Five things teenagers need to see in you before they will follow you. (Part 1)

If you want to help teenagers know and follow Jesus, there are a few things they need to see in you, before they will really listen to what you have to say. 

In the next few blogs I'm going to share a few things that I've learned not only as a youth pastor that worked with teenagers for 20+ years, but also as a father of teenagers myself. 

Here is the first thing teens need to see in you. 

1 - Authenticity.

Are you real or are you putting on a show? Teenagers hate to be lied too.  If your private life does not line up with your public persona, you are lying to them. Eventually the truth will come out and they will not trust you. Teenagers have plenty of people in their life that consistently say one thing and then do another. Don't be one of them!  If you are who you say you are. If you keep your word. Teenagers will love you. 

Teenagers just want you to be yourself. If you are a 34 year old Dad who likes country music, then don't act like a hipster around them. If you are really into sports, then be into sports. If you love reading then talk about the books you read. 

Teenagers are trying to discover who they are. Because of this, anyone who knows who they are and is comfortable in their own skin is very magnetic to a teenager. Just be yourself. Love God in front of them and they just might love him too. 

Click the links below for resources designed to help you grow. 

12 THINGS EVERY YOUTH PASTOR NEEDS TO KNOW - eBook

 

YOUTH MINISTRY UNIVERSITY - one year online training course

10 things to "NEVER DO" in Youth Ministry.

To be successful sometimes you just need to know what NOT to do.
Here are nine never’s of Youth Ministry. 

1. Never yell at one of your students.

In those cases when a student is acting up or causing trouble, raising your voice will not help help the situation. In fact it will generally make it a lot worse. Stay in control. You are the one in charge. Look them in the eye. Speak to them firmly but never yell at them.

 

2. Never "wing it" when you are speaking. 

Here are a few reasons why you should never just get up there and start speaking with out preparing your message before hand. 1. You are not that good. 2. God word deserves your best effort. 3. You are not that good. (I know I said that twice ... but I just wanted to get the point across). 

3. Never use slang words around them.

Shoot – Dang – Darn – can easily be misunderstood or cuss words. Don’t use them around your teenagers.

4. Never be alone with the opposite sex.

Say this out loud as you read it – “IT IS NOT WORTH IT” – never be alone in the car, in the hallway, in a room with a teenager of the opposite sex, I don’t care the reason why … IT IS NOT WORTH IT.

 

5. Never expect them to obey a rule you have not explained to them.

What are your rules? If they don’t know them, they cannot obey them.

 

6. Never make a promise you cannot keep.

Don’t be a people pleaser – let your yes be yes and your no be no – if you can’t do it – don’t say you will.

 

7. Never expect them to get into your world until you have gotten into theirs.

Jesus came to our world so that we would want to come to HIS. I think we should do the same with the people we want to reach.

 

8. Never think of a students parent as the problem.

The only reason you have the ability to be in this teenagers life is because their parent is allowing you to. Parents are not the problem they are part of the solution.

 

9. Never preach to them until you have prayed for them.

There are four P’s in Preaching. Plan – Prepare – Pray – Present. Never forget to pray.

 

10. Never spend more time on what your wearing than what you are teaching. 

There are two things you need to know about how you dress. 1. Stylish clothes never saved a soul. 2. The kids already think you are old, so just be yourself, know your stuff, and give them Jesus! 

Those are some things to NEVER do in student ministry.

To help go to a whole new level in making disciples, building teams, and making an impact check out our one year online training platform - YOUTH MINISTRY UNIVERSITY.  It is only $75 for an entire year of training! 

Before you advertise at your church, here are a few things you need to know.

Advertising is such a great asset and tool that needs to be used by your church.  However, as you work at building your advertising game-plan, please keep in mind a few things that advertising will and will not do for you. 

Great Advertising Will Not ... 

Advertising will not ... change the situations the people who attend your ministry venues are living in.

Great advertising will not ... win people to Jesus .

Great advertising will not ... make disciples.

Great advertising will not ... replace personal relationships.

