I have the honor of being a convention pastor for both of the National Youth Workers Conventions and I have been thinking about how to incorporate prayer for that event before it happens.

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.)

1. Earlier this week, I shared that even with the $200 in our NNYM account and the paycheck from the Census job it seemed we would be around $1,000 short for our paycheck on the 15th.

I asked you to pray and you guys must have prayed mighty prayers because in three days we received more regular donations but also a little over $700 in unexpected donations!

I have joked with friends that it is fun to see how God provides but also it will be just fine when we have greater stability.

2. Tonja graduated today and this week she was invited to be a Teachers Assistant for the fall semester. Pray for her as she considers her options.

3. The Census assignment that I have been a part of is almost over so I interviewed for another job and I will start working at Chik-Fil-A once the census job is over. I am very grateful to have another job as we continue to raise support for the NNYM position.

4. Another thing has happened that I consider to be continued affirmation of my role with the NNYM. As you may remember, I was able to serve on the Ministry in the Valley Care Team during the Simply Youth Ministry Convention in Chicago, back in February.

Simply Youth Ministry has invited me to join a pack of other youth workers, from around the country, and to talk about their 2011 Conference. I will be traveling to their headquarters in Loveland, Colorado June 9 and 10.

Thanks for all of the prayer support you provide. I suspect we will not know until we are in heaven, the affect that you had on this ministry through your prayers.

I checked our giving for May and so far we have $200 in the account. We always receive more at the end of the month but this is a ton less than normal.Even with the second job with the Census (it is very temporary) we are around $1,000 short for the 15th.

Please pray for our financial needs to be met.

If you have been thinking about supporting this ministry, here is more information on how to be involved.

If you have not been thinking about supporting us do not worry, this is a prayer update and we value your prayer support as God provides for us.

On a bright note, Tonja is graduating this Saturday and we have tons of family joining us this week to celebrate.

I look forward to when financial needs will not be as pressing prayer requests, but for now, they are.

Thanks for your prayer support.

This series is being written as a guide for parents, pastors, and church boards to adapt and implement in their local ministry setting.

One of the foundational convictions for the National Network of Youth Ministries is having a strong and healthy youth worker increases the chances for a strong and healthy youth ministry.

So if you want your church to have a strong and healthy youth ministry, you must do your part to strengthen it and that goes beyond making a good hire. Making a good hire is at  least a seperate 7 part series in and of itself, but that is where it starts.

1.  Provide resources and time for professional skill training and personal development.

Even the sharpest youth workers needs to be regularly sharpened or else they will become dull.

If you want your youth ministry to become stagnate,  do not budget for growth and do not provide days  during the year for your youth worker to get away for training.

Each church needs to budget for training events for your youth worker (paid and volunteer youth workers) and for training resources.

Personal Training

You partner with your youth worker in their professional and spiritual growth. You  provide accountability, finances for books and time that nurtures their actions.  Each youth worker needs to better understand the art and science of ministry but they also need to read other fields so they can have a holistic approach to life and ministry.

Local Training

No Cost to Low Cost Option: If there are youth workers in your area who have been in ministry for more than five years, they can each lead a workshop, according to their passion, that can help other local youth workers (paid and volunteer). Get three of these and either bring a lunch or have participants buy lunch off site and the cost is minimum.

Low Cost Option: By working together, churches can bring in one speaker at a very reasonable cost. A few years ago, while in Connecticut, I brought in Tony Jones to lead a discussion on Post-Modern Youth Ministry.

Tony was living in Princeton, NJ  so the cost was a 2 hour train ride, plus an honorarium.  About twenty-five people paid $20 each and the cost was about covered.

If you would like to do something like this let me know.  I have a training day set up with 2 sessions that I do and the third one is customized to your area or, even better a series of workshops provided by local youth workers.

Though I do not run a youth ministry speakers bureau, I bet I can connect you with a youth ministry speaker in your area or one who has an expertise in the topic you want covered.

Regional Training

If you look around. you can find quality training in your region. Different denominations host training events and so do as regional ministries and camps. A two to four hour drive is cheaper than a flight and if you ask around you might be surprised by the options you can provide for your youth worker.

National Training

Almost all churches can afford to send their youth worker to a major convention at least every other year.

The major ones include the National Youth Worker Convention by Youth Specialties, The Simply Youth Ministry Conference, and  LifeWay’s National Youth Workers Conference.

Each sponsoring group loves and understands youth workers and sets out to equip them to better understand and minister to students.

Though these have a higher financial cost, they each provide a learning experience that can not be duplicated locally.

Very few people understand the drive and calling youth workers have to serve students and families. There is nothing like being with  one to four thousand other youth workers.  I have heard countless accounts of these national events being a time of renewed calling and recharging of personal batteries that keeps youth workers going.

Strengthening your youth worker is an investment that benefits your student ministry and your church.  You need to start somewhere and for your own sake, it should be a goal that your church will be leading the way in caring for your youth workers training and development.

Last night,  I was returning from dropping Taylor off when I had a thought of something to do. It involved going by someone’s house and since it was about nine o’clock, I wasn’t sure if I should or not.

After about twenty seconds of waiting at a red light I decided it was better to be obedient, in case it was a God thought, than dismiss it as a guilt thought or just a good thought.

