I do not wish to evaluate right now why parents are so scared of youth ministry, I simply want to point out a common element that “should” at a minimum exist in both parents and those who work in youth ministry.

This morning my wife was getting ready to leave town on a trip alone with our 10 month old daughter.  Our son and myself were staying home for the weekend.  As a loving mother should, my wife got a little emotional leaving her 22 month old son for the weekend (and her husband I guess!).  She started tearing up as she packed some final things.   Without hesitation, my 22 month old son puts down his bowl of Lucky Charms and walks over to my wife to give her one of the biggest hugs he has ever given her.   My son, who knows about 15 words and has recently found a habit of sticking his fingers up his nose and in the backside of his diaper brought Christ to my wife when she revealed a piece of herself to him.  So do not tell me parents (some who still pick their nose) are unable to recognize pain in the lives of their children.

Our simple duty in youth ministry is to open our youth up to the love of God and be God’s hand’s and feet that they may experience His love.  So let’s compromise here, parents be more vulnerable (put your Lucky Charms down) and youth ministers do your best to let the adults know that if they put their Lucky Charms down, they will not be forced to partake in an intense game of Chubby Bunny.

1. A Committed Leader with A Heart for God

Young long for those who care.  We show we care by always being there.  Your small group leader in any situation is a better fit if it is someone that desires to be by their side for the long run.  The leader’s desire to serve as a leader should come from the fruits of the relationship they have with God and a desire the share that love.

2. Faithful Youth

The more faithful the youth are, the deeper you will be able to go with them.  Be sure to set your groups up so accountability is there and they will be missed!

3. Safe Environment

Many youth will simply not come back if they do not feel like they can talk openly about what is going on.  Encourage an atmosphere where youth feel welcome, accepted, and listened to.

4. Vision

When people ask your youth what they do in small group, what do they say?  Have a very specific mission and vision for your group.  For example, the leader might say each meeting “we meet in a small group regularly to pray in community with one another and to grow in our faith.”  Have something short and sweet that you can use as the foundation to lead each meeting and determine whether each meeting was a success or not.

5. Comfortable Environment

There are some things that youth just need to keep them by your side.  Have comfy seats, snacks, music and good lighting (to name a few).  If you are meeting in a home environment, be careful of distractions of others in the house.

6. Road Map

You know why you meet, but where do you want to go?  A systematic approach to your meetings will help you see the path you are making and set goals for where you want to be at any given time.  Each meeting should leave the youth knowing at least one thing and be challenged to live out their faith in at lease one new way.   Have those determined before you meet.  If you meet that goal, great!  If you find that you didn’t but know they left with so much more, also great!  Just be careful not to make excuses and be honest about each meeting.

7. Engage Everyone

Some youth will open up without any pressure.  Be sure to consistently invite every person to not just be present, but to be involved and engaged.  One goal of the small group leader should be to discover at least one new thing revealed to them by each youth in the group before the meeting is over.  What is one thing I learned about “Sam” that I didn’t know before?

8. Ask Good Questions

This goes along with the revelation I spoke of in the previous point.  Figure out and write out questions before you meet that are designed to open the heart and mind of each person in the group.  Ask questions that cause them to think and reflect and most importantly, discover God.

I will definitely be picking these apart a bit more in the future.  Have any more?  Please include them in the comments section below!

Enjoy!

Photo courtesy of buttongirl on Flickr

To All The Nations

One of my biggest struggles in youth ministry is that my goals are always set on that one youth or those few youth.  I have preached before that we need to “be available to all, invest in a few, and duplicate yourself in one.”  This is true, but WHY?  and what is our in the end.

Here is something Blessed John Paul II wrote in 1990

“I sense that the moment has come to commit all of the Church’s energies to a new evangelization and to the mission ad gentes.  No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church can avoid this supreme duty: to proclaim Christ to all peoples. (Mission of the Redeemer, JPII)

I will focus on the New Evangelization in many other posts, but for right now, what is “Mission Ad Gentes.”  For those who do not know, it means “To All Nations.”  Our mission is not just to the youth that we encounter, but our mission is to evangelize to all the nations.

I think many people can use the famous quote “Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use words” as an excuse to not speak up and evangelize when they should.  It’s as if you think your actions are so perfect that you won’t need to use words.  Our role in youth ministry is to lead youth so deep into Discipleship that the fruit that comes from it will feed the nations.  In other words, our should be so fired up about their faith and their real relationship with Christ that it will affect the thousands of people around them and spread to all of the nations.

