Last week, Marko on the Slant33 blog asked the question of:

We have learned that teenagers live in a world isolated from adults, and unfortunately, most of our ministries perpetuate this.  How are you addressing this problem?

My thoughts:

Students in the American church are experiencing a loneliness epidemic known as systematic abandonment. So what are some responses when addressing abandonment?

In my youth ministry experience it has been my mission, joined with the Holy Spirit, to intentionally respond to this systematic abandonment issue. I have responded in two approaches: 1) Proactively assimilating students into the church body; and 2) Getting more adults in the lives of kids through the small group model.

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A focus on relational youth ministry…

(1)  … gives students access to a non-parental, committed adult who cares for and loves them. Moses realized (in Deut. 6) that God chose the family and the faith community as the two entities through which He would tell His story to the next generation.

(2)   …gives students a place to share but gives leaders a more realistic picture of the mindset of today’s students.   Relational youth ministry makes leaders aware of the day-to-day life of a teen; things like: suffering caused by deep emotional wounds, neglectful parenting, faith questions, broken friendships, and poor self-identity. Bottom line today’s student bear a lot of pain and brokeness.

When relational youth ministry is done right, students will begin to share their deep dark secrets they haven’t told anyone else.

The beauty about relational youth ministry is that it gives student a place to share.  The danger is not having a procedure-plan-policy in place when a student shares some dark stuff and needs professional help.  What do we do with the pain, abuse, sufferings and hurt that students share? It is problematic when a student shares hurt to a youth worker, and the youth worker neglects to get the help the student may need.  One of the aims of youth ministry is to help kids become healthy — Jesus following adults.

Are our youth ministries prepared when a student shares their deep dark secret?  When does a youth worker refer to a licensed counselor?  How does a youth worker not destroy the relationship with the student but get the student the help he/she needs?

I had to learn my “procedure” on the fly.  For some odd reason, the students I talked with always went deep real fast.  They told me about rape, stealing, assalt, sexual abuse, death, physical abuse, suicide, disease, doubt, drug addictions, drug selling, abortions and pregnancies.  It was almost like they were testing me by saying:  Okay…. if I tell you this heavy dark stuff, what will you do about it?  Will you be like every other adult and just say it is okay and to deal with it or will you actually get me help?

I am convinced that when we do relational youth ministry we have to be prepared to help the hurting student.  We just cannot get sloppy.

Based off of my experience, here are some things to think about when a student shares a hurt:

* Assessment:  In the assessment period, you have to discern the seriousness of the hurt.  There are two ways to discern the hurt:

(1)  Look for anger. If there is anger and a fairly serious situation refer the student/family to a licensed Christian therapist.  Referring them to a “licensed” profession is really important.  Be intentional to network with profession Christian counselor that you can trust so you can refer students and families to.  If the situation is more drama and no one is getting hurt, give them some tools and book to read aka the Bible  : )

(2)  Look for The 3 HURTS:  When a student shares their emotional stuff be on the look our for the 3 HURTS.  If any of these 3 hurts show up, refer to a counselor.

(a)  ”I am hurting myself” I.E.  Cutting, suicide attempts

(b)  ”I have been hurt.”  I.E. any type of abuse (emotional, sexual or physical)

(c)  ”I am hurting someone else.” I.E.  violent rages and anger manifestations

* Tell the parents:  If a student is hurting themselves or hurting others, encourage them to tell their parents. When mom and dad get involved, they can help support and love their student while getting them the help they need.  Typically this is where the student gets really mad at you.   They will cuss you out, call you a liar and they will say they will never telling you anything ever again.  Remember…. the goal is to get hurting students healthy.  I would always give the student the opportunity to tell their parents first—  with a clear deadline.  If they didn’t tell by the deadline, then I would tell.  This way you give an opportunity for the student to first confess to the parents so the parents wouldn’t have to hear the “news” from the youth pastor.

