personal spiritual growth | More Than Dodgeball

Chris WesleyMore Posts What Actually Slows You Down

Have you ever felt that your job was like running a marathon through a swamp? No matter how hard you worked, you just feel like you are sinking and bushwhacking through mess after mess? When you turn on the lights of your office in the morning you groan at the piles of paperwork? You ever just want to delete all the messages in your inbox? And you wonder, “How am I going to get anything done with all these meeting?” Yep, that can be youth ministry.

If you feel like you are stuck in circles or never going anywhere in your youth ministry it could be for a variety of reasons. Some are as simple as taking a vacation, while others are something more serious like a conversation with the pastor. But, before you can follow through on the solution you need to understand the problem. To move forward you need to know what’s actually slowing you down. The reason you could feel like you are running through mud is due to a:

Lack of Organization – Do you have a plan for your week or day? When you walk into your office you need to have a strategy to how you are tackling ministry, otherwise it will be tackling you. Too many times youth ministers are reactionary to what is going on around them, all this creates is chaos. By having a plan (With some flexibility) you can create systems that will keep your inbox empty, your creativity flowing and your ministry healthy.
Shortage of Accountability – While you want a pace that’s comfortable for you, you need people who are going to push and challenge you through the difficult times. When you face problems solo, the burden will slow you down. You need someone to share your triumphs and trials with. You need a support team that will help you move forward when you can’t do it on your own.
Drop In Communication – Lousy communication means lousy ministry. If your emails are rants, your messages are ill-prepared and you only say things once, be prepared to find yourself frustrated. When you clearly practice effective communication you begin to learn the power of delegation. You will see how your words impact productivity. You will grow as a leader. Effective communication is one of the keys to mobilizing your ministry into a movement.
Disconnect In Spiritual Growth – If you don’t have a healthy relationship with God, then what do you really have? This is the easiest place for a youth minister to be hypocritical. You tell your teens to engage in scripture, to tithe, to share the Gospel and go to worship; however, you don’t even do it yourself. You can struggle with those habits; however, if you are not at least engaging in them, you’ll find that you’ve lost your calling.

In order to approach all these areas you need to find the time to address them. That means scheduling an hour or so each week to look at your organization, relationships, communication and spiritual growth. If you aren’t taking the time to analyze these areas, then you will once again find your productivity and effectiveness take a hit.

What else could slow down your ministry?

Add Comment November 15, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Does Your Small Group Have THE TALKER?

The beauty of leading a small group is getting to see it grow throughout the years. But, getting started can be rough especially if you have that one kid who talks and talks and talks. At first you like him or her because they take care of the awkward silence. You think, “Awesome, I have someone participating and I don’t have to do all the talking.”

Then, you begin to notice that they are the ONLY student talking, which prevents the other ones from chiming in. You also begin to notice your patience wear thin because not only do they answer every question but they begin to talk for what seems like hours. You are tempted to yell, “SHUT UP!” but common sense tells you that wouldn’t go over well. You don’t want to lose the group; yet, avoid embarrassing the teen. What do you do?

Meet Beforehand – Grab them before small group and be honest with them. Let them know you appreciate their sharing; however, you want to make sure that everyone has a chance to speak. Be prepared because they might feel a little insulted by your confrontation. Telling them to listen more and speak less might sound like they don’t have anything wise to contribute; therefore, make a plan to follow up after group.

Sit Next To Them – By sitting next to the talkers you are able to give them physical cues if they are talking too much. Placing a hand on their shoulder is a subtle way of interrupting them. You can also whisper to them encouragement if they are getting anxious by letting others speak.

Assign Questions – Talkers talk because they either feel like they always have something to contribute or they are afraid of silence. To give them an out to their urges and fears assign questions to the rest of the group. Instead of having anyone chime in, give the first response to someone specific.

Follow Up – Either right after the group or the next day meet up with the talker to reflect on their behavior. Affirm them with what they did well; ask them their opinion and then address where improvement is necessary. Because the group is fresh on everyone’s mind, you can point to specific examples of when they listened and when they dominated the conversation.

Some people will be talkers for life; however, the more the group gets to know them the pressure won’t fall on you to give others a chance to speak. The more you check-in and communicate with the talker the less you’ll have to take the steps mentioned above. Just be persistent with reaching out and leading the group. Again, small group dynamics is a growing process.

How do you deal with talkers?

Chris Wesley is the Director of Student Ministry at Church of the Nativity in Timonium, MD. You can read more great youth ministry articles and thoughts on his exceptional blog Marathon Youth Ministry.

