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What I look for in Volunteer Leaders

(Random photo that I found...wish I had some glasses like this.)

Yesterday I posted about types of leadership we have in GSM and today I just want to post the main thing I look for in volunteer leaders. Here it is:

Do they love Jesus

Do they care about students (legitimately care)

Do they desire to connect students to Jesus

So because of that, I see my job in looking for volunteers as finding these leaders who love Jesus and care about students then connecting them to each other. The kicker I learned from watching Mark Beeson and Mark Waltz is finding leaders who can also love the students who don't yet care about Jesus.  It's easy to love students who love Jesus but it's a whole different ballgame to love and care for students who could care less about Jesus.  They're just showing up because there are cool game, cute girls, a crazy awesome band, some semi-funny speaker, or because it's just the "thing to do". We're due up for some new leaders rolling through GSM

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Types of Student Ministry Leaders

It's impossible to lead a team without knowing who they are.  So, one of the things that I frequently do is look at "who" our leaders are.  Most of this happens through conversation and watching them.  As I was looking at our leadership recently, I figured out that based on how we do ministry, we need these 3 types of leaders in our GSM.

Shepherds

...are the primary type of leader we have.  They're invited onto the leadership team to "help students take steps towards Christ...together".  I invite them to use whatever gifts, skills, passion they have to further that mission.  It's life on life type of leadership that implies going further than just showing up every week. (side note: I don't often use the term "shepherd" as I'm talking about this with our leaders as the word carries lots of different meaning and I'm not hung up on the 'label' as much as I am leadership style.)

Mentors

...offer students a level of relationships, connection, discipleship that not every student is ready for.  These leaders offer more than 'acceptance' (it's essential to have those leaders who will merely accept students where they are and never really go further than that but this leadership is one that goes beyond acceptance).  These leaders aren't afraid to push through awkwardness and ask the tough questions.  These leaders offer a character and integrity that allows them to ask the questions necessary to push students to a higher level of devotion to Christ or leadership within their gifting.

Chaperones

...offer students supervision that you can rely on.  They'll "keep an eye" out for you and make sure students are having a good time and staying within the safety guideline.  I think it's important to have these types of leaders at GSM weekly because as all the "Shepherds" and "Mentors" are hanging out with students, playing games, getting food at the cafe', etc, we need leaders to have eyes on all other other stuff that matters to creating great environments for students.  (They also offer you relief during really busy seasons in ministry when you really just need some volunteers to be with students. ie. Trip to a theme parks, work days, group outings like bowling, etc.) This pattern of thought comes down to how you "define" the people you have so it might not work for everyone, especially those who lump all of their leadership team into the same bucket, which is totally fine. For me, it really helps me as I look at our entire leadership team to know the specific makeup of our leaders.  Not everyone will fit into the same place and that's ok, but the more informed we are the clearer our expectations of them will be. This also isn't a rigid leadership metric that I have drawn up that i fit people into, most of these roles are self-selected by the leaders themselves.  I occasionally will invite a leader into a role that I feel may be a good fit for them but I like for our leadership to decide where they fit.  Jesus gave his disciples and opportunity to "opt-in", he said "come follow me"...they could have declined.

What other categories of leaders do you have in your ministry?

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10 reasons our Dating/Sex series worked

Just finished our dating/sex series at GSM High School last night and here's a few tips that helped make the series a huge success for us.

