Outreach Night

The Dips and Lows

There are times in youth ministry (and probably every ministry) where you feel like you are just stuck in a rut, going through the motions.  

I heard something great on Episode 198 of the Youth Ministry Garage.  The feeling of being in the “rut” is normal.  Don’t feel guilty.  It happens.  I don't think I have ever in 20 years of youth ministry heard anyone say this.

I’m not in the rut right now but I have certainly been there several times.  I think if you are in the same place, doing the same thing for any length of time you experience lows.  Perhaps this is why at, one time, youth ministers moved from church to church every 16 months?  Maybe they hit the “rut” and felt like the magic is over and it’s time to move on to a new church.
Just thinking out loud.

Someone on the show used the word “diluted”.  When your job description is more than just youth ministry, which for most churches you find the youth pastor doing more than just youth ministry.  When passion gets diluted you get bummed.  Plain and simple.  Mainly because when you are divided in many ways you find that you aren’t good at any of them.

I also think churches need to focus on what their ultimate goal for the youth ministry will be.  What’s the purpose of the youth ministry?  Then decide not to tag on lots of other jobs on the new youth pastor’s job description and just let him do youth ministry.  If you need a children’s pastor either hire one or wait till down the road when your church is at the spot where you can hire a children’s pastor.  If you need an “associate pastor”, either hire one or wait till down the road when you are ready to do so.  Get the picture?  Don’t lump a bunch of titles on a youth pastor (or any other ministry position) just to sell the hire and make it legit.  Come up with a long range plan.

I would love to hear the following in an SBC business meeting:
“I know many of you think we need to make this position the youth/senior adult pastor.  Lets us focus on one for now since we can’t afford both. Down the road as the church and ministry grows we can hire the other.”

If your church is in the search process right now please feel free to pass this blog post on to the search committee. ;)

I know that I personally need to focus on my sweet spot in youth ministry.   Do what I love to do and focus on it.  The things that I do that others can do I need to give those things away.

For the short term I think I’ll just get refreshed driving the Jeep on the beach.

Last Night at Contagious

We kicked off the evening with a fun game called "fork over your quarters".  Students had to roll quarters down a 6 foot table and hope to have the quarter roll between the tines of an upside down fork.  We had a few attempt the feat with only a minute on the clock each.  The last guy tried and got one quarter in the fork.  He won himself a gift card for pizza.

Following the game we watched a video about a bad dating relationship from Bluefishtv.net.  A young lady shared her story about being involved in an unhealthy relationship and the affect it had on her as a follower of Christ.

After the video we divided up the middle and high school groups.   Ramon taught the middle school students, and I hear he did a fantastic job, and I had the high school students.  Our lesson last night was about dating relationships.  You know dating is not found in the Bible.  So we took off from there and even gave the students some tips on "how to break up". 

The POD groups took giant post it notes and each group wrote the advantages of dating on one side of the post it note and the disadvantages on the other side.  For every group the disadvantages outweighed the advantages and as a youth group over all the disadvantages list was way longer than the advantages.

During Hang Time we had corn dogs and hot dogs, pretzels and our famous red kool aid.  Somehow I ended up making about ten iced coffees before the night was over.  Looks like iced coffee is going to have to go up on the menu whenever we put up a menu.

This next Sunday we talk about our relationship with the church.  Looking forward to it.

The picture is our new The Loft logo that we placed on the wall last week and some of our fantastic students modeling beneath the sticker.

Last Night at Contagious

We had an awesome time at Contagious Youth last night up in The Loft.
As usual the youth ministry team gathered at 5:30 and ran over our game plan and prayed.
As students arrived they immediately hit the ping pong table, foosball table and sat around on the sofas or at the coffee bar talking.  It's great to see fellowship happening among the students and adults.

We started off the evening with soda can friends game.  A fun game where one student was on the floor with a soda can on their forehead and their team mate had to stand and put their forehead on the other end of the can and then stand up without dropping the can and no using their hands or anything else to keep the can between their foreheads.  We had 3 teams compete and a team of two girls did won the game in 20 seconds and got to take home two board games.

Then we split up and Ramon and the middle school team took the middle school students with them and I stayed and taught the high school students.  Our lesson each week is the same for both groups just tweaked for their age group.  Last night we continued our series on Relationships and talked about our relationship with authority.  Using scripture we covered, parents, teachers, government, elders and pastors.  The students then broke in to their PODz and discussed the lesson and talked about applying it to their lives this week.

Following our Bible study time we had Hang Time.  The hit last night was the taco in a bag.  Simply take a bag of fritos, open it, dump in a spoon of taco meat.  We had a table set up with various toppings for their taco in a bag.  It didn't take long for 50 bags and 6 lbs of taco meat and couple pounds of cheese to disappear.  We watched the promo for our upcoming Man Weekend campout. 

The team and students surprised me with a giant birthday cookie and a birthday card.  That was nice and many of the kids wrote nice notes in the card.  Tomorrow I turn the big 46 (4 years from half a century).

Man Weekend is Coming

Last Night at Contagious Youth

Last night we had a great time together.  For three weeks we are focusing on friends and bringing friends.  Last night we had several guests and they enjoyed their time at Contagious in The Loft.  We are hoping they will return this coming Sunday.

We started off the evening with an ice breaker (no pun intended).  We filled two containers with water and ice and then dropped a bag of gummy worms in each container.  We had volunteers, one guy and one girl, come up and using their bare feet retrieve the worms.  The one who got the most worms out of the water with their feet in 60 seconds won.  Lots of fun to watch!  The winners received gift certificates to a local frozen yogurt shop.

