The world will always need heroes...

Hi readers!

I haven't had an opportunity to send out a blog in a while. This new job has had me super busy and with all the excitement i hardly have had a spare second to write a decent blog. Today I will write a nice quick one because of the happenings in San Francisco

This morning as I checked my twitter feed between answering emails I ran across the story of Batkid (#SFBatkid or #Batkid on twitter) the story of little Leukemia survivor Miles who was surprised with the gift of being Batman for the day. His wish drove volunteers to mass 12000 strong to turn a part of San Fransisco into his own pint sized Gotham City, complete with Riddler and Penguin villains. You can read all about this story here (Batkid Story) 

  In the midst of world wide problems I am glad that there are stories like this to remind us that there is still good in this world. Perhaps it won't make much difference in dropping the crime rate or even fixing all that is wrong with the world, but for one brief moment the world smiled. For one day, to that little boy, the realm of the imagination has leaked into the real world and he was given an opportunity to live out his dream. for one whisper of time the world made sense.

   Batman, is a hero to millions of fans world wide, but today's real heroes where the 12 000+ volunteers who went out of their way, taking time off work to make the dreams of a little boy real. I can't help but wonder what would happen if we tried to make each other's dreams a reality? would the world notice because we dress up in costumes or will the notice because we are doing an act of God in a public way? Too often we are bogged down with our own problems, with our own issue and trials that we forget to take time and look for the good in everything.

There is still good in this world, and today one little boy has a stronger faith in the good of humanity. In fact, if you were to tell him that Batman was not real, I'm willing to bet that he would say "yes, he is! I AM Batman!" If only we were so expressive with our faith in Christ. That we would do so much good to others making their dreams reality so that social media would explode with the news that Christians are doing good, just because we can. I think that those people we would touch with our good deeds would have a hard time doubting the existence of Christ. Like little Miles they would stand up and say "There is a God! I've seen his kids work!"

The world still needs Heroes! go out and makes someones dream come true!

Energy

    One of the questions all Youth pastors or leaders in general have to ask is "How do I maintain the energy level of my team?" Lets be open for a bit, we've all experienced that lull during the ministry year  where it feels like you're wading through waist deep molasses in the middle of winter. Events become a blur, and you're just glad when you can go home and rest. Energy gets spent in more ways than one than one as the year progresses, so its important, and dare I say imperative for a leader to be aware of his teams energy level. Lets take a look at this thing we call energy so we can understand it better and hopefully we can begin to think of ways to better spend and recharge our team members.


   What is energy?
 Humans have two kinds of energy (there may be more, but we're going to focus on 2 for times sake): Physical energy and emotional energy. Both of these is what fuels every person to do their work or to create something and even to develop deep relationships. Some people have an instinctual skill to know when they need to recharge their energy and how to reload it themselves. Others have to learn how to develop disciplines to keep their energy levels at optimum.  Some choose physical activity, music, making or looking at art spending time in nature or even engaging
 
Energy Subtractors

For the benefit of newer leaders, energy subtractors are any event, situation or relationship that leaves you drained and unable to work at an optimal level. For some its spending too much time away from people, others spending too much time with people, stress, arguments, even daily day to day tasks can be energy subtractors. each will drain away a small or large portion of your daily energy reserves. lets take a quick glance at a few major ones:

a weak spiritual life- This will erode what little energy you're able to muster, because we rob ourselves of a vast source of energy that comes from God. Most of us do our best to make it through on instinct and skill alone, but this is a dangerous habit to forms as it not only weakens us, but makes us vulnerable to mistakes and attacks. If we are to counter act the drain effect of the many subtractors out there, then this is where we begin.

Poor Diet: Its long been a running joke that the diet of a typical youth pastor consists of Pizza, Soda Pop, Nachos and Wings. Some of us don't even eat a vegetable that has not been either deep fried or if it doesn't come from a chip bag. Its amazing how much having an unbalanced and unhealthy diet will affect the way your energy reserves work. Junk food is dangerous because it gives us the illusion of being fed, while in truth there is so little nutrition in it that our body can use to give us a decent level of energy. Most of that stuff is processed as waste and nothing is drawn into the system to help it maintain health.

Lack of Physical activity: This goes hand in hand with poor diet as your physical self needs exercise to maintain peak performance energy levels. No, eating junk food and "working it off" at tonights event is not exercise! This is where most of us tend to gravitate, but the problem with this is that even though we may run around with our students, we train our selves to only do it when they're around. In fact, we are indirectly teaching them bad habits that contribute to the rise of obesity.

For our teams:

Over taxing their time: no ministry would be successful without the help of all these brave volunteers who many times are the first to arrive, help clean up, take kids home, skip meals and holidays to help impact the lives of students. They are our most important resource so we must treat them as such. As pastors we can be the biggest drain on their energy simply because we need ministry to keep functioning. Making sure we're not being unreasonable with the use of their time is important, which means that its important to start and end events ON TIME. we're good at getting them involved with the students, but sometimes we forget that they are people with lives and stresses too.

Energy Rechargers:

These are activities that leave you charged up and feeling like you could take on the world. Its amazing how good you feel after you spend time doing some of these activities. They're fun, they're interesting and sometimes a bit odd. The main idea here is to do something that gives energy rather than subtract it.  As seen above, lets take a glance at what can we do to counteract the aforementioned subtractors to help our team maintain energy.

Pray & Read: we cannot ask our teams to grow in their faith walks if we are neglecting ours. Thats just, plain and simple, hypocritical. Therefore, we must strive to set the standard that our team sees. More importantly, pray whenever you are together with them, pray for them, have them pray for you, and pray for your students. Reading the bible goes with out saying, I know that some of us are not huge readers (I love reading for the record!), but there is such a hoard of great writing out there loaded with tools and suggestions we can use to be even better leaders. If we become better leaders, then our team will become better, and really there is no limit where the Lord can take you after that.

Healthy Alternatives: At my previous ministry opportunity, my team and I made a decision to ban energy drinks from all events. We did for two reasons: 1) have you ever seen a hyper Jr Higher loaded up on red bull?! they're bound to become radioactive or spontaneously combust and then we'd get blamed for burning down the church! 2) <seriously> There is nothing healthy or good about energy drinks. we felt that allowing them to put that junk into their system and condoning it would be enabling the formation of bad eating habits and we cared about our students too much to let them ingest that stuff.
   we started to add healthy alternatives to our snack times and we minimized the use of pizza and chips at our events. We asked parents to provide healthy baked goods when snacks were needed and lowered our sugar intake. Will those kids eat healthier at home? maybe not, but as stewards of their time and lives we were going to be examples to them. btw I lost 35 lbs in 2 months (I also exercised regularly) also and it showed the kids that you could have better health.

Physical Activity: Yeah, youth events can be high energy and very active but there is a need for us to invest in regular exercise outside of youth events. When we exercise our bodies, our minds become shaper, we think quicker and have more energy. You'll notice that ideas for sermons, events and bible studies just keep pouring out of your head. Also you'll sleep better and then have more energy to invest into your team and students. You don't have to go and sign up for a fancy gym membership, but you can go out for a walk after supper (take your kids if you have some) or get a group of area pastors and play some pickup basketball a couple of times a week, or simply go jogging. Do it until it becomes a habit and yes the first few times you'll be tired, but if you stick to it you'll see results. Show your people that the Lord not only cares for your soul but your physical self too.

For our teams:

Long weekends off: "What?!?! shut down youth for a long weekend?! are you crazy!!!" this may be your reaction, but let me explain before you stop reading. I think that as youth pastors we are not only called to serve the youth but the families as well. I know that most long weekends we see a slight increase in attendance to our events because students finally have time to come out. This is great, but have you thought about your team? do they have families that they'd like to spend a long weekend with? perhaps they'd like to go and visit a friend? or just simply stay in. I think we've done a great disservice to our teams in youth ministry by asking them to work when everyone has the weekend off.
   When I started to think about this,, I realized that i was being unfair to my team and unfair to my family. I spoke to my SP at the time and told him that I was going to shut down youth every long weekend and he reacted much like I noted above but I told him that these volunteers take time after working 8 hours every friday, who sacrifice weekends to spend it in a cabin with a bunch of stinky Jr. High boys, who are there every-time we need them and ask for nothing in return. It was in our best interest to make sure that they got a gift for their service and a $10 coffee gift card was not going to cut it. We needed to give them the gift of time off.
    He raised a concern regarding the students not coming to other events or going elsewhere because we were not open. I told him that at the parents meeting I challenged the parents to take the long weekends and plan outings with their students, to intentionally take interest in what their teen was into and to not fear having to compete with a youth event. Reluctantly he agreed to let me try it for the year, and what I discovered was this: Students kept coming (we actually grew), and my team was even more energized! the winter energy lull was greatly minimized which translated into them having more energy to spend on the students which then made our events, and services better and took us into a whole new gear of momentum. My team then worked harder because they did not feel guilty about missing an event scheduled on a long weekend due to family events. They came back energized, happy and ready to take on the world and we succeeded.

