as part of my forth year of blogging i'm digging into the archives..
apparently four years ago i really discovered the joys of wireless, so strange to think of life without wireless now.
some three years ago jonathon and i put our monastic worship'y skills to the test with a service for the general board of discipleships young adult summit. best part about that, when we did the dramatic 'slam' and cut off the music someone put out gasping 'oh s%#!.' that was a worship first for me.
i finally finished 7 days with thomas merton and his complexities of war & peace. i don't remember that being a very popular post series, but it sure was fruitful in my spiritual life.
cooler still, three years ago i was blogging my days at the last national youth workers convention in nashville. day one i helped set up prayer stations with lilly lewin and others. day two was finishing up prayer stations and then overall observations of the conventions. day three i played hookie & day four was more about personal prayer time and my buddy eric coomer. day five continued a trend of skipping things, but was more centered around my day with spiritual director.
two years ago this might have been the coolest collaboration in a long time
we are finishing up our third phase of our reimagine project at hendersonville first united methodist church. what started out at remodeling some of our space became 'thecorner' our reimagined youth ministry.
we are excited about the changes and lots of good things are happening. yesterday we had an open house for the greater church community and our elder pastor told a story about the pews we had. we bought these pews from beersheba assembly grounds. they were sitting in the basement of their old chapel on the property.
as the story goes, a pastor in that area built these as a start to having a school up on the plateau. so not only is it neat to use some old furnishing and give them new life, but to have something that reflected the church's mission to reach out to those in need is pretty cool to me.
more photos from our reimagined project & finishing up youth room remodel
we are in the closing stages of our 2nd to last phase of our reimagining project for our youth space and youth program. its been a longer road than i hoped but its coming together nicely. today we received our new chairs, which i'm stoked about. i wasn't so stoked having to haul them into the building and up three flights of stairs, but its hard to get help at 8am in the morning on short notice. its done now & my sweat is starting to clear away. off now to get photos for our walls. we have black & white gallery going in and then will also have photos from our last year of ministry.
so today is the start of new carpet in our youth room. tomorrow these guys should finish it. as you may see, it's a drastic change from before. we are using a commercial grade recycled carpet. commercial in that it is low pile (thin) with a hard rubber bottom. it only needs to be vacuumed regularly and steam cleaned once a year. the recycle part comes that it uses recycled carpet materials. next week get our chairs, which i am excited about.
we were doing some lighting things for an eventual (hopeful) video. johnathan & i thought this looked like a campaign poster.. so we made it one.
so i'm spending a lot of time on the front lawn of the church. our group is selling pumpkins. it's a cool thing, a lot of work, but cool. i enjoy talking to folks and taking photos of some of the children i know who stop by. it's funny how they surprise me, being all shy then popping out some personality. a part of the ministry logistic that i enjoy
when you are in youth ministry as long as i have been you expect mornings like this. i am already rounding up the usual suspects. you can view my line up of suspects on facebook album.
if you live in the middle tennessee area and would like a good pumpkin and other assorted vegetation to decor your home. i've got a plenty. come see us at hfumc and take home a little bit of fall with ya. you can find us here!
do you need a new youth ministry scene? does the idea of being in a fabulous city like nashville appeal to you? pay no attention to the prior post on the gas crisis, that'll be over before you get here. would the idea of working with me and all my fellow middle tennessee youth & youth leaders seem kinda cool? well, i'd love for you to consider applying for our tennessee conference director of youth and young adult ministries. you can ask me questions if you like, i will answer what i can. mostly i'd love to have someone really relational & innovative come and join our tennessee clan of youth & young adult ministries.
The Tennessee Conference of the United Methodist Church is taking applications for the full-time position of Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries. The applicant should have experience in developing leaders of youth and young adult ministries in the local church and beyond. The applicant should be a deeply committed Christian who exhibits a Christ-like attitude, willingness to give witness to their faith, and willingness to model servant leadership. The applicant should have a working knowledge of the structure, ministry, and theology of the United Methodist Church.
The Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries will encourage, engage, equip and empower the youth and young adult ministries to build disciples of Jesus Christ. The Director of Youth and Young Adult Ministries will work with the Connectional Ministries staff, youth, and young adult councils to enhance ministry in local churches, districts, and conference.
Being bilingual and/or willingness to learn Spanish is preferred.
Salary is negotiable and will be based on the applicant’s experience.
