What Do Youth Ministers Do During the Week?

What do Youth Ministers do?

I know this is a common question people have… “What do youth ministers do?”

I think the perceived answer is that we just hang out with students on Wednesday night, show up to a few sport events, and then we spend the rest of our time searching youtube and stalking people on facebook.

The crazy thing is that as a youth minister I often feel completely swamped, and then when someone asks me what I do during the week I start to trip over my words because I really don’t know what to tell them… which makes me feel like maybe I do just waste time.

The problem is that with ministry there really isn’t a consistent schedule, so what you do can’t be defined in 9 to 5 terms.

The following is a look at what youth ministers do:

Sunday mornings I get to church at about 7:00am. This gives me an hour and 15 minutes to spend time in prayer for the day, clean up the Sunday school and organize it (students never pick up after themselves), print off the Youth News, and go over the Sunday school lesson one last time.

At 8:15am I go to the early service which starts at 8:25am. This gives me 10 minutes to shake hands and say hello to people. None of these people are my youth (because they don’t come to the early service), but I love knowing the whole church, not just those related to my ministry, so this is a cherished time.

From 8:25am until about 12:15pm I am in a service, helping out with logistics, or helping out with youth Sunday school.

After church its lunch time! When we only had one Sunday school, and the majority of the youth went to the 11am service we used to go out to lunch as a big group, but that doesn’t happen so much anymore. But Sunday lunch is a great time for fellowship. It is never quick because of the crowds and long waits… so you can either take it as it is and enjoy it, or get frustrated. I like to enjoy the conversation with others.

After lunch I normally get back to the church around 3:30pm. From 4pm – 6pm we are either preparing for meetings, in meetings, or preparing for family fusion. Then from 6pm – 7pm we have discipleship classes, family fusion, or some form of small groups.

Throughout the week I spend time in the office doing random things that include, but are not limited to: responding to emails, making phone calls, writing notes to youth, planning trips and taking care of the front end work to make those happen, evaluating different aspects of the ministry and thinking through how we can improve on them, studying current youth ministry trends, assisting other staff members, doing random projects assigned by Jason (my pastor), finding and turning in receipts, creating a “Youth News”, working on Sunday school material, and other random odd jobs. These take up about 9 hours of my week.

So we’re at about 18 hours of work… what else do Youth Ministers do?

If I was only in the office 9 hours a week I would probably get fired… so I am in the office more than that, but I intentionally schedule time to do things that aren’t really “office work.”

The main time I get to teach/preach/talk (whatever you want to call it) is on Wednesday nights. Contrary to popular belief, I do not have an incredibly sticky memory where I can pull everything I learned from seminary off the top of my head and teach it to students in a way that makes since to them. It takes time to prepare a message. I would love to have a full day to work on my Wednesday night message, but I normally get about 6 hours (3 hours on Tuesday and 3 hours on Wednesday mornings at the coffee shop).

“6 hours?! Does it even take that long?! And you wish you had more time?!”

Think back to speech class in high school or a communications class you took in college. Remember how much time it took for you to prepare a 5 – 7 minute speech? You had to research the topic you were talking about, think about a good introduction to hook people’s attention, have good transition points, appeal to logic, appeal to emotions, and then have a strong conclusion. You had to think through how to get people to visualize what you were talking about, illustrate points, and then practice it to get more comfortable. I promise you that 6 hours flies by!

On top of preparing the message for Wednesday nights I have to get things in order for the actual youth service. This includes preparing worship in song, setting up the music equipment, practicing with the band, straightening up the room, setting up for an ice-breaker, getting informational handouts ready, and etc. I am able to give about 3 hours to this stuff. Then the actual Wednesday night program goes from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.

So now we are at 29 hours. We’ve covered Sundays, Wednesdays, and office time… what else do youth ministers do?

Meetings… these take up some time too. We meet as a whole staff on Tuesdays from 11am – 1:30pm. This includes a staff devotional, leadership equipping, and getting all of our ducks in a row for the week, month, and beyond. Then I have a separate meeting with my other boss (Ralph, the minister of education) and Kristin (the children’s director) once a week to make sure that we’re on the same page and that our ministries continue to complement each other. Then on Wednesdays from 1:30pm – 2:30pm we have a “creative meeting” where we go through all three worship services on Sunday and make sure they all flow smoothly and that they do not take up more than an hour and 15 minutes.

