Now, don’t get me wrong, I love doing youth ministry and I love investing in students. I love spending hours talking with them,  laughing with them, and getting to know their heart. But I do this as someone who is leading them and is invested in their lives as their pastor and youth leader... not their friend…

Besides, students don’t see us as their friends. They see us in a distinct role as youth leader, youth director, youth pastor, (or whatever your title is). Even though we might try to gain acceptance as their friend, they will never see us that way, so why keep trying? God has called us to be their leaders. They already have a bunch of friends, why would they need more?

Over the years, here are some observations I have made when I see youth leaders trying to be a friend instead of a leader.

A friend to students can easily get caught up in popularity of students but unknowingly take away from the person of Jesus. A leader to students will do everything they can to point them to Jesus and ensure that He gets the glory. A leader to students also recognizes the need for team and looks to applaud fellow youth leaders

A friend to students can easily get sucked into unhealthy need for acceptance by students. When a student rejects that leader, it can feel devastating. Whereas a leader to students feels totally accepted by God and is focused on helping students discover the same acceptance. If we are devastated by a students rejection, we must consider if we are getting sucked into an unhealthy need for acceptance. Unfortunately, I have met many youth leaders who are fueled and ruled by the need for acceptance from their students. This is a very dangerous path to walk down.

A friend to students will often hold back from challenging poor decisions a student is making. A leader to students is concerned about speaking truth in love in order to see long-term change, even if it means disgruntling a student in the short-term. As leaders, if we are challenging students to pursue healthier ways, we should expect students to push back or get frustrated with us from time to time.

A friend to students will often stay on the shallower end of spiritual conversations. A leader to students is fixated on the urgency and need to take students spiritually deep. Sometimes these deeper questions and conversations can feel awkward, but they are imperative. If we are too focused on keeping our ‘friendship’ we can easily lose sight of digging into the deeper and more challenging conversations.

A friend to students can easily act like ‘one of the kids’ and make ridiculous decisions. A leader to students will be create funny and exciting experiences, while also keeping common sense in full view. (If I am honest, this is probably the hardest one for me. My wife reminds me frequently that there are certain lines a dad should not cross when trying to make his own kids laugh…)

A friend to students might be inclined to dress like one of the students and look completely ridiculous… A leader to students knows their age and knows when they look like an old person trying to be young. Fortunately these days there is a lot of cross-over in clothes that students and adults wear, but there are some things you and I should not be wearing. If you are not sure what I mean by this ask your students… Remember they don’t consider you to be their friends, so they will probably be brutally honest with you

There are probably many more YOU could add to this list, and I would love to hear them. Feel free to comment below and share how being a friend rather than a leader has caused you challenges in your ministry? 

Phil <><

When I began the project, I surveyed hundreds of youth workers all over the country and gathered over 250 common questions that they have been asked or have struggled to answer. From that list we got down to the top 50 most challenging questions. Since we couldn’t cover every tough question out there, it’s important to realize that there is a healthy process to learn when it comes to answering challenging questions. There are many challenging questions that students ask us, but there is a healthy process that every youth worker can walk through when helping their students: 

YOU DON’T NEED TO KNOW IT ALL: It’s OK to admit to students that you need time to research or pray through an answer. Students don’t expect you to know everything, so don’t expect this for yourself!

WORK THROUGH THE ANSWER WITH YOUR STUDENT:  Give them some of the “work” and help them own the answer more effectively. When students go through a process of digging for the answer, it will more likely stick with them.

BECOME AN EXPERT IN RESOURCES: You might not know all the answers, but you should work hard to know where to find them.  Sites like www.gotquestions.org and Answers to Teenagers Toughest Questions, from Simply Youth Ministry are great resources!

GET HELP! YOU’RE NOT ALONE!

- Use your youth pastor for questions that are well over your head.

- Involve the youth pastor for kids who give you info about abuse or if someone is in danger. (Know your mandated reporting policies).

