Author: Aaron Buer

A little about me: I’ve been a student pastor for 12 years and currently serve as the student ministries pastor at Ada Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI. Ada Bible is a multi-site church of about 9,000. Most of my time is devoted to leading my amazing team, writing curriculum, teaching, and trying to navigate the challenges of multi-site church. I absolutely love my job and the people I am blessed to serve with. I’m primarily a family guy. My wife and I have five incredibly awesome and unique kids. Most of my free time is devoted to them. When I can find time for me, I love beach volleyball, writing, fishing, video games or a good book.

And How Sex is Like Glue

The other night I was helping my son Keegan with his homework.  The fact that my 2nd grade son has homework every night is crazy talk.  When I was in 2nd grade, my homework was to pit my He-Man and G.I. Joe figures against each other in epic combat for hours on end on end.

Anyway, he was attempting to glue words that he had cut out on a piece of paper in alphabetical order.  You might say he was struggling.  Elmer’s glue and 2nd grade fingers aren’t a great combination.  And, the funny thing about glue is that it is quite effective at cementing two pieces of paper together.  This is great except for when you’re in 2nd grade and you keep putting the words in the wrong order.

Once the glue has been applied, pulling the two pieces of paper apart is a rather nasty affair.  The funny thing is that the papers become one and trying to pull them apart results in ripping the papers and spilling glue everywhere.  The end result was papers glued to the table, fingers stuck together, and a seven year old repeatedly banging his head against the table

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In his defense, the entire episode was technically my fault.  He was working as fast as he could because I had just purchased the new Lego:  Marvel Super Heroes video game and promised him that we could play it as soon as his homework was done.  He was essentially doing his homework at ludicrous speed which is never a good idea unless your name is Dark Helmet or Colonel Sanders.

It was about this time that I realized that sex is a lot like the glue my son was using for his homework.  I didn’t come to this realization during the homework session of course…that would have been weird.  Nor did I realize it while we were playing Lego:  Marvel Super Heroes because that game is so fun that any sort of distraction, even thinking about sex is impossible.

I came to this realization about sex and glue over coffee with one of our small group leaders as he talked about a student in his group.  His student had slept with his girlfriend and now he was struggling because things hadn’t turned out like he thought they would.  As it turns out, things were getting pretty complicated.

Often, I think I’ve had a genius idea and then realize that I actually stole the idea from someone else.  This happens in our office all the time, usually after someone reads my blog and realizes that I stole another one of their ideas and played it off like it was mine.  I assure you this is unintentional.  I’m terrible with names and intellectual property.

With this whole sex and glue image, it turns out I’ve stolen the idea from someone fairly high up…God.  In the book of Genesis, God describes sex as forging two people into one person in a way that can’t be broken apart.  There is something incredibly powerful about sex.  It’s like glue.  It cements two people together.  There is no undoing the unity that sex brings.  That’s why when people talk about how so and so still has a piece of their heart they are speaking the truth.

The thing that bothers me is how our culture presents sex as just something fun to do that doesn’t have lasting consequences.    Based on what I’ve read from the Inventor of sex and what I’ve observed over and over again in the lives of friends and students, sex is like glue.  It forges a bond between bodies and souls.  It creates beautiful and lasting unity and intimacy in the context of marriage but when two people who have been cemented together are pulled apart there is lasting emotional and relational damage.

 

image credited to me and the sysop

 

What I’ve Been Reading

I’ve read some great stuff over the last few weeks.  Here are a few blog posts that I really liked…

Grand Theft Auto 5 made $1 billion dollars in three days.  Half the universe is playing this game.  Wanna know what it’s all about?  A couple youth workers played it for a few minutes in order to review it for a parent resource website.  Warning, it review is NOT for the faint of heart.

http://www.jonathanmckeewrites.com/archive/2013/10/08/kill-a-hooker.aspx

 

A friend recommended this post to me in response to a piece I wrote about guys not leading girls in our culture.  It’s pretty strong.  I’d love to know what you think:

http://theresurgence.com/2012/08/28/5-notes-on-dating-for-the-guys

 

This post on teaching middle school students is fantastic.  If you teach students you should definitely check it out:

http://uthmin.net/np-communicating-to-students-2/

 

I already posted about Malcolm Gladwell’s new book David and Goliath.  Here’s the post if you missed it.  In his book he argues that being a big fish in a little pond is better than being a little fish in a big pond and how that relates to choosing the right college.  Here’s an article about this concept.

http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwells-david-and-goliath-2013-10#ixzz2huVNGsFf

And, if you missed it, here’s an interview with Gladwell about how writing this book drew him back into faith.

http://thinkchristian.reframemedia.com/malcolm-gladwell-on-jesus-underdogs-and-his-own-evolving-faith

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I’m halfway through this book and loving it.  Bill Bryson is one of my favorite authors.  If you haven’t read him you need to get on it.  For real.  Go get one of his books right now…

How to Pull off an Epic Volunteer Retreat

When it comes to pulling off an epic volunteer retreat, the key is understanding what it is that you want to accomplish.  Over the years, we’ve honed our focus down to three things. We want our volunteers to walk away from the retreat feeling connected, inspired and valued.  Our retreat is all about connecting volunteers to each other and to God, inspiring them to become the best volunteers they can be and valuing them for their uniqueness and their investment.

