefit of having fellow Christians in our “inner circle”, while at the same time not shutting the door to non-believers. Students need to know that the leader they see at the weekend worship service is the same person during the week when they are at work, hanging out with friends, at a ball game or a trip to the lake. They need to know that we don’t “compartmentalize” our lives. You’ve probably heard the phrase, “You can’t take it with you,” and that’s true for all things except relationships. If that’s the only thing that survives the transition from life on earth to eternal life in heaven, shouldn’t we try to make those relationships as godly as possible?

Matt: I consider myself totally blessed in this area. I have a strong group of friends in my life to support me, to hold me accountable and quite frankly, let me know that I’m loved and cared about. We have begun meeting together for Bible study and just plain fellowship on Sunday nights. It’s a great time to debrief about the weekend and to just hang out together each week. I have friends in my life that are not believers, but I don’t shut them out. I’ll look for any opportunity to talk to them about Jesus, and I hope that by seeing how happy I am in my life, they will want that same happiness in their life. Last week we talked about the importance of “two are stronger than one,” and for me that one main person I have in my life that I can go to and talk about anything, and who holds me accountable is Steven. Steven is very firm in his walk with God. It serves as an example to me and makes me want to be that way for him, and for my other friends. I want them to know that I don’t take the easy way out, that I want my life to be an example for them. I want them to know that the Matt they see at church is the same Matt everywhere we go.

We need to talk with students about the friendships they have, about the importance of not shutting out their friends who may be unbelievers, creating opportunities to talk to their friends who are not believers about Christ, but also emphasizing the importance of having a core group of friends around them who are committed Christians. Teens that are involved in small groups have this core group, but those teens who are not in a small group are missing out in this area.  If you’re not an example, you’re not a leader. Period. Leaders always model it before asking others to do it.

Steven: People are defined by their friends. One of my good friends, although he doesn’t like to admit it, has a slight accent. Most of the time you can’t really hear it, unless he’s been around other people with that same accent. If he’s been hanging out with his family during the day and I see him later, I can tell right away that he’s been with them. Why? Because we absorb what our friends do. In a friendship, we give someone a little piece of us and take a little piece of them. Whether that piece is a good thing or a bad thing is largely dependent on the type of person you’re friends with.

So many times I’ve seen my junior high small group guys hanging out with people that probably aren’t the best influence on them. I see them when I’ve picked them up from school, when I go to the movies, and I even see it inside our own church on the weekend. The fact is, most kids are going to choose their friends based on popularity, not who is going to help them grow or succeed. The best way for us to help our students make good relationship choices is to make good choices ourselves. Students soak up everything we do like sponges, so when they see us with our friends they see it as a good thing, regardless of that person being good for us or bad for us.

One thing my co-leader and I are really trying to push this year in our junior high small group is everyone having an accountability partner. If we start them off early, they’ll make it a habit to consistently be talking to someone they trust when they have an issue or when they just need some advice in their lives. This is probably one of the most important tools we can have as Christ followers, but it can be difficult to instill that idea in students. If we model that as leaders, it’s that much easier to try to get our students to understand. Luckily, my co-leader is one of my accountability partners, so it’s easy for our students to see that concept in practice.

Filed Under: Retro Friday

Don’t Give up!

May 26, 2011 by Leave a Comment

One of the most common questions I get asked from other youth leaders is how I handle  a situation where it seems that they are  just not getting through to a student. The answer is simple…..don’t give up. Easy to say, but hard to do. Here’s my suggestion for how to handle that situation:

1.  Pray. Pray. Pray.  The power of prayer is awesome, sometimes you don’t get the answer you’re looking for and in the time frame you want it, but you have to pray about these type of students.

2.  Never give up. You have no idea what’s going on in that student’s head. You might be planting seeds of faith and Christianity that will bloom years from now.

3.  It’s not about you. You didn’t fail, you didn’t fall short, you simple have a student who is not ready yet. We all came to know a relationship with God on our own terms. For me it wasn’t until I was an adult, but seeds that my mother planted about Jesus and a relationship with God came into full bloom eventually.

4.  It’s God’s timing and not ours.  Again, that’s easy to say and sometimes it sounds like an excuse but it’s true. God’s timing is impeccable and beyond our understanding. When the time is right, God will make it happen, but in the meantime you have to be positive and faithful.