Now if a student is being hurt (i.e sexual abuse or physical abuse) you may need to report it to the authorities.  Statistically speaking, more than likely it is the parents that is doing the abusing.  If the parent(s) are the ones doing the hurting, then don’t encourage the student to tell their parents–  directly go to the authorities.  **  Please note:  It is important to make yourself aware of the mandatory reporting laws in your state.  You can read more about these laws  here and here

*  No confidentially policy:  The best fit for today’s students is clearly stating up front that if they tell you they are hurting themselves, others, or if someone is hurting them, then you have to tell someone aka their parents and refer them to a professional.  Try to say this message from the stage when you are speaking and when you are meeting with students.  They need to know your NO CONFIDENTIAL POLICY before they start telling you their dark secrets.

*  Youth workers are NOT trained to do professional counseling like Dr. Phil. Not only are youth pastors not qualified, but the role of the youth pastor is not to be the resident professional counselor.  My policy was never to see a family or student more than two times.  Leave that for the professionals.  Students are not looking for adults to have all the answers, rather they are looking for an adult with a caring ear as they navigate their adolescent journey.  I always sought out after great Christian counselors in the community who I respected and trusted, so when I referred I knew who exactly I was referring to.  Plus the church always paid for the first 2 counseling visits.  The key is to pay for the first few visit so the family or students doesn’t have any reason not to do to get the help they need.  Don’t waste your time do all the youth ministry counseling.  If you ever have any questions, contact your trusted licensed Christian counselor and ask them about procedures.

*  Prayer:  The Holy Spirit is the counselor not you.  When meeting with students always point them back to Jesus.  God is qualified to transform and clean hearts so give Him room to do what He does best.  It isn’t your job to do the deep investigation and find out what is really going on.

*  Books that can help:  Two of my favorite books that have greatly helped me in my youth ministry counseling are:

The Comprehensive Guide To Youth Ministry Counseling

The Youth Worker’s Guide To Helping Teens in Crisis

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Questions for youth pastors:

What is your youth ministry procedure when a student shares their deep dark secret?  How do you deal with the deep-hurting pain that students confess?

Do you have a list of trusted-licensed Christian counselors?

What else would you suggest to do or think about when a student shares a hurt?

(Photo brought to you by Debby in Calgary Some rights reserved )

The new school year has started and there are many new youth pastors starting their youth ministry position at their new church.

I would argue that what you do in your first 90 days in your new youth ministry position is critical.  During the first 90 days, how you spend your time in youth ministry sets the pace and culture for where your youth ministry will be heading.  What you do in the first 90 days will either break or build your youth ministry.

I have had to freshly start two new youth ministry positions.  My first start went horrible and the second start went a little bit better.  Thankfully, I recorded both 90 day periods in my journal, which I recently reviewed over.  I also have talked to a ton of youth pastors during their 90 day period.  I ask them a lot of questions dealing with: WHY are you doing what you are doing when you first arrived at your church?

So I decided to extrapolated themes, based off of my notes and many conversations with youth pastors in their first 90 days, that I felt were pretty critical for a youth pastor to implement in his/her first 90 days.  I found that the goal is to work not IN your youth ministry but ON your youth ministry during your first 90 days.  Here is how you can work ON your youth ministry:

Adult volunteers: Just love on the current and existing adult volunteers.  The key to loving them is by listening to them.  They have a lot of on the ground knowledge.  Don’t worry about training them yet.  They need to know you know what they know, before you start telling them how to step up their game.

Networking:  Network locally and nationally.  Go to youth ministry or family ministry conferences.  Get in environments where you can surround yourself with like minded youth pastors. Attend regional/local youth pastor gatherings.  You need to listen to the guy and gals already on the ground in your ministry context.  These youth ministry locals probably can give you a few heads up on what not to do and when not to do it.  Consulting with the other youth pastors in your local region can be tremendously helpful when you are navigating youth ministry in a new environment.

