15 Years of Youth Ministry Lessons

15 years ago today, I walked into Trinity UMC for the first time as a full time staffer as a 23  year old, wet-behind-the-ears youth worker who was scared to death about what I had gotten myself into but eager to follow God’s call into full time ministry.  It definitely has been a wild ride for 15 years full of GREAT highs, and plenty of low moments as well.  I have celebrated, cried, cheered, laughed, hurt, hugged, high-fived, fist-bumped, sang, counseled, coached, cooked for, taught, pranked, been pranked, joked, and loved with and on teens for the last 15 years. I have had the opportunity to serve alongside great pastors, amazingly talented staffers, youth counselors who have taught me so much and countless other people who will NEVER know the impact that they have had on my life and ministry.  I have been blessed with a family that supports the silliness, crazy hours, and always-on-call nature of youth ministry life.  To all of you I am forever grateful.  I thought to celebrate I would share some of the things I have learned over the years.  Although some of these lessons are serious and real, as you  might expect from me (if you know me well) most of this list is done with some sarcasm.  Its’ just for fun and a way for me to recall some of the things that have happened over the years.  So enjoy.

Me & The Guys from Audio Adrenaline - Oldest Pic I Could Find @1997

And this is from camp just a couple months ago...15 yrs. and a lot of gray hairs later

1.  Ideas often seem much more effective in my brain than they actually are when acted upon.  (I.E.  strobe light football, shortcuts on mountain roads)

2.  Tears are a part of life.  Sometimes they come from laughing way too hard.  Other times the come from pain.  Whether being moved to tears of joy or sorrow, I have found that I thank God for all of them.

3.  Programs are fun, and effective, but the best memories I have and the most effective ministry moments I have experienced have come as the result of conversations and experiences more than programs and curriculum.  People will always be more important than programs.

4.  Pizza should be considered the 5th food group!

5.  You can NEVER take enough pictures!

6.  God’s timing is much, much, much, much more on target than mine.

7.  Always check shower heads for kool aid powder BEFORE taking a shower on a retreat.

8.   First impressions of people are JUST that…FIRST IMPRESSIONS.  Often they are but a glimpse into the true identity and personality of that person.  Take time to listen to the stories people have. They are window and doors into their hearts.

9.  Lock-ins are the work of Satan.  However, if it wasn’t for lock-ins there would be no time to play Radioactive Renegades.  Which brings up another point.  Church buildings have more GREAT hiding places than any other type of buildings in the world.  Trust me!

10.  No matter how hard you try, you will NEVER make everyone happy.  No way around it.  What I have learned, is to try and make God happy and please Him.  Then if someone has a problem with what you are doing….WELL!

11.  There is no such thing as a “TYPICAL DAY” in youth ministry.  The only thing that a well planned day means is that something unexpected is going to happen to mess your plan up.

12.  Time really does FLY when you are having fun.  All sorts of proof that I could give you here, but don’t have the time or the space.

13.  Coffee has gotten me through MANY an early morning and kept me going on MANY a late night.  (see #9)

14.  My all time favorite quote and my youth ministry mantra… “People don’t care what you know until they know how much you care.”

15.  There is no better job/ministry/calling/gig than having the opportunity to invest in the lives of teenagers and journey with them as, together, we draw closer to God and closer to one another.

I could go on forever, but I will stop.  I am blessed to have spent 15 years doing what I am called to do in a place that has loved me and grown me and taught me like Trinity has.  To all the people I have worked alongside, the youth I have hung out with, the counselors I have learned from and the people who have walked the journey with me in some shape or fashion, I say a deep, heartfelt, thanks.  And most importantly, thanks be to God for your calling on my life, for leading me even when I tried to lead myself, and for never failing me even though I failed you.  I have no idea where you will lead me the next 15 years, but I have no doubt that it will be a wild ride and an abundant life.

