youthwork TALKTalk about youth ministry and life…

This video has been making the rounds on facebook. Here’s what it made me consider…

There’s often been a lot of debate between youth ministry guru’s wondering if we spend too much time entertaining students and not enough energy goes into teaching Biblical truth.

In this video, the experiment was to see how much more people would walk up the stairs (and ultimately exercise more), if they created a fun way to do it. Normally people would likely take the escalator and take the ‘lazy route’ instead. Isn’t that human nature for so many of us?

Well, I think that it is not that different when it comes to spiritual exercise. So many of us (and especially busy students), will often will try take the easy route in discipleship. As we know, there are no short cuts to discipleship… However, what happens when you and I take time to research great lessons and incorporate fun and creative ways to communicate Biblical truths? Do we see students take good steps in their faith?

If you are like me, I want students to be excited about Jesus and excited about growing in a deeper relationship. It’s important that I find ways to help students take the best steps in their faithwalk. Sometimes I need to pray and think harder about how to make those steps fun while also partnering with the Holy Spirit to see lives transformed…

To simply say that any fun element is shallow in youth ministry neglects the need to engage and excite students with the truth of the gospel. I believe that creativity and fun should be core values in every youth ministry to help students take ‘healthy steps’…

Final Thought:

If you are like me, it is easy to spend a lot of time on content or an idea. There have also been times when I have spent too much time on a fun element and my message / study has been lacking. It’s important that we strike a good balance between creating solid material that will be engaging with fun elements too.

Phil <><

Today on Twitter Rick Warren gave a quote that I think every youth worker should take to heart and consider…

Never waste energy trying to be well-known. Today’s hero is tomorrow’s zero. U work on character & leave reputation to Him…

Many people hold fast to the sad reality that many youth workers will leave ministry all together because of burn out. I believe that burn out itself can be avoided if we build a foundation in are own lives that is centered on the power of God and building healthy character. Let’s be real honest for a minute about the world youth ministry shall we?

It’s easy to play the hero isn’t it?

It’s easy to want to be the hero isn’t it?

• We have students who look up to us who think that we somehow have a different connection with God altogether…
• Some of us love ministry because students make great followers and it feels good to have people look up to us…
  
• We have parents who are working as hard as they can to help their kids succeed, but see us as ‘answer’ sometimes… When we do well for them, we can elevate ourselves to hero status…
• We go to youth ministry conferences and it’s easy to look at the guys and gals on stage and consider them as a hero in youth ministry…
• Sometimes in the trenches we grind out a week and do our best for God, but yet secretly hope that we have been noticed by someone important… Am I right?

The Problem: When you and I constantly long for hero status in ministry, it is easy to make decisions that over time can easily lead to burn out… We say yes to be the hero and say no to staple foundations that will help us hang in for the long haul…We search for the hero status and lose sight of our walk with God. We strive for the recognition while we are unable to recognize when we are being unhealthy with our schedules… And the worst thing I think: We lead students to follow unhealthy habits that could be huge stumbling blocks for them now and later…

I have learned some of these tough lessons at times and I have seen some good friends burn out and fall because of the hero focus. I want to be honest enough to uncover the ‘hero shortcuts’ to ministry. However…

When We allow God’s Power to Build our Character:

1) We have Clearer Vision for a Health Ministry

2) We are not Swayed by the ‘Latest Thing’

3) We  give the Glory to God, not ourselves

4) We Lead Students to Follow Jesus, not the Hero

5) We Hang in the Long Haul…

This week, I encourage you to ask God to show you how you are motivated to make your decisions? Are Secure in who you are or are you being the hero? Are confident in the character God has given you? Do you need Him to lead your decisions better?

Bottom Line: Are you and I Heroes in ministry or do we have Christ-centered character?

Phil <><

Last week was an exciting one for Lisa and I as we welcomed our second child to the Bell family. Here you can see our first, ‘Emma’ with her baby sister ‘Addie’. Emma was excited to meet her, Addie on the other hand was not a big fan of meeting people…

I have been on vacation for a week and I am headed back tomorrow. We are all a little sleep deprived and very excited to be parents again. However, one of the blessings of having another Addie has been the insights God has provided for me as I reflect being a parent again. As I consider these last few weeks and as I look ahead, here is what I am learning about Family and Ministry:

Clarity: Having another child is a great way for me to be able to bring clarity to what matters most and to consider my primary ministry – my family. No matter how many tasks and how many events or programs I have, it’s important to realize that family should come before youth ministry. While youth ministry is of huge significance, it is my belief that God has called me to 1) Be child of His first, 2) Be a husband and father second, 3) A youth pastor third. Agree or disagree, this has been continuous theme I hear from mentors in my life.

