Leave it to Paul Turner to again contribute a great resource for Freebie Friday! I think he’s starting to get close to rivaling Brett Hetherington for the most Freebie Friday contributions! Thanks, Paul!

Paul sent this to me with the following note:

Made this the other day for our campus Bible club. We divided the group into four and started them in different locations. Worked out very well. We met back together at the end and for testimonies and group prayer.

Download the Campus Prayer Walk Gude

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Join us for LIVE YM Talk this Monday, January 19! We’re discussing, “What every youth worker can learn from urban youth ministry.” Our guest will be Eric Iverson, the Multi-Cultural Integrity Director for YouthWorks. We’d love to have you join us! The live conversation starts at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

Writer Charles Swindoll once found himself with too many commitments in too few days. He got nervous and tense about it. “I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day,” he recalled in his book, Stress Fractures. “Before long, things around our home started reflecting the pattern of my hurry-up style. It was become unbearable.

“I distinctly remember after supper one evening, the words of our younger daughter, Colleen. She wanted to tell me something important that had happened to her at school that day. She began hurriedly, ‘Daddy, I wanna tell you somethin’ and I’ll tell you really fast.’ Suddenly realizing her frustration, I answered, ‘Honey, you can tell me — and you don’t have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly.’ I’ll never forget her answer: ‘Then listen slowly.’”

That’s good advice for all of us. Listen slowly; listen intently, for His voice is often a gentle whisper, a still, small voice. When we learn to listen for it we recognize that He speaks rich and enlightened thoughts to our spirits.

God can put a new idea directly and immediately into our mind. He can give us a new perspective in which to view something. He can put new desires into our hearts. He can stimulate certain memories stored within our mind just when they are most needed.

Martin Luther wrote: “If the Holy Spirit should come when these thoughts are in your mind and begin to preach to your heart, giving you rich and enlightened thoughts, then give Him the honor, let your preconceived ideas go, be quiet and listen to Him Who can talk better than you; and note what He proclaims and write it down.”

James Dobson has given some of the best practical advice I have ever heard on how someone who really wants the will of God and who has a basically correct understanding of it should proceed. Describing how he does it himself, he says, “I get down on my knees and say, ‘Lord, I need to know what you want me to do, and I am listening. Please speak to me through my friends, books, magazines I pick up and read, and through circumstances.’”

Often God’s still, small voice takes the form of thoughts that are our thoughts, though they are not from us.

When God speaks in your heart it doesn’t matter where your mind has been going; He blocks and overrides all circuits. You are captivated by His voice speaking to you. He commands your undivided attention. There is absolute certainty in what He says. What He says is right. His word has perfect balance and proportion. Everything He shows us fits together seamlessly. The word He gives us is complete. Everything He says compliments everything He’s been showing us.

It’s true that Satan can counterfeit this, but that just proves that God does speak to us in this way. A little later we’ll have a whole message on how to tell God’s voice from Satan’s counterfeit leading.

When I study, when I prepare sermons and lessons, I try to be very aware of the rich and enlightening thoughts that God sends me by means of His Spirit. When I counsel I always try to be sensitive to His leading and direction. When we are involved in spiritual warfare it is essential to be in tune to hear what thoughts God gives me. God speaks to you in the same way. You need to learn to take time to recognize His voice.

Scripture
John 2:22, “After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.”

John 14:26, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

Reflect
Spend time quietly listening to God. Have a paper and pencil with you to start writing down some of the things that come to mind. It may be a reminder of something to do or an idea about how to solve a problem. It could be just a sense of peace and wellbeing. But first you must listen.

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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!

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

There is an old story about two men walking down a busy, loud New York City street. Horns honked, engines roared, PA systems blasted advertisements. All of a sudden one of the men, who had been an outdoorsmen all his life, stopped and said, “What’s that?” The other man couldn’t imagine what he was talking about with all the noise and confusion all around. The first man went over to the side of a building and picked up a cricket he had heard. The friend was amazed that the outdoorsman had even heard it, but his ears were attuned to that sound and could pick it out of the din around them.

That’s how our spiritual hearing needs to be. We need to be able to pick God’s voice out of all the other voices clamoring for out attention. Hopefully this post will help you to be able to do that.

