Distractions

I find it so easy to get sidetracked.  I sit down to the computer to do write a message for student church then I find myself ten minutes later reading an article about manatees and the Florida Everglades.  How does this happen?  It is so easy to lose focus in life.  We are being bombarded with distractions.



I have found, in my past 25 years of church leadership, that Christians (self included) can get sidetracked and lose focus of what truly matters.  It’s easy to get in debates about things that in the end won’t change eternity.  It’s easy to allow emotions and feelings to move the focus from our purpose of sharing Christ to a self pity-party. 


Christians get side tracked by what this author says or did, by the color of the church’s new carpet, chairs vs. pews, small groups vs. Sunday school, music styles, and the list could go on and on. 

I get quickly sidetracked by complaints that have absolutely no impact on eternity. 

How do we keep from getting sidetracked?



Remember your purpose.  Why am I here?  What has God called me to do?  How have I been uniquely created and equipped by God to do what He wants me to do?  



Regain focus.  Quit looking over there when you should be looking towards Christ.  Satan is going to throw distractions at us left and right because he doesn’t want Christ followers to be successful in reaching others with the life changing good news of Christ’s sacrifice and God’s love.  Quit focusing on self and focus on the Savior.

Remind others.  Remind those around you and who you serve with that if something doesn’t impact eternity you are not going to waste your time with it.  Arguments, debates, styles of worship, the temperature of the fellowship hall.  Life is too short and our task at hand is huge.



Robing.  (sorry I wanted to write “suit up” but just had to use another “R”)  

Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.

Ephesians 6:11
The best way to take out the enemy is to infiltrate and attack from within.  The devil is no dummy and he uses this technique to his advantage.  Often I find myself getting sidetracked by other believers, usually it is due to unchecked feelings and emotions.  It’s by not living under the control of the Holy Spirit and the result is living lives that don’t display the fruits of the spirit.  We have to be ready for attack and remember that the attack isn’t on us personally, the attack is for who we stand for and for focusing on our purpose.

Life is Hard

Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.
Romans 12:12

Romans 12 is a great chapter full of what I would call a "to do" list. You should read it.

Life is not easy. It doesn't take long living this life to realize we will have times that hard. Sometimes it is our own fault and the result of decisions we have made. There are consequences to our actions and choices. Sometimes life is hard and we go through a tough time and it's no fault of our own. There are times that our struggle comes from the outside and we have no control over it.

This verse tells us what to do in those times. Here is the recipe:
1. Rejoice. Not put on a fake happy face and pretend everything is okay. Rejoice in our confident hope. We can, as Christ followers, rejoice because one day we will spend eternity with God the Father. When that day comes there will be no more struggles or trials of life. We can be confident in this because of the work Christ did on the cross.

2. Be patient. I'm the worst at patience. I can't stand waiting things out. I'm so bad that when I'm in the McDonald's drive thru I time them because I know it's "fast food" and they could certainly improve on how long it takes to get our order. As a society we are growing more impatient. We live in an instant gratification world. We must be patient during the tough times and understand that the One who we have confident hope in loves us and is in control.
God doesn't magically come along and pop us out of the trial.  We know that in the valley, the tough time, God is with us each step of the way and provides us His comfort and protection.  Realize He is right there with you.  Read through Psalm 23.

3. Pray. Not just once. Keep on praying. At the end of the day in our home I'm pretty tired, I'm the age of a grandad but I have 8 year old twins! Parents understand what I'm saying. At the end of each day our family sits down and we read a Bible story together and we pray together. I love hearing my children pray. My youngest is a praying dude. There are two kids he prays for each and every night, one is our compassion international child that we support and the other is a little girl who has cancer. Every night these two girls are in his prayer. He keeps on praying and as his father I love to hear him do this.
Same thing with our heavenly Father. He loves to hear you pray because when we pray we are talking to Him. It's conversation and what parent doesn't love having conversation with their kid?
This persistence in prayer shows God you need him and are trusting him.

