Intentionally Connecting With More Than The Kids

Sitting in the Senior Pastor's chair, I getting a new perspective on the importance of cross-generational connections. Youth workers can find it pretty easy to spend all their time and energy with the kids. After all, that's what the role is, right? Spending intentional relational time with the adults (even sr. adults) in your church or organization makes all the difference in the world. Let me look at just two if these as examples....

 Parents of teens
How important is it to spend quality connection time with the parents? I hope that this is obvious! I didn't even begin to think about this until I was about 40 years old and still a youth pastor. At this point, the parents of the kids I was working with were all my age - and my friends. After 40, the ministry with parents became easy. I started to see that connecting with, supporting, networking, and communicating with the parents is absolutely crucial to my effectiveness with kids.  It really had a multiplying effect on my effectiveness.
Parents need to trust you. As they see your heart, understand you, and your vision, they will be far more likely to support your programs and invite your influence into the lives of their kids. Parents need to see you as "on their side" as they raise their families. You are not raising their kids, nor are we responsible to! Parents need to feel that you are on their team! 
Intentionally hang out with the parents, share your heart and vision, tell them what you see in their kids, describe the spiritual direction/jouirney that you are taking their kid on, listen to their heart, understand their family dynamics, hear about the kid from the parents perspective! Have fun with them and get to know them as people and as friends. This will pay huge dividends in ministry effectiveness.
We would all agree that it really is the parents responsiblity to raise, teach, and train their own families in the ways of Christ. Work to set the family up to be successful in that. As long as I avoid parents, I am stealing it away for myself and potentially undercutting the overall fruitfulness.
Ideas? Constant/regular parents meetings for communication and prayer. Communicate clear avenues to hear complaints and suggestions. When you visit a kids home, don't just disappear downstairs with the kid - spend intentional, pre-thought-through time with the parents too. Try parent/teacher interviews just like the schools do - work together in developing kids, ask about how their kid learns and reacts, talk about the progress you see in the kid's life. Make short videos where you can share your vision and your heart or just communicate purpose and reasons... and post them for parents to access - you can do this often! 

Seniors/retirees
Churches are famous for poor communication with and little relationship between the youth groups and the older folks. This really makes no sense to me. The best way to keep these folks happy, keep them praying and supporting your ministry to to open a constant conduit of information. These folks need to hear that God is at work! They want to see life transformation, vibrancy and growth. Often their complaints or suggestions come from the simple longing for evidence of the Spirit's moving.
We know that kids are coming to Christ and lives are being transformed, we see if day to day. Then we hear complaints about the noise, the mess, the drums and get suggestions that we should be doing what they did 40 years ago - - -  I'll bet that most of those comments come from the simple fact that they don't see any evidence of God's transforming power in the church!!! They long for this! Tell them! Share it regularly! Be intentional in communicating with these folks. Get them excited that God is alive and active and that the youth ministry is expereincing God and lives are changed. Chances are, if they know that God is at work, we will get less criticism and more support - they might not like the music, but they will beam with enthusiasm because they see God's hand at work.
Relationship is this is critical. Communication in this is critical.
Ideas? Create some events where the youth and the seniors can be together and have fun. Go to their bible studies and prayer times, drop in on the quilting meeting... share the stories of successes. Put names to the faces and the prayers. Make some of them "greeters" (like walmart) at youth events and have them stay to pray.

Two examples of many needed relationships.

Get my drift? As a senior pastor, I get a different view of the congregation. I want to see people on the same page. I want to see the different generations working with and for each other.
I'm not interested in the different ministries functioning as islands in the church.
I want my youth workers to be loved, supported, and gushed on by the rest of my church. I want to see God at work in people's lives - and I want everyone in the church to hear it, recognize it, and expereince it.

