Posted by Kurt Johnston

With the Simply Youth Ministry Conference literally days away, I thought I’d share my typical conference strategy…how I typically approach the myriad of opportunities going to a national conference provides.

* Ditch Something: I always say, “It’s not a conference unless you ditch a session or two.” So that’s what I do! I ditch a couple times to see a movie, take in some of the local sights, walk to a hole-in-the-wall eatery, etc.

* Attend One Or Two Workshops In My Wheelhouse: I like to attend a couple workshops on topics with which I’m already fairly familiar or led by people I already know and trust. These can be like comfort food….part of a steady training diet.

* But Mostly Attend Workshops That Stretch Me: The best part about large conferences like SYMC is the diversity in topics and presenters. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn about stuff I rarely think about and sit under the expertise of folks from different traditions, backgrounds, perspectives and theological leanings.

* Buy Someone’s Coffee and “Pick Their Brain”: It can be intimidating to ask, and not all presenters will make themselves available, but take a chance and ask one of them if you can buy them a coffee and ask some questions! And…remember, the presenters aren’t the only folks at a conference from whom you can learn. Are you a rookie? Invite the first veteran you meet to coffee! Are you a veteran? Take a rookie to coffee and ask his/her advice on an issue. In an Urban setting? Find somebody from another city and exchange learnings.

* Don’t Compare: Want to ruin your conference experience? Play the comparison game. When you compare, you always lose. Who cares if your ministry is as big as the next, or if you have an equally proportionate budget. Yes, you can probably deliver a general session message as well as the person asked to do so, but why the need to remind yourself of that? Who cares if you wear a golf polo shirt and everybody else is wearing tight t-shirts with dragon flame tattoo looking graphics! Something tells me healthy, fulfilling youth ministry has little to do with shirt preference.

Not going to SYMC this weekend? Plan now to join us next year, or use these tips to make the most of whatever conference you find yourself at next.

Posted By Kurt Johnston

I really like this video by Eric Samuel Timm. It feels a bit too abstract for junior highers, but it would be GREAT for high school and college-age students. Pass it along!

Posted by Scott Rubin

I wasn’t intending to write a blog post right now. But just had an interaction that made me want to jot some things down…
(If you can see a parallel between middle schoolers and senior citizens, this post might make sense.)

I got in early this morning, needing to crank through some things before anyone else gets to the office. I flipped on my computer, and went to empty my overflowing trash can before attacking my day. Walking back to my office, I ran into a 70-year-old volunteer from our church who helps do cleaning stuff around here, early in the mornings. (In my opinion, jr. highers and senior citizens can both be a bit “invisible” to people if they’re not careful!)

When I said “how are you doing” to this guy (not realizing he was really going to tell me!), he proceeded to fill me in about the stroke he had last year, and how he’s recovering from it. I was aware that I really wanted to get to my office & dig into the stuff I need to get done today… but I tried to dial in with him… it only took 5 minutes. Honestly though, I was probably half-listening, and half thinking of my “to-do” list for the day. He told me about how his left side was paralyzed last May, but now he’s doing better.

As I wished him a good day & started to leave, he said 5 words that made me pause:
“Thanks for listening to me.”

I’m not even sure I did a very good job of listening… but he was thankful.

How’s that similar to a Jr. Higher?I think they are also looking for someone who’s willing to try to LISTEN to them. KNOW them a little bit. CARE about what they’re feeling.
How’s that different from a Jr. Higher?Most of them won’t remember to say “Thanks for listening to me”. But I believe theyfeelthankful…

Posted By Kurt Johnston

Do me a favor and re-read the title of this post one more time. I believe it accurately states the current adolescent journey.
For those of us who work with junior highers, it presents a unique opportunity (challenge):
How do we help young teenagers hold onto childhood/youthful innocence while adequately preparing them for young adulthood in our culture?

