I spent last weekend with 2,500 other youth workers at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference. It’s really no secret that I’m a big fan of the conference and everything it stands for. They’re doing a lot of amazing things that no other conference is doing. For only being 4 years old, it is truly very impressive.

What’s good

Maybe the reason I think it’s so great is because Simply’s heart really vibes with mine. We’re both totally about conversations and relationships, hence the subtitle of this blog, “Conversations among those passionate for teenagers,” that fleshes out in the post comments, LIVE YM Talk, mentorships, MinistryQuestions.com, and more.

Most conferences are about the expert on stage sharing their wisdom with all the people in the crowd. While that certainly has it’s place, I look at the crowd and think, “There is infinitely more wisdom and experience in this crowd collectively than there is in the mind of just that one person on stage.” I want to find ways to harness all the crowd’s experience and pool it together so we can mutually learn from each other, not just follow the hierarchal “top down” kind of learning.

Simply wants to do the same thing. In fact, when they contract their speakers, they don’t contract them just for a speaking gig, they contract them to be available for ministry throughout the entire weekend. They want everyone to be accessible to each other for the duration of the conference. I love that!

The environment they create really lends itself to those connections and relationships with sack chairs laying all over the place for easy conversation. In fact, I wasn’t able to attend any seminars because, when I wasn’t speaking, I was watching my little daughter so my wife could attend seminars. But yet I left having learned just as much as I would’ve from seminars because I spent all that time meeting and talking with youth workers out in the hallways. In fact, Mark Riddle basically gave me a one-on-one personalized seminar for a couple hours himself. I took notes and everything! (Thanks, Mark!)

I also appreciate that I’m not inundated with marking, vendors, and organizations who are all making bids my limited budget dollars. Note to pushy venders out there, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you. I know how to use Google and the telephone.” Thankfully, at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference most of that noise is limited so I can focus on people. The marketing that is there doesn’t feel obtrusive at all.

What could use improvement

There really is a lot to like about the Simply Youth Ministry Conference, but there’s definitely room to improve, as well.

Conversations
The biggest improvement I’d like to see is that, while the conference is very conversational, especially compared to other conferences, it’s probably only 40% of the way to a truly relational conference. Seminars with circle tables and discussion questions are good, but listening to a speaker, turning to your table to talk through some pre-determined discussion questions for 5 minutes, and then turning back to the speaker isn’t very relational. When the seminar is over, the chances are pretty low that the people at the table will stay in touch or continue the discussion later. It’s more of a conference with conversation than it is a conference of conversation.

This is also reflective in the affinity groups, the conference’s small groups that gather once or twice a day to talk about issues surrounding an area of youth ministry. If everyone at the conference committed to an affinity group, the discussions would be amazing. But instead, I heard that only about 30% of the participants attend an affinity group and, based on my own observation, most of those people were not consistant in attending the group at the same time. Each time an affinity group met, there was a different group of people in it. The discussions were very engaging and I learned a lot from the people there, but did we build relationships and form a connection? Is that really happening? I’m not so sure.

The conference is going in the right direction with the connections, networking, and mutual edification, and it’s doing it better than any other conference out there, but it still has a lot of room for improvement.

Content
A couple quick thoughts here.

First, I feel like we’ve been saying the same thing in youth ministry for the past couple years [ POLL ]. Last year’s schedule and speaker lineup looked very similar to this year’s schedule. We’re hearing the updated versions of the same content that speakers and authors have been sharing for years. The seminars I attended back in the late 90s as a college student are still the same seminars being offered now. Fortunately, a lot of that information is very important and foundational for youth ministry, but still… I’m not saying there hasn’t been anything new, just overall, generally speaking, it feels like it’s a lot of revised and updated material of what I’ve basically been hearing for a long time.

Second, let’s be careful with the sr. pastor jokes. I understand that a lot of youth workers have horrible experiences with their pastors and many of the stereotypes are true, but let’s not reinforce the stereotypes. Instead, let’s respect the pastors who are probably doing their best to serve the Lord but have just as many personal and ministry issues as the rest of us.

