Terry Linhart's Blog, page 30
May 16, 2012
Building an authentic youth ministry vs. a social club.
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?
May 15, 2012
The danger in mayking assumptions in youth ministry [Guest post]
Guest post by Nathan Engman, Director of Youth and Family Discipleship, Memorial Lutheran Church, Katy, Texas.
I have heard it said that just because you have the church, it doesn’t mean that you are making disciples. However, everywhere you are making disciples, you have the Church. This speaks to a large assumption that churches have adopted over the last several decades.
Christ’s command to “go and make disciples” is a clear one. However, it would seem that “how” we go about it is not. While I am sure that there are similar elements between everyone’s methods, there is a plethora of approaches that churches adopt as their method and practice of making disciples.
Think for a moment beyond what you are currently doing to how you decided to go about the great commission of making disciples. Did you read about ministry practices and suggestions from a book? Did you simply do what a mentor used to do? Are you carrying out the long held youth ministry traditions of your church body? Have you adopted the practices of the early church? Have you looked for and followed examples of Biblical leaders like Jesus and Paul? Have you seen or read about something working at another church and adopted that model? I imagine that if you are like me, it is some combination of these.
Just about any of these reasons is a good place to start ministry from. However, we need to be careful that we are not making assumptions about ministry. I remember when I started ministry; I designed a youth night for our students. I chose to have a worship element, teaching, element, a food element, and a fun element. This was because I read about some of these things from a church on the west coast and I had seen similar elements done by my mentors. I assumed that they would be effective in my context. Several aspects were effective, but the worship element was difficult. We simply didn’t have the resources to have a worship band and to do things the way that I had seen them done. I bull-headedly pushed ahead and strove towards this goal based on those assumptions.
We make assumptions all the time. We make assumptions that what our mentors’ methods were effective. We make assumptions that what worked for us works for others. We make assumptions that because it has always been done a certain way that it was effective. We make assumptions that just because it is an old tradition that it is no longer relevant. We make assumptions that the practices of the early church or of Biblical leaders are still culturally relevant today and effective in today’s culture. We make assumptions that because an author said it works, or because a program was effective elsewhere that it will be effective here. We make assumptions that just because we don’t see success right away or that we do see success right away that it validates a certain direction or method of discipleship.
Do you have these or other assumptions? Why do you implement the methods that you do? Perhaps we need to stop and take a deep look at our methods, why we employ them, and truly their effectiveness. They might be the best method for discipleship in our context, but we might also just be assuming that they are.
Assumptions about youth ministry …
Guest post by Nathan Engman, Director of Youth and Family Discipleship, Memorial Lutheran Church, Katy, Texas.
I have heard it said that just because you have the church, it doesn’t mean that you are making disciples. However, everywhere you are making disciples, you have the Church. This speaks to a large assumption that churches have adopted over the last several decades.
Christ’s command to “go and make disciples” is a clear one. However, it would seem that “how” we go about it is not. While I am sure that there are similar elements between everyone’s methods, there is a plethora of approaches that churches adopt as their method and practice of making disciples.
Think for a moment beyond what you are currently doing to how you decided to go about the great commission of making disciples. Did you read about ministry practices and suggestions from a book? Did you simply do what a mentor used to do? Are you carrying out the long held youth ministry traditions of your church body? Have you adopted the practices of the early church? Have you looked for and followed examples of Biblical leaders like Jesus and Paul? Have you seen or read about something working at another church and adopted that model? I imagine that if you are like me, it is some combination of these.
Just about any of these reasons is a good place to start ministry from. However, we need to be careful that we are not making assumptions about ministry. I remember when I started ministry; I designed a youth night for our students. I chose to have a worship element, teaching, element, a food element, and a fun element. This was because I read about some of these things from a church on the west coast and I had seen similar elements done by my mentors. I assumed that they would be effective in my context. Several aspects were effective, but the worship element was difficult. We simply didn’t have the resources to have a worship band and to do things the way that I had seen them done. I bull headedly pushed ahead and strove towards this goal based on those assumptions.
We make assumptions all the time. We make assumptions that what our mentors’ methods were effective. We make assumptions that what worked for us works for others. We make assumptions that because it has always been done a certain way that it was effective. We make assumptions that just because it is an old tradition that it is no longer relevant. We make assumptions that the practices of the early church or of Biblical leaders are still culturally relevant today and effective in today’s culture. We make assumptions that because an author said it works, or because a program was effective elsewhere that it will be effective here. We make assumptions that just because we don’t see success right away or that we do see success right away that it validates a certain direction or method of discipleship.