1. Do the series. Don't dodge the topic. Simple.
2. Do the series for the right reasons. Do the series because you love students enough to want them to know the truth about dating/sex.  Don't do it just because you want attendance to jump, or to push buttons, or for the shock value.
3. Be honest. If students sniff that you're not being real with them, they'll shut down and assume you don't believe what you're teaching.
4. Don't beat around the bush. Student gave lots of feedback that they were glad and it was "helpful" that we "went there".  If you're going to bring up the topic, give them something of substance. Truth: most of them already know more than you can ever appropriately share from the platform anyway.
5. Get good research and a variety of resources to bring diversity to the platform. We can only share what we know, so the more we know the more we can share.
6. Don't give-in to "humor first". It's great to be funny (and you should be, students love it) but if that's the #1 method for teaching this topic students leave only knowing your jokes, not the Truth that will really help them in this area.
7. Encourage deeper conversation and processing in small groups. Students need a safe, Godly place to dialog about these things...they're talking about them already so
8. Awkwardness. I don't really know how...but it helped, haha.  (Got lots of these comment, "like, oh my gosh, like, THAT, like, was the most awkward GSM ever, like, wow, but, like, it was, like, a-mazing!")
9. Push the envelope. Standard/normal is boring so find ways to change things up.
10. Think like a high schooler and a shepherd.  Both matter.

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How to engage this 2010 version of teenagers

Sitting in my hotel room at Kalahari Resort (I'm speaking at a retreat this weekend) and found this in one of my Evernote folders from last September and thought it was worth posting.  Have no idea where I clipped it from off the internet but I think this is good stuff to know, especially considering it's about time to rediscover some of our foundational roots in the life of the Church (Big C.) which SHOULD affect the way we do student ministry.

If we just keep doing the same things, we'll keep getting the same results...and it seems odd to keep doing the same things when student culture changes more and more every year.

In our area around Granger, there are LOTS of students who don't go to a church at all and don't really want to set foot in a church (neither do their parents, which makes it even more of a challenge)...but it's ok because they're good people (sarcasm).  SO, I've been wrestling with for about 6 months now, how do we take GSM TO them!  (I'll say more about this later sometime)

Here's the post I found helpful as I process how to pioneer this movement.:

Engaging Millennials = Enabling Discovery + Energizing Experience + Encouraging Advocacy

Of course, this formula presumes you have a relevant product and positioning. If not, you have more problems than simply breaking through. But assuming for a moment you have cleared the Product, Placement and Pricing hurdles, how should you go about Promoting your brand to Millennials? Let's unpack this formula a bit:

Enabling Discovery

No one wants to be told what to do, what to like and what to think. That is especially true of Millennials, who have an instant aversion to anything that smacks of 'marketing'. They want to believe that they have uniquely discovered the things they like. That's not to say that mass brands are not appealing, as Obama can tell you. But mass brands don't start with any advantage. The ideal way for a Millennial to first experience a product or service is to discover it for themselves. Think of 'Stumbleupon' as the model.

This feeling of 'discovery' underlies the success of Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog and Tom's Shoes. Discovery is social currency, you can spend it with friends (or wider) and increase your personal brand. Discovery is the dynamic that drives marketing for restaurants, music, wine and microbrews. (For more on the social dynamic behind wine's growing popularity, see my earlier post, "A Perfect Pairing").

Achieving a sense of 'discovery' is no accident. It means creating events where Millennials can meet the brand, as Red Bull has done so successfully. Or creating a smash viral video. Social media, social media, product placement, and sampling are all good 'discovery' media.

Energizing the Experience

This is literally having a brand experience worth writing home about, one that not only meets the minimums for efficiency, personalization and value, but that goes over and above expectations. Success with Millennials requires being distinctive; they love 'shiny' things.

Marketers at Apple, Nike, Zappos, Jamba Juice, Red Bull, Zipcar, Vogue magazine and other beloved, 'iconic' Millennial brands understand that to be remarked upon, you must literally beremarkable for something inherent in the user or customer experience. This can be accomplished through customization, design, ease of access, or price (free works especially well). However it is accomplished, it must be both authentic and fresh to overcome the impressive filters Millennials have perfected. The experience must be fun, compelling or unique or you will never get to the third and final step of the formula: advocacy.

Encouraging Advocacy

If this was a real formula, 'advocacy' is the variable that would have an exponent after it. Advocacy is the thing that makes Millennial marketing unique today, and is likely to be the biggest change to mainstream marketing in the future.