Final thoughts

What I'nm trying to suggest is that we need to be intentional in ensuring that our energy levels and the energy levels of our teams are at an optimum because we'll be able to fight the good fight longer and with excellence. I don't know about you, but I rather go to battle with happy, rested people than a bunch of weary, grouchy people.


with blessings!

Perfect

Perfect:

   This word has been the bane of many ministries. It has burned out so many good leaders, destroyed marriages, strained faith walks and damaged students. All youth pastors want their groups to be perfect, and I don't believe there's ever been one who just wanted to run the worst youth group in town. We've all tried to achieve "perfection" but alas, it is unattainable. It's a mirage, a puff of smoke, an impossible dream. At least here on earth it is. Most of us who seek to go beyond doing our best in our groups will tend to fall into two extremes whilst pursuing perfection. 1)we're never satisfied, and 2) We refuse to budge.

Never satisfied

  On the one hand, we constantly are seeking for the next best thing, program, curriculum, model, media, etc that will take our group "to the next level." We work hard to provide the best teaching, events and volunteers, but more out of a mindset based on the idea that the results they yield will take us closer to that "perfection" we are reaching for. Sometimes, it may even lead us to leave a perfectly healthy and growing ministry for an even bigger opportunity and sometimes it will cause us all sorts of frustrations when we can't mould our people into the picture we have in our heads. This is quite possibly the reason why criticisms hurt us so much. yea, I know that constructive criticism is always good to receive, but there's always a tiny portion of us who feels slighted by someone saying that we could have done better. We lose sight of the very reason we became youth pastors in the first place, not to chase after the spectre of perfection, but to point people to the one who truly is perfect: God.

   We do great harm to our students, because we tend to (perhaps indadvertedly) show them how to pursue "perfect" rather than how to pursue God. They watch us and hear about how we work, pray, but I fear they see that our hearts are not fully focused on seeking God, but in creating perfection so that God will seek us. Perhaps this is the reason why many students feel that they are not good enough christians, that every time they try to do something and it doesn't produce fruit effortlessly that they need to work harder at being a better Christian. We may even teach them to not enjoy the "now" therefore, they go through life seeking the next big thing, never stopping to see the good they've built.

Immovable

The pendulum swing to the other extreme isn't any better as we may be resistant of changes that would expand the effectiveness of our ministry. We become so stuck in a rut that we forget there are many ways to enhance what we do, to keep it fresh and relevant or, most importantly, accessible to everyone. We may even become critics (or trolls) of others who are seeing increased success. We start making excuses as to why that wouldn't work in our area, or we blame the lack of money, people, volunteers, building capacity, equipment, or even blame senior church leadership for their "lack of vision." It all becomes an insatiable whining or a discourse on "why that's not going to work" or "If I had a chance..." yet, we do nothing but hope that somehow one day we wake up and everything will magically have reached perfection.

   This also hurts our students because they copy what we do or how we talk/think because we are an important figure in their lives. By dwelling in this extreme we teach them that working towards excellence is a fools errand and that keeping things status quo is best. Thus they grow up to be people who wallow in mediocrity or below, never wanting to move beyond their limits because we taught them to never endeavour to be better. We taught them to become immovable.

So what now?

  I'm not entirely sure that there is a clear cut remedy to this issue. Personally, I believe that we must do everything in our physical power to be the best we can be as followers of Christ. Our example speaks louder than a thousand sermons, but we cannot allow ourselves to be so consumed with reaching perfection, when we know it is impossible. I believe that part of (if not the whole) answer comes from shifting our focus away from a perfection based on our achievement and centre it on a perfection based on God. What I mean by this is: that we do everything in our power accomplish every task in the best way we can. We must push ourselves to our limits, we seek ways to improve (within reason), and we let God deal with making things perfect. We focus on our best and do what is pleasing to God, what will bring him the greatest amount of Honour. I believe that even though it may not look "perfect" in our eyes, in His it more than does. No matter how simple, limited, or small, when we do things to bring God glory, with pure and humble motives, He deems it perfect.

Until next time!
Blessings.

Heroes

   I recently had the opportunity to meet one of my personal heroes, Author and speaker Francis Chan. I was so excited to meet him (albeit briefly) after he finished speaking at his session at a convention in my area, that I bolted from my seat, and I must admit rather rudely made my way to the front area where he was meeting a few people, I left my backpack and all my valuables and the friends I was sitting with behind. I knew that this may be my one and only chance to shake his hand and say a few words of encouragement to him. I was determined not to miss this opportunity and would let nothing or no one, stop me. Once I was face to face with him, I thanked him for what he had spoken, and for the books he had written and how they've impacted my life as a Christian and pastor. Then I asked for a picture. That was it. the whole thing probably took no more than 3 minutes. I'm happy to say that He's as genuine and humble as he portrays.

  Have you ever stopped to think about what it is about our heroes that make us go to personal extremes just to shake their hand or even get an autograph? What makes them a hero? is it writing a book, having their own podcast or a large ministry? Is it someone who travels to multiple conventions to speak, has their own DVD series or webcast? or is a hero someone who just does the duty that God gave them faithfully and their faithfulness attracts the attention of everyone around them? There is nothing wrong with having people you admire, but we must teach our students and ourselves that they are just people.

To build or destroy...

Heroes can be a positive and a negative source of influence in our lives. Positively, they can help us to improve our skills, become closer to God or inspire us to greatness. Negatively, heroes can rob us of our sense of self by our constant attempt to imitate them, they can disappoint with their words or actions, they can shift our focus off God and unto them, making them our idols. In reality, our heroes are just people. regular, people who have a God given gift and insight that help the rest of us when we face an issue or need some growth.

We all have people in our lives that we admire, that have helped to shape us into the people we are today. It is necessary for human development, and as youth pastors, we must do a better job at helping our students pick and discern between heroes who will build them up into greatness and heroes who will destroy their lives. Popular culture has a warped view of heroes, they say that to be a hero you must either do something impossible, help during a disaster or tragedy or have some sort of talent that will reach millions. (i.e. music, acting, etc) but what about those heroes that live their lives plainly?
 
I speak of the Pastor who has shepherded a single flock in a small community in the middle of nowhere? what about the military chaplains who minister to the soldiers in the theatre of war and has the unfortunate task of performing one too many funerals for fallen soldiers? or the single mom who works 2-3 jobs and still takes time to spend with her kids and make lives as special as possible? we could go on and on about people who are heroes that go unnoticed, but the point is that we need to ensure that our students seek to pattern their lives, not after some pop culture icon or simply imitate they way they dress or act.

A true hero

  The one marker of a true hero is that they make us believe that we can be better than we are. They inspire us to pursue greatness, not for our selves but for others. We in the Christian world have the greatest hero of all, but sometimes we forget that. No, this will not turn into the sunday school version of what a Hero is. (its Jesus if you didn't know) The great draw back from students patterning their lives after a person is that they're patterning their lives after a human being. a person with flaws and weaknesses that may or may not be visible.

   Nothing hurts our hearts more than when our heroes fall. It can be so disheartening for a "fan" to see the person they admire be dragged through the mire of sin. This is why it is important for us youth pastors to remind our students constantly that even thought these people are great, and may be incredibly wise, that they are flawed beings just like us and that we must hold on to the good things that they are teaching or modelling.

   This is a very valuable lesson for us youth pastors as well, since to some teens eyes, we are the closest thing to a hero they may every have. We must be diligent in showing them the true hero (Jesus) while at the same time keeping our spirits nourished and strong. This can be difficult as we continue to fight the never ending battle versus the enemy for the souls of our teens. Yet, it is imperative to keep our relationship with God strong. It is He who makes true heroes.

   In my younger days, I loved reading super-hero comic books. (I still, like to read comic books) one of the most interesting heroes is the Green Lantern. For those of you who were deprived of this childhood rite, the Green Lantern draws his superpower from a ring that lets him create energy constructs of whatever he can imagine. The only drawback to this power was that the ring had a limited supply of energy and needed to be recharged with the help of a green lantern battery. This is a very interesting metaphor for life in ministry, for as long as we have our spirits charged with the power of that comes from God, we can be true heroes to our teens. we have the power to do more than we could ever imagine and it is not only limited to us, but we can show our students that they can also build such a relationship with the Lord that they can also do great and marvellous things for the glory of God.

The dream of every youth pastor is to see our students become greater "heroes" than we can ever be.

Overcome

   Today I, like the rest of the world was shocked to hear about the horrific tragedy that occurred in Boston. One can only imagine the fear and confusion that the people who endured this tragedy must have felt or gone through. There are no words that I could write to express what the range of emotions that I felt when I heard the news. Shock, anger, fear, they all washed through me today. I do not know a single person that ran the marathon today, but tragedies such as these always hit me very hard.