Do you have these or other assumptions? Why do you implement the methods that you do? Perhaps we need to stop and take a deep look at our methods, why we employ them, and truly their effectiveness. They might be the best method for discipleship in our context, but we might also just be assuming that they are.
May 14, 2012
Assessing youth ministry: The Death of Chubby Bunny? [Guest post]
Guest blog post by: Eric Kelly (@yfcjjm), National Juvenile Justice Director, Youth for Christ USA
I was a 90’s youth group kid, I admit it. I spent many nights wandering in the dark looking for a mob of people who did their best to hide from me. I was only an “eight”, the amount of marshmallows I could cram into my mouth and still mumble “Chubby Bunny”. “Underground Church”, “Manhunt”, and “Mafia”, yup I did them all!
Fast forward 10 years and I am in Fort Wayne, IN beginning a new low income housing project ministry for Youth for Christ. You join me in the middle of my struggle to meet and reach teens in the Brookmill Apartments off of Covington Road, and for some reason the Jars of Clay CD just isn’t drawing them in like we would have thought. What have we gotten ourselves into?
After considerable struggle, teens are now in the mix. We don’t have a flashy youth room or building, just borrowing the local dusty Lutheran church around the corner. By now we found some KJ-52, trying to convince teens it’s as good as Eminem, but failing in every attempt.
Teens have started to show a little bit of commitment, and now I’ve got to create a healthy group that desires to know Christ. My default is back to the 90’s youth group I was a part of, so I pull out every crazy, fun, embarrassing game I can recall. What happened next? Not a single volunteer! No one wants to come up front? What I failed to understand (now I clearly know) is that urban teenagers don’t want to be embarrassed in front of their peers. The gang involved teens in my group had worked so hard to gain their status that they weren’t going to jeopardize that by being blindfolded and eating an onion for our entertainment. That was my “ah-ha” moment, and I had to spend the next 2 years trying to understand and learn about these teens and what effective ministry to them looked like.
My case is an extreme, but I do wonder if we forgot that the world of a teenager is changing. Crowd breaker games have been replaced by YouTube clips, and the old school phone call has been swapped out with text messaging. If in my world of Brookmill apartments, I would have spent time assessing the teens, the neighborhood, the potential ministry, I would have saved myself time and struggle. Are we too set in our ways to try to adapt to the teenage world around us?
This is not your DC Talk Ministry Anymore!
Teens have an almost endless supply of activities at their fingertips. Youth ministry isn’t the only fun available to them anymore. We have to be willing as youth ministry professionals to step back and look at how and maybe more importantly why we do the things we do. Is it just our default? Did it work 15 years ago when we were in youth group? Are we even open to asking?
Assessment is a scary word. It means digging, poking, and sometimes asking tough questions. Is there a method to our madness? Youth for Christ’s age old slogan is “Anchored to the Rock, Geared to the Times”, and I believe it still resonates today. Assessment helps us realized the strengths and weaknesses of our ministry, if we will allow it. “It has always worked this way” and “Teens continue to come” are both true and dangerous phrases that we throw around.
Have we asked the countless number of teens why they don’t come to our ministry? How about students who have left? I know we must celebrate the many who have come to know Christ and/or have grown in their faith, but could we take some time and consider all that we have missed? Let’s take a good look, maybe tight roll up our jeans, and poke and prod our ministry looking for ways to be more effective!
May 10, 2012
Overcoming the “just getting by” barrier
The microphone waves in front of the athlete’s face, the question posed by the reporter focused on the efforts of his teammates. He wipes sweat of his forehead with a towel and without hesitation he nods and says, “Yeah, everyone came ready to play. They gave it their all. They left it all out there on the field. They gave it 110 percent.”
Perfect. 4-4 on the cliche meter and all smile in approval as they recognized an important goal in athletics goal was met. (Uh, the goal was not saying cliches after a game. It was giving the game one’s all.)
Sports taught me this lesson at a young age. CrossFit teaches it to me every week now. To get the most out of exercise, one has to give it their all. Every time. Proper form, attention to hydration and nutrition, and then pushing past physical limitations all contribute to physical and athletic development. In high school I showed up every day to run or to play basketball. Yesterday’s practice wasn’t enough to rest for that day. I had to again show up and train. Same for CrossFit today. I can’t take many days off to rest (or be lazy) or I’ll notice the drop-off the next time I show up.