- Involve the parents. Depending on the question that is asked, I believe it is crucial to get parents to continue the navigation process with their student. Parents can handle follow up questions as they happen. Remember, our job is not to replace mom and dad, but to partner with them…

START LOOKING AT QUESTIONS THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS: Don’t see questions as detrimental doubting, see questions as an opportunity for students to develop a deeper faith. (The autonomous independent thinking student needs to struggle through the tough question in order to have grow deeper)

What would you add to this list? What tip is the most helpful one for you? 

Phil <><

Sadly, the most common reason that I have seen volunteers cease to work with students is not their lack of passion and calling –  it is rate of burnout and being tired out…

In my previous post I talked about the importance of protecting volunteers in general. Today I want to focus on one area I mentioned briefly:

How can I help protect my volunteers from burnout and exhaustion?

1. Create a Healthy Ministry Schedule: Asking most volunteers to serve on a weekly basis is already a challenge for many in their busy lives. For many parent volunteers in particular, making youth group once a week and staying in contact with their small group is a big deal. Therefore I try to commit to scheduling our ministry with healthy breaks and bear in mind my volunteers schedules. a) During Christmas break we do not meet. b) We do not meet for Spring Break. c) Summer is changed up significantly and we have a “come if you can” policy. We need significantly less leaders with our summer schedule, so this works for us. c) We schedule events in a way that they are spread out significantly.  We would rather do a few ‘big” events well, rather than many “poor” events that can tire out volunteers (and students).

2. Insist That Family Comes First: This often can take a while to sink in for my volunteers. Again and again I need to remind them that ministry needs to be a win for their family. Anytime they call me to miss a program or event because of family, I insist that “family always comes first…” In their minds they are often feeling guilty for “calling in”, but it’s my job to affirm healthy family. I have also found that when I take this approach with my volunteers, it actually creates greater loyalty since they I know care about them and their family first. It’s not just about “getting ministry done…”

3.  Model Healthy Boundaries Myself: It’s important that I set the example for healthy boundaries first. Leaders are looking to us for more than just direction in how to minister to students. They need an example of healthy boundaries in a world that tells us to keep running fast until we fall. Ultimately, our students will see us and leaders as their model for what is healthy too. What kind of example are we setting them?

4. Give Them Grace To Miss When They Really Need To: Every year leaders hear from me about the importance of a consistent commitment and being regular at the programs. However, I also emphasize that if they really need to miss anytime, they just need to let me know and I will be fully supportive of them. I just ask they give me as much notice as possible. Sometimes this is not possible due to emergencies. It is during these phone calls that we need to clothe our words with grace and support and not only consider the “loss” of the leader not being able to attend. It’s interesting to see how God provides for our ministry as we look to take care of the volunteers first. We have had weeks when we are a little short, but when I care for volunteers first, God always provides enough…

5. Challenge Them To Pursue Personal Growth: This should be a given, but sadly we often focus on the “business” of youth ministry and forget to challenge our volunteers to grow deeper in their relationship with God. In my one on one meetings and in many volunteer meetings I try to emphasize the importance of ministering from a deep well of personal growth. Although this is number 5 on my list, I encourage you to make it number one on your personal list as well as your volunteers… Burnout happens most when we are running on empty and trying to do it in our own strength… Burnout happens when our faith walk becomes a crawl…

What ways do you protect your volunteers from burnout? What can we do to ensure that our volunteers hang in for the long haul and keep impacting students for eternity?

Phil <><

Not only is it my goal to invest in leaders and equip them for ministry, it’s also paramount that I protect them from many of the “joy stealer’s” that often come up in our ministries. Here are some of the “joy stealer’s” we often see:

- Church politics:  It happens in most churches, let’s face it. Don’t allow your volunteers to get sucked into this. When volunteers get involved with politics, remind them the example we need to be to students and remind them to rise above gossip and negative discussions. Most of all, remind yourself…

- Mistakes: Mistakes will happen. Anytime a leader makes an honest mistake it is my job to take the hit, not them. After all, they lead under my leadership. Anytime they make a mistake, I have to make sure I have a teachable moment with the leader, but make sure I emphasize my ownership of the mishap.

