Last month, February 18 to be exact, was my 3 year anniversary at Alexandria Covenant Church. Not long, I know, but still significant. I’ve grown and learned a lot through my time here so far. Here are some of the learning points for me. Most of them are things we all know already, but it’s one thing to know it, another thing to experience it.

1. Anything that’s instant and fast is rarely as good as something that takes time. That’s certainly true with food and it definitely applies to relationships, as well.

2. I can’t have a relationship with every kid in the youth group. With a group of around 200 active students every week, that’s obviously unrealistic, but I’d like to think I can at least have a casual relationship with most of them. Unfortunately, there are some who won’t even make eye contact with me or, if I try to initiate a conversation, it’s like sitting down to talk with a fire hydrant. Kinda disappointing, even hurts a little, but I guess that’s why it’s so important to have such a great team of adult leaders who can connect with the students who avoid me.

3. Sometimes doing the right thing means doing the very unpopular thing. I cash in chips of credibility in order to do what’s best for people when they don’t even know it or like it.

4. People’s perceptions of me usually translate into their perception of the ministry, both the good and the bad. So I try to just be myself and stay true to my values in ministry and hope that it rubs off.

5. I really need to spend more of my time focusing on what I’m good at and be more intentional about delegating everything else, or be content to let a some things slip by.

6. It’s always great to have open and honest communication with your sr. pastor. I definitely value that about my relationship with John, and the mutual respect and trust we share.

7. Not every good idea someone has is a good idea for our ministry. That’s especially true for all the church companies who are competing for our budget dollars, but it’s also true internally regarding ideas from parents, teens, and youth leaders. Sometimes I must be the guardian of the vision to keep us on course. Saying no to a good thing is often very necessary.

8. The pressure to perform and run growing programs is always there, even when no one puts it on you. It’s self-inflicted, probably based on insecurity. I have to be intentional about reminding myself that the focus should be on growing people, not programs, which is often a much slower process. See #1.

One of the main objectives for our trip to Haiti last month was to meet with local pastors, build connections and explore the possibility of coordinating an effort for American churches to partner with them. (My pictures of one such meeting here, here and here.) Thankfully, that objective is now coming to fruition due to Adventures In Missions’s leadership in Haiti.

There’s a couple reasons why I’m very excited about the opportunity for American churches to partner with churches in Haiti.

• Compassion International, World Vision, and many other organizations have already proven that these kinds of partnerships can be mutually edifying for the body of Christ, both for churches in America and in other countries.
• Relief efforts could go to a lot of different organizations in Haiti, but this is an opportunity for relief to go through the body of Christ in Haiti, directly to the people from people who are already known and trusted in their communities.
• Every single pastor I met in Haiti is a rock-solid spiritual leader. In fact, this man is probably the wisest pastor I’ve ever met. Just sitting near him, listening to him speak and pray left all of us on the team with a sense of awe. These men are tremendous spiritual leaders who are well respected.
• Through Adventures In Missions, you can visit your Haitian partnership church, both in the short-term and in the future.
• The need is so great in Haiti right now, especially as the rainy season is upon them with very few shelters. Our support can help the Haitian churches rise up and be both a spiritual and physical shelter in their communities.
• The average Haitian lives on an average of $400/year, so small amounts of money can make a very significant impact. That means American churches of any size, of any financial status, can make a huge difference.

Here’s a video from our trip about the Haiti Church to Church Partnership.

MORE INFO: If you’re interested in learning more about partnering with a church in Haiti, read more about the Haiti Church to Church partnership on Adventures In Missions’ website. An AIM representative will be happy to contact you personally about the partnership opportunities and talk through it with you, as well. Just use the contact form on their site.

Then come back here and post in the comments below if make a commitment to a Haitian church. I’d love to hear about it!

Two weeks ago Adam McLane and I were in Haiti sitting with one of our Haitian translators. The translator asked me, “Are you a youth pastor?” I replied that I am. He turned to Adam and asked the same thing. Adam explained that he used to be a youth pastor, but now he works for Youth Specialties. Our translator pushed back and said that Adam is still a youth pastor even if he doesn’t work at a church. Adam didn’t really agree with him and, without missing a beat, our translator shot back, “You are always a pastor because being a pastor is your spiritual gift, not your title. Even if you don’t work at a church, you are still a pastor.”

