3 Things for Student Pastors to Focus on This Summer

Like many student ministries, we take a break from our normal programing structure during the summer. We don’t have mid-week meetings, small groups, or retreats. Instead, we always do mission trips (one for middle school and one for high school) and we have a few house parties scattered throughout the summer. I enjoy the change and benefit much from it. If you change things up in the summer for your ministry as well, let me suggest you make an effort to focus on three things.

Build relationships with students. One of the huge benefits of not doing a weekly program in the summer is the time and energy you can put fully to building relationships with students. You don’t have to spend hours writing a talk or planning for that weeks mid-week program, you can get out of the office and hangout with students. Don’t think to hard about how to do this, just text some students and meet up somewhere. You don’t need a huge plan or a program in place, just spend time with your students. Also, make an effort to connect with students in your community that may never step foot in your youth room during the school year. One way I do this each summer is I meet up weekly with some of the high school guys to play basketball at a local park. It’s a great way to do something I enjoy with my students as well a way to meet new students that may be at the park playing basketball as well. Bottom line is this, students are out of school and they are looking for something to do. Make an effort to hangout with them and don’t overlook the opportunity to do real, life on life relational ministry this summer.

Give volunteers a break and recruit new volunteers. One of the things I try to do during the summer is give my volunteers a break from our ministry. At the end of the school year we do an appreciation lunch and at that lunch I tell them “thank you” for serving during the school year and that they are off the hook for the summer. I usually give them a date near the end of summer that stands as a deadline for them to let me know if they are coming back to volunteer for the new school year. Not only do I give my volunteers a break, but I use the summer to look for new volunteers. It’s hard to recruit and plug-in new volunteers in the middle of the school year because small groups are in full swing and the program is running strong, so I usually try to recruit and plug new volunteers in at the start of the new year. This is not to say I will avoid recruiting and plugging in new volunteers during the school year, but I have found it more beneficial to do this near the end of the summer so they can jump on board when the school year starts up.

Focus on planning for the next year. Even though you may take a break from your normal program in the summer, don’t neglect planning and staying on top of being ready for the next school year. If your Fall/Spring calendar is not done by August you are probably not working far enough ahead. Look over the next school year (even next summer if you can) and plan out your events, retreats, and other things that you want to do during the next school year. Once you have everything laid out, start making a good calendar you can give to your parents before the school year kicks off (click here to view some great calendar resources you can use from YouthMin.org). We always do a parent meeting a week or two before the school year kicks off to go over the year and get calendars in the hands of our parents.

Focusing on those three things will help you stay on track this summer with ministering to your students as well as getting ready for the next school year of ministry.

Guest Post: Transitioning From a Ministry Well

I knew I would write this eventually. What is ironic is, I have read every post on this topic from every youth ministry site—large or small—on the internet. From the time I knew the Lord was calling me out of my current job and to another ministry, my heart was grieved with the idea of leaving my current church on bad terms. I am in the interesting position of having grown up, saved, baptized, married, and then becoming the youth pastor of the same church. So even considering leaving the church that has almost two decades of my life woven into those pews was not an easy decision to come by. It took months of prayer, tears, seeking wise council,tears, prayer, reading, tears, fasting, prayer, and more tears to come to the decision of moving on to my next ministry. When I got to that decision I began the process of doing all that I can to leave well. This is what I did and this is what worked and is currently working for me to leave well from my current ministry position.

Kept it to myself. From the time I knew I wanted to leave, I didn’t talk about it to a ton of people in my church. Rumors spread quickly in every church and I didn’t want my leaving to be misconstrued as a scandal or me being run off. I was and am in good terms with my Elders and my church. My students still loved me and I had a growing and fruitful ministry. So I just confided in my wife and the Lord for a long period of time as to make sure this was really the door we were to step through and not just me being bored or discontent. After sometime I confided in good friends who I trusted who were in youth ministry. I love the Youthmin.org community. This isn’t a shameless plug, the contributors of that site love youth ministry and love youth pastors. They all listened to me, prayed for me, and gave me sound wisdom as I was about to embark on the biggest decision since I decided to marry my wife. This stayed this way until I made my first big step in transitioning.