Youth Workers, spend intentional thought and time in building relationships, pouring into, communicating, and exciting the rest of the church. You will see the result - you will like the result.

dave

 

Dave Brotherton now lives in Sauble Beach, Ontario and is the Lead Pastor of Sauble Christian Fellowship. Dave was a youth pastor for 20+ years, taught youth ministry at Ambrose University in Calgary for 8 years, and was the National Youth Director for the Alliance Churches in Canada since 1999. Now Dave leads a church and speaks into youth ministry from the Senior Pastor's perspective.

Plums and Pills

(This post originally appeared on The Mayward Blog)

I was recently chatting with a great ministry friend about an upcoming transition for him into a new pastoral role. He's headed to a church where my wife and I are quite familiar with the church's history, and he found it fascinating and enlightening to hear the stories of leadership transitions and cultural dynamics of the church. I remember having similar conversations with leaders of my church, learning about the history behind programs and roles and values.

The past is always present. 

I'm learning this truth both from a personal and leadership perspective. History matters. You see this in families as generational habits, health, and dysfunctions are passed down from grandparents to parents to children. Every individual person is a chronicle, a composition of events and encounters and experiences and moments in time, captured in memory.

So it is with church systems.

Every church system's history has shaped its present ethos, culture, habits, and practices. You and I recognize the impact a person's past has had on an individual, but often overlooked is the long-term impact of a organization's past, going beyond the immediately previous generation of leadership. Our connections to the past are long and deep, and institutions don't change easily. Roots can run deep, for good or ill. Organizations have personalities, too.

In his exemplary book on leadership, A Failure of Nerve, Edwin Friedman identified two types of systems present in clergy:

1. Churches that maintain the same happily content pastors/leaders for 20+ years are plums. 
2. Churches that churn out (and burn out) leaders every few years (or months) are pills.

Friedman claims that every church leader who stays around long enough in the area or denomination knows which churches are which. Plum means "a highly desireable attainment, accomplishment," something marvelous and first-class. Pill refers to something tedious or unpleasant, particularly a painful necessity.

Friedman writes: "I know of no hierarchical executive (bishop, district supervisor, executive, placement coordinator) who has ever succeeded in changing a pill into a plum." He continues: "The leadership lesson for a new clergyperson or executive is that without well-differentiated leadership, the past dysfunctions of a 'pill' congregation can make a newly arrived leader ineffective as well."

Whether serving at a plum or a pill, any new leader in an organization must grow in self-differentiation to have a deep sense of self in the midst of a swirling organizational history. Your successes and failures may have less to do with your own leadership capacity and more about the organizational history of your church system. If you're currently leading in a "pill" church, knowing where your identity begins and ends is vital to staying in long-term ministry, particularly when everything feels like an uphill battle.

Here are a few conversations you can have to grow in understanding the history of your church:

• Ask the lead pastor, elder or deacon board chairman: what have been three significant positive moments in our church from the past 10 years? Three significant negative moments?
• Ask the person who formerly had your job: what was most life-giving and most life-draining about being in this role? Describe two or three stories that capture a snapshot of your experience in the role.
• Ask volunteers in your particular arena or department: if you describe our ministry as a human being, what characteristics, traits, and values would they have? Create a personification of our ministry.
• Ask two or three local ministry leaders outside of your church: describe your perception of [your church] in three words, positive or negative.
• Ask two or three local business/school/community leaders outside of your church: describe your perception of [your church] in three words, positive or negative.

Do you know your church's history from the past 5-10 years? Are you aware of past leadership struggles and successes? Do you  the origin of prominent programs and sacred cows? What are the pills and plums in your context?

3 Key Elements for Young Adults Ministry

For the past year, my church has been taking a deep look at the way we do ministry to young adults. Helping young adults connect with the church body is an ongoing dilemma, one that doesn't have easy answers. With the onset of emerging adulthood, young adults ministry is strongly connected to youth ministry, yet has to remain distinct if we want to see emerging adults fully transition into adulthood.