Have you ever run out of gas on the road? I have once or twice. But there have been many times I've been running on fumes. Prayer can be the fumes that keep you going when you have run out of gas in life.
Life is hard and that is just a plain fact. There is no avoiding trouble and trials in this life. If you are in one of those life storms right now I pray you will put Romans 12:12 to practice. If you aren't in one of those storms keep this verse in mind because we all know the storm is coming.

 

When tragedy strengthens your team

We are so focused on ministering to students we can tend to forget to minister to our awesome volunteers on our team.

Here are some suggestions when you have a team member experience tragedy or loss, hard times.

Pray.  Don’t make prayer the last resort but make prayer your first priority.  Pray and ask God to give strength, peace, healing to the one who is suffering.  Don’t just say, “I’ll pray for you.” but pray with the person.  Great encouragement can come when you hear someone pray for you.  It’s nice to hear “I’ll pray for you” but praying then and there takes that encouragement to a whole new level.

Don’t worry about what to say.  My wife and I have experienced some tragedies in our life together.  As I think back what spoke the most to me was not words but the hug.  The expressions of love and caring.  Our words can’t fix the issue and there is always that danger of saying the wrong thing.  A good hug and “I love you” can go a lot further than well intentioned cliche’s and words.

Give.  Give time to help.  Maybe offer to clean the house, run the kids around, babysit for an extended period.  When someone is hit with a health issue that takes them out of work this often means they are making no money so now on top of the stress of the illness is the financial stress.  What can be done?  Cook meals, get your team together and cook meals and deliver them.   Meals they can heat up.  Go grocery shopping together as a team and stock their pantry and fridge.  I don’t know what you spend each week on groceries but I know at my house it is one of the biggest expenses (12 to 15 gallons of milk a month is about fifty bucks or more).

Don’t just offer to help.  Show up and help.  People often say “let me know if I can do anything for you.”  But when we are on the other end we sometimes don’t know what to ask help with or what to do.  So show up with a plan and do it.

We hate tragedy.  Tragedy can be a time that draws individuals closer to their Lord, tragedy can also be at time for your team to really step up and be the body of Christ.  Tragedy can strengthen your team.

The Holidays. What do you do with them?

We are heading into the holiday season.  I know, not Christmas, but April, May and June bring a few special Sundays.  We have Easter this weekend.  Mother’s Day is on May 14.  Memorial Day weekend Sunday, May 28.  Father’s Day is June 18.


Our approach to these holidays shows that we value family.

Students are busier now than they ever have been. 

Families are constantly on the go.  While I don’t think this busyness is healthy I realize that we as student pastors need to look for ways to minister and help families who are running in multiple directions at one time.  Canceling student ministry on those holiday weekends allows families to have some down time together, to actually rest and experience a sabbath together.



The volunteers in our student ministry serve every Sunday night, many of them also do some sort of ministry on Sunday morning as well.  We ask that their Sunday morning ministry is their secondary ministry that doesn’t require them to spend hours at the church on Sunday morning because they need to be back on Sunday evening for two and a half hours.  The holiday Sunday off for them allow them time as well to spend with their families.  This also shows our volunteers how much we value them and appreciate all they do in student ministry.

Honestly there are parents and volunteers in our church who wouldn’t miss if we still met on the holiday because some people feel such an obligation to be present even though in their heart they would rather be at home with their family on the holiday.



Ideas for these holidays:



• Encourage families to get together with other families for lunch or picnic, some fellowship time together.


• Meet at a park, very relaxed, no real plan and program, play some games together, picnic.


• Create a family worship pdf for families to do together on that holiday.


• Invite volunteers and their families over for a cookout at your home.


• Focus on your own family and relax.  Something we don’t normally get to do on a Sunday.

Intentional Summer Ministry

 

Catch my latest blog post for LeaderTreks 

Mission Trip Evening Devotions

This summer I will be taking our students to the island of Eleuthera on a mission trip.  The majority of the fifteen member team have been on the trip, only four newbies.  For most of the team this will be their third trip to Eleuthera.  Like camps and retreats even a mission trip can become a routine. 



We are changing up our morning quiet time journals and evening team meeting this year.  The past two trips we used two great mission trip journals from LeaderTreks.  In the mornings our students would do the morning devotion in the journal as well as the prayer journal.  At night the journal walks you through an evaluation of the day.



