Volunteers Archives - Page 5 of 6 - Blog | Download Youth Ministry Blog

6 Jun 2017

3 Challenges For Your Team This Summer

By |2017-06-05T19:22:45-07:00June 6th, 2017|Volunteers|0 Comments

In between all the camps and vacations, most of us take the summer to evaluate, change and improve the ministries we lead. While looking at content and reconfiguring your systems are key, it’s also important to take things up a notch with your volunteers.

That’s right, summer is a great time to challenge your team to step up to a new level. It’s an opportunity to expand your capacity as a leader and hit new goals. So, how do you challenge your team? Here are three you can give to your team this summer: (more…)

15 May 2017

How To Have Tough Conversations Where Students Still Want To Come Back

By Justin Knowles|2017-05-15T12:12:05-07:00May 15th, 2017|Leadership, Training, Volunteers, Youth Ministry Ideas|1 Comment

How well do you want to be known by the students in your area for having tough but needed conversations?

I think where a lot of ministries (not just youth ministries) who struggle with having having deep, real, raw, confrontational conversations about things of this culture, beliefs that are different from what we believe and people whom are different from us. I tend to hear from students who don’t “do church” I meet at schools that church handles things one of two ways (broad generalization I know) of:

Don’t talk about it
Talk about it, but way too harsh

It’s our goal as leaders to have the tough conversations, speak truth in love and graciousness, and still have those students feel like they want to come back after that conversation is done; to make them want to come back and have them still invite us into their lives to pursue Jesus.

If that is not our goal, what are we doing? If we speak the truth with no love we are just jerks and it’s not the Gospel. We we speak just love and no truth, we are just nice people and it’s not the Gospel.

I don’t think we in our ministry have this down yet but we are working our way towards it. I want our ministry to be a place where any student feels like this is “home” to them but they know what we believe, why we believe it and will challenge them on what they believe as well. Does every student we have agree with what we believe and teach? Heck no. Do they feel like they can have open and hard conversations about it? I think they can because it’s happened.

I know because I have talked to the gay students in our ministry. I have talked to students who are transgender and trying to figure this whole Jesus thing out. I have talked to the students who are doing things in relationships and don’t see anything wrong with it. I have talked to students who were invited by a friend who practice another religion at home or on the weekends. The last thing I want to do (and believe Jesus modeled this) would run them off with aggressiveness of what He believed or not challenge them to follow Him and leave their life of sin. He entered into conversations.

So as I have been processing all of this, here are thoughts in my hope to either challenge how we all have tough conversations about tough things or it is just a good reminder and refresher for you and your team:

You can’t change anyone. You don’t have that power. I don’t have that power. The Holy Spirit has that power. I think we just need to remember that before we even enter into any conversation. “Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God — truly righteous and holy.” (Ephesians 4:21-24 NLT)

Blankets are great for sleeping, not for statements. Don’t use blanket statements. It is really hard to make general statements about a topic or people group when you talk to an individual. I think we are first and foremost called to love and everything else is a conversation. Each student has a story. Their story is not like the others who believe or think the same way as them. We should know and think through tough conversations and have a certain thought process to respond with, but… when you are staring at a student knee-to-knee eye-to-eye you might think about your approach differently. So have that conversation and keep it to that person.

Listen more than you speak. Every student has a story, we need to listen to it. I have experienced many a times where people are not listening to me because they are just thinking of what to say next. In order to have students who believe different, or behave different, we want to make them feel like they belong. How do you do that? By listening. Make them feel like a person, not a project. Students, regardless of who they are, want to know they can be heard and known and listening to their stories and getting to know them personally will then give you the ability and permission to speak into their lives.

Challenge them to know why they believe what they believe. We know what we believe and why we believe it. Most students know what they believe but don’t know why. Most students base belief on what they feel, not what they know what is truth. I tell students who don’t believe what I believe, “We can disagree, that is great, but I won’t let you not know why. If you are a Jesus follower, why do you believe _______ is okay and true?” It just creates more great conversations and allows you t listen more and engage in more great, real, open conversations.

