Parents- “One of the most difficult situations that I have had is when a parent told me, others, and my spouse that her son did not like what we were doing in youth group” said Steve Coleman, Minister of students and families at Richmond First Baptist. According to the student there was “too much Bible study, too much Jesus stuff and all he (the student) wanted to do was play. She said she didn’t want to make him come and participate in the events. This was when he was a freshman in High School. Fast forward to freshman in college and she came to me weeping that her son was disrespectful to her, to women, was failing in college, on drugs and she didn’t know what to do with him. I prayed with her for understanding, of guidance and wisdom for the situation. Inside I wanted to tell her to roll the clock about 5 years and have him plugged into what we were doing in our youth ministry. We were doing things to help them mature, to grow and own their faith, not just play games and have fun all the time. But what can you do?”

Destructive student behavior- Issues like cutting, eating disorders, drinking, drug abuse and truancy. These issues may require you not only have tough conversations with the student and their families but also professional counselors that can help the student and their families through this issue. Cutting, according to Tree Akers, youth minister at Northside Baptist in Elizabethtown “is more common among teens than we as youth ministers would like to acknowledge. But a loving, listening heart goes a long way in working with those students through those situations.

Pregnancy of core student- “One thing that I would say about the core student pregnancy,” said Akers is that “you acknowledging that they made a mistake. But, you move on and love them through that situation anyway.” He continues, “There was a student in a church I served that got pregnant (granted she was in college). There were folks that thought that we (as church leadership) needed to discipline her or something for her actions. They never went to her to talk about it of course. In listening to her testimony since then (and the pregnancy happened about 3 years ago), she stated that the one thing she so appreciated during that was having a church family that loved her during that time. She acknowledged that it was a bad choice on her part, but it is what it is now. She is actively involved at a church in the town she now lives, and got married shortly there-after.”

Pornography-Josh McDowell at this year’s state evangelism conference addressed other hard conversations youth leaders must have. This conversation is on pornography. According to McDowell’s research, 67% of all 12-25 year old visit porn sites regularly and 90% of all 8-16 year olds have view pornography. But it is not just our students that are viewing porn. His research showed that 64% of evangelical pastors visited porn sites last year and he estimated that with youth pastor it was closer to 80%. Porn is an epidemic in our society and one that we as churches have been silent on for too long.  Some of his stats and part of his presentation are here at just1clickaway.

These four issues and others like them aren’t going to go away if we ignore them, so we need to prepare ourselves for them, because they are coming our way.

What advice do you have to those just getting started out in the journey of youth ministry?

A few of them were taking advantage of the time off from school to help with cleanup from the rash of tornados that passed through the region a few weeks ago.  Jerrod Brooks who serves at Bellevue in Owensboro is “taking a group of students Good Friday, April 6^th-Saturday April 7^th to Harrisburg, IL to help with disaster relief from the tornadoes”.  Rich Smith, at Lawrenceburg First Baptist is “Taking just a couple to West Liberty to help clean up.” Chris Bumbalough at Allen Baptist is “doing a Friday-Sunday mission effort to help with the continuing disaster relief in Salyersville, Ky. I have two other youth groups coming to join us- one from VA and one from TN and we are going to work together for a weekend. “

Some like Cody Turner, Youth Minister at Hillcrest in Hopkinsville are coupling mission projects with end of the week activities.  He says, “We have partnered with a local Business owner that is a part of our Church. The business is Mr. Mulch. What we have made a list of those in our church needing mulch work done and are partnering them with students who are willing to serve. This scheduling is very flexible through the week. There are two concerts we are making available Jesus Culture (Nashville) and Toby Mac (Paducah). Lastly on Friday we are countering the hot topic right now of bullying. We are giving out tickets for our students to invite others from school. We will be showing “To Save a Life.”

Others are planning multiday trips and emerging their students into a different culture.  One of these is Josh Houk, Minister to Students at Crosspointe in Owensboro.  He says: “We are taking some of our students to Wayside Christian Mission to serve for a couple of days at the end of Spring Break. They are excited to have the opportunity to serve in a way that they have never done so before. One of our students has decided to clean out her closet before we go, so she can take items to the mission.”

