Tag: student ministry

Youth Pastor Wanted!

We are looking for a new teammate to join our student ministry team–someone who values collaborating, excellence, empowering others, and fun.  Specifically, we are looking for someone who will:

  • lead our high school small groups ministry
  • oversee our sticky faith/college transition components
  • organize and lead mission trips
  • recruit and train volunteers
  • periodically teach from the platform
  • collaborate well with our staff team
  • generate astronomical ideas

Here’s a little about us:

  • Ada Bible is a large multi-site church in the Grand Rapids, MI area.
  • Our student ministry staff team consists of 13 wickedly talented and fun people.
  • Our student ministry is huge on small groups, simplicity, volunteer empowerment, programming excellence and missions
  • If you are looking for a label, we are an Orange partner church

Click here to check out the job description and or apply.  Also, if you aren’t interested but know of someone who would fit well, please encourage them to apply.

If you have thoughts or questions, feel free to email me.  I don’t mind blunt or dumb questions.

 

 

Why Structure is Everything

The other day, I found myself sitting around a table eating spinach and artichoke dip with my friends Jon and Brian, who happen to be two of the smartest people I know.  In my experience, great food and drink lead to great conversation.  As often happens, we were passionately discussing ministry strategies and philosophies.  Brian made a statement has been rattling around my head ever since.  Here’s what he said:

“Structure unleashes relationship.”

Here’s what followed in our conversation…

1.  DISCIPLESHIP IS ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIP

Student ministry that transforms lives is all about relationships.  Great student ministry involves spiritually mature and caring adults pouring their lives into students.  In essence is about spiritual mentoring.  In addition, great student ministries create cultures in which students learn to live in community with peers.  Through small groups, students begin to experience the family of Jesus through encouragement, presence, accountability and life together.  When it comes to student ministry, relationships are crucial.

Sometimes I hear from youth workers about how their student ministry is all about discipleship.  “We teach the Word!”  My argument would be that without deep and sustained relationship there is no such thing as discipleship.  Students do not learn well from lectures or sermons.  They, and we, if we are honest, learn in the context of relationship.  We learn from discussing ideas with mentors and people we trust.  We learn from watching others and practicing together.  In truth, discipleship is all about relationships.

2. RELATIONSHIPS AREN’T ORGANIC

Relationships have a odd way of running toward chaos.  Pick a relationship in your life.  Left alone, it will run toward chaos.  If you neglect a friendship,  marriage or business relationship, it will slowly degrade and eventually collapse into ruins.  I’ve come to believe that relationship are in fact, not organic.  In other words, relationships do not simply happen or grow stronger naturally.  Life reveals the exact opposite.  In my relationship with my wife, we grow apart when we don’t intentionally invest and protect our relationship.  Especially because we have four kids, growth in our relationships requires scheduled dates, persistent connection, shared projects…in other words, structure.

I have often heard from student pastors and volunteers that their ministry is very organic.  “We’re just about relationships.  We’re like the early church in that way.”  What they mean is that program and structure are somehow counterproductive to discipleship.  In my experience, this philosophy sounds impressively spiritual but it is in truth over-simplistic and doesn’t actually lead to discipleship.

Discipleship happens over time and in the context of many conversations.  Discipleship is built on the foundation of trust, shared experience and intentionality.  It doesn’t happen organically and it doesn’t happen in a pew.  It happens in purposeful relationships and it is structure that unleashes these relationships.

3.  CULTURE ISN’T ORGANIC

We have an obsession with the word “culture.”   In student ministry circles, we talk about building cultures.  We all know that we want a culture of transformation or a culture of this or that.  The question is, do we understand what we are talking about?  Or better yet, do we have any idea how to build culture?  In reality, culture is actually very simple.  Culture is the structure of how we live together.  Our societal culture is the structure of how our society functions together.  In student ministry, culture is simply the structure that facilitates how we function together as a group.

It is possible to build a culture or change an existing culture.  However, the path to culture change doesn’t begin with an impassioned speech or a new decorating scheme.  Culture changes begins with structure.  If you want a culture of discipleship through relationship then you need a structure that promotes and facilitates relationships.

So what exactly do we mean when we say structure?  That’s a great question.  I’ll unpack the sort of structure that unleashes relationship over the next few days.