As I took some time to pray for the victims and the first responders who stepped in immediately to help strangers affected by this most heinous act of violence, I started to think about how difficult it is to explain tragedies like these to students. How do you show them that an all loving, all powerful God would allow evil people to hurt the innocent, many of which were waiting for the race participants?

I would like to suggest for your thinking, somethings we can do for our students.

1) Don't try to gloss over the tragedy with christian babble.

There is already much confusion in the students hearts and there is no need to add to it. Rather keep things as simple and as short as possible. Also, do not minimize the gravity of the occurrence, these are sad times we are living in, a lot of tragedy and pain seems to rise up almost daily. They need to hear words of comfort and peace. They need to see your faith in God.

2) Let them ask questions.

undoubtedly, they will be questions. Many of them will be difficult to answer, and many darn near impossible, but the best thing we can do is to let the questions be spoken and to help students process what is going on inside their heads.

3) Draw their focus to God.

Rather than focus on the tragedy, help them see that even amongst the chaos of this world, God is always in control. Even though many people may not want him and some may even hate God, He always sends angels in the form of the first responders, paramedics, police officers, firemen, volunteers and random individuals who step up to help with any need. It is an opportunity to draw their attention to the fact that all life on earth is fleeting and uncertain. In reality, none of us know when or even how we will end our time on earth, but as believers it is important to remember that our faith in Jesus Christ guarantees us eternal life. Death is not to be feared, but rather, we must be consciously preparing our hearts for the time when the Lord calls us home. In all tragedies, God is in control.

4) Find a way to let the students help the victims

Perhaps having some cards you can mail (its not hard to find the address) to the place where the tragedy occurred, this time being the Boston Marathon. Let them write short messages for the first responders, the doctors, the volunteers, police officers etc. If you also have Young Adults, then perhaps having a blood drive or taking them to donate blood as one event can do wonders to help them feel like they are helping people in some way.

Remember the words Jesus said:

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33
 
May the Peace of God be with you all
pray for Boston.

Mountain

Up

One of my favourite places in the world is Banff national park, in Alberta. This is a town that is surrounded by the Rocky mountains and where one is not far away from some great hiking trails. Weever I get a chance to God there, I'm astounded by the natural beauty all around and the majestic awesomeness of those towering peaks. Being there you can truly see the finger prints of God in every corner of such wondrous beauty. It is the place where I feel closest to God, it's an inexplicable holy place to me. There is nothing like hiking these mountains. There's no distractions, no cell phones, no emails to answer, no appointments to be kept. Just your water bottle, walking stick, daypack and God.

There are many times when God takes us to a mountain, but being there may not be a great and joyous time. Most of us associate mountain to p experiences with reaching a closeness to God, just like Moses did;  yet some times mountain top experiences may be for a different reason. Sometimes God takes us to his mountain not to share in a closeness, but rather to isolate us from the world so that we may be able to hear his voice. In the quiet loneliness of the mountain, God instructs and refreshes your soul. It is where God shows you grace.

Mountain Men

Two men had contracting experiences atop a mountain. Both met with God, but the reason behind their ascensions where different. The first climbed up to receive instructions, laws and to intercede on behalf of the people he reluctantly led. A people that were so easily seduced by sin and taunted God's wrath almost daily. He had been groomed from birth to lead, he had all the skills, but he struggled with self doubt and rash, violent actions. This unbridled fervour led him to make a mistake and he had to flee into the wilderness to save his life. Yet it was in the wilderness near a mountain where he saw a miraculous sign and where God bestowed upon him the mantle of a leader and gave him the plan for the deliverance of a chosen and loved people.

The second man was already anointed by God with great power before he climbed his first mountain. It was on too of a mountain where He had his greatest success in ministry. He won a battle where the sheer power of God was displayed and proved to a wayward nation that the pagan gods they had been influenced to follow by a wicked queen, had no power compared to the one and only God. Because he had been used to expose the lies of the enemy his life was threatened, and in fear, he fled to another mountain where ind the midst of great loneliness and seeming defeat, he wanted to die. It ws in this mountain where God reminded him of his mission. Where God refreshed him and sent him back to complete the task he had been given. God even gave him some help in the form of an eventual successor who would go on to surpass him.

  On one hand we have someone who learnt how to lead and inspite of his short comings. He learnt how to speak in a way to inspire people to keep moving, to keep trusting in God and to keep the promises of God at the forefront of their minds. On the mountain Moses saw God's glory and was sent. On the other hand we have a prophet who was worn out, an angry letter by an even angrier woman had shaken him to the core even though God's power and protection had not left him. On the mountain he was restored, quieted, fed, refocused and reminded he was not alone. With a simple "why are you here, Elijah?" God began the restorative process of his soul, first by reminding him of his purpose and secondly, he was given a plan of succession by which his burden would be dispersed.

Which mountain?

Two different men and Two different mountain experiences. Which mountain experience do you identify with right now? Are you like Moses, meeting with God regularly to intercede for the people under you care? or are you facing adversity from the people you are trying your best to lead, but it seems like you just can't win, like Elijah? Dear reader, fellow worker, my brother or sister, we will all have to climb either mountain at one point or another in our ministry. But do not despair! The Lord ordains these experiences. When in doubt, or fear, or persecution there is not better place to go than up the mountain of God.

  These mountains are not to be our permanent dwelling places, for the battle is fought down in the valleys of this world. God takes us to these mountains to give us hope, to let us survey the world around us from His vantage point so that we may see how far we have come from when we first chose to follow Him. Mountain times are for a time and for a reason, don't be like Peter who wanted to set up some tents on the mount of the transfiguration, when Jesus met with the two men mentioned above. When the time is right and God has given instruction or restored the heart, He will send you down the mountain again. We, as leaders, are no good to God if we choose to cloister our selves, He needs us to be mobile, quick on our feet, and living within our people.

One last mountain

Jesus had a habit of going up mountains to pray. When ever he could, according to scripture, He would get away to the wilderness, or to a mountain to pray and recharge. He was the fulfilment of the prophecies of all the prophets, of which Elijah is considered chief, and He is the completion of the Law given to Moses. I like to think that the reason he sought out these high places to pray, was to show his disciples that He was the promised one which the scriptures and the prophets said would come, climbing the mountain to meet with God, one greater than Moses and Elijah. Yet there was one last mountain that he had to climb.

Being so close to good friday, I am reminded Calvary, a mount outside of Jerusalem, where the greatest victory known to mankind took place. Bloodied, beaten beyond recognition, tired and on the verge of collapse, Jesus took step after painstaking step up this mountain dragging a cross. This time the mountain experience was one that everyone, spanning the ages, would see. What happened atop this mount (or hill) finally fulfilled the whole of scripture. The sacrifice was made, the penalty for sin was paid, the veil was torn asunder so that we humans would be free from condemnation. So that we would one day be able to see the face of God, to run into his arms and feel the warmth of His embrace. If it wasn't for what happened at Calvary, none of us would be allowed to climb the mountain of God.

Remember, dear reader, that when ever you are in the thick of battle in the trenches, when you think that your strength will give out and that you have nothing left to fight for, remember to look up at this mountain! See the cross at its pinnacle and remember that the Lord will take care of you, He will direct you, He will restore you. Climb this mountain and remember his promise: "...And I am with you ALWAYS, to the very end of the age"

may the Lord bless you all with a Happy Easter!!!

Radical Humility

Radiating Humility

 There is just something about people who are humble. You can't ignore it, and you can't put your finger on it. Everything they are doing seems to be genuine and effort less. You could say that they make being humble look so easy. Sadly this quality is so rare that it catches you off guard when you are exposed to such true humility. 

    True humility is one of the most underrated and necessary character that a leader should strive to master. I'm not sure why but I have yet to find anyone write a book on how to develop humility as a leader. I'm sure there must be someone out there that has touched on the subject, but I've not found one yet. Most of the time I find lessons from biographies of famous authors, but they are brief and far between.

     Last week, I saw such a vivid example of humbleness from a very unexpected source. For a few days last week the eyes of the worlds media turned on a group of men locked in a chapel in one of the world most famous chapels, cameras trained steadily on a chimney that would herald the election of their new leader, Someone chosen from amongst a myriad of peers who would lead their church for the foreseeable future. When they presented the man they chose as pope, I could not help but notice that there was something... different, about him. Something I'd seen far too few times in all my years as a Christ follower. This man radiated humility!

Lessons from a Pope?

   As more information about this man was revealed by the many news teams stationed at the vatican, there was an over arching trait that every person who had ever met this man would highlight as they were interviewed: He was humble. They noted that the way he lived as a cardinal was different than that of the others, he lived simply, took the bus rather than use a vehicle and driver that came along with his title. He spent time in the slums, amongst the very poor, he ate with them, cooked his own meals, and he used his position to love as many people as he could.

