You are here: Home / Archives for faith

Where does Conviction Come From?

May 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Last week I was sitting in Starbucks when someone from our Children’s Ministry staff came in. She was the first person I ever volunteered with at church, so we go back quite a few years. We got to talking about the idea of conviction and how it affects what we do. She had read about conviction earlier that day in a devotional, and she was taking that idea and using it to challenge some of her younger Children’s Ministry volunteers to step up into a stronger role.

Her thoughts about conviction got me thinking a lot about the role it plays in my students. If I look at the guys who seem to have the strongest relationship with God–the ones who really get it–I see a stronger sense of conviction. They’re convicted to read their Bibles more, pray more, do things that are outside their comfort zone to grow in God. So where does this sense of conviction come from in them?

As I’ve looked more into this Christian use of the word “conviction,” I’ve found that it comes partly from the Greek word for “faith.” That would lead me to believe that conviction and faith go hand in hand. You can’t have conviction without first having faith. In those students I was talking about above, they have a faith that is strong and growing. Because of this, they also seem to have a stronger sense of conviction.

I know that’s just one idea that plays into the idea of conviction, so now I turn it to you. In your experience, where does conviction come from? Is it something that can be instilled in someone, or does it have to come about organically through a basis of faith?

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

Students Accepting Christ

December 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Matt: For me, some of the most exciting moments in Student Ministry have been talking to students about accepting Christ in their life and deciding they want to be saved. I’ve only experienced this twice but both times I had goose bumps. I had the opportunity last week to spend some time advising a former student of mine, who came into my last small group during the last three weeks. I didn’t really have a lot of time with him in small group but he remembered a lot of what I said those three weeks and when he needed someone to talk to last week I made some time t meet up with him. I think the main reason he is going through a rough time is because he is not living his life in a Godly way. We talked and prayed and I’m meeting up with him again this week. After we met it dawned on me that I don’t know if he is saved or not, we never got to that point.

It’s a conversation I’ll have with him this coming week. There are some things that you want to specially ask a student, this has to be their faith, not their parents decision or something they are doing because you want them to.

Steven: This is something that has definitely weighed on my heart big time in recent weeks. Having 7th graders, especially ones I hadn’t met before October, has really put me on the offensive for discovering where each guy is on a spiritual spectrum. Some of them are very secure in their faith, and it shows. Others are hearing the Gospel for the first time in my small group, and there are a bunch in between.

But the biggest issue we face as 7th grade leaders is helping our students understand a faith of their own. Many have “been Christians since they were little,” but a lot of those students can’t really explain what that means. This is really scary–students thinking they have genuine faith but are really living under the faith umbrella of their parents. My co-leader and I have been on the lookout for these students and have been intentionally bringing up the conversation to see which of the guys fall into this category. When it does happen, some of them aren’t ready to embrace a faith of their own, but at least then they know it’s a decision they need to make.

Our biggest job as youth workers is to portray the Gospel. Everything else is secondary, and we need to be conscious of this every week.

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

Faith like an oak tree–not a mushroom

October 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Matt: As student ministry leaders we play an important role in helping students to develop their faith. A couple of things I’ve learned over the years are that when that faith grows at too rapid of a  pace, it’s more subject to burn out and die. By the same token, if it grows too slow then it’s easier for students not to take some important steps in their faith and continue growing, it’s easy to backslide into old ways and habits.

I look at faith as growing like a mushroom or growing like an oak tree. If it grows like a mushroom, which only takes a couple of days to grow, it will usually have a short life span, it will be really flashy for a short time and then it goes away, and usually the student goes away from your youth group and you wonder what happened. Their faith should grow like an oak tree which can literally take 200 years to grow. It grows and grows and you constantly see the growth and change in that student. Here are some things to remember:

  • Saying a complete yes to Jesus, means saying no to a lot of things, we need to help guide students in this area. We need to help them see the big picture and not focus on the immediate temporary gratification that sin brings.
  • Help your students find ways to stretch and grow their faith, such as serve projects, finding opportunities for them to reach out to their friends and invite them to church, or a fun event your church is putting on.
  • Be available to them when they are in a weak moment, let them know you’re there to turn to for help.