The present solution I've seen for many churches is, "create a really attractive college group program." This draws in plenty of young adults from all around, who are thirsty for a place to gather and belong. Yet after many of these programs explode in numbers, they begin to dissipate as the young adults in the program get older and feel like they don't fit with all the incoming college students. Essentially, these programs only delayed the drop-off that occurs post-high school by a few years; the young adults were still connected to a program, not a community of believers as the church.

In this season of questioning and dreaming and evaluating and praying, I'm hoping that we can create a church culture--not just a college program--that allows for young adults to grow and thrive in their spiritual journey. Beyond a program or a college group gathering, I've tried to boil it down to what young adults really need. I don't have all the answers, but here's what I've got so far:

Three elements every young adult needs in a church:

1. Mentoring: Every young adult needs a sounding-board and spiritual guide. Mentors are wise and Christ-following adults who meet young adults where they're at and walk with them further towards the person of Jesus. This requires pacing-then-leading, being with and for a young adult.

2. Community: Every young adult needs a sense of belonging and connection with peers. Community is best found in smaller groups, where a young adult can connect in a deeper way with people who are striving to love, learn from, and become like Jesus. Finding community requires fostering environments of belonging for young adults, both in the church services and in small group contexts.

3. Serving: Every young adult needs to steward their gifts for kingdom purposes. Serving requires getting our hands dirty and entering into the mess of life with a team of other people; whether in the walls of a church building or out in our neighbourhoods, serving others is vital to putting faith into practice for young adults.

If every emerging adult in the church had an older mentor discipling them, was connected to a group of Jesus-following friends, and had a place to actively serve others, I'd count that as success. 

Which element resonates with you most? What would you change or add to the list?

(This post originally appeared at The Mayward Blog.)

Joel Mayward is a pastor, writer, husband, and father living in Langley, British Columbia. He’s been serving in youth ministry since 2003, and is currently the Pastor of Youth and Young Adult Ministries at North Langley Community Church. A writer for numerous youth ministry publications and author of Leading Up: Finding Influence in the Church Beyond Role and Experience, Joel writes about youth ministry, film, theology, and leadership at his blog, joelmayward.blogspot.ca.

Leading Up - Relational Equity

Photo credit: Gerhard Van der Leun, Creative Commons

Relationships matter. Everyone who works on church leadership teams recognizes this fact. We're designed for relational connections with other human beings, and everything we do as leaders is connected to the relationships we have with the people around us.

Picture all the relationships you have with the people in your organization--a business, a church, a family--and imagine them all as bank accounts. You can make all sorts of deposits or withdrawals based on the time and energy you have invested into the relationship. You can make deposits into this account through a variety of ways: quality time spent together, words of encouragement and affirmation, or acts of service and gifts. Each of these relationship accounts is both unique and interrelated; a deposit or withdrawal in one account may have an effect on another. This isn't about spending time with a person in order to get something from them, but simply a tool to evaluate one's relationships with fellow human beings.

While deposits always take a significant amount of time and patience to build an investment to a mature level, it only takes one misstep to bankrupt a relationship. A negative withdrawal is fairly obvious—any breaking of trust or intentional harm quickly causes relational rifts that require time and investment in order to regain what was lost. Deceive or manipulate someone intentionally, don't follow up on a commitment you made, or refuse to apologize for a mistake, and you're emptying your bank accounts.

Take a minute and list the specific leadership relationships you have at your church. How much relational equity have you deposited into each of these accounts? How much quality time have you spent with each particular person? Relationships are mysterious and constantly in flux, but you can make fairly accurate assessments on the depth and health of a particular relationship simply through evaluating how much you’ve personally deposited in the relational bank account.

What are some ways you've built relational equity with others in your church or organization? Share in the comments!

(This post originally appeared here.)

Joel Mayward is a pastor, writer, husband, and father living in Langley, British Columbia. He is the author of Leading Up: Finding Influence in the Church Beyond Role and Experience. Joel loves youth ministry, movies, the church, and theology, and he writes about all of it at his blog.

