Church Hopping Starts Young

Recently while watching a Simply Youth Ministry podcast, episode 156, the question came up concerning students who attend multiple youth groups and multiple Bible studies at multiple churches. What is the affect of a student who “Just wants more of Jesus and more Bible knowledge”? This podcast got me to doing some thinking.

Church hopping seems to be almost a part of the culture in our community among the adults. Let’s go where the latest and greatest thing is happening, where the band is rocking, where the “spirit” is “present”, where I “feel” the presence, where I can be more of a power broker (of course no one would admit to that one), where the pastor won’t offend me.

I think first their needs to be an understanding of the local church. The church (body of Christ) globally functions through the local church. This is what read in the New Testament in Acts and the letters from Paul. The body of Christ is made up of individual believers connected in a local church. (Acts 2:47)

Here are some of my thoughts:

>Believers who float from church to church as kids learn a habit that is hard to break as an adult

>Students are being invested into, discipled by adult leaders at multiple churches. This might sound good in theory but this means that if one student is getting invested in by several churches that there are students who are not being discipled at all because we get spread thin. We have roughly 182 that our local churches in our community are reaching.

>When we say it’s “about the kingdom” we forget that the kingdom is supposed to grow, not by sharing sheep but by producing new sheep, new followers of Christ. We have roughly 2,416 in our community who need to be reached.

>God places you in the body where he wants you. (1 Corinthians 12:18) If you are supposed to be the “eye” in that church’s youth group you will not be effective trying to the be the “nose” in our church’s youth group.

>The pool for student leaders becomes a very shallow pool. Students with leadership potential become spread too thin. They become mediocre in a few youth groups rather than excelling and leading with excellence in one.

>Discipleship isn’t just about Bible study and knowledge. Discipleship is learning to be like Christ. Jesus Christ was a servant. Students need to learn to roll up their sleeves and serve God the way he has shaped them in the body where he has placed them.

>Students don’t learn a healthy and proper view of spiritual leadership and interferes with accountability of the youth leader. Hebrews 13:17

I recall a letter I received a while back from a youth pastor. He was planning a big youth event and wanted to invite the other youth groups in the region to attend. He went on to explain how God’s hand was on their youth ministry because of their explosive growth that he could not explain. (Does that mean that God’s hand isn’t on ours?) I dismissed the invite because I knew of many students who were attending his church’s youth group gathering were from several other church youth groups. I wouldn’t call borrowing other churches’ students “growth”. (In cattle country that’s called poaching)

When we have events I tell our students to not invite other students who are part of another church. Am I trying to form a clique? Not at all. I’m attempting to teach students their role in reaching their friends who don’t have a relationship with Christ or are not plugged into a local church. There are plenty of students out there waiting for someone to reach out to them with the love of Christ.

I recently heard a youth leader express the opinion that it’s good for students to be involved in multiple youth groups because it keeps them busy and out of trouble. I think what keeps a student out of trouble is a vibrant, growing relationship with the Lord. When we take on the “spiritual cruise director” role of providing activities we fall way short in the area of making disciples.

So what do you do? When a student attends our youth group gathering and I know the students is a member of another church’s youth group I ask them, “Why are you here?” Rarely does this happen because we haven’t created a culture of pulling in students from other youth groups. If there is an issue at the other youth group I encourage them to get it fixed and I also inform the other church’s youth pastor that their student was at our youth group.

Why not teach students the importance of plugging into the church God has placed them in and growing in their faith, their worship, their ministry, and their mission of reaching others? Why do we accept church hopping among students but not among adults?

Last Night At Contagious

“Christianity is a list of rules. What if I don’t want to obey the rules and live life my own way? Am I still a Christian?”

We continue our series, "Letters from the Mailbox". Students submit their question, verses, topic, etc. and then we build a lesson and small group (POD) discussion around their submission.

The above question above was a good one. We had students write down their parent's rules on a piece of paper and then talk about the rules. Discuss the "why's?" of the rules. Then the students, in their PODs, wrote down "Christianity rules". Most of the rules that they came up with were Biblical, some were not, some were but they didn't realize that they were a "rule". I shifted the term from "rules" to "expectations".

We started with the question, "Am I still a Christian?" first. It was obvious that the student who submitted the question thought that salvation was dependent on us and who we are and what we do rather than salvation being totally dependent on God. We took some time and ruled out "works". If I don't live by my parent's rules am I still their child? If I don't live by society's rules am I no longer a human? If (assuming a person has put their faith in Christ) I don't live by God's rules am I no longer his child?

We boiled it down to this:

• I’m saved because I put my faith in Jesus. (not because I obeyed rules)
  

• God has guard rails. (His expectations protect us)

• So the question isn’t “Am I still a Christian?” The question is, “Do I love God?”
• The question is not “Am I still a Christian?” The question is, “Am I grateful to Jesus Christ?”
• Our love for God and gratefulness to Christ will motivate us to live by His expectations.
  