Balance: Balance is always hard to find in ministry, but it is crucial that all of us should try to lead our families well and pursue balance. Two great books that I recommend on this area are: ‘Choosing to Cheat’ By Andy Stanley, and ‘What Matters Most’ by Doug Fields. Both books are an easy read and very practical.

Andy Stanley is the pastor at Northpoint Community Church in Atlanta which is one of the fastest growing churches in the nation…yet he maintains that family come first. He rarely works over 40 hours a week and God has done some completely amazing things at Northpoint. As I have kept my hours at a sustainable and healthy level, I have seen not only my family blessed, but the ministry too.

Example: The power of example is always a huge area I often talk about, (just see my previous post). You and I have too many students and families watching our lives  for us to set a murky example of healthy balance.  Ultimately, these students will live out what is modeled for them. It’s important to not only take care of our families first, but to realize that we helping those around us too.

Planning Ahead: Putting my family before ministry also means that I should give them priority in my schedule. As I look ahead at the Fall we already have some key family nights and date nights in our schedule. It’s often challenging to do this since ministry can consume us in many ways. However, it’s important to schedule family first.

Finally, as I have said earlier, I have seen great things happen not only in my family but in my ministry. When I have clarity and pursue healthy balance,  I win, the church wins, and of course… my family wins too.

What is God teaching you about balancing family and ministry?

Phil <><

We celebrate the good gifts God gives us in our children. Children are a gift from the Lord. Psalm 127:3

Monday was our 7th wedding anniversary for Lisa and I. Apparently the 7th year can be the most challenging year of marriage. With kids, financial pressures and ministry, I can see why so many couples struggle. It has not been plain sailing for us at times.  However, in the last year I feel Lisa and I have taken some good steps as we look in the mirror of our marriage and we have realized what we need to do to be healthier as a couple and what we need to protect. 

I wish I could say we have figured it all out, but we haven’t! There are some things we have been learning and some good things that I believe will keep my marriage and (ultimately) my ministry, healthy. Bottom line, we can’t expect our ministry to be healthy if our families and marriages are not…

Things I do (and should do more often) to keep my marriage fresh. 

ABC Dates - This is an idea that Lisa came up with a while back that I blogged about about (link). Every two weeks we go on a date that begins with the current letter of the alphabet we are on. It involves either an activity that begins with that letter or going to a restaurant beginning with that letter. We have played arcade games, bowled, been to corn mazes, watched hockey games and eaten at all kinds or weird places… Bottom line: Our marriage is more interesting and fullfilling when we do stuff outside the norm. ABC dates force us to do things outside the norm. 

Family Night - This works in two ways. Every Monday is my day off and our ‘planning night’. We sit down to dinner with our planners and look at our meal plan, Lisa’s schedule, my schedule, and plan one or two times to do fun stuff as a family that week. Later that week we go a ‘Family Night’ together: Bike rides, ice cream, the park etc…

Communicate My  Schedule – Not rocket science but is something I hear way too often from my ministry friends as a stumbling block for ministry marriages. Today I just printed off my whole summer schedule for my wife. However, none of it was planned until she gave her approval. (Do you shudder at that thought of your spouse giving approval? If so, ask yourself why? Jim Burns from Homeword.com once told me that he gives his wife veto power over his whole schedule)… 

Planning Quality Getaways: Ministry is crazy enough for all us and we know that our spouses can often get shorted for time on a regular basis. Therefore, I make it a priority to plan in advance our vacations and daytrips away. Right now we have planned daytrips this summer, (we are expecting a baby soon and this does not allow for vacations so much ). We also have a late Fall getaway and late winter getaway already on the calendar. Might sound like ‘over-planning’, but my experience tells me that if my getaways and vacations don’t make it on the calendar, other stuff will.

Here’s what I do to protect my marriage and family: 

Healthy Hours: Not working more than 50 hours a week – I actually schedule for 40 and with all the ministry ‘add ons’ I usually end up at 50. My mentor told me that every hour over 50 is not likely to be very effective anyway. 

Turn my phone Off… We don’t need to be talking, texting, or emailing when we are at home and with our families etc. Is it neccesary to take calls or send texts at mealtimes? When we do these things we are ‘not all there’ with our families. Lisa once commented to me that she wished I would ‘be all here’ when I am at home. This was hard to take, but was true. Do you need to be ‘all there’ by turning your phone off? 

Leave Frustrations at Church: This is a tough one, but one I am learning is imperative. I must learn to filter my frustrations and learn to channel them through trustworthy friends outside of my church. When I bring frustrations home to Lisa, it is hard for her not to be hurt by people and circumstances. It is imperative that she is excited to be worshipping at church without a negative feeling toward people or circumstances. 

