How to Find, Woo, and Hire a Youth Minister or Pastor

There are several ways to approach the hiring of a youth pastor. First, I would say have a clear vision of what your expectations, job description and vision for the youth pastor who is coming in. Remember, that leaders are attracted to places where they see they will have the freedom to lead and the potential to succeed without the worry of failing. What I mean by that is sometimes our churches don't allow our leaders to fail and that doesn't allow them the freedom to take risks and improve. You will have to determine what those expectations are as a church.

Secondly, have a clear picture of what experience you are looking for in a youth pastor and what qualities, gifts, strengths you see as valuable. Also, have your team or staff who hires the new youth pastor make clear they type of person you are looking for. If you need a little help in what are some difference to look for or how to do that a little more let me know.

Thirdly, Post your job on the web. I have close ties to http://www.staffyourchurch.com it is free to post and only 9.99 to have premium posts and resume search. You can post as much as you want for free or as many premium posts for the 9.99. The posts on this website give great response in the search engines without the big costs of some of the major ones. If the costs don't matter then post in as many places as you can.

Forthly, Consider an interim Youth pastor. This can be a strong leader from your church or another person that lives in the area that would want to help out. However, this is a must: Do not hire the interim youth pastor. Tell them up front if they want to be considered for the position to not be the interim. The reason for this is that if you open the door for hiring an interim youth pastor then you can settle for them because it is comfortable and you don't hire the best for the position.

Fifthly, and probably could be the best plan if it works out. Call the churches that are doing things well and talk to the youth pastors there. Ask them if they know anyone that is interested in a youth ministry job. If you have all the other things in place then you can call youth pastors who you believe posses the things your looking for.

Now How do you woo a youth pastor? Well, think about it like sports free agency. When a team wants to get a player who they feel are high quality. I would say one of the most important things for you to do is to keep in contact with everyone who applies. If someone sends you a resume put them on an email list and send them an email with your time frame. If they do not fit the qualities that you are looking for notify them right away. Don't hesitate on letting them know and don't just not tell them. It is an awful feeling to be in limbo on what a church is thinking and not knowing their next steps. People would much rather move on to the next opportunity than to be wondering about one that they don't have.

Be sure that when you find people you are really interested in you need to keep the communication very open. Email them weekly on what is the status of your search. If you have 10 people you are still looking at don't go 2 - 3 weeks without letting them know where you are. If they are still a possibility let them know that. Nothing is more frustrating for a leader than a church who doesn't communicate well. I know that we often times in churches want our search team to be very secretive and I think out of respect for the people you are talking to you shouldn't give their names, but it is fine to let people know where you are in the process and especially let those who are looking to be hired need to know. If there are 3 people who you really want to focus on be careful not to narrow down to 1 until you know they are going to say yes.

I have seen many churches get sold on a guy that they end up saying no and the Church has to start the process over. Another reason for hiring an interim person. The church I currently work with had 2 guys all the way until the end of the line that they were deciding on before they offered me the job. If I would have said no they hand another guy who they thought would have done a great job too ready to say yes. They also kept great communication lines open with me and I knew exactly where they were in the process.

I hope this was helpful and if you have any more questions about hiring staff go to: http://www.staffyourchurch.com and send a comment or email.

Blog Back On

Well, I have been off of the blogging cycle for too long. It is one of those things like you know you need to exercise, you pass by the gym everyday, you see your exercise cycle sitting in the guest room, basement or garage and you think, "Wow, I need to do that again. I do it later." That is my blogging life for the last few months. I have been thinking about a lot of different things for youth pastors that have needed to be said and I said I will do that later. I am back, and I have some great insights from other youth pastors and what God is teaching me that I think we will love reading about.

I am in process of moving forward in our youth ministry on how we do things. We are making changes that are going to reach more students and have more impact. I am presenting this to my adults this weekend and my students next week. I will share over the next couple of weeks how I went about these changes to help you walk through anything you may see you need to change as well. It should be extremely helpful for anyone looking to move forward in their ministry.

Also, I have some youth pastors that have given me some great ideas lately and I want to share those. Along with that I am emailing some youth pastors and finding out what are the key Life Issues that they teach every year or they want their students to hear. I also, want to find out what are the irreducible minimums (as Andy Stanley puts it) in their ministry. I love the 7 checkpoints but I don't necessarily think that it fits for every youth ministry. I can see that God has gifted each youth pastor and ministry with some key passions and I will talk about what some of those are.

We will also look at some other insights over the next month or so to help challenge you going into the summer and into next year. I have been doing research on how to do Multi-site churches, and I am in process of implementing an internship program in our church.

Stay tuned as we dig into these and I will make a point to not neglect my blog "bicycle" if you promise to read and comment with your insights as well.

Thanks!

Kevin Deming

Another Communication Post..but this one is worth the read.

How many of you struggle with communicating with your adult leaders, parents, staff, students? I am sure that most of your hands went up..actually you probably didn't actually raise your hand while reading this blog, but you might have done a little nod. Maybe even some of you yelled out in your office, "You betcha!" I am sure of all the things you could have yelled out the chances are it was, "You betcha!" Anyways, we as humans, as leaders, as ministers have the ongoing struggle of comminicating.

The number one thing about communicating is that we know what we need to communicate. I am not going to go into depth on this blog, you can go hide out in an office or starbucks somewhere and figure that one out. Maybe it would be a great idea to ask your Pastor what he believes is the most important thing for you to communicate. If you agree then you better start working on it. If you disagree then you need to spend some time with your pastor and communicate what you believe you need to communicate.

