Youth Ministry Ideas » Youth Ministry Staff

A Different Kind of Intern

6drews — Mon, 23 May 2011 12:59:00 +0000

I’ve had this idea for a while about offering internships in our student ministry, with a bit of a twist. My twists sometimes freak people out, but ride this tornado with me for a minute… I’ve had a few college students work with me to fulfill internship requirements for graduation and those times have been mutually beneficial. I’ve seen some very successful youth ministries establish some great internships in that same vein for college students. But I’m wondering, what would it look like to hire one or two of my own students as interns for a year?

One of the frustrations we probably all have had in youth ministry is watching leadership kids get so busy with school and jobs and other activities that ministry slides out of their focus. Often the sequence of events goes something like this: First comes the driver’s license, then a car, then gas money, then increased insurance premiums as a result of “less than stellar” driving habits… Now, the student is working so many hours, he barely has time to finish his class work. Helping lead the youth ministry slowly loses ground in a growing list of important things.

But what if his part time job was learning to lead and serve in ministry? What if he could spend 15-20 hours a week working side by side with an experienced youth leader/pastor (that would be you)? The student gets a great job, you get the opportunity to invest in a few students even more deeply than you already do, the church gets to reinforce and train young kingdom workers with an almost endless stream of ideas and energy. I can see so many benefits…

But what about showing unfair favor? What would qualify one kid more than another? Jesus certainly figured out a way to manage the tension among the disciples that resulted from having a sort of “inner circle” with Peter, James, and John – but can we manage something similar between our overall student body and Matt, Mary, and Taylor?

I don’t think most students I know would be interested in this kind of internship, to be totally honest, but there are a few. So what are some kind of pre-requisites?

Visible commitment to Christ. This may be a little self explanatory, but if someone’s not committed to following Jesus, they just won’t fit very well into this kind of ministry.
Good standing academically. If a kid’s struggling to keep up her grades to stay eligible for soccer, she’s not even close. Tutor her, but don’t add to the growing pile of expectations she’s already struggling to hold up.
Desire to serve. If he’s not already serving in some way, neither of you will probably enjoy the internship.
Desire to explore vocational ministry. The intern doesn’t have to have already committed his life to being a youth pastor, but does need to be open to the idea and wanting to get some experience to help him decide.
No other job. We’ll make the pay reasonable, so the student won’t have to divide time with another employer.

What are the basic job duties?

Assist the youth pastor in planning and leading the youth ministry. (This can be better defined depending on the gifts of the student.)
Complete reading assignments regarding leadership & ministry.
Complete a gifts inventory & work with other students to find places of service within the body and our community.

Ok, Toto, we’re back in Kansas. What do you guys think? Do you know any youth leaders doing something like this? How’s it going for them?

*This post submitted by Mike Andrews. You can find Mike on twitter (@6drews) and on his blog.

10 Principles of How To Last In Youth Ministry

Steve — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:53:57 +0000

I just got back from a youth conference that I will blog about soon and Rick Young (who also MC’d the event) – Middle School Pastor at First Baptist Church Woodstock shared with the youth pastors and leaders about how to last in youth ministry. Rick has been at his church for the past 16 years! Currently the average stay of a youth pastor is anywhere from 18 months to 3 years. We need to change this so here are 1o principles for lasting in youth ministry.

Keep Growing – Key: Seek after God in your own life. Read, Pray, Reflect, Listen, and write. If we are growing in our own relationship with the Lord then that will help us when times are tough and when conflicts arise.
Get Real – Key: Take a spiritual maturity inventory for your students spiritual condition. Find out if they are: Rebellious, Apathetic, Interested, or Passionate. Once you know you can better program for where they are at as a group and move them from that area to what they need next.
Go Wide – Key: Keep sharing the Gospel on the forefront of the youth ministry. Keep in mind that you never know when God’s spirit will work in a student’s life and it could be there time to accept Christ. It’s our job to share the Gospel and let God do His thing.
Grow Deep – Key: Challenge your students to continually grow spiritually. Col. 1:10 says, “And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God”. Don’t just leave it at accepting Christ but work towards also growing them deep.
No More Outsourcing – Key: Encourage and challenge parents to be involved with their student’s spiritual development. I just wrote about Creating A Parent Advisory Team which is one way to start getting parents involved. Rick simply said that you start with a couple of parents and challenge them to find at least 1 new parent that could help by the time the school year was done. This will also help you get more involved and you will need to have some type of process for adding them to your team, but this can greatly help your youth ministry and plus it’s their parents that are getting involved with their youth which is Biblical.
Build on Values Not Fads – Key: Build a healthy youth ministry. Base your youth ministry from Biblical principles and it will go much better then the latest hottest thing out there.
Build a Team – Key: You CAN NOT do it on your own! The great thing about a team is that you have different personalities of leaders for different personalities of students. Plus your focus needs to be on your message and overall vision of the youth ministry and if you are bogged down with what to do for set up and tear down and snacks and powerpoint stuff and music and games – then you are going to not be as excited and focused as you could be.
Programs with a Purpose – Key: Don’t just have programs just to have them, have a purpose behind them. Maybe you need to evaluate why you do what you do and being the new year it’s a great time to evaluate. Don’t make your programs all the same but have different reasons or purposes for each of them. Starting from entry level to discipleship level.
Have Fun – Key: Have fun with the students and the youth ministry. If you’re not having fun you are probably bogged down with too many administrative things that someone else could be helping you with. It’s good for the students to see you and your team having fun together. It makes the meeting time fun for them too.
Time – Key: Building a healthy youth ministry takes time. So that’s why you need to work towards staying in the youth ministry because it will take time for it to form and grow and I would even say that after 3 years you finally start feeling like you are making an impact so that’s why it’s critical to stay and grow that youth ministry God has you in charge of.

