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Are You Reactive Or Proactive?

March 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I read this post today from Chris Wesley and it’s one that really got me thinking. Do I try and prevent fires from starting in my ministry, or am I waiting too long and having to put fires out? Check out the tease below, the entire post can be found here.

Everyone likes to be ahead.  When you are ahead you feel more in control, you feel like you are at a manageable pace and life is good.  To fall behind can happen for a number of reasons.  If you are tired, confused or, overwhelmed it’s easy to let the work pile up.  In youth ministry, falling behind is constantly checking emails, always responding to phone calls, putting together projects last minute, not knowing what you are going to talk about tonight, etc.

What if that could change?  What if you could be ahead of the curve?

The reason you are falling behind is because you’ve learned to be reactive instead of proactive in your ministry.  To become proactive one must be intentional or else you let life happen and you are playing catch up.  If you spend the majority of your time trying to keep up then you’ll miss the important aspects of ministry, like building relationships.  So, you want to get ahead; however, to get there you need to know what reactive ministry looks like compared to proactive.

Reactive: You Change Because Something Happens - Proactive: You Change Paradigms
When you get behind you are at the mercy of the leader.  If they do this, then you have to do that.  Granted we’ll never be in total control; however, as youth ministers we have the responsibility to change paradigms.  You could be evolving what ministry looks like in your church or you could initiate a project that changes the way teens share Christ.  The idea is to look at the paradigms, problems and characteristics that shape and limit you ministry and ask, “How can we improve on it?”

Reactive: You Look To Make Things Right - Proactive: You Always Set High Expectations
When you mess up you know that an apology is necessary.  When you make a mistake, it’s important to make it right.  There is no way of being perfect; however, if you spend your time focusing on NOT messing up you’ll never be satisfied.  Instead, you need to focus on how you CAN be better by setting goals and expectations.  When we change the perspective from negative to positive we live up to the challenge.  If you are always worried about messing up instead of focused on success you’ll find yourself frustrated.
Filed Under: Repost, Spriritual Life, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The difference in teens over 30 years

March 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Then vs Now: How Things Have Changed from 1982 to 2012
From: BestEducationDegrees.com

It’s amazing to me how much has changed in a matter of 30 years. Some good change, some not so good, but this should help us as youth workers realize how fast things change and that we need to stay up to date with culture.

Filed Under: Culture Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Having an inner circle

March 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

If we look at Jesus’ earthly ministry, what often comes to mind is the twelve disciples. These guys followed Jesus everywhere for 3 years, from the time he started his ministry until after he ascended into heaven. He taught them things, loved them, and probably most importantly, did life with them.

This kind of discipleship can be compared to how we do small groups in student ministry. We have a small group of students that we teach, love on, and do life with. Something I’ve been wrestling with recently is a piece of Jesus’ discipleship strategy that doesn’t get talked about much.

Within the Twelve, Jesus had an inner circle of 3 guys: Peter, John and James. The Bible doesn’t talk a lot about why these guys were special or chosen by Jesus to be closer to him, but they got to be with him at times when the others didn’t: the transfiguration, the healing of Jairus’s daughter and in the Garden of Gethsamane.

When I look at how I do small groups, I tend to want to spread myself out evenly among all the students in my group. It only seems fair to give everyone a fair shot and not have favorites, but is that really the right thing to do? If we look at Jesus’ example, no, it’s not.

One thing I’m trying differently this year is spending very intentional time discipling one of my guys. I see so much of my 8th grade self in this guy that I was drawn to lead him in a different way until he leaves my group and moves on to high school. Until I reflected on Jesus’ inner circle of disciples, part of me felt guilty for “playing favorites,” but I’m starting to realize that God puts certain students into your care for a specific reason, and there’s no way you can ignore it or not take responsibility.

Question: What’s your take on “playing favorites” or having an “inner circle” in your ministry? Post your thoughts here.

Filed Under: Counseling, Mentoring, Small Groups, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Sometimes The Real Ministry Happens Before and After Your Small Group Time

March 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

My high school small group has been studying and unpacking Philippians these past two weeks. Last night my plan was to unpack chapters 3 and 4. I spent a lot of time on this lesson, I read and re-read those two chapters, read two different commentaries on Philippians, and I was more than ready and was feeling good about this lesson.

