It has been pretty amazing. Just the love and passion that some of our youth leaders have for students is very inspiring to say the least. The cool thing about Soul in the City is that we get to do the stuff. It is a missions camp.

Schedule
Get up
Eat
Devotions
Go and serve at different locations (some are doing surf ministry, some doing skate ministry, some are painting public schools, some are running VBS's etc...) Eat lunch on site.
Return and hang out
Eat dinner
Worship Service
Various Meetings/Debriefs
Lights Out

Here are a few pics from our time together. The first is of some of our students and some of the worship band members (Mike's Chair...which has been excellent by the way).

The other is a pic of two (from a group of 24) who have been painting a poor inner city elementary school. On their own they decided to write prayers and scripture verses on the wall to remain under the paint as a symbol of their hope and prayer for all the kids who will be in those classrooms!


Pretty cool.

Labels: Summer Camp

Off to our pilot...that is...the first yamia camp ever! This should be fun. We hope to have as many as 3 regional camps next year (more on that later).

I am hoping to post pics etc while there this week.

Labels: Summer Camp

The guy who runs the "stuff Christians like" blog is hysterical. Here is his latest post on the prayer circle in which people lay hands on you. Enjoy!

The five people you meet in a "hands on" prayer circle:

1. The Tickler
This is the person that seems to have some sort of tickle radar, accidentally finding a way to place their hand in your most ticklish spot. While the minister leads a heart wrenching prayer about someone losing their beet crop to the winter storms, you try not to burst out laughing and wet your pants from the tickler's hand.

2. The Kung Fu Gripper
Are we in a fight dude? Seriously, do you need to clench your hand on the nerve in my shoulder that Spock used on Star Trek to knock folks out? I get it, you're strong. You bought those little spinny push up devices they sell on television and you're taking creatine now and working on your gluts. Awesome, but you are destroying my neck right now. We're going to street fight when this prayer is over, aren't we?

3. The Lingerer
I mentioned this guy briefly in my holding hands post. And the same things are true in this case as well. This is the guy that continues to keep his hand on you long after the prayer has officially ended. We're done. They're clearing the chairs. I just want to go home but for some reason, my egress is blocked by this guy's hand. I've said it before and I will say it again. Think of letting go as a race. I want us to win. I want you and me to set a new land speed record in letting go. Come on, we can do it. Eye of the tiger. Eye of the freakin' tiger.

4. Sir Sweaty McSweaterton
Did you run here? Did you carry your car on your back like some sort of world's strongest man competition? Are you wearing wool underwear in Georgia in July? These are honestly the only reasons I can think for how sweaty you are. I'm sweaty too, don't get me wrong, but I feel like the ocean itself has its hand on my back right now. You are salty and wet and this prayer feels really long right now.

5. The Awkwarder
I'm not sure if you know this, I mean it might look different from where you are sitting, but that's my inner thigh you have your hand on. I'm just saying. I hate that two people beat you to the "prayer money spots," my shoulders, but just because all my good prayer spots were taken doesn't mean you need to put your hand in my armpit. Put your hand on my head, but wait, don't intertwine your fingers in my hair. We've talked about that. For like half an hour. That's not cool.

Labels: humor

Just got back from a week long camp in north Georgia. It was pretty good. But there was this incessant amount of hugging. Leaders hugging and crying with leaders, students hugging and crying with leaders, students hugging and crying with students. Well, you get the picture.

Maybe that is a normal camp experience?

Back home for this week and then off to another camp on Sunday. I am pretty excited about this next camp. It is our very first AMiA camp. It will be small but I think it will be good. The most exciting part is we get an opportunity to infuse the DNA of the Anglican Mission into students and leaders. We will have speakers in the evening, great video, a great worship band, morning prayer and a 24 hour prayer room.

The best part, though, is the fact that we all (speakers, band, leaders and students together) all get to go out during the day and DO the ministry. Some will go work with surfers...some with skaters...some with children....some may even build homes with a local Muslim youth group.

This should be fun. Please pray for everything as you feel led.

