This is a short video that will give you a look into our recent high school trip to serve alongside some friends in Nicaragua. We took 27 students and 8 adults leaders. We couldn’t have had a better trip! God did some incredible things in all of us and built some long lasting relationships between our group and those serving full-time in Managua. If you want more info regarding our trip, our future involvement, or how you can get involved, please email me: aaron@youngchristianity.com
Apr
17
Permanent link to this article: http://youngchristianity.com/nicaragua-serve-trip/
Mar
20
10 Ways to Connect with Students – Leader Tip #3
Most youth groups meet once a week for a time of fun, teaching, worship, and small groups. Those nights are a time for students to be engaged in the community and environment, and it’s a time for the leaders present to be fully engaged with their students. Youth leaders often make the mistake when they think that those weekly gatherings are the only time that they need to invest in their students. At a recent youth leader training I was a part of, the trainer suggested that leaders who only connect with their students during the weekly gathering are only reaching around 30% of their relational potential. I want to suggest that the remaining 70% could be found among the following 10 ways to connect with students outside of the weekly gathering:
1. Stop by their job to visit them during their break (if they have a job).
2. Go to their school for lunch.
3. Go to a couple sporting events during a season.
4. Go to plays, choir performances, award ceremonies, etc.
5. Have them over to your house for a meal, games or a movie.
6. Stop by their house just to say hi, and meet their parents.
7. Send a random text message recognizing something going on in their life.
8. Call them to follow up on something they said in small group or a discussion.
9. Send them a card randomly or for a birthday/significant milestone in their life.
10. Find ways to be present/available during crisis or when a family is in need.
Permanent link to this article: http://youngchristianity.com/10-ways-to-connect-with-students-leader-tip-3/
Mar
18
Permanent link to this article: http://youngchristianity.com/journey-student-baptism/
Mar
15
AUDIO: “Hurt Happens”
This is the first message in our new teaching series called, Scarred. The reality in life is that pain and hurt happens to everybody. When pain and hurt is severe enough, it will leave a scar. Many people have scars on their knees from falling down and getting hurt. Likewise, many people have scars on their hearts inflicted from pain in life. The reality is, Hurt Happens.
Permanent link to this article: http://youngchristianity.com/audio-hurt-happens/
Mar
13
The Disappearing Act – Leader Tip #2
As a youth leader, it’s easy to only see or remember the students that make an impression. The loud ones don’t seem to get forgotten, neither do the most active ones and neither do the ones that always get in the most trouble. Then there are the other students; the quiet students, the ones that came in terrified and most likely leave terrified, the ones that come just to see what it’s like, and the ones that randomly disappear.
So many young people go to a student gathering, get connected with a leader and a small group, and then disappear for no explained reason. The reality is, whether we know it or not, like it or not, there is a reason that student left.
As youth leaders, we can’t look into figuring out why they left until we realize that they are gone to begin with. Maybe they were one of the quiet ones or one of the insecure ones that didn’t seem to fit in very easily. Sad to say, but sometimes leaders don’t always notice when those students are gone. Again, they are gone or taking a break or not coming back for a reason. As a youth leader having had a number of these students in your small group, are you aware of who is no longer with you that once was?
Not all students are easy to lead and not all students even want to stick around, however, all students are worthy of being pursued and all students are worthy of receiving love.
Here are several questions to ask and think through on a regular basis to help us be mindful of the lesser-known and/or “disappeared” students:
- Who isn’t in my group today that is usually in my group?
- Were they here last week or the week before?
- Why haven’t they been there?
- Have I love them well and pursued them as much as anyone else?
- Have I led my group to love them well?
Some actions steps for pursuing the “disappeared” students:
- Ask the rest of the group if they know where he/she has been.
- Look them up on Facebook or Twitter (if they are on it) and send them a message to re-connect.
- Text them or, better yet, call them.
- Call or email a parent and ask appropriate questions about their son/daughters absence.
- Pick them up and take them out for 30 minutes to re-connect and to ask good questions and listen.
- Make them feel welcome by the leaders and others in the group when/if they return.
Sometimes students are just going to move along and we may never see them again, however, I want to lead a team that doesn’t let them get away without making a good attempt to know them and love them. Are they known and loved, or are they forgotten in the busyness of the schedule and in the noise of those who are there? Or are they remembered, pursued, loved, valued, and possibly brought back?
Permanent link to this article: http://youngchristianity.com/the-disappearing-act-leader-tip-2/
Permanent link to this article: http://youngchristianity.com/knowing-vs-believing-head-vs-heart/
Mar
05
Taming the Talkers – Youth Leader Tip #1
Every small group has that ONE student that seems to have A LOT to say…every week. No matter what happens in life that week, even if it’s nothing that crazy, that student always seems to have more to say than everyone else. At first you think, this is great, this student is totally connecting and is beginning to work through some stuff. But then you realize that they are the only one working through stuff because they are the only one talking every week. These become known as the “talkers” simply because they do all the talking and no one else gets to because of it.
This is very common in youth small groups and there are countless reasons for it happening. The question is, how do I tame the talkers in my group? It’s not that they don’t have good things to say. They might have incredible things to say and we want them to be able to share, but it just seems like they are always dominating the discussion. So, what are some ways to encourage the valuable things the talkers say while giving opportunities for other students to share?
