Why Fivefold Ministry matters to youth ministry – by Jonny Price

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‘Fivefold Ministry’  is a concept that can be found in Ephesians 4:11. In it Paul outlines five roles Jesus has given the Body of Christ to help it to mature, these are:

  • Apostles – Pioneers of new work
  • Evangelists – Fresh communicators of the gospel
  • Prophets – Those who speak out about spirituality and the realities of life
  • Pastors – Nurturers, carers and protectors of the people
  • Teachers – Communicators of the wisdom of God

Each of these roles are responsible for a different aspect of the growth of the Body of Christ. Often this idea is applied to leadership of our Churches, but rarely are those same principles carried across to our youth ministry. I believe that they should be, and that if they are, they can have a great impact upon our work.

Here are four important lessons for youth workers to take from the ‘Fivefold Ministry’ concept.

  1. It reminds us that not all youth ministry is evangelism.

Often, the stereotypical youth worker’s gifts are primarily the same as an evangelist, with a lesser emphasis on the pastor role. There is nothing wrong with this, as long as the ministry these youth workers build is not based solely on their gifts alone.

A youth ministry based on evangelism may be great for reaching out, but how do we then build up the faith of the young people we work with beyond their initial commitment to Jesus? A youth ministry based on teaching may be great for developing faith, and teaching the Bible, but how do we then make sure that our young people are being taken care of?

If we build a team of people with a variety of gifts, then our ministries will be able to evangelise, develop faith, care for young people, and equip them to do likewise all at the same time.

  1. It helps stop our ministries becoming stagnant.

If we have a team of people who all have the same gifts, play the same role, or place their emphasis and passions in the same place, then it won’t be long until that ministry becomes stagnant, relative and misweighted.

If, however, we have a balanced team made up of different roles and gifts, then there will be a constant, healthy tension between the different emphases of the ministry. This means that the team will always be pushing towards new ideas, exploring blind spots, and growing deeper in what they are doing.

  1. It opens the door to new types of youth worker

If we build our teams of people who think and act the same as us, then how are we showing the diversity of the Body of Christ? We risk inadvertently closing the ministry door to people who don’t act the same way as us, or who see things a bit differently.

If we are able to show the diversity inherent in Fivefold Ministry, then we will demonstrate a far more holistic ministry to our young people, and allow them to step into it themselves.

  1. It allows our young people to take ownership.

One of the common misunderstandings about Fivefold Ministry is that it only applies to leaders. If instead we approach it as being applicable to the whole Body of Christ, then we will allow our young people to take ownership of our ministry too, and of their own faith development. We will start talking about faith more, inviting our young people to be a part of it. As a result, this will help them to see how they can live out different aspects of faith, because they will see these different aspects in us.

This is exciting! Imagine a youth ministry where you don’t need to meet up with young people week in and week out to see how they are doing because you know that through the relationships they have with each other, they are being taken care of. Or imagine that you know that the teaching you give at youth group is less essential because they are teaching each other from the Bible.

Brining it all together

Yes, the Fivefold Ministry comes with problems, like all good and new concepts do. Working with people who have different visions of ministry to us causes conflict and strain. But with proper communication, even the conflict can be an amazing tool for development.

Let’s diversify our leaders and volunteers, so that they represent the diversity of the Body of Christ, and so through that diversity, our young people can experience and know more of the love of God, and the plan that He has for their lives. Surely this is the point of everything we do.

Real stories from 40 women in youth work

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On this International Women’s Day I’d like to pay respect, honour and gratitude to female youth workers.

Lingering over from Western Christendom is a patriarchal and masculine church. This interprets theology and practice with a bent that need correcting. In many churches we are quite happy for a woman to be a youth and children’s pastor, but even within those apparent ‘safe zones’ there are a subversive and subliminal undercurrents of hostility and prejudice.

A month or so ago I asked forty female youth workers what particular struggles they have had in their jobs, and to share their stories.

Below is a snapshot of quotes from those interviews. These are things our sisters have experienced, and things that have been said directly to them. I’m not leaving them here to judge or pick apart; and I’m not making any theological argument or taking an overt position. I leave these here as an attitude check: Church, we must do better for our sisters!

“I can’t be a proper pastors/youth pastors wife if I don’t get my hair cut short (at my current church). Men coming up to me to say I should be helping not teaching (not in my current church)”

“My biggest struggle is establishing credibility and respect. “

“First question asked by some parents and particularly older ministers when they meet me…”Have you gone to Bible school?” or “Where did you study?” “

“Some random guy, “I bet those high school boys love THAT youth group.””