     At this presentation Pope Francis chose to wear the simplest of robes, rather than dress in the fancy drapery available to him. Even after receiving the highest of positions in the catholic church, he chose to stay humble. Even went as far as picking up his own luggage and pay for the lodgings he had used before he became pope. The people of the media found it amazing how a man known for being humble refused so many of the benefits that came with the power he was chosen to wield. My favourite part of this news coverage was the look of confusion and surprise in the faces of several newscasters when they reported that he had thanked each member of the staff where he stayed and had taken a simple vehicle there. His actions radiated humility and they noticed! one head line read "Pope Francis shows Radical humility amidst vatican pomp." (You can read it here) Radical humility, if only we all had that.

  Watching the media circus eat up any action or word this new pope said or did, I had a thought. There is a lesson to be learned here! I think that Radical Humility is not something you do it is something you are. Can a person be so humble that people think his actions to be radical? can something as passive as humility capture the hearts of a people in darkness? Has humility become so foreign to us that it shocks us when we see it in action? Can Humility truly be radical?

Its all glitter and noise...

     This world is accustomed to big shows. It loves the next big thing, all the flash and glitter that screams: "I am awesome! Gaze upon my magnificence!!" you don't believe me? take a look at the magazine racks next time you are buying groceries. I dare you to find 3 covers of magazines that don't peddle fame, flash, riches, scandals or gossip. They're all about how you can make yourself better, more attractive, successful. Its all about the you. Even if you find one about someone famous making a difference with a charity, there's always some hidden benefit to that individual. They do it because it makes them feel like they are contributing. Its all about the you/me.

   I think that the problem we have with humility is that we think that highlighting it makes it less humble. In fact, I believe most of us use humility as a way to boost our own pride. However, Radical Humility has nothing to do with us as individuals. True humility is found in filling the needs of others when no one is watching. Its sitting in the dirt with a poor family who has invited you for lunch, its forged in visiting an enemy who is sick, its found in leaving the church/youth room cleaner than when you got there so that the janitor does not have to clean up your mess, Its found in helping the sound techs clean up after the service even if it wasn't a youth service, its found in listening to a person pour out their heart to you after you've preached 3 sermons and all you want to do is go home and take a nap, it is found in offering a ride to a fellow church goer who is waiting for the bus on a rainy or snowy day, radical humility is found in having the guts to invite a person you've never met for lunch after church just to make them feel welcomed, it is found in stepping in when volunteers are needed even though you're working 40 hours that week and it means giving up a weekend, it is found in helping that new immigrant family learn the ins and outs of the culture so that they will be able to succeed, It is found in showing up for a prayer meeting, even if you're the only one there. True humility is not a label that you can attach on your self, but rather it is one bestowed on you by others, and one you cannot see.

Effortless

    Humility is not found once you are placed in a position of leadership! If you think having a higher title will make you more humble, you're wrong. It won't. If we don't learn humility when we are part of the masses, and no one is watching, then we will not attain it when we are at the apex leading the charge. Humility is not the way to fast forward a career nor can it be used to draw attention to our virtues. In fact, when we exercise true, radical humility we may not even realize we are doing it. It becomes such a natural, effortless part of who we are that it catches us by surprise when other people admire it. You just do what you do, because it pleases the Lord. Nothing more, nothing less. That's True humility.

  Watching the Pope, break several customs to ensure that he stays humble is astounding! Yet, I do not get a sense that it is all an act. It looks so effortless, so natural the way he carries himself, like all these things that seem important and fancy are just trappings and inconvenience. He denied himself things that are his by right just to ensure that his humility is not compromised. This example has shown me that people who exercise true humility do so as part of who they are and not as something they do as an add-on to garner favour. It is truly a beautiful sight to behold! one can only imagine what it must look like through the eyes of God. Perhaps, it looks as effortless and graceful as a ballet, or as smooth and easy like the hands of a skilled musician on their instrument. Simple and beautiful. Effortless.

   Let me conclude with a question I've been asking myself since I saw the reports on the new Pope: Am I seeking after humility simply so I will get recognized, or am I exercising it because it pleases God? I'm not sure how to answer this question, all I do know is that I want to be so humble that people outside of christian circles will be directed to God without me even knowing; I want a Radical Humility to radiate out or my life, do you?
    

Hope

  Time's up

    Let me get personal for a little bit. It's been almost 10 months since I left my last church. 10 months of sending resumes out, going to interviews, and repeating the cycle over and over almost daily. When I reached the decision to leave, it was the toughest one I'd ever had to make, because everything was going well. I would say that it was my dream position, I had a great team of leaders, a clear vision, good attendance numbers, the support of the board and pastoral staff, the backing of most of the parents and I love those kids. After 5 years, it was time to go.

 So why leave? well, I strongly felt that the Lord was saying to me that I had done what He wanted me to do there. Believe me, I hoped that someone would say something different but every person I consulted or asked to pray for me came back with the same out come. I knew this was the Lord because He was asking me to give up one of the most precious things in my life, something I had worked very hard to build. This was not a trade, He had not guaranteed me something better, nor was there any new opportunity waiting for me. This is a test of faith.

Great plans of mice and men

   In my mind, I had it all figured out. I would leave, then wait a couple of months then a new opportunity would be presented to me and I would continue serving God in another congregation. It seemed so laughably easy, and quick... That's what I thought anyways; However, that was not what things looked like in God's mind. I had no idea that it would be 10 months of waiting, praying, bare bones budgeting, using up most of my savings, feeling continually frustrated at the lack of interest in my services from any church I applied to. This frustration wore me out, it drove me to a sense of deep despair and constant questioning my decision. There was no going back.

   Fear crept into my heart, as the weeks turned into months, but just as I was feeling really low I received some interviews and then offered a position in 2 different churches, which excited me, but when I prayed whether or not to accept either of them, after all, that was the plan right? Nope. Wrong again! I prayed and The Lord's answer was a simple "not yet."... two words... two words was all it took to close those doors. Again, I sought a way to ignore those two words and move on from this purgatory I'd been placed in. I looked hard for an excuse to get back in the game and minister again, but all I got was another "not yet." so I reluctantly obeyed and turned both positions down. So much for the grand plan! my grand plan.

Looking Back

  It took a while, but I've finally reached a point in all this waiting where I stopped complaining and whining, and started to listen. I started to hear and see why God has me waiting at this point in my life. I don't have it all figured out, but just enough to give me hope. Looking back I now see that in 12 years of ministry I had never taken any time off, I took holidays, yes, but simply because I was forced to, time off was an annoyance to me and I kept working in my mind. I was soul weary, physically and mentally exhausted. Stress was my driving force and I was doing things out of sheer skill rather than with a heart full of the Holy Spirit.

 I had become arrogant in my own self, I stopped caring about the people in my ministry and was more concerned with results and pleasing people. Honestly, I had gotten so bad, I started to dread every time a youth event, practice or teaching time was scheduled. I dreaded seeing the students that were the reason I was there and had the joy of serving. I became focused on doing things for God rather than being with Him, and my spiritual side was growing more and more feeble and sick, yet I refused to see. Keeping the right appearance had replaced my passion. I was done. I'd fought for so long I had nothing left and had even forgotten why I was fighting. It all became a boring chore.

  So, God, the great physician of the soul, the grand commander of Heaven's armies engineered some much needed rest and some open soul surgery. Success in ministry had, to my shame, led to pride growing dangerously large in my soul. It had spread to the point where I didn't rely on God any more. Prayer was mechanical and always with an agenda in mind, bible study became a daily ritual rather than soul developing exercise. I was setting my self, the youth I loved and the church I served on a path to derailment. Who knows what horrible thing God kept me from doing or causing. I don't want to know, and I'm thankful I wont ever have to find out.

God had to remove my authority as a leader and bring me back to being a servant. I was king of a throne that wasn't mine and God reminded me of who truly is King. He took it all away for my own good, to give me rest from the pressure of my own burden, to restore the health of my soul and to reequip and resupply me for when He sends me back into battle. I abdicated, He was enthroned and peace was restored.

Here Comes the Hope

  I wish I could tell you that I have a new position, but Lo, I'm still waiting for that promise. The Lord is closer to me now, I don't feel alone or tired anymore. I've been helping out as a volunteer at the church I'm attending where I've learned so much in such a short time. I'm enjoying not having total responsibility and seeing ministry from the angle of a volunteer, an angle I had not experienced in a very long time! I've rediscovered the passion I had when God called me into ministry.

