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“how are the children?”

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How are the Children?In African cultures a common greeting between people from a tribe not their own would be “How are the children?” The idea behind that gesture is that if the children are doing well then the village/tribe is reflective of that wellness. We do similar as you meet an old friend or extended family member they, or you, will often say “How are the kids?” That question means something deeper within ourselves than we acknowledge.

With the events of last weeks Penn State sexual abuse and cover up scandal this question circles my brain and sadly, I cannot give a really good answer to it. With the history of the Catholic church abuse scandal always a possible topic of discussion for the last 15 years, to the weekly abuse by our very own tribe members we call ‘Youth Ministers’ our children are under some serious dangers.

One might say that is an over reaction.. possibly.. but as these are anecdotal incidents we’d be silly to assume they are isolated.

I spent my morning reading the Penn State Grand Jury testimony before I felt I could start to write this. One reason was my own curiosity. I spent some of my young adult & teenage years at Penn State with my sister and best friends graduating from there. It’s a great school and a cool place to be. I loved the tradition of “JoPa” as harkens back to a day of stability and relationships over promotions and successes. So, in a way, I needed to know.. Second reason, I am not a victim of abuse. I have reported people to DHS/DCS in my days of ministry and given witness accounts before, but I felt I needed to know a bit more about what it means to be a victim.

What I read in that report was a, quite disgusting, but mostly alarming was the ability to repeat behaviors that compromised the innocence of children. Over and over again there was the same story from victim to victim and I couldn’t help but wonder, how could this continually happen? It happened, in this case, as seems to be the case with the Catholic church because someone in a position of authority leveraged their trust given to them by others into aggregous acts against some of the most vulnerable of God’s Kingdom.

How then, can we as a church community, a people called “Christian” protect those who are most vulnerable in the Kingdom?

Our church, often throws out the needs for a Safe Sanctuaries policy, based off the works of Joy Melton and a book series by that name. I am not so concerned about you trying to adopt and implementing a policy today, but I do hope you take some time to look over the practices of introducing your teenagers and adults together that minimizes the opportunities for a an isolated or predator behavior to take place.

So what can you do this week with all of this?

1. Assess your policies or procedures that are presently the norm of your ministry.
2. Put into practice new policies as needed
3. Send out correspondence to your families, acknowledge what is happening in the news, don’t be afraid of it, and let them know what elements are there to protect their children.
What are things to assess?
  • Do you have background checks on your people?
  • Do you have a second adult rule for all ministry gatherings?
  • Is there a timeframe that people have to be around the church to become involved with youth?
  • Does someone, or you, interview each youth minister with your team?
  • Is there a reference check?
  • Are there yearly review processes?
  • Is there a response process if a child told you, or another adult, of something indecent that might have occurred?
  • Is there a care process for an after incident?
Having some policies in place can help you in the implementing process of protecting those in the ministry, youth community and outer community. It will also help give some clear direction in an otherwise emotional set of circumstances.
How do you go about creating or starting policies? If you are starting from scratch or need to see what others do you can do what we call an “invisible search” that will help you find files that are posted on servers, but not necessarily on the web. Check out this “safe sanctuaries” search. Download documents as you feel the need and see what others are doing and wordings (change the search wordings if you like).
Train up your people on the new procedures. Start practicing the new safety measures as soon as feasible (ie. two adult rule is easy, background checks take time and money). When you find push back, just assure folks, this isn’t a witch hunt, just something to assure each other and the families that we are conducting our ministries with the best safety practices we can. If the case of Penn State reflects anything, the adage of “we’ve known them forever” is no excuse for putting around protection measures for the ministry community.
Then share with the masses. This might be an email with the every policy/procedure that you’ve implemented this week, it could be a reassurance that you have safe measures in place already and people can trust the ministry, it could be just an acknowledgement of “This has happened and is tragic, we seek to be a safe place for your child to be a participant in the ministries of the church. If you have any questions or concerns about your child’s safety and what we do to ensure that as best we can, please contact us.”
NOTE: the implementation of the a Safe Sanctuaries policy doesn’t eliminate all possibilities of something happening in ministry, but it does greatly diminish the probability. From my personal experience, we had a young adult who’s first act that would red flag him was an assault on a child. We had some implied policies in place, but just finished approving our policies and background checking everyone. What was helpful for us was that we had approached the subject and our people were prepared, as best as could, for such an event. Certainly our reactions were not without various emotions, but our people held together as best as one might imagine for such a thing to happen to a church body.

