• Lies of Youth Ministry, Part One

    Boys and girls in youth ministry we’ve got some problems. We in youth ministry, as a tribe, believe some lies about who we are, what we’re about, and how we should be reaching students. Let’s address these and move forward to fix them, OK?

    #1 Your ministry is “successful” if you have 10% of Sunday morning attendance. My entire youth ministry career has been wrapped up in the local church so I can state this from experience. But let’s bear in mind historical perspective to understand this lie before we can look at a solution. The current version of Youth Ministry is really a reaction to the success of early parachurch ministries. Back in the late 1940s modern youth ministry was born when Youth for Christ hired Billy Graham to lead crusades to reach teenagers… and boy did that work! YFC’s crusades scratched a cultural itch since teens had been left out of the local church with the emergence of adolescence. (Adolescence is only about 120 years old!) As a strong middle class was born out of post-WWII days adolescent teen culture blossomed and the church was seen as irrelevant to teens. Gradually, in the early 1960s the American church responded in a big way to numerical victories of parachurch ministries. Churches were tired of seeing all of the students go to YoungLife and Youth for Christ… so they started hiring those organization’s staff to run programs in local churches.

    It was a great concept, but from the very beginning youth ministry was seen by church leadership as a way to hold onto church kids and maybe, just maybe, reach new families. This fixed a problem parachurches had without truly addressing the church issue that created the parachurch need in the first place… no place for non-believers to be ministered to.

    The truth is that local churches royally ruined what the parachurches were doing. To even call what most churches do “youth ministry” is demeaning to its evangelistic heritage. Instead of youth pastors being hired to reach a high school they were hired to grow/maintain a local church. (In fact, I’ve talked to countless youth pastors who were fired for trying to reach lost students!) The lie is that a good youth ministry is about growing a church. In most cases, a youth pastor’s job is so limited and focused on the church that it’s really not about reaching lost kids at all. (Appropriate lip service is always about evangelism!) I’ve actually sat in youth ministry networks and listened to youth pastors sound satisfied that they are reaching 50-60 students with their ministry. The target isn’t a percentage of butts in seats on Sunday morning! Reaching 50 students while 1950 have never heard the gospel is a gross failure.

    True success comes when you reach and disciple brand new people for Jesus Christ! The first lie points to the fact that church-based youth ministry largely lies to itself and calls itself a success when it reaches less than 1% of students in a community. Is it the individual youth pastor’s fault? Absolutely not. It’s a design flaw worth addressing. The truly successful youth ministries in this country focus on the lost in their schools and could care less what percentage of saved church kids come to their programs.

    Questions for youth workers: Do you agree with my use of the term “lie?” If so, what are some ideas for fixing this in your context? If you don’t agree, I still love you. But I’d like to hear your push back.

    Lie #2 It’s about discipleship

    Lie #3 You have to have a youth pastor

  • Adam plays with gas

    No, not me. Him!

  • YS Podcast Episode 4

    Loving how the podcast is working out. Every time we shoot a segment we take some time to restate to ourselves what it’s all about. It’s all about encouraging youth workers… paid, part time, full time, volunteer, parent, sunday school teacher, whatever… you totally matter.

    In church leadership? You need to get this thing in the hands of whoever does youth ministry in your church.

    Want to see me every week in video? Subscribe to the YS Podcast on iTunes.

  • Grace vs. Karma

    Without karma, how do you get stuff done in the church?

    Yesterday’s message got me thinking about the mistake many people, even church people, make in regards to grace. Here’s what those two terms mean and why they are opposites.

    Grace is receiving unmerited favor. In other words, you get what you don’t deserve.

    Karma is the effects of your past deeds is your future experience. In other words, you get what you pay for.

    The Karma Conspiracy. I’ll let you in on a little secret. Most people in ministry believe in grace but practice and perpetuate karma in their ministry. Not all, but nearly all.

    1. I missed my kids soccer game because I was preparing for my message on Sunday.

    2. Come be a part of God’s vision and serve at the spaghetti dinner.

    3. Partner with God in the vision of our church by tithing.

    4. Join a small group this fall and be a part of what we’re doing.

    Now, you’ll see those statements and not see the karma connection. Since I’ve been guilty of all four of those let me translate into what most (nearly all) pastors are thinking when they say these things.

    1. If I work hard good things will happen in my church.

    2. I am capitalizing on your false belief that working in the church will merit favor in order to fill a job roster.

    3. I am exploiting on your belief that if you give to God He will give more back to you.

    4. By asking you to do something you don’t want to do, I am perpetuating your false belief in karma with the hope that you’ll discover grace.

    See, this is a tricky thing. And I don’t think any pastor does it intentionally. Yet I think that karma is so engrained in our culture that we perpetuate it unknowingly.

    Question: How do we stop this? How do we allow grace, true unmerited favor from God, to permeate everything we do in ministry and in life?

    Hint: I think both the problem and the solution are found here.

  • Found on Craiglist

    Here are five real life posts on Craigslist to brighten your day.

    #1 Found cat– black with white stripes

    #2 Free Coffin

    #3 You were being shoved into a Dallas Police car- m4w

    #4 Trade your vespa for my loud parrot

    #5 I will trade my sombrero for your kayak

  • San Diego Living

    Paul is adjusting
    Paul is adjusting

    It’s been nearly a month since Megan, Stoney, and I packed the car to drive off across America. And it’s been 4 weeks now that we’ve been living in our San Diego house… not quite a month but closing in on it.

    So how is it going? In a nutshell it’s going great. We are slowly getting used to a different lifestyle in Southern California. In some ways SoCal is foreign to us and in other ways we feel like we blend in.