This year I ordered a different journal from LeaderTreks, Flipping Missions.  In this journal is a six week devotional journal that leads up to the trip, the six day journal for during the trip, then a six week journal for after the trip when we return home.

  Part of the goal in our trip is to help students establish the habit of having a quiet time.

My plan this year is to do more in the evening than just evaluate the day.  We are going to do a little Bible study/group devotion time based off the morning devotion and the evening reflection.  After that devotion time we will have some prayer time together.  Following prayer we will evaluate our day and our working together as a team.


We evaluate by asking:

What three things did we do well today?

What three things do we need to improve on?

What three steps will we take starting now to make those improvements?

Our first trip we just sort of showed up and went for it.  Our second year we tweaked some things to make improvements.  Now this will be our third year and we will make a few more adjustments to improve what we do and to help us work well together as a team.


What do you do for quiet time journals and devotions on your mission trips?

Getting in the way of ministry

“What are you really accomplishing here? Why are you trying to do all this alone while everyone stands around you from morning till evening?”


Jethro gave his son-in-law Moses some great advice.  Jethro arrives on the scene and find Moses sitting and listening to disputes among the people.  From morning till night he was a judge, a mediator, and not getting much done because he was only focused on that task. (Deut 18)  Moses was meant to be a leader, not sit and listen to complaints all day.  So Jethro tells Moses to get out there and find some men to help him with this task.



We block the funnel of ministry at the top sometimes.  We get in the way of others getting in there and rolling up their sleeves and serving.   How do we block the funnel?



We think we know the best way to do it.   Maybe you do.  Maybe someone has a better way and more efficient and it would allow them to express their gift and allow you to focus on what God has created you to do.  Maybe they won’t do it just like you but in the end they get it done.



We think we work best alone.  No! Ministry is always better together.  Never serve alone, always serve with others.  People want to serve they just need to be given the opportunity.

We think that only we can do the task.   Really?  You don’t think there is someone else in the body of Christ who can come up with new decorations for the stage?  You don’t think there is someone else that could write the small group discussion questions?  You don’t think there is someone else that can go grocery store and then prepare the food for youth group?  I love that phrase, “Do what you do best and delegate the rest.”

We think we have to come up with all the ideas.   I sat last night with ministry leaders from our church and listened to their dreams for Nags Head Church.  They had some great ideas!  Let others dream, let others come up with ideas.  Eventually our brains get stale and new ideas from others can spark great ministry ideas.

We micro manage.  Turn the church loose to serve and don’t constantly tell them how to do their ministry.  Yes, train and equip them.  Yes, give input when asked.  Please step in if something they are doing will cause physical spiritual injury.  Other than that step back and enjoy watching people use their gifts.



Do you see the pattern.  As leaders we sometimes block the funnel of ministry and then wonder why people aren’t serving.  We can have control or growth but can’t have both.  I want to see growth more than I want to control everything.  Growth comes when the church gets to serve and do the ministry.



What are we really accomplishing here?  Why are we trying to do all this alone while the church stands around morning to evening waiting for an opportunity to experience the joy of serving?

Let’s agree to not block the funnel and get in the way of people serving.


Leadership Labratories

Maximizing Your Summer Mission Trip as a Leadership Lab

By Andy Lawrenson February 28, 2017

In 2015, we took our first overseas mission trip to the island of Eleuthera. Our students willingly did everything that we asked them to do, and we considered the trip to be a great success. Soon afterward, I picked up the idea of leadership laboratories at a LeaderTreks Refuel Retreat. I learned that our mission trip could be more than an opportunity for students to serve; it could become a greenhouse of student leadership development.

Read More HERE

Busy Busy Busy

Busy, I get it.

Conversations with parents and students keep pointing and taking us to the conclusion that students and families are super busy and perhaps even operating on an overload.  So as student ministries we see this affect and impact our momentum.  It’s hard to grow a church when the members show up once a month for worship.  It’s hard to grow a student ministry when students show up once a month.  Attendance has such a big influence on momentum, excitement is generated when students look around and see many more students at worship with them. 