  Im gaining tools and new skills that will help me be a better leader in the future. I've even discovered new gifts, such as, I enjoy writing (hence the blog), not only do I enjoy doing it (I find it therapeutic) but perhaps there is someone out there who maybe helped by what I've written. I pray and fast more just because I want to be closer to my Lord. I read my bible with wonder and marvel at how old things are new again. The Lord has even provided enough to pay the bills! I've had the opportunity to have deep conversations with my mom which I never had time for before or I was too tired to listen to and now I feel like we understand each other better. I've learned so much about my family that I know one day I'll appreciate even more, plus we laugh more.

 And so, dear reader, though I don't know where or who you are, or what your situation is I want you to remember that there is always Hope. God never takes away something from us unless He needs to. I've discovered that having faith in Him is not to be based on what He can give you as a replacement for what He asked you to surrender, but rather faith in God is to be based on the fact the He is: He is on your side, He is with you, and He is your purpose. The blessings He bestows upon us are just perks, proofs that our faith is growing in quality. God has never been unfaithful with His promises, and just because they do not come to pass when we plan for them to happen, our hope comes not from the promise, but from the one who made the promise. 

   If you are going through something similar to the journey I'm on or perhaps are being led down this path, take heart! Be strong and obey what God asks for you to do! Trust that He knows what He is doing and remember in God there is always an never ending abundance of HOPE.

Unlearn.

 Unlearn 

 The hardest thing to do is to connect what’s in your head with that which is in your heart. Sometimes your head is filled with so much that it muddies the clarity of whats in your heart, and sometimes the passion in your heart gets out of control and causes more damage than good. This is an issue we all have to deal with, not just people of faith, but every human being in this world. we tend to make the simple things, the things that matter the most and that would lead us into greater growth, more complicated than they were meant to be. How do we stop from doing that? How do we manage to grasp something as complexly simple as faith and not just learn about it but live it?

  Perhaps you picked up this book and thought that it would be filled with how to’s and formulas on how to deepen your faith life, sorry to tell you that this is not its intent. This is not a self help book, nor will it try to define what faith is, there are plenty of those in any church or bible college library written by the best and brightest minds in the Christian sphere. Lastly, this book will not try to debunk any denominations theology or view on faith. If you’re searching for any of the issues listed above this is not the book for you; however, if you want to join me in a journey of discovery where we will most likely end up with more questions than answers, where we will wrestle with our very souls and beliefs, then I invite you to read on.

 There are many ways that we are able to learn things. Some need to experience something before it becomes part of their knowledge, others like clear linear instructions, yet others prefer to be left alone with no limits to figure things out. I am more akin to learning by observing how others do, so this book will have personal observations, that have helped define my view of faith.

  An ancient proverb states, “A cup that is full cannot be filled.” Perhaps whomever said those words meant that as a metaphor for our minds. A mind unwilling to empty itself in order to view things from a different point of view or to receive new knowledge is like a cup that is all ready full. One can pour new liquid into it but it will just be a wasting of time and whatever liquid was hoped to be added. Lets think of it this way: if we were given a very expensive 200 year old bottle of wine (do they have those?), and we only had one glass (I know that all you practical people would just go out and buy or borrow one, but stick with me) and it was filled with cheap grocery store boxed wine, would it not be logical to first empty and wash the glass before new wine was poured in it? Any wine taster will tell you that you never mix wines because it cheapens the experience, aroma and taste of the more aged wine.

  So it is with our minds, to go in this journey, we must lay aside any previous knowledge, theology, dogma, or family belief. Not throw it away, but simply put it in proper storage, locked away for a bit, so that we have had a chance to experience something else in its fullness without preconceptions or biases. Let anything we carry drop away so that our mind is free to perceive more clearly.

Empty some mind-space

We all have junk in our homes. Be honest! we all know there is a room or a drawer in our houses that is filled with knick-knacks, boxes full of stuff we meant to unpack, things we’ve stored to give away, but never did. Some hold memories and are too precious to throw away, some are gifts that were well intentioned, but  had no immediate  use, or perhaps a pile of hobbies we meant to take seriously, but gave up on the minute our attention was drawn away by yet another shinier object, or are simple pack rats.

     My father was a bit of a pack rat. He would go to garage sales, flea markets or simply walk down a back alley in the evenings and find things to bring home. Broken sewing machines, chairs, toaster ovens, etc. all things in which he saw the glimmer of usefulness and could be fixed and be reused. unfortunately, he never would fix anything so all these “treasures” would keep filling the basement in our not so large townhouse. Eventually, they were joined by more items all waiting for the day that my father would finally fix and make use of them. It was all junk to me, and perhaps it is why I detest storing things that will never be of use or are broken, and why I abhor going to garage sales. If it can’t be fixed why keep it? If it’s not going to be used regularly, why store it? No need to keep clutter around. This is a perfect example of what I mean by Unlearn.

  We all have a place in our being I like to refer to as mind-space. This is an area of our being meant to store all the faith experience God gives us. From a simple experience in kindness to prayers for someone’s healing are all meant to be kept in this place so we have access to them so we can share, empathize, or comfort our brother’s and sisters in difficult times. Unfortunately, as with most basements or garages, we tend to put items there simply because its available space. Sometimes, broken dreams end up there, regrets or bad experiences, hurts, shattered relationships, shards of old friendships and rending words spoken to us. Perhaps we tend to fill this “mind-space” with intellectual knowledge or spiritual trivia because it seems eerily devoid of true character building faith experience and the emptiness frightens us. We can also easily hide counterfeited faith in there so that others will think we possess scores of the genuine item. We fill our mind-space so full of spiritual “junk” that there is no room for us to store true faith experience and its even harder to access the one stored. Thus, they sit there, unused, valuable, but gathering dust and covered in cobwebs no more useful than all our broken “junk”

  At this point in our journey, some are waiting for a list of do’s to help clean out the junk. Well, its not that simple Why? Because each person is unique. there are insurmountable combinations on how to do this. Some, prefer to take long walks alone with God or sometimes playing music on an instrument. Others, enjoy entering in to heated discussions (I call it arguing) with people of opposite views, yet others use the ancient art of biblical meditation to free up any mind-space. Our task is to find what works best for each of us, since there is no simple, blanket process that will work for everyone and yield the same results. Each of us is in different stages in our faith walk, and though we follow the same path in Christ Jesus, each of our “routes” will be vastly different, even if they intersect at times. If developing a relentless version of faith is important to us, then we will find a way to remove the clutter.

  Why do we need to unlearn? Well, We self-impose limitations on ourselves that were not God-ordained. We use our “clutter” as fodder for excuses. These same excuses that gives us the illusion that we have some measure of control over life. It is our ingrained arrogance that stops us from humbly doing the cleaning work so that we may store our faith experience in its proper, character edifying place. There should be nothing, save the words of the Bible that should be our extent. Not theology, not denominational beliefs, not political affiliation, nor societal status. Nothing, but the Word of God....

by 

Pedro V. Escamilla

Feb 28, 2013

Edmonton, Alberta Canada.

Launching the Process

Hey all! My apologies for not getting part 2 of "A process for your vision" out sooner, I've been rather busy this week and had very little time to sit and type up this blog. Here it is for your enjoyment! please make sure to send me your comments, suggestions or thoughts It's always nice to hear if this is helping someone's ministry. Many blessings!

A process for your vision part 2: Launching your process

 In the previous post we took a look at 2 key foundational thoughts for developing a good process for your vision.( If you haven't read it, going back and reading it would be advisable as what is written in this post will make more sense.) Once we've got a handle on them, its time for the more practical side of the equation: the actual construction of the process for your vision.

Vision Statement

  If you've read any Bill Hybels books, then you've encountered the idea of a vision statement. One of the most important concepts you need is a clear vision statement, which most churches have now days. This will be the keystone by which will keep your vision tethered and centralized so it does not get confusing and clash with the route the church is headed in. It is important to keep this statement to one sentence maximum! its got to be easy for people to remember and repeat and should be clear enough that you don't need a 3 volume set of explanations to understand it. This Vision statement displays the core beliefs of your group, basically, what you're all about or what people are "buying" from you to use a marketing analogy.

 One of the best ways to get a vision statement, should your church not have one, is to gather your key lead volunteers, youth, adult leaders, fellow pastors, prayer partners, etc and get in put from them as to their ideas regarding the direction of your group. Inclusion of your key stakeholders will be useful when the time to unveil the process comes and it begins to plant the seeds of ownership in their hearts. Talk about where the Lord is leading you to take your group, show them any ideas you may have gotten during your prayer/fasting times and have them give you constructive criticism. Once you've gathered enough information, take some time to pray and then boil it down to its most simplest form, and thus you get a vision statement.

   At this time, it is imperative that you listen closely what your major stakeholders are saying to you. Its ok if they disagree with you, but you must listen to the "why" find out what is making them uncomfortable and try to understand them. There could be historical wounds that this vision statement opens up and they must be addressed before anything moves forward or resistance will be too difficult to overcome. Have you leaders tear the vision statement to pieces, don't feel like a failure, this will actually help you to trim the unnecessary "fat" and once its torn down, then the pieces that are still standing will be your "core" use those to finalize your statement. Remember, cream rises to the top after a good beating. 

