Category: YMX

  • episode 2

    A few months ago I started wondering if YMX should break into a new media. The idea was pretty simple… wouldn’t it be cool if members of the site submitted audio content that I could piece together and distribute to our friends on the site.

    Here’s the latest episode

    My favorite part of the podcast is that it’s helpful for people in ministry. Nothing against any of the myriad of podcast out there… but this one is specifically for the needs of youth workers. Another thing I like about the show is that it’s brief. We’ve put a cap on each episode at 30 minutes.

    So, listen online or subscribe via iTunes.

  • Pursuit of Happyness Review

    PursuithappynessKristen and I went to go see the new Will Smith movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, on Friday night.

    For the record I think our streak of sad, dramatic movies continues. This has an uplifting ending, but so did Hotel Rwanda.

    I wrote of review of the movie for YMX. Below is an taste of that. Full review.

    Some men are made successful because of the family they are born into
    or the education they receive. For everyone else, success is the result
    of hard work and a knack for making a series of good, timely decisions.
    The Pursuit of Happyness
    documents one mans struggle towards success in a third, elusive
    category. A category available only to a few people who work hard, make
    good decisions, and overcome adversity which catapults them past the
    realms of the successful and captivate the hearts of the world.

    Chris Gardner  (Will Smith) grew up without a father. When his son, Christopher, (Jaden Smith)
    was born he committed that he would always be present in his son’s
    life. This was complicated when Chris struggled to carry his weight in
    his marriage and his wife Linda (Thandi Newton) decided to leave him.

  • Issues in Youth Ministry

    Issues_in_youth_ministry_border
    A few weeks back Tim Schmoyer asked me to give him my thoughts on Youth Ministry from a "big lens" perspective. He actually has a huge "What Needs to Change" series going on his blog… a fantastic idea and there are loads of good thoughts from a broad spectrum of youth ministry professionals, academics, practitioners, and thinkers. Read all of the authors comments.

    Here’s an except of what I wrote:

    In what ways does youth ministry need to change?

    • I think as a profession we need to develop some standard goals. Why
      do we do youth ministry? How does one get the label as a professional
      youth worker? What are the standard things ALL youth ministries should
      be doing? Stuff like that.
    • Youth workers need to care less about attracting kids and care more
      about fitting their youth ministry into their church model and visa
      versa.
    • Youth workers need to get serious about training their adult volunteers.
    • We need to get past games and music and into something deeper. In
      the 1980’s Dan Spader, president of Sonlife, said “It’s a sin to bore a
      kid with the gospel.” I want to revise that to say, “It’s a sin to
      never teach a kid the gospel.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve
      heard a kid from other youth groups who visited our YM say that they
      have never heard the bible taught to them. When ministries begin
      teaching solely topically, they are truly missing out on something big.

    Kudos to Tim for pulling this together. And thanks for asking me to contribute.

  • Who loves YMX?

    This week, my partner in crime Derek Tang, (who is our Forum Administrator) is at the National Youth Workers Convention in Charlotte. Somehow they came up with the idea of getting their picture with a ton of people there with a little sign that says "We love YMX!" I think that is pretty hilarious.

    There are a few bloggers who wrote about the meet-up last night. Derek, Katie, Patti, and Marko. I think there were 12 people there officially… so Derek and I tied in our ability to get people to a meet-up. But at least they ate good Irish food.
    Leeland_ymx
    Apparently, Leeland loves YMX.

  • YMX Podcast going well

    YmxpodcastaThe big thing around YMX lately has been "When are you going to start a podcast?" Well, the first one launch Tuesday night and has been pretty well received. I’m looking forward to seeing where this new media for the site will take us.

    We’ve really not done it as a marketing thing… we’ve done it as a community stretching thing. That said, I had a blast doing my first round of interviews and gathering segments. So, while most of the show was put together here in Romeo, there is a segment from Belfast, a segment from British Columbia, Florida, and New Jersey.

    We’re looking to publish the next one just after Christmas… and it’s already looking like it’s going to be a real hum-dinger! So, check out our debut show here.

    Of course, if you like that… go to iTunes and search "youth ministry" to add it to your subscriptions.

  • Friday at NYWC

    Several thoughts from today. Sorry if they are random…

    • First session was great. We sat about 200 rows back… no lie… and still had a great time. Kudos to Marko for the quote of the first session. He said something like "Hey, feel free to try stuff new… but make sure you put new batteries in your crap detector and turn it on high." Classic line… I know it’s not new but it caught me.
    • Crowder was great today. In the first session he got tickled (laughing that is) by some people near the stage. More fun than usual… very funny stuff.
    • Donald Miller’s talk was a load IMO. While I appreciate him and his way of inspiring so many, and yet he completely contradicted himself if you actually listened to him. No disrespect, but it was pretty typically emergent. He spent 20-25 minutes telling us that our current way of church teaches a bad message of a transaction that isn’t true. "If you do this, you will get something good." While I disagreed with his assessment in general, I was OK until he came to his conclusion at the end. At the end he gave us a transaction… if you do ministry this way, you will gain this. (He shared a testimony of him doing ministry "the right way.") So, I was really disappointed in his talk.
    • That said, he said something that was noteworthy: He said that in the model of ministry we use today, a business-minded model, the sad reality is that ministry professionals are treated like managers than ministers… as soon as we don’t provide our worth vs. spending, we are out the door. I like that thought.
    • The YMX Meet-up was awesome! The location was a little shady, but we had a great time. There were a total of 12 of us… and let’s just say that I no fully understand why they changed the name to East End Cafe… because locals call it "The Brothel." It wasn’t that kind of place really, just had a lot of fun with their former history.