 

Gavin Richardson is Digital Community Builder for YouthWorker Movement and the Short One at YouthWorker Circuit. He has been in youth work for almost two decades now, has been a writer and consultant on numerous internet and published projects for the church. He’s often a speaker around the country on church communications and community building. His current projects are working on developing online Youth Disciple Groups and finishing a new book “Sticky Sheep.” He is the part time youth guy at Good Shepherd UMC in Hendersonville, TN. If you ask, he will say that he is a “misfit” of the church. He lives in Nashville with his wife Erin, son Brooks and dog Crimson. You can connect with Gavin (and he’s totally cool with that) through http://about.me/gavoweb.

What Youth Ministry can Learn from Steve Jobs

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what Youth Ministry can learn from Steve Jobs | Think DifferentlyThis post was originally published on October 11, 2011.

Last week there was a huge outpouring of emotion & sentimentality in the wake of the passing of Steve Jobs, former CEO and founder of Apple, Inc. Much has been written over the impact of Steve Jobs from his reshaping of culture, ability to grow a company amidst huge recessions, how he shaped other industries, and more. As a successful leader of industry I was curious to ask the question, “What could youth ministry learn from Steve Jobs?” It’s a valuable question for us, not because he was a Christian leader, he wasn’t (he was in fact a Buddhist) but he & his company had a hold on the culture of youth like has never been seen before. We are not building a company, but we are seeking to be voices and relational entities that capture the imagination and hearts of young people for Christ and to seek change in the world.

So here’s my list of what youth ministry can learn from Steve Jobs

1. He wasn’t Everything: this may seem simple, but it bears some repeating. It was commonly known that Steve was not the best design, gadget engineer, code cracker, etc. Steve’s gifting, that he lived into, was that he knew how pieces could fit together in new and different ways. He had vision on how it all blended and worked and how it would meet the needs of their customers. It wasn’t uncommon for him to come into a project that wasn’t fitting into that vision or up to the standards of the company brand. As a youth worker, you shouldn’t be the everything for the ministry. You help fit the pieces together and know how that is meeting the needs of the youth and impacting the direction of the ministry. This might require some tough conversations with youth and leaders to keep the ministry on track, but when it comes together everyone feels success.

2. Surround Yourself with Great People: As mentioned before, Steve didn’t do everything, but he was smart enough to surround himself with people who did do those things very, very, well. He also challenged these talented people to imagine differently and challenge the processes of their industry frameworks. Look through your ministry, what are the gifts and talents you need in youth ministers? Target and challenge those people to imagine ministry that has a different framework for relations, artistry, mission, etc. Give permission to act, but also keep the overall vision at the forehead.

3. Take Some Risks: maybe you know this, but maybe not. Steve Jobs was integral to the emergence of Pixar which has changed the game when it comes to animated feature film length movies. Just check out some of the animated movies/tv shows prior to Pixar. That is an incredible risk to jump into an unproven genre of movie making and come away with creations such as Toy Story, Cars, Monsters Inc., etc. When he came back to Apple in the mid 90′s he radically changed the design of the computer in astetic design and hardware configuration compared to the traditional computers that people were creating. That was a huge risk. Not all Steve’s risks have panned out, but enough of them have that we don’t even know of ones that did not. G4 Cube anyone?

4. Know Your Why: Steve had an idea of the why of Apple and its slate of products. You could probably get a PC laptop cheaper with all kinds of different spec hardware to do specialized things. Steve though know that why we bought computers were to do some specific things and all we wanted was for them to work together (not always the case with PC components). So they were there to provide a solution to that question “Why can’t I?” and they told you that “You Can.” Why is your youth ministry there? Sure we can all claim a ‘great commission’ or ‘disciples of the world’ but is that really true? Maybe our ‘why’ is a little more nuanced and contextually meaningful than that.