Great advertising will not ... make up for lack of quality or content in your gathering. 

Great Advertising Will ... 

Great advertising will ... build strong "buy in" with your team and people. 

Great advertising will ... create a climate of excitement and growth.

Great advertising will ... attract people to your ministry venues.

Great advertising will ... shape people’s perception of your ministry.

The Very Best Way To Advertise For Free  .... 

The very best way to advertise for absolutely free is to be "great at what you do". 

When you are great at what you do, people will talk. When people talk, their friends listen. When their friends listen, they will come check out what you are doing. And then the cycle continues. 

Please leave a comment below. I would love to hear what you are currently doing to advertise. What is working. What is not working. 

So you want to be a better speaker? This might be the best advice you will ever get!

When it comes to communicating the Gospel, some of the best advice I can give you, is just ...  BE YOURSELF. 

Do me a favor and say your name out loud. For real. Go ahead. On the count of three say your name  - 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 

If you did not say Francis Chan, Matt Chandler, Steven Furtick, T.D. Jakes, or Craig Groeschel; then don’t act like them on stage. If you want to be an effective communicator, then you are going to have to be yourself. 

There are some amazing communicators in the Kingdom of God right now. Each and everyone of them have this unique gift that works extremely well. Because of this we naturally want to copy them. We think to ourselves, “If I will simply do what they do, I will be as good as they are and get the responses they get”.

That sounds good, but that thought could not be further from the truth. Steven gets the results Steven gets because he is Steven. Matt gets the response that Matt gets because he is just being Matt Chandler. They are not trying to be someone else. They are just being who they naturally are. The reason these gentleman are such an incredible gift to the body of Christ is because they have taken the gift of who they are and used it where they are to its absolute fullest. 

Listen to me ... you will never be like them! So don’t try! 

Even though those men are incredible, gifted and talented. The adults in your church or the students in your youth ministry don’t really know nor do they care who these other superstars are. However, they do know and care about you! Each week they come to hear you speak. So just be yourself. Embrace the gift and gifting’s that God has placed inside of you and speak life to the people that come to hear you speak every week.

God does not make mistakes. He made you, who you are, placed you where you are, for a purpose, a plan and a person. If that is case, for the city and the Church that God has placed you; you are better than any superstar communicator that you follow. If God wanted them to be the Pastor or Youth Pastor of your Church, then he would have given them to your people. But He didn’t. He gave your people you! So when you stand up every week to speak, just be yourself.

To find out more about how you can become an even better leader / communicator CLICK HERE and enroll in a one year ministry course that we have created. 

Successful leaders live by the 80% rule. Do you?

Like so many others there have been times on my leadership journey where I have struggled with sharing my responsibilities with the people on my team or church. If I am honest part of the reason I've struggled with this is because, I incorrectly felt like, if I gave this responsibility over to them, I would lose authority and control. However, I have been discovering that when we as leaders share what we have (responsibility / tasks) with those around us it does not take away from authority it actually gives us more. 

In fact, allowing others to do the things that we have been given responsibility to oversee, not only gives us more authority it gives us what we crave the most...more time! 

More time to develop other leaders.

More time to expand our vision. 

More time to do the things that only we can do. 

It can be so difficult at times to handover our responsibility as leaders, especially when we don't think they can do it as well as we can. However, I've learned (and sometimes the hardware) that "they won't do it as good as me" is just an excuse and a poor one at that. You and I will never be the leaders we could be and have the impacting organizations that we want to have unless we begin to develop and empower leaders more effectively. 

In his book titled, "How successful people lead", John Maxwell says ... 

"A good rule of thumb for transferring ownership of a leadership responsibility to someone else is the 80 percent rule. If someone on the team can do one of your task 80% as good as you can do or better, then give him or her the responsibility. If you want to be an effective leader, you have to move from perfectionist to pragmatist. "

Here are some questions:

If you had more time, what would you do with it?

Are you afraid of losing authority?

Are you too busy?

What are the people around you good at?

Can they do that task 80% as well as you?

What steps will you take this week to delegate that task to them?