the intersection of life and grace

Here’s a bit of my review of Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors, published at Youth Ministry Exchange:

The central question of long-time youth minister and youth ministry consultant Mark Riddle’s book Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors – A Church Leader’s Guide to Staffing and Leading Youth Pastors asks “Why does your church want to hire a youth pastor?”  Touching on issues of community, leadership, communication, mentoring, and the value of youth in the church, Inside the Mind is foremost a tool for the local church to use in discerning how to build sustainable ministry to youth.

Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors is divided into two sections, the first of which, “Staffing for Youth Ministry”, directly addresses the questions surrounding the choice and reasons to hire a youth pastor.  This includes asking who should be involved in the process, what about the church culture needs to be taken into consideration (and potentially changed), and is addressed to both church leadership and congregations when discussing hiring a staff youth minister.  

Read the rest by clicking here.

General Session 3 features David Kinnaman and Mark Matlock on the theme of engaging culture for effective ministry.

Mark Matlock is the VP of Events and Content at Youth Specialties, author of a number of YS titles, and the heart behind Real World Parents. David Kinnaman of Barna Research and is the author of UnChristian. They are presenting together.

Mark is talking about the various books and movies that have been recently published regarding post-Christian America, including the most recent Newsweek cover article.  They are representing Christian America, self-reported, about 81%.  They are describing the different defining questions Barna uses to drill down into the results that go to what is meant by the “decline of Christian America”.  This shift about a post-Christian America is happening among about 75% of the self-reported Christian group.

Mark to David: did your research really say that 2/3rds of young people are leaving the faith when they graduate from high school.  David: Let me set the record straight, our data has been abused on that subject.  Some students do leave. But what those 2/3rd are largely saying is that the faith doesn’t make a difference, it doesn’t make sense for therm.  They are rejecting Christianity because it doesn’t make them a better doctor or teach them to better engage the world’s issues.  They aren’t necessarily rejecting Jesus, they are rejecting organized religion.

Mark asks, what do we need to be teaching to help them better engage culture (or abstain from it), and be like Joseph, Esther and see tangible results of faith in their lives.  David: we’re studying this generation, we call them Globals, and seeing them wanting to engage in different places, different cultures. We see the Gospel “busting out of the usual containers” and America is no longer, if it ever was, the center of spiritual change.  This means that people who are non-Christians, and non-American Christians, are refining us, and sensing something much bigger in a move of God.  At the heart of this is the next generation.

Mark asks, could we as Americans, miss out on this new thing that God is doing because we can’t see it? (like the Pharisees missed who Jesus was when he was right there among them)  David responds that if kids are missing it, whose responsibility is that considering we are their leaders, pastors, parents? 

What are some ways we can shift the mentality of the mission trip – could we, Mark proposes, shift the “we’re bringing something” to another country on a mission trip, to “we’re here to see what God is doing here” – an entirely different posture.

David is talking about fatherlessness – it is 4x as likely today than in 1960 – in terms of how we minister to this generation.  Our goal is for them to see God as Father, and that God is in the business, still, of restoring people.  What is different is the path to understanding that realization, and becoming part of the solution and participating in restoring what’s broken.

Note – because this conversation is pretty rapid fire, these really are just notes, and not necessarily direct quotes.

David is back to the idea of helping students understand how their faith affects who they are supposed to be – he calls this vocational discipleship.  (my thought, is this like what Bob Briner’s book Roaring Lambs proposed, a whole life faith that lets your faith infiltrate every part of life, in a non-compartmentalized way.)

Mark is talking about moving away from youth ministry as a commodity, and getting back to the roots of pioneers who went to the dark places to be about transforming culture.  Recapture the essence of what God has called us to, it’s not about a box of curriculum, but being truly missional and sharing the transformational power of Jesus Christ.”

I’ll be posting live notes here from Shift session 2, featuring Mark Holmen and  Bubba Thurman on the theme of Connecting the Church and Home.  Make sure you refresh to see the most current additions.

Mark Holmen is the author of Faith Begins at Home.

Satan has been attacking families by making it easy to outsource everything we want our kids to be taught. We live in a land of plenty, of more, and we’ve forgotten God.  It’s a treadmill.

Hypocrisy is driving young people away from the church.  Specifically, they’re at church, in programs, but they’re not getting the same message at home.  Speaking from Deut. 6 – impress these things on your children… (not drop them off at church).