So my challenge that I am getting at is to take a step back and look at your current vision.  Where is it that you want those youth to be in 20 or 30 years.  My desire is that 1/3 of them would be priests, 1/3 would live another religious vocation, and the other 1/3 would be happily married in a devout Catholic family with 9 kids that also result in 2 or 3 more priests in each family (joking…sort of).

So stop worrying so much about silly games and talks that no one will probably ever remember and start figuring out how you will change their lives in the long run.  What you will find is many of those things that you are doing are part of that puzzle, but they mean so much more when you know the WHY.

Do you have other fun ideas of where you want the youth in your youth ministry to end up in 20-30 years?  Post in the comment section below!

Photo Courtesy of Senior Living

Materials Needed

None

Ideal Number of People

2-20

How It Works

To begin, everyone will stand or sit in a circle.  Everyone must make a face where their lips cover their teeth.  If you show your teeth, you are out.

One person will start and they are it.  They have the option either say Pterodactyl or make a sound like a Pterodactyl to one of the people on either side of them.  If they say Pterodactyl, the action continues in a similar direction.  If they make the sound, then it reverses the order.

Quick example: Person one says “Pterodactyl,” then person two is it, person two says Pterodactyl so person three is it, person three makes the sound of a Pterodactyl so person two is now it again.

Who Wins the Game?

If you show your teeth you are out and if you act out of turn you are out.  Play until there is one person left.

I’m a Youth Minister, I want the advantage…

Be very creative and do things out of the ordinary.  Be the loudest and the craziest.  If it seems like there is a constant timing, respond really fast.

Enjoy a YouTube video we found of a group playing the game!

Enjoy!

Photo courtesy of Avidd on Flickr!

The biggest thing that has come to me when thinking about this is simply the idea that youth do not come to events held by you because you are not as important to them as someone or something else might be.  Or, you are not around when people are “making plans.”  So this question is really more about how do you win their hearts?  How we get them to consider what is happening at the Church before they say yes to anything else.  Let’s face it, youth do not plan ahead.  If you are having a movie night on a Friday night, it is unlikely that you will get any real honest and true commitments from hardly anyone even if you see them all on Wednesday night.  Unless, the event is the fruit of your relationship with them.

Say What?

Think about it.  The events that you hold should be the fruit of the relationships that you have with the youth.  That means that the relationship must come first.  It is an absolute turn off when you decide “Hey I should have a movie night because I haven’t had one like that for awhile.”  It becomes something you are doing because of your job, if not in your own eyes, then at least in the eyes of the youth.  To the youth, you are promoting an event that didn’t start with them.  It started with your job.  You are reaching out to everyone, not them.  Now what if you were hanging out with a few youth having ice cream one day and one of them said “we should have a movie night!”  All of a sudden, they are the one’s hanging up the flyers, inviting their friends, and you end up not ordering enough pizza.  Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Three Quick Tips To Help You With Attendance At Your Events

Sending a message on Facebook that points youth to an event online and saying “this event is going to be awesome, be sure to invite all of your friends” is tacky.  Stop it.

Everyone can see it and the one person who does follow through will feel dorky because they are the only one who investing back into you.  Put the event on there, but let the youth take ownership of it.  If they are not doing it themselves, then you missed a step.

Call some of the upperclassmen up and ask them to help you with jobs that you created simply to have them there.

Events like this are a great time to grab those people who you do not normally get a chance to connect with.  Have one of them be the one who has to pop the popcorn and pour the drinks.  Then while all of the kids are watching a movie, have an intentional conversation with your “helper.”  Buy some snacks that are really good (I like the Reeses’ Ice Cream bars) and sneak them only to your helpers to show you like them more

Call People

Trust me, they are more scared of you than you are of them.  I once called a girl in my youth group trying to get a small group of youth to go to a movie together.  It was unplanned and I just wanted to try something random.  I started by asking her if she had any plans for the night.  Her response was that “everyone else was doing stuff and she wasn’t invited.”  I made a deal with her.  If I could get 4 others to go to a movie that evening, she had to join us.  I ended up calling 10 youth and 8 of them also were going to sit at home on a Friday night by themselves because they were not “invited” by the others.

Stop making excuses, get on the phone, be passionate about the event, and get them there.  Bribe them with ice cream if you have to.

