Over the past several months we have been examining the state of youth ministry in Kentucky. We invited about 20 people involved in youth ministry from every section of our state in a variety of ministerial positions and various size churches to be part of an on-line Google community where we carried on a continuing conversation on what is working in reaching students. We also ask very pointed questions at this spring’s Iron Sharpening Iron events. Again just trying to get a handle on what is working to reach this generation of students. In this process, as you can imagine, several things appeared. Because we know there isn’t just one pattern or formula for having a successful youth ministry. The one thing that appeared over and over had to do with relationships, relationships at a variety of levels. The overwhelming consensus was that key to youth ministry involved healthy relationships in these seven areas.
The youth ministers/workers relationship with God is the base upon which healthy youth ministry is built. You would think that this would be a “no brainer”, but it is one area that when we as youth minister become transparent and open with each other that all struggle. It is not uncommon that in being about the busyness of ministry that we forget to take time to work on our personal relationship with God. The times we spend in the Word preparing for the next Bible Study of retreat is not a substitute for our alone time with the creator.
Relationships with their family. A line from a classic song by Waylon and Willie goes, “they’ll never stay home and they’re always alone, even with someone they love”. And while they were talking about Cowboys, I think it applies to a lot of youth ministers, especially in the summer time. Let us not be so busy relating to other peoples kids that we forget to relate to our own. Oh, and don’t forget to date your spouse.
Relationship with church staff/youth workers. Those fellow ministers that God has assembled to be part of the team that you a blessed to do ministry with can be our greatest asset or our greatest cause of consternation. I have seen a lot of mediocre youth ministries made great because of the youth ministers ability to recruit and unleash a host of volunteers to be a part of a vital team. And I have seen a ton of talented youth minister crash and burn because they couldn’t figure out how to involve others around them.
Relationship with the students. You would think this would be higher on the list than this, and for most youth ministers/workers it is. And while a passion for teenagers is why most of us got into youth work, we cannot ignore the other relationships around us. They should feel safe around us and know that we are there for them but within the confines of healthy teen adult relationship.
Relationship with the local schools and community organizations. One of the realizations that kept reoccurring in our discussion was that the days of opening the doors of the church and the students would just clamor to get in are for the most part over. If we are going to have a vital youth ministry we need to get involved where students are. And building relationships with schools and community groups (Boy Scouts, Dance teams, community theatre, traveling ball teams) are central to being involved in the lives of this generation of students.
Relationships with other youth ministers/workers. The old adage that “no man is an island” is as true in youth ministry as anywhere else. For years I have said it this way; “No one understands youth ministry like another youth minister”. Being involved in a local network of other youth ministers and workers is key to a vibrant youth ministry.
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posted by: Joe Ball on July 10th, 2009
Several things are stirring in my mind that lead to the title of this post. The first two are news reports that came out this week.
The first is out of Nelson County KY where a 13 year-old died in a car crash because his youth minister let him drive his car. Click here for full report. The only response I have is what was he thinking? And while he is not a Baptist youth minister I am sure there are some of us that have done similar if not the same sort of thing.
The second is from the Leaf Chronicle in Clarksville TN where a youth minister had inappropriate relations with 3 teen girls in his youth ministry. Again the only response I have is, what was he thinking?
These are not isolated cases, and stories like this are in the news way too much. They will be sensationalized on every news media in the area and we will get a well deserved black eye for the actions of a couple of individuals. These two events should make us angry, embarrassed and call us to pray for the families of all parties involved.
The third is a reflection of the events surrounding the SBC that met in Louisville earlier this week. And it has absolutely nothing to do with motions, or direction or visions or votes. But it has everything to do with what happened after we left the meetings. The reports of how we behaved in Louisville restaurants are appalling. SBC Messengers (with tags still around their neck so there wasn't any doubt) STIFFING the wait staff and leaving no tips. Some wait staff at restaurant asking to be taking off the schedule until "the Baptist" leave town and saying, "they hoped they (the Baptist) never came back to Louisville and that they would never go to a Baptist church if that was the way Baptist acted". There was even a report of one group who stayed at a restaurant for over an hour, had a meal and dessert and then didn't want to pay full price for their meal or leave a tip because they were offended at the shortness of the waitress’s skirt. Where was the offense when she first started waiting on you?
