Where is Jesus?

I just had a brilliant idea! Being pregnant and sitting in many waiting rooms, I was reminiscing about the good old days of “Where’s Waldo” books. It seemed like they were everywhere, especially dr.’s offices or anywhere that kids might get very very bored.
As I often like to do, I started thinking about how this idea could penetrate into the Christian Market place. And then there it was. My very clever idea.
Where is Jesus? A search book of different scenarios and demographics with a random Jesus hiding somewhere. GENIUS!!!!
Oh, but the moral dilemma’s that would arise. Where would Jesus really be found? Would he always be in or around the church? Would he be feeding the hungry in Africa? Maybe he would only be found in Israel. Or the bible belt of the southern USA. Where would the Zionists want Jesus placed? What about the over-the-top southern baptist movement? Would Jesus be protesting outside of Heath Ledgers funeral? Or what about the adamant religious character who will not waiver from the idea that Jesus is everywhere?
Hmmmm, maybe this fun little idea is a bit to complicated.

What do 11′s and 12′s need?

I remember youth group in grades 9-10. It was a riot! Everything we did we did at 125% and every devotion struck tears in the over emotional teen girls. We brought friends by the carloads and reminisced about the events for weeks after.

But something happened in grades 11-12. Im not sure what exactly it was. Some would say we were “to cool” for youth group, others would call it rebellion, But Im not convinced that its either of these. As I look at this same age group today I have come up with a theory:

As we grow and begin to question absolutely everything that happens in our involving world, we look for things more stimulating than repetitive games and temporary emotional decisions. We want things that are real and make us feel like we have a role in our maturing futures. We get involved in relationships that trigger curiosity and constant awareness to moral dilemmas. Most of us start taking part in activities that challange us to think beyond our comfort zone. Sure, we make bad decisions and sometimes our curiosity leads up into dangerous situations, but in the end we are just trying to figure out who we are and where we stand. The reason that we drift away from the youth group setting is not because they have done anything wrong, but because it just doesn’t have that spark anymore.

Many youth groups are so focused on the outreach opportunities ( I admit, I was that youth leader) that we forget about the constant growth and challenges that our maturing students need. There comes a point when beaning each other over the heads with rotten pumpkins might be fun, but there are far more pressing issues taking place in our lives and there is no one there to help us work through those. No one is demanding us to use out god given gifts to inspire others, or encouraging us to push ourselves to the limits regarding our faith.

More frequently than not I build a theory and refuse to find a solution, but this time it was different. I think God is with me on this one, so here it goes….

I no longer believe in one youth group. I no longer believe that grade 9-12 students have the same needs (besides salvation). I no longer believe the bigger the better. And I no longer believe that entertainment based activities challenge christian youth.

I believe that there are many different needs within youth aged kids, and meeting these needs is what tweaks their curiosity and brings them back. I believe that grade 9 kids may benefit greatly from a fear factor night, but I also believe that grade 12 kids would benefit immensely from a diploma exam study party. And I believe the moment we try to entertain both of these age groups we lose people.

I am not tabooing events that bring these ages together, because I do think there is a certain mentorship that naturally develops between early teens and mature teens, but I do think we need to consider separate focus groups that target the needs of each demographic.

Phewfff. Glad I got that off my chest.

A Church Video Game

As I sit down to update my blogs, my husband sits down to play a glorious game of Killzone on the PS3. Im not a gamer, the only part I actually enjoy is building characters and doing things like playing the guitar or singing bad karaoke. But I do not think video games are bad, I think they are amazing actually. Which brought me to this epiphany…

What if there was a “Church” Video game.

Think about it.

There are so many veins for this to run through. You could have the diligent, yet highly attractive secretary which the pastor must resist temptation. Or you could have challenges and tasks to raise money for a serving opportunity. Or…wait for it…Sword drills.

The Numbers

The Numbers

Unless your kid is really dumb I don’t see them staying in junior high and high school all the way to retirement.

Year end Wrap- Amazing Race

Its only our second year planning and pulling of the community wide “Amazing Race” for our youth group, but i think I seriously feel like a pro. I was even telling a fellow youth leader we should do this as a job….plan amazing races that is.

Needless to say, it went well. The one negative I can pull from it is that we underestimated teenagers competition levels and needed to add more activities. In total it only took around 2.5 hours to complete and we anticipated at least 3. We did youth in a rural community, so we took advantage of our surroundings and what we had available.

This year the roadblocks/detours/challanges consisted of:
-Finding a clue hidden in a outdoor swimming pool
-Chasing a “message in a bottle” down the river to get the clue that was inside
- Carrying a team mate across the river without getting them wet.
- Completing a suduko puzzle
- Throwing whipped cream pies at a teamate until you found one that had a cherry in it.
- Leading untrained dogs through an obsticle course
- Creating a device of soup cans and a plank to get you down a hill and back up
- Hearding cattle and collecting the clue off of the back of one of the animals
- Finding the oldest tombstone at the cemetary

It was a blast!

I am willing and able….well, ok…Im just able.

Have you ever had someone throw out a blank offer, one which you know they never expect you to take them up on? “Hey, let us know if you ever need any help” followed by a quick shuffle and then almost a sprint out the door as they run before you can say “actually….we could use you on Friday”.

