Book Review: It Happens: True Tales from the Trenches of Youth Ministry

March 15, 2013 — Leave a comment

ithappens400x600It’s a sobering, yet entertaining read at the same time. It Happens: True Tales from the Trenches of Youth Ministry tells the true stories of what youth workers have experienced in youth ministry. Some make you laugh, some make you cringe, some make you go ‘what were you thinking’, but there certainly are lessons to be learned. The questions at the end of each chapter and story are designed to help you learn from the mistakes of others.

This book offers a great opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others. It’s a quick read, but one that can bring valuable lessons and experiences, especially to people who haven’t been in those trenches for that long. That makes it a great gift to new youth workers for instance. I think it would also work well as a starting point for discussions in a mentoring setting, or a networking thing where the goal is to learn together.

I hope this book will get sequels, because this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what youth workers have experienced in the trenches. There’s so much we can learn from each other, to prevent us from making the same mistakes.

I do hope however that they’ll lower the price, because at $16.99 on Amazon it’s rather expensive (though the Kindle edition is $10.65). I think a price around $7 or $8 would have been more realistic.

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How real are the sins of your small group?

March 14, 2013 — Leave a comment

Jon Acuff told a fantastic story at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference about a boy who had bought an ice cream. He wanted to put sauce on it or sprinkles or something, I don’t quite remember, but he picked the wrong dispenser and put mustard on it. Instead of acknowledging this, he tried stirring in the mustard to ‘fix it’. He was even offered a new ice cream, but refused, insisting that he was okay.

I think this is a perfect illustration for how many of us, but also many of our students, deal with sin. Instead of owning up to our mistakes and asking for renewal (the new ice cream), we try to hide it and fix it, ending up with really bad tasting ice cream.

The safe sin phenomenon

There’s a mechanism Jon Acuff called the ‘safe sin’ phenomenon. It’s when people start confessing their sins and all stay on the safe sins, the ones that are technically sins but really not that bad. For a student, that could be disrespecting his parents, or not praying the whole week, or forgetting his sister’s birthday. You know what I’m talking about, it’s the ‘accepted sins’, the stuff that we all consider not too bad.

The problem is that when others come up with sins like that, the next in line isn’t gonna confess watching porn online, or being drunk at a party, or having sex with her boyfriend. The safe sin mechanism makes us hide our sins, because we don’t feel accepted and safe enough to bring them into the open.

The 'safe sin' phenomenon results in students only confessing to relatively small sins, not the ones that are really impacting their lives.

The ‘safe sin’ phenomenon results in students only confessing to relatively small sins, not the ones that are really impacting their lives.

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In Small groups, You and God
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How high dare we raise the bar for teens?

March 12, 2013 — 3 Comments

Jon Acuff’s talk at the first general session of the Simply Youth Ministry Conference was brilliant and inspiring, but there was one sentence that stuck with me. He said this:

The world is very OK with teens living average lives, but we shouldn’t be.

He’s right of course. There’s very little in the world of teenagers that inspires and encourages them to live special lives, to rise above the average. Maybe academically or in sports, there’s still some pressure and an effort to raise the bar, but outside of that people are content if teens ‘just behave’. If teens don’t do drugs and their drinking doesn’t get too out of control, people consider them pretty much a success.

Do we do the same? Or dare we raise the bar for teens?

Are we content with our teens living average lives or do we dare to raise the bar for them? (Photo" Flickr, jrsquee, Creative Commons)

Are we content with our teens living average lives or do we dare to raise the bar for them? (Photo: Flickr, jrsquee, Creative Commons)

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Why I’m already registered for next year’s SYMC

March 11, 2013 — 6 Comments

Last weekend, I was at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference in Indianapolis for the very first time. That in itself may not be so shocking, but if you consider that I flew in from Germany especially, that’s saying something. It’s quite a lot of money and time to invest in just one conference. But I’ll do you one better: I already registered for next year’s SYMC (which will be in Columbus). That’s how good it was.

There were many things that really made this conference a deep experience for me:

Great variety in tracks and workshops

There were dozens of workshops and tracks to choose from and even though that made it hard at times (so much good stuff, which one to choose?), it also ensured there was something for everyone. The quality was also very high, I’ve done different workshops throughout the conference and with one exception, they were all awesome. I mean, I’ve been in youth ministry a while but I really learned a lot of new things.

The pre-conference workshop Duffy Robbins did on 'Teachings teenagers the Bible' was an example of a brilliant mix of humor, experience and information. I loved it and I learned a lot!

The pre-conference workshop Duffy Robbins did on ‘Teachings teenagers the Bible’ was an example of a brilliant mix of humor, experience and information. I loved it and I learned a lot!

