• Campferenceing

    It’s 4:45 and I’m at the airport. For a west coast person that means one thing: You are headed east.

    In just a few hours I’ll meet Marko, Kurt, Katie, and a few others in Louisville for our drive up to Seymour, Indiana. As an Indiana boy it doesn’t get much more Indiana than spending the weekend in the hometown of John Mellencamp.

    The Middle School Ministry Campference is Marko’s baby. (Open is mine, The Summit is ours together… a love child of sorts.) As you know, we are experimenting with several different styles of events. The Campference is an all-inclusive, all-hands-on-deck 360 experience. Unlike a typical conference all of the attendees and presenters are together for the whole weekend.

    This is my first one. (I wasn’t able to make it last year.) And while I’ve done tons of youth ministry with middle schoolers I’ve never been a “middle school only” kind of youth worker. So I’m looking forward to a lot of things about the weekend, the camaraderie you experience when you are with your peeps, unlimited laughter, since Tic is coming I know there will be tears, I’m looking forward to learning more about early adolescence, I’m looking forward to serving others, and I’m looking forward to doing a Cartel event with Marko.

  • Being driven vs. being chill

    You say, “If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.” You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled. ~ Charles Spurgeon

    Here’s something I wrestle with. Do I let my holy dissatisfaction with the status quo rule or do I measure my ideals and settle for less?

    This either-orness really drives me nuts. Yet I get locked into it all of the time.

    • I want to see different results! I need my life to make a difference. (In my ministry, in my work, in my family, etc) So that pushes me to bull-in-a-china-shop-styled action. It keeps me up until 2 in the morning working on stuff, it forces me to say no to some things and yes to others.
    • I really like watching television! No seriously. I don’t have a single show that I watch. Sometimes I talk to friends who are all caught up on every TV show and movie and think… gosh, I would love to sit around watching all of that, too. More practically speaking, one reason I don’t sit in front of the TV or rarely watch movies is that I’m constantly pushing myself as mentioned above. Even if it isn’t TV time I’d love to have time for something!

    That’s the teeter totter I find myself on all the time. Being driven vs. being chill. 

    It’s an unhealthy pattern I long to rise above.

    There’s Always a Third Way

    Preaching to myself here, the Gospel offers me a third option. Thanks be to God for this Good News.

    But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 1 Timothy 6:6-8

    Contentment comes from another world. It says, “Yes, be dissatisfied with the status quo and work hard on making changes.” But it also says, “Be happy with who you are, your circumstances, your weaknesses. Find satisfaction in who you are… God’s beloved child.”

    I’m convinced, more and more each day, that the drive that lives inside of me is from God. But I’m also leaning hard into being content.

    • Yes, I could do more.
    • Yes, I could change myself more.
    • Yes, I could make more.
    • Yes, I could have nicer stuff or live in a bigger house.
    • Yes, I could ____ more.

    But, as Spurgeon says, even if I had twice as much “more,” if I’m not content with myself now I won’t be content with myself then. I need chose contentment because it’s the answer to my teeter totter problem.

    Contentment comes from somewhere else. It’s supernatural. And when I rest in contentment I find what I’m looking for. 

  • Cementing Faith Steps with Action

    As I mentioned on Friday, I went on our high school ministries Men’s Retreat. 70 dudes went out to the desert of Imperial County to share life, eat meat, blow things up, and connect with God.

    Brian Berry makes this trip look easy. It’s not. Merely surviving in rustic conditions like that is tough enough. (This year we had gusty winds, sometimes exceeding 40 miles per hour.)

    But Danny Bowers & Brian also add components to the weekend so the participants can engage with God. This is truly a gift I am thankful to witness.

    The things they add in intentionally takes what has happened in participants heads and hearts and cements it with a physical memory.

    Obviously, not much of this trip is transferrable to any culture. As I mentioned on Friday, this thing is an exhibition of cultural exegesis, it works because young men raised in East County San Diego go to the desert with their dad’s and friends. But there are elements which make this not just a fun experience but a faith building memory making machine.

    Some of these “types of things” are very transferrable into just about any ministry context. So yes, adapt these and add them into your next retreat! 

