youth pastor life | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts 5 Bits of Fatherly Advice to the Youth Pastor

Loved this post over on Tony Morgan’s blog from a father of 4 to the youth pastor. Here’s a clip, definitely worth the trip to get the rest:

1.Don’t have Bible studies on Sunday morning, but encourage my kids to serve. As a parent, I’m constantly battling everything in culture that’s telling my kids, “Life is all about YOU.” I don’t need my church to be compounding that challenge. Please help me parent my kids by encouraging them to serve other people. In the long run, learning to serve will ultimately keep them connected to the church after they graduate. Likely the additional Bible study will not.

2.Provide leadership opportunities for my kids. When we become Christ-followers, we receive spiritual gifts. God doesn’t hold on to those gifts until we become adults. In other words, students can also have the spiritual gift of leadership. If you don’t offer opportunities for my kids, they’ll check out of your student ministry and find another organization where they can use their gifts.

3.Don’t meet on Sunday night if at all possible. It’s true that there are no school activities on Sunday nights, but Sundays are a very busy evening for my kids. Every bit of homework and test preparation that needs to happen before Monday takes place on Sunday nights, because it certainly didn’t happen on Friday night or Saturday. At all three churches where I’ve served, the midweek student gatherings were always better attended than the Sunday evening gatherings. I know. There will be seasons when athletes may not be able to participate…though you can probably still accommodate them. I believe one of the key reasons midweek is stronger is because my kids can invite their friends at school that afternoon.

JG

6 View Comments March 9, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts THIS is Why I Breathe

Most people don’t understand what I do
When I tell them I’m a YOUTH WORKER they
Put their hand on my should and say with a sigh
“I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT”

And occasionally I still get asked when I’m going to be a “REAL PASTOR” or “WHEN I WILL BE TOO OLD FOR THIS” but they don’t get it: THIS IS WHY I BREATHE
· I live for the CRAZINESS OF CAMP it is there I most remember God’s call
· I live for the MESS OF MY SMALL GROUP because I know God will make something BEAUTIFUL
· On a shopping run for the overnighter I almost wait with anticipation for the checkout lady to ask WHAT IS ALL OF THIS FOR?
· I live for the LIFE-CHANGING CONVERSATIONS even if they happen between the hours of 2-4AM on a mission trip

The long hours, the challenging work, the highs and lows … the office in the church basement …it all doesn’t matter to me. This is why I am on the earth. This is why God made me.

I was created by HIM. For THEM.

THIS. IS WHY. I BREATHE.

JG

12 View Comments March 7, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Managing Expectations Part 1: Students

When I was a kid, I remember making my parents pretty frustrated from time to time and they would say many different things as a result, but not one of those words had more impact than the big D and I don’t mean Dallas (country music joke) I mean DISAPPOINTED. That word just seems to cut so deep and I just hate disappointing my wife, my family, and my students. Its unavoidable but being proactive to manage the expectations that students have of you will go a long way to feeling the wrath of the D word.

Here are a few areas that you can help students to develop reasonable expectations of you and the youth group so that we can under-promise and over deliver.

Time: Believe it or not, you do sleep, and you do not sleep at the Church. There is a limit to what you can do and how much time you have to spend with students and leaders. We probably all have what you can bluntly refer to as a “time suck” student who would love to spend every possible moment hanging out. Students in general covet face time with their leaders. The thing we need to help students understand is that they are unique, awesome and fearfully and wonderfully made, but so are the other 50 students in your group. Helping students realize that they are important, but are also 1 of your ___ students is important. Make the most of the time you spend with students but manage their expectations on how often and for how long you will meet.

Teaching: After disappointment, the next scariest D word that I have heard from a youth is “Deeper” — the magical land of greater knowledge, that is completely relative to each person’s own lived experience and previous learning, YIKES! We have our students for about 1/200^th of their waking hours in a week, so its imperative that we help them realize that there is a limit to what we can teach them, and the limit to depth which we can go with such a narrow window of time. Ultimately they need to own the frequency and value of their spiritual disciplines and through that come depth of relationship with Christ. Having reasonable expectations of this will help them see that they own this process more than they are owed this process.