- Negativity: There will always be more we can do, and there will always be someone complaining about the ministry. It’s imperative that we shoulder the responsibility for getting the ministry on track and don’t allow volunteers to be burdened by negative comments. There will always be students, parents, and church leaders who have an opinion about your ministry. No one really knows how much is involved until they are in the trenches of your ministry. There are always a few short-sighted people in churches who think they know all the answers. When they come with their “answers”, ensure that you protect your volunteers from these joy stealing conversations.

- Appropriate Contact: Even though this can be awkward to talk about, it is my job to equip and train my leaders to know what is appropriate and what is not. We have a leaders manual that I revisit with my leaders once a year, (and with all new leaders). This outlines how to talk and counsel students without putting themselves in potentially challenging situations. Boundaries about giving students car rides, talking to students in public view, appropriate Facebook and texting contact… The list goes on and on, but it’s important to protect leaders and students from insinuations as well as potentially inappropriate contact. Sometimes leaders have such a huge heart for students that they do not always consider how to protect themselves and the students.

- Burnout: Most volunteers I know love what they do! Most of them work hard and have families to consider. One of the biggest challenges I see is the burnout factor. Too often they will give and give until something breaks… It’s important that I help them do ministry in healthy ways and give them grace to put their family first. This will mean that I a) Create a healthy ministry schedule. b) Insist constantly that family comes first. c) Model healthy boundaries myself. d) Give them grace to miss when they really need the night off. (More to come in a later post…)

- Help Them Laugh And Celebrate: One the best ways to protect volunteers is to help them laugh and celebrate what they are doing. There will always be challenges and struggles when we work with students, so it’s imperative that we focus on celebrating the victories and find ways to laugh as a team. Our volunteer meetings always begin with celebrating how we have seen God working, while we also have 2-3 social get togethers throughout the year to laugh and have fun together as a team. Most of all, I have to realize that laughter happens more when I learn to laugh first, laugh the loudest, and laugh at myself the most! I set the example, therefore I must live a life of laughter and celebration…

How do you protect your volunteers? If you are a volunteer, how does your leader protect you? What do volunteers need protection from? 

Phil <><

In some ways, this is a reality for us in youth ministry. Hold on for a moment and let me explain… Our students are walking through a time of life where they are navigating through challenging decisions, painful consequences, and times of extreme anxiety. Yes, there are many laughs and smiles and many hilarious moments we share with them, but we can’t forget that students are in the middle of one of the most challenging times of life. They are moving from being concrete thinkers where they saw the world as a simple place, to abstract abstract thinkers who see the complexity in life and the reality of the challenges. They see the complexity of relationships and they are pained by the messiness of broken marriages and friendships that once looked simple from the outside. They feel the need to succeed in a world that is more competitiveness than ever, and a world that is less forgiving than ever… It’s these storms of life that every teenager has to navigate through and we are the ones who partner with parents and come into students lives to support, encourage, and equip them as they get tossed and battered by the winds and waves of adolescence…

In some sense, we as youth workers, are the emergency crew who come in just at the right time to help these students pull through and get to the other side of their adolescent journey. During this time, there is much going on, and much drama, and confusion as they face one issue from another. As teenagers they are also fully consumed with who they are and are trying to discover their unique identity and purpose in this journey through life.

The Helpful Reality for Youth Workers

As someone who has been working with students for a long time, I have noted that students will rarely thank us fully during their time of struggle or during their time in my youth ministries. They either forget to thank us, or are too consumed with teenage survival to realize who is helping them in that moment… It’s not to say that we don’t get some “thank you” moments. But, it’s important to realize that students don’t mean anything by it, they just don’t consider it fully at the time. Just like the person who is being pulled out of the water by life guards and being rushed to the hospital, these students are crisis mode as they navigate through the dangers and new realities of young adulthood.

