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When God Calls You In A Different Direction

May 9, 2013 by 1 Comment

*Warning* this post contains a humble brag.

Last night our High School Ministry had all of the high school small groups meet together and before hand the leaders were treated to dinner as a way of saying thanks. It was good to see and talk with leaders that I had not seen since summer camp last year. As I looked around the room it dawned on me…there were three young leaders there who I have had in my past small groups. It was a cool feeling to realize that three guys who I had a small part of pouring into their lives are now pouring into the lives of students in their own small groups.

I think I’ve reached the stage of life where maybe God needs me more as a mentor and teacher than a small group leader. Don’t get me wrong I love the guys in my high school small group and I look forward to seeing them each week and talking with them and watching them grow in the faith and seeing God do great things in their lives. But I feel more and more I’m being called into more of a mentoring and “teach the teacher” arena. I’m always honored when other leaders come to me for help with a problem student, or how to handle a situation. I feel blessed that God has given me the gift of relating and communicating with teens and young adults.

I could write on and on about knowing and feeling God’s call in your life and when you’re entering a new season. I think it’s different for all of us. But I know for myself I feel more and more that God is moving me in a new direction in student ministry. It’s something I’ve been praying about daily and I think last night was God really showing me something. I can influence a few students being a small group leader, but I can influence a ton of students by mentoring and training leaders. I’ll keep praying on this and either way, I’m excited to see how God uses me next!

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

Getting Students To Share Their Struggles

April 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment

When I have a student who is going through some tough times or is struggling with a particular issue I’m always happy to put in some extra time with him for some one-on-one discussions. Sometimes its something that they are just not ready to share with the entire small group at this time. I’ll let some time go by for him to work through some of his issue and then I start encouraging him to talk to others in the group. After all, that’s what small group is all about.

One of the misconceptions students have is that they are the only one dealing with a particular issue. Chances are there’s probably someone else in the group going through the same thing. Hearing another student talk about his struggle helps other students with the same issue to open up and work through the struggle as well.

I think there is also something that is therapeutic about talking to someone else about a problem you’re having. Sometimes it just plain helps to talk about it. If students are not ready to talk to the entire group at first, then  I encourage them to talk to their accountability partner or someone else in the group that they trust. Sharing our troubles and struggles with each other helps to build and gain trust in one another and makes your small group stronger.

A final thought: when students are struggling with an issue or a big problem in their life, remind them that God never wastes a hurt. Once they get past their current struggle, God will make them stronger and able to help someone else going through the same difficult time.

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

Chasing Students

April 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Matt: It’s hard to write on a topic where you’re not sure where you land on this subject. Do you chase after students who avoid going to church or small group or do you wait for them to be in the right “season” and come back on their own? I can actually see it being okay to do both. Sometimes I think students want to be chased, it’s an attention getting measure. Other times I think they just want to be left alone and they are not ready to hear the Gospel or to accept Jesus into their lives.

Sometimes I worry that if I chase after a student it’s just going to make him run farther away. I also wonder about students that left a small group or stop coming to church and think if I did enough for them or if I could have reached out one more time and gotten them back on the right path. All the while I also realize that everyone goes through different seasons and maybe right now is not a time a student is “ready” to accept Christ. If I wait for the right time it’s easier to make him a follower for life. But what if I miss that time?

Steven: Matt set up this line of thinking perfectly. I think there’s even another side that takes this “chasing” to an even broader level, and there may even be different applications depending on students being in either junior high or high school. This chase doesn’t have to be a readiness to accept Jesus, but anything.

For example, I feel like 5 years in ministry has given me an ability to read students well. I can usually tell if someone is trying to put on a face to make sure people see them as if nothing is wrong. So the question is, do we wait until that student is ready to talk about the issue on his own terms, or do we chase after it and encourage him to talk?

I would say that I lean more toward chasing. Especially for junior high students, some people have a stronger desire to be chased. They may not know how to express themselves, so they need someone to come after them. High school may be a little more on the “wait it out” side of this issue, but we have to decide where we land: chase or wait.

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

Responses That Are Too Good to be True

April 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Asking questions to gauge what a student is feeling or thinking is one of the best skills we can learn as youth workers. Whether it’s a thought related to a topic you’ve just discussed, a response to a tragedy or tough time, or if it’s just a general curiosity, there are many times when we need to evoke a response from a student.

At least in my ministry, there are two types of students: (1) your average, everyday student who has a solid foundation but is still learning things about his faith, and (2) the student who has grown up in a Christian family all his life, accepted Jesus as Lord as his first words, and whose parents are very actively involved in both church and the student’s life–we’ll call this one the super-Christian student. It seems like more often than not, the responses that come from the super-Christian students are the ones I tend to second-guess.

