4.5 years as a Part-time Youth Pastor

I cannot believe that I have been a youth pastor for 4.5 years or 54 months. I am going to discuss over the next few days what I have learned in those years and months. If you want me to answer any specific questions, go ahead and leave a comment and I will address those questions.

Our God is a great God,

Heath

Summer Plans as a part time yp

Should we continue ministering the same way during the summer as we do from August 15th-June 1?

Jim Elliott/Elizabeth Elliott Award Winners

In our youth ministry we honor a graduating Man and Women each year. We honor them after Jim and Elizabeth Elliott who have blazed a trail of changing the world and living on the EDGE of life.
The Jim Elliott award winner for 2008 is Ben Hoag. Ben is an outstanding young men that is always serving. He loves the Lord and desires to make a difference in the world.
The Elizabeth Elliott award winnn for 2008 is Ashley Bonner. Ashley started a brand new ministry called EDGE kids this year. She is such a great example of humity and gentleness. I am so proud of these two and the others graduating seniors.

What a great picture

Interesting Video about Stuff

This is an interesting video to watch. Although there are questionable things that come from a liberal bent, I was intrigued by the consumption part in regards to the happiness in America. Imagine showing this to your students and discussing living a lifestyle of giving vs. always consuming. This would be a great video to discuss with your students right before

• You went on a mission trip
• You went back to your after a Wednesday night service
• You go to the mall
• You go to Big Box-Mart

I would encourage you to watch it. Here is the link: http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Jesus Said

Jesus Said...that is a powerful statement in the mouths of teenagers. I really want my youth to say Jesus said a lot.

Jesus said to love the Lord God with all...

"All" is easier said that done.

Jesus said and then my goal is to help my students hear from the Holy Spirit so they can move from said to done.

Hearing vs. Doing.

Well Said vs. Well Done.

Why I use a PC? Great Video to use in response to Apple's Commericals

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BUOXVI7HeI&feature=related

Confrontation in Youth Ministry Part 2

Confrontation in Youth Ministry is always intentional. I think about the teenagers in my youth ministry and wonder if they have been confronted about things in their life in the last month. I wonder if anyone has talked to them about things instead of talking to others about them. I have a great bunch of teens in our youth ministry, but many of them are also human and do human things. Here are some questions for us to think about:

• Are we called by God to confront?
• When you hear the word to confront, do you instantly think judgement over love? If you think of judgement, you probably aren't confronting very much. If you think love, you are probably confronting and have seen a lot of life changes when you confront.
• When you confront, have you seen changes in the lives of your students?
• Is there a teen you need to confront right now about their actions or lifestyle.

Confrontation will never usually just happen. When we as youth workers see our students or volunteers that need some help, we need to believe that God wants us to help them. We need to confront. When is the last time someone confronted you as a Youth Worker?

9 Years Ago Today She Said I DO

Grand Theft Auto--500 million in sales during first week

The first-week sales of Grand Theft Auto, a game hailed as a brutal and satirical masterpiece equal to films like The Godfather, beat the $400 million scored by last year's Halo 3 from Microsoft.

I'm going to ask the men in our ministry about this tonight and see what they think about their generation playing this and what they think when they play it.

How do you know you are too busy in ministry and life?

Confrontation in Youth Ministry--Caring

Caring is what teenagers sense in us when we talk to them, look at them, talk about other people around them, and generally the way we live our lives. If your students were asked if they could choose 3 people to take to an island where they knew they would face tough obstacles and would look at these 3 people for support and care, would your name come up? I think for some of my students, the answer would be yes, but for many more if would be no. That is something I need to continue to work on.

If you want to be able to confront effectively, the person you talk to must know you care. They will know that if you care about them when they first enter the youth room, when you see them in the parking lot, and wherever else in the city. They will know you care about things by the way you treat your spouse, the way you talk about your elders/pastor, etc.

Caring about a student leads to that student opening up to you. Caring about a student leads to you confronting them when you see them diverting from the path of truth. Caring about a student is always intentional and that is what we will discuss next time.

Here is a question you could ask your students: When is the last time you felt a leader didn't care about you? What did they do that made you feel that way? Have I ever made you feel that way?

Let's be about caring!

Meetings in Youth Ministry

As a Youth Worker, would you rather work or go to a meeting? Or is being in a meeting work? Would your student rather sit in your "meeting" or work with you doing something? What is more beneficial to them? To me? To the Kingdom?

Confrontation is always spelled Caring

Confrontation is always spelled Caring

As a part time YP, I don’t have the luxury of spending lots of time with students so I need to make the most of every minute I have. Over the years, I have had several opps to confront individuals. Over the next few days I am going to share my experience and hopefully, it will spur some other ideas on what you have done. If confrontation is always spelled caring, I thought it would be appropriate to make Caring an acrostic so here is what we will cover over the next 6 posts:

C—Caring
A—Always Intentional
R—Rarely Inflammatory
I—Insightful
N—Never Naive
G—Genuine Follow-up

I will cover Caring in Confrontation tomorrow.