    Our first activity involved making a survivor bracelet, this was a great way to introduce the general concept of the weekend theme that’d be repeated over and over again… knots.
    Sunday morning the students were asked to go find a place to be alone and listen to God. I love this picture because it’s taken on top of the ridge where you can see 7 young men scattered along the ridge, each in their own space overlooking the camp.
    Saturday morning the young men broke into groups to hear from 6 “sages.” Each sage shared wisdom they’ve learned and gave each a dog tag. Later, the dog tags became prayer prompts.
    Sunday afternoon we closed our time with a time of communion. Arm in arm men, young and old, shared a common cup and remembered Christ’s sacrifice for us to live a life of freedom from sin.
    We built a rope bridge during the weekend across a small gorge. On Sunday afternoon we asked students making decisions (for a variety of things) to cement their decision by taking a walk of faith across the gorge on the rope bridge while their peers cheered them along and prayed for them on both sides.

  • The desert & cultural exegesis

    Later this afternoon I’ll join 70 high school students and 20 other adults for the Encounter Men’s Retreat.

    This is my second year doing the retreat so this year I have a better idea of what to expect.

    • Intense, respectful content that asks young men to lean into practical realities of walking with Jesus.
    • A large scale, rustic communal experience. No running water, no bathrooms, no cell service, no tents.
    • Moving and setting up a completely self-contained 3 day retreat– built with lots of muscle power and big boy toys.
    • Massive, burning man-style bonfires. (Last year U.S. Border Patrol stopped by– big.)
    • Guns, lots of them. (Used in a very safe, secure, proper way)
    • Explosions, lots of them. Fireworks, explosives, and pretty much anything else that will blow up.
    • Seemingly unlimited paintball, bouldering, and combinations of bouldering & paintball.
    • Lots and lots of meat, potatoes, etc. No crepes or powdered sugar or quiche. 
    • An extremely memorable weekend for all the guys who go.

    No doubt there are parts of that list which absolutely resonate with you and other parts that make your skin crawl. Trust me, I’m totally with you.

    If you know me very well at all you know my convictions on gun control. I’m not just a little anti-gun, I actually think it’s morally wrong for Christians to have guns for self-protection. So the idea of taking a bunch of guys to the desert and shooting off a bunch of ammo is really, really hard for me to swallow.

    Cultural Exegesis

    So, why do I go? If I’m not a big fan of putting a 12 gauge in the hands of 14 year old… why not just bow out? Why support and give 3 days of your life to something that might feel wonky? 

    Because the men’s desert trip works. It’s an example of looking at the culture you are called to reach, reading it properly, and connecting the dots between something that happens in culture and impacting people’s lives.

    And while it I’m not comfortable with parts of it I’m fully aware of these three facts.

    1. East County San Diego dudes go to the desert, blow stuff up, shoot guns, and eat meat. It’s something east county people do for fun. 
    2. God does significant things in people’s lives in the desert. Do a word study on that… there’s a correlation in the Bible between time in the desert and movements of God. 
    3. Reaching young men for Christ is sacred. My opinion, comfort level, and personal preferences are not sacred. 
    What are things that you’re doing at the intersection of your culture & ministering to adolescents? 

  • The Proximity Gospel

    One place the Good News needs to prevail is helping to reshape our neighborhoods. 

    We, as a culture, obey the rule of affinity in our lives. Who we gather with, who we have as friends, where we go to worship… our entire place in this world is governed by affinity.

    We do stuff we like. We are friends with people we like. And we worship with people we like. We eat what we like, we wear what we like, we shop where we like, it never ends.

    We’ve liked the life out of ourselves.

    Doing stuff we don’t like. Well, that’s yucky.

    Affinity’s Impact on the Church

    Do you remember that kid in your neighborhood who would get ticked off because things weren’t going his way? He’d get all huffy, take his ball, and go home. Every kid in the neighborhood hated that guy. He was a brat. But we were friends with him because he had a nice basketball.

    That’s pretty much the story of the protestant faith. Affinity– gathering by what we like– is the weakness of our religious DNA. Taking our ball and going elsewhere has been a tradition since the Reformation. How many protestant denominations were started because of disagreements going back to… “Well, we want to baptize people this way and you don’t, so we’re going to start another church across the street.” Pretty much all of them.

