Terry Linhart's Blog, page 29

The search is still on! – Looking for youth workers (young and old) who teach well

So, yesterday I asked folks to identify those in youth work and youth ministry who are the great teachers.  Who are the leaders, whether currently in youth work or used to work with youth, who could lead discussions, give talks, facilitate small groups or trips, and just ‘know’ how to do it all in a way that connects with youth.  When they taught (via a variety of methods), students learned.

I got one response.

Now, I am not sure how to interpret this one response. Was it a lack of interest?  Of exposure?  Sure, this blog isn’t the most widely-read, but I did have some strategic folks retweet, repost, and re-something the request.  So, I was hopeful that people wanted to respond.

One response.

I am not sure how to sift the data.  Is the one an outlier (but, I am thrilled to have the one. It was helpful!)?  Do we not know who teaches well?  Have we not seen that many youth workers in action?  Or do we not value the skill of teaching?

So, I’m pressing on for another day with my request for a work-in-progress:

I am looking for local youth workers, youth pastors, and leaders (volunteer or vocational) who truly helped people learn.  Who were those great leaders who just knew  how to get students’ attention, how to generate deep conversations, or how to connect content that mattered to everyday realities?  Maybe they led small groups, role plays, short-term missions, or lectured…. but people learned through their intentional teaching.

Maybe these great teachers were part of your life decades ago.  Maybe you watched them in action last week. Whatever is the case, they would serve as your model to say to others, “THAT’s how you do it.”  In an era where experience rules, these master teachers remind us of the core element – learning matters.

If you could help me out by answering these questions in a comment and then by passing this URL along to others, I would appreciate it.

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Seeking the great youth ministry teachers

I’ve embarked on a summer project that will result in something and I seek the best teachers you’ve ever seen in youth ministry. I am looking for local youth workers, youth pastors, and leaders (volunteer or vocational) who truly helped people learn.  Who were those great leaders who just knew  how to get students’ attention, how to generate deep conversations, or how to connect content that mattered to everyday realities?  Maybe they led small groups, role plays, short-term missions, or lectured…. but people learned through their intentional teaching.

Maybe these great teachers were part of your life decades ago.  Maybe you watched them in action last week. Whatever is the case, they would serve as your model to say to others, “THAT’s how you do it.”  In an era where experience rules, these master teachers remind us of the core element – learning matters.

If you could help me out by answering these questions in a comment and then by passing this URL along to others, I would appreciate it.

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How to Tell if Your Communication is Actually Working

The following is a guest post from Aaron Helman at Smarter Youth Ministry. His goal is to reduce your frustration so that you can stay in ministry forever. Grab more of his communication tips here.

If you’re working in youth ministry in the year 2012, you’re probably trying to do whatever you can to get your message out to students and families. The Internet was supposed to make this easier, but it didn’t and right now your communication strategy probably looks like this:

Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Vimeo, Pinterest, MailChimp, Constant Contact, Traditional website, MySpace, SMS, Postal mailings, Phone trees, Church bulletins, Newsletters, Postcards, Posters and fliers, Sanctuary announcements and videos, Rolling slides, Blogs.

I hope you didn’t actually read that entire list. Point is, there’s a lot of stuff.

My favorite moment in the entire Bible comes when Jesus curses that fig tree for not producing any fruit and the ministry idea is simple – if it’s not helping you build the Kingdom, then it’s not worth your time. Stop doing it.

Of course, it’s tough to tell what’s working and what’s not, so here are five (pretty) easy ways to gauge the success of your different methods.

Twitter. Use BufferApp so that you can see the analytics of your tweets. If you regularly use Twitter to point people towards things like registration forms, you’ll probably want to know if anyone is clicking over.

Your website. Install Google Analytics to figure out how many people actually read your stuff. If it takes you two hours each week to update your website but only six people ever check it out, it’s probably not worth your time.

Your Facebook page. Facebook already gives you usage data. Look at it and try to figure out what you’re doing to cause a spike in interactions or Facebook “Likes”.

E-newsletter. Constant Contact and MailChimp both give you access to email performance data so you know how many people received and opened the message. You’d be shocked at how low these can be.

Print media. Analyze your timing when you release print media. If camp registrations spike two days after you send out a letter, you’ll know why. In the same way, if your church passes out 400 flyers on a Sunday morning and no one’s signed up by the afternoon, you’ll know that’s not working.

The most important thing for you to do is simple to stop doing the things that aren’t producing fruit. Invest that time back into your students again. That’s why you got into this in the first place, isn’t it?