Our lesson last night focused on friendship relationships taking a look at David and Jonathon in 1 Samuel 18:1-9.  Friends:

• Are Committed
• Find value in each other
• Give each other wiggle room (don't smother a relationship)
• Love their friends

Here is a look at our POD discussion guide:
Read:  Proverbs 18:24; 12:26; 27:17
List out, as a group, the friendship qualities you see in these verses:

Proverbs 17:9
Have you seen this happening in your friendships and in our youth group?
Have you been guilty of this yourself?

Proverbs 17:9

What are ways you can be a true friend to others this week?

Who is the close Christian friend you can go to?  You “go to friend”?

Have you ever been the friend that stood by and did nothing when you saw a friend make a bad choice?

Read: 1 Corinthians 15:33
Has this ever been true in your life?  Have you ever been fooled?

What were the consequences?

Do you have friends that are a bad influence on you who you allow to influence you and bring you down?

James 2:23 
How are you God’s friend?
James 4:8a - this is how you have this friendship with God




We finished the night with an hour of Hang Time and ate 10 pizzas and 2 gallons of my special lemon fruit punch recipe.  As students departed they picked up more Lifebooks to give out at school this week.

Off (Part 3)

(Part 1)
(Part 2)
Do some kids rebel when they hit 18?  You bet, chances are they would rebel no matter what.  Rebels rebel and they look for things to rebel against.  It’s just part of that old sinful nature that they hold on to.  I still have to fight rebellion because I don’t like rules and regulations.

Much could be straightened out if parents sat down and talked about the importance of a relationship with Jesus Christ and how that relationship should grow and how there are certain spiritual habits, or disciplines if you will, that help us grow.  Not a lecture but a but a real conversation.  Connected in a church is one of those habits.  Parents need to share from their heart, not from their head.

Could it be that some kids bristle up at the fact that their parents force them to go to church because mom or dad have never sat down and talked about the importance of a growing healthy relationship with Jesus Christ?

Ultimately what does God’s Word teach us about parents shepherding their child?
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Proverbs 22:5-6
Hebrews 10:25

My goal as a parent is to obey God’s Word and teach my children and then trust in God to do the rest, even if that means holding on to Him if my child rebels.  My first priority is to please God. My family comes after that priority but if I’m truly living to please God then I will do the right things for and with my family.


God will hold me accountable for training up my children in the way they should go.
God will hold my children accountable for what they do with that training.

Last Night at Contagious in The Loft

Sunday night we had a great time together at Contagious.

We kicked off the evening with a fun game of Doggy Biscuits.  4 students put a clothes pin in their mouth and had to pick up dog biscuits from one bowl and then go on all fours across the room and drop the biscuits in the other bowl.  The one with the most biscuits in their bowl by the end of the song, Who Let the Dogs Out, won.  Lots of fun!

We gave away a case of candy bars to a couple of boys who brought a couple of friends with them and they had to split it up and share it.  I'm sure they are still on some sort of sugar high today. (and I'm sure the parents are so happy about that)

 We watched a short video clip from David Nasser about honoring parents.  Then we divided up the middle and high school students and had a message about family relationships as part of our current relationships series. We took a look at the dysfunctional family of Isaac with his son's Jacob and Esau, Genesis 25:24-34.  They needed some real relationship coaching.  We came up with, from this event in the life of this family, a family soup recipe:
Forget the Past family problems
Honesty
Love and Respect
Forgiveness
Put Others First

Students then had some great discussion in their PODs with their POD leaders.

During Hang Time we watched a video to prepare students for The Lifebook project.  We also watched a video compilation of our camp pictures and video clips.  Lots of fun! 

Much popcorn and oreos were consumed.

Beach Baptism at Contagious Youth

OFF (part 2)

Read Part 1 HERE
Do we force them to go to school? But I don’t want to turn them off to learning. My three diplomas won’t go to eternity with me, but the relationship that has been, in part, cultivated through connection in a local body of believers will. More than once I have said, “You won’t get dessert if you don’t eat the ___________ on your plate.” That’s forcing, at least forcing them to make a decision on whether dessert is worth it or not.

I think it all goes back to the families’ culture in their home. At our home church is never discussed as an option. We go each week unless we are sick. Therefore our kids don’t view church as optional. They know that in our home this is one of the things we value and we do. Why? Because scripture tells us that connection and involvement in a local body of believers is expected.


I was “forced” to go to church my entire life. Were there times that I did not enjoy it? You bet. Do I look back as a mature adult now and hate my parents for “forcing” me? No way. I’m thankful that my parents instilled in me, through our families’ culture, the fact that church is important to spiritual growth.

OFF (part 1)

Grappling with the age old youth pastor discussion.

A light switch is either “on” or “off”.  If it is not in the “on” position then it is “off”.  If it is “off” I cannot force it to be “off” any more than it already is “off”.  “Off” is “off”.

I’m always curious as to this line of logic.  “If I take my teen to church whether they want to be there or not I’m forcing them and I don’t want to turn them off, so I let them stay home because they don’t want to be there.”  This, for 20 years now, has always seemed to me that a teen in this position is already “off” and by taking them to church you can’t turn them “off”, they have already made that decision themselves.

God will hold me, the parent, accountable for training up my child in the way they should go.  My children will be held accountable to God if they decide to walk away from their faith.  If at the age of 18, and they are no longer under my roof and responsibility, they decide to turn “off” or continue to be in the “off” state then God will hold them accountable.  But if they aren’t there they won’t hear something that may sink in and make a difference in their life in the here, and now and for eternity.

“Force”.  I hear this word used in this discussion as well.  It is almost as if a parent never forces their child to do anything.  Some don’t, I guess, those are often the children who fall under the “spoiled brat” category. 

Do we force them to go to school?  But I don’t want to turn them off to learning.  My three diplomas won’t go to eternity with me, but the relationship that has been, in part, cultivated through connection in a local body of believers will.

(More to come)