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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?

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In my previous church context the local Mormon youth group was killing it.  They had a strong youth program with solid students.  They had a well-established community and displayed remarkable character.  I was confused why a few of our students were so drawn to Mormonism and why the Mormon youth group was so effective.  I decided to do some research so I could figure out why the Mormon community was so attractive.  I was determined to find out why Mormons did better youth ministry than the Christians.

This is what I found in my sociological Mormon youth group research:

-  Mormon students really knew how to be inclusive, communal and still knew how to have fun without alcohol

-  Mormon students didn’t really know what the Mormon doctrine was really really about

-  Mormon students tended to confuse the Christian students about Jesus and the Bible

-  Mormon students exhibited a lot of great behaviors and were extremely nice

-  Some of my Christian students were ok with dating Mormon students

-  Mormon students were not afraid to share their faith

-  Mormon students were relentlessly inviting any type of student to their activities

-  All Mormon students we interacted with in our town had two parents who deeply cared, loved, and supported them

I concluded that the Mormon students were demonstrating more of Christ’s character than our youth group community was demonstrating.  This was a painful reality to admit, but it made sense to me.  If you have an accepting, loving group of people who practice what they preach, more people will want to be a part of it.  No hypocrisy, strong inclusive community, and character were the key ingredients that made the Mormon youth group so effective.  

So I went back to the drawing board and started planning a strategy for how our youth group was going to address, equip and educate our youth group students about Mormonism.  Here was the strategy I came up with:

 (1)  I would constantly be communicating and demonstrating the high value of respect towards the book of Mormon and Mormonism.  I intentionally wanted to show my students that we were not judging the Mormons, rather we were learning from them and respecting what they believe.  I really wanted to dispel the myth that Christians are closed minded and arrogantly judge other holy books.  I wanted to move towards treating other religious students (who had differing religious beliefs that Christians) with respect while still claiming Jesus as the way, the truth and the life.  There is a fundamental difference between respecting and accepting theology.  I worked very hard for our youth group not to judge the Mormon students as we educated and equipped our teens about Mormonism.

(2)  Get students to move away from narrow-mindedness. I strove to make my students feel like they were learning about other religions, namely Mormonism without being closed minded.  Holding to Christianity as the ultimate truth is not narrow-mindedness.  Narrow-mindedness does not attach to what you believe, but how you believe it.  If our youth group refused to learn about any perspective, any religious book, or any philosophy which disagreed with the Christian doctrine – then that would be narrow-minded.  No matter what you believe there will always be opposition.  Learning about Mormonism was going to be a learning experience for everyone involved.

(3)  I committed to visiting a few local Mormon temples.  During the weeks I made multiple stops at the local Mormon temples.  During these visits, I would see if I could gather literature, multiple books of Mormon, and sit down and talk with one of the elders.  I wanted to simply befriend other religious leaders in my community and learn.

(4)  Teach on Mormonism and other holy books.  I really wanted to show how Mormonism and Christianity are drastically different.  You can explore my post about how I addressed the other holy books here and my teaching notes for how I talked about Mormonism here.  My goal was to get my students to critically and objectively think about how Mormonism and Christianity are not the same.  I wanted them to use their own brains to think.  I wanted them to process the information so they were able to have their own objective convictions about Christianity and Mormonism.  I did not want to see confusion in my students any longer.

(5)  I decided to invite an Ex-Mormon elder to come speak to our youth group.  One of my youth pastor friends had a connection to an Ex-Mormon elder, Tom Hall.  Tom was a Christian, a bit older, and a very wise ex-Mormon elder.  He spoke at youth group and had many great stories about his eldership in the Mormon temple.  Tom wrote a book titled:  Mormon Chronicles of Deception:  An Ex- Mormon Elder’s Journey to Biblical Truth.  Tom was awesome and totally connected with my students.  He gave each student his book for free and truly bestowed an inside perspective about Mormonism.  Tom initially got involved in Mormonism because he fell in love with a beautiful gal who was Mormon.  It took him a long time to be fully exposed to true Mormon theology, and he didn’t like what he learned or saw.  His journey back to Christ and Biblical truth was incredible and something the kids completely connected with.

(6) Supply students will resources.  A great historical book about Mormonism that I recommend to students was:  Under The Banner Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith.  Dare 2 Share also has some great Mormon resources for students here and here

(7)  I committed to inviting Mormon missionaries into my home so I could learn from them and ask a lot of questions.  I wanted to check out how much Mormon missionaries new about Mormonism.  I wanted to hear why they felt convinced to be Mormon.  I also was really curious about why evangelism and being on mission was so important and why they sacrificed 2 years of their lives to serve their district temples.

(8)  I asked my students to keep befriending, loving and respecting Mormon students.  I simply wanted my students to keep demonstrating the Kingdom of God.  I wanted to remind my students of the bigger Kingdom picture and not get confused as we explored Mormonism.  My hope is that all of my students will always be seeking Jesus and Truth while being the Kingdom of God here and now.

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Do you have a high Mormon population where you do youth ministry?