 

image credited to gaspi*yg via Flickr

How to Survive Ministry Exhaustion

Tuesday night is my free evening.  My wife attends a bible study and after I put the kids to bed I can do whatever I want.  It’s a beautiful thing.  It’s a perfect opportunity to write, relax and recharge.  But tonight, I’m eating Cool Whip right out of the tub and playing a video game that isn’t that great.  The Cool Whip isn’t even thawed.  I just pulled it out of the freezer and started eating it.  It tastes good, like a cloud of sugar–one of those big fluffy clouds that patrol the sky on hot summer days.

It strikes me, as I sit here, mindlessly eating frozen Cool Whip, that I am, in fact, eating frozen Cool Whip.  What am I doing?  Then I realize that my shoulder hurts because I’ve been sitting in an awkward position eating Cool Whip and playing a lame video game for hours.  Yes, I’m embarrassed to say, hours.  Why am I spending my free evening so mindlessly?  This is what strikes me as I sit with an aching shoulder and a developing stomach ache.  I’d like a redo on my Tuesday night.

I’m tired.  It’s April and our student ministry team has been steadily pouring ourselves out all year long.  It’s been leading, writing, filming, counseling, editing, teaching, leading worship, traveling, mentoring, trouble-shooting, serving, setting up, tearing down, staying up late, getting up early, navigating crises, training, calming down parents, prodding parents, meeting deadlines, reviewing, confronting, encouraging, intervening, worrying, producing, acting, and managing on repeat since late last summer.  I’m tired–very tired.  When I look around our office during our team meetings I can see the weariness in all of our faces.  It’s been a great season of ministry but we are all coasting to the finish line like cars running on fumes, praying we make it to the gas station at the next exit.  Will we make it?  I think so.  I hope so.

My suspicion is that I’m not alone.  We’re all tired.  If you are a youth worker, you are exhausted.  Maybe you thought it was just you.  You aren’t alone.

I remember, early in my career, at the end of a season like this, thinking that maybe I wasn’t cut out for student ministry.  Maybe the profound exhaustion I feel is an indicator that this line of work isn’t for me.  Maybe you feel that way.  Maybe you don’t like people right now.  Maybe you feel like hiding.  Maybe all you can think about is summer with less programming and more sand and sun.  Maybe you ate Cool Whip out of the tub last night.  This doesn’t mean you aren’t cut out for student ministry.  It simply means that you’re tired.

The danger here is that tired doesn’t fix itself.  Tired people become exhausted people.  Exhausted people burnout.  Youth workers who are called, gifted and wired for student ministry run out of steam and drop out of the game all the time.  I’m realizing that when I catch myself eating Cool Whip out of the tub it’s time for a day off.  It’s time to delegate a responsibility, cancel a meeting or schedule something that I love.  That’s why I’m going to quit early tomorrow night and play beach volleyball with a few friends.

Are you tired?  Been eating Cool Whip?  Please take a step back and rest.  Go do something you love and recharge your batteries.  Your students need you–fully energized and engaged.  You were called, gifted and wired to do this.  Stay in the game.

 

 

Mentoring Casts a Long Shadow

Melissa was the quietest girl in my group. She had dark hair and beautiful blue eyes. Once her grandma, who picked her up and brought her to our church each week, pulled me aside in the hallway and asked, “Could you keep a special eye on Melissa? Things are really rough at home right now.”

Melissa wasn’t one of the girls who would run up and give me a hug when I walked in the room. She wasn’t bouncing up and down, just dying to tell me about the prank they had just played on the boys. Melissa would just give me a shy smile. She hung back. She didn’t say much during our discussion and prayer time.

But in her eyes I saw a hunger for more. She was hurting. She was looking for hope.

By spring, the girls in my group had earned enough points (by memorizing verses, doing their quiet time sheets, and attending regularly) for a party at my house.  We decided to have an Orange Party—which meant we would wear orange clothes, eat orange food, and do an orange scavenger hunt in my neighborhood.

After an orange-filled afternoon, I pulled the girls into a huddle on the floor in my basement, and told them the story of Jesus dying on the cross and rising again. It wasn’t the first time I had told it. It wasn’t the first time they had heard it. But for two girls, it was the first time the story overlapped with their stories.