Leading Up - Practice What You Preach

Leading from the middle sometimes leads to frustration about what's happening within the church as a whole. I recently had a conversation with an intern at my who attends a Bible college. He was venting about a conversation that had happened in one of his ministry classes, where particular students were making some fairly strong statements about finances and wealthy people. You can't be rich and be a part of the kingdom of God! We need to give up all our material possessions and live with the poor, like Jesus!

I had similar conversations years ago with a friend, who was lambasting our suburban church for its apparent greed and idolatry because members of the congregation owned nice cars. The irony of the situation was that he was living with his wealthy parents at the time in one of the nicer neighborhoods in the city. Wealth is evil, and this church doesn't care about eternal things! So he said from the comfort of suburban living.

A leader can use all the newest Christian buzzwords, have flawless theological arguments, and preach passionately about the vision of where we should be going. But if they aren't practicing what they preach--if they aren't willing to get into the trenches of everyday life and try to live this way for awhile--then their vision is just a clanging cymbal or a resounding gong.

I know this because I do it all the time. In the final conversation I had with the senior pastor of my last church, he gave me this exhortation: "Joel, you're a great communicator and a gifted leader. Now, go be a practitioner of the ideas you preach." The words have stuck with me. I've gotta practice what I preach.

What does it take to be a practitioner? Here are four ways to get the ball rolling:

-Practice the discipline of verbal self-control. Essentially, don't speak until you have something worth saying. A leader can criticize and argue and rant and whine, but have some life experience--even if it's limited and personal--to back up the words. Hold your tongue until your vision matches your practices.

-Be willing to make a sacrificial change. It's far easier to preach about missional living or authentic community or sacrificial giving when it didn't require missions, authenticity, or sacrifice. I have to change my calendar, my environment, and my priorities to match what I'm trying to say. If I'm telling students to share the Gospel more with their neighbors and friends...well...I need to take time during my week to invite my neighbors over for coffee and dessert. If I'm proclaiming that our church needs to get out and serve the homeless community, then I've got to consider canceling that dodgeball event and choose to take students downtown to serve in a rescue mission instead.

-Critique out of love. The reason that Old Testament prophets used fiery language and called for repentance wasn't out of anger or angst. It was motivated by love, a deep affection for God and His people. Any criticism or desire for change needs to stem from a down-in-my-soul love for the person, the ministry, and the church.

-Pray fervently. Is this unsettled feeling about the church from my own dissatisfaction, or is it a holy discontent from the Lord? Am I simply spouting my own opinions, or a Spirit-led vision about where our community needs to be headed? There is a big difference between being a protestor and a prophet. Protestors tend to lead from their own agenda and try to make their own voice heard; prophets are speaking the difficult-but-gracious truth of the Lord, making sure the Spirit's voice is heard.

Evaluate your own preaching--both sermons and conversations--and your own weekly practices. Do you practice what you preach?

Why Your Church Shouldn't Be Relevant

Despite what anybody has told you, a culturally relevant church is not what your city, town, or context needs. And, just because your pastor wears skinny jeans, drinks craft beer, and preaches from his iPad, this doesn’t mean that your church is relevant. The church and its leadership might be cool, edgy and different and it’s probably even attracting hipster, home-brewing, techies. But does this really make a church relevant?

What are churches and pastors saying when they say they want to be “culturally relevant?”

If you’d allow me the liberty to break Canadian culture down into two broad categories, I would suggest:

1. The Marketplace – characterized by hard work, a drive for success, advancement, diligence, excellence, self-evaluation, and discipline.
2. Leisure & Entertainment – characterized by celebrities, PVR’s, vacations, Hockey Night in Canada, ease, consumption, and glass of Mike’s, a hammock, and Angry Birds.