Scripture we looked at: Ephesians 2:8,9; Luke 15:11-31; Deuteronomy 6:5,6; Jeremiah 17:9; Deuteronomy 8:5.

We are Going are You?

Last Night At Contagious

The weather was beautiful yesterday on the OBX. The weather had an impact on Contagious in two ways:
1. Some students missing. This happens every spring when the weather turns nice because families are ready to spend time together outdoors enjoying the great weather together which is great because they have "cabin fever", especially after this past winter. This is a part of the natural ebb and blow of youth ministry each year.

2. Hang Time spontaneously moved outdoors! Within minutes cornhole was set up and some intense games were happening. A new game, Polish, was introduced to the students and staff. A few still hung out indoors and played a table game or two and a few played ping pong and Wii.

We added delicious hot dogs, chili and relish to our usual line up of snacks last night. It's great to have a team of folks dedicated to using their desire to serve in the kitchen to impact student's lives. They do more than just hand out snacks. Each students has a contact with yet another caring adult from NHC. This has a great influence on their lives and connection to the church.

Last night we opened another letter from the "mailbox". The letter last night was part B from last week. The question was, "Why did God make me the way I am?".

We started off in our PODS and students discussed John 9:1-39 together with their POD leaders (more contact with more caring adults in their church) guiding them through some discussion questions.

We took a look at this video.
Sarah struggled with self hate, she didn't like who she was.

We then looked at Psalm 139:13,14 some great verses about God's creativity in each one of his masterpiece art works (us).
>God makes no mistakes.
God is perfect so if someone assumes they must be a mistake they are saying, "God made a mistake when he made me." That would mean that God is not perfect and if God is not perfect then he would not be God.

>God made you unique.
No two people have the same fingerprints, we are that unique. Our personality, our skills, who we are as a person is unique. Because we are unique we don't have to compare ourselves to others. When we start playing the comparison game we always lose.

>God is in control.
Not only is God the master artist in creating you he is also sovereign, he is in control. Some who wrestle with self hate often struggle with the fact that they can't control their circumstances, they can't control other's expectations. The great thing about realizing and accepting that God is in control is the freedom to relax in that fact. I don't have to be "in control" of everything in my life. God is in control, I need to trust him.

I'm thinking we are going to continue on this question/theme this coming Sunday night at Contagious. If a student can grasp in their teenage years that God is in control just imagine the difference that would make in their life in the future.

Last Night At Contagious

Last night at Contagious we opened another "Letter from the Mailbox" and answered this question: "Why did God put me in the situation I'm in?"

1. God loves you and wants his best for you.

John 3:16, John 10:10, Romans 12:12

2. Three factors to consider about your situation:

>Others do wrong. Sometimes our situation is the result of someone else's sin. This is the result of living in a fallen world.

>I do wrong. Sometimes our situation is the result of our own sin.

>God knows best. Jeremiah 29:11

3. You can rise above the situation with Christ and through Christ

Romans 8:28

Students followed up the lesson with their POD leaders. Each POD divided in half and did 2 case studies and then shared the studies together. The first study was Joseph. Joseph was sold into slavery and was put into a bad situation as the result of being daddy's favorite, the jealousy of his brothers and his own bragging about his dreams. But ultimately Joseph rose above his situation and was used by God to save his family. The second study was on Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary was put into a situation by God. She used her situation to magnify God.

Of course as usual the lesson was proceeded by lot of fun and games and hanging out together during Hang Time.

Scheduling Your Team

I'm not known for having the best memory. It is important as a youth pastor to know who are your team will be at your youth group gathering so you are prepared.

Our system used to be "tell Andy" if you aren't going to be there. I would then promptly forget.

Our system changed to "give Andy a written note" if you aren't going to be there. I would promptly lose the note and forget.

Our system changed to "send Andy and e-mail if you aren't going to be at youth group". I would get the e-mail, read the e-mail, then forget.

Our system is currently The Planning Center an online tool to use to schedule your church's teams for ministry. I love it! I can simply log on and at a glance see who is going to be at Contagious on Sunday night. Team members can block dates. I can schedule out as far in advance as I want. An excellent tool.

We use The Planning Center for several teams in our church and are slowly transitioning all our teams to The Planning Center. With the teams I am responsible for I have around 30 or team members to schedule. The planning center has relieved many of the stresses and frustrations of scheduling. PLUS it helps with my "memory".

The Event Envelope

Years ago I threw sign up sheets away. You know the struggle of a student signs up so his 18 buddies sign up then student changes his mind and crosses off his name then the domino effect.
I got tired of that. I also got tired of kids looking first before deciding to go. Be a leader and sign your name up! The kids aren't broke but the system is.