Last, the Simply Youth Ministry Conference has something incredible on their hands. Several participants told me that they wonder how long the conference can continue to improve like this until it plateaus and starts to dip. I’ve thought the same thing. At their current pace, I’ll give them a couple more years before it starts to plateau. The only way to avoid this is if they continue to do what they’re doing now — always try new things, risk failure, continually reinvent themselves, and never come to a place where they feel like they’ve “arrived” or have the conference thing figured out.

As Seth Godin talks about so much, the Simply Youth Ministry Conference must continue to be remarkable. So far, they are and I’m looking forward to even more remarkable things from them in the future.

Keep up the good work Kami, Matty, Andy, Chris, Doug, Rick, Sherri and everyone else at Group/Simply Youth Ministry! Thanks for a great weekend of connections, learning, and personal growth.

Last month I shared that the Youth Ministry Mentorship Program is taking its conversations to the next level by partnering with the Simply Youth Ministry Conference to bring mentoring face-to-face instead of just over the phone. Past mentees have mentioned how valuable the mentoring has been for themselves personally and their ministries and asked if there could be a way they could actually meet their mentor and talk face-to-face. While this has indeed happened in the past, it can happen for everyone now at the Simply Conference.

If you’ve been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer and will be at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference from February 26 to March 1, 2010, there are still some available slots! In fact, if you’re accepted into the mentorship program, than Doug Field’s pre-conference seminar, “Your First Two Years In Youth Ministry,” is FREE for you, complements of Simply Youth Ministry!

However, if you’d like to be considered for the mentorship but are not planning to be at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference, we are now accepting your applications, as well! If you’ve been in youth ministry as a volunteer, part-time, or full-time worker, you can now read more about the Youth Ministry Mentorship and apply here.

VIDEO: This video explains a bit more about the mentorship, including a story from one of the past mentees who has gone through the program.

Whether you’ll be at the Simply Conference or not, check out the Youth Ministry Mentoring site, look through the expectations, goals, and other parts of the mentorship and decide if this is for you or not. If you’re up for the 10-week journey with a personal youth ministry mentor, fill out the application and if you’re selected by a mentor, I will be in touch with you via email.

[ Youth Ministry Mentorship ]

Earlier this week Marko launched his Youth Ministry Coaching Program, a 1-year 360 coaching cohort, focused on whole-life development and youth ministry issues.

While some have compared it to the Youth Ministry Mentorship Program here at Life In Student Ministry, there really are some clear distinctions that allow the two programs to complement each other quite nicely.

I had the opportunity to talk with Marko about his program.

You can listen to us talk about the coaching and mentoring programs in iTunes, or use the link below to listen to it directly in your browser.

Play: Interview with Marko about his new YM Coaching Program

Almost two years ago I started doing some one-on-one youth ministry mentoring through this site and since then it’s grown into a full-blown team of mentors who have served over 100 brand new youth workers. We’ve taken a wholistic approach to mentoring by focusing on three main areas that all intertwine with each other: a mentee’s personal life, spiritual life, and ministry life. The response by new youth workers who have gone through the program has been extremely positive, so we’re glad we’re on the right track with this. We tend to do two 10-week one-on-one rounds each year, one in the spring and one in the fall, and this year will be no different.

However, this spring round of mentoring will be especially unique because we have the tremendous opportunity to partner with the Simply Youth Ministry Conference and start it face-to-face with you. Most of the mentors will be at the conference, myself included, and are pumped to take mentoring to the next level with a couple one-on-one lunch conversations. It’s advice and wisdom for your youth ministry, your personal walk with Christ, and your personal life that starts face-to-face and continues to weekly telephone conversations from there!

If you’ve been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer and will be at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference from February 26 to March 1, 2010, then this youth ministry mentorship is for you! The video below explains a bit more about it, including a story from one of the past mentees who has gone through the program.