“Dad: “I’ll manage my son. Being a girl, you don’t understand what he’s dealing with””

“Ladies from church constantly introducing me to their sons or showing me pictures of them, “Don’t miss the plane!””

“Somehow young(ish) divorced church men think it’s a good idea to add me on facebook and private message me to “get to know me”.”

“For about a year, I had people tell me I needed to hurry up and find a man because, being a woman, I couldn’t relate to boys. Two years later, they told me to be more ladylike so I could relate to the girls, because I’m only good at relating to the boys (I’ve always been a tomboy). Also, there are some concerns that me wearing men’s clothing may make my girls lesbian?”

“Women don’t belong in ministry.”

“How can you be a minister AND a mom?”

“You aren’t a pastor, just a director of a program.”

“It never occurs to anyone that I might be trained and/or seminary educated.”

“Church members try to fix me up with their single sons/nephews. I also hear “she’ll never relate to boys in youth group” and “the boys only keep coming to youth group because she’s cute” in equal measure.”

“I was told recently I couldn’t speak at a youth event because there were some ministers that, if they were there, would walk out.”

“Most of my opposition has come from other women, not men. Most of my biggest supporters and people who will go to bat for me are men. A lot of the opposition comes (I think) from women’s own insecurities and struggles with pride that cause them to lash our towards us. Other women have said, “go and get a real job, be a school teacher” or “how can you be a pastor your not married” or “how can you be a pastor you’re not a mom”… the list could go on and on.”

“”how can you possibly relate to male students?” I guess in the same way male YP relate to female students.”

“Does your husband write your messages? That’s nice your husband lets you come hangout with kids.”

“”you are doing a good job, but The church would prefer a man in this role, eventually””

“The one thing I still face (even with an MDiv, even being licensed) are church members who just can’t/won’t accept my authority based only on my gender.”

“What I find fascinating is it seems to now be younger men, in their late 20’s, early 30’s more so than the older generation.”

“Finding a job. Do you know how many job descriptions have the words he/him/his? And then I have gotten responses back with one question: “Are you a man?” I have two degrees in student ministry and have volunteered for nearly 15 years in various capacities but rarely get any response.”

“I occasionally get asked when I’m going to have kids (which stings a little since my husband and I have been struggling with infertility for the past years) but other than that I am truly blessed to serve where I do.”

“I feel supported overall, but there is the feeling that I am incapable due to my gender.”

“I am the children’s minister at our church, note I am paid staff. I was told last week I wasn’t allowed to go on the staff retreat bc I was a woman…. my husband could go and “represent” me.”

“Our District Youth Director refuses to believe that I’m not the administrative assistant.”

“I have noticed the two people before me in the position were called youth “pastors” and were men; I come in and am now the youth “director.””

“I don’t think it’s been much of an issue ministry-wise–I think it’s been more of an issue when it comes to dating. Some men are not a fan of women in ministry leadership positions.”

“Biggest problem for me being told I’m so young I’m only 29. And still single but i don’t listen to what others say and focus on God and my youth kids.”

“I have had parents, (former) volunteers, and church members tell me they’re glad my husband is the teaching pastor for our HS students “because that’s how God has intended for ministry to be led.” Little do they know that’s why my husband teaches. It’s been so hard for me to teach because of that.”

“I was invited to be a lead speaker on a training tour, but then they had to ask me to step down because the hosting church was too conservative to have a woman teach.”

“To my husband (who is a police officer): “At least you’re in charge at home… right?””

“Commentary about details like: my haircut, my clothing being too pretty for preaching (it was conservative), “you’re a really solid preacher for a woman.” Then, there are the people who talk to my husband about ministry details, instead of (or in front of) me.”

“I’ve been around male leaders will come up and talk to my husband and I but literally ignore me. Won’t shake my hand, make eye contact, or acknowledge my comments.”

7 Ways To Lead People Older Than You – on Leadanyone.com

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A wee while back, I was approached to write a couple of articles of Leadanyone.com by it’s founder Joel Preston. The whole site is full of quality articles and I would heartily recommend it to you.

The first of my articles went up online, and you can read it here. It’s a simple set of tools used to evaluate objectively your ministry projects. I hope that it’s helpful!

How To Be The Ideal Youth Worker

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What makes an ideal youth worker ideal? What ingredients do you need to add to the mix? What specific traits and skills should we be developing to fill holes in our youth worker template?

This was a brilliant question posed to me in a training session this morning. I’m going to attempt to summarise my answer here.