Steven: This idea of a flashy, fast-growing faith and a slower, more grounded faith isn’t anything new. Jesus actually talked about this exact same thing in Matthew 13:

“A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” (Matthew 13:3-8)

There are a lot of things we can take away from this parable, but here are some things about growing students:

  • Don’t rush it. It’s tempting to do a huge push for getting students to start a relationship with Jesus and then drop the ball. I have definitely been an offender of this rule.
  • Always follow up. This is one of the greatest things you can do to keep your students growing steadily, but it also takes the most time. If you’re committed to students’ growth, you need to check in with them consistently.
  • Build them up to go against what the world says and does. We don’t want our students’ faith to be “choked” by the thorns. Build them up to know that Christians are to be counter-cultural.

This faith-buildings is super important, but we have to get the timing right. Not too fast like a mushroom–slow, steady and secure like an oak tree.

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

Students need to own their faith

August 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Matt: When I was about 13 years old I realized that I had “super Christians” for parents. I wasn’t worried  about this whole God thing or heaven because I was certain that their good works were enough to get them and my whole family into Heaven. I remember one day asking my mom if I could skip church the next day to go to a Detroit Tiger’s baseball game. She sat me down and told me that I was at the age where I could make my own decisions about going to church and that if I wanted to go to a baseball game that was my choice, but that I should pray about it that night. I did, and well, you guessed it I passed on the baseball game and went to church.

It was that week that my mom made it clear to me that I had to start making some decisions about Christ and that my decisions, not hers or my dad’s, would determine my relationship with God. I can still remember that week was a life changing week for me in my walk with God. But what about students you may have in your group that don’t have parents that are believers? Or parents that have never had that conversation with their sons or daughters? This is a lesson that needs to be taught to students. Small group is the perfect place.

Find out from your students:

1. Where they are in their walk with God. Are they all in, or just along for the ride?

2. Make them realize that God wants the decision to be up to each one of us to follow and love him, not because someone told us we should or that because my parents are “Super Christians” does not mean that I’m going to Heaven without accepting Jesus.

3. Teach students that growing in Christ never ends, we need to keep being fed and keep learning and loving God, every day.

4. Be the best example you can be for students in how you live your life. They are watching us all the time and they know if you talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.

Steven: As someone that works mostly with junior high students, the idea of students finding ownership of their faith is a huge deal. Starting in 7th grade, our students start to feel the pull of maturity and they begin to question everything they’ve previously taken for granted. They start pushing the boundaries of right and wrong to see what they can get away with, and they start experimenting with their thoughts and beliefs.

Because this is such a crucial age for students to decide for themselves what they’re going to do with this “God thing,” we have a huge responsibility to take advantage of this questioning time. We can either leave them alone to their own questioning, or we can step in and try to help them understand what faith looks like apart from their parents. I don’t know about you, but it makes a whole lot more sense to me to help them understand rather than letting them drift along.

We need to recognize that students have growing to do, and we can either be a part of that process or not. We can encourage them to seek God in their lives, to live in a way that is set apart from the world, or we can stand by while they sort it out for themselves through a lot of trial and error. We can also be an example to them of what a Christian life looks like, and that can speak volumes in the way of helping them understand their own personal faith.

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

I HAD a lesson prepared for my small group…

February 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Last week I had one of those events that I call “a total God moment”.  It’s amoment when God just kind of speaks to you and pushes you in a direction and you have no idea why, but at the end of the night you realize how awesome it was and why God led you there.

I had a lesson prepared for my high school small group guys. I was going to talk about the Beatitudes  and how they apply to our lives today. I did a lot of research, I borrowed a commentary from Steven by D.A. Carson on the Books of Matthew and Luke, I spelled out practical applications, and by the time I was done I had 5 pages of notes. When I was done with this lesson my guys were going to be totally schooled on the Beatitudes, they would be reciting them in their sleep. I knew I had nailed this lesson, heck, even I understood the Beatitudes better than I ever have! About 30 minutes before my group meets I did my usual routine of going into my office in the Student Ministry building at Saddleback Church, closing my door and having some serious prayer time with Jesus before hand.

