Category: youth ministry

  • To the mountaintop

    I’m a dreamer. I like to dream big dreams for myself. But I really like to dream big dreams for the students in our ministry. So when Kathy gave me the opportunity to paint a big picture and ask big questions as we start off this Fall in our high school ministry, I jumped at it!

    When I look at the transfiguration in Mark 9, I am left asking… How do I get to the mountaintop with Jesus? I want to be there! What do I have to do to be there and see what God sees?

    And what is it about God and mountaintops?

    Click the link below to download my talk notes

    [download id=”9″]

  • Thankful

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    Thankful.

    That’s just about the only word that can describe my heart right now. The last week at NYWC left me completely spent both physically and mentally– but I sit here now with my spirit soaring.

    Feet aching, eyes leaky, and thankful.

    Back in December I had this silly belief that YS’s best days were still ahead.

    It came out of my mouth all the time. It came out of my mouth because it was what my heart was telling me.

    Obviously, the people at YouthWorks who had just hired me to stay with Youth Specialties loved it when I said that… But for those who have been around YS for a while– that thought was almost offensive. People just politely smiled when I said it. You see, our history and the things in the past have been so great, that to even set the expectation that things could be better than the past seemed like I wasn’t honoring our past.

    That’s just not true. My feeling was that the best way to honor what we’d done over the past 40 years was try to work hard to resonate with what we’ve always done well while taking everything else to a whole new level. I felt like it would be dishonoring to play it safe in 2010 and it would honor the past best if we looked at every tiny detail as an opportunity to innovate.

    Fortunately for me, Tic and everyone else felt the same way. And we set off on this crazy idea of not just getting through our first year with new ownership, but using this as a reset point.

    Even though in 2009 we had laid our heart out and finished feeling trampled, damaged, and hurt… we would learn what we could from that and lay our heart down again. Maybe we were masochistic? But we just had this crazy desire to keep trying.

    9 months later– all that was left was to see if all of that crazy idealism could become a reality. Walking into last week I kept telling people, “I’ve got this feeling God has an amazing story to tell and I can’t wait to see what it is.”

    All weekend long people asked me how the weekend was going. Then they proceeded to tell me all sorts of nice things about the weekend. All I could do was smile. Everything just felt right. The venue, the set-up, the affirmations flowing from the pours of the staff, the way the stage looked… everything.

    You won’t get this grin off of my face for a few more days.

    Over and over again Tic told us he wanted everything to be done in such a way where people who program for a living could just relax and know our team had everything handled. Hearing nice things tells us that people were shutting off their programming minds and just enjoying themselves. Phew.

    For us, the evaluation process is just beginning. But based on what we heard and saw on site– I feel really good about San Diego. (We are all perfectionist, so of course we’ll tear it all apart and fix all sorts of minutia before Nashville.)

    I was never more proud to work for YS than I was over the last 7 days.

    The level of difficulty was exceptionally high. We had to navigate a new relationship with YouthWorks while at the same time trying to create an amazing Youth Specialties event at a time when youth workers desperately needed it. And some how it all came together. I know it’s not good to talk about pride in the Christian world… but I’m very proud of what we did this weekend together.

    I’m not trying to say this was the best NYWC ever. Nor am I saying that this was YS’s shining moment in history. But I am saying that this weekend was a step towards better days to come.

    Call me crazy. Call me stupid. Call me whatever name you want. But each day I have to wake up and believe that our best days are in front of us.

  • What Would Judas Do? Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and You

    The youth ministry world is wrestling through the ramifications of what Christian Smith coined as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

    What is MTD?

    After interviewing 3,000 teenagers, the authors found that many young people believed in several moral statutes not exclusive to any of the major world religions:

    1. A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.
    2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
    3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
    4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
    5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

    Link

    Since the original study came out about five years ago, youth workers have been scratching their heads, more research has been done, many books/articles have been written, and essentially we are all just trying to figure out both how we got to this point and how we can rebuild our ministries in ways that combat this.

    As a simplest– I have often wondered if MTD in our students may be related to MTD in their youth pastor? In other words, are we even willing to consider that our own relationship with Jesus  (or lack thereof) may be leading students to follow our lead into MTD?

