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So here is a dream scenario:

I stand in front of a large group of people and say, “At the count of 3, let’s everyone just stop pretending!”  I count it down and then all of sudden people start saying things like, “I am not a perfect parent” and “It took an hour and a half to look like this” and “I don’t like myself very much and that is why I am such a jerk.”  Suddenly everyone is able to just drop the act, be real, and start the healing process.

It’s hard to be real, though.  We want to be the creators of our own image.  You might say that each of us wants to be a brand.  We want people to see us a certain way so that they will think certain things about us so that we can…  And that is where it gets hazy.  What exactly is the point of making people think certain things about us?  Eventually we are all found out, right?  It’s like we are living one of those romantic comedies where the guy is living a lie and the audience knows that eventually the girl will find out, then get really mad, and then they will make up if it is a blockbuster or they will go separate ways if it is an indie film.

One of the revelations that our students had at camp last week is that everyone seems to be going through something difficult.  Knowing this made it easier for them to love other people and to share their own struggles.  As they shared their struggles, they found allies going through the same thing and people who have been there before and found a way out.  Had they not had this revelation, they would have been forced to continue to manage their brand and pretend like they have it all together.

As a minister I am privy to the private lives and struggles of many of our members.  I know people who have lost their jobs, have troubles with their kids, and have problems with a host of vices.  I also have to watch many of these people try to deal with all of these things on their own because they don’t want to tarnish their image.  In most cases the truth comes out eventually, but not until a significant amount of damage has been done to their faith and their families.

So, let’s stop pretending.  Find a safe place to be yourself–your real self, not your brand.  We will all be better for it.

I have mentioned in the past that it bothers me when a youth pastor tells me that most of his or her time is spent on their Wednesday night talk/sermon.  Perhaps they serve in a very different context than the ones that I have been a part of, but most students and youth ministry graduates would tell you that the talks played a small role in their faith development.  When a student pastor spends twenty-five office hours a week developing his or her talk, I always wonder about his or her priorities.

I am a firm believer in the importance of preaching the Word of God and calling people to transformation, but we also have to understand that the sermon is only one part of this call to transformation.  Bill Hybels mentioned in an interview that he believed the role of the sermon to be an element that sets the tone for the ministry and opens the door to discussions.  My belief is that if there are not any follow-up conversations and goals being set, then the sermon has a much better chance to have been a forgettable 30 minute talk.

This is why I am a firm believer in knowing where we want people to be in their faith.  We want to have a vision for what a true follower of Christ looks like, and then we need to work towards discipling them to that end.  The sermon or talk is a great piece of this puzzle, but it is hard to imagine a person really growing in their faith if they only hear from God 30 minutes a week.  That is a lot of pressure for a preacher: solve all life problems, faith questions, and growth needs using only three points and a response time.  Instead, what if the sermon was one part of creating an environment for building faith and answering those tough questions?

It’s easy in ministry to get caught up in how many roles that we actually have in our churches.  Many ministers hold several different responsibilities in their churches.  I wrote about holding different roles, particularly as it relates to student ministry here.  In our church I am responsible for a number of things outside of student ministry.  I work with the missions team, oversee the new member experience, and preach several times of year.  I love having the variety that my job allows me to experience.

I am inspired and energized by the things that I get to do.  However, there is one things that steals my joy and my inspiration very quickly. Discouragement creeps in when I start to think that it is my job to make our church a great church.  You see, when I get frustrated by difficulties we are experiencing or with processes that I disagree with, my countenance towards my roles drops.  I become frustrated because I can’t change things that I want to change.  Every time I start to get close to the edge of discouragement, I have to remind myself that it is not my job to make the church work.  In fact, it’s not really anyone’s job in my opinion.

Understand, I want to be a part of a great church.  I want to do my part in making sure that our church functions well, but my job is not to make an organziation, it is to make disciples of Christ.  My job is to introduce people to Jesus and help them live lives worthy of the gospel that they confess.  When helping people grow in their faith is my goal, it is much easier to hear complaints about the music or hear that someone has left the church for some reason.  One of the reasons that so many people become frustrated with working in a church is that they think that their job is to create a great church, but unless your number one goal is to make disciples, you will not have a great church.  We could create what is perceived to be a great student ministry here at BBC if we wanted to by focusing on what people think they want, complete with video games or guilt driven re-salvation messages.  We would have attendance numbers, and we would have decision cards, but all of that would mean nothing if we did not have disciples.

