Youth Ministry On a Tight Budget

So the financial committee chair person comes to you and says: "Good news! We've reworked your budget...you have $100 to spend for the year for each of your programs. If you could spend less that'd be great!"

Ouch. Double ouch if you're working with several different programs!

You have a couple of options:

1. Start writing your own curriculum, which takes a lot more time or
2. Find quality curriculum/teaching material at a discounted price.
   

When working with church funds, you obviously want to be the best steward that you can with the money that people have given for the work of God's Kingdom. But that doesn't mean you have to skimp on quality to get the most bang for your buck!

Let me give a couple of ideas on how to save money on buying quality teaching material.

First, check out sites like Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. Just a couple weeks ago I was looking for some material for our Jr. High class and someone recommended to me the Dares From Jesus series by Mark Oestricher. If you go online and buy this material, it's $15. But I bought it from a used book dealer through Amazon for $1.50. No, I'm not missing a zero. One dollar and fifty cents!

When I received it in the mail I was astonished that such a great tool was available at such a low price and in perfect condition!

Secondly, check out discount Christian bookstores. Here you can find books that are either out of print or from the previous year. I bought Nelson's Annual Youth Ministry Sourcebook which is a great resource for youth ministry talks for less than $5. I also picked up this great book for about $2. Incidently, that book is available through amazon for 44 cents.

So having a small budget is not a huge deal when it comes to buying teaching resources. You have to shop around a little bit, but you could easily fill your library with tons of teaching materials for under $100.

...Flaw...

You know that one thing that you have that you don't want anyone else to see? It's that one weakness...or flaw that you shamefully hide because you absolutely don't want anyone to see or acknowledge it.

I have one.

It scares the potatoes out of me when I think about someone calling it out on me.

And it happened yesterday.

Not just by one person, but by a collective group of people.

It hurt.

Now before you get all upset, this wasn't by anyone at our church or anything like that. But when someone calls your flaw out to you, it's a frightening experience. You're laid open. Completely bare and naked. The wound already open and salt being rubbed into it. It's not a fun experience. Over and over again I run the words through my mind like a broken record and each time the sting is still there.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I'm not perfect. As I frequented mutter to myself "I've yet to master the ability to be superhuman." I still get things wrong and will continue to get things wrong.

There is comfort, however, in the words of Jesus and Paul:

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." - 1st Corinthians 12:9,10


And in the words of the wise Hannah Montana: "Nobody's perfect, I gotta work it again and again till I get it right."

Oh the Joys of Summer Youth Ministry

Lately I had been feeling guilty for taking my afternoons off from the office. In college it was pounded into my head that a minister should work an average of 55 hours a week so "...no one can complain that you don't work!" I thought that was fair advice and that's what I've done. My wife has continually told me that I "work WAY too much", but have since learned from people much wiser than I that a fair amount is from 45 to 50 hours a week.

So I've felt REALLY guilty about taking off in the afternoons to go home and relax. So I sat down this morning to figure out my official Summer hours between camp, CIY, VBS, etc...and came up that since June 1st, I've worked an average of 52.33 hours a week.

So today at noon I'm going to go home and feel guilty no longer!

I'm curious about the hourly averages of other youth workers. If anyone has any insight into that, I'd surely like to know! While talking with my former youth pastor, he asked me why I put in extra office hours since there were other programs that took up time. I found out that he does what I now do, work from 8am till noon and take the afternoon off to be with his family.

According to Group Magazine:

"The average hours worked per week reported by youth pastors crept up slightly, from 45 to 48. That means your ministry keeps you on the clock much longer than your neighbors. The average workweek across the country is 42 hours. You're basically among the three in 10 American workers who put in at least 49 hours on the job every week. But if you subtract the number of hours spent eating pizza and drinking diet Coke..."

Each church is different. I know there are area churches that require their staff to be in the office till 5pm (ouch!) Some churches require very little official office hours but require much more home visitation and hospital visitation.

So if you are a youth worker (or just happen to have a love OF youth workers...or just like to make comments...I'll take all I can get!) and are able to participate in this discussion, your voice is welcome and appreciated!

Tranformational Thinking

The Once a Youth Pastor... blog has dramatically influenced a change in how I perceive 'effectiveness' in youth ministry and how youth ministry SHOULD be done. If you haven't seen this blog you have to. Go through and read it all. Most of the posts are short and to the point but it has been instrumental in reforming my ministry paradigm.

In one of his latest posts he lists the 5 questions that helped him rethink youth ministry.

1. When was the last time we saw teens and their parents inside the walls of the church discussing spiritual things together?
2. Do we equip and support parents of teens even a fraction as much as the teens that walk through their doors?
3. How much time does our church/youth ministry invest in parents?
4. What percentage of our youth ministry programs involves parents as participants, not just chaperones or leaders?
5. Which of our ministries communicate that parents are the most important part of a teen’s faith formation?