5. Imagine Differently: maybe this is just something I have trouble with, but maybe not. When Jesus would preach he often had this saying of “the Kingdom of God is like….” and would go on with some parable or imagery explaining the Kingdom of God. In teaching I seem like a broken recording saying to youth, I’m not sure what that looks like. I am totally captive to limits of my imagination, but I try. Steve embraced the thinking & imagining differently. The world is impacted by those who are different because they do different things, not the people that are the same & do the same things. Don’t get stuck or feel you have to do the same youth ministry. Youth want to be a part of something special that they can imagine being part of the Kingdom of God.

Steve was a complicated fellow as many of us can be & we know much of that because of his history and profile. As a leader and culture shaper these were just a few of the things that I can look at him as a leader that enabled him to be the person so many admired, wanted to be, became attached to.

What else might you add to this list or change?

Gavin Richardson is Digital Community Builder for YouthWorker Movement and the Short One at YouthWorker Circuit.  He has been in youth work for almost two decades now, has been a writer and consultant on numerous internet and published projects for the church. He’s often a speaker around the country on church communications and community building. His current projects are working on developing online Youth Disciple Groups and finishing a new book “Sticky Sheep.” He is the part time youth guy at Good Shepherd UMC in Hendersonville, TN.  If you ask, he will say that he is a “misfit” of the church. He lives in Nashville with his wife Erin, son Brooks and dog Crimson. You can connect with Gavin (and he’s totally cool with that) through http://about.me/gavoweb.

Who is Pouring In to You?

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Who is pouring into you…

I am in fellowship each month with a group of local Youth Pastors. The group’s goal is to support, encourage, and share life together. I cannot describe how uplifting it is to be together with the community! When we gathered this month, we spent the time sharing stories of how we witnessed God working this summer. One by one we shared great stories of how we saw
God at work in our teens, through our teens, and even in us. They were all amazing storied, but there was one story that got me thinking…

The story was about how she was invited to go on a mission trip with some people from her church, and although there were youth on the trip, she was not really expected to lead in any way; and they were paying for her to go.

Through the trip she was able to experience again what it is like to go on a mission trip and experience God at work, without needing to worry about the next thing or what that kid is doing over there.

She described it as a truly refreshing and refueling. She then described, how many of us feel, that it seems like she was always giving…giving…giving, and never being pour into herself, and she looked up and said to the group of youth ministers: “Do you every feel like that?

Where you are always pouring out and no one is pouring into you?”

And you could see on everyone’s face, including my own, that we all felt that way in one way or another.

It does seem like we find ourselves in this place more often than not, if we are honest. As ministers, too often we find that no one is there or even thinks of ministering to us. And we know that it is not just some devotional that is going to fill us.

For me, at each church I have been at as a youth pastor, I have always found a family or two who recognizes this and in their own way pours into our life and is there for us, without trying to push an agenda. And second, it is relationships with peers, fellow youth pastors, those in the same boat that I also find refueling in. It is these relationships that you can find refueling, rest, and God.

May you find these kind of relationships in your context, so that you may find rest…

If you are in need of help finding or creating a group of peers, check out

Youth Pastors Anonymous, a support group for Youth Pastors, on Facebook and at http://YouthPastorsAnonymous.blogspot.com or contact Chris at YouthPastorsAnonymous@gmail.com

Chris Cummings grew up in Brentwood, Tennessee and graduated from Tennessee Technological University in 2005 with a degree in Marketing. Chris is the Youth Director at Forest Hills United Methodist Church in Brentwood, and he and his wife Joanna are both students at the Center for Youth Ministry Training—CYMT’s first married couple.

Unity in Diversity

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“What we have most in common is not religion but humanity.” (An Altar in the World, Taylor; p. 102)

Recently, my family and I moved to Evanston, IL so that I could pursue my PhD at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. As we explored Evanston, I was so excited to see all of the options of delightful restaurants in the area. There is a Greek restaurant around the corner, a Ethiopian restaurant down Chicago
Avenue, a Haitian restaurant less than two miles away from our house and a lovely authentic Mexican restaurant right downtown. As we explored some more, I also noticed that there was a Bah’ai Temple up the road, a Jewish synagogue around the corner, a Greek Orthodox community in the next neighborhood and more. What would this mean for my family and I who have spent the past four years in the bible belt of the USA?

