There has been a lot of talk this year about the changing shape of youth ministry. As we wrap up one of our last articles of 2011, we thought it was a good idea to talk about a few of these changes … and point out a few things that don’t seem to be changing anytime soon. Up today, a few ways youth ministry seems to be evolving.

There are now many, many voices
It wasn’t that long ago that you would go to a youth worker training event or check out the youth ministry books online and see just a handful of resources by a handful of people. Today, youth ministry is rapidly expanding to include scores of voices from all sizes of churches and experiences. Thanks to the world of blogging, podcasts and Twitter, you can access the wisdom and experience of countless of youth workers with the click of a mouse or a push of a button on your cell phone while sitting at a red light (wait, is that even legal anymore?). There is room for your voice, too! The best voices are from the trenches of day-to-day youth ministry – so blog, tweet and podcast away!

Emphasis on parent ministry
Youth ministry is no longer just about students (actually, it has never been just about students, but we are finally waking up to this reality), it is about reaching, equipping and empowering parents to be the primary discipler of their teenager.

Team-based ministry
Youth ministry was never meant to be done alone! One of the radical shifts still gaining steam is the networking and collaboration of youth ministries worldwide. Everyone is beginning to understand the value of sharing resources and pooling our creativity to inspire others and share the timeless message of Christ.

Church together
Youth ministry is no longer an island to itself. Churches and youth ministries are actively seeking out ways to serve together, worship together and learn together. By all means there is still plenty of room for age specific, segregated ministry to happen, but connecting adults and students together in healthy spiritual mentoring relationships is a needed and welcome change.

What else do you see shifting in youth ministry 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.

A couple weeks back at our State of HSM annual meeting I shared a few things that I believe that make a good team great. Thought I would share them with you as well!

Vision
We all share a common, unifying vision in our high school ministry – seeing students on the outside of faith meet Him face to face (evangelism) and their lives be changed forever. And for those that have trusted Christ to be connected (fellowship), grow (discipleship), serve (ministry) and honor (worship) Christ deeper now and into adulthood. The clear vision helps bring a team of like-minded and passionate people together. If someone is out of line, the vision brings them back into the unity of the common vision.

Learning
This year our team is going to unify by learning together. We’re going to go to a conference together – the Simply Youth Ministry Conference this March – come hang with us! We’re going to go back to the basics and read Doug Fields’ 1st 2 Years in Youth Ministry together and have some discussions about our experiences and how we can grow together as youth workers. Youth pastors must keep learning and moving forward.

Laughter
It is so important to laugh together. I want us to play together. Have inside jokes. To dig a deep well of relationship that bond us together and make us quick to forgive and trust when hit with the unexpected.

Dependent on God/Prayer
Your walk with Jesus is critically important. This season we’re all reading the New Testament together. We’re trying to make sure our walk with Jesus is more visible and something we talk about as easily as we would Sherlock Holmes or the new Coldplay album (both of which are excellent by the way). Your walk with Jesus is person, but it is also communal. As a team we need to strive to e

JG

If you are a youth pastor at your church – you are stuck in the middle. Chances are, you are a few steps removed from the top leadership position (lead pastor) and probably at least one step removed from the bottom (church janitor). Is it possible to lead while being positioned like this? We think so! Here are a few suggestions that will help you have upward influence:

Honor the Decision You Disagree With
As somebody in the middle, you often get decisions handed down to you that you, in return, need to hand down to others. There’s nothing more painful and frustrating then being handed down decisions that seriously affect your world with which you had little or no input. At times it will be very tempting (and rightfully so…) to use your lack of involvement in the decision to your advantage. If it’s bad news that you are expected to communicate to others it will be easy to say, “this wasn’t my decision but…”. If you don’t like the ramifications of a decision, it will be tempting to “play dumb” and act like you misunderstood the directives because you weren’t in the room when decisions were made. Here’s the deal: If you want to be a leader, act like one! Man (or woman) up, and honor the decisions made above you and implement them in your world the way a healthy leader should.

Speak Up
Being in the middle is difficult because it isn’t always clear when your voice should be heard. Here’s what we think: speak up! Don’t interrupt your next elder meeting – but take the time to share your perspective and thoughts at inventive times. Maybe shoot a note to your senior pastor every week giving him/her an update on youth group and a better context for the decisions they will make. Just because you aren’t the #1 leader, doesn’t mean your voice isn’t important!

Support the leaders above you
Support the “old guard”. Don’t fall into the temptation to take part in “water cooler” talk that is negative. Look for opportunities to speak highly of the sr. leadership of the church. Besides, someday you’ll be the old guy up front and want to be treated the same way, too.

Shape Decisions Behind Scenes
You don’t have to be in the “important” meetings to influence decisions that are being made! Those meetings are where things get finalized, but the decisions are often made well before the formal meeting ever takes place. If something is on the table that is important to you, then figure out creative ways to make sure your input is heard. Take your boss out to coffee, and ask if you can share your thoughts on the topic. If he/she is a healthy leader, they will welcome lots of input concerning upcoming decisions they need to make.