First we’ll look at what God’s voice sounds like, and then we’ll talk about some of the things He says. The first clue we have to what God’s voice sounds like is in I Kings 19 where we see it is a still, small voice – a gentle whisper.

Kings 19:11-13, “The LORD said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.’ Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’”

In the still, small voice of God we are given a message that bears the stamp of His personality quite clearly and in a way we will learn to recognize.

There is a speaker system at the Ontario Motor Speedway in California that has an out put of 30,800 watts connected to 355 speakers and able to communicate to 230,000 people above the noise of the car races. God could outdo that, but instead chooses to speak quietly. Therefore if we want to hear Him we can’t wait for Him to shout over the noise in our life but we need to learn to be quiet and listen for His still, quiet voice.

I remember several years ago I was marrying a couple that I had known for a long time and had been coming to church and Bible studies for quite some time. They had some major “issues” it seemed that had worked through, but the day before the wedding the groom did something that was part of his old pattern. I clearly heard God’s voice in my spirit telling me not to marry them, so I didn’t. The bride and both families really put a lot of pressure on me to go ahead with the wedding but I knew that God had spoken.

Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones writes: “God sometimes answers directly in our spirit. The prophet said, ‘I will watch and see what He will say in me.’ God speaks to me by speaking in me. He can so lie something upon the mind that we are certain of the answer. He can impress something upon our spirits in an unmistakable manner. We find ourselves unable to get away from an impression that is on our mind or heart; we try to rid ourselves of it, but back it comes.”

Remember, this is not a verbal voice, a sensation or an emotional experience. In fact, it can be very easy to overlook His voice or just think it’s a thought of our own.

Try an experiment: Be as still and silent as you possibly can for the next 30 seconds or so. Listen as intently as you can, noticing the sounds you hear. How many sounds? What are they? Close your eyes and begin to listen. Pause: Did you hear 1 sound? 2? 3? 4? 5? Did you hear the ticking of the clock? Heater noise? Birds? Traffic? Voices? Your own breath? Your heartbeat? Ringing in your ears?

We are seldom still enough to hear the subtle sounds. Most of us suffer from a steady dose of noise pollution: TV, radio, conversation. Constant sound bombards us until the naturalness of silence sounds foreign, unnatural, threatening, and we’ll do just about anything to cover it up. In a significant way, we are in fact addicted to noise. The constant blaring of the TV is for many an electronic companion whose presence we take for granted; Muzak fills the elevator; we jump in the car and switch on the radio to fill the uncomfortable void; even a lapse in social conversation is viewed with alarm, and someone has to rescue the moment by talking. Even in church, if a few moments of silence are called for in worship, most church members have this internal response: “When will this be over?”

We need to learn to hear God’s still voice as He speaks to us. I can think back on times He told me to talk to someone about Him and I didn’t. Those still haunt me. Better memories are the times when God put it on my heart to speak to someone and I obeyed.

I hope you’ve been learning to listen to Him this past week. Have you taken time to let Him speak and to sit and listen? Have you become more aware of when and how He speaks to you? I hope so.

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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!

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

Gaining recognition is fairly easy in life and ministry. What isn’t easy is succeeding in the things that really matter. We can all find some way to achieve in some area – but unless it is what God wants it isn’t really success at all. There is way too much to do in life and ministry to do it all. Therefore we must focus on doing what really is important. No one sits around bored because there is nothing to do. We all are making decisions, large and small, about how to use our time. The key is to make the choices God would have you make. Here are some principles to help determine godly priorities.

Praying is more important than preaching/teaching. Guard your time for prayer even more than you guard your time for lesson preparation and study. When forced to choose between them, make prayer your top priority. As has been said, prayer is not preparation for the work, prayer is the work.

Preaching/teaching is more important than administration. Its so easy to get bogged down in administrative details that the real important things in ministry get set aside. While it is necessary to be organized, its very easy to put off difficult tasks while spending a whole morning taking care of minor details.

The family is more important than the youth group. Our number one responsibility is to shepherd our mate and family. We will have more impact on them than on anyone else. Those are the sheep with the first priority for our time and attention. While the youth group may feed your ego more and you may struggle with relationships at home, don’t hide behind “ministry” and use it to avoid meeting the needs of your family. That can mean making some hard, but very important choices.