Meetings take up about 4 to 5 hours of the week.

On top of office meetings there are other key times to meet with people. I do hospital visits once a week, I meet with other youth ministers (either in person or on the phone) to encourage each other, bounce ideas off of, and build and maintain relationships. I visit prospective members who have visited the church. And then I try to meet with parents of my youth or youth leaders throughout the week too. These types of meetings take up about 4 hours of a normal week.

So we are at 37 to 38 hours of a work week now… “What about hanging out with youth? I thought that was all you do? Do you do that at all?”

On Wednesdays I get breakfast with high schoolers from 7am – 8am, and on Thursdays I get breakfast with middle schoolers from 7:30am – 8am and then I the middle schoolers to school in the awesome church van which takes up about another 30 minutes. Those times are regular, but there are other random times that I hang out with youth as well… like at football games, basketball games, baseball games, throwing the Frisbee or football, grabbing coffee, playing basketball, working out, eating food, and whatever else I can do to meet them where they are at. Unfortunatley I only get to hang out with youth for about 5 hours of the week, but I’ll take what I can get.

So the normal work week of a youth minister is probably around 42 to 43 hours of work if you try to put it to paper.

So why in the world do we get burned out, why do we feel like we work non-stop?

On top of the normal work week there are always things going on at the church. We have weekend retreats, summer camps, mission trips, service projects, community events, and other random things throughout the whole year. While Fridays and Saturdays would ideally be days off there always seems to be something to attend on a Friday night and/or on Saturdays. Take a camp for example: Youth ministers work a full Sunday, then they are on the job for 24 hours a day until the next Saturday, and then they are back to it on Sunday. Once Monday rolls around they don’t get that Friday and Saturday (which we supposed to be days off) back… unless they use vacation time (which is 10 days a year). I guess what I’m trying to say is that we tend to fall into doing stuff on Fridays and Saturdays and we never really get to rest up and re-fuel.

I can attest to being burnt out from ministry… I wish it was as beautiful and perfect as people might think from the outside looking in… I’m sure everyone wishes they could work at the church because it’s a breeze… but it is more time consuming than you might think.

After a year and a half I got completely burnt out and fell into depression… this led me to seeking out counseling to keep my sanity. So I now meet with a counselor once a week. I didn’t factor this into my work week, but I think I could because it is extremely beneficial and helps me to do my job better, and to do my job with more joy. So if you factor in the drive into Atlanta in morning traffic, the meeting, and the drive back, you could add another 3 hours to my work week.

I guess I can’t speak for all youth ministers, but hopefully this gives you a general idea of what we do during the week… It’s not all raindrops turning into lemon drops.

Give Me Leg Room and an Armrest Please

I recently took a trip up to Louisville, and the night before I left, Jason (my friend/pastor/boss) asked if he could use my truck. At first, it sounded like a great deal. He would get a truck which would give him the capability to haul the things he needed to haul, and I would get a car and cut my gas costs in half.

However, right when i got on the highway I was paranoid from the bigger vehicles tail-gatting me... I was hugging the right lane, waving people by, and fearing for my life. Then about 45 minutes into the drive I began to get really uncomfortable. I had less leg room than I was used to, I didn't have an armrest, and the driver seat just wasn't that comfortbale.

I quickly realized that I am spoiled by the comfort of my truck. I have leg room, I have a great armrest, I have a big comfortable seat, and I could care less if someone wants to tail-gate me, because I feel that I would win.

I think it is safe to say that as a culture we HATE discomfort.

I am getting ready to work through the book of James with my students this semester, and I am pumped! BUT, it is very countercultural. Right from the start he tells us to joyful embrace trials... trials are not comfortable. Our culture takes great lengths to relieve even the smallest amount of discomfort, so you can imagine how difficult it will be for us not only to stop seeking comfort, but to live our lives in such a way that we joyfuly embrace and endure the discomforts of this jacked up world, fighting to see them as a necessary means for the progression of our sanctification.

For the rest of this semester I will update the blog with point illustrations, but beware, we're going to HAVE to let James make us uncomfortable. We are basically going to demolish this fake superficial happiness that our world pursues and show how to have a deep and firmly rooted faith that brings to true joy.