This seemed like a win-win situation – kids get dropped off, we had great success. Participated in a national survey, Significant Religious Influences, designed to reveal why the kids in the youth program have the faith they do.  The number one reason why teenagers have faith was mom. Two was, dad.  Three, pastor. Grandparents, Sunday School, Youth Group, Church Camp, Retreats… Parents are 2-3 times more influential than any church program.

As a youth pastor, he was spending all his time and energy on the bottom of the influence list.

Two approaches to the problem.

Typical churches program for nursery, children’s ministry, youth ministry, move onto men’s/women’s and senior adults ministry.  Then, when they decide to “do something for families” we make a new box. This approach, at best, gets about 40% of parents to turn out.

By being a “faith at home focused church” – weaving ministry to families through everything the church does – equips families to minister to their children and reaches all of your families. Ministering to families becomes about how you do church. It runs across how you “do” (or make choices about) each area of ministry.

In youth ministry, he calls it “both-and-and” ministry. Youth pastors need to do everything they can to reach students for Christ, know him and follow him.  And, they need to be faith at home focused students – by equipping them to live out their faith 24/7 at home (and wherever else they go). And, youth pastors need to find ways to engage parents.

Describes a retreat where there was a session for the parents.  Everything the students were taught was shared with the parents, there was a joint session for parents and students following the students’ retreat, and discussion questions went home with them for further discussion apart from the youth ministry.

This faith at home focus is a long-term vision for a church, an intentional part of every ministry at all age levels.

Bubba Thurman – homepointemodel.com

He’s talking about the church-home connection from the youth minister’s perspective. Their church’s home-family ministry is called Home Point.

Faith at home, or family ministry, doesn’t mean the elimination of youth ministry or youth pastors. It does mean the inclusion of church-supported, intentional equipping for parents so that the most effective people (parents) are best able to disciple their children.

Three hurdles for the youth pastor to overcome – between youth ministry and the home ministry.

1. Pride – the inability to admit that there’s something wrong with what we’re doing.

2. Assumptions – what comes to mind when you hear family ministry? “I hear a van pulling up in the church parking lot, 9 kids pile out all wearing uniforms, ready to play bible trivia.”

3. Fear – can keep us from doing something we know is right. What are we afraid of about family ministry (inspiring and equipping parents to disciple their kids)? Inadequacy and measures are the most common answers.

Suggestions for getting started on considering parents when planning youth ministry. Tell parents, by website or print out, what you’re teaching ahead of time. Share the lessons, share the talks from events or retreats. Invite parents to your team trainings, teach them to lead bible studies, be relational, anything you would train a volunteer leader to do. Most parents want the opportunity to lead their kids, they just don’t know how.

I’ll be adding my notes from Francis Chan’s talk here at the Shift Conference this morning.  You can see a number of the sessions at the linked website.

Starting video asks “How are you? Your soul?” Francis is talking about how about 75% of the time his feels amazing, and the other 25% of the time he thinks “this sucks” and he’s ready to walk away.

The church needs a radical shift. “Every time I read the book of Acts, I put it down and think ‘wow, we’re just like that.”  I look at it and think, ‘we’re so different from that.’”  The sense is that commitment like Stephen and Paul is what  Jesus meant when he said he was going to build his church on this.  Not like us. “We’re so stoppable.”

We resolve ourselves to the idea that is so different now. Acts 4:13 – boldness was what made people astonished and recognize that ordinary men represented God.  We’re almost the exact opposite, we’re more educated, and less bold.  We (in ministry) have set the bar so low.  We’ve set the bar the so low that people believe that it’s impossible to reach their neighbors.  But we believe that it’s the same Holy Spirit!

“We’ve forgotten our first love.  We got educated. We put our confidence in this new knowledge and new programs.”  Quoted Oswald Chambers about programs and methods.

The Holy Spirit speaks to US, and gives us a direction, just for us.  And we know it, and we don’t go that direction.  We get scared.  We don’t do it, and we know it.

We get stopped when we compare ourselves to other people. I’ll never be {fill in the name of the person you admire in ministry}.  We forget that we have that Holy Spirit in US.  We’re scared to listen. We’re scared to act on what the Holy Spirit  says to us.  We’re scared to be bold.

One problem is, you can be a successful pastor or youth pastor here in America without the power of the Holy Spirit. You can be invited to speak, but not in love with Jesus.  Can you be in love with Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit and bored at the same time?! Where is the supernatural in your life?