Faithfulness is more important than competition. Don’t compare yourself to others in the ministry. That is always very dangerous and a sure set-up for feelings of failure. The grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence. Be faithful to the best of your ability where God put you and leave the rest up to Him.

Love is more important than ability. You’ve heard it said that your teens don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. That’s true. Paul himself said that having all the best gifts in the world isn’t anything if we don’t have love. Even the best teaching and the finest program won’t change lives if it isn’t filtered through a personality filled with love.

Scripture
1 Corinthians 13:1-3, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Reflect

• Which of the above do you think God would say you have the most success with?
• Which of the above do you think God would say you have the most problem with?
• What can you do about that, starting today? (Write down a plan, be specific.)
• Pray for your senior pastor and others on the staff, that these would be true of them as well.

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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!

Each month our church comes together for an evening of worship that’s intended to be open, flexible, experiential and interactive. It’s always a great time!

Last week everyone was given a little rock as they entered the room and we used it for a couple symbolism things throughout the evening. I led the prayer time using the following meditative prayer outline I put together below. Feel free to use it with your groups as a way of breaking the prayer ruts we often fall into.

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The rock can represent a number of different things. Let’s prayerfully reflect on it together.
If you want to move to another place in the room for more privacy, kneel, feel free.

• Feel the stone. Study it. How is it unique from every other rock in existence? (pause for prayer/reflection)
• How are you unique from every other person created by God? (pause for prayer/reflection)
• READ ALOUD: Psalm 139:1-18, 23-24

Rocks can also causes us to slip and stumble, to loose traction in our walk.

• What’s causing you to slip and stumble in your walk with the Lord? What are you tripping over? Pray about it. (pause for prayer/reflection)
• READ ALOUD: 1 Corinthians 10:6-13

The rock can also represent our burdens, the things that weigh us down.

• As you look and feel your rock, what burdens does it represent in your life? (pause for prayer/reflection)
• How is God using that burden to teach you something? (pause for prayer/reflection)
• READ ALOUD: 1 Peter 5:3; Matthew 11:28-30
• Place your stone on the floor in front of you, symbolizing that you’ve laid it at the feet of Jesus.

But most importantly, the rock represents Jesus. He’s the only one who can help us, grant us victory, and be the solid, firm foundation that our lives were intended to have in Him.

• In what areas of your life do you need Jesus to be your rock? (pause for prayer/reflection)
• READ ALOUD: Psalm 27:1-8, 13-14; Psalm 28:1-2, 6-9; Psalm 18:1-3
• Think about what it means for Jesus to be “the rock of your salvation.” Praise Him, thank Him, and worship Him for that in prayer.
• Pick your rock up again and hold on to it as a reminder of Jesus being your rock.

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Join us at 2:00 PM EST this afternoon in our LIVE YM Talk. Our featured guest is Rob Kashow who will talk with us about teaching theology in youth ministry. See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join the call and/or the live chat.

This week is a crazy busy week for me. The culmination of a ton of stuff comes down to this weekend and next week.

• This Sunday 56 jr. highers are giving their testimonies in church via video that I have to finish shooting and editing.
• There’s an end-of-the-year jr. high party next week I’ve barely starting planning
• Sr. high ministry evaluations need to be written and handed out
• My youth budget receipts need to be balanced and turned in (they were due last Monday)
• The summer youth schedule needs to be handed out next and I haven’t even started putting it together
• A news email needs to go out with reminders and updates about things going on this Sunday and next week
• I need to write my lesson for Sunday night’s sr. high large-group meeting

And that’s just the beginning of it!

So this afternoon when a prayer meeting with other local youth pastors was drawing closer, I looked at the clock and thought to myself, “There is no way I can make it to that meeting this afternoon. I have way too much to do. I don’t have time to pray today.” Then I paused and thought, “Wait, did I seriously just think that?” I chuckled to myself and realized my priorities were totally out of wack. Just the fact that a thought like that crossed my mind was very convicting. What else could possibly be a better use of my time than spending time in prayer? Sure, I’m busy and a bit stressed right now, but shouldn’t that be the very time I stop to pray instead of trying to haul through it in my own strength?

