Mind of a Jr. High Student

Do you remember when you were in Jr. High? It was such a strange time but such a big time in your life. For most of us it was the first time that we really started to notice the opposite sex in ways other than just throwing stuff at them. We began to ask really big questions like, “Who am I?”, “Who are my friends?”, “Who is God”, “Why do I smell so bad all the time?”. Well, maybe I just ask that question about my 7th grade boys.

I want to talk about the two sides of a Jr. High student that we see and must minister to. The first side is what I will call “The Child” and the second side is what I will call “The Teen”.

Here at Journey Church our Jr. High Ministry is from 6th grade to 8th grade. With these with the 6th graders it is very easy to see “The Child”.

In the reading I have done lately about Jr. High students, I have learned one very big fact, and understanding this little piece of information opens up a big understanding into the Jr. High world. The fact is this: Jr. High students' brains are not yet fully developed. Mainly the frontal lobe of their brain is not fully developed. What does the frontal lobe do? The frontal lobes are involved in motor function, problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language, initiation, judgment, impulse control, and social and sexual behavior.

It makes a lot of since now that when I ask, “Why did you do that?” and I get the answer, “I don’t know”. They really don’t know sometimes.

So how do we minister to someone that is going through all of these changes? Simple, we do exactly what we saw Jesus do. We meet someone's physical needs and then focus on his or her spiritual needs.

The aspect of fun is vitally important when it comes to Jr. High ministry. For many students this is a big physical need. We want students to play games, run around a little bit and just have fun. If you don’t think that this is a physical need for a Jr. High student, then you must not have been around very many of them. They bounce around the room with seemingly unending energy because they are still very much kids. We must allow them to be children and play.

Also, we want to blend fun into teaching as well. By using illustrations that students can see and touch it allows teaching to come alive and be more than someone just talking at them for 20 minutes.

With all of that being said, it's as simple as this: We must meet students right where they are. Some 6th graders act like they're 35 years old, while some 8th graders run around like they're 5. You must be flexible enough to allow the students to be themselves and show love and grace in every possible situation.

So as much as these students love to run around and be crazy, they start to ask some very difficult questions. “Who am I?” is one of the biggest questions that most students ask at this age. They normally don’t ask it in this way but you can understand what they mean.

Identity for so many of these students is very difficult. They feel like they do not measure up. They see friends that are developing physically faster than they are, and for many of them, this crushes their self worth. Many of these students were starters on their basketball team in the 3rd and 4th grade but have not hit their growth spurt yet and are struggling on the JV team. We may not see things like this as much of a big deal, but it is huge in a young students' life.

As a ministry we want to give students something more concrete to live by other than sports or their looks. Tim Mannin our head student pastor here at Journey created these four values.

Our first value is “Live Differently”. As a student walks through our ministry, we want them to hold to this value and know that they do not have to be like all of their friends; that God has called them to something so much greater. This value speaks to a lot of our students that are dealing with identity. As they are growing up and their parents are starting to let them make more decisions on their own, they begin living their faith journey for themselves.

Our second value is to “Love Recklessly”. We pray that students will understand how to love God and others recklessly. I love using the word recklessly to describe our love because it reminds us all that love is sometimes not always safe. Love should always be something that we fight for.

Third is to “Lead Courageously.” We do not believe that someone has to be an adult to lead. We want to allow students the opportunity to lead and do ministry in their community. We have students serving in all types of different ministries.

Finally we want our students to “Dream Wildly.” This is one value that has really touched my heart over the past year. With many of these students you see “The Child” in them as they dream. Jr. High students dream huge dreams with which God can do amazing things not only in their own life but the lives of their friends and schoolmates. We want to see these students live into the dreams that God has given them to see a city transformed.

So I want to leave you with this. My prayer for anyone reading this is that you will be a Jr. High student today. Go do something fun that you haven't done in a while, run until you can't run anymore, laugh until you can't breathe. But at the end stop and ask yourself this question, “God, who have you created me to be?”.

8 Principles for Leading a Team

I read this article and thought it was fantastic. Check it out!

"I recently sat down with all of our worship leaders here at NewSpring Church for two hours…it was seriously an amazing series of conversations.

At one point, Lee McDerment, our worship leader at the Anderson campus asked me, “What are some things all of us need to keep in mind as we lead teams.”  I gave a decent answer … but after I got back to my office I began to write my thoughts down … and here are eight things I believe that every leader needs to keep in mind when leading a team.