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In support of majoring in youth ministry in college

I sit with parents and prospective students every month who are curious about majoring in youth ministry at Bethel College. More often than not, the student is very excited about his or her interest in youth work, but the parents are more hesitant to see their son or daughter choose that their major in college. The concerns generally range from whether they can earn a living in youth ministry, or whether they should major in a real degree so they have something to fall back on ( I presume the concern is that they may fail and youth ministry, or get chewed up like many do in local congregations).

These are valid concerns, however I think they also tell more about the economic pressure we feel when facing correlation versus anything else. As I stated in a previous post, I think we have begun to see higher education more as a means to be productive financially versus a process to become educated and wireless. And the reality is that not many people actually were in the area the major in while attending college. I am always amazed that youth ministry as a degree tends to get higher scrutiny than degrees like music (what I majored in), or history, or even psychology (the second most popular major for college students) that requires an additional Masters degree in order to work in that world.

My argument is that you should major in the degree do you feel like you are supposed to, that God has called you to major in, and work to become the best educated person you can become. If it’s music, great. History? Superb.  Psychology?  Fantastic.  Youth ministry?  You bet.

Though some say college is a business decision, it is not. it can be, if your goal is simply to make money, but you will find that when you turned my age you will wonder if that’s the right goal.  There is an oft-quoted interview of Ted Turner by Barbara Walters and she asked what it was like to be so wealthy.  His response was “It’s like a paper bag. Everyone sees the bag. Everyone wants it. Once you get the bag, you discover that the bag is empty.”

I have been reflecting on how brief life is now that I’m in my midlife years, and I am more convinced than ever that we should pursue what matters to us and that part of what matters is the pursuit of wisdom.  The goal of college education is to be shaped and formed, to learn an area of content, and to fully be who God is created you to be.

Stephanie Rorie, the Group Life & Family Care Coordinator for Granger Student Ministries, is a graduate of our youth ministry program at Bethel.  She e-mailed me the other day and commented that she is one of the few of her friends who are actually working in the field that she majored in while in college. I tell parents all of the time that youth work is a growing field and that there are numerous types of jobs and openings out there for a college educated and mature youth worker.  Stephanie has been very successful in her work at Granger Community Church since her graduation and she is balancing family and ministry leadership very well.

If you look around at many of the prominent Christian leaders who are influential today and you look back in their history of ministry, you will often find that youth work was the foundation starting point. Youth ministry is a fantastic degree for those interested in various forms of ministry. It prepares you for national leadership, cross-cultural expertise, and innovative teaching. You will learn how to connect interpersonally with people you’ve never met, you will learn how to team with community leaders and counselors to provide holistic opportunities. And you will grow in your ability to communicate Scripture to everyday life. That sounds like a list of pretty marketable skills in a variety of potential directions.

I will post a series of follow-ups to this to create a small wiki about youth ministry as a college major. You are welcome to jump in and help me do so.

 

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Reflection lost – Are we living like the catchfools of Pinocchio?

I’d been reflecting a bit this past week on, well, reflection.  Reflection is an important life skill, one often under-discussed in education and ministry circles.  John Dewey was the first to give it importance in response against the mechanistic Tylerian approaches to teaching/learning.  If learning is a disruption of our normal way of viewing a subject, our minds need time to calm those waters and assign meaning to what was just learned.

Take a short-term cross cultural trip, for example.  Imagine that you didn’t schedule in any time to discuss the day with your students.  Think about how shallow it’d be to not spend time reflecting on the variety of experiences and encounters.

Yet most of us spend little time in reflection. Most gleefully avoid critical thinking, happy to consume the latest ____.  Which made me think of the story of Pinocchio.  Have we again morphed into a society much like that of the city of Catchfools in Pinnochio?

Imagine you were the fox and cat and you wanted to ensnare (control?) a group of people.

You would get them craving addictive forms of food that didn’t help them be healthy
You’d entertain them with the latest dazzlements that left them wanting even more the next time
You’d educate them in ways that didn’t foster critical thinking or ability to challenge set norms.
You’d interrupt their ability to connect interpersonally and prefer isolation and being a part of the ‘crowd’.
You’d facilitate their desire to lie or make then concern only for their own protection and interests versus living for for a greater good, a communal reality that serves others.

