We live in a society and culture that elevates immorality. We have some ministry giants we once knew compromise their integrity and lifestyle. If we want to last in ministry we have to always put ourselves in a position of living above reproach. It seems like the norm with news coming out about how a well known leader in the church has compromised their integrity once again. I have experienced this first hand and have sat on the other side of the table with one of my former mentors who I love dearly who comprised their integrity and crossed some boundaries they said they would never cross. What I have come to learn is no one is exempt from crossing boundaries and that is why we have to set ourselves up to succeed. This isn’t intended to be a “scare you straight” but some practices I have put into place over the years to create accountability around me as I lead in ministry. I want to last in ministry and I would guess you do too but in order to last we can not be naive thinking we are the exception and set up boundaries and accountability. Here are 5 boundaries I have personally lived by that have saved me in ministry that I continue to have and ask people to hold me accountable to. I hope these can be helpful for you as you lead students or are in a position of authority. 

1. Be an “open book” (people around you/ spouses if married, etc.)

Use this with discretion and with those whom you trust. Allow yourself to be an open book to those around you. Essentially, “Rat yourself out.” If you are married, never hide anything from your spouse. Issues begin to arise when we have desires that can lead us down a road towards compromising our integrity and we try to hide it. Whether it be big or small we should be an open book with those we trust. When you have taken too many looks at that person at the gym share that with someone. When you’re scrolling through social media and go down the rabbit trail, share that with someone. If you have a desire to flirt with a coworker and have not acted on it, share that with someone. If you are married, reassure them they can look at your social media, emails, texts, etc if they were to ask. My wife knows the passwords to all my social accounts and that doesn’t mean she is hovering and doesn’t trust me. It is my way of being an open book and communicating I have nothing to hide. I am gaining accountability and trust from my wife because I am willing to put it all on the table. The same goes for those who are single. Who do you have in your life that can check in on you from time to time or even just have access to see what you are engaging in? When we allow ourselves to become an open book and rat ourselves out, the less likely we are to stay in the dark and hide the things we know we shouldn’t be doing. Isolation will only hinder us as youth workers and is a dangerous place to be. It is where sin can grow. Be an open book and rat yourself out. 

2. Never be alone with the opposite gender 

For those who work with students this is key. Never put yourself in a suspicious situation even if you have no intentions or it comes across innocently. As youth workers we always want to position ourselves to be above reproach. If you do meet with someone of the opposite gender, whether a student or leader do it in a public place. Never do it behind closed doors or in areas people aren’t around. To be even more above reproach, have someone else present as you meet with this student or leader. For example, I am a male youth worker so if I’m meeting with a female student I always invite their small group leader to join the conversation. We should be very cautious of who we are spending our time with and how we are being intentional with setting ourselves up well. If you work with a counterpart  who is the opposite gender, do you create boundaries when meeting to discuss ministry? Do people know you are meeting with this individual to talk through ministry? Whether it’s a student, leader, or counterpart we have to be very careful with how we go about meeting with them because we know stories that started as something innocent but when left unchecked it has led to those compromising their boundaries and integrity. 

3. Be real with your temptations

This may be difficult to start doing because you have to be honest with the sin in your life that you hide from everyone around you. But if you are never real about the sin you continue to dabble in it has the potential to pour over into your life and relationships and cause you to cross boundaries you never thought you would cross. When you give in to sin, especially some sexual sin such as porn, confess immediately to someone you trust and ask for help. If you continue to “feed the beast” and never confess or become real with yourself you will go down a road you always told yourself you would never go down. I have seen so much healing in my life when I became real with myself and brought others in who I trust to help me overcome those temptations. What is the sin you are struggling with? Who knows about it? Who is holding you accountable in this area? Or Are you just trying to hide it? If you are fearful of your supervisors knowing because you may lose your job let me reassure you that it can be far worse if the sin is left unchecked. Be real with who you are and what you struggle with and bring it into the light. 

