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A Culture of Transition

Recently I was asked to describe our high school to college transition strategy and practices. Since this is one of my life’s passions I thought I’d give it a shot.  I hope you find it helpful and I’d love to hear your ideas and strategies.

Culture

What keeps me awake at night is the thought of our students walking away from Jesus and the church in life beyond our student ministry. I believe that our ministry has not been successful unless our students are continuing to pursue Jesus in college and beyond.

I think the mistake many youth workers make is jumping to practices that help students transition before stopping to consider the influence of church and student ministry cultures.  What students feel and experience is more powerful than what we say from the stage, especially for those who are involved in our churches from a young age.  Here are the culture pieces that I believe are crucial to healthy transition.

1.  A Culture of Community

I tend to believe that students walk away from churches where they never actually belonged.  Belonging is something that is felt and experienced not taught or preached.  We begin placing kids in small groups as soon as they can walk around.  We fight for a culture of community from the earliest days of involvement in our children’s ministry.  This is crucially important because kids learn:

  • Adults in my church care about me and my faith development
  • My story is important and valuable.
  • Faith is meant to be lived out in relationships.

Everything else that we do in our transition ministry is built around these values.

2.  A Culture of Mentoring

For years in student ministry we’ve talked about the importance of small groups in student ministry.  I believe that small groups are crucial but only when they are the right kind of small groups.  You see, more than anything the students of this generation need mentors.  On the whole, our culture no longer invests in the next generation.  It exploits them.

We must become ministries and churches that pour into students.  We must walk alongside them and demonstrate the way of Jesus.  In our ministry, we pair a mentor with 5 or 6 students for 4 years.  We use the model of small groups to achieve this.  However, we are clear that the “win” is not small group discussions.  The “win” is mentoring.  Small groups are the spring board into a mentoring relationship.  This long term mentoring relationship is key to our transition strategy.

3.  A Culture of Honesty

Many students who walk away from faith in college were silently drifting long before they formally walked away.  These students never spoke their doubts because they weren’t welcome to do so.  Left in the dark these doubts became stronger and eventually overpowered their faith.

Our student ministries must become places where doubts are acknowledged, appreciated and talked about openly.  Our student ministry cultures must communicate that doubts are normal.  We need to stop providing quick and flimsy answers to deeply disorienting questions.  Faith isn’t the absence of doubt.  Rather, it is faith in the midst of doubt.  Doubts pulled out into the light of community lose their power over us.

4.  A Culture of Integration

Some youth workers may disagree with me but I believe that one of the biggest obstacles to students transitioning well is student leadership or ministry teams.  Hold on.  Let me explain.

Many students walk away from church as emerging adults because they never felt like they belonged to their church in the first place.  They felt a fierce belonging to their youth group but after graduating high school they never connected with the larger church body.  Leadership and ministry teams are often counterproductive because they foster intense attachment to the student ministry and not the church as a whole.

Our strategy is to encourage our students to serve within the larger church body rather than within our student ministry.  We want them to become attached to Ada Bible Church, not LifeLine.  We believe that the best place for a student to serve is in our children’s ministry.  There they can use their talents to serve kids and perhaps more importantly, they serve alongside and develop stronger relationships with more adults from the church community.  This way they can also continue to serve after graduating high school.  Integration is the friend of transition.

 

Helping students pursue Jesus after leaving our student ministries begins with culture.  It requires a culture of community, mentoring, honesty and integration.  Tomorrow I’ll outline the specific strategies we employ to promote long-term faith development.

 

The Evening Highs and Lows Tantrum

Everyone knows that all great student ministry small groups start off with “highs and lows” or some variation of it.  Some call them “best and worst,” “roses and thorns” some “wows and pows,” “mountains and valleys,” and others “poops and giggles”–an unsanctioned “craps and laughs” has even weaseled it’s way into popular usage much to the chagrin of conservative youth workers everywhere.  Also, more linguistically sophisticated youth groups employ “waxes and wanes.”  Actually, that’s a lie.  I don’t believe that archaic wording has been seen since 1884.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept, the idea behind “highs and lows” is that each student shares the high and low points of their week. This exercise is incredibly important because how else could Billy share about his great aunt Mabel’s bunion issue or how could Sally’s tell of her cat’s untimely end in the neighborhood cul-de-sac.

