My friend Rob Rienow runs this great organization that helps parents. Check out their online training event!

The Visionary Family Conference – ONLINE

A unique online experience where you can experience all three of our Visionary Family Conferences right from your own home! January 23-26, 2011

Parents - get equipped to take the lead in passing faith to your kids.
Couples – discover a compelling, Bible-driven mission for your life together.
Empty-nest parents – be encouraged that it is never too late to lead your adult children to Christ.

Visionary Parenting – 3 video sessions
Visionary Marriage – 3 video sessions
Never Too Late – 4 video sessions

During the four day event, you can watch as many video sessions as you want. Download free participant guides. Live chat with Dr. Rienow about your questions.

Cost – only $15. Great for small group nights. Church subscription discounts available.

Register today at www.pajamaconference.com
Additional info at www.VisionaryFam.com

When we think about youth workers, we often think about people who love to work with students. After all, most youth workers are hired because churches think their students will like them. Now, more and more churches are starting to hire youth workers who serve as managers instead of kid people. This is an interesting phenomenon. It illustrates the importance of the adult volunteer in youth ministry. If a youth ministry’s capacity to reach students is measured by its number of adult volunteers, then this trend will continue.
 
When youth workers who are great kid people try to become managers, they often struggle. It is difficult for them to transition from being kid-oriented to being adult-oriented. The key to managing adult volunteers is accountability. Accountability requires face-to-face confrontation. These confrontations are often friendly, but they can be difficult when hard things need to be said. If you are trying to make the transition from being a kid-oriented youth worker to a manager, it’s important for you to find a mentor who can help you. This transition can be tricky – we have to change the way we talk and the way we interact, and we have to be very tactful with our communication. Having a mentor or a leadership coach to help you through this transition is vitally important. To find a mentor or a leadership coach, look around you. There are lots of people at your church that play these kind of roles in their company or in their organization. Ask one of them to help you improve as a manager. A mentor can help you make this transition successfully and teach you quite a bit about leadership in the process.

As youth workers, we want to see our students grow as leaders. In order to grow student leaders we think we must have a student leadership team. And in reality what we really want to do is see students start to own the mission of Jesus Christ. We want to see them internalize and live out their belief that Jesus Christ is real. The problem is most of our churches think about student ministry in terms of giving them biblical knowledge. What we’re now talking about is having them flip the switch from us building into them to them reaching out to their world. The truth is the switch does need to flip, but God continues to work in our students everyday. So the ministry we do each day involves building in the students but also involves helping them lead the mission. If we don’t do both do we somehow believe that the switch is going to be flipped for them in college? We know that’s not working. Statistics tell us that by the age of 29 only 20% of our students will still be going to church. This is very delicate work, because while we are building into students we must allow them to lead the mission. We must also be careful that we don’t flip the switch too soon for some students. Some of our students are ready to take on the leadership of the mission that Jesus gave them. Some are still learning to walk in his ways. We need to be very careful about how we challenge each student; we must customize their leadership development. One size does not fit all. So let’s help students flip the switch but at the same time let’s be very careful not to flip it too soon.

My worst/best day in ministry was many years ago but I think about it often. The day sticks with me not because the things people said to me but because of what God said to me. I was working with a great group of students and parents at a growing church and for the most part I had very little conflict in the ministry. My numbers were high and my expenses were at budget, a good combination for a youth pastor. Even with the smooth sailing, God had been speaking to my heart and pushing me to leave. I couldn’t see what he saw, which was a young sr. pastor who going to make lots of mistakes. Following God’s leading I went to the church and said I was going to leave in six months and that  I would help them find a good replacement. They took my resignation happily. A few weeks after the announcement a couple of  elders and the pastors asked to have breakfast with me.  They had a problem with my leadership style; they thought I was too focused on being right and did not leave enough room for other people’s thinking. They were right, so I listened closely and accepted their insight. Then they went on to tell me how I was a good second man and would always be a second man and that was OK, I just needed to accept the fact that I was a #2 man and stop trying to to be a leader. I was shaken for all my life people had told me I was a leader. I enjoyed leadership and had made it the center of my youth ministry. Now the people I looked up to were telling me just the opposite. I remember standing outside the restaurant and asking God, is this right? He responded with, “no why did you think I led you to leave?”

I know many of you in ministry are facing tough days. You have questioned why you’re in ministry and why you’re in the place God has you. All I know is what I have learned from walking with God. He is there and he has got your back. You may not know how he is going to come through but I know he is with you.