5.  Talk to other leaders, they may have had a student going through the same thing your student is. Why reinvent the wheel, find out what worked for them and try it on your student. I think as leaders we tend to miss the boat on this one. We need to communicate more with each other, just my observation.

Here’s the bottom line, (which I think is becoming my tag line, I seem to be using it in most of my posts, but I digress) If you give up, the student gives up. Keep praying, keep plugging away and keep trying. Don’t give up!

Filed Under: Encouragement, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , ,

A note to parents of teens

May 25, 2011 by 2 Comments

For the past four weeks at Saddleback, the whole church has been focusing on family relationships. In the adult services we’re doing a series called “Raising Amazing Kids,” and in junior high and high school, “How to Raise your Parents.” Family relationships are one of the most important things a youth ministry can focus on. It’s been proven time and time again that the most influential force in a kid’s life isn’t his friends, media, or the internet, it’s his parents. Because of this, parents have a unique opportunity and responsibility to influence their kids in the right way. On the flip side, a parent can severely hurt a child if they don’t lead them and parent them the right way.

As hard as I try as a youth leader, I will never be the most influential force in a student’s life. Never. I would love to be the guiding force as someone who puts the guidance of Jesus first in my ministry, mostly because I know there are a lot of parents out there that don’t do the same thing. When I hear stories from students about their parents living the wrong way, it’s no wonder that we have so many broken kids in the world. From family conflict, to divorce, absence, abuse, etc., there is a lot of damage a parent can do in their child’s life. Of course, if you are a loving, supporting parent, you can be the opposite kind of inspiration.

The fact is this: if you’re a parent, it’s time to raise your kid.  A student has friends, he doesn’t need any more. He doesn’t have enough life experience to raise himself, so he needs someone more responsible to help him along in the journey. It’s not their youth leader’s responsibility to teach them what they need to know about life, it’s yours. I wish I could take on that job. I wish I could be the number one influence in a student’s life, especially the ones I see every day that are hurting because of how their parents have interacted with them. God willing, I can be one of the influences, but I need to partner with parents in helping them grow their kids in the way that God wants them to.

Parents: What steps are you following to ensure that your child is on the right path toward God in their lives?

Filed Under: Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Setting the Example by Encouraging Students

May 24, 2011 by 1 Comment

“…encourage the young men to live wisely. And you yourself must be an example to them by doing good works of every kind. “  Titus 2:6-7

Are you an encourager? Do you take every opportunity you can to lift up and encourage the students that you minister to? I read chapter two of Titus last night and that verse kept jumping off the page at me. I begin to think if I am an encourager or do I discourage. For some, encouraging is easy. For me I have to make an effort. I guess the first stage is admitting a fault, and that’s one of mine. I hate when our small group will be over for the week and I think back on a comment one of the guys made and I realized I could have been more positive and encouraging. Those are moments God puts in front of us. We either take the pitch or don’t swing at it. Too often I don’t swing and I let the ball go by.

One of the most common complaints I hear from students is that their parents don’t appreciate what they do, don’t show up at sports events, or school events. They see other students with an adult encouraging them and giving them positive reinforcement, but they don’t have that in their lives. I know for myself, losing both my parents at a very young age, I always felt like I missed that part of my life, having someone there for me and cheering me on.

Today I have decided that’s an area where I’m going to put a lot of effort. I want to be the example to my guys in a lot of ways, how I live my life, how I treat others, how I talk, how I worship. But I also want to be an example in how I encourage others. Words can either hurt or build up; Steven wrote an excellent post on that last week. We need to use every opportunity to build up our students; fact is you might be the only positive role model in their life.  An opportunity to encourage is an opportunity  that God puts in front of us with students to model what it means to live a Christ-centered life.

What are ways that you encourage your students, what words do you use?

Filed Under: Spriritual Life, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , ,

Am I too young or too old for youth ministry?

May 23, 2011 by 3 Comments

Matt: This entire blog site is based on the premise that Steven and I are from two different generations, and we’re teaching the next generation. We use my old school techniques with Steven’s spin on them to keep them relevant and timely. When I first got into this whole student ministry volunteer thing, my first thought was I might be too old for these kids and they won’t relate to me or me to them. Very quickly I realized how wrong I was. I’ve always had a talent for talking to anybody in any setting. After about a month as a small group leader I discovered that the guys in my high school small group at Saddleback Church looked up to me for advice. Some of them have no positive male role model in their lives and I quickly learned that I was filling that role. 

