Facebook

Well I have finally gotten a Facebook - not that I felt that I was insignificant because I did not have one. Actually I think that it was just open to the "rest of the world" - that is people who are not students.

Anyway - WOW! Facebook is a total other dimension of life for all students, junior high through college. Some may joke that "student live, and move, and have their being in Facebook." They are on it hours everyday and it truly has become a dimension of social structure. It is fascinating to peek into this world.

I encourage you to get one and waste hours of your life every week like I have, but only for the reason of ministry. If you have a lot of students in your group to keep up with, it really is a good way to see what is going on in their lives.

Check it out: www.facebook.com.

Youth and Worship

One of the things that I was tasked to do when I started this student ministry thing was to build and cultivate the spirit of worship in the lives of my students. Specifically the youth committee wanted me to build a worship team make of students. No problem right? Big promblem - it is a lot of work and if you go down this road you are in for about 20-30% of your week. Is it worth it? Yes!

Some questions you may have:

1) What if I'm not musical and don't have any students that are?

Chances are you wish you were a little musical. If you don't chances are you have some students who are or really want to be. I have a youth pastor friend who really wanted to incorporate worship and singing into his youth ministry and singing along to the CD thing was just not cutting it. What did he do? He took action. Two of his students bought guitars and so did he. They sat down twice a week and learned guitar and worship music together. Within three months he had two students leading worship with his group. These students went on to lead music for their college ministry. This is just one example but you can find your on avenue - all it takes is a little effort and purpose.

2) What if I am musical and have a few students who are - where do I start?

Practice, practice, prayer, and practice. I suggest a meeting with your leaders and one on ones with those who are going to be on your team to cast a vision and look at what the Bible says about worship and what these students are entering into to lead their peers. What I'm learning is that this one time meeting is not enough - you got to keep it going and keep communicating with your team. You got to build the team.

3) Where do I find music?

There are tons of places online. I highly recommend the online RUF hymn book at www.ruf.org. Buy CDs and practice on your own to learn new stuff. This is where that 20-30% of your work week comes in. After about a year it will fall off when you get used to process.

If you have 8 or 80, worship with your students will pay huge dividends in discipleship and growth in grace.

My Boy is here!

We'll I'm officially a Dad and loving it. My son, Wilson "Andrew" Shirley, Jr. was born September 11th at 3:03pm. He is beautiful and very healthy - 8 lbs., 9 oz., 21 inches long. We love him so much and we are very greatful to the Lord!

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!" ~ 1 John 3:1

WWW = Youth Culture

Does your ministry have a website? If it doesn't you are seriously missing out. You kids are not studying, they are not having a quiet time, they are playing on the internet about 3 hours a day. So the question is, "Are you engaing them in some small way during that 3 hours?"

Might I recommend to you that you get a website for your youth ministry and get it fast. One site that I highly recommend is www.msites.com. They are the company that I use for my ministry: www.hpcym.org. It is incredible - completely online and you can do tons of things with it like online registeration, PayPal, pictures, and a broadcast emailing system that is worth the price per month alone. If you would like to use them let me know and I can send you a recommendation. You can also take advantage of some deceit free sites like this eBloggger by Google.

You need to plug in with your youth and their culture and a website is a KEY place to begin. Granted, we can't do it all: I don't like text-messaging much, I don't IM, and I don't have a Facebook, but I can still engage them with some good content and fun stuff.

Soli Deo Gloria

Use These Resources!

If you have not discovered TH1NK® Books (an imprint of NavPress) then you are missing out!

TH1NK® resources are geared toward teen and college students. They have excellent inductive Bible studies that based on NavPress' popular and ledgendary LifeChange series. They also have tons of other books that are applicable and helpful for small groups and discipleship.

Check them out at www.thinkbooks.com

Has Your Sunday School Hour Gone From Lame to Lamer?

Well mine sure did. I will tell you why too - "lack of vision." Or to put it another lack of my involvement.

