Terry Linhart's Blog, page 26

How you react when the pressure comes

This week I’ve been working with others who have felt the pressures mounting – to get a paper done, a speech, job applications, parental expectations, or looming deadlines.  Ok, the last one is one I’m experiencing today as I work on finishing a chapter for a book, prepping for this weekend’s parenting conference, and finishing my seminar for the National Youth Workers Conventions.

Everyone reacts differently to increasing pressure.  Some get really grouchy, some procrastinate, others increase or decrease their efforts, and some just do nothing.

I watch college students react to papers and tests.  Some lean in and get the work done on time and navigate the end of semester well.  Others put everything off to the end and then complain about how stressed they are.  It’s their own doing!  (It never stopped us from procrastinating either, did it?)

How do you react to stress?  The Mayo clinic has a helpful article on the topic while this webpage also contains a lot of good information.  How about those around you? What have you noticed about their reactions?

Here’s the key:  Knowing how you relate to stress is helpful to your productivity and leadership.  Many people think they know how they react, but it’s helpful to ask others who know us well about their perspectives on our handling of stress.

What have you noticed about yourself when under stress?  How has it affected your work, leadership, or ministry?  Your relationships?

 

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What youth-related research would YOU like to see?

This past week Immerse Journal published the first of three articles they asked me to write to help youth workers understand how research works, where to find it, and then how to engage research for themselves.  Though youth workers love to use research, it’s not a topic that rivets their attention (as you can see by the lack of comments).  Yet I find that we in youth ministry say things about teens that aren’t supported by research findings, or even contradicts what is actually happening with teens today.  And we look ill-informed to adults when we do that and we perpetuate urban legends.

This fall I am leading a seminar at each of the National Youth Workers Conventions on research and adolescence. I have worked to pack it full of the best stuff out there that will be the most helpful for youth workers, from volunteers to veterans. And will be teaching the seminar in an interactive fashion to keep it fresh and engaging (it IS a Sunday afternoon after all).

So, as I finalize the presentation in the coming days (yes, I’m using Prezi!), I’d love to get your input:  As a youth worker, what research topics would you want to hear about in such a seminar?  What other tips/directives would you give me for those 90 minutes?

If you could drop a comment here with your insights, I’d appreciate it. And I’ll figure out some way to acknowledge you (and even get you involved?) as well if we address your topic (which I will surely try to do, of course!).

Thanks,

Terry

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A Prayer for a Sunday

Confirm me, Lord, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and give me grace to be strong inwardly in soul and to cast out from it all unprofitable business of the world and of the flesh, that it may not be led by unstable desires of earthly things. And grant that I may behold all things in this world as they are – transitory and of short abiding, and I myself also to pass away together with them, for nothing under the sun can long abide, but all in vanity and affliction of the spirit.

Therefore, O Lord, give me true heavenly wisdom, that I may learn to seek you and to find you, and above all things to love you, and to understand and know all other things as they are, after the direction of your wisdom, and not otherwise.  And give me grace, also, to withdraw myself from those who flatter me, and patiently tolerate those who grieve me so that the way I have begun will bring me to a good and blessed ending.

- From The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis

Found in A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants, p 256.

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Video Remix – Mr. Rogers challenges us to cultivate the garden of our mind

Bethel College’s President, Dr. Steve Cramer, showed some videos during his chapel address on August 31, 2012. This was one of them:

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The most effective way to promote your youth ministry

Before social media, cell phones, or computers (yes, once youth ministry leaders had to lead and work with teens without technology’s aid), I knew a youth pastor at a church who spent a significant amount of time (hours!) each month cutting and pasting together his calendar and mailers for students and parents.

About 20 minutes’ drive away from him another youth worker I watched in action spent little time on flyers or mailers. He wasn’t part of a church, so each week his youth ministry had to find ways to be attractive to teens without the push of parents.  And it was.  Students would pack into large living rooms to spend an hour playing some games and discussing a hot topic that related to faith in Christ.

What if the content of your youth ministry was so compelling that students promoted it with other students and parents promoted it with other parents? 

A recent post by Seth Godin on the circles of marketing explains the slightly exaggerated differences of youth ministries I describe.  Click on the link to see his illustration of how the circles work – and how most people misunderstand marketing as spin, buzz, and getting the word out.  

In our era of busy teens and families, if your content (the product – teaching, worship, prayer, and community) doesn’t connect (usability) with their lives, then your promotion is in vain.
We in youth ministry don’t often understand how important support (systems, supervision, empathetic adults, registration ease, communication that is clear, consistent, and timely) matters as a marketing piece.  It aids teens and families’ ability to ‘use’ the youth ministry with confidence.
I think we ‘get’ the next ring out from the middle – the story, community, and tribe. And as I visit youth ministries across the country, I see that reflection. For Christian youth ministry, ‘story’ is important – and not just the story of the youth group (though that’s important), but also the story of God’s work in our group’s lives (collectively and individually) and his story in Scripture.
It’d be worth reviewing our topics and teaching from the previous year and making a chart of a) what topics we taught, b) what Scripture we used, and c) what theology that taught our students.  Given the critique of Sticky Faith and other analyses, we in youth ministry don’t seem to be telling a story that sticks beyond high school.  Perhaps it’s too simple or underdeveloped in light of the world’s questions and critique?
Which brings us back to the core – product.  What IS the ‘product’ of your youth ministry?  A program?  You?  A story?  A weekly experience?  Relationships with godly adults?  Teaching?  Community?  I know it’s most of these… but if you had to pick one, pick one.