On a more serious note, “highs and lows” is actually a genius technique for leading a small group.  It creates space for each student to share and employed over time the exercise creates an atmosphere of honesty and support.  If you’re not utilizing it in your small group I won’t tell anyone of your noobitrocity but you should get on it!

A few months ago I decided to employ “highs and lows” in my family.  We began to share our “wow and pows” at every evening meal.  I fancy it to be a mini-small group time.  My kids are young–7, 5, 3, 1 so, sometimes the sharing is a little ridiculous.  Here are a few quotes:  “My high is that I won a monkey at school.”  “My high is that Parker asked me to marry him.”  “My low for today was that I peed my pants at school…again.”

Sometimes sanctioned “highs and lows” protocol is broken.  For example, my 3 year old hasn’t exactly grasped the difference between highs and lows so he always refers to the worst part of his day as his “high” which sets of a cacophony of laughter and well meaning corrections from my oldest son who is immensely concerned with exactness of procedure.  He’s a perfectionist in the making.

After the laughter has quieted, a second break in protocol arises.  My oldest daughter, who shall remain anonymous is rather rambly.  They say that in a typical day women use twice as many words as men.   Well, I am sure that my daughter uses roughly four or five times that amount.  She has the amazing gift of being able to stretch a short story into an incredibly long affair. She’s sort of like a Hobbit movie in that way.

As a typical dinner goes, she will begin to share what her low of the day was and my oldest son, who you may recall is concerned with exactness and specificity as well as succinctness and accuracy interrupts the story with a shorter and more correct rendering of the tale before she has finished.  Everyone knows that interrupting another’s “high” or “low” is a serious procedural infraction.

Now, along with being exceptionally wordy, my oldest daughter is also an Olympic level tantrumist.  Yes, she can go from zero to flail in just under 3 seconds.  Her tale now highjacked by her accuracy minded brother, my daughter will presently throw herself to the kitchen floor and flail about for several exceptionally loud moments.   At this point, the meal is either ruined or we take a 5 minute recess to regroup.  This is essentially what happens every time we do “highs and lows” at the Buer house.

All in all, I must say that I plan to continue using “highs and lows” at our evening meal from now until I’m too weak or senile to boss my kids around.  What I love is that my kids are learning to share honestly with each other and with us.  I also know that community isn’t built overnight.  It takes investment and time.  Over and over again I’ve seen 6th grade small groups that from the outside appears to be a WWE cage match, and yet that same group in the late years of high school is transformed into a beautiful picture of what grownup church ought to be.

The truth is that you can’t have the honesty, love and commitment without first going through the cage match.  Real community is forged in the wrestling and stories of aunt Mabel’s bunion and the dead cat cul-de-sac.  It takes time.  And, that’s exactly why I’m going to keep plugging away with “highs and lows” at the dinner table.  Although, a pair of ear plugs for the tantrums may not be a bad idea.

 

image credited to Amanda Tipton

 

 

 

 

What Are You So Afraid Of?

People are afraid of funny things.  Have you noticed?  Some people are afraid of being alone, some of crowds, some of being up high, some of being underground.  People are afraid of animals, bugs, thunder and darkness.  What about you?  What are you afraid of?

Personally, I’m afraid of lots of things.  As a kid I was terrified of mostly everything—the dark, tight spaces, heights, flying, and needles.  Let’s be real, needles are TERRIFYING!

As I grew older, I became afraid of different things.  Mostly, I became afraid of what people thought of me.  Maybe you can relate.  So, what are you afraid of?  I mean for real?  What keeps you up at night?

 

“FEAR NOT!”

You might be surprised to know that the Bible says a lot about fear.  In fact, it may be the most common topic in the Bible.  God repeatedly commands his people to “Fear not!” or  “Do not be afraid!”

Maybe you have heard of the biblical character named Joshua.  Joshua followed after Moses, who led the nation of Israel out of slavery in Egypt.  Moses led them all the way to the Promised Land and then inconveniently died.  After he died, Joshua, who was his protege, took over the leadership of the people.