Friendships:  Befriend all church staff especially the janitor and secretary.  Befriend parents and other church members.  Not everyone is going to like you, but just put yourself out there so you are giving people an opportunity to begin to build trust and rapport with you.  Unfortunately during the first 90 days dont expect to make any new friends outside of the church.  Your 90 days will be mostly filled with making new friends inside the church.  Also figure out who is friends with who in your church so you are able to begin to understand the relational dynamics at your church.   Build relationships with key students and families.   Chap Clark calls this exercise writing a socio-gram.

Assessment:  Do a silent assessment of the youth ministry programs and students.  Ask yourself:  what are the real and felt needs of the students?  You have to figure out what the students and families need.  This is what I call cultural anthropology.  Don’t make immediate changes.  During the first 90 days:  study, observe and listen.  After the 90 days, you will have plenty of time, freedom and tactic knowledge to make appropriate and strategic changes after your silent assessment.

Programmatic Structure:  Identity when youth programs will happen and why they will happen. Clarify the mission for each program and define what types of students will come to each program.  The best way I have found to do youth ministry programming theologically was in the book:  Starting Right by Clark, Dean, Rahn– Chapter 6:  The Myth of the Perfect YM Model.  They call youth ministry programming– funnel programming.  Feel free to check out the funnel programming graphic here.

Discipline:  Confront bad habits in your students.  Whenever there is a leadership change in youth ministry, students will immediately test their new leader.  Be ready to correct bad behavior and habits in the program because if there are no boundaries set early, students will not respect you in the long run.  Yes students will hate you for doing this, but trust me….. if discipline is not instituted in the beginning you will lose control of your youth group really fast.  When I disciplined students I would always say:  I love you as a person, but your behavior is really bad.  I would affirm their identity but correct their bad behavior.  The key is to make the difference between I dont like you (as a person) and I don’t like your behavior.  Students always accused me of not liking them when I corrected their bad habits.

Teaching:  There is way too much on the line during your first 90 days for you to spend a ton of time writing your best youth group sermons.  Buy a great curriculum that has a plan and integrated strategy.  I am highly biased because I love and have tested (in my youth ministry) XP3 Students series which is the Orange student ministry curriculum.  XP3 Students refines the message in order to reach this next generation, provides a 12 month scope and cycle (basically gives you a 12 month teaching plan), and you will be given access to talk to particular Orange specialist about how to effectively use the curriculum and connect it to a bigger church strategy.  Jared Herd, the XP3 Students creative director, did an amazing interview on the Youth Specialties Blog here if you want to learn more about the curriculum. More and more youth pastors need to realize they need curriculum.  I argue that in order to do more in youth ministry in less amount of time….. you need to get great curriculum and learn how to contextualize it to fit your youth group.

Prayer:  Nehemiah is my hero.  This dude planned and prayed in his first phases of rebuilding the wall. So as you plan, assess and study, you need to be praying.

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If you have started in 2 (or more) youth ministry positions, please share what you learned in your first 90 day period in the comment section.  What would you tell youth pastors as they start a new position at their church this fall?  What should they do?  What should they avoid?

(Recruit photo brought to you by:   All rights reserved by t_lind)  

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My disclaimer:  I am really biased.  I attribute all these strategies to Chap Clark , Fuller Youth Institute, and Fuller Theological Seminary.  They really helped me understand why non-parental adults are so important in the teenage spiritual formation process. I cannot thank them enough for the influence they all had on me.  I made sure to test their content, and it works.  I know for a fact that it has worked for many other youth workers and churches across the country.

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One of the biggest challenges in youth ministry is finding good adult leaders.  Unfortunately, there is no magic formula for how to get great adult leaders. But there are 3 guiding strategies.

Research indicates that:

(1)  Students are extremely lonely.  Today’s students are experiencing systematic abandonment.  Basically, adults have left students to navigate life by themselves.

Quotes from HURT (PS Hurt is my Adolescence Bible.  If you want to better understand the mindset of kids, read HURT)

“Today’s adolescents are, as a lot, indescribably lonely” (p. 69).

“Midadolescents believe that few if any adults genuinely care about them” (p. 68).