Our group always starts off with a “go around the room and tell us how your week went” session. Usually this takes just a few minutes. I say usually but as you can probably tell by now that didn’t happen last night. Everyone had a lot of stuff to talk about, good and bad and we spent the first hour just doing that. At first my initial inclination was to try to hurry this along, I had a great lesson that would need at least an hour and a half.

That’s when I remembered something that Steven and I have written on before. Sometimes the real ministry happens before and after the planned lesson. I just let the guys talk. I chimed in every now and then with some advice but for the most part I sat back and watched as they ministered and counseled each other, it was so great.

We eventually got to an abbreviated version of the lesson I had planned and it went off great, the guys loved it. Last night was a very successful small group night because I remembered to let God run the group and not me. I let God’s plan for the night happen, not mine. This morning I thought to myself that a couple of the guys had some pretty heavy stuff they needed to talk about, if I had cut that part of our small group short that would not have happened and some prayer requests would have been missed.

 Thank you God for running small group last night and for helping me to remember that my high school small group is not about how great of a lesson I can prepare, it’s about how I am preparing these guys for life after high school and making God be the focus.

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

Helping the Wallflower Bloom

March 27, 2012 by 2 Comments

I have a student who is very quiet during our small group time. I think he has a lot to say, when he does make a comment it’s very well thought out and usually right on point. Sometimes after our small group time I’ll get into a text message session with him that will last 45 minutes, leaving me thinking, “wow I wish he would have brought up these points in small group tonight!”

But at the same time I also know that the wrong thing to do is put him on the spot or force him to participate in the group more than he does. The likely result from that would be to shut him down even further. So I have not pushed the point with him, but I also don’t let him slide, I’ll call on him from time to time to make sure I keep him involved in the group discussion. I know God is working in his life, it’s just going to take him some time to feel comfortable sharing.

Tonight I realized that time might be here. Tonight he text me and said that one of the guys in the group has been talking to him about opening up more and that he was going to really try to do that.

That told me that two things are happening here:

1. The guys in my group are watching out for each other. One of his peers in the group has come along side of him and talked to him about opening up more. I didn’t have to push the issue nor did I have to ask one of the guys in the group to do it for me. Love seeing God work in my small group and growing these guys.

2. This student now realizes that other guys care enough about him to talk to him about being comfortable enough to open up. I wish I could take the credit for this, but it’s totally God working in my small group.

Question: What ways do you use to get the wall flowers in your group to participate more? Leave your feedback here.

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

Taking time to slow down

March 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Question: When you have a full plate and you need to slow down, rest and reconnect with God, how do you do it?

Matt:  When I know I need to take a step back from life and from everything going on and just reconnect with God I go through a ritual. First I shut off all technology and make sure that my phone is not just on silent but that it’s not in the room with me. If I have a particular problem in mind I look for a Bible verse related to that subject and read it and re-read it to make sure I understand not only the verse but how it can pertain to me today. I do this crazy thing where I lay on the floor with my legs up on my bed, that way I can lay there with my eyes closed and spend some serious time in prayer but I don’t get comfortable enough that I might fall asleep or where my mind can wander. I don’t worry about how much time I spend, I’m more interested in just spending some quality “Jesus time.” That’s my way of reconnecting.

Steven: This week I realized I needed to slow down and remove myself from everything in my life. I have a ton going on between classes, work, ministry and too many other things to count, and I knew it had been too long since I spent an intentionally time-unrestrained period of time with God. I have a secret spot somewhat near my house that is usually completely secluded, I don’t know anyone there, and best of all, there’s a Starbucks down the street. When I go there I know I can turn off the rest of the world and my schedule and just slow down. Friday I spent some time in my secret spot and ended up journaling and praying for about 3 hours. Even though I had a ton of stuff I needed to get done, I knew that needed to take priority in an otherwise hectic time.

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

When Doing More Is Actually Doing Less

March 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Every now and then I read a post on another blog and I think to myself, “Wow that is so me, I have to stop doing that!” Well, that happened today with a post I read from Ben Denen on the ym360.com blog. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in serving Christ that we forget to stop and worship Christ. As Ben says in his post, “we turn into Martha and not Mary.” Below is a tease of the post, the entire blog can be found here.