You can disagree and still like each other. We live in a culture where people think where if we disagree with certain beliefs, we cannot be friends. I hate that. We need to teach our students we can agree to disagree, challenge them on their beliefs and actions and it does not detour them from knowing they are loved and welcomed in our group in order to keep on pursuing Jesus. I love what Andy Stanley says about Jesus. “People who were nothing like Jesus liked Jesus.” Do people who are nothing like you, believe like you, like you? Can you be friends?

If your ministry is anything like mine, you don’t want to shy away from the questions students are asking and talking about the things they want to know. I think it’s our responsibility to address those things but address them in a way where the students who do not believe, or even disagree with what we teach to… actually want to come back when we teach because they know they are known and loved by the people their first who want to help them follow Jesus and be there for them when they have questions when Jesus contradicts what they believe themselves.

Let our ministries be one of the safest places for students to have real, honest, raw, spiritual conversations about Jesus.

@justinknowles3

8 May 2017

A Few Tips On How You Can Begin To Change The Culture Of Your Group

By Justin Knowles|2017-05-08T08:50:53-07:00May 8th, 2017|Leadership, Volunteers, Youth Pastor Life|0 Comments

I was talking with our worship leader and he said, “It’s like we have a whole new group of people and values than we did 2 years ago.” It’s true. The atmosphere is way different now, intentionally so, and it’s been something we have been working towards for the past few years. We have been striving to change the culture of our Wednesday nights to one of actively seeking Jesus, leaders who are bought in, one of fun, and all of the things we have done are starting to pay off.

Let me just preface though, because I have seen some posts regarding this on our awesome Facebook Community, changing the culture of your group is not an easy thing. After almost 3 years of casting the vision, modeling to out leaders, repeating myself over and over, countless leader meetings to chat about the state of our youth ministry, I think we are just beginning to see the fruits of it all… 3 years later. So be patient.

So how do we do that? It got me thinking about some of the things our team has done to implement this change in our group, so I thought I would share.

Pray – Our team spent time in prayer together. We got together to dream and wrote down our values what what we wanted to see in our ministries and we began by giving it up to God. Yes, people can change the culture to a point, but the type of change that we feel called to introduce to our students can’t come from us, we don’t have that power. Only Jesus does. Give it up to him.

Observe – For 4-6 months I just observed our group. I took crazy detailed notes. I looked like a creeper in the back as I took notes and began to write down things that could/needed to be changed. From the tech, to stage and program, to volunteers, job descriptions etc. Everything was under the microscope. After months of seeing how our systems were set up and looking at what they were producing, we began to address them one by one. If you have had some veteran leaders who have been around a while have them do the same. Do it with new leaders too so you can get fresh eyes on all your programs.

Apply slowly – At first there was just cosmetic stuff to make services flow better or look better. Everything we changed first were things we had the power to easily change. Graphics, social media, sermon illustrations, song choice, band and games we played. Changing the culture is not a “band-aide” mentality, you can’t just rip it off. People are biologically ingrained to resist change… so do it gracefully. After the services were were we wanted and we found a good balance, then we moved to people.

Volunteers – People are different than programs, we all know that. From the very beginning of me starting my position, I cast vision of where we want to be. Along the way, some people realized they were not on board, so they decided to get off. Others, not so easy and hard conversations followed. You can never repeat your vision enough. By the time you are tired of hearing your vision, your volunteers are just beginning to get it. Adjusting the vision of current volunteers can happen and when they get it, they go after it. Once we established who is in or not, we began seeking after new leaders with this new vision who all they know is the new ways and when they get it… they are bought in. Culture begins to leak from them to your students.

Relationships – Now that we have these leaders with this vision of where we are going and they know what success looks like, we release them out on students. Volunteers who understand the vision of your ministry and know what success looks like are unstoppable forces in the name of Jesus. This summer, all events we had were purposefully relational. Park days, beach days, summer camps with the leaders who get our vision has been one of the coolest things to watch. This has established our core group of students and now we get to build with an incredible foundation moving forward as we begin to launch small groups and continue to reach students far from God in hopes to see them come close to God.