“Adolescents have suffered the loss of safe relationships and intimate settings that served as the primary nurturing community for those traveling the path from child to adult…The postmodern family is often so concerned about the needs, struggles, and issues of parents that the emotional and developmental needs of the children go largely unmet” (50).

(2)  Students need more non-parental adults involved in their mid to late adolescence journey (ages of:  12-24).  In youth ministry, the standard student – leader ratio should be: 1 adult for every 5 – 8 students.

2 Assumptions About Leader Recruitment:

1)  You, the youth worker, will need a lot of non-parental adults to help raise the next generation of students.

2)  God’s people are called and compelled to serve.  We approach everyone with an incredible opportunity to work with the next generation.  Convince everyone why working with students is so important.  A lot of adults in our churches always thank us for working with the students.  So ask them if they want to help.  Give them a simple opportunity to help.  Also don’t just look in your church for adult leaders, go outside (universities, etc.).

3 Strategies For Finding Leaders

•Pray to the Lord of the harvest: The Lord is the one who draws leaders into our ministry (Matthew 9.38).  I think a lot of us forget to actually pray that God give us great leaders for our youth ministry.  Such a simple practice, but yet all of us forget. Spend a hour a week praying that God will give you some more adults to help.  Sometimes He responds quickly and sometimes He waits.

•Follow every lead the Lord gives you:  Relentlessly go after every possible lead. Write a list of potential names.  Make personal contact and meetings a priority.  Set up a meeting on their time.  Dress accordingly. Ask early, ask often, and follow every lead.

•Treat people well:  Take care of your current leaders.  Health breeds health. Your current adult leaders are gold!!  Never underestimate their abilities and perspective.  Rely on them a lot!!  Think about it…. people normally want to be a part of something that is healthy.  So if they see health and wholeness in your youth ministry staff, more than likely people will be attracted to the youth ministry and might want to help!

I would recommend reading  these two posts for further info about adult leader recruitment:

Youth Ministry Adult Leader Recruitment

8 Viable Tools To Help Build A Sustainable Youth Ministry:  An Interview with Mark Devries (Author of Sustainable Youth Ministry)

Mark DeVries wrote Sustainable Youth Ministry and two other youth ministry books:  Before You Hire A Youth Pastor and The Indispensable Youth Pastor.  Also Mark heads up youth ministry architects.  In my opinion, Mark is one of those guys who will teach you how to engineer your youth ministry for the long haul.  I am always referring youth pastors to Mark’s books because I greatly benefited from them.  A while back I did an interview with Mark DeVries and thought it would be awesome if I shared it.  When I was writing the interview I tried to focus on 8 issues/topics that stuck out to me as I read Sustainable Youth Ministry.

The Sustainable Youth Ministry Interview conducted by Jeremy Zach:

Jeremy: Mike Woodruff argues that nothing characterizes successful organization more than their willingness to abandon what made them successful. You go on to argue that failing youth ministries are the ministries that are cultivating experimentation, innovation and creativity.  What would you suggest to a youth pastor who doesn’t want to let go? Or how does a youth pastor get comfortable with falling forward (failure)?

Mark DeVries: I hate failing just as much as the next youth pastor. If we had a ministry that was consistently accomplishing everything I we’d been praying we’d accomplish, I don’t think I’d try a lot of  experimenting. But when I see how many kids we’re not reaching, how many kids are notas prepared to live independently in Christ as we’d like, I’m compelled to keep tinkeringwith things.  I would love to say that most of my plans work the first time. It’s hard to have parents and kids disappointed when we take away something that was “sort of working” and replace itwith something hasn’t been proven yet.  To the youth pastor who doesn’t want to let go of something that probably needs to go, I would remind them of those songs we sing in youth group all the time because they are so great, and then we sing them until everyone—leaders and kids alike—want to vomit.  Maybe you’re next step is not to kill a program but to decrease its frequency and slowly replace it with something new. But I don’t have to talk you into it. Eventually, the horse the ministry is riding will die, and you’ll be trying something new. I’d just like you to save a little time by putting the old horse out to pasture before you’re finding yourself in the unenviable position of working like crazy to get your dead horse to carry you somewhere.