I hear from a lot of fellow ministers that they feel discouraged in their churches because things are too backward or too traditional.  They don’t like the music or they think that they would be better at preaching.  They may or may not be right, but I’m not sure that it matters.  I encourage them to be professional and speak their minds as long as their observations are focused on helping the church reach and grow more disciples. But, if things stay the same, it is no problem because it was not their job to fix everything.  Once all of their students are doing all things to the glory of God, they can start to worry about what’s next, but until then, they still have a job to do.

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and save my past self from himself.  I wish I could give him more wisdom or keep him from making some really poor decisions.  Sometimes I want to go back and comfort my past self and tell him that his worries were pointless.  Sometimes I also want to be able to erase the past and just be known as the guy that I am now.

Over the past year or so I have had the ability to reconnect with a number of people from my high school and college years.  Some of this has been through social media, but I have also had the fortune of spending time face to face with people who I spent a significant amount of time with during my formative years.  I love rehashing old stories and discovering what their lives look like now.  What is funny is that I am always surprised when they are so different from what I remember of them thirteen years ago.  I guess we tend to just freeze our impression of people.  This tendency, however, also brings me some unease.

I would like to think that I am very different from the person that I was thirteen or even five years ago.  I am sure that I have some of the same mannerisms or even some of the same interests, but I often want to think that I have grown into someone who is much more confident, more competent, and more social.  I think that God has allowed me to grow and mature into someone much different from the awkward teenager that I once was.

We often hear that people cannot change, but I am not so sure that this statement can be valid in light of who God is and what God can do in or lives.  The very essence of the gospel is that we become new creations who are given a new purpose, new gifts, and a new hope.  God has brought me along in so many ways, and I would be stealing His glory to think that I did all of this on my own.  When I excel or when I see growth in areas of my life, I know that God has brought about the change on my behalf for His purpose.  I am also reminded that while I would love to erase my past, God has used it to help me become the person He intended for me to become.

Blogging is a great activity, and in the past I have found it valuable in allowing me to develop thoughts and share ideas.  As I reboot a long dormant blog, I look forward to sharing my thoughts and chronicling my journey of faith.  I am excited about having a place to log my ideas.  If these thoughts could inspire and encourage someone else, that would be icing on the cake.

Dear volunteers,

I know that volunteering with students is a “hit the ground running” type of experience.  It is busy, intense, and tiring.  I appreciate that you have dedicated your time and energy to our students.  With all of the craziness, I want to press pause for a minute and let you know some things that you definitely need to know in order to maximize your ministry with these students.

1. The times before and after events and programs are extremely important ministry times.  Some of the best conversations that I have had with students occurred while they are waiting for their parents to come and get them.  There is tremendous value in the downtime.  We are geared to think that our task begins with the opening prayer or when the clock hits the start time, but the truth is that our task begins the minute that we come into contact with a student.  In fact, it might begin as we prepare our hearts the moments before we arrive at a program or event.

2. Never show that you are disappointed in attendance.  I want to set a record in attendance every time we meet.  Unfortunately, this is just not always a reasonable goal.  Inevitably we will have nights where only half of the regular crowd shows up.  We will have events where half of the registered students fail to show up.  The challenge is to push for every kid to come and then be excited about the ones who do show up.  Showing disappointment in attendance is a killer, and the students will shut down if they don’t think that you are excited that they came.  If I hear a student saying that the group seems small, I quickly let them know how excited I am that I will be able to spend more quality time getting to know the students in the smaller group.  The key is for you to also believe that and be happy about it.

