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Making Small Group a Priority

April 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment

This post started out as a raging address to students (and parents) who don’t make coming to small group a priority in their lives. There are things like sports that get in the way and tend to win out over small group, and it’s frustrating

Then something happened.

I was humbled and amazed this week when one of my boys went from telling me on Monday that he wouldn’t be at group this week because he had a baseball game on Tuesday night (our small group night). The topic we were discussing was tremendously relevant to stuff in his life, so this was a huge letdown. Unfortunately in Orange County culture (and I’m sure we’re not alone in this), sports in JH and HS have become life-filling. This particular student has practice almost every day of the week and at least one game a week. It didn’t surprise me that he would choose baseball over small group because of our culture, but it definitely bummed me out.

Because of that, I did something I haven’t done before in 5 years of leading small groups: I asked him to miss a game. I emailed his mom telling her about how relevant this week would be to her son, and I asked if there was any way that he would be able to miss one game this season. She said she would talk to her son and her husband about it because she knew just how relevant this week would be.

Long story short, he made a decision to skip the game and come to group. I was SO proud because I know this was no small feat: he’s the star of the team, he loves baseball and he doesn’t want to let his coach down. I was amazed to see that he had thought it through and put small group ahead of baseball this week, and it ended up being an amazing week for him to come to small group.

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

Helping the next leader succeed

July 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

One week from today is the last small group meeting I have with my current group. The group of 8th graders I met 2 short years ago have grown tremendously (both in height and in their walks with the Lord), and it is going to be really sad to see them go. As sad as that will be, it’s also a really exciting time for them. They will be moving into a brand new season of their lives, and I can’t wait to hear the stories from them and their new leaders.

Part of this new season is making sure their new leaders are set up for as much success as possible. We’re doing two things to make this happen.

The first thing we’re doing is meeting with them ahead of time to give them a rundown of our guys. We won’t be talking about our guys’ deepest, darkest secrets, but we want to let their new leaders know how to connect with them best. Each of our students have a different way of communicating best, and it will give their high school leaders a huge advantage to know what that looks like ahead of time.

The other thing is that we’re going to introduce the guys to their new leaders at our last meeting. This will be a kind of “passing the torch” in a way–giving the new leaders our blessing and letting the boys know who they are. Already this should create the beginning of a connection.

Since we’ve invested so much time into our students, we want to do everything we can to set up their next leaders for success. These small steps will make a huge difference.

Question: How do you set up your leaders for a successful transition?

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

Getting students to communicate with each other

April 25, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Carrying on with our (unintentional) theme of communication this week, I’ve been thinking recently about something that has happened in my junior high small group.

We have 9 guys in our group that are going to be ready at the end of the school year to move on into high school. We know that most (if not all) of them will stay together into a high school small group. Until last week, we hadn’t really empowered our students to rely on each other for stuff that they deal with on a daily basis. They come to us with stuff, which is great, but if we let them move on and they aren’t communicating with each other, things will fall apart. They need to build a level of accountability and trust with their small group brothers.

To encourage this, last week I got them thinking about unity. I explained that God calls us over and over again in the Bible to be unified. There is some unity in our group as it is now, but they still have a long way to go. I had them think about some things they can do between now and the end of the year to encourage unity within the group. They came up with some good suggestions, but the most important one was that they needed to bring themselves together to get through their issues as a team, not just with us as leaders.

Next week we’re going to push hard for accountability partners in the group, further building on this idea of unity and relying on each other for backup.

Question: How do you encourage unity and communication within your youth group? Let’s start the discussion here!

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

When students stop communicating…with parents

April 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Yesterday Steven and I posted about how to deal with students who stop communicating with you. Tonight I had a phone call from a parent of one of my high school small group students and she felt her son had stopped communicating with her. She asked if I would reach out to him and try to help him with a situation he is dealing with.