Taste: Try as you might, you are never going to make all students happy with your youth program. One week might be too fun, the next too serious, another might have too many new worship songs, or not enough small group time. I have heard every complaint known to youth pastors but here is the way we are trying to explain it to our students who express a dislike for what ever we served up that night. Imagine you are hosting a dinner party for 100 people, and you have to feed them something. You plan the meal, with foods that you feel most people would like, in fact 80% will probably really enjoy. It’s fresh, well prepared and good for you too! But the truth is that 20% of the people might not like what you are serving and some might not say, and others might flat out tell you. What we are trying to build into our students is that even though you might not like what was served, how great is it that 100 people are eating together and how amazing is it that for some, this is most nutritious meal they have ever had.

Helping your students have reasonable expectations of you and the youth group will go a long way to building a new generation of adults in the Church that are focused what they can do to invest in their relationship with God instead of placing blame on the Church for short comings in their faith.

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.

Add Comment March 6, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Youth Ministry Life Book

Another new book! What? Hahahah … was excited to find out last week that Simply Youth Ministry was taking Kurt Johnston and I’s Today newsletters and making them into a new book! You can now get Youth Ministry Life on Simply Youth Ministry’s website you can download it as an eBook or get a physical copy shipped to your door. Yeah!

The most solid youth workers are the ones eager to learn, hungry for wisdom, excited to discover new truths and rediscover old ones. With that in mind, we’ve handpicked some of the best, deepest, richest content from our Simply Youth Ministry Today emails and created Youth Ministry Life. This book will help you navigate four major areas of ministry for every youth worker:

The PHILOSOPHY of youth ministry–why we do what we do and what difference it is making for God’s kingdom

The PEOPLE in youth ministry–those we are serving and those who are serving alongside us

The PRACTICE of youth ministry–programming for the most effective reach

The PERSONAL aspect of youth ministry–how and why we need to grow and strive for personal and spiritual health as the point people of our ministries

JG

Add Comment March 5, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: 3 Things Every Student Pastor MUST Do

In the past five years I have had the privilege to see a lot of different student ministries and work along side of many different student pastors. In each ministry I have seen different approaches to student ministry, but in every student ministry I have seen three things that I believe are a must for every student pastor. Whatever your doing in student ministry, I believe you MUST be doing these three things:

1. Teach students the Bible. The most important thing student pastors must do is teach students the Bible. The Word of God is the only thing that can truly change their life and help them follow God for the rest of their life. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say this: I believe students need to hear good, solid expository preaching and teaching whenever they come to a youth group meeting. I’m all for small groups, which I believe are vital in student ministry (click here to see my thoughts on this), but student pastors need to teach the Bible in an expository manner to their students. Not only in large youth group gathers, students need to be taught the Bible within small groups that I believe should be a vital part of student ministry. Whatever way your ministry is set up, students have to be taught the Bible. I’m all for relationships and creative styles of discipleship, but I believe solid, Bible teaching is a must for all student pastors.

2. Train and build adult leaders. If you want a growing and healthy student ministry, you must have a team of well-trained adults to do ministry along side of you. Students pastors must spend much of their time recruiting adult leaders, training and equipping them, and giving them opportunities to serve students. In the book The Greenhouse Project, Ric Garland points out that one person can only disciple 5 to 6 students effectively. That means if your ministry has six or more students in it, you have to have adult leaders helping you. Student pastors need to spend the same amount of time building and training leaders as they do spending time with the students.

3. Minister to the parents. I believe a student pastor is not just called to serve the students, they are called to serve the parents as well. The parents are responsible for the spiritual growth of their own students so student pastors must never take that place. We must partner with the parents as we point their students to Christ. Many student pastors spend little time with parents outside just giving them information on events and activities. We as student pastors need to spend time building relationships with the parents, teaching the about the culture of their students, and equipping them with resources to train their students.

