Thursday, May 10, 2007

The End

My internship has now drawn to a close. Yesterday was my last official day as the youth ministry intern at youth group. It has been a great semester. I have learned and experienced amazing things and amazing people. I feel like I have been able to get the background and experience that I needed to understand that this is where I want to go after school. This internship was able to help me again realize and support the calling I feel that is on my life for youth ministry.

These are my final reflections:

Youth ministry is hard. All types of ministry are hard, they require physical, emotional, and spiritual energy. You have to pour yourself out to people, helping them along their own spiritual journeys and this can be taxing. It can be a thankless job.

But just as much as this job is hard, its also rewarding. Serving God and seeing him move in the lives of young people is amazing. The greatest reward this semester has been watching the kids grow in their faith. Its been developing relationships with them and helping them to see how much God loves them that has been the high light of my semester. Last night I was thinking about this being my last time there officially and I watched a couple of the kids closely thinking in terms of their growth and I was amazed. For one specific youth there has been slow growth. I have seen him move closer to God and begin leading. When I first began I was worried that there was not a passionate flame that was burning in any of the youth's hearts to be servant leaders but I was wrong. I have been able to see youth raised up to be leaders and now that passionate flame is burning and its only a matter of time before growth takes place.

I have learned a lot this semester about what it looks like to be a leader, the characteristics that a leader must have. I saw how difficult that it can be to be in a ministry positions because the whole world is watching you closely. But I have seen examples of both the youth minister and the senior minister taking their roles and setting examples of just how great ministry can be and they live their lives wholeheartedly for Christ, allowing their love for Christ to spill over into every area of their lives. Its been amazing to see. And amazing to have mentors who are so deep in their own walks with Christ. It showed me the importance of surrounding yourself with people who are going to be able to walk along with you in ministry and offer their advice and spiritual maturity on the issues that are being faced in ministry.

So, as I end this semester, I know that I want this job. I want to be a youth minister and have the opportunity to change and impact youth's lives. This internship has been challenging and confirming and I have loved every minute of it!

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Articles on the Millennial Generation

After reading the books I also read through three different articles on the millennial generation. These articles were:
The Net Generation Goes to College by Scott Carleson
Welcome to the Future: The Millennial Generation by Neil Murray
Implications of National Study of Youth and Religion Findings for Religious Leaders, Faith Communities, and Youth Workers by Christian Smith

All of these articles looked ahead to the future and what each author thought that the future could possibly bring concerning the millennial generation. These articles were fascinating. They presented a picture of what the youth look like and how we as leaders might be able to better reach them.

Scott Carleson dealt with the ways in which the millennial's learn and what is the best way that leaders can teach to effectively communicate with the students. Carleson sees a broad difference between the millennials and the previous generation, he sees that they both relate to the culture around them in very different ways. One of the comments that he made to their learning style really rang true for me, he said that "millennials don't read as much as the previous generation did. They prefer video, audio, and interactive media" (3). This is extremely important for leaders to know. As a youth minister you need to be able to know the ways in which you can best be able to reach your youth group and Carleson provides an answer for this question.

Neil Murray writes to the future employers of the millennial generation telling them of the observations that he has made of the millennials compared to generation x. He talks a lot about the amount of commitments and the schedules that are normal for a millennial to have. This is helpful in youth ministry as you try to understand planning and scheduling. This is also able to answer a lot of the questions that are raised after a youth minister notices the lack of frequency in attendence of the youth group. Murray says this about the busyness and the selfishness that encompasses the millennial's lives. He says "Their young lives are whirlwinds of activity centered on them, arranged for their benefit" (4). This can make it difficult though for a youth minister because their youth are already strung so tight with other commitments. It makes one have to face the issues of priorities.

Christian Smith wrote my favorite of the articles. This article was written for Princeton Theological Seminary after Smith had spoken at their annual youth forum. He writes about the culture that are youth are in and how that affects religion and the religious culture. He sees the central problem of the millennial youth as "teenagers benign 'whatever-ism'" (60) about life. This raises a problem with the church because finding out how to raise passionate disciples of Christ becomes hard when the youth are only whatever about life. This article clearly defined my own frustration with the youth group that I worked with because they too were only whatever about God and about life.