    Don’t you hate church history? It reveals so much truth!

    The result of this DNA weakness is what we see now. People go to the church that they go to because they like it. They’ll drive 45 minutes to go somewhere they like…. passing dozens of perfectly good churches along the way. Consequently, churches who have something for everyone to like tend to grow.

    And this has been the unspoken narrative of church people for a long, long time. We go to a church ultimately because we like something about it. We like the kids program or the music or the pastor or what they do in the community or because we grew up in that faith tradition and it feels comfortable or because of an affinity-based conviction.

    I’m not trying to cheapen these things. I am 100% guilty as charged. All I’m trying to do is raise awareness of this inborn propensity we have to gather by affinity.

    Here’s where it plays out…

    This morning a friend posted on his Facebook wall something like, “I’m tired of my pastor friends getting hurt because families leave. Why can’t they just work out their differences and stay?” The answer is affinity. For generations we, collectively as protestant church leaders, have told (in acts and/or deeds) people that they ought to gather together and worship based on shared affinities. (Again, not cheapening values/traditions/theological differences.)

    The Problem with Building Church Around Affinity

    The problem is affinity is cheap. Affinity is fickle. By telling people they should worship with people they like in spaces they like and attend churches that meet their needs is that that stuff all changes all the time. We live in a society that changes fast. And our churches pride themselves on moving slowly. So you are always caught in a cycle of being 5-10 years behind what culture wants! (This is something I call depreciating returns. It’s not 1-2 things that have killed the mojo in a church, it’s lots of things which have resulted in a gradual slow down.)

    So, while it hurts we can’t be frustrated when people go to what they want because that’s what we’ve taught them… “Worship Jesus how it works best for you and your family.” So they do. That makes church consumeristic. That makes it transient. That makes it, in some ways, cheap.

    It’s Romans 7 lived out in church leadership. We do the thing that hurts the most and we don’t know why but we keep right on doing it. And as a result, Satan gets a stronger and stronger foothold in our society.

    Proximity is the Long-Term Answer

    The Good News of Jesus isn’t an affinity thing, it’s a proximity thing. Christian people from the same community, empowered by the Holy Spirit can overcome the rule of affinity. (We can/should/must look to our Catholic brethren. The parish model is a beautiful thing!)

    People of all walks of life really can and should worship together. They should recognize and celebrate differences of opinion, they should love that the church reflects their neighborhood, they should see power in willfully worshipping with people with different needs, people whom they might not be comfortable with. If you watched the vice-presidential debate you heard Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, two faithful Catholic men, express two wildly different viewpoints on their Catholic faith. Their differences were not a weakness at all, it was a demonstration of the strength of the Gospel! Two people who truly see things from different vantage points can and willfully do share one communion cup. That’s the Gospel lived out in proximity in full denial of the rule of affinity! 

    Proximity is how you bring Good News to the Neighborhood. Proximity is how you build lifelong, grace-filled, messy, overcoming relationships.

    But to get away from affinity and towards proximity, we all need to repent of our personal preference sin. And confession and repentance, well… we don’t like that.

  • Our Baby is Growing Up

    Marko and I are in a very fun place with The Youth Cartel.

    Our start-up, in many ways our baby, is exceeding our expectations in growth. We’re further along in development than we could have imagined we would be 14-16 months ago.

    I’ve done a start-up before. In 2005, with $72 and a small group of friends we created an online community which took off and did really well. So I know that getting an idea/product out there and getting it popular is actually not that hard.

    But, in business-development-land, there’s a big difference between creating a product people are really excited about and creating a sustainable company with a number of products. In my first start-up, YMX, we really had a product that had a shelf life. Fortunately, we sold it at the products peak value so we didn’t have to worry about what the company’s next product might be. Well, we worried about it a lot, but never had to do anything about it.

    The Youth Cartel, from its genesis, is different than that. YMX always had an out-plan… to sell… the goal for the Cartel is not to sell, but build something that can change the very ecosystem we exist in. (This explains our byline: To instigate a revolution in youth ministry.)

    So it’s a different start-up mentality altogether.

