• 3 Things I’m Wondering About What Church Leaders Believe

    Yesterday, Kristen and I went to the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit. It’s an event I’ve always loved… I’ve gone 3-4 times in the past decade and the years that I couldn’t make it I always wanted to. Looking back, it’s an event where I always learn a lot.

    I’m probably a lot like you. I’m tired of talking about why humpty dumpty sat on a wall, why he had a great fall, or why all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t put humpty dumpty back together again. Deconstruction is so… 2005. My time is spent coming up with ways to reconstruct the church in new ways, in ways that people currently disconnected from Christ want to connect with Him. It comes from a deep respect for the Scriptures, leaning into the truths of the Gospel, and a relentless hope that our best days must be ahead.

    All that to say– I walked away with 3 things I’m wondering about based on what I heard yesterday. These were the working, meta-narrative, definitions of how the speakers/hosts seemed to view the world around them. And it left me wondering… is this what they really believe?

    1. The church is the hope of the world – I walked away wondering… Is that really a true statement? I know I just have an undergrad Bible college degree. And I picked Spanish in college because Greek and Hebrew didn’t seem all that practical for youth ministry. But I think Jesus is the hope of the world. I think the church is the bride of Christ. The church is Hope’s wife, they are wed, they are one… but the church is not the Hope of the world. Jesus is. (I can accept the phrase as a metaphor but the phrase was not said as a metaphor– it was said as an axiom/truism/fact.)
    2. Neighbors are people you invite to church – I walked away wondering about the application of one of the stories… Bill Hybels told a story about a man who came to their property looking for his cat. The man asked Bill, “What is this place?” (Assuming it was a college) Bill used that story to illustrate that they, for the first time in 30 years, needed to do some marketing to retell the Willow story to people in their community. His story left me screaming inside! Dude, you blew it. Jesus didn’t say, “Love your neighbor and invite them to church.” He said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The guy didn’t come and ask Bill for a flyer or an invitation to church. He wanted help looking for his cat. It was an invitation for Bill to go to the man’s house! It was an invitation to get to know his neighbor— not fill his mailbox inviting neighbors to hear him preach. Oh, I really wanted that to be a turning point for Bill to see that a church dispersed in its community, as Hope’s representative and wife, is far more potent than a church coming to his “college.” [If you know me, you know my prayer is that the church becomes Good News in the Neighborhood.]
    3. Leadership is the most important spiritual gift – Oh, there was so much insider language and playing to a senior pastor audience about “leadership!” Bill Hybels repeatedly pumped up leadership as the only important spiritual gift. He “thanked God” that he didn’t have the other gifts. (There was a lot of woman bashing from the stage, too. I hope someone mentions that to him. That’s beneath leaders of his caliber.) It made me wonder about the definition of Christian leadership. Paul makes it clear in 1 Corinthians 12, no one is more important in the body of Christ than anyone else. And Jesus corrected his disciples again and again… to be great, you must be a servant. (Mark 10:42-45) Those weren’t popular concepts at Willow’s Summit. In fact, in an interview with an organization that has two equal leaders the question came up again and again… “Is it possible to have 2 leaders?“

    So that’s what I left wondering with after day 1. Just wondering. Not criticizing or tearing down. Just wondering. 

    If you went to WCAGLS— what were your highlights? What did you leave wondering about? 

    QUICK UPDATE: Day 2 of WCAGLS was very good, I didn’t stick around for Bill’s closing talk, but really enjoyed all of the speakers today. Pranitha Timothy was absolutely stunning today. Very thankful for that talk.

  • The Lies We Buy Into

    Laying in the grass in our front yard last night, Paul and I were chatting about his 9th birthday. His birthday turned out great. Since his party is this weekend we just did the family thing on his actual birthday. After dinner, he blew out the candles on his birthday cake and opened his presents. He was surprised and smiling and happy.

    At some point in the conversation I asked Kristen if she remembered what she got for her 9th birthday, 27 years ago. She didn’t remember.

