Family Fun
The holiday season is the perfect time to have "Family fun" with your kids and your leaders. In our events, such as trampoline jumping in our living room and turkey basketball games, we made sure they became traditions not just spur of the moment ideas. This youth culture sees lots of youth groups, but rarely do they experience what they most crave...a youth family. The easiest approach to beginning a family atmosphere is inviting the youth group, small group, or leadership team over to your house after a Wednesday night service. Most Christians believe Scripture says, "Where two or three are gathered, God is there." But I really think Jesus meant to say, "Where two or three are gathered in My name, there is food." We live on pizza, hamburgers, chips and soda. If you host kids over at your house and fail to have food, you break one of the first rules of being a youth pastor.
For years I hosted a large feast the night before Thanksgiving for all the high school seniors. Guys bought drinks and girls fixed a desert or side item. Everyone looked forward to that Wednesday night and no one seemed to mind that it didn't start until 9:30 or 10:00 pm. Making unforgettable moments for teenagers is more than giving them something to reminisce about ten years down the road. You will discover in nonthreatening moments, late into the evening, heart to heart conversations occur and the real need for a family emerge from those you see smiling and acting all put together on Wednesday nights. Tradition primes the lock for the keys of love and family to open hearts of potential kingdom champions.
An old song says, "You're the only Jesus some will ever see and you're the only words some will ever read...so let them see in you the One in whom is all they'll ever need..." The kids might never run up to you and hug you, thanking you for allowing them to invade your home and eat your food or keep you up all night long, but rest assured it means more to them than you may know this side of heaven.
The holiday season is the perfect time to have "Family fun" with your kids and your leaders. In our events, such as trampoline jumping in our living room and turkey basketball games, we made sure they became traditions not just spur of the moment ideas. This youth culture sees lots of youth groups, but rarely do they experience what they most crave...a youth family. The easiest approach to beginning a family atmosphere is inviting the youth group, small group, or leadership team over to your house after a Wednesday night service. Most Christians believe Scripture says, "Where two or three are gathered, God is there." But I really think Jesus meant to say, "Where two or three are gathered in My name, there is food." We live on pizza, hamburgers, chips and soda. If you host kids over at your house and fail to have food, you break one of the first rules of being a youth pastor.
For years I hosted a large feast the night before Thanksgiving for all the high school seniors. Guys bought drinks and girls fixed a desert or side item. Everyone looked forward to that Wednesday night and no one seemed to mind that it didn't start until 9:30 or 10:00 pm. Making unforgettable moments for teenagers is more than giving them something to reminisce about ten years down the road. You will discover in nonthreatening moments, late into the evening, heart to heart conversations occur and the real need for a family emerge from those you see smiling and acting all put together on Wednesday nights. Tradition primes the lock for the keys of love and family to open hearts of potential kingdom champions.
An old song says, "You're the only Jesus some will ever see and you're the only words some will ever read...so let them see in you the One in whom is all they'll ever need..." The kids might never run up to you and hug you, thanking you for allowing them to invade your home and eat your food or keep you up all night long, but rest assured it means more to them than you may know this side of heaven.
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If your calendar could speak, what would it say? If you look at a typical youth pastor's weekly schedule, often times you'll find a great deal of time being spent creating a "fast-paced, high-tech, entertaining youth service." However, according to Group Publishing's "Cool Church Survey" of 10,000 students, it ranked dead last in the importance of 10 factors that influence a student's commitment to church.
What was #1? "A welcoming atmosphere where you can be yourself." So, in this Youth Leader's Coach, listen in on seven strategic elements in building a Christ-honoring, welcoming environment. Refuse to fail at this youth ministry success test, choose instead to up the ante when it comes to the friendship/family tenor of your ministry.
All in,
Paul said it best in 1 Corinthians 4:14-15, "I am not writing this to shame you but to warn you as my dear children. Even though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, you do not have many fathers." Don't those verses pierce your soul?
Not only that, but let's take it a step further. While there are a lot of great youth communicators and youth ministry CEO's out there, the years have taught me that it's not been my communication skills or the size of my ministry that people I've impacted reference, but "how the Jesus Christ inside of me made them feel" as I became an adopted "big sis" or "spiritual mom."
Bottom line, one of the most eternally significant things you can do is to stir up inside of you the heart of a spiritual parent. In addition to hearing some sobering stats, listen in and get insight on how to live this out.
Lovingly,
Unfortunately, we live in a society of broken families. Instead of being surrounded with unconditional love and acceptance, teenagers often face homes devastated by divorce and absent parents, or houses filled with arguments and discord. With such shattered trust in today's youth, there has never been a greater need to be more than just a spiritual leader, but rather, a spiritual parent.
So, we must stop and ask ourselves if our ministry is a safe place where these teenagers do feel loved and accepted. Is family a part of our youth group's heartbeat? Listen in to this Youth Leader's Coach, "Cultivating The Father Heart Of God In Your Leadership," as I share my heart on becoming a conduit of the Father Heart of God in your own life and youth ministry.
Lovingly,
I like baseball! But there's one position that especially intrigues me...it's the CATCHER! Why? I sometimes wonder what's going on...in his head BEHIND THE MASK. But I often wonder the same thing in church...what's going on behind everybody's "mask"? You know...the one we easily throw on to cover up the reality of REAL LIFE for us."
In this Source I talk about the key to getting behind each other's masks...even our own. How do we do that? Through real, authentic community. Through allowing a select few to do life up-close to us through LIVING small groups, just as Jesus did in the New Testament.
Lovingly,
If you haven't seen the movie, Freedom Writers, it is worth a watch! In this Source, I talk about PREJUDICES. Not a popular, huh? I address the elephant in most rooms, of the DIFFERENCES between people that are often made light of. It is strange how sometimes we DO to other people...the very things we MOST HATE when they are done to us.
With some examples from the movie and some key Scriptures, I help our gang see that we have much more in COMMON than we actually do have differences. As Colossians says, we have been "chosen by God for a life of compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength and discipline..." as we fight each week to create an environment to make our group, not just a YOUTH MINISTRY, but a real FAMILY...and a HOME for our students.
Lovingly,
