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| 17. YS Roundtable Episode 6: Chad Meister |
| From Youth Specialties on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 @ 1:29 PM PST in the "Resources" Category. In this episode, Terry Linhart is joined by Chad Meister, professor at Bethel College, to discuss helping students during times crisis. Here are some more resources to help teens in times of crisis and help your volunteers be ready: The YS Roundtable is hosted by Terry Linhart, director of the Youth Specialties Academic Support Network (YSASN) and Professor of Youth Ministry & Adolescent Studies at Bethel College in Indiana. YS Roundtable is produced by our friends at RemedyLive. Read More... |
| 18. Responding In the Wake of the Oklahoma Tornadoes |
| From YouthMinistry.com on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 @ 1:17 PM PST in the "Blog" Category. Monday afternoon a massive tornado tore through a southern suburb of Oklahoma City, hitting homes and schools, and leaving death, destruction, and sorrow in its wake. The death toll is going up and down as rescuers and officials try to sort through conflicting reports and possible double-counts of the dead—but they do know that some of the children from that decimated school are among them. Search-and-rescue crews are still searching the rubble for survivors. These sort of natural disasters are ripe for teenagers to question why a loving God would "allow" this to happen. We've offered links here that will help you navigate this disaster with your students—news like this diminishes the distance we feel from those who are hurting, and your teenagers may appreciate the chance to talk about their experience of this tragedy. http://www.youthministry.com/articles/families/helping-students-navigate-through-tragedy http://www.youthministry.com/articles/families/responding-tragedy-redemptive-presence http://www.youthministry.com/articles/families/dealing-death http://www.youthministry.com/articles/families/how-talk-teens-about-tragedy-and-terror http://www.morethandodgeball.com/2010/03/05/guest-post-5-ways-to-help-students-deal-with-tragedy-and-pain/ Read More... |
| 19. Shepherding Teenagers (And Parents) Through "Let Down" Moments |
| From youthministry360 on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 @ 8:46 AM PST in the "Resources" Category. Image courtesy of shutterstock.com / (c) newphotoservice The phone rang at 1 AM. It was a mom desperate for advice after receiving a phone call that rocked her world. Her child had made a really poor decision and there was some serious fall-out from it.This student loves Jesus. This student had shared Christ with friends and served at every chance possible. This student had sought out a mentor and met with their mentor regularly. I can personally vouch for this student's faith, love for life, and desire to be used by the LORD in dynamic ways. But this one night, this student made a choice that didn't reflect any of these truths.The question for us as youth pastors is "How do we handle these moments?" How do we handle the parent who is desperate to answer the, "Why did he or she do this?" question. How do we handle it when the student, who is facing the immediate guilt of his or her actions, looks at you as their mentor and says, "I'm sorry I've disappointed you."It's in these "let down" moments, we have the opportunity to reflect truth and grace to everyone involved, even ourselves. Here's what this looks like:TruthWe are sinners. Regardless of how mature we are in our relationship with Christ, the reality is that we live in a broken world with a sin nature that gives in to temptation. Sometimes this truth is a hard reminder to parents and students. We tend to think that action = character. James 2 says that faith without action is dead, and rightfully so. We love seeing students live out their faith I ways that are visible. We can see how much they love the Lord. But when we forget what James says about temptation in chapter 1, there's the shellshock of watching students who are strong in their faith make sinful choices. TruthJesus isn't done with us yet. These reality check moments remind us of the need for Jesus. Even in our broken world, the Holy Spirit desires to transform our hearts and minds. These moments allow us to remember that the Gospel isn't just about our salvation when we die, but about our salvation while we're alive. These moments, especially with students and parents that desire to follow Jesus, allow us to teach a deep scriptural truth in a practical and tangible way. GraceOur words and actions immediately following these types of circumstances can be Jesus-breathed or guilt-driven. Paul in 2 Corinthians 7 talks about guilt that leads to repentance. When we know we've messed up, we need to head toward repentance and allow God's grace to lead us a new direction. When this student looked at me and said, "I'm sorry I've disappointed you" my reply was "No you haven't." I shared I thought the action was immature and foolish, but that more than anything I felt for them because of the guilt, pain, and regret they were already feeling. I told this student that I wasn't disappointed. The light that lit up in this student's eyes was a great moment for us. I reminded the student that when we seek forgiveness from Jesus, it was already granted. But repentance is a crucial element in this moment. It also gave me a chance to help the parents be able to see how God's grace will carry everyone through.After 12+ years of student ministry, I'm still not surprised by these moments. The truth is that we all can confess we personally still have them. Sharing from our own mistakes and how we've pursued repentance and transformation, can allow the students we pastor a visual example that it can be done. But we better not be faking it! Jesus doesn't need us blurring the picture of authentic submission to Him. (The world does that enough.) We need to be able to stand with students and continue to call them with the transformation Gospel that allows the Kingdom of Heaven to be lived out on this earth now in a real and life altering way. Read More... |
| 20. Instagram Will Kill Your Youth Ministry |