Students just need to know you care. You don’t have to know how to play the guitar, have a lot of tattoos, long hair, piercings, and listen to rap and hip hop music (I’m a dedicated Frank Sinatra fan by the way) for them to like and relate to you. Sometimes you just have to show up in their lives – many of them have few people who show up for them. I make sure they know they can call or text me anytime if they need help, or advice or just need to talk. You also don’t need to be a Bible scholar and have all the biblical answers, you just need to know how to find the answers for them. Here’s the bottom line: I don’t think you can be too old to be a student ministry leader, you just need to have a heart for students, love Jesus, and want to be an example for them.

Steven: When I first got into youth ministry, I didn’t do it with the expectation that I would be doing it a long time. At that point in our junior high ministry, there weren’t many high school seniors like me that were leading groups of students, so at times I felt a little out of place with all the older leaders. There were also a lot of people that had been with Wildside, Saddleback’s junior high ministry, for years. I felt like I had no idea what I was doing compared to people like this. Like I said, I didn’t expect that I would be at it long – just a week at summer camp with 10 seventh grade boys and I would be on my way.

The other worry of mine was that there wasn’t a very big age gap between me and my students. Five years may seem like a lot when you’re young, but there’s always the worry of respect for someone not that much older than you. As it turns out, there were times when I wish I had more experience and a bigger age gap. Our last night at camp my first year, my guys wanted to make the most of their final night in camp, so things got kind of loud. When I say kind of loud, that’s just my interpretation – our junior high pastor, Kurt Johnston, ended up coming to tell us that our cabin was so loud he could hear us from across camp. Not a good way to end your first experience with a ministry.

Obviously that wasn’t my first and only experience with youth ministry, and I’m so glad that God gave me the extra push I needed to keep going. Everyone has it in them to do youth ministry, whether you think you’re too young, too old, too nerdy, not cool enough, or don’t have enough tattoos. If you’re just getting started and if you have these feelings, don’t give up. There are a ton of students that need a caring leader to guide them in one of the most difficult times of their lives.

What are your fears or insecurities as a leader in youth ministry?

Filed Under: Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Sabbath Sunday

May 22, 2011 by Leave a Comment

While it is our goal to post something new every day on this blog, we also feel that it’s super important to take time off. Not only do we think it’s important, God does too. With that being said, Sundays at GenToGenYM will now be known as “Sabbath Sunday.”

Make sure to take some time off today and spend some time with the Lord. See you tomorrow!

(Note: To those of you who have put two and two together and realized we’re doing what we just said we didn’t want to do – post on Sunday – we actually wrote this post earlier this week and scheduled it. So there, smarty pants.)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

Letting Go

May 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

As the school year comes to an end and our high school small group year is coming to an end, I have several high school seniors who will be moving on. This makes me sad and glad all at the same time. Before we met in small group this week my prayer was for me to introduce the topic and then just sit back and let God work with my group.  I sat there amazed watching the interaction, the questions, the holding each other accountable, etc.  Not sure why I’m amazed,  I’ve watched these guys grow in their walk with God now for two years. Some of them already were on a firm path with God when I got them, some of them…not so much. Each week, as the end of the school year comes closer I get a little more sad at losing them in my group. (Or I’m sad at the thought of an entire group of freshman next year!) But at the same time I know these guys have grown and learned and are ready to leave high school ministry and go out and take on the world.  Not because of anything I’ve done, but because of the work God has done with them. I was just the tool God used.  (Yes, I did just call myself a tool).

I’m thankful that God dropped these students in my life, each one of them will always have a special place there, probably because they were our first group. When my co-leader and I first decided to take on a high school small group, we decided that this was going to be more than just a “Wednesday night Bible study”. We wanted these guys to know we were there for them, that they could count on us. We agreed to be examples to them how to live a Christian life.  We wanted them to know we would help them get through the good times and bad times in their lives, and we succeeded. We had a lot of “messy” times, but wow, did we also have some great, Holy Spirit filled, good times.  We have two juniors in our group that will be returning with us next year, we want to use them to help lead our new group of freshman next year.

 Our job as leaders is not to just lead, but to also turn out new leaders, to pass on from this generation to the next generation. Kyle, Shea, Parker, Scott, Hayden, Gabe, TJ, Dev and Matt, love you guys and I’m proud of all of you!

Filed Under: Spriritual Life, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , ,
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