    As I look in the mirror I am left to ask myself and my fellow youth workers some difficult questions.

    • Is youth ministry my vocation or is it my calling? (The latter isn’t an independent evaluation)
    • Am I still passionate about my relationship with Jesus?
    • Do I still love and chose to be faithful the Bride of Jesus? (His church, all of it.)
    • Are my actions reflective of my first love? (personalize Revelation 2:1-6)
    • Am I setting expectations in my teaching that are realistic for my students walk with Jesus? (Am I teaching Scripture in a way that is approachable and personal?)
    • Do I consider myself a manager of a program or a minister of the Gospel?
    • Do I still have the passion for lost teenagers that I had when I dedicated my life to this cause in 1993?

    Let us look at ourselves with sober judgment and search our hearts; making adjustments and repentance a necessary part of that self-appraisal.

    As I minister to students it is always my heart that they pick up my faith.

    My fear is that in too many cases they are picking up a faith that is vastly different than the faith we want them to pick up.

  • What a difference a year makes

    A year ago I was packing for NYWC and trying to convince myself that everything was going to be OK. I knew the facts but had to convince myself that they didn’t matter. With the pressure to perform numerically stronger than ever we watched in horror as the economy collapsed. Earlier in the year we’d let go about half of our staff. And preparations for convention just had a heavy, matter-of-fact feel to it. It was anything but fun. I listened to happy music all the time in an attempt to jack myself up.

    I put on a happy face, I did my best to encourage folks, and riding the Amtrak to LA I had a feeling like the week could go either way. If I ignored the black cloud we’d be OK. But if I acknowledged it the whole thing would spin out of control.

    What a stark contrast to the lead-up to NYWC this year!

    First off, we’re not in the same place or under the same pressure as we were a year ago.

    Second, Tic is back. He’s solid gold.

    Third, it feels like we are taking less risk, in some ways, in the big room sessions. Last year, we had no idea what was happening on our stage!

    Third, our creativity was unleashed on the program side… so I’m confident about what we’re delivering.

    Fourth, the folks joining us from YouthWorks are so excited– it’s like they’ve been shot out of a cannon.

    Fifth, we’re at home. It feels so good going into convention knowing that I’m like 10 miles from my house. Kristen and the kids plan on coming down and saying hello.

    Sixth, I love the theme. I love walking into this in full knowledge that people are going to be ripping off our theme for years to come.

    Seventh, I get to have normal conversations with youth ministry friends. The last two cities of 2009 felt a lot like a funeral wake. Phew, all of that is gone.

    The last line of the video above… when I saw it in the script… I knew it was true for people doing ministry. But a little piece of me knew it was a line for me and about YS.

    We’re right where we’re supposed to be. And it’s amazing.

  • UPDATE: Praying for Walt Mueller

    Back on August 6th, I asked blog readers to join me in prayer for Walt Mueller. While preparing for a bike ride to raise money for CPYU, he was involved in a nasty spill which left him with a whole myriad of serious injuries.

    To the glory of God many of those prayers have been answered!

    Thank you for petitioning the Father on Walt’s behalf.

    From time to time we’ve exchanged notes or I’ve heard the latest from his longtime friend and my co-worker, Tic. As you’d expect, recovery for such injuries takes a while. Today I asked him how it was going, here was his response.

    Overall, feeling and moving better. In fact, if you saw me you might not know that anything happened other than the fact that moving and getting up and down is difficult and sometimes slow due to ongoing soreness and stiffness. I’ve got a couple of bones that are displaced and will remain that way, but that’s ok. They say my body will adapt. Pain is dissipating. Ribs and shoulder are sore. My physical therapist says my shoulder has full mobility. Only thing is, that’s when she moves it, not me. I had to laugh today when she had me laying on a table and handed me a cane with a five pound ankle weight hanging on it. . . and then asked me to bench press it 20 times! 5 pounds! It’s all heading in the right direction though. I’m praying the following: 1) that pain and soreness would all disappear, for good, 2) that my back, which started hurting a week ago, would heal. Again, this is all due to the trauma and changes in my body, that my back is now compensating for, 3) that my ability to sleep would return. Getting comfortable in bed is hard 4) that the damaged nerves would repair themselves and I would regain feeling in the spots that got hammered when I hit the concrete. It’s been 8 weeks today. . . I am grateful to God that I wasn’t hurt worse and that He has made the body to heal in some amazing ways. This time 8 weeks ago I was happy to be alive.