A KILLER THEME

We happen to believe that fun is spiritual and that taking the time to meticulously plan out a fun experience communicates value to our volunteers.  The key element of fun for us this year was our 80s theme.  Everyone came to the retreat dressed like it was 1983.  The soundtrack from the weekend was exclusively from the 80s.  All the games, prizes, decorations and snacks were from the 80s.  This theme added an incredible amount of fun and structured fun communicates value.

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COMMUNITY

Our goal is to weave community into every aspect of our volunteer retreat because we believe that volunteers who serve in community are better volunteers.  Because of this, we ask our cell families (teams of volunteers) to carpool and eat dinner together on the way to retreat.  We house each cell family together and build in cell family discussion in response to each session.  Aside from these elements, we believe that the very nature of getting away together as a community of leaders, staying up late playing volleyball or Setters of Catan, and eating meals together builds community.

GUEST SPEAKER

In our ministry context, we train our volunteers every other week.  Our volunteers hear from us a lot.  Because of this we will often bring in a guest speaker for our retreat simply because they bring fresh stories, language and perspective to the conversation.  This year we asked Brian, our Senior Pastor of Family Ministries and Ian Nacy, a local youth pastor to come and inspire our volunteers.

CONTENT THAT COUNTS

If you’re going to take the time to get your volunteers away, you should make it worth their while.  You need to communicate something valuable.  This year, our schedule included 3 sessions–two on Saturday and one long session on Friday night which included a 40 minute worship set.  If the retreat is all “fun” elements, your volunteers will be asking why they needed to come in the first place.

Here’s our schedule if you’d like to see it:  Retreat Schedule

THE VALUE PLAN

There are two ways to do a retreat.  There is the, “we have $5 to make this happen because we didn’t plan for it” and there’s the “we’re going to pull of an epic experience for our volunteers.”  We’ve found that it’s the little things that communicate value.  Choose a camp with nice facilities.  Tell the camp what meals you’d like to eat so you don’t end up with cafeteria corn dogs for lunch, bring great snacks, give away something big, put care into the programming elements and for crying out loud, don’t make your volunteers serve on their retreat.

LEAVE THEM WANTING MORE

In my opinion, one of the most important elements to a good retreat is when you end it.  It’s always tempting to try to do too much and keep your volunteers for too long.  We’ve struggled with finding this balance over the years but we’ve landed on this truth:  It’s always best to leave them wanting more.  If they can’t wait to come back next year then we’ve nailed it.

We start our retreat at 7:00 on Friday night and end it at 2:30 on Saturday afternoon.  It may seem to short but we don’t feel the need to cram hours of training into our volunteer retreat because we already train our volunteers every other week.

 

So, the key to an epic volunteer retreat is understanding what you want to accomplish.  For us, it’s all about connecting, inspiring and value.  What’s your goal and how do you achieve it?

 

 

 

 

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.

The Danger of Not Digging

Have you ever read a situation completely wrong?  I have.  I once got a person’s gender completely wrong.  “Hey Jon, is this your mom?” “Nope.” “It’s my brother.” “Oh….”

I’ve read people wrong in student ministry too.  A few years ago, I received a letter from a former student—a student who had been regularly involved in our student ministry for all seven years.  He was in a small group with the same leader for 4 years, attended snow camp and even attended a mission trip.  His letter informed me that it was all an act.  He never believed any of it.  He is an atheist.  He was playing along for the sake of his parents.  We never knew because we never asked.  We never dug beneath the surface.

 

WHY THEY WALK AWAY

Based on the published research I’ve read and my own experience I would say that the majority of students who walk away from church after high school do so for the following reasons:

  • They never figured out what they believe
  • They never worked through their doubts
  • They never understood why Jesus matters

I would attribute most of this to a lack of digging—from parents and youth workers.  We assumed things were fine because they were coming to our programs and weren’t smoking pot.  We never gave them permission to talk about their doubts because, well, that’s uncomfortable.  We never connected them to the mission of Jesus because we were more concerned about intelligent lights and transition videos than we were about actually connecting them to what Jesus is doing in the world.  We never gave them the chance to participate.