Hi. My name is Ben and I have a “details” problem. I am addicted to getting all the details just right. When it comes to student ministry, I’m obsessed with working out all of the little things that make a program or event run perfectly.

The problem is that this can sometimes separate me from the God I’m trying to connect to, and the students I’m called to minister to.

If you’re a leader of a small youth ministry, I think maybe you can relate to this in a personal way. Don’t get me wrong, I know the grass is not always greener in a large ministry. We all have our challenges. However, an under-staffed and under-resourced student ministry has its unique challenges.

One of them is that every detail of every program usually falls to the responsibility of one person. I remember in my early days of ministry feeling the burden and the crush of feeling like my ministry needed more . . .
More programs.
More serving opportunities.
More events.
More students.
More. More. More.

Before I realized it, I came down with a severe case of Martha-itis.

Take a moment to read Luke 10:38-42. This passage has had a profound impact on how I now approach ministry. I found myself really identifying with Martha.

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

Don’t be afraid to have a strategy

March 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Maybe the name of this post should really be, “Don’t be afraid to be a little sneaky.”

This week in my junior high small group, my co-leader and I had a goal in mind. The week before, we were trying to talk through a toughtopic that was going to be very challenging for our guys to get their minds around. From that talk, a lot of awesome, deep questions came up and all the guys were really tracking. This week our goal was to get those questions flowing again, but we knew it had to start organically or it wouldn’t work.

How do you force something that you want to be organic?

We had to plan something that would get us to our goal of getting good questions flowing again, but not in a way that we start it. We went into the group discussion time knowing what we wanted to do and how we were going to do it. We brought up last week and the fact that we didn’t get through our main discussion question because of other things that came up. Then we asked the question that got everything started: Is there anything you’re still confused about?

From that moment, the guys took over and started asking the exact type of questions we were hoping for. We had another great night of discussion and deep thinking, all because we had a strategy and we stuck to a plan to not be obvious in our goals.

Question: What are some ways you strategize to get to a particular goal with your students? Let me know here.

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

Finding Joy in All Circumstances

March 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I’ve discovered that the guys in my high school small group love to unpack scripture. It’s one of my favorite things to do, I always want to know more and know about what circumstances were going on at the time scripture was written. It helps you to understand Paul’s letters and get more out of them when you realize most of them were written when he was in prison. For instance this week we talked about finding joy in your life and we unpacked Philippians chapter 1 and 2. Paul was in prison when he wrote Philippians and even though he was being imprisoned for spreading the gospel, he was writing about finding joy.

Once I started talking about Paul writing from prison my group had as many questions about Paul as they did scripture. It hit me that I’ve spent a lot of time on scripture but not a lot of time talking about the authors of the Bible and how God inspired them to write. So tonight I shifted gears a little and lucky for me I had just read some great commentary on Paul so I had some information to pass on and we had a great discussion about Paul. I really want my guys to leave this small group at the end of their senior year this summer and take with them a desire to dig deep into scripture, not just during hard times but all the time. When you spend time with the Bible each and every day it makes resisting temptation easier.

Tonight we reinforced that you can find joy in any circumstance when you trust God, and use whatever situation you’re in to encourage others and not get discouraged yourself. I think tonight’s lesson was as much for me as it was for my high school guys.

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

Reaching different students in different ways

March 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment

One of my favorite things about student ministry is the time I get to spend talking to students and ministering to them one-on-one. I think that’s when the real ministry moments happen and students are able to break down the barriers they so carefully and purposefully createaround themselves when they’re with other people their same age.

When it comes to individual ministry though, something I’ve had to learn is that not all students respond to the same type of communication. That kind of seems like a no-brainer, but it didn’t come so easily to me.

Here’s one example in the small group I have this year: I have one student that responds amazingly well to just sitting somewhere, ignoring everything else that’s going on and talking face-to-face. We’ve had the most amazing, connecting moments doing this, and that’s when the most ministry has happened for him. On the other hand, I have a guy who has a big problem focusing in a one-on-one, face-to-face setting. I’ve had to learn that actually communicating via text with him is the best way for him to focus and get something out of our conversations.

It was hard for me to make that adjustment, because my natural tendency is to assume everyone communicates the same way. Obviously this isn’t true. We just need to be able to find a way to key in to whatever a particular student needs most.

Question: How have you had to adapt the way you communicate with students to minister effectively? Let me know here.

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