On the road to effective work and leadership there is a similar crest along the way that all of us need to overtake. It’s a simple yet profound rise that separates people into two groups and helps to answer the question “what is motivation?”: Those who try to accomplish as much as possible while working and those who try to do as little as possible … just to get by.
[It may be helpful to reword "accomplish as much as possible" to "perform a task as well as possible" for those who have concerns about overemphasizing performance as the chief value - or putting 'doing' in front of 'being.' Either way, the issue is our stance toward the work before us - do we take it on with excellence as our standard?]
Take any work, learning, or creative situation and apply this simple question to those involved. You’ll begin to see a differentiation and you can explore more about motivation factors for what separates the two groups. Here are a few examples of what I’ve observed about motivation for the following situations:
Give two children similar chores at home. One works to meet minimum standards of completing the task while the other stops to assess the end product of his work: Does it look clean? and performs a few additional tasks to make sure it’s done well. The motivation might be his own standard or seeking the approval of his parent, but the outcome is better quality than his sibling due to his extra time and attention.
Assign a paper in the classroom. Some college students turn in papers that meet the word count, a first draft that meets the minimum standards of the assignment. Other students work to say something in their papers, working to make sure the content matters and that the paper is a demonstration of their best thoughts.
Lead a youth ministry program. In my field I get to observe a lot of youth ministry programs. Some are just of higher quality. The sounds works consistently and without glitches, the speaking or discussion is compelling and obviously well-prepared, and the content is well-grounded. Others seem to have been prepared that afternoon. The topic had been chosen weeks prior, but the thinking behind it hadn’t been fleshed out until the hour before (and I’ve been guilty of this more than a few times too).
The arts. Visual arts and music are the most common area where you can see the difference. And, unfortunately, in Christian circles ‘close enough’ is often good enough. Attention to detail and quality or even to the
I think there’s a general ‘life disposition’ where we live to try to accomplish as much as possible or we just try to get by. What have you noticed over the years in others’ lives? Where have you had to overcome this barrier?
May 9, 2012
Being ‘under authority’. Is it what’s good for you?
A year or so ago, the group of adults I was with that evening were discussing whether a church should ‘have authority’ over us or not, and what that exactly meant. Strangely, it got rather heated. I found myself on the affirming side of the conversation while others I respected were less so. The other longtime believers were expressing their dissatisfaction with local church structures. The question was “why do you go to church?” We discussed what is a church and then what is the church? And the answers were varied, as you can imagine.
The fundamental issue is the freedom that faith in Christ gives (see John 8:32). But we also have authority, earthly authority, that we have to, well, obey. And this seems to be more difficult for our current culture to grasp. Further, I think it’s one of the main tripping points for young youth pastors who enter a church setting with people who are, well, human. Andy Stanley, in his book The 7 Checkpoints, discusses the issue:
“Much of our lives is influenced by how we respond to authority. How we respond to authority will have a direct effect on how we respond to initially our parents. How we respond to parental authority will have a direct effect on how we respond to the laws that govern this land and to the people that enforce laws. How we respond to the people and institutions that enforce the laws will determine our standing and influence in society.”
I recently discussed the church planting phenomenon with a very veteran youth ministry leader. This leader said that part of the issue, opinion perhaps, was the desire to be in charge of their own church system, to ‘do it right’ and not be under the push of parents, boards, committees, and a senior pastor.
I think we may be seeing an authority issue today. It’s nothing new. We all had to work through it. But we have to work through it. Stanley adds, “Attitude toward authority will ultimately impact their intimacy with God. It will also impact how much authority they are entrusted with in their lives.”
Ok, so back to talking about church authority:
I teach a course to adults that introduces them to the Christian faith. About 60% of the students have a strong church background, about 20% have a hit-or-miss history with the church while the other 20% (rough estimates, of course) have little or no background. Or, they’ve had a volatile relationship with local churches.
Western culture picks at our ability to be in true community. We want individualism, control, and options. Freedom! We drive for 45 minutes, past 17 churches closer to our home, to attend a church with a better youth program or a more dynamic speaker. Church can become more of a program than a community of local believers. That’s our culture.