A Vision for Youth and Young Adult Ministries as well as an expanded concept of the position is available upon request.
last week i sent out my very first graphically enhanced postcard. our church has had this 'no color' policy for some time. not sure why, but i was faithful to that till i just couldn't take it anymore. i now just do it when it is needed. since we were doing a big kickoff for our remodeled youth program and reimagined focus. so we sent out postcards to all the youth. i had some of the leaders pick out our graphic, i told them it needed to be simple, clean and conveying an image they felt would speak to what we were getting into. i liked their choice, which worked out well for me. so with my first snazzy postcard attempt i was intrigued to read thoughts from the ministry marketing coach.
People Don’t Pay Much Attention to Your Postcards, Sorry!
..even the slickest advertisement, from even the best advertising agency comes up against all the other clutter of competing messages in the mailbox also clamoring for the attention of the people they want to reach. What you need is a strategy for overcoming the clutter.
..
Frequency in advertising is the number of times an advertisement is repeated to the same audience. Most advertisers, especially religious advertisers, give up long before the person they want to reach has been “reached” with the message.
..
This same thing happens when you are making evangelistic contacts or following up on the people who visit your church. Just because guests come a few times in a row doesn’t mean your follow-up work is done. How long did it take you to understand what it means to follow Jesus? Sadly, too many churches give up on people long before they should.
i don't really have a frequency plan for sending out more of a postcard campaign. i just thought i'd use some stationary the wifey bought for me to write individual letters to people. maybe that will help
recently i filled out my self-evaluation for my job performance as director of youth ministries at hfumc. in this evaluation as in every other prior evaluation i have a statement that seems to find its way in there that "i struggle with a constant tension between the relationship and administration of my ministry." what that means, and my staff parish understands this about me, is that i am a relationship minister at the core. i get rejuvinated from being around folks in conversation, helping them through tough times, praying for them, teaching something as a mentor to them. however, i find that most of my work is held up in the administration of my job. this isn't to say that i do not appreciate that aspect of my job. in fact, if i ignored it, i would not be in my job now (is there a parallel that youth ministers avg shelf life is 12-18 months?). what this "tension" for me is that administration is not my gift and it takes extra energy, time, and planning to do it well. it just is not my natural person.
now, i don't know, but this may just be methodist church culture phenom, but it might not. the methodist church seems to always roll with a solo youth pastor. they are a one person show. all communication, information, paper pieces, new ideas, training, finances, implementation, planning, etc comes out of that one body. if one is lucky, as i am, you have staff that serves the whole church, which is able to help you out. my church staff happens to be wonderful and they cover my butt constantly, but their help is, in ways, limited to their specific tasks (ie. finance person holds my books and covers all our cash flow needs, but they do not send my mail). it is strange this one person show and i started to wonder, why do we do this one person show. then i ran some numbers.
for my context
227 : youth on our roll currently (we added a few last night though)
454 : potential number for parents (not all youth have 2 parents, that is a max number)
25 : youth leaders that are not already parents
706 : total number of people in the HFUMC Youth Parrish
now, if i were a methodist pastor, appointed to a church with a roll attendance of 706 people what might my staff make up look like? it would not be a solo pastor. you would certainly have an associate, and probably would have one to two administrative people.
what are your numbers like?
my buddy mark devries has a bit of research they use at youth ministry architects that says that you need one staff person for every 50 youth and that adults can only keep around 5 deep relationships with youth at one time. so with a number like that in mind, is it any wonder that our real numbers of participation reflect about 28% of that population highlighted above?
no wonder i am tired all the time. i have to put on a mask of skills that is not my primary. in the last week we sent out a mass email, group text messages, a paper letter mailing to parents, a graphically enhanced postcard to all youth, and a number of phone calls. we had checks cut for future events, buying groceries and kitchen items to serve food with, driving youth to meetings, planning calendar, making copies, making more copies, cleaning our space, trashing my own office, cleaning a kitchen.. and the list goes on.
why does the church, as a general, see the youth ministry as some side piece of the church? they are a part of the church, and it is harmful to go off and create a separate church of youth, but administratively it seems logical to look at how you are staffing your church and give some equal value to youth, children, and other focus of the church community.
i am currently living in chaos. i am glad it is happening, there were times the chaos was in doubt. the chaos being some major overhaul to our youth space.