I know there is a ton more we can all say when it comes to the culture of your group and I know the culture is different in every group. I do know, and have experienced, that if you don’t like the culture you can begin to prayerfully, slowly and change the culture you desire for your leaders and students to come to know Jesus in a way they have not been able to with the current culture that is in place.

@justinknowles3

3 May 2017

5 Indicators Your Volunteers Are “All In”

By Justin Knowles|2017-05-03T07:43:30-07:00May 3rd, 2017|Leadership, Volunteers|1 Comment

Don’t you just love your volunteers? Honestly though. We would not be able to do what we do without them. They are the backbone of any ministry. Every ministry at some point wonders if their volunteers “get it” and if they are excited about what they are doing. As I was thinking about this this week I can say most of volunteers are bought in to what we are doing. That is an exciting place to be.

Here are some signs that your volunteers are bought in to your ministry:

A majority of them show up to meetings – Let’s be honest, no really LOVES meetings. But when you call a volunteer meeting and most of them show up to be a part of it, it’s a really good indicator they love what they are doing. We just had one this last weekend where we had training, prayer and some fun and 90% of our leaders made it and they had a blast.

They hang out with students outside your normal meeting times – I’m pretty sure there are few pastors out there who tell their people they don’t want them to hang out with students outside the normal service times. I feel like this is a call of all youth pastors to volunteers. A good sign your volunteers are bought in is when they actually do this and you see they are engaging with and pouring into students outside of service.

They recruit others to be a part of it – When people are excited about something they want others to come join and be a part of it too. When your leaders are excited about your ministry they will help recruit friends, family and strangers who seem interested in youth ministry and get them to be a part of it.

They post about it on social media – This one goes with the previous one, but when people are excited about something they post it on whatever social media they have. No one really posts the bummer parts of life but they do post what they are excited about and like. A good sign your volunteers are bought into your ministry is when they share with all their people who follow them on social media about what is happening in your ministry.

They tell you they are – This one is simple but it is the best one. What a great chance for you as the pastor to encourage them and let them know how great they are doing and you want them to keep doing what they are doing.

Now I’m sure there are many other signs that volunteers are bought in but these were a few I have seen in the last few months and it is so fun to see when your volunteer are loving what they are doing.

@justinknowles3

13 Apr 2017

Introducing DYM University

By Doug Fields|2017-04-12T15:15:03-07:00April 13th, 2017|Training, Volunteers, Youth Ministry Resources|0 Comments

In all my years of youth ministry, I have tried all types of methods and technologies to deliver important training to my volunteers.

Well-trained leaders have always been crucial to my ministry, and it’s always been a tension to get them the training they need. Trained leaders are better leaders.

Which is why I’m THRILLED to unveil this brand-new training tool from Download Youth Ministry:

INTRODUCING DYM UNIVERSITY!

We have created the training. 10-minute on-demand video sessions taught by some of the leading voices in Youth Ministry… Reggie Joiner, Katie Edwards, Heather Flies, Chap Clark, Walt Mueller, the list is pretty impressive and it’s growing every week. Also, Josh Griffin and myself teach several of the courses.

There are some really good courses for you and your leaders. All you need to do is choose the training that’s right for you and/or identify the best next step for each of your leaders.

We’ve made it SUPER EASY for you to SHARE these trainings with your leaders. Now, they can get the training they need and access it anywhere there is internet on their device of choice. So simple.

We’ve also created a church-wide license so you can train ALL of your leaders with this one turn-key tool.
DYMU was created to make your job a little easier while making your leaders a lot stronger. Just add Wifi and DYMU will help you move your leaders from rookies to pros.

We’d love for you to try it for FREE with “Understanding Relational Ministry.”

7 Mar 2017

Gray Hair, Yellow Shirts

By Josh Griffin|2017-03-07T09:09:52-08:00March 7th, 2017|Volunteers|0 Comments

I was at a DNOW retreat this weekend in Georgia – and was BLOWN AWAY by something I experienced.

Now this was a big event, huge really. 24 churches combined, who have been doing it for like 24 years – this event had momentum and critical mass to spare. Just about every seat was filled in the massive hosting megachurch. But what impressed me from the minute I got there was a throng of yellow shirts and gray hair.