You know that I think teaching ought to be a strong contender for that place.  Which means, that if product is the most important marketing tool, and teaching is that in our youth ministries…. then we need to make sure we’re doing that well and with a strong connectivity (usability) in the lives of those we teach.  And, here’s the deal:  THEY determine if it’s useful or not.  So, we need to be listening.

How will you take the circles of marketing and use them to shape your youth ministry this year?

 

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Inspiring 5 Piano Guys Video to think creatively.

Bethel College’s President, Dr. Steve Cramer, showed some videos during his chapel address on August 31, 2012. This was one of them:

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Inspiring video to learn the secret of your ‘art’

Bethel College’s President, Dr. Steve Cramer, showed some videos during his chapel address on August 31, 2012. This was one of them:

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Where are the frontline ‘trenches’ for youth ministry?

This Friday across America, most communities will be hosting a high school football game and a significant portion of the youth in that community will be in attendance.  But how many youth workers will be there?

Before school a group of students will stand next to cars near the high school, smoking, talking, and trying to psyche each other up to endure the teachers’ glares for the day.  They may even share a story or two about how a cop followed them around the night before.  How many of these students are known my name and preferences by a local youth worker?

Ten families just moved into the town from Honduras, fresh to America (and legally so) so that ‘dad’ can get a better paying job.  Spanish is the parents’ sole language and the kids will have to work on English to do well at school without being ‘tracked’ to a remdial program.  Their fear, though bright in their native tongue, is that they’ll miss out on the same learning opportunities that the English kids get because they’re new to America.  And their parents didn’t go to high school with many of the teachers like the other kids’ parent did. What churches have welcomed these families and offered programs to help them adjust? How do youth workers respond when they see these students?

We in youth ministrysaywe are on the front-lines (when compared to senior pastors for instance), but are we really?  What defines frontlines?  That we come alongside hurting teens after a program at our church?  When I look around a community, I see the frontlines as where most of the youth would be hanging out (i.e. football games), where teens that society has let fall through the cracks would be (i.e. the scene of smokers), and the changing world in which we live (i.e. immigration).

If we want to make a difference with the youth of America, we can’t solely rely on a ‘come and see’ concert/sermon in our church buildings. We will reach a smaller and smaller portion of our communities.  And basically just the youth of parents in our churches, if they don’t leave to take their kids to another church down the street.

We say we’re on the front lines… but are we really. Do we even know where the front-lines are?

This year would be a great year to renew within you that passion to make a difference with youth.  The last thing most of us want to become was a program manager, yet many of our jobs have morphed into just that. Hey, less and less of your teens are into the music like they were about 10 years ago any way.  They want something more experiential and participatory than to watch a guy playing an acoustic guitar getting on them because they aren’t acting like they’re into ‘worship’ (which is defined as a particular form of music delivered in a particular style).  They want teaching that is meaningful, that does something more than just make them feel like they aren’t doing enough for God.

Here’s what you can do this week:

Go to two sporting events at your local high school and meet as many students as you can – for no purpose other than to get to know them. If you have students from your youth group there, that will help you.
Find where the ‘outsiders’ in your town hang out and see if you know any of the students in that group. If so, talk with him/her about what would be something you could do for them. I’ve had success bringing in a stack of pizzas as just a gift (it was a Friday evening though, not before school) and I once hosted a cookout with all-you-can-eat burgers.  For free.  Free food works!
Locate the cultural groups in your community that are largely ignored and under-served. What tutoring would they need? Do they need help securing medical help (knowing who will help them for real without just trying to get insurance money or treat them roughly)?  David Livermore and I provide a list of great ideas in our book, What Can We Do?: Practical Ways Your Youth Ministry Can Have a Global Conscience.



You need to know that America’s ethnicity is going to change drastically over the coming years. Youth ministry will have to change with it, get over some as-yet-unrecognized prejudices in our thinking and teaching, or we’ll be ministering to a smaller and smaller percentage of the population … and become irrelevant in the process.

Hey, if you’ve been at your place of ministry for a while, this new venture just might put the wind in your sails again!  There’s no need to go elsewhere for missions… it’s right in your community!

I gave three ideas that I’ve done in youth ministry. What are some other ‘frontlines’ ministries you’ve done or seen in action?

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Teaching temptation #1: Leader-centered teaching

I work in multiple worlds – education, youth ministry, and publishing.  They wonderfully mix together in my love and concern for the youth of the world and I’m able to contribute in a variety of arenas that work with young people ages 10-25.