Needless to say, I put everything on hold and went to that prayer meeting. It was great! Us youth pastors met at a local church and car-pooled to a park where we talked, shared, and prayed together. Then, to top off the day, I destressed by meeting up with brother and cranked out a 37 mile bike ride with him in the country farm land. Nothing like riding through God’s creation to put everything back in perspective again.

Are you too busy to pray today?

[ This post is based on an interview I did last year. ]

These lists could be a lot longer, but here are a couple to get you started. I’d love for you guys to continue these lists in the comments below.

Current problems

1. Youth leaders are not internalizing the Word themselves before they teach it to others, and thus a disconnect between real life and faith is unintentionally communicated.

2. Parents are not being the spiritual role models their teenagers desperately need.

3. Youth ministries are too wrapped up in “doing” ministry rather than “being” ministry. Ministries find their identity in their function instead of seeking the Lord first for their identity and vision and then letting function flow from that.

4. Youth leader don’t pray enough. If we truly believed in the power of prayer, we’d spend more time in prayer than anything else.

Future challenges

1. Perhaps the biggest challenge for youth ministry in the next several years will be defining what community is, and then somehow enabling it to organically take place. The Internet and youth culture continue to change how people view relationships and how they interact. Since we are made in His image and one of the core essentials of that is relationships, we know that community will never go away, but the church’s ideology will either have to shift or be intentional about making a stance. Forming small groups and telling the participants to talk to each other for a couple years is not necessarily community.

2. Somewhat related is that our communication and teaching styles may need to change. Rather than lecturing from a stage or even discussing in a classroom small group, perhaps teaching will need to change to a community-driven experience that interacts with the real world.

What problems do we have? What future challenges do you see for youth ministry? Perhaps most importantly, how are you addressing these problems and challenges in your youth group?

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

Recently I attended a pastor’s leadership conference and was challenged by the speaker and by God to get serious about my prayer life. Don’t misunderstand, I never stopped praying to God, but I must admit that the quality of my communication with Him leaves lots of room for improvement. I really want to get serious about prayer.

Prayer is a great resource and a wonderful privilege that we just don’t avail ourselves of as we should. It is something we should want to utilize to the fullest. I’m not talking about praying more often or longer, although I’m sure that will be part of it. What I am talking about is connecting with God on a much more regular and deeper level than I have been. When things are going well in my walk with God, my prayer life is great, but when my walk with the Lord struggles, so does my prayer life. I’m not sure which causes the other – I think they both leap frog along together and are dependent on each other.

What do I need to do to get serious about my prayer life? I’ve been more serious about focusing when I pray, pouring out my heart more sincerely, keeping lists of people I said I’d pray for, listening to God’s still, quiet voice speaking to me, and desiring to deepen my personal relationship with Him. It takes focus, it takes time, it means having my priorities right, and it demands honesty and openness in my time with Him, but it certainly is worth it. I really do want to get serious about my prayer life. What about you?

Scripture
Phil 3:7-14, “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ — the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead…. One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Reflect

• Evaluate your recent prayer life. Honestly, what would God say about it?
• Why not start right now – take a few extra minutes to really connect with God. What could be a better use of your time?

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Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 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!

The first Sunday of every month the youth pastors in our town (collectively called “Allies”) put on an event called Burning Bush. It’s a time for all our youth groups to come together for worship, teaching, equipping and building relationships. Tonight was my night to be the speaker. As the evening started and I was getting ready to take the stage, I realized that not once had I prayed over my lesson. It’s like God struck me upside the head and said, “Dude, who’s message is this? Is this your message or my message?!” After all the time of studying and preparation I had put into the talk, not once did I approach God about it. I couldn’t believe my stupidity. I went off and prayed by myself, begging God to forgive me, and then grabbed one of the other youth pastors and prayed with him, too. The difference between teaching in my own strength and teaching is God’s strength is incredible. When I got up on stage, the whole lesson felt different. It felt like it flowed from me from me rather than being recited from memorized notes. It’s a good thing God works in spite of me, not because of me.

The moral of the story: Communicate God’s Word with God, not your own word without God.