Stay tuned...

If I Could Be the Coolest

Who do you look up to?

When I was a kid I wanted to be like Mike… “If I could be like Mike…”

I remember I always wanted his shoes. For years my mom would never buy me the Jordan’s, and thankfully so, but one year I got those bad boys.

I remember I was talking about those shoes to the youth one night as we were talking about how things of this earth perish. I asked them if they knew where those Jordan’s were today? Someone said, “The dump!” to which I replied, “No… a glass case.” I kept a serious face for a moment before informing them that they were right.

I really wanted to be like Michael Jordan.

I just went up to Kentucky and had the privilege of hanging out with my buddy who coaches some 7th grade guys in basketball.

We got to the gym a little early, and he was asking me if I wanted to mess with the kids and tell them that I was a former NCAA basketball player.

When the guys arrived I was shooting around, and Coach Ben told them that I went to Texas Tech, which is true, and he never told them that I played basketball, but they jumped to that conclusion.

One of the kids immediately began to talk trash and yelled out that Texas Tech got lucky in one of its recent upsets.

I walked over to him, debating whether or not to engage in some trash talk with a 7th grader. I decided to hold back all the words I wanted to say in defense of my team, and I just said, “This is luck…” Then I threw the ball behind my head towards the goal from the three point line. To everyone’s surprise the ball hit perfectly in the square on the backboard and then swished through the net. I was shocked, but I kept a straight face.

The kids went crazy, and kept asking me to do it again. I was trying not to burst out laughing, and Coach Ben looked his team straight in the eyes, and came to my defense, “You don’t do that twice…”

Kids are always looking for someone to look up to. Hopefully it is their parents, or a quality role model. I would have loved for these 7th graders to look up to me, but what would be the good in that? I do not live there, and they would never see me. They might have a short lived impression that I am cool because of my lucky shot, but the person they are looking up to is Coach Ben. You can see it in the way they follow him as their coach, and he is a great Christian man for them to look up to.

In the same way that kids have people they aspire to be like, we should have people we aspire to be like.

It is important in the Christian faith that we have someone tangible to look to and model our lives after. Paul set this example to the churches he invested in, and we should strive to live our lives in such a way that we could say the same. Ultimately our goal is to be like Christ, so the hope is that the things we display, that we desire other people to model, are the qualities of Christ that are shining through in us.

Who are you aspiring to be like? And I am not talking about the Sunday school answer, “Jesus?” I am talking about someone that you can tangibly see living life, and model after them.

Another nugget to chew on is who is aspiring to be like you? Think about the people who look up to you and think about the way you live your life. Whether you realize it or not, someone is looking to be like you, so what kind of example are you setting?

What a Beautiful Truth

Today I was chatting with one of my good friends from Texas Tech who also went to seminary with me. We have a ton of memories with each other, and he is a friend I can truly say I’ve lived life with.

I started off a g-chat conversation with retelling one of our favorite friendship memories… all in quotes. I would quote my line, then I’d quote his line, and this continued until the story was told. There was no elaboration to the situation, just great one liners that would only capture the moment if you had actually been in it.

Just the thought of that night brings a huge smile to my face, and pondering the play by play results in great laughter.

When he had read through my series of quotes his response was immediately, “hahahahahahahaha.”

To that I asked him, “Do you think when we get to heaven God will say, ‘What in the WORLD were you guys thinking?!’”

Then he said something amazing… “I think he’ll say, ‘You have no idea how much grace I’ve given you.’”

I literally was put back in my chair when I read that… it just hit me. I mean, I went from the sitting halfway off your chair, kind of hunched over your computer with your fingers ready to type back a response position, to the sit completely back in your chair where your heals lift up from pushing with your toes and make you recline position… thinking, “Wow! I love the gospel.”

Last night at youth I talked about our hearts and how we can actually harden them towards God. Then one of the ways to keep our hearts from being hardened was to continue to preach to ourselves.

What kind of stuff should we preach to ourselves? Well, we can start with knowing that God has given us so much grace!

“You have no idea how much grace I’ve given you…”

Think about that, and let that truth result in a greater love for God and His Word… “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…”

If You're Not First You're Last

Put a group of guys in the woods for the day and two things will happen… when it’s light outside something will be built, and when it’s dark outside something will catch fire. We love to build things and take things apart. When I was a kid I loved working on my bike, building ramps, and making forts out in the woods.

