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Dennis

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Getting a Running Start as a New Volunteer Youth Worker

a. Determine to last through the awkwardness

Even secure people who are stable in every way can feel self-conscious when they begin working with students. Stepping into youth culture to care for students is about as natural a feeling for adult leaders as the feeling a student gets when his doting parent friends him on Facebook. The desire to step in and make a difference is rivaled by the uneasiness of reaching out to a youth culture much different than the one you left years ago.

This awkwardness is natural and healthy. It’s a new beginning both for the volunteer and the students alike. As leaders patiently work through the awkwardness and unfamiliarity of working with students (sometimes for weeks), students get accustomed to having him or her around. During this time, familiarity and trust can develop. There are exceptions to this. Some new volunteers will be able to work the room and know every student the first day. That person is not the volunteer who needs the content in this article. I’m writing this for the rest of us.

b. Participate in a trip

It’s common for new volunteers to confide in me their discomfort and feelings of inadequacy when they first join our volunteer team. My pat response to them is to not only be patient, but to go on the next student retreat. This is the fastest way to break out of the cloud of unfamiliarity associated with newbie volunteers.

During a long bus ride, daily cabin times and many meals together, youth leaders will naturally develop deep connections with students. My first 3 months as a volunteer at Saddleback Church’s High School Ministry were a desert of awkwardness. Serving for a week in Mexico with our students was the first time I felt traction as a leader in the ministry. Ten years later, even though I’m still on the volunteer staff, I am the go-to youth pastor to the students under my care.

c. Build on relationships

We recently came off two weeks of summer camp. I had several guys in my cabin each week who I never met before. Many of them are not in a small group. To build on these budding relationships, I’m gently shoving them toward joining my small group. My goal is to continue the spiritual progress they experienced at camp.

Some simple ways I’ve continued connecting with them:
– Friending them on Facebook (EVERY volunteer should have a Facebook profile and encourage students to do the same – I suggest staying away from My Space)
– Post photos and videos of your events with them on Facebook. This should be a requirement for every volunteer because the return on the investment of time is astronomical
– Meeting one of them for yogurt
– Having a reunion event – I’m taking them to 6 Flags. That’s a little over the top. A reunion could be much simpler. Anything that gets them together building new experiences is key to taking the relationships deeper
– Following up on their life issues. At camp some of my guys shared pain they are going through. This provides a great platform for a mentor relationship with them. My role, then, is to give them a safe place to talk through problems and work toward health

Talking Shop about Youth Ministry

Last night I met up with a youth ministry Twitter friend (Jonathan Telles – blog, Twitter) for dinner. We had never met in person, but we’ve been following each other on Twitter. We talked about a lot of stuff; vacation locations, ministry ideas, how-to’s for ministry, etc. It was 3 hours of getting filled up with ministry ideas, refreshed for the task and stretched in our thinking.

I came away from our time together wanting more. It was so great to talk shop with a fellow youth worker in the trenches. He’s the paid professional and I’m a volunteer. We come at serving students from different perspectives and with different needs. We had a lot to offer each other.

I share this as an encouragement to not wait as long as I have to meet up with other youth workers to talk about ministry. Whether you’re the paid professional or the free professional, there’s a lot to be gained from talking with others on the same path.

How To Last In Youth Ministry: You Can’t Please Everybody, Just Do What’s Right

The last church where I was a youth pastor did not support the youth program financially. One time they gave me a raise of $50/month and told me to spend it on the youth. I had to turn in receipts to show how I spent it. I have about 3 more sessions on that and my counselor says I’ll be back to normal.

Poverty has a way of bringing creativity. We were able to do a couple of big fundraisers to support the youth ministry. We had a fireworks booth which we won in a town lottery. I also found a florist in the church who gave us roses at cost which we packaged and sold at the high school graduation. Both brought in a healthy youth budget… which I then had to ask for permission to spend… and was usually denied. That will take a few more counseling sessions.

The point of this post is

4 Small Group Prep Techniques

When I prepare to teach my small group, there are 4 tools I’m learning to use to help me customize the curriculum to be relevant to our ministry setting.

1. Relate my life to the material – Sometimes this requires me to dig deep, other times the connections are obvious. Either way, it’s important for me to share my story as I teach so I can show how the principles of the lesson can be used in real-life settings. I’m careful to share failure stories as much as I can. If I only share success stories then my students may feel they could never live up to my standards. It’s important to communicate that we’re all on the journey together; each of us hitting potholes along the way.

2. Review what others are saying – The web is full of resources such as podcasts, articles, blog posts, statistics and other items that directly pertain to the subject of any lesson I could ever teach. If I’m ever running short on outside material it’s only because I haven’t looked. Finding volumes of information on a topic doesn’t mean I have to use it all in my teaching. However, it may give guidance to the direction I take the lesson or illustrations or activities I choose to implement while teaching.

3. Reuse what I’ve learned in church – Repetition is one way to drive a lesson home. In the Bible when you see a concept repeated you can know for sure what the author is driving home. It’s the same way in teaching small group. I take every opportunity to reinforce what is taught in the weekend services as I teach my small group. I may even prod the students to bring in the message by asking them if they remember what Pastor Doug said about a specific topic. Keeping sermon notes in a binder helps me recall what was said on a specific topic.