These articles helped me to not only understand the culture but also to be able to answer my own questions that had been raised in the internship.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Well I have finished both The Purpose Driven Youth Ministry and The Purpose and Mission of the Church. Both books were insightful in learning to understand how to both grow a youth ministry and understand the mission of a Church as a whole. Here are some more of my thoughts regarding both books....

The Purpose Driven Youth Ministry
As a whole I really liked this book. Doug Fields is definately on to something when he writes about youth ministry and the importance of its purpose and mission. I like how much weight he puts into the clarity of the youth ministry. I think that this is important today because it helps to be able to understand what the youth want and need and then remain at that same place of wanting to be able to give them all that they need. I like the emphasis on this book about there needing to be an idea or mission if you want to call it that of raising up leaders in your youth group. I think that all to often the youth ministries become about the leaders and not as much about the kids. By remaining with your goal on raising up disciples or leaders the whole purpose of the church moves from yourself to the church as a body of believers.

This idea ties in with The Purpose and Mission of the Church because it is in this book that the idea of the church and its whole purpose is defined. There are different definitions that are looked at in this book of what the Church could look like. But in the end it is basically said that the purpose of the church is to love God and then go out and serve our neighbors. I think that this can be tied into the Doug Fields The Purpose Driven Youth Ministry because to raise up leaders and disciples the first thing that they need to be taught is simply to love God. This is going to be the foundation on which to build. Just as Neighbur used this model to show how a good and healthy church could work so Doug Fields too decided that this would be a good idea. It makes sense. You raise up youth to first know and experiance the love of God. From this all else flows and you cannot have the love of God without being able to love a neighbot and vice versa. Its only from becoming a desciples and learning about the love of God and what that means to them and to us becomes the only way in which we can be disciples and also be able to love from the true love of God that we found.

Its only when we truly love God and have found that love that we can be able to love other people.

Monday, April 2, 2007

Reading: Purpose Driven Youth Ministry

I have been working my way through Doug Fields book Purpose Driven Youth Ministry. I agree with a lot of the things that Doug says in this book, such as defining your purpose and mission as a youth ministry. Knowing where you are going and what you stand for. I think that this is important in having a successful foundation and ministry.

There was one part in my reading this week about students and leadership within your students that I didn't agree with. Fields feels that it is important within his youth group to have student leaders which I feel too is important but I don't like the way in which Fields approaches it. He has students fill out a "student leader application" in which they are asked various questions about their own walk with God, what their friends and parents think of them, and they must have been using the different tools that Fields has for his student to grow closer to God (journaling, memorizing scripture, tithing, etc.). If they make it through the application stage then they must sign a commitment form for the group and the leading they are going to be doing.

I am completely for having student leaders. I think this is a very important part of any ministry, especially youth ministry. But I must say that I don't like the way that Fields approaches this. I would take more of a mentoring role instead of a application process. I feel that by mentoring the student myself as the Youth Pastor or having one of my adult leaders mentor the student and help present them with different opportunities they are going to gradually accept the position of leading.

I am afraid with a technique like Fields that more students would be scared away. I would make it a goal that I want to make all of my students leaders. Maybe not in the youth group itself but in their own lives as well. At home, at school, with their friends, with their sports, wherever they are at I would want to be able to raise up leaders.

Maybe my thoughts are not realistic but I think that by doing something like this you are leaving the doors open to more people who might be interesting in leadership.
Watching youth lead is amazing. Last week was one in which there were opportunities to watch youth lead within the group itself and within a worship service.

I guess this is something within ministry that I think is very cool to watch but harder to work at and to make successful. It seems sometimes that people just want to be led; all the time. They don't want opportunities to lead themselves. But in all actuality one person cannot always do all of the leading. They have to be able to have those around them also lead while they maintain leadership as a whole.

Sometimes it seems in youth this ability to have student leaders isn't always easy and sometimes don't seem possible. It was really neat to see students step up and take leadership last week. The youth group was leading a Lenten Service on Wednesday night in which there was a drama and worship. It was cool to of the students who I have always hoped would be able to step up and take leadership finally take that leadership. They both stepped up and did a great job in leading.

Its powerful to be able to sit back as a leader and see those who you are leading take the leadership and lead you. It made me really think about where I want to be able to shape my own ministry if I ever am able to be a youth pastor. I like the idea of focusing on raising student leaders so that they can not only establish themselves better as people but that they can also see the impact that they have on their peers.