Add Comment July 22, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts How to Help Students Grow on Their Own

Helping students develop a desire to grow on their own is an important part of the discipleship process. Too often, youth ministries primarily encourage attendance at programs, which sets students up for a spiritual drift after graduation if they can’t find a “program” to attend. Here are a few ways to help students develop their own relationship with Christ.

Give them a book you’ve read.
Think about the books that shaped you as a teenager and find the equivalent today. Tell students the story of why this book was important to you and your faith and encourage them to take steps down that journey as well.

HINT: Avoid the temptation to assume the same book is perfect for each student. If you can say, “I picked this out just for you…” it will make reading the book much more compelling.

Issue a challenge that’s out of their comfort zone.
Owning your faith usually takes root when a student rises to a challenge. Want to see someone grow? Push them to participate in a missions trip a long way from home. Watch them grow raising the funds to participate, and enjoy a front row seat to the refining process as they get to push past their breaking point into a moment of deep spiritual cementing.

HINT: Again, a personalized challenge is stronger than a generic one. Seeing a pattern, here?

Read something alongside them and meet occasionally to discuss.
You gave one of your core students a prayer journal? Did you share a 1-Minute Bible with them? Read a copy of it yourself at the same time, and meet up a couple times to check in and discuss what you’ve been learning.

Equip your small group leaders.
Last year we did “grow on the go” tubs filled with a few resources for leaders to give out to their students along the way. A push for a devotional during a message is great, but a personal nudge and gift of a devotional from a small group leader is the best.

Live it out yourself.
If you want to help your students grow on THEIR own, model it to them yourself. So much is caught rather than taught, so frequently do personal “check ups” in your own life to make sure you’re growing, too.

How are you helping students grow on their own right now?

This post was written by Josh Griffin and Kurt Johnston and originally appeared as part of Simply Youth Ministry Today free newsletter. Subscribe to SYM Today right here.

Add Comment May 31, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Life Group Discipleship Classes Started Tonight

This week we started a new experiment with our small groups – Life Group discipleship classes as an option for groups to attend together.

Now, we love what is happening in homes and relationally with leaders, but as we thought about areas where we’re hoping to improve, the topic of foundational doctrine and theology showed up pretty strong. HSM has been moving toward balanced health for several years now, and discipleship has always been on our radar but we thought we might be entering a phase were we needed to give it an extra emphasis. We don’t typically offer a ton of classes, we depend on the weekend service, small groups (we use the LIVE curriculum) and encourage students to grow on their own with all sorts of Bible studies, books and tools.

Ryanne had the idea to offer up some discipleship classes specifally for Life Groups. They attend with their adult volunteer leader and sit around tables listening to a master-teacher (for this 4-week session we asked our adult teaching pastor Tom Holladay) to teach the lesson. He teaches for 45minutes to an hour on a particular subject like the authority of the Bible or End Tiems, then leaves them to have a time of guided questions and discussion.

We thought it would help groups who are strong relationally but need help on the teaching side
We desire for all of our students to be firmly grounded in their faith
It would also make for a geat change of pace this time of year

So, this Tuesday/Wednesday night (both of the nights we offer Life Groups we wanted to offer these classes) were the first of our 4-week experiment to see if there would be interest. We had an incredible turnout … might be on to something here.

JG

2 View Comments March 9, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Capital Letters

I have a problem. Okay, maybe problem is too strong of a word.

Issue. There we go, I have an issue. Although not a detrimental one, but an issue none the less.

I constantly capitalize random letters.

I know you’re thinking to yourself right now “Oh My Word! We need to get that guy an intervention” And while it is not a problem that causes any real issue, it is really really annoying.

The sad part is, I don’t even realize that I do it. I do realize that I intentionally capitalize some words for emphasis, such as God or Youth Worker, but more often than not I find myself capitalizing random words like Outside or Yourself. This may seem like a boring topic to talk about, but I promise it will all make sense in a little bit. In terms of grammar, we are taught that we capitalize proper nouns. David, California, and Chick-fil-a. We capitalize the terms that are not run of the mill terms. We capitalize terms that are big deals.

So in essence, when I capitalize the first letter of a word it is the same as saying “Hey look! This is important! This is a big deal”

I have to be careful that I don’t unintentionally capitalize words and phrases that were never intended to be, thus making them a bigger deal than they are. As a Youth Worker, I have to be careful that I don’t do the same thing in how I lead my local Student Ministry.