By in large, when churches and leaders talk about being culturally relevant, what they are really saying is that they are trying to be “leisure and entertainment relevant.” Add to this, rarely is it well done. When pastors and leaders chase after this type of church relevance, which often happens in the name of missional, we very well may be hindering what God wants to do in our church and city. Author Hugh Halter makes the comment:

In most cases the church environments we've created fosters softness that hinders growth and involvement in God's mission.

I couldn’t agree more. The cultural values of hard work, endurance, reflection, hardship, and diligence don’t seem to be landing in our churches. This is especially problematic among our men. In particular, I believe it alienates those men who live in a hard-nosed, fast-paced work environment where anything worthwhile requires sacrifice. The temptation is to make church and Christianity easy, palatable, and without much consequence. The reality is, not many people live a world like this and when they hear this kind of Gospel, it just doesn’t make sense.

Churches shouldn’t be culturally relevant, anyhow. If we are to be relevant to anything, it would be to the person and work of Jesus as revealed in Scripture. Instead of the culturally relevant church, what I would propose is that the Church be Biblically relevant and culturally appropriate.

Missiologist Ed Stetzer writes that Christian engagement with culture means knowing what bits of culture to adopt, to adapt, and to reject. There are many parts of culture that simply are not relevant to the church. As Christians, we must think more Biblically and then work out how life and mission intersect appropriately with culture. Inevitably, this will take a church much deeper into culture. It will help the church better communicate appropriately, and now, instead of your church being discipled by culture, your church is discipling, transforming, redeeming, and loving the culture it has found itself in.

To my culturally savvy, cool, hip and urban ministry friends and partners, what do you think are the marks and traits of a Biblically relevant, culturally appropriate church?

This post was originally posted here May 23, 2011 and includes an interesting comment section worth reading and adding to. 

-Jer

How In Sync are You?

While vacationing in Las Vegas, we went to see “MUS.I.C” featuring the first winners of America’s Best Dance Crew, the Jabbawockeez.  Unsurprisingly, it was an amazing show and my entire family absolutely loved it.

Within minutes of sitting down (for the sake of the dance crew and the entire audience, I made sure I purchased tickets in the "Absolutely No Chance of Being Called on Stage" section) we were mesmerized by the “audiovisual story of inspiration brought to life through the harmonization of sound and movement.”

A couple of things really stood out to me during the show.  The first one was their trademark white masks.  They wear the expression-less masks so the audience focuses on their dance moves and not on their individual faces.  As well, you then focus on them as an entire unit as opposed to individuals.  Sounds a lot like something I wrote a few weeks ago in my blog “Get Over Yourself.”

The second thing is related to the first: the synchronicity the dancers displayed all evening.  I’m no dance expert (as 99.5% of my family and friends will attest to) but I did appreciate how tight and exact the routines were. 

Which got me thinking:  how “in sync” are you in your youth ministry?

1.  In sync with God.  This should be obvious but it certainly shouldn’t be understated.  We simply cannot give what we don’t have; thus the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.  Are we constantly working on our prayer lives and our knowledge of the faith?  The more we know God the more we will love Him.  And the more that young people will see God living in us and through us.

2.  In sync with your team.  As I alluded to above, the strongest youth ministries are those with the strongest teams and not necessarily the strongest individuals.  It takes a variety of individuals to minster to and with the many young people in the parish and it takes a multitude of people to be able to respond and relate to the many needs of youth. 

3.  In sync with your church community.  We speak constantly about the importance of involving young people in the greater live of the church community.  But often youth ministry is put into its own “silo”.  It might be because we have a “youth-focused” Mass or service where the majority of young people congregate.  It’s our job as youth ministers to make sure that youth are visible and involved in all facets of parish life and not just in youth-related activities.

Just a few things to think about.   Now excuse me as I go look for my old mix tapes.  I feel a good Running Man coming on.