Tool #1:  Reduce a program and try something new by experimenting.  Place a high value on self experimentation.

Jeremy: In your experience, have you found that youth pastors are willing to take a real and honest look into their own heart? Why or why not? Essentially are youth pastor willing to put in the work to become emotionally and spiritually healthy? Should a youth pastor highly consider consulting with a Christian therapist?

Mark DeVries: We (at Youth Ministry Architects) get the privilege of working with lots of youth pastors who have been willing to take the hard look at their heart and their negative patterns keeping them stuck. I am amazed by the courage of so many of those folks. At the same time, we’ve also worked with folks who are so frightened by the inward journey that they stonewall any attempt to walk down that road.

Our experience is that, like kids, all of us in ministry are “hardwired for community.”We will not likely take any transforming steps to deeper emotional capacity or spiritual maturity on our own. Whether it’s a therapist, a life coach, a spiritual director or a trueaccountability group, every youth director I’ve ever known would benefit from more of these kinds of conversations. When we spend almost all of our time with people who haveless emotional band width than we do, we are not likely to grow.

Tool #2:  Get a counselor, mentor, spiritual director, or a friend asap.

Jeremy: Youth Pastor and meetings are sometimes not a great mix, especially if the youth pastor has ADD. You state “meetings led by creative, relational youth workers tend to swirl and churn, addressing dozens of issues with the same level of time and energy, often leaving the most important topics to the point in the meeting when “time is up.”  What if a youth pastor is more relationally driven and not meeting driven but has the ability to lead a meeting in a loose and flowing way but still achieves the task at hand? Would you recommend this? How would you define a good meeting? Do you think that a laid back type of meeting leader should conform to more of a productive and structure type of meeting person?

Mark DeVries: Absolutely! Your really talking about the power of bringing a non-anxious, joyful presenceto a meeting. This is often the biggest challenge that the anxiously organized person brings to the table—an inability to allow the buoyancy of playfulness turbo-charge theproductivity of a meeting.
It’s not a question of relational vs. organized. You want to lead a meeting that is organized, not chaotic and playful, not anal…at the same time. We don’t need to pull out Robert’s Rules of Order when we’re doing our planning for the skits at the fall retreat. But neither do we want to have a hilarious discussion that everyone enjoys but that results in nothing being planned and no one taking responsibility for the next step. Patrick Lencioni’s Death by Meeting is a great resource for understanding great meetings.

Tool #3:  Run an organized meeting that is playful and not chaotic as the team gets stuffed planned and done.

Jeremy: Recruiting is a tough thing in youth ministry. You are very clear that the probability is two-thirds of your potential leaders turn you down….” It seems, for me, at least three-fourths of my potential leaders turn me down. They never have enough time or don’t want to commit or they are very selective about what they can and cannot do. How does a youth pastor cultivate an environment where the odds are in our favor? Maybe 50/50?

Mark DeVries: Ask early, ask often.
When we ask 4-6 months before we want someone to serve, we are much more likely to geta volunteer who will take this position seriously enough to revisit the priorities in his orher schedule—a much bigger question. When we ask without enough lead time, we’reasking folks if the would be willing to simply add something on top of their very busylives…which most of them simply won’t do. Ask Early.  When someone says no, I simply put them back in the hopper and ask them again in a year or six months. Very few will say no more than 6 years in a row!

Tool #4:  Adult volunteer recruitment strategy:  Ask Jesus, Ask early, Ask often!

Jeremy: You talk about the triangle pyramid (Climate, Vision, and Tasks). Part of this pyramid triangle requires creating a climate change. It seems that changing the climate needs to happen more organically, than artificially. So my question is: What are some key components that will directly indicate the current climate of a youth ministry? How does a youth pastor assess the climate and what temperature it is at?