They were everywhere! I bet there was more than 50 older volunteers, most of them 60+ yrs old – all serving and loving students. It was incredible.

Parking lot hosts with little yellow lightsabers
Warm smiles greeting me at the door
Lots of laughter and fun with students in the foyer
Eager help at the info booth
Hugging students
Helping man each merch table
Backstage refilling drinks and snacks
The warmest security I’ve ever seen (they could have been easily outrun by any junior higher I might add)
Handing out food at lunch
Handling injuries
Talking to students
Helping lost students
Asking great questions to students
Sitting in the pews with students

It was a GREAT weekend – but the biggest thing I walked away with was a church that empowered the gray hair to serve students. Man, it was awesome! They got youth ministry! Incredible.

Gray hair, yellow shirts, HUGE hearts. Jesus would be proud.

6 Mar 2017

6 Tips For Putting On Events

By Justin Knowles|2017-03-04T12:05:55-08:00March 6th, 2017|Leadership, Volunteers, Youth Pastor Life|6 Comments

We have all put on an event for our student ministry that was a total flop.

We have all put on an event in which was a total hit and students loved it.

Have you ever thought of what the difference was between them? Why one worked and one didn’t? All last year we started to be really intentional about the events we put on for our students and here are some of the things we noticed in which made a big difference:

1. Don’t just do it to do it – One of the biggest mistakes we can do it to put on an event just to put it on. We need have a destination for the event. What is the end goal for your students when the event was over? When we throw an event together it falls in the category of one of our church values of evangelism. We want to put on events in which the goal would be for our students to invite their friends who normally do not go to church and have them come, have fun, interact with us and come back. It’s a great first step. Have an end goal for the event.

2. Make sure it’s not in vain – You might like the event, but your students might not. Sometimes we plan events because we like them not because our students like them. We don’t do it intentionally. I know I like to have some passion behind the things I plan but we defeat the purpose if our students are not all about it. I sat down with our student leadership team and we reviewed last year and they gave me the run down of the events that they loved and the ones I loved but they did not. You bet we won’t be doing some of them next year.

3. Get your leaders involved – Believe it or not, your leaders want to help. You might feel like you need to do everything because everything needs to be just right but when your leaders get involved they can take ownership and take it to the next level. One, you won’t have to do everything. Two, when you give away authority you create more buy-in from your leaders. Three, it gives your leaders opportunities to interact with students in different ways.

4. Promote, promote, promote – This might seem like a no brainer but even though you could talk blue in the face about an event, students don’t always see it, pay attention to it, or info does not get home to parents etc. For any event we do, we have a plan for a month out, the weeks leading up, the week of, the day of.

Month out: post on social media and mention in service
Weeks out: two posts a week on social media and mention in service
Week of: mention in service with some sort of bit or video to promote it, post every day from Sunday to Wednesday, and an email to parents letting them know details and when it will end
Day of: post right after school gets out, post an hour before students get to campus

5. Keep it short – There is nothing worse than an event that should have ended 30 minutes ago. We all have been to an event or wedding or some thing that the momentum just died or ran out. I always love ended events on a high note and leave them wanting more. I think it’s okay to keep it short and have them think, “Man, that was so much fun, I didn’t want it to end” rather than thinking, “Okay that was great but when is it over?” You want to let them go home on the high note.

Typically when we do an event after our service, we end service at 8:30-45 and the event will stop at 9:30 sharp. Seems like that is a sweet spot for us and always ends on that high note.

6. Capture it – If it is a reoccurring event, make sure you grab video or pictures. One of the best ways to promote events is show them what it was like last time so they can get excited. Plus, they love to see themselves on the screen. If you cold give them an idea of what they will experience in the video they will be able to share it with friends.

What else would you add for successful events?