    Signs of Growth

    Just like with a real baby, when Marko and I look at the Cartel it’s easy for us to see a baby when in fact there are signs of growth all over the place. Here’s what I mean:

    Publishing – My life has been consumed with books lately. Our first publishing projects, the Extended Adolescence Symposium ebook and Good News in the Neighborhood were both primarily digital products. But starting this fall we’ve got 3 books in both print and digital formats.

    • The Youth Cartel’s Unauthorized Dictionary of Youth Ministry by Steve Case. Reviews are starting to fly in on this one, it’s a total blast.
    • (Coming in November) Masterpiece: The Art of Discipling Youth by Paul Martin. This book is very, very good. So excited to see its impact on ministries.
    • (Coming in November) Leading Up: Finding Influence in the Church Beyond Role and Experience by Joel Mayward. Boom. Seriously, this book is so needed among church leaders.

    Events & Training – It’s hard to say my  life isn’t dominated by this, too. We are hosting 3 events in 6 weeks this Fall. When you add on top of that some of the training I’m doing with churches and other conferences, it’s a big piece of who we are and what we do.

    • Open – I’ve written a fair amount about the success of Open Seattle. Momentum for this little grass roots style of event is building. Based on feedback from Seattle and the speaker submissions and requests to sponsor at Open Boston… we are definitely onto something.
    • Middle School Ministry Campference – It’s fun to see this growing in its second year. I’m really looking forward to being a part of the weekend.
    • The Summit – We’re quickly approaching our first-ever Summit. And anticipation is killing us! We couldn’t be more thrilled with the lead-up though.
    The thing we’ve learned is that people are tired of gathering certain ways and ready…  hungry… to try new things. Which is cool because I can think of lots of new ways to gather.

    Marketing Services – I’ve quietly served about 25 organizations in the past year. Everything from consulting to building websites to launching products… this has really been one of our powerhouse places and it’s been mostly below the radar. (By design, of course) I had one client meeting where a prospective person said, “Everywhere I look you guys are there.” Yeah baby, welcome to the revolution.

    Coaching program – Marko is starting his third year of the coaching program. It’s been really cool to see it grow, morph, and really change people’s lives. It’s not big and mass media, in fact it’s really slow and has deep impact on people. I’m really excited to see some of the places YMCP is headed in the next 3-6 months, too.

    Becoming a Thing

    As we’re growing we are starting to see more and more clearly how all the stuff we are doing is working together and the Cartel is becoming more than just Marko & Adam’s start-up… it’s becoming a thing. Over the past 3-4 months we’ve noticed how people are talking differently about us. For the first year we heard lots of folks saying, “We love what you are doing.” Now we’re hearing more, “I love where this thing is taking us.” That’s a not-so-subtle and very important thing. The Cartel is lame if its just about Marko and I– but it’s really quite exciting to see that God is taking our dreams, initiatives, aspirations, and hard work and we are starting to see how it is kicking off a revolution within the youth ministry world.

    Where We Go From Here

    In short, we’ve got many more ideas, some of which we’re starting to do and other which we’re waiting for the right time. For now our biggest challenge isn’t opportunity… it’s continuing to execute on the things that have helped grow this thing while we build capacity to go to the next level. We’re building our team, we’re seeing the financial stuff get stronger and more predictable, and both will allow us to build things for the next stage of development.

    In business development terms, we’re making an initial transformation from a bootstrap enterprise with two friends working together to make it happen and towards our long-term goal of becoming a family run small business.

    So, that’s where we are.

    Most importantly for us, we’re having a crazy amount of fun!

  • Jesus Calls Us to Action, Sunday Morning is a Call to Passive

    My Observation

    From 1994 to 2008 my life revolved around the platform. I was either preparing for being in full-time vocational ministry or in it. God had called me to teach and as a result I felt fulfilled in that mission when I stood on the platform teaching. But in 2008, all of that changed as I transitioned from up-front, vocational ministry to my current role training, encouraging, and resourcing those in vocational ministry.

    From 1994 – 2008 I would tell you that one of my primary spiritual gifts was teaching. Now? Maybe I express it differently, but I rarely teach in a traditional setting anymore.