The first part of the issue (too old, too soon) is nothing new. Sociologists have for several decades been observing and writing about the myriad of ways our culture forces aspects of adulthood onto children at far too young an age. When I was in college almost 25 years ago, one of our text books was David Elkind’s classic, “All Grown Up and No Place To Go.”

But the problem of extended adolescence (too young, too long) is a newer development…or at least a newer conversation among youth workers.

So we have a bit of a catch 22, it seems. Junior high youth workers today (and this may be the first time you’ve thought of it in this light) get to live, minister, lead and love-on young teenagers in a “both/and” fashion; that protects them from being too old, too soon yet helps prevent them from staying too young, too long.

How do we do this? I’m not sure! But I’m eager to learn.

If you are going to SYMC, this topic will be part of our junior high track. But I’d love to get the conversation started here, and let everybody who reads the blog share their thoughts.

15 February 2012

Posted by Scott Rubin

When it comes to training & equipping volunteers, I’ve come to believe that A LITTLE is better than NONE! (and sometimes better than A LOT!)

Today is the first day that “99 Thoughts about Jr. High Ministry” is available… and I’ve already ordered some copies of it. Lots of volunteers won’t have time to read a whole book about Middle School Ministry — but Kurt has packed this little book (maybe even book-let?) with short, helpful thoughts that can motivate and inform busy people who serve students. It’s like giving your volunteers the wisdom they’d gain from sitting down for a cup of coffee with Kurt… only this booklet is probably a little more focused than he’d be in person. I can’t wait to get it!

Along the same lines, I used to try to do “day long” or “half day” trainings with our volunteers… and it felt like a HUGE undertaking! But recently, our philosophy has shifted to 30 minute trainings… very focused and purposeful … about 2 times a month (when volunteers are already at church). It’s been fantastically helpful for us — and not only that, our volunteer attendance rate has been right around 90%!

How do you train volunteers? Maybe “short” could be Great for you, too.

posted By Kurt Johnston

In this short (but taking far too long to complete) series, I have saved my favorite “key to longevity” for last: Avoid toolish behavior.

Is that a typo? Don’t I mean avoid FOOLISH behavior? It’s not a typo. In simple terms, if you want to last…don’t be a tool.

Here are some examples of toolish behavior that can short-circuit your ministry:
- arrogance
- using people for your own gain
- misusing spiritual authority to manipulate
- constant self promotion
- building a ministry around yourself…your gifts, your personality, etc.
- talking you and your ministry up while talking others and their ministries down
- entitlement
- delegating the stuff you don’t want to do (or think a “leader” shouldn’t have to do)
- ensuring you are smartest person in the room (or trying to create that impression)
- living in a youth ministry silo; not interested in the church as a whole

I could keep adding to the list but you get the point.

All of us visit the neighborhood of “toolish behavior” from time to time, but a key to longevity is to refuse to live there!

by Mark Eades, the middle school guy
“It’s not the magic that makes it work; it’s the way we work that makes the magic.”
Lee Cockerell explains how he does this work throughout his book Creating Magic. He shares two key “work” ideas in working in the middle school ministry, making this book a valuable addition to my library.
One is the importance of being a humble but strong leader in what we do. He shared a number of methods. Here are some that stand out:

Posted by Scott Rubin

I love reading Josh Griffin’s blog, called “More than Dodgeball”. And I understand the title … that youth ministry is more than activities-without-purpose. But last weekend, our middle school ministry paused our regular rhythm during the weekend service, and we put on The SuperBowl of Dodgeball. Which was a smashing success!

In fact, we thought it might be our last chance for doing this, because the space we meet in is about to undergo a significant change, which could make this hard to repeat. But now we’re saying, “HOW can we make sure this happens again someday?!”… because it was that good.

A few factors that made it work:::
1- It interrupted the regular flow of our weekends … and provided something completely different. Do your students pretty much know what to expect when they walk in the doors? I’d claim that sometimes that’s a good thing; providing some stability can be helpful. But at other times, it’s great for middle schoolers to look around & say “This is CRAZY… I can’t believe we’re doing this!”