If we are in youth ministry looking for affirmation from students and receiving continuous thanks for our efforts, we could become disappointed very quickly… It is usually way after they graduation that I begin to hear back from students and get hear their stories of young adulthood. It is often these times when I hear of an action or a conversation that the student remembers which made all the difference to them. It is then I am reminded that what I do is worth it… 

Today, as you minister to students, realize that they might not thank you for it at that moment, but like that person who has been saved from the treacherous seas, they will often seek you out later on to express their sincere thanks. Don’t be holding onto affirmation from them today as you might become disappointed and despondent that your efforts are meaningless… But do know, that you ARE making the difference!

For now, I want to say thank you to you! Thank you for ministering to students and investing in their lives. Thank you for giving up your time, talent, and treasure to make an eternal impact. One day you and I will have a joyful reunion with our students in Heaven and will have many incredible stories to share. Be a part of those stories today and don’t give up. Your reward is in Heaven and your thanks will be given in full…

Phil <><

As I talked to him about this incident, I will never forget thinking this: How can we get that many students to passionately show up for youth group and bring their friends every week? (Without the fights of course).

In the first few months of the Fall we have seen a big jump in numbers and have actually struggled to keep up with much of the growth we are seeing. If I am honest, I can point to some factors that have helped us grow numerically, but I don’t know that I am wise enough understand the full picture. However, below I  mention what I consider to be the greatest factors that have helped us grow in depth and numbers. Caution: This has taken nearly two years of prayer and hard work and there has been no quick fix to create growth…

Pray Earnestly! I know this should be a given, but it’s easy to get into the habit of depending on our skills and programs and forget to partner with the Holy Spirit. We cannot expect great things to happen unless we are depending on the One who is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine.

Fixate On Healthy Community: When I use the word “fixate”, I really mean that! Our students will tell you how much we have talked about, taught them, and created activities to build healthy community. We have students from over five different school systems and it is easy to have pockets of students who never get to know each other. If we don’t fixate on building healthy community we will default back for comfort and cliques. Therefore, it’s been imperative to create ice-breakers and activities that get new and established students talking, laughing, and working together. Students begin to realize that they have so much in common with people they did not know before. This in itself helps them to belong!

Listen and Give Ownership: Every year we survey our students to gain insights in a number of ways. It’s imperative that we listen to them! One question we ask them is, “What issues or struggles are students facing that we could talk about and help with?” From this question and ongoing conversations with our students, we gain incredible insights to their world as well as their spiritual and emotional needs. When we create a message series based on these needs you can bet they will show up! Next month we will also being doing a video series called “Slice of Life” where I video interview students about their faith, their struggles, and how God has helped them. We did this series last year and it had a huge impact. It all came from an idea one student gave us… Students show up when their questions are answered, their hurts are healed, and their ideas become reality…

Note: Obviously, we create messages and Bible studies based on what we know they need too. We can’t only respond to their felt needs. There has to be a good balance on “fire-fighting” the issues while also teaching many foundational “fire preventing” topics.

Invested Leaders: In my usual month I have many meetings and conversations with my youth leaders. In fact, I would say that my contact time with leaders has recently been higher than my contact time with students. It’s imperative that I realize how my investment in caring adults will pay off in the way they invest in students lives. I can either choose to be a shallow hero to every student, or I can choose to equip my leaders to become the fully invested youth leaders who make a greater difference on student at a time. Students will show up week after week when they know that a caring adult will be there to listen to their heart, celebrate life with them, and challenge them to grow spiritually.

There are many things I can add to this list, but I feel these are the “big ones” that have impacted our ministry over the last couple of years. What is working for you? What are you working towards? How are you helping students to fight to come to youth group?