There is something within leading itself too. I think that it is powerful for the youth leading as well. From my own experience as a college student I have grown so much by leading, learning from the mistakes and accomplishments. I can imagine this wouldn't be different for a high school student.

Within the service that the youth were leading it was neat to see the response of the congregation to their leading and to the things that they introduced within the service. There were different stations that were set up in the service to enable different kinds of worship. There was one station in which you could light a candle to represent what was holding you back from Christ and another station in which you could write on the back of a tile what you needed to lay down at the cross. After writing on the tile you would then glue it, writing side down onto the cross and leave it there, symbolising how we need to give Jesus different things in our life and leave them at the cross. The people responded well to this and you could tell that the congregation too was encouraged to see their youth participating in the leading of a worship service.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

I had always wondered where you understand as a leader the line that needs to be drawn between showing the youth the world around them and exposing them to more of the pain in the world that they needed to see.

On Wendesday we watched a movie from the international justice mission about the slave trade. Youth group wasn't supposed to be centred around this, it just kinda happened because we were talking about the movie "Amazing Grace" and its impact on the current state of the slave trade. As we continued the conversation we began to talk about slaves today and the trade that is out there.

After we watched the movie it was sad to see the moods of the kids. Their moods didn't lift, they were shown what a part of their world looked like and it obviously saddened them quite a bit. I was thankful for the compassion that I saw in their eyes but I knew that seeing this wasn't easy. I thought about it for awhile and I was worried that they had been exposed to the pain of the world to early but then I realized that this is the generation that is going to make a difference. If we don't start knowing what is happening in our worlds then we are never going to know how to fix it. Or how to make the world a better place.

So although sometimes seeing where the world is at, especially the third world countries is sad and heartbreaking I think its important. And its part of the mission of Jesus. To reach the poor and the oppressed, the downtrodden. He told us to go into the WHOLE world and preach the Gospel.

This is the mission that we must continue to hand off to the youth because it was a mission that Jesus gave for everyone. Its hard though as a leader to continually see and encourage this mission to be completed.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Reading

I have been catching up on my reading and I am currently reading through The Church and its Purpose. There are some really interesting points raised in this book, this quote stood out to me: "The purpose of the gospel is not simply that we should believe in the love of God: it is that we should love him and neighbor. Faith in God's love toward man is perfected in man's love to God and neighbor. We love in incompleteness, not as redeemed, not in attainment but in hope" pg. 33. I really like this quote because I think that it signifies something significant in the Church as well as something that is in the Gospel. We follow the Gospel in the Church as a foundational way that has been around since the time of Christ. The purpose of following this is not that we should become tied up in the matters of legalism but instead that we should love God.

That is the purpose of the Church. To love God. And when someone is loving God because of that love there is an over pour of God's love into other areas of their lives. Showing that loving other people requires that we love God.

This isn't easy though, sadly. And even sadder then that although we think that loving people should be easy in Church because that is where we love God, loving people doesn't always happen either. We are as the author of this book puts it, loving in incomplete love. We are not perfect people. But I am not sure that's an excuse. We get to caught in the Gospel and the law then loving God in Church. And because of that it causes us to love incompletely.

Friday, March 16, 2007

This week was rather slow. It snowed again so we didn't have youth group on Wednesday night because school was canceled.

Tuesday was normal staff meeting and then we did some paperwork, especially working on getting things together for the small group that I was leading. It was hard to find a time that would be able to work for all of the girls that we wanted to include in this small group. So we were trying to do as much attention drawing to this group as possible. We sent out postcards to the girls and I personally called each one of them to invite them to come.

It raised the question to me though of the business of schedules. How do you as a leader work through the many different crazy schedules of teenagers? It seems like every teenager has a list of twenty things to do with school and extracuricular activities. Which doesn't leave that much time for Church or Youth Group activities. Its a hard battle. Do you try and work with fifteen kids schedules, trying to plan something that they can all attend? Or do you set something in stone and then just see who shows up?

Personally I would opt for the second option but I am not altogether sure how this would work. I guess you would just have to take the chance that it wouldn't work for every kid. It seems like it is something though that every leader is going to deal with.

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

This week was pretty ordinary but I learned a huge lesson about leadership. I had never thought about how important it was to be able to have the leadership under you a gelled and unified force.