I exaggerate a bit, of course, and sound like an alarmist (of course), but reflect a bit with me, won’t you?  How are we spending our hours each week?  Where are we engaging the deep?  Every election season in America, our main concern boils down to the economy. As long as we can keep our purchasing power and be connected to the Internet, we’re happy.  We feel ‘better’ in an unfamiliar context when we can go shopping.  When we sit in classrooms, or engage in long conversations, we’re less comfortable and mentally count the minutes until it’s over.

In some ways, one could argue that we’re losing our ability to think like humans ought to think and a bit more like we’re part of a computer.  Again, I exaggerate, I know. It’s ok. I’ve been trained in exaggeration so please don’t try this at home. 

This past week, Mike King posted a reference to a TED talk and CNN piece from 2011 by Stanford researcher Philip Zimbardo (who has the book The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It out now). In it, he states:

Boys’ brains are being digitally rewired for change, novelty, excitement and constant arousal. That means they’re totally out of sync in traditional classes, which are analog, static, interactively passive.

There’s something going on here that educators, youth ministry leaders, and parents need to consider.  And, as I’ve trolled through discussion boards on the topic, it’s worth reflecting on our own reactions to these types of topics.

Does this make you feel alarmed? Or are you dismissive?  Now, in good reflective form, we need to consider why we have that response and whether it’s the right one. 

 

 

 

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We’ve changed how we think about education

I walked in to the Cross Fit workout area, the daily reluctance present as I knew what awaited me in that day’s workout.  Sure enough, the usual physical agony, the press against my cardiovascular ability, and the psychological temptation to quit faced me once again.  Why do I put myself through this, I thought.  And I’ll do so the next day.

Because it’s good for my body.  And for me in other ways.

The truth is that I workout because I know what will happen if I don’t.  Atrophy lurks around every corner for a man in his late 40s. The same is true for our minds. They are like a muscle that needs exercised and pushed beyond the limits it had the day prior, to help establish the wisdom necessary for the next day.

I am a professor with an earned PhD from a major research university (Purdue).  Yet I teach in a field (youth ministry) that isn’t seen as über-academic nor one that has historically valued scholarly endeavors.  This has been changing as the field has matured and youth ministry’s role in communities has broadened, valuing and rewarding wise leadership.

One of the casualties in our poorly-managed US economy (it has been for decades) has been good education.  Regardless of which political party has resided in the White House, education has slowly turned from something the fostered imagination and life in students to one that works more toward creating a productive work force who can earn money. The push for standardized testing as the sole determinant of educational success while schools cut back on the fine arts and extracurricular activities show how ‘functional’ we’ve become when we think of what it means to grow through learning.

And this has carried over into how we think about college education.

I sit with parents and prospective students who are contemplating earning a degree in a ministry-related field (missions, pastoral studies, youth ministry).  The student has responded to a call from God to pursue some great purpose that cares for the needs of others and advance the Gospel in some way.  Yet the main questions that I get asked are  “can I get a job when I graduate?” or “will I use this in life?”  Valid questions, but perhaps not the primary ones that should be asked. True, the Western globalizing forces are pushing tuition higher and higher, beyond the growth of family income, but it doesn’t mean we need to view education like skills training.

When we see education as only a process that helps us make more and find work, we reduce it to something that fails to produce life within us.  We become part of a mechanistic system were making a bit more money and being able to buy what we want are the chief goals for learning.  This doesn’t seem life-giving, creative, or even what it means to be human.   God is creative (look outside or in the mirror) and this creative dynamic in the world is one I want to participate in.

So, in my field of youth ministry,we desperately need educated leaders who are ready to lead into new territories versus just reproducing what has worked before and staying safe.  As the globalization machine pushes our economic realities, it also is reshaping the social and theological landscape. The old programmatic approaches will matter to a smaller and smaller percentage of the population.

Well, this will be my soapbox for a few days here and I’m near 600 words. So I’ll quit for today.   Love to have you join in on the conversation and help advance it too.

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Helping a teen survive stress (repost)

This post received some attention this month, so I thought I’d repost it. 

As we near the end of a semester, the stress for students amps up even higher that normal and it’s often accompanied by feelings of depression or bouts of anxiety.  At the college level, there isn’t much I can do to assist students who procrastinated and pay the price for that delay.  But, I did receive a long-distance Email from a high school teenager who was feeling stressed, down, and wondered what he could do to work out of that.  Since I know a lot about being a teen with stress and depression (because I struggled with it too), I offer these 10 action steps.  I wrote them quickly, so I’d love to hear what you think about this list.