When I was done with prayer time, I don’t know why but something kept telling me that tonight was not the night for the lesson I had prepared. “No”, I thought…it has to be I’ve spent a lot of time on this and it’s good if I don’t say so myself!  But the closer the time got to my small group meeting time and my guys started arriving I kept getting this feeling that I need to skip the lesson for tonight and do something else. I put it out of my mind until we got into our meeting room, and began talking about everyone’s week. It hit me again…not tonight..put this lesson away. By then I figured it out and knew it was God telling me something else needed to be talked about tonight. The next thing I knew I started asking them to tell me what the definition of forgiveness is, and do they need to forgive anyone? Or do they need to ask forgiveness of someone? One of the guys asked me for my definition of forgiveness. I told him to me, true forgiveness means that I forever give up the right to hold against you what you have done to me. Once I say “I forgive you”, its done, its gone, it never happened.

At that moment one of the guys began talking about something he had done and needed to ask forgiveness for. It was a pretty tough issue and I was so proud of him for putting his feelings out there. And then another one, and by the time the night was over two more had text me about issues they needed to ask someone to forgive them for. That night our group’s Facebook page lit up with comments from the guys thanking me for the lesson and for helping them make some tough decisions tonight. WOW! If I had kept with my original plan none of this would have happened! God definitely knew what was best for the lesson last night and I’m thankful I heard and followed His direction. The awesome part is that I got to just sit back and watch them minister to each other! Tears were shed, hugs were given out and accountability partners were chosen.

My question is….are you far enough along in your faith to recognize when God is moving you to or away from something?

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

When You Feel Stuck

February 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Here’s a repost of an article from Benjer McVeigh, a student pastor at Washington Heights Church in Ogden, Utah. We’ve all felt like our ministry was stuck in neutral and not going anywhere. Here’s a tease of his post, you can find the entire post here. 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lately, I’ve felt…stuck. Stuck in ministry, that is. There’s no one thing that I can put my finger on that’s really, really broken in our student ministry. It’s just that I feel like we’re not making the impact we could be making, and that as a leader, I need to help our team figure out where we need to go next. The feeling is actually quite hard to articulate, and it’s something I’ve spent a lot of prayer and thought on lately. I’d be willing to bet that others have felt this way before, or may be feeling this way right now. Here are some things to do that are helpful when we feel “stuck” as leaders:

Ask: Why do I feel stuck? Do you feel stuck because you realize that there are hundreds or thousands of students in your community who don’t know Jesus, and you feel burdened to reach more of those students? Or do you feel stuck because your pride hurts from lower attendance numbers or slower growth? Sometimes we’re just longing for another shot of momentum to stroke our egos and feel important.

Pray: Obvious, yes. But worth mentioning, because if you’re like me, you’re a problem solver. I studied math in college, and I love solving problems. Many times, I approach my role as a leader the same way and continually try to puzzle things out. There’s nothing wrong with solving problems, but I often forget that it’s the Holy Spirit that leads, not me and my tiny little brain.

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

Don’t Give Up Don’t Give In Keep Pushing Forward

December 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Do not worry. Do not keep saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘What will we wear? The people who do not know God are looking for all these things. Your Father in heaven knows you need all these things. First of all, look for the holy nation of God. Be right with Him. All these other things will be given to you also. Do not worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will have its own worries. The troubles we have in a day are enough for one day. –Matthew 6:31-34  NLT

We all have seasons in our lives that are tougher than others. I think when we come out of those seasons; God has made us tougher in the process. It seems that all through the year I’ll have at least one student going through one of those times in his life. Right now I have two that having a rough time and the funny thing is…so am I.

 As I was talking to them separate from the group the other night and encouraging them and telling them not to give up or give in but to keep pushing forward and pray and trust God- something hit me. Those were exactly the words I needed to hear at that moment! God was using my rough time….to help two students…and their rough time was helping me. What an amazing God we have!