Be a Team Player
If you really want to be taken seriously by the leaders in your church, it’s time to start caring about your church! Don’t allow yourself to only be concerned about the youth group. Look for ways to chip in and lend a hand in church-wide areas. When senior leadership sees that you care about the whole church, and not church your little area within it, you may be shocked at how quickly your influence increases.

Being stuck in the middle is never easy – but it is possible to lead from that challenging position. As a youth worker, it is something you have to expect. Lead on, friends!

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.

There’s nothing more painful than losing your dream team…or even one dream player. From time to time, you will be faced with a key leader moving away or a right-hand man being moved up to help with a program for adults. It happens – our adult ministry steals our best people all of the time!

So when this happens – you have a few choices to make: (1) you can wallow in the golden years of what was, or (2) you can get to work on rebuilding a young team and see where God takes you. Honestly, you’ve probably done enough of (1) already, so let’s talk about (2). Here we go:

Don’t compare to the past
Rebuilding a team is difficult enough without making comparisons to the past. You are building a new team now – with different gifts, personalities and passions – embrace it instead of focusing on the frustrating differences.

Adjust your leadership to who you have now
The way you led last year probably isn’t going to work anymore. Different people need to be led differently – the pressure to adjust is on you, not on them. Consider giving everyone a personality test or the 5 Love Languages quiz to see what you’re working with and make a real effort to lead in a new way in the new season.

Become the world’s best coach
Maybe one of the reasons you’re lamenting the loss of your teammates is because you had a whole pack of seasoned, battle-hardened veterans and now you’ve got fresh meat. Become the world’s best coach! Constantly push, nudge and challenge your people in the right direction. Before you know it, they’ll be veterans as well…and prime pickings for adult ministry to swoop down for another batch (not that we’re bitter or anything).

Face the challenges head on
Need a pep talk? We got one: You can do this! Keep your head in the game! Don’t run from the challenge! Rebuilding a team is not an easy task. Hang in there! We know that God is going to use you in new ways in the next season.

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.

One of the earliest mistakes I (Josh) made in ministry was being a lone ranger. And while we specifically addressed that topics a few weeks back – we have received lots of questions about building a healthy team, specifically this question: “Where do I start?”. This week’s issues of SYM Today will help get you started on the exciting journey of building a great team. Here we go:

1. Start with Prayer
Before you begin the to tackle the huge risk of forming a team, ask God to show you the criteria you need to look for in potential leaders and the places in your ministry you need to build some leadership infrastructure.

2. Create a Hit List
If you could get anyone in your church on your leadership team – who would you go after? Which parent stands out as a great mentor and is raising their own kids well? Which young college age-student is showing incredible promise as someone who God’s hand of favor is on? Don’t walk around church lurking and mumbling as you write furiously on your clipboard! Just think through the best and the brightest and begin to pray specifically for them.

3. Make a Personal Ask
There’s nothing wrong with a blurb in the bulletin or an announcement from up front. But the reality is that the shotgun approach often brings a lot of collateral damage. You have to wade through a bunch of people to get to the one you really wanted. So while you are taking broad shots with bulletin announcements, use a laser beam approach and ask people directly, person to person. you might be surprised by the results…it is much tougher to say “no” to a direct ask than it is to say “no” to a bulletin insert.

4. Embrace Rejection
There’s nothing more discouraging than being rejected. And I (Kurt) would know since I had a lot of it from the ladies in college. But embrace the “no” as a sign of God’s involvement in this process – He is the one building the team and sifting through the members of your church for the volunteer(s) that is perfect for your ministry.

Want to build a great team of volunteers? This a great way to start! We’ll see you tomorrow with some thoughts about where to take them once they’ve said yes.

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.

Working with volunteer staff can be the most rewarding, or most frustrating part of doing youth ministry. Your team will either take the reigns and run with the vision, loving and pastoring students or stall all forward momentum. I have been a part of youth ministry volunteer teams for more than a decade now and I have seen many different teams come together and if I were to put together an all-star team I would look for these four types of people.

The Cheerleader – We all need one of these people, when you announce an event or a retreat from the pulpit, they are the people in the crowd pumping people up about it. This person is all energy, and can rally the crowd in a way that adds validity to our claims that an event is going to be a “Can’t Miss”. They pump it up on Twitter, on Facebook and anywhere else people will listen. I have a few on my team, but could always use a few more

The Straight Shooter – My friend Jason takes someone with him every time he speaks at an event and not because he needs a friend with him, but to keep him honest and give him feedback on his preaching. We all need that person whose opinion and feedback is not taken personally but instead comes from a caring friendship and serves to improve our leadership. We all need someone to challenge us to be better, who can tell us where we missed the mark with our preaching and can offer safe and constructive feedback.

The MacGuyver- This is that person who can do anything with next to nothing, constantly looking for needs and trying to fill them. A servant heart, loyal caring nature, a take charge attitude and willing to take on any task that needs to be done and make it happen. We have a guy like this on our team that just loves to serve, has no assigned tasks, but seems to be everywhere at once, his name is Matt and he is a legend!

