You are here: Home / Archives for Doug Fields

Speaking to Teenagers

October 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Matt: If you’ve ever felt like your lessons to students are good but could be better, do we have the book and seminar for you! This past week I attended a one day seminar on Speaking to Teenagers, put on by Doug Fields and Duffy Robbins. I would highly recommend this seminar to anyone who is in student ministry. It’s not just designed for pastors, it’s designed for anyone who is speaking to teenagers. As a student ministry small group leader I picked up tons of ideas and pointers. This past summer I had read the book, Speaking to Teenagers and now I want to re-read the book after attending the seminar. If this seminar comes to your area I highly recommend you attend.

This goes without saying, but Doug Fields and Duffy Robbins are probably two of the top authorities when it comes to student ministry. At the very least get the book and read it and you will quickly learn how to put together messages that stick, inductive speaking techniques, how to use humor and stories to bring your lesson alive.

I’ve been privileged to speak to our high school ministry a few times and I know the next time I will definitely follow the ideas and proven methods from this seminar.

Steven: I’ll echo Matt’s praise for the seminar and, ultimately, the book by Doug and Duffy. I read through it over the summer, and it was a great read. Super practical, but also great for communication theory. I think a lot of youth workers are great at one, but need to know the other to be effective.

My favorite was the large section on message prep. Doug and Duffy offer a great way to prepare for messages, rather than just waiting until the night before to get started! More than that, they give great tips and suggestions for using time as effectively as possible and using resources wisely.

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

7th grade & 9th grade… Where do we start?

August 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Matt: In a couple of weeks we will have the official start of student ministry small groups. This will be my third group that I’ve led, but it will be my first group of high school freshmen. I’ve spent some time over the summer getting to know most of them and I’ve already grown close to a few of them. I’m excited to begin the school year with them and start leading them on their path to a closer relationship with God.

I’m excited to see what God has in store for this group. Most of them have been together for the past two years as a small group and I can tell there are some strong bonds between them. I want to help them grow those bonds even stronger so that they become life-long friends and accountability partners.

This year I want to find the right balance of Bible teaching and life-application lessons. I want them to form some strong Christian identities that will stay the same no matter what situations they find themselves in. I’ve spent a lot of my daily prayer time praying for the guys I know will be in my group and also the ones I don’t know yet. I know God will put the right guys in this group and I’m excited to see where God takes us this year. Stay tuned, I’m betting God is going to put some awesome blogs in front of Steven and me!

Steven: In a few weeks, I’ll be starting my third junior high small group of 7th graders. I’m more excited for this group than either of my 2 groups before. Not because I hated my last 2 groups (at least not that I would admit since some of my old students read this blog), but because of how much I’ve learned in the past 4 years of youth ministry. I’m definitely not an expert, but those years have given me some great insight into how to make the most of a group of junior high students.

Side note: Last Tuesday I posted a list of notes full of things I want to keep in mind during this year. Today’s post is more about getting started in the year.

Here’s what I’m keeping in mind as we get close to kicking off small groups for the new year:

  • Pray for God to use me. Sometimes I love to be specific about prayers, but I think it’s better to leave this type of prayer more general. God will use you and your ministry in huge ways if you open up to it. I know God will place the right students in my group, I just need to let him work.
  • Avoid the comparison trap. I took those words from Doug Fields’s mouth, but it rings true. I have a tendency to want to compare my groups with each other. That doesn’t do anything to benefit my ministry, so I need to be hyper-aware of any comparison thinking. I especially can’t compare my groups in front of my new students.
  • Fill up my spiritual well so it can overflow into others. It’s impossible for real ministry to happen without us being connected and in love with the Lord. If you’re feeling spiritually dry in this season before small groups begin, take time for some reconnection. Fill up your well.
    • Filed Under: Small Groups, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , ,

    My small group ideas for the new year

    August 21, 2012 by 1 Comment

    This year I’m starting with a brand new small group of 7th graders. This will be my 5th year leading small groups, and it will be my co-leader’s 4th year. Because of those years of experience, I’ve been thinking a lot over the summer about what changes we need to make in our personal ministries to make this group the most successful yet. I also read through Doug Fields’s Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry and that got me thinking even more. As I read, I jotted down a list of notes for Kyle (my co-leader) and I to pray, think and talk through. That list is below. Maybe there are some things on the list you need to add to your small group ministry.