Traditionally the mentorship has been absolutely free, but because we want to start investing more into the mentors and into the program, the 10-week mentorship now costs $99 (books included). We realize that some youth workers who really need this mentoring can’t afford that, though, so there are some scholarship funds available.

If you have been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer and you’re planning to be at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference next month, this is simply an opportunity I promise you cannot miss! Seriously. I don’t say that about many things. Check out the Youth Ministry Mentoring part of this site, look through the expectations, goals, and other parts of the mentorship and decide for yourself. If you’re up for the 10-week journey with a personal youth ministry mentor, fill out the application and if you’re selected by a mentor, I will be in touch with you via email to give you payment information and put you in touch with the mentor.

For those of you who want to be mentored but will not be at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference, you may also fill out the application to be considered for the mentorship. The mentors who are unable to attend the conference will be considering your applications.

I’m so pumped about this partnership! Seriously people, you new youth workers out there cannot believe how blessed you will be by both the conference and this mentorship, especially when they’re combined together like this. Check it out!

[ Youth Ministry Mentorship ]

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Last week I was on Simply Youth Ministry’s website and noticed a pretty solid downloadable sample for one of their products. While it’s not usual for their products to have samples to check out, this sample was a lot more useful as a standalone than, say, the first chapter of one of their books that’s kinda pointless without the rest of the book.

Youth Leader Training on the Go is a book that contains 52 training outlines that you can use with your volunteer youth leaders, as well as 12 pre-written email encouragements, handouts, and an audio CD. It’s available for only $20 right now, which is cool. But what’s even cooler is that you can download 4 of the training outlines and 1 encouragement email note for FREE in the sample package. If you meet with all your leaders once a month, that’s a third of the year’s training covered for free!

How To Get It
To download the 4 youth leader training sheets and 1 email encouragement note, go to the Youth Leader Training on the Go book and click the gray Download a Sample link.

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Today our featured guest is Brandon Riley. He’ll lead us in a discussion about unleashing student artists using photography, video, and art. Listen in and you just might learn some tips to sharpen your artistic skills in these fields, too! See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join the call and/or the live chat at 2:00 PM Eastern time.

This guest series is contributed by Bill Allison of Cadre Ministries.

• Read Part 1
• Read Part 2

Training Killer #3: Poor Planning

One prevalent reason many training offerings are not well attended by volunteers in the church is not because volunteers lack commitment to the church, their ministry, or personal development, but because the training opportunities are not planned with the life, ministry, and schedule of the average church volunteer in mind.

Be sure to be cognizant of—and to avoid—these four common planning blunders the next time you plan training for the volunteers in your church:

1. Poor Scheduling
A common planning gaffe vocational church leaders tend to make is planning an excellent training session for volunteers at times that are nearly impossible or extremely inconvenient for most of their volunteers. If you schedule training when volunteers are not likely to attend, don’t be surprised when only a few attend.

When training volunteers in your church, it is absolutely critical to look through a volunteer lens when you plan the timing of the training! Plan training for times that work best for the schedules of the majority of your volunteers—not what fits best in the schedules of the full-time staff. In some churches/ministries, a Saturday morning works best. In others, Sunday afternoon or night is best. Still in others, a weeknight for 2 hours is best. You must figure out what works best for the volunteers in your church/ministry. The best training offered at inopportune times for volunteers will still be a poorly attended training.

One last scheduling warning: Offering training for volunteers that falls in the midst of a church calendar that is overloaded with events and activities forces volunteers to choose between the training or some other church event that either precedes or follows the training event.

2. Poor Communication
Once you’ve landed on a training workshop and a time that is most opportune for the volunteers in your church, volunteers will need clear and advance communication about the training. Everyone is busy. Schedules are filled way in advance. So plan ahead—and start communicating at least two months in advance for maximum volunteer participation. Give advance, clear, and personal
communication about the training.

