New Youth Room

We are closing in fast on finishing the construction on our new youth room. After the construction is finished we start "outfitting" the room. We have even asked our church to give a special Christmas gift to Christ this year by giving to help us finish out the room. The gift isn't about the stuff inside but there is more to the reason and purpose of this room.

There will be 5 flat screens and a projection screen, pool table, ping pong, foosball, table games, a couple of Wii units, sofas and comfy chairs, bistro tables and a coffee bar, thumping sound system, espresso machine, cabinets stocked with "goodies", and a section for our worship time.

All of those things to outfit the room will be cool (and hopefully will all be in the room one day) but all those things are just things. The room is just a room. So why do all of this?

The Vision of the room

Our purpose as a youth ministry goes right in line with our church's purpose. Nags Head Church's youth ministry exists to reach students to discover life in Christ.

The room will be cool enough for our students to invite their friends to come hang out and hear the good news of Jesus Christ. That's the "reaching" part of our purpose. Our prayer is we see many students come to know Jesus Christ in this room.

The room will be a tool to help students as they discover life in Christ.
It will be comfortable, a cozy place to hang out with other students and adult leaders. That's the fellowship part of our room. A place where relationship are built.

The room will be a place where students learn to use the gifts God has given them to serve the church, the body of Christ. They will have opportunity to serve each-other each week.

The room will be a place where there is an environment for our students (and leaders) to worship God through music, art, Bible study. Part of this life discovery in Christ is learning to worship and understanding the value of worship.

The room will be a place where students will gather each week in small groups with a caring adult and they will discuss the lesson for the week, spend time in prayer, and be encouraged to spend time in the Bible on their own during the week. This will be the discipleship tool that our room will help provide.

The room will be a place that acts as a launching pad for mission. Students will be challenged and equipped to share their story with their friends. A place where we can gather and plan events to reach their world and the world beyond our county lines.

This new youth room becomes a "tool" for us and our students to reach and disciple students. The things that outfit the room become tools to reach students.

I will be posting pictures soon!!

Consumerism Starts Young

(I haven't posted in a long time)

This Saturday night we are showing a movie, having a little "movie night" with the students. The movie is a great film about a girl who goes through a terrible tragedy and turns that tragedy into an opportunity to share the love of Jesus Christ and the power of God with others. We took the students to see it when it was released in the theaters.

Last night after middle school youth group a young lady walked up and asked, "Why are you showing a movie we have already seen?". Her attitude was one of "why should I watch this when I've seen it already?". Great question.

At that point I was reminded of two things:

1. Consumerism ("it's about me") in the church starts young. We (the adults) do everything for the kids from the time they are little toddlers all the way up through high school rather than teaching them to "do" for themselves. We minister to them constantly and consistently rather than train them to minister to each other. The result is we produce the adults that we have all encountered (and have been that person at times) in the church that thinks church is for them and about them, "Cater to my needs. Feed me. Deal with my problems". The person who doesn't reach out and minister to others in any way shape or form or roll up their sleeves and get involved in ministry themselves.

2. I failed. I failed to communicate the "vision" of the event. Every time we do an event that has a purpose (which we should have a purpose every time) and that purpose needs to be communicated.

The purpose of showing this great movie that we have seen already is not for our students entertainment (they will enjoy it) but for out students to have an opportunity to bring a friend to see a movie about a girl with a strong Christian testimony. I guess, in a way it is, for our students. It's for our students to give them an opportunity to open up conversation with their friends about Jesus Christ.

So my lessons learned (or reminded of) at middle school youth last night:
1. Train students to serve. The servant's attitude will impact the rest of their life and the church.
2. Communicate vision over and over and over and over.

The ADD Youth Pastor Prepares for Hurricane

Change in Youth Ministry

Starting in September we move from a youth group gathering for all students in middle and high school to two different nights, one for middle and one for high school.

The whole basis for this change is to better accomplish our purpose of reaching students to discover life in Christ. We want to see students come to know Christ and stay engaged and connected in the youth ministry all the way till they graduate their senior year. We want to teach students at their level and stage in life. We want to maximize the space in our youth room.

There is a huge maturity difference in an 11 year old 6th grader and a 17 year old senior, I see the differences every Sunday night.