The conversation quickly turned to my last name and how I’m a Nazi like Hitler because I have a German last name (don’t ask lol), but I’ve been thinking about what he said. Being a pastor is not just a title we’re assigned because we’re on paid staff at a church — it’s our spiritual gift. There are numerous implications of this perspective.

First, I went to school for 7 years to learn how to use my spiritual gift of pastor/shepherd, but most of the things I spend my time doing each day fall into administrative tasks and organizing details, a gift I don’t have. Hmm… I would much rather be doing pastoral care for teens.

Second, and more importantly, this means that there are probably a lot more pastors in my church than I think, including teenagers! This puts a whole new spin on the term, “youth pastor.” Right now, I am not intentionally using the youth pastors in my ministry, nor training them to do pastoral care in their schools and future work environments.

I think this is will be part of the process of correcting the way I’m doing youth ministry all wrong, but I’m still thinking and praying through it. I greatly appreciate and welcome all your insights. The comments below are open.

Today Youth Specialties makes a huge announcement and reveals its new Executive Director, Tic Long. Youth Specialties has been through a lot of major transitions throughout the past couple years, so welcoming back a familiar face like Tic is undoubedly a comfort and relief for many. Personally, I’m stoked! I appreciate Tic’s ability to appreciate the rich history of Youth Specialities’ past while still embracing the changes and risks that will always be necessary for the future.

It’s great to feel a sense of stability at Youth Specialties again now that the YouthWorks deal is finished and Tic is back on board (and, of course, that Adam McLane is still around). I’m looking forward to exciting new developments in the the field of youth ministry from YS for a long time to come.

I had the privilege of interviewing Tic in anticipation for this announcement. Here’s our discussion:

TIM: First of all, welcome back to YS! What’s been going through your mind, soul and heart during the time off?

TIC: To tell you the truth Tim the first couple months I was trying to get YS out of my system. After 32 years I had to relearn about life outside of YS. I tried to not really think too much or too soon about what was next but to enjoy my family, friends and God in a more leisurely manner. I spent a month Backpacking which did wonders for my Soul.

TIM: You could’ve taken a lot of different opportunities from a lot of different organizations. What drew you back to YS?

TIC: It was really a couple things. First I was actually surprised by that fact that in the end I had some really cool opportunities to choose from. Others said that would be the case but it still surprised me. In my time away I wrestled with the question was it time to leave youth ministry. In the end there was just nothing else that excited me as much. I think some of us are just lifers. We might be a sick group but it is home to me. There is nothing else that I am as passionate about. I wasn’t expecting this so it took a while to get my emotions around it. First I really fell in love with the YouthWorks folks. I went to Minneapolis to their HQ which is kind of dumpy. It reminded me of the early YS offices. They have had the money to build big fancy offices but to do that would mean they would not be able to give away as much money. They give serious money away to the communities they do mission trips in and that really spoke to me. They are serious about being the church to folks. There is a lot more to this part of the story but I really felt they were the perfect home for YS after I sniffed it out. I think the other thing is deep down I am just a YS guy. I love YS and I think this home can return us closer to what I dream we can be. In the end I just could not say no to YS.

TIM: Based on Youth Specialties’ past that has brought it to where it is today with YouthWorks and Zondervan, where do you see God taking YS in the future? What’s vision has God laid on your heart for YS?

TIC: It is still a little early to speak to this to a great extent extent as I just said yes to returning December 27 and have just spent a couple days with the folks here in Minneapolis and have yet to even be in the YS office since coming back. What I am feeling most strongly is returning our focus to loving, training and resourcing youth workers. These last couple seasons at YS we have had so many internal issues and financial pressures we had to focus more on ourselves than youth workers and that hindered us. YS at it’s best is playful, prophetic, inclusive, grounded, willing to take risk to help youth workers engage culture and equip their students to follow Jesus. I think our calling is to be an advocate and safe haven for those working with students, our events a place where youth workers are nourished spiritually and encouraged and at the same time challenged to take chances to meet God on the outer edge of their faith and not play it safe, go for it for the kingdom of God…. Sorry I’m rambling.