    4 ways you can pray for Walt’s continued recovery.

    1. Healing of his body.
    2. Healing of his mind.
    3. Pray for his family.
    4. Pray for CPYU.

    Lastly– the whole reason Walt was training was to help raise some money for some big technology needs at his ministry. If you’d like to learn more about how to help CPYU financially, check out this link.

  • I like Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream

    Currently, Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream is top 10 on iTunes. It’s huge. And I am not ashamed to admit that when it pops up on my iTunes I listen to it 3-4 times in a row.

    While I’m sure most youth workers groan when they hear this song… I take a totally different perspective.

    I want this to be my students dream, too.

    Well, not exactly— since the video leaves a lot to the imagination. Here’s what I mean by “I want this to be my students dream, too.”

    • I want my students to have a fun, audacious, spontaneous, and exciting sex life. (Until they get married- “Pre-sex lives.”)
    • I want them to fall in love and be happy with that person for a long time. I want their love life to be fun, like a teenage dream.
    • I want them to fall in love early in life. I want them to grow up (meaning, take full responsibility for themselves) and get married ASAP. I believe we’re creating a self-fulfilling prophesy that they aren’t ready when they are.

    Perhaps the reason this song speaks to so many people is because we tell people to wait too long for this type of relationship? Perhaps there was no room in our lives at 18 or 19 years old for a no-regrets love affair? Perhaps our parents scared us out of teenage dreams with statistics about divorce and telling us we needed to go to college first?

    But this dream, I believe, is quite similar to God’s desire for us. The Bible is clear about sex before marriage. But it is equally clear about early marriage.

    I just know when I watch this video I think about my relationship with Kristen. We were almost 19 when we met. We took lots of walks on the beach. (aka- free dates) Outside of the motel line– that video was us! Our parents both told us we were too young and we ignored them. (Just like they ignored their parents warnings!)

    When we got married at 21 we fulfilled the dreams of this video and it was great. (Though, Kristen grew up baptist so skin tight jeans were out of the question.)

    My prayer for youth ministry is that we are crazy enough to tell our students and their helicopter parents that they need to have teenage dreams for themselves. I pray that we become culture creators and truth tellers in such a way that gives our society a wake-up call. Teenage Dreams isn’t shameful. We would not exist as a people if it weren’t for generations of teenage dreamers. We don’t need to shame teenagers from their sexuality, we need to teach them appropriate ways to embrace it.

  • Open Letter to My Former Students

    Like all my friends in youth ministry, I have acquired a growing list of graduates that now scatter the globe. Some are freshmen in college this year, some are married and have cool jobs, and most are kind of in an in-between state. We bump into each other from time-to-time, we comment on one anothers life on Facebook, and I hope they pray for me as I have committed to praying for them. This post is for them.

    Dear former students-

    Dr. Seuss was right! Oh, the places you have gone and the things you have done. Some of you I’ve kept up with pretty closely while most I only get to see little snippets of when you come to town or with what you post on Facebook.

    I just wanted to say to you publicly some things that you need to hear. Life has a way of transforming your dreams into a lame reality and I thought it might be valuable to get a third-party perspective on things.

    Let’s take one more trip up the mountain and dream about what God wants for you.

    The world is yours for the taking

    Seriously, have you looked at your peer group? Life has dealt you a hand that you can easily take advantage of! It’s shocking to me that tomorrows influencers are impressed when snippets of their lives appear on the Fail Blog or Texts From Last Night.

    Never confuse failure for success, no matter how popular it may seem. God has so much more for you in mind.

    If you can rise above that stupidity and soak in as much education and experience as you can in the next 2-3 years you will be head and shoulders above the idiots who walked across the stage with you in high school.

    IQ & money & SAT & GPA mean jack squat right now. It’s all about hard work. Outwork your peer group and you will succeed.