God Moment

We have not been able to get an wifi signal here at the church this week,  That makes it much tougher to blog because I am restricted to word press mobile on my phone.  Let me say this….that has been the only thing CLOSE to a glitch (except for a surprise visit from the boy scouts on Monday due to a scheduling issue)that has occurred while at Ooltewah UMC (OUMC henceforth because that is hard to spell).  There hospitality has gone above and beyond what we could have ever expected.  We have been super blessed by it.
Anyway without internet service the blogging has been limited more than i had hoped.  I have so many stories to share anf will do my best in the coming weeks to,share each of them here.  But on moment has stood out as the highlight for many of us and it happened on Thursday.  To fully understand the power of the moment, i need to give a little background first.  We have spent the vast majority of our time working on the farm of James Massengale and his family.  Three generations of Massengales and all sorts of livestock (cattle, goats, ducks, a donkey, and a horse to ve exact)call the 28 acre farm home.  Unfortunately all 3 barns and BOTH homes on the farm were completely picked up and strewn across to the other side of Alabama Rd. on Apri 27th when the tornadoes came through the Apison area.  We spent the week clearing the property of debris and making burn piles and eventually putting up 3600 feet (thats 2/3 mile for those of u scoring at home)of barb wire in order to keep the livestock on the property.  During our work at the early part of the week some of our students and adults stumbled across a couple of tattered pages from a Bible that talked about building a house or rebuilding a house.  We thought it might be a neat idea to frame the tattered pages and give them to the family as a way to offer them hope and to let them know how encouraged we were by their resiliency, faith, and hope.  So we stopped at the Wal-Mart, picked up a frame and on Thursday after we finished our work for the week we went to the church where the Masengales have been staying and presented the frame to the family.

presenting the frame

The family was so appreciative of the frame and even more so the thought and meaning behind it.  However, it became a God moment when the grandmother walked into the room and was told of the gift.  When one of our adults took the frame to her, she burst into tears, shouting, “that’s my Bible, that’s my Bible, I KNOW that print!”  Her emotions were hard to describe.  The room went into a bevvy of hugs as students and the family were embracing.  After we settled down we did snap one more picture of the group with the grandmother.  She is on the right of the pic below.  Mikayla is the tall young lady in jeans and a tank top on the right side of our group.

Group Pic With the Masengale Family

What an incredible moment it was for us.  It was truly an affirmation that we were definitely in the place that God intended us to be as we served this week.  When we asked our youth on Friday night, “what will be the one image or moment that will be ingrained in your head when you are asked a year from now what you remember of the trip?”  Almost unanimously it was THAT moment at that small church on Alabama Rd.  God did so many things within our youth during this trip, but NONE was more moving and representative of the trip than that God Moment.  Amen.

Mission Trip Monday Update

You wanna know how to get a group of Sr. High in their rooms and beds by 10:30?  Work them pretty hard in warm weather.  So they are all headed to dreamland and I decided to blog.  It was a productive day that started at Mrs Richard’s home as we did some removal of shingles and old roofing material after her new one was installed.  Her home was one of the fortunate ones on Alabama Rd.  Her next door neighbors’ home was not spared as they were hit much harder.  It was nice to see someone who was fortunate yet so appreciative of the help she was getting.
Then we did some clearing of brush and debris at a site on ware rd. to prep the site for barbed wire fencing to be repaired or reinstalled.  We met Ray, who was our coordinator from Open House Volunteers today.  What a unique man with so many levels to his personality.  He has been a blessing to so many.  We are anticipating a tour with Ray in the coming days of some of the devastation and the coinciding stories.  That was the most eye opening part of the day for me.  I had seen pictures of the damage.  But the amount of damage that stems for miles and miles was frankly overwhelming to me as a volunteer.  I am sure the folks at Open House feel overwhelmed on a regular basis.  These people have incredible drive and compassion and commitment to see this work through till the end -which is no where near at this point.  My heart is burdened for them.  Please.keep.them and these families in your prayers. 
Well it is time for me to head to dreamland as well.  Hope to update again soon including some pics. So long for now ceom Apison, TN.

And We Are Off

the mission trip is underway and we are already passing out miss laurie’s cookies

Paradoxically Speaking

Why does it seem that God always surprises us?  He is the ultimate in irony.  I have found this in so many areas of my life.  Even throughout scripture we see many paradoxes (sure hope that is the proper plural for paradox).  You know them…the first shall be last…to gain life, you must lose your life… God is everywhere, but within you….and on and on.  I’ve been thinking paradoxes for a few days because in ministry I have experienced time and again a paradox of sorts in preparing for youth meetings.  It seems lately that when I feel really confident in what I have prepared to communicate to the students and/or adults that I teach on a regular basis that once the teaching time is complete, I doubt the effectiveness of what just happened.  Paradoxically (there’s that big word again), when Ihave questioned and/or doubted whether a type of program or topic would connect during preparation, I have recently left the meeting feeling confident that it was better than I could have imagined.