    Leader development (Kyle and me)

    • Consistent quiet times and check-ups (at least once a week)
      • What are you reading? What is God teaching you? How are you being challenged?
    • Prayer (at least once a week, before Life Group each week?)
      • For each other
      • For our own relationships and growth in God
      • For our students
      • For Life Group families
    • Seek God first, ministry second
      • We can only be effective if our own spiritual wells are full
    • Rest
      • Intentional time away from work and ministry
      • One day every week
      • One week every six months

    Relational ministry

    • 5-3-1 relationships
      • Know five, develop three, focus on one
    • One-on-ones/Two-on-ones
      • Ask strategic questions
        • Relationship with God
        • Family stuff
        • Struggles/temptations
        • Prayer requests
      • Nudge toward Jesus when appropriate
    • Remember the little things
      • Birthday cards
      • Random notes
      • Phone calls on strategic days (first day of school, etc.)
      • Attend the last part of sports games (last quarter, inning, etc.)
    • Let them into our world
      • Pick them up when we’re running errands, grabbing a bite to eat, shopping, working
    • FOLLOW UP ON PRAYER REQUESTS
    Ministry to families (parents)
    • Remember that we aren’t parents
      • We aren’t the primary influence in a student’s life
    • Pray for parents
    • Know every parent’s name and who their kid is
      • Always have at least one of us greeting/saying bye at the curb
    • Communication
      • Concise (no more than a 2 minute read)
      • In advance
        • Weekly emails by Monday
        • Event notices several weeks ahead
      • Consistent
    Evaluation
    • Evaluate the state of our students once a month
    • Evaluate our program style once every two months
      • Keep an eye out for too much consistency/not enough variety
    • Evaluate our fulfillment of the goals of Life Group (fellowship and discipleship) once a quarter
    Filed Under: Small Groups, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

    Is your life “copy and paste”?

    June 18, 2012 by 1 Comment

    Matt: It’s so easy to get in a routine and to make ourselves busy. It might even mean making yourself busy doing something that you love. The problem is over time, no matter how much you love what you do, you can get burned out. When that happens everyone loses. For me it’s work. I can get so busy with work and not taking time off that I get stuck in a rut and then I feel overwhelmed. Sometimes we need to have someone point that out to us because we get so wrapped up in our daily activity that we don’t realize the effect it’s having on us.

    I’ve had to do some real soul-searching here and realize that I’m in a rut right now. We need rest and we need to step out of the day-to-day routines that trap us. When you’re in student ministry either as a career or as a volunteer we need to remember that students are watching us very closely. They see what we do. It’s important that we don’t set the example of spending so much time serving God that we forget to stop and take time to worship God. When you work for a church, especially a mega-church where there is just so much good you can do and get involved in that you don’t realize that at the same time you’re hurting other areas of your life. We also need to remember that God tells us to take a Sabbath. He knows that we are no good to him if we don’t take time out to recharge our batteries and keep our ministries fresh.

    Steven: When I look at my life, I notice that I have a tendency to fall into periods of repetition. Especially during a school semester, each week seems to be a copy and paste of the week before. This is good for structure and keeping on task, but after a while the monotony starts to wear me down. Between work, school, relationships, ministry and other things, there’s a lot competing for my time. After a while, there needs to be a period where I take a break in the repetition and free up some of the things that are competing for my time.

    Luckily I recognized this trend early on and I made a course correction to keep my sanity. Normally I work at the church Saturday through Monday. Because I’ll be starting a brand new group of 7th graders this year and I want to get to know some of them before we start small group signups, I decided to take Saturdays off so I could serve with our junior high ministry’s weekend services. Not only does this give me the time relief and break in monotony I need, but it helps me to get to know some of our new students that just came in to our ministry. I had to give up some valuable hours of work (and the pay that comes with it), but I know the tradeoff is way more important right now.

    A great resource that talks a lot about freeing up time for the most important things in your life is Doug Fields’s “What Matters Most.” It’s a really quick read (45 minutes or so), and you can get it nice and cheap on Doug’s site. It even ships out from his garage, so it may even come with Doug’s fingerprints on it!

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

    How old is too old for Student Ministry – Part Two

    February 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

    Lately the student ministry blog world has gone wild over posts about how old is too old to be effective in student ministry. Andy Blanks, Doug Fields and Phil Bell have blogged  about being too old to be effective in youth ministry. Here’s part two of our thoughts on that subject. You can find part one here.

    No matter what your situation or age there may be a lesson that someone younger or older is better suited to teach. I did a lesson last year with my group about what girls really think about guys and how girls want to be treated. I had a female small group leader come in and teach that lesson while I talked to her group of female students about guys. My point is age really does not and should not matter. What matters is getting a message across, building up students, bringing them closer to God and making sure they are Heaven bound!

    I can still play dodge ball with the best of them. The key is to participate and not sit on the sidelines, be one of the guys that night. It’s part of the bonding experience with students. They don’t care how old you are, they care that you care about them!