    Then I thought about that question for myself.

    June 2nd, 1985

    It dawned on me. On June 2nd, 1985, I got baseball cards for my 9th birthday.

    I was into baseball cards as a kid. I saved all of my money to buy great big boxes of them at the comic book store in downtown Mishawaka, Indiana. I would open each pack in the box and categorize each card by team before cataloging them in a great, big box. I’d take the best cards and put them into a folder. Sometimes I traded them but mostly I just held onto them.

    And on my birthday for a couple of years I got a full set of Topps baseball cards. I had full sets from 1984 – 1988.

    And I still have all of them. I still have full sets from 1984 – 1988. I still have my precious binder from when I was a kid. And I still have that box of carefully categorized cards, complete with my 9 year old handwriting of each teams name.

    Why do I still have them? Because I still believe a lie about baseball cards.

    I believe that one day they will have value again. And that belief has lead me to hold onto them for 27 years.

    They moved to Germany and back with me in 1992. They went to college with me in 1994. They’ve moved with Kristen and I several times in my married life. Three times I have paid to put them in a a moving truck and shipped them across the country just so they could sit in my garage again.

    And all of it goes back to a single conversation I had with my dad when I was a kid. He said his mom had sold his baseball cards at a garage sale and he wished he still had them, they were worth some money.

    My dad didn’t lie to me. He was telling the truth. But it was me that convinced myself that I could never depart with these things.

    Trust me, Don Mattingly’s rookie card will never have the same value as Mickey Mantle’s. In fact, of the thousands of cards I have I’m positive that none of them are worth more than $5 individually.

    So why do I keep them? Why don’t I just toss them out or put them on Craigslist? Why don’t I just give them to Paul & Jackson to play with?

    Because I believe a lie that one day I’ll need them. I believe that one day, if I don’t have them, they will be worth a lot of money and I’ll be sad that I didn’t listen to my dad.

    That lie defies logic because I believe it.

    More than baseball cards…

    I’m a smart guy. I make good decisions. And I still fall into the trap of believing some lies in my life. I can look at all of the evidence, I can know that the belief is silly, stupid even, but I just can’t kick it.

    When someone lies to you, it hurts. But when you lie to yourself? It’s a trap.

  • We laughed when you were born

    In the book of Genesis there are a lot of footnotes about people’s names. Some names refer to a character attribute while others refer to a physical attribute.

    If we were to name Paul by such an attribute, one name might be: We laughed when you were born.

    9 years ago today, Kristen checked into a hospital in Mt. Clemens (MI) to give birth to our second child. Since Megan was a big baby and her pregnancy with Paul had tracked pretty large all the way along Paul’s delivery was scheduled for induction on his due date. As the day progressed everyone kept bringing up the fact that Paul was a big baby.

    When I think back to my son being born I just remember the joy in the room. Obviously, Kristen was very uncomfortable. But thanks to the drugs her pain didn’t sour her mood. Kristen and I were excited to meet Paul and the nurses and doctor picked up on our sense of humor/willingness to laugh. As labor progressed there were a lot of jokes told and laughing. Just like on a middle school camping trip… the mood had become slap happy! At a key time, just moments before Paul was born, a tiny heart monitor slipped off of his scalp and whacked the doctor right between the eyes! It was so gross, weird, and unexpected that it just sent us all over the edge. The room echoed with laughter as we all giggled at what happened.

    And then Paul was born. We smiled, we wiped tears from our eyes, and we all just stared at this beautiful baby. And at 9 pounds 2 ounces— a big baby, too!

    Paul turns 9 today. I’m positive he doesn’t want me to dwell on the moment he was born. (“Um, that’s weird dad! And kind of gross if you think about it.“) Yet, that sense of joy and fun that brought Paul into the world continues. Paul loves to have fun. He loves to giggle. He loves to tell jokes. In every way his birth was a precursor to his personality.