Today we are going to look at another aspect of communication. It is actually the mindset of communication. One of our biggest hurdles in communicating effectively is that we don't have the right mindset about communication and what a leader needs to do in communication.

Oftentimes we give out 7 different ways of what we are trying to do from an event, to leading a meeting, to how you want something to be organized and it still doesn't look or work the way you expected. And even sometimes after you have sent out emails, made phone calls and gave the ol' Open door policy to your leaders and students they still don't know what your thinking.

The answer to this is nailed down to 1 major understanding about who you are as a leader. If you have an event, have a meeting, or whatever it is and the people who are on your team are struggling to know what was or is going on.... "It is your fault!" You see even if you sent out emails, did the phone tree, sent a singing telegram, and yelled it from your announcements during youth group, if they don't get what your saying you failed as a communicator. I know this one hurts. We all do it. We think that if we give 7 different ways for people to know what it is that we are doing that if they don't get the answers it was b/c they didn't put out the effort and do it. Even though your correct that they had 7 chances to know what your were doing you have to remember the goal. Is the goal to provide communication or is your goal to actually communicate? If it is to provide communication then all you need to do is provide communication. But if your goal is to communicate and there for make things less frustrating and more effective then instead of just providing communication you need to make sure that you do everything you can that every person your trying to reach gets that communication and understands it.

So the next time you have adult leaders who say, "I didn't know we had a meeting." Please, I mean, Please don't say, "Well, I sent out an email, and I announced it at the last meeting, you need to pay more attention." Instead say, "What can I do to make sure that you know when the next meeting is."

Hope this helps!!

In Christ,

Kevin Deming

Training Adult Leaders Vol. 3: Listen to how your leader's Talk

This will be a short tip for your training but hopefully will be very valuable. One of the guys on staff at my church brought a great tip to me and I wanted to share it with you. As we look to train our leaders to be thinking from a team approach we need to watch for how our leaders use pronouns. What I mean by that is this: Have you ever heard people discuss their favorite team or sport? It is funny to hear people talk about their team and how they use words like, "We really beat the other team today," or "We need to pick up this player" or "WE need to..."
It is funny when the team is doing something wrong and they are jumping off the bandwagon you hear them saying, "They better stop making so many bad decisions," or "they need to win a game or they will not make the playoffs." You see the pronoun usage shift from a "WE" mentality to a "They." If you start seeing your adult leaders referring to decions made to a they or a you instead of we when they are talking to other people you can put the brakes on and realize that they are beginning to jump of the team bandwagon. It is time to re-cast vision, re-ignite the goals, and re-establish the purpose of why your doing what your doing. So by listening to how your adults talk about the youth ministry you will see how unified they are with a team approach.

Training Adult Leaders Vol. 2: Teach Your Leaders to Be a Team

One of the most important things we can do is to clarify our expectations as I just mentioned in my previous post. However, another thing that is vital to teach your team of leaders on any level is to be a team. We had a leader's training and I hit on the fact that we have got to stay focused as a team. When a decision is made we must look to how we can make that decision work the best for the goal we are tryiing to achieve. Often times our response to compaining is to continue to complain. By doing that we not only hurt our image, we also hurt the ministry we are involved with, the church we are working with, and the Kingdom of God. Complaining stirs up discension and undermines the vision of what your trying to accomplish.

My goal as a youth pastor is to express to the staff ideas and visions on how to be more effective in reaching people for God's Kingdom. If someone on staff makes a decision to do ministry a certain way that I might not agree with I have to remember we are a team and that even thought I think it would be more effective one way, my job as a team player is to at that point help make that decision get implemented as effectively as possible.

An example would be, let's suppose you are at a church that has a Sunday night church service. You really believe that it would be better and more effective to reach students if you did ministry projects on Sunday nights. After expressing this with your pastor and the staff your pastor feels like even though it is a good idea he wants everyone to be together for a service on Sunday night.

You have a couple of options. 1) You can be upset and compain to your youth leaders and students about how your pastor is handcuffing the minsitry and it won't grow until he loosens up. 2) You can Complain behind closed doors to your spouse, and those who are close to you and try to figure out a way to help your pastor see his mistake. 3) You can decide that if this is the direction the church is taking you will utilize this to impact your student ministry the most effective way it can. or 4) You can look for another job. Which one do you do?

As being a part of a team the appproach is simple. You job is to implement the vision with the guidelines given to you the most effective as you can. This doesn't mean you fight until you get your way. You see, I see that option 3 is what we need to do. However, as you do option 3 and seek to make the best of what was given to you, you can prayerfully talk with your pastor and show him what you want to see happen. Clarify your goals and the reason why you see the greatest impact for the change you were wanting to make. If you see that this is too strong of a philosophy difference then you may conisder making a move in ministry. But remember, just because someone does something different doesn't mean that it is wrong (however, sometimes it just may be wrong).

Training Your Leaders

In youth ministry it is often easy for students, parents or leaders to complain about how something is done. You must communicate upfront with your leaders that complaining about the youth ministry to others and to students is not tolerated. But also give them permission to discuss with you their frustrations. Just as you would want your pastor to let you discuss with you why you think something would be better give that permission to your leaders!

I pray this helps you as you go into this fall training your leaders.