Take a Day Off – If I murdered someone, or stole, or committed adultery, no one would disagree that I had sinned. Why then is it that we often find it hard to keep a Sabbath? You and I must take a day to reflect, refresh and refocus. Even if your boss does not take a day off, that’s not your fault. Doug Fields once told of a pastor who told a young youthworker that he didn’t take a day off because, “the devil does not”. The reply, “I’m sorry pastor, the devil is not my role model”… Who are our role models? What are we modelling for our families and students? 

Well, there are some things I do. What about you? What are you doing to keep your marriage healthy and protect it in the process?

A few weeks ago my wife and I were at the National Youth Ministry Conference in Columbus Ohio. While I was there, I got the opportunity to ‘hijack’ Tim Schmoyer’s Life In Student Ministry camera… Me and my new buddy ‘Julio’ decided to talk about how we love our wives well in Ministry. Check it out and watch for the out takes at the end… funny stuff. 

Tim Schmoyer hosts a GREAT blog! He has great insights and has lots of resources, tips, video blogs, and hosts a weekly Youth Ministry phone in… check it out!

CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO BLOG

Do you have those weeks where you put in a whole bunch of ‘extra’ hours in ministry? Let’s face it, what is ‘extra’? The fact is that there is always more to do. More emails, more calls, more meetings, more planning, more messages to write, etc. 

Here’s how I define ‘extra’ in my life: 

Extra for me is when I can see that my walk with God and my time with family has been stretched through the week. Extra is when I know I did not see my wife and little girl for more than a few  hours each day for a two of three days in a row. For me that is how I gauge ‘extra’. I believe that there will always be more to do and my list can become endless if I am not careful. Whether you are single, married or your kids are out of the nest, you need to define for yourself what ‘extra’ looks like. 

‘Extra’ over time becomes ‘extreme’. In other words, it’s ok to have those seasons where it is busy and there are maybe some big events and trips to work on. However, extra become extreme when our times with God and family are stretched over a few weeks or months. When the extra times turn into the extreme, we spend less time with God and more time managing on our own strength. When extra turns into the extreme we spend less time with family and friends and the ones we love feel cheated by ministry. This is why I try to ‘buy back’ these times. 

For me, buying back time is about recognizing these seasons and embracing the busyness with a plan to spend good time with God and the family within that season. For example, I am in one of those seasons now. We are recruiting a new wave of volunteers and we are about to move into a new facility and change things up quite a bit. Therefore, after my last meeting at noon today, I intend to buy back time from my loaded schedule this week. 

What does this look like? Simply put, it is about being intentional to spend time with God and my family this afternoon and this evening. I was intentional about blocking time out this week to do so. I have nothing planned for Saturday and my whole day is centered around time with the family. 

This might not sound like rocket science, but I know how easy it is to justify working the whole day today and doing some more admin on Saturday morning. However, for me, it takes discipline to block out my schedule to ‘buy back’ what God and my family has ‘lost’ this week? 

On a final note: Does this mean that I completely neglected God and my family this week? Nope… just been a little busier doing the ‘extra’ stuff and I want to make sure that the extra stuff over time does not become the ‘extreme’…

How do you buy back time in your schedule? 

Phil <><

Every two weeks Lisa and I go out on a date night together and try to do something fun and different each time. Right now we are going out on ‘ABC’ dates (Check out: http://tinyurl.com/bhpjpr).  Last night we took a few friends with us to watch my friend Josh play for the Detroit Ignition for our ‘I’ date. 

Unfortunately the Ignition lost last night . The score was 15-7 as they went down to the Chicago Storm.  Fun dates and creative ideas keep our marriage healthy and always give us lots to talk about. We are building some great memories too!

Tonight was our ‘H’ date (see http://youthworktalk.com/2009/01/03/marriage-and-ministry-abc-dates/) 

We live pretty close to Ann Arbor, so we went to a Hockey game for the evening! It was a lot of fun and Michigan won!

GO BLUE!!!

This book is a MUST read for lead pastors and every youth worker. The principles, research, and conclusions in this book have the ability to transform a cluttered and visionless ministry. Practical application of the simple church principles could move our ministries from a trajectory of burnout and help us hit the target of transformation in our ministries and personal lives…

Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger begin the book refering to the ’simple revolution’ and the move of generations toward simplicity and solid ideas without clutter. The idea is this: Successful organizations are responding to a generation of people who strive to remove clutter and seek to quickly understand how to take a next step to buy a product or buy in to a program that is clearly defined. Gone are the days of the large menu approach from many boomer driven models that sought to provide as many options to cover all their basis… Gone are the days of churches trying to do everything for every single person, group or idea. In their research they found the following: 

…simple churches are growing and vibrant. Churches with a simple process for reaching and maturing people are expanding the Kingdom… Conversely, complex churches are struggling and anemic…

The book walks through their extensive research while also giving examples of churches who follow a simple or complex model. As I read, I was struck by how so many churches try to provide so many ideas and programs that they end up have no identity.