We also love to fix things, and if something is broke and needs to be fixed, with the right tools and enough knowledge we can fix it.

I think this is the way we view prayer. The world is broke and needs to be fixed, so we view prayer as a tool and a means of fixing it.

We have to get out of this mindset! Prayer is not a tool that works, but it is part of a relationship with the almighty creator of the universe.

Christianity affirms that God is all powerful and all knowing, and when people begin to think through this they eventually ask the question, “Well, if God already knows and is going to do what he is going to do then why pray?” This is a legitimate question, but it is routed in an understanding of prayer as a tool.

God wants us to make petitions to him and ask him for things, but he wants us to do so in recognition that he is the one who provides all… he provides our meals, our clothes, and the air we breathe. He wants us to understand our dependency on him and he wants our faith to increase in him knowing that he will always provide what we truly need.

Our prayer life increases our trust in God, and our trust in God allows us to grow deeper in our relationship with him. In other words, it is not mechanical, it is relational.

A college student had a great question, and I think anyone outside of the box on Christianity would have something very similar. He asked why Christians argue so much and cause hurt and scarring with one another. Then he asked why human’s will (which he determined was the cause of arguing and fighting) overpowered their faith in God… shouldn’t faith in God keep us together and not tear us apart?

I basically wrote him a book for a response, and I’ll save you the wordiness, but it all starts with our pride. I explained how our beliefs come from a source, and those sources can be read into conservatively or liberally, and when something is left to interpretation people will have differing opinions on what it means. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone thinks theirs is right… if they didn’t they would get a new one. We argue because we think we're right.

Arguments are inevitable, but the way we come out on the back end reveals the power (or lack thereof) of our faith in God.

Faith isn’t something that you have or don’t have.

We all have faith, and it is continually increasing or decreasing. If you eat at McDonalds you have faith that the food was prepared right, because you really have no clue what happened behind those closed doors… unless you awkwardly try to peak through the little lamp warmer thing that they feed the food through. But the more you eat there the more your faith increases that your food will be prepared right.

Faith in God isn’t that simple, unlike food, we can’t see or touch God. But our faith in him is either increasing or decreasing all the time. My fear is that we visit fast food restraunts more than we truly visit with God.

When our faith is weak we find ourselves being divisive after arguments and unable to keep the body of Christ together. When our faith is strong we find ourselves reconciling after arguments and keeping our focus on the big picture of bringing God glory in all things.

So how do we increase our faith in God?

We pray… not as a tool, but as a relationship. It is the same thing as McDonalds… the more you go and don’t get food poisoned the more your faith increases in the way they prepare their food.
Well, the more you pray to God the more your faith increases that he will take care of you.

The adverse effect of this is that the less you pray the less dependent you will feel on God. Then the more independent you feel from God the more dependent you fell in yourself. Then the more you are dependent in yourself the more you fill yourself with pride. Then the more you fill yourself with pride the more you will find yourself entangled in sin.

Your pride robs God of his glory.

Why pray if god already knows? Because your lack of prayer will result in God being robbed of his glory, and that IS NOT something you want to stand before him and be held accountable for.
God has invited us into a relationship with himself, and prayer is a means to grow more intimate in that relationship.

Never stop praying.

I pray that our faith will continue to increase and that we will keep our focus on God’s glory.

Summer 2009

It’s been a while.

The summer months were crazy, and I was not able to keep up a blog. God has taught me a ton, and I wish I could capture it all in few enough words to have people actually read it, so here is my best to capture the highlights.

First, summer camp was amazing. Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters is the most amazing summer camp any youth could attend.

Second, Senior Trip to San Antonio was a blast. I am pretty sure all of them are sold on things being bigger and better in Texas… except for the beaches.

Third, I really felt convicted to help out with areas of ministry outside of my church, especially helping those in need who are in poverty right on our front porch in the Atlanta area. I had a chance to work with a kid named Justin Johnson who was a homeless teen. I bent over backwards for this kid calling shelters, employers, case workers, and anything in between. I found his sister in Waco, TX and had her trying to help him too. Then right when everything seemed to be going right, he went off and stole our children minister’s computer. In his stealing spree he took a few other people’s stuff and got himself locked up because he was already on probation.