There are several tiers to an ‘ideal’ youth worker starting with the nonnegotiable and working down to specific specialised skills. All of these should be developing, growing and organic.

We all love diagrams right? Here’s one I made earlier.

There are no ideal youth workers, we all know this, and every youthworker will be different depending on context. However I feel these principles are mostly transferable. They are the basis for what I expect from myself and my teams. They also form the framework of my interview process.

Love For God & Young People

At the top of the pyramid are the most important: a love for God and a love for young people – and a keen flow between these two. If you don’t have these you’re following the wrong trail.

F.A.T.

Second we see the key traits of longevity; faithfulness, a commitment to God, people, projects and ministry life; availability, a – within safe boundaries(!) – accessibility to people and projects; and teachability – a proactive willingness to learn and grow that is accountable and open.

Commitment to …

This tier contains the essential faith-driven lifestyle commitments: An ever growing passion for reading the bible, prayer and worship personally and within community.

Development of…

Here we see specific skills that will be useful regularly in all kinds of youth work. Listening skills are always valuable, as is the ability to think and problem solve creatively. A growing theological understanding is also important, alongside learning different ways to communicate this understanding. Finally it’s key that every youth leader is trained in best safeguarding practice.

Specialising in…

The final tier includes the main areas where a youth leader should think about specialising. Not all of these will be essential to every youth worker.

Relational practice can be developed in many ways, but comes down to forming lasting, impressionable bonds with young people. Activity basis is taking specific gifts, talents and passions that you have and developing them in ministry contexts, for instance sport, music, drama, debate or knitting.

Inclusivity is always important but will rely on your context. This may include working alongside various ages, social and health difficulties, specific cultures or members of the LGBT community. Similar to this is working with those with different learning styles; key if you are doing lots of communication work and schools projects.

Parental support is particularly valuable if you’re doing church-based ministry as family worship is always the end goal. Finally management is vital if you’re overseeing projects and people.

This last tier is always the least important and is always the area that changes most throughout your youth work experience.

How to apply this in team management

These five tiers should form the basis of in house growth and training.

You should have the top two tiers sown solidly into the regular fabric of your projects, ministry and recruitment process.

The third tier is checked up on through community involvement (generally) and through regular individual supervision sessions (specifically). I try to do individual supervision in various ways once every 6 months, and team supervision annually.

The last two tiers should form the basis of group training that you run and attend. The top of these should be three-line-whip sessions for the whole team with regular annual repeats, and training for the last should be made available to those who want it.

 

 

How to Line Manage Your Youth Worker

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“Behind every great man there’s a great women rolling her eyes” (Bruce Almighty), and behind every great Youth Worker there is a great support structure.

A support structure means more than just well-wishers and prayer-warriors. A support structure means work contracts, policies, accountability boards, bosses, mentors and managers… good ones, not pants ones.

I bet that one of the top reasons youth workers quit so early and frequently is a widespread lack of understanding of the chain of command. Everyone thinks they’re your boss – parents, teenagers, councils, caretakers – everyone!

I think the holy trinity of successful youthwork support is a pastor – to include you within the wider vision, a mentor – to nurture you as a disciple, and a line-manager – to develop you as an employee. All three need to have a different emphasis but a common goal. Hypostatic union if ever I saw it!

In my first full time youthwork job I had no line manager. As a result I ended up working regular 70hr weeks, didn’t receive about half of my leave (and when I did I was granted it too late to book or save), wasn’t able to formally develop my training and didn’t receive any clear feedback on my work performance. I left – and I nearly left youthwork completely.

My next job came with an able line manager, a quality mentor, a committed trustee board and a further accountability board to check up on the trustees. I’m still there – and I’m still growing.

The holy trinity of successful youthwork support is a pastor, mentor and line manager.

There are five specific areas that a line manager should be regularly checking up on: Timesheets, Annual Leave, Training, Project Management and Admin. Anything else probably falls under the purview of the Pastor or Mentor.

Timesheets: To check how much time the youth worker is working, where they’re spending it and what – if any – gaps are showing up while keeping an eye open for over working and unsociable hours.

Annual Leave: Making sure the youth worker is taking it – including day(s) off – and booking in advance. Also working alongside the youth worker to cover projects and seek outside help when needed. Annual Leave should never be made conditional on cover.

Training: Looking together at relevant conferences, courses, conversations and a reading budget. This should include spiritual feeding and practical training. Ideally the board should set an annual budget for professional development.

