As we near the end of a semester, the stress for students amps up even higher that normal and it’s often accompanied by feelings of depression or bouts of anxiety.  At the college level, there isn’t much I can do to assist students who procrastinated and pay the price for that delay.  But, I did receive a long-distance Email from a high school teenager who was feeling stressed, down, and wondered what he could do to work out of that.  Since I know a lot about being a teen with stress and depression (because I struggled with it too), I offer these 10 action steps.  I wrote them quickly, so I’d love to hear what you think about this list.

So, without further delay, here is my 10-step list to deal with stress:

1. Make sure you’re getting enough sleep each night, drinking lots of water each day, and exercising outside (if the weather holds).
2. Cut back on sugar (and this means cutting carbs too) and caffeine.  You’ll be surprised how much these contribute to feeling down.
3. Eat an orange a day.  And carrots.  The physiological side of eating well is not to be underestimated.
4. Don’t watch movies or play video games for 72 hours.  These are just escapes that build up the stress more when you’re done with them.
5. Read a chapter a day of a nonfiction book on spiritual disciplines or leadership or read a biography of a great person.
6. As for the stress, make a list of everything that’s stressing you out.  Take 15 minutes and do that.  Often making a list is helpful enough and shows that you can actually manage better than you feel you can.
7. Look over the list and see what can be done quickly (in an hour’s time) and schedule to get them done soon. Within a day.  Cranking off to-do items as ‘done’ eases stress immediately.
8. Look over your “bigger” items to see when those stresses are gonna be over.  Write that date down next to each one.  This gives you perspective too.  You know that this is just a short season of stress.
9. Then, for the larger issues yet, pray about each one and remind yourself that God is in control.  I don’t mean to overspiritualize, but often our stress is a contr0l thing and we’re trying to get it all done in our abilities.
10. If one of the stressors still nags and creates anxiety or despair just by looking at it on your list… it’d be helpful to find a pastoral person or a godly adult with good listening/counseling wisdom and talk it through with him/her.
11. (Hidden track point) It also be good to reflect on your stress to see if it’s just an adrenaline thing too. Some folks are addicted to adrenaline and haven’t ever learned to get things without it. So they wait until the deadline, stress a lot, and the adrenaline kicks in so they can accomplish something. It’d be good for you to learn how to get things done without having to stress every time.

What did I miss?  What would you change?  I’d love to have a “12-step” list when done, you know…..

Some summers I have kept working and being involved in a variety of good projects.  This summer, I am dialing down quite a bit and taking a mini-sabbatical for two months to develop some projects that need attention and resuscitation.  I will also reengage some long-rusty spiritual disciplines to renew my relationship with Jesus Christ and will dig into some books that comprise my towering “need to read” stack.

I think spending some time ‘away’ from being productive and ‘achieving’ is important for all leaders, teachers, and workers.  Rick Warren’s famous challenge to “Divert daily, withdraw weekly, and abandon annually” has grabbed my attention this year.  We can get so busy working for Christ in ministry, that we push out time to worship and live for Christ.  So, I asked what would it mean to me if I recalibrated a bit before the coming year which looks to be full of some pretty strategic opportunities?  I think it would mean that I’m leading those with a right heart.

I’ll still be working on various freelance writing and developing speaking/teaching material, but the rhythm and the pace will change significantly. I am only speaking for one weekend this summer and only teaching an online c. This all feels like I’m shifting from 5th overdrive gear to 2nd gear in all-wheel drive to explore under-developed territory in contrast to this past year’s busy-ness.  I’m moving from a freeway expediency to a grounded 4-wheel thoroughness – and I’m looking forward to it.

So, the website may collect a bit of dust at times, though I’ll probably post once a week regarding a chapter I’m writing for a forthcoming book.

Have a great summer!

So, while over 73% of the world still does not have access to the Internet, for many of us it’s an expected right now.  We’ve become dependent on it and while it’s a great tool (look, I’m using it right now), I think there may be some problems with the dependency.  So, this has been a challenge for me and I quickly listed five dependencies.