I’m constantly telling students that God never wastes a hurt, he will use your hurt to help others one day. I love when I see it play out right in front of me.

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

Be Satisfied With What God is Doing

October 1, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Here’s another great post from Jay Higham. It follows up earlier posts from Steven and I about being able to just let God run your small group, and your life. Here a tease, the whole post can be found here.

Tip: Be satisfied with what God is doing in and through you.

 I have learned a lot about how to manage my time. Some weeks are great. Some weeks are not so great. But the best and most important lesson I learned is that nothing happens that God hasn’t ordained to happen.

Without getting into Theology and Doctrinal positions, I believe that God ordains all that happens. Nothing transpires without His knowledge and approval. It’s that understanding that helps me to recognize that what happens during my week to week happens because God makes it happen. Suddenly, to do lists don’t matter. While they may be an organizing tool, we accomplish what God has ordained for us to accomplish’.

At the end of the day we all hope to experience that feeling of accomplishment. We want to know that we worked hard, completed our tasks, and finished well. But how do we get to that point when there are still “To Do’s” left on our list?

 

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

Retro Friday // How do you know your students are ready to leave

September 30, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Here’s a post we did at the end of the school year in the spring. I picked this post for Retro Friday this week because next week at Saddleback Church we begin a new year of student small groups. I want to keep this in mind throughout the year for my high school seniors who will be moving on at the end of the year. This post was originally on volunteeryouthministry.com  You can find the original post here.

MATT: While meeting with my high school small group this week, I started looking around the room at my guys, picking out the seniors who will be moving on at the end of this school year. I thought about how far we have come, the amazing transformation in these guys, and how I can see amazing leadership skills in some of them. And then I began to wonder if I have done all I can to send these guys off to college and worlds beyond with the right skills and abilities to find their ministry, to continue their pursuit of Jesus and increase their knowledge in the Bible. My co-leader and I have had an easy time with some of our guys and a harder time with others. Some have their feet firmly planted in a walk with God, some not so much. My co-leader and I talked about it that night, and I realized he was thinking the same thing I was. We decided that we have three more months with our seniors and that we are going to do everything in our power to make this next three months count.

I prayed about it that night, and felt God was giving me ideas. One of them was that we are going to spend a lot of time making sure our guys have dedicated their lives to Christ and that they have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. I know most of them have, but I’m not sure about a couple of them. As a student ministry leader, God has placed these students in your care. Some of my guys come from homes where the parents do not attend church, as student ministry leaders we have to be the example for those students! I want to spend more time in the Word with my guys, I want them to find the comfort and advice that I find in my quiet time and Bible study. I also want them to know that I’ll be there for them, that just because they graduated from high school and have moved on from our small group, that my love and caring for them does not stop. I want to see them move on and start attending our college age services and get involved in another small group, or even better, stay together as a new college small group. I have some strong leaders in my small group, I want to see them go on and become leaders for younger students. Some of my guys have an amazing testimony and a God-given talent and ability to lead. If you have students like that, encourage the crap out of them to use those talents!

STEVEN: This is my third year leading a junior high small group. In the part of Southern California that we live, most of our junior high schools are only 7th and 8th grade, which means this is my second completely new group of guys. Why do I tell you that? Because I have had to grow close to and pass on a whole group of students. This was my first group, so they will always have a special place in my heart that I will never forget, and I honestly think they are the biggest reason for me deciding to go into full-time youth ministry. With that being said, it was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do when I let them move on to high school without me. I got so connected to those guys, I knew their lives, their families, their pains, their struggles, everything. When the time came to make a decision about moving on with them or not, I knew that God had placed me and equipped me to serve with (and put up with) junior highers. It takes a unique person, but I knew that it would be a sin to do something God hadn’t equipped me for.