Project Management: Looking at the trickle down supervision of teams and volunteers under the youth worker. Mediating and advising on conflict resolution and making suggestions to both the youth worker and wider board regarding ongoing difficulties.

Admin: Anything that is foundational to the youth worker’s work, be it HR, policies, contracts, timesheets, rotas etc. Making sure that the machine is being well oiled by the right people.

These five areas should be noted and checked up on at least once every six weeks – and minuted properly. This means minutes will include a ‘matters arising’ section to check up on ongoing items. Annual supervision meetings with Pastors/boards etc. then have some written record to go off. Minutes should be circulated only to those who need them – usually Pastor/Chair-person, Line Manager and Youth Worker.

You can also include ‘correspondence’ in your meetings. This gives the youth worker a chance to talk about extraneous, troubling or potential communications that have an impact on their work – and the line manager a chance to bring to the youthw orker’s attention conversations with other leaders about work performance or project feedback – obviously filtering out the knuckle head and spiteful stuff.

Try to keep meetings to an hour, in a reasonably comfortable and private place!

Have fun

Evaluating Your Youth Project 1: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

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One of the top reasons youth projects fizzle, fail and die is that they are not regularly checked against purpose and evaluated against resources.

We start things off guns blazing but have only packed enough ammo for the initial shock campaign – so we get stuck in youthwork no-mans land covered in sweat, blood and tears wondering what to do, how to control things and most importantly – which way is out?

Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to outline three methods to evaluate a youth project:

  1. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (GBU)
  2. SWOT (or Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats)
  3. Purpose & Place

So kicking off today with…

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

I’m starting with this because it’s pig easy to remember and implement! You can do this for hours or you can do this for ten minutes; in fact GBU is used as a regular part of my weekly project debriefs.

Simply put it means:

– What was good?

– What wasn’t so good?

– What else is worth mentioning but we can’t decide whether it was good or not?

GBU is observational first and foremost: What did you see; objectively, what happened.

What Was Good?

The G. This – as with all stages of GBU – is deliberately a broad category. GBU is by nature an organic analytical tool that creates open conversation not closed categories. Good is – what struck you as being useful, helpful, fun, enjoyable, memorable, a right choice, a piece of divine providence or something that can be built on.

Not everyone is going to agree and some folk are going to argue that what felt good to one person was horrible for someone else. And that’s fine! This is there to be a basic conversation starter to keep things on the table.

What Was Bad?

The B. In all evaluation methods you need disclaimers – with the bad what we’re talking about is areas to improve and grow. We need to be careful not to be too judgmental or personal. Key words are ‘constructive’ and ‘objective.’

The bad is the bucket to put areas that didn’t go so well, or ‘it would have been nice if… but..’, also the areas that we’re not firing on all jets yet, or the needs we still have etc. It’s sometimes a good idea in this section to talk about what solutions might be necessary.

What Was Ugly?

The U. Nice and simple – this is a great way to break tension from the bad. It’s a convenient ‘agree to disagree’ category and an area to bring up potential ideas. U gives a bucket to put all the things we wanted to say but don’t really register as good or bad.

Oddly the Ugly category tends to be the one that generates most conversation and ideas.

So get on with it!

It takes us about ten minutes to do GBU after three of my weekly projects. We check up on each other, have good conversations and it fuels our prayer time. Well worth it! And – if someone takes notes you can get together each term and look for patterns and suggest changes.

Good fun, easy to do and could potentially save a youth project!

Next time: SWOT.

Style vs Substance: a youthwork showdown

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“Don’t bother with the style – just get on with the substance.”

“Stop trying to make it relevant, and just preach the Bible.”

“If you’re teaching the Gospel, the ascetics won’t matter.”

“If you’re showing authentic love, then style won’t be a factor.”

Heard phrases like this before? Me too! In fact I’ve been slammed in meetings before now for trying to make my youth groups fun and relevant to the detriment of (at least in the meeting’s view) depth and authenticity.

Since posting “youth work is 10 years out of date” I’ve had several comments that effectively said the things above. I could reduce these down to folk only reading the first half or even just the title of a post, however there still is a genuine concern behind them.

It sounds right too doesn’t it? ‘Just be authentic and Gospel-centered and you won’t need to worry about style.’ It sounds right, and wise, and Godly. It sounds like a driven passion for young people and truth. It’s a shame through, that it’s load of crap.

You see when it comes to relevancy and style you’ve only got two options: 1. Think about it and 2. Don’t think about it.