#1 – You will never effectively motivate someone with feelings of guilt

I’ve made that mistake as a leader before, thinking if I could just get someone to feel bad they would do a better job … WRONG!  No one has ever brought about significant change in the world because guilt propelled them to do so.  AND … if a leader finds himself always motivating by guilt … he will also soon find himself without anyone to lead.  NO ONE likes going on a guilt trip.

#2 – People don’t respond to need – they respond to vision

When a leader talks about a need, some people will respond.  BUT, when a leader can cast a compelling vision about what SHOULD BE – and with God’s grace and our participation, WOULD BE – CHANGE HAPPENS!  Many times a team leader will drift off course – NOT because they are lazy and/or pathetic, but because maybe they have forgotten why they do what they do – and a shot of vision will cure that every time.

#3 – A person cannot be held accountable for unspoken expectations

Another mistake I’ve made in the past as a leader is assuming people could read my mind and so when they didn’t do what I thought should have been done I would get angry with them.  After some very confusing looks and some really tough conversations I began to realize that I was expecting things out of people that I hadn’t clearly explained!  Our job as leaders is to give clear, realistic expectations and then resource the people to make those things happen.

#4 – Keep short accounts

The Bible says in Ephesians 4:26-27 that we are to not let the sun go down on us while we are angry.  In other words, we should act with URGENCY when it comes to conflict among the teams we lead.  Unresolved conflict is like cancer that begins to eat away at the body.  It must be dealt with OR its destruction will bring about death.  Many leaders RUN FROM conflict because it is uncomfortable, but I’ve learned the hard way that we must embrace a little discomfort now or A LOT of it in the future!

#5 – Don’t be afraid to set high standards

One of the problems I’ve discovered when it comes to leadership in the Church is that some people are perfectly fine with setting the bar of excellence really low ... and then allowing the people they lead to crawl under it.  I know leaders who literally fear that if they set high standards that people will get offended.  However, the thing I’ve learned around here at NewSpring is if we DON’T set high standards people do not feel challenged … which leads to boredom!  (BTW … I said “high standards,” not “unrealistic ones!”)

#6 – Beware of the all-star

One of the things that cripples any team is when it has an all star who believes ministry simply cannot take place without them.  And when a leader begins to believe that about an individual on the team then they will often fear what might happen if the all-star left rather than what would happen if the presence of God left!!!  Every “star player” who truly has an intimate walk with God understands that it’s the TEAMWORK that makes the DREAMWORK – period.

#7 – Each team member is a human being

The leader who views the team he leads as people who are assembled to do what he wants them to do – and that’s it – sucks as a leader!  A leader MUST care about the people he leads and NOT just the tasks they perform.  If a team member sees themselves as merely a tool in the leaders hand rather than a valued team member … they will soon be looking to join another team.

#8 – Ask questions

One of the biggest mistakes a leader can make is assuming that they have to have the answer to every question that comes their way.  (BTW … NO leader is that good!)  One of the things I am realizing more and more is how incredibly gifted and talented the people around me are … and over the past several years I’ve asked this question in so many meetings when someone presents an issue to me, “So, what do you think we should do?”  Often times the person already has the solution planned out … which saves me (and everyone else on the team) all kinds of time and energy!  The reason God blesses a leader with a team is so that leader can harness the collective wisdom of everyone involved and make the best decision.

Besides … people ARE going to share their opinion somewhere … a leader might as well be the first to hear it … because it can save a lot of problems in the future.

One more thing … the only reasons a leader might not ask questions is because he is insecure (thinks doing so will show weakness), full of pride (thinks he is better than everyone else) or fear (because he knows the answer he is going to hear from the team is the right one – but not the one he prefers!)"

Focus In The Wild

I am very sorry it has been so long since I have posted anything.  This post will be very short and to the point since we leave for summer camp in eight days.  This summer has been one of the busiest summers I have ever had yet one of the best as well.  When we get busy in ministry one of the first things we do is put our heads to the grindstone and make the magic happen. Often we neglect the most important things in our life. The reason I believe that this has been such an amazing summer for myself is that I kept my priorities in line.  I was asking myself some very important questions. 

What is God teaching me? 

Does my wife feel loved? 

In what area am I growing? 

Am I having fun? 

I think when we are asking these questions we are insuring health for our own life which leads to health in our ministry. 

What questions are you asking yourself? 