And so there they were, on the borders of the land that God had promised them.  All they had to do was conquer fortified cities and armies much larger and technologically advanced than they were.  I don’t know about you but that sounds scarier than needles.

Into this scene, God speaks to the young new leader of Israel and said…

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (Joshua 1:9)

Don’t be a sissy Joshua.

In other parts of the Bible, God commands His people to “not be afraid.”  I don’t know about you but someone yelling at me to stop being afraid while I am terrified is basically pointless because I can’t change how I feel.

 

CHRISTMAS

The key to understanding all these “Do not be afraid” commands is actually Christmas.  That’s right, I waited until after Christmas to talk about Christmas because I knew you’d be distracted by all the lights and gifts.  Check out part of the Christmas story from Matthew 1:

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:  “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”(which means “God with us”).

This name Immanuel is incredibly important.  It means that God is with us.  That is what Christmas is all about.  God has come to be with us. This presence of God among us is the key to fear.  Let’s return to the story of Joshua standing on the borders of the Promised Land.

 

I AM WITH YOU

God commanded Joshua to “not be afraid” but within that passage are 3 different declarations from God that he will be with Joshua.  You see, “fear not” is not as much of a command as it is an invitation.  If God is with you, what do you have to be afraid of?  God wasn’t asking Joshua to “man up,”  He was inviting him into the reality of His presence.  “Hey I created everything with mere words and hold the universe together.  Why are you afraid of some walls and chariots?”

The story of Christmas is the story of God with us.  The beauty of it is that Christmas is an ongoing reality.  Immanuel is an ongoing invitation of God’s presence.  It isn’t just for Christmas day.  It’s for today.  It’s for tomorrow.  Because of Christmas, God is with you.  Always.

So, what are you facing?  What are you afraid of? Is it what they think of you? Is it that you might fail?  Is it that you might not be good enough?

What if God is with you?  What if Jesus is Immanuel?  What if He cares and is present in your struggle?  What if He is bigger than the fears you are facing?

 

 

Goodbye to the Most Disappointing Year

I have to be honest, 2013 was not my favorite year.  In fact, it may have been the most disappointing year of my life.  To be sure, there were plenty of high points.  I absolutely love my wife and kids and really enjoyed our time together in 2013.  We had a great year with vacations, school and life as usual.  Also, this year I was blessed with the opportunity to lead our high school ministry and so far it has been a fantastic year of ministry.  We added 5 staff to our team this year which has been an adventure.  And yet, as I look back over 2013 one event casts a dark cloud over the rest of the year:  Our failed adoption.

Over the last few years, I have become more and more involved in partnering with local churches and ministries in Ukraine in order to reach out to and serve orphans.  In that time my family and I fell in love with Ukrainian orphan kids and even decided to adopt a girl who stole our hearts.  We worked incredibly hard to find partners, raise money, secure the necessary documents, and prepare our family.  God opened doors and the impossible repeatedly became possible.  She was so happy to join our family and we were so excited to adopt her.  The adoption process was such a difficult but amazing ride until our dreams crashed when our girl suddenly changed her mind about wanting to leave Ukraine.  She was manipulated by her orphanage director who was more interested in money than her future.  He convinced her that she belonged in Ukraine and that she needed to stay and take care of her alcoholic mother who had abandoned her years ago.

We did everything we could to persuade her but nothing worked.  And then, after the deadline for her adopt-ability passed, her mother committed suicide.  It was a terrible time and I’ll never forget holding this poor girl last summer as she cried and cried, wishing she could undo her decision to stay in Ukraine.  I’ve never experienced such heartbreak.

The adoption journey has been hard on me.  I still wrestle with why God allowed this to happen.  Clearly, He is the Father to the fatherless and calls His people to love orphans.  We were simply trying to follow in the path of Jesus and it didn’t work out.  Why didn’t He show up and fix this?  I don’t think I’ll ever know.  But what I do know is that the world is more broken than I originally supposed.  There is darkness here that can’t be glossed over.  This world needs restoration.  I used to be satisfied with this broken world because my life was easy and comfortable.  All that changed in 2013.

