It is a weird tension that Youth Specialties, Simply Youth Ministry and other youth ministry companies operate in. They provide resources and services to churches and ministries which advance the Kingdom and they have to make a profit in order to keep serving them.

Often during their gatherings, church erupts and God whispers to his servants and reminds them to keep going and to continue in their calling to students.

I talked with Adam today about a few ideas and I plan talk about this concept with my friends at Simply Youth Ministry for their conference, too.

Please answer these questions via a comment or you can email me your answers.

1. Do you think we should be praying for these events?

2. Would you be willing to pray for specific people who are a part of these gatherings? (speakers, bands, volunteers, staff, etc.)

Youth workers should have this approach when carrying out the biblical mandate of equipping the believers for ministry.

I believe in large group training sessions because there are general truths, knowledge and skills every youth worker needs. I’m even starting to think about creating a very affordable and customizable training event that will be offered in towns where no youth ministry training event is ever held. However, that sort of training is informational but not very relational.

One of the joys of being in a local church is youth workers get to invest in other believers and equip them for ministry. This context allows for a more relational coaching model, which is better.

What if you met with each of your volunteers (or other volunteers if you are the point person but also a volunteer) and asked them this question:

What would help you the most to improve your service to students?

Each answer is as unique as each individual and we should do our best to meet those needs in order to have a stronger and better youth worker on our team. One of the core values for me in my role with the National Network of Youth Ministries is “A stronger youth worker results in a stronger youth ministry.”

So if that is one of your core values or you would like that be be one of your core values, ask that question to your volunteers.

Once again, I’m a volunteer youth worker in a local church. My role is to coach some of the small group leaders. I sent them that question this morning and I concluded with “So give it some thought, reply with your answer and you will help me, help you.”

I will talk with them this week and I’ll meet in person, at some point this month, with each of them and finding the solution to their biggest need will be part of our agenda. I hope you take the time and do the same thing with your volunteers.

Mike Leach is brilliant – A lot was said by the commentators last night and throughout this week about Mike Leach.? He graduated with his law degree from Pepperdine, has a Masters in Sports ScienceCoaching.? He was only one of four coaches who didn’t play division 1 football. Among the comments you may have heard is that Leach is almost an unparalleled coach when it comes to the “X’s and O’s”.? They talked how he didn’t just change the culture of Texas Tech but also the offensive approach within the Big 12 itself.

Mike Leach is a leader – There is no doubt that Leach leads his team to operate as a unit, to know their goal, trains them to reach their goal and succeed.? His detractors may not like how he leads but he is a strong leader.

Mike Leach has a loyal following – Fans love Leach for a variety of reasons.? He’s had a winning season every year he was at Tech, he is a straight talker, he caused an entire Pirate mentality to infect Tech, he’s quirky if you like him or eccentric if you’re trying to be nice. And who can forget the memorable quotes like “Their fat little girlfriends“?

Mike Leach doesn’t play well with others – He’s a genius but from all accounts and from this last event, it is evident that Leach doesn’t play well with others.

Maybe I’m the crazy one but as I saw more and more of this story unfold? I began to see too many parallels between Mike Leach and how some pastors behave.

Pastors are often smart – It’s not a biblical requirement but with our cultural norms of seminary, especially within the evangelical stream, it’s a pretty good bet that your pastor would score above average on many tests.? Even for those of us that school didn’t come easy, we work in a world that involves hermeneutics, cultural analysis, epistemology, and crafting stories and illustrations to teach principles so people can better understand God’s agenda for their lives. Working in this world can breed arrogance, even if it’s an arrogance in our own small world.

Pastors are leaders – Whether you are the “lead pastor” or on church staff, leadership is part of your role.? Leaders can think too highly of themselves and especially leaders who are isolated and not connected with peers.? If you don’t have someone in your life who serves as your “kick you in the shin” friend, you are more likely to slip into arrogance and think more highly of yourself then you should.? I’m that friend for Adam and he’s that friend for me. I’m blessed, I guess, to have many of those friends but you need to have at least one.

Pastors have loyal followers – Even crazy pastors have loyal followers.? Over time, by being faithful and loving the flock that God has given you, people love you, believe in you and follow you.? Some will even follow you blindly, and that’s not healthy but also may not be your fault.? The danger of having a loyal following is they can think more highly of you than they they should.

Some pastors don’t play well with others – Whether they are domineering, manipulative,? micro-managers, or just think they are always right, some pastors don’t have the best grasp of community and what biblical plurality in leadership looks like.? They see themselves as God’s anointed and they shouldn’t be questioned. Once a counselor? told me in his fifteen years of counseling pastors there wasn’t one them that didn’t deal with being narcissistic or anti-social at some level.? That is anecdotal so take it for what it’s worth.? Here are some better thoughts regarding the potential connection of pastoral ministry and some personality disorders.

I hope that you are known for having all of Mike Leach’s positive attributes and you are able to see the dangers of having those same attributes.