I’m not sure it’s always wrong (I’m not down on large churches). But I’m not sure we’re always right either. I’m fascinated with and attracted to churches that are intentional missional communities.
While I’m a bit therapeutic in this post, ‘m also working through the role of church authority in a believer’s life. For me, I think it’s important that I’m accountable to a community of believers who exist as a church. It’s difficult to read Jesus’ commands to Peter in Matthew 16 and then read over Paul’s work with churches in his letters and then look at today’s programmatic approaches and think we have it right.
So, what’s your perspective on church authority?
May 7, 2012
We eat out a lot: A cultural and economic shift
My recent travels provided one of those perspective-giving moments regarding our culture and economy: We love to eat out. We even blog about it. The number of restaurants that dot our country is staggering when you consider what it looked like 50 years ago. Our culture has made a substantial shift toward dining out more than just a a few times each week. Some folks eat out in restaurants every day. That’s a big change – to our lifestyle, our own budgets, and for our national economy.
There are a few implications this dining trend creates, a few are probably exaggerated (but, hey, it’s a blog so I can do that. Once it’s on the Internet, then it must be true!):
The food service industry fosters a fragile dynamic to our economy. When bad financial times hit, as they did in 2008, people immediately pulled back by A) traveling less and B) eating out more. Restaurants were the first to feel the financial strain and their recent price increases show they’re trying to make up for the losses.
We spend a lot on eating out each month. In fact, I’ve read that eating out is now many American’s largest monthly budget line, surpassing the equally dominant cell phone/internet bill.
We’re fascinated by cooking (see the Food network) … as long as someone else does it. I’m hopeful that cooking is making a comeback. And perhaps it is among the younger generation. Kel (my wife) is an amazing cook and she cooks often, but cooking seems to be a lost part of American culture any more. Americans don’t spend long hours in the kitchen any more (though we spend a LOT of money on kitchen appliances that suggests we do). The average American spends less than 27 minutes preparing food each day, including breakfast. Why do we buy such expensive appliances? Why do we enjoy watching cooking when we’re not cooking much ourselves?
We are eating poorly and exercising less. Convenience eating means the food we take in is not as healthy as fresh food. Ask any healthcare professional and they’ll tell you we have serious eating and nutrition problems in our culture. If Coke and Pepsi weren’t such big powerful corporations, I think you’d see a groundswell against soda drinks by now like we did with tobacco. But, like smoking, it’ll take a lawsuit to have folks start showing how bad soda is for you.
What have you noticed about our cultural trends toward eating out? How often do you eat out each week?
May 3, 2012
Editing ‘bumper sticker’ sentences
I’ve discovered a new writer-ism this year, a variation of slang that looks like a full sentence, but sounds like a bumper sticker. Perhaps another name for this is slogan writing. Slogan writing takes place when the writer uses a sentence that reads more like a headings. And that’s it. Nothing more. When the writer uses them, he or she has a full picture or scene in mind. When they read it, they fully understand its depth and significance. When the reader reads it, however, that meaning is lost. The reader lacks the background, insight … if there was any at all in the first place.
The solution for writers is to a) slow down and b) look for single sentences that are loaded in meaning and implications, but stand alone without support. Then c) we can make that into a paragraph rich with clarity and detail.
My fields of leadership and youth ministry are particularly susceptible to this phenomenon. And I plan to keep track of incidents (or offenses!) and expand this post.
Truthfully, I think most of us have slogans and catch phrases in our speaking, teaching, or writing. We think others understand, but we never explain what we’re actually saying and the significance may be lost.
I wish I could share some examples, but I haven’t received permission from folks (and students) yet.
Do you have some you can recall? I’ll post some back here as I have the opportunity.
April 25, 2012
A discussion for youth on Meditation
The fast-paced culture that many of us live in leaves little room for reflection, a necessary element for learning. It is no wonder that high school students can complete a course in high school and remember little of it. Analyze the spiritual practices of a normal teenage and the dominant component would be attending a church-based program on a regular basis. Again, it’s no wonder that students struggle spiritually upon graduation from high school and they’re ‘out there’ on their own. What if youth ministry leaders helped their students develop personal foundations for their faith? I know that most do that now, but are there methods to help students develop a vital relationship with Jesus Christ?