3. Engage. Engage. Engage.  There are two types of youth workers. One type gets the job done, keeps the peace, and assists with all necessary tasks.  The other type does all of the things above and stays engaged with the students.  We really want our volunteers to be the second type.  To become this, you need to know what engaging students looks like.  It means sitting with students around the table rather than congregating with the other adult leaders.  It means asking students questions about their week or what they are learning.  It means shooting basketball with them in the gym rather than watching from the sidelines.  It means participating with abandon during activities and games.  It does not mean always having to be the life of the party or having something cool to say.  You see, it is much easier to just be a chaperone, but we are looking for mentors.  We need volunteers to demonstrate love and concern for our students.  We need students to know that you are there for them and not there to make the program work.  The good news is that you can stay engaged with the students and still maintain crowd control or facilitate an activity.  In fact, the better the relationship you have with the students, the more likely they are to work with you rather than against you.  Sure, it’s draining to discuss the appeal of Justin Bieber or why the Clone Wars is awesome.  It is also incredibly rewarding to know that you have made an impact on a student’s life simply because you sat with them and were interested in their day.  Do you want to know the secret of my popularity with the students?  The secret is that I have invested my time in getting to really know them, and, because of that, they know that I care.  Use this secret and you too will be one of their heroes.  It’s actually amazing at how easy that can happen.

4. You are doing incredibly important work.  How can cleaning up spilled Sprite for the tenth time be incredible work?  How can playing capture the flag with students be important?  Sometimes volunteers feel like they are just filling space.  You are not filling a need, you are literally changing lives and drawing students closer to Christ.  In my mind there is no greater task.  As there are many parts of the body, there are many parts or roles that must be filled to meet the needs of our students.  Relish your role and the opportunities that God has given you to minister.  On a side note, when I begin to feel like I am simply making things happen and not ministering, I actually stop what I am doing and ask a student how their relationship with God is developing.  This allows me to gain focus on why I am doing these things in the first place.

5. You will have significant impact if you see yourself as a youth worker on our “off days”.  Go back to your high school days.  For some of you it might take a while.  Just kidding.  Now imagine that it is Saturday and you are sitting around watching a movie on TV and the phone rings.  It’s your Sunday School teacher just checking in with you and asking you how the game went last night.  How does that make you feel?  Loved?  Important?  Here’s the thing, if you want to really demonstrate investment in the lives of the students that you are mentoring, you will be more effective if you see the calling as something organic rather than something scheduled for Wednesday nights at 6:30pm.

Student Ministry in the summer is one of my favorite things in the whole world.  I love that the students are available to just hang out.  I love that we are able to mix up our schedules a bit and change pace.  I love seeing the growth that students experience from our summer programs and events.  I also love that it wears me out.

We had a great summer complete with an in-depth Bible study, camp, and mission projects.  It was fun, exhausting, and stretching.  As always, we wanted to spend some time thinking about what worked and what we can improve.  As we worked to evaluate the summer, there were a few things key things that I wanted to make sure that we accomplished.  Here are the questions we asked:

1. Did we help students grow in their faith in a special way?  Our goal was to give students opportunities to grow in their faith that they might not be able to have during the school year.  We wanted to take advantage of their open schedules and their energy.

2. Did we open the door for new students to become involved?  We wanted to do things that encouraged fringe students to get plugged in and find a connection.  We also wanted to create environments where students wanted to bring their friends.

3. Did we develop students as leaders?  One of the messages that we put out there this summer is that students, particularly older students, need to start realizing their leadership and the disciple making abilities.  We want them to understand their role as mentors and influencers.

4.  Did we find a balance between discipleship focused events and fun-oriented events?  Trips to Holiday World are great and provide positive memories and connection, but we did not want the summer to only be about being entertained.  We wanted students to also experience mission work and encounter a picture of faith that requires sacrifice and commitment.

As we evaluate, I feel like we accomplished most of what we wanted to accomplish.  We built momentum for the school year, and time will tell if some of the things that we did actually have born fruit for our students.  I am hopeful that the growth that we saw in the students will manifest itself into lifestyles based on Christ.

Over the past few months we have experienced a new dynamic in our student ministry.  We have started to see the need to spend even more time helping people understand what we are about and why we do what we do.  A few things have caused this to be the case.