Leader Training Ideas

I think one of the most overly talked about things but least accomplished in youth ministry is leadership development.  I know, for myself, this is something that I don’t think I do near enough.  I sat down the other day and started a list of different areas that I think could be very useful for our leaders to learn more about.  Here is the start of that list.  Please add any other things that you have thought on or think could be useful for leaders.

1.     Why what they do is important?

2.     What is my role?

3.     First impressions with a student

4.     Good to Great

5.     Conversation starters

6.     Turn a question into a discussion

7.     The importance of fun in your small group

8.     Group Dynamics

9.     How to deal with a difficult student

10. Most important time outside of group

11. Difference between role model and friend

12. Prayer

13. How to prepare for group

14. How to work with a co-leader

15. Parents

16. Pre and post service times

17. Finding my strength

18. Being yourself

19. Healthy Challenges

20. Sharing Christ

21. Dealing with Death

22. Dealing with Divorce

23. Opening up the wall flower

24. Recruiting other leaders

25. Your Development

26. Your family

This is just a list that I have started.  I know it needs a lot of work and is not even close to being in order.

Volunteer Leaders Pt. 3

If you had to imagine the perfect small group leader, or just a leader in your ministry at any level, what would that person look like? Would they come prepared? Would they always have encouraging words to share with the students?  Would they make phone calls  just to see how their day is going? Hopefully you have in your mind what that leader looks like. 

So how close do YOU look like that leader.  Are you coming prepared to your meetings and group times? I know for myself I can hop up on a stage and wing something, but are we taking the time to really prepare for those meetings with our leaders so that they walk away "Developed" or some other nice key word that we love to throw around. If we expect our leaders to come knowing their stuff we must show them that we are doing everything ourselves with a high level of excellence. 

We are always looking for great leaders to encourage our students in their spiritual life and just to provide that pat on the back.  What are you doing to encourage your leaders?  We must do more than yelling, "Great Job!!!" as they are leaving for the night.  Take some time and write a note, make those phone calls, spend some money and take them to lunch with no other agenda than to hang out and tell them how much they mean to you and that you value what they do. We have to do more than the annual Christmas party.  Imagine what you would think if you were meeting with a leader and they said the last time they had done anything for their students was in December. With all this, I simply want to leave you with this... 

If we want leaders that encourage, we must encourage our leaders. 

Ministry around Parents

Here is a group of youth pastors talking about parents. Great Stuff! http://timschmoyer.com/2009/05/15/podcast-shaping-youth-ministry-around-parents/

Volenteer Leaders Pt. 2

(Interviewing leaders and finding the right place)

I have to start this entry off by telling you how important I think that Jr. High ministry is. Because I value this ministry and the students in it, I want to be very careful in finding the right leaders and placing them in the perfect spot so that they and the students feel valued and develop through the whole process.

The first thing that is important in placing these leaders is having them fill out an application. We have all our leaders fill out an applications for a couple of different reasons. First is the obvious reason of safety. We have all our leaders go through a background check because you can never be too safe when dealing with students. Along with that, on these applications we get to find out a little more about these leaders. We get to hear their story written out and other experiences they have gone through in their life that will affect the way they lead students. This process allows us to see what kind of person is wanting to be a part of our ministry. Also one thing that this application does is it weeds out a few people. I don't mean this in that they fill it out and we turn them down. I mean we give out a lot of applications and they never come back. Our application is a few pages and will take some time to fill out. You are able to really see the commitment of the leader by the time they took to fill this out. These applications help us learn about these leaders and get all their contact information in a real easy way. Tim Mannin, the Executive Student Pastor at Journey, is the person that developed our forms and they are great. If you are looking to really learn ministry from someone he is the man to follow. Look him up on twitter, it is well worth it.

After a leader fills out this application we will meet with the leader to talk more about our ministry and also start a relationship with our leaders. We want them to start feeling comfortable with us and us really start to care for these leaders. During this time it is important to listen to these leaders and also make your vision for your ministry clear and all expectations laid out on the table. It is much easier to lay all the expectations out on the table here than a few months down the road. Believe me, I know this principle.

After the interview and some prayer time we have to look for a place to put this new leader. I think it is real easy to simply put the leader in the place that you need to fill a body. But, this is not always smart. Ask yourself some big questions. What are the strengths of this leader? What are the weaknesses? Are there any students that are walking through some of the same things that this leader talked about? You can think of a thousand more questions to find that perfect place for that leader not only to enjoy what they do, but to succeed. We must set these leaders up to knock it out of the ball park.

What is your process of interviewing leaders?
What are some of the questions that you ask when placing a leader?