iheartyouthministry.com- Youth Ministry Blog

High-res WHAT’S LURKING IN YOUR YOUTH MINISTRY? This morning we finished up our summer jr. High guy’s lock-in. We had a great (and exhausting) time, but the most exciting part of the night was making a new friend…with a possum! Actually, we found out that a possum had been living in our student ministry room for the past week. Last Tuesday I noticed some things moved around messed with in our youth building and don’t think anything of it. Finally, one morning my staff and I found some…um…”droppings”…and we just assumed that an animal had snuck in, did its business and left. Little did we know that our friend the possum had took up shop right in our building! So last night one of our volunteers was rummaging through our youth ministry closet and saw what they thought was a stuffed animal. But they were wrong! In fact it was a gross,creepy possum wreaking havoc in our youth ministry room. This funny/gross encounter sparked a thought: WHAT IS LURKING IN YOUR YOUTH MINISTRY? What program needs to be cut that isn’t contributing to the ultimate purpose of your youth Minsitry? Perhaps you have a volunteer that is causing dissension with your leaders and needs to be asked to leave. Maybe you are doing something in your youth ministry just because “we’ve always done it that way” and it is time for a change. This is a really good question to ponder during the summer. Remember that while the God’s purposes never change in student ministry, our programs and strategies can change! Maybe it’s time to kill a program, start a program or start from scratch. This summer ask yourself the question: what is lurking in my youth ministry that needs to be gotten rid of or changed. Leave your thoughts in the comments section below!

WHAT’S LURKING IN YOUR YOUTH MINISTRY?

This morning we finished up our summer jr. High guy’s lock-in. We had a great (and exhausting) time, but the most exciting part of the night was making a new friend…with a possum! Actually, we found out that a possum had been living in our student ministry room for the past week.

Last Tuesday I noticed some things moved around messed with in our youth building and don’t think anything of it. Finally, one morning my staff and I found some…um…”droppings”…and we just assumed that an animal had snuck in, did its business and left. Little did we know that our friend the possum had took up shop right in our building! So last night one of our volunteers was rummaging through our youth ministry closet and saw what they thought was a stuffed animal. But they were wrong! In fact it was a gross,creepy possum wreaking havoc in our youth ministry room.

This funny/gross encounter sparked a thought: WHAT IS LURKING IN YOUR YOUTH MINISTRY? What program needs to be cut that isn’t contributing to the ultimate purpose of your youth Minsitry? Perhaps you have a volunteer that is causing dissension with your leaders and needs to be asked to leave. Maybe you are doing something in your youth ministry just because “we’ve always done it that way” and it is time for a change. This is a really good question to ponder during the summer. Remember that while the God’s purposes never change in student ministry, our programs and strategies can change!

Maybe it’s time to kill a program, start a program or start from scratch. This summer ask yourself the question: what is lurking in my youth ministry that needs to be gotten rid of or changed. Leave your thoughts in the comments section below!

High-res I have a confession to make: I am a huge movie fan…I love going to the movies! In fact, there is hardly a month that goes by that me and a group of friends aren’t going out to the theater to catch a new flick. Last week I re-watched one of my all time favorite movies, Back To The Future! Seriously, this movie should go down in history as one of the greatest flicks in the world, it’s just a ton of fun.  In the movie, Doc Brown (a very eccentric and genius scientist) has invented a time machine and he invites his young protege Marty McFly (a young teenage goof ball) to witness his invention firsthand. In a series of crazy and random events, Marty McFly is transported back to 1955 (from 1985). and spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out how to get back to the future.  While I was watching this movie, a scene that I’ve seen many times jumped out to me in a brand new way. At one point Mary McFly runs into the Doc Brown from 1955 (a younger version of the scientist) and insists his help to get back to the future. There is a famous movie scene where Doc and Marty are bantering back and forth and working together to try and figure out how they can power the time machine with enough energy (1.21 Jigawatz of electricity) to get back to 1985. The only problem is, the materials necessary to accomplish this task aren’t going to be invented for another 30 years! Finally by talking it out together, Marty and Doc discover the solution, which happens to be harnessing the power of a lighting bolt into the flux capacitor (which makes time travel possible). If you have no idea what I’m talking about…seriously, you need to watch this movie! Here is the point: In this scene, independent of each other, neither Marty or Doc have the answer they need…they are clueless! It isn’t until the both begin to brainstorm together that they are able to come up with a solution that will work. The same is true in our youth ministries! Sometimes, on our own, we just don’t know the answer to our problems. As youth workers we might not have all the answers we need such as:  -How can we get new volunteers? -How can we effectively reach out to new students? -Why do our students seem to be falling through the cracks?  -How can we make this youth ministry event a success? The truth is that most of the time we need the power of other people working together, brainstorming ideas, to come up with the solutions that will work. In terms of brainstorming there is power in numbers! In our ministry our volunteers get together every other week to plan our weekend services and upcoming events. The reason we do it together as a team is because as the lead youth worker I understand that I don’t have all the answers. I need the thoughts and ideas of other youth workers (and students) to come up with the concepts and programs that really work with our students.  Maybe you are trying to figure everything out on your own in your ministry setting. Don’t do it alone! Grab a team and start brainstorming together. When it comes to finding the answers, youth workers are better together. So what are you waiting for? Start brainstorming today and see what happens! Brainstorming together…it’s what makes youth ministry possible!