Clayton Imoo is husband to Gail and father to sons Sean Isaiah and Jacob Isaac and daughter Kayla Marie.  He has served as the Director of the Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver for the past ten years, helping parishes develop their own youth and young adult ministries.  When not doing ministry, Clay enjoys spending time with his family, playing music, playing sports, playing naptime, and writing blogs on topics such as family, faith, and the Vancouver Canucks.  Learn more about him at http://www.claytonimoo.com or follow him @claytonimoo

We are Family: A Weekend of Looking Back and Looking Ahead

This past weekend was a wonderful opportunity to both look back and look ahead as I attended two amazing events (and missed a third).

On Saturday we held a 10th anniversary celebration for World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto at Good Shepherd Church in Surrey.  The event was highlighted by Mass celebrated by Archbishop Michael, a barbecue and social, and informal program featuring music, videos, prayer and testimonies.  It was a reunion of sorts, as I got to reconnect with old friends – some I hadn’t seen since 2002.  It was great to hear numerous stories of how WYD 2002 (and the Days in the Diocese preceding it) had changed so many lives and how the event served as a catalyst for the growth of youth and young adult ministry in our archdiocese.  Thus, WYD 2002 will always hold a special place in my heart, as I obtained my full-time job with the Archdiocese of Vancouver immediately after returning home from Toronto.  That means it will be my 10 year anniversary as the Director of the Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry this December.

I wasn’t able to attend the 20 year reunion of my high school, Richmond Senior Secondary, also Saturday night.  It was tough not to be there as I was looking forward to catching up with many people in person rather than on Facebook.  Not to mention that it was held a fancy Japanese restaurant downtown Vancouver.  Alas, I’ve already seen some of the pictures from the evening and everyone looks great: less some hair up top and a bit of extra poundage down below.  I would have fit right in!

Then, Sunday was our long-awaited Parish Picnic at St. Paul in Richmond.  Months of planning culminated in an amazing day under the hot sun with over 1,000 attendees and 100 plus volunteers.  There was a little something for everyone: good food, talent show, field games, pie-eating contest, cotton candy, inflatables, a basketball tourney, and my personal favourite the dunk tank.  It was a beautiful sight to see so many people involved, with the majority of the volunteers being youth, young adults, and young at heart.  Under some very strong and faithful leadership, the event was extremely successful and surely achieved its primary goal of building community and making people proud to be part of the growing parish.

I dare say that it’s more than a parish community; rather it’s a parish family. And at the head of our parish family is our pastor Monsignor Luterbach.  Although we weren’t able to convince him to take a turn in the dunk tank, he was 100% behind the entire event.  As he made his way throughout the parish grounds and observed the parish family in action, he truly was a proud Father.  His smile went from ear to ear and he even chucked a couple buckets of ice into the dunk tank immediately prior to my shift.  Thanks Father Luterbach…I love you too.

Sure…with any family, there’s bound to be disagreements.  Family members (and ministries) don’t always agree.  We sometimes stereotype based on age, background or skill set.  We fight for space in the parish centre or in the weekly bulletin.  And we may be resistant to change.

But this parish picnic in particular has me so hopeful for the future of our parish.  We welcomed visitors to our home as we showed off our best qualities.  We are hospitable.  We are compassionate.  We are talented.  And we are willing to serve.

People are already taking about next year and for good reason.  I can’t wait to see what future parish picnics will bring as we continue to attract new blood, new volunteers, and new members to our parish family.

I just hope I don’t lose my wedding ring in the dunk tank again.


Clayton Imoo is husband to Gail and father to sons Sean Isaiah and Jacob Isaac and daughter Kayla Marie.  He has served as the Director of the Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver for the past ten years, helping parishes develop their own youth and young adult ministries.  When not doing ministry, Clay enjoys spending time with his family, playing music, playing sports, playing naptime, and writing blogs on topics such as family, faith, and the Vancouver Canucks.  Learn more about him at http://www.claytonimoo.com or follow him @claytonimoo