   Using the concepts that are left or your "core" beliefs, build a grammatically correct and appealing sentence. You want to end up with is a clear and simple answer to the question: "What is your group all about?" you and your team should be able to answer with a simple "at <fill in your groups name> we believe in <fill in your vision here>, and we accomplish this through <3 step process>." This will help to pique the interest of any seeker and it shows that you know what you're doing and where you're going. There are far too many "Christian Social clubs" out there, which do things for the sake of doing them or because of tradition but they really have no point or have forgotten why they started doing those things in the first place. They are like boats without a rudder who drift in the unpredictable current of  every new organizational fad or popular model rather than plan out a route and sticking with it. A youth group should have a point, a direction and a process by which you are going help grow the lives of the students closer to God.

Getting a good, simple and powerful vision statement does not have to be difficult. If you hear of another church that has one and you believe that it fits with your vision, it is totally ok to use that statement, just make sure you give credit when credit is due. It is preferable that you work out something uniquely for your group as it helps to create and identity and in the end all that work helps to spread the vision amongst your lead team. This statement is like the groups DNA, and will include steps that will map out the process by which you will be taking your students through. This will also help you to gauge how effective your ministry is, since you'll not be concerned with attendance numbers but rather with the number of people that have moved through the process. The groups growth will be horizontal rather than vertical.

The Steps

  Once a vision statement has been agreed upon and finalized, we get to the fun part! creating your action steps. These steps will help to explain and guide how your group will accomplish what your vision statement says. For example, at my last church the Vision statement and process of the youth group was: 

"At Merge Youth we want to grow fully devoted followers of Jesus, in Christ-like community (Church's vision statement) and we do this by modelling how to Love God, Love Others and Love the World" or "at Merge we do L3" 

First of all, our statement let everyone know what our over all goal was (what we were all about) which was "growing fully devoted followers of Jesus", secondly you can see that we had 3 steps by which anyone who was part of our group would eventually be taken through, students were going to see how to "Love God, Love others, and Love the world" with the end result being that they would be fully devoted to Jesus once they graduated from youth. Not only that, but those 3 "L's" became the filter by which every event, small group, mission trip, sermon, outreach event, parent meeting, leader meeting or leader training were taken through. If it didn't "fit" our vision or enhance any of the 3 L's than we simply didn't do it. There was no point in doing things that would not help us and thus we started to spend all of our energy into things we knew would further the vision. We had laser guided focus!

  How can you end up with a steps like these? You have to begin with the end in mind. Ask your self and your team, questions like: what do you want a student to be like after 6 years in the group? what do you wish to impart into them? what tools are they going to need to be self-feeding believers? what do we do with new believers? The whole point of these questions is to get to a point by which you are helping students integrate into the older community of believers as mature, self-feeding christ followers that will be of great benefit for the church as a whole. You want your students' faith to stick, and not be eroded by the seductive nature of the world.

   What we found about the steps in our vision was that they overlapped so well that there was no fracturing of the overall group structure. Each person was free to move unto the next step as they felt with out any forced pressure from the leadership. The neat thing was that a person didn't necessarily have to start with step 1, their starting point could be in the form of a mission's trip or a social justice project. There was a nice spread of people in different stages of of our 3 steps, which helped to disciple a wider range of people and reduced those falling through the cracks. Those who were more mature were challenged, those who were new to the faith felt connected and those in the middle of the pack were free to explore their faith at their own pace.

Now that you've seen how the steps work, here is a few pointers in building steps for your process.

1) Don't have more than 4 steps to your process, more than that becomes difficult to memorize and people will get confused. If it is possible, come up with a pithy acronym that's catchy and relevant to your groups style. Using an acronym based on a country motif for a group of inner city youth who've never been near a live chicken or vice versa, may not work too well. Oh, and avoid cheesiness at all cost!!!

2) Each step should have a practical component. This can be anything from youth regular events, to sermon series, games, small groups, mission's trips, etc. what you deem helpful to get the students through that step. for example, if your first step deals with wanting students to know the Bible well, then maybe a Memorization contests would be your practical component. There should be something active and tangible that students can witness and want to follow or experience themselves.

3) Each step should encourage advancement into the next step. It should create movement that you can track. If there is no movement occurring, then that step needs to be revised, repaired or replaced. A step is useless if students are not moving on, we want them to grow into spiritual maturity.

4) Constant evaluation. A good portion of your lead team meetings should be spent reviewing the steps and keeping a look out for stagnation.

 Once you have a complete vision statement that includes the steps by which your group will bring about the completion of the vision, you have a process. You have in your possession a framework that will help to support the load of your ministry and help you from straying away from your initial intent. Both the vision statement and steps you saw above can be used for any kind of vision you may have received from God, be it for a church, youth group or secular work.

Trimming

Perhaps the most difficult thing you'll do in implementing your vision is knowing what things need to be removed from your yearly schedule or plans. This means that you'll have to shut down some programs that may not be producing any results, are draining the energy of your volunteers. You're gonna need to have built in some deep trust and have a surgeon-like precision to removing things without causing much problems.

Because you are going be removing certain things that may have become "sacred cows" to your group, be prepared to face opposition. People who equate their connection to the church by the ministry they help in or the program they have been involved with the longest, will not like it. You must do your best to use their skills and experience and and move them to an even more effective program. Explain the reason for the change and why you need them in as part of the future. Take their feelings into consideration and help them transition, remind them of the vision and this should minimize the hurt. Some people may leave, and there is really not much you can do about that, there are people that will not want things to change and may not want any part of the vision going forward. If they choose to leave quietly, then let them, but be ready to welcome them back should they choose to return.

Three things you can do to evaluate any part of your program are:

1)revise: maybe that program needs some updating in their methodology or maybe a simple refit will help it to adhere to the vision better.

2)repair: check to see why this program is not working and try to fix the problem. If you have honestly tried to repair it and it still draining away energy and time, then it is time to take a look at the last step.

3)replace: This is the last step. after you've exhausted all other options to bring this portion of you program back to life, it may be an indicator that this is a program you should consider removing altogether, but before you do, make sure you have a replacement ready to go. You do not want people who are part of that program to feel left out in the cold with no place to go.

Go Viral

One of the most interesting things about the information age is the ability of totally random and pointless things get spread through out the world. Whether its cats doing funny things or the latest dance craze, information can spread like a virus. Now, once you have your vision statement, and your process steps it is time to let it go viral in your group. This is where you need to get students, parents, grand parents, staff team members or even youth leaders that were not a part of building the process to buy into it. This is why you and your team must be well versed in your vision statement and process, so they can believe in it and spread it around.

  Try to be creative in ways of getting your vision out there! If you have a cool slogan, then make t-shirts, posters, a website, or even use the free social media available on the web. We know that your vision will bring change to the lives of students, which means you have a solid product and it needs to be advertised, you need people to talk about what you're doing ask questions and check your stuff out.

Warnings

  Your process may not yield immediate results, so its important to remain patient and trust the work you've done. If the Lord gave you the vision, then it will produce something in due time. The point is that you are now prepared to accommodate growth. The biggest reason visions fizzle out is because there is no preparation made by the people that receive them, as if they expect God to take care of the details when the vision starts to grow. God will only provide success for your vision as far as you're willing to work for it. He will not bless anything that is a half hearted attempt or mediocrity. God is in the business of bringing glory to himself, and He will not reward laziness or anything that will bring any embarrassment. Does that mean that it has to be super perfect? no! it just has to be the best that you can do with what you have. No cutting corners, no compromising, do what He says how He wants it done, do everything humanly possible and leave the impossible to him.

  There is a further need to guard against adding more things to what you al ready have. Stick to keeping things simple and do those things well. Once you see success in the programs attached to your steps then you are free to look around for things that will enhance your vision. Don't just add things because you heard they worked at another church, or because they are the popular. Be willing to limit the things you add for the sake of the process. What is dangerous is ending up with so many add ons that your process now looks like a quilt made up of a whole bunch of ideas that will unfortunately cloud your vision and limit its effectiveness.

I hope this helps you in developing a successful ministry!

A process for your vision

 Ask yourself these questions: If there were no earthly limitations to your ministry, where would the Lord want you to take it? Most of us would dream of better events for our students, more outreach, mission trips, a better youth room or youth area (perhaps replace the stained 30 year old couches), we may even want to start tutoring programs for students or even after school programs for those whose parents work double shifts just to put food on the table and have no one to welcome them home. We all have great ideas, great dreams that would be of great benefit; However, most of them tend to stay ideas for "one day" or simply vanish in the business of ministry. an idea, a vision is a delicate and difficult thing to grow.