    The past year has been one of tremendous growth for Paul. He’s overcome a lot of fears and dealt with a lot of things holding him back. I know it’s the right thing to say… “I’m excited for Paul for the next year.” But I really mean it. The past year was one of such tremendous growth and he’s in such a healthy place… his 9th year is set up to be truly fantastic.

    So, I can’t wait to celebrate with him this week. On Saturday, we’re hosting a bunch of his friends for an afternoon of Laser Tag and lunch at In-N-Out. Dang, I want to be 9 again!

  • How do you measure teenage maturity?

    News on teenagers consistently conflicts.

    • We are ecstatic about teenage Olympians. No one puts a teenage qualifier on their accomplishments, an Olympic medal is an Olympic medal, it doesn’t count for half a medal because someone is under 18.
    • Our laws define someone as an adult the moment they hit 18 while providing a completely different legal statute for people under 18. Yet neurologists and developmental/behavioral psychologists are proving that every adolescent matures are a different pace depending on a wide variety of variables. (Some inborn, some learned, some internal)

    The Love/Hate Relationship with our Nations Teenagers

    We have a love/hate relationship with teenagers. We love their accomplishments, we are disgusted when they fail. We are simultaneously infatuated and disgusted by teenage sexuality. Gasp, Justin Bieber has a girlfriend! OMG, I can’t believe she might be pregnant. Oh, I’m going to watch 2 hours of TV talking about it and tweet/Facebook about how disgusted I am… gimme, gimme, gimme more news on teenage sexuality! I’m not exaggerating all that much, am I?

    A 16 year old wins a gold medal and she’s on The Today Show. That girl is so mature for her age! (Succeeding at sports makes you mature) Her girlfriend, in the same school and grade gets pregnant? Oh, becoming a mother isn’t an accomplishment… that’s a statistic! She is SO STUPID! We might even make her go to a different school. 

    We (rightfully) decide things have to change when a teenager attempts suicide. But funding the school counselor or making sure her parents insurance covered her treatment before it was a suicide attempt? Well, common logic states, that’s really a parental issue.

    This continues on after 18, of course. Those who go to college– well, we give them a pass on being adults because they are students. And students can’t be expected to act like adults because they are students. So we allow college students a pass on being mature. In fact, walk around a college campus and you’ll see that “what’s cool” is to act like a 13 year old, fully fulfilled! (Think about it… a “cool college guy” is loud, obnoxious, gets drunk, sleeps around, avoids responsibility, and doesn’t take school all that seriously. There’s nothing mature about that– but college culture celebrates this as a fully embraces college lifestyle.) But someone doesn’t go to college? Well, they better get a job and fend for themselves. They are an adult now…

    So how do we measure maturity?

    The point of this post is to point out that our society gives many mixed messages about adolescent maturity. Science and common sense says that maturity isn’t an arbitrary age. It depends on a wide variety of factors. One person becomes and adult at 16 while another might not become an adult until 25.

    But we have an arbitrary line. Legally, and to a lesser extent culturally, a person is an adult at age 18.

    The Supreme Court has now affirmed that not all teenage criminals are the same, some can get life sentences for their crimes while others can’t, the courts are now allowed to look at other factors besides physical age to judge their ability to understand their crimes. This is a big step. 

    I suppose I’m wondering when we, those who work with students in schools, churches, and our neighborhoods, will begin to do the same?

  • 1000 Words

  • Teenagers are incapable… until they aren’t

    Gabrielle Douglas is 16 years old. This week she won 2 gold medals at the London Olympic games. She will be a junior in high school this year.

    Missy Franklin is 17 years old. She also won 2 gold medals in London and owns 2 world records. She’s entering her senior year in high school.

    If you want to see a few more stories about teenagers in the Olympics, The New York Times has a page dedicated to the endeavor.

    The Capability vs. Expectations Gap

    As a lover of teenagers universal and an often observer of their amazing capabilities— I enjoy the irony that America will celebrate Gabby and Missy’s victories as if they were their own daughters…

    • We acknowledge their physical prowess.
    • We acknowledge their dedication.
    • We admire the grace at which they handle their athletic events and the pressure of the world stage.
    • We admire the maturity in their handling sudden fame.