There is also an ebook that you can download of top 14 youth ministry leaders and what they say about lasting in youth ministry which may be helpful to you: Click Here

Simple Student Ministry by Geiger and Borton

Steve — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:02:47 +0000

simple student minisry

About a year ago Jeff Borton contacted me to let me know that there was a book that was on its way called Simple Student Ministry. He asked that I would let others know about it on my blog to gather some input from other youth workers across the country.

Earlier in May I received a copy of Simple Student Ministry to read and review for you.

Simple Student Ministry is a book that was created after the book Simple Church was written by Eric Geiger. I believe both Geiger and Borton wanted to write a student version so that both the church and the student ministry could be on the same page as to creating a simple process for ministry.

I want to say right away that Simple does not mean Easy. It actually can be harder to be simple. What simple does however is create a more focused ministry helping you to accomplish your main goal or mission.

The chapters are:

1) Student Ministry Breakfast Sandwiches

2) Simple Student Ministry?

3) Clarity

4) Movement

5) Alignment

6) Focus

7) Large and Megachurch Case Studies

Parachurch Case Studies

9) Small and Midsize Church Case Studies

10) The Transition to Simple

I want to make it clear that Simple Student ministry is not another “model” but rather helping you to have a “process” for ministry that is clear and direct and less complicated.

Simple Student Ministry emphasizes the discipleship process as the driving factor behind programming in your youth ministry.

I was not surprised at all that Simple Student Ministry sounded the same as Simple Church. This is actually a good thing because they are not going in different directions. Obviously the main difference is that the book is directed towards those in student ministry.

If you haven’t seen or read Simple Church here are the main components and these components are also the same in the Simple Student Ministry:

Clarity – Movement – Alignment – Focus

Pick up the book for you student ministry team today on Amazon:

Nothing Builds Team Work Like A Lock-In

Steve — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:41:37 +0000

I was totally blessed when I read a message this morning from Paul who tried my Survivor Lock-In out.

Listen to Paul:

I had survivor lock-in last February and it was a huge success. We had over 150 kids there that night. I wanted to share our You Tube video with you to help show some of the events that are apart of the lock-in. We added some of our and omitted a few as well. The pressure is on this year for another amazing lock-in. Any ideas? I have been kickin’ around a few ideas but nothing I am too crazy about.

Thanks to Paul we have a video of what a Suvivor Lock-In can be like and what I appreciate about it is not only did I see some of my elements in his lock-in, but the fact that it takes a lot of people to be on board with making this happen and at the end of the video he thanks them!

It’s a great reminder to me of a good team building element is that THANK your volunteer workers!

Check out this YouTube Video that will help give you a glimpse of how great the lock-in can be:

Paul – You Blessed Me Man!

Paul was also wanting to do this again, so does anyone have any more ideas or elements that they have used in their lock-ins? If so leave a comment with a link or just some suggestions and ideas for Paul.

Great Work! I will also include the video on my Survivor post.

Dealing With Our Sin

Steve — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:58:57 +0000

I’m excited to be blogging again this week. Today’s Monday Ministry Helper is about dealing with our sin.

In the Sunday School class that I’m attending we are going through a book by Dr. James MacDonald called “10 Choices“. You can read more about it HERE.

Chapter two is about Choosing forgiveness and at first I thought that it would be more focused on how to forgive people that wronged you and how to let go of things that you are holding on to, but rather the whole chapter was focused on dealing with our sin.

He makes some profound statements, here is one of them:

“Sin is the cause of every planet problem. Volcanoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, famine, and flooding in my basement – are all because of sin. Special news reports tell us that our weather systems are more whacked than ever before. It’s warmer at the poles and colder in the tropics. A flip-flop in weather conditions drenches Phoenix while Seattle dries up. Storms have become more frequent and intense but less predictable.

The universe itself is broken. The sun is burning out. Scientists tell us that the earth is turning slower every year. The solar system is winding down and getting worse because of sin. All the amazing evidence for God’s design that we saw in the last chapter is now tainted. Everywhere we look we see examples of the insidious damage caused by sin. The Bible tells us, ‘For the creation was subjected to futility’ (Romans 8:20a) and that it is in ‘bondage to corruption’ (Romans 8:21b). The universe doesn’t work as well as it used to.

And it’s getting worse. In the last fifteen years, we’ve experienced more earthquakes than in the last fifty years – and more in the last fifty years than in the last 500 years. The universe is wearing out under the weight of sin ( Hebrews 1:10-12).”

So how is this helping?

I’ve been realizing how sinful I am and we are. If we are going to be used of God, then we got to be making sure that we aren’t living a life of sin. Yes we will always fall short and struggle, but we need to be asking him for forgiveness and cleansing.

Let me tell you about an experience that happened to me in high school. I was attending a revival service with my youth group and I remember that I wasn’t really living for the Lord and the man that was speaking that evening gave an opportunity to come forward to repent and ask for God’s forgiveness publicly and so I remember going forward and what happened next was really amazing.

I remember sobbing and letting my burdens go and I started laughing. I think the reason I started laughing was because I hadn’t felt good for awhile and the difference was so amazing enough that I just couldn’t help but laugh with joy. And I want to say that I’m not a pentecostal or go to a charismatic church, but God healed me and I knew that I was forgiven – what a great thing!

When I do the give-a-ways from now on this site these will be for youth workers and leaders only, not everyone. I didn’t realize that it was going to get out so quickly about the free money to the paypal account although I must say it was cool to see it reaching out to others.

Keep up the good work serving students this week!