These students know what the right response should be. They know that when they’re going through a tough time, the “right” answer is, “Well you know, God has a plan for everything. He’s in control,” or, “I know everything will be okay in the end.” Sure, that might be the way he really feels, but I always have a voice in the back of my head that wonders if he is saying those things because he knows it’s the “right Christian answer.”

I’m not sure whether this is just cynicism, or if it’s a learned thought process from working with students for a few years. Either way, I think it’s a good thing for us all to keep in mind. There are times when we need to dig a little deeper below the surface to find the true feelings or thoughts from a student. They might be genuine with you all the time, but it’s worth taking a closer look to see if we can truly unearth what is happening in a student’s life.

Filed Under: Counseling, Youth Ministry

Stressed Out Students

February 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Steven: Just as we deal with stressors in our own lives, students deal with their own unique sets of stressors. They deal with pressure from parents to perform well in school, tension from coaches to do well on their sports teams and the ever present pressure to be seen as someone that people want to be around. Stress is something that can drive a student to do things they wouldn’t normally do, so how do we help them through those situations?

  • Perspective. Many times the best thing we can do is help them see that their situation isn’t as big as they’re making it out to be. Sure, that test on Thursday might be huge, but will it really flunk you out of junior high if you don’t do well?
  • Pacify. Even after putting things in perspective, it might not relieve the stress. Then it’s best to just try to calm them down and help them not to worry, but to rely on God for things.
  • Pray. Pray for them. Pray with them. Tell them to pray over the situation. Stress is a response to worry, which is the opposite on reliance on God. Turn it back to him and the stress will relieve itself.

Matt: Each week in my high school small group we go around the room and talk about how their week has gone, and sometimes I sit there and think to myself that I don’t remember life being so stressful when I was a freshman in high school. Students today face way more pressure not only with school and sports but from their peers. Are they wearing the “right” jeans and the latest fashions. They get bombarded with messages from technology constantly. I only had television giving me input. Teens today have computers and smart phones and texting and can contact each other at a moment’s notice. Relationships start and literally end in a text message it seems. A high school student breaks up with their girlfriend and the first step is to change their relationship status on Facebook so EVERYONE knows whats going on with them.

We need to get students to give their problems up to God more and make that the first status change they make. We need to model that for them. We need to pray with them and show them how to ask God for direction and to realize that when God had them waiting, God has them growing.

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

When Doubt Creeps In

February 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Matt: What do you do when a student tells you that he is not sure he believes in the Bible or in God? What would your response be? I’ve had this experience the past couple weeks and the first thing I did was pray. I asked God to give me the right words to say and to lead this student in a way that would be gently helping him come to his own conclusion. First off I asked him if something has happened in his life that has caused him to have doubts. Second I asked him if he was reading his Bible and having quiet times and trying to come closer to God. I explained that if we want a relationship to grow you have to work at it–it doesn’t just happen.

In this case I believe that something has occurred that is causing him to doubt and wonder why God has let him down. I had those same doubts shortly after both of my parents died within a short time of each other when I was a teenager. I gave him specific examples of how I came back to fully believing and committing my life to Christ. This is one of those times when how and what we are doing can be a huge example to a student.

Steven: Usually doubt isn’t something we deal with a lot in junior high. Quite honestly, I think it should be something more frequent for a junior higher–most of them are going through a transition from living on their parents’ faith (if they had one to begin with) to developing a faith of their own. That can be a rough time, so it seems like doubt would be more prevalent. Nevertheless, it seems to be more common in high school.

Either way, I think doubt is a good thing at the end of the day. If we’re honest, we’ve all struggled with some form of doubt, and my guess is that most of us have come out of that season stronger in our faith. There are a lot of questions one has to work through during a season of faith-doubt, and the journey to answer those questions can be a very helpful thing in the long run. To put it in a sentence: when a student is experiencing doubt, don’t discourage it, but walk through it with them. You can be a huge resource and source of encouragement in those troubling seasons.

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

Godly Discipline

December 7, 2012 by 2 Comments

We’ve blogged before on the topic of discipline, and I can easily say it’s not my favorite thing to talk about. No one WANTS to discipline students in our youth ministries, but it is one of those necessary discomforts.

This week I had an opportunity to exercise discipline with one of my students. We had an event over the weekend that brought a lot of the guys together as a group. It went very well the entire time, until the very end when we found out this student had done something he knew he shouldn’t have done. The end of the event was spent cleaning up a mess that shouldn’t have been made in the first place.