Guilt thought: When you think of something you need to do but the motive is out of making restitution for something you did or did not do. Though it may be a good thing you think of doing, it is selfish because really it is about you feeling better.

Good thought: When you think of something you need to do and the motive is to be helpful and if you did it, it is a nice thing to do and would be considered kind or wise.

God thought: When you think of something you need to do and you are not sure if it was a merely a good thing that would honor God or if God planted the thought into your mind and to not do it would result in being disobedient.

So I adjusted my plans and decided to knock on a door around nine o’clock.  It was definitely a surprise visit since I did not call. I was welcomed inside and I just shared that I had been thinking about them, Tonja and I had talked about them earlier, and since I was in the area, I decided to drop by.

Soon after we started talking I shared that I thought it was possible that God had impressed me to go see them and basically give some encouragement regarding some things they were dealing with or I thought they were dealing with.

We wound up talking for about an hour and it was clear from our discussion that it had been a God Thought and I was grateful that I had been obedient.

God could have wanted me to go and the results could have been radically different but it is comforting when God encourages you in your spirit . Occasionally we get to catch an eternal moment where you  see God working instead of realizing God was at work when you look back at that moment.

The next time you have a thought that you are unsure of, I hope you discern if it is a God Thought or not and risk obedience because there is no better place to be than living on the edge of faith and life when God is holding your hand.

My boy Adam wrote 5 Things I Love about My Church about his church and I thought it was a great topic.  I encourage you to write or at least think about the 5 things you love about your church. If you can not think of 5 things you at least like about your church, why do you go there? These are subjective things, it should be easy.

We recently became members of Experience Life Church and we have attended there for about eight months.

1. Prayer is important.

It is more than one of many items on their list of values & beliefs.  I attend the Monday night prayer meeting as often as I can. When I do, it is consistently the spiritual highlight of my week.  I think we now have around 10% of our weekend  attendance coming to our prayer meetings.  When you factor in the high percentage of not yet believers who attend our church, it is a pretty amazing percentage.

2. Next Steps

They have a clear process and hopes for what it means to be part of Experience Life with their Next Steps. The two that are not listed on the website, lead a life house and coach life house leaders, is on the back of the Next Step cards they share.   Though they have 10 steps, you do not have to do them in order.  Okay, you have to know Jesus before you are baptized, but that is it.  I was volunteering and serving at the top step, coaching 8-10 youth ministry life group leaders before I was officially a a member.

I will consider this to be point 2.5. This creates a culture of what is clear and expected by everyone.  It is exciting when you hear adults and students, in regular conversation, bring up what they think their next step of following Jesus is going to be.

3. My 10 year old can serve as a greeter.

This one is very personal but it indicates what they value. As a family, we volunteered as greeters for the Christmas Eve service.  The rest of us liked it but Sarabeth loved it.  So we asked if it was possible for her to join the greeter team. There were not any special committee meetings to create an exception to the rule, it was “That’d be great, we’re so happy she’s willing to serve.”  That is gold,right there.

4. No Perfect People are Allowed

When we first started going this was said just about every week for a month.  It was music to our ears.  Often times, churches know they are supposed to embrace messy people into their church but it is just so darn inconvenient.  So to hear a church , from the stage, invite messy people to not just attend but to become part of what God is doing, is lovely and pretty Jesus-y.

5. We Radically Love Lost People

Our church wants people to experience life by experiencing Jesus, experiencing community, and experiencing service. Our church is unique in that it has grown exponentially over the last three years.  It started with 12 people in a house about three years ago and now we average about 3,000 peo0ple on a weekend. It was averaging under 2,000 when we started attending  last summer.

Here is the exciting part; around 20% or more of the attenders became believers over the last year at the church.

It is not about any church getting bigger, it is about people needing Jesus to save them and to mature and eventually reply back with, “Jesus, you have ruined my life, where else could I go?.”

Every church will not grow like that but every church can radically love and care about the lost. Churches get sidetracked when they begin to care more about making the people in the seats happy than caring about the lost sheep that Jesus would go look for.

Honorable Mentions:

They partner with other churches around the country in the Servolution (Our hope is to give 2,000 hours of service to our area), the muffin bear, Crazy Love Christmas where we served over 100 families (bonus points for it originating from a small group, not church leadership), and more.

What are 5 things you love about your church?

Childrens ministry at it’s finest.

TEst

This has been the hardest month for us since joining the NNYM. Like many of you, our current hardships involve the lack of money. God has been faithful through our supporters and now we are looking for him to be faithful in by providing a second job for me.? I would rather have a second job and keep doing this ministry rather than not do this ministry.

I hope the second job is a season rather than a lifestyle, but if it is a lifestyle, so be it. I am committed to this ministry because the needs are so huge in every aspect of my job

Here are some encouraging things that have happened this past month..

• I consoled a youth worker who was fired and helped him form a game plan for his next steps.
• I co-led three seminars at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference and served on their Ministry in the Valley care team.
• I am going to be a regular contributor to Group Magazine. I will write about networking, being better together, in their Tools section.
• I was also asked to be a convention pastor at both of the 2010 National Youth Worker Conventions by Youth Specialties.

Pray for:

1.???????? $1,500 more per monthly supporters.

2.???????? A second job that will allow me to provide for my family.

3.???????? A job for Tonja after graduation.

Therefore we do not lose heart.. . So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18