Was talking to a youth worker this week and he shared about how his youth group topics and small group time line up. I’ve never been able to use that idea in a setting I’ve worked in, but I love it. Talk about it at church, expand on it in small groups. Right now, our teaching topics are completely independent. How about you? Vote in today’s poll!

JG

We have pretty high expectations of the leaders in our student ministry as I have written about previously and it’s to the benefit of our students and the effectiveness of the small groups that we do it. We are beginning process of review and meeting with all our leaders from this year and asking them to consider whether or not they want to lead next year. Many will remain and a few will leave, but those returning will hear 4 criteria that we ask them to sign off on doing week in and week out for the next school year.

Commit: This is the foundation of all of it, asking leaders to be there every week, present and engaged with their students. It’s a big ask, but worth it when leaders honor it. We fully recognize that there are circumstances that might cause a leader to miss a week, but asking them to make mentoring high school students a priority means that they will be far more diligent about being there. Sporadic attendance from a leader can be the death of a small group, as momentum, trust and relationships are lost, not only that it can really be detrimental to other leaders as well, who have to pick up the slack or lead two groups.

Call: This might be the toughest thing to get leaders to do regularly, but calling their students is so important. That mid-week phone call tells a student they are wanted, memorable and worth the effort. It might be the best part of their week, even if the awkwardness of the conversation might indicate otherwise. Calling students is more important than leaders realize, the fruit of which is regular youth group attendance and a closer relationship with their leader. We ask our leaders to set aside an hour per week to call all the members of their small group.

Pray: We ask our leaders to pray for their students and when they call them, ask what they can pray for them about and let them know they do pray for them each week.  Put yourself in the shoes of a high school student and someone you respect greatly, calls you each week to see how they can pray for you. That is powerful stuff!

Prepare: We give our leaders curriculum each and every week, but we ask that they read it, know it, study the word and come prepared to teach it. There are few things worse than an ill prepared small group leader stumbling through the questions and fumbling through their bible in front of their group as they are seeing it for the first time. Leaders need to lead their group and being prepared is a key part of that.

These are four non-negotiable expectations we have and you could add more but I chose to focus on these four because they have a tremendous impact on the student’s spiritual growth. Its important that we see ourselves as the advocates for our students needs, and what our students need are leaders who are willing do these things, and do them consistently well.

What are your non-negotiables?

Geoff Stewart is the Pastor of Jr & Sr High School for Journey Student Ministries at Peace Portal Alliance Church and regularly contributes GUEST POSTS to MTDB. Be sure to check out his Twitter stream for awesome ministry goodness. Want to get in on the fun and write up a guest post yourself? See how right here.

I posted last week about the new LIVE curriculum add-ons and the gang over at Simply Youth Ministry gave me a copy of each to giveaway. Here’s the sweet part, if you have the original LIVE curriculum already, you get the add ons for free if you win. If you don’t yet have LIVE and you win, you get both the LIVE Curriculum ($499) and the add-ons as well ($249 each). Up for it? All you have to do is leave a comment on this post and you could win! Do it!

JG

I wrote a colum for the current issue of Group Magazine – if you don’t subscribe to the #1 youth ministry magazine yet you can subscribe by following this link. It is a feature on technology we’re using in our youth ministry. Might be a good takeaway for yours, too!

There’s a little bit of the geek in all of us—we all love things that make our lives and our ministries more effective and more efficient. So here are my top five “crushes” in the world of youth ministry technology:

#1 Poll Everywhere—Ever wished you could get instant feedback during a talk? Or ever wanted a cutting-edge way to fuel great interactions during youth group? Poll Everywhere is a tool that works from the Web or in PowerPoint—it displays poll results in real-time on your screen. Teenagers vote by text-message and the results appear on screen literally seconds later. It adds a whole new layer of interaction in your youth group—it’s brilliant and accessible technology. I wish they had an affiliate program, I send hundreds of people every day there from my blog—just go to polleverywhere.com.