Talk to my Senior Pastor. I was sort of afraid to do this. I had never seen a good example of someone transition ministries on good terms. They all were either fired or asked to leave nicely. So two days after Thanksgiving, I called my senior pastor, asked to meet with him, and I drove to his house and sat in his living room. I was honest and respectful. I basically told him, “I feel the Lord is calling me to move on.” He took it better than I could have imagined. My senior pastor is one of the most grace-filled men I know. I am not saying that just because he may read this post and he signs my paychecks; I am saying that because he is the real deal. I willingly sat under his teaching for years and desired to be discipled by him at my first pastoral position. He encouraged me and gave me advice on how to leave well from my church.

Patience. After I met with my senior pastor, I just patiently waited as I sent out my resume to every church that loves Jesus. Seriously, I applied to a ton of churches I can’t even remember the number. I had to wait. We had only told my Senior Pastor and the Elders at this point and we felt it was in the best interest to the rest of the church to not share our intentions of leaving until we had a strong offer. This was wise. It was painful, but it was better to be patient for something solid than being a lame duck and having everyone know I was leaving but didn’t know where to yet. Then I got the phone call from Arkansas.

The awkward and fast part of my transition. A church in Arkansas called me and asked for an interview with their search committee. That then turned into an interview with their senior pastor. That then turned into them flying my wife and I out to Arkansas and teaching at their midweek service. Before I left for the visit my senior pastor warned me that once I fly out there it will be hard to keep this under wraps. It is not that we are trying to hide anything, but information has a season when it is good to be shared. I flew to Arkansas and I started to get texts from friends and students. They asked me, “Why are you in Arkansas?” “Why are you teaching at another church’s youth group?” “Are you going to meet Mike Huckabee?” I told everyone the truth. A Church wanted to fly me in to teach at their youth group. By the Lord’s grace no one pressed on that anymore. I think people assumed my status of a traveling preacher has come to life and I am now the Cuban Matt Chandler. I got back to Tampa and about a week after my visit I got an offer from the church to be their youth pastor. Cori and I accepted the position, we told our senior pastor and the elders and now I knew where I was going to go.

The big day. The Elders and I agreed that since I now know I am leaving and their students will soon bombard my Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook with questions and excitement, we should tell the church and the students that following Sunday. I met with a few close friends that Saturday to share what was going on. That was a long and emotional Saturday. The Friday before, I sent an email that I wanted the parents of the students to be in the Sunday school with the students for a special announcement. The kids were suspicious but they were not expecting what I was going to share with them. I cried a ton and the students and parents cried too. However, it was healthy and it was taken well. The students were sad but were mature enough to be excited for me. At the end of the main service I was called up and my senior pastor let the congregation know and the whole church was sad but happy for me. I think the best way to describe the feeling was “Bitter-Sweet”. All in all, it was handled well, no rumors could be spread and I was on track to leaving well.

The last part. So since the big announcement there has been lots of packing, visiting independently-owned Tampa restaurants, and lots of good hangs with friends. One thing about leaving well that I didn’t have control over was keeping this part short. I am still here for another month. There is just too much to transition over and a lot of work needs to be done before I can leave. The new church has been really cool with it all and they are just excited that someone is coming soon. My goal for this final month is to teach all the lessons that I feel are needed to be said for me to leave in good conscious and to spend time with friends and family. The biggest challenge is to not be bitter or become lazy. It is easy to stop caring about pastoral care because you can say, “I won’t see them again after a month” or slack at work because you know you don’t have to plan past a certain date. My wife has been a big support by praying with me daily to finish strong and leaving well.

I am going to miss my students, my friends, and the only church I have ever been a part of since the Lord saved me. But praise God the relationships will not be tarnished by a nasty break-up. Leaving well means I have good connections back in my hometown, a sofa to sleep on when I visit, and a group of students that will remember their youth pastor as a guy they loved and respect. Not some schmuck who left them to dry. I hope you have the opportunity to leave in the grace and dignity I have been able to leave in. Every context is different and you don’t have much control over circumstances, but you have control over how you react and respond. Leaving well is mostly how you respond and react to the circumstances given.

Born and raised in Tampa, FL, Frank just recently became the Youth Pastor Family Life Bible Church in Conway, Arkansas. He is married and has zero kids. He blogs about youth ministry at YouthMin.org and has a personal blog about what interests him at FrankGil.me.

Guest Post: 15 Things to Consider When Joining the Staff at a Large Church

Realize you’re on a team. Upgrade your interpersonal skills. You will need to learn how to deal with disagreements and conflict in a healthy manner. Read up on this stuff and don’t assume that you’re great at it.