@justinknowles3

30 Jan 2017

Change The Culture Of Your Ministry Into Something You Desire

By Justin Knowles|2017-01-30T07:32:26-08:00January 30th, 2017|Leadership, Volunteers|0 Comments

I have been in my spot now for 2 and half years. That is crazy to think about. I have been meeting with all of our volunteers just to touch base with them since our junior high pastor will be transitioning out (I have an open JH spot on my team, if you’re interested, hit me up) and one of the leaders said something to me that really stood out to me as we were talking about the last few years.

She said, “It’s like we have a whole new group of people and values.” It’s true. The atmosphere is way different now, intentionally so, and it’s been something we have been working towards all year-long. All year-long we have been striving to change the culture of our Wednesday nights to one of actively seeking Jesus, leaders who are bought in, and one of fun, and all of the things we have done are starting to pay off.

So how do we do that? It got me thinking about some of the things our team has done to implement this change in our group, so I thought I would share:

Pray – Our team spent time in prayer together. We got together and dreamt and wrote down our values what we wanted to see in our ministries and we began by giving it up to God. Yes, people can change the culture to a point, but the type of change that we feel called to introduce to our students can’t come from us, we don’t have that power. Only Jesus does. Give it up to him.

Observe – For the first 4-6 months I just observed. I took crazy detailed notes. I looked like a creeper in the back as I took notes and began to write down things that could/needed to be changed. From the tech, to stage and program, to volunteers, job descriptions etc. Everything was under the microscope. After months of seeing how our systems were set up and looking at what they were producing, we began to address them one by one.

Apply slowly – At first there was just cosmetic stuff to make services flow better or look better. Stuff everyone wanted to get better right away. Everything we changed first were things we had the power to easily change. Graphics, social media, sermon illustrations, song choice, band and games we played. Changing the culture is not a “band-aide” mentality, you can’t just rip it off. People are biologically ingrained to resist change… so do it gracefully. After the services were we wanted and we found a good balance, then we moved to people.

Volunteers – People are different from programs, we all know that. From the very beginning of me starting my position, I casted vision of where we want to be. Along the way, some people realized they were not on board, so they decided to get off. Others, not so easy and hard conversations followed.

You can never repeat your vision enough. By the time you are tired of hearing your vision, your volunteers are just beginning to get it. Adjusting the vision of current volunteers can happen and when they get it, they go after it. Once we established who is in or not, we began seeking after new leaders with this new vision who all they know is the new ways and when they get it… they are bought in. Culture begins to leak from them to your students.

Even down the line when you want to make more changes, the ones that are bought in will be your biggest advocates and will back you in the future because of how you first initially handled this first big change.

Relationships – Now that we have these leaders with this vision of where we are going and they know what success looks like, we release them out on students. Volunteers who understand the vision of your ministry and know what success looks like are unstoppable forces in the name of Jesus. The events we did, the series we planned our summer camp we choose to go to all were intentionally relational in nature. This has established our core group of students and now we get to build with an incredible foundation moving forward as we begin to launch small groups and continue to reach students far from God in hopes to see them come close to God.

I know there is a ton more we can all say when it comes to the culture of your group and I know the culture is different in every group. I do know and have experienced, if you don’t like the culture you can begin to prayerfully, slowly and change the culture you desire for your leaders and students to come to know Jesus in a way they have not been able to with the current culture that is in place.

What did you do or have you done to begin to set the culture you have wanted to see in your own ministry?

@justinknowles3

18 Jan 2017

Prioritize what others need

By |2017-01-18T08:07:31-08:00January 18th, 2017|Leadership, Volunteers|0 Comments

I took most of the week off between Christmas and New Years, as did most of my colleagues. During that time, my family vacationed in San Antonio. We explored, rested, and had fun. We shut our laptops and distanced ourselves from our jobs.

When I returned to work after the New Year, I immediately asked myself, “Why did I just take a vacation? I have SO MUCH to do!”

Our winter retreat loomed before me, a mere 11 days away. I had a theme and a general sense of the Bible story that would serve as it’s basis, but not much more than that.

That morning, I created a to-do list – listing out every single thing I had to complete before the winter retreat began. The completed to-do list was multiple pages long. I had no idea how I would finish it in time.

So I took another pass through my list to prioritize the items on it.