| From YouthMinistry.com on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 @ 8:25 AM PST in the "Blog" Category. Social media has swept across this great nation like wildfire. Facebook is on its way out. If you still use Myspace you're most likely a stalker—or very lonely. Twitter is still rocking along quite steadily and has yet to be completely infiltrated by preteens and stay-at-home moms. Vine represents the latest trend in video social media. And Instagram has firmly captured the market on pics. All of these sites host the massive "no, no" that I would like to delve into for a brief moment, but perhaps Instagram and Twitter host the largest majority of the crimes. I am, of course, talking about the local male youth pastor taking a "selfie" with one of his female students. Some of you might not think that this is a big deal, but it carries major implications. And quite frankly, it seriously ticks me off. Every time I see this pop up on my timeline I want to throw my iPhone and kick a puppy. Seriously bro, how could you be so dumb? Here are some of the reasons why this is inappropriate. 1. A description of the crime I'm not talking about posting a group pic of several students or even a group pic of several of your female students and you along side them. I'm talking about the pic that only includes the youth minister and a female student. This crime is only intensified when the two are extremely close. To make matters worse, I often see the youth minister and the female student hugged up on each other. The youth minister further brings criticism against himself if this offense is repeated on a weekly basis. Seriously bro, stop now. 2. It's straight-up creepy Every time we see that pic pop up on our timeline we all think, "That dude is a creep." 3. Rumors spread quickly If a crazed teenager grows angry at you, it is not uncommon for them to make up horrific stories about you. You can read real-life stories of this on the Internet. Don't give anyone ammo to use against you. 4. Ministers of the gospel must be above reproach. First Timothy 3:2 tells us that "an overseer must be above reproach…" Ephesians 5:3 states, "But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints." Posting picks of just you and a female student certainly leaves room for speculation. As a minister and a Christian, we must work to remove any room for criticism in the realm of sexual immorality. Don't ride alone with a female student. Don't counsel alone with a female student. And don't post selfies with female students. Daniel is the Student Pastor at Clearview Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL. You can join the conversation at danielbeckworth.com. Read More... |
| 21. 3 Ways Your Youth Ministry Can Help In The Aftermath Of The Oklahoma Tornado Tragedy |
| From YouthWorkTalk.com on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 @ 4:30 AM PST in the "Blog" Category. We can hardly believe it when we see the images on our TV screens can we. As I watched this tragedy unfold last night, I honestly had many questions for God and spent time praying for the people impacted by the disastrous tornado in Oklahoma. While we can't understand all that has happened, we can certainly [...]You just finished reading 3 Ways Your Youth Ministry Can Help In The Aftermath Of The Oklahoma Tornado Tragedy! Read More... |
| 22. Our God is greater (#YWS13 part 1) |
| From Youth Leaders Academy on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 @ 1:53 AM PST in the "Blog" Category. I've just returned from the UK where I attended the Youth Work Summit for the third time. And it was absolutely brilliant. I'll be blogging about it this week to share some of my experiences, but today I want to start by writing a bit about the theme of the conference: Greater. Tough circumstances Youth [...]You just finished reading Our God is greater (#YWS13 part 1)! Have you subscribed to our free biweekly newsletter yet? Read More... |
| 23. The Dare 2 Share Story |
| From Dare 2 Share Ministries International on Monday, May 20, 2013 @ 10:58 AM PST in the "Blog" Category. Have you ever wondered why we do what we do at Dare 2 Share? Did you ever want to get the skinny of why we started to begin with? Have you ever wanted a video you could share with a friend, church or small group that really shared the vision that drives this ministry that energizes teenagers to evangelize their world? This video does just that... Show it to your small group, send it on to a friend or let your missions committee see it. Use this video to spread the word about the vision that drives Dare 2 Share and how God can use you to be a part of it. The Gospel changes everything, Read More... |
| 24. The Problem With Perfectionism In Your Youth Ministry |
| From youthministry360 on Monday, May 20, 2013 @ 9:26 AM PST in the "Resources" Category. Image courtesy of shutterstock.com / (c) Andrii Muzyka I spent a whole summer working on small group curriculum for our middle school small groups. I invested hours of research and writing, trying to build the perfect set of questions and reflections that would enable teens to go deeper in their relationship with Christ. In the end this curriculum was never used. Why? It was too complicated. I had spent too much time making sure it was perfect that I ended up losing focus and creating something mostly unusable.There is nothing wrong with wanting your ministry to perform at a high level. In fact excellence is a great value to embrace; however, it can be confused with perfection. That happens because of the pressures you face in your ministry. Maybe you are pressured by the pastor to produce high numbers. Maybe you feel like you have to compete with the ministry down the road. Or maybe you could simply be a perfectionist at heart. While you should strive for excellence, you need to be careful it does not lead to perfectionism. Why? Because that could lead to:Micromanaging LeadersWhen you doubt your team's ability it's easy to micromanage them. If you want to raise up leaders, you need to be able to sacrifice in the short term to grow long term. Delegation means often allowing things to fail or suffer in quality in the short term. A perfectionist will struggle with this. Ignoring Paradigm Shifting IdeasChange brings messiness and that can be a nightmare for a perfectionist. Being perfect means sticking with a solid plan; unfortunately, that solid plan might lead to standing still. A ministry is a movement, which means it needs growth. That might mean learning how to fail forward. Workaholic CultureIt's easy to get stuck in the details on a certain project or initiative. If you aren't careful you can end up wasting hours on tasks and responsibilities that might not matter in the end. While it's good to be passionate about your craft, it is unwise to ignore your other responsibilities like relationships with God and family. Inauthentic MinistryIf you strive for perfection you might come off inauthentic in your ministry. People might see it as entertainment, or a show to trick people into believing in their following Christ. Perfection might also set an unfair standard where teenagers might not feel worthy to come to your ministry. An authentic ministry means admitting our imperfections and humanity.How do we avoid the negative side of perfectionism? Here's a though: To avoid perfectionism, yet strive for excellence, it's important to have vision and accountability in our relationships.There needs to be people and purpose that reminds you what you are called to do and who is calling you. Review and analyze your programs, ask people for insight and allow God to take control, so that you avoid the pitfalls of perfectionism.How have you overcome struggles with perfectionism? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Read More... |
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