4. If you ask, “Is this okay?” go with that gut feeling

I recently had a conversation with a ministry leader asking about whether or not he should take one of his staff members of the opposite gender to their staff meeting at Starbucks just them two. His intention was never inappropriate or out of line. He was simply wrestling with how that may look if he and his co worker of the opposite gender were seen leaving the parking lot together to go to their meeting. I have learned over and over in ministry that if I’m asking, “is this okay?” or have any hesitations to just go with that gut feeling. This ministry leader did just that. He went with his gut and just picked up starbucks and brought it back to the office to have the meeting where other people would be. This may sound ridiculous or extra but again, we as youth workers want to be professional and always look to be above reproach. Always go with your gut because as the old saying goes “better safe than sorry.” 

5. Clearly define boundaries

I have learned that defining boundaries have held me accountable time and time again. I have seen this in my normal relationships as well. It is no different working in youth ministry. We as youth workers need to clearly define boundaries not just go through the motions and handle each situation as they come. You must determine what you stand for and not compromise that. Take some time to write those down whether on paper or in a Google doc. When you have defined those, share them with someone and hold yourself accountable to those boundaries. This is your blueprint and map to guide you through doing ministry when situations arise that would make it easy for you to compromise your integrity in some way. This is true of sexual sin, drinking or smoking, gossip, etc. Clearly define your boundaries, share them with someone, and keep yourself to those boundaries. 

I want youth workers to win. I want to see youth workers last in ministry including myself. It will take work and it will start with acknowledging that we are not exempt from the rule. We have a real enemy who wants to take us out and we want to be ready for when the temptations come. Let’s be youth workers with integrity. Lets model for the church what it looks like to last in ministry. You got this! 

Guest post by Scotty Keesee

Scotty has almost 10 years in the trenches in student ministry and is one of the youth leads at Sandals Church in Riverside, CA. He loves to lead leaders and talk culture, ministry, and strategy. He has a wonderful wife and two amazing boys.

Searching for Youth Group Games? Discover thousands of turn-key resources at Download Youth Ministry.

Early on in my youth ministry years I had this perception that I had to be the guy. I had to be the guy to do all the setup and tear-down. I had to be the guy who led all the games. I had to be the guy to do all the teaching. I had to be the guy to do all the administration or social media work. So I was that guy. For many years I would grind and do all the things that involved student ministry. Over time I began to grow tired and frustrated. I asked why. I was doing all the things a youth pastor should be doing, right? 

Looking back I realized I was working harder and accomplishing less. I’d guess there are a lot of youth pastors or youth workers out there who feel the same way. It wasn’t until I began to take a step back and ask the question, “Who’s behind me?” that change and effective ministry began to take place. If you have no team, if you are not empowering your leaders, I’d argue you are headed for burnout and you’re not operating at your best capacity. A good way to know if you are doing everything is to ask this simple question.

“If I were gone, would our midweek or weekend program run without me?” 

This simple question has led to so much change in the ministry I’ve been entrusted to lead. I’ve seen our ministry grow. I’ve seen my leaders grow. I’ve seen more buy-in to our ministry and longevity of leaders. Students have invited more and more of their non-churched friends. This simple question has even helped me to lead at my full potential and do what I’m best at with minimal effort. 

So here are some questions you can ask to begin building up and empowering a team. This will help you to answer who is coming up behind you.

WHO ON YOUR CURRENT TEAM SHOWS BUY-IN?

This is the starting point. Before you can ever start building a team to take ownership, you need to be able to pinpoint which leaders show buy-in. A good way to figure out who those leaders are is to begin paying attention. Do they show up on time? Do they actually respond to your emails? Is their group of students continually growing? Do you see these leaders going outside of a midweek or weekend to pour into students? If you can begin answering yes to these questions, odds are you have some bought-in leaders.

These are the leaders who are likely craving more, but are waiting for the ask. For the next month, begin to look at your team and make note of those who show buy-in. It can be 1 leader or 10 leaders. The number doesn’t matter, but we have to start discovering who is bought in.