I have never felt stabbed in the back like this before. His sister (at first) told me not to help him, other people around me told me to be careful, and this whole thing was just draining… then he goes off and steals from us. He proved everyone right, and added fuel to everyone’s arguments on why these people are hopeless.

However, in the mist of this I was given the most simple piece of wisdom and encouragement by Wayne Morgan. He said, “Jeff, you stick out your hand… sometimes you pull people up, sometimes they pull you down, sometimes you just have to let go… whatever happens, the important thing is that you stick out your hand.”

This situation has left an impression on my heart, and that simple saying will be passed on to a lot of people. Thanks Wayne.

Fourth, Guatemala was a ride. I think a lot of people would go down there and want to change their way of life, but their way of life isn’t broken… it works just fine for them. They do not even know that they are in poverty. However, many of their relationships are broken. There are a lot of fatherless homes, and there are a lot of people who have been burned by the church in the past and have hate towards Christ because of it.

We had the chance to share the good news of Jesus Christ with a lot of people down there, and about 30 people ended up responding to the call.

In Santiago we told the story of David and Goliath, and when we tried to transition to Christ most of the kids turned and started walking away... But one kid stood tall and proud and said, “In the name of Jesus there is power!” This kid was probably in 2nd grade, and his proclaiming this truth brought warmth to my soul. After the translator explained what he said I got down on one knee to be closer to his level, and I asked him to tell everyone what he just told me. I really hope and pray that he raises up as a leader for Christ in his community.

After the rest of the team left for the states, Chad Hambrick and myself stayed back to speak at a youth leadership conference. It was supposed to be in Guatemala City. It wasn’t, it was “3” to 5 hours away in the Central American Jungle where it felt like you were walking through a hot tub that had a deep end. We were supposed to ride down there in a car. We didn’t, we rode in an old school bus on the hump where the tire is. We were supposed to have our own room. We didn’t, we slept in a room fit for about 25 students, but it had about 50 kids crammed in there. This part of the trip was clouded by miscommunication, but I’m sure there was some important lesson that I forgot to learn.

Now summer has gone, and the fall semester is here. I look forward to what God has in store for me, and for First Baptist Covington. I have high hopes with the Student Ministry, and I really think we can rock this county for Christ (does that sound like cheesy youth minister talk? I think it’s wearing on me).

Stay tuned, and I’ll keep the blog more up to date for the months to come.

Busy Lives and Folded Arms

One night I was playing basketball up at the YMCA and met a guy who used to be in ministry. He actually was a youth minister before he got burned by his church, but now he is a social worker in the heart of Atlanta.

After we had finished playing we got to talking about his history with the church and his current work. He had actually spent time working with a seminary and doing guest lectures.

He told me that one time he brought a homeless friend and posted him outside of the classroom, and then divided his class into two seperate roomes. So you have two classrooms next to each other, both full of seminary students, and a homeless man sitting on the wall between the rooms.

Before he split the class he gave them instructions. They would work together on writing a sermon on the Good Samaritan. He gave each group a certain amount of time to create the sermon and told them that it should be easy because this story was so well known. After the allotted time was up, each class was to send half of their group to the other group where they would compare each other’s sermons.

This might be a little confusing, so let’s say there were 20 people to start with. 10 people went to one classroom, and 10 went to the other. Once each group finished the sermon 5 from the first room went to the second room, and 5 from the second room went to the first room.

As the time wound down each group hurried to put the final touches on their masterpiece. When the time was up they hurried to the other classroom to preach a message that would capture the historical value of the parable, but at the same time bring relevant application to this day and age.

They basically told the story from the Bible and then plugged in modern day figures to capture the weight of what was going on. You could have a Baptist preacher passing a man with a blowout in the side of the road hurrying to get to church, and then the head deacon doing the same thing, but the person who stops to help is a gay man who happens to also be the town atheist, but he is the one who shows compassion.

After each group presented their sermon they pulled the class back together in the first room and the teacher (the man I played basketball with) gave his take on the story… except instead of plugging in a pastor or head deacon passing someone with a blowout, he plugged in seminary students passing a homeless man in need to preach their sermons to one another. Wow! Can you imagine the weight of the story sinking down on the seminary students as his homeless friend stepped foot in the classroom?

