Well if I am going to blog again I may as well get personal from time to time.  If you don’t know me I am a bit of a pain in the neck because I am never satisfied and I tend to act like everything is messed up.  Yesterday at our staff strat opp planning session for 2011, we were asked to determine if our ministries were ascending, peaking, descending or tanking.  I spoke up and said the youth ministry was descending on the way to tankin. (Now we r making adjustments…see yesterdays blog).  My pastor went a bit nutty on me.  You see we have a youth ministry of 300 in a town of 6000.  It is nothing short of a God thing.  But I’m not satisfied with mere numbers.  If we r not seeing drastic transformation after 4-6 years in our ministry should we be satisfied?  By the way we r only 6 yrs old so I am also dealing with my first crop of kids who have completed the full cycle with us.

Within this first cycle of ministry there have been some successes.  We went from 15 students to over 300.  We have made an impact on our school campuses, seen 5 students surrender to a call to ministry.  However, as I see our students graduate after 6 years of influence from Alive Youth Ministries I don’t see near enough transformation.

We have to do a better job of getting students to…

- live missionally (less selfishly)

- live passionately (sharing the gospel)

- live holy (striving for a higher standard)

Anyway, I believe we should always evaluate.  Never be satisfied (especially when it is in regards to numbers).

what is your take?

In a churched environment there are words that are thrown around a lot and because of the loose way they are used the meaning has been clouded and diminished.  Discipleship and Evangelism are two of those words to me.  Discipleship has been relegated to a series of classes that teach doctrine and lifestyle do’s and don’ts.  Evangelism has been relegated to raise your hand and repeat after me…and oh yeah sign the card.  Now, the terms are fine but it is near impossible to separate the terms from their false meanings, so I am going to switch the terms and I am sure that I am not the first nor brightest to make these observations.

For the purposes of our ministry (and this blog) I am replacing the term “Discipleship” with “Followship” and the term “Evangelism” with “Surrender“.  The apostle Paul made the audacious statement “Follow me as I follow Christ” – 1 Cor 11:1  How many of us live in a way that we can say, “follow me and you will have it figured out.”?  However, as you read about Paul’s ministry he was the ultimate discipler.  Whether it is he and Barnabas or he and Timothy or he and the dude that chained himself to Paul in prison, Paul got it!  To create disciples you have to do life WITH them.  You have to have people to follow and who follow you.  Our youth ministry small group philosophy used to be here are our small groups, go sign up for one of them and go.  Now, I am training our SG leaders to go to the students and pour into the students that naturally gravitate toward them and lead them closer to Jesus…Followship.

I woke up a while back terrified with the thought of all the students that I would be held accountable for because they are walking around with a false sense of salvation because I relegated it to a raised hand, recited prayer and a signature on a card.  God forgive me.  Accepting Christ is not in the Bible however Surrender is.  A life of a student who has surrendered their life to Jesus will be obvious and there will be marked shifts in desires, pursuits and passions.  Why can’t we get people to attend a New Believer’s class?  Could it be that they are NOT a new believer?  I don’t think we have to raise the bar for students to get saved, I don’t think we have to make it harder.  I think we need to allow the Holy Spirit to draw students to himself and cultivate the decision the student has made by providing an environment for a surrendered student can fully express and discover their spiritual journey.

In Matthew 13:1-23 Jesus tells the parable of the sower.  In our context, I am the sower, the SG leader is the waterer and the Holy Spirit causes it to grow.

As disciplers we need to…

Pray – for those who are following you and that you are bringing along in the faith.

Organic Structure – There is no 8 week program and it is not always cookie cutter perfect.  It takes time and is often messy however it is pure.

Utilize Tools – We need to teach how to use the Bible not only read it.  I love what YouVersion.com is doing with their reading plans.

Raise Disciples – When the students are ready, release them into the wild to find their own group to lead.

I recognize that none of this is new or even that cutting edge but maybe just maybe some youth pastor out there is ready for a change.  I hope it helps.

How are you doing “Discipleship” and is it working in your environment?

I am 36 years old.  I just bought my first PS3 and I don’t play it very well.  I don’t skate.  I don’t watch Twilight, MTV or any reality TV.  I don’t know the latest Lady gaga song, the latest Kanye or the latest Beiber.  I walked into a Holister store once and got looked at like I was looking for my daughter!  However, somehow teenagers still want to talk to me.  They still listen when I bring the word and they still come up and talk to me when I visit them on campus.