WHAT AREAS NEED ATTENTION WHERE OTHERS CAN TAKE OWNERSHIP?

While you are figuring out who is bought in on your team, begin to make note of areas where you are spending too much time, and you can begin handing off responsibility. For me, I started with setup and tear-down. Before we moved into a permanent building we met at a middle school. So this called for lots of setup and tear-down. When I identified the leader with buy-in, I asked if they’d be open to taking over our setup and tear-down team. (I didn’t have a team. I made something up.) This leader loved the idea, so I fully handed this over to them and they took it to a level I never could. They began to recruit and schedule both leaders and students to be a part of this team.

So what are the things you are doing that you can begin to hand off? Is it setup and tear-down? Is it social media? Is it leading the games? (Let’s be real, not all of us are good at leading games.) Begin to take note and make a list so when you do identify the bought-in leaders, you know where you’re going to invite them to take responsibility. 

DO YOU ANSWER FOR YOUR TEAM?

This was always a struggle for me. I would always answer on behalf of someone. I would have someone come to mind, but then I’d think, “They are too busy,” or, “They have a family, so I don’t want to add another thing to their plate.” When I did this, I just answered no for them. Don’t answer no for your leaders. Let them tell you no. 

Worst case scenario is they say they can’t. Best case scenario is you have a new addition to your core team. Most leaders are waiting to be asked. They usually don’t just naturally come to you; it’s usually through invitation that we call them to something more. So once you’ve identified who those bought-in leaders are, don’t answer for them. Make the ask and let God do the stirring. 

Ultimately, we should not be doing ministry alone. Paul in Ephesians 4 calls us to equip the saints for ministry. To empower them to use their giftedness that God has given them. We need a team. This ministry is not our own. This ministry will last long after we are gone, so we must be good stewards by developing a team and empowering the leaders we have. Don’t wait. Get out there and begin to empower.

Guest post by Scotty Keesee

Scotty has almost 10 years in the trenches in student ministry and is one of the youth leads at Sandals Church in Riverside, CA. He loves to lead leaders and talk culture, ministry, and strategy. He has a wonderful wife and two amazing boys.

Searching for Youth Group Games? Discover thousands of turn-key resources at Download Youth Ministry.

• One of the most important things in regards to a smooth service is transitions and I feel like most o the time we just wing our way through them. When we think about them, walk through them, it takes away clunky and distracting pieces so students can experience it better.
• A good transition is never thought about but a bad transition is always noticed. Think about it. When it’s good, no one says a word. But when its awkward, everyone feels it.
• Important transitions to think through:
  • Walk in to welcome
  • Announcements into game
  • Game into worship/message
  • Message to set up groups

• What does your service FEEL like. Believe it or not it makes a difference. Have you ever stopped to “sit in” your service and think about how the room feels as you are going through service? I don’t want you to misunderstand what I am saying in this. I am not saying we need to buy new things and have the state of the art stuff. Just sitting in service and being intentional about how it feels for those involved can make a huge difference. I think it’s just something many youth pastors are not intentional with.
• Couple of big things that make a huge difference:
  • When someone is on stage music is playing. There should be no dead air. (Click HERE for our playlist)
  • With announcements make sure no lyric music playing. It’s distracting when you are talking but a bop comes on behind you and the kids start singing instead of listening to you (not that has happened to me at all before ha!)

• This generation is super visual. Screens are a part of their everyday life so we need to make sure we are using it to make our experience better.
• Walk in to begin service – music playing (click HERE for our playlist) and a countdown on the screen gets people in, lower lights, countdown on the screen lets people know when it’s beginning and allows you to start service not from a cold start because everyone knows it’s starting when it hits zero.
• If you are talking about it it needs to be on the screen. Are you announcing something? Make sure you have a slide up when you are talking it. Are you reading something from Scripture? Put it up on the screen. Take away anything that would prevent students from missing something.
• What does the room feel like? Do you need move the room around to make it feel better? Make it feel smaller? Bigger? It’s amazing how when we rearrange the room to fit what we are doing how much it makes a difference.