Yesterday I had a wonderful conversation with Sarah Newton, a radio celebrity, Twitter friend, and author of the blog,GenYGuide.com. Sarah lives in Northampton, England. Despite the being oceans apart, we agreed on many things, above all that Gen Y is unique. We also speculated the thing that makes them unique, perhaps in all history, is access to platforms to broadly communicate and share their ideas. This ability alone may make the gap between Gen Y and earlier generations more striking than any previous gap, or possibly any to come (profound thought isn't it?). A new global study of 9000 -27 year olds by YouGovStone reached a similar conclusion: "The digital revolution has not only given this generation of young people access to knowledge and information on an unprecedented scale, but it has also given them massive influence."

Mobilizing that influence requires making it easy to access and share information with peers. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, topic-specific blogs, and opinion sites like Yelp are all ways to encourage Millennials to talk to each other about your brand. Of course, talking about brands is not something Millennials are inclined to do without good reason. That's why so many brands have found success by associating with worthy causes, or highlighting their support of environmental or humanitarian initiatives. Advocacy efforts take many forms, both long term and short term promotions (Starbucks Project Red, Taco Bell Feed the Beat). For more immediate sharing, brands are experimenting with mobile applications and widgets, like DryncWine.com. However it's done, advocacy via social media is now a critical part of any youth marketing effort.

My final words of advice on reaching Millennials is much simpler:take time to get to know them. If you are over 30, the worst mistake you can make is thinking they think like you do. Listen to Millennials, at home and in the office. They will give you the best advice about how to reach others like them.

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It's not an adventure if...

(Pic I took of Rick at the SYMC2010)

"If there isn't a possible of danger it isn't really an adventure, or if there isn't a some challenge it might not be an adventure, & if ur watching from the sidelines you're not really  apart of that adventure."

By Rick Lawrence talking about how Student Ministry is an adventure at Simply Youth Ministry Conference

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SYMC2010 Nicole C. Mullen Concert Photos

These are just a few photos I took from the Nicole C. Mullen concert at SYMC2010. This is BEFORE I started balling in the concert.  When she sang "my redeemer lives" I lost it!  Such a great reminder for me that God is so much bigger than my life, family, ministry, church, world. Every time I get a glimpse of Christ, he blows my little worldview away! (I wish I would have been closer to get better photo's but, simply put, you gotta work with that you got.)

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SYMC2010 Saturday Night Session Notes & Photos

(Art by an amazing artist at SYMC2010. Didn't catch his name, if you know comment and I'll add it)

Session 3 - Upward, Inward, Outward - by Derwin Gray

My favorite line: Our character has to outrun our gifts.

Opening thoughts:

* You will reproduce what/who you are. * Can you imagine trying to playing a trick on Jesus? * Upward, Inward, Outward! * Why do we try to do so many things for Jesus....don't most of us need Jesus to do something for us? * Busy - Being Under Satan's Yoke

Upward:

His Story * He told his story growing up in San Antonio. * He went to BYU (WHAT?!!! haha) * Football was his God...when everything else in life let him down, Football was always there. * Got drafted by the Indianapolis colts * told a story of "the Naked Preacher" (one of his teammates who would walk around half-naked with only a towel on who went from locker to locker asking people "do you know Jesus" * He got to watch "The Naked Preacher"

Inward:

* Knowing in our heart * Students want a leader who they can say "there's my leader who loves Jesus". * God sings over you...He will rejoice over you with gladness * As a dad, i don't want a 30 year old Guitar Hero expert. * Matt 3:17 * Our value and significance is because we're fearfully and wonderfully made * We tell our students over and over again what defines them BUT DO WE BELIEVE IT?!! * Some of us need to get set free...our opinion of each other doesn't define us...we are the beloved children of God

Outward:

* Your first ministry is too your spouse! * He is running towards 18 years of marriage. * Your marriage is living and leaving a legacy. * There is going to be some broken hearts but we still continue to love...because that's what Jesus * Our character has to outrun our gifts.

