Bamboo Driven Youth Ministry - The Next Big Thing (new blog post)

Bamboo trees are funny.  Not "ha ha" funny.  Strange, different sorts of plants funny.  You may already know this little tidbit of info, but I just discovered it.  Some types of giant bamboo trees have a unique growth pattern.  You plant the small seedling in the ground, and the first year, it doesn't do much.  You water it, care for it, make sure it's safe and has good soil.  Still, not much growth.
Year two rolls around, and all that hard work results in, well, nothing.  It's alive, but it just sits there.
Year three?  Bumpkis.  Nada.  Small, green little plant is sucking up nutrients and food, and your time, but not moving.
Surely in year four, it will take off.  Nope.
Year five?  Explosive growth!  Eighty to ninety feet in one year.  That little booger will take off and grow in visible ways everyday, until it reaches it's full height.
Now what if a bamboo farmer wasn't aware of this amazing pattern?  They'd give up, quit feeding and caring for the plants, and throw them out, or go find a new job.  It takes someone who has rasied bamboo to help them understand the patterns of growth so they can stay the course and see everything hit maturity.
Youth ministry is the same way.  Students will come, you'll pour into them, build into them, pray for them, feed them spiritually, feed them emotionally, feed them physically.  To what we see, nothing happens.  They sit there, green, and not growing. 
Eighth grade year?  Nothing.
Freshman?  Nothing.
Sophomore? Nada.
Junior Year?  Zilch
But then, sometimes in their senior year, sometimes in college, sometimes in their 20's, it will all take off.  Their faith becomes their own.  They begin serving locally and globally and God uses them in AMAZING ways.  The very kids you were CONVINCED would never become anything, they grow into beautiful, tall, strong trees.
Don't give up!  Don't stop.  I've been in this a few years.  I have former students in their 30's.  They will surprise you, I promise.  You do NOT know which ones God will use, I guarantee it.  His ways are not our ways, at all.  Be faithful to care for your little trees this week. 
Growth is coming. 
And it's amazing.

How Being a Gym Rat Makes You Holy - Advanced Discipleship in Youth Ministry

In the past couple of years, I've become one of those guys who goes to the gym multiple times a week.  I hit my late 30's, was out of shape, and didn't like it.  But it took a doc telling me I had to go if I didn't want to come in and see him all the time to get me motivated.  I don't go to be studly (I'm a 40 year old dad, after all).  I don't go because I love it.  I go because it's what I need to do to be healthy, and live life in a way that works.

What's funny is that before I went regularly, I would talk about being healthy and in shape.  I was active at a basic level, ate okay, and thought I was alright.  I wasn't.  It began to show.  So, I learned how to go on a regular basis, and over time, it's made a huge difference in a ton of places in my life.

When we talk about discipleship with students, there are some similarities for us to understand as leaders.  If a person is going to grow spiritually, the beginning pieces of discipleship are necessary.  We talked about those in the discussion on level 3.  (You can read it here.)  Bible study, prayer, and other disciplines have to be there.  But they are not enough, they aren't the end.  We have to go farther if we want to continue to grow and live like we are designed to.

Helping students engage in acts of service, finding out what it means to sacrifice, to forgive, to love, and to do these things in the way Christ teaches us to, that is what we call Advanced Discipleship on our pyramid.  It's Level 4.  We intentionally create opportunities for students to serve weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually in different areas, in different ways.  We mentor students and help them learn to forgive those who don't ask for forgiveness, to serve those who may not be expecting to be served, to love those who may believe they are beyond being loved.  When we help students do these things intentionally, we help them move from talking about being in shape spiritually to putting some training to it.  Much like working out on a consistent basis, it begins to shape them when they take it on as part of their lifestyle.  It also prepares them for life after high school, to live out their faith and continue growing when all of the camps, retreats, and lock-ins are done.

It takes planning on our part.  Remember, by the very design of the pyramid, you will have less students at this level than any of the previous three.  You might be talking about small numbers by the time you get to level four.  Don't try to pull all of your students here.  Also, your programming should reflect this pyramid as well.  If you are doing all service projects, and doing them with the goal of having every student serving as an act of advanced discipleship, you're missing the point. 

It's interesting that today, students from all levels are interested in service.  We have found that service projects can actually be effective at any level on the pyramid.  We use them to involve new students, we use them as evangelism TO the students serving, and on up the chain as well.  So, we need to be very direct in why we are setting up a service project.  What is our goal, and who are we trying to reach with it?  How will we know if it succeeds or not?

Level four is tough because it often takes a bit of work and resources to do well, and often reaches less students.  It is crucial though, as we try to help students become disciples.

I'd love to hear what you are doing for advanced discipleship with your students.