Again, this is his, I don't want to take any credit from his work and pass along his site so you can be blessed by his words. I'm going to print off those questions and put them in a spot that I will see daily.

The Media (Not so evil as you think)

Quick post before the service.

Most people blame the media for misrepresenting news or not publishing news of "substance". I know I often get ticked off when the war in Darfur gets 10 seconds of news time and the cafeteria worker who saved a little girl from choking gets 4 full minutes (true story). But is the media to blame? Or is it that people just don't care about things going on in the world elsewhere?

I present the evidence. CNN's "Top News" according to page views:

1. Jenna's big Wedding Day
2. Ex Manager: OJ confessed
3. 'Idol' finalist's dad banned
4. Can Clinton Land the plane?
5. Obama closes in on Superdelegates.
6. Price of snail mail creeps up
7. ....you get the point


What does this mean for youth ministry? Maybe exercising an awareness of what's going on in the world and having compassion for people in other countries. More thoughts on this later.

It's a Numbers Game

Like it or not, youth workers live in a culture where numbers apparently matter. This is horrible. When i read curriculum, everything is geared towards a group of 20+ attenders. Games. Events. Everything you read (almost) in youth ministry is geared towards large youth groups. It's almost as if people have forgotten that the average church in America is under 100 in attendance for the whole church!

Every time I go to a large youth event, they bring in "big speakers" who are heralded as professional youth workers because they are on staff at churches of 10,000+ or have youth groups that are hundreds of students. What about Bill down the road who has been doing youth ministry for 20 years for little or no pay at all and has a youth group of 8 high school students. Or Lindsay in the next town over who has been at the same church for 5 years and ministers to a group of 3 middle school girls.

Big numbers equal big success...or so we're told. I was asked several times last week how many are we taking to our CIY Believe conference. My answer was 5. But what I was really excited about was that we had 2 of them going for the very first time, which to me is a big deal.

Numbers don't equal success. In fact, there is no way possible that we can ever measure the success of a youth ministry. Not till we get to heaven. It's not the work of a single youth pastor. It's not the work of a vision statement or even a hospitality ministry.

So the next time you're tempted to ask someone the size of their youth group, ask yourself why you want to know. Why does it matter? Are you trying to measure up to them? Are you trying to measure their success? Think about it.

Maybe you're someone who plans a large gathering for students. Instead of asking Doug Fields to come and speak at your event, think about Bill down the street. Consider the youth workers who don't have a line of books or merchandise.

Father forgive us for turning youth ministry into a competition and popularity contest.

My name is Dj and we have a small youth group, and I enjoy each and every moment I have with them.

Excitement!

I just have to say that I am EXTREMELY excited this morning. Our little church of 300 is taking 15 to The Core Conference this Saturday. This is really a huge step for our church and I'm really excited about it!

MUST Reads

It's been a great week in 'blog land' with several great posts from many different areas. I wanted to share with you some of the great ones from this week. Hopefully this is something I can continue to do each week.

"Once a Youth Pastor..." is a blog that recently got hit with a ton of traffic due to Marko talking about it in his post. It's about one youth pastor's exit from youth ministry because he felt God leading him somewhere else. His posts are great! It's all about why modern youth ministry isn't working and he raises great questions. Make sure you read this first! But make sure you make it over to The Piano Teacher part 1 and part 2.

Church Marketing Sucks is a great website for those that are looking for the more "commercial" side of our faith. It aims to equip leaders to be more effective in their outreach and media. Pretty good stuff! But this post on why Christian Living Sucks floored me! It's a must read! Here is a small snippet:

"Forget polishing up that web site, planning your next series or training your greeters. Because if we can't effectively live the gospel, how can we hope to communicate it?"

What is the Kingdom features a video on the horrors of Lord Waldemart!

One of the hardest things to do in our lives as disciples is to surrender. RETHINKING YOUTH MINISTRY has posted about this very subject with a great prayer written by Charles de Foucauld. Simply beautiful prayer that I aim to keep with me.

Oh, and don't forget to Take the Test!

Enjoy the reading! I sure did!

Good Clean Comedy

Now, for those that know me know that I hate that we have a Christian subculture: Christian Rock Music, Christian Contemporary Music, Christian Death Metal, Christian Bookstore, etc...It drives me nuts! So as often as I can, I like to present artists and speakers that don't promote themselves as a "Christian anything" but rather someone who is a believer and happens to be in a rock band, or a comedian, or...you get the picture.

So I want to make a recommendation for something I came across this week that I think is noteworthy for youth pastors, parents, families and anyone else that just likes to laugh. His name is Tim Hawkins and he is a stand up comedian/music parodist (wow, that actually seems to be a real word). The man is hilarious! If you're a fan of Brian Regan, or Weird Al Yankovic, you'll love this guy. His songs are great and his comedy is top notch.

For anyone that lives close by, I have his DVD and you're more than welcome to borrow it.