#2 Duffled—Our ministry relies on text-messaging as our only dependable way of communicating with teenagers. On top of that we send out about a jillion text messages a month—and that’s where Duffled comes in. You can send and receive texts, make announcements, subscribe and unsubscribe from your phone, and operate using keywords. It has an easy Web interface and ties into your Twitter and Facebook accounts. It’s not cheap, since you pay by the message, but well worth the cost—go to duffled.com. One other excellent (and more affordable) option, by the way, is SimplyText from our pals at Simply Youth Ministry (go to simplyyouthministry.com/txt to check it out).

#3 LIVE Curriculum—This one may seem like a shameless plug since it was created by Group and Simply Youth Ministry—but it honestly isn’t. The only youth ministry curriculum we use is the Web-based LIVE curriculum because it’s simple and solid. And it’s pretty cheap once you get over the first year’s initiation cost. Go to simplyyouthministry.com.

#4 HighRiseHQ—HighriseHQ is a productivity tool created by the gang over at 37Signals—we use it to manage our volunteer leaders. Think of it as a place in the cloud where information about all of your contacts is stored. Depending on the size of your group it could even be a tool that manages everyone in your ministry world. Go to highrisehq.com. One note: Simply Youth Ministry just launched its Tools resource that includes a leader-management component that’s killer—we’re looking at it right now as a possible replacement for HighRiseHQ.

#5 Church Teams—This inexpensive tool helps us check in with small-group leaders. Every week the system sends out a message to each of the leaders asking them to report in their attendance, prayer requests, and other pertinent information we might need from them. It gives us a chance to spot trends in groups, troubleshoot problems, pray more effectively, and keep the communication lines wide open. Go to churchteams.com.

JG

If you’ve already got the LIVE curriculum for your youth ministry small groups, here’s a sweet new batch of add-on packs you might want to consider for the 2011-2012 small group year. You can choose from LIVE Leadership or LIVE Book Studies. We’re adding both into HSM next year, I’m excited for you to check them out, too! If you’ve never considered LIVE, check it out here. It’s what we use in our high school ministry (and junior high, too) small groups and are super excited about it as we head into year 2.

JG

Thanks to everyone who entered last week’s giveaway for The Way I’m Wired small group DVD curriculum! I had 3 copies to giveaway – the first was an instant winner – whoever was the first to comment took home the prize. Congrats to Tim!

Tim Desilets at 9:07pm March 15
I think I might be first. Was about to order this this week!

And here are the other 2 winners, picked at random from the rest of the entries:

George at 7:52am March 16
We are a small youth group and this would be excellent for our teens.

Jason at 11:31am March 16
Being a part time youth pastor, I love what the group curriculum has to offer. It saves me time of having to write lessons from scratch and spend more time building relationships with the youth

Thanks to everyone who entered! And if you are interested in picking up The Way I’m Wired, or want to check it out – head over to Simply Youth Ministry (and take 10% off if you click through this link and order).

JG

I enjoyed reading Katie Brazelton’s article this week about helping students discover the way the way they are wired for God’s purpose. She and I did a small group DVD curriculum on the subject (you can read about it here) and here’s a clip of the piece she wrote to get you thinking about the subject:

But, how can you help students discover their unique purpose in life? Glorify God by fulfilling your “This I Must Do” Dream!

This unique, individual, significant purpose is the “One Big Thing” God commissioned students—individually—to do to help build the kingdom. It directs teenagers to pursue their God-designed life mission and to deliver their God-inspired life message to those they are called to serve. Check out what Jesus had to say about doing such work:

“In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world, I give them a mission in the world” (John 17:18 The Message).Our “This I Must Do” purpose is God’s personalized gift to each of us, and it’s a dream that reflects our passionate ache, our Divine Urge, our heart’s desire, and the fascination that was planted in our soul before we were even born. It’s what drives our life—what we feel we must do. It’s what we’recalled to do—what we feel we can’t not do! With your help, teenagers can ask God to reveal their life purpose, and then, they can make an informed decision about whether they’ll actually accept the huge assignment.