Never again will I be satisfied with this world.  It’s broken.  Millions of people are hurting, lost, without clean water, without parents and love, without hope.  My prayer for 2014 is that Jesus would return and restore this broken place.  To be honest, I didn’t used to be terribly concerned about Jesus coming back.  I’ve always enjoyed life.  Now I realize how messed up this world is.

And until Jesus restores all things, may the Church rise up and serve and love.  May we represent Jesus well and may we work toward the restoration that is coming.  My hope for this year is that we would become more engaged in suffering.  That we, as God’s people, would become less comfortable and more mission-minded.  We are the agents of restoration in this world.  Let’s get to work.

 

Green Dye and Dr. Seuss

People learn best through hands on experience and observation.  At least, that’s how I learn and I’m assuming you’re the same.  In our student ministry, we spend every other Sunday night preparing our high school seniors for college.  We talk to them about everything we can think of:  money, faith, dating, balance, picking a major, drinking, etc.  I firmly believe that these conversations have an impact in helping our students prepare for the their transition to college but one event from a few years ago trumped them all.  You see, every spring we do an event for our seniors called Senior Sneak.  It’s a weekend retreat to an undisclosed location for fun and extended training on college transition.  It’s one of our milestone events and it’s a little fancier than anything else we put on.  It’s our way of blessing our seniors one last time before they run off to college.

We’ve learned over the years that the weekend we choose for this event is hugely important.  For example, don’t schedule it on a Prom or musical weekends.  We fancy ourselves at being highly skilled at picking the right weekend.  However, sometimes things surprise us.  As it turns out, one year we inadvertently scheduled our retreat for Chicago on St. Patrick’s Day weekend.  Call me boring, but I don’t really pay attention to St. Patty’s so it was completely off my radar.

The funny thing about Chicago on St. Patrick’s day weekend is that it gets nutty.  Actually, it gets really nutty.  They dye the river green and then proceed to party down.  In the words of Dr. Seuss, they “drink, drink, drink, drink, DRINK!”  This is what I mean by learning from experience and observation.  We essentially provided our students with a front row seat of first semester frat parties.  On a side note, how do they dye the river green?  Is it just a whole lot of green Kool-Aid?

Although there were quite a few awkward moments as we walked through the city, the weekend ended up being a great experience for our small group leaders and students.  All the partying around us provided context for great conversations about boundaries, balance and the partying scene.  Sometimes youth groups and churches are guilty of ignoring the realities of the “real world.”  One way or another, we need to make sure that our students aren’t surprised by what they encounter.  They ought to be prepared to face reality.

I don’t know that I would recommend taking your students to Chicago for St. Patrick’s Day but I do recommend getting your seniors away with their small group leaders for strategic conversations about their upcoming freshman year of college.  Are they ready to face the pressures, challenges and opportunities?  Now is the time to talk about it.

I’d be happy to share the playbook for our Senior Sneak weekend if you’re interested.  And if you have a recipe for green dye please let me know.

40 Book Reviews in 5 Minutes

You might say I’m a bit of a reader.  I always keep a list of the books I read over the course of a year.  It’s a way of motivating myself and keeping track of what genres of books I’ve been reading.

I believe deeply in the power of reading.  It’s how I stay fresh, informed, inspired, and young.  Here’s the 44 books I read this year and a extremely short review for each.  My hope is that something will catch your eye and you’ll be inspired to read a little more in 2014.

deepandwideSimply the best book I’ve ever read on church culture and leadership.  It’s a must for church workers.

the-advantage-lencioniI read this when I learned I’d be taking over our high school ministry last summer.  Very helpful.

the hobbitHad to read it again  before watching the movie!

3839-You Lost Me book.220w.tnGreat research and perspective for high school to college transition ministry.

prince caspianRead this to my kids.  They liked it but much preferred the first in the series.

love doesOne of the best books I read this year.  I laughed, cried and walked away inspired to love people.  If you haven’t read it you MUST!

Dead-Hand_bookcover-1This is great history of the Cold War arms race…utterly terrifying.

TheHeartAndTheFistConfession:  I love reading about military Spec Ops.  This is one of the best I’ve ever read.

sclbookFunny, so very funny.

screenshot-savage-continent-bookI love reading WWII history.  However, this is the dark aftermath of the conflict.  Very disturbing and yet important history.