  1. Think about it
    Think about it properly, lay it before God and make ‘take-it-captive-for-Christ’ decisions. Talk to Godly people and decide how to carefully implement a style and how to enforce the right boundaries within it.
  2. Don’t think about it
    Neglect the discussion. Neglect to respect the world that young people live in. Don’t talk to God or Godly people. Crack on with content and simply see what style develops on its own – because it will!

Active vs Passive Style Development
There is no ‘style-free’ option. You always, always make style decisions, either actively with God and Godly people, or passively through negligence.

Think about it. How you present any content in your youth group is a style decision. Do you give talks, have small group studies? Who leads and how? Where do you meet and when? How do you advertise? How do you make first contact with young people? What books do you buy them? How do you choose themes and teaching material? Do you have music, food, games? What kind of chairs do they sit on? What rules do you have? What do you let them wear? What do you wear?

Everything you do in your youth group creates some kind of style rightly or wrongly. You simply cannot have a ‘don’t bother with style’ approach – that will always end up with negligence and a style developing passively.

This means either the young people themselves will dictate the style, or you will unknowingly dictate it for them. The former usually results in polarised spirituality; a group that’s Christian in situ but with no clue how to act it out in real life. The later often creates a group that you fight with and that only takes in a minuscule amount of substance and content anyway.

This high-minded approach is one of the reasons youth groups either die out or get overrun. Enforcing our style over theirs is irrelevant and letting theirs overtake the group is anarchy.

Why Is This Neglect?
You have a responsibility to give these young people the best respect, care, love, teaching and mentoring possible. This often means meeting them where they are at, rather than waiting for them to catch up.

If you don’t approach style like this actively you will:

– Neglect the young people’s world that they have to deal with and live in – so your content will prove irrelevant.
– Neglect the places and times un-churched young people connect – so you will be missionally ineffective.
– Neglect the real differences between you and them – so you will be leader-centric.
– Neglect the desperate needs they have that are missing in their world – so will program driven rather than community driven.
– Neglect Godly decisions needed to keep them feeling safe and secure – so will be just another stress in their lives.

Style Is Important!
Style Is Important. Find me one place in the Bible where teaching happened out of context of people? We are called to create a space where young people have the absolute best chance of hearing the Gospel, experiencing God’s love, and learning how to take those things applicably into real life! We also have a responsibility to lead them in 1 Cor. 12 Body-Of-Christ style community. Creating these spaces require intentional style conversations and discussions!

Some Rules Of Thumb
When you start asking what style you should create to make your teaching and community welcoming and relevant there are a few rules of thumb to consider:

  1. Gospel Should Drive Style
    Rather than Gospel instead of style – Gospel should dictate style. You should not create a space that contradicts the Gospel or limits its reach. Allowing a relevant style doesn’t mean you can let just anything from the world infiltrate your group.
  2. Authenticity Should Drive Style
    Too much style in youth work is copied from / or set to compete with secular consumer culture. Your style should be driven by a sense of reality, human depth, community substance, participation and timeless reality.
  3. Personality Should Drive Style
    Many youth groups cater to one personality type or people group. Often small group driven projects cater to the introvert and middle class – often concert driven projects cater to the extrovert and working class. Who are the young people you know and does your space allow for varied personality types and backgrounds?
  4. Purpose Should Drive Style
    What and who is your group or project for? If you’re aiming at first contact then you simply cannot impose a totally full-on Christian-driven morality on their space. Style should create a context where your aims and content are going to be most effective.
  5. Context Should Drive Style
    You could meet in an Inner-City School, or a rural chapel. The young people could be primarily churched, un-churched, working or middle class. Think hard about where you are and who you pool from and bring that into the conversation.
  6. Relevancy Should Drive Style
    This was the heart behind my ‘youthwork is 10 years out of date’ post. We should seek to create a style which is relevant and applicable to them today so that our teaching can be more clearly received.
  7. Resources Should Drive Style
    If you don’t have lighting rigs, rock bands, a massive hall and dozens of able leaders then the modern music concert approach probably isn’t for you! Try to match what you want to create realistically with what God has given you to work with as good stewards.
  8. Young People Should Drive Style
    Have young people themselves give ideas on, feed into and participate in the creation and implementation of your style. They frankly get it better than we do anyway.
  9. Applicable Content Should Drive Style
    When you have thought carefully about style you are able to craft the delivery method for your content that will be most heard, understood and applied for your group. ‘We have a two hour Bible Study’ is not impressive if the young people switch off after the first five minutes. I’d rather have a five minute talk where the group took in every word and tried to apply it to their lives than a one hour completely ignored Bible study any day!