He gave us some prayer time. POWERFUL!

* There were people upfront to pray for them. * There was an artist painting pics (see my Flickr Photo's)

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SYMC2010 Saturday Morning Session Notes & Photos

(Bo Boshers - aka my new Student Ministry Hero)

My Favorite lines of this morning: Who am I letting follow in my wake? Favorite Moment: The JESUS CHANT!! (See below)

Session 2 - Part 1 -  by Rick Lawrence

Opening Questions:

* Are you going to leave to? * Are you going to stay on the hillside? * Is there a river of Legacy flowing through your life?

What we're doing today:

* A narrative way of exploring God. * Pay attention to the streams that have flowed into ours. (He had us Form a trio of people to walk through this with together.)

Question to do in a group:

* Group ActivityTalk about the giants that have influenced your life? (Ex. CS Lewis)

He put more on the screens who we might not have known affect us today, but they have.

* St. Steven the martyr - we know him because he was stoned...before that he was known as a powerful communicator "translator" of the Gospel. * Julian of Norwich - swam upstream from prevailing culture. God's compassion rules his heart. Suffering is not punishment for wicked. Her slogan "all shall be well...and all manner of things shall be well." (belief and trust in a loving God.) * John Wesley - preached in lots of places and got kicked out (he listed about 6-10 instances when he was kicked out of a place for preaching the Gospel. 100,000 people came to Christ under him and it would not have happened if * Jim Rayburn - founded Young Life. Accept teens at their sharing point. he was known for things like this, "Incarnational Ministry", "Earning the rights to be heard".

Journal Time:

* He gave us journal time to write about people who have been most instrumental in our lives personally. People who have flowed into our story and marked us. (Tim Timmons played music behind)

MY LIST:

* My dad - Taught me almost everything I know about leadership, perseverance, depth with Christ, sincere worship, whole hearted devotion in the midst of trial, * My mom - Taught me strength beyond our circumstances. Taught me to dream bigger than what I saw on a regular basis. She's a STRONG leader and vessel * My Grandpa - Strong and wise, quiet with his words but when he spoke it was WISDOM. * Mark Beeson - Bridge the gap between passion and enthusiasm for me. I thought passion looked one dimensional because of how I grew up, but he taught me (through watching him) that there is a enthusiastic and uplifting type of passion! I learned the art of cheerleading through watching him. The closer you get to him the more amazing he is and the more you respect him. * Rob Wegner - Discipleship, Accountability, Theology education. * My Big Mama - Taught me how to be self sufficient at an early age. * John Ortberg - if you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat.

Pairs:  (he had us share with one other person who the most influential person on our list)

* He had us stand and SHOUT AS LOUD AS WE COULD THE NAMES ON THE LIST! (TO PROCLAIM THEM) * When we got to Jesus name, he wanted us to repeat Jesus name over and over again!!!! * THIS WAS ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE! * After a mere few seconds it turned into a "JESUS CHANT!!!! (Listening to 2500 people SCREAM JESUS rocked!)

Then we rolled right back into worship!

* First song was "heart of worship" - IT'S ALL ABOUT YOU JESUS!!! * Tim Timmons led an acoustic worship set!

Session 2 - Part 2 - The Wake - by Bo Boshers

FOUNDATIONAL VERSE: 2 Tim. 2:2 "in these things which you've heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others."

* Timothy was able to see this picture of legacy through watching closely Paul When he thinks of mentoring he thinks of a wake behind a boat * The wake of the boat. * They like to ride jet skis and jump waves and have a bunch of fun. * Stop turn and quickly find the boat because there was a big wake * Get right behind the boat there was smooth water...(this picture for him is the picture of what he wants to be about. he stated, (It's what I think this generation is about.")