Adventures In Youth Ministry 3

If you've never heard of Mike Yaconelli, drop what you're doing and go see as many of his videos and read as many of his books as you can. The man was amazing and ever since I was introduced to him years ago, he has been a great encouragement to me. Mike has gone on to be with Jesus now, but his passion still remains.

This video was a shot in the arm for me this morning. Take 10 minutes and watch it, you'll be glad you did!

Youth Ministry is Broken

Let's face it. Youth ministry as we have known it is broken. It no longer "works". I've studied enough and been with enough youth ministers to know that the youth ministry that worked back in the 70's and 80's no longer works today.

Here is what we have done for the past 30+ years:

Church hires youth pastor.
Youth pastor creates fun and engaging programs.
Youth pastor encourages kids to show up and 'bring friends'
Friends become part of youth group.
The world is saved.

Heres the problem: We're still doing that today and it clearly is not working. I've had the opportunity to get to talk to a lot of different pastors here in the past 2 years. Some are my friends that I went to school with and some have been in it a LOT longer than me. They're having the same troubles that our church is having in relation to their youth. Namely not showing up and not getting involved. That makes me feel a little better as I've struggled for months believing that maybe, possibly it was all my fault. Of course there is still that nagging possibility that I am the problem.

Post-modern youth ministry HAS to change in order to survive. How? Wow! I wish I knew the answer to that so I could write a book and make millions. My gut feeling is that parents have to take more of an initiative to get involved in the ministry process. Church youth ministry should ALWAYS be the complement to what is going on at home. The discipleship process should always start at home. When that influence isn't there at home, such as in the case of unbelieving parents, thats when the church becomes more instrumental in the discipleship process.

Something needs to change.

What I would love to do is completely cut off all church activity for a year. No Wednesday Nights. No Sunday nights. No events. Just worship on Sunday mornings. Getting OUT of the cycle of monotony and living the believers life in simplicity of every day life for just a year. Of course, I would be fired for such a suggestion as it is my job to keep everything busy. There...I said it, and I'm not taking it back either!

I always hear about big words like "missional" and "attractional" and why it is bad to be the latter and how we need to be the former. I would agree with that, but how do you share that mindset to other people? That is a complete paradigm shift and people will only believe it when they learn it for themselves. We're fighting 50+ years of church tradition, and that in itself is a near impossible task.

It is my prediction, that within the next 50 years, the churches that are refusing to make these radical changes will either cease to exists, or on the brink of death. I'm not saying that's a bad thing...maybe thats what we need. Being in a section of the country that you can throw a rock and hit 4 or 5 churches in a single throw, less churches may be a good thing.

We need a change. A drastic change. What kind of change, I haven't a clue and I'm always open to suggestions. Let us continue to seek the face of God in all of this as we struggle on making his Kingdom more of a reality here on earth.

The questions kids ask

A couple of weeks ago I started a "series" in our Junior worship (1st grade through 5th grade) about "Questions about God". I challenged the kids to write down a question that they had about God or the Bible or anything in the church and I was pretty excited that they accepted the challenge with an amazing gusto!

The first question I got? "How can God be three different people?"

From a 4th grader. We have a young theologian in our group!

But I wanted to focus on the question that I got this morning from a third grader. She asked: "Why do we do bad things that we know is (are) wrong?"

Good question, I wish I knew the answer to that. If I did, I'd sell more books than Rick Warren!

Paul kind of struggled with the same question in Romans 7:15

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing."

To sum up, we are evil creatures. This is the only part of my theology where I come close to being a Calvinist. I believe that we are totally and utterly depraved, unable to do any good EXCEPT through the grace of God. Only God allows us to come to him and accept his love and grace.

I often think about the decisions I make in life and ministry. Am I making this decision because it is what I believe God wants? Or am I doing this because I want the glory of it? The eternal struggle between what I want and what God wants is nothing new, it's been going on since day 10* of creation.

Only when we get to heaven will we finally be able to live in total and complete righteousness.

*Day of the first sin is only an approximate...but you knew that already.

Adventures In Youth Ministry 1

I wanted to start a series on here entitled: "Adventures in Youth Ministry" where I share funny stories, anecdotes, and even the dark times of youth ministry. To kick off this series I want to begin with a funny "Top 10" that is in this month's issue of Group Magazine. FYI, I wrote a letter to Rick Lawrence the editor of Group and he published it in this issue as well, but that's just bonus. The following was written by "Steve" a contributing editor of Group and not written by me.

Top 10 Rejected VBS Song Titles

10. I'll never be as good as Jesus
9. Come on down to Brokeback Ranch
8. What did David do with Goliath's Head, Head, Head?
7. I get a buzz from the Savior's love
6. John, John, John the Methodist
5. Vomit, you big fish, Vomit
4. She-bear, she-bear (Poor Elisha had no hair)
3. C'mon, it's time to Exegete!
2. We're gonna build a new church (with the $ in mommy's wallet)
1. Father Abraham had many sons (and wives!)