There was more time this week that was spent with the leaders together. After the group had met on Wednesday the leaders spent some time just hanging out and the subject was brought up about fasting together. The purpose would be just to dedicate time and energy into praying for the youth as a whole and the group itself. After talking with everyone about that I spent some time thinking about how amazing it was that a group of leaders had such a similar focus and vision. There has been a lot of work on the end of Tammie to unify the group and bring the leaders together with a similar vision and desire for the hearts of the teenagers.

I really admire the work that Tammie has done with the unifying though because I know that it was not easy to do that. Its a lot of coordination to get leaders all together at one time and then thats not even including bringing all of the youth together at the same time.

I like the way in which the group does work, one leader as a whole with a bunch of leaders underneath her. Its an amazing way of ministry.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Contemplative Youth Ministry

I finished the book by Mark Yaconelli, "Contemplative Youth Ministry". It was a good book, I liked how Mark tied in the importance of praying and reflecting on the ministry. Its even true in normal life because to often we want to rush ahead and not ponder the moment and what happened in that moment.

These are the main points of the book that I liked and want to take into my own ministry someday:
  • The importance of living life to the abundance. The message in this book was being able to create the hope and that path for the teens to walk in order to see and find that "the glory of God is shown in the man fully alive." This is probably one of the key things that I want tied into my ministry and its purpose/mission. That we are trying to reach teens to show them that there is a better way to life then what our world tells us. With Jesus they can become fully alive.
  • Having relationships with the teens and knowing them not just in youth group. In this mentoring relationship there will be "noticing, naming, and nurturing. This will help the teens be able to express words for God and then developing ways in which they can individually praise and worship God.
  • Having a supportive and encouraging ministry team that works alongside me. I want to have young adults who are going to be active and involved in the youth's lives. I want to include leading and teaching the young adults as well so that not only are they leading kids closer to God but they themselves are knowing and experiencing God on a deeper level.
  • Mark talked about different ways in which we can pray and seek the heart of God. A lot of those practices being around from even the beginning of the Church, I want these practices involved in my own ministry.

This book was great. I whole heatedly recommend it!

Monday, February 26, 2007

Life continues at a fast pace. But with that pace I have seen a lot of really cool things this week.

Wednesday was exciting because Phil spoke about true humility. I had heard his message on it before and was super excited for the kids to be able to hear it. The message seemed to be received well, I have never seen the kids so attentive. Phil spoke directly to the heart of the issue in the same way I had heard him speak before. The message was powerful too because he had known about some of the talents that the kids possessed and challenged them directly to use those passions to bring glory to God. By having it be so personal I think it drove home the importance of the message and made it relate directly to each of the kids.

The one activity stood out as being really cool too. There were note cards passed around to each person and then you wrote your name on the card then the card was passed around the room for each person to write something on it that they appreciated about you. It was a great way to encourage the kids to be leaders and to learn the art of encouraging those around them. This seems to be one more tool for the development of leaders which to me is one of the main goals of youth ministry. Encouragement is such a huge tool in the development of anything, especially leadership.

Friday night we went to the Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman, concert. Personally the concert was amazing, it was a powerful worship service. But not only was it personally powerful it was also amazing to see some of the kids come out of their own normal worship actions. Kids who normally didn't seem to care were at some points in the service passionately worshiping God. It was very cool to see.

My question lies from this service though, how do you as a leader take that excitement and the mountain high that you are on from worshiping God with so many people, and channel it to be used successfully? How do you take mountain top experiences and use them to continue to develop the leader in the youth?

Too many times in my own experience I have seen the mountain highs only being mountain highs were you are jazzed up on emotional energy. It is never channeled into something great like it could be. Its left just as it is. Thats a shame in my mind. And I cannot help but wonder how it can be handled better and how you actually channel that energy.

We have talked about starting small groups which I am excited about. I am going to lead the junior high girls, the topic is not certain yet. I am super excited about this possibility. I love the girls and the opportunity I had with them earlier in the winter with small groups.

