You are here: Home / Archives for culture

The First Year is About Building Relationships

April 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment

“@broadandy: @Coachshef it takes a year to build solid relationships with a student. Think with the end in mind.”

This is a tweet I saw last week, and I could not agree more with what he said. The first year with a group of students is all about building relationships.

In junior high ministry, I only get 2 years with a group of students. They’re only a part of my ministry for 2 years, and those years fly by as it is. What I’ve learned is that if you can spend the entire first year building great relationships with students, it will set you up for HUGE success in the next year. Since I want my ministry to be as fruitful as possible, of course I’m going to invest in my students relationally during the first year.

Here’s how I’m doing it with my small group:

  • Making prayer requests a priority. Rather than getting through a small group lesson and squeezing prayer requests into the last 5 minutes, I’m doing prayer requests first. It’s more important for me to hear about your life than the discussion we might have tonight.
  • Taking students out to dinner. My co-leader and I take a guy out to dinner every week before our small group. This is to get to know them and for them to get to know us. It also gives them a chance to talk about anything they don’t feel comfortable discussing in a group.
  • Creating a communication culture. We call our small groups “Life Groups,” because we do life together. A huge part of that is communicating outside of group, primarily through texting. I’m trying to train my guys to make communication a priority.

Those are 3 simple things, but we have to be willing to sacrifice that “great lesson about the doctrine of sanctification” for relationship building, at least during the first year.

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

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: , , , , ,

Almost Half of US Teens Have iPhones

April 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Last Tuesday, I ran across this article on an Apple news site I frequent. Feel free to follow the link, but the basic idea is that in a recent study, nearly half of US teens surveyed had an iPhone.

…so what does this tell us about our students, and how does it affect student ministry?

  • Students are big on brand recognition. Even as an iPhone user, I know there are “better” phones on the market than iPhones. If someone wants more technology in their pocket, they would get something different than an iPhone. To me, this says that students are more concerned with what their friends see them possessing than actually being an individual.
  • There are computers in every pocket. iPhones (or any smart phone) are basically tiny computers. They connect to the internet, they can send pictures, texts–huge amounts of information–to anyone. The other side of this is the accessibility to sites that students shouldn’t be visiting. They no longer need to hide these things on their family computers because their computer is always with them.
  • Students are more connected now than ever. This one kind of goes along with my previous point. Not only do they have computers in their pockets, but they are constantly connected to their friends. They are in a perpetual state of texting, waiting for texts, Skype’ing, FaceTime’ing… the list goes on. There is so much connection now compared to just 10 years ago, and that connection is significant.
Filed Under: Culture, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Culture vs. Christ

February 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment

I fractured my ankle and I’ve been put into a boot cast and told to stay off my feet for five days. Not exactly what I had planned but I decided that I was going to use this time to be productive in some way and not just sit around reading novels and watching television. Day one, at first didn’t start out well and I got lazy and spent the day flipping through the channels on TV. As I was looking at the content of some of the shows on cable yesterday I realized how out of touch I’ve gotten with what’s on TV these days. I mostly watch the History Channel or Food Network, and I will admit I am a fan of Duck Dynasty.

I would never consider myself a prude but some of the shows on TV just offend me. I was amazed at the language and the amount of times that some shows bleep out the “F” word, and some of the MTV reality shows just seemed like soft core pornography.  Then it dawned on me, teens are watching this every day.

We’re in a constant battle with this. Culture does not have student’s best interests in mind. Culture and the world try to tell students to just do what feels good, not what’s right or biblical. Culture tells students to live for yourself, the other guy can take care of himself.

When I look at our High School Ministry at Saddleback Church, it scares me to think that the averages tell us that up to 50% of these kids will leave the church once they leave high school if we don’t help parents prepare them for adult life. Satan is waiting right outside the doors of your high school ministry.

How do we combat this? Well, I’ve asked myself that all day yesterday. What do we need to do to show teens a different way and continue to grow in their faith and keep going in their walk with Christ.

I think it all starts with character. First, as leaders we need to hold our character standards at the highest level. We need to show students that we talk the talk and walk the walk. That we are not one person in public and a different person in private

We also need to be intentional about teaching students that a relationship with Jesus is a lifelong walk. Like any relationship you need to constantly grow and build the relationship or it will fade out. We need to partner with parents. We have students for two hours a week, parents have them for the other 166 hours. We need to come along side parents and assist them as well as being there for students.

Last point, don’t think that once students leave your small group that you are done with them. Keep in contact with them, let them know you care and you’re still a sounding board and source they can come to when they hit tough times.  When they get to college and need help, if they don’t have a caring Christian adult to turn to besides their parents…where are they going to go?

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

Creating a Fellowship Culture

January 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment

In our ministry, there is an awesome leader who is doing great things for the Kingdom. He has led his small group of 8th graders since the beginning of last year, and it has been amazing to watch the group as time passed. This leader is amazing at creating the type of culture where his guys truly know how to fellowship. These guys come from all over the place (different schools, different cities), but you would think they all grew up together.

This is the type of environment we should all be trying to create for our students. To use their leader’s words, those guys don’t have the “I’m just part of the group” mentality–they are brothers.

This is exactly what I wish my group could be. Granted, it’s a lot harder to create this type of culture when both my co-leader and I work on weekends, but it is still possible. We need to be more aware of opportunities to spend time with these guys, turning them from “part of the group” to brothers.

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

Cultural Relevancy and Youth Ministry

December 17, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I’m not 18 years old anymore…in fact I’m far from it. As a youth ministry leader and volunteer I need to be REAL and not try to be something I’m not. Teens see right through that. I’ve seen some student ministry volunteers try to look and act cool and well, to be honest, you just look like a fool. I want to be an “attraction” to God, not a “distraction” from God. However, you do need to keep up on the current culture trends with teens to be a successful leader. 

Andy Blanks over youthministry360.com has a great blog about this topic. Here’s a tease of the article, you can find the entire blog here.

Lately I’ve listened to a conversation going on in youth ministry circles on whether or not it’s valuable to be versed in youth culture . . . to be “culturally relevant.” I think this conversation is of vital importance to us as youth workers. Give me 4 minutes of your time to share my thoughts (and I welcome yours, as well).

I believe youth workers must strive to be experts in two things: Scripture and culture. Let me explain.

We know the truth of Scripture is timeless. It’s as effective today at spiritual transformation as it was hundreds and thousands of years ago.

However, culture is not timeless. Culture is fluid. It changes with time and geography. You would never attempt to reach a people group in another culture without considering that culture’s unique realities. You wouldn’t travel to rural Chongqing, China and teach the exact same lesson you would teach in Idaho Falls. While the underlying biblical truths have a universal application, the cultural “vehicle” through which your lesson is communicated would be wholly ineffective.

I believe as youth workers we should approach reaching our students with the same level of cultural awareness that we would take in approaching another people group in another culture.

Why? What are the benefits of a commitment to cultural relevancy? Glad you asked.

  • It’s strategic–Knowing youth culture helps you tailor your message in order to deliver Scripture’s un-changing truth in a way that is wrapped in the rhetoric of the society surrounding your students.
  • It Shows You Care–Whenever I travel internationally, I learn some basic conversational phrases in the native language. When I need something and engage someone in their native language (however clumsily), they are much more inclined to help. It shows that I value their culture. Knowing youth culture says the same thing to your students.

 

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