It brought back memories of the lecture that I heard at the Princeton Forums for Youth Ministry last spring. Eboo Patel, the founder and leader of the Interfaith Youth Core, gave a lecture about being faithful to his religious tradition in a religiously diverse world. He talked about being Muslim in the diverse city of Chicago and raising his children to be Muslim in the midst of diversity. His nanny was a Columbian woman who was a devout Catholic and he was sending his children to a private Catholic school. The question he raised is, “How do I think about raising my kids in a religiously diverse world or working with youth in a religiously diverse world?” He went on to say that as a Sociologist, the question was much easier to answer, recognizing that in the United States, your child could have been born in a hospital founded by Jewish philanthropists, and the lead doctor could have been a Muslim, the nurse could have been Filipino Catholic and the person giving the epidural could have been Hindu. The reality is that in most of Urban and Suburban America, religious diversity is everywhere.

The challenge is: How do we nurture faith in the reality of religious diversity?

What Patel then shared was that from a non-personal, analytical perspective, all of that sounded good, until it became personal and he was raising his own children in the diversity of this world. Part of the role that we all must play, as parents and as youth leaders is to pass on our faith. In the reality of passing on our faith, we must also face the challenge of teaching “truth” amongst diversity in religious truths.

This brings us back to the age-old question of what is “TRUTH?” How do we teach biblical truth today? We cannot ignore the fact that we live next door to those who are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist. We cannot prevent our children from encountering people of other faiths, other traditions and other truths. In the Christian tradition, we have a compelling need to share our truth with others, because of our biblical mandate and mission of the church. (Matthew 28:18-20) So, where does this leave us as leaders in the church?

Historically, we have reacted in several ways:

  • We have ignored “the problem.” We have done everything in our power to prevent our children from ever having to face diversity by segregating them into sections and groups where everyone is the same. They think the same, act the same and sometimes even look the same.
  • We have approached it with violence. In our recent past, we have sought to wipe away others who are different from us, believing that if we just purge them from the world, the problem would be fixed.
  • We have completely given up our own faith and tradition to embrace a faith or tradition that feels better OR we have given up any faith or religious tradition all together.

I don’t believe any of these reactions have helped people in the world. All of these reactions have only made our children and youth even more disenfranchised and unwilling to encounter any god, let alone our Christian God. So, what is the response that the world needs today? What is the reaction that will incline people to becoming more loving, more caring and more considerate for all of creation? Anyone? What are your thoughts?

Amy Valdez Barker is a long time youth minister from the North Georgia Conference. Soon to be PhD student at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary working with the Vital Congregations Project.

7 Choices You Can Make To Keep From Losing Yourself in Youth Ministry

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I had a reality check six months ago while sitting in a volunteer training seminar. Our instructor suggested that youth ministry volunteers focus on their hobbies and figure out creative ways to get the youth to participate too (a youth flyfishing expedition? Why not?) He had us start with a list of our hobbies… and I realized that I didn’t have any hobbies outside of my job in youth ministry. This cannot be healthy.

In a profession like youth ministry, it’s easy to get caught up in the role of youth pastor/youth director and lose touch with who you are as a person. Youth workers almost by definition are givers, people who sacrifice their goals to help others. It is almost universal that youth workers will ignore their own needs every chance they get. But you have to spend some time taking care of yourself or you will find yourself where you have nothing left to give, and probably at the worst possible time. Here are 7 choices you can make to keep from losing your sense of self in your job:

The first 4 choices are internal things you can control – basically ways to take care of yourself. The last three involve external factors that you can work on but you might have limited control.

Internal Choices to Make to Keep from Losing Yourself in Youth Ministry

1. Choose to care for your own soul. You pour your heart into helping others. But who is your pastor? Consider finding a pastor who is not your boss. Who holds you accountable for your own spiritual growth? The best way you can minister to other people is to make sure you are spiritually fed yourself. Choose to make time for personal Bible study, retreat, worship – whatever you need for your own spiritual growth – and make sure to do these things before you get caught up in work. Do not get in the habit of putting youth ministry before your own relationship with God.