    We each easily attribute downright adult descriptions on teenage Olympiads. 

    This is ironic because from a societal perspective we don’t expect teenagers to be capable of such adult-like qualities. I mean… they can’t possibly be adults at 15-16-17, can they?

    3 examples of this irony…

    Raise expectations, friends. Most teenagers can do just about everything you can do… maybe better than you can. Let’s not just celebrate teenagers who hoist gold medals, let’s celebrate the capabilities of the teenagers in our lives.

    And let’s kill agism, OK? Let’s judge people by what they can do instead.

    Discover what their coaches know: When you expect someone’s very best, you’ll get it. When you expect nothing, you’ll get it.  

  • Routines

    Our house is a series of routines. 

    Kristen is usually the first one awake- her jogs often chase the sun from its slumber.

    Jackson and Paul wake up next, breaking the quiet in our house. Sometimes Paul will bring Jackson to our bed and we’ll all just kind of snuggle and slowly get up. Watching JT thumb suck, giggle, and play with words is an amazing way to wake up.

    Next comes breakfast and Elmo. I think Paul (9 next week) likes Elmo more than Jackson.

    I put water in the kettle for tea or coffee and sit down to write. “What will I write today?” Sometimes I wake up knowing what I will write, sometimes I have to look at Evernote, sometimes I stare at Biblegateway for a while until an idea pops up. Sometimes I ask Kristen and she just says… “Whatever you want.” I don’t know why I ask because that’s always her answer. But I think asking is part of my routine.

    I write a few paragraphs with Elmo in the background, waiting for the kettle to pop. Somewhere in there Megan wakes up. I say, “Good morning Megs” and she stares through me in a way only a pre-teen can. I exist, she likes me, but not yet. It’s too early.

    From there dad goes into work mode. I either head to my office downtown or stick around the house. That’s not really a routine so much as it is just a thing I do. It probably is routine, but maybe I just don’t want to call it that?

    The evening is kind of a reverse order of routines as everyone winds down. After dinner Kristen and I go for walk. We take Jackson and Stoney (our dog) for a walk all around the neighborhood. (Highlight routine right there) When we come home we get the kids ready for bed and the house finally grows quiet again.

    At some point Kristen and I look at each other, routines complete, and say “Today was a good day.” Even when it wasn’t we just lie to each other.

    Routine is Sacred

    Whether you have a daily routine like we do or your routine is more along the lines of a day-to-day thing, routine is part of being human. (Monday we ___, Tuesday we ____) When I am most tired or most anxious or most busy the first thing I lose is a connection to these routine. The kids thrive on this regularity, as well. Our family routine gives them freedom to know what to expect and what’s expected of them.

    Routine keeps us from chaos. But when chaos finds us sticking to our routines keep us sane.

    As I reflect on the big story of the Old Testament I see routine over and over again. The Law is establishing healthy, sacred routine. Mishnah goes into detail about the nuts and bolts of how the Law impacts the daily routines of different types of people. God is in the routine, the repetitive, and the mundane. While we can get hung up on and dependent on these routines they can also ground us and anchor us to our humanity.

    Routines help us know who we are and what our place is in the family.

    Last thought. Like all things sacred, there’s a fine line between honoring it because it’s sacred and making it too holy. We love our routines, we see the sacredness in them, we connect to God through them, but they aren’t our god. We worship a God who creates routine and holds all routines in the palm of His hand. But we also are fully aware that an omnipotent God can change our routines in a breath. We honor God above routine.

    These are my routines. Have you reflected on yours lately? 

  • The 48 Hour Self-Retreat – How to plan your Fall 2012 Ministry Strategy

    It’s August 1st. 

    For most youth ministries things really kick off in 30 days. That means in the next 30 days you need a publishable Fall calendar, you need to check in with all of your volunteers to make sure they are coming back, and you need to host a volunteer training meeting as well as schedule a parents meeting.