So, without further delay, here is my 10-step list to deal with stress:

Make sure you’re getting enough sleep each night, drinking lots of water each day, and exercising outside (if the weather holds).
Cut back on sugar (and this means cutting carbs too) and caffeine.  You’ll be surprised how much these contribute to feeling down.
Eat an orange a day.  And carrots.  The physiological side of eating well is not to be underestimated.
Don’t watch movies or play video games for 72 hours.  These are just escapes that build up the stress more when you’re done with them.
Read a chapter a day of a nonfiction book on spiritual disciplines or leadership or read a biography of a great person.
As for the stress, make a list of everything that’s stressing you out.  Take 15 minutes and do that.  Often making a list is helpful enough and shows that you can actually manage better than you feel you can.
Look over the list and see what can be done quickly (in an hour’s time) and schedule to get them done soon. Within a day.  Cranking off to-do items as ‘done’ eases stress immediately.
Look over your “bigger” items to see when those stresses are gonna be over.  Write that date down next to each one.  This gives you perspective too.  You know that this is just a short season of stress.
Then, for the larger issues yet, pray about each one and remind yourself that God is in control.  I don’t mean to overspiritualize, but often our stress is a contr0l thing and we’re trying to get it all done in our abilities.
If one of the stressors still nags and creates anxiety or despair just by looking at it on your list… it’d be helpful to find a pastoral person or a godly adult with good listening/counseling wisdom and talk it through with him/her.
(Hidden track point) It also be good to reflect on your stress to see if it’s just an adrenaline thing too. Some folks are addicted to adrenaline and haven’t ever learned to get things without it. So they wait until the deadline, stress a lot, and the adrenaline kicks in so they can accomplish something. It’d be good for you to learn how to get things done without having to stress every time.

What did I miss?  What would you change?  I’d love to have a “12-step” list when done, you know…..

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Summer ‘sabbatical’

One of the blessings to being a teacher is that we get a few weeks off each summer to recover, renew, and recharge for the coming school year.  Some years (like this past one), I need that to be ready for the next school year.

Some summers I have kept working and being involved in a variety of good projects.  This summer, I am dialing down quite a bit and taking a mini-sabbatical for two months to develop some projects that need attention and resuscitation.  I will also reengage some long-rusty spiritual disciplines to renew my relationship with Jesus Christ and will dig into some books that comprise my towering “need to read” stack.

I think spending some time ‘away’ from being productive and ‘achieving’ is important for all leaders, teachers, and workers.  Rick Warren’s famous challenge to “Divert daily, withdraw weekly, and abandon annually” has grabbed my attention this year.  We can get so busy working for Christ in ministry, that we push out time to worship and live for Christ.  So, I asked what would it mean to me if I recalibrated a bit before the coming year which looks to be full of some pretty strategic opportunities?  I think it would mean that I’m leading those with a right heart.

I’ll still be working on various freelance writing and developing speaking/teaching material, but the rhythm and the pace will change significantly. I am only speaking for one weekend this summer and only teaching an online c. This all feels like I’m shifting from 5th overdrive gear to 2nd gear in all-wheel drive to explore under-developed territory in contrast to this past year’s busy-ness.  I’m moving from a freeway expediency to a grounded 4-wheel thoroughness – and I’m looking forward to it.

So, the website may collect a bit of dust at times, though I’ll probably post once a week regarding a chapter I’m writing for a forthcoming book.

Have a great summer!

 

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Our new wireless dependency

One of the new realities for conference organizers, hotel owners, universities, businesses, and even city managers is the accessibility of the Internet. Indeed many people choose where to eat, stay, and live based on ‘coverage’ and get more than a little cranky when the internet goes down…. or the connection is slow.  For those of us who grew up watching the Jetsons, Star Trek, 2001 A Space Odyssey, and thought the game Pong (play it online here) was cool, we have realized a world dependent on connectedness for communication and work, but also for knowledge and identity.

So, while over 73% of the world still does not have access to the Internet, for many of us it’s an expected right now.  We’ve become dependent on it and while it’s a great tool (look, I’m using it right now), I think there may be some problems with the dependency.  So, this has been a challenge for me and I quickly listed five dependencies.