I have a confession to make: I am a huge movie fan…I love going to the movies! In fact, there is hardly a month that goes by that me and a group of friends aren’t going out to the theater to catch a new flick. Last week I re-watched one of my all time favorite movies, Back To The Future! Seriously, this movie should go down in history as one of the greatest flicks in the world, it’s just a ton of fun. 

In the movie, Doc Brown (a very eccentric and genius scientist) has invented a time machine and he invites his young protege Marty McFly (a young teenage goof ball) to witness his invention firsthand. In a series of crazy and random events, Marty McFly is transported back to 1955 (from 1985). and spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out how to get back to the future. 

While I was watching this movie, a scene that I’ve seen many times jumped out to me in a brand new way. At one point Mary McFly runs into the Doc Brown from 1955 (a younger version of the scientist) and insists his help to get back to the future. There is a famous movie scene where Doc and Marty are bantering back and forth and working together to try and figure out how they can power the time machine with enough energy (1.21 Jigawatz of electricity) to get back to 1985. The only problem is, the materials necessary to accomplish this task aren’t going to be invented for another 30 years! Finally by talking it out together, Marty and Doc discover the solution, which happens to be harnessing the power of a lighting bolt into the flux capacitor (which makes time travel possible). If you have no idea what I’m talking about…seriously, you need to watch this movie!

Here is the point: In this scene, independent of each other, neither Marty or Doc have the answer they need…they are clueless! It isn’t until the both begin to brainstorm together that they are able to come up with a solution that will work. The same is true in our youth ministries! Sometimes, on our own, we just don’t know the answer to our problems. As youth workers we might not have all the answers we need such as: 

-How can we get new volunteers?

-How can we effectively reach out to new students?

-Why do our students seem to be falling through the cracks? 

-How can we make this youth ministry event a success?

The truth is that most of the time we need the power of other people working together, brainstorming ideas, to come up with the solutions that will work. In terms of brainstorming there is power in numbers! In our ministry our volunteers get together every other week to plan our weekend services and upcoming events. The reason we do it together as a team is because as the lead youth worker I understand that I don’t have all the answers. I need the thoughts and ideas of other youth workers (and students) to come up with the concepts and programs that really work with our students. 

Maybe you are trying to figure everything out on your own in your ministry setting. Don’t do it alone! Grab a team and start brainstorming together. When it comes to finding the answers, youth workers are better together. So what are you waiting for? Start brainstorming today and see what happens! Brainstorming together…it’s what makes youth ministry possible!

High-res STUDENT LED WORSHIP MINISTRY One of my first memories of youth ministry as a teenager growing up was being a part of a student-led worship team. I can still remember our youth pastor taking a bunch of us out to breakfast one Saturday morning at Tom’s #5 Diner (I think we had waffles) and telling us that he had a vision for students leading music in our youth ministry services during the week. My friends and I were so excited! All of us LOVED playing music, and now we were going to be able to use our gifts on a weekly basis by leading worship at our church.  Over the next year or so, our youth worker poured time & energy into us, developing us into worship leaders. We learned how to choose songs for the service that would supplement the sermons, we learned how to run rehearsals and put song slides together (back then we used our good ol’ overhead projector). In fact, it was because of the opportunity given to us by our youth pastor that most of us eventually went into ministry in the first place. Our youth pastor saw something in us that we didn’t yet see in ourselves and the rest is history!  Now back then we had a bunch of students in our ministry who played music. We had guitar players and drummers, keyboardists and singers. But what about smaller youth ministries out there who don’t have very many musicians? Maybe you are in a youth ministry setting where you don’t really have any musicians at all. Maybe the majority of the students in your ministry are into sports. Here is my suggestion: START SMALL! If you want to develop a student worship ministry in your setting, start with what you have. Maybe you only have one student who can sing or play guitar. Start small and start developing them. Ask around and see if anyone in your church is a musician who would be willing to teach students how to play guitar or piano. Ask your worship leader at your church if he/she would have time to help get a student worship team off the ground. Simply figure out what you have and then build slowly from there. Here are just some of the benefits of having students lead worship in your services:  1) STUDENT BY-IN GOES WAY UP! Even though the quality will always go down when teenagers lead versus adults leading, the teenagers in your ministry will love it WAY more because they get to see their peers serving in the services.  2) IT’S A HUGE WIN FOR THE LARGER CHURCH. When you begin developing teenagers into worship leaders early on, they have the potential to be great worship leaders by the time they leave your youth ministry. This means that the larger church will have a bigger pool of worship leaders to utilize when they graduate from your ministry. 3) STUDENTS WHO SERVE TEND TO STICK. This principle works for any type of ministry students are involved in, but the truth is that students who are serving will tend to stick around longer in your ministry. Students who serve move from being a spectator to a champion in your youth minsitry. Maybe your reading this and saying “Yes! I can’t wait to launch a worship ministry for my students!”. If so, I found a GREAT resource to help smaller youth ministries sound awesome in the interim while you get things moving. A company called LOOP COMMUNITY creates professional sounding loops (background tracks of guitar, bass, drums, etc.) that you can use to make your student worship band, or solo singer, sound terrific! You simply choose the worship song, download it and play it through your sound system as your students play along. It’s super simple and they work great. Let me know what you think!