Defining a vision is as complex as the vision itself. We all know that all visions come from God, who uses ideas to spark a vision. We all receive a vision (in some cases visions) for our ministries, some are easy and others may seem too "big" for us, but God always gives each of us a vision. Now, think about the greatest idea you've ever had. Got it? what framework did you put in place to ensure your idea flourished? This is the place where most visions die. Most of us tend to ask God for the vision, but we forget to ask Him HOW He wants the vision to be realized. Search for the process for without a how or process, vision is ineffective and dies.

There are no church size restrictions for a process. One does not have to be in a certain town or city with "x" number of people, nor does our ministry have to be great, numerically speaking. The number of people who join our ministries is intrinsically dependent on the effectiveness of the process. Without this how or process, vision is like a painting nailed to a wall with a single nail, and without a frame. It will wrinkle, the paint will dry and crack, and the canvas its painted on will eventually tear and ruin the painting. A good frame takes care of this, it keeps the painting protected, straight and in pristine condition. So the process provides the same benefits, it frames our vision, protects it, keeps it from fading and staves off destruction.

 All ministries are given a vision, of some form, for God would not send us out to the field with out direction. It is, however, our job to help determine the what the best way to fulfill his mandate is. Today, we will not focus on our vision, but rather we will direct our attention to some helpful directions  to aid us in determining HOW we are to bring our vision into fruition.

Focused Prayer

  We all know that we must spend much time in prayer. It is where we receive the power of the Holy Spirit, where God speaks to us about His will and where He infuses us with strength to carry out His mission. We can do nothing without praying. Jesus prayed. We cannot make any excuses for NOT spending time praying, no matter how busy our calendars look. Without the power of prayer, we will never be sure whether the vision we have comes from God or from our own flawed desires for success.

  Prayer is the litmus test to prove that our vision has divine origin. If we are in prayer and in continual communion with God then we can be sure that our vision is not our own, therefore, it comes from God, and if so it will have specific directions attached. How do we know this? If we search our Bibles we can find many instances where God gave men a vision and also provided instructions how He desired that vision to be carried out. None is more clear than the establishment of the Tabernacle. In Exodus chapters 25-31 we can read that God was extremely detailed on the building of His tabernacle, all the way to which artisan would build the Ark of the Covenant,  what kind of thread to use on the tent of meeting and what kind of cloth the priest had to wear. When the vision comes from God, then instructions follow.

When we focus our prayers, we must go beyond just searching for a vision, but to also be willing to wait for the instructions on the process by which that vision will be completed. This may be immediate, other times these instructions will come after we wrestle with the idea for some time. How long it takes for us to receive our instructions is not important. What's important is that we are willing to go beyond just getting the vision and trying to figure out how to get it off the ground on our own.

  So you've read all this and you want to focus your prayer? Here's how you do it:

a) Fast. couple your prayer with fasting. It seems simple, and it is almost a lost discipline, but fasting helps to hone our spiritual ears better than any book, blog or video series. How long should one fast for? that depends. How much do you want to know the process God wants you to build? How much are your students and your ministry worth? fast until it cost you something. It could be a meal, it could be a day, it could even be 40 days (if you do 40 please make sure you get a doctor's O.K first. you don't want to die in the process, that helps no one.)

b) Carry a Pad. This can be a pad of paper or an iPad or whatever method you choose to record quick notes. Sometimes in the middle of a prayer/fast time God will give you a thought on a beginning step or a person you should talk to, he may even give you the full set of instructions right of the bat, and since our brains (mine for sure) cannot remember every detail perfectly, its good to write down what we "hear." Some of it may not make sense, but write it down, God will give you clarity when the time comes.

c) Repeat constantly. As more of the process is revealed, We are going to need more of God's spirit in us, because quite frankly, some of the stuff He asks for will require an insane amount of faith. Some of it will seem impossible, and this is where you must trust God and where as a leader must keep coming back to God to ensure that you are following through to the letter. This ensures that God's will and your will are aligned for maximum effectiveness. Trust me, you don't want to drive things using your will alone. A vision can be easily warped, by our sinful nature, coming back to God in prayer and fasting keeps our pride in check and thus keeps the vision from warping.

Aid the Vision In Progress

Most youth pastors or pastors in general are dreamers. we dream about the things God wants to achieve in our ministries, we dream about the great many we will impact with our teaching, preaching and love. Most of us dream, and these dreams can bring about ideas that birth a vision. It is one of the ways God speaks. We are even better at asking God to give us vision, yet we are blind to a vision already in progress.

 If you're asking yourself what the 'vision in progress' is, then chances are you've missed it, The vision in progress is the vision of the church you're serving at. In fact, if you're not a Senior or Lead pastor chances are you shouldn't be focusing on a new vision, but rather to ensure that your vision is brought into alignment of vision that the Lead Pastor has been given by God. It is our job as youth pastors to then ask God to help us align and help to enhance the effectiveness of that vision. God is not a god of discord or disunity. When He is the author of a vision for a congregation, then all members of the leadership will and should work in unity to facilitate the fruition of said vision.

   If the Church you are serving at has a good, clear vision, than chances are that your Senior Pastor has already done step one, then you are lucky to be part of implementing the vision. You should still follow your prayer discipline, but instead ensure that the vision for your particular ministry is in line with the overarching vision of the church and its Lead Pastor. We are then blessed to skip ahead and begin searching God's instructions for the method or process by which we are to take our students through so that they may benefit from the fruits of the vision. This will be done in conjunction with the lead pastor and will bring greater glory to God. Your process will aid the vision of the church!

 Remember, the Lead Pastor has been placed there by God. He is God's anointed servant and even if he rejects what you have to say, you are to serve with humbly. Remember the scriptures! David was anointed King over Israel, while Saul was alive, He was even given an opportunity to kill Saul in his sleep, but David refused to raise his hand against the Lords anointed. David refused to hasten his kingship with his own hand, he trusted that God would bring his plan to bloom by His own hand and in His own time. Now this example is extreme, and it does not mean that you should not disagree with your Lead Pastor. What it says is that sometimes, even though we may in the right, we are to honour those in leadership over us for this pleases God. If the desire to see the vision and process come to pass chafes at you, then it is best to leave peaceably. Its better to have the people and pastor you served to pray for you than against you.

to be continued in part 2: Launching the process

with blessings!

From mistakes... tips for youth leaders

Lets be honest, most youth ministries could not run well without volunteer leaders. With out a good leader core, youth pastoring becomes extremely difficult. yes, there are some youth pastors who can do everything themselves or those whose group is too small to warrant the need for multiple leaders, but for the most part, good youth leaders are a commodity that most of us youth pastors cannot overlook.

Here's to you!

 Here's to you! to the ones who work hard at every youth event and actually enjoy it without getting paid. To the ones who work 8 hours during the day and still find the time to lead a small group or show up at one of their groups game or recital. To those who stay up with you during lock ins, or all nighters. To those who give up weekends of relaxation to go with students to a retreat, camp or conference. To the ones who pray for their teens outside of church. to the ones who go out of their way to be there for a hurting student. To the ones who make everyone feel welcomed! To the ones who remember birthdays, graduations or special events. To the ones students know have their back no matter what. To the ones that are never thanked enough. You are our heroes and we thank you!

 Someone once said (it may have been John Maxwell) if you think you are a great leader, but no one is following you, then you've actually just gone on a long walk. For us youth pastors, the first group of people that we need to see standing behind us as we lead is our team of volunteers. With out you youth leaders, most youth pastors would be incredibly limited in what they could do or the number of students that could be impacted by the Gospel. You give up so much because you think you can make a difference and because someone in your past may have done the same for you and know you are following in their footsteps. Good youth leaders are a rare breed indeed!

   There is nothing more exiting than sitting with a youth leader team and dream about where we are taking the youth group. Nothing more powerful than when a team is united in prayer for the lives that darken our doors every youth event night. There's an energy that is built, a momentum that is set in motion when all the gifts or very different people are pooled into one vision that makes youth ministry so fantastic! It almost feels like...Heaven.

Being part of a great team.

  You showing up and helping all the youth pastors is really 90% of the work, so, for the 10% here are some tips to make you and the rest of your youth leader team extra successful:

1) Be part of the vision.

     We youth pastors tend to pray (at least the good ones do) and we believe that the Lord guides us in every decisions that we make with regards to the overall picture of the ministry. When this happens we usually get a vision; a picture of where the Lord needs us to focus or what He wants this youth group to accomplish. This vision could be for a semester or for a year, or it can be an ongoing thing. Your task as part of the team is to help us hammer out the details. To wrestle with the ideas about this vision, voice your concerns and objections and to provide insight into things we, in our fallen nature, may have miss understood or missed all together. One thing we don't need is "yes"-men to stroke our egos, nor do we need opposition for the sake of causing arguments. If you see something wrong, then don't stay silent! To not warn your team about a possible disaster, is sin! you are endangering the development of the faith and souls of the students.
 
