As youth leaders, we are called to serve primarily, not to lead. Though I wasn’t wild about Leonard Sweet’s book I am a follower, I did agree with him that the Bible says a whole lot more about following and serving than it does about leading. Being a leader means serving and as youth leaders, we should serve our pastors above all.

I know that there are lots of youth leaders and youth pastors who have an issue with their pastor. It saddens me to see ‘disagreement with pastor’ pop up as a search term for finding my site so regularly. And I’m not saying youth leaders are always at fault here, nor are the pastors. It’s just a sad reality that youth leaders and pastors don’t always work well together for whatever reason.

(more…)

We’re finding inspiration for blog posts in interesting search terms people have used to find this blog. It strikes me how many times you feel a story behind a search term, a deep underlying emotion. Today’s topic is another example of this: my youth ministry isn’t growing.

My youth ministry isn’t growing. If someone would tell me that, my first response would be: how does that make you feel? Because I feel a world of emotions behind this simple search term.

(more…)

This is another search term that I see popping up regularly: how to motivate youth. I’m picturing a very frustrated youth leader here, struggling with unmotivated young people in his or her small group or youth group. They don’t want to listen, they don’t want to answer question, they don’t want to pay attention or help out. What do you do when your students are completely unmotivated?

I have one advice for you: raise the bar for teens. It may seem very counter intuitive, but in order to motivate young people, you have to raise the bar.

(more…)

We’ve been looking at funny or interesting search terms people have used to find this blog. Here’s another one I came across a few weeks ago: my youth group leaders are not serious. Once again, you feel that there’s a story behind this…What could this story be?

Considering the way the search term is formulated, both a youth pastor and a student could have written it. Let’s see what we could advise in either case.

From a youth pastor’s perspective

(more…)

In the last couple of posts, we’ve been looking at some interesting search terms people used to find my blog. Today we’ll be discussing this one: Why do you want to be a youth leader?

I don’t know why people are searching on this term. Maybe they are a youth leader and now doubt if they made the right choice, if this is what they’re supposed to do. Maybe they’re thinking about becoming a youth leader and aren’t sure about their motivation. Or maybe they’re looking for deeper, spiritual truths about being a youth leader…is it just something you do or do you need a God-given calling of some sort?

 

Why did I want to be a youth leader?

(more…)

This season is almost at an end and that makes it a natural time to look back and reflect on another season of youth ministry. It’s great to think about what went right.

What were big successes this season? Where did you grow as a person, as a child of God and as a youth leader?

(more…)

There’s no such thing as a perfect family, but some of our teens face a more difficult situation at home than others. Their parents are divorced, they’re growing up in a single parent family, they’re part of a complicated family structure with step- and half-siblings, you name it. Or they have to deal with unsupportive parents who are not doing a good job in raising them, who take their own frustrations out on their kids.

How do we help our teens to deal with difficult situations like this with their parents? Is there anyway we can help them, equip them? Can we in anyway compensate for what they miss out? Here are some of my thoughts.

1. Help them understand

While it’s certainly not their task to be the adult in the relationship, it does help if teens understand their parents better. That means we may need to take the time to explain difficult family dynamics, or educate them on the effects of for instance divorce or loss.

We need to be careful not to condone any negative behavior, but we can try to make the teen aware that there are reasons for it. Also, it’s important to realize that this is especially tough for younger teens who have a hard time understanding abstract concepts and emotions, so make it as clear and concrete as you can.

If we can help teens understand their parent(s) better, it’s a good first step in coming up with a constructive approach to the situation.

Some of our teens face a really difficult situation at home. How can we help them deal with this?

(more…)

There’s a saying I came across years ago and I’ve always remembered it. It’s a quote by a famous Indian diplomat named Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and it goes like this:

The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war

(more…)

I kept hearing and seeing this name pop up in theological discussions: N.T. Wright. When someone is that interesting, I always figure it’s time to make up my own mind and read a book he’s written. And so I did. N.T, Wright is a well-known scholar on the New Testament and a bishop in the Anglican Church.

(more…)

We’ve been talking about the destructive effects of gossip and how you can address gossip amongst your youth leaders. Now it’s time to focus on our students and what we as youth leaders can do when they gossip.

Teens nowadays grow up in a world where gossip is rampant, big business even. Tabloids pay big bucks for stories about celebrities and many people have made a living spreading gossip about others. There’s even a whole TV series named after this almost favorite pastime for many teens, especially girls (‘Gossip Girl’).

(more…)