- Help guide their stories along. As a student is talking and it seems like they are getting long winded, you can speed them up by helping to guide their stories. With a tone of active listening you can say things like, “Wow! Can anyone else relate to that?” or “That’s crazy! What do you guys think about that?” This sort of affirms them while keeping the conversation open to the rest of the group. It also gently gives the talker a cue that there are others in the discussion.
- Pull them aside and coach them. ”You have some GREAT things to say and I know the group benefits from you sharing. It would be great to hear from some of the other students in the group too. The great thing is that I know I can count on you to have good things to share, so what do you say you try waiting a few seconds to see if anyone else has something to share. If no one else has anything, then go ahead.”
- Direct responses to other students. If you ask a question and the talker goes for it again, you can gently interupt them in their first breath and, after affirming them, ask if anyone has any thoughts or comments in regards to the question. This is a little more direct and would only be used if you have a good relationship with the student or the student hasn’t picked up on any other cues.
- Be careful not to shame them. In all of these things you want to be careful not to shame the student for having more to say than anyone else in the group. The talker needs to be guided and coached with a little awareness while being encouraged and given the freedom to share within healthy boundaries.
The talkers can be valuable and don’t always have to be seen as the problems even when they are difficult. Remember that you are the facilitator of the discussion and that you can take the conversation where it needs to go. As the leader, don’t be afraid to step in and help the talker out. They will be better in the long run because of it and so will the rest of the group.
Who are the talkers in your group and what can you do to guide them along?
Permanent link to this article: http://youngchristianity.com/taming-the-talkers-youth-leader-tip-1/
Feb
07
BEING PRESENT with Christ
These are my notes (edited for the blog) from a message I did Friday night at our Get Off The Couch weekend. For more about that click HERE.
How many of you have something that you are super passionate about? Like, something that gets you super excited. Maybe it’s a sport or a hobby or some activity and on a Saturday morning when you don’t really want to get off the couch, that THING comes along and you are totally there.
For me it was mtn. biking in the summer and snowboarding in the winter. I was never really a lazy kid on the weekend and depending on the season, you could always find me doing one of those two sports. When either of those opportunities came along, I was there, I was 100% present. Not just partially present like the guys that just went along for the ride…I was 100% present.
In the middle of the mtn. biking and snowboarding I started another journey. I started a Journey where I put my faith in Jesus because I believed in him. I believed that he lived, that he died for me, and that he rose from the dead and lives today and I thought that was pretty cool and I still do. As I learned more about Jesus I wanted to experience him more and as I experienced him more I wanted to learn about him more.
Soon, being present wasn’t just something that happened between me and my mtn. bike or me and my snowboard. Being present wasn’t just something that happened between me and my social network, or my cell phone or my Xbox or my pillow on Saturday mornings. Being present became something that I desired to have with Jesus but I struggled with being too busy, and sometimes
Permanent link to this article: http://youngchristianity.com/being-present-with-christ/
Feb
06
Get Off The Couch
Have you ever felt the Spirit so present in a room that there was absolutely nothing you could do but just be present in it? That is exactly what happened recently at a weekend experience we put together for our students called Get Off The Couch. God did incredible things as we simply made ourselves available to him. The theme for the weekend was “Be Present,” where we talked the first night about being present with Christ and the second night about being present with others.
Students were challenged to consider what it would be like if we were to stop long enough in a day to be present with Christ and others that we love and who love us. How would life be different if we stopped to see what God has for us and to hear how He wants us to be a part of it? What would it look like to put down the phone, got off Facebook, got off Twitter, and put down the remote for the sake of being more present? We took a weekend to consider these questions and in no time God made it clear that He deeply desires our presence with Him. I have never experienced a group of students and adult volunteers so vulnerable and responsive to the Spirit in my entire life. The humility of our students paved the way for the humility of our leaders, which together made the room
Permanent link to this article: http://youngchristianity.com/get-off-the-couch/
Jan
20
Jesus: Knowing The Hero
This is an edited version of my notes from our student gathering on January 18, 2011. The message was called, ” The Rest Of The Story,” and was part of our current series about knowing, living, and telling the love story of Jesus.
When I was in middle school and high school I went to a church that did something on Sunday mornings called Sunday school. When we went to church on Sunday mornings, the adults went to “big people church,” and all the kids went to “Sunday School.” Sunday school was where the “bigpeople” would tell the kids what happened in the Bible.
Sunday school was great when I was a kid, but the sweet, gentle, and fun Sunday school version of the Bible was all I knew until someone gave me a more updated version of the story. I will call this, “the rest of the story.” In 1976, a guy by the name of Paul Harvey hosted a radio show called, The Rest of the Story. It consisted of stories presented as little-known or forgotten facts on a variety of more well known subjects. Harvey would basically shed more light into the lesser known pieces of the more well known stories. The broadcasts always concluded with a variation on the tag line “And now you know the rest of the story.”
There is a big difference between the two when looking at them through the lens of knowing Jesus. The Sunday school story of Jesus was simple. It was just enough to send the kids out the door with a very basic picture of what
Permanent link to this article: http://youngchristianity.com/jesus-knowing-the-hero/
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