Youth Leaders Blog

- By Sam Halverson

A few weeks ago I heard about some of my peers in youth ministry getting together and planning a trip to Haiti. These are people I follow - professional youth ministers who have a lot of great ideas and through whom God is doing amazing things. I like to follow these folks in their blogs, and their decisions and comments often affect me and my own ministry.

So you can understand that their decision to travel to Haiti interested me. They were going for a number of reasons, but one was to determine how safe and effective a youth ministry short term missions focus would be in Haiti for 2010 and 2011. What is the infrastructure like there? How safe is it for teenagers to go there to help? What are the needs? Who are the contacts we can trust? Is God calling us to go already or to wait awhile?

These are the questions I've had as I've been focusing on the mission trips for my own youth group (First UMC, Lancaster) for summer of 2010 and 2011. When I first heard this team was going I thought, "Maybe we should cancel where we're going this summer (Mexico) and respond to the needs in Haiti." I asked our team of adults what they thought. Some raised the concern about the safety at this point - is there going to be enough food, water, facilities and safety set up to take and be responsible for 15-20 teenagers this year? The suggestion was that we wait until next spring or summer and try to go then - at which time we could probably be more effective. There was also the reminder that we had already made a commitment to the people were are planning on serving in Mexico who also have needs.

I wonder how constrained Jesus must have felt when he walked on the earth, knowing too well the limitations of his human body. He was only able to help the people with whom he came into contact. He could only be in one place at a time. (Although I do love the story where the centurion, a gentile, had such faith that he knew Jesus could heal his servant without actually being there.) Now, after Jesus' resurrection and as he works through his bride (the church) he is able to help and touch the entire world all at once and in unlimited ways. In a very real way, we are all connected to the outreach to all these places as we take part in the one body of Christ. As we support these ministries with prayer and gifts we take part in much more than what is immediately in front of us. Jesus said, "You will be able to do things much greater than I." Through the Holy Spirit that is happening.

I've enjoyed reading (and watching) the blogs from this group while they've been away. From the trenches they have uploaded pictures, stories, and poignant videos that have moved me to reach out even more in concern and service to the world. Take a look at what they've written (Thanks to Jeff Goins for the pix and link-ups, making it much easier to post this here.):

Anne Jackson is a speaker and author.
Tim Schmoyer is a full time youth pastor for Alexandria Covenant Church.
Adam McLane is the "Digital Czar" for Youth Specialties.
Mark Oestreicher is a writer and former President of Youth Specialties, as well as a personal friend of Seth Barnes and former member of AIM's board of directors.
Seth Barnes is the Founder and Executive Director of Adventures in Missions. 

Jeremy Zach started REYouthPastor.com and is a full time youth pastor for Church by the Sea.
Lars Rood is the Lead Youth Minister at Highland Park Presbyterian Church, as well as a speaker and a writer.
Ian Robertson is a full-time videographer.
Rhett Smith is a Family and Marriage Counselor, writer, and serves as part-time on staff with Highland Park Presbyterian Church.
Clint Bokelman is the Director for Short Term Missions for Adventures In Missions.

I thought of all the fun times he'd miss out on - the social connections made at a dance and tried to explain that if he enjoyed it then he would like going. He would want to go. My explanations didn't work. I had trouble arguing with his reasoning. I mean, you and I might see why this mindset is weird and twisted, but at the same time it makes a little bit of sense (in a strange, junior high guy sort of way). "Life is just the way I like it when it comes to these dances. If you mess with it, there will be new issues and new worries that I don't even want to discover."

I wonder how many people have that frame of thinking when it comes to following God. Years ago I took a group of youth to a conference to listen to a speaker who had a very dynamic talk. At the end of the talk he gave an invitation for anyone to come to the front and make a commitment to Christ. Many of my youth chose to go forward, and I could tell that one guy was moved to make a commitment - his first commitment - but he wouldn't take that first step. I told him that his friends would go with him and that if he wanted I would even go with him. He said, "I'm not ready yet. If I go and commit, I'll have to change. I don't want to do that."

Too often we Christians make it sound like a commitment to Christ means we have to change our life, when really it means that Christ's presence changes us. Jesus said, "I came that you would have life and have it more abundantly." When people are afraid to allow Christ into their hearts it's understandable. Change can be difficult, and following Jesus can be a challenge. But the way we can help is by telling others that the change isn't something they have to do themselves. The Christ that lives in them begins the change so that this new abundance is sought after more and more.

By Sam Halverson

We've been getting lots of snow lately here in Lancaster, Ohio. Yesterday it was coming down in huge flakes the size of quarters. I love looking at the snow. It's something I really missed when I lived in the Atlanta area where it only snowed once or twice a winter and then never enough to make a decent fort or snowdude. All this was going through my head yesterday as I sat in a worship planning meeting and gazed out the window at those huge flakes falling down. Then a memory hit me. I used to love to go sledding. Back when I lived in the Dakotas we would drag our sleds up to Watertower Hill (the name of the hill with the water tower on it...duh) and shoot straight down the snow packed streets without a care in the world. Hey! We have hills here in Lancaster; I have a sled in the garage; the youth are out of school; there's a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow (thanks Paul Simon) on the ground.

I sent out a group text to the high school and junior high youth on my cell phone and the plans were made. Kids met at the church. We grabbed the van and stopped by my house so I could change, then we headed off to Alley Park where there's a great hill for sledding.

It's great being in a job where I can do responsible, adult planning meetings one hour (though if you've been at our worship planning meetings you might arguably claim that we don't always act like responsible adults) and take off with youth to pummel head first down a snow covered hill on a piece of plastic the next.

Youth ministry...what a calling!

 

 

I just recently read a blog about mistakes in leadership and started thinking about some of my own mistakes early on in youth ministry. Granted, thinking waaaaay back to 1983 or so was a stretch, and there are surely some of you out there who can think of numerous mistakes I've made, but remember, these are only my top ten. Here's the first:

- By Sam Halverson

 

As summer is upon us (well, not literally, but the summer break from school always constitutes "summer" in the world of youth ministry), the calendar and schedule changes somewhat. Some of us cancel some regular activities only to add some new programming for the summer months. Others add more and more. Still others drop almost everything through the break and kick it all off in the fall or late August.

With all these changes it's important to communicate to your youth as well as to your parents (and even the rest of the congregation) what is going on in youth ministry through the summer. It used to be that a newsletter was all I needed to send out each May in order to let my youth AND their parents know what was happening. They'd get the flier or packet and put it up on the refrigerator. I loved it when I'd show up at a youth's house and see it stuck there in such a prominent place.

Years later, though, in the era of internet and multiple schedules where everyone has a calendar, there's either not enough room on the fridge for all those calendars or no one bothers to look there for what's going on. Youth don't read e-mail any more, and texting on the phone only allows 160 characters (who decided on that number, anyway?). In order to get the word out you've got to post a calendar on Myspace, another on Facebook, one on your church website, one in the church newsletter, send one by snail mail, and text updates every week - and that doesn't even cover the parents. I'm not sure that even is as effective as it could be since the volleyball and soccer clubs do the same thing. There's got to be some way youth and their parents can once again focus on one calendar that brings all this together. I wonder if Google Calendar or something like that would work. Maybe even getting with the coaches and school calendars and finding a way to post them all together (as a service) but then adding your own church stuff to that mass gathering would be helpful and realistic.

I guess there are no easy answers, but there is an important direction we, the church, need to go and that is to be a proponent of communicating better to our busy families ways they can access various means of grace and hope in the church.