Now some folks would say that these feelings of accomplishment or lack there of are simply a result of my expectations.  When expectations were high I didn’t reach them b/c they were so high and when they were low, I surpassed them b/c they were easily attained.  I however think there is more going on here.  I believe wholeheartedly that God is teaching me to rely more on HIM in these situations.  He is reminding me each and every time that effectiveness and/or success does not come based on my ability and my preparation and my giftedness alone (and I am so very thankful for that).  But rather effectiveness and success are a direct result of HIS role in the process.  So often in ministry I (and I assume many others in their field of work) get comfortable with the process of doing ministry.  After all, I have been “doing ministry” for 15 years, it should be EASY for ME to DO the ministry.  But the problem with that approach is that it forgets to allow for the Holy Spirit to work not only in my life and ministry, but in the lives of those folks that I am have the blessing of ministering to.  That is ultimately why I believe that sense of connection comes in the times that I feel less confidence.  Why?  Well it is another paradox from scripture.  2 Corinthians 12:10 offers this paradox:  ”For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  And that strength comes directly from the greatest power source I know, God the Father.  So why is it that I so often want to do it in my own strength?  I wish I knew the answer to that question.  I suppose that the answer begins when I continually ask it of myself each and every day.  What about you?  What paradoxes of the faith challenge you?  What keeps you from living in HIS STRENGTH?

HOMEWARD BOUND

Rush s can only mean one thing..Revolution is over and we are headed home

REVOLUTION ROUND 2

We have returned from the second session at REVOLUTION.  Rev. Olu Brown gave an inspiring message based on the John 13:21-27 as he told the story of Jesus predicting Judas’s betrayal of him.  Brown, spoke of the broken heart that Jesus must’ve had because, not only was Judas CLOSE to Jesus as a friend, but also because the betrayal was UNEXPECTED.   He also challenged students to live above the consumeristic culture that often engulfs them.  ”Our joy doesn’t come from our stuff, but from our God who blesses us with the great things we have.”  Those words from Brown rang true to the students and adults in attendance.

In addition to the message from Olu, this morning’s session included a Justin Bieber imitation contest, some great rap/hip hop music with George Moss, worship with the Robbie Seay Band, and a special treat from a mime/dance group.  It was a great morning together.

In other news, as Robbie Seay Band was leading worship they encouraged the crowd to jump up and down.  While in the process of jumping up and down, I just happened to jump up and land on my sunglasses.  As you might imagine, the sunglasses paid the ultimate price as they are ruined.  I made the most of it though as I got my picture made with Robbie Seay with the sunglasses on  (no he wouldn’t reimburse me for them and yes I did ask).  And George Moss liked them so much that he got his picture made with them and even let me wear his super cool sunglasses.  A few pictures of the sunglasses escapades are throughout this post.  

READY FOR REVOLUTION

The ROCK Student Ministries clan is stoked and ready for night one at REVOLUTION.  We had a successful trip to the capital city with some grub at the nearly famous Whiteford’s Giant Burger.  According to one of our fearless leaders… “it’s a lot like Sonic, except it is good”.  So now we are settling in with a couple thousand teens from all corners of SC (can a triangle shaped state have corners?  Just a thought.)  So here we go.  Ready for God to do His thing and stretch us all with His Spirit, through His Word and in song.

Cell Phone Theology

So I got a new smart phone a week or so ago.  It seems the Froyo update fried my Fender 3g (below right) phone so the good people at T-mobile hooked me up with a Samsung Vibrant (left) phone.  There were some interesting moments as I changed from one phone to the other.  And several of those occurrences got me thinking about my faith.  It’s funny to me how God does that… takes common things and teaches lessons from them.  He called them parables in scripture, but they still happen today.  So here is the heavenly lesson I learned from my cellphone experience:  The gifts that God gives each of us were given for a reason and we maximize our “Kingdom Impact” when we line up our “lives” with the gifts and graces that he has equipped us with, not what we WISH we had.