9781418578169_p0_v1_s260x420This is such a great read.  We use it as part of our high school to college transition curriculum.

Scoundrels-cover_510Uh…yeah, I love Han Solo.

duck commanderMaybe I was a little obsessed with Duck Dynasty last year.

boo-bookThis book is incredible.  A powerful, beautiful and heartbreaking story of life in the slums of Mumbai.

QuitterI always enjoy Acuff’s humor and style.

a-higher-call-book-jacketMore WWII…this was a great story and a great reminder that most average German citizens were not evil.

not a fanPowerfully challenging and unsettling.

Father to the FatherlessMy church has supported and partnered with this man for years.  What an incredible story.

startThis is Acuff at his best.  A great read.  This was very influential in me starting my blog.

CandyBombersI loved this.  I wish our national character still reflected the values of the WWII/Depression generation.

platformIf you’re blogging this is a must.  Very well written and informative.

Contagious_BookCoverThis book is great for marketing and ideas.

Death-by-Meeting-292918I read this book as I considered how I wanted to lead meeting with my team.  It’s very helpful and a short read which is always nice.

Multiply1[1]I love Francis Chan.  This was a great reminder that student ministry must be about mentoring.

word_document_142646490_canonical_67ff8c6a7aI appreciated the perspective provided in this book:  Student ministry from the eyes of a lifetime volunteer.

first time managerAgain, I was slightly terrified to take the reigns of our high school department so I read a ton on leadership and management.

priceless1A novel about sex trafficking in Ukraine and Russia.  It wasn’t a great idea for me to read this after our failed adoption.

endersgameSomehow I never read this as a kid.  Loved it and enjoyed the movie.

at home bill brysonI’m a huge Bill Bryson fan.  This was a fascinating read about the things we find in our homes.

xenoI was such a huge fan of Ender’s Game and then things got weird.

damn fewLike I said, I enjoy reading about special operators.  They are a unique class of men.

4 obsessionsYup, reading more about leadership and management.  Lencioni is a genius.

the-liberator-jacket1This book blew my mind.  This guy survived so much of WWII.  Amazing.

Simply-JesusThis was my first foray into the world of N.T. Wright.  He’s as smart as they say.

What-We-Talk-about-When-We-Talk-about-God-hc-cSay what you will about Rob Bell but he is arguably the best communicator of our generation and worth reading.

to-own-a-dragonMy friend’s ongoing struggles with father abandonment inspired me to reread this.  Don Miller is my absolute favorite author.

speaker-for-the-deadI loved Ender’s Game and then things got really, really weird.

imagesSo far, this is Miller’s best work.  This was my 2nd read.  This book inspires me to live a life worth living.

Book_Review_One_Summer-09467This is Bryson’s latest.  I loved it and so will you if you are at all interested in American history or baseball.

indexI read everything by Gladwell.  He has such a unique approach.  I didn’t love the way he handled the Bible in this book but overall it was fantastic!

9780241958223_0021Such a simple but powerful approach to business or church leadership.

On_the_Edge_of_the_Dark_Sea_of_DarknessI was looking for a fun series to read to my kids.  I really enjoyed it!  So far the 2nd book is even better.

6097e03ae7a0668091602210.LAfter reading Peterson’s book I had to go back to my favorite fantasy series ever.  Brilliant.

Well, that’s it.  I read 44 books in 2013 most of them were great.  I hope you found something to add to your reading this for this year.  Please send me your recommendations.  I’m looking for great books to add to my list form 2014.

The Power of Stories

We have incredible small group leaders in LifeLine.  Our volunteers are simply the best.  One of the things we are doing this year is highlighting our leaders by sharing their stories. I’m a big believer in stories, whether students or leaders. We, as people are captivated and moved by stories. We’ve done our best to leverage this phenomenon in our ministry.

Here’s a story video of Katie Turner who is one of our top notch volunteers.  Props to Ryan Humm for shooting, Al Shepard for editing this and Lindsey Bandy’s apartment for uh…hosting the shoot.

Katie Turners Story from LifeLine Student Ministries on Vimeo.

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