2- It was a fabulous chance to invite a friend… especially a friend who’d probably decline an invite to “church”. We told our regular students that we weren’t putting on a dodgeball tourney for “us”… but we were “hosting” a dodgeball tournament for all their friends! And close to half of our students were able to bring someone along with them. I realize that there’s no guarantee how many of them will return… but I know that some will. And that’s exciting.

3- It gave our regular volunteers a fresh opportunity to cheer their students on. As usual, we never could have pulled this thing off without our great team of volunteers. And they really enjoyed the role of coach/cheerleader… and also had a chance for some good connection with students & their friends between games.

4- Parents caught the vision. Cool to talk to a mom yesterday whose son brought his whole basketball team. She picked them all up in her mini-van, threw 3 pizzas in the back, and delivered them to church… all the while thinking, “I can’t believe this is happening”.

Posted By Kurt Johnston

I apologize for the distance between my last post and this one…been a bit crazy.

A sixth contributing factor to my longevity is to simply choose to lead differently. Here are a few ways I have tried (I don’t always get it right) to lead over the years:

Here’s a new idea: SERVANT LEADERSHIP! I‘m shocked at how many Christian leaders preach and teach about servant leadership, yet fail to actually practice the concept. Here’s my hunch: Everybody starts as a servant leader because we have to in order to gain the trust and respect of our fellow leaders, to earn the trust of people we lead and, frankly, because we are low man on the totem pole….servant leadership isn’t an option early in a ministry career. But as we move up the ranks, gain influence and responsibility, it becomes very easy to slip into a leadership mindset that is just about everything except servant oriented (dare I say “Jesus oriented”?).

Don’t ask others to do something you’re not willing to do (everybody says this, but few mean it) Again, I hear it all the time, but don’t see it in action. I think most leaders used to do the stuff they now ask others to do, but many are simply unwilling to re-engage at that level. Obviously, you can’t always do the stuff you used to do, but a healthy leader gets his/her hands dirty…a lot!

Empower, Empower, Empower Leadership gets very fun when you begin to switch from a “I equip folks to do what I need them to do” mentality to one of “I equip and empower folks to do what they feel led to do”. An empowering leader creates the broadest boundaries possible and allows his team to dream, create, execute, eliminate, etc. within those broad boundaries.

Give away the credit! It is my opinion that the simple act of giving away the credit is the single most effective way a leader builds health, trust, community, teamwork, etc. It’s also one of the toughest things for many leaders to do! Leaders are typically high achievers and competitive by nature. Because of this, giving others the credit doesn’t come easy for many. Practice giving away as much of the credit as you possibly can. It’s easier than you may think, and it’s well worth it.

I’m writing this late on Sunday night… or maybe it’s early Sunday morning.
The Super Bowl is over now, and I have no idea who won. I wasn’t at a party, and didn’t see any of the new commercials that everyone will be talking about. Nope, I wasn’t on a spiritual fast-from-media … I was on an airplane crossing the ocean.

I actually love Super Bowl Parties. Not only for the party itself – but also because I can be “in the know” about what got served up on TV. It’s a good conversation starter with students, too.

But here’s another advantage of workong with middle schoolers! They won’t care that I missed the game – even the ones who were glued to the screen the whole time. In fact, some of them may be glad I didn’t see it! Because it gives THEM an opportunity to “fill me in” on what I missed.

I find that junior highers love to give me their perspective on anything I don’t know about. Especially since I’m always teaching them things – they love the chance to “teach me back”. So don’t worry if you haven’t read the Hunger Games, or heard Selena’s most recent song…Or seen the funniest Super Bowl commercials. Just ask a student to give you their expert opinion. It’ll make them feel valued, it’ll remind them that you care — and it’ll save you time by knowing which commercials to look up on YouTube and which ones to skip.

Oh, and congrats to whichever team won, Luckily for me, my Cincinnati Bengals never play in the Super Bowl, so I don’t have to worry so much about missing it.