Chowtime – 5/18
Playing catch up from the week? Chew on these tid-bits of information...
Stat to Chew on...10% of teens state their parents have no clue about what type of music they listen to while 83% claim that their parents like all or some of their music. (source: StageOfLIfe.com)
Quote to Digest...“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.” - Dr. Seuss
Student Ministry Blogs to bite into...
- Kurt Johnston talks about how Ownership in his middle school program is a difference maker
- Want to build parent partnerships? Ryan Reed outlines 5 Questions you need to ask in order to build those
- Rachel Blom discusses how much older a youth leader should be than students
- Michael Bayne shares about discovering that "win" for your volunteers
- Jeremy Zach outlines 10 musts for leading a Youth Program
- In this time of transitions, Joshua Griffin talks about Youth Ministry Transitions
Possibly Related Posts:
- Real Dinner + Conversations = Win
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Changes gone array
- Chowtime – 5/11
- Looking for a new Minister or Church, ask this group to help
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Eyeing New Leaders
the Monday Morning Debrief: Staff Relationships
Over Thanksgiving I stumbled upon this video and article. It's a video of 2 news anchors actually quitting on air. Why did they quit? On air, they didn't say but later on, in an interview with a local newspaper, they said that they had a problem with upper-management. Cindy Michaels told the Bangor Daily News that "there was a constant disrespecting and belittling of staff," that "we both felt there was a lack of knowledge from ownership and upper management in running a newsroom" and that "there was a regular undoing of decisions."
Have you ever felt that way about your supervisors? A belittling of what you do ("all they do is play video games") or maybe frustrated because you are not "spiritual" or "good" or "capable" enough to speak to adults in the main service or how about the "I'm the senior pastor, I decide what is best for our youth" comments. It can be a little demoralizing sometimes and maybe you have felt the same way these news anchors felt. But what do you do about it? Is the only option to quit abruptly?
Here's a few suggestions I would recommend 1st (some of these are from personal experience and some are suggestions of things I wish I did at different times in my ministry career):
- Pray about it. Ask the Lord what you need to be doing in your situation (James 1:5 - " If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.")
- Go to your superior/fellow staffer and discuss how you feel with him/her (Matthew 18:15 - “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.")
- If nothing gets settled, include some elders/leadership team members in what you are experiencing (Matthew 18:15-18)
- DON'T start talking to others who don't need to know what is going on so that they get "on your side". That just creates tension and it can also be viewed disloyal, treachery and an act of "revolt".
The bottom line is this. You have to deal with it and get out in the open. Don't sweep it under the rug and build up some anger or resentment towards the situation. You have to confront the situation if there is any hope of it getting better. Because, if you don't, you run the risk of doing an impromptu "I quit" speech at the end of group one night. Then, no one benefits from it (the students, the families and the other staffers).
Being in church work/ministry doesn't mean you will never have conflicts amongst staff. But again, it doesn't have to end bad either. By confronting the issue with fellow staffers or superiors, at the very least you are attempting to get the air open and address the situation in a healthy way. By not confronting it, you run the risk of the issues continuing to be a problem and resentment may come into play and, once again, you end up with these out of the blue "I quite" announcements. Ultimately we have to remember that we are in the "kingdom" business and if our actions are not bringing glory to the Lord and bringing others into a relationship with Christ, then we have to make changes and address them (see above list).
Thoughts? Experiences? Post a comment now so that we can all learn and benefit.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Chowtime – 5/18
- Real Dinner + Conversations = Win
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Changes gone array
- Chowtime – 5/11
- Looking for a new Minister or Church, ask this group to help
NO ONE showed up! What the heck?
Yep, that's right. On Tuesday, I did an event and NO ONE showed up. Now, over my time in youth ministry, I've had a few events where just a small handful came, but at least I had a few people show. This week NO ONE showed up! The Big ZERO, Nada, Zilch, Null. Have you ever had that happened before?
So, as I processed this, I began to wonder where did I go wrong and I came up with a few conclusions:
- Wrong Promotion. For starters, even though I have it on the summer calendar and highlighted it on my weekly emails to parents, I didn't have it highlighted in the church services at all in the weeks leading up to the event. And, I failed to promote it and talk about it to students enough.
- No personal invites. So this event is a brand new event, never been done before and hardly any students knew about it. Let's be honest, they don't check emails or calendars you mail to them anymore. They need leaders talking to them, texting them, tweeting them and Facebooking them personally (sorry, Google+ no one goes to your site). When a leaders calls up a student and personally invites them to something, the chances of them coming to that event dramatically increases (I would love someone to do a study on that alone...anyone?). And, none of that happened this past week...not even from me, the Youth "Guy". So, if students don't know about it and aren't invited to it, how can we expect them to come to it?