In Christ,

Kevin Deming

Training Adult Leaders Vol. 1: Communicate Your Expectations

One of the most important thing you can do in ministry is to communicate your expectations. As leaders we want to lead people where we are going and one of the most frustrating things about following a leader can be if you don't know where you going. I know as a youth pastor one of the best things I can do is to communicate to my adult leaders, parents, staff, spouse (family) and students what we see as where we are headed. If people know where you are going they will be better at helping you get there. If we don't clarify our direction then what happens is your adult leaders and those around you begin to have their idea of where to go. They may have some great ideas but if it is different than what your doing it will result in conflict and frustration.

Here is an example:

Youth Pastor (let's call him Mr. A) is passionate about discipleship and is gifted in that way. He sees that the midweek youth event should be designed for the purpose of spiritual growth. He realizes that there is a need for reaching out to the unchurched but doesn't feel that the mid-week event is the place that would be most effective to do that. Now everything that Mr. A does is going to be geared toward a discipleship result. There may be some evangelism that takes place at that program but the messages and the environment that is produced will be done to be more effective in producing disicipleship.

Now let's suppose MR. A hasn't communicated that to his parents, or leaders. Maybe there are some who feel that the best place to reach the unchurched is the mid-week program. What would happen if the leaders and the youth pastor never communicate what the direction and purpose of that event is? Well, it would result in leaders and parents frustrated that more unchurched students are not coming. Even though there may be some good discipleship going on the end result of how the youth event is measured is done with 2 seperate measuring scales.

Don't be like Mr. A and have a vision but forget to communicate it. In fact, I haven't met a youth pastor who has told me that they get complaints because they communicate too much. If you are a youth pastor that gets complaints for that I would say, "Great job!!"

Communicate everything your doing and why your doing it. Communicate what the end result your looking for at each program, or event you have should accomplish. Whether you use the Purpose Driven youth model, or the Northpoint Church in Atlanta Model, or the Mr. A Youth Pastor Model the goal has to be communication.

Here are some suggestions that I have put to practice:

1) Create google groups for your leaders and your parents to communicate with them.

2) Have an email list or database list for you to email your parents, leaders and students on a weekly or regular basis.

3) Put together a newsletter to send to leaders, students, and parents that you can send through your email list.

4) Meet with your leaders regularly. Have them over to your house and have fun with them. Don't only get together with them for trainging purposes. If you have fun together you will be able to lead together better.

5) Schedule regular Parent Gatherings to convey how they can stay connected. Remember if you have ways for parents to stay connected then let them know how you will communicate to them and then tell them if they want to know what is going on they will have to take responsibility to get connected. (This is a freebie: don't let yourself get beat up if a parent or youth doesn't know what is going on if you provide a way for everyone to know what is going on and you let them know how to do that.)

6) Actually email your students, parents and leaders.

7) Put the vision God has given you in print or on the web. Keep details of upcoming events in print (available) or on the web.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have used some of these ideas and if you have some others that have worked well for you.

Kevin Deming

Becoming more effective in ministry

One of the things I love most about the church I am in is their drive to be more effective in every area of ministry. We are in the middle of Strategic planning for every ministry in the church and are using the principles from the book, "7 Practices of Effective Ministry." It is worth buying if you haven't already bought a copy. Our church is taking these 7 practices and applying them to every ministry and demographic in our church to see how we can be more effective in reaching people.

I want to encourage you to evaluate your ministry. Look and see what is working and what seems to be struggling. Get a copy of the books, The Simple Church and 7 Practices of Effective ministry and apply those principles to your ministry. What is your passion in ministry? Do you want to see God show up mightily in your life? If you do then I encourage you to work with a team of leaders to discover God's vision for your ministry, focus on communicating to your people the vision God has given your ministry, do everything you can to follow through and make things more effective.

Don't settle for less than what God has for you and your ministry. God is bigger than we can imagine. Trust Him and let Him guide you. Please don't get satisfied with just maintaining ministry. Be passionate about being more effective and impactful.

Kevin

What to do when you go to a New Church

I have been out of service for a few weeks as I have made a transition to a church in North Carolina. God has been so amazing in answering our prayer requests during our move and I am so thankful to see all He is doing. Thanks for your prayers and I am excited to see what God is doing.

For those who are starting a position in a new church here are some thoughts on some first things to do:

1) Get to know the heart of the church and the staff. Spend time asking questions and getting to know who your working with.

2) Spend time with Leaders in the youth ministry. Set up meetings with them in the first 2 weeks and get a feel of what their expectations are for the student ministry. Remember they are the ones who have been carrying the youth ministry while the church has been looking for a new youth pastor. Find out what they see are the biggest needs. Remember, whatever their expectations of the youth ministry are they will judge your success or failure on those things. If that is not what your heart and passion is then you need to communicate to them clearly what your passion and giftedness are.

3) Spend time with parents. Get to know the parents. Within the first month try and set up a parent gathering to be able to cast vision. Listen to the parents. There are needs that they see their kids have and you want to be sure to address those needs.

4) Get to know the students by name. It is very important that you know their name. It makes someone feel so good when they here someone use their name.
Sometimes youth pastors can make the mistake and just try and spend all their time with the students the first few weeks. Be sure that you focus on all 4 of these areas. Pray through the vision God has given you for that church and then lead the leaders and parents there and love the students and you will see God do amazing things.

The more people you can include in the loop the better you will be.

Kevin

How do you hear God's Voice?

How do you hear God's Voice? How do you know when God is telling you to do something? These are great questions that many people struggle with. I know that many times I hear people say, "I would obey God if I just knew what He wanted me to do." There is some truth to it but the problem doesn't lie with God not communicating to us it is with us listening to Him.