Labels: Summer Camp

Here it is...the final installment. I hope this has been of some assistance to you. If not, copy and paste them and pass them on to someone or file them away and use them in the future. They will help you (even if you only use a few of them). To be blunt, I wish I knew these questions years ago:)

General Questions
1) How are raises determined? (inflation based, performance based, needs based? Will the church help if I have another child?)
2) What are the churches measurements of spiritual growth? (How do you measure my success)
3) How often are job reviews done? Who reviews the youth worker? What is done with the results?
4) Who do I report to? Will I spend time with them regularly? (Am I going at it alone or do I have support)
5) If someone where to ask a year from now about me and I was exceeding expectations, what would they say? What if I was barely surviving?
6) What is the process for determining and approving what the youth pastor does? (i.e. who calls the shots...is there micromanaging?)
7) What other expectations are there besides the youth ministry? (Am I to do all this plus other stuff? What other stuff?)
8) What happens when the church is behind in budget?
9) Has any staff had a paycheck withheld because of budget/money issues?

Labels: Jobs

I am gonna try and finish up the last 2 installments of this today as I head out of town for camp this week.

What Does the Youth Ministry Value (Style of Ministry and Strategy, Also Expectations)
1) How important is environment?
2) How important is staff and development?
3) Is the staff experienced or will they need training?
4) What is the youth ministry budget? (get an itemized print out of this...remember, time/talent/treasure...where a church puts their best and most on those things will show you what they value)

Labels: Jobs

Got this little gem from the guys at Purpose Driven. I simply copied this from the blog "morethandodgeball"

Enjoy.

I get a lot of questions about software I use regularly in youth ministry, so thought I would throw together a quick post about some things I love that maybe you could benefit from as well:

Handbrake - You can rip a DVD super easily with this little program. Works on a PC or Mac, simply put in a non-encrypted DVD and press a button to have it quickly output a Quicktime file. Free.

Vixy - This is how you rip YouTube videos and get them in a file on your computer. The software is web-based, so just copy/paste the YouTube URL into their website and press a button. Like magic, the video is pulled from YouTube and on your computer. Free.

RocketDock - The slickest make-your-PC-look-like-a-Mac little application. Free.

Firefox - I think it’s the best web browser in the world. Super slick navigation, live bookmarks and tabbed browsing. I started using this 3 years ago, and cringe when I have to use Internet Explorer. Free.

Labels: Technology

by Asbury Seminary Prof and world NT scholar Ben Witherington. It is a good read and is helpful in bringing into focus some elements of the anti institutional movement in the church we are experiencing. His review is a bit scathing but there is certainly some real good stuff in it.

The reveiw (which is lengthy but worth it) is found here: http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2008/06/pagan-christianty-by-george-barna-and.html

Labels: Book Review, sacraments

Facebook | Photos of You

I printed this out on a 10 x 13 glossy. Framed and wrapped it with the sig "Keeping the Chris in Christmas" and gave it as a white elephant Christmas gift. Needless to say, it was the hit of the party as everyone was laughing hysterically.

Labels: Family

(Random thoughts from my experiences and observations)

Tend to be...

1) Entrepreneurial
2) Creative (individually...this is why youth ministries can be good and look so dang different from another good youth ministry. Collectively...a good youth worker who has a team will have a "culture of risk", meaning that they realize that 8 out of every 10 things they try may fail but they go for it anyway. When something fails they get back up, analyze, recalibrate, and try again!)
3) Disciplined in their devotional lives (This is HUGE in separating those who last and those who burn out)
4) Have a say in the vision of the church (meaning...they have a sr pastor who values their opinion...a church that uses more of a team approach to vision and values)
5) Knows they are called to work with youth
6) Can be any age (in fact, they tend to be over 25)

(pic from vibewire.net)

Labels: Church Planting, Leadership

1) If the youth ministry is successful in three years, what would that look like? (here you get their expectations, their vision and their values)
2) If the youth ministry is unsuccessful in three years, what would that look like?
3) Are you hiring someone to work with each individual teen or someone who oversees a team that relates to individuals?
4) What do you expect the big church involvement of the youth to be?

FAMILY BASED?

5) What does the church do with regards to families?
6) How do you help encourage families?
7) What do you see the role of parents in the life of teens to be?
8) How does this relate to a youth pastor and to the youth ministry? (all the questions here are to get at one thing...the role of the family in relation to that of the youth pastor. Does the church see the parents as your resource or do they see the youth pastor as the parents resource?)

Labels: Jobs