These are three things you must be doing as a student pastor. Other things are great and have their place, but we cannot allow these three things to be put on the back burner. Student pastor, teaching your students the Bible, build a healthy leadership team of adults, and always serve the parents.

Austin is currently a pastoral intern at Weymouth Community Church in Medina, OH. He just finished his Bachelors degree from Piedmont International University in Christian Ministries with a student ministries and pastoral studies minors. He is now working on his Master’s degree, got engaged, and is looking for his first-full time ministry position in the area of student ministry. You can find his blog online at www.austinmccann.com.

3 View Comments March 2, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Group Magazine 2012 Youth Ministry Salary Survey

Group Magazine just published their 2012 Youth Ministry Salary Survey that you might be interested in!

JG

5 View Comments February 27, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Love Your Spouse

Married? Not married? Not married, and haven’t had a date in years? Wherever you find yourself today, here are some thoughts about loving your current…or future…spouse.

Love unexpectedly.
Youth workers love surprises–but too often our spouses end up with the predictable and stable part of our lives. While there’s nothing wrong with stability, it’s also a good idea to take the same creativity that helps you think up crazy games and invent an unexpected way to love your spouse. This week, make it a goal to love your husband or wife in an unexpected, surprising way.

Love your spouse in front of your students.
There’s nothing wrong with letting your students see that you love your husband or wife. That doesn’t mean you need to incessantly refer to them as “hot” (that’s actually a pet-peeve of ours, and our wives ARE hot), or make out with them in the church van on the way to the retreat. But it’s important to remember that your students are watching your relationship; it might be the most important lesson you teach them all week.

Love your spouse in front of your kids.
Same thing goes with your own children (if you’ve got them). They need to see you in love with each other, too. That doesn’t mean that everything in the home is perfect, but through the good, bad, and the ugly you share a loving commitment to each other and to Christ.

Love your spouse when no one is watching.
A consistent loving relationship can’t only show up when people are watching. Make sure you love your spouse when you aren’t trying to be a role model to your teenager. Youth ministry takes a toll on marriages. Sadly we’ve seen it first-hand far too many times. One of the best ways to model healthy marriage within your ministry context is to do the hard work of building a healthy marriage behind the scenes.

Love wins every time!

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.

1 View Comments February 23, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Stop the Bottleneck

If there’s a bottleneck in your ministry, guess what? It’s probably you!

Think about it for a second — you’re the point person of the ministry, so doesn’t it make sense that decisions roll up through you? In a centralized leadership structure (like most churches) there is one central figure, usually a youth pastor, who is tasked with making the call on a variety of issues. But therein lies the problem: everything comes to a screeching halt when that person has too many plates spinning. When they are on vacation, good luck moving everything forward. If and when they leave, it all comes crashing down.

If you’re the point person, aka the bottleneck, consider this plan in the next season of ministry:

Realize you are an equipper
The pastor is not supposed to control everything — your primary job is to equip others to do the work of the ministry. Make sure you are helping others do great ministry, not just helping out with yours.

Give as much of your ministry away as possible
One of the most painful times in ministry is when you begin to give away the things that you love. But you will be healthier, and you will relieve pressure on the bottleneck. Yesterday we talked about giving away the stuff you don’t like, but holding on to too much stuff you do like, is classic bottleneck behavior.

Trust them with decisions
Don’t take back what you gave. Refuse to look over their shoulder every second of the day. Trust them with the tasks and responsibilities you gave them and have confidence their calls. If you’ve done a good job of preparing (and equipping) they’re ready for this. There will be some pains along the way, but they will be growing pains…and it hurts so good!

Regularly evaluate and guide
What if instead of holding everyone back by being the bottleneck, you helped everyone get better. If you give ministry away, you add a new opportunity to coach your people and help strengthen their skills. Next, you can mentor and guide them to give their ministry away, too — maybe this time to a student!

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.