I think I may have screwed up. This whole clothing drive has snuck up on me. Not only did I drop the ball and not get the free truck service in time. Now I’m not sure I’ve even gotten a place to accept the donations. I’m waiting to hear back from Grace Centers of Hope.
I hope it all works out. I hate when I screw things like this up. Bad Adam!
Hot as Taco Bell’s Fire Sauce…
1. “Be clear about the adult role in this process.” (23)
The role of your adults should be essential to defining your practice of student leadership. As adults come side by side with your student leaders they become a more intimate part of their lives, as they “mentor, disciple and encourage these young people (23).” The adults are still part of the doing, but they beginning to do less alone, and more with a student leader by their side. Adults have to walked through this transition, but I have found that they enjoy it more in the end.
2. “In my specific situation what are the roadblocks to developing student leaders?” (26)
I think that this entire section is huge. We must recognize what are the barriers to allowing this to happen in our specific situation. The authors list a few; elitism, unrealistic expectations, performance-based lifestyle, being too judgmental on student leaders and using leaders as a quick fix, but the list could go on. There are many assumptions and judgments people tend to make about student leaders and if a student leadership program is going to succeed you must recognize them and work through them with your church.
3. The Life of a Leader Section (37-118)
The fact that the authors began the book with a cumulative section on how to build up the life of your leaders reveals their hearts. It is obvious that their passion lies not in what they can get from students, but what can happen in the life of a student leader. Beginning with the heart of the student, rather than the program is admirable and serves as a good reminder for those of us with student leaders. How their heart is comes before how they can help us.
4. Helping Friends in Crisis- Case Studies (131)
Helping your student leaders apply what they are learning is invaluable. Case studies help them put their new found knowledge into action. In the scenario of counseling other students in the Peer Ministry section it is essential to practice in simulate situations. This section helps them take the two previous week’s knowledge from head to hands, mouth and feet; especially if the adult leader prepares enough ahead of time.
5. The help boxes throughout the lessons in the book, entitled “You’ll Need”, “Leader Hint” or a resource/citing box.
Anytime you are planning a lesson that you did not write the “You’ll Need” boxes are ideal. They help the presenter to focus on what they need to do, and how they need to adapt the material to fit their group, rather than what they need to bring. Throughout the book when they use a resource they put it in a similar box to the side. This draws special attention to the resources that have helped them and make it easy to look those up if you are looking for more material on a specific chapter of this book. The “Leader Hints” were not as common, but provided options for size and style when needed.
Cold as Freeze-Pops…
1. The fluctuation in time and length of the sessions.
When I went through 5 of these sessions with my student leaders I found the time management to be pretty far off. I tend to time things out ahead of time, but went with their times the first session and ended up having way too much material and had to cut it short. At some times, although few, there isn’t enough material and you have to add a little to it or stretch it out. Even if you follow their times on the sessions they fluctuate enormously. It makes it difficult to be consistent. The primary problem I found is that it often would go too long if you don’t cut elements of it out. If you only have an hour for your meeting there is no way you can get through many of these sessions. Many student leaders are so busy that an hour is often all that most of us can have with them.
2. Lack of creativity at making the Scripture and goal come alive in Lessons.(37-118)
At times they hit strokes of genius at making the point of a lesson clear through an activity or object lesson, but it was common to read a lesson and not find any part of it that would really grab your students. Students today need more than filling in blanks of a paper, they need to see that Scripture can come to life and intersect with where they are today. They need ideas of action to test out the ideas they grapple with each week. I often got the feel of a Sunday School class when reading a lesson and I was looking for something much more enticing and captivating for my student leaders. It would have been awesome to end each week with an action or challenge to put feet to their faith. This could help them keep the lesson in mind all week through the constant opportunity of fulfilling that week challenge.
3. Discover Your Spiritual Gifts, Part Deux (75-79)
In Discover Youth Spiritual Gifts (Part 1), the students are turned toward the scripture to discover what it says about spiritual gifts. They are then encouraged to apply it to their life. In Part Deux, the spiritual gifts are brought into the scientific realm of a test or questionnaire. Although I have taken these tests in the past and given them to some of my students, I find myself getting more an more uncomfortable turning to a test to help our students discover their spiritual gifts through a scientific equation. The very term “spiritual gifts”, connotes that we ought to rely most heavily on the spirit to discover them. In addition, this test leaves the “touchy” spiritual gifts off of it, such as healing, tongues and interpretation, because there is really no good way to test them. My point is that we should not teach our kids to rely on a test to discover these gifts we ought to guide them into a relationship with the Lord and a lifestyle of ministry where the Holy Spirit is able to reveal them to them, with the help of mentoring relationships.