4. Request the help of other small group leaders – Some of the best training I get is from other small group leaders in my ministry. Hearing them talk about how they teach and interact with their students challenges and equips me to be a better leader. My fellow small group leaders are an easily overlooked asset that can yield a treasure trove of ideas for teaching my small group.

How To Last In Ministry: Defining My Target Student

When I was a rookie in youth ministry, I felt like a failure if I couldn’t reach every student. It wasn’t as much about my ego as it was feeling a need to be everything to every student. Regardless of how much I tried, there were some students I just couldn’t make a deep connection with.

All of that has changed. Instead of beating myself up for not reaching everybody, I’ve defined the target student who I reach best. Doing this has eased my guilt while allowing me to focus on the ones I connect with best. I believe this is an important key to why I’ve been able to last in ministry.

Students I connect best with are:
– Not in the most popular crowd
– Not overly involved in sports
– Can be found behind the scenes and are very dedicated

These are my guys (many of them are in the picture at the top of my blog):
– Hansel, Zack and Kevin run lights and cameras for our weekend services
– Cris, Ryan N. and Jay are into drama and music at their school
– Ryan S., Evan, Connor all run cross country (individual sport where introverts thrive)
– Devon is a football player who is here because of Connor
– Chad is also a football player who I’ve known since he was a boy
– Josh is my freshman who is getting a fresh start

I’ve found that these students are the ones I can connect with best because I was like them as a teenager. I can do for them what I was glad people did for me when I was their age. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

One of the reasons it’s great to have variety on our volunteer staff is I could never have a small group full of senior football players. I leave them to the sports enthusiasts who can connect with them best. Everybody’s happy this way.

How To Last In Youth Ministry: Working With Out-Of-Control Students

Many of us became youth ministry volunteers either because somebody helped us get through our teenage years or because we want to help others avoid the same mistakes we made during our adolescent years. However, many times leaders get overwhelmed by students once they start volunteering.

Last year I spent a few days substitute teaching at the local high school so that I could have another way to reach students. After the third day, I realized it wasn’t going to work out. They were rude, manipulative, cheating heathens. And those were just the freshman girls. Even though I’ve been working with students for 15 years, I was completely caught off guard. Instead of molding young minds, I was fighting a losing battle for my life. I was done after 3 days.

Many of us feel that way when we walk into the youth ministries of our church. I can understand the feeling of being overwhelmed and wanting to give up. Fortunately, I feel a little more equipped to handle issues at church than in our public school system. I’m not so naive to think I can blindly solve the problems specific to your ministry through an article on my blog. However, I do have some lifelines I can toss your direction with hopes of helping you last:

1. Add reinforcements – If students are taking over, that can be a sign that there isn’t enough adult presence. An ideal ratio is 7-10 students to every adult in a large group program. In a small group program, the ratio works better with 3-5 students to every leader. Adding leaders can be one of the toughest tasks in ministry. However, until you do, count on being over run. To bring in more leaders, you need to sell the potential of the ministry to other godly adults who can share the vision for what your ministry can accomplish.

2. Be ready before they arrive – Idle hands are the Devil’s playground. If students are arriving and they’re not getting your attention because your team is still getting the program setup, they will find something else to do… which could involve mischief. If they’re out of control before your program begins, the event loses a lot of it’s ministry potential.

3. Give them responsibility – A great way to turn this around is to put them in charge of what you’re usually doing when they arrive. If you’re putting out chairs as they walk in, invite them to help and then anoint them as leaders of the chair ministry each week. If you’re setting up the stage, begin a stage crew.

4. Introduce structure – Many times students are out of control because of a lack of structure. Adding structural elements to your program, no matter how big or small, will give students something to adhere to. If your program is different every week and is out of control, that could make it difficult for your students to stay focused. An extreme example of structure is a private school with strict rules and uniforms. Although they still have behavioral issues, they will be less in frequency and severity as an underfunded inner-city school with gang problems. When structure and authority (see point number 5 below) are added, the ministry becomes manageable and your efforts can be directed more toward building them into fully devoted followers of Christ instead of hellions that make you want to scream and give up.

5. Assert authority – I don’t think I should write any specific action step here because it requires such a variety of responses based on each specific situation. The bottom line is that allowing unruly students to overshadow ministry efforts prohibits others from being ministered to. When I first started volunteering at Saddleback Church, I had two students who destroyed the community our small group Bible study time. In hind sight, I should have invited them not to return until they could participate in the Bible study without being so disruptive. Because of two students, visitors would not return and regular students stopped attending. I learned my lesson from that situation over the course of a year. Several years of experience later, I would never let that happen today.

If you’re going to last in ministry, you need to have a plan in place to deal with what would try to destroy what God wants to do through you.

Calling All Volunteer Youth Workers

Hey fellow youth workers,

My passion in youth ministry is to not only be a great volunteer to my students, but to also help create community among volunteers so we can learn from each other, encourage one another and challenge each other.

I would love to hear from you through either comments on my posts or by email. I have a lot of ideas to share and will get more throughout the year. I’d love to post some of your ideas as blog posts, too. My e-mail address is dennisbeckner@gmail.com

Lastly, if you like what you see, please tell others about this blog. The more the merrier. As a youth ministry volunteer, I know how great it is to share ideas with other youth workers. Nothing against the paid professionals, but sometimes it’s better to talk with other volunteers because we have a different perspective.

I hope to hear from you soon,

Dennis