Similar complaints were heard by hotel staff.
And while we were busy leaving and eating there, who was left to clean up the mounds of liter we threw all over the floors and the parking lots at the Exposition Center? It was amazing to watch one young man, a convention attendee, consistently go behind other convention attendees and pick up the paper and trash they would drop. When ask about it his reply was a simple "The employees here all know we are Christian’s right? So shouldn't we leave this place better than we found it"?
And maybe that should have been our mantra for the Convention. Let’s LOVE out LOUD, and while we're at it, let's leave Louisville a better place than we found it.
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posted by: Joe Ball on June 25th, 2009
I came across this in Geg Steir from Dare2Share's blog. He refrences an article in Salon Magazine (not a magazine that I normally read) where a unchristian student, Kevin Roose, accompanies his Chirstian friends to Florida for Beach Reach. This chapter in Salon is an excerpt fron a book he has written about being a sinner at one of America's holiest Universities.
It is an interesting read. Stier says in his blog, "he didn't write his article out of vindictiveness or venom. He seemed to actually like these evangelicals and was exploring why they were willing to go through all the pain and strain of being persecuted without seeing tangible results."
I will post a few excerpts from the excerpt and then link you to both the Salon article and Steir's response. There are some areas for greaet conversation.
First a little about the author to help set the stage.
But I'm not a young evangelical -- not even close. Two months ago, I transferred to Liberty from Brown, ...I had a secular liberal upbringing and I've always considered myself pretty ambivalent about God, but I decided to enroll at Liberty for a semester to learn about my conservative Christian peers and find out whether any common ground existed between my world and theirs. Since then, I've been living undercover in an all-male dorm ...And when March rolled around, I decided to do what many Christian college students do over spring break: take a mission trip.
A major point for Roose is the evangelist zeal but the lack of a follow-up plan....
The issue of post-salvation behavior is an interesting one. I thought, when Scott was teaching us to evangelize, that we'd be told to do some sort of follow-up with successful converts, if we had any -- guide them to a local church, maybe, or at least take their contact information. But there's no such procedure. If Jason had decided to get saved (he didn't), Martina would have led him through the Sinner's Prayer ("Jesus, I am a sinner, come into my heart and be my Lord and Savior" or some variant thereof), she would have let him know he was saved, perhaps given him some Bible verses to read, and they never would have seen each other again. Cold-turkey evangelism provides the shortest, most non-committal conversion offer of any Western religion -- which, I suspect, is part of the appeal.
If the new believer backslides, though, like Jason was suggesting he might, Christians are likely to believe that he wasn't really saved. False conversions are a glaring wart on the face of Christian evangelism... I found several sobering statistics about the percentage of apparent converts who stay involved with the church in the long term, including one from Peter Wagner, a seminary professor in California who estimated that only 3 to 16 percent of the converts at Christian crusades stay involved.
The false conversion rate is profoundly depressing if you believe in this stuff. After all, if we get ten converts during this week -- an optimistic number -- and our false conversion numbers are consistent with the average, this group has spent a week's worth of twelve-hour days, thousands of dollars, and suffered massive amounts of emotional trauma for what? One more Christian? Two?
There must be an easier way.
At the end of the week he looks back at this experience and says:
Then again, maybe this trip was never all about the Spring Breakers. Battleground evangelism, it turns out, can be just as useful for the evangelists as for the non-believers. For these Liberty students, going to Daytona is a tool for self-anaesthetization, a way to get used t o the feeling of being an outcast in the secular world. The first 40 times someone blows you off, it feels awful. The second 40 times, you start reassuring yourself that all of this must serve a higher purpose. By the end of the week, you get the point -- you are going to be mocked and scorned for your faith, and this is the way it's supposed to be.