     Once we've worked out most or all of the kinks out of the vision, then you must help us to spread it out into the student masses. This means that you must learn and memorize everything there is to know about the vision, eat it, sleep it, breath it, so when a person asks "what's youth group all about?" you'll be able to answer with ease and enthusiasm. Nothing makes students (and parents) more exited about a youth group than one that has a clear vision. (we'll discuss how to build one in another blog)Also, when you are tired, when you feel like if you are not making a difference it will help you remember the big picture. Remember the words of the scripture "without vision, people perish."

2) Always have the youth pastors/ youth leader's back.

This means that if you hear a student, parent, church attendee, fellow leader, former leader, or angry grandma speak ill of your team members and pastors or if you hear rumours (cause those never happen at church, right?) being spread, it is your duty as a team member to stand up for your team and leader. Even if you may agree with what is being said, you do a disservice to the rest of the team if you start joining the fracas. why? because it can be perceived that there is division amongst the ranks of the youth team and division makes people nervous. It makes parents suspicious and that is an environment where rumours and lies can fester and grow to kill the ministry. No, rather than showing your disapproval publicly, defend the group publicly and then if its an important enough issue, go and speak directly with your youth pastor or team. They will respect you for it and will do the same in return.

  Pastors are not perfect, we are just like everyone else and can make mistakes without knowing it. Having a team where trust is at its core, where we all know we can disagree or confront each other with issues freely is priceless. Sometimes, we youth pastors are too busy looking at the grand vision that we don't notice that we're stepping on peoples toes and we need our teams to help us become aware. If you hear a rumour, then either squash it right there with the truth, with kindness or direct the person telling you to speak with your youth pastor. When facing a rumour, containment and eradication are key. Stop the rumour from spreading by asking "who did you hear this from?" then try to find the source, also try to do this away from any youth or parents. Eradication means that you go to the source and set them straight with the truth. Better yet, make your youth pastor aware of where the source is and they will deal with that issue and be glad you told them. Nothing kills a good vision like a rumour.

3) Constantly look for recruits!

 Most churches, not all, are marked by this great deficiency: 20% of the people do the work for the other 80%. Recruitment and retention of volunteers is increasingly difficult in the western church because of our consumer mindedness. Most people feel that since the weekend is their time off from work, that getting involved as a volunteer will take away from their leisure time, but they never question how the programs they take in (small groups, sunday school, sunday service, youth, etc) a organized and run. Then there is cross ministry competition for any good volunteers, which means that sometimes other ministries will, for lack of a better term, head hunt each other's key volunteers because its easier than training a new volunteer or ministries go with a skeleton crew: just enough people so that the ministry stands up. barely.

 What is interesting to note is that the role of recruitment has always fallen on the head of the ministry, which adds another duty to their already full dossier. However, what if current volunteers recruited 1-2 people a year? what if they kept an eye out for people among their social spheres within the church and actively looked for new volunteers? You could double the size of any team rapidly! and if it became part of the churches' culture? then everyone who attended would be connected in some way to a volunteer position. no more, competition, cold calls, bulletin announcements, verbal announcements or desperate cries for help!

   You as a youth leader know what kind of people will fit the needs of your team the best. remember, you need to look for the right people not the best people! just because they have talents does not mean that they should be part of your team. They must fit effortlessly. There is nothing more frustrating than working with a person who rubs the everyone the wrong way and there is nothing more difficult for a youth pastor to do than to have to remove a volunteer from the team because they just don't fit. It would be advisable for the youth leaders and the youth pastor to hammer out a "volunteer description" so that you all know what kind of person you should be on the look out for. This includes graduating or former students.

How do you get people in your social sphere to volunteer (hey that rhymes!)?

a) Ask with enthusiasm! people want to join something fun and worth while. tell them the vision (see why you should know it?) and how much impact its having on you.
b) Make them feel wanted, not needed. Recruiters for Universities with big sports programs go out of their way to make athletes feel like they were specifically picked out of the millions of other candidates to exclusively join their ranks. The good ones can make an athlete feel so wanted that they may even overlook the fact that the University has not won anything since the turn of the century. They never go up to an athlete begging and say "we are so desperate we'll take anyone, even you! Can you please just help? <tear>" of course they don't! They say things like "we have a fantastic opportunity for you! we unanimously believe that you have what it takes to be part of our team and help us reach the next level of success!" did you see the difference?
    when you ask a friend or person in your social sphere to be a volunteer make them feel WANTED like your pastor and fellow team members spent hours researching who to approach and they were first choice!
c) Tell them they'll be part of a winning team.
No one likes to be a loser. be it sports, Jeopardy or Family Feud, no one likes to lose. So, when recruiting, use the "wins" your team has accomplished. How many lives were changed at retreat/conference, fun events, outreaches, food drives, stories of kids turning their lives around, etc. you figure this out. Keep it positive.
d) If at first you don't succeed...
If for some reason, they decide to decline your invitation, don't just give up! keep trying. Offer them a no strings attached, trial. Take them on one of your best events and have them tag along and see how amazing your group is! Introduce them to the students, the pastor and the team and get them to give you a hand with some minor stuff. Chances are, they'll fall in love with it and want to come back. (thats how I got conned...er... recruited and fell in love with YM, hahaha!) Sometimes, people need to see a group in action and winning to want to join.

A Leaders learning is never done

4) Do your best to keep training on becoming a better leader. Youth Ministries are only as good as the leaders who volunteer and if volunteers are poorly trained or receive no training, they will either not stick around, cause the rest great frustration or lose the respect of the students. there are hundreds of books on amazon about being good youth leader, you can access blogs or podcasts from top notch youth pastors that can help you improve. Your youth pastor will do his best to train you but remember that they can only do so much. Check out Simply Youth Ministry for some great tools and tips on how to become an even better youth leader!
   
Also, don't forget to keep yourself current. keep an eye out for "world" trends that teens are being exposed too. There is nothing sadder than a person trying to engage in conversation with students who are talking about the latest episode of that show they all like or that funny youtube video or even dress 2 fads too late trying to "look" cool to them. Even if you may disagree with the content of the show or magazine, movie or whatever, having a working knowledge of what it is about and then telling a student why you found it offensive or it didn't help your spiritual growth carries a lot more weight to it than telling them its evil to watch or read those things.
   
     Now, don't go looking at obviously risqué or illicit material! use common sense! If I may add a personal note, I like to watch movies, and shows aimed at teens with a pad of paper and play "find the misquoted bible reference" or "guess who's compromising their beliefs" as I watch and listen to the dialogue I try to find things that are unbiblical, misquotations, bend or break the 10 commandments, misrepresent christianity or christians, and things of that nature. I can use these as sermon/ bible study attention getters and engage students on common ground, letting them see how what they watch affects what they believe. example: I did a sermon titled "the Walking Dead" , a popular show amongst my youth, and I used the premise of a show about Zombies and used it to illustrate that with out Jesus we are all just walking dead. I actually watched the show, its not my cup of tea, but I used something from the world to show the power of the Gospel of Christ. The students got it, some turned their lives to Christ and the Kingdom was furthered. after, some asked if i watched the show and I honestly told them I did and why I didn't like it which led to a good discussion. Keeping yourself current does not only mean reading the latest thing to come out of a Christian bookstore.

4)Lastly, Pray. pray for your students, pray for your fellow leaders, pray for your youth pastor. A youth leadership team that prays is powerful, they can be unstoppable and will see the fruits of their prayers. Sometimes we can get caught up in the preparation of an event or even a retreat that we forget to stop and invite the Holy Spirit to be in our midst. (yes I know he's always there, duh! you know what I mean) You can tell the difference in an event when a group has prayed before and when a team has not prayed. When you take time to pray, when you actually carve out a time specifically for prayer and you follow through and pray for the students and each other, that night usually feels so easy, effortless, like a hot knife through butter. Conversely, if there is a lack of prayer that evening may feel like one small disaster after another, and tensions tend to flare. The event becomes a burden.

Wrapping it up

Pray for your youth pastors at the very least, not only because they are your leaders but because when God grants a vision and said vision  gains momentum and lives are being won for God, the enemy tends to attack the pastors first. with all the fury and dirty tricks he knows. They feel the brunt of that attack and usually deflect the worst of it from you. Pray that the Lord will continue to give them strength of spirit and of body to keep leading effectively. Pray that opposition is decimated by the hand of God and that their families are kept safe from harm or decease so that they will not be emotionally compromised and become ineffective. pray that the Lord give them new ideas and that His voice is never silent in their hearts, minds or ears. Simply Pray.

Today is friday! which means that lots of you will be serving at churches everywhere. Do your best, love those kids like its the last thing you do! keep going for every little thing you do for your youth group does not go unnoticed by our Father. Go and keep reaching, teaching, growing and releasing the next generation of leaders. You guys are my Heroes!

with many blessings!