Youth Ministry and Me

This site has a list of 10 good Youth Ministry blogs.  Obviously they should have rounded it out to 11 and added this blog, but none the less, these 10 are good and I think I am subscribed to most of them!

"Sustainable Youth Ministries fail all the time; they thrive in a culture of experimentation, innovation and creativity. It is floundering youth ministries that often remain paralyzed, unable to risk, stuck in a nostalgic obsession with past success"

I've seen this video in a couple of places recently and it got me thinking... (watch the video below before continuing).


"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.


Anyway, it got me thinking a few things.  But mainly I thought it was a reminder that if we're striving for creativity and relevance and freshness in our services (which we may or may not be) then we actually need to do better than simply modernising the liturgy and dressing cooler.  We should also avoid copying another churches culture into our services (i.e. lets meet like Hillsong because they are large).

How do you work out ways of worshiping as a community, particularly of young people, that are relevant and culturally contextualised to your group?

One is good the other sucks

I get really excited by watching people grow.  By watching people take on their faith as their own. By watching people fail but have the humility to admit it and seek God’s grace to continue.  I love watching people learn, love and investigate, to see the difference Jesus is making in their lives.

But I’m constantly pressured by a variety of forces, my own stupidity and sinfulness chief among them, to sit in my office and do admin, to organise the many activities coming up in the following month, to make sure I’ve got enough people and leaders available to staff our programs…  It’s very draining and it’s not really my strength.  Yet even though it’s draining somehow I actually find it easier.  Even though I dislike it, and I’m not that great at it, I often find myself choosing to organise things or do admin rather than get involved with people.  I seem to do this especially when I’m feeling emotionally or physically drained.

So what’s the solution?  I’m unsure.  But now that I’m aware of the problem, I’m working harder at catching up with people when I don’t feel like it.  I’m yet to catch up with someone and not be completely energised, even if the conversation is an awkward or hard one.  I’m also yet to organise a program and feel super good.

I think it’s also all related to how much I’m relying on God to provide everything I need to serve him.  When I’m too focused on myself, that’s when I spend hours in my office being ineffective and trying to organise things.  But when I remind myself that I can do nothing and that God can do everything, that’s when I take risks for the Gospel.  That’s when I will make phone calls to people, or organise to meet people, even though the idea is scary, I’m reminded that the benefits are great.

It’s so simple when I think about it.  Do these kind of feelings resonate with any other people involved in youth ministry or ministry out there?

An interesting video I watched over on Michael Hyatt's (CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing) blog.  I found it interesting because I think even though it's primarily about book publishing it has a lot to say about Gen Y in general and the way they are perceived vs. the way they actually think and behave.

(RSS readers may need to click through to the site to see this video)


I wonder if this says something for the content and nature of our youth ministry programs.  Do we sometimes focus on youth assuming the first run through is true and forget there is great potential for deep things in Generation Y?

What do you think, do you agree with the forwards or backwards way more?

So our church is located in a very strong Christian area of Melbourne.

Within a 5-10min drive from our church are a number of churches with great youth ministries doing great things.

I believe we've got a great youth ministry doing great stuff here too, but we miss the one thing these other churches have.  LOADS of people.  Our youth group probably gets on average 10-15 on a Friday night.  A few more come on Sunday, but they don't come on Friday, and many who come on Friday don't come on Sunday.

It makes it hard to get new people, particularly youth, to stick around.  I think this is totally understandable, it's exciting to be part of a church with 40-50 or 200-300 other like-minded youth.

I'm still uncertain how to operate in this kind of climate.  When I was in Tasmania, we were one of those 'big' groups, with 30, 40 or 50 people.  There weren't that many other 'big' youth groups around.  I new numbers would win more numbers.  We didn't focus on numbers it was just exceptionally helpful in doing growing gospel ministry.

Here are some of the questions I'm thinking about often:

1. How do we be distinctive from these other groups?
2. Why do we bother existing when there are these other good groups?