    Plus, you have all your normal day-to-day work. And you still have summer ministry stuff going.

    The Vortex of Doom

    Remember that feeling you had in May? The one that looked at what you were doing through a critical, tired eye? The one that said… “Gosh, this was pretty good but we can do a lot better.” The one that resolved to make 2012-2013 better?

    Remember how you were relieved to have made it through your annual review unscathed? You left that meeting with a sinking feeling that you probably bought another year before people start demanding “results.”

    And now you’re here. You have taken the time to evaluate the past year. You’ve taken a little time away from normality to get some perspective.

    And now there is a lot of temptation in your busyness to just do what you did last year with a few minor revisions and hope for different results.

    I call that the Vortex of Doom. The Vortex of Doom is that rushed feeling you feel right now, anxiety whispering in your ear… “You won’t be ready in time!” The Vortex has gravitational pull to “just get stuff done” and results in you not doing your very best.

    The Promise

    If you give into the Vortex of Doom every August and plan to do what you did last year, just a little bit different and just a little bit better, than don’t be surprised when you get to May 2013 and you:

    a. Feel worse than you did in May 2012…

    b. Get fired because you delivered the same results yet again…

    I promise you this. If you take 48 hours and re-evaluate your 2012-2013 plan right now… you’ll be thankful all year.

    If you do last years strategy with only minor changes you will not see a different result. Why? Because a bad strategy, wonderfully executed and fully funded, is still a bad strategy. Doing it again this year, with gusto, won’t change things. Investing in your past will never lead to your future.

    You work with teenagers… change has to be in your DNA to survive.

    The 48 Hour Self-Retreat

    Here’s one of my little secrets. While it’s really hard to get my team away for a planning retreat, it’s actually pretty simple to identify 2 full days of planning for myself. Then I can schedule some meetings with key leaders as part of my retreat, say have coffee or have them over for dinner, and they are participating in the planning retreat without even leaving home. (Or knowing they are on your retreat. BAM!)

    Tasks for the 48 Hour Self-Retreat

    1. Prayer. Spend an hour or so each day in silent prayer. I’ve found it useful to spend the first 30 minutes just listening and slowing down. Next, I like to spend the first day praying for all of my leaders and students. The second day is spent asking God for wisdom.
    2. Celebrate the victories. I’ve found it really useful to spend an hour or two celebrating what God has done in the previous year. What were wins? Who were the people impacted?
    3. Make some resolutions. What big things need to change? Maybe it’s your target demographic. Maybe it’s what students learn? I can’t answer that for you.
    4. Two-fold research. First, spend 2 hours doing a basic ethnography at 2 different places. Do observation, take notes, etc. (Here’s a link to how to do that.)
    5. Meet with 2-3 key volunteers to ideate. I like to get this to a point of asking, “What if” and “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” statements.
    6. Meet with 2-3 key student leaders to ideate. Same as above. Depending on your set-up you might even do t his with those adult leaders. A dinner is a good way to accomplish that.
    7. Meet with 2-3 “fringe students” to listen, dream, ideate. I actually like to meet with a couple groups of them. Those in the church who should be involved somehow but aren’t. And those truly on the fringe, maybe have visited a couple of times and you see at school, but aren’t engaged at all. Take them out for a coke or go to Dairy Queen… something simple like that works wonders.
    8. Spend a couple hours compiling all of this data, identifying the top 5 learnings. Do this before lunch on the second day.
    9. Have a “So now what” session. Go into a room with a big white board, chalk board, or butcher block paper and just start brainstorming ideas. Look at your data and your learnings and start saying… “So now what?” If you can gather your team for this, awesome. But seriously… this is one of the most critical parts of the process, otherwise you just learned a bunch of stuff but haven’t done anything with it.
    10. Identify 1 measurable difference for the coming school year. It’s not that you are only doing one new thing… it’s that you want to everyone to be able to clearly identify what that 1 thing is and recognize it when they see it. For example, last school year the ministry I volunteer with wanted to dramatically increase the “I know you” factor. So we changed a whole bunch of things so that the group interacted more, hung out more, and got to know one another. At the end of the school year we could all point to that and say.. “Yep, that’s way better.”