Melissa was one of those girls. I remember the sweet intensity of her prayer, as she asked Jesus to save her from her sin and be her Lord. And I remember her smile afterward—those big blue eyes sparkling.

I moved away shortly after this, and I didn’t hear from Melissa for about fifteen years. Then, last summer, she sent me a message via facebook.

Melissa was a young mom now. Life hadn’t been easy. She was expecting her third baby, and she wasn’t married. And even though she hadn’t made the best choices, she wanted to come back to God. She was reaching out to me because she knew I could help. And it’s been my great delight to do so!

As we’ve reconnected, I’ve silently wondered why Melissa thought to reach out to me. We live in different states now. We probably wouldn’t have recognized each other on the street. And there probably are Christians whose paths cross with Melissa’s.

I’ve thought about several other girls, too, who have reconnected with me over the years. One girl was in my cabin at a summer camp. Eight years after I led her to Jesus at camp, she was struggling with suicidal thoughts. So she looked up my address and wrote me a letter, asking me to pray.

Another girl contacted me via facebook, just after she got married. She said that she had just packed the little book mark I gave her in middle school. The bookmark’s glow-in-the-dark cross didn’t glow anymore, but it had been on her nightstand for years, reminding her of the things I had taught her about God. She said, “If you hadn’t been there… I really think my life could have gone another way.” She just wanted to write and say thanks.

To each of these girls, I somehow represented a time that their eyes were opened to Jesus. I’m the one who got to put their hands in His.

This is what youth ministry is all about! Putting their hands in His. We only have a few moments to walk with them. Pretty soon, they’ll be walking away from our church, our youth ministry, our influence. Will they walk with Jesus?

lf we never ask that question, I doubt whether mentoring will truly happen. If we don’t dream about who are kids are becoming and where they are going in life, we’ll be content to eat orange food, wear orange clothes, and call it a day of youth ministry.

But on the other hand, true mentoring casts a long shadow. When we care enough to cross over into our kids’ lives, we can make a difference that extends into the coming decades and ultimately crosses into eternity. We can bring little blue eyed girls like Melissa with us to heaven.

 

Shannon Popkin bio pic

Shannon Popkin is so thankful for the 10+ years that she got to serve in various capacities of youth ministry. Nowadays, she focuses on ministering to the three kids who constantly fill both her laundry baskets with dirty clothes, and her heart with joy. Shannon and her husband Ken have been married for almost eighteen years, and they are so thankful for the support they get from Ada Bible’s Lifeline (youth group) in raising their kids to know and love God.
As a writer and speaker, Shannon loves to encourage women to put their hope in God. Check out her blog, Tiny Paragraphs, at www.shannonpopkin.com.
photo credited to iamdogjunkie via Flickr

Why Small Groups Aren’t Enough

I recently realized that small groups in our student ministry aren’t working.  I found this insight surprising because I’m a huge fan of small groups.  In fact, I spent the last 5 years as the small groups pastor of our high school ministry.  I’m still a huge proponent of small groups but I’ve realized that they aren’t enough.  Unless these groups lead to something deeper we aren’t giving our student what they truly need.

What I’ve learned over the last decade of ministry is that in a culture that is largely void of adult support and care what our students need more than anything is mentors.  Our students need caring adults to show them how to live and follow Jesus.  They need a constant force of love, support and coaching.  That is what a mentor does.   I still believe that small groups are important but only if they lead to mentoring.

Perhaps the most important benefit of a mentor is that the mentoring relationship continues after students graduate out of our ministries.  I am convinced that long-term mentoring relationships are the most important thing we can offer a student.  So how do we facilitate mentoring?  The good news is that if your student ministry is based on small groups you already possess the framework for mentoring relationships.  Here are some thoughts on transforming your small group ministry into a mentoring ministry.

 

GET OUTSIDE

If a small group only exists within the walls of the church building or the home in which they meet then I would argue that it’s not mentoring.  Mentoring takes place within the normal contexts of life. Mentoring happens when a caring adult invites a student into his or her life.  Mentoring happens when adults invade the turf of students.  So, if we want to see mentoring in our student ministries then we must literally get into the lives and students and invite them into ours.  And, we must equip and train our volunteers to do the same.