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In Personal growth ,
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On my way to the Simply Youth Ministry Conference

February 26, 2013 — 2 Comments

Rachel portret kleinTomorrow I will be leaving to attend the Simply Youth Ministry Conference in Indianapolis for the very first time. It’s quite a trip from Germany, but  I’m very excited about attending the conference and meeting many people face to face that I only know online so far. I’m also very excited about the sightseeing trip to Chicago that I’ve planned after the conference :)

I’ll be trying to blog from the conference, but I’m really dependent on free wifi here so we’ll have to see how that goes. If you are at SYMC too, come say hi to me. I’ve posted a picture of me so you know what I look like, so if you recognize me, come introduce yourself!

I’ve planned my conference as best as I could with this super scheduling tool, if you want to see which tracks and workshops I’m attending check out my schedule. Hope to see many of you there!

In Personal growth ,
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Bullying brings status: an anti-bullying policy for youth ministry

February 25, 2013 — 1 Comment

Bullying is gaining more and more attention from researchers, school, parents, lawmakers and others and rightly so. In the last few years, there have been several heartbreaking stories of the effects of bullying and it’s a serious problem we need to address as youth leaders as well.

We can’t pretend bullying doesn’t happen in youth ministry. I should know, I left the teen ministry of my own church as a teen because I was bullied and the leaders did little or nothing to stop it. I still attended my ‘home church’, but I was involved in another church’s youth ministry (one that was way less radical in its message I might add!) because I was accepted there and felt safe.

We need to stop any and all bullying in our youth ministries. But what does an affective anti-bullying policy look like?

If bullying brings social status to those who bully, how do we change that?

If bullying brings social status to those who bully, how do we change that?

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Seder Meal Experience: go deep and authentic this Easter

February 22, 2013 — Leave a comment

A few years ago we wanted to do something different for Easter, to make our students more aware of the Jewish roots of the Pesach or Passover fest. We decided to organize a ‘traditional’ Jewish Seder meal, also known as a Pesach or Passover meal, but with Jesus at the centre. You could call it a Messianic Seder Meal.

The Seder Meal is held on the Thursday before Easter and it’s a combination of a ritual meal with lots of rituals that have a deep symbolism and an actual meal with great (Jewish) food. It’s the famous ‘last supper’ Jesus celebrated with His students.

The Seder Meal and Passover Feast (the Passover comes from the tenth plague and the ‘passing over’ of the houses where blood was smeared on the doorframe, in all other houses the firstborns were killed) was instituted by God after the exodus out of Egypt and the Jewish people were told to celebrate it each year. It’s also known as the Feast of the Unleavened Bread, because you’re not allowed to have any yeast in the meal and even in the house, to commemorate the hasty flight out of Egypt when the dough for bread didn’t have time to rise.

The 'bitter herbs' for an important part of the symbolic Seder meal

The ‘bitter herbs’ for an important part of the symbolic Seder meal

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Teens rule the web…but are they careful enough?

February 19, 2013 — 1 Comment

An interesting infographic that shows just how much the Internet has become part of the daily lives of teens. The question is: do they realize the possible lasting consequences of their web presence? Are they being careful enough?

Some teens manage to keep their web activities hidden from their parents, but do they realize that colleges and prospective employers also search online to check them out? Continue Reading…

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Stress management in youth ministry

February 18, 2013 — Leave a comment

This is the fourth and last post in a short series in dealing with stress in youth ministry. We’ve been talking about the stress that is youth ministry and why youth ministry may even be extra stressful compared to other jobs. In the last post we’ve discussed how you can acknowledge, recognize and identify the stress in your life and youth ministry. This brings us to the fourth step: preventing stress.

Let me start with the bad news: you’ll never completely eliminate stress from your youth ministry job, whether you’re a volunteer or on staff. Working in a church, working with people and especially young people will always result in some amount of stress. But there are things you can do to keep the stress level acceptable and healthy.

Troubled

What can you do to avoid, alter, adapt or accept the stressor in your life and in your youth ministry?

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Book Review: Anna and the French Kiss

February 17, 2013 — 2 Comments

anna and the french kiss[This book is part of our Reviews of the Top 100 in Teen Fiction] The title of Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins is pretty suggestive and it matches the content: this book is about romance, with a lot of sexual undertones and references thrown in.

Anna is a high school senior who spends a year in a boarding school in Paris where she meets new friends and falls in love with Etienne St. Clair. The only problem is that he already has a girlfriend. Despite that, these two become close friends and grow quite close to each other. The attraction is clear and they act on it on several occasions, but Etienne still doesn’t break up with his girlfriend till the very end. Of course, Anna and Etienne do get their happy ever after, it is a teen romance after all.

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