    Here’s the bottom line, Steven has talents and abilities because of his age that I do not. I have talents and abilities because of my age that Steven does not have. There is no shame in seeking advice from another generation, either younger or older. I’m not interested in how young I can appear, or how young I can talk, I’m interested in letting students know I care, and that I’ll be there for them and that my goal is to bring them to Christ, and to strengthen their walk with God. That is a timeless and ageless goal we all should have.

    Can’t wait for the day when I hear those words…”Well done my good and faithful servant, you no longer have to get wacked in the side of the head with a dodgeball and no one will call you dude here.”  Although secretly I hope they have dodgeball in heaven.

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

    How old is too old for Student Ministry – Part One

    February 7, 2012 by 1 Comment

    Lately the student ministry blog world has gone wild over posts about how old is too old to be effective in student ministry. Andy Blanks, Doug Fields and Phil Bell have blogged  about being too old to be effective in youth ministry. Well, here’s my two cents.

    This website in unique in that we bring you two different perspectives, from two different generations. I’m from the end of the Baby Boomer generation and Steven comes from the end of Generation Y. I’m talking a span of 30 years here folks. We have the same goal although we might go about it in different ways, and at the risk of sounding boastful,  we both have been pretty successful in student ministry here at Saddleback Church.

    Steven can probably name the current list of top ten songs from MTV, where I don’t have a clue unless I took the time to do some research. Does MTV even still play music videos? See that’s how out of touch I am with MTV. But I bring a ton of life experience that has proved effective when dealing with problems that teens are dealing with today. God has equipped me and given me talents to work with and minister to teens. It’s something that as long as I am physically able to do, I’ll keep doing. As long as I can make a difference in a student’s life and help bring students to Christ I’ll keep doing this.

    A few weeks ago I did a lesson on the negative effects of pornography and how to avoid falling into the trap of a porn addiction. I had a slight fear that even though I think the guys in my small group (12 high school seniors) can talk to me about anything, I thought this might be an awkward lesson coming just from me. It might be like talking about porn to your dad. My solution: I had Steven come to my small group that night and team-teach the lesson with me. My small group students know Steven and because he is just a few years older than them, they look at him as a leader and also as a peer. It worked, they totally opened up and I even had one student text Steven later in the week asking to meet with him to talk about his problem with porn and get some more suggestions for help. Did I care that he wanted to talk to Steven about this and not me? Not one bit! I’m not interested in how he got help; I’m interested that he reached out to someone to help him. Praise God that happened! Prior to this lesson he didn’t know where to turn.

    Tune in tomorrow for part two. Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel!  Baby Boomers will totally get that reference.

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

    The Dreaded Pornography Discussion… It’s easier than you think

    January 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

    My high school small group met last night, and it was a night where everything just clicked. I had great participation from all the guys in the group with everyone offering their input. We did a lesson on pornography and ways to battle it, and offered ideas and suggestions for those who really struggle with porn in their lives. While this is not an easy subject to talk about, it’s something that is very necessary. When the discussion first started I could sense some uneasiness in the room with some of the guys.

    I asked Steven to be there tonight for a couple of reasons. First, he had done this lesson with his junior high small group earlier this year and it was fairly easy to take his lesson plan and adapt it for high school students. Second, while I think my guys are able to open up with me about anything and any topic, I thought they might feel a little more at ease with someone closer to their age talking to them with me. It worked perfectly. I had Steven talk about ways that he and his friends had fought the porn battle when they were in high school and talked about accountability partners and other solutions they had come up with. While Steven was speaking I was watching my group pretty closely and I could tell they were completely at ease with talking about this with him.

    After our small group meeting was over, I received three different text messages from guys in the group letting me know that although they hadn’t really spoken up completely about their struggle with porn, they really appreciated the suggestions of ways to battle porn. That told me that this lesson really hit home. I’ve learned that often times the greatest ministry work happens after the meeting. It was that way tonight–between guys talking to me one on one afterwards and those text messages, I knew the lesson had a great impact last night.

    I strongly recommend that junior high and high school small group incorporate a lesson on pornography each school year into your curriculum. Find some creative ways to talk about an uneasy subject and keep the conversation going, don’t do all the talking and get their participation in the discussion. There are some great resources out there to use–Dougfields.com has an entire week of posts on his blog dealing with porn, there’s some great information on there. Also XXXChurch.com is a great resource.

    I’d love to hear your suggestions or comments on how you deal with this subject in your student small group.