I love taking my students to Look-up Lodge Christian Retreat in SC because the speaker Greg does an amazing job in communicating Who God is to the students. We took our High School students there last week and one of the things he talked about what what is one of the greatest characteristics of God. People mention God's Love, His Grace, His Mercy, His Patience, His Faithfulness and many others. Greg stops and points out that all those are absolutely amazing but he feels that the greatest characteristic is that God is a Great Communicator. How could we know about all those things about God unless He communicated them to us. This is where hearing God's voice comes to play.

I usually tell people that there are several factors in hearing God's voice. The first thing we have to remember is that God is soveriegn enough and cares enough to tell us what we need to know. It would be sort of silly for us to sit back and think that God would want us to know something but would struggle with figuring out how to communicate that to us. So our first step is to realize that God can and does want to show us His Will.

Greg also asked the questions to the students, "Does anyone want to know God's will for their life?" Of course hands went up all over. Greg pointed to someone and said, "Do you really want to know?" He then went on to tell them, "If you really want to know God's will, then your in it. The first step to doing God's will is to want it." (paraphrased) He then continued to say that God's will is simply Him saying, "Follow me!" In order to be in God's will we must want it and be willing to follow Him wherever he takes us.

So now you want God's will, your willing to follow Him you just don't know where, what, how, why and when! This is the part that is so great about God. He desires to communicate Himself to us. He has given us His Word, the Bible, to show us more of Who He is, and guide us in the way we should follow Him. You see the whole word of God is to point us to this Holy and Righteous God. As we seek to know this God and love Him we will find that we remain in His Will (John 15).

But Kevin...what about the specifics of my life? Well great question there reader of this blog! I have in the years of being a Christian realize that Christ Lives in me and His Holy Spirit is in me to guide me. I have to trust that God is powerful enough and cares enough to guide me exactly where He wants me. I know that He asks me to be willing to do whatever He desires, where ever He desires, whenever He desires. I must now trust that He will clearly guide me there. The question you have to ask is when He has shown you specifics of His will for you how did He speak to you? If you can learn to hear how God speaks to you then you can really learn to hear His voice. John 10:4, "When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice." Do you know How God has spoken to you? Do you know God's voice? If you struggle with this answer then I encourage you to go back and spend time getting to know this God. Take His Word and get out into His creation and pray and ask Him to teach you who He is.

There are many ways that God speaks to people. Most people hear His voice through a small still voice in their heart, through peace, through open doors and closed doors, through His word. Other times God may speak through dreams or visions or miracles in your life. I would say sometimes God speaks through people as well, but be cautious with this one. I have seen many Christians go to people for counsel and only seek the counsel of people who they think will say what they want. Make sure it is God directing them and not just their thoughts on your situation.

Keep Seeking God with Passion. Know Him, I mean really Get to Know Jesus and don't settle for anything less!!

In Christ,

Kevin Deming

Environment of Acceptance

Every one of us longs to be accepted and loved. We strive to be in an environment where we feel like people care about us. As youth pastors it is extremely important for us to give every student an opportunity to feel loved and accepted when they walk into our churches. We need to change the mindset of most teenagers and train them to reach out to one another and realize how important it is for us to show the truth of Jesus Christ to everyone.

One of the biggest needs our students have is to be accepted. We see that in their desire to fit in. What can we do to see that our Students are accepted and welcomed each time they walk in the door?

1) Know your students by name. Every student looks to see if you know them by name. They also look to see how you say their name. Be sure to use their name when you speak to them.

2) Set up hosts whose job each week is to see that every person who walks in the doors are connected and followed up with. Do you have a welcome center where you can check people in and make sure you know who is coming each week?

3) Find a way to connect your guests and visitors to a significant adult or student in your ministry so that they will be embraced! Have student come to a big event and you may or may not see them again; Have a student form a relationship in a small group and you can make a disciple.

4) Are you training your leaders to look for students who are not connected. It is easy to be friendly to the students who are regulars and have an outgoing personality, but how are you relating to the students who seem lonely or hurting or need a friend? Are you training your students to invest in others?

Remember to always try and look at your student ministry from the perspective of a first time visitor. Would you come back if you were a first time guest?

A Change of Perspective

Yesterday we took our student ministry to Rescue Atlanta which is a church in downtown Atlanta the meets the needs of the poor and the desperate and the homeless in a way that most churches would never. You see it is easy for our churches to go to the inner city and feed the homeless, it is a little harder to actually set up lunches and make hot meals and serve the homeless, but it is very radical to invite the homeless into our Sunday Mornings and our church service and invest in their lives on a permanent basis. Well, Rescue Atlanta Does this. Check out their website: Rescue Atlanta.

On Saturday we got to see the city of Atlanta from the perspective of how a homeless person views it. We ministered to over 150 kids from the projects across the street with a Kid's Jam and rode on buses to pick them up and take them home. My heart broke as we rode with them on the bus and realized that they all were getting ready to be kicked out of their homes so that they could build homes that were for higher income levels. After we were on the bus for a while some of my students called to me and told me that there was a boy who missed his stop. I went to him and asked him to come up front with me so I could tell Pastor Mel where he lived. He came up front and I asked his name and he told me. I could tell he was young and seemed a little scared. I told him that I was glad he didn't get off the bus yet so we could hang out for a few more minutes together. I looked at him and asked him how old he was. He held up his hand with just 2 fingers and said he was 2 years old. He told me he would be 3 in Nov. This 2 year old boy had no one that was watching him, no older brother or sister or friend that was with him and didn't even know if there was someone at his house. My heart broke as I realized that there was a 2 year old boy out there that had to grow up faster than he ever wanted.