The reverse is true too.  When students show up and many of the “regulars” are missing it deflates the energy and momentum.  If a youth group goes three weeks in a row with 30 students the momentum gets going and then they hit the fourth week and have 17 its like letting the helium out of  a balloon.  Then you are back at square one.

 In the olden days (7 to15 years ago) it wasn’t like this, at least not in our neck of the woods.  I know youth pastors in the Midwest and west coast have shared with me that they have experienced the same issue.

I don’t think it is because Christian students, as a whole, have lost interest in their church’s youth group.  I don’t believe that it is because they have all become apathetic, sure there are a few just like in big church.  Gone are the days of Wednesday evenings and Sundays being protected for worship and church involvement, even in the Bible belt.

Simply from observations, no scientific data to back this up, I think the root cause of this is busyness.  It seems to me that students today are busier than ever.  This translates that parents are busier today as well.

I know, speaking as a parent, we often have something almost every night of the week.  This winter we juggled wrestling practice and matches, ballet/dance class, gymnastics, homework, small group, youth group.  It can be hectic.  As a parent I’ll say that this is the choice we have made.  My kids don’t have to do all those extra curricular events.  We want them to do those things to help them be more rounded.   But at what cost?  



It boils down to prioritizing.  What are we going to cut out of our lives or sacrifice?  Meals together, family time, the ability to just relax those are just some of the few, that’s my perspective as a parent.



From a youth pastor's perspective I have  noticed parents cutting out corporate worship, youth group, small group, family worship, personal quiet times, serving in church.  When we start making the cuts why does it seem we cut the things that will help us and our children grow stronger and more mature spiritually?
What is most important?  What are the goals for my children?  These are the questions I have to ask myself as dad and as the spiritual leader and the one who disciples my children.

In our staff meeting the other day one of our elders made this statement which has been rolling through my mind and this statement was made after I started to write this post:

“God gives you all the time you need.  It is up to you to manage the time He has given you.”

That’s what it boils down to.  How will I steward the time God has given me and my family as a parent? 

Some things to think about as you try to figure out how you are going to get the kids from school to ball practice and find time to cook supper.

What are my goals for my children?

What do I have to do vs. what do I want to do?

The Secret to Recruiting Volunteers

My latest blog post for LeaderTreks

The struggle is real when it comes to recruiting youth ministry volunteers. At some point, most of us have felt like we’ve tried everything only to have nothing work.
Our list of frustrations looks something like this:

• I’ve asked, and no one has expressed interest.
• Everyone is too busy to volunteer their time to work with students.
• Our church just isn’t excited about what’s happening in the youth ministry.
• We don’t have any young people in our congregation who can handle our energetic students.
• With all that’s on my plate, I don’t have time to recruit volunteers.

In spite of what these frustrations would lead us to believe, “solo youth ministry” is not the only option. Here are five suggestions to help grow your volunteer team and further your ministry’s impact:

Read More Here

Our Team Values

Last Saturday our student ministry volunteer team gathered together for several hours with two goals in mind:

1.  Have fun together

2.  Come up with our team values

We met early afternoon in a vacation rental that had a movie theater room and game room in the house.  We spent the majority of our time together in the game room having fun together.  After we ate supper we moved up to the living room by the fireplace and took some time to work together to come up a with a list of values.

Our values are broken down into two areas:

Team’s Spiritual Values:


1.    Spending time studying the Bible
2.    Fellowship with other believers
3.    A consistent prayer life
4.    Actively involved in Discipleship/growing
5.    Accountability
6.    Serving Christ and the Church
7.    Sharing our faith
8.    Encouraging others
9.    Obedience to God
10.  Corporate Worship

Ministry Team Values:


1.    Dependability
2.    Investment in student’s lives
3.    Praying for our students
4.    Worship with our students
5.    Be an example
6.    Unity/on the same page as a team
7.    Friendly
8.    Build em up!  Encourage students.
9.    Strategic in helping them grow spiritually
10.  Minister to parents

We spent hours playing games and having fun together and spent about an hour working on our values.  Great way to spend and afternoon and evening with those I serve along side with.