STUDENT LED WORSHIP MINISTRY

One of my first memories of youth ministry as a teenager growing up was being a part of a student-led worship team. I can still remember our youth pastor taking a bunch of us out to breakfast one Saturday morning at Tom’s #5 Diner (I think we had waffles) and telling us that he had a vision for students leading music in our youth ministry services during the week. My friends and I were so excited! All of us LOVED playing music, and now we were going to be able to use our gifts on a weekly basis by leading worship at our church. 

Over the next year or so, our youth worker poured time & energy into us, developing us into worship leaders. We learned how to choose songs for the service that would supplement the sermons, we learned how to run rehearsals and put song slides together (back then we used our good ol’ overhead projector). In fact, it was because of the opportunity given to us by our youth pastor that most of us eventually went into ministry in the first place. Our youth pastor saw something in us that we didn’t yet see in ourselves and the rest is history! 

Now back then we had a bunch of students in our ministry who played music. We had guitar players and drummers, keyboardists and singers. But what about smaller youth ministries out there who don’t have very many musicians? Maybe you are in a youth ministry setting where you don’t really have any musicians at all. Maybe the majority of the students in your ministry are into sports. Here is my suggestion: START SMALL! If you want to develop a student worship ministry in your setting, start with what you have. Maybe you only have one student who can sing or play guitar. Start small and start developing them. Ask around and see if anyone in your church is a musician who would be willing to teach students how to play guitar or piano. Ask your worship leader at your church if he/she would have time to help get a student worship team off the ground. Simply figure out what you have and then build slowly from there. Here are just some of the benefits of having students lead worship in your services: 

1) STUDENT BY-IN GOES WAY UP! Even though the quality will always go down when teenagers lead versus adults leading, the teenagers in your ministry will love it WAY more because they get to see their peers serving in the services. 

2) IT’S A HUGE WIN FOR THE LARGER CHURCH. When you begin developing teenagers into worship leaders early on, they have the potential to be great worship leaders by the time they leave your youth ministry. This means that the larger church will have a bigger pool of worship leaders to utilize when they graduate from your ministry.

3) STUDENTS WHO SERVE TEND TO STICK. This principle works for any type of ministry students are involved in, but the truth is that students who are serving will tend to stick around longer in your ministry. Students who serve move from being a spectator to a champion in your youth minsitry.

Maybe your reading this and saying “Yes! I can’t wait to launch a worship ministry for my students!”. If so, I found a GREAT resource to help smaller youth ministries sound awesome in the interim while you get things moving. A company called LOOP COMMUNITY creates professional sounding loops (background tracks of guitar, bass, drums, etc.) that you can use to make your student worship band, or solo singer, sound terrific! You simply choose the worship song, download it and play it through your sound system as your students play along. It’s super simple and they work great. Let me know what you think!

Youth Ministry Idea: “Classy Youth Ministry Tour”

This past weekend we had our incoming 6th grade Parent meeting at Daybreak Church. We used this time to get to know brand new parents, inform them about our purpose/strategy/programs and offer them help and hope as they enter the crazy years of parenting middle school students! 

One idea that we tried that worked pretty well was our Jr. High Ministry “Classy Tour”. Basically we had one of our volunteers show parents what a typical Sunday service would look like for their jr. high students by taking photos of the various elements and putting them up on the screen. It was super funny and the parents loved it. The great part is that it’s super easy to do!

1) Grab a camera

2) Take photos of one of your volunteers engaging in all the activities that would take place during one of your youth ministry services. 

That’s it! Like I said, it’s a simple/silly idea, but it was a big hit!