 

RECRUIT DIFFERENTLY

A mentoring based student ministry requires that we make a shift in volunteer recruiting.  For the first half of my career I concentrated on recruiting the coolest, youngest, most relevant volunteers I could find.  My thinking was that I needed volunteers who would attract students and relate well to them.  While I still think that relevance is important and cool is extraordinarily helpful, there is only so much mentoring a young, hip college student can offer a high school student.  Mentoring requires experience.  I now believe we ought to recruit volunteers who have life experience because they possess more of the tools required of a mentor.  I want a volunteer who has the wisdom and life experience necessary to address some of the heavier issues facing teens.

Mentoring, at it’s most basic level is this: “Watch what I do and do it.”  Because of this we also need volunteers whose lives that are worth copying.  We need people of character and strong faith.  Character and life experience trump age and coolness.

 

RESTRUCTURE

A volunteer only has so much time in a week.  If you’re already asking your volunteers for two events a week (youth group night and small groups night) you may need to restructure your ministry.  I believe that the best strategy is to attach small groups to your large group programming and cut the extra night of programming.  This way all of your students get plugged into small groups and secondly, it frees your volunteers up for mentoring outside of the ministry structure.  I truly believe that outside mentoring is more valuable than another night of programming.  Feel free to disagree.

 

CHANGE YOUR FOCUS

How many students can one person mentor?  Truthfully, it’s probably around 3 or 4.  This means that we need more volunteers!  It also means that youth pastors needs to change their focus.  Mentoring is simple and yet terribly draining.  Mentors are constantly pouring themselves out so they need someone to pour into them.  I would argue that the role of a youth pastor needs to shift toward caring for and mentoring mentors.  If the best thing our student ministries can offer a student is a long-term mentor then the primary role of the youth pastor may need to shift toward recruiting, training and encouraging godly mentors.

 

It’s my belief that small groups aren’t working anymore because students desperately need adult mentors.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on this especially if you’ve found success in promoting mentoring relationships in your student ministry.

 

image credited to Matt Peoples via Flickr

Stuff I Learned from a Guy who Eats Bugs

John the Baptist was a weird dude.  He broke all the rules on how to build a platform or create a following.  Essentially, he dressed weird, ate weirder, neglected his hair and alienated everyone off with his abrasive speaking style.  And yet, he created a huge following and Jesus himself said that there has never been a greater man.

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about this strange bug eating man from the desert and I guess if you’re reading this you’ve been roped into my musings.

 

I’M NOT THE MESSIAH

One of the things that strikes me about John the Baptist is that he knew exactly who he was.  He fully understood his role in God’s mission in the world.  He was making a splash with his ministry (get it?) and the religious leaders from Jerusalem were impressed enough to send out a delegation to see who exactly he was and what he was up to.  Here’s how it went down:

This was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Temple assistants from Jerusalem to ask John, “Who are you?”  He came right out and said, “I am not the Messiah.

John knew what he was about.  He was quick to point out that this wasn’t the “John show.”  We wasn’t building a platform for John.  He was building a platform for Jesus.  He wasn’t the Messiah and he wasn’t about to try on the Messiah sandals.

 

PLAYING SAVIOR

It might sound dumb but I wish I had that degree of clarity in the early days of my student ministry career.  Go ahead and judge me but there have been times in which I acted like I thought I was the Messiah.  What I mean is that when serving a troubled student or a kid going through a rough time I have started to believe that what they needed was me.

The truth is that it feels good to be the spiritual “go-to” person.  It feels validating to be a student’s rock in the midst of a family storm.  It feels nice to be the person that students come to for wisdom and advice.

It’s a very subtle thing but I think it’s easy to cross a line here.  It’s so natural for student ministry to become about you.  The students like your teachings.  The group is beginning to take on your style.  Look, I’m not accusing you of anything.  I’m simply drawing attention to a mistake that I made and hoping you don’t fall into the same trap.

How do you know you’ve crossed this line?  How do you know when you’ve placed yourself in the role of “Messiah?”  I believe it is when students struggle without you.  If your students go off to college and fall off the map spiritually it may be because you inserted yourself into a “Messiah” role.  If you leave your church for a new position or a change in career and your students falter spiritually it may be that you crossed a line and took on a role not designed for you.

