Ministry Blackboard

11May/130

Chowtime – 5/11

Catching up on the week?  Pull up some chow and chew on these tid-bits of information...

Stat to Chew on...4,600 young people (ages 10 to 24) commit suicide each year (source: LJWorld, 2008).

Quote to Digest..."Don't give up. Don't ever give up. " Former North Carolina State basketball coach Jim Valvano, March 4, 1993, accepting an ESPY Award shortly before he died of cancer.

Student Ministry Blogs to bite into...

Are you chewing on something this week?  Share it so that we can all learn from each other, be challenged and benefit.

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6May/130

the Monday Morning Debrief: Eyeing New Leaders

If you have been following my blog for a while, you'll know that I'm a HUGE Penn State fan.  Despite all that has happened there and to those poor children, my support for that University and Football program has never wavered.   So it should come as no surprise that I found this article on ESPN.com this past week and was pumped for the future of the PSU football program.

But, this article also got me pumped for my own Student Ministry program.  How you might ask?  Because it got me thinking about my future leaders for next year.  I know, I know.  This year isn't even over yet and I know that.  But, if I'm not looking for the next crop of student leaders to take over for the exiting seniors now, I'm going to up a creek without a paddle come fall.  In fact, we should always be looking for the next set of leaders.

But what do they look like?  Who are they?  Here are some suggestions as you look for your own future leaders...

  • Students who possess that "it" quality that other students follow.  For each ministry that "it" quality will be different but one thing is certain, you know that person when you see them.  They have something that you are looking for and that other students want to follow.
  • Someone who is teachable.  Never underestimate a student who has a passion to learn and want to do well.  What they may lack in some areas, they make up for it in their teachability.
  • A student who is consistent and makes your program a priority.  There may be better leader students out there, but if they don't have time and they consistently choose other things over what you all are doing, they are probably not the right person to be a student leader.  You need students who are consistently showing up and choosing your group instead of other things.
  • Someone who is committed to actively pursuing a relationship with Christ.  This is probably the most important.  Wait, check that.  It IS the most important because without a commitment to Christ, everything this student does is with the wrong motives and without the right purpose.

It's never too early to start preparing new leaders to take over.  So, if you haven't started doing it already, now is the right time to begin that search.  With Penn State and all the other major college football programs across the nation, they recognize the need to have new leaders step forward and provide guidance for the rest of the team.  We need those types of leaders as well if we want our momentum in our student ministry programs to stay strong,  develop even more students who are either beginning or growing in their relationship with Christ.

Thoughts?  Experiences?  Share your comments below so we can all learn from each other and benefit.

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1Apr/130

the Monday Morning Debrief: Now what?

So, Easter has happened and tons of new people (or just the yearly Easter service goers) have come to your church.  Now what?  What do you do?  Here are some ideas...

  • Follow up with all the people you met at Church yesterday or who checked off "interested" in the Youth Ministry from a bulletin insert or at a table.  Whether it is by phone or email, contact them this week.  Phone is probably the best since you can talk to the family in person.
  • Touch base with the Student Ministry Leaders to see who they came into contact with and encourage them to follow up people they met.
  • Make sure your next Youth Event is a home run.  If you have new students potentially coming to "Youth Group" for the 1st time, it better be something that they are going to want to come back to.  You never get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression, so make your night great!

What else do you think?  What have you found successful to do in following up from Easter?  TAKE A MINUTE to process what you need to do and then share your thoughts and experiences below so that we can all benefit and learn from each other.

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18Mar/130

the Monday Morning Debrief: the Pope and Leadership Selection

In case you missed it, this past week the Catholic Church has announced that Jorge Mario Bergoglio will be the new Pope of the Catholic Church.  He will be known as Pope Francis.

thAs the world watched the Cardinals meet to discuss and elect a new Pope, it made me think of all that we do as ministry leaders to select new leaders that serve our students.  See, when the Cardinals meet, they meet in a conclave.  This is where the Cardinals lock themselves up, sort through all the candidates and ultimately come to a decision on who the next Pope should be (for more information on the conclave, check it out here).

What I appreciate about what the Cardinals do to elect a Pope, is that this a completely serious matter.  It isn't handled lightly.  In the same way, we shouldn't handle the recruitment and "election" of student ministry volunteers lightly.  We should be completely thorough and diligent in our process to find the right leaders serving our students.  There are too many mistakes that happen, too many predators our there and too many "buddy leaders" out there wanting to relive their high school experiences to take the selection of student ministry leaders lightly.

It begs the question, how are we selecting leaders?  Specifically, what do you go through to bring in new leaders?  Is it detailed or just thrown together?  Are we being purposeful or just getting warm bodies so that you can have adult supervision?

TAKE A MINUTE right now and think through your selection process.  What is right?  What is wrong?  What needs to be thought through better?  What needs to be tweaked?  No one student ministry is the exact same as another, so this has to be specific to your ministry, not the church down the street.

I believe that if we want real effectiveness and real leadership from our volunteer leaders, the process begins with us, Youth Pastors/Directors/Ministers.

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7Dec/120

POLL: How often do you do leaders meetings?

I think it is safe to say that we need our volunteer leaders. Without them, our ministries could not be all that they are.  They play a vital role in what we do and how we do ministry.

So that means we should meet up with them as much as possible and have leaders meeting regularly, right?  Even though I thoroughly agree with this, I have really struggled this fall to do them.  That is what made me think of this poll question.

TAKE A MINUTE right now to post how often you meet (I am curious to see what is the "norm").  Then, take some time to evaluate how that needs to change or not.  Is what you are currently doing working?  Or do you need to change something? Do you need to meet more often?  Focus on different things during your meetings?  Or even do some other leader gatherings for just fun?

How much we view volunteer leaders and what they do is played out in a variety of ways and one of those ways is how often we meet with them.  Let's be committed to meet with regularly so we show them just how much we value them and how much they mean to the student ministry.

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12Jul/123

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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?
  3. 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.

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9Jun/120

Chowtime 6/9

In case you are so stuffed from all the graduation parties you have been to and have been out of the loop, here are some of the goings on from some youth ministry bloggers.  So grab some chow and enjoy...

If you have other articles or bloggers you follow that have posted something great this week, post it on the comments below so we can all benefit.

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20Oct/100

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.

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