    Here’s a typical day in our house. We get up at about 6:15. That’s after a restless night of sleep… the sprinklers still wake us up at 4:00 AM every morning. Technically either Kristen or I gets up at 5:30 to head to the gym depending on who’s day it is. So days start early.

    Mornings are quiet. We make coffee. I like to sit on the back patio and watch the animals explore the yard while doing my morning internet rituals. Eventually the kids get up and we start getting them ready for school. Around 7:40 I leave for the office while Kristen gets ready to march the kids up the hill to school.

    Days at YS are pretty much like work anywhere else. Everyone tries to get stuff done between meetings, we go to lunch, and then we do more work between meetings. It just so happens that the work and meetings I am doing are the most enjoyable stuff I’ve ever done.. but other than that it is pretty similar to working anywhere else in my life.

    Somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30 I head home. On days Kristen keeps the car she comes to get me while other days I just drive home while listening to NPR. (How is this different from life in Romeo again?) I love it when Kristen comes to pick me up as the kids actually come into the office to find me. They love YS! It’s full of people who love talking to them as well as a big candy jar by the front desk. They bring the fun and then steal me to go home.

    The evenings are pretty basic. We have dinner, we walk the dog, we watch some TV, we go to bed. At least once a week I like to take the dog to the beach so he can run around and smell other dogs butts, chase other dogs, and pretty much just run free at Dog Beach without a leash.

    We go to bed pretty early.

    Weekends. Friday night has become our family date night. We try to take the kids somewhere fun… we may introduce a movie to this night as Fall progresses. On either Saturday or Sunday we go to the beach. Other than that we don’t do much. Even when we go to the beach we’re only going for 2-3 hours. For some reason we’ve started the habit of going at about 2 and leaving by about 5. That seems to be just enough time for us.

    Dear Lord, Kristen and I need our date night back. It’s nice with the kids but… yeah.

    So what’s different? The big point of contrast is that our lives are so simple. Life has really slowed down for me. (Conventions are coming!) In Romeo I was always running somewhere. Either for the church or YMX or family stuff… I never got to just chill out. So far it’s been nice to “reset” and just enjoy the cool breezes on the porch, watch the birds in the trees, spy on the cat eating something in the yard, etc.

    Other things are very different. San Diego is a true melting pot. There are oodles of other cultures everywhere you go. I have been comparing San Diego (in my mind) to a bunch of European cities I’ve visited. Lots of languages, lots of types of foods, lots of polite “I have no idea what to say” smiles in shops. The abundance of ethnic foods is awesome.

    I dig the weather… I mean, who doesn’t? Mornings are typically overcast with a “marine layer” and sometimes that means it is foggy. So mornings will have near 100% humidity until that burns off. When the sun comes out just before lunch it warms up and true Southern California emerges. It gets to about 90 at the YS offices… but never seems to be above 80 at home.

    I’ve mentioned the beach several times because I like going there so much. Each time I drive down there I have this “I live here” moment! The waves are typically calm enough the splash around in and the water isn’t warm like in Florida… but so far it’s been warm enough to swim in.

    What else is different? Well, we live in a city now. So yards are smaller, houses are smaller, cars are smaller… pretty much everything is smaller and more dense. It is weird to hear your neighbors talking. We have a neighbor who regularly has karaoke nights… that’s fun right there.

    We live near San Diego State so sometimes we get exposed to gems like Kristen uncovered the other day at the store. Generally, food is cheaper but everything else is more expensive than in Michigan. Tropical plants are different than Michigan… we have a massive ficus tree in our backyard that would only be 4 feet tall in someone’s house in Macomb County.

    This may be the most rambling post of my life. 900 words. Yikes. 901. 902.

  • My favorite football teams

    College football gets into full swing today. Technically, it started last week yet it wasn’t a full schedule. I thought it was good to clarify just who I get excited about in college football for this season.

    #1 Notre Dame (I grew up about a mile from the campus, been to a ton of games, love me some Fighting Irish.)

    #2 Michigan State (Not sure why I like them, but I enjoy watching the Spartans. I think they can have a decent year.)

    #3 Michigan (This is a rebuilding year for them. I don’t expect them to be above .500 as the new coach wasn’t left with a lot of talent. But I still like watching them. The crazy thing is that it doesn’t matter how bad they are, they still have a shot against Ohio State.)

    #4 San Diego State (I know they aren’t good this year, but they are the closest D-1 team to us. They play about 3 miles from our house.

  • Ode to the Remote

    Around the McLane house we have a unique ability to lose the remote. I always blame it on the kids, yet half the time it’s my fault. I’ll get up to go to the kitchen or head to bed and I think it stays in my hands.

    But I’m convinced that sometimes the remote is like a sea creature. When we aren’t looking the shell pops open and it’s little wormy body slides out and drags it into a crevice somewhere to hide. Sure, if we forage we always find it. But I think that creature on the inside of our remote just lngs to eat the Fruit Loops and Cheerios it finds in those crevices.

    My only other theory is that Kristen hides it from me.

  • But can you agree?

    Democrat and Republicans battleI watched a good chunk of both the DNC and RNC. I listened to the rhetoric of Democrats saying that Republicans are stupid and visa versa. I was especially annoyed during the RNC to hear a line-up of failed presidential candidates call Barack Obama stupid, young, and naive.

    And it left me with a single, two-fold question: Which candidate will be able to work to build bridges? Which candidate can unite a divided nation?

    That person is prepared to lead our country. Leading one party further to the left or the right isn’t interesting to me.

  • Web people

    genius or idiotThis is what I’ve learned in my years as a Web dude. People either see you as a genius or an idiot. There isn’t much middle ground. And often in conversation, you can tell the people you’re talking to are thinking you are both an idiot and a genius at the same time.