TIM: What are the biggest obstacles for YS to overcome to get there?

TIC: Being better listeners to not only what God is calling us to but to what youth workers are asking for. We have been at this for a while and have lots of ideas and approaches with many peers. We need to make sure we make room for new voices and not just stay in our own comfort zone. We need to provide platforms for the new voices God is calling to speak into the youth ministry community. It is much easier to go just with those we know well but we just can’t do that. Someone gave Yaconelli a chance, We gave Duffy Robbins, Chap Clark, Doug Fields, Les Christie and many others a platform to speak to the youth ministry community with what God placed on their heart. We need to keep doing that, to keep presenting new voices.

TIM: NYWC has been the Mecca of youth ministry conventions for decades, but recently many youth workers have become increasingly disinterested in it for a number of reasons. What changes can we look forward to specifically at NYWC?

TIC: I think the above applies here. The convention is not about us but about youth workers. I think we refine what we do best in response to what we hear from the trenches. I actually think Youth Ministry is better served with the SYM convention, Orange and others on the scene rather than the NYWC being the only game in town. It makes harder for us but better for the kingdom. I think as all our events fine tune and respond to each other and the youth ministry community the church wins.

TIM: What is your relationship with Marko? I know you were at one time the President of YS, but what makes you think you are the person to do it again?

TIC: I don’t really know how to answer that but let me start with this point because I think there is some misinformation out there. Marko and I are good, we have always been good. We are friends and had a good working relationship. We have not blamed each other or had any big weirdness throughout this wild ride. We will continue to be friends and speak into each others lives. I am not worried about my ability to lead YS (other than the fact that there is always some fear in me when handling something I think God has places in front of me). It is is my giftedness and skill set. I know YS, I know youth workers but I am not doing it alone, as always we will have a team. We have always seen YS as a gift, a sacred trust and not something we owned. I am once again a caretaker of that trust and that is humbling. I am excited and humbled at the same time, does that make sense?

TIM: What does YS need from youth workers during this transitionary time? How can we support you all?

TIC: Give us some time to catch our breath, your prayers and your voice.

TIM: Any chance you’ll be moving to my backyard here in Minnesota to be closer to YouthWorks? :-)

TIC: Ummmmmmm………NO. That would take a burning bush.

Read the official announcement about Tic’s position at YouthSpecialties.com, including this teaser video on YouTube.

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If you’ve been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer, there’s a solid team of experienced Life In Student Ministry youth workers who want to support you and invest into your ministry on a one-on-one basis! Read more on our Youth Ministry Mentors page.

John Mulholland recently separated his youth group into jr. high and sr. high ministries. He joined us to talk about some of the issues that surround splitting the ministries and, together with a group of other youth workers who joined us on the call and in the adjoining chat room, we had a pretty lively discussion. Apparently this is an issue that’s much more controversial than I anticipated, with many different perspectives and opinions.

Some of the things we talked about:

• Reasons to separate jr. and sr. high ministries.
• Reasons to keep the ministries together.
• What separating can unintentionally teach teens about the body of Christ.
• If your ministry should split or stay together.
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

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Next Monday’s discussion

January 4: There is no LIVE YM Talk this week nor next week. Our next talk is on Monday, January 4, 2010, were we will talk about designing and communicating the student ministry’s vision to the church and community. Our guest will be Todd Perkins of Youth Ministry Consultants, Inc.. Join us then for LIVE YM Talk.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

I know there’s a lot things we could add to this list, like needing everyone’s approval, neglecting the role of the Holy Spirit, pretending to act like someone you’re not, siding with teens against their parents, etc. But there’s one problem that often goes overlooked that will undeniably create very unhealthy relationships with students possibly worse than anything else, and that’s this:

Every adult youth leader needs healthy adult relationships, or their relationships with students will quickly become very unhealthy.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen this story play out too many times. An adult youth leader may not connect well with other adults for any number of reasons: their maturity level isn’t up to par; they felt rejected in high school and now try to find that security in youth group teens; they think being an adult is “uncool”; they look to teens for self-worth; and a host of many other reasons that are related to emotional baggage. The end result is they become a peer for students, not a leader. And students don’t need more peers.