three years ago our group asked if we could paint the walls. i said "sure" (something i didn't have proper authority to say in methodist church committee-land) so that got into, "can we...?" add on and do more and more stuff to the space. so i wrote a letter to our trustees asking for permission to discern and explore better use of our designated space. we spent the better part of the year, sitting & praying in our various rooms asking questions like "what do we hope to learn here?" "what is the mission of this room?" we then went on visits to other churches. then we came together and talked about what we felt was the mission of our space, how it could better function, and how it could sustain for future years of youth communities.
what we came out with was this idea for a "industrial cathedral" look. we are putting together a feature piece which is a media center and small group gathering bar. it will also serve for our food service. we created eating booths out of old church pews we got from a camp, that i just happened to know they are stored away in a basement. we've painted colors on the walls, we have photographs and original art pieces to add the space. our stage we lowered down and will finish off with some wood flooring to give a more intimate feel. our obnoxious pre-school chairs are going.. somewhere.. and we will get new chairs, new flooring a recycled carpet that is pretty cool. it's been a major project.
the two years to get to this point have been plugged up in that wonderful methodist system. i like the system as it has its checks and balances. but when you have folks that can't capture the vision of stimulating a creative mind and only see trash wrappers or a broken chair, then one is set for a long ride. our team though, because of our invested time in hearing God in our midst and asking the hard questions, knew this was more than just a whim and have kept at it. soon we will be close to done. we are actually finishing phase three. like any good methodist building project, there are 'phases' assigned to it. anyways, i've posted some pictures of the space as it is today. it will look different tomorrow as a crew of us will clean up the construction bits and pieces for sunday gatherings.
it is chaos right now, but we are hopeful that this will stimulate the creativity and passion in our youth community to move deeper into that relationship with God. it is a lot to ask of a room, but just as a sanctuary can move someone we feel this is our expression..
a friend of mine sent me this. an experience to be a part of
Download Outdoor_Christian_Festival Letter
last friday kicked off the football season for me as youth pastor. two of my teams, that are hendersonville based smashed it up. station camp high school is a new & smaller school to hendersonville and played the established & larger hendersonville high school last year to an exciting last minute win with their first meeting. this year, hendersonville protected their home turf with a 35-3 win.
i loaned my camera to one of our youth who was taking pictures from the field. he did really well. taking action photos outside of natural light is a challenge.
so if you are not paying attention to that whole election thing. you might have noticed that some college presidents are advocating for a lower drinking age. they have their critics, which is expected. scot mcknight asks a simple question, which gets a large response. so everyone has an idea.. as i do
i cannot say i have a solution for the problem. but when i look at the issue at hand it seems to me that drinking a beer or glass of wine is not the issue, but the blast of binge drinking that i've participated in, in my past, observed for many years, know that teens actively partake in now.
part of my conversion came around when i did some math. i never went to a party or any function and drank (or planned to drink) 8-12 cokes or lemonades. that sounds, and is, rather stupid. so why does that all change when you change your liquid to beer?
it obviously isn't because beer is a better drink for you in mass quantities. coke isn't great for you either in mass quantities, but one cannot claim it hinders you as the others might. so what drives this?
my best guess is the cultural norm that drinking is associated with being social & good times and our want or need for these in our lives pushes us to over consume. our teenagers and young adults (maybe even our older adults) are seeking out who & what they are that this becomes their mechanism for being social and having happy times. have you never heard "i just need to have a couple of beers in me before i... party/get crazy/etc"
i might also say that our culture of excess helps out in this. we have very little clue for moderation. so i don't see the drop in age helping. though it will help with the delinquency of young adults, as they will not have to break the law as much. but if 18 is an age that just reintroduces it to high school in a direct line. 18 yr old seniors will not shy away from buying for the high school party, they do not have that vision of what consequence they are open too with that action.. just as parents are being held responsible for the parent supervised alcohol party an 18 year old has the same responsibility in the eye of the law.
i feel for youth these days. it is the social norm to drink to have the good time, and drink excessively at times. i know many teens who choose not too and they become left out of circles of friends that they should belong too. but i rest in the fact that most of those youth are well on their way to knowing who they are.
so, as youth pastor, what is my solution for this problem? i will focus on my small circle of influence i have. the teenagers and young adults i know. my quest is to help them find their way through this crazy world and identify who they are, without enhancements and labels. my quest is to help them know they are loved, without throwing themselves into behaviors or situations for which have no control. this is what God has called me into.