My perspective changed as it always does when you take time to see life from people who are desperate and hurting. How often are we so afraid to do ministry in a way that invites the hurting and the desperate? How often are we afraid to do more than just go serve a hot meal at a homeless shelter? Are we willing to actually live in such a way that our lives invest in those who are hurting? I pray that our churches will move from feeding people and helping the hurting at the back door and start investing in them and moving them into the front of our churches. Let our people see that there is so much more to our lives than feeling comfortable. It is about doing the ministry of Christ for the Glory of God. Are we willing to get dirty and touch the untouchable?

This reminds me of the parable where there was a man with Leprosy that stood outside the gates and was calling out for Jesus. Someone with Leprosy couldn't be touched and had to yell out all day to people and let them know that they had leprosy so that people would stay away from them. Someone with Leprosy usually didn't have anyone every touch them and I would say one of the hardest parts about being a leper was there was no human touch. Well, on this day, he heard that Jesus was near and so he was calling out for Him. Jesus came to him and he asked Jesus if he would make him clean. Jesus did the unthinkable, he reached down and he touched him. He told him that he would be made clean and the man was healed. You see Jesus did the unthinkable, the radical! He touched the unclean. Are our ministries filled with students who are good kids? Are our students filled with students who are the popular and the accepted or are we teaching and equipping our students to get into their schools and get a little dirty? Are we teaching them to seek out the desperate and the hurting? Are we teaching our students to love the unloved? I would say if we did we would see our churches full of the desperate who have found hope. I challenge each one of us to take time to invest in the unloved and let's do the ministry of Christ.

The Secret of a Godly Life

Ok, how many times do we find that we are frustrated with our walk with God. We know God is all powerful, we know that God moves but we look at ourselves or our ministry and we don't see the Spirit of God doing what we hope for. This little blog is simply helping us evaluate a few things about our walk with God and hopefully will cause us to reflect on the right questions.

The first thing we all have to get straight in our lives is whether we have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Check on the blog, "Why did Jesus Have to Die?" to go through this a little more. If you have a chance after reading this blog, pick up your Bible and read through John 14-17. This is Jesus' last words to His disciples before He is arrested. Because it is His last words we can know that they must have been pretty important. Also, the book of I John (especially chapters 4 & 5), deals with these same truths I am about to go through with you.

Alrighty, so you have a relationship with Jesus. We know that relationship is forever because Jesus goes and prepares a place for us in heaven (John 14:1-4). Now the cool thing about that is that when we have that relationship with Jesus God does something pretty special. He puts His spirit inside of us (Col. 1:27, Gal. 2:20, John 14:17). You know one thing about God is, He doesn't do something unless He has a purpose for it. If He puts His Spirit, If God gives His own Son to live inside of us then we can garuntee that He has a purpose for that. We can know as Believers that God has a purpose and plan for our lives. He is going to accomplish His plan in our lives through Christ Living in us.

What is that Plan?

Well, as we look in John 15:8 shows us it is to bear fruit and bring Glory to God. Bearing fruit is a huge part of our relationship with Jesus. God put His spirit inside of us so that we can bring Glory to God the Father. The way we bring Glory to God is by bearing fruit. So that leads us to the next question.

What is the Secret of bearing fruit?

Remaining in Him!
The Secret of bearing fruit is mentioned in John 15 where Jesus says that we must abide or remain in Him. By remaining in Him we will be able to bear much fruit. The greatest moments of my walk with God comes when I am resting and remaining in Christ. It is those moments that I neglect my walk with God that I see my life as unfruitful. I pray that those moments are few. So if this is my prayer what must I do in order to remain in Him?

What is the secret to Remaining in Him?

Obedience! Is that all. You mean for me to remain in Him all I have to do is be obedient? The question is are you at a place with God where at any moment in your life you are willing to do whatever God asks of you? You know, I can't think of a time where I was disobedient to God and was abiding in Him at the same time. I have seen Him use me and change lives in spite of my disobedience before. The only explanation for that is God is faithful even when I don't seem to be. However, if this is our lifestyle and we continue to be disobedient we cannot expect God to use us. So if that is the case how do I remain obedient?

What is the Secret to Obedience?

Love! Jesus continued in John 15 explaining that if we don't obey the Father then we do not love Him. And if we do not love Him then we won't obey Him. We must love Jesus in order to be obedient to Him. Isn't it so much easier to do something for someone when you love them? Of course it is. I John 4:12-13 says, "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know aht we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of His Spirit." As we love, the more we will see God working inside of us to accomplish his purposes in our lives. So how do we love him more you ask?

What is the Secret to Loving God?

The secret to truly loving God comes from one thing: Knowing Him. As we get a right understanding of Who God is, His holiness, His Grace, His mercy, His faithfulness, His Justice, His Love for us, then our love for Him will Grow. The bottom line is that we must do everything we can to know God. There is a secret to growing in our relationship with God and it is knowing our God as He has made Himself known. We should invest ourselves in knowing God more through meditating on His Word, pursuing passionate prayer, doing the ministry of Christ and serving others. You see as our understanding of God grows our desire to be like Him will grow. As that happens we will see that we love Him more. As we love Him more we will be obedient to Him more, as we are obedient to Him more we will remain in Him more, and as we remain in Him more we will bear fruit and bring Glory to Him. This is a great and mighty purpose to live and I thank God He has given us His Spirit and His Son to live in us to accomplish His will!