The truth is that we live in a celebrity driven culture and it’s easy to fall into the same model in our churches and student ministries.  There is immense value in influence and the authority of pastors and youth workers, but the point is Jesus—not us.  Jesus has the power to heal, to transform hearts and to bring light to the darkness.  We are his ambassadors but like John, the story isn’t about us.  We aren’t the Messiah.

John was quick, incredibly quick to shine the spotlight on Jesus.  I want to learn to do the same.  My dream is that my students would be drawn to Jesus rather than me.  My hope is that they would continue to pursue Jesus whether or not I’m in their life.  Why?  Because I’m not the Messiah.

 

image credited to bobzee666

What Exactly Are Students Walking Away From?

We’ve all read the numbers.  We all get a little panicky when we think about how many students are walking away from church.  If the numbers are true, we’re facing a very serious problem because what we’re doing as parents and youth workers is not working.  We must grapple with one very difficult question:  why are students walking away from church after high school?

Maybe I’m over simplifying the issue but I think the answer is very easy.  Students aren’t walking away from church.  It’s not that the statistics are wrong.  Barna and Fuller have their numbers right.  That isn’t it at all.  And yet, I believe that students aren’t walking away from church.  They never belonged to church in the first place.  They’re walking away from something else entirely.

 

WHAT IS CHURCH?                                    

What is church?  That’s a really good question.  Personally, I think it’s best to define church by what I read in the New Testament.  Church is the Jesus community.  It’s a people bonded together by the presence, love and mission of Jesus.

The church is marked by the presence of Jesus.  There is something to be experienced in the church that cannot be experienced anywhere else.  The experience is different because Jesus is Immanuel.  The presence of God is with us.  Lives are being transformed.  Light is shining into darkness.  Life is breathed into death.  Hope is breaking forth in the midst of tragedy.

The church is defined by love.  The Jesus community shocked the world and overthrew an empire with love.  The Jesus community transformed the world in a few short centuries through inclusion, radical service, and care for the oppressed and forgotten.  Where the Gospel is preached and lived the world can never be the same.

The church is defined by the mission of Jesus.  The church is inviting people to follow Jesus.  It’s not asking people to join a club.  It’s not trying to fill seats in a building.  It’s inviting people to follow the most compelling person who ever walked the soil of this planet.  The church is inviting people into the restoration of the world through the Gospel of Jesus.

 

WHAT ARE STUDENTS WALKING AWAY FROM?

This is the church.  Students aren’t walking away from this.  People don’t walk away from the church.  It is far too magnetic.  The true church—defined by the presence, love and mission of Jesus is incredibly compelling.  It transforms lives, communities, cultures and nations.   Our students are walking away from something else entirely.

Maybe the problem is not that students are walking away.  In fact, they might be doing us a favor by pointing out the real problem.  Perhaps the problem is that we aren’t being the church.  Maybe we as parents, pastors and church leaders need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves some hard questions.  What exactly are we doing anyway?

 

Small Group Fail

Do you ever feel like you totally dropped the ball as a small group leader? I don’t mean those times where you go in for the appropriate side hug and get full-frontal attacked by a student, or the times you make some awkward comment to a 9th grade girl about her boyfriend without knowing they broke up two hours earlier. I’m talking about times that you flat-out fail on your own merit.

In case you hadn’t guessed, I am no stranger to those gut wrenching evenings of small group time where nothing is accomplished and the only one to blame is yourself. For me, I particularly get caught up in the “not being prepared” vain of failure. It’s not that I don’t think preparation is important, I just run out of time (so I tell myself). Annoyingly, I’ve discovered that when I do prepare, my small group is typically inattentive, and when I don’t they’re more ready to listen then ever—and I have nothing to say. Knowing I’m responsible for dropping the ball in those cases invites a very different feeling in me than when something I try simply doesn’t work. I’m sure you are all too smart for this, but I sort of have a tendency to beat myself up when this happens—because as the leader, I’m supposed to be the holy one, right? Not the unprepared, lazy kid. It’s in these moments that I think, “Who the heck let me in here?”