more discussion on dropping the teenage drinking age at usa today via cpym.
i welcome your thoughts & comments
yes, this is me getting prepped for my very first pedicure. since i am renowned in my church for wearing flip flops year round (even in snow) people get a good look at my feet all the time. so it isn't hard to imagine that my feet get ridicule rather often. so some of my girls decided to pay for me to get a pedicure. due to schedules only one of my girls could make it, plus her mom, so i was in txt mode while soaking, filing, poking and whatever else they do.
my realization is... this is pretty cool. i might go back. massage chair & foot soak is cool enough to go back. having odd man scraping and poking at my toes is kinda odd, but we had this unspoken rule of not making eye contact which was cool with me.
another realization. i'm no longer going to let wifey make getting a pedicure sound like a chore. it is so not. your girl secret is out in the open now!
we had our final summer event sunday evening. it was a traditional pool party. we moved the traditional site though one of our youth leaders million dollar residential properties they renovated and have on the market. we'd been out there before for food break when we had a day on the lake. so i had pictures. i took those pictures to make a poster for this event. i thought it was a pretty good poster... till this evening.. the youth informed me that one of their own is making out right smack dab in the middle of the poster in the picture i put up there. sure enough.. he is, and i did. (i added the new caption)
i've got no problem with some light pda. been around it a long time. this however is a first for me. gosh i hope it will be the last.
in my ever growing list of links. i realize i should probably at some point organize them, or offer commentary of my own.. naaah...
it was a strange kind of week. so much was happening in short periods of time. it is hard to believe that last week happened and was only a few days. some photos if you like
quite a week
i am home from appalachia service project (asp), our senior high summer mission experience. all was great i cannot complain about any of it. the youth were great, the youth minister were great, the staff was fab, the other youth community was great fun.
i should be napping.. not sure why i'm not.. so instead of that i re-enter the blog world with pictures from our week's experience. more later i am sure.
today i am heading out into eastern kentucky with 44 youth and young adults to work with asp (appalachia service project) as part of our senior high mission experience. i don't expect to have wi-fi access at camp, so i'm putting in this twitter feed. i am confident in verizon to give me enough service to give updates via twitter. stop in regularly or subscribe to my twitter updates for your cell phone.
this week are are in vbs week. it is kinda standard the last few years for me to work with the 5th & 6th graders. we try to be more 'big kid' like so that this group isn't feeling so old for vbs. like last year, we are a test church for next years cokesbury/abingdon curriculum. the theme/title is called camp edge. being a camping kinda guy i like the theme, it's a piece of cake to work with decorations wise. our room is in a state of construction so we are sorta minimal in decor, but the rest of the place is off the hook.
the curriculum is still in development, so i won't say it's great or not great. i have liked the daily teaching stuff pretty well, we adapt most of it to fit our schedule and age group as we see it. we have been doing a lot of initiative game stuff that requires rope and other outdoor elements to help keep it moving. i really like the music, it has a good energy and some cool dance stuff (that i cannot do, but the youth can). plus there is a good component of sign language, which i like as well.
i'm starting to post pictures at our youth flickr site from this week. check it out i will keep posting them as i can. i know many folks will be wanting ideas for their vbs next year.
reading this i was revisiting my 'renaissance years' as i call them.
i was, and probably still am not, much of an academic. i had two very unfruitful college credit years in my first stop at university of alabama.. though i do have some decent stories to tell. i needed some perspective so i pulled out of the campus grind and began a two year journey i called my "renaissance years/period."
let me set the stage. i suck at college. i return home to new jersey after two years of college and mission service as summer staff. my fathers only request, "don't stop school," his fear being that i would not go back.. probably true too. soo...
. no gun, mace or stick.. just a whistle to thwart back evil goers. this was my day job.i don't know where the idea of going straight from one milestone to another has become such a given that taking time to develop life experiences is odd and newsworthy. i am grateful for my two years as a renaissance man. it was the best learning i had while i was supposed to be in some education process.
my friends at the center for youth ministry training are putting together a pretty good looking conference this fall. i'm still working out the dates to go, but hope to make it myself. deech and the others are people i am happy to call friends and talented & knowledgeable youth ministers.
deech has made available some of his braintrust for those interested. he's got some powerpoints and note outlines from some work he presented to the virginia annual conference.
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