  • What are some problems facing youth ministry today

    A YMX member is writing an article about  "Issues facing Youth Ministry today" And asked for my thoughts. I don’t know if he’ll use any of my thoughts, but here are some of the things that came off the top of my head. I’m no expert on youth ministry and the thing has gotten so big that I think it’s almost impossible to really say "these are the issues" without some serious study… but these are just things I have observed.

    What do you see as some of the
    main issues youth ministry is struggling with today?

    o Youth Ministry still
    struggles to identify universally what it’s primary mission is… discipleship,
    evangelism, or something else.

    o A lack of standardized
    requirements to be labeled a “youth worker” (Such as, training or education or
    certification)

    o Within the local church
    there are still people who see YM as babysitting.

    o A general
    uncomfortability with the role as “indoctrinator” by youth workers in the local
    church.

    o A straying away from
    teaching the Bible into a pure social/entertainment thing.

    o A lack of understanding
    of youth culture and no desire to learn it.

    o Absolutely no ability
    to connect adolescents to the body after they graduate.


    What do you see as some of
    the main issues youth ministry is responding to effectively?

    + Serving
    their communities.

    + Getting
    kids excited about being in the church

    + Allowing
    students to develop leadership skills

    + Being an
    entry point to kids of all backgrounds to the church

    + A swing
    towards small groups ministry

    + Most youth
    workers are very authentic to their kids

    + A desire
    to do ministry outside of the church and where kids are

    In what ways does
    youth ministry need to change?

    + I think as
    a profession we need to develop some standard goals. Why do we do youth
    ministry? How does one get the label as a professional youth worker? What are
    the standard things ALL youth ministries should be doing? Stuff like
    that.

    + Youth
    workers need to care less about attracting kids and care more about fitting
    their youth ministry into their church model and visa versa.

    + Youth
    workers need to get serious about training their adult
    volunteers.

    + We need to
    get past games & music and into something deeper. In the 1980’s Dan Spader,
    president of Sonlife, said “It’s a sin to bore a kid with the gospel.” I want to
    revise that to say, “It’s a sin to never teach a kid the gospel.” I can’t tell
    you how many times I’ve heard a kid from other youth groups who visited our YM
    say that they have never heard the bible taught to them. When ministries begin
    teaching solely topically, they are truly missing out on something big.

    We’ll see what happens with the article. I hope he gets a lot of different perspectives on his question.

  • Just when you thought you were getting big…

    Bigboards
    I was starting to think of Youth Ministry Exchange as a big forum community. (And compared to a lot of others… it is) But then Derek sent me this link. Big-Boards Turns out there are currently 1865 known forum communities with more than 500,000 posts. We’re catching up to that category, but we’re only at 110,000. At today’s current rate of posting, we qualify for Big Board status in 1331 days. That’s June 2010.

  • NY Times Article on Housing Allowances

    A YMX forumite posted a link to this NY Times article called, "Religion-Based Tax Breaks: Housing to Paychecks to Books"

    I think the article accurately described the issue. In fact, this is a clearer presentation of what pastors and ministry leaders can get exempt from than I’ve seen anywhere else. The rules and limits have changed a few times in the past several years so I actually appreciate that aspect of the article.

    As someone who lives in the tax world described, I’ll just say that it’s no bed of roses. I would gladly switch back to "regular employee" status to avoid the paperwork, quarterly payments, and tax filing nightmares which may be saving me a total of $1000 per year. (Or less!)

    The article seems to be bringing to light the inequity of the tax-break. It argues that non-religious non-profit workers, teachers, and child care workers are also underpaid in society and deserve similar tax breaks. I don’t know how I feel about that. I think doing so with so many people would devastate the IRS and ultimately raise taxes for everyone. If you ask me, I’m all for the elimination of the IRS and a flat sales tax on everything.

  • What’s the real state of Youth Ministry

    The past few days has seen contrasting articles published in newspapers. Here are two that I think contrast two views of youth ministry in America.

    The Sky is Falling attitude: New York Times Article
    We’re getting better every year: Austin Statesman Article

    My opinion is the latter. I’ve seen youth ministry get better and better. The ministries who teach students the Bible and love students passionately for who they are tend to do great. Ministries who focus solely on entertainment… they will fail.