The Bible certainly is loaded with examples of this type of “Must Do” calling. Here are just a few:

• ·Noah, build an ark before the great flood (Genesis 6:9-22).
• ·Abram, go to the land I will show you—without knowing specifics (Genesis 12:1-3).
• ·Sarah, you’ll be the mother of nations at the age of ninety (Genesis 17:15-16).
• ·Moses, go to Pharaoh and demand the release of my people (Exodus 3:10, 20).
• ·Gideon, rescue Israel from the Midianites (Judges 6:12-16).
• ·John the Baptist, prepare the way for me (Luke 1:13-17).
• ·Virgin Mary, you’ll give birth to a Son, who will reign with an everlasting kingdom (Luke 1:27-38).
• ·Peter, feed my lambs (John 21:15-17).
• ·Paul, proclaim the good news to the Gentiles (Galatians 1:13-16).

JG

I’m excited to give away a couple of copies of the new small group DVD curriculum that Katie Brazelton and I just finished called The Way I’m Wired.

Here’s a little bit about the project:

Every teenager’s life is loaded with undeniable evidence of God’s incredible plans for them, but who helps them unpack all those details to discover why they were born? This curriculum prepares you for the privilege of doing just that. It equips you to teach stu dents that God has three distinct calls on their life: the primary call of being transformed into Christ-likeness; the secondary call of thriving in their seasonal roles; and the “This I Must Do” call to be part o f something that is larger than themselves.

The Way I’m Wired is a 6-week, biblically based DVD curriculum, which is written for a variety of youth settings: small groups, Sunday schools, retreats, camps, homeschooling, and personal coaching/mentoring sessions.

To enter the giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post:

• The very FIRST COMMENT wins a free copy
• I’ll select TWO MORE at random next Monday from all of the rest of the comments

Enter now!

JG

Between 1919 and 1933, a small amendment changed the face of American culture…for a few years anyway. The Noble Experiment, as it was called, introduced the Prohibition Era with the banning of alcohol manufacturing, transportation, and sale. It was a huge failure. Repealed just over a decade later, we learned that legislating the lifestyles of Americans is actually quite difficult. Even today, questions of “legislating morality” still pepper the discussions of Congress, boardrooms, and classrooms all over the country. Can we give people a list of do’s and don’ts and call that morality?

Discipleship is a bit of a soapbox for me. The vagueness of that term discipleship is exactly why I want to explore the idea from a different perspective. When I think of discipleship, small groups, curriculum, Sunday School classes, and student leadership are usually the first things that come to my mind. Discipleship, in other words, is “smaller” in retrospect to your larger corporate worship service. It usually involves some sort of structure, schedule, curriculum, or teaching notes. If it’s done effectively, it creates good conversation and interaction. But if it’s done poorly, as the structured version often is, it usually leads to one person doing all of the talking while a small group of people (that gets smaller every week for some odd reason…) “listen.” As is, this is what we define as discipleship.

I love people. Really, I do. If I didn’t, there’s no way I could be a student pastor. But even I tend to get task-oriented from time-to-time. Between writing sermons, filling out POs, hosting weekly meetings, vision-planning, and keeping the student ministries building in tact, life can get pretty busy. It’s that task-oriented mind that usually defines discipleship by the terms mentioned before rather than what discipleship is actually about: PEOPLE!

Discipleship is a cycle of leading and following that finds its life and vitality in one thing: relationships. Without relationships there is NO discipleship. No matter how savvy our programs, how extensive our small group curriculum, or how many ministries we have for students to get involved in, if relationships aren’t a part of it all…we fail. Now don’t get me wrong: small groups, student leadership, and Sunday school classes can be good tools to facilitate spiritual growth and even build some form of relationships. Oftentimes, however, we tag these programs with the umbrella of discipleship and they have nothing to do with relationships at all! It’s just another gathering to fill up time during your week, which in turn takes away from the relationships you should be building in the first place.