Somewhere in youth ministry we thought to be relevant to their lives meant we had to blend in with their lives.  I stay in touch with trends dealing with teen suicide, abuse, cutting and families.  My knowledge of culture doesn’t require me to become immersed in it.  You know why?  Because you look ridiculous as a grown man dressed like you are 14.  Teenagers don’t think that a 30 year old man holding a skateboard and covering his male pattern baldness with a USC cap is cool…usually they think it is lame.  By the way when their families fall apart it is going to be hard for the parents to take you as a pastor seriously and then you have the audacity to complain about how the parents always bypass you for the senior pastor.  Maybe, just maybe if we concentrated on the ink in God’s word as much as we did on the ink going on our skin we would find a way to be relevant to their hearts not their style.

I once had a youth worker that so desperately wanted to be cool and part of the group that one day went out with some students and spent the entire time ranting and spilling f bombs and s bombs and d bombs to the point where the students felt they needed to counsel her.  She went on and on about how she partied and selling her cool card and in so doing completely destroyed any effectiveness for the kingdom of God.

My best youth workers are in their upper 30′s to their 60′s.  Rusty is in his 50′s and every student in our ministry (over 300) loves him.  He knows most of their names (can you flippin believe that!?)  He writes their names in his bibles along with something about them and studies and prays over them.  The kids feel that care and they love him for it.  Barbara and Al are in their 60′s and the youth call them grandma and grandpa.  They get calls at all hours from kids needing counsel and advice.  I can’t imagine Rusty, Al or Barbara in skinny jeans and messy hair.

Now, if you have been blessed with the gift of cool then by all means use what your daddy gave ya.  However, if you feel you need to use cool to leverage the love of Jesus to students.  Allow me to give you the freedom to dork it up.  They already think you are anyway…run with it.

Youth Pastors can I beg you to stop ranting on twitter and stop ranting on Facebook.

• Rather than bash Twilight and the sin it represents use your pulpit and communication skills to talk about the value of righteousness and living a Holy life?
• Rather than talk about the evils of Lady Gaga could we use our gift of oratory to inspire creativity without sacrificing holiness?
• Rather than point out how gay Glee is and it’s support of homosexuality can we have a honest compassionate conversation about sexuality?

It is easy to rant and it is easy to point out what is wrong with the world but coming up with solutions and alternatives is much more difficult.  Whoever told you that youth ministry was going to be easy?  If they did, go find them give them a hug and punch them in the mouth.  They lied to you.  The conversations that need to be had on the issues teens face are incredibly difficult and deserve to be handled with compassion and respect not rage filled rants that simply make you look over emotional and under educated.

I am not a guy that believes we must keep ourselves removed from culture…quite the contrary I believe we must engage culture.  I believe we need to engage in the conversation with wit and wisdom.  Holding fast to the scripture in the spirit that it was written.  To use it as a sword not a club.  To aspouse the love communicated by our Savior as opposed to the anger filled rants.

What do you think?

Chances are you have some game when it comes to presence, leadership and speaking ability or you wouldn’t have been hired by a church in the first place.  However, the more talented you are the easier it will be for you to fall into seasons of laziness when it comes to message/Bible study prep.  At times I have tended to reach into my “bag of tricks”  rather than spent the time seeking the Lord, planning the message and preaching/teaching a fresh thought.

Back in the day the youth pastors time was spent on the campuses and playing ball and that led to Wednesday afternoon cramming for a Wed night talk.  However, we had “TalkSheets” from Youth Specialties if we needed help.  Today, our time is spent putting together state of the art programming that would have put 80′s concerts to shame (thinking about the KISS concert I went to right now).  We spend time on intro videos and countdowns and light cues and transitions and put it all in our Mac’s so we can run the program then Wed afternoon comes around and we are like, “Crap!  I have to preach tonight!”

I speak not in judgement but out of experience.  This actually happened to me this past Summer at our summer camp “CHAOS”.  I worked so hard to make it memorable, powerful and creative that I forgot to work on the messages.  The result is that the part of the week that COULD have made impact didn’t.  How Jesus must have been so impressed with my creativity.  All the while leaving him (Jn 1:1) out of the equation.

My ministry has been the most effective when God has controlled the agenda and message not me.  So, over my years here are a few tips to help you stay prepared.

1) Plan ahead…if you are working this week on this weeks message then you are going to be in trouble.  Distractions happen.  Someone dies, kids get sick, Senior Pastors call emergency strategy meetings…who knows but you need to be at least 1 week out.  Also, Plan your message calendar out.  I would say at least 3 months but I plan 1 year out.  I know each month what my focus is going to be.  This helps my creative team, my worship team and my leaders know what our focus as a ministry is going to be in the coming year.  Saddleback and Simply Youth Ministry do some awesome work with this.  If you plan that far ahead put 1-2 months in there labeled OPEN to make up for your Pastor calling for a church-wide campaign or an unforeseen circumstance that may take place that you may have to spend time teaching on.

2) Use Series…Most Youth Pastors that I have met have a bit of ADD in them and have the attention span of a 7 year old.  So, to say we are going to go through the book of Romans this Spring is probably not realistic.  You and your students will get bored with it.  So plan in 3-5 week series.  Get creative with it (however, not too creative or that will be your focus rather than the content).