When I finally made that decision, I knew there were two last things I needed to do for my guys: 1) Find them a good leader and 2) Make sure they stick together, no matter who their leader is. I knew that even if they didn’t have a hand-chosen leader, the most important thing was that they didn’t all break up and go their separate ways after the two years they had invested in each other’s lives. As it turns out, a really good friend of mine was in the market to start a new high school small group with freshmen, so not only did I get to keep them all together, I knew they were going to have a great leader to take them through the next four years. Finally, I made sure to meet with their new leader to “brief” him on some of the things I had learned about all the guys. That gave him a head start, rather than having to completely build the relationship and trust from the bottom up. Don’t just let your guys move on with no connection. They need to stay together in order to stay invested in each other’s lives and keep growing each other.

If you have seniors in your high school group, or 8th graders moving on from your junior high group, have you done all you can to prepare them? One day in heaven I want to be able to answer that question with a great big yes!

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

Retro Friday // Whose Time is it Anyway?

August 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Some of our frustrations in ministry are because we want to do things on our timeline, not God’s.

Steven: I have a bittersweet quality when it comes to youth ministry: I’m a fixer. While it might sound really great that I want to fix students’ problems and issues, it can also get me into a lot of trouble. I do think God wired me to want to help people and care about them and want them to be better, but the other side of it is that I get frustrated when I can’t fix them.

This week my junior high small group co-leader and I were planning on wrapping up a 3-week series on “pains and struggles.” This week we were talking about how people are designed to want to help each other, so we should be seeking to help people around us recover from their pains and struggles. As we were leading the lesson, our 13 seventh grade boys decided to go into “rowdy mode.” No matter what we did, we couldn’t get more than two minutes into discussion without them going off on a tangent and then we would have to reel them back in. The part that frustrated me most was that the boys causing most of the disruption were guys that have the most struggles in their lives. Normally we would spend some extra time during the week with these guys ministering to them and loving on them, but we’ve run into a common issue: lack of time.

My co-leader and I are both college students. I just transferred to a Christian university that I commute to everyday, and the workload is more than I’m used to. All in all, I have a lot less time than I did a month ago. The downside to this is that I don’t feel like I have enough time to minister to my students that need more attention, which then leads to a less-focused small group time. The irony in it all is that one of the things we tried to teach the guys this week was to remember God’s timeline; when we’re trying to help people, it’s usually not going to happen overnight, it’s a process that takes some time. After I left group that night, I was frustrated with the lack of focus in our group, but I had to force myself to remember that God’s timing is WAY better than mine is. I made it a point to spend some time in prayer that night and connect with God to give Him more control over our group, rather than try to take care of it all myself.

Matt: I use to hear people talk about spiritual warfare and think to myself that was something they made up to explain away mistakes they had made that were now coming back to them.  I now feel very differently about that term.  I have felt it myself now, and it’s very real.  It seems the closer I get to God, the closer my students would get to God, I would have something happen in my life that would affect me in a negative way.  I have been dealing with an on-going health problem that I know is Satan pulling me back.  I have even thought to myself, why is God letting this happen?  I’ve been doing all the right things, doing all the good works, why is this happening, why are my prayers not being answered?  It really is a simple answer.  Satan hates when we grow closer and closer to God.  He hates seeing the positive change we bring to students lives when we let God work through us.

 I have recently come to realize that my prayers are NOT going unanswered.  I’m just judging them on MY timetable, not God’s.  I remember the phrase, “The Teacher is always silent during a test.”  That describes what I’m going through!  I know that God is stretching and growing me right now in ways that I don’t understand, but one day it will be very obvious.  How do I battle spiritual warfare?  Simple answer, I tell my friends know what I’m going through and ask for their prayers.  I dive really deep in my quiet time now.  I read the Bible, pray and then sit back and LISTEN to what God is telling me.  I know this season won’t last forever, even though it seems like it will.

This is my frustration right now in my ministry that I’m dealing with.  I  know I’m not alone, I have people who care, truly care about me praying and loving on me right now.  My health problem seems so small now that I look at it in that pretense.  When i come out on the other end of this season, I know I’m going to be stronger, more faithful and a better teacher, mentor, brother, friend and small group leader than I was before.  I know I’m going to be passing down my spiritual gifts to the next generation.

How do your frustrations affect your ministry, and how do you handle them?

Filed Under: Encouragement, Retro Friday, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , ,
«Older Posts