Signs that a youth leader is lacking maturity and healthy adult relationships

• Whenever an issue arises in a student’s life, they rush to “save the day” and often make a bigger deal out of the situation than the student does.
• When there’s a disagreement between a student and another adult youth leader, the adult will side with the teen and even unintentionally pit the students against the other leaders, even in scenarios where no sides needed to be taken in the first place.
• The leader will confide in students about issues in their personal life that should only be shared with a spouse, a pastor, or a close Christian adult friend.
• Whenever the adult has free time, they spend most of it hanging out with the same group teens (as a peer group) and rarely with other adult friends.
• The leader will entertain gossip and complaints (sometimes even start it) with students about other youth leaders, the church, and even other authority figures, like parents and teachers.
• When a student confides in them, they promise to keep it a secret and never to share it with anyone else. The unintentional result is that some students, who need professional help, never get it. By the time you find out about it, it’s too late.
• The other extreme is when the leader goes out of their way to fish out “juicy” private information from students because it strokes their ego and feeds an insecure self-worth when they know a teen’s personal secrets.
• They are really involved with a friend-group/clique of teens and generally don’t reach out much to other students.
• Other adult leaders and parents, whom you know and trust, express concern to you about the leader (in a non-gossipy way) and their input aligns with your unspoken observations.
• When you try to express concern about any of this to the leader, they become defensive and make excuses, often causing them to separate from the team of adult leaders even more than they already were.

Because their maturity is lacking, they will unintentionally create division and will ultimately hinder the maturing process for students. Often their hearts are in the right place and they mean well, but they are blinded by their immaturity and fail to see the damage they’re actually causing.

So, how should you handle it? Every situation is unique, but here are some general principles.

How to address the situation

• First, it’s important that you spend a decent amount of time in prayer. It’s an obvious first step that too often goes overlooked.
• Talk with your sr. pastor (and other church leadership, if necessary) about the situation and get their input and advice. These conversations always work best with the godly advice and guidance.
• Sit down one-on-one with the leader and have an honest, open conversation. Do your best to speak the truth in love. Express your concern and pray they are receptive.
• If they humbly see truth in your observations, then work together to connect them with other maturing adults who will help them grow spiritually, relationally, and emotionally. Establish some sort of regular, on-going mentoring relationship, either from yourself or someone else.

If they make excuses, get defensive and refuse to listen to your concerns, then discuss the next steps with your sr. pastor. The process from here will be pretty sticky. Depending on the severity of their immaturity, there’s a good chance that the leader may need to be asked to step down from the youth leadership team. Sometimes they can be dismissed with the intention of restoration after certain expectations have been met, like establishing accountability, working through some personal issues, mentoring, and adult relationships. Other times they will have to be dismissed permanently. Either way, the confrontation is often the most helpful component because how they respond to confrontation will show their true character.

But be forewarned: dismissing this kind of a leader will be a very ugly process. The teens who love him/her will definitely look at you like you’re the bad guy. Even though you’re doing it for their benefit, you can’t tell them that because then you’d have to explain why you’re doing it, and you would never talk poorly about someone else just to make yourself look better (even though the other party may not play by the same rules). But you still have to do what’s in the best interest of the teens and the ministry whether they understand it or not. The Lord knows. Sometimes being a leader is like being a parent: you have to make the tough decisions for their own sake even if the kids don’t like it nor understand it.

Have you ever worked with a youth leader like this? How did you handle it? What advice do you have for others who are experiencing it? Comment below.

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Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

We’ve all heard many analogies of pastors (and youth pastors) being shepherds of their sheep. In the Fall of 1988, in the issue of Leadership Magazine, Fred Smith used orchestra conductors as examples of pastors. I’d like to apply that to youth pastors as well.