In Christ,

Kevin Deming

What we must teach our students?

I am in the process of interviewing interns for the summer as we are growing an intern ministry. One of the questions that I have asked them is, "What do you believe are the foundational truths that we must teach students?" As I have heard some great answers and I have been praying about what we as Youth Pastors need to communicate to students I believe I have a really strong grasp on what it is that we need to teach.

Here they are:

1) A correct and complete picture of the Gospel. Please jump down to the "Why did Jesus Have to Die" Post for more information on this. Ultimately we need to make sure that every student that is in our ministry has a correct understanding of the Gospel. This is more than just having an inviation or sharing the gospel at your youth meeting. This entails getting to know your students and equipping your leaders to get to know the students in such a way that you really know what part of the Gospel they are struggling with. Do you know the spiritual condition of every student in your ministry? If you have a large youth ministry do you or someone on your leadership know every student's spiritual condition?

2) A right view of who we are in comparision to who God is! This is very extensive but it should be the driving force to where we are leading students. Are we leading students to discover a correct view of Who God is? Are we showing them a correct view of who we are as we relate to God? Everything that we teach them about God flows out of this. Our biggest problems with students are not keeping them out of peer pressure or trying to convince them to come to church. Our biggest struggle is working through all the junk and lies in their life that they believe about God and helping to correct that and give them a correct view of God. This view of God is founded in the Word of God as Paul so often teaches that we need to teach according to sound doctrine. (Titus 1:9He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.)
(Titus 2:1[ What Must Be Taught to Various Groups ] You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.)

3) We need to teach them how to apply this right view to their life. We need to invest in students in such a way that we begin to allow them to see how God can and wants to change their life for the better. We need them to as they seek God and see His Truth understand how to put that to practice in their lives.

My encouragement to each and every youth pastor is to do whatever it takes to communicate this Right understanding of God. It starts with Salvation and the Gospel. It continues with the process of putting to practice the Word of God in their lives. The truest way to love someone is to help them know, understand, and apply God's Truth!

Leading Students to Jesus

How many times do we as youth pastors sit back and try to just let our Sunday Morning service be the answer to our kids coming to Christ? How many times do we teach our students about Jesus but just leave it up to them to come if they really want to make a decision? How many times do we actually take the initiative to see that our Students have a correct understanding of Jesus and they really have a relationship with Him?

This past Sunday we baptized 9 people but what I am so excited about is that 3 of them were student salvations that happened the week before. On Sunday Morning April 15th I stepped out of our Morning worship and met with some teenagers to tell them how they can know they have a relationship with Jesus. I was excited from my trip to Russia and leading some students to Christ there and I took the time to talk with some students who wanted to make sure they were going to heaven. I went to our small groups and just told students of the necessity that they understand why Jesus had to die. I asked any student that had never been baptized but wanted to make sure that they were going to heaven to come with me and talk. I had 5 students say they wanted to make sure they were going to heaven.

We spent around 45 minutes together talking about how God was perfect and we were not. We talked about our need to have someone who was perfect take our punishment of death so we could be with God. At the end of the time all 5 students said they wanted Jesus. They went from believing when they walked in the room with me that the way they get to heaven is by being good and doing right. Now, they believed Jesus died but they saw that as part of doing their best. When we finished they realized that it was only through faith in Jesus that they could be made perfect and have a relationship with God. They knew that we obey God, because we love Him (John 14). 3 of the students got baptized the next week. The other 2 had to wait until the next time we baptize. We also have 4-6 other students that want to meet with me in a class I call, "Believe." It is basically me sharing with students why Jesus had to die to forgive our sins. God is doing some awesome things and it starts with prayer, continues with having a clear understanding of how to share the gospel, and ends with students who are ready to hear God's truth. It is exciting to see what God can do! Be strong and Bold and make sure every student has an opportunity to hear the truth about Jesus. Don't take for granted that they come to church that is enough. If they are in your ministry or come to the church, as youth pastors you are held responsible for making sure that they hear the truth. Keep Seeking God with Passion!!

God size moments in our Lives

I am hanging out in West Virginia on a Youth Pastor's Ski retreat (Thanks CTI Ski). It is such a great time to get with other youth pastors and spend time hearing all that God is doing. Not to mention that it is a blast skiing and refreshing ourselves. I am working through the Book of Ephesians this week and praying that God will continue to reveal more and more of His truth in my life.

Last night in youth I think it was a God moment kind of night. We had our High School youth last night and I saw God show up in a mighty way. We took the focus from our weekend learning about God's word and we spent some time in prayer. It was a call for us to not accept fluff (the no more fluff campaign) in our lives. We should come before God in desperation. You see in order to have a God size moment in our lives we must come face to Face with the truth of Who God is and who we are in relation to our Creator. We must realize that it is in our desperation that we find God. The moments in my life that God shows up always are centered when I am realizing my great need for God in my life. It is when I realize that my life is not about me. It is not about what I can do. It is about God and what He has done and will do. Do we want to see our youth ministries grow in numbers or grow in God's power. I believe in our own strength we can make our ministries look sucessful to the worlds eyes. I also believe that we cannot fake true life transformation. We cannot fake God's power changing lives in a radical way. Is our ministry showing fruit that is lasting or temporary fruit that looks good for a short time but seems to be missing something?