Sword Drills, Hired Guns, 5 G's, and Your Ministry

If I told you I could have you meet with Doug Fields for one day and he would lay out the plans for your youth ministry, how much would you pay?  Or maybe Steven Furtick?  Or Mark Driscoll?  Rob Bell?  Marko? How about Jon Duey?

Yeah, I know, if push came to shove, and the offer was legit, we would try to scrape together whatever money we could from our undersized budgets and make it happen.  All of us want to see our ministries improve and do a better job of building the kingdom.  That's why we do youth ministry.  I mean, it's not for the overload of pizza we are exposed to.  It's because we love God, we love kids, and we want to see the Kingdom explode with students and families loving their King. 

That's why when Jesus gives us some commands, we try to take it seriously.  One of the more memorized and quoted ones is Matthew 28:19,20.  You know it.  We call it the Great Commission.  You've got it down.  Go into all the world and make disciples, baptize them, and teach them to do everything I've commanded.  We work on that everyday of our lives as student leaders and pastors.  It's what we are all about. 

Have you stopped recently to evaluate how that is going?  No, no, not in a guilt trip kind of way.  Just in a "hey, how are we doing?" kind of way.  If we don't stop and inspect where we are, we can get way off track.  On this pyramid we use, Level 3 is Beginning Discipleship.  This is the stuff that helps all of us move forward in our faith.  It's the foundational disciplines that we need to grow. 

We look at things like prayer, memorizing verses, reading the Bible, giving, living in some type of community where we can know others and be known.  It's the foundational stuff.  If you've been around Willow Creek, it's the Five G's.  If you've been around Saddleback, it's the Purposes.  We talk a ton about these things.  But how intentional are you about them?

As we help students understand these ideas, we are trying to build a self-sustaining foundation in them that will last way past their days in youth group.  I don't want students to memorize verses because they "have to".  I want to help them understand why storing God's truth away helps them live today.  I want to foster a love affair with the Bible in student's hearts.  I want them to learn to give because it sets them free to live the life He has called them to.  All of this takes a plan, which changes over time.  If you wrote your plan four years ago, it's past time to review it and revise it.  Your students have changed, your culture has changed, you have changed.  Has your plan changed?

As we put down these foundational building blocks, we allow students the resources and reserves to serve from.  These disciplines are not an end to themselves.  Someone following Jesus doesn't grow simply from quoting Scripture.  The Scripture is the sword and armor that allows them to wade out in the world and serve. 

We'll talk about that part next, when we discuss Level 4.

Let me know your thoughts.  What has been your experience with discipleship?  What's important in your ministry?  What is missing?

The Senior Pastor / Youth Pastor Relationship: The Myth of "Feed Me"

Lesson #2 - They Are Not Your Private Mentor

Honestly, a lot of times when I'm teaching college students who are ready to leave school and begin in ministry, they have this unspoken idea that when they get to a good church, the senior pastor is going to mentor them, shape them, and pour tons of time into them.  They have this picture of them and their senior pastor taking long walks, eating ice cream together, spending hours exegeting Numbers 14, and having their wisdom tank filled up and over running.  In this dream, birds sing, a rainbow appears in the sky, and Jesus comes down and plays disc golf with them as the light fades.

End scene.

Uhh.....no.  Let's be perfectly honest here.  I love my senior pastor today.  He has poured into me, and taught me more than I can imagine.  I owe much of who I am as a pastor to him.  I am completely grateful for him, he's my brother, and he's an amazing man of God.  But we don't eat ice cream and study ancient texts together.  We are brothers and friends.  But his role in the church is to lead the church, and to train the people to do the work of ministry.  He is not my personal mentor.  The pastor in my previous church wasn't, the pastor before that wasn't either.  It's not their role.

I do learn from him, and he does pour into me from time to time.  But the reality is, in most churches, there isn't enough time or resources for the senior pastor to give you that much attention.  Your growth is up to you.  I do have friends with very different relationships with their senior pastors.  Some are very close friends, some aren't.  Some are very discipleship focused with their staff, some are more hands off.  It varies, just depending on the church's size, values, the pastor's personality, and the stage of life of the youth pastor. 

One thing I try to pour into everyone I send out into ministry is that their personal spiritual growth is up to them, not anyone else.  It's their responsibility to figure out who to learn from, and their responsibility to be sure they are learning and growing.  God is our mentor.  But don't look to your senior pastor to do that for you.  It's an unfair, unrealistic, and sometimes selfish idea.

So, how do you grow?  Read.  Alot.  Pray.  Alot. Attend conferences, listen to podcasts, get around leaders who know more than you do, and admit to them and yourself that they know more than you do.  Be a life long learner.  We are all disciples.  We all need to grow and change everyday.

Just don't dump that weight on your senior pastor's shoulders.

God doesn't.