Part of the Glue

This past week I attend the Shift Conference up in Chicago at Willow Creek. The conference for me was a highlight on a number of levels. Getting the chance to bond with our team as well as being inspired and educated about new “shifts” in student ministry not to mention the chance to network with others and time away to reflect all combined to make for an incredible week of learning and growing. I came away with pages of notes and many ideas hopefully to implement over this next year.

As I attended sessions, spoke with others and participated in breakouts I noticed a common thread in several “shifts” in student ministry.

1. the Role of the Family in Discipleship
The subject of the family was talked about on more than one occasion. Student Ministries are slowly realizing that while they are important they can only do so much in regards to the spiritual maturity of teenagers. Mark Holman mentioned that after conducting a thorough study, Mom and Dad are two to three times more important than any church program when it comes to one’s faith as a teenager. The study also showed that the Mother first and Father second where the two most important persons in regards to the spiritual development of their teens…not thier youth group leader or pastor. Ultimately Holman argued for both building strong families and utilizing youth ministries. Bubba Thurman youth pastor at Lake Pointe spoke about the importance of the family and shared his story of once being defensive when first hearing the stats Holman shared. Thurman has since then been leading the way in adopting a practical approach to integrating the family in Discipleship. One of the resources Thurman’s church has developed was a center called home pointe which focuses on building strong healthy Christ-centered families and giving families a plan to do that. Thurman argued for a holistic approach to incorporating the family in the church instead of creating another ministry or program just for the family. He encouraged youth pastors to think of how they could inform parents of what students are already learning by sending home material and involving them in things like camp by doing a live-stream or podcast. Holman also suggested creating opportunities to inspire and equip parents to disciple thier kids from a very early age.

2. Spiritual Formation as a Process
Richy Fisher my friend and boss and Dr. Kara Powell of the Fuller Youth Institute spoke in great detail about a shift to approaching student ministry of growing souls and not so much about growing programs and numbers. Fisher spoke about the importance of looking at God’s scorecard when leading a ministry and seeing the results through His eyes. Fisher also pointed out that spiritual formation is not assimiliation but a move to focus on maturity levels and being Christ-centered. A Lot of what Fisher talked about was introduced from the reveal study done several years ago. Fisher has since then been developing processes for students in his youth group to move in this direction and using a language that can relate with parents and students. You can download Richy’s presentation here.

Powell focused on some research the fuller youth institute had done and looked at four components needed to developing what she called “sticky faith.” The “sticky faith” powell described is very similar to what Fisher presented as being Christ-centered in the reveal study. Below are the 4 components she developed that lead to spiritual maturity.

1. Leaders focused on Jesus
Powel,  a long time fan of relational student ministry urged youth pastors to look at this model and examine itself to make sure they were asking leaders to simply follow them but to follow them because they follow Christ… Powell wished she would have talked to students alot more about God than she did. In a relational ministry students will move on to college or something else after high school and youth leaders will no longer be there for students to follow them.
2. Kingdom Centered Justice
Powell talked about the importance of preparation and debriefing when doing service trips or mission trips. Creating opportunities for students to serve and to be the hands and feet of Christ allow students the chance to really use their faith and they want this. Service Trips were the number one things seniors waned more of when surveyed, not programs.
3. Intergenerational Youth Ministry
Powell spoke about allowing/encouraging students to be involved in the overall church instead of always segregating by themselves. The health benefits of working alongside adults and seniors has a tremendous impact of students’ view of the overall church.
4. Early Preparation
Preparing students for college as early as a year before instead of weeks is something Powell also recommended. She spoke about how many students wished their youth ministries would have helped them find churches and ministries to plug into after they left high school…. liveabove is one website she recommended.

Both Fisher and Powell spoke about processes and thinking with the end in mind and encouraged youth pastors to really look at what is truly important in regards to helping students develop in their faith.

I recently finished reading Andy Stanley’s the Principle of the Path and decided that this principle really had a lot to do with my approach to being creative.  As a video producer I am constantly trying to be creative in the way I write, shoot or edit videos.  Not all the time, but sometimes I feel I lack in creativity and usually this is because I am not on a path.

Creativity is just one of those things you really have to work at.  A lot of people believe they are not creative, however the truth is being made in the image of God we are born with the ability and desire to create.  The difference from someone that is often labeled as a “creative” compared with someone who struggles to be creative is that the “creative” often chooses to work exceptionally hard at being creative and often times has a clear path to do this.

One example in describing this principle are body builders in the way they maintain their strength. You would never walk up to a body builder and ask, “so how did you get to be so muscular?”  You know they had to work at it and put extra effort to not just be heatlhy but to be stronger than the average person.  Their strength wasn’t an accident or lucky dna strand, they chose to take a path to maintain their strength.

To stay healthy you might need to work out X number of times a week, but to maintain creativity the path is not always as clear.  There are no real creative counselors that will sit down with you and give you a prescription for what to do in order to maintain a creative well, however there are some approaches that will foster creativity if practiced often and routinely.

As a Christian I believe that first I must ask God to be creative and must ask him to give me ideas.  Part of depending on God for strength is depending on God for creativity.

As a film-maker I believe that I must constantly be watching films of all kinds both independent, foreign, short and major blockbusters.  I must be reading books on film-making, screenwriting and cinematography.  There must be a large in-take of not only certain films but certain writings that will serve to not only inspire me but direct me in what has been done and what should be done.

As a lifelong learner I believe I must be reading blogs, books and magazines on various subjects and especially those of Christianity.   Having a cultural and spiritual well to draw from is extremely important. I also believe that I must be observing what other creative people are doing and following their example. Stealing other creative people’s ideas and making them my own is one example of this. One of my friends Matt Coleman of Unblind Productions was telling me about his screenwriters group that has really helped him be consistent in writing screenplays.  This group he created was able to foster an environment of creativity because of the objectives and goals they set in place.

As a leader I believe I must help others foster this creativity by writing blogs like this one, speaking about creativity and helping others create a creative path in order to maintain creativity.

What are ways you are able to maintain creativity?  I’d love to hear your thoughts….

I rarely post youtube videos, however I stumbled upon this video that really resonated with me in my approach to telling stories in the church.

1. Information, Information, Information….Use it as a free communication tool that can inform parents, leaders and students of upcoming information.
2. Assign several staff/volunteers to be mobile journalist and capture real-time certain events and programs your ministry does through twitpic and text.
3. Use the  #hashtag feature which will allow people in your ministry to see what is going on at #yourstudentministry when they search for it on twitter
4. Have your youth pastor/leaders twitter, which will humanize them and allow parents and students to see how they live their lives throughout the week.
5. Create a twitter account for your ministry and link it to your website….this will help to generate users.
6. Start conversations or ask questions that you want students in your ministry to be thinking about…perhaps something from a previous series).
7. Have an event like camp where you encourage students to sign up for twitter and twitter their experiences throughout the week using a special #phrase. Once setup you would post the tweets on a screen for everyone to see using a special program or website.

www.twitter.com to sign up