I have talked with youth pastors who say, "Man, our youth ministry on our midweek program is growing like crazy, but there sure is no depth in their lives." After asking them about their ministry I see that they are not calling students to a life of desperation in seeking their God. They are playing games, passing out snacks, have music, and then give a short message that doesn't take students deep. Then they have not connected the students to significant Christians who are willing to take students by the hand and lead them deep in the Word of God.

It is time for us as youth pastors and leaders to find a way to connect our students to God moments in their lives. Connect them to the Word of God. Connect them to Significant Christians. Connect them to a passionate prayer life and ultimately connecting them to our God.

Potluck Youth Ministry Part II

Earlier I wrote about Potluck Youth Ministry in the Superbowl Potluck Snacks Post and I wanted to expand upon this some this morning. The idea of Potluck Youth Ministry is something that so many youth ministries across the country are doing, but it is falling short in producing students who are grounded and deep in their walk with God. Let me explain...

Doesn't everyone love Potlucks? Of course they do, but how healthy are they for you? Imagine if for every meal you had a big buffet potluck dinner. It would be great in that you could eat as much as you wanted and you would never be hungry. You would be satisfied with whatever food you wanted. I suppose if you were like most people you would load your plate up with the things you love and want and not even think about touching some of the foods that you need. Then after you have filled yourself up you will make your way to the dessert table where you will not only each one little slice of cake, but you will get a slice for every kind of cake, then top it off with pie, brownies and cookies. Sounds pretty good doesn't it?

Well, we all know that if we really ate like that we would be raising up an overweight, unhealthy generation.

So how does this relate to youth ministry? I have seen and talk to many youth pastors who look at their youth ministry with the mindset of potluck youth ministry. These take the forms in strategy & programming, and teaching. Sometimes in ministry we are so concerned about giving people what they want we forget to give them what they need.

1) Strategy & Programming - Many youth pastors have a great mission statement, vision statement, and they genuinely want to reach students for Christ. However, if you talk to them about strategy of accomplishing the vision it is based on the concept of giving students what they want and focusing on just fun stuff (As you read you will see I have nothing against fun stuff, in fact I think it is a huge part of having a balanced ministry). The problem with just focusing on fun stuff is that if your mindset is to create disciples then you should focus your energy on moving students toward maturity in Christ. If our strategy is fun then we move students toward fun and when that fun event is over they move back to whatever else is fun. Ultimately we want students coming to church because of Christ. Fun is an open door to get students connected but it is not the goal of youth ministry.

2) Teaching - Oftentimes we teach with the Potluck Youth Ministry mentality. We do this in our messages by not having a plan to take people from where they are in their relationship with Jesus and going deeper in the Word of God. Instead, our messages don't really have a plan except for that night. What about being led by the Spirit? Absolutely we should be led by the spirit. I believe God gives us messages for his people for the moments they are living in. However, the Bible is written with powerful truths and if you do not understand the foundation of it you cannot understand the rest. You have a difficult time enabling people to get a firm understanding of the Bible if we are not laying down the foundations and building on them with our students.

Understand that I am not against topical teaching. But if our topics are not leading the students to get a firm foundation in Scripture then what happens when they get to college and they face people who have questions that shake their weak foundation? Many of the student’s faith will crumble and they will turn from God.

As a youth pastor I have parents who want to know what I'm teaching their kids. I know it is on the hearts of many youth pastors to move true discipleship to the homes and in the family. Do you have a plan of where your leadership is taking the students you are ministering to? Do you have strategy of one that enables students to get what they need in a balanced way? Do you have a balanced meal approach to youth ministry or a Potluck dinner approach?

Don't forget, these students are in a place where we can impact them during some of the most crucial years of their lives. Is our goal to get students to say "wow, I had fun in youth" or "that was fun, but man God changed my life in my youth group?" Having a Balanced Ministry means, incorporating fun, and learning in an effective way. I know students and if you don't have fun with them then relationships will suffer. But if we don't teach the Word of God and how important God's truth is to students then their relationship with God will suffer. Feel free to email me (kevin@youthministryhelper.com) more about this if you have questions.

Kevin Deming

Superbowl Potluck Snacks

Super bowl Sunday is always a fun time for a youth pastor. We get to have students over to our house or go hang out at another student’s party. The only thing is even if your team ends up winning you still feel a little blah going to bed. This reason for this blah feeling my friends, is because of the stuffing of the stomach that takes place. We had tons of food at my house with 30+ High School students crammed into my den. I ate, and then kept eating, and then I actually ate some more. I have been thinking how we often times do Youth ministry like Potlucks. You see, we love potlucks, and great spreads of food, with a huge selections but there is a problem. I don't usually eat the vegetables and fruits and healthy food. I tend to see the magnetic force pulling my plastic plate over toward the desserts and sausage balls. Now as great as it is I would probably be one of the unhealthiest Youth Pastors around if I had a Potluck dinner every week. You see that is where some of our Youth Ministries suffer. We feel like that the best way to teach students is to give them as many options as we can and try to teach them just whatever they want to hear. I have found that as fun as it can be at times and many of the students like the potluck, the true discipleship takes place when you build a healthy foundation. God has laid on my heart a strategy in youth ministry of one where we teach in a systematic approach and where we end up building foundations on top of foundations. Now it isn't always the wow messages but the cool thing about teaching foundationally and systematically is if your creative you can make it fun and interesting and your students will remember in 6 months more of what you have taught.