Yet when I have utterly botched up small group leadership and feel I am no longer worthy to be a leader, I remind myself of a few things. If you’ve ever been there, I invite you to scan this list as well. I know you already understand that God’s bigger than your stupid moments, but it’s good to be reminded. Here is my reminder list in times of failure:

You are not finished learning

No matter how long you’ve been leading a small group—whether it’s months or decades—you will never be a perfect leader. There will inevitably be days you’re not prepared, days you say the wrong thing, and days when no one responds to your questions or jokes. As it turns out, no matter how many people tell you you’re a great leader, you’ll never be done learning what that looks like. (There’s a head shrinker for you.)

The group isn’t lost

If you’re an invested leader who tries to build relationships and speak truth to students, one bad week won’t scatter the sheep. In youth ministry, we like to remind our leaders about how little time they have with their students because it’s good for them to feel urgency with kids they often see only 30 times a year (or less). But while it’s good to be reminded of how little time we have, it’s also good to keep in mind that one bad week is still only 3% bad in a year. The rest of the year could be 97% good! Don’t beat yourself up, just strive to grow toward that new 97% goal. (I guess you could strive for extra credit and take your kids out to ice cream too, but I’m not guaranteeing you’ll get your 3% back.)

Tell ‘em: adults mess up too

It’s easy to tell our small group kids that they need to own up to their messes (because let’s be honest, many of them have obvious messes to clean up). It’s a lot harder to admit that we screw up too. Talking about past mistakes you’ve grown out of is one thing, but admitting you still mess up is another. Yet I think if we miss out on these opportunities to tell our students when we drop the ball, we miss showing them what confession looks like. Some students may not have ever seen a real apology.

You screwing up is an opportunity to:

  • model what it is to ask forgiveness, even for something small
  • model humility as a leader

You’d be surprised how much respect you can gain by admitting you’re still not perfect. I mean, don’t make it a habit or anything, but a one-time screw up could actually draw your group closer to you.

So next time you don’t prepare, or you lose your temper, or you roll your eyes when you should’ve said something supportive, remind yourself of these things. And most importantly, keep going. Our enemy would like you to give up; God’s given you the grace to move forward. If you haven’t noticed, he’s pretty good at using imperfect people to turn out epic results.

 

Guest Blogger:  Elisa Talmage has spent over six years as small group leader of kids from 4th to 9th grade.  She is now on staff as the Female Small Groups Coordinator at Ada Bible Church and is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Counselor Education. Elisa grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where she and her husband met in fifth grade.

 

image credited to Chuckumentary

Why Your Ministry Needs a Volunteer Retreat

Last weekend was our 17th annual volunteer retreat.  Ok, I actually have no idea how many retreats we’ve done but 17th annual has a nice ring to it.  Here’s the thing, of all the things we do in our student ministry, I believe that our volunteer retreat is in the top 3.  It’s crucial to our culture.  I can’t imagine not doing it next year and here’s why you should be putting one on too.

YOU NEED GREAT VOLUNTEERS

This year we set a new LifeLine record with 116 small groups so yes, we have a bunch of volunteers.  But here’s the thing, if you have more than 12 students, you need small groups and if you need small groups then you need volunteer leaders.  Not only do you need volunteers but you need great volunteers.  You need the kind of volunteers that you can trust to be spiritual shepherds to our students.  And, not only do you need great volunteers, you need great volunteers who will serve year after year because student ministry is a long-term investment.

So, how do you end up with great volunteers who stay engaged for the long-haul?  You invest in them.  A volunteer retreat is an incredible opportunity to invest deeply in your volunteers.  Here’s how it works.

VALUE

Here’s what I know:  volunteers who feel valued stay engaged in our ministry.  When volunteers understand, not only that we need them but that we enjoy them as people and value their individual gifting they tend to stick around.  We use our volunteer retreat to to create space for value conversations.  There is so much more that can be said on a weekend.

FUN

Volunteers who have a great time serving in student ministry tend to stay in student ministry.  If our volunteers are bored then we are seriously missing the mark.  We treat our volunteer retreat like a party.  Last weekend’s retreat included loud music, big prizes, crazy costumes, interactive games and hilarious videos.  If it isn’t fun you aren’t doing it right and your volunteers will likely go find someplace fun to serve.  Conversely, we’ve found that volunteers who have fun serving in our ministry stay engaged year after year.