I was pumped about getting the latest update for the Android system – The Froyo OS – for my phone.  Who wants to be using older software while other folks have the better stuff and are much more productive than I (okay, so that had better games and apps). So when I got my text notifying me that my download of the new OS was ready, I quickly began the upload, like a kid opening gifts at Christmas.  I was stoked about the great new world of cell phone efficiency that awaited me on the FROYO SIDE.  The excitement ended about 10 minutes after the download completed.  My phone began to function differently alright….it was slower, and the operations that took little or no effort before the download, now took much more effort.  I felt cheated, like I had missed out.  To make a long story short, I had to call T-mobile, do a Factory reset on the old phone and when it still didn’t respond well

they sent me the new Vibrant.  Now I think we as Christians often face a similar situation.  We see other Christians doing what we believe to be “GREAT” things for God and we get a little jealous even of their abilities and gifts and we want to be like them…successful, noticed, in the limelight, etc.  So we begin to try and “do” the things we see them doing.  However, more often than not, we wind up frustrated because those things the other folks do so well, we struggle with.  I believe that is simply because God has given each of us gifts and talents that we are to use to allow his “kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven”.  But when we choose to ignore those gifts and talents, it can lead to frustration and anger.  The solution – spend some time discovering what God has created you to do, then go and do it with all the zeal, passion, and excitement you can.  And watch what happens when you line up your gifts with your passion for God.  Even if you are using some old equipment!

Randomness in the Brain

Okay, so it has been a while since the last blog.  There are LOTS of things that I have thought about over the past month plus, but just haven’t found the time or the organization of thoughts to create a blog.  Well i decided today that I would quit waiting on the thoughts in my brain to organize themselves and just throw out some of the things that have been on my mind as of late, so here goes…

1.   New Year’s resolutions in my estimation are pointless.  I quit making them a few years ago for a couple of reasons.  The first is that I could NEVER keep them for more than  a couple of weeks before beating myself up about not having the discipline to follow through.  AND THERE ARE NO TOUGHER BEAT DOWNS THAN SELF-INFLICTED ONES.  The second reason is somewhat theological…if God is a God of NEWNESS (and I believe he is), then why do we ONLY make resolutions on January 1.  Why not make resolutions day on March 17th?  You know nothing says newness like  the traditional St. Patty’s Day Resolution. So I didn’t make any resolutions.

2.  I did begin to “count points” as my wife and some of her friends began Weight Watchers after the New Year.  For me it isn’t about looking good, because truthfully, that doesn’t matter much to me anymore.  What does matter to me is being healthy and living long enough to walk my daughters down the aisle and hang out with my grandkids.  So it was time to change the approach to eating for me.  It has gone pretty well.  I have lost 5 pounds or so and am looking for about 40 more to shed this spring.  I have eaten a TON of fruit and drank enough water to fill a small swimming pool… but in the long run it is definitely worth it.
3.  It has been feast or famine for my favorite two football teams at the end of the year.  My beloved Georgia Bulldogs ended a dreadful season with an appropriately dreadful loss against Central Florida in the Liberty Bowl.  The result was a losing season for the first time in many years.  Of course that led to plenty of talk on the message boards and blog sites about the fate and abilities of Coach Mark Richt.  I like the guy a lot and think he deserves another year to try and turn it around.  For his sake, I hope he does, because there is not a better man in all of college football.  He deserves to succeed, but I along with the rest of  Bulldawg Nation don’t like losing and so the turnaround needs to come.  However, the other guys with the “G” on the helmet are having a fantastic run in the playoffs and now my Packers have found themselves in the Super Bowl.  That means for the first time in a number of years I will be as excited about the game as I am the commercials.  I found even better reasons to pull for the Packers and their quarterback Aaron Rodgers when I came across this story about his compassion for cancer patients.  INCREDIBLE quarterback and equally incredible man it seems to me.   GO PACK GO!

4.  God has really laid a burden on my heart as of late to make it a point of emphasis to the students involved in our youth ministry that faith is more than just coming to church and youth group and bible study.  True faith begins when we realize that we grow the most when we are growing personally in a relationship with Christ.  Real growth in the faith doesn’t happen at the youth group meeting, but rather happens when students since their need for Christ and allow their faith to impact each and every decision they make on a day to day basis.  The real question in my mind is how do you communicate to them that their need for Christ is as great as their need for food after not eating for a day?  That is my struggle right now.  Any suggestions are welcome.

5.  I started a new practice last Friday.  Each day from 930-1130, my cell  phone is now turned off and the office phone is as well.  No, I am not boycotting anything or trying to make a statement about the cost of phone use or anything like that.  I ran across Donald Miller’s blog last week about turning off his phone for productivity and tried it.  (read the blog here) Guess what?  IT WORKED.  I got tons accomplished in those two hours.  So the plan is each week day to do the same thing.  So if call me during those hours and I don’t answer, don’t fret, I’ll be back in the wired world a couple hours later.  Just leave me a message because, I am being productive.

That is all for now.  I hope to have some organized thoughts to put here soon.  In the meantime.  God Bless