Learn your place. Be quiet in staff meetings. Spend the first 6 months – 1 year listening. Do not go into ministry thinking that previous programs or successes will transfer to a larger church. Each church has their own personality. Keep quiet about past successes. No one wants to hear about what awesome thing you did last year. They want you to lead in your current condition. This transfers over to staff meetings too. Spend time listening.

Develop a thicker skin. Get ready for input from your team leaders. Be ready for performance reviews. If you do not have thick skin, then get ready for your feelings to be hurt. In larger situations, you’ll have more people who evaluate your ministry and give constructive criticism. Just because a leader sees an area that needs improvement doesn’t mean that they don’t like you. They aren’t out to get you either.

Know you’re place. Communicate directly with your supervisor. If he/she says no, don’t go above his head. Respect the chain of command. Be ready to explain your ideas. Know how what you want to do fits into your current system. Larger churches do not like to do something just for the sake of doing it. Your leader WILL tell you no at some point. When that happens about an idea that you’re passionate about, do not go over their head. This will destroy trust and make you look like a brat.

Be ready to plan ahead. Larger churches like stability. That means you need to start planning out programs and events 6 months – 1 year in advance. Long gone are the days where you can plan a month or two out. You’ll need to know what you’re preaching on, what your small groups are learning, and any events that you’re planning (as well as prices of those events) well in advance. The further you plan out the better you’ll look and less parents will complain.

Get ready for detailed budget planning. Save your receipts and be ready to deal with a financial team. The financial team will have certain requirements of you. You’ll need to keep receipts, put them into budget categories, and prepare statements. Spend wisely and record with a passion.

Get to know the entire staff. Make time to make friends. Staff interaction is VERY important. You don’t have to be best friends with everyone, but you need to be social with the rest of the team. Those friendships will be important. If you keep to yourself, you’ll look arrogant.

Build a strong volunteer base. Your job is now about building and equipping leaders to do ministry. Delegate. Train. Let go. If you make yourself essential in any area other than leadership, you’ve failed.

Learn the DNA of the church. Don’t create your own mission/vision statements. Adapt the church’s mission and vision for students. This is my personal opinion, but the last thing you want is to segregate yourself from the larger church. Show your leaders and your team that you walk in step with the vision and mission of the leadership.

Familiarize yourself with other ministries. Be ready to answer general questions about ministries you don’t lead. It never fails, someone someplace will ask you about another ministry. Be prepared to give an answer and then direct the person appropriately. If you do not take the time to know what everyone else on your team is doing, you’ll appear as if you don’t care.

Get ready for Executive Pastors. These men and women oversee the administrative duties of the Senior Pastor. They are important people to know and have good relationships with.

Learn to create systems for handling issues instead of dealing them as they come up. Be ready for hotel situations, volunteer expectations, payment plans, benevolence requests, etc. You need to think through this stuff. You need to project and be consistent.

Look at yourself as a “senior pastor” of the youth group instead of a youth pastor. Doing ministry in a larger group context means you won’t have your hands on everything. You’ll also need to learn how to counsel students and parents.

Become an expert at communication. Send bi-monthly volunteer emails (mailchimp.com), get a professional texting service (tatango.com), and publish 3 month calendar (with events, prices, and info).

Be careful what and how you post. Do not post ANYTHING on Facebook/Twitter about politics, arguments, the church, ministry staff, or anything that should stay in your head. Do not respond on Facebook/Twitter to anything students say or do that is questionable. That’s something you should handle in private.

This guest post was written by Nick Farr. Nick is a co-manger of YouthMin.org and website that connects everyday youth pastors. He’s also an Associate Pastor at East Ridge Church. He has been doing freelance graphic/web design for 17 years and provides services at a reasonable price for churches at http://www.nickfarr.me . I asked Nick to write this post because I just came on staff at Christ Community Chapel, a large, multi-site church in Northeast Ohio. I hope this post helps others coming on staff at large churches.

Games in Student Ministry

In the past I have worked in student ministries where they used games every week and also student ministries that rarely use games at all. Like anything else, doing games in your student ministry will have it’s pros and cons. After seeing some links recently about youth ministry games, I thought I would share some thoughts that will hopefully help guide you as you think about using games in your student ministry.