 

PICK UP A SHOVEL

The lesson I learned from that letter is that we need to start digging.    There is far too much at stake for us to simply assume.  We need to get messy by asking harder questions, listening better, and connecting them to the mission of Jesus.  The fact that students are walking away from church because they were bored with Jesus is unbelievable.

 

HOW TO DIG

So, how do we dig beneath the surface?   Here are some thoughts:

1.      Get on their turf

Who are your students at school, at home and in the world of social media?  You might be surprised.  Most students have multiple selves and aren’t terribly bothered by the dissonance of being one person at church and another at school.  Only by digging into their world can we really see who they are.

2.      Drop Your Guard

Honesty unlocks honesty.  If you want your students to be real then you must be real.  You must be honest about your doubts, struggles and mistakes.  They won’t be willing to go anywhere you haven’t already gone.  Free them from  pretense and masks by dropping your own.

3.      Ask Incredibly Awkward Questions

Digging is messy and uncomfortable but let’s be real, there’s a lot at stake.  Be direct.  Be blunt.  If their eyes widen then you’re on the right track.  Ask that question that makes you blush.  Drag sin out into the light.  Force them to verbalize their thoughts.  Be ok with silence and unleash the power of the “why” question.

4.      Overstay Your Welcome

Digging beneath the surface is a long term project.  You have to earn the right to speak truth into the lives of your student.  There is no such thing as trust without time together.  Students don’t need a quick spiritual surgery to set them right.  They need a guide to walk with them as they journey through adolescence.  Stay in the lives of your students.  Students need small group leaders who will walk with them for 3 or 4 years.  Stay engaged with them as they transition into college.  Overstay your welcome.

 

I never want to read a letter like that again.  Let’s dig into the lives of students and help them as they struggle to build a faith of their own.

 

 

 

 

My Worst and Best Teaching of the Year

Last week included my worst teaching of the year and also my favorite.  The funny thing is that they were supposed to be the same content.  Sometimes you write a teaching, you think it’s going to be great and then it falls flat.  It’s worse when you are writing not only for yourself but also for other teachers on other campuses.

After teaching our high school students on Sunday night, I went back to the drawing board because, while it wasn’t a terrible teaching, it wasn’t clear or direct enough.  It took some hard work and last minute fine tuning but I and was very pleased with what came out on Wednesday night at our middle school event.

This is the second teaching of our Wakes series and it’s all about how other people influence you.  Check it out.

For me, it’s been 5 years since I’ve written curriculum and taught on a regular basis.  I’m sort of relearning the art.  Thankfully, my team and my boss have given me a lot of grace because there is a learning curve for this sort of thing.  In my transition back into teaching and writing, I’ve found this model to be helpful:

http://uthmin.net/np-communicating-to-students-1/

http://uthmin.net/np-communicating-to-students-2/

My Don Miller Mystery Note

The year was 2003.  I was perusing the shelves of a local bookstore the day before a cottage weekend with some buddies.  The plan was to eat good, relax, play obnoxiously nerdy board games and do some studying.  I needed a good book–something compelling with a story that gripped but wasn’t pointless.

The book I chose did not disappoint. I picked it off the shelf, not knowing the author in the slightest, and it instantly became one of my favorite books.  I read it from cover to cover before we even left for the retreat.  I simply couldn’t put it down.  Then I read it again.

Blue Like Jazz was unlike anything I had ever read before.  It was like Salinger meets theology conversations in the lounge of my college dorm.  It was compelling, hilarious and real.  Not much of what I was reading by Christian authors at the time was real.  I loved it and it launched me on a journey of deeper thinking and healthy spiritual exploration.

Blue-Like-Jazz3

Since that time I’ve read every Don Miller book there is.  Searching for God Knows What is the best, if you want to know the truth.  I’m so obsessed that I even read Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance and Through Painted Deserts even though they are the same book.  I couldn’t help it.  I love the authenticity of Don’s style and the fresh way he approaches the Christian faith. His books have helped me rethink, jettison or shore up many of the ideas I grew up with.  Quite simply, he’s my favorite author–which brings me to the point of this post.

You see, I like to use Don’s Storyline book as part of our college transition curriculum.  It’s a great tool for exploring who you are and what exactly God might be calling you to.  I love the idea of drawing students into the mission of Jesus as they explore their future.

Anyway, I ordered about 30 of the Storyline books and not only did they ship exceptionally quickly but they also came with a handwritten note.