Youth Specialties has a history of loving on and really “getting” youth workers, youth ministry and students unlike almost any other group.? Some fear or have feared that with all the changes happening with Youth Specialties that might be lost in the shuffle.? That is not going to happen because YS and their staff still loves youth workers and they, along with the volunteers who are here, serve youth workers in radical ways.? They do it, not just so they buy their gear or supplies but, because they want more and more students to radically fall in love with Jesus and strive to change the world for God’s glory.

This gathering of thousands of youth workers includes all tribes, denominations, races and theologies. It’s a wonderful example of? Jesus’ prayer in John 17:20-26:

?²⁰“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, ²¹that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²²I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: ²³I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. ²⁴“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. ²⁵“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. ²⁶I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

What I love most about the NYWC is not the speakers, not the bands, not the worship music, not the skit guys, or any of the commone “draws”.? What I love most about the NYWC is making connections with people.? Hearing stories of how God has worked in their life, how God has sustained them through this wild, crazy and off-center calling that we’ve labled youth ministry!

God is at work in each of the lives who are gathered here this weekend and my prayer is that they will be aware of his presence, his love and his comfort no matter what they? are going through.? Please join me in that prayer because stronger youth workers result in stronger youth ministries in our local churches.

The response has been positive by the twenty or so people who left comments on my facebook markOvation note.? But after a friend called me a couple of days ago, I thought it’d be best that there is no room for misconstruing what my desire was in the markOvation idea. The friend is well respected in youth ministry land and he knows my heart so I listened to his wisdom and agreed it’d probably be best to write some quick follow up thoughts.

I hope if you are heading to the NYWC in Cincy this weekend, like Adam is, you are seeking first what God has to show you and not gearing up to vent and take on “the man“.

I understand if you are frustrated or angry because you don’t understand why it happened.? Let’s face it, odds are you will never know the full story and frankly, it doesn’t do our profession any service when a youth worker rages against any form authority and comes across as being immature.

If you are over your anger or frustration maybe you shouldn’t even add the “O” to your name.

If you want to add the “O” to your name to show people your support for Marko, wonderful but be prepared to give a positive answer if anyone should notice the sharpie “O” after your name.? I doubt if this post is read or has been read by more than 40 people so as Ricky Ricardo would say, “You’ll have some splaining to do.”

Since I shared my thoughts some wise voices have shared their thoughts about Zondervan, Marko and the future of YS.? I’d encourage you to read all of them and thanks for reading mine.

Tic Long – The World of YS

Wayne Rice – Youth Specialties in Transition

Walt Mueler and Doug Fields – Dear Youthworker . .? About YS . . . And Thanks Doug!

Unlike most, I heard the news when Adam eventualy won our game of phone tag.?I had been out all day and had not seen a computer or read any texts mentioning Marko no longer being at YS.?Adam?and I?talked about a variety of things?besides the big news?but rest assured, I have no insider information or “scoop” of any details beyond what anyone else knows. Even if there was any scoop, and there’s not, Adam keeps confidences, secrets and confessions better than a trustworthy Catholic priest, so he wouldn’t have told me anything anyway.

I’ve talked with a few friends and?here are the responses?I heard: shock, hurt, anger, feeling betrayed and a fear of YS officially losing it’s soul with Marko’s departure.

I”m sure there are more blog posts about this out there but here are the ones I found:

Grant wrote The McDonaldization of YS?

Dan wrote The Firing of YSMarko

Tony wrote On the Firing of a Friend

It’s pretty wierd reading Marko’s post about Zondervan buying Youth Specialties ?in light of his being fired, I said it, it’s okay. I hope that vision of what the partnership could be will eventually happen. I’m glad he’ll be sharing his thoughts again, I propose YSMarko now stands for You’re Special Marko.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Marko:

Thank you for caring for youth workers so deeply.

Thank you for honoring Mike’s memory & passion in your own way. I have no doubt ,he’d be proud of how you’ve grown and led YS.

Thank you for putting to words what many of us felt and could only partially describe in Youth Ministry 3.0.

Thanks for having presenters at NYWC that stretched people and forced them to consider another perspective.

Thank you for believing in the manuscript proposal you read to tell me, “I like it, here’s the next step?if it’s going to be published.”

Thank you for being the occasional idiot.

Thank you for knowing you’re a dufus and letting me hang out with the other idiots who are your friends and who became my friends.

Thank you for providing some of my greatest moments of fellowship and community with kindred spirits by letting us hang out in your suite and didn’t mind when we’d stay till 2am or later when you had responsibilities early the next morning.

I? know Marko will be okay, survive and probably one day look back at this as a blessing (that could take a while).

I hope that Zondervan realizes it didn’t just fire a position in a company, it gutted a big part of the reason many youth workers connect with and love Youth Specialties.?? Healing can occur but I know it will take time to rebuild the trust that I’m sensing has been lost in a good number of their “customers”.

YS won’t lose it’s soul.? I have great confidence in the staff that is?to carry the mantle and passion of YS that has made it more than a company that pushes products to youth worker resource junkies.

I’m trusting in God’s soveriegnty during this time when I don’t understand why things happened and I hurt for a friend.

I am committed to praying for Marko and my friends at YS everyday until the National Youth Worker Convention in Atlanta.? You’re welcome to join me in that commitment.