1. You don’t have to do them! Games are not essential to your student ministry. I worked in a student ministry that had a game every Wednesday night as part of their mid-week service. It got to the point where it became an “essential” part of the program. But what happened over time was the games became routine and boring to the students, leaders ran out of ideas for new games, and they started taking up too much time in the service. Eventually, we stopped doing games every week and started doing them every few weeks. The bottom line is, you don’t have to always do games. Student ministry is about building discipleship through teaching God’s Word, not having the best games every week.

2. Use them creatively. If you are going to do games in your student ministry, do it creatively. Here are two ways you can use games creatively. First, use games that force the students to interact. Use games to build interaction and community among your students. Get them into teams and force them to work together. Second, use games that build into your lessons. I try to do this as much as possible, but it sometimes is difficult. Use games that build into your particular lesson that night. Use the game has an illustration or an attention grabber for your lesson. However you use games in your student ministry, do it creatively. One last thing about using games creatively, make sure and do all type of games. There are various types of games you can do: upfront games where you bring a few students on stage to play, everyone plays games where every student gets to play, and indoor/outdoor games.

3. When it’s summer, go outside! One of my favorite things to do in the summer with students is water games outside. During the summer months, plan some large group games that you can do outside. One of my favorites is called slip n’ slide kickball. Basically you make a kick ball field with plastic kiddie pools being the bases and between the bases is slip n’ slides (I suggest buying the plastic from Lowe’s). You play a normal game of kickball, but when students are running on slick plastic and diving into kiddie pools, it gets crazy! Do games like this during the summer. I suggest that you do all your teaching and stuff early in the night then do your outdoor game at the end.

Here are some links that provide great game ideas:
YouthMin.org games page has some great game ideas
Rug Burn-E-book full of indoor games
Grass Stains-E-book fill of outdoor games
The Source for Youth Ministry-Games and Icebreakers

Blog Changes for 2012

About three years ago I started this blog because one of my college professors told us we had to. We had to post a few thing on it for a grade. At first, I hated it! I would post something only when I had to. It wasn’t until this past year that I really started to enjoy it and blog consistently. This past year I saw my writing on my blog get better, saw more traffic on my blog, and was able to share my thoughts on important matters. As I go into the new year, I changed a few things about my blog that I hope will make it even better.

URL Change. Yep, that’s right! This blog’s URL is now www.austinmccann.com. I wanted to make this change so my blog was not seen as just “another WordPress blog.” I hope by having my own URL it makes my blog look  a little more credible. If you are a big blogger and have no changed your URL to something more of your own, you should! It is cheap and worth it!

More focused writing. This past year I blogged about a lot of different stuff. I enjoyed blogging about different subjects, but I want to blog more this coming year with a focus. The tag line at the top of my blog use to say “Where Ministry and Life Meet.” That tag line truly was a good statement of what my blog was. It is now changed to “Thoughts on Student Ministry, Pastoral Ministry, and Leadership.” Ninety percent of what I blog about will now be under one of those three categories. The reason I am blogging mostly about those three things is because that is where my heart and training is. God has called me into pastoral ministry, specially student ministry, and has given me a heart for Biblical leadership. Also, all my educational training is in these three areas. I studied student ministry and pastoral ministry in undergrad at Piedmont International University (formerly Piedmont Baptist College) and now studying Christian leadership in seminary.

More blogging at other places. One thing I am doing differently this year is blogging for other blogs. I have contributed a few posts already to YouthMin.org and hope to continue to contribute posts to that site. Also, I am now a contributor for Youth Ministry 360’s blog. I will still be blogging here, but will be blogging for them as well. The blogs I write for them will go on their site first then will be posted here on my own blog. I hope this allows me to connect with other church leaders as well as get my voice out there as God opens doors for me.

Less pride. I must confess that my blogging this past year, especially in the past few months, has caused me to be prideful. When I started seeing my views go up and started seeing more traffic on my blog it caused some pride. Also, I was getting jealous of other blogs that were getting more views than mine. This led me to spending way too much time thinking about what I should blog about next rather than blogging about what God is doing in my life and ministry. I pray that as I go into the new year I will blog with humility knowing that God has given me this blog to make His name known not mine. In my blogging, He must increase and I must decrease.

I hope my blogs have been helpful to you and I hope they will continue to be helpful to you this coming year. If you are in ministry, I hope my blogs will give you practical advice you can use and share with others.