    And that transition– from platform to pew— has put me in a unique spot. I know, quite well, what it’s like on the platform. I feel more native there than I do in the pews. So, while I am now a pew-sitter in church I strongly identify with those on the platform. And sometimes, sitting in those pews, I make observations that I feel like I need to share.

    In this case, this observation has sat in my draft folder for more than 2 years! It’s my heart but I’ve been fearful of sharing it for fear of the backlash. I hope it’s somehow useful to you.

    It is…

    My Lament

    As a guy sitting in the pews I can’t help but be stricken by the passive life you are calling me to.

    Come to church and sit. Listen to the staff talk. Sing some songs. Listen to a 40 minute sermon. Sing some more songs. Go to Sunday school and listen some more. Every point of application is so simple, so packaged, and so…

    Convenient.

    I see how you did that. Your message pointed me to the cause of the week. Aw, shucks. You’ve made it so easy. Loving Jesus is so… easy, packaged, simple, and conveniently located near a camera so we can celebrate next week. 

    And yet, when I open my Bible and read nearly any page I see this stark contrast: There is action from Genesis to Revelation. The entire book of Lamentations is an admonishment for sitting and doing nothing while the world is upside down with corruption.

    We Like to Teach… You Like to Sit… The Disconnect

    That seems to be the narrative. Come and get information. We don’t care if you ever live it out. Just come back next week for the next installment.

    Yet, when I zoom out the lens on Jesus’ entire message for how to live He seems to point people away from a Temple lifestyle, one where you engage with God at a place in packaged ways, He admonishes over and over again— “This Temple thing ain’t it, friends. God’s at work in the neighborhoods all the time, not just for a couple hours on the Sabbath.”

    And so we have an inborn disconnect. I’ll go about my day, I’ll go to work this week… you know, with the sinners. And you’ll go to your work this week… you know, sit in the church and think about what life is like with the sinners. God’s called you to help me with my life but you don’t really have a clue what I even do day-to-day.

    I look around and see blue collar types, people who get their coffee at 7-11. And you hang out at Starbucks.

    It’s a disconnect which leads to two epic streams of bad assumptions. I know you truly care so I assume you really get me, but you don’t. And you seem to assume I don’t really want to do anything, that I’m too busy, but I’m not. 

    I don’t just need the Good News to be true for me on Sunday’s. I need to see the Good News alive in my daily life. And my neighbors? Holy moley do they need Good News to be for real.

    My Hope

    What would happen if Sunday morning stopped being a passive call to come back next week or deeper levels of involvement with [insert whatever busy work your church has for me] and started being a call to action to live like Jesus?

    I wonder what that would even look like? Actually, I dream about it. Please release me! Get me out of this passive spot.

    I don’t like being counted. Why are you always counting? You preach and I get counted. I go to a meeting and I get counted. Come to a potluck and someone counts. When I teach Sunday School seemingly the most important thing to do is count.

    What if we started counting things that mattered? Like, wouldn’t it be cool if you counted on me not being there? Isn’t that what it means to live out my faith? Shouldn’t what I do between your incessant counting actually matter? How about we count that?

    Why don’t we do that?

    Your fear

    I’ll tell you what would happen. And why you shudder at the thought. People would get so busy living out their faith that they would stop coming to your Bible studies, your youth group, your choir rehearsals, and your clean-up Saturdays. You are afraid that if people really live out their faith your count will be effected.

    Sometimes I worry that the whole reason we do this is not so that I’ll do something but so that you can teach.

    Don’t worry. You won’t be useless if you start teaching people to be active. Quite the opposite, because I’m really going to need you then. And when we gather it’ll be a monster celebration of what God is doing. And if you think about it, this will make your teaching so much more important.

    So please, count on me to do something more than sit on my hands.

    Please.

    Please.

    Please.

  • Football thoughts: Sixth Edition

    Oh baby! Week seven was full of drama as the top teams jockey for all-important position in the first BCS rankings this week. There were significant tumbles at the top as the rest of conference play begins the shuffling which will eventually result in bowl play.