There are going to be issues and problems that arise in your Student Ministry regardless of how well or how poorly that it is run. That is a fact. Write it down or tuck it away in the back of your mind, because you WILL encounter issues as a Youth Worker. You will have to make tough decisions. You will have struggles. That is just an occupational hazard.

The question you need to as yourself as you lead your Student Ministry is simply this: What will I capitalize and what will I lower-case? Or better yet “What will I make a big deal out of and what will I let go?”

Do you capitalize “Numerical Growth” and minimize “Spiritual Growth”?
Do you capitalize “Fun” and minimize “Spirituality”?
Do you capitalize “What I don’t have” and minimize “What I do have”?
Do you capitalize “What others think” and minimize “What God thinks”?
Do you capitalize “Lack of budget” and minimize “God will provide”?
Do you capitalize “My Students aren’t getting it” and minimize “It’s sinking in”?

What are you making a bigger deal out of than you should? What are you capitalizing that God is wanting to be lowercase and what are you making lowercase that He wants you to capitalize? I had this teacher in high school named Ms. Holt. I don’t remember much about her, but I do remember that she would always give me a hard time when I would accidentally capitalize words that shouldn’t be. Every time I turned in a paper, I would usually get it back with some red marks from my teacher showing where I had capitalized words that I shouldn’t have. It became almost laughable at the shear volume of red marks that would be on my paper when I got it back after being graded.

I wonder sometimes if God looks at us with a red ink pen in hand. Not to correct us or make us feel like we’re doing wrong, but so that He can look at our lives and mark the places that we allow some things to be bigger deals than they actually are. Where we capitalize things that should be lower case. The truth of the matter is that when God looks at you as a Youth Worker and at what you and your local ministry can accomplish, He sees a capital letter.

You may capitalize Doubt, Fear, Insecurity and Ignorance, but He looks at those as lowercase letters compared to what He can accomplish through you. Your mission, your vision, and the ultimate destination for your Student Ministry is a capital letter in His eyes. That thing that you have been fighting and may still be struggling with that you have capitalized is just a lowercase letter in the eyes of God.

He is able to take those things that are big problems in your local setting and make them not such big problems anymore. Those big issues that you don’t see how they can be fixed He can make smaller. Those big circumstances that you don’t quite know how to navigate, He can lead you through. So what are you facing right now in your Student Ministry that you need Jesus to lowercase? Now, if you will excuse me, it’s time to check this post and see if I randomly capitalized any words again.

Noah Watt serves as the Student Pastor at Lone Star Church in Madisonville, KY. When not hanging out with his wife Bethany, Noah can be found hanging out with the coolest group of Students on the planet, reading or writing on his blog, “The Backstage Project”, at www.whatihavelearnedbackstage.wordpress.com

Add Comment March 6, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: The Thing About Spurs

Let me tell you about a train of thought I had the other day, and where it led me. I was thinking about word-pictures, and now much they help me understand what I writer is talking about. What, everyone doesn’t sit around thinking about literary devices? Anyways, I love it when authors create good word-pictures. I thought about authors I’ve read like Don Miller, Francis Chan, and others who are really good at this. Then I thought about Jesus, and about how he taught using parables and word-pictures a lot. You know, “The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed…” Stuff like that.

Then I thought about the writer of Hebrews. In Hebrews 10:24-25, he (maybe she? Who knows…) writes, “And let us continue to spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Have you ever seen spurs? Like, for-real cowboy spurs? They’re basically ninja stars that people attach to their boots in order to help get their horse to move. With spurs on, an accomplished rider can urge the horse to do things that the horse really doesn’t want to do.

That’s because spurs hurt.

Spurs literally dig into the horse’s side with a sharp point. The horse doesn’t like the pain, and so it tries to run away from it. Presto! Now the rider is moving, and focuses on controlling the direction of the horse with the reigns, bit, and bridle.

Novice riders are not provided with spurs. That’s because it takes an experienced rider to a) be able to handle a galloping horse, and b) use spurs responsibly and effectively. A inexperienced rider with spurs usually just ends up hurting the horse and getting thrown, possibly resulting in broken bones or death.

Here’s the point: in youth ministry, one of our jobs is to spur our students on towards love and good deeds, and towards personal spiritual growth. Spurring often involves a little bit of pain in order to motivate movement. Don’t be afraid of making your students a little uncomfortable, if it will motivate them towards growth. But also don’t spur them on too hard, either. We want to motivate them, not injure them or turn them off of Jesus.

Just a little encouragement for my youth ministry friends today!

This guest post was written by Joseph Robinson.