To read the entire excerpt in Salon click here
To read Steir's respons, click here
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posted by: Joe Ball on June 11th, 2009
Today's podcast is a conversation with Clint Scharff, Director of Field Service, Lincoln Heritage Council, BSA on Scouting as part of a local churches ministry.
If you know me, you know that I have been raised in the Boy Scouts. I was 6 when my dad became scoutmaster of Troop 20 in Overdale KY,, a role he still holds today some 40+ years later.
Clint and I talked openly about scoutings role in the church, and how both organizations can benefit from one another.
A couple of links refered to in the program.
http://www.scouting.org
http://www.lhcbsa.org/
www.royalambassadors.org
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posted by: Joe Ball on June 9th, 2009
Borton, Jeff and Eric Geiger. Simple Student Ministry: A Clear Process for Strategic Youth Discipleship. Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Publishing Group, 2009. 217 pp.
This review was originally posted at sbcimpact.
Anyone involved in student ministry understands the frustrations that come along with the territory. There always seems to be a plethora of events and programs that compete for the time of both the leaders and the students. For the leaders, it seems like there is never anytime to stop and smell the roses. As soon as one event ends, it is time to begin planning the next one. For students, there is always the hype of the next event to try and combat the sure-to-come crash from the spiritual high they got while attending the last big event.
Is there some way to change this busyness and start truly affecting the lives of students? That is what Eric Geiger and Jeff Borton hope to accomplish with Simple Student Ministry. This book builds on the same principles contained in the book Geiger coauthored with Thom S. Rainer, Simple Church. There is no new research added in this book and it is not necessary to have read Simple Church to understand what is discussed by Geiger and Borton in this book.
The authors simply hope to help student ministry leaders make a “renewed commitment to the essence of the gospel” (Pg. 2)—making and maturing disciples. If you are looking for a new model for your student ministry, then this book is not for you. The book is not another model for student ministry; this book is about a new way to do ministry.
The fact is that many student ministries wander aimlessly about hoping they are making a real difference in the lives of students. There is no real goal in mind, no purpose to the events and programs, and no clear understanding of how discipleship is being accomplished. For real discipleship to take place there must be a process. Process is what Simple Student Ministry is about. Geiger and Borton explain how to go about establishing a process of discipleship in any student ministry. How does this process accomplish discipleship? It is the process that “creates space for relationships, engages students in ministry and mission, fosters less dependence on programs, and operates with great intentionality” (Pg. 20). This is accomplished through four key elements: clarity, movement, alignment, and focus.
Clarity breathes life into the process. A student ministry without clarity is a complex student ministry. On the other hand, a student ministry with clarity is a student ministry that knows exactly what it is trying to accomplish in its students’ lives. It is present in a ministry that can clearly articulate how discipleship is taking place.
Movement naturally follows clarity. Once a process has been identified, there must be movement along that process. To put into my own words what the authors caution though is that this movement must move people along the process, not simply rearrange for the sake of movement. Ultimately, the process must be moving the students to action—to living out what they have learned.
Alignment must take place for the process to be successful. All the leaders of the student ministry must be committed to the process. When the leaders are aligned, there is a sense of ownership as well as unity among the team.
Once the process has been developed and implemented, there must be focus to keep it on track. Without focus, every ministry will begin to deviate and become complex. Part of remaining focused is eliminating the nonessentials, limiting the a ddition of programs, and reducing special events.
The book also contains case studies of mega churches, small and midsize churches, and parachurch organizations that have implemented the simple student ministry process. Along with the chapters on the different case studies, there is a chapter on how to go about implementing a simple process for ministry wherever you serve.
This book contains some great principles that can be applied to ministries of any size and any cultural context. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to simplify their student ministry and increase the effect upon the lives of the students to which they minister. Eric Geiger and Jeff Borton do an excellent job of explaining how to make any student ministry simple in an entertaining and easy to read format.
***
sbc IMPACT! published this review as part of an ongoing partnership with Broadman & Holman Publishers.
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posted by: Joe Ball on May 30th, 2009