    So, how did it go? I’d love to hear how your 48-hour retreat went!  

  • Too old for games

    In act one of last week’s This American Life entitled, Amusement Parks, Ira Glass [America’s best preacher] spends time with Cole Lindbergh. Cole is the manager of the games department for an amusement park called Worlds of Fun in the Kansas City area.

    Cole is an amusement park management geek. His life revolves, wholly and completely, around the 30+ teenagers he manages all summer. His job is to supervise them as well as make sure that they bring in as much revenue for the games as humanly, legally possible.

    He does this by creating a culture of fun and competition. He only hires extroverts that thrive behind that annoying amusement park microphone. Then he pits them all against each other to motivate them, make it fun, and drive up sales. His teenage employees go all out to make as much money as possible, often working 12-13 hours per day. One employee interviewed was so into the competition that she forgot to take a break… for 13 hours. (Um, child labor laws anyone?)

    But near the end of the piece Cole got reflective. He’s 25 years old. He quit his last year of college for an opportunity for this job. His girlfriend says that the job is stressing their relationship to the point where she’s said that if he doesn’t finish school their relationship can’t move forward.

    But, internally, Cole faces a bigger problem. As a 25 year old supervisor he knows his days are numbered. He’s reached the pinnacle for being cool to teenagers. They do everything he says and love working for him, but he can feel it starting to slip away.

    The Creepy Divide

    Cole knows he is about to cross an age barrier from cool, 20-someething guy who loves to hang with high school students to… late 20-something guy who loves to hang with high school students. And he knows that’s creepy. 

    25 year olds should want to have 25 year old friends. And jobs that aren’t making music videos with teenagers. And his girlfriend wants to get married and have kids… and he knows that means giving up this silly job.

    Cole knows he’s too old for games. But he loves it and is afraid to give it up. He is afraid of what’s on the other side of the creepy divide.

    Crossing the Creepy Divide in Youth Ministry

    25 seems to be that age in youth ministry, too. Many readers of this blog are in their early 20’s, just getting started. They have no idea that pretty soon… inviting 6 girls over to make cookies for a bake sale is about to get creepy. Or having 6 guys meet you at a coffee shop for a bible study. Yeah, that’s creepy too. And playing dodgeball with 12 year olds? Creepy for a grown adult. (Until you hit about 50. Then it becomes bean grandpa in the face… which is always cool.) Have a small group over to play video games until 2 AM… that’s all creepy all the time when you are 32.

    Then again, maybe I’m alone in that? Maybe I feel creepy when I shouldn’t at all? Maybe I just suck as a youth worker and I need to get over feeling creepy, go buy something from [insert cool store name] and try to fit in?

    The Good News of Aging in Youth Ministry

    It’s not that you need to get out of youth ministry when you hit your mid-20s and beyond. It’s that the hang out factor needs to adapt. In fact, as you get a bit older in this thing you want to hang less and invest more. You have family and jobs and other responsibilities.

    It’s not that its bad or wrong to hang out with 16 year olds endlessly, for no real purpose. It’s that you aren’t cool anymore. It’s not cool for a 13 year old to chill at the youth pastors house, with his kids, for no reason for hours and hours. Just like it’d be creepy if your teenage daughter hung out with her softball coach, at his house, it’s creepy and looks weird just to hang.

    Instead… as you get older in this you feel less like you need to be friends with students. And you can focus on what’s really important.

    Is there hope for Cole?

    Maybe. He won’t like it. But if he wants to continue his career as the games manager at the amusement park, he’ll need to adapt his game.

    And if you’re in youth ministry and you are crossing that creepy divide. Adapt your game and stick it out another decade. It’s totally doable.