Sometimes I feel ministry is full of those blank offers. Im guilty of doing it myself. We make ourselves open by saying we are willing and able, when in truth we are, at best able, but certianly not willing. I think over the course of the year we had 6-7 dinner invitations extended to us, and only one was ever followed up on. I think I offered to hang out with some of our girls upwards of a dozen times and maybe followed through on half of the occasions. There is something in us that feels if we extend the offer we have done enough.

This year we had a family offer to help us out whenever we needed it, and they truly meant it. They changed plans and brought thier whole family with them, but they did whatever it took to make it work. We were so so thankful for these people. Another couple offered there time and although they were not able to make it because of previous engagements, they prepared everything in advance and had it waiting for us when we got there. We appreciated thier help so much.

On the other hand, you have those times when you actually follow someone up on these offers, and they quickly and strategically manuever themselves out of the initial invitation. Or sometimes they forget that they even offered, or we have even had people selectivly chose which actvities they would help with and which kids they could handle. My favorite are those who think they have made themselves available, but have never actually spoken to you abotu it.

But, my oiint was not to tell stories, rather to define true willingness. I need to do more reasearch, but I think true willingness is displayed pretty well by a few huge bible peeps; the disciples, Ruth, Paul, Noah, etc…

After thinking abotu this, I decided that when I extend an invitation or an offer of help from this point on, I am going to make
sure that I :
– can follow through
– can make it specific so that I can follow through
– look the person in the eye
– have time to discuss the possible times/dates/locations

I want to make sure that I am not just able to help, but that I am truly willing as well.

The Baptist Six-Pack

A Few weeks ago at work ( I worked at a conservative church denominational head office) as we were gearing up for a staff meeting, my boss walks in and announces that he picked up a six pack on his way to the office.
My eyes almost exploded out of my sockets….until I saw what he was carrying. Muffins.
You see, I am not conservative…at all. And in my world a six-pack is something to be enjoyed on a hot summer day with a BBQ on and friends around. It is not safeway branded muffins.
So, you can understand my disbelief when he made the announcement and my sorrow when finding out it was muffins. Well, alas…I have discovered the “Baptist 6 Pack”.

BYO

Last Friday we had a BYO at youth. We wanted to give the group a chance to bring what they like to the group. Ah….who am I kidding, the creative juices just weren’t flowing.

But it didn’t matter, They had a blast. It was hel-random, but we played soccer, truth or dare, had a 3-on-3 tourney, cooked spaghetti, played catchphrase, curled boys hair, chewed copious amounts of jawbreakers, jammed on stage, played sequins, laughed, burped, and played the Eukaleili.

I think that youth ministry sometimes co-exists with structured entertainment. We forget that we can just let these guys and gals hang out and they will have fun. We have labeled this the “Hang out Factor”. Not only is it cool to watch, but it initiates some leadership on their part as well.

Leaving Sucks

A couple of month ago my husband and I decided that we were stepping down from our youth ministry position. We currently live an hour away from the community that we do youth ministry in, which has become an issue (that is for next blog). We are also thinking of relocating.
Yesterday was the day we decided that we would tell our core group of teens. FRICK! While I stood there staring at gapping mouths and tear streaked cheeks, I came to this very profound conclusion: Leaving Sucks!
I dont know if there is actually an easy way to say it. Not only have we developed some pretty serious relationships with these kids, but they already have the Payton (OTH) approach to life “People always leave” and we just proved their theories right. Most of these kids come from broken homes, broken families or broken relationships. They are used to people walking out on them; they are used to feeling alone. We tried to be there for them and mend some of those wounds, and now…..all in vain.

Leaving Sucks!

Encourage your Pastor!

Ministry is tricky!
No matter how RAD we think we are, someone also thinks were pretty BAD. Just when we think we are being lead by complete obedience to God, someone out there thinks we are defying the very pleadings of the Gospel.
I guess that is where we found ourselves this past week. After months of confrontation and subtle gestures of disapproval, one of our youth helpers gave us the ultimatum of “My way or no way”. We had thought that we were able to resolve this issue between our youth leadership staff, but apparently we were unsuccessful. Ouch.
So, we called the Senior Pastor. I was anxious to say the least. What if he sided with this guy over us? What if we were wrong all along? What if…?
After a very fruitful conversation I realized two things: A) We have an amazing pastor who will back his staff even if it puts his own job on the line. He truely believes in us and what we stand for. That speaks heaps about him as a spiritual leader as well as a mentor.
B) There is no one way of ministry that is complete without the other forms complimenting it. Your form of ministry might be good, but it is not complete unless the other forms are working along side it.
So, I guess after dealing with this in the past weeks I have become very thankful to our pastor. I dont think we express this gratitude enough. I seached the internet to find some creative ways to help our pastor and show our appreciation for his Godly-ness, wisdom, willingness, and understanding. Here is what I came up with…

http://www.christianitytoday.com/tc/1999/sepoct/9r5035.html

(I like #3)

http://www.my-pastor.com/pastor-appreciation.html

http://www.victorious.org/blesspastor.htm (I really Like this!)

If you have any other ideas, let me know. Lets get creative!