4. Session 31- Evaluating Your Ministry (211-214)
This final session for the Program-Planning Leadership Teams is hardly effective. Although the tools presented are decent for evaluating events/programs, the presentation of them has much to be desired. There isn’t a lot of interaction with the students concerning the forms themselves, but rather on their responses to them. The students ought to help determine if the questions are the right ones or if they need altered. The time of the meeting is shrunk to 25 minutes and the team building section of the lesson has virtually nothing to do with team building. It seems like this session was kind of dropped in at the end without enough structure or creativity to be the final session.
5. The way the book ends. (pg. 231…)
After a book packed with lessons to build your student leadership team it is concluded with a weak evaluation session that is intended as an end piece for the Program-Planning Leadership Teams. Following it is a decent appendix with some useful materials, but it lacks anything that ties the book back together. After beginning the book with the Life of a Leader section, the authors end it programmatically. It would be more appropriate to have some sort of Rite of Passage or Celebration of the journey the leadership team has been on. Whichever track a leadership team took they would end up at the same place tying together “The Life of a Leader” section and the track of ministry style or focus that they went through.
The “Hot” Five
1. The “Thinking Through the Inconspicuous but Critical Issues in
Student Leadership” section provides a quick, but comprehensive set of principles to be implemented in student leadership.
* Giving students true authority, clarifying the role of adults,
creating the right environment, going beyond information giving, encouraging gift-based passion-driven ministry, and helping students live out their leadership in practical ways is critical in creating a faithful and effective student leadership team!
2. The overall variety of material makes this a practical resource
to youth workers in almost any context.
* As all curriculum does, this handbook needs plenty of tweaking
and customizing, but it does address a lot of foundational issues and topics to build on in the areas of influence and leadership.
3. The topics included in the “Life of a Leader” create a good
teaching structure for a 3-month leadership series within almost any discipleship oriented program.
* It’s so much more effective to bring a focus and direction to
your teaching. I used the first 14 session topics as the basis of a Sunday School curriculum designed to motivate all of my “regular students” to understand and use their influence as ambassadors for Christ. Our “U of I” series helped create an interest among the students to be involved in a formal student leadership program.
4. There are several good tools that can be adjusted or used “as
is” for a variety of student leadership and youth ministry purposes.
* Some I found most helpful were -Year-End Wrap up Evaluations,
Prayer Retreat Ideas, Student Leader Applications, and Reaching Friends Where They Are. I find it difficult to be creative enough to create this type of stuff from scratch. It’s nice to have the resources to get you started. The key to creativity is how well you expound on other people’s ideas, right?
5. The general lay-out of each session creates a good community
building atmosphere and appeals to a variety of learning styles while meeting training and discipleship objectives.
* Despite the idealistic nature of the time associated to each,
including elements of unity, group sharing & study, and prayer are good key structural ingredients to use. I often felt like “Team Huddle” and “Team Study” could be combined and more “up front” teaching could be provided by the leader.
The “Cold” Five
1. The length of the sessions are too long and idealistic.
* The allotment of 90 minutes per session suggested on page 34
is unrealistic in my opinion. It would take an entire school year meeting once a week for an hour and a half to get student leaders through the entire curriculum. Although the communists may disagree I think that is too much too ask. I want them “out there” doing & impacting just as much if not more than they are “in here” learning how to do it. I suppose four years of 1 ½ hour monthly meetings could get you through the book.
2. Many of the team huddle and team study questions are too
elementary to be the meat of the day.
* Using 30 minutes on these “look up the verses” and “answer
these questions” exercises is too long, simply because the material isn’t that deep. For many sessions I felt like I was reading upper elementary–early middle school level discussion guides, not exactly the material that will challenge high school student leaders.
3. It may seem petty, but I hate/despise/loathe cheesy designs used in 90% of youth ministry curriculum-unfortunately this handbook is no exception.
* It’s nice of the writers to authorize the reproduction of the
suggested handouts, but really, who would want to? In attempts to make stuff look “cool” or “cutting edge” it looks cheesy, and is a design disaster. Okay, so I married a graphic designer and fine artist…but, she’s right!
4. Considering the emphasis placed on teaching & empowering
students to use their gifts in the introduction, I found the two sessions on spiritual gifts to be some of the weakest teaching I’ve seen on the subject.
* Unleashing the potential of students by helping them discover
and serve according to their passion, using their gift and personality mix should be one of the most empowering and exciting things we share with our leaders. These sessions came up short. It felt like they were included because the subject “needed” included.
5. The sheer volume of content is almost a little much to flip
through and find what you’re looking for.
* Although I like the variety, something, maybe the lay out more
than the amount of content, makes its “user-friendly” rating come up a little short.