Summary
Please don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater by poo pooing style! It’s Godly, respectful and loving to consider the best ways to interact with and present truth to young people. Style will always be there, the big question is are you with God’s help going to be in control of it – or will it be in control of you.

Frankly sometimes a bit of style is just what’s needed to make the content go in!

Training Teams and Leaders To be ‘F.A.T.’

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These are the skeleton notes from last night’s ‘Monthly Meet’ training event for North Wales youth leaders.

The aim of this session was to propagate conversation on how we can grow as effective team members and leaders and how we can inspire others to do so together.

Intro.

We began by mind-mapping basic and fundamental principles of ‘ideal’ teams and team members. We came up with lots of quality points such as communication, identity, creativity, celebration, ownership, flexibility and servant-heartedness – Lots of great discussion ending with a short Bible Study on1 Cor. 12. The most fundamental points from this passage for our conversation were:

A– At the heart of God is both unity and diversity
B– At the heart of God’s design for people in community is unity and diversity
C– Godly communities look like God!

Therefore: For teams to behave in the way that God designed them to be – after His own image – they must celebrate and seek unity of vision and spirit and yet diversity in gifts, roles, abilities, personalities and passions. In doing this the team will model God’s own heart and character – thus will be effective and generally just awesome!

We decided that in the midst of diversity there are some traits common to every team member that are always healthy to cultivate. The three of these that we would focus on for the remainder of the session were Faithfulness, Availability and Teachability. This gives us the somewhat awkward acronym ‘f.a.t.’ Sorry.

Faithfulness

Bible – We looked together at both Deut.28:1-5 and Heb. 13:8. The former taught us that faithfulness required hearing from God, recognizing His voice and acting upon it. The latter verse reminded us that Faithfulness requires consistency – being faithful for five minutes isn’t necessarily faithfulness. Faithfulness is something modeled perfectly in Jesus and reveals the Father’s heart to us.

Practical – Faithful to whom / what? We looked at the following and placed them in the following order of priority. These we’re things to look for in potential team members, things to point out and celebrate in current ones and things to cultivate in ourselves:

– Faithful to God – Seeking Him first and remaining His children and disciples.
– Faithful to ourselves – Being good stewards of our own families and resources.
– Faithful to the team – Investing in each other and in team ownership so that we might serve and encourage each other to bring our best and be held accountable. Without this the next doesn’t work.
– Faithful to young people – In love, respect, consistency, role-modeling, interest and teaching.
– Faithful to the mission –  knowing and owning a clear purpose and focus of what your team is trying to accomplish.

We ended this section by thinking about some of the behavioral traits that ‘faithful’ people often exude such as:
– Humility.
– Contradict gossip.
– Regular.
– Respectful.
– Grounded.
– They model the behavior and commitment that they expect from others.

Availability

Bible – We looked atIs. 6:8 and 1 Cor. 26-28. The first verse reminded us that availability has something to do with an openness and general willingness to be used by God in His plans and purposes. The second verse contrasted availability with ability; God often chooses the available over the able because then we are left in no doubt that a powerful and epic God was behind it.

Practical – Available to who / for what / when? We talked over the following:

– Available for God – to be used by Him wherever and however He pleases.
– Available as ‘Interested Adults’ – being good listeners and genuinely interested in young people individually.
– Available with clear expectations and accountability – making sure that yourself and your team have agreed what is to be expected of them and to hold them accountable to those things.
– Available with a servant heart – seeking the Christ-like desire to put others first, work hard and cultivate servant-heartedness.

We again thought about the behavioral habits and traits of ‘available’ people. Here’s some of what we came up with:
– Reliable.
– Solid.
– Good listeners.
– Authentic.

Teachability

This is what myself (and many gifted leaders and teachers) struggle most with – the art of being teachable. This reveals the shapes of of our hearts possibly the most of the three.

Bible – We looked at Is. 64:8 and Prov. 1:1-7. Isaiah taught us to remember that all we have comes from God and that we should be usuable and adaptable to be grown for His purposes. Proverbs reminded us that apart from teachability being incredibly helpful, not being so is idolatry, foolishness and something that will draw us away from God. Powerful stuff!

Practical – How to maintain a teachable spirit? We looked at a few things that might lead us to do this:

– We don’t know everything – simple to start with but a good reminder that there’s always more!
– Developing humility – teachability is often the practical outworking of a humble heart. Its the smoke to humble’s fire.
– We can learn from who know more…AND we can learn from those who know less – Often we don’t learn because we decide we won’t learn – not because there wasn’t something worth learning.
– Non-teachability leads to isolation – without teachability you sap any potential accountability. A youth leader who is not accountable is just setting themselves up for disaster. They will know it – and so will their young people – too often too late.