I first met with individual team members and shot the idea to them about switching up and making the change. I then gave them a few weeks to consider and think about the change. We then gathered and together and listed the pros and the cons. The pros far outweighed the cons. The whole team was on board with making the change. The elders agreed with our decision.

Will there be some hitches during the change? Possibly. Will some parents and students not fully grasp the reason as to why we are changing? More than likely. Will the change fit everyone's schedule? Probably not. There is no perfect night where everyone can be at youth group. Will some have to make decisions about their schedules and activities? Yes. Ultimately we have to keep our purpose in mind as well as the big picture.

Discipleship is a process. Over the past ten years we have seen many students come to know Christ. Over the years we have seen many juniors and seniors do the "fizzle" and fade away.
We want them to stay engaged because those last couple of years before heading off to college are very important in nailing down their faith and what they believe.

Often we can't go deep on topics and have to stay on the surface because of the wide age range. Now we can give the older students a little more "meat" to chew on. Middle School students will be able to bring friends without any intimidation of being around much older students.
High School students will have their youth ministry that they can be excited about bringing friends to share a cup of coffee or mocha and discuss the lesson of the evening together. Middle School students are always good about bringing friends and we will use that strength in the discipleship process.

This great new beginning allows for and provides:

>Age appropriate and specific teaching and study

>Less intimidation for younger kids

>No “little kids” to discourage HS students from inviting their friends

>Focus on the strengths of the two individual groups

>For MS students the HSM will be something to look forward to. (example – kidmo kids look forward to youth group)

>Older youth with leadership potential will have opportunity to serve and minister to the younger youth on Thursday evening.

This is an excellent time to change:

>New youth room in a couple months so two groups allows us to fill the room twice with students

>New school year

>Great group of middle school kids

>Big crop of high school freshmen to build on

Excellent opportunity for the Parent Pod to birth a new small group! There are plenty of parents here on the OBX who need to be connected first of all to God through Christ but also connected with other parents of youth.

At our Discovering Nags Head Church we are told that if we don't like change than we will have a hard time at NHC because we change.

I'm excited to see how God is going to use this new adventure in our youth ministry!

Last Night At Contagious

11 baptized at Contagious Youth on the Beach last night!!

Last night would be categorized as one of the highlights of my time in youth ministry and my time at Nags Head Church. We had a fantastic turn out for Contagious on the beach. Ramon, one of youth team volunteers, shared and had the pods discuss sharing the gospel and sharing our faith.
Students focused in on picking a friend to share their faith with and to pray for.

We had a student put her faith in Jesus Christ as her Savior at camp so we arranged to baptize her at the beach during youth group last night. Along the way we picked up 10 other kids who had put their faith in Christ but had yet to be baptized. It was a great celebration. I was impressed with the adults from our church who had no youth in the group who turned out at the beach to watch the baptism. It's great to be part of a supportive church. It was also cool to have the dads of some of our youth baptizing their own kids, having baptized my son I know that it is a wonderful moment.

We are in a period of "momentum" at Contagious Youth. My prayer is this momentum carries into the school year and that our students will love their friends at school with the love of Christ and live a life that is different.

Camp Was A Success!

We just returned this past Saturday from our first ever Camp Contagious. Our goal was to see student's lives changed. We did! So I think it's safe to say Camp Contagious was successful.

We all loaded in vans and drove 11 hours to Pigeon Forge, Tn. There in PF we stayed in a 4 story log cabin that slept 40. It was quite the experiment of meshing all the different personalities into one house. There was no real "drama" at camp. We all seemed to get along very well. The team of volunteers that went along worked together fantastically. Home cooked camp food is way better than institutional food at a campus or camp somewhere.

We had a worship time in the morning and evening. The students were also divided into small groups and had discussion times twice during the day. We carved out a half hour each morning for students to get alone with God and have their quiet time reading the Bible and praying.

Friday night's worship time the students were given opportunity to share what Christ had done in their life at camp or a lesson they learned or something new about God that they didn't know before. It was a great time of worship with some music scattered in between. Some students shared that they are going to be more bold in their witness, other's shared that they had become slack in their daily spiritual habits. One young lady said, "For the past two years I have been an athiest. That ended 5 minutes ago." Needless to say there was much applause and hugs all around.

Even though camp prep and the week of camp is tiring it is always a blessing to see students' lives impacted. Now they are back in the real world. We pray their commitments grow stronger and do not fizzle.