I think one of the primary means for this is reflection and meditation. Think about it: The ‘dramatic’ moments of spiritual growth in a student’s life are often when they spend significant time engaged and reflecting. Summer camps, retreats, and short-term mission trips provide extended engagement and meditative moments on Scripture and in prayer.
I am disappointed and surprised when I see some Christians critical of meditation, viewing it as an Eastern religious practice. I think Maggie and Duffy Robbins’ book,Enjoy the Silence: A 30- Day Experiment in Listening to God (invert)
, is a fine example of a Christ-centered approach to spiritual disciplines. And The Prayer Path: a Christ-centered Labyrinth Experience
has been a powerful facilitator for prayer and spiritual growth for so many.
One of my students at Bethel College, Randall Bridges, constructed a discussion on the topic for use with teenagers in a youth group. I asked him if I could pass it along for others and he agreed. Feel free to modify and improve it, but it may spur a great 3o-day experiment for you and your youth.
Discussion on Meditation
Before we go, we need to all get on the same page with what we’re talking about here. So, let’s get a working definition of what meditation is. (use newsprint or a whiteboard and come up with a one-sentence definition)
Maybe you and your group can come up with a better word for meditation.
Now let’s discover another fact: Let’s find the average number of hours we all do this every week. So, how many hours would you say, on average, you do this (point to definition) on a weekly basis?
Do you think people automatically associate meditation with Christianity?
What messages do you see or hear (TV, music, movies, magazines, parents, teachers, coaches) about meditating? (You can list these on the board as well)
What does the Bible say about meditation?
Depending on your group, you can have slips of paper, PowerPoint slides, or just have students look these up on their own.
Genesis 24:63; Psalm 1:2; Psalm 63:6; Matthew 14:13; Matthew 14;23; Mark 6:31; Luke 6:12;
These longer passages could facilitate a short 5-minute talk from you: I Kings 19:9-18; Matthew 4:1-11; Matthew 17:1-9
So, do you think Christians should make time for the spiritual discipline of mediation?
How has meditation helped some of you with your relationship with God?
You can close with a 7-day experiment of having your students be silent and still without distraction for a period of time (15 minutes? 30 minutes?) without distraction (cell phone, TV, etc) each day that next week. Provide a Scripture reference, a devotional paragraph, or something else for each day to help them be Christ-centered and not just engaging in a relaxation process.
And be sure to have them report back next week on how it went.
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April 24, 2012
What’s our capacity for … being still?
I’ve come to the end of my 11th year as a full-time faculty member at Bethel College (Indiana). It’s been a great year, but I am looking forward to the summer to catch up on some much-needed reading, a few writing projects, working in the yard, and a few short family trips.
One of the college courses I teach is an introduction to Christian theology. For the course I make students spend two hours in silence and solitude somewhere and they can spend that time any number of ways. The initial reaction to the assignment when students first read it are dread, a bit of anger perhaps, and definitely a lot of fear. What would one DO being still and quiet for two hours? The students, like many of us, have packed in their lives with all sorts of activities and work, have mashed the accelerator to the floor, and gunned the engine to take each of lives curves as fast as possible.
Add in the short attention span that TV, texting, multi-tasking, and iPhone apps have fostered, and we can barely. Sit. Still. At all.
So, I’ve been challenged.
I’ve been challenged in my prayer life, well challenged by how remedial it’s become. Again. I mean, what IS our capacity to pray any more? Can’t we even pray for a half hour without checking our smartphone, or thinking about trivial matters? How is it that we expect to develop in maturity and Christlikeness (a goal that Christians of all stripes can agree on) when we don’t spend much time with him? Are we more spiritually mature this year than we were five years ago? Or about the same? Those are the questions I’m asking. And I hear others concerned about the same for themselves.
I’ve also been challenged in my ‘knowledge life.’ I marvel at the way the trivial or pragmatic have invaded spaces once occupied with better thoughts. YouTube and Facebook, iPhones and SMS, have taken up hours in the day once spent in reflection and reading. Getting things done, managing our ‘stuff’, and being productive have pushed reflection on deeper subjects (i.e. what we believe and why) off to the side.
My goal for summer is to develop a greater capacity (and hunger) for prayer and for knowledge. The issue is that we’re only given so much time in our lives. Seems a shame to waste it on trivial matters and live an powerless and ineffectual life.
What space-making have you done for reflection? For prayer? How have you managed the press for doing more and being preoccupied with more?