As with the other two we talked about the behavioral characteristics and traits of a teachable person. Here’s some of what came out:- They ask more questions than give answers.
– They listen, hear and process – rather than thinking through responses when others are talking.
– They have open minds and personal sensibilities.
– They are content in who they are and where they are going.
– They are always looking for more.

Final Thoughts

To conclude things off we had some ‘final thoughts.’

  1. If you notice these traits in your young people, celebrate them. If you notice the potential of all three in someone invest in them as leaders.
  2. A good team reflection exercise is thinking through another ‘f.a.t’: Focus, Accountability and Teamwork (from here).
  3. As it came up a few times, I found a good list of ‘servant-hearted leader qualities’ from the Bible (from here):

žQualities of a Servant leader:

—They serve God – Galatians 1:10

—Others orientated – Philippians 2:3-4

—Willing to serve everyone – Matthew 10:42

—Serve with an uncomplaining spirit – Luke 17:7-10

—Hard working – Colossians 3:22-23

—Observant and alert – Philippians 2:3-4

—Faithful – Luke 16:10

Youth ministry and time management part

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So How Do We Do It? – An Example 1 Year Plan.
These are all helpful principles but they leave a basic question lingering: how do I actually flippin do it! They say it generally takes about three weeks to learn a new habit and about a year to take on a new lifestyle. So using that logic here is a year plan that I’ve done and some example goals and habits thrown in for you to replace.

First break the year up into 4, 3 month sections.

  • 3 month Section One is context habits.
  • 3 month Section Two is value habits.
  • 3 month Section Three is work habits.
  • 3 month Section Four is assessment habits.

(Obvious note – these are not all the thing needed to retain a healthy balanced life! They are just a sample of some of the things you could do in a year to dramatically help time-management skills. Obvious omissions include quiet times, space to reflect on the Glory of God, & general dependence on Him. There’s a reason we live 70 years! 20 years opening the box, 20 years reading the instructions, 20 years figuring out how the parts go together, and 10 trying it all again!)

(Slightly less obvious note – it helps spending some time prior to this taking some personality tests, keeping a motivation journal etc. just to give you stuff to work on in your intro weeks – that’s week 1 of every section.)

(Final note – unless you’re a bit of an anti-social loner like me, I bet it helps to have an accountability partner or mentor to do this alongside.)

(Another final note – life doesn’t stop. You’re working on bits of it at a time but you also need to hold in tension your job, family, diet etc. too! Don’t devalue your usual priorities because you’re particularly working on some. How do you do that? Haven’t a clue! Pray maybe?)

Section 1. Context habits:
This is eating, sleeping, socializing, energizing, and simply ‘being’ properly – like a baby learning motor skills. 🙂

  1. Spend the first week identifying 4 new habits to learn over the next 3 months.
  2. Learn new habit 1 over three weeks, like get up between 7 and 9am each morning.
  3. By the beginning of week 3 start habit 2, like go to bed between 11 and midnight each night. Continue these two habits together.
  4. By the beginning of week three of habit 2 (week 5 for habit 1) start on habit 3, which might be having a full main meal most days a week at roughly the same time.
  5. In the same pattern kick in habit 4 which could be breakfast + shower.

Three months over and you’ve got a basic sleeping/eating/hygiene pattern (50% battle over!) This might seems like a no-brainer, but I promise that without a firm regularity in this stuff you will not be able to learn any difficult new work-life style habits.

Section 2. Value habits:
This is making space for things (non-work related) that are particularly important to you, and bring you joy/energy in your life.

  1. Spend your intro week identifying 4 main values and habits that you will work on over the next 3 months.
  2. Habit 1 (same as pattern from previous 3 months. I.e. 3 weeks to learn, start habit 2 on 3rd week etc.) – could be figure out a regular date night with your spouse.
  3. Habit 2 – if you’re an extrovert, figure out a regular space in your day/week to socialise (pub? mates? lunch?), introvert – find down time and space (I tend to need this daily & put it in my ‘dead space’ time).
  4. Habit 3 – hobby time. Find space weekly/daily to work on a hobby. Practicing guitar works for me, or rock climbing. It doesn’t have to be the same thing each time but make space for it to be habitual.
  5. Habit 4 – Another idea here is ‘keep in touch’ habits. I have lots of American friends & family which I’m rubbish at keeping in touch with. A weekly hour of communication time helps that.