3) Don’t rant – teach…this is going to be the focus on tomorrows blog so I won’t go too far into it rather than to say when preparing your talk don’t spend your time ranting on what YOU think is wrong teach on what the Bible says is right.  Use the pulpit and gifts God has availed you with.

4) Over prepare…I throw away have of what I prepare each week so that what is left is usually just the good stuff.  I speak about 30 minutes a week.  I have to chisel that down usually and boil it down to the best points (the best points by the way aren’t usually the smartest ones but the clearest ones).

5) Oh yeah by the way PRAY…spend time each day in your personal worship time asking God to make you a better teacher.  Lean on him to direct you as you prep for talks.  This should be done before you open your Bible, journal, iPad or whatever.

There is nothing worse than listening to a podcast of a youth service and hearing a youth pastor stammer through platitudes and weak theology simply because they didn’t take time to study.  I am also tired of the excuse of well that is how youth guys teach.  No, that is how BAD youth guys teach.  If God has called you to be a pastor to students there is no greater calling in all the world.  Respect that calling and know that the greatest weapon in your bag is the Word of God.  Teach it well.

Lesson 1 – Your pastor is not as useless/clueless as you think he is

Thinking through this blog I may very well call my former pastors and apologize.  My own “My name is Earl” list.  I was young, cocky and incredibly disrespectful.  I more often than not saw my pastor as my adversary rather than my partner in ministry.  He was the “old way” of doing things and just didn’t get “it”.  Well some quick tips hopefully will help you not make some of the mistakes I have made.

1) Don’t think your responsibilities and his are the same

youth pastors have an enormous responsibility but when you act like the level of your responsibility is equal of that to the man that leads the vision for the entire organization you just make yourself look stupid.  He has to deal with deacons/elders, budgets, big givers to the church, hard headed staff, everyone whos marriage is falling apart RIGHT NOW and needs you, and oh by the way his wife and kids.  On top of that he has to preach to a crowd that won’t be impressed by games and funny stories so he has to you know…study.

2) Don’t think it is YOUR ministry

Average tenure of a youth pastor is 18 months and the average tenure of a senior pastor is 4-6 years.  From a churches perspective you come and go…don’t come in declaring that it is YOUR vision for YOUR ministry and demanding freedom, money and facilities.  Always remember it is the senior pastors vision for the church that you are executing in the area of youth ministry.  If your vision does not line up with the senior pastors…line it up or move on.

3) Don’t line up support

If you want to give the enemy a foothold in your church then begin having conversations with the deacons like “You get it, why can’t pastor understand like you do?”  Nut up and sell your case to your pastor.  This will do several things.  It will further communication between you and your pastor.  It will hone in your skills at casting vision.  It will let you know really quick if you guys can co-exist or not.

Now you might say, “yeah but Sean you don’t know MY senior pastor?”  I would say you are right but I have served in Tiny, Small, Medium and Large churches with passive pastors and Alpha military pastors and my advice is the same…that being said there may be a time if your pastor is simply not Godly and does not lead well that you have to for your health dust your feet off and move on…but I rarely think that you should be there as the instrument of change.  That is how churches split and there may be a youthguy out there that fits that pastor well and a pastor out there just waiting for you to fall into his office and show him the error of his ways.

Before you do that though may I offer a few suggestions:

1) Pray for your pastor

My relationship with my current pastor began to change when I committed to pray daily for him.  Not pray that he would come around to my way of thinking but praying for him as a person.  I asked him what specifically I could pray for and I would often email him prayers that I prayed over him so that he knew someone was praying for him.  Prayer softens and changes hearts.  Prayer makes it about Jesus’ kingdom not our own.  I submit that before you leave or schedule a walk out…pray.

2) Try it his way for a while

I love the scene in “Days of Thunder” where Duvall makes Cruise race the car 50 laps his way then 50 laps my way…turns out going a little slower actually made him go faster and saved his tires…there is a lot of wisdom in that scene.  Why don’t you spend a season doing it your pastors way…again he has probably been there longer and been through some youth guys who have made the mistake you are trying to make.

I am not a youthguy basher…I am a stupid youthguy basher.  In my cranky old age I see young YP’s make the mistakes I have made and it makes me queasy.  So, today pray for your pastor…thank God that he is there and serve with him and not against him.  If you can’t, go to the youth specialties site and look for a job…it has probably been 18 months anyway.