    Tomorrows employers are watching what you are doing today. They want to know… were you one of those knuckleheads we laughed at on Fail Blog? When you explain to them that you were too busy taking care of your classes and holding down a job to pay for college… the doors of opportunity will swing open.

    Take every class seriously. You are paying for it (and will pay for it for the next 10 years) so force your professors to give you their very best. If they don’t perform at their best challenge them to step it up privately. Wrestle through the temptation to blow off classes. Sit in the front 2 rows. Don’t open up your laptop. Take notes the old fashioned way. Do your reading. Turn stuff in.

    Outwork everyone.

    Take every job opportunity seriously. I don’t care if you are making sandwiches at Subway or whipping snot from a kids nose at daycare. Do it for the glory of God. This isn’t a great job market but that doesn’t mean you can’t do great at your job. Remember, he who is faithful with the small things…

    Outwork everyone.

    This stage of life isn’t about friends. It might feel like it should be, but that’s not true. People going places aren’t worried about such things. Look around at your classes today. Your job is to figure out how to rise above all of the people in that room. You don’t have to be smarter than them or get better grades than them… you just have to out position them.

    No one expects anything from your generation. Rise above that and the world is yours.

    Hard work, hard work, hard work. This is the path to success.

    No one is going to hook you up so hook yourself up.

    Grunt out this 5-6 years of your life, act like an adult as soon as possible, and you will reap the rewards for decades to come.

    The church desperately needs you

    I did my best to teach the Word of God to you plainly. Some of you absorbed it and took it seriously, some did not. That’s OK as you picked up more than you think you did.

    Find a local church, get involved, and help them reach their community. It can be the church you grew up attending. It can be a new church. Really, just go to church.

    Trust your instincts on what a healthy church is. It will feel right. It doesn’t have to be big or flashy. It doesn’t have to have a killer program you love or a hot musician. You don’t have to feel comfortable with everything they do and you don’t have to think it’s perfect. My experience is that I feel most negative about a church when I just go and am not involved or giving money. I guarantee you that if you become part of a churches ministries and give what you can, you will feel like you fit in.

    Your church just has to love Jesus, love God’s Word, and have a stupid belief that the Gospel can change lives.

    At the same time, I taught you to think critically about the world around you. This is the most valuable skill needed in the church today. There are enough Christians who are satisfied with reaching a small percentage of the community. Lead bravely wherever you get involved. Remind those at church what the Bible actually says. Hold them to it. The Book of Acts is possible today!

    I pray that you keep believing that every person in your area needs to know Jesus and not to accept 10% as the best you can do. I hope you see things that need to be fixed in this world and step into the responsibility to right wrongs.

    Don’t just be consumers of the Word of God. Be doers.

    Move out as soon as possible

    There is something about your parents generation that wants to hold onto you and baby you as long as possible. Resist that temptation.

    I know it’s nice to have someone take care of you. And I know that its nice to have someone do your laundry.

    Get out. It’s not helping.

    The fastest way to grow up is to leave the nest. I’m not saying you need to hate your parents or that you aren’t supposed to ever see them again. But I am saying that if you are over 18 the best biggest step you can make to being accepted as a “real adult” is to get out.

    The fastest way for you to get dependent is to stop taking their money. Find some people and share an apartment. Pay your own bills. Eat your own Ramen if you have to. You aren’t going to starve… you’re going to get hungry to grow up!

    I’m still here for you

    If you need someone to talk to, I am now and hope to always be here to listen and offer advice. At the very least, know that I continue to pray for you.

    I expect great things from you. As I said when you were in middle and high school– I have a fundamental belief in your generation.

    Be better than my generation. Now. Now. Now.

    — adam

  • Coming to Dallas and Tulsa next week

    Epic. Awesome. Life-changing. PlanetWisdom on Vimeo.

    I’ll be in Dallas next week, Monday-Wednesday, meeting with youth workers and chatting up both PlanetWisdom and the National Youth Workers Convention. Here’s the RSVP for the meet-up on Monday.

    I’ll be in Tulsa for lunch on Thursday. If you want to meet up and hear specifically about PlanetWisdom but also chat about NYWC or whatever… here’s the RSVP. (Yep, I’ll buy you lunch)

    If you are in either of those areas and want to meet-up… let me know. Chances are good I can make it happen. My schedule is a lot more flexible (right now) in Dallas. In Tulsa, I’m literally flying in to do lunch and flying home after lunch.