Do people walk away from your group, your church saying “The Lord is God” stunned like the unbelieving prophets of Baal when God answered Elijah.  The prophets of Baal had a great worship service, but no fire really came down from heaven.  Elijah was a man just like us – do you believe that?  Is your God the real one?  The Lord is God.

I can talk people down the aisle and into praying a prayer without the Holy Spirit.  It’s the life change I can’t talk people into. ” I can’t make her love you, God.” (his jr high age daughter)  So what do we do? Create a bigger event? Unless the Holy Spirit get ahold of her, we can’t do anything.  ”The Spirit gives life, the flesh is of no help at all.”

As a dad, what do I want from my youth pastor, from her counselors? I want a man or woman of prayer, a man or woman of God who is so full of the Holy Spirit that they are filled with boldness and the confidence of God. It is the Spirit that gives life and the flesh is of no help at all. Elijah was a man just like us.”

Here is the shift that needs to take place. People need to be attracted to God. Not the band. Not the program. People need to be attracted to God. [closes in prayer]

I recently had the opportunity to read Mark Riddle’s new book, Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors.  Mark is a consultant for churches who are looking to staff for youth ministry as a part of the larger vision for their community and ministry – a holistic approach, you might call it.  The book is a good look into the hard questions churches would want to ask about youth ministry in their context, and goes on to give insight into how a healthy staff relationship between a senior pastor and a youth pastor might look.  

One of the “big ideas” that struck me from Inside the Mind was Mark’s brief discussion of the optimal age of a youth pastor.  You can see that previous discussion here.

After I read the book, I had the opportunity to send several questions to Mark, which he has answered, and I’ve posted below.  My questions are in italics, Mark’s answers are indented. We invite your discussion.

Even though the book is called Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors, you spend considerable time making the case for getting inside the mind of congregations, pastors and leadership, parents and communities.  While that could have made for an incredibly cumbersome title, can you talk a bit about the essential nature of honest and open communication among all those parties in the process of establishing a sustainable youth ministry? 

Too many times people in the church, whether they be paid or not, live with assumptions about the roles we play in the church family.  We assume people think like we do, believe what we believe and value what we value.  Parents assume things about you as a youth pastor based on their experiences with youth pastors in their past. They often interpret you through the lens of their past experiences. Youth pastors do this with others as well.  Dialogue is the fundamental way in which we see people differently. Dialogue is how we extricate ourselves from the past and create an environment in which transformation can occur.  I talk about this a bit in the chapter on assumptions and inference, but it’s really through out the book.  I didn’t want to put myself in a place where I was speaking on behalf of youth pastors, or senior pastor, so I included questions at the end of each chapter to help encourage conversation with the various people you mention here.  The future of staffing within the church will be lead by those who understand the dynamics of dialogue and practice them everyday.

There are likely churches which have never considered some of the questions you raise in the first section of the book.  How would you encourage a pastor or congregation that it is worth the investment of time and energy to work through the process?  

In the first section of the book I talk about the need to seriously think about why you have a youth ministry, and how unhealthy it is to put a youth pastor at the center of the youth ministry of a church.  There’s always a temptation for me to try to convince church leaders that they need to change, but that is my issue not theirs.  I’m way more interested in working with a church leader who reads the book and says, “You’ve been reading my mail.” Or “We’ve hired youth pastors for the wrong reasons and we’re ready to change.”  That’s an exciting moment because a church leader has come to some conclusions on their own.  I personally don’t find much value in trying to convince or persuade a church leader of the need to change because the change is hard work.  If I can persuade you this afternoon that you need change, when the work starts it will persuade you that it’s not worth the effort.   As a result, people generally find me when they want to change.  Of course all of this talk is easy for me as I sit outside the situation. It’s much different for the youth pastor inside.  But this points more to the question of long-term sustainable dialogue with church leaders.  Hopefully the book will help some youth pastors and senior pastors make some break throughs.  It’s why I wrote the book. I felt like 80% of what the seminars talk about at the National Youth conventions tell youth pastors to do is not possible, because the church leaders aren’t included in the conversation.  But when it comes down to it, the church leader has to make the decision that they want a healthy youth ministry.

Following up on that, do you believe that “the average” congregation can successfully accomplish the process without an objective moderator, whether a consultant or another caring, but non-partisan person?