  • Kidnapping students and other dumb things NEVER to do in youth ministry

    Playing around in a church van is nearly as stupid as kidnapping studentsKidnapping Students? Really?

    Raise your right hand and repeat after me:

    I, [state your name], do solemnly swear, to never go to jail because of my role in youth ministry. So help me God. 

    Nothing in youth ministry is worth dying for. And nothing is worth going to jail for.

    Here is an easy-to-use list of things NEVER to do in youth ministry.

    1. Let’s start our list with the mock kidnapping students.

    A church and its youth pastor are now charged with false imprisonment and simple assault.

    They say they were trying to show an example of religious persecution, but the Dauphin County DA’s Office says what they did was a crime.

    The Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office said after a grand jury investigation, the Glad Tidings Assembly of God and its youth pastor, Andrew Jordan, both broke the law. source

    Don’t ever do that. Yes, I know people have been kidnapping students for years. But we also used to have youth ministry games called, “Guess her weight.” Just don’t do it.

    2. However tempting don’t ever screw around when transporting students.

    Don’t race, steal vehicles for fun, pretend to leave people at rest stops, swerve lanes, refuse to stop so people can pee, etc.

    Transporting students is one of those things we do in youth ministry so often that it’s easy to let your guard down and get silly. But it’s also one of the more dangerous things we do. It’s better to be boring than end up in a ditch.

    3. Flirting, teasing, seducing, pinching, grabbing, slapping… or any unnecessarily physical contact.

    Why does this even need to be said? Oh, I know why! Because any Google News search of “youth pastor arrested” yields case after case of a youth pastor sexually assaulting students in their care.

    Male or female, no one is exempt. We all have to be extra careful.

    I get it… youth ministry can be a sexually charged space. That’s why it is so important to screen volunteers, repeatedly train everyone who is in leadership, and to be vigilant in maintaining a safe place for teenagers to explore, create, and build a relationship with Jesus. It never starts with a 30 year old married man and a 16 year old student saying… “Hey, wanna have sex?” But it often starts with innocent, out-of-bounds contact that goes unchecked.

    4. Leading games & experiences you aren’t trained to do.

    “Yeah, we didn’t think through that very well.” Well duh. That’s easy to say when you’re in the emergency room talking to a parent or a police officer. But you should really think about that before you play red rover with high school guys or try to lead students in a low ropes course when you don’t know what you’re doing. Broken arms, shoulders, and faces happen because you fail to mitigate the risk. That’s not taking the fun out of youth ministry, but it is taking the lawyers and insurance companies out of your planning meetings.

    Play smart.

    5. Teaching the Bible beyond your understanding or just flat out making stuff up.

    Oh, sweet Jesus! I can’t believe some of the crap that I’ve heard come out of people’s mouths. I can’t think of a nicer way to say it. If you have more title than theological training you better make up for it in study before you teach/preach/write curriculum. Why do you do commentary work? Why do you read what others are teaching on this topic? Because if you’re the only one seeing a passage of Scripture that way it’s probably because you’re wrong. Sometimes teachers get more excited about being creative than they do about being correct. Or they are so full of woo that they could convince a kitten they are a lion. Don’t teach heresy creatively or with gusto. Got it?

    There’s no shame in using a curriculum.

    6. Playing the anti-parent card.

    Adolescence is a time when its natural for students to separate from their parents. You’ll often hear, “I hate my mom/dad/grandma.” 

    Oh, what temptation. You know that you can use your influence and that adolescent angst to get a lot done.

    Don’t use that to your advantage. At the end of the day, your ministry is an extension to parents. Even if those parents aren’t following Jesus… the ten commandments don’t have an out-clause. The Bible doesn’t say, “Honor your youth pastor.” It says, “Honor your father and mother.” Don’t baptize students without parents permission. Don’t even allow them to come to youth group if you know the parent is against it.

    What am I missing? What would you add to this list of “Don’t ever do” advice? 

    Oh, let us add  “Kidnapping students” is dumb 5 more times to this list.