    Goal: Buy a belt buckle.

  • Youth Workers: Don’t Punk Out

    Youth Workers: Don’t Punk Out

    Youth ministry seems to be facing asymmetrical challenges right now.

    Two of them on the forefront of my mind are longevity and transference of wisdom.

    With a tough job market and a climate of deconstruction/re-thinking/shifting in the profession… it really pains me to see a lot of very gifted youth workers move on.

    Some of them are my friends. And I put on a happy face to try to be happy for you when you send me an email telling me of your bright new idea. But I’m really sad when I see our dreams for one another give way to something else. For a myriad of reasons our sophmoric desire to be in youth ministry for a lifetime has given way to leaving ministry altogether or becoming a church planter or taking a “higher” staff position at a church as executive/lead/teaching pastor.

    If I read those reasons right, most of them seem to imply– more stable, more money, more powerful positions.

    Let our 20-year old self talk to our 34-year old self for a second… “ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!?!??!!”

    Those are all things we swore we wouldn’t give our dreams to. But, if I can use passive/politically correct language for a minute, life seems to be forcing some of us to sell out.

    I just want to toss this out there. Maybe there are others who are sitting on the fence and looking at greener pastures.

    • Don’t punk out.
    • Working with teenagers is as important now as ever.
    • Fight the temptation to take an easier way out of your problems.
    • You’ve always said youth ministry wasn’t a stepping stone.
    • The grass won’t be greener as a church planter or a lead pastor, you know it and I know it.

    We know this to be true: As cultural spins faster and faster the brightest minds and the greatest innovations are now will continue to flow from youth workers just trying to figure out how to best minister to kids in their neighborhoods. The best ministry innovations are not now nor have ever flowed from the top down. It’s always the other way around. The best innovators typically don’t have the biggest platforms nor do they typically have agents.

    Why?

    Intrinsic hunger forces innovation. The best ideas come when you have no other choice but to innovate.

    Sure– I know someone is going to light me up for saying it. After all, who am I to question decisions that aren’t mine? And all the other voices in my friends heads telling them they need to go plant a church, be a teaching pastor, or chase another vocation must be right and I must be wrong.

    But I’m allowing myself to be sad. And I’m allowing myself to put it in writing that you don’t have to punk out. Adversity, frustration, questioning, tension, getting fired, having to adapt, making less money, and being discouraged aren’t now and never have been “God closing doors.”

    Sometimes those things are merely a testing of calling and God rewards you for passing the test.

    Sure, the world needs more senior pastors. Sure the world needs more church planters. Sure the world needs more whatever-it-is-that-is-taking-you-from-youth-ministry.

    But those kids. (The kid that was you. That kid was me.) That kid will always need a youth worker there at just the right moment to say just the right thing.

  • Labor Day Remembrance for Youth Workers

    Labor Day Remembrance for Youth Workers

    Labor Day became a holiday in response to the massacre of 13 employees to end the Pullman Strike at the hands of the Illinois National Guard. Why were they on strike? The owner of their company cut their wages on their 12 hour work day while holding rents on employee housing. When the owner refused to meet with the employees about the cuts 125,000 railroad workers brought the nation to a halt with a strike… until Grover Cleveland ordered federal troops to violently end the strike.

    For me, I cannot think of the plight of the 19th century worker without reflecting on the working conditions of many of my friends in youth ministry. If we’re honest… being in youth ministry is very much like pre-organized labor days. Mike Rowe has never shown up at a youth group meeting. But just know that being a youth worker is a Dirty Job.

    Today, I am reminded that thousands of youth workers struggle to serve Jesus while employed by churches who often, either intentionally or unintentionally, mismanage them.

    The latest economic downturn has lead to a whole new round of horrible stories. No one is exempt. People who once thought they were in great jobs at great churches have learned that tough times can lead to miserable work conditions. And with so much re-thinking of youth ministry vs. family ministry vs. parachurch-styled youth ministry… an unprecedented amount of youth workers are currently either looking for new ministries or trying to figure out how to be tent-maker in youth ministry or looking to get out of the pressure-cooker altogether.