1. The honeymoon has faded.  I was blessed to have people excited that I was coming to BBC to serve as student minister.  I worked hard to have a plan for the student ministry and wanted people to see me as both professional and relational.  This worked to essentially give me free reign as I started shaping a student ministry that had experienced some challenges and decline.  I had a great deal of support, and I was given freedom to grow as a minister.  Three years later, we have to continue to keep our vision and values in front of people.  Our parents need to be reminded that we still have a plan and a purpose for what we do.
2. New people showed up.  Again, this is a huge blessing.  Whether it has been the new students coming to our church or the students moving up from the children’s ministry, we have a ton of new faces who have parents who did not get to hear all of my fun ideas and hear my heart for students three years ago.  These parents don’t automatically have trust or understanding of what the student ministry is all about simply because it is new to them.
3. Student ministry is always changing shapes.  As we grow and develop our strategy in the student ministry, there are always areas where we are tweaking and improving things.  This means that programs have changed over time or have been replaced based on the needs of the students.  While our core values are the same, some of our events or programs now meet different needs in our student ministry.

So what do you do if you need people to buy into your ministry and the difference that it can make in the lives of the students?  I have found a few things that have really worked for us.

• Over-communicate as much as possible.  Have information in the hands of the parents as often as possible.  We send multiple reminders about programs and events to the point that I assume people are sick of hearing from me.
• Make the entry easy.  When someone enters our student ministry, we go heavy on the introductions to what we do and why we do it.  I typically touch base with new student ministry parents about three times in the first couple of weeks.  When students are entering middle school, I try to touch base individually with each set of parents to let them know a little about what to expect.
• Get questioning parents involved.  We have some great stories of parents who were not sold on our ministry becoming total advocates for us once they plugged in began serving alongside us.  Sometimes there are simple misunderstandings.  Sometimes parents have not considered all of the angles to why we do things the way we do them.
• Cast vision regularly and be available.  These two things have made a huge impact.  Most of the time people just want to know that you know what you are doing and have a reason for doing it.  When parents hear the vision, often they are impressed that we have spent time thinking about their student’s growth to the degree that we have.  Similarly, when parents know that they can ask questions, they have a much greater chance of coming to you with a problem before it grows into a ministry problem.

Here’s a hard truth for us as ministers: sometimes a conversation is not good enough.  In an age of relational ministry, sometimes we think that this approach means that all we have to do is talk to our people about the weather or sports or how school is going.  If we complete a good round of small talk, then we have done our relational duty and have gotten our folks on the path of spiritual growth.  Because the goals of relational ministry can be difficult to define, we often settle for much less than the best.

There are certainly some very positive aspects of being relational in ministry.  I would be much less effective if I only spoke at my students rather than with my students.  I value the opportunities to demonstrate concern for my students by asking them about their lives.  In fact, I frequently mention to our volunteers that some of the most important ministry times are those times before and after an event.  Demonstrating our concern and interest in people’s lives is definitely a calling for ministers, but sometimes it is not enough.

As you read through the Bible, it does not take long to see that those who were specifically tasked with doing God’s work often had to speak difficult truths, say unpopular things, and confront in uncomfortable ways.  We also see that we are asked to speak truth in love to people.  As ministers, we are called to do these same things today.  When we fail to do these things, we are essentially giving our stamp of approval to the way that students are living their lives, even when it does not honor God.  We must be willing to put light onto the areas where they can grow so that they can advance in the journey of their faith.

Here are a couple of examples of what this might look like.  We had a student who was in a very unhealthy romantic relationship, and it was obvious that this student was heading down a destructive path.  With all of the love and concern I could muster, I simply let the student know that I was concerned and that I would love for the student to spend some time considering where the path that she was taking was leading.  Another student we work with has had a difficult time with the issue of cheating.  While it was uncomfortable, we pointed out that this was not something that would help the student in life or in the student’s faith.  In both of these cases we did not seek to condemn or to shame, but we wanted to simply do our part in sharing truth with the student so that they might be able to make the right decision.

Speaking truth is difficult, but it is our calling.  Sometimes a conversation is not good enough.  Sometime God has called us to do more than that.  However, if this is going to work, we had better be sure that we have established a relationship with the student through a heart of ministry and a God-given desire to see the student become all that he or she can become.  It may be that the truth you speak will change the course of their lives.  What an honor.