Mark DeVries: I like to view my ministry through the lens of our deliberate values (which are the guardians of the climate). Let’s say the values of your ministry are Christ-Centeredness,Welcome, Joy, Teamwork, and Authenticity.  Generally, you and your leadership team can “smell” whether these things are really inplace in your ministry. If you need something more formal, you could easily put together a ranking survey (1-5, strongly agree to strongly disagree, with questions like, “Our youth ministry is a place where people feel free to be who they really are without pretending” totest for the value of authenticity).
You can use this survey approach with your kids, your leaders, and yourself. Just for fun, if you are the leader of the ministry, you might just ask yourself those questions, replacing “our youth ministry” for “I” in the survey questions, since so much of the climate of the ministry is powerfully (yet subtly) impacted by the feel you bring to the ministry.

Tool #5:  Put together a ranking survey (for you, students, parents, leaders) that will indicate what ministry values are showing up and not showing up in your youth ministry context.  Once the youth pastor has identified what values are not present, it is time to make a climate change.  Basically take an assessment and focus on the values that are not appearing in your youth ministry.

Jeremy: What type of advice would you give to a  youth pastor who is just starting out, he/she is committed to sticking it out for the long haul, and they want a sustainable youth ministry? What are some overarching principles that will help steer the youth pastor in the right direction?

Mark DeVries: We use a “builders list” for every church we work with to help churches identify the most important, most foundational tasks to attend to. It’s amazing that most of these tasks are the same no matter what size church you’re in…and they are often the most easily avoided.

Tool #6:  Please download builders list pdf now (Click here —>  Handout- Builder Checklist )! This builders list will drastically help you clarify your youth ministry triangle pyramid which will lead you to construct a sustainable youth ministry.  This Builder Checklist is the best 2 page document that will get you to lay a solid foundation for your youth ministry.

Jeremy: You are not a fan of youth in leadership. However what if there was a student apprenticeship program that was focused on producing a student servant leadership team? For example, kids are cleaning up after the program, kids greeting new students, kids stacking chairs after women’s ministry program. Student will not have the power; rather students will have the power to be servants of the youth ministry. Thoughts?

Mark DeVries: I love it! In fact, I’ve obviously made my case about student leadership a little too stridently.  I’m a huge fan of student leadership, student apprenticeship, student servanthood. In fact,  I love to see our kids have the chance to carry much of the upfront load for our ministry.
What I’m not a fan of is students setting the vision or direction of a youth ministry. What I’m not a fan of is adults abandoning youth to lead without appropriate mentoring and discipleship being built into the process. What I’m not a fan of is churches assuming that they can start a thriving, sustainable youth ministry on the foundation of student leadership. Great student leadership happens when the key foundational elements (from the Builder’sList) are in place before trying to create a student leadership program.

Tool #7:  Allow our student to carry the upfront load of our youth ministry and get our key student leaders a mentor.

Jeremy: Nobody likes criticism. When we are being criticized either by a parent, other pastor, and staff admin; what techniques would you suggest as we try to listen and not get defensive? I know you mention a few in the book namely listen for the nugget of wisdom and search for creative solutions together, but what are some other strategies?

Mark DeVries: I love the bullfighter approach:
Keep your eyes on the bull: Listen to them closely to what they have to say without running after them and trying to change them.
As the bull charges, get out of the way: The biggest mistake most youthworkers make in conflict is that they try to wrestle them to the ground, try to win onthe brute force of their brilliant ideas. It almost never works.  As you step aside, face the same direction as the bull: Nothing is as powerful (and disarming) as coming side by side with your attacker and looking in the same direction, saying something like, “You’re exactly right about….We definitely need to work on that.”  Access the bull’s power: Once your criticizer has been heard, he or she ismuch more likely to jump on your team and help you move the ministry forward,especially if it helps solve his or her area of concern.  The next step in a bullfight is killing the bull. That would not be a good idea.
Conflict management, like bullfighting, is a learned and practiced skill. If you are constantly getting sideways with your criticizers, let those encounters be a practice field for you to hone your skills.

Tool #8:  Come alongside your attacker and see it from their perspective.

For more amazing content on how to build a Sustainable Youth Ministry simply buy the book.