Phil <><

“It was really easy for me to start as a volunteer, but since I have started it’s not been easy to minister to these kids. I don’t feel like I know what is going on, and I don’t have any important information about them to follow up…”

After I had spoken to him, I started to reflect and think about the experience my volunteers have under my leadership? Is it easy for them to get in the door, but hard to know how to do ministry once they are  there? As I reflected further I concluded that it should be the opposite experience: It should be difficult to sign up, but easy to minister…

1) We Should Make It Difficult To Sign Up: You might think this statement sounds crazy, but in my experience, it is better to have a diligent process that will have healthier long-term impact. Having some “hoops” to jump through and making potential volunteers work for it, is not always a bad thing:

• Give them a few weeks to check out the youth program with “no strings” attached and allow them to see if it is for them
• Take a few weeks to ask around about them and get to see how the students interact with them
• Meet them at the end of the process for a coffee and lay out specifics and expectations
• Have them sign an application AND a commitment sheet that all the other leaders have committed to

As I said yesterday, some of these have been “borrowed” from friends, and some are my own specific tips. All in all, I hope they are tips you can use for your volunteer meetings and trainings, or training manual…

7. Be a Leader – Not their friend:  It’s a trap many leaders can fall into: Trying to get students to like them by being their friend. They already have lots of friends who give them bad advice; they need you to be a leader in their lives.

8. Be a Leader – Not a Chaperon: A chaperon will stand outside looking in at the group – Leaders are invested in the group and have relationships with the students. Be invested…

9. Be a Leader – Not a Parent: If you have a student at FUSION and they are acting out, don’t be the parent. Let another leader know, and let them handle it. It will save embarrassment and also give you the night off of parenting…

10. Find Contact Time Outside of FUSION: Students will really know you care when you send them a postcard (available in the black cabinet), Facebook them, show up to the last 15 minutes of a game, text them. If you have 30 minutes a week, you can easily do this…

11. Read Phil’s emails: The more plugged in you are with events, meetings, and latest happenings, will help you communicate events better with students and help you to know what is happening as a whole.

12. Check the website: For calendar, videos, teaching plans, curriculum, and training documents. These are all here to simplify your ministry and save you time with phone calls, emails, and text messages to Phil.

There you go… So what you add to this list? What tips do you give your leaders?

Phil <><

Below is a page from my volunteer leaders manual. They are 12 tips I give my leader to be successful in youth ministry. Some of these tips have been borrowed from friends and books. Thanks Doug Fields for a couple! Feel free to borrow what you like!

Here are the first 6 tips I give my youth leaders… the rest will be posted in part 2, tomorrow… 

1. Be Consistent: This is the best way to develop great relationships with students. When students know you are going to be there consistently, they are more likely to share their joys and struggles with you…

2. Show up a few minutes early if you can? The most awkward time for students is the first 15 minutes. A caring adult makes all the difference. In addition, some of the best conversations happen in the first 15 minutes when there are few people around.

3. Stay a few minutes at the end? When students are leaving is sometimes the best opportunity to listen to how kids are doing or what God is challenging them in. (They might not share this in small group, but might want to talk alone after).

4. Join or Start a Game: It feels forced and awkward to walk up to a group of students. Instead, join them in a game or activity where you can ease your way into their lives. Before you know it, questions about their week and school seem natural.

5. Ask lots of Questions: The best way to show you care and to find out about students lives is to learn a repertoire of questions: “What’s your name? What school do you attend? What do you do when you are not here or at school? How would your friends describe you? What’s the highlight of your week? What’s the low point of your week?

6. Avoid “Leader Huddles”: It’s great to catch up with each other, but we need to make sure that our conversations and catch-ups are brief. It’s important to make the most of every opportunity we have with students…

Well, there’s the first 6 for you. Check back to see the rest!

Phil <><

If you missed out, you can still contact Matty McCage from the info below, or click on the banner and fill out your contact info.  For now, here is the lucky winner:

Alex Hensley from River Valley Church, in Bossier City, LA. (Alex, you will get an email from me with info on how you can gain your prize).