    Notre Dame

    Finally. The Irish proved they could slug it out in a messy, mistake-filled game. In some ways the Stanford game was legendary. Two highly defensive teams slugged it out in the mud until one team finally broke through. Fortunately, it was the Irish who prevailed.

    Manti Te’o continued to show why he’s on Heisman watch lists as a linebacker. His impact on the game was much more than his game-high 11 tackles. He leads the team in every way. The Irish defense is legit. It’s now been 4 games since they’ve allowed an offensive touchdown. (They haven’t given up a rushing touchdown all season!) None of those were rollover teams. Michigan State, Michigan, Miami, and Stanford.

    How far can Notre Dame go? Clearly, if they win out they are in the title game. But I don’t think it’s very likely that they will do that. I’m still preparing to see them stumble in a game… either BYU or Boston College. And I’m pleased if they beat either USC or Oklahoma on the road but I’m not expecting them to beat both. Does a 10-2 Notre Dame team get into a BCS bowl game? Easily.

    San Diego State

    Well, we’re 4-3 now. Ryan Katz has the offense rolling along and the defense looked OK as they sailed to an easy 38-14 win. In truth, this was a very boring game. All of the home games this year have been boring. I love going to the games and the Aztecs are clearly going the right direction. But I don’t think I’m alone in my excitement for basketball overpowering my desire to watch a s0-so team battle for an invite to the New Orleans Bowl.

    Back to football, it is good to see progress on the defensive line. Those guys are starting to create the gaps needed for the linebackers to create chaos in the back field. But its tough to know if this was real progress or if it’s just a measurement of how bad Colorado State is without their starting QB.

    We’ll see how good the Aztecs are over the next few weeks. They need a road win against Nevada or Boise State to have a shot at a bowl game.

    National Title Race

    With Notre Dame in the hunt I’m interested in today’s BCS rankings. I suspect to see them as BCS #3 because of their strength of schedule. (#5 in both polls) I think we’re on a collision course to see a very entertaining Alabama vs. Oregon game in the national championship. But, the Irish included, there are some outliers who have a legit chance of getting there which make the whole thing interesting. I don’t think Florida can get there with their remaining schedule and a potential SEC championship game vs. Alabama. K-State? They still have murderers row on their schedule with road games against West Virginia, Baylor, and TCU. Add a season ending home game vs. Texas and a Big 12 title game? There’s at least one loss in there for them. My outside show at it is Oregon State. The Beavers have a powder schedule leading up to a home game against their rival… the Oregon Ducks. In a rivalry game with everything on the line? Gosh, anything can happen.

    The Big 10

    Now that we’re in conference play its easy for Big 10 fans to think their league is legit. Yeah, right. Let’s not forget that they got ripped in non-conference games vs. ranked opponents. An ineligible Ohio State team does look good. But Michigan and Wisconsin, both allegedly the class of the conference, really aren’t any good. They are both so one-dimensional that they can’t play up and beat teams. I’m still seeing Northwestern as the Rose Bowl delegate to get the loser of the Oregon-Oregon State game.

    My Current Top 10

    (I don’t include ineligible teams. Sorry Buckeyes, at least your players got free tattoos and great deals on cars!)

    1. Alabama (6-0)
    2. Oregon (6-0)
    3. Notre Dame (6-0)
    4. Florida (6-0)
    5. K-State (6-0)
    6. LSU (6-1)
    7. Oregon State (5-0)
    8. South Carolina (6-1)
    9. Florida State (6-1)
    10. USC (5-1)

  • 5 tips for engaging students on a Sunday morning

    Newsflash. It can sometimes be difficult to connect with a teenager at church.

    Our culture does a lot to communicate to us that teenagers and adults shouldn’t engage with one another. As adults we think, “What could I have in common with a 14 year old?” And teenagers assume that adults don’t really want to be with them. So when thinking about engaging with a teenager at church or youth group you have to start with the understanding that there is naturally a gap or divide to be crossed. You’re going to have to fight past some stuff to really get there.

    And frankly, I need to know that the 2-3 hours per week I volunteer with the youth group make a difference. If that time isn’t going to be valuable than I’d much rather invest that time at home than at church.

    Getting past “Hi” and the craptastic world of small talk involves some skill. Here’s 5 tips for getting past small talk and helping you really engage with the teenagers at your church.

