Helene was most recently the Director of Youth Ministries at Old Bethel UMC in Indianapolis.  Everywhere she has served – suburban Connecticut, rural Southern Indiana, and the east side of Indianapolis – her heart and passion for sharing Christ’s love with youth has led to growth in ministry.  She brings a wealth of experience in how to reach out to youth in the community, a strong knowledge of the many resources available for youth ministry, and a heart for equipping others.

Please join in welcoming Helene!  You can reach her by email here, or via twitter @INUMCyouth.  She is excited to get started, so let her know how the CONNECT Team can support you and your local church ministry with youth.

“I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. “  -Philippians 1:3-5

Thank a Youth Worker Day is this Thursday, November 3.  It was started by a group of youth workers and youth work organization executives in Indiana who wanted to make a difference for the field of youth work.  Seemed a simple way to recognize all those volunteers and staff who invest in the lives of young people.  The hope was that youth workers wouldn’t have to organize their own thank a youth worker party, but would be able to own the value and impact of their work and ministry.

So as we approach this day of celebration this week, we just wanted to take a moment and thank those of you who work in ministry with youth in The UMC in Indiana.  Hear from the Conference and from the church a HUGE thank you!!! For your ministry with youth, thank you!  For the time and energy you give, thank you!  For the sacrifices you make to be in ministry and share God’s love with youth, thank you!  For answering God’s call to be in ministry with young people, thank you!  You obviously don’t do it for the money or the recognition, and some days are filled with joy and some are filled with (let’s just say not so much joy).  Ultimately you are in ministry with youth because you have faith, you know Christ’s love, and you have answered God’s call to share that amazing love with the youth and children among us.  Thank you for the blessing you are as a youth worker!

PS:  If you’re like most youth workers who don’t want the personal attention and always credit others, take a moment to pat yourself on the back, and then grab an opportunity this week to thank another youth worker who has impacted you.

Free Resources

Creation Swap – slides and photo backgrounds, some free and some pay to use

Youth Ministry Geek – not exactly free resources, but a blog with links to deals, youtube videos that can be used to teach, and a guide to everything tech for youth ministry.

Livechurch.tv Open Resources – sermon/lesson series with all support media

Wingclips – A library of movie clips indexed by topic, scripture, and movie title.  Lower resolution use is free.

Muddy River Media – A mission group dedicated to providing media content for churches.

Mayang Textures – Looking for generic backgrounds.  This site is filled with textures you can download for free.

StuffICanUse.com – Free resources – video intros, sermon samples, slides – from Southeast Christian Church youth ministries.

Pay Resources

Worship House Media – not cheap but good quality video, song tracks, backgrounds, etc.

skitguys.com – Comedy and drama sketches, often with powerful messages, for $12-$20.

BluefishTV – lots of content/illustration videos, including a whole section for youth ministry.

worshipvue.com – Variety of media, including stills and song backgrounds.

Igniter Media – same format as Worship House Media.

sermonspice.com – Large collection of sermon illustration videos, with other media for sale as well.

Church Media Net – Costs about $40.00 a year.  Lots of media shared, though it can be tough to sift through it all.

Digital Stache – Paid media and games from the tech team at Southeast Christian Church.

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Have resources you find helpful?  Add a comment and share!

As I reflect on that article, let me first recognize that the bulk of people reading this blog and using the resources are volunteers, most of whom don’t even have a budget for the ministry they offer for young people in their churches.  In many ways salary is a small part of what should be a wider conversation about the spending of local church resources and what they reflect about how we value ministry with youth.

We’re not it in for the money, and that is as it should be.  Yet my heart breaks when I hear excellent youth ministry staff share the decision to leave youth ministry, or ministry altogether, simply because they can’t support their families on the pay.  The only way this changes is to begin conversations in our local churches about youth ministry, its value and fruitfulness, and how we allocate resources.  With that in mind, here are 4 ideas for starting a conversation about youth ministry and allocated resources in your church setting.

1.  Start conversations about money when you don’t need more money.  When you can honestly say that you love the ministry God has called you to and the money doesn’t matter, you are in a great place to have an honest conversation with church leadership, with a focus on educating leadership with no hidden agenda.

2.  Share the details of salary surveys or budgets with leadership, not just generalities.  To say to a church leader that the average youth worker makes $44,000 or that the large church down the street has a budget of $30000 tells little.  Telling what youth workers make in this area of the country, what the budgets are of similar size churches in the area, or even how the youth ministry spending compares to other areas in the current local church budget will be more helpful.  Anticipate and answer questions that help deal with specifics for your church.