For fun we swam in a huge pool with a great slide, went to Dollywood, and went whitewater rafting.

One student who has been attending camp with us for several years said this was the best camp he had been to. One of our leaders said this was the best youth trip she had ever been on.
I have to agree with both!

Note my rafting skills.

The Week Before

The week before camp is always a little hectic.

The week before it is good to:

>Have all medical releases and waivers turned in so you don't have to deal with that at the same time as checking in kids, their meds, and loading luggage.

>Call and check on your van reservations. This give peace of mind and also makes sure there are no glitches. You can't upgrade from a 12 passenger van, only downgrade in size which would be a major hiccup.

>Download and print off directions for all your drivers. It's smart to have directions and phone numbers for your drivers in case you get separated. Also print off any directions you may need to activity destinations, etc. Load addresses in the GPS if you are using one.

>Call and confirm your reservations and final details at your camp. For us that is calling the rental company handling our giant log cabin.

>Communicate at least twice with parents via e-mail, FB, etc. final details, departure times, etc. Remind that you leave on time with our without. Include contact numbers.

>Call and confirm all special outings, events/activities. Make sure to have any special details campers may need in advance for the outing. Example: It is illegal for a rafting company in Tn. to take people rafting if the customers are not wearing either strap on sandals or closed toed shows. Flip flops and Crocs aren't allowed.

>Make sure to have a church credit card for fuel charges or any surprises that may arise on the trip.

>Sleep. Make sure you get extra sleep the week before and so does your camp team. I average about half the normal sleep I get when I'm at camp. The older I get the more sleep I need before and after camp.

>Pack some small tubs for each van containing trash bags (comes in handy for motion sickness), first aid kit, flashlight, drammamine, etc.

>Pray. Recruit the partners in your church who you know are prayer giants to please pray starting "today" for camp and the campers, safety and the staff.

The Busyness of Summer

Just realized I haven't blogged for a few weeks. Summer is a busy time!

Camp prep is coming along:
Whitewater rafting - Check!
Cabin reserved - Check!
Dollywood Tickets - ordering this week!
Campers' Handbooks - Check!
Camp Small Group studies - Check!
Menu - Check!
Vans reserved - Check!
Church van serviced - Next week!
Med Kit/First Aid Kit - Check!
Board and Table Games - Check!
Pre Camp Meeting with Parents and campers - Check!
Shedule - Check!
Morning Worship - Check!
Evening Worship - working on the talks now
Camp Staff notebooks - next week!
Trailer reserved - Check!
Dog sitter - Check!

Contagious is meeting on the beach this summer (as is our habit) and we are still in the shallow to deep series. Coming along nicely. This Sunday we talk about God and our resources.

New youth room - waiting on a couple more estimates before we can get our permit. Hoping to knock it out fast!

YM Team meeting - coming up Sunday evening. Looking towards the new school year.

Tubbs Hot Dogs - rolling along. Hoping business increases as does traffic flow this coming week.

Sleep debt - 16 hours. Hoping to catch up on that on my new space age foam mattress. Comfy.

Camp Contagious

Created a new blog for our family and friends to track us while we are on our camp journey.

Check it out here

Training

Great video to show to your youth ministry team even to show during youth worship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v0RhvZ3lvY&feature=player_embedded

Observation

I was invited to be on a question and answer panel at another local church's youth group gathering this week. I was honored they would ask me. Why me? I have no idea but I accepted.

Students wrote their questions on 3x5 cards and the panel answered their questions.

Of course upon arrival I kicked into evaluation mode. I was watching for a few different things. Mostly looking for students' interaction with each other and the adult volunteers interaction with the kids.

I noticed several different things throughout the evening that I took mental note of. The youth group had a great bunch of students there and all were high schoolers with only a couple of middle school students.

With so many students in attendance I observed several things but will point out three:
1. The students are bringing their friends (obvious by the amount of visitors)
2. Momentum. The excitement of the obvious growth is generating a momentum which is building each week. (obvious by the amount of chairs that had to be added)
3. Small space. The space isn't big enough for the amount of students. The feeling was the room was "full" when half the kids arrived. When they other half poured in at the last minute the room felt jam packed. This too adds to the momentum.

When people see a growing youth group they always want to know "what's the magical formula?"
The obvious key factor with this group was the kids bringing their friends.