I am continuing to love this stuff. I love the planning, the worshipping, the hanging out, the reflecting, and the praying that has to happen in this ministry.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Reading

I haven't posted a response to the reading that I have been doing in awhile. So I guess now would be a good time. I have been continuing to read through Mark Yaconelli's book "Contemplative Youth Ministry" and the last chapter was on the community surrounding the youth ministry.
Its interesting that I should be reading this chapter at this point in the week. I just had a meeting in which the importance of community and the importance of leadership was discussed and I think that it ties in with this chapter very well. There is a quote in the book that I really like (and not just because it has to do with Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
"Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote that there is no such thing as an individual Christian. If we seek to share the life of Jesus with young people, we can't do it alone. Christians believe its only as we gather together that we truly embody the Spirit of Jesus. Together we become his eyes, hands, mind, and heart" (141) This plays out to be so true. How many times do we (and I am speaking from a congregational sense) expect our leaders to do everything? We want the youth leader to do all of the youth things herself/himself because thats just their job. But then you read a quote like this and its completely the opposite. Completely. We are called to embody the Spirit of Christ as a body of believers and if thats how we embody the Spirit then we should to be able to share the love of Jesus in the same way.
Ministering to youth cannot happen it alone. It's impossible. I guess I see this as both a call for the youth minister and the congregation of a Church that together they should seek to serve their youth. The minister cannot do it alone. The congregation should see this and support and help in many ways. But in the same breath I think that there is a call on the minister as well. He or she must be able to see that they cannot do it alone. Its not just a "suck it up and deal with it" thing, they must be able to see the need for community. For sharing the responsibilities and allowing other people to help. Only in doing this can we truly call ourselves the body of Christ.

And he has called us to community. He has called us to be the body and to serve together.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Youth Retreat

What an amazing weekend.

We spent the last weekend at this retreat center near Pittsburgh. It was pretty cool, there was skiing (snow tubing as well for the ones not so brave which includes me), time for hanging out, and some pretty serious time to spend with God. It challenged me in many ways: as a leader, as a child of God, and as a person who cares deeply about the upcoming generation.

The weekend began on Friday night with the speaker's first session. He was an amazing speaker. He was from out West and a youth pastor himself. His whole message was a presentation of the Gospel because this whole retreat was geared for kids who have never been churched or heard the message of Jesus before. He presented the Gospel from the eyes of those who had experienced Jesus: two women and two men from the Bible. They were all powerful messages that spoke to the heart of who Jesus was and remains. It was interesting hearing the kids perspective on this. I was able to be the small group leader for the junior high girls which was awesome. We talked a lot about the messages given and discussed how they pertained to the lives of each of them.

The small group was really exciting. My group of girls were open to God and to the messages that were given. The most amazing thing was that at the end of each of the discussions the girls were all willing to pray together and each of them prayed. That was probably the highlight of my weekend. It made all of the nights with not much sleep worth every minute.

And I learned just how much planning goes into these weekends. Wow.

Worship

Wow. Time passes so fast. That's all I can say.

It was a good week. Very interesting in forming thoughts about the continuation of youth ministry and the goal setting. After the staff meeting on Tuesday there was able to be some time taken to really answer some questions that had been building in my mind. The questions were not all fully answered but I think I am pointed in the right direction to be able to somehow find a deeper answer to them. This is some of the stuff I am currently chewing on:
  • What does worship look like in a youth setting? How important is it for youth to have a worship element in their meeting times? Should it be weekly?
  • How does a leader encourage attendance at Sunday School and Worship services?
  • How do you provide a worship service that meets the needs of all generations? Is that possible?

I am not sure how to be able to fully answer these questions. I think back on my own personal high school experience and the things that I did as a youth involved in a youth group/youth for Christ. I think that worship is an important element in any person's life and in any ministry form. Worship is an expression of praise and adoration for Jesus. Its when we are able to offer to him our praises as an honoring of who He is and an offering of who we are. It just seems to important to me. I know that worship is not just held in a box of singing but that seems to be such an important way to connect hearts with God.

I want to continue to pursue this subject and find ways in which worship can connect to the hearts of youth and allow them to see how real it can be. As a college student, worship is such a huge thing in my own daily walk with God. Its what has allowed me to know God more, experience his presence, and be able to offer more of myself to Him.

As I seriously do some thinking and try to tie in my own experiences especially from high school I feel like this keeps on resounding back again and again. Worship has to be real. It cannot be faked or given as a show. In order for youth to be able to see this connecting with their own lives they have to be able to see how real it is to the person leading it. Even in moments where I don't feel like I am connecting to God through my own singing there have been times where I have been able to watch the worship leader (depending on the leader) and see the reflection of God through them. That alone has been a encouragement because its so real to them, and that in itself is beautiful.

So that's my post on worship. There is more to come as I continue to read and pray and try to understand the beauty and complexity of worship.