Where is our heart for the needy? Where is our heart for the homeless, the sick, the diseased, the widows, the orphans, and the lost?

Here’s where I am struggling… it is easy to put some money in a love offering for a benevolence offering, it’s easy to go down town and buy some homeless guys a meal, or even give them some spare change to keep them from following you, it’s easy to help out at a soup kitchen twice a year… but what about really investing in their lives?

I recently had a crazy encounter with a transvestite (that’s another story), but it led me to go downtown and hangout with some homeless people. I got a lot of people asking me for money, some being very honest about wanting marijuana, and others just wanting a bottle of water, then everything in between; but the crazy thing is just about all of them either initiated or asked to be hugged. This really messed my heart up… what a simple and easy thing to provide… but what a great need… a need to feel cared about.

A week after hanging with the homeless a homeless teenager showed up at the door of my church. We had just finished up our early service, I was heading to teach Sunday School, and someone pulled me aside and said that someone needed to help this guy.

The temptation was to pass him off to someone else… because, hey, I’ve got to go teach; but at the instant I was reminded of the Good Samaritan and the story of the seminary students.

I talked to him for a second and could tell he was strung out on something… which I later found out that he was strung out on something and hung over. I could tell that people were uncomfortable around him… and to be honest, he was very uncomfortable to be around. He was making a lot of fidgety movements, and he kept opening his eyes extremely wide and moving his neck out like a turtle (hard to explain).

I decided that I didn’t care what people would think, and I took him to the college and career Sunday School class. I told him that if he hung out there they could instruct him how to get to the service afterwards, and if he came to the service that I would take him out for lunch.

We went to lunch and I found out a lot about his life story… man, so many of us have it so easy… and the whole time we were talking I had thoughts going through my head… “Should I let him crash at my house? Will he steal any of my stuff? What if he goes crazy and kills my dog? Should I get him a hotel room? Should I try to contact his mom or sister and let them know where he is? Do they honestly not care about him?”

After a good while of talking I led into the gospel. I wanted to make sure that even if he didn’t feel loved by those around him that he could have true and complete love from God. He wasn’t like most homeless guys I’ve met that know all the answers already, and tell you that they’re covered by the blood… he was clueless to the gospel and told me that he was an atheist until that morning, and now he didn’t know what to think.

We eventually parted ways, but sure enough the next morning he showed up to our church again wanting to see me. He asked if he could fix stuff around the church, but we have a protocol for that, and plus I couldn’t leave someone I didn’t really know unsupervised, and I was too busy catching up on work to babysit him. I told him that he should use the time he had to walk around town and try to find a job, but he didn’t want to walk in the heat. I felt bad, but I ended up telling him that there was nothing I could do for him at that moment, and I encouraged him one last time to go try to find a job and he ended up leaving the church visibly frustrated at us.

What do we do with this? How do we help people? Can we truly help from afar, or are we going to have to get our hands dirty and truly love these people who are hard to love? What did Christ model for us? Are we easy for God to love?

The answers seem so clear cut and easy… but it’s not easy… it’s really hard to come through when you’re face to face with the situation. I’ve said it before, but I think Solomon hit the nail on the head. The temptation is to busy ourselves with work and other things to the point where we don’t think about the needy, or we just fold our arms and act as if the task is too big to actually put a dent in what needs to be accomplished… either way, we end up doing nothing.

I don’t know how this will all unfold in my life. I wish I could say that I am selling all I have and going to live homeless and give every paycheck to helping the needy, but that seems far from my heart right now. Sure, it has this almost radical romantic appeal to it, but the reality of that coming to fruition seems so far off.

Maybe I’ll never see the guy again, or maybe he will show up again tonight or tomorrow or in a few days… but whether I see him again or not doesn’t matter because we’ll always have the poor and needy, and I will be faced with a very similar situation sooner than later, and when I do, how will I handle it?

Pray for the needy. Pray for my heart. Pray for First Baptist and how we can help. Pray for the universal church and how WE can help. Pray that we would model the life Christ modeled for us, and that we wouldn’t harden our hearts towards obedience. When you pray “Thy Kingdom come,” don’t let it be vain repetition, but search your heart and seek out ways that you can bring what you are praying for into part.

I fear the day when I stand side by side with the once lame and needy and know that I did nothing.