How do you deal with the growing influence of Mormonism in your youth group?

Are your students confused and drawn to Mormonism?

Do you agree or disagree that Mormons tend to do better ministry because of their strong inclusive community and character?

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Senior graduation has hit the youth ministry trenches.  Youth pastors are invited to a ton of grad parties, expected to give grad gifts, attend the ever so long grad ceremony, and speak words of affirmation to the graduates.

So let’s say a youth worker is asked to speak at a “secular” senior graduation event and he/she is encouraged to give advice to the graduates right before they hit the real world.  The community and school see him/her as the “youth expert” and are expecting great practical advice.  The school and community respect and like the youth worker, however they made it very clear they don’t want any church/Jesus/God related stuff in the talk.  What advice should a youth worker give high school seniors in a secular context?

My Advice To High School Seniors:

Friends-  Choose your friends wisely.  Seniors need to know that they are the average of the five people they spend the most time with. Surround yourself with people who are socially savvy, have a call, and know how to laugh.

Learning-  Absorb everything.  Enjoy studying.  Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosophier, believed one of the highest level of pleasure was contemplation.  One of the two components that are fundamental to enjoy life and feel good about yourself is continually learning.  If you can’t find the type of mentors that you’re looking for in a person, find them through books and don’t rule out the latest and greatest.  Top 3 books every senior needs to read:  (1) Aristotle – Nicomachean Ethics (2) CS Lewis – Mere Christianity (3) Benjamin Franklin – An American Life

Character-   Your character is everything!!  Your repetition either breaks you or helps you.  Character is like your credit rating.  Character takes years to build, but seconds to destroy.  Character is a testimony of formed habits.

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.

- Aristotle

Serve-  The second component that is fundamental to enjoy life and feel good about yourself is serving.  Serve at a local church, homeless shelter, tutoring center, community center, local library, and/or retirement home.  Be intentional to volunteer for a non-profit.

Travel- Every high school senior should take an extended trip outside of the USA. The only way to really have a sense of how the world works is to see it yourself.  Cultures matter.  Most American don’t travel.  Experience other traditions, music, climate, religions, people, languages, and foods.  Travel doesn’t have to be expensive and is very educational.  Also make sure to travel lightly.

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I believe youth pastors will need to get better at creatively communicating the Christian life to a generation that doesn’t give a rat’s foot about the authority of the Bible, church, and Jesus.

So what would you say to a smart unhcurched senior?  What topics and issues would you address in your talk?

This may be a no-brainer for some youth workers, but I always found it helpful talking about the insane importance of the resurrection during the Easter season.  Personally, I don’t think any youth pastor can get bored talking about the resurrection.

In youth group, weeks leading up to Easter Sunday, I would talk about:

-  why the Resurrection is so central to the Christian faith

-  how the resurrection sent a shockwave in and through history

-  re-iterated the fact that the resurrection really happened

Some of my (more) skeptical students would challenge with “rumors” that claimed the resurrection was not REAL.  So I decided to compile 4 of the “most common rumors” student heard about the resurrection of Jesus.

4 Rumors Skeptical Students Need To Put To Rest:

(4) The story of Jesus’ resurrection is a lie.

One must understand something about history, especially in the context of 1st century Jewish oral tradition. Many times, the historical records of certain major events like the Persian wars or the movement of Alexander the Great were given to us by only one source and took a while to record it. Even though we have so few sources that were written a long time after the event, no one really doubts the truth claims made in the historical documents that talk about the Persian wars and Alexander the Great. We have four Gospels, the New Testament writings, and references by non-Christian historical sources like Josephus and Tacitus that claim Jesus was alive, died, and rose again. It appears people are more likely to doubt the authenticity of Jesus’ historical resurrection than they will doubt Alexander the Great legitimacy.  Also, many of the sources that talk about Jesus divine acts were written and documented less than 70 years post-Jesus’ resurrection.  By the way this documentation is fast in comparison to other historical events.  The cool thing is, historians and theologians, have more ancient documents on the life of Jesus than any other important historical event.

Bottom line the resurrection account developed in a very short amount of time.  There have been different elaborate lies that people have told about fantastic things happening in history that didn’t stand the test of time.  It seems the persecuted Christians would have confessed their “secret” about Jesus because of the intense pressure that was put on them to tell the truth.  But they didn’t.  They told the truth:  Jesus really resurrected.  The disciples carried their testimony to their death.

Its not that plausible that Jesus resurrection is a lie.

(3) The Gospels seem to be contradictory.

This is why youth pastors need to teach their students how to read the Bible for everything it is worth. Students need to know that when reading ancient written documents, aka the Bible, it can be very difficult to understand what one is reading without considering the appropriate context. If students are not careful when reading Scripture, they can possibly come to wrongful conclusions about Matthew, Mark, Luke and John because they didn’t have the tools and resources to properly understand Scripture.  Students must know they are reading a 1st century document that requires proper reading of the text.