2. Choose to care for your mind. What do you think about? The questions you ask will become habitual. What kind of thoughts are you letting into your head? Are you reading positive things and surrounding yourself with a positive helpful message? Just the simple act of reading positive material can keep your mind from spiraling down into negative thoughts. (check out some inspirational books, read Scripture) You need to keep yourself in a positive and healthy frame of mind.

3. Choose to care for your body. We all know youth work can mean lock-ins and a seemingly limitless number of occasions to eat pizza. That might have seemed like the ideal job in college, but we’re not getting any younger. Be honest, are you eating well? Getting enough rest? Exercising? You know what you need to do – do it! We all need to take care of ourselves physically – get adequate rest, exercise regularly, wear sunscreen. If you are taking care of your body, you will find that you have more energy and you will last longer.

One of the healthiest things you can do is to say “no” when people are asking you to add another commitment to your schedule. Consider this: When asked the secret to making amazing products, Steve Jobs said “It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much”. Your ministry works the same way, do too much “not amazing stuff” and you can’t focus on the truly important stuff.

4. Choose to develop yourself outside of your profession. Get a hobby. Learn new things. Keep your mind sharp. [Have a bucket list? No? Make one. Have one, cross one off this month. Who do you have fun with? In the military they say at social events, “never open the hangar doors”, which means when you are at a social event with people in your unit, focus on the fun, and don’t talk about work. Having trouble turning off the worker mode and relaxing? Maybe you need friends that are not involved in youth ministry [in any way shape or form].

External Choices to Make to Keep from Losing Yourself in Youth Ministry – these are
about your relationships

5. Choose to make your home relationships a priority. It’s too easy to take your family for granted. If you are married, you need to make sure your marriage is a priority over youth ministry. This might mean turning the text messages off when you get home, scheduling date nights and not letting youth events conflict with them, eat regular meals together. If you have children, you need to be demonstrating the priority your own kids have over the youth events. Bonus: when you choose to make it clear that family is your priority, you are being a great role model for youth. Set boundaries.

6. Choose to build positive work relationships. Church politics is [not any different than office politics, when people who have different opinions and values work together, sometimes their personalities don’t fit. It’s] unavoidable. [But you can be part of the solution instead of feeding the problem.] Make sure you are keeping things positive with your coworkers. Try to understand the pressures the senior pastor might be under. Take the janitor out to lunch. Lift people up. Work relationships are one of those things that make the job joyful when they’re great, miserable when they’re bad.

Work relationships also include your relationships with volunteers – be positive, affirming. [And if there is a problem with fit or calling] be loving but direct, [not everyone is going to be a successful long term volunteer].

Along those same lines, choose to have healthy youth relationships – set your boundaries and make sure your relationships are appropriate. [If you are not doing safe sanctuary where you are consider adopting it as a standard, it helps keep everyone safe, and it doesn’t leave room for any inappropriate rumors to take root.] Remember that your role is not to be the “cool buddy” of teenagers, you are an adult. Being a youth worker is not the same thing as being a youth. You can coach your students, you can listen, you can cheer them on, but you are not there to live life for them or through them. Choose not to be alone with youth or to be in situations that can be misunderstood.

7. Choose your job wisely. Churches and youth ministries have different personalities; just like youth workers have different personalities. If you are working in a church that has unrealistic expectations for you or just isn’t a fit for your personality and gifts, you might be miserable and on the way to
losing yourself before you even begin.

Choosing the job that is right for you starts with an honest self-assessment.. What are your strengths? Gifts? Passions? Are you an extrovert that gets your energy from having a large number of people around? Then don’t go to work for a small church with a high average age and few youth. If you are passionate about student leadership, will you be content working for a church that expects you to produce programs? If you are passionate about discipleship, will you be content working for a church that expects big outreach events and large crowds? How much time does your job really require? Will this work with your other priorities for spiritual growth and healthy relationships?

If you find yourself in a church that doesn’t fit your personality and gifts, it may be time to make the difficult choice to make a switch. The more you can align who you are as a person and how you are comfortable in ministry, the healthier you’ll be.

Erin Jackson is a veteran & certified youthworker as well as part of the Youthworker Movement team. She lives in Arlington Texas with her husband Dennis and three kids. She can be found blogging at http://umyouthworker.com/