1. For what we know:  As an educator students don’t feel the urgency to learn material when they can just ‘Google’ it. The problem of course is that Google is not an objective dispenser of knowledge.  Dependent on other websites, Google features those who have paid for prominence or have a stronger SEO strategy (often websites also designed for profit).  So, our knowledge base is controlled by search engines and our vocabulary features existential quotes from Celebrity Apprentice instead of Søren Kierkegaard.  So, I suppose if one controlled the Google results (even edited out certain keywords), one could shape out an entire population thinks.
2. For what we control:  Try this experiment the next time you’re with a group of people under the age of 30.  Mention your cell phone, or that you set your ringer on vibrate, or that you recently got an important text message.  Then watch how many of them will instinctively check their cell phones within the next 3 minutes. I’d probably be one of them.  A 2011 study showed that 53% of young adults would give up their sense of smell (the most powerful sense we have for memories) instead of their cell phones.
3. For how we communicate:  I get more done each week due to the convenience of texting and the ability to work in virtual committees with members spread all over the country.  I live in a bit of a remote location yet am connected.   On the other hand, I have to push my teens to interact with others face-to-face. Though they text nonstop with friends, they are hesitant to meet and talk with others.  I asked about that and they said they text mostly out of ‘boredom.’  I’m hopeful this inability to socialize changes with maturity like it did for most of us who were a bit shy in high school. (we do forget what it was like for us as teens I think).
4. For our entertainment: I know I’m generalizing here, but if we did a quick analysis of what people do on Facebook, InstaGram, YouTube, and similar websites, it’s often hyper-focused on self, entertainment, and trivia.  And my ‘Fun Friday’ posts on here show that to be true. I’ve been challenged
5. For our recreation:   Just ask anyone to go for a hike, bike ride, or camping without their cell phone and watch their responses.

If I had a sixth, I’d add driving. I’m alarmed at the number of folks (adults!  30-39 year olds are involved in more lethal accidents due to cell phone usage than any other age group) texting while driving. 37% of adults say they do this often.  I am not sure how many deadly accidents (like this one or another or this one) it will require before we take this seriously.

How long can you go without checking or holding your cell phone?  What would happen if each of us lessened our nearly-addictive dependency on these devices?

Guest post by Nathan Engman, Director of Youth and Family Discipleship, Memorial Lutheran Church, Katy, Texas.

I have heard it said that just because you have the church, it doesn’t mean that you are making disciples.  However, everywhere you are making disciples, you have the Church.  This speaks to a large assumption that churches have adopted over the last several decades.

Christ’s command to “go and make disciples” is a clear one.  However, it would seem that “how” we go about it is not.  While I am sure that there are similar elements between everyone’s methods, there is a plethora of approaches that churches adopt as their method and practice of making disciples.

Think for a moment beyond what you are currently doing to how you decided to go about the great commission of making disciples.  Did you read about ministry practices and suggestions from a book? Did you simply do what a mentor used to do?  Are you carrying out the long held youth ministry traditions of your church body?  Have you adopted the practices of the early church?  Have you looked for and followed examples of Biblical leaders like Jesus and Paul?  Have you seen or read about something working at another church and adopted that model?  I imagine that if you are like me, it is some combination of these.

Just about any of these reasons is a good place to start ministry from.  However, we need to be careful that we are not making assumptions about ministry.  I remember when I started ministry; I designed a youth night for our students.  I chose to have a worship element, teaching, element, a food element, and a fun element.  This was because I read about some of these things from a church on the west coast and I had seen similar elements done by my mentors.  I assumed that they would be effective in my context.  Several aspects were effective, but the worship element was difficult.  We simply didn’t have the resources to have a worship band and to do things the way that I had seen them done.  I bull-headedly pushed ahead and strove towards this goal based on those assumptions.

We make assumptions all the time.  We make assumptions that what our mentors’ methods were effective.   We make assumptions that what worked for us works for others.  We make assumptions that because it has always been done a certain way that it was effective.  We make assumptions that just because it is an old tradition that it is no longer relevant.  We make assumptions that the practices of the early church or of Biblical leaders are still culturally relevant today and effective in today’s culture.  We make assumptions that because an author said it works, or because a program was effective elsewhere that it will be effective here.  We make assumptions that just because we don’t see success right away or that we do see success right away that it validates a certain direction or method of discipleship.

Do you have these or other assumptions?  Why do you implement the methods that you do?  Perhaps we need to stop and take a deep look at our methods, why we employ them, and truly their effectiveness.   They might be the best method for discipleship in our context, but we might also just be assuming that they are.

Guest blog post by: Eric Kelly (@yfcjjm), National Juvenile Justice Director, Youth for Christ USA

 I was a 90’s youth group kid, I admit it.  I spent many nights wandering in the dark looking for a mob of people who did their best to hide from me.   I was only an “eight”, the amount of marshmallows I could cram into my mouth and still mumble “Chubby Bunny”.    “Underground Church”, “Manhunt”, and “Mafia”, yup I did them all!

Fast forward 10 years and I am in Fort Wayne, IN beginning a new low income housing project ministry for Youth for Christ.  You join me in the middle of my struggle to meet and reach teens in the Brookmill Apartments off of Covington Road, and for some reason the Jars of Clay CD just isn’t drawing them in like we would have thought.  What have we gotten ourselves into?

After considerable struggle, teens are now in the mix.   We don’t have a flashy youth room or building, just borrowing the local dusty Lutheran church around the corner.  By now we found some KJ-52, trying to convince teens it’s as good as Eminem, but failing in every attempt.

