In episode 007 of Youth Ministry TV, David, Ben, and Kevin Libick discuss why Middle School Ministry is so unique and important. If you are a youth pastor overseeing 6-8 graders, this is a must watch!
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In Episode 006 of Youth Ministry TV, David and Ben discuss how to have hard conversations with students, parents, and leaders. Those conversations are coming! Are you ready?
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In episode 005 of Youth Ministry TV we discuss the steps to discipling students, when to stop discipling a student, how to handle parents, and how to set expectations.
Steps to Discipling Students:
1. Decide why you will be meeting.
2. Set a duration to meet.
3. Set expectations and goals together.
4. Over communicate with participants and parents.
Tips to Discipling Students:
1. Unify your Discipleship process.
2. Set start & end dates.
3. Call certain students into discipleship.
4. Leave time for at risk students who need your time.
5. Set a limit on the number students you commit to.
6. Don’t be afraid to stop meeting with students who don’t follow through.
Thanks for watching! I hope you enjoyed and I would love to get your thoughts! Subscribe to our YouTube Channel and leave us a comment. Finally, discipleship is a difficult process. Help your fellow #youthmin folks out be sharing this on Facebook or Twitter using the buttons below!
If you have already been to camp this summer, you’ll want to remember this for next summer. If you have yet to go to camp (I leave this coming Sunday!) then it’s not to late to take this extra step!
What’s this extra step?
Get your adult congregation to join you at camp…through prayer.
Here’s the reality, summer camp in youth ministry can either be something that only effects 20% of your church, or it can be something that reaches 100% of your congregation. One small step will get the remaining 80% of your congregation on the summer camp train.
That small step is prayer bracelets.
Each year, I buy some cheap Tyvek wristbands. Like the one’s you get at waterparks. I then write the name of each student and adult going with us to camp on these wristbands (one name per wristband). You will want to make a few more than the average weekly attendance of your church.
Doing this ensures that a handful of adults will be praying for EACH student that is with you at camp! How cool is that?! Ask your pastor if you can make a verbal announcement and ask your congregation to take a wristband and commit to praying for one student each day for the week you are at camp. It’s totally worth the time, and you’ll end of doing it every year!
If you love this idea, be sure to share it so that other Youth Workers can use it also!
[guestpost]
David Hanson: Texas native, Texas Tech Red Raider, M.Div. at Truett Seminary, husband to Ashley, father to Ava & Ben, Student Pastor at The Fellowship in Round Rock, Tx, table tennis (ping-pong) extraordinaire, addicted to coffee. For anything else…you’ll just have to ask.
A subtle shift of attention, applied energy, and an investment of time has lead to ministries becoming infected with the disease within youth ministry. Is your ministry infected? Find out:
4 Symptoms of The Disease within Student Ministry
Raising Leaders
Do we want leaders? Yes. But not everyone is a leader. God uses both the outspoken extroverts AND the quiet introverts. We are called to make disciples, not leaders. Leadership is a byproduct of first being a faithful disciple.
Retaining Students
If your whole goal in ministry is to add numbers, you are missing the point and have the disease. There are a lot of fancy sayings like “Living things grow, dead things don’t” “If we’re counting people, and God cares about people, then I care about numbers.” These are fancy ways to say, “we care most about numbers.” Focusing on growth can take our attention away from faithfully preaching the gospel and get us looking for tactics and gimmicks that will get butts in chairs.
Developing Behaviors
We shouldn’t focus our time and attention on making good kids (modifying behavior). We should focus on getting students to fall in love with the person and mission of Jesus Christ. When students fall in love with Jesus they will naturally chose to live in a way that brings glory to Him. Simply teaching them obedience to the law will lead to spiritually dead pharisaical students.
Placing Students First
Placing students first means catering to their whims in ministry rather than championing Christ and allowing ministry to flow forth from there. Once again, this is subtle shift in focus that can happen unintentionally. So we must be intentional in the ways that we structure our ministries. Having a mission statement through which to run all ministry decisions can prevent us from simply throwing an event for the sake of making students and parents happy.
Thanks for watching! I hope you enjoyed and I would love to get your thoughts! Subscribe to our YouTube Channel and leave us a comment. Finally, we just like to give away free stuff because we love you guys and value your hard work in Youth Ministry. Click the button below to get some helpful parent resources that will help you engage and train parents.
Taking students around the world to see God’s global mission is one of the great joys of Youth Ministry. Watching the eyes of students opened to God’s heart for the poor, oppressed, and marginalized is priceless. A well planned and organized mission trip can be an Ebenezer in a students life. What follows are 20 Mission Trip Musts that have helped make mission trips successful. A Mission Trip Guide per se:
Talk with church staff about global, national, local mission relationships
2nd Meeting: Cover the purpose of the trip. Is the trip focused on service, discipleship & evangelism, partnership development, or vision casting?
3rd Meeting: Focus on Spiritual Development. What are you learning from the readings? Assign team members a prayer partner and travel buddy who will keep them accountable and cover the other in prayer.
4th Meeting: Do something fun together. Have a cook-out, invite families, and conclude the night with families praying over the mission team.
5th Meeting: Have a packing party where all bags are weighed and supplies are checked and double-checked. (Best done the day or two days before.)
Begin each day of the mission trip with personal quite times. Encourage journaling.
During the trip drink lots of water, work your bottom off, and watch God move.
Regardless of the purpose of the trip, emphasize to team members that relationships are most important. Encourage them to actively engage with locals.
Each night of the trip have a team debrief. Ask: Where did you see God at work today? Who did you see God using? What did God teach you about himself?
After debrief, let different members lead a team devotional each night.
Bringing someone who can lead the team in worship through song is always a plus and helps set the tone for evening meetings.
Each morning, have the team draw names out of a hat. Each team member will write an encouraging note to that person.
The last night, turn the corner during your evening debrief. Emphasize how our mission field happens to be the location and people God has placed before us. Our jobs, families, schools, and communities are our mission field.
Also, have you team prepare to share their experience. They should be able to answer:
What did God do on your trip?
What did God do in your heart?
What are you going to do now?
Have a team meeting a week or two after you return. Ask what joys and frustrations they have experienced upon re-entry to everyday life. Pray that all would embrace a missional mindset and fulfill the promptings God has given each of them.
[guestpost]
David Hanson: Texas native, Texas Tech Red Raider, M.Div. at Truett Seminary, husband to Ashley, father to Ava & Ben, Student Pastor at The Fellowship in Round Rock, Tx, table tennis (ping-pong) extraordinaire, addicted to coffee. For anything else…you’ll just have to ask.