3. Failing to Provide Childcare
If you really want adult volunteers who have families to come to your training, you would be extremely wise to offer childcare at the church during the training. This alone could make the difference in whether or not busy volunteers with small children come to your training! Whether or not you offer childcare during a volunteer training opportunity speaks volumes to those you are trying to train. Does offering childcare during training sound like too much work? Welcome to real volunteer ministry!

4. Forgetting to Offer GREAT Food and Snacks/Goodies
As insignificant as this may seem, offering great food and snacks/goodies could be a significant factor in getting volunteers to come to your training — no joke. Think about it: If you provide food and snacks/goodies, you’ve just saved volunteers time. They don’t have to plan, pay, or prepare a meal. If there’s one thing a volunteer appreciates deeply it’s someone who values their time. Few things say, “I love you” to a volunteer better than “We’ve got the food and snack/goodies covered.”

I just finished training 100 volunteers who teach and lead small groups. When the pastor came up to close the training in prayer, he mentioned that he would be offering ongoing training over the next six months and that at the first time of training next month there would be a chocolate fountain. There was a collective audible gasp of delight! People loved it. I ask you: Is this bribery or wisdom? I’ll let you decide. (Okay, I think it was incredibly thoughtful.) But don’t miss my point. Good food and snack goodies are always a plus. Great food and snack goodies have a magnet-like pull on volunteers, and any money you spend on doing the food and snacks well is money well invested in the volunteers who serve in your ministry.

To be sure, there are plenty more training killers that keep volunteers from showing up for your training. However, if you avoided the blunders mentioned all three parts of this series, you could be on your way to a volunteer training break through. Who knows, the next time you offer training to the volunteers in your church, your training time could be filled with… volunteers!

FREE Amazing Time Management Secrets for You and Volunteers

Bill’s book on Recruiting, Motivating, and Retaining Volunteers in the Church

Subscribe to Free Monthly Online Training from Bill and Cadre Ministries

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Bill Allison is the founder of Cadre Ministries, a ministry whose Eph. 4:11-12 obsession is to equip churches to make volunteers wildly successful. Cadre fulfills this obsession best by training trainers to take training back to their local ministries. Every month he publishes Cadre Connection, a FREE gold mine of training resources for volunteers in the church — and those who love volunteers in the church. Subscribe for free.

This guest series is contributed by Bill Allison of Cadre Ministries.

• Read Part 1
• Read Part 3

Training Killer #2: Cotton Candy Training Content

Another killer of training in the church is weak training content. Frankly, when it comes to training and resources for volunteers in the church today, there’s a lot of fluff out there! The dysfunctional premise of much of this cotton candy training seems to be:

• “We can’t—and shouldn’t—expect much out of volunteers.”
• “Volunteers are not as gifted as fulltime pastors and church staff.”
• “Volunteers won’t really put in the work necessary to be trained to do ministry well.”

I heartily disagree with all of these faulty and unbiblical premises about volunteers in the church—for the following reasons:

Fiction: “We can’t—and shouldn’t—expect much out of volunteers.”
Fact: We should expect what God expects from every Christian.

The Bible teaches that all Christians (including “volunteers”) are full-time ministers whether or not they get a paycheck from a church (see II Corinthians 5:18- 20 and I Peter 2:9 just as a couple of examples)! Therefore, the church should fully expect from volunteers what God expects out of every Christian:

• a life of loving God and loving people (Mark 12:30-31)
• regular personal study of Godʼs Word (II Timothy 2:15)
• prayer (Philippians 4:6-7)
• worship (Romans 12:1-2)
• service (I Peter 4:10)
• financial stewardship (II Corinthians 8:7)
• sexual purity (I Thessalonians 4:3-8)
• biblical community and loving accountability (Hebrews 10:24-25)
• sharing the gospel clearly (Mark 3:14)
• And everything else commanded in the Bible (see your Bible)

These commands (not suggestions) from God are not just for pastors and church staff, but for every Christian! Therefore, it is right to expect all believers — including volunteers in the church — to be growing and developing in the personal application of God’s commands. This is normal Christianity and should be an essential part of any volunteer training in the church.