3.   Invite a church leader supportive of youth ministry to present with you, or a group of supporters, to help you educate other church leaders.  By engaging others in the education, you minimize the risk of people perceiving you are asking for more money personally or that the conversation is about you instead of about the ministry.

4.  Log the details of your hours in ministry for a couple of weeks or a month.  Seldom do I meet a youth ministry volunteer or staff who, if they logged all of their time in ministry in a week, from texting to Facebook to Sunday school to youth gathering times, doesn’t spend way more hours than what are asked for or paid.  This detailed account will help leadership understand the needs of the ministry and what the ministry entails.

Often our churches, with the economy today, aren’t in a position to offer more money immediately for salary or budget, even if they perceive discrepancy between the stated priority of youth ministry and the resources allocated.  But if we desire change, we are often in a position to begin the conversation to help our local churches look to the future and assess the priority of youth ministry.

1.  Pray.  Pray for school leaders.  Pray with school leaders.  Pray for church leaders.  Pray with church leaders.  While this may be obvious, prayer opens us to possibilities we may not have considered as we seek to support our schools and invite God’s Spirit into our conversations and plans.

2.  Be open to hearing no.  School administrators may feel pressure to not allow the church into the school.  It likely isn’t personal but how they understand their role.  Perhaps there are ways that you can contribute that isn’t in direct relationship with students.  Ask what you and your ministry can do for the school.  Do they need tutors?  Do they need someone to do grounds cleanup once a month?  As you serve the school you create an avenue to future relationships.

3.  Understand agendas.  Likely you and your church have an agenda of reaching people with the love of Christ.  The school has an agenda of educating young people and caring for its students and school community.  There can be overlap in those agendas, but there can also be conflict.  Understanding those agendas, and communicating clearly, is important.  If the school senses you only care about getting students to come to your church, anypartnership or openness isn’t likely to last.

A couple of years ago a youth worker here in Indianapolis was called into a school in the midst of crisis with a number of pastors from the community.  The other pastors all brought a Bible and information about their churches to share.  The youth worker brought just her Bible.  She was very clear that her agenda at that moment was ministering to youth and families in the midst of that crisis, not church growth.  While the other pastors were not invited back, she both was invited back on a regular basis and developed a working partnership because her agenda of caring for students formed a wonderful partnership with a school that wanted to care for its students.

If you are in a ministry that has a great story of partnership with local schools, we’d love to hear it.  If you’d like to talk with a youth worker who has experience, let us know and we’ll put you in contact with someone.

As you may have seen already, I have been reappointed to the conference CONNECT Team (formerly connectional ministries) as Associate Director for Leadership Development.  In this new role I’ll be working in collaboration with many teams and all local churches throughout the conference in prayerfully and strategically fostering the next generation of leadership for our local churches and the Indiana Annual Conference.  I’m excited and blessed by this new role and eagerly anticipating continued work with many of you as we seek together to identify, support, mentor, lead and equip youth, college students, and young adults in leadership both in our local churches and in our communities.

I’m also excited that as this new role has been created, Indiana conference leadership has maintained the commitment to youth and campus ministry, and we’re moving quickly to refill the position of Associate Director of Student Ministries.  This position will be responsible for resourcing and equipping youth ministry in the local church, providing connectional and training opportunities for youth workers, fostering collaboration and encouraging support for our affiliated campus ministries and institutions of higher education, and working with the Youth Ministry and Campus Discipleship Teams.  If you know anyone who may be interested in this position, please encourage her or him to apply right away, as first consideration will be given to resumes submitted this week and next.  The posting and position description are on the inumc.org website.

Our Scriptural witness contains many stories of faithful followers mentoring and encouraging young people in serving God.  I remain passionate about young people’s ministry and I’m excited to work as part of a team that seeks to continue the witness of encouraging following generations to live out their God-given call and passion.  Please pray for our efforts and let us know how we can continue to serve your irreplaceable ministry with youth in your local church and community.

Peace and blessings,

Brian

1.  Connect students to Indiana UMC-Affiliated Campus Ministries:  www.inumc.org/campusministries.

2.  Article by leader of the College Transition Initiative Derek Melleby:  www.howtomakecollegecount.com.

3.  Thoughts from Josh Griffin:  www.morethandodgeball.com.   Point 5 on creating an alumni group is interesting.  Universities are great at saying that even though you graduate and move on to another community, you are still connected to this community.  Could we, or should we, do the same?