Another is Jonathan “Woody” White, from New Friendship Baptist in Auburn is taking his group to Haiti through Crossings ministries over spring break and then “at the end of April we have our association d-now. Our missions projects for that are planting flowers and other plants for the widows in our church, doing some maintenance work at the park in town, and some landscaping work around the nursing home.”

Mike Green, Interim Youth Minister at Paris First Baptist “will continue our ministry to the homeless by serving sack lunches to them on Wednesday afternoon” and will follow that up in May with a “ServeNow weekend where we are planning to help tornado victims with cleanup. We are trying to encourage parents to serve alongside their student.”

Steve Coleman at First Richmond is taking a completely different approach, “I am taking a group of our students that are leaders in our youth group on a ½ day leadership ‘retreat’. Specifically, how our programs are working from student perspective. Our trip will be about an hour away, we will brainstorm, evaluate, and then put together some things we might be able to do in ministry. This will include Missions, Ministry, Evangelism, Worship, and Fellowship. “

Let me encourage you to take advantage of the opportunities that are given to involve your students in ministry to and in the world around them.

How are you using small groups in your ministry?

How are you using social media in your ministry?

what are your thoughts…how are you dealing with transportation issues in your student ministry?

One thing all these baseball players have in common, from the 6 year old playing for the first time, to the greats like ARod, Jeter, and Pujols is that they will all spend a significant amount of time this spring hitting off a tee and fielding ground balls. These multi-million dollar athletes will be hitting baseballs off a tee tweaking the swings to try and gain a few percentage points in their batting average.

So I got to wondering, what would it be like if we as youth workers went back to the basics every year? What would we need to do every year, year after year, to make sure we stay at the top of our game? Here is my, non-exhaustive list.

1. Spend time in Scripture. Not just studying scripture to prepare for Wednesday nights lesson or as a daily check off of things I have accomplished today, but spend time pouring over scripture, mediating, memorizing, and marinating in the word of God. If we are to be disciple makers to a generation of students and their parents we have to do so out of the overflow of our time with God.

2. Prioritize prayer. One thing I have noticed in 30+ years of ministry is the lip service we give prayer. We open and close meeting with prayer, and sometime us prayer time to transition from one thing to the next on our program, and most of us wouldn’t dare eat without praying. But honest, gut wrenching time in prayer, interceding for our students and their families I just don’t hear much about. Nor do I hear about time spent teaching our students how to pray, calling the next generation to intercede on behalf of the nations.

3. Evaluating what we do. Sure we have done disciple now for 20 straight years, but is it still serving a purpose in our ministry or are we still doing it because it is easier to keep doing it than it is to face the lynch mobs that would come to our door if we stopped doing it. Taking time on a yearly basis to evaluate programs, literature, leadership and the like is never wasted time.

4. Make time for family. There is always one more ballgame or school activity to go to, one more student that needs to talk, a parent that wants to bend your ear or an event that needs planning. But you only have a limited amount of time every day and from what I have seen of most of us as youth workers it is our families that get the shaft. Take your calendar, mark off birthdays, anniversaries, special events, and a regular date night with your spouse and time with your children. Make that time non-negotiable, and in the real emergency or no way around it conflicts, then negotiate a new time. It is amazing how quickly my two kids grew up. Ask any parent or grandparent how quickly their children grew up and to a person they will tell you “in the blink of an eye”.

5. Reexamine your call. It was, or should have been God that called you to this incredible journey of working with students and who gave you an answer to the question, “now why do I do this”? We need to take the time to evaluate our why. Has our “why”? changed? Does the methods and programs we offer line up with our “why”? Do our volunteers and the church leadership know our “why”? Understanding our “why” , brings a lot of things in line.

Hitting baseballs off the tee isn’t rocket science, but it is a necessary exercise if we want to be the best we can be.

What comments or suggestions do you have to add to the discussion?