Fiction: “Volunteers are not as gifted as fulltime pastors and church staff.”
Fact: Pastors and staff are not the only gifted servants in the church.

While most church volunteers have not studied theology formally in a seminary or Bible college, all saved volunteers are gifted for ministry! (See I Peter 4:10.) Furthermore, it is not uncommon for volunteers to be as gifted for ministry — or even more gifted for ministry in certain ways and areas — than their pastors. You would think that all pastors and church staff would welcome this as a God-thing, and a good thing! Think about it: How cool would it be to have a group of gifted volunteers serving away in the church with passion and excellence? However, insecure pastors and church staff have an uncanny ability to ignore high potential volunteers and, ultimately, these gifted volunteers end up at a church where a secure pastor puts these “ministry partners” into play where their giftedness can be maximized for the glory of God.

Make no mistake about it: Volunteers in the church are gifted to do ministry by the same Holy Spirit who gifted the pastor! (See I Corinthians 12:7.) If we think volunteers are second class workers in the church, not as gifted or able as formally educated pastors and staff, then our efforts to train volunteers will tend to be fluffy and lack disciplemaking substance.

Fiction: “Volunteers won’t really put in the work necessary to be trained to do ministry well.”
Fact: Volunteers desire biblical training with specific application.

I just spent a weekend with sixty extremely committed and hard working church volunteers in Pennsylvania. These folks drove from several states and eagerly gave up their precious time and paid considerable personal and financial expense to participate in serious, interactive, rigorous, biblical, and extremely practical ministry training. These volunteers threw themselves into the learning activities, took notes, prayed fervently, laughed heartily, loved each other intensely, and pelted me with questions about the nuts and bolts of doing ministry biblically and effectively.

Below is an e-mail (used by permission) I received from two of the volunteer youth workers who attended the training weekend. As you read the e-mail, pay close attention to the fact that not only are these volunteers working hard in their ministry— but they are also diligently working hard at applying the training they received to their lives and ministry:

My husband Dwayne and I were recently at a youth workers retreat where we experienced training with Cadre Ministries. We very much enjoyed the weekend and heard God speak to us through the training.

We appreciated the focus on building our own relationship with Christ first and foremost. We won’t soon forget the illustration with the water being poured out into cups to then overflow into others. It brought to mind John 15:5, apart from Him, we can do nothing! We need to stay connected to Jesus.

Through Cadre’s Ministry Is Relationships training, we received affirmation in beginning a mentoring ministry at our church where we will pair a youth with an adult mentor. We see this will be a great way to help build relationships and build the Kingdom.

We also appreciated the personal growth plan challenge that was presented. It is helping us apply the things we learned over the weekend. We also hope to implement the Smart Goals into our mentoring program.

Overall we just were glad for the refreshment and the time to build our relationship with God. Thanks and Praise be to the Father!
Sheri and David, Volunteer Youth Workers for Nine Years (so far)

Are these volunteers working hard applying the training they got to their own lives and their volunteer ministry? You bet. Weekend after weekend I have the high honor of working with volunteers like this. When the training is intensely biblical with very specific application to their lives and ministries, volunteers are more than willing to put in the work necessary to be trained to do ministry well. Don’t miss this point: It’s wrong to view volunteers as theological or ministry lightweights who only want a “101 Easy Techniques Approach to Volunteerism in the Church.”

The truth is that many volunteers want more than the cotton candy training they are being offered. They’re silently asking, “Where’s the beef?” (Remember that commercial?) The real question is: Will you and your church keep living in the land of fiction when it comes to training volunteers, or will you and your church stand and deliver meaty ministry training that encourages and equips them to love God and love people?

FREE bonus audio download: What keeps volunteers from really stepping into God’s purposes for their lives

A $0.99 training tool for you to use with volunteers: You’re Never Just a Volunteer

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Bill Allison is the founder of Cadre Ministries, a ministry whose Eph. 4:11-12 obsession is to equip churches to make volunteers wildly successful. Cadre fulfills this obsession best by training trainers to take training back to their local ministries. Every month he publishes Cadre Connection, a FREE gold mine of training resources for volunteers in the church — and those who love volunteers in the church. Subscribe for free.