We knew this was something we couldn’t let slip by, so we had to act quickly before the moment passed. My co-leader and I spoke to this student in the moment, but only briefly. When he left, we could tell he was visibly upset, and he would later show regret by texting me to apologize. The next day I sent an email to his parents to explain what had happened and to tell them we wanted to have a conversation with him before our small group on Tuesday.

When Tuesday came, we knew that he already felt bad and apologized for what happened, so we didn’t want to belabor the point. Instead, we really pushed the idea of respect and how he needs to make choices based on what God wants for him.

We cannot make disciples without discipline. It needs to be something we don’t shy away from, but that we don’t misuse. Taken with care, discipline can be something that grows our students closer to Christ.

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

When Students Want to Talk

November 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Sometimes I think that students don’t open up to us as leaders because they are afraid of what our response will be. As leaders we need to be prepared for anything and everything. Here are some quick suggestions of what to do when a student tells you that they need to talk:

  • No matter what they tell you, show your best poker face ever. Don’t show shock or horror or anger or fear or disappointment or…well you get the picture. If you overreact it will keep a student from coming forward in the future when they need help.
  • Listen first, talk second. First off just sit there and listen. Let them tell you the whole story in their own words first before you start with a barrage of questions. A lot of times I’ve learned that students already know the answer, they just want someone to listen to them.
  • Make sure you understand the entire issue.  Once they are done explaining their version of the problem ask questions to make sure you have the entire picture in your mind.
  • If it’s a disagreement between students don’t take sides. Become Switzerland and be as neutral as you can be until you get the other side of the story. If the student who comes to you is in the wrong tell them, but do it in a loving way.
  • Don’t judge. Your job is to listen and be a source that can lead them to a solution, not just one more person in their life that is going to judge them.
  • Make sure you understand what your church’s policy is on mandated reporters. This differs from state to state to its important that if a student tells you something that needs to be reported to the authorities that proper action is taken. If your student ministry has not gone over what a mandated reporter is with you…ASK!
  • Pray, pray, pray. Can’t emphasis this one enough. Pray with the student after you talk with them. Keep them in prayer and offer prayer to them during the week if they want.
Filed Under: Counseling, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , ,

Treating the Disruption

October 19, 2012 by 1 Comment

Every week before my junior high small group, my co-leader and I like to do 2-on-1 dinners with one of our students. We rotate them through every week, so every few months we’ve gotten through our entire group. We treat the guys to dinner the first time, then every time after that they pay their own way. This is a fantastic way for us to connect with them individually, get to know them a bit better (especially in the beginning of a new group) and offer specific challenges to them that we can’t really do in a small group setting.

As we’re getting ready to start this pre-group dinner back up again, my co-leader Kyle came up with a good idea for the order of students we take out. We’ll start with the 3 most disruptive first, then hit the guys that are the more wallflower-types. After just 2 weeks of group we can already tell who these guys are going to be.

This order is for a couple reasons:

  1. We want to make sure the more disruptive guys know our expectations of them. We also think that connecting with someone personally is a way to help them be more comfortable, and then they don’t use their disruption as a comfort mechanism.
  2. We want to make sure to make the quiet ones more comfortable and connect with them to show that we’re safe.

I think bonding over food is one of the best ways to connect with someone, and it’s one of my favorite parts of doing ministry. Hopefully this new order of students will be successful like we’re hoping!

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

Building Trust

September 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

One of the most important things in a relationship to me is trust. Without it, you don’t know if the other person is being honest, you don’t know if their emotions are real… really, you don’t know a lot about the other person if you can’t trust them. With trust, strong relationships are formed. It’s possible to get real and authentic. It’s possible to truly connect.

I have spent a lot of time trying to build a reputation of being trustworthy. One of the biggest things I tell my students over and over again is that they can feel safe in talking to me about anything and it doesn’t leave the 2 of us. (There are certain cases when things have to be reported, but that’s another story). I want it known that I will be a vault of information, that way a student knows they have the freedom to be fully open. I think this is a biblical principle too:

Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered.

Proverbs 11:13

Recently this issue of trust came up with a student. There was a mutual feeling that we couldn’t trust each other–me because I knew this student hadn’t been truthful about some things, and him because he felt like I might tell other people some stuff he needed to share. Once I explained to him how much I value trust (over about 45 minutes), he seemed to get it, and things just came spilling out.

We need to be people who are “trustworthy in spirit.” We need to live out our lives in a way that display this trustworthiness to the glory of God and the benefit of our students.

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