For what we know:  As an educator students don’t feel the urgency to learn material when they can just ‘Google’ it. The problem of course is that Google is not an objective dispenser of knowledge.  Dependent on other websites, Google features those who have paid for prominence or have a stronger SEO strategy (often websites also designed for profit).  So, our knowledge base is controlled by search engines and our vocabulary features existential quotes from Celebrity Apprentice instead of Søren Kierkegaard.  So, I suppose if one controlled the Google results (even edited out certain keywords), one could shape out an entire population thinks.
For what we control:  Try this experiment the next time you’re with a group of people under the age of 30.  Mention your cell phone, or that you set your ringer on vibrate, or that you recently got an important text message.  Then watch how many of them will instinctively check their cell phones within the next 3 minutes. I’d probably be one of them.  A 2011 study showed that 53% of young adults would give up their sense of smell (the most powerful sense we have for memories) instead of their cell phones.
For how we communicate:  I get more done each week due to the convenience of texting and the ability to work in virtual committees with members spread all over the country.  I live in a bit of a remote location yet am connected.   On the other hand, I have to push my teens to interact with others face-to-face. Though they text nonstop with friends, they are hesitant to meet and talk with others.  I asked about that and they said they text mostly out of ‘boredom.’  I’m hopeful this inability to socialize changes with maturity like it did for most of us who were a bit shy in high school. (we do forget what it was like for us as teens I think).
For our entertainment: I know I’m generalizing here, but if we did a quick analysis of what people do on Facebook, InstaGram, YouTube, and similar websites, it’s often hyper-focused on self, entertainment, and trivia.  And my ‘Fun Friday’ posts on here show that to be true. I’ve been challenged
For our recreation:   Just ask anyone to go for a hike, bike ride, or camping without their cell phone and watch their responses.

If I had a sixth, I’d add driving. I’m alarmed at the number of folks (adults!  30-39 year olds are involved in more lethal accidents due to cell phone usage than any other age group) texting while driving. 37% of adults say they do this often.  I am not sure how many deadly accidents (like this one or another or this one) it will require before we take this seriously.

How long can you go without checking or holding your cell phone?  What would happen if each of us lessened our nearly-addictive dependency on these devices?

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Building an authentic youth ministry vs. a social club. [Guest post]

This guest blog post is from Nate Hultz, Pastor of Student Ministries at Stonebridge Church in Findlay, Ohio.

I can remember when my first youth pastor position took off.  In the beginning of that ministry, there were around 25 faithful students who were attending our Wednesday night services.  After a year of learning the community its students, I was able to put together bigger and better events along with creative Wednesday programming.  Within that year, we went from around 30 students to reaching over 100 teenagers.  The church and the leaders of the church were excited about their youth ministry because of all the kids that were starting to come.Three years later, I took another position in another church in a different state. People told me that many teenagers would a leave a church after a youth pastor relocates to another ministry. The transition caused me to ask a few questions:Did our church fail to help students on their own journeys where they were too dependent on me?Do they not care about teenagers?

Did I fail to create a youth ministry where discipleship was stressed and where building leaders was a value?

The truth is that I didn’t know the answers to those questions.  Being a young youth pastor, I failed to recognize the importance of assessment in my youth ministry.  So many people in the church, including myself and the pastors I worked with, felt that I was doing a tremendous job because of all the teenagers that were coming.  Any assessment I would have done at that time would have been positive, or at least I thought so. It seemed everything was so good because I had created a social group that people loved to come too.  Where I failed was to create a youth ministry that breathed life into teenagers and adult leaders.

Since that situation, I have had opportunities to understand the importance of assessment and discipleship in youth ministry.  Here are a few ideas to consider when building an authentic youth ministry.

 1. It’s a heart issue. After I heard the news of how many students had left the youth ministry along with a few adults, my heart sank. I started asking all kinds of questions about what I did wrong. I realized that I was dealing with eternity here. Was I more concerned about my image or teenagers living for Christ? It hurt. I never what that to happen again.

 2. Create a youth ministry that could grow and survive without us.  I operate under the understanding of what would happen if I die.  Who will continue to love and invest in the lives of teenagers if this were to occur?  We have to disciple adults to lead with love, strength, humility and power.  My goal is to see the youth ministry completely function without me by investing into adult volunteers for the work of ministry.

3.  Aim for discipleship versus building a program that functions like a social club.  Teenagers need to see Jesus, walk with Jesus and lead for Jesus.  We can always hangout and enjoy each other’s company.  However, students who are followers of Christ need to know and understand how and why we follow in the footsteps of Christ.  In turn, they are to disciple other peers who know and who do not know Christ if we are to build the Kingdom of God.

I will never create a social group again to show how many teenagers I can get to group.  My flesh longs to do it at times, but we must fight that urge to build disciples so the Kingdom of God can grow through multiplication.

 

Social Club or Youth Ministry…Where do you land?

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