• The main thing about making your service excellent is really thinking through the little things that would make it go from go to great. What are the things you can add to service to make it better? It’s in the small details.
• Do you create momentum when you walk in?
  • Music amd countdown
• The game
  • Music choice
  • The right people on stage. Not everyone who wants to be on stage should be on stage. It can make a or break a moment if you don’t have the right people.
  • Using the lights to enhance the experience (if you have them).
    • When playing a game use red for wrong answers and green for right. Add “ding ding” or “BUZZ” sound effects from the computer for answers.
  • Did you think through the flow of the game? Did you walk through all aspects of it or do you wing it? the first time we play it should not be when the room is full of students.

It’s all about the dismissal:

• • • Do you set your students up well to go into groups?
    • Do you cast the vision of why groups are a big deal?
    • Do new students know where to go? Do you address them?
    • Do you have something on the screen as a reference to where people go?
    • We need to make sure we set up our students and leaders well to go into groups because if we come out of a message with a quick, “Alright that was a good message right? Ok, go to groups” or you come out of a serious message with high energy and fun worship song, it can take them out of reflection of the message they just heard. We need to be able to hand off from one moment to another to best set up our youth for great discussions.

This is something we have been working through with our own teams and I thought it could help other think through there programming as well. Let me know what else you would add.

@justinknowles3 

Here’s a quick tips/training video I made for my junior high Life Group leaders that went out today! How parents can give you GREAT insight into the students in your Life Group! I thought may be helpful in your youth ministry, too.

JG

Searching for Youth Group Games? Discover thousands of turn-key resources at Download Youth Ministry.

First off, I’m sorry it’s been a while on my end in regards to posting. Things have been a little crazy. Just recently I have taken on overseeing our kids teams across all our campuses as long with youth and I have been been getting caught up with all of that. Excited for the fun and challenges moving forward in this new role. With that said…

One of the things I have been working through with both kids and youth teams is what I am calling our “Master Class of Programming”. So this will be a series of posts.

I wanted our teams to think about their weekend or midweek experiences and what are the things we should be thinking through to create the best experience for our kids and youth. This first section will be talking in general to get us thinking through the program overall, then we will walk into the actual service break downs and then move to outside atmosphere and events.

The way I like to think of your service is like being on a ride. You get on and you get off. There is a beginning and an end. Going with a Disney theme, sometimes I feel like I am on Indiana Jones but our goal should be to make it feel like Space mountain. 

• Indiana Jones is bumpy. It’s choppy. It’s awkward at times. 
• Space mountain is so smooth. 
• Both get you where you need to go, both serve it’s purpose but the experience is way different. 

It comes down to intentionality. Are we thinking through our experience from “street to seat”, from the time they get out of their car on campus to sitting in service, to leaving to go home, are we being intentional?

Regardless if you have 10 students or 400 students, thinking internally about your services make a difference.

So I ask 8 questions to get us in the right mind frame to think about our services:

1. Why is it important to think through your program?

This is more of a rhetorical question to get us thinking through, “Am I being intentional or am I pretty loose and kind of wing it”.

I think it’s critically important. Why? When it’s clunky, it can be distracting. When is the only time anyone ever looks back at the audio booth during service? When something goes wrong. Students might not physically tell you they like a smooth service but they notice when you have not thought through it. Clunky can distract and it’s our jobs to do our best to remove all distractions (as best as we can and in our control) that we can. When we are intentional it can set someone up really well to have a real encounter with Jesus. You can have the best content in the world and have a clunky, distracting, winging it service and it can take away from the content we have.

I know this is bold, but that is fine, but I’ll go as far as to say:

A lazy program = lazy leadership.