Following in the wake of others

* Are we letting people follow in the wake of others. * Student want to be close to us and we can let them follow in our wake.

There are wakes of men and women in this room that you can follow. ("and we should recognize that")

* Sometimes we have to pause and see it. * Before you leave I want to challenge you to see...AND LET THEM KONW!

Run the race and applaud along the way and find a way to say thanks.

* It's good to be encouraged. * Who do you need to say thanks to? (who should you text, email, call that you need to say thanks to)

What we're talking about is "what I think the blueprint of this generation is about".

* Let it be personal * Someone that knows you and loves you. * Give me the integrity and perseverance

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Things i love about Simply Youth Ministry Podcast

Here's a couple things I love about the Simply Youth Ministry Podcast. -Its unscripted. (this can be good and bad) -The show is driven by questions from youth workers. -They are sincere. -There is good wisdom as you enjoy the humor. -People get roasted. -Josh Griff's calves! Booyah!

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SYMC2010 Friday Night Session Notes & Photos

I POSTED A FEW OF MY RANDOM PHOTOS FROM FRIDAY HERE.

Session 1 - PASSION - by Duffy Robbins

MY FAVORITE LINE OF THE WHOLE TALK: "Jesus doesn't need us to die for him, he needs us to LIVE for Him!!"

OPENER: "Memory Makers" - book by Doug and Duffy

1. * One of the ways God shapes our faith is by giving us a rich reservoir of memories.
2. * God uses these moments of surprising memory to speak to us (the bus broke down, etc.) 2 tim. 2 "you know the persecutions i've been through" - it's lists of memories.
3. * The odyssey of faith is marked by milestones of memories. (Legacy)
4. * Paul takes great pains to remind us of legacy Phil 2 (started in verse 5)

STORY: He told a story about a man who loved his wife faithfully! Even once his wife had Alzheimer's. She loved me so well that it was a privilege to be able to love her back." (he called it "Real-life passion".) He showed a video of a guy from Microsoft who "LOOOOVED his company/job". (He revealed at the end of his message as he was summing up the message that this guy was his dad. This was POWERFUL! HE SAID, "MY DAD WAS A MEMORY MAKER BECAUSE HE WAS PASSIONATE.")

1. * The images we see are only a fraction of real passion.
2. * Only in Christ can we see the legacy of authentic passion.

The legacy of Jesus Christ helps us understand "Holy Passion"!

The Legacy of Christ is IRRATIONAL!

1. * Real Holy Passion always looks a little bit IRRATIONAL.
2. * Phil 2:6 - "Who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped..."
3. * Equality = Isosolese (Sp) Triangle like the triangle...(has two sides that are exactly the same...Jesus was absolutely equal to God.
4. * Doing student ministry is IRRATIONAL.
5. * He kept saying "it's not irrational it's PASSIONAL"

The Legacy of Christ is EXCESSIVE!

1. * There is something about passion that is EXCESSIVE!
2. * Phil 2:7 "...but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness."
3. * Jesus came in humility....in a manger...He emptied himself!
4. * what would it look like if our student generation would live out an excessive passion to Christ!

The Legacy of Christ is COSTLY!

1. * We have to understand this...passion is costly.
2. * Love something enough to suffer for it!
3. * Phil 2:8 "And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!"
4. * We can't forget that genuine passion is costly.
5. * For most of us passion won't play itself out in death...but it might play itself out in the way we live our lives.
6. * Jesus doesn't need us to die for him, he needs us to LIVE for Him!! (One of my favorite lines in the whole talk!)
7. * Enduring the real present suffering that comes with life. (Ex. Parents who don't seems to really appreciate us, etc.)
8. * They pursued passion ("press on to take hold of that which Christ pursued")

This passion is ours by the legacy of Christ IN US.

1. * God is at work in you.

I PUT SOME PHOTOS HERE!