- No student input. Probably the biggest error of my ways is that I didn't process this idea with students. I thought it would be a good idea to try but I never ran it by students to see if they thought it was good. For all I know they could have known about the program but thought it was too stupid of an idea to come to. How would I know...I never asked them.
So there you have it. No one showed up because I failed to do a few things that, after 14 years of youth ministry, I should definitely have known to do.
What do you think? Have you ever had an experience like this? What have you learned from that and how did the next time you did that event reflect the changes you made? TAKE A MINUTE right now and share your thoughts, experiences or comments so we can all learn and benefit.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Chowtime – 5/18
- Real Dinner + Conversations = Win
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Changes gone array
- Chowtime – 5/11
- Looking for a new Minister or Church, ask this group to help
The Monday Morning Debrief: The Challenger Tragedy & Ministry
I remember it very clearly listening on the radio. My twin brother and I just turned 11 and we were riding home from our birthday party at the ice-rink with all our friends when my mom turned on the radio of our old 1985 Volkswagon Vanagan (Oh yeah, do you remember those beauties). They were talking about the explosion on the Challenger. We all just sat there and listened in disbelief that the space shuttle exploded. Psychologists call it "flashbulb memory" when you experience a monumental event in your life or history. It is at that time that you can remember exactly where you were, what you were doing and who you were with. Another example of this is for the people who were alive when JFK was assassinate. Ask any of them and most of them will be able to recall exactly what they were doing when they first heard the news. The Challenger tragedy is one of my flashbulb memories in life.
Last week marked the 25th anniversary of the Challenger explosion and the AP did a 2 minute report on the lessons learned from the Challenger Tragedy.
According to this AP report (thanks for the clip AP!), a key lessoned learned from this tragedy was Communication. A lot of the "lower level" people knew there was a problem but it didn't get to the upper level management. And because of the communication gap, a tragedy happened that probably could have been avoided. If you recall, even after the 9/11 tragedy, one of the major criticisms was that there was a huge communication gap between all the intelligence agencies. That is why the created the Department of Homeland Security.
So how does this apply ministry? Just like this incident, communication is a key in ministry that can sometimes be broken. For instance:
- as a minister you do not communicate enough to the people you are ministering to so they never really know what is going on in the program
- the communication flow from you, the head leader, to the volunteer leaders or support team can sometime be out of sync (i.e., they are not getting the appropriate information that will make them effective in ministry)
- the communication between you and your superior is lacking and you two are not on the same page in the direction of the ministry long term. With this causes unnecessary stress and tension.
Making sure there are no gaps in communication is very important. You can have the best program in the world, but if no one knows what you are doing and even why you are doing it, no one is going to show up. It is vital to the health of the ministry that you communicate and that you use the many different forms of it to get your information out to the people - personal (telephone, leadership team meetings, face-to-tace), electronic (email, Facebook, websites, text) and paper (fliers, posters, ads in the newspapers).
With this in mind, TAKE A MINUTE and debrief this Monday morning on how you are doing with communicating to those around you. Are they getting the necessary information in order to make your ministry as effective as possible? If not, what changes need to take place. If you are doing a good job with it, post a comment telling us what you are doing to communicate as well as you are so others can learn and benefit from that.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Chowtime – 5/18
- Real Dinner + Conversations = Win
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Changes gone array
- Chowtime – 5/11
- Looking for a new Minister or Church, ask this group to help
Getting the Message out
October was Breast Cancer Awareness month. All month it seemed like everywhere you turn, you saw something Pink to symbolize the month, letting people know about Breast Cancer and it effects so that they can raise money for research and a possible cure. In fact, the organizers behind Breast Cancer Awareness month have been so effective in making people aware, you would be pretty hard press to NOT see something pink highlighting the month. If you watch an NFL football game, you see the men wearing pink towels, pink hats and pink shoes. If you go to the grocery store you will see pink grocery bags and pink ribbons all over the place. There are races dedicated to Breast Cancer awareness and women even post on Facebook messages indicating their support for Breast Cancer research.
But you know what? For all the publicity and awareness that goes along with it, breast cancer is not even the leading cancer killer worldwide. In fact, according to a 2004 statistic, breast cancer kills the 5th most of all different forms of cancer. Lung, stomach, colorectal and liver cancer all kill more people worldwide than breast cancer.
So what am I getting at? What I am trying to point out is that the people behind Breast Cancer Awareness month have gotten their message out. In all honesty, I am would be very surprised if the Breast Cancer Awareness month campaign is not one of the most successful marketing campaigns in recent history. I would love to see how much money they bring in because every October you are made well aware of their message - please support our cause. They found a niche in communicating their message and they hammered it home so well that I am not even aware if the other cancers have an awareness month. If they do, I for one do not know about it.