SKILLZ

Nobody likes to suck at stuff.  This is a fundamental principle of humanity.  Student ministry is not an easy gig.  Leading a small group can be terribly difficult.  Volunteers who don’t feel like they are doing a good job will rarely stick around.  It’s our job as ministry leaders to equip them because volunteers who feel competent stay engaged.  We train our volunteers every other week but there is something special about getting away together on a retreat to really dig into core training concepts.

COMMUNITY

We are all hungry for community.  We believe that volunteers who have strong community make better spiritual shepherds for our students.  Some ministries require that their volunteers find a solid community, we build it right into our structure.  We have found that volunteers who connect deeply with other volunteers tend to stay engaged in our ministry for years.  For us, this is the biggest win of a volunteer retreat.  A weekend creates a ton of space for connecting.

GO AND DO

So, what’s the bottom line?  You should do a volunteer retreat!  Why?  Because we need great volunteers who stay engaged for years.  Volunteers who stay engaged feel valued, have fun, feel competent and serve in community.  A volunteer retreat is a great opportunity to invest in volunteers in each of these areas.

Tomorrow I’ll share some ideas on exactly how to pull off an epic retreat.

3 Levels of Belonging

Our student ministry does something that I believe is rather unique.   We call it cell family and we stole the idea wholesale from a church across town about a decade ago.  They stopped doing it years ago and we’ve been dumb enough to stick with it.  And yet, we’ve come to love it and it’s become an indispensable part of who we are as a ministry.  What exactly is cell family? I’m glad you asked.

ONE EPIC NIGHT OF AWESOMENESS

Our high school ministry meets on Sunday nights.  We built our ministry around small groups and we’re one of those student ministries that attach our small groups to our programming.  In other words, we pack everything into Sunday nights:  hang out, games, worship, teaching and small groups.  We always leave the last 30 minutes of our night to small groups.  We believe this is the best model for student ministry for a variety of reasons but we can argue about that in another post.

CELL FAMILY

What makes us unique is that every other week we meet in homes.  Instead of meeting all together with all of our students and volunteers, we meet in regional homes based on school.  We don’t add another night of programming, we do cell family in place of our regular large group programming.  Sound like a logistical nightmare?  It is.  But to us, it’s worth it.

THREE LEVELS OF CONNECTION

There are a few reasons we believe this model is strategic. First off, we believe that students need to know and be known.  Our dream is that students would know be known by ten adult volunteers (each cell family has 10 volunteers in it).  These volunteers know each student’s name and basic story.

We also want each student to experience three levels of belonging.  We want them to belong to something big.  There is something special about worshiping together with hundreds of people.  We also want our students to belong to something small.  Small groups are the place where they can be vulnerable and real.  It’s the environment in which they can be cared for and led by an invested adult.

Lastly, we believe our students need to belong to something midsize.  We believe that there is something valuable in 30 or 40 people in a house.  It feels a bit like a family reunion.  It’s a support network.  It’s a place where younger students can observe the faith of older students and where volunteers can show students what healthy relationships look like.  It’s a place for students to try out their gifts and talents and it’s a place where they can have a voice.

INTERACTIVE TEACHING

Cell family is also a response to how students learn.  We believe that students retain information best when they are able to interact with it as it is presented.  In our cell families, we teach through discussion rather than preaching.  Instead of a 20 minute presentation, we produce a 7 minute teaching video that leads into a group discussion.  We believe this model of communicating better fits how our students learn.

SERVE AS A FAMILY          

The last and perhaps most important reason we do cell family is volunteer community.  We believe that volunteers are at their best when they are serving as a family.  Each cell family is composed of 6-8 small group leaders and two volunteers that oversee the cell family.  These “coaches” as we all them have two roles:  care for their small group leaders and oversee the cell family programming.

Each time we meet in cell family, the volunteer team meets an hour early and has dinner at the cell family home.  Over time, the combination of these meals and serving together leads to fantastic volunteer community.  We want our volunteers to feel supported and together and cell family is a huge reason why we’re able to achieve this.