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Now, I’m sure you can understand my excitement in receiving a handwritten note from Don Miller, whose books have so deeply shaped my thinking.  And, this isn’t one of those photocopied prints of a handwritten note that important people sometimes give out.  This is the real deal.  Or is it…

 

As I looked closely at the note, I couldn’t help but notice that it appears a certain “Dan” wrote it and not Don.  Who is Dan?  No offense but I don’t know you, Dan.  Or wait, is the note from Don and he sort of ran the “o” into the “n?”  Now I’m really confused.

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Don, if this is from you could you please work on your handwriting?  And Dan, if this is from you, do you think you should be going around signing notes with simply “Dan” when you work with “Don?”  I’m just saying.  I mean, I feel bad for not being happy with a handwritten note from you “Dan,” but the truth is, you aren’t a famous author an I haven’t read each of your books 3 times.  Perhaps you could switch things up and go with “Danny” or “Dan-o” so that people don’t get confused.

But, on the off-chance that this is from “Don,” thanks for writing a handwritten note.  That’s classy.  And yes, I would like some help with my story.  Could we do coffee?  Or maybe we could ride bikes across the country?  A trip in a Volkswagen van to the grand canyon?  I still have a blockbuster card.  I can come to you.  My sister lives in Portland.  Call me.

 

 

Read This Book!

I just polished this book off last week.  Of all the books I’ve read this year, this one might be the best.

bd453c22415554e4edc70886420e179c_XLAs it turns out, not everyone agrees.  There is a rather ugly debate raging on some of the specifics of Gladwell’s arguments and also the genre of his writing style itself.

this guy thinks Malcolm Gladwell is an idiot

Malcolm Gladwell defends himself.

Wherever you land on the debate, Malcolm Gladwell’s hair clearly wins..

I will admit that I don’t like Gladwell’s telling of the David and Goliath story itself.  I think he misses the point of the biblical story and uses some questionable interpretative techniques to arrive at his conclusions.  However, the rest of the book is fantastic.  Why?  Because it is utterly compelling and moving.  All I can say is that I listened to it while mowing my lawn and I was not crying.  It was the dust.  It’s terribly dusty this time of year.

The truth is that Gladwell is a marvelous storyteller.  At several points I found myself mowing halfway into my neighbor’s yard because I was so captivated by Gladwell’s stories.  In the audio book, Gladwell reads the story himself which magnifies the experience. Had the book not finished, I may have mowed every yard on my street just to keep listening.

The thing I love about this book is it’s central message.  Gladwell doesn’t use this language but it’s essentially about redemption.  Any bad experience or handicap can be redeemed.  Gladwell writes about parental loss, dyslexia, persecution, and systemic racism.  In each of these situations, through adaptation, perseverance and forgiveness, people or cultures become stronger, not in spite of their pain and struggle but because of them.  The cure for lukemia, the will to oppose the Nazi’s, the fortitude to battle for civil rights and the strength to forgive were all birthed out of tremendous pain and loss.

This is a story that we need.  Life is relentlessly painful, full of loss and disappointment.  We either rebuild out of the ashes as stronger and better people or we fold.

Redemption is also the central message of the Gospel, which is perhaps why I loved David and Goliath so much.  Jesus can redeem and restore any life no matter how dysfunctional and broken.

It seems that the process of writing about persecuted faith communities, forgiveness and redemption deeply affected Gladwell and his own faith journey.  According to him, the journey brought about a return to faith in his own life.

Gladwell rediscovers faith

My recommendation would be to go out and by this book.  If you are a church person, like myself, you will likely get annoyed in the early pages because of Gladwell’s spin on the David and Goliath story.  Keep reading.  I think you will love it and at the very least you will be inspired.

 

 

Getting Students into the Bible

For years we’ve been bothered by the reality that our students are largely Bible ignorant.  Most of them don’t read the Bible regularly or even have a strong grasp of how to navigate it’s pages.  Part of this is is due to the fact that students don’t read much of anything in our culture and part of this is probably due to the fact that we as parents and youth workers are dropping the ball.

Our student ministry team is making an effort to think creatively on how we can get students into the Bible.  Our first idea is embedded in our Wakes teaching series.

Wakes Bumper from LifeLine Student Ministries on Vimeo.

This is a four week teaching series on influence from the book of Acts.  As part of the experience we invited our volunteers and students to read through the book of Acts together.  We sent this bookmark home with each student and built this website: lifelinestudents.org/wakes. We built the website because students usually only read physical books if there is a grade dependent on it but they will often read voluntarily on their phones.

Wakes_Bookmark

 

The beautiful thing about this project is that it cost us basically nothing–only printing and shipping for the bookmarks.  Through a couple announcement videos and encouraging students to post to instagram and twitter with  #lifelinewakes we’ve created a little buzz.  So far so good.  We’d love to hear your ideas on how you are getting students into the Bible.

Wakes – Acts Reading Plan from LifeLine Student Ministries on Vimeo.