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Week Two

Its completely hard to believe that I am already two weeks into my semester and internship. This week was probably more stretching then the weeks before. I imagine it to be like this though as I continue to dive more into helping and leading.

Tuesday morning I did the normal office work. I finished getting together a postcard that is to be sent to the kids when they miss a function. It was a really cool idea, just letting the kids know that they were missed without any pressure. That's one of the hardest things to balance though I think; being able to keep the attendance coming without worrying to much about the numbers. The postcard was a good way of working on attendance without worrying too much about it.

We also did the beginnings of some planning for the upcoming months. I never understood the amount of planning that went into getting things ready for youth group.

Wednesday was my first time to lead the youth group message. Because a lot of the kids don't know me we decided that sharing my journey of faith or what some would call a testimony. I shared how I had grown up in a Christian home just like many of them. I had gone to Church, gone to youth group, did everything that a good Christian was supposed to do but it hadn't been enough for me. I talked about complacency and its threat and temptation to each of them. I shared about how I had stood on the fence and how that had affected my life. It had been a series of events that had made me climb off the fence and that was something I had told them about. I am not sure what the kids thought exactly. It was hard to read their expressions. But I know that my story had to be shared. I think that it was important for them to hear it and to understand that God can work in ordinary lives. Its not just people who have had horrible influences or people that had run completely away from God.

I was in at the Church on Friday to do a fundraising event. It was a good experience that reiterated what it means to be a servant leader. Its the leading by being a servant and doing the things with the kids that no one else wants to that makes the leader. It not only shapes the leader into a better person but also allows the kids to be able to respect the leader more. Tammie is such a good example of this. She is always serving the kids and never thinking of herself.

Contemplative Youth Ministry
I started reading this book by Mark Yaconolli at the beginning of last week. Its a good book that provides some really cool ideas for a youth group and strengthening their walks with God. One of the main points that he discusses is authenticity. This is important because he thinks that this is the one of the only ways to truly be effective. He says that there are a couple of ways that this can be achieved. Through surrender and receiving of God's love. This is important because it shows that part of ministry is about growing as a person. It also made it clear to me that as leaders in ministry its important to be able to be walking with God and doing the things that you are preaching at others to do. In order to walk with God we must do as he says and "surrender and receive".
These are all my thoughts for now.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Week one!

Well, my first week of interning has happened. It has been an exciting week, I would by lying to say that it was a little uncertain at first but I have very excited to see what the next few months are going to hold.

Wednesday night was my first time being with the youth group. It went well. Its interesting to see the interactions that the youth have and how a leader is supposed to handle that. I haven't started reading any of the assigned books yet and I kinda doubt they will be able to answer that question. But how does a leader let a youth know that they are still on their side and are still supporting them but in the same breath have the ability to be able to guide them? It seems that is one of they key parts of being a leader and I would imagine (time will tell as a I continue to interact with the group) its a lot about learning a balance. Respect and friendship have to remain a quality with guiding the youth to what is right in the same hand.

The message that was given in the evening after we had an activity was on joy. The message was giving the real definition of joy and not what society thinks. It was interesting to hear from the youth and to understand their immersion in the society and how that tied into what they thought about things in relation to God.

It took awhile for them to be able to grasp the idea that joy is not happiness. I found it helpful to be able to hear the different analogies that were given to try and show this. The roots of a tulip were talked about, being compared to joy and then the flowering part of the tulip was being compared to happiness. Layers of something were also another analogy with the core layer being joy and happiness only being a layer on top of it.

When I think about the night as a whole and the greatest things that I have begun to learn these would be the highlights.
  • A leader must learn how to both support and guide. This takes a leader being totally in tune with God so that they may be able to take on the role of a servant. Because when it comes down to it, supporting and guiding are part of the role of a servant leader.
  • When presenting a message there must be more then one way in which it can be given. There must be stories, analogies, and direct relations to what is happening in the lives of the youth, then and there.
  • Time is a huge constraint. There is a specific window of time in which the message must be presented. So when creating the message, it must be made direct and effective while remaining interesting and easy to listen too.

And so the lessons begin. And I am only excited to be able to understand what a youth pastor looks like and I know that the lessons I learn in that will only continue to show me that true leading comes from a heart totally in tune with God.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Very soon I shall start posting regularly. My internship begins next week. Until then. Peace.