    On this Labor Day, I want to draw your attention to some specific examples of their struggles:

    • Apparently, being pregnant or a new parent is the perfect time to fire a youth worker. I’ve heard tons of stories like Ryan Smith’s. What a horrible thing!
    • This is a tough time to look for a job in youth ministry. As I run the YS job bank, I know that churches often get hundreds of applicants for each opening. Many excellent/gifted/experienced youth workers are forced out of youth ministry each month because they simply can’t find a job.
    • It goes without saying that the youth worker is often the least respected pastoral staff member. Their role is seen as child’s play despite every statistic available which shows the importance of faith development during the teenage years.
    • It may be 2010, but nepotism is alive and well in the church. I have recently heard from youth workers who were fired because the senior pastors kid just needed a job.
    • Lots of people received pay cuts this year. They take the form of reduction in pay, losing medical/dental/vision benefits, foregoing conference/continued education allowances, etc. Of course, this is often in violation of an existing employment contract that wasn’t mutually re-negotiated. And churches balk when you ask for time off to do part-time work to make up the difference.
    • Most churches regularly break various federal employment laws, claiming to be exempt of all federal employment laws under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The church is not exempt from minimum wage laws except in a few circumstances. (Such as, ordained by your denomination.) No employer can make you work more than 40 hours without compensating you. You are not allowed to have uncompensated “ministry hours” on top of your work hours. I routinely hear of churches who advertise as a 50-60 hour per week job. Um, that’s against the law!
    • Many youth workers are punished or even fired because of the actions of their children or spouse in the church. You can’t be fired because your children don’t like the kids program or your spouse goes to another church. Working at a church does not mean you have no civil rights. (Interesting test of this by World Vision, good thing it only applies to the employee.)
    • Youth workers in small-to-medium sized churches work almost entirely in isolation. They have very limited fellowship with other people their age in the church. And their work hours make it quite difficult to have friendships with people in their community. Isolation leads to depression and all sorts of other bad things.
    • Speaking of small churches. These are especially difficult roles because youth ministry is just one of the myriad of things they are asked to do.
    • Part-time youth workers have it even rougher. Most churches that pay part-time really expect/demand full-time work.
    • Many spouses of youth workers are expected to be volunteers in the ministry. This is jokingly referred to as the “two-for-one” deal by churches. It’s a sick double-standard as the same is rarely expected of all ministry employees and is, again, in violation of the minimum wage/Civil Rights laws. I can’t think of another profession which makes the same demand.
    • The day-to-day job of a youth worker is quite difficult. It’s a multi-disciplinary role which requires skills in everything from teaching the Bible to counseling to marketing to event planning. Yeah, totally realistic.
    • Double-standards are the norm for youth workers. Just one example is work hours. They are asked to hold regular office hours. Plus, they are asked to be out evenings to work with students where they are.
    • When employment ends, many in youth ministry are treated poorly and without respect. There are countless stories out there from youth workers who weren’t even allowed to say goodbye to students they’ve ministered to for years.
    • Youth workers often take abuse from all sides. They work long hours which draws criticism from their spouse. Meanwhile, their boss is unhappy because their groups aren’t growing. All the while, parents express frustration because their child isn’t getting the 1-1 attention she’d hoped for.
    • This list could go on and on… but its a holiday and I don’t want to bore anyone before their barbeque.

    Certainly, many youth workers have wonderful employers who respect them and treat them well. I don’t want this post to over-shadow that fact.

    But perhaps those in great positions can take time to encourage those who are struggling today?

    Maybe, in the coming months you would find ways to lift up and encourage brethren in ministry who are in bad circumstances?

    Offer them a relationship of confidence?

    Offer your home as a place of refuge and relaxation?

    Share in your abundance?

    Share resources and friendship?

    Maybe be that calm and familiar voice who reminds them that this isn’t the way the bride of Christ is supposed to treat its workers?

    More than anything… will you take some time today to call or email a youth worker in your life and affirm them? Tell them that their ministry matters. Tell them that you know their job is difficult. And tell them that they are making a difference in your community.