Such an interesting question. First I’d say that having a third party is very helpful, I’ve seen the benefits of it first hand. I’ll say that there are no objective third parties.  Everyone comes with a history, a perspective, a set of values  etc. The job of a consultant is to understand their biases and to the degree they can, set them aside so that they can truly listen, but also bring them to the table when the situation warrants.  There is something very helpful to a community to have someone who is differentiated enough to say what they see is really going on and give insights that can church leaders can engage so they can make things better.  Is it possible without someone from the outside?  I’m optimistic.

You touched on the concept of the elongation of adolescence and how that might impact establishing a healthy youth ministry by encouraging hiring “older” (25+) youth pastors.  I could hear screams from Bible college and Christian college youth ministry departments from coast to coast as I read that.  How do you think that 2-3 years between graduation at age 22-23 could constructively be spent by those who sense a vocational calling to ministry with students and families?  

I’m not going to write a prescription for late adolescent involvement, but I’ll say that putting a 20-25 year old person in charge, especially in what I call a Church A model is often destructive for the church they lead in AND maybe more often in the lives of the person in leadership.  There are always exceptions. A 20-25 year old person has a lot to offer the church and a lot to learn.  Leadership depends often on wisdom and wisdom comes from experience.  So late adolescents should be involved in youth ministry, in every way shape and form. They should have incite into the politics of the church and the tough decisions leaders make. But in my opinion they don’t need to be in charge of the spiritual formation of a communities teenagers and their parents.  I’ve yet to find anyone over 30 who disagrees with me on this issue. 

As I read, there were a number of moments where I saw my own youth ministry experiences, both good and difficult, reflected in the stories you shared. There is encouragement in knowing that there is shared experience, sadness in knowing there is shared pain and frustration.  One place I see in the book that will have some common “ah ha” for all parties to a conversation about youth ministry is the section about the Ladder of Inference, and the effects of our filling in the blanks with faulty assumptions.  As you’re aiding churches in this process, do you find exploring that area of communication to be a place of transformational opportunity? 

I appreciate your encouragement. I’m glad the stories in the book seemed to be telling your story in some way.  The Ladder of Inference is an amazing tool developed by Chris Argyris.  “Climbing the ladder” has become an important part of the conversation among leaders in church I work with.  Because it helps us pause before we leap to assumptions about others, their motives and their character.  It’s also helpful to help church leaders unpack their past experiences and begin to truly see the people in front of them.  

The section on teamwork, loyalty and looking out for each other would seem to be important for both small and large church staffs.  Since there are a great many more small church staffs, 2-3 people where each person’s job description drips with “additional duties as assigned” ink, would you talk a bit about what healthy team work looks like in those situations?  

A great team believes the best about each other. They regularly engage in conflict and it makes them appreciate each other better and thus brings them together.  They embody trust.  They see each member as inherently valuable with something unique to add to the solution. Great teams cover for each other as well. They willingly absorb a complaint about another staff person and apologize as if they themselves where the person who wronged the individual. They speak encouraging words about other team members to others and they speak the truth when it needs to be said, in the right setting. 

What do you hope would happen if a church with a youth pastor on staff already works through Inside the Mind together with the appropriate leadership and come to the conclusion that they’re not the right fit?  Not that they’re bad people, or ungifted… simply not the right fit in significant areas the process considers?  

If a community moves from Church A to Church B with a youth pastor on staff it’s difficult to image a scenario in which it wouldn’t work.  Church B allows the youth pastor to be themselves more than Church A does.  In fact Church B empowers a youth pastor to do what they are good at, but it empowers the congregation to own all of the ministry.  Of course there are people who don’t fit into Church B.  You are probably not a fit as a staff person for Church B if you can’t work with adults at all, or feel you must hold all the power yourself.  If you feel that you have nothing to learn, or that you don’t want input from others then you will struggle with leading in Church B as well.  Certainly they aren’t bad people, but not great fits for the process I talk about in Inside the Mind.  Frankly I personally wouldn’t hire those folks for any kind of church leadership though. But that’s just me.

For clarity though, Church B means that all of the youth ministry is owned by the congregation. So in churches I’ve personally worked with that implement the process, the church owns every detail, from bulletin announcements, reserving transportation for a trip, event planning, programming, relational ministry etc. It’s all owned by the church.  The youth pastor gets to be with God and be with people and do what they are good at. So if a youth pastor is a gifted speaker, let them speak. Etc.

Thanks for asking such great questions Patti!

Thanks for writing a book to help the church think differently about youth ministry, Mark!