    1. Take the first step. In my life I’m used to people taking the first step to begin a conversation. But most teenagers, even the most outgoing ones, assume that you don’t really want to talk with them, so you’ll have to take the first step. So push past the awkwardness of initiating a conversation and just go for it. An easy in is always, “Tell me about your week.” Then make sure you listen, not just for an in to talk about your week, but really listen.
    2. Don’t play 20 questions. When taking the initiative to start a conversation it feels easy to play 20 questions. My rule of thumb is that I don’t want to ever get one-word answers so I tend to kick off a conversation with something open-ended. You’re looking for paragraph responses, you want to know what they think, and you want to make sure they know you are someone who really wants to talk to them.
    3. Don’t beat around the bush. About 10 years ago I had a volunteer in my ministry who taught me just to skip small talk altogether. He had this warm, strong way of putting his arm around a guy and saying, “Talk to me about your devos this week, whatcha reading?” I promise you, the reason half the guys in our group read the Bible was because they knew that question was coming and that Jeff really cared about the answer. So skip the small talk about sports, the weather, and TV shows and just get to the point. You want to make a difference and they want you to make a difference— small talk is a sell out.
    4. Go for the heart, share your heart. When we’re engaging with God’s kids at church we need to remember that God cares more about our heart than our feet. We are all going to make mistakes and part of being an adolescent involves trying to figure out who you are. Don’t make the mistake of talking to students about merely what they do. Make sure to drill into who they are when they are doing stuff. And share your heart. You don’t have to relate everything to when you were a teenager, relate what they are saying to your daily life. It’s OK to share your heart… they want to see that you are real and really can relate to them.
    5. Level the playing field. Some of this is body language and some of it is how we position ourselves in conversation. I always want to be at eye level with students. If they are sitting, I sit. If they are sitting on the pavement eating pizza, I pop a squat next to them. The same is true in conversation. They know that in society you are more powerful than they are… culture tells them that. It’s your job to communicate in word and deed that you seem them through God’s eyes… we are all human, we all have the same needs for Jesus, we all have things we are working through and big questions. I’ve found when I level the playing field I go deep, but when I fall into hierarchical habits all of my relationships with students default back to small talk.

    What are tips you use for engaging with the teenagers at your church? Share your ideas in the comments. 

  • If in doubt, teach the Bible

    A pile of biblesTwo or three times per week I hear from a youth worker asking me for a resource recommendation.

    When I’m asked that I’m torn. On the one hand I know (and sell!) a lot of great resources. On the other, I know that too many people are just going from resource to resource to resource.

    Over Resourced, Under Adapted

    In fact, one reason their ministry may be struggling is their inability to teach because they are merely communicating content. (Sidebar question: How do you know the difference between teaching & communicating?) They’ve never done ethnography for the students they are trying to reach (Instead just kind of know the students who come to their ministry already) so they would have no idea how to actually adapt a curriculum from its published form to the way it should be taught in their ministry.

    I’d never recommend buying a curriculum and teaching it in its published form. Even the person who wrote it had  to adopt it in ways during the publishing process that they wouldn’t teach it the way it is in the book.

    By Default, Just Teach the Bible

    Personally, I tend to swing the pendulum too far the other way. While I like an occasionally topical series to break things up, its my preference to just teach books of the Bible. All of the times when I’ve seen my small group or youth group grow the most it’s correlated with time spent, communally, in the Bible.

    For instance, a great small group discussion happens in James. Read the first chapter out loud together, then ask the journalism questions… “Who was this written to? What do I have in common with those people? What was the author saying to those people? What might be transferable to me? Why did the Holy Spirit inspire James to say that? How can you apply this to your life?”

    The Bible is the Ultimate Resource

    With a huge, blossoming marketplace of resources, it’s good to remember that the best resource is always the Bible. Maybe what I like to do is too far for you? My advice would be to spend at least 50% of your time doing just this… working your way through books of the Bible in unfancy ways. If we really want to get trendy we’ll bounce from an old testament book to a new testament one or visa versa. But seriously, God’s Word is in there so it should be your default, go-to resource.