Btw. You should also be keeping all your section 1 habits going too! But hey, they’re getting funner aren’t they?

Section 3. Work habits.
These are simple things that make your work time more structured and prepared.

  1. Intro week – figure out both the things you’re always late with, have the most difficulty with as they will form the basis of your habits.
  2. Habit 1 – maybe something like arrive 15 minutes early for everything! (great feeling, fixes lots of problems from developing, and builds basic relationships with other early birds)
  3. Habit 2 – perhaps start preparing all talks, Bible studies, messages in advance by at least 5 days. Always be that far ahead – you’ll thank me in a year when people are commenting how much clearer you’re getting!
  4. Habit 3 – start regular affirmation habits (like thank you emails to leaders, we missed you cards to missing students, and we love you posit-notes on the heads of regulars)
  5. Habit 4 – Admin! Make a definite time whether its 1 day a week, or 30minutes every morning 5 days a week etc. just to do Admin – i.e. diary, to-do lists, priority tables, emails, letters, rotas etc. ‘At’ll tell dem monkies!

Hopefully you’re finding units fitting into place now. You’ve built a context of health & wellbeing, built around that with people you love and energy you need, and have placed around those small work habits that make you feel more in control.

Section 4. Assessment habits.
Ways into keeping a check on your time management development and improving on it

  1. Intro week – look back on all the habits you’ve learned, write them all down and smile
  2. Habit 1 – Start start time-sheeting – thats a SIMPLE day to day (prolly workdays only) table of how you spent your day. This is a spreadsheet, not a journal.
  3. Habit 2 – Work on a SWOT at a leisurely pace, looking at the Strengths and Weaknesses of your newly developed time/life management skills; then the opportunities that have opened up with your new skills/time, then the threats that have gotten in the way/might get in the way solidifying these new habits.
  4. Take genuine time & space to thank God and dedicate the year you’ve had to Him. Ask Him to own it, protect it, hold it, and rightly take credit for it! 😉
  5. Take a holiday. Chill, relax, & do stupid things. Start brainstorming your next year personal development plan!

…. bring on year two.

Last Word
So some of thoughts on time management, and an example 1 year plan. Time management is not a rule-of-thumb easy fix – anything make makes you think it is is deluded. If you want to improve you better bootstrap up and settle in for the long haul.

If you get to the end of year 1 you should have be on the first steps to a balanced life of health, values, work, and time-management.

Have fun you personal-productivity and self-betterment enthusiasts!

From Youth to Leader, by Ben Slee

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Guest post by Ben Slee, London Based Worship Pastor and Song Writer.

 

Tim asked me if I could write a brief note on the thrills and spills of growing from a youth group member into a youth group leader, based on my own experience, mistakes, God’s grace, and some general observations.

If you’re in the same boat I’ve been in, full of steep learning curves, new responsibilities, joys and ‘huh?’ moments, I hope and pray you’ll find the following thoughts on how to make that youth-to-leader transition useful.

Shiny new responsibilities
One of the first things you’ll notice is the new responsibilities; not just the obvious ones like opening the doors and packing things away, but the things that are easy to forget. For instance praying through the week for those in the group, learning to faithfully model what’s in God’s Word to them, and trying to include everyone, not just those you’re closest to.

Now that you’re someone with some spiritual oversight over these guys, it’s so important that you invest time in the week praying into the group and your role in it, as well as your other prep.

A shift in focus
When you start leading, there should be a subtle shift in focus. You’ve gone from being there to have fun and to serve to being there to serve and have fun! Like I say, it’s subtle, but you and your group will benefit from being aware of change in dynamic.

Of course this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep developing your relationships with the group, but they should respect you first as a leader, then as a friend.

Lead by example in your pursuit of God
All of this stuff is academic if you miss this: Keep growing in God as your #1 priority. For me, my youth group was hugely significant for my spiritual development as a teenager, so when I stepped into leadership it was really important for me to continue getting fed with God’s word.

If you can, find someone who’s a bit older than you with some leadership experience to guide you through what to expect and how to deal with any situations that come up. But crucially, keep reading the Word, keep praying through stuff, and if (like me) you’re running sessions at the same time as Church is happening next door, make sure you get to another service that day.

Enjoy!
Let me encourage you that it’s a very rewarding journey you’re taking. Growing up through a group means you can relate to its current members in a special way, which means you can apply God’s Word to their situations specifically. It’s hugely rewarding to see these guys and girls you’ve known for a while growing deeper in Christ and seeing Him working in their lives.