Do you have yearly themes that focus on teaching the Word of God to them or do you have monthly themes that don't tie into each other? Maybe you’re even struggling with your messages because each week is different from before. You see in churches our students hear a message on average 4 times a week if they are active (Sunday Morning Bible Study, Sunday Morning Sermon, Sunday Night message or small group, and Wed. night message or small group). The troubling thing is that oftentimes those 4 messages do not connect on any level to the others. Then when we ask our students what they learned they look at us with puzzled faces and we wonder how we can be more effective as teachers. Give them a potluck on occasion (Disciple Now's, Retreats, Conferences), but be sure to lay a foundation that will last with them for a lifetime.

Encouraging Our Adult Leaders

One of the most important things we can do in youth ministry is to equip others to work along side of us in ministry. Oftentimes our first thought is that we have been trained to minister to students and teach and a lot of other adults haven't so we must do it all ourselves. Unfortunately this actually hurts our ministry more than we realize. In order for us to become more effective in reaching students it is imperative that we spend the time it takes in training our adults and student leaders.

If you are anything like me you have had times in the past when you set up great training seminars, conferences, or meetings that you know will blow the socks off your adults - if they will just come. The problem is oftentimes we are struggling to get our adults to show up. Here is some help on how to get adults more interested in being involved in youth ministry.

1. Have Fun with Them. I know this doesn't sound super spiritual but it makes a bigger impact than you can imagine. One of the coolest things I am most excited about is a monthly time that my adults get together with me for no other purpose than just having fun together. The first gathering I had with my adults I had it at my house. There is nothing more you can do to make someone feel accepted than have people at your house. It shows them that you value them so much that you want to welcome them into your home. You may want to know how I structured the gathering. It was simple. People came to my house, we ate lots of awesome food and we played games. That was basically it. Easy to do and fun for my wife and me to actually socialize with adults. The purpose of this goes very deep. If your adult ministry team can have fun together then you will see lives changed as you work together better.

2. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate! This is so important. I highly recommend that you send out emails to all your adults at least 2x a month if not 1x a week. Be sure not to make these emails always just about the next training event, however you do want to include this information in your emails. I encourage you to brag on your adults and to tell stories of students lives being changed in the emails. Every chance you can get a quote or story from a student will encourage them and remind them more of what they do is so very important and it does make a difference. Along with the emails you want to be sure to send postcards to everyone reminding them about events and make sure they know that you want to them to be involved. Also, don't leave out your adults who do not have email. Be sure to mail them a copy of the emails in snail mail form so they can know that you care.

3. Be consistant in your training Time. First you must actually have training. One thing that I have done is to encourage my Small group teachers to come on Wed. nights every week to work with their team of teachers and go over the next weeks lesson. This does several things: 1) It allows them to look at the lesson before Sat. night or Sunday morning, 2) It allows them to talk about the lesson and be much more prepared than trying to prepare by themselves, 3) It gets them in a habit of meeting together. On the 4th Wed. of the month I will go into the meeting and add some training tips and helpful insights, and cover any needs that we have. You don't have to meet on Wed. nights but I found that many of my teachers were not plugged into the adult ministry on Wed. nights and it was a way to get them connected to our church on a deeper level. For you it may be easier to do a Sunday or a Tuesday night. Whatever the time it is very important to show your leaders that you have a desire to enable them to be more effective in reaching their students.

4. Show them you care. Remember, many of your adult leaders do not have strong relationships in your church with other adults. Use your monthly gatherings as a chance to show them you care about them. Make sure you pray with your adults and when they are going through a tough time that you let them know your praying for them. Remember to ask about what is going on in their lives. Call them on the phone just to see how things are going with them and do whatever you can to show them that you appreciate them. You can never do enough to show your leaders that you value them so don't stop trying to find creative ways to do this.

Please let me know if this was helpful to you. If you want to get some more ideas please email me and I would love to talk. I will be adding the next article on Training student leaders.

Home Groups

I know one of the biggest things we try to do as youth pastors is find a way to make small groups work. I made the decision to committ to small groups and make it work. When I did that I organized on Sunday Nights where we did nothing at the church and everyone met in homes off campus. The middle school groups are led by high school students and some adults and the high school groups were led by Seniors and some youth ministry leaders. We started out with 5 groups in homes hoping for about 50-60 people. We had sign-ups for a month or more before and had homes already set up and leaders in place. There seemed to be some resistance since we had never done something like this before. Everyone complained about not having the large group time on Sunday nights. I stuck to my passion and explained how in order to promote an atomosphere of acceptance we must get to where we connet people better with one another. They began to understand. The Sunday night before home groups started we did a big event in our youth building to get sign-ups finalized with maps so everyone would know where to go. We called it "Float Night!" We had crazy games with swimming pool floats and we played, "Will it sink or will it float?" with about 10 different strange items like Jello, Spaghetti, power ranger action figures and other stuff. We had around 60 kids show up and that was about what we have been averaging so it was a great response.

When all was said and done we ended up having over 80 kids connected in small groups and some groups with over 20 people. We are in a great position to have 8-10 groups now. We are taking a break over Decemeber and kicking them off again in Jan. Our students loved the groups and everyone wants to keep doing them.

I encourage you if you have a passion for small groups, stick with it and communicate your vision. Get everything ready and don't let complaining or some kids that don't want to do it stop you from getting other kids connected.

I actually had a group of students in one area not want to do them. I had an adult back out hosting the home because they didn't really love the idea and their daughter wasn't that excited. I told the group that if they wanted to go they could go to the other group but this is what we were going to do. They complained some but ultimately those students ended up going to the other group and they loved it. Keep Seeking God and pray through what God has for you to do in ministry. Stay strong in what God has planned for you!