This guest series is contributed by Bill Allison of Cadre Ministries.

• Read Part 2
• Read Part 3

Training Killer #1: Lecturing Instead of Training

Perhaps the biggest mistake church leaders make when attempting to train volunteers and create a volunteer training culture in their ministries is that they allow the “trainer” to lecture.

Let’s be very candid: who is doing the training and how the training is conducted makes all the difference in how many attend the training. If you lecture, most volunteers will show up for “training” one time — and then most likely not come back to any “training” you offer in the future because it was boring. Because most volunteers in the church are nice, they would never tell you to your face that the training was boring, but if they stop coming to training (I want to say this as directly and politely as I can) there is a high probability that the training you are offering them is boring.

Mark my words well: Lecturing tends to kill the attendance of any of your future volunteer training efforts — and ultimately destroys your ability to create a true culture of training volunteers in your church. The goal of training is heart and mind engagement, passionate interaction, and biblical life-change, not the filling in of blanks in a training manual while the “expert” drones on and on! The training you offer volunteers in your church should be facilitated by a “guide-on-the-side” and not a “sage-on-the-stage.”

FREE bonus PDF download: Six ways training is different than lecturing (a.k.a: The Training Genius of Jesus)

Read Part 2! Part 3 will be here on Thursday.

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Bill Allison is the founder of Cadre Ministries, a ministry whose Eph. 4:11-12 obsession is to equip churches to make volunteers wildly successful. Cadre fulfills this obsession best by training trainers to take training back to their local ministries. Every month he publishes Cadre Connection, a FREE gold mine of training resources for volunteers in the church — and those who love volunteers in the church. Subscribe for free.

Eleven weeks ago I launched MinistryQuestions.com to the public. Thanks to a lot of word-of-mouth and social networking, it launched with 30,000 visitors in the very first week! Not bad for not spending a dime on marketing. Thank you all!

I love the community that has surrounded the site! It’s such a wide variety of men and women who are serving in the trenches, encouraging each other, supporting each other, and investing into each other’s ministries. It’s already been an invaluable resource to me as I am challenged by other people’s challenges and forced to think through ministry scenarios I never considered before. And the longer time goes on, the more it grows into an incredible bank of collective wisdom and experiences.

Here are some great questions to check out. Some of these questions are resolved or closed, meaning the question is no longer open to new answers, but some of them are still open for your input.

• How do I tell my teens I’m resigning? [closed]
• Student stopped coming: give it time or approach him about it? [closed]
• Has anyone ever took their graduating seniors on a senior trip? [closed]
• Pregnant teen
• Dealing with suicide
• Do you allow volunteers to take their kids on youth events?
• Girl cutting herself after her mom’s death [closed]
• Implementing change [closed]

Here’s my own latest question: How do you help jr. highers transition into high school ministry?

Here’s a couple interesting debates, too.

• Large group format is a necessary component of youth ministry
• To drink or not to drink? [closed]
• A youth pastor should be the servant of the senior pastor, and execute his vision for the youth department. [closed]

Stop by MinistryQuestions.com and ask your questions, give your input, and bless others as they bless you.

Today in our LIVE YM Talk, Matt McAlack, Director of Youth Ministries at Philadelphia Biblical University, talked with us about the academic side of youth ministry training.

Some of the things we talked about:

• The value of an academic ministry training
• How to find training if you can’t afford Bible college or seminary
• If you really need formal youth ministry training
• How to know what school to go to for training
• The most influential aspects of formal training
• Teens who are deciding between Bible college versus secular college
• And a lot more…

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

Download this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next week’s discussion

May 1: Next week’s featured guest is Mike Kupferer and he’ll lead us in a discussion about finding the right youth ministry position.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!