A number of years ago, I remember being at a church where we went through the 40 days of purpose campaign. At the end of the campaign we had a ministry fair so that people could sign up to get plugged into a ministry. I remember someone commenting to me about how the church was amazing because of the 130+ ministries it provided… I began to count the weekly attendance and concluded that if EVERYONE served each week, that each ministry would have 8-10 people in it… Obviously that is not likely to happen in any church. However, I was disturbed by the fact that many of the same people served in multiple ministries… “How can that be a good thing?” I wondered. To this day, I am aware that the same church has had leadership struggles and lacks direction, and still has many programs and ministries… and ultimately has shrunk by about 50% or more… How is a large menu ministry effective?

If you see this in your church or ministry, take some time to read Simple Church and learn how you can find “Clarity, Movement, Alignment, and Focus”. Simple church is helping me narrow my focus and process how I move unchurched students into becoming sold out followers of Jesus. Simple church is helping my leaders and parents understand quickly and simply how our process works… When it’s simple and solid, people see the vision and know how to support it. When it’s simple and solid, students know what their next step is….

Hope you get a chance to read it…. 

My next book: ‘IT’ By Craig Groeshel. 

Phil <><

A few days ago I talked about the importance of building a youth ministry ‘fan base’. The premise is this: All of us in youth ministry will get through the honeymoon of ministry when those around us realize that we are not one of the Apostles (or even better, Jesus). Give us a year and we realize there are people in church who  have concluded that our  ministry is heading in the wrong direction. Or, you and I have made some mistakes that are very apparent and we have to make good of them. It’s at these times when we need gracious people who know us and our hearts. It’s in these times we need youth ministry fans…

So, how do you and I allow people at our churches to have a better perspective of our ministry and ultimately each of us as individuals? How do we ‘allow’ people to be more gracious with us, more than they were with the previous youth worker? It helps to be building a youth ministry fan base (See previous post, ‘How to Build a Youth Ministry Fan Base’)

First, I want to be clear that our goal should not to focus on trying to manipulate or become everyone ‘fake best friend’. What I am talking about is realizing that there are some healthy things we can do to supplement what we are trying to implement. Implementing our ideas without the supplement of ‘fan base building’ will become a detriment. 

Here’s some further ideas: 

1) Serve People in your Church. An effective way to build bridges and promote your wonderful students in your ministry is to be intentional about planning some service type events that bless people in your church. We try to do ‘Serve Team’ projects once a month which are aimed at blessing our community by showing God’s love in practical ways. At the same time, we try to find a few people in our church we can help or visit during that event. You will be surprized at how much the youth ministry will be promoted positively by those people inside and outside your church. Example: Before Christmas, we took our middle school kids Christmas carolling. We were inentional about going to some families at our church who needed the ‘blessing’ of middle school kids singing to them. I heard a lot of favorable comments from a number of people. 

2) Look out for your Pastor. As youthworkers it is imperative that we ‘lead up’ by always having the back of our lead pastor and other ministry staff. When we are team players who cover our team and supports them, we will see the same support extended to us. Note: I have seen and been apart of teams where everyone is for themselves. It’s tempting to fall into the mold too… In these cases you will build trust with insecure team members and you might just change the environment. Whether or not we do see fruit from this… We must do it since it is the best and right thing to do.

3) Do jobs Outside of your Job Description from time to time. Again, so many larger churches, (and smaller ones too) can easily live in silos where we only care for our own area. I am learning that building a fan base, (as well as good friends in ministry), happens when I agree to do jobs or tasks that are outside of job description from time to time. Things like, helping out the kids ministry with a message, or helping to update the website for your church, or preaching once in a while to give your pastor a week off (I currently preach every 6-8 weeks). Or even things like ‘talking up’ other ministries and helping them recruit volunteers. Note: Be careful not to become the doormat who gets asked to do EVERYTHING, but, make sure you don’t live in a silo either!

Finally, and most importantly, be a God pleaser above all else…

Building a youth ministry fan base is important, but it can go very wrong if we do not start with pleasing God first. We might become people pleasers who stretch ourselves too far by being the doormat of church ministry. Make sure that you are sensible with your time and bridge building. 

Any other ideas for building a youth ministry fan base?