This woman amazes me.  She has the power to make me laugh and to make me furious.  She knows when to smile and when to simply give me a nod.  She knows when to pray and she knows when to say “it’ll be alright”.  She gets me.  She is my best friend and every special moment of my life has her in it.  I thank God that he conned her into saying yes.  I thank God for teaching us to wait and to take our time until we found the right one…each other.  She is a Proverbs 31 woman in the best way.  She is the example of a pastors wife.  She is a gifted worship pastor and an incredible mother and an outstanding teacher.  Yes, you CAN be a good mother and work too.  When she smiles she scrunches her nose and her freckles get close together and my life just pauses.  I love her more than I did when I met her in High School.  I love her more now than I did when we dated in college.  I love her more than I did 11 years ago when she walked down that isle.  I love her so much.

She is the best.

Leadership happens in many different levels but unlike a pyramid or a flow chart leadership to me is set up more like a compass with you in the middle and the people that you lead at different levels shoot out up, down and horizontally.

DOWN

We all get leading down.  That is when I have authority over you in some hierarchy somewhere.  This is the easiest form of leadership because basically you can simply “boss” people.  With leadership on this level it is important that you as the leader are clear, direct and fair.  It is important to carry yourself with confidence AND humility.  It is important for you to inspire rather than intimidate.

UP

Leading up is difficult for leaders.   It takes a measure of humility and patience that is not natural to most type-A leaders.  However, it is crucial for every leader to learn to lead up.  Everyone is answerable to someone.  Everyone has a boss and how you lead that boss is vital to your health and the health of your organization.  How do you lead your boss you may ask?  Well I am an associate pastor so my boss is my senior pastor.  I lead him by serving.  I know that it sounds like a paradox but it isn’t I lead him by doing everything in my power to make sure he is his best.  I model for him the spirit that I wish to be conveyed to me.  I pray for him privately and I encourage him publicly.  That is how I lead him.

HORIZONTALLY

This is one of my favorite levels of leadership.  One of my favorite things to do is to lead other youth pastors.  I love leading them by teaching them from my experience and knowledge from 18 years of experience.  I lead other pastors through this blog, friendship and openness. To lead horizontally you must be secure in who you are.  Knowing that you don’t know everything but having confidence that you can help someone.

Leading happens in all different levels and each level requires different things from you.  Pray that God would give you what you need, develop you where you need it to lead on every level.

2 weeks ago I was privileged to spend the week with the monks at Mepkin Abbey.  I went on a fast of sound.  I did not speak a word to another soul for 4 days.  In a world of noise and constant activity this was to say the least surreal.  I first of all want to say that the commitment that these men of God have to prayer and hospitality is amazing.  Many of these moncks have been part of this life of service for decades.  I chose this as the sight for my week of sabbatical because deep down I did not need anymore sun, I didn’t need any more teaching or encouragement.  I needed to be quiet and listen for God.

Psalm 46:10 says “Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the heathen and I will be exalted among the earth.”

It is difficult in our culture to be still not only physically but to be still in our spirits.  To quiet our hearts…to be honest it took hours for the noise of my thoughts rumbling around in my head to subside before I really felt like I was in silence.

For 4 days I walked, rested, prayed and read.  I fasted noise, breakfast and lunch.  My desire was to purge sin from my heart, seek God for direction and enjoy his presence.  All of those things were accomplished.  I absolutely recommend all pastors do something like this in the next year of your ministry.

Some of the books I read were…

Doctrine by Mark Driscoll

In a pit with a lion on a snowy day by Mark Batterson

Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster

Switch by Dan and Chip Heath

Over the next days I will share some insight to what God revealed to me out there…however not all because some of it aint your beezwax.

So, without being judgmental when was the last time you were still and simply knew God?

I don’t mountain climb…I am afraid of heights, don’t really like to hike all that much (much less at a 45 degree incline) and I don’t trust people easily.  However, I do know a lot of mountain climbers and one thing I know about them is they always have a story to tell.  There is always a near brush with death that led them to do something that they had never done before and emerged victorious on top of the jagged rock.  These are the same people that cascade down the white water rapids on a piece of tree bark or fought off a bear with a can of antiperspirant.  They always have a story to tell and to be honest they are great stories…but what makes them great?  The greatness of the story seems to be in direct proportion to the risk that took place.  When is the last time you have heard a really great story about a person floating down a lazy river or walking around the block in a neighborhood?

I was asking myself the question the other day, when was the last time I took a risk?  When was the last time I did something that was above the norm that would cause me not necessarily bodily harm but could damage my comfort and day to day life?  When was the last time I did something that would make a great story?  I need to live a life worthy of the story.

So I got to thinking what are some risks that we can take?  Well we can…

• Begin a ministry/project that without God we are completely not qualified for
• Share Christ with that person that you know doesn’t care
• Choose not to watch your favorite TV show so that you can invest in someone’s life (this risk is the concentration on the word invest, because that requires more from us than just a few moments)
• or…I guess you could go climb a mountain or attack a bear with deodorant

What risks are you taking? What stories are you writing?