So this is where we all, ministers, come into play. The question for all of us is what are we doing to get our message out? What are we doing to promote the Lord and His plan for people's lives? What are we doing to reach out to the community to draw people in? No matter what ministry area you focus on, what is your message and what are you doing to promote it to those around you? How are you getting that message out?
See, I think sometimes we believe that "if you build it, they will come". That if we build a church and just put our name up on the building, people are going to just flock into the sanctuary. Although some people do that, the majority of non-believers will not. They don't give a hoot that we have a super cool building with wireless internet and a multi-screen projector. They don't care because they don't know the message of hope we have. That is why it is so important that we take the message out to them. We cannot rely on them coming to us, we have to go to them. We have to go to them with a message of hope for a lost world.
I want to challenge you to TAKE A MINUTE and evaluate how well you are doing about getting your message out. This would actually be a pretty good Staff Meeting discussion to have. What is your message and what are you doing to get it out? Do not become lazy and rely on people to come to you. Take your message to them so that more people can have the opportunity to hear about the life-transforming message of Christ.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Chowtime – 5/18
- Real Dinner + Conversations = Win
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Changes gone array
- Chowtime – 5/11
- Looking for a new Minister or Church, ask this group to help
POLL: Communicating with Leaders
When I first started in youth ministry over 13 years ago, I remember we used to communicate with our leaders through snail mail and calling a home phone number. Now, times have changed and the way we can communicate with leaders can be much more effective than mailing a letter or calling home phone numbers.
What hasn't changed since I started ministry is the importance of communication with leaders. Communicating with your volunteer leaders is vital to the success of your ministry. After all, if your leaders never know what is going on, how can they be effective in reaching the students or striving for the goals you all have set out to achieve? So making sure your leaders have the right information at the right time takes time and multiple ways to communicate with them. We have come a long way since snail mail and leaving messages on the home phone number so I am sure there
TAKE A MINUTE and think through the various ways you communicate with your leaders. Then, take the poll and post a comment on what has made you either successful or not successful in communicating with your leaders.
Possibly Related Posts:
- The Monday Morning Debrief: Costly Delays
- Law and Order RoadHouse style
- Being Heard and Valued
- Dealing with Bullying
- Flag Football Outreach
The Monday Morning Debrief: Communicating with Leaders
Communicating with leaders is vital to having a successful ministry. If your leaders do not feel apart of what is going on they are going to lose focus, have no clear purpose and feel out of touch with the overall vision of the ministry. So what are effective ways to communicate to your leaders and what should you be communicating?
What to communicate?
- Keep giving them the vision of the youth program. What do you want to do and where would you like to take the program? Keeping them plugged into the overall direction of the ministry helps keep them focused on the task at hand.
- Update them on "business". In order to be really effective, leaders have to know what is going on. They have to know what is coming up and what the expectations are for them from you.
- Offer other areas in which they can help out such as planning. A lot of leaders have great ideas and the more they feel like they "own" an event or have had some part in the planning, the more likely they are to get excited about it and promote it to the students.
- Encourage them in Christ. I know they don't need another sermon but a quick devotional and mediation on growing in Christ shows them that you care just as much about their spiritual direction as you do what they can do for you as a minister.
How to communicate?
- A simple, regular one is an email. An email out to your leaders once a week highlighting a few business items and give some props out to some job well dones is always a great encouragement and keeps the leaders in the know.
- Leader meetings are always great too. That way you can
- 1-on-1s. These are great for you to really talk to leaders individually and "get real". It is your chance to see where they are at and for them to be honest with you and vice versa. The 1-on-1s are great individual time with the leaders and where they feel like their voice can be heard.
What do you think? What are other ways to communicate to leaders and what else do you communicate to them when you meet up? TAKE A MINUTE and process and then post a comment about what you do so that we can all benefit.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Chowtime – 5/18
- Real Dinner + Conversations = Win
- the Monday Morning Debrief: Changes gone array
- Chowtime – 5/11
- Looking for a new Minister or Church, ask this group to help
Connect:
Tom’s Twitter Updates
- @BIG_SULLY55 serenading the ladies http://t.co/Sk3QQwaAEI5 hours ago
- A #stumin stat, quote to reflect on and 6 blogs that you may have missed this past week http://t.co/OJdtZCdgNG #thinkorange6 hours ago
- @SAHolcomb @daily_bailey13 @MegHarmon7 have a great night tonight!!9 hours ago
Recent Comments
- Matt Norman on the Monday Morning Debrief: Prepping for Orange ’13
- Introducing your Student Ministry Minor League Team | Ministry Blackboard on The benefits of volunteering in the schools
- Rachel Blom on Chowtime – 3/16
- tapounder on the Monday Morning Debrief: Closing Shop
- Todd Bryant on the Monday Morning Debrief: Closing Shop