So I came up with the envelope system. When we have events students register or sign up either online or by using the event envelope. It is a great way to keep track of the cash but also a way of getting information and keeping a list of who is going with better accuracy. Students can also take the envelope home to remind them to bring their money the next week. Perhaps you have done similar?

Planning The Event

We just wrapped up our 10th The Call here at Nags Head Church. With that in mind and after a super long weekend here are a few thoughts I have about planning an event.

>Establish the purpose

>Make sure the theme fits the purpose

>Acquire a speaker(s) and a band. Lots out there but remember if you want to make it a "big" event it may take a "big" name which leads to the next one:

>Establish a budget. We have pulled off The Call in the past for as little at $1500 and as much as $7,000 depending on the band and guest speaker(s) we have used.

>Decide on a registration fee (if having one. I divide the budget by the attendance goal to come up with the registration fee. It's not rocket science and it is also a risk).

>Have a plan if registrations don't meet the budget.

>Publicity - use the web, Facebook, Constant Contact, e-mail. (never mail things to the youth director "care of the pastor" because more than likely it will sit on the pastor's desk or get thrown out or passed on too late)

>Publicize in advance. We start promoting The Call in April usually and the event isn't until February. I get invites to youth events often and with little to no notice.

>Recruit a team of volunteers from your church. Decide what you need. At The Call we had folks doing registration/check in, refreshments, clean up, tech stuffs. We could not pull off The Call each year if it were not for our team of volunteers from the church. Awesome people make and awesome event.

>Keep records. We use an excel spreadsheet to track expenses and registrations of both individuals and churches.

>A quality event requires months of prep and publicity.

>Be prepared to be wiped out and tired after the event is over. (last week I put in almost 60 hours at work. Our band put in many hours as well. It's normal to be tired after a big event so plan on getting some rest. I'm taking an extra day off this week to rest and spend time with my family.)

The only event we currently invite other youth groups to participate with us is The Call. Keep in mind that youth pastors who plan ahead will often have months if not the year completely planned out. We try to limit our youth group events outside of youth group to one or less a month. Kids' lives are plenty busy today. I don't want to be a "cruise director" I want to be part of something that is making an impact on students' lives.

Several students came to know Christ this weekend and many were equipped to defend their faith. The Call was well worth the effort.

The Call 2011

Tonight we host our 10th The Call here at NHC. Several youth groups will be coming together to worship in music with MP13 and to learn from God as Alex McFarland teaches us. Alex will help students understand the way of God as he unpacks the life of Joseph.

Personally, as a youth pastor, I'm stoked about Alex coming and the topic he is teaching on. Every parents and youth leader should do their best to help their teens to understand that God uses the good and the bad in their lives to accomplish whatever His will is for them.

Next week I'll share how we plan for an event like The Call. I get so many invitations from other youth ministries inviting our youth group to an event that is about to happen in just a few days. This type of promotion of an event reveals a lack of planning which makes me nervous about taking my group and so we don't attend. BUT more about that next week.

The Hiking Emergency

Sunday Night at Contagious

Last Sunday night was great at Contagious. Again Bananagrams is a huge game for some reason. The ping pong table saw no rest during Hang Time. The big deal is we rolled out two new 32 inch flat screens on a cart into the Lobby with two Wiis on it. Without a youth room to call our own yet we have to be portable. So the cart has a shelf on the bottom for our box of table games and then the top two shelves have the Wiis and the TV's which are mounted back to back. These will be mounted up on the walls of our youth room when we move into "the loft" in the fall.

Tip of the Day: We purchased both new TV's, 32 inch, high def, LG flat screens on E-Bay. Without shipping they were $250 each, way cheaper than you can purchase in a store. We also purchased both Wiis on E-Bay, one for around $125 and the other for $159, again way cheaper than the store and they work great. If we had not used E-Bay and the skills of two of our youth volunteers I would have only purchased one TV and one Wii from the store.

Tap into your volunteers skills! Don't try to do it all by yourself in ministry. Others have skills to use and want to serve and feel like part of something bigger. Anything we can do to make Hang Time more fun is a draw for our students to bring their friends and the return is worth way more than a $900 investment.

Nic McLean came and spoke to our students about godly boy/girl relationships. He knocked it out of the park. God is the creator of marriage and sex so His plan is best and create boundaries ahead of time for your relationships. Good stuff from God's Word through Nic. If you would like Nic to speak to your group or bring along his wife Jessica, an accomplished musician, contact me and I'll get you their contact info. Nic is the director of both Noah's Ark and Walking on Water.
Second Tip of the Day: Bring in people from your community to speak to your students, change it up, guests are often listened to by the students better because they get used to hearing you.