Called to Youth Ministry looks like it will be a great resource for youth workers around the world.

It’s got a bunch of resources on their and if you’re American, it seems to offer much more like coaching and conferences (although I haven’t checked that out too much because I’m Australian).

So why not head over and check out Called to Youth Ministry.  Add them to your RSS reader so you’ll be kept up to date with their latest.

Note: These guys have asked me to contribute a few things to their site and I have happily agreed.

John Harrower gives us some advice from Paul Barnett on how to prepare for a sermon.

Barnett spoke recently at the Diocese of Tasmania Clergy Conference. Another speaker there was one of Australia's most experienced youth pastors, Tim Hawkins.

How good is it that a Diocese has Youth Ministry so high on the agenda that it gets Tim Hawkins to speak to all it's clergy.

If Tassie can do it so can Melbourne (that's a challenge to anyone from the Melbourne Diocese who may read this blog). Give youth ministry a proper priority!

Recently at the NYMC I attended a session run by an Irish worship musician called Andy Flannagan.

I bought his CD the collection and I've been really enjoying his music and his style.

He was a really genuine guy who had a clear passion to see Christians worship God in more real ways than singing songs about how much we love our boyfriend Jesus. He is also big into social justice and had written some songs to reflect the justice of God in worship.

A cool guy.

Check out his website

Today I sat down with my supervisor and went through where I'm spending my time as a Youth Pastor.

The results were shocking. I've neglected some big and important things while doing a whole lot of little things keeping me busy and feeling very drained.

Let's hope as I refocus for next year in the coming weeks and months, I can get the big important rocks in place first and then work out what other things can fill the remaining space or be scrapped altogether!

My job could look quite different next year.

An interesting quote:

Hint: Your question to them (when in a job interview and the topic of money comes up) should be, “Since you live here, how much do you live on?” Check what the local school district salary range is for a teacher with your level of experience and expect the church’s salary package to be competitive.)

This week I'm heading up to the National Youth Ministry Convention on the Gold Coast.

On their Facebook and twitter updates the other day they asked for people to send in great youth ministry stories to be shared at the conference. I think this is a great idea! But it did get me wondering, What is a great youth ministry story? What qualifies apart from it happening to me and therefore I think it's great?

Here are some options:

It's about numbers, the youth ministry has grown in the last two years from 10 kids to 500. Is that a great story?

What about this. A guy has been doing all the right things, been faithful to God and seen 5 years of fairly fruitless ministry. Is that a great story?

The idea of faithfulness is definitely the key part of a great story. A person being faithful to his or her task and seeking God in that as well as been aware how God has worked in that situation, be it through learning more about Him, learning more about yourself or seeing others grow spiritually (including new converts). Too often faithfulness is an excuse for unfaithful lazy people to do nothing and then cite the "it's not about numbers" line to defend themselves. God knows our hearts.

I found this post about what to go 'AFTR' in a youth leader very simple but insightful. We want Youth Leaders who are:

• Available
• Faithful
• Teachable
• Responsive

There are two good jobs for awesome people (you're reading my blog ipso facto you are awesome)

Job 1: Is in North West Tasmania. Youth and Childrens Minister and Regional Coordinator

Job 2: Is at my old church (and is kinda like my old job only bigger) - Youth and Young Adult Minister

Both are full-time. Both are in Tasmania. Both have great bosses.

What's not to love?

UPDATE: Links are now correct!

There is an encouraging series of posts over on the YouthBlog about Youth Ministers offices.

This is encouraging as my office can often get messy and out of hand. Thankfully I have recently cleaned and sorted it out so it is a picture of clutter free productivity at the moment! This will probably not last!

Unfortunately, often my office gets the the state where I just need to spend half a day sorting and clearing things. Here is a photo from about a month or two ago.

I'm still hopeful that one day I will be such a GTD pro that I will never let things get like this again... a man can hope I guess!