That’s Not All

Last but not least, the event has to be memorable.  The movie you choose does not matter.  Be random, have intentional conversations, and do something that the youth will be telling their friends about on Monday.  Mark Yaconelli said it best when he said something to the effect of “You are not a good youth worker unless a rule has been made because of your ministry.”  The example he uses is the rule “There shall be no hide and seek in the pipes of the organ.”

Keep up the great work!

CREDITS: CC Image courtesy of ashleigh290 on Flickr

Everyone sits in a circle and everyone works as a team to stack as many layers of chaos as they can and can handle before your brains are fried.

So what is a layer of chaos?

One person will be the leader for the group. They will begin and end each layer, keeping track of how the group is doing.

Starting the first layer.

To begin the first layer, the leader will decide on a topic (we will use foods as an example). They will say a topic and point to another person passing the baton to them with that topic. Then that person points at another person saying their food. It goes around until everyone has went once. The last person will go back to the leader.

This will be the standard order for round one. So for the food level you should remember who you receive from and who you pass to. Practice this a couple of times as a group and then you are ready to move on to round two.

For round two the leader should pick a different category and a different start person. Go through and practice round two. Ideally, everyone will receive from and pass to a different person than round one.

After you have practiced just round two you are ready for the chaos. The leader will begin both rounds so they start again with round one by saying their food to the person who they said it to in round one, once that person receives level one, the leader will pass the level two category to the appropriate person. The group will pass through both levels at the same time. Once the leader has received both levels the group moves on to adding a third level.

Typically you will do this until the leader has chosen every person in the circle to start with or until someone’s brain is fried and they just can not do it any longer.

Good luck. We have seen groups get up to 14-16 levels at one time. See if you can do more!

The Community

Google+ is currently only open to adults.  Many professionals and bussinesses are currently using it to network, communicate, and share with each other.  The new ‘Circles’ method of connecting is making it extremely easy to connect and share with those in a niche field (youth ministry!).  It’s kind of neat where when we find the right youth ministers in the right circles, they can connect you with people in all of their different circles.  I know it sounds very ‘clickish’ but it is in an extremely good way.

The Ease & Speed

Once you get the hang of things, it is extremely easy and quick to have a well organized group of colleagues who are fighting in the trenches of youth ministry.  When you come across something cool, have a question, or simply think others might enjoy something that happened to you today, throw it into your “fun youth ministers” circle and let them experience it with you.  I am exaggerating a little, but truly this is the type of benefit that is offered through Google+.  If keep looking and find yourself some great circles, you will be surprised at the amount of knowledge you can gain by what others share.

Especially now that Google+ is in the beginning stages.  Things are very bare, it is easy to figure out, and you do not have many options but to set a good foundation for how your circles are set up.

The Potential

The potential behind Google+ is insane.  I have seen priests use google hangouts to pray the rosary with others and to pray the liturgy of the hours with others.  Wouldn’t it be great to meet with other youth ministers from your Diocese regularly to discuss ministry, plan events together, etc.  I know is South Dakota, where parishes are often a good drive away from each other, this feature is something I will be looking to use very soon (one I convince others how cool it is!).

Last, but not least…the games

If you do try it out and you find it’s a complete waste of time.  At least you have Angry Birds to fall back on.

Get on Google+, add me to your Youth Ministry Guru circle and let’s hangout!  Here is my profile! 

Enjoy!

This article is about following others on YouTube.  You are probably aware that you can ‘like’ people on Facebook and ‘follow’ people on Twitter.  Well you can do the same things with YouTube.  People who post videos on YouTube create a channel (a profile) where all of their content is stored.  You can follow what these people are doing in a few different ways.  I have created a simple screenr to demonstrate how to do it and have included it below.

Who To Subscribe To:

Here is quick list of a few ‘musts’ for Catholic youth minister to subscribe to.  One reason I am writing this post is also for others to share with me people that they follow.  If you know of others, please include them in the comments section below.

• Augustine Institute
• Catholic Answers
• For Your Vocation
• Fr. Frank Pavone
• Group Magazine
• Julian Smith
• Live Action Films
• Outside Da Box
• Rhett & Link & Rhett & Link 2
• Skit Guys
• Word on Fire
• Youth Ministry Tips
• Youth Specialties
• Simply Youth Ministry

Here is a quick tutorial on how to subscribe to you favorites!

Enjoy!