One of the consistent concerns in teaching and youth ministry is the trend toward adult-centered programming.  Much of how decisions are made and what is ‘produced’ is centered on the adult by convenience (it makes the job ‘easier’ for the leader) and purpose (the adult determines what it taught and rarely, if ever, checks to see if anyone is engaged or not).  Gavin Richardson observed this about youth ministry this when he wrote, “Youth ministry as it is most often lived out today is really a series of adult controlled environments strung together with the hope (and expectation) that youth lives will be transformed.”

What if we could move beyond hoping that lives are transformed?

Youth ministry and education used to be far more student-centered than it is practiced today. The dash toward concert-mimicked youth ministry meetings where worship music and a 30+ minute talk are the staples, has left student-centered  values far behind.  The evaluation of ‘how it went’ pivots on production values.  And we ‘hope’ students are worshiping and learning through the one-way delivery methods.

Teaching in schools has become no different, as we adults push students toward passing some form of a standardized test.  Creative individuality and unique gifts have been shoved to the margins and the focus is on passing the final exam… even if students haven’t actually integrated any learning into their lives. You can see this commitment to teacher-centered instruction in how schools are designed and how we approach substitute teaching.

Even in small group settings, youth ministry can look like an adult giving advice to students.  We’re so accustomed to the adult-focused approaches to how to teach that we aren’t sure what to do to get students to talk, learn, grow, and develop a faith that sticks into adulthood.  Remove the authoritative teaching adult (which happens upon graduation from high school) and what will you have left as students also leave their parents for college or career?

I think we’ve lost our love for teaching in youth ministry circles.  We’ve almost become performers through music and message now, avoiding the relationally demanding practices.  Time spent with teens continues to drop (observed in various graduate research I’ve supervised) while time in the office planning our next program(s) rises.  A quick scan of the New Testament would suggest this programmatic push has taken us off the frontlines and away from those to whom we are to be shepherds.  How is ministry defined and enacted in the New Testament?

If you work with youth, take a break, make a change (cue the music), and lead a discussion … listen … spend time where youth are … and listen some more.

 

 

 

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What are we communicating ‘normal’ kids in our youth groups?

An event recently took place that caused me to question what we in youth ministry are communicating (in our silence) to students in our youth ministry.  The ‘normal’ ones, the young people who don’t want to go into vocational ministry.  I caught myself teaching and talking in a way that made vocational ministry the ultimate level of obedience.  And the silent inference was that those who didn’t aspire to that weren’t living up to their highest potential.

When we talk about discipleship, how do we describe it?  How do those in youth ministry talk about what it means to follow Jesus faithfully?  We often elevate the apostles’ stories and draw some analogy to the vocational minister or missionary as the ‘ideal’ to follow.  And many of our students may feel they don’t measure up. We champion the short-term mission trip as the ‘ultimate’ thing we do each year.

The problem is:  We’re often silent when it comes to encouraging students toward following Jesus faithfully in a non-ministry vocation. And some pastors haven’t learned how to relate to, connect with, or even minister to men and women who want to live a ‘normal life’ for Jesus.  In fact, the most frequent question I receive about what’s happening at Bethel College, besides how much tuition will be the coming year, is if we have any future pastors or youth workers graduating.  Which we always do.  However, when I share about the college’s growing and dynamic pre-med, international business, theater, nursing or art programs, I find that we pastors don’t know how to respond.  And I’m not sure why.  I recently heard Dr. Jay Kesler, former President of Taylor University and Youth for Christ/USA, introduce a college donor and remark that “we relegate Christian business leaders to the back row of our congregations” even though they are the driving force behind much of our work.

As I listen and read what many of us youth workers share with students, I think many of us in youth ministry also don’ t know what to do with a student who wants to be a businessperson or skilled worker, who is a Christian.  Do we encourage that or try to get them to be a missionary or youth worker like us?  For us, perhaps the call of God into ministry was so strong and important, a move away from ‘secular’ work that we may see business as a vocation less God-honoring?

What do we do in our churches with the guy who has a plumbing business and enjoys his work?  Is he being faithful to God?  Do we encourage our teens to find something they enjoy and do it to the fullest?  Some of the most in-demand jobs in our country are skilled labor jobs. And, to keep it biblical, the New Testament is full of non-apostolic people (in fact most of the early church weren’t apostles or martyrs) who lived faithfully for Christ in their hometown doing regular jobs.  To drive the point home even further, for 18 years of his ‘adult’ life, Jesus looked and acted like a regular carpenter (except that no one could accuse him of sin.  THAT’s pretty irregular).

So, there may be quite a few students in your youth ministry group who feel like they don’t ‘measure up’ to some standard that’s been set. Even though we don’t mean to do this, it’s just part of the hidden curriculum learned by what we choose to focus on  and champion in our teaching.  And it may contribute to why so many students fall away from church once they’re out on their own.

As you shape your youth ministry curriculum for the upcoming year, be sure to encourage all students equally well, no matter their desired future work.

 

 

 

 

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