I’m always willing to help parents out but I always make sure that I go over a few points with them first:

  • They are the authority in their student’s life, not me. I’m happy to help but I need to work WITH them, not IN PLACE OF them.
  • I don’t want to go against their wishes but sometimes I need to talk with a parent and get them to compromise a little bit in the beginning. Small steps early on will lead to big steps later.
  • I always offer to pray with the parents. This particular situation I’m helping this family out with now is affecting the whole family, not just the student in my small group.
  • In this case I’m going to need some help from Scripture to show this student that what he is doing wrong is pointed out in the Bible as not a way that Christians behave and represent themselves. Always arm yourself with Scripture before you delve into a problem with a student.
  • Have a list ready for a student. These are the things you are going to talk about and where your student needs to change. When you give them a piece of paper to look at and take with them it makes the problem real and gives them something physical to look at and to work on.
  • Pray! Pray! Pray! Don’t try to take on a students problems, especially one that is affecting an entire family, and try to fix everything yourself. Ask God to give you direction and the right words at the right time to work through a problem.

Everything we put in the post yesterday also applies to this situation. We didn’t intend for this to be a two-part post but that’s what’s happened in this case. I’ve learned to roll with what God hands to me!

 

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

When students stop communicating

April 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Matt: It’s great when you can get through to a student and see the change that God brings to his or her life, but it’s not so great when that student stops communicating with you. Communication stops for a few different reasons, but I think sometimes the main reason is that we have struck a nerve with a student. We’ve opened a discussion that needs to be had but it might not be easy for a student to talk about. As a coping mechanism some students just shut down and don’t want to talk, or they might avoid you. Sometimes those are conversations that need some time to go by until a student is ready to continue the conversation. While you don’t want to force a conversation, sometimes you need to gently nudge a student to get it going again. I have guys in my small group that if I start a conversation with them about a situation they are in, I’ve found they want to talk about it and get it out in the open. I also have guys that need time to “process” what’s going on and they need to think about what’s going on before they are ready to talk. As a leader we have the difficult job of figuring out where students are with problems.

One of the important things to remember is to not just ignore a situation and hope it goes away because a student has shut down. Keep that student in prayer, keep waiting for the right time to continue a conversation or to start one if you haven’t addressed the situation yet. And while a student might not be happy with you now because you keep pressing them on a subject they might not want to talk about, they will thank you later once you are able to help them work out a problem.

Steven: A few times in my ministry I have lost communication with students. I especially ran into this last summer when a few of my guys didn’t make the leap between 7th grade and 8th grade. I lost them to summer. We had great communication through their 7th grade year, even into summer a bit, and then all of a sudden they shut down. No matter what I did to contact them, I could not connect with them.

If we’re not careful, this already bad situation can get worse in a heartbeat. The natural reaction to a situation like this is to keep trying to reach out. You might even want to do everything you can to make that connection again. The problem is, if we try to over-reach, we can actually end up pushing students further away.

Another point to remember is the type of communication necessary to make the connection again. If the student is big on texting, try that first. They’re most likely going to answer what they’re comfortable with. If their primary form of communication doesn’t work, it’s time to move on to something different.

If you still can’t make the connection, it’s time to pull out the big guns–the parents. Chances are, the parents in your ministry don’t know the extent to which you’re trying to reach their kids. If you have a way of contacting their parents, you can get them on your team and ask for help in getting reconnected to their student.

All of these things are important and in getting students to open themselves up to communicating after they’ve stopped (for whatever reason). The important thing to remember is this: never stop. God probably put that student in your life for a reason, so don’t let them get away.

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

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: , , , , , ,

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: , , , , , , , ,

Keeping tabs on students over Christmas Break

December 28, 2011 by Leave a Comment

“What are you doing to keep in contact with your students over Christmas Break, Steven?”

Well, mysterious voice, I’m doing a few things. None of them are difficult or terribly time-consuming, but they all show your students that you’re not just the guy that shows up once a week and then disappears.

  • Texts every day. I will usually send a generic text to all my guys every day to start a conversation. Yesterday I sent out a typical, “Hey! How was your Christmas?” I had 6 guys text me back right away and start a conversation.
  • One-on-ones. Breaks are a great opportunity to spend some intentional time with individual students. They’re more available and often get bored sitting at home, so they want to get out of the house.
  • Impromptu group stuff. I haven’t done a ton of this in the past, but it has some good potential. It would be something like texting all your students, “Hey, I’m going to be at Chick fil A at 6:00. Come on over if you want to hang out!” This would probably be easier with high school students than junior high because of the freedom of driving.

These 3 things are simple, but encourage solid relational ministry over a usually static time in the year.

Question: What do you do to keep in contact with your students over a short break? Tell us here.

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: , , , , , , , , ,

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: , , ,
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