I know but listen. Even though you might not think programmatically, that is no excuse to have a not intentional program. Notice I didn’t say you need to have lights, the cool stage design, or upgraded things. I am saying that if we have not thought through our program, getting others involved, and walking through how we intentionally go through service to set up the best experience, we have not done our part in setting up students well.

2. On a scale of 1-10, how much time do you spend on thinking through your service?

3. On a scale from 1-10, how is your experience from the moment kids step on campus to when they leave? Have you thought through every single aspect or does it “just happen”?

These two questions kind of go hand in hand. I am not saying you have to spend a ton of time, I am just asking to see if you spend ANY time thinking through what your people experience from the moment they show up to the moment they leave. Have you walked through with the perspective with a new student or new family and ask “why we do this” or “why we do that”? Program is more than just what happens “in service”.

4. Do your leaders know what is happening or are they experiencing service for the first time just like the kids?

If the answer is yes, they experience the service for the first time with the kids, then we need to work through that. One of our main jobs is to train, recruit and care for leaders. If our leaders don’t know what to expect or what is expected of them that week then we are not intentional about setting up our leaders. How can we ask our leaders to win, hold them up to those standards when we are not intentional with them and let them know what is coming? If they know they can help carry out the vision of the night so much better and more effective AND they feel like they are A PART of the service rather than just sitting through it. 

5. Have you put in your due diligence in regards to planning?

This is a big one. This is one of two questions that should haunt us and plague us in regards to our programming. Services are the never full beast that is always coming and we need to feed it weekly. It happens every week and just like life, things get crazy. I have been pushing our teams to be 2 weeks ahead in their planning. If we can be intentional and have some heads up time to think ahead, it will set us up well to make sure we have put in a good amount of time thinking through services to make sure we have covered all the areas we would need to be intentional about.

A couple of questions in regards to this section and planning are:

• Do you have an element of fun? Have you thought through the game, prizes, transitions, message and worship?
• Do you know what you are doing with new families or new students? How are you setting them up when they come on campus?
• Are you the only one planning things or setting things up? Or are you building teams to help you run services?

6. Is your service worth being invited to?

This is the second question that should haunt us as we keep asking. This question is huge in regards to planning and being intentional. If we are asking our students to spend relational capital on asking non-church friends to come to service or an event, we have to ask the question, “Is this even worth being invited to?” If you spend time on question #5, most likely the answer to this question will be “yes”. If you don’t put in your time, the answer will be “no”.

7. Do we just plan out service in our heads or do we write it down and lay it out?

Are you the only one who knows what is happening in regards to how service runs and what is coming? Writing it out and seeing it will help you with the flow and make it feel good. When you see it on paper you can get a better feel for what is coming. It sets up those who are helping you run the service when you have notes and a plan. Our church uses Planning Center and whether you have 10 students or 100 students, it allows you to write out service, put in notes, thinking through flow and timing and is an awesome tool to be intentional with. 

8. Is the first time you fully run through the ENTIRE service with a full room of students?

If the answer is yes, I would begin to rethink through that. I believe that service run throughs need to be standard for anyone is putting on services. If we are to make sure we are taking out the distractions in service, service run throughs are the single best way to work through and take out those distraction to work on having a smooth, intentional, thought out service. 

Now I will preface again…

I am not saying that we need to have all the bells and whistles to make service super high tech. What I am saying is we need to be intentional about one of the biggest front doors of our ministries to make sure we can put forth the best foot we have for students to experience Jesus. My hope is that these questions can help you think though your own services to work on making them better and better.

I know we have been working through them with our team and they have been helpful.

@justinknowles3

Searching for Youth Group Games? Discover thousands of turn-key resources at Download Youth Ministry.

Here’s a quick tips/training video I made for my junior high Life Group leaders that goes out next week. Helping to know when to/to NOT cancel group night! I thought may be helpful in your youth ministry, too.

JG

Searching for Youth Group Games? Discover thousands of turn-key resources at Download Youth Ministry.