The purpose of an orchestra conductor is to make the chosen selection of music come alive through the musicians he leads. A youth pastor is to make the Word of God come alive in the youth he leads. Before he can do that he must have a reverence for the music and a very intimate knowledge of it himself. No conductor is born with a knowledge of the music he leads. He must arrive at it by hard work. Youth pastors must never stop learning God’s Word. Too many become “too busy” and stop studying the Bible for their own growth. They level off and coast. No good conductor would allow himself to do that. He must keep improving his own knowledge or he won’t be able to help others increase theirs.

When he leads his orchestra, the conductor must set a meaningful beat. The rhythm, volume, intensity and interpretation are his responsibility as he leads others. They know how to bring out the best in their players. They respond to his passion, his enjoyment and his enthusiasm. He complements them on a job well done and they strive to do even better. Youth pastors, too, set the tone and mood for the group they lead. The teens look to them to determine how to respond.

When one of the musicians makes a mistake, a good conductor knows how to minimize it and correct it without embarrassing the person or letting it spread to others. He knows mistakes will happen because he keeps stretching their ability and moving them to even greater levels of performance. He forms them into a team but relates to each one individually. His job is never finished. He patiently keeps moving ahead despite whatever obstacles may be in his way. He keeps his eye on his goal: reproducing the music of the great composers in the lives of his players. It’s a daunting task, but a worthy one. Youth pastors, too, must strive to bring the best out of their teens. They must keep moving them ahead but also know how to gently handle mistakes along the way. He knows his job is never done but gains satisfaction from the progress his group has made. His remembers that is main goal is always and only to reproduce the music of the Great Composer in their lives.

Scripture
2 Timothy 4:1-2, “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage — with great patience and careful instruction.”

Reflect

• How does this picture of an orchestra leader compare with how you see yourself as a youth pastor?
• Entertainment, popularity, fun — all these are means to an end but not an end in themselves. Has anything sidetracked you from your goal of reproducing Jesus in the lives of your teens? What do you need to do to correct that?

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Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 15 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

If you work with teenagers and need some encouragement today, watch this video.

[ ht Greg Stier ]

Every Tuesday morning at 9:00 AM I meet with a couple other youth pastors from different churches in my community. There’s a lot to like about the group — the fun, the teasing, the transparency, the support, and neutral party to bounce ideas and struggles — but the thing I value most about the group is that we all share a Kingdom mindset approach to ministry. In fact, there was a point about a year ago when we tossed around the idea of eliminating each of our individual church’s youth ministries and linking arms to create a single, community-wide youth ministry with each of us serving as full-time staff together that are paid by our different churches in the area.

Here’s how the Kingdom mindset works itself out in our youth ministries together:

• Instead of each church doing their own individual training, together we pool resources and fly someone in once a year to do an all-day training for all our youth leaders combined.
• Sometimes I send my youth group kids to the other churches for their events. They sometimes do the same for our events. If someone else’s ministry is doing something solid, why not join it? In fact, this Thursday some kids from my youth group and myself are doing just that.
• Friendly competition between youth groups is always fun, like our up-coming multi-youth group dodgeball tournament.
• We support each other’s ministries by spreading the word about each other’s events and meetings. In January the other churches are sending all their parents to my church for a Real World Parents seminar and helping with childcare for the event.
• We hear each other’s struggles, offer support, encouragement, and pray for each other. It’s great to have a neutral place to talk about those kinds of things every week.
• We learn together by reading and discussing various books, like Youth Ministry 3.0 and 7 Practices of an Effective Ministry.
• We used to have combined monthly youth meetings, but after a couple years it started to dwindle and the vision for it faded, so we canned it last winter.
• We share resources with each other. One church has a bus that we have all borrowed; another church lets us use their way-cool sanctuary for sr. high small group baptisms; we even share extra food with each other’s ministries so it doesn’t go to waste.
• Some of the youth groups have been known to cancel their youth meeting and go crash someone else’s youth group meeting instead.
• There’s open communication about “problem teens” and families who flip-flop churches.
• Later this year some of the other youth pastors are coming to my sr. high youth group as special guest teachers.