Let’s reel this in: Can you legislate discipleship in your youth ministry? Can you make students follow this program or buy into this vision or that ministry? I’m learning that the answer to that is absolutely, positively, “NO, NO, NO!”…without relationships. You cannot disciple a student that doesn’t want to be discipled. If they don’t want to follow, they won’t. It’s a little disheartening, but I’m finding it to be so true. But a student WILL follow if they know their teacher. They WILL follow if you’re spending time with them outside of your programs. And they WILL follow if your discipleship ideas facilitate the centerpoint of relationships.

To be honest, a lot of our discipleship programs exist for one of two reasons: 1) We’ve always done it that way. 2) It’s the next big thing from a youth ministry, yet we ignore the purpose and reason behind why THEY actually created it to begin with. Let’s take the concept of Sunday School for example. This discipleship program was very popular in the 50s and existed as a forum to ask questions and facilitate discussion that usually wouldn’t happen in the context of a sermon. Many youth ministries have carried on this program from generation to generation. But I wonder if you were to ask them now WHY they actually do it. I think I would shudder at the answer and I know what it would be for most of us: We would get crucified at even thinking about not doing Sunday School as it were. Heresy!

The course of my youth ministry has its own sacred cow in student leadership. Directing a student leadership program was one of the first things I did in youth ministry. To think of not doing student leadership is hard for me because it collides with my sentimentality. But the idea of legislating discipleship has never glared itself more true than in my experience with this program. The idea and concept behind student leadership is fantastic: allow students to lead. But what often happens through the application process, laundry list of student tasks, rigorous reading plans, and unorganized meetings is that we lose focus on relationships in the process. We begin investing in the program rather than investing in the students. Am I saying that student leadership is wrong? Absolutely not. Veterans like Doug Fields and Josh Griffin swear by it and have great success with it. But what I am saying is that I will not, nor will I ever again, sacrifice my students on the altar of programming.

As a youth ministry, YouthQuake has made a few changes to facilitate relationships in our discipleship process. By no means am I saying that we are the perfect model, but this is what we are experimenting with to see more effective ministry. Our Sunday School slot is being replaced with a short 10-minute talk about practical issues like dating, picking a college, time management, etc. through a biblical perspective. After that, we break away for a time of hanging out and relationship building so that our leaders can be more intentional about KNOWING our students. This slot immediately follows our weekly staff meeting so that all of our leaders are present. Our spiritual emphasis programming is on Wednesday nights so this is a more practical approach that simply acts as a conversation starter.

In place of a student leadership program, I spend time weekly with 3 small groups of my high-school and JV core students. With no plan or agenda in place, we take time to break open the Scriptures and just enjoy each other’s company. Out of these times, we’ve seen some incredible revelation happen and even creative ideas for how to move forward. Now these students get excited about the ministry that’s happening and they invite their friends like crazy. The meeting is not oppressive or something that the students dread going to, but its refreshing and encouraging. Its refreshing for me. This saves our energy to turn around and build more relationships. They come because they want to come, thus discipleship happens very naturally through the refreshing relationships that are built.

The key to all of this is to simplify your programming to align with your youth ministry’s vision. For YouthQuake we want to teach our students to LIVE extraordinary, LEAD creatively, & LOVE extravagantly. It just makes sense to free up as much time and energy to accomplish this. What you’ll find is that this process duplicates itself and students disciple other students. And that is the gospel lived out. After all, STUDENTS are what discipleship is all about.

Bradley K. Chandler is a graduate of Southeastern University and is the Student Ministries Pastor at Trinity Worship Center in Burlington, NC. Be sure to subscribe to his blog here – good stuff for sure.

The guys over at YouthMinistry360 (I read their blog everyday, you should, too) have come out with a great new resource called Live Different. I love the idea – calling students to understand God’s intent for sex and how God views sex outside of this intent. Might be a good small group curriculum to compliment a youth group teaching series on sex/holiness/lust/etc. Check it out!

JG