If Sunday School for you was for like it was for me - then you were not there and had no idea what was going on. All you knew was that you need to find teachers, material, and then stir. I just wasn't there and that was not good. The fact that I might have called SS lame was not because of my teachers or the material it was because my focus was on Sunday Night and Wednesday Night programs and Sunday morning was not even on my radar. This was not good.

Sunday Morning is definitely on my radar now b/c by conviction of the Holy Spirit and some other mentors, I have come to realize that Sunday Morning is the front door to student/youth ministry. Yes we are reformed, yes we are covenantal, therefore, yes, Sunday morning is the most important time for worship and outreach because that is when your new families are coming to visit. Sunday morning is going to be their first impression of your church.

So what did we do? "What should I do?" you may be asking.

1) Vision: You have to recast the vision for Sunday morning. You must ask, "What is the purpose of Sunday morning? What do I want Sunday morning to look like? How can we make it better? Am I involved? Who is coming?" I know this is a lot to think about but it is important. We live in the 21st century and the traditional Sunday School model is probably not the best. O, BTW, SS is not mandated in the Bible - yes I said that.

2) Name: Consider renaming the Sunday School hour. Do all your other programs have different, cool names and your Sunday School hour is still called Sunday School? Well ours did and boy doesn't Sunday School have a sound that gets you excited. Simply changing the name could be huge.

3) Discipleship: Decide what the purpose in the path of discipleship is in all your other programs and see what's missing. When you find what's missing, let's say worship, then trying making worship a key element in the program.

4) Format: If your program is still called Sunday School then I bet you have 45 minutes of teaching (hard core I might add) and 15 minutes of prayer. Think about it, they are about to go get a sermon from the guy who is most skilled and teaching the Bible, your Sr. Pastor. So don't make them listen to 2 in a row and they will also probably get another one that night. Consider adding in more fellowship time, music, maybe even try something edgy. We are trying a new, edgy format. We are using more audio/visual stimulation to reach this xbox 360/iPod world. We are using a DVD series called Nooma that are 10-14 minutes teaching parables and then having discussion afterwards - so far so good and nobody has gone to sleep yet. I will let you know more about it later.

5) Change: If is lame - change it. Remember you are the problem that it is lame and you need to do something about it. Pray about it, then change it and don't be afraid. If it is Christ-centered and well thought out then it will go over great with every one.

After our change we had the largest Sunday morning attendance ever.

"Simple Church" = Simple Youth Ministry

I'm also currently reading "Simple Church" by the church stats/church vitality guru Thom Rainer. Thom is onto something here, I must admit. My Asst. Pastor Bob Brunson is reading this book as he re-thinks the way we do church at Highlands. I'm liking it and it is stretching me to really hash out - "what are we doing in youth ministry at Highlands?" Are we simply providing a bunch of programs and activities or are we truly discipling students. Also, are we over-complicating things by "too many" programs and activities. The answer is, unless you have less that 15 people in your youth group, yes! Rainer is right on: simple ideas/products/programs work and work well: iPod, Google, etc.... Think about it.

"Growing Up Christian" - A Review and Recommendation

I'm currently reading this book with my staff. It is a timely book and "huge" for ministry to covenant kids. I highly recommend that student workers use if for their ministry.

Graustein does an excellent job of challenging the hearts of teenagers to take ownership of their faith and the blessings that come with being a "church kid."

A critique: The book is seemingly addressed to grade school students, however its language tone suits adults and those who work with students more than it does youth. This is not a bad thing - like I said read it; it will help you in your ministry to the heart's of covenant kids no doubt.

There is nothing new under the sun in this book but this book is extremely resourceful in putting all these ideas together in the book. The first section, "Recognizing Blessings and Dangers," is work the read as Graustein explores these avenues in "church kids."

More to come as I finish reading the book...

Welcome!

So I just started this blogging thing and I'm going to use it for something I've been praying about and interested in for quite some time and this will be a resource for those involved in youth ministry. I hope this blog proves helpful for resource and connection. Any ideas - shoot'em over.