As a creative person, I wanted to begin with the things requiring the most creative energy: Crafting the retreat content and creating experiential prayer stations.

The things I wanted to do last were the administrative tasks: Confirming we had all the necessary forms from everyone, writing checks, and assigning roommates.

As I looked at my list I realized something: Others were depending on me to finish things in order to do their jobs. Adult leaders needed small group lessons. Parents needed to know what forms were missing. The accountant needed to know how much to write the check for. The retreat center needed paperwork.

What mattered most in prioritizing the items on my to-do list wasn’t what gave me life or sucked energy out of me. It was whether or not someone else needed it.

So I took another pass through my list and prioritized it according to others’ needs. Then I got to work.

I spent two days working non-stop to craft the small group content for the retreat so that when we held our leader’s meeting, I could give it ALL to my adult leaders. When I did so – 10 days BEFORE our retreat – leaders were floored. As they began preparing, I consistently heard two things from them:

“Thanks for giving us so much time with this material. It’s been so helpful to go through it slowly.”
“Thanks for getting this info to us before the weekend. It makes such a difference to be able to prep it over a weekend!”

I then shifted gears and tackled the administrative tasks others were depending on. I chased down forms, connected with our retreat center and bus driver, and did everything possible to ensure that the details would be taken care of so that other leaders could simply be with the kids.

Once those things were handled, I looped back and did the things I was most excited about – like writing prayer stations. By the time the retreat began, everything on my to-do list was crossed off… In an order that honored those that I was serving with.

When we prioritize the things others need to do their jobs, we set them up for success. Then our leaders – and our ministries – win.

27 Dec 2016

What Is Right, Wrong, Missing or Confused About Your Ministry?

By Justin Knowles|2016-12-27T00:31:13-08:00December 27th, 2016|Leadership, Volunteers, Youth Pastor Life|2 Comments

As the end of 2016 approaches this week, thinking of this last year in our ministry seems to be on the front of my mind. I can’t help it. I can look back and thank God for all He has done this year in my life, family and ministry. The end of the year is always a good time to reflect back look at your ministry and begin to work on 2017 to celebrate the good things, point out the things that could get better and begin to come up with a plan in 2017.

Not only would I do this by myself on my own time, but I would also get some people who you trust and really love the ministry enough to be honest and go through this exercise with them. You will be surprised what comes up.

This process is something our church does often. We do this for events, the year in ministry and even in our personal review process. When you begin to make the lists with whom you want in this meeting, it will only make you better. It’s really easy, it is just 4 categories:

RIGHT – Make a list and write down all of the things that were RIGHT this year. What were the things you would not change and you would like to keep doing and keep building on? Could be a program, an event or a person. What went right in your ministry this year and work on making it happen.

Some things that went right for us this year:

One Nights (our invite nights)
You Own The Night (student lead service)
Business card style fliers
Volunteer team additions

WRONG – This list is a painful one but a needed one. In this list, take some time reflecting on the things in which flopped. What was wrong? What won’t you do again and why? What is happening right now that needs to stop?

Some things that went wrong:

Small group excitement. It was better but is still not right.
Winter Retreat. We had to cancel last-minute after promoting. It was the right call but it’s never an easy one.

MISSING – This list should be things that you would have liked to see in your ministry this year but didn’t. What were the events, vibes, atmosphere, types of leaders you know that if you had it would have been better. What types of things were missing, create the list, and work on filling those things in 2017.

Things we were missing this year:

A good small group plan. We have one but need to revamp.
Leaders. What ministry has ever said, “No, we have enough volunteers”?

CONFUSED – This list would be full of the things that are confusing in your ministry. What are the areas in your area in which you do but may not know why, there is an area in which there is no intentionality, etc. Is your next step process not clear? Your leader on-boarding process? What? Take some time and really think about the areas in your ministry that are not as clear as they should be.

Some things that are confusing for us:

Our small group plan and integration. We are working on it and have a plan for next year…. ideally.
Multi-site strategy.

If I were you, I would try to go through this by yourself and then gather a few people to go through this with you by the end of January. It is a great challenge and eye-opening, healthy experience for your whole ministry.

@justinknowles3