     

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

    Porn week on DougFields.com

    November 19, 2011 by Leave a Comment

    Doug Fields has had an awesome series of posts on his blog this week that he has deemed “Porn Week.” In his own words, it’s not as fun as Shark Week, but just as dangerous. It all started with a post about lust vs. ambition, which then led to a crazy number of comments prompting a lot of talk about porn. Check out an excerpt from Tuesday’s post below, then head to Doug’s blog to see all the posts from this week.

    There are so many areas of life that are damaging that we’re either unwilling and/or afraid to talk openly about. Porn is one of them.

    I’m so tired of hearing about this! It breaks my heart when I see the grip it has on Christian leaders and it kills me knowing that our youth groups are full of teenagers who are dying in this battle/struggle.

    I meet every week with a small group of 10th grade guys who I love deeply. They’re great kids, yet I know every single one of them struggles with lust/porn and is always one click away from a self-defeating spiral. This trap has a cost!

    …

    Tuesday: 3 ways to help teenagers with porn

    Wednesday: Seriously Dad, What’s Wrong with Porn? - Part 1 of a guest post by Jonathan McKee

    Thursday: Does Porn Make You Impotent? – Part 2 of a guest post by Jonathan McKee

    Friday: Porn…where do you send people for help?

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

    Learning from my past mistakes

    October 11, 2011 by Leave a Comment

    Yesterday I read an awesome, authentic post on Doug Fields’s blog. Doug writes about five ways he was a “lousy small group leader” this summer, and I love how real he is. It got me thinking about what I’ve done wrong in youth ministry and how I would change it, so I’m going to take a page from Doug’s book and post a few of the mistakes I’m learning from.

    Here are some areas I’ve made mistakes in and what I’m going to do to fix them:

    1. I need to be more intentional. This is something I used to have written on the white board in my room to constantly remind me. It’s vague, but what it means to me is that I need to intentionally do things for my small group boys. I would love to show up to all their football games, school plays and the like, but I don’t have a very good track record of that.
    2. I need to be more direct. I feel like I’ve missed a lot of opportunities to have great conversations with my guys because I’ve beaten around the bush. I need to remember that as their small group leader, they’re expecting me to have those conversations with them. This year I’ll be focusing a lot more on making sure those conversations happen with all my guys.
    3. I need to pick my battles. So many nights after small group is over, I’m exhausted from telling guys to be quiet or stop being disruptive. Once in a while this is necessary to stay on track, but I think I need to relax a little more and let boys be boys. They’re not always going to be the perfect little cherubs I’m expecting them to be.
    4. I need to show my boys more of Jesus’ love. So often I think I get too focused on teaching something that I lose sight of the ultimate goal – being a godly role model to my small group boys. By just loving on the guys and not being so “by the book,” I’ll be able to show my junior high boys the love of Christ they can experience in their lives.

    I’m happy to say I don’t know it all. I’m even happier to say that I can learn from the mistakes I’ve made. Luckily I still have another year with my current small group to fix some of those things. I’m sure I’ll continue to make mistakes, but mistakes are what make us better leaders for our students.

    Question: What mistakes have you made in the past that you’ve been able to learn from and improve on?

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

    What’s really bothering you? Tell Me Now!

    September 21, 2011 by Leave a Comment

    After my high school small group met a couple of weeks ago, I got a text from one of my guys and later he and I talked on the phone for almost an hour. He had an issue and he didn’t know what to do and didn’t know who to turn to for some advice. I was able to answer his question and give him some advice and pray for him in about fifteen minutes and the rest of the conversation I realized that he had some other issues that is he is not quite ready to talk about, but I feel confident that when the time is right he will come  around for some spiritual guidance and help.

    I had to fight back the urge to ask him, “What’s really bothering you? TELL ME NOW!” I came close but it dawned on me that he is not ready yet to talk about a big issue that is going on in his life with his family. If you push too hard you run the risk of a student not being comfortable in talking with you. If I had known him longer I probably would have pushed it. But this is a student that I’ve only known since July when he was in my cabin at high school camp.

    However this is not to say, I just rolled over and didn’t say anything. I let him know that I can tell there is more on his mind than what we just talked about, and I let him know five simple words. “I’m here when you’re ready”.

    I think for students going through a tough time, half the battle is just knowing that someone is there for you, someone cares and someone will be there to support them during turbulent times in their life.

    As a student ministry leader, that’s what you need to be in a student’s life. Doug Fields just wrote an awesome post on his blog about small group leaders from a “Dad’s prospective”. (Check it out here) 

    Sometimes you’re just the guy who is there for them when they need some extra help.

    If you’re a small group leader, are you that person for your students?

    Filed Under: Small Groups, Volunteer ministry, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , ,
    «Older Posts