Teens have started to show a little bit of commitment, and now I’ve got to create a healthy group that desires to know Christ.  My default is back to the 90’s youth group I was a part of, so I pull out every crazy, fun, embarrassing game I can recall.  What happened next?  Not a single volunteer!  No one wants to come up front?  What I failed to understand (now I clearly know) is that urban teenagers don’t want to be embarrassed in front of their peers.  The gang involved teens in my group had worked so hard to gain their status that they weren’t going to jeopardize that by being blindfolded and eating an onion for our entertainment.   That was my “ah-ha” moment, and I had to spend the next 2 years trying to understand and learn about these teens and what effective ministry to them looked like.

My case is an extreme, but I do wonder if we forgot that the world of a teenager is changing.  Crowd breaker games have been replaced by YouTube clips, and the old school phone call has been swapped out with text messaging.   If in my world of Brookmill apartments, I would have spent time assessing the teens, the neighborhood, the potential ministry, I would have saved myself time and struggle.  Are we too set in our ways to try to adapt to the teenage world around us?

This is not your DC Talk Ministry Anymore!

Teens have an almost endless supply of activities at their fingertips.  Youth ministry isn’t the only fun available to them anymore.  We have to be willing as youth ministry professionals to step back and look at how and maybe more importantly why we do the things we do.  Is it just our default?  Did it work 15 years ago when we were in youth group?   Are we even open to asking?

Assessment is a scary word.  It means digging, poking, and sometimes asking tough questions.  Is there a method to our madness?  Youth for Christ’s age old slogan is “Anchored to the Rock, Geared to the Times”, and I believe it still resonates today.   Assessment helps us realized the strengths and weaknesses of our ministry, if we will allow it.    “It has always worked this way” and “Teens continue to come” are both true and dangerous phrases that we throw around.

Have we asked the countless number of teens why they don’t come to our ministry?  How about students who have left?   I know we must celebrate the many who have come to know Christ and/or have grown in their faith, but could we take some time and consider all that we have missed?    Let’s take a good look, maybe tight roll up our jeans, and poke and prod our ministry looking for ways to be more effective!

Perfect.  4-4 on the cliche meter and all smile in approval as they recognized an important goal in athletics goal was met.  (Uh, the goal was not saying cliches after a game.  It was giving the game one’s all.)

Sports taught me this lesson at a young age.  CrossFit teaches it to me every week now.  To get the most out of exercise, one has to give it their all.  Every time.  Proper form, attention to hydration and nutrition, and then pushing past physical limitations all contribute to physical and athletic development.  In high school I showed up every day to run or to play basketball.  Yesterday’s practice wasn’t enough to rest for that day.  I had to again show up and train.  Same for CrossFit today.  I can’t take many days off to rest (or be lazy) or I’ll notice the drop-off the next time I show up.

On the road to effective work and leadership there is a similar crest along the way that all of us need to overtake.  It’s a simple yet profound rise that separates people into two groups and helps to answer the question “what is motivation?”:  Those who try to accomplish as much as possible while working and those who try to do as little as possible … just to get by. 

[It may be helpful to reword "accomplish as much as possible" to "perform a task as well as possible" for those who have concerns about overemphasizing performance as the chief value - or putting 'doing' in front of 'being.'  Either way, the issue is our stance toward the work before us - do we take it on with excellence as our standard?]

Take any work, learning, or creative situation and apply this simple question to those involved.  You’ll begin to see a differentiation and you can explore more about motivation factors for what separates the two groups.  Here are a few examples of what I’ve observed about motivation for the following situations:

1. Give two children similar chores at home.  One works to meet minimum standards of completing the task while the other stops to assess the end product of his work: Does it look clean? and performs a few additional tasks to make sure it’s done well.  The motivation might be his own standard or seeking the approval of his parent, but the outcome is better quality than his sibling due to his extra time and attention.
2. Assign a paper in the classroom.  Some college students turn in papers that meet the word count, a first draft that meets the minimum standards of the assignment. Other students work to say something in their papers, working to make sure the content matters and that the paper is a demonstration of their best thoughts.
3. Lead a youth ministry program.  In my field I get to observe a lot of youth ministry programs. Some are just of higher quality. The sounds works consistently and without glitches, the speaking or discussion is compelling and obviously well-prepared, and the content is well-grounded.  Others seem to have been prepared that afternoon.  The topic had been chosen weeks prior, but the thinking behind it hadn’t been fleshed out until the hour before (and I’ve been guilty of this more than a few times too).
4. The arts.  Visual arts and music are the most common area where you can see the difference.  And, unfortunately, in Christian circles ‘close enough’ is often good enough.  Attention to detail and quality or even to the

I think there’s a general ‘life disposition’ where we live to try to accomplish as much as possible or we just try to get by.  What have you noticed over the years in others’ lives?  Where have you had to overcome this barrier?