It’s really all about Kingdom work, not church-kingdom work. It’s not about growing each of our individual ministries or competing to be the “best.” It’s about seeing teenager’s lives impacted for Christ regardless of whose church that happens in. The teamwork makes us so much more effective than any of us could be on our own.

P.S. Since I’m sure it will be a question in the comments, just thought I’d clarify that the churches who are actively involved in our youth worker network hold very similar theological beliefs. All of us are extremely comfortable sending students to each other’s ministries, partnering together for events and meetings, and even teaching for each other’s youth groups.

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Normally I don’t use my blog to voice opinions about current events, but Zondervan’s press release about releasing Mark Oestreicher from Youth Specialties is causing such a stir of emotions in youth workers that it’s getting out of control and needs to be addressed.

While I respect people’s freedom to express their feelings through blogs and Twitter, some of you are jumping to illogical conclusions based on speculation and gossip. Wait until you have the facts before before making such judgments. We all hate it when people in our churches do the same about us or our ministry when a nugget of information starts spreading and is soon taken out of context, but yet that’s what we’re doing here with Zondervan and Marko.

Granted, the manner in which Zonderan released this information is indicative of a proper, almost impersonal, business approach. Clearly they don’t quite “get” the youth ministry audience and could’ve communicated it much better than they did, but that’s not a valid reason to start bashing Zondervan because they let Tic Long go first and now Marko. Youth workers, more than anyone else, should be familiar with change and transitions. Every year we say goodbye to a graduating class while saying hello to a new incoming class, causing our ministries to be in a constant state of flux from year to year. As if that turnover wasn’t enough, youth culture and trends are constantly shifting and trying to stay on top of the communication game is often a struggle. Maybe in a youth ministry world of constant change, Marko felt like the constant we could always depend on, and when it’s gone, the loss creates deep insecurity and even wounds. If that’s the case, then I suggest we need to reevaluate Who our anchor is in ministry. (Some of the comments I see on blogs and Twitter definitely cross the line into idolatry, putting Marko on a pedestal that’s much higher than where any man man ought to be.)

But even so, Marko is not dead, he’s just transitioning. He’s not disappearing from the earth, just moving to do new things to help further the Kingdom among teenagers. Marko will be fine. Youth Specialties will be fine. For all we know, this could be the best thing for both of them.

Marko is one of the people who encouraged me to write my upcoming book that Youth Specialties will release in January 2011. He also covered expenses for my wife and I to attend the 2006 NYWC in Austin because we couldn’t afford it. And he’s been a guest on LIVE YM Talk with me, among many other email and phone conversations. I love the guy and his heart for teenagers and his investment into me personally, so it’s with no disrespect toward him that I remind us that there’s a lot of what if’s and variables in this situation that none of us know.

• What if this is the best move for Youth Specialties to be able to serve your ministry?
• What if Zondervan is taking the hit, looking like the bad guy, when there’s really many other things behind the scenes we don’t know about? (Hasn’t every youth worker been in this situation?)
• What if Marko is honestly OK with this decision and maybe even relieved by it?
• What if the two options were to let Marko go or close Youth Specialties?
• What if Zondervan has a bigger vision for Youth Specialties than YS has for themselves?
• What if Zondervan is experiencing greater loss than Youth Specialties is by releasing Marko?
• What if this frees Marko to do even more incredible things for the the world of youth ministry?
• Remember, it was Karla Yaconelli who sold YS to Zondervan in the first place, not Marko. Maybe some of her unspoken reasons for doing so impact this decision?
• What if Marko becomes the new youth pastor at Saddleback to fill Doug Field’s vacancy? :)

Although I admittedly embrace change a bit easier than most people I know, I’m actually excited to see what’s in store for Youth Specialties. I absolutely feel for Marko and have been praying for him and YS for the past couple days, but I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how the Lord will use him to make a continued impact on youth ministry.

In the meantime, chillax. Quit the gossip and idle speech.