Light Force was pretty good last night. Despite the crankiness at the top, the middle and lower parts of the group were out in force. It definitely helps to have fall sports over with. This will be a nice growth time for the winter.
As far as the crankiness issue goes, there is going to be a family meeting with all those parties involved so we can come to an agreement. The krankenmeister said she got my e-mail and wants to resolve the whole thing. Phew! God in action.
I’ve got a busy morning with a breakfast meeting at 9:30 and lunches at the school from 10:30 – 12:45. Have I mentioned how great RHS is to allow me to do this lately? It really is incredible that they let me come on campus to encourage my students. My students seem to benefit greatly and it gives them some strength. In Light Force speak, it’s good that PA sees your squares.
The mission trip decision is looming heavy on my mind. It’s a huge deal to have the first international mission trip in the history of the church approved and moving forward. My prayer is that this will be a rallying point for he whole body and turn a massive corner for Light Force. I have a secret favorite but I’m doing my best to keep it that way!
One debate I listen to and even participate in all the time is “what’s more important, that you are called or that you are educated?”
I think the answer is simply yes to both fronts. But overwhelmingly I can speak from experience that it is vital that you back your calling up with formal education. Not just any education… But the best you can get your hands around.
Not to toot my own horn, but this is why I feel prepared for the task I am doing here in Romeo. At Moody, I was able to sit under the feet of someone I see as “a great practitioner of youth ministry,” Dr. Bob MacRae. Bob has more experience in church-based ministry than anyone I’ve ever met. If I come across something I need help on, he’s been there, done that, and talked to 200 people who’ve gone through the same thing. He’s never been a prolific author for this reason, so a lot of people have never heard of him. Then, with my masters, I feel I am studying under one of the “great minds in youth ministry” Dr. Dave Rahn. He is a prolific and recognized name in the YM academic world. Between the two of these, I feel and can see that I am being prepared fantasically for the ministry task well into the future.
To not seek any formalized education is plain dumb. I don’t understand and have no notion for the laziness and short-sideness of rushing into the ministry task unprepared. Of course, if you are a nice guy and have a pleasant and submissive personality a church will hire you. I’ve met enough full time idiots to know that churches will hire anyone with a pulse and a smile. But they are rarely good at what they do.
I was just re-examing so parts of the book Youth Ministry that Transforms and I was fascinated to see that those who ran the largest groups were not the ones with the greatest amount of education. Hmmm… Could this be that when people get a good grasp of their task of correctly dividing the word of God that they are less interested in building a crowd as they are of building a healthy community? I don’t know.
But in my opinion… As strongly as I can state. Formal education is the best way to enter the profession of student ministry. It is the best entry point. (The second entry point being internship.)
Well, I’ve got a better finger on what’s going on then I did yesterday. It seems that my problem with the guy dating another girl is all related to the crankiness I’ve been seeing from all the main girls in the youth group. Sometimes I just need to get hit in the head with the truth before I see it. (I talked to the boys parents about the relationship… We are all on the same page… phew!)
One girl used to like the boy and seems to be POed that he’s seeing someone now and it isn’t her. Then it spread. So I’ve spent a long day trying to put my nose somewhere where it doesn’t want to go. Every once in a while I get a glimpse of just how intense adolescent emotions are! How could I have forgotten?
This made for a pretty interesting worship team practice! We almost had one of those big sit down type family meetings. But in the end I decided to take care of it privately.
I picked this up off the Youth Specialties Forums today. I thought it was worth passing along.
I’ve been on the back wall. In fact I spent over a year there. The back wall is a dark and lonely place. It’s a place that you really don’t know how to get away from…but you know it’s not where you’re supposed to be.I started out working with the youth in my church much like everyone else does. I thought I could help out. I thought I could make a difference. I thought it would be pretty easy. I thought I would jump in the first day…the kids would all like me and it would be a magical experience for all of us. What I thought and what really happened were worlds apart. The first time I went into our Wed. night youth program I found myself surrounded by kids but I was standing there by myself…completely out of place. I found myself being drawn to the safety of the back wall. I thought to myself, that was just the first night…it will get better. That first year I went to almost every Wed. night and it never got better. I stood on the back wall wondering what I was doing there. It wasn’t that the kids disliked me…they just didn’t even know I was there. I would see other adult workers talking with the kids and having fun with the kids and I would wonder how they got there? How did they get off the wall? About half way through my second year I was at a turning point. I was either going to get out or I was going to get off that wall. This is when Satan stepped in…he wanted me to quit. He started whispering in my ear…you don’t know how to talk to those kids…they don’t want you around…your too old…you need to get out now before you get hurt.God knew I needed some help. He sent an angel to put me back on track. One night I was at the church and out of nowhere one of the Sophomore girls from youth group comes up behind me…pinches the back of my arm (really hard)…and runs away laughing. She was the first one to give me a chance. It was that one connection that changed my heart…changed my life. I got off the back wall and I started out by just talking to the kids. It’s kind of uncomfortable at first but you have to be where they are…doing what they’re doing. The more you are around them the more natural it becomes. I won’t lie and tell you that it was all easy after that. It takes time with them…and being honest with them…and loving them. I found out that I do know how to talk to youth…they do want me around…I’m not too old…and I can make a difference. I realize now that the difference I can make is for eternity. As for the back wall…it doesn’t hold any comfort for me anymore. I love being with the kids too much to ever go back.