The Encourager- Josh posted a poll this week about this and from the results its plain to see that a lot of us have a person like this on the team but sadly many do not. This person is more valuable than they will ever know as their sincere words and feedback can really be all that keeps you from leaving after a youth night thinking, what the heck happened and what I am doing here? Last year I had a team member that would write me notes, or pull me aside to just encourage me, offer prayer and just be a great friend. There were nights that it was all the kept me from staring at the ceiling all night wondering if I could get my old business job back.

I know there are more types of people than just these four, but when I think of the people on my team I know that it would not function nearly as effectively or as organically without these types of people serving and leading our students and each other. Is there a type of person on your team that you could not imagine not having?

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’m excited to announce a new addition to the HSM Team! Hannah Pratt-Rich has been a small group leader the last few years and she recently accepted an offer to join our team part-time. She’s going to be working to help strengthen our pastoral care ministry to girls and has a huge heart for serve projects and missions. So excited she’s on the team!

JG

One of my favorite traditions we do as a Student Ministries Team here at Saddleback is that we take an annual retreat together. This week I’ve been enjoying a much-needed week away with the team. I needed it for my own soul and refreshment, but our team needs it as well. Here’s why:

We eat/laugh/play together
I laughed last night more than I have in a long time. I laugh a lot, most people even think of me as an easy laugh, but last night was particularly fun. In the “head down” rushing pace of youth ministry sometimes we forget to laugh. Getting away on a retreat let’s you put your guard down. Conversations over meals are the best, and time in the pool or on the tennis courts is super fun.

We share stories together
Last night we had a youth ministry art show – everyone on the team was given a small canvas and asked to create something about youth ministry. It was incredible to see the heart come out and some really unique perspectives on the each others stories and the story of youth ministry.

We make memories together
The more memories, the strong the bond. Staff retreat gives us a chance for spontaneous memories to form and new inside jokes to be created. It helps fill trust reservoirs.

We head home to do battle with the enemy together
The team that retreats together … advances together. Most of the team heads back tomorrow to immediately dive into the final throes of HSM Summer Camp prep. We’ll jump right into an extremely busy season, but filled and ready to fight again for another year.

JG

I just finished up Onward by Howard Schultz, the founder and CEO of Starbucks. It was a gift (read: required reading) from my boss Kurt Johnston. Of course, it wasn’t a chore – I’ve been wanting to pick up the book after seeing it recently and am fascinated by how “it” companies like Apple and Starbucks work on the inside. The book was full of incredible insights with tons of youth ministry applications – but let me tell you right out of the gate that it is about 100 pages too long. The amount of detail is staggering, and quite honestly gives you an appreciation for the capacity of Howard Schultz. Here are a a few of the key things that stood out to me:

• Howard took incredible risks. Some paid off, others totally bombed. When was my last risk?
• People are what matter most. Period.
• Howard took his time building an incredible team. Success is never solo.
• One evening every Starbucks in the nation was closed for training. How much do I value training?
• Over time, Starbucks changed reporting their “comps” to focus on other measurements. Am I looking at the right numbers?
• Starbucks rebirth was guided by 7 principles. What are mine? What is guiding me?

Lots of good stuff. Great book.

JG

Too many youth workers are running at full capacity with not enough margin to care for themselves or their team. Some of it is self-inflicted in our own brokenness, some of it is the product of a church culture skewed to an unhealthy extreme. Either way, we have a responsibilty as a church to make sure that we are healthy and balanced, not screaming down the path to burnout. If we’re not careful, we could model exactly what not to do to our team. If you want to keep your team and yourself healthy and for a long time – here are a few ideas mixed in with more questions than answers:

Training
Every individual is responsible for their personal growth, but the church culture should share in this pursuit. Does your church regularly offer and/or require volunteers to participate in training events? Is there access to plenty of resources to grow on their own? Is there a culture to share what you are learning with others? People who aren’t trained will eventually grow tired of trying without success, will be crushed under the weight of success, or quietly search for someone who will care for them AND care for what they do. Well-trained people stay longer.

Coaching
Coaches identify unseen weaknesses, opportunities and motivations. To often people are left in isolation when they need the benefits of an actively engaged coach. When was the last time you nudged someone on your team toward an unseen opportunity?  How often do you take time from the pace of ministry and poured into your players? You have so much wisdom, use it to pour into your team! People will in return value the coach and the coaching.

Protection
If you want to keep your team together and build  youth ministry longevity, you have to protect your people. You may need to protect them from an overreacting parent or even from their own destructive behaviors. You have to protect them with sound policies that focus on caring for them and for your students. Some failure is part of the learning process and healthy, too much can drive someone away or disqualify  them for good. Knowing how much to give someone, when to press and when to let up, is an art a leader must master to keep his or her people.

These are critically important for your volunteers – but they’re important for you, too! How are you being trained, coached and protected?

JG