4.  Ideas at EGAD! Ideas:  www.egadideas.com.  Blankets, pillow cases, mugs – all great gifts that can be printed with pictures and then signed by members of the youth group in addition to cards.

5.  The Fuller Youth Institute is doing extensive research in the area of post-youth group transition:  www.fulleryouthinstitute.org.

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What You Need to Know About Life After Youth Group from Fuller Youth Institute on Vimeo.

1.  Proverbs 24:17 says, “Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble, or else the LORD will see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from them.”  Proverbs 11:10 says, “When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices; and when the wicked perish, there is jubilation.”  Good Christian people have had a large variety of reactions to the news of the last 24 hours.  Is there a “proper” reaction?  How do you understand the Biblical witness on dealing with death, injustice, enemies, etc.?

2.  Several sources have quoted Ezekiel 18:23, “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, and not rather that they should turn from their ways and live?”  It may be worth discussing this passage in its entire context.  Read verses 21-24, which speak not just of the wicked, but also of the righteous.  How do you understand verse 23 in its context?  How do you understand it in the context of our world today?

3.  John Wesley wrote in a sermon, “The necessary fruit of the love of God is the love of our neighbour, of every soul which God hath made; not excepting our enemies, not excepting those who are now despitefully using and persecuting us; a love whereby we love every man as ourselves – as we love our own souls.”  (John Wesley from his sermon The Marks of the New Birth.) In reflecting on the fruit of love, Wesley draws on Matthew 5:44, “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”  How is love of neighbor expressed when we consider someone like Osama Bin Laden?

4.  Matthew 5:9 says “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.”  What does it mean to be a peacemaker today?

5.  Isaiah 2:4 reads “He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”  As Christians, how do we hold onto to the promise of peace and reconciliation in a broken world?

Finally, two ideas/conversation starters to leave you with:

The first a quote from IU College Student and UMC Connectional Table representative Ben Boruff:  ”If we must celebrate, let’s celebrate the possibility of peace and international justice.  Let us not celebrate the death of a man.”

The second a video shared from another friend that captures the hope of Isaiah 2:4 from an American Hasidic Jewish Reggae musician.  (The song accompanied NBC’s early ads for the 2010 Olympics):

Blessings on your conversations and prayers with youth as we seek as Christian communities to understand and respond as faithful followers of Christ.

We are in the process of planning youth ministry training opportunities for 2011-2012 now, but in that process found the opportunity to bring Duffy Robbins to Indiana for a training session.  If you haven’t heard him, he is an outstanding presenter with a broad knowledge of youth ministry.  The day-long training session will be at Carmel UMC on May 7 from 10am to 4pm.  You can see more information and register here.

As we are planning, we’d also like to know what would help you in your ministry with youth.  If you have presenters, or topics, or areas of ministry where you could use continuing education, please let us know.  You can email me here, leave a comment to this post, or visit our FB page.

1.  Upper Room Dinner:  Invite youth (and families if desired) to a dinner in the upper room, followed by worshipping with the whole community for Holy/Maundy Thursday.  This works great if you have an upper room in your church or a house within driving distance of the church.  Set tables on the floor with cushions around for seating.  Light candles for light.  Serve traditional Middle Eastern foods.  Share the Gospel story of the last supper.  Then take the group over to the Holy Thursday service to worship with the congregation.

2.  Prayer Vigil:  Many churches have prayer vigils, but often youth don’t participate.  One way to encourage them – sign up as a small group or several small groups.  Lead guided prayer activities for the hour so that youth can experience being a part of the power of a church in prayer together.  (Or encourage parents and youth to sign up to pray together as part of the experience.)

3.  Visit the Empty Tomb:  Using curtains, black cloth, and large rocks/stones, create an experience of walking into an empty tomb.  Invite someone to dress in white on Easter morning and for those who visit the tomb, to offer the words as they exit, “He is not here.  He is risen.”  This can be part of the Easter Sunrise service or an opportunity offered by youth to the congregation on Easter morning.

4.  Brian Kirk and Jacob Thorne have a host of Lenten and Holy Week thoughts and resources available at www.rethinkingyouthministry.com.  Visit the blog and search ‘Holy Week’ or ‘Lent’ to find their posts.

5.  Stephanie Caro also has Lenten and Holy Week thoughts for small church youth ministry posted at her blog:  www.smallchurchyouthministry.com.