The Gospels are 4 accounts of 1 situation.  And the beautiful thing is that the Gospels are wonderfully consistent in all of the main aspects of the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

For example, Jesus’ skeptic brother James along with the rest of Jesus’ brothers and sisters didn’t believe in Him. Believing in your bro was very insulting in 1st century Jewish culture, especially if your bro was a Rabbi. So why would all the Gospel writers comment on the skepticism among Jesus’ brothers and sisters and make them look like fools?   The Jewish historian Josephus later tells us James was stoned to death for belief in his brother.

According to JP Moreland, five weeks after Jesus was crucified over 10, 000 Jews were following Him and claiming Him the initiator of THE WAY. These Jews literally abandoned their jobs, culture, and lives to a mission that required them to spread  a very specific and difficult message – aka- the Gospel. The WAY  triumphed over MANY competing ideologies and eventually overwhelmed the entire Roman Empire.  There’s no question the early Christian church started really soon after the death of Jesus and spread so quickly within a period of  twenty years.

The resurrection is so powerful it convinces a skeptic to become a loyal and passionate follower of Jesus that will literally compel him to sacrifice his life to advance the Gospel.

(2) Modern people can no longer believe in “miracles” like the resurrection.

Scientists are discovering that life is not as “black and white” as many logical minds would like to think. The universe is pretty complex and astrophysicists are not exactly sure why the universe is the way it is. Students have to admit that miracles can happen outside of science.  All science is not 100% accurate, which may imply there is an intelligent designer that had to intervene at some point during creation. Einstein concluded:

There are two ways to live:  you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle

A student cannot deny the possibility of miracles because he/she hasn’t experienced one.  It is very difficult to demonstrate how a human person removed a very heavy stone (all by himself) that barracked the tomb.  It would have taken several people to move the stone to open the tomb.  Dallas Willard in his book,  Knowing Christ Today states:

The physical universe is not a closed system.  Miracles are possible simply because of that fact.

(1) Jesus was never seen alive again.

There are many ancient sources, outside the New Testament, that (in my opinion) confirm the apostles’ conviction that they encountered the resurrected Christ.

In the New Testament we have 9 accounts that demonstrate Jesus’ physical appearances:

1.  To Mary Magdalene, in John 20:10-18;

2.  To the other women, in Matthew 28:8-10;

3.  To Cleopas and another disciple on the road to Emmaus, in Luke 24:13-32;

4.  To eleven disciples and other, in Luke 24:33-49;

5.  To ten apostles and others, with Thomas absent, in John 20:19-23;

6.  To Thomas and the other apostles, in John 20:26-30;

7.  To seven apostles, in John 21:1-14;

8.  To the disciples, in Matthew 28:16-20

9.  And He was with the apostles at the Mount Of Olives before his ascension, in Luke 24:50-52 and Acts 1:4-9

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As a follower of Jesus, everything hangs on the resurrection. If the resurrection didn’t happen, then Christians would be in trouble.  Following Jesus would be pointless. Teaching about the resurrection to your student will shed light on the amazingness and profoundness of Jesus conquering death.

** If you want read all 10 of the Top Ten Theological Questions Teens Ask click here

Every student pastor or youth pastor has their own take on curriculum.  Youth ministry curriculum is too limited, topical, forceful, plain, and expensive.

All of these criticisms of curriculum are valid, but why should a student pastor use curriculum or youth ministry video curriculum?

What if the youth pastor is not gifted in writing their own youth group talk?   What if the student pastor spends way too much of their precious time writing their talks?  What should student pastors do if they don’t have anyone on staff who can write sound theological and topical youth group lessons?

In the very beginning of my student ministry career, I was so proud and excited to write my “own” youth group lesson.  I would spend hours upon hours writing my youth ministry bible study, which 9 out of 10 times ended up in a trainwreck.  My boss even warned me that I should be investing in my adult volunteers instead of spending a lot of hours at starbucks preparing my youth group sermon. The large majority of my student ministry experience was in a small church, so I had to find ways to fully maximize my time while being extremely effective.  Thankfully I realized using curriculum will free up some of my time because I didn’t have to write every youth group sermon from scratch.  Granted I contextualized every curriculum I used.  I think every youth worker using curriculum has to contextualize. I would rather adapt than start from scratch.

Granted figuring out what curriculum is legit, is a WHOLE different conversation. I am biased:  XP3 curriculum (from Orange) is probably the best content-driven curriculums out there.  Give XP3 a free go….here (I would love any feedback if you do try our free “Godview” series)

My point:  Writing your own youth group talk is fine for a season, but you will eventually run out of gas.  In another words, you will end up waiting until the last minute to write your youth group sermon.  I think every student pastor really only has 4-6 different talks.  Using curriculum will enable you to relationally invest in your students and staff.  Students need more and more committed, caring, courageous, and Bible competent  adults leaders around them, than listening to a well crafted youth group sermon.

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Does your church use curriculum?  Why or why not.

What would be the “ideal” curriculum for a youth ministry?

What should be more of a priority for a youth pastor:  teaching or recruiting/training volunteers?