This is an interesting thread on the YS forums today. It’s got me thinking…
Since students in Romeo seem so confused about denominational differences, why isn’t the church making an effort to “come to the table” with a united front. Case in point: Last year I was hanging out at the high school at lunch and a student said to me, “you’re a Christian? Yeah me too, well I go to the Lutheran church so I guess I’m a Lutheran.” This led to a nice discussion about sheep and goats. You’re one or the other… That’s it!
So, to mock Rodney King “Why can’t we all just get along?”
As far as this exact problem in the thread on the link. I feel they are dealing with militant fundamentalists who probably don’t think that these other people are believers. Sad, but true. Stay tuned.
This is the text that will appear in this years annual report due out in December.
“Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” Colossians 5: 5-6
With this as our goal, this years Light Force emphasis is equipping our Christian students to minister to their peers. Our vision for Light Force is that we desire to love God and love others by intentionally modeling a life devoted to becoming disciples of Jesus Christ.
For the year to come, here are some areas of concentration that we have either launched already or will launch soon. We call them Key Result Areas:
Adults/student leaders intentionally modeling
Priority of prayer partners
Involvement in Home Bible Studies (Inductive methodology)
Amplified adult leader contact ministry
Worship arts development
Begin equipping students for peer-to-peer ministry.
I have the tremendous benefit of a loving, thoughtful, and dedicated group of adult leaders. Without them, we would not exist. Robert Bonetti, Fran Dashe, Kristen McLane, and Dave Whitten have all been responsible for making Sunday school relevant and fresh for our students. On Wednesday nights, Barb Brinker, Fran Dashe, Beth Fisher, Kristen McLane, Gary Shell, Dawn Wrobleski, and Dave Whitten not only serve the youth group and make Light Force happen but each one also invests in the lives of our students outside of the walls of the church. I praise God for them and consider it a pleasure to work alongside each one of them.
There were many highlights to the past 12 months. Some of them include a Chicago Mission trip, a whitewater rafting trip to West Virginia, the Word of Life Superbowl, attending the EQUIP conference in Sarnia, ON, and college visits to Cornerstone University, Moody Bible Institute, and Wheaton College.
The true measure of student ministry comes with two questions. Are lives being changed currently? Are students faithful to the Lord as they enter adulthood? I could spend lots of time sharing stories of changed lives. Let’s sum it up by saying; many students have grown greatly in the past year as we’ve instructed them from Scripture. [Not my work, but God’s work through me!] God’s work is alive and active in our midst. As for the second question, this is what drives us to daily challenge our students.
Personally, three things have made this a fun and challenging year.
Without a senior pastor, I have been involved in areas of church ministry that are new to me. I’ve made some mistakes and I’ve learned a lot. I don’t regret this time as it has only galvanized my long-term desire to continue to serve here at Romeo.
I’ve just completed my second year as a volunteer assistant golf coach at Romeo High School. It is a pleasure to serve our community in a way that fits so well with my natural talents and hobby! It was an awesome season of investing in the lives of students whom we normally wouldn’t have contact with.
This fall I’ve begun my Masters degree in Youth Ministry at Huntington College’s Graduate School of Christian Ministry in Huntington, Indiana. This is an exciting opportunity for me as I am studying under one of the great minds in the field. It is an honor to be a part of the program there and it is already paying dividends in my ministry at Romeo.
Respectfully submitted
You will notice a new skin on all blogs. Overall, I think it’s a cleaner look. Let me highlight a couple of other changes. (Blogger has been ultra-funny today… Since I’m having problems getting on to gmail too, I’m wondering if google’s servers are getting attacked.)
Feedback is always appreciated.
p.s. The problem with the small blogger navbar has nothing to do with my code. The best I can tell that code comes from blogger directly… I can’t edit it. I’m thinking it has something to do with all this google slow down.
p.p.s. I’ll be updated the ad color scheme to match the new look in a few days. I’m having problems even logging on to Google Adsense right now. 🙁