If I were a "great leader" I would...

If I were a great leader I would...

1. Start the day off with prayer and study of Gods word. 

2. Spend at least one hour per day studying in order to master my craft. 

3. Workout for one hour per day - 30 cardio and 30 free weights 

4. Have a hobby.

5. Eat healthy. 

6. Put my families needs before my own. 

7. Be less stressed at my home. 

8. Turn my phone completely off by 7pm every night. 

9. Keep a good calendar. 

10. Show up on time for all meetings.

11. Only do what I’m good at and delegate the rest. 

12. Say "yes" less and "no" more often. 

13. Seek to listen, not to be heard. 

14. Not speak about how things are, but how they should be. 

I think I need to make a few changes. How about you?

Three things teenagers have to see in you before they trust you.

1 - Authenticity.

Are you real or putting on a show? Teenagers hate to be lied too.  If your private life does not line up with your public persona, you are lying to them. Eventually the truth will come out and they will not trust you. Teenagers have plenty of people in their life that consistently say one then and do another. Don't be one of them!  If you are who you say you are. If you keep your word. Teenagers will love you. 

Teenagers just want you to be yourself. If you are a 34 year old Dad who likes country music, then don't act like a hipster around them. If you are really into sports, then be into sports. If you love reading then talk about the books you read. 

Teenagers are trying to discover who they are. Because of this, anyone who knows who they are and is comfortable in their own skin is very magnetic to a teenager. Just be yourself and they will love you! 

2 - Expertise.

Teenagers are looking for someone who has been down the road a little further than they have. Someone who really knows the Bible and can unpack in a way that is interesting. Someone who totally understands money and isn't afraid to share the secrets they have learned. Someone who has mastered the art of writing, teaching, photography, media and graphic design is someone that a teenager will be want to be around. 

3 - Love. 

Teenagers spell love T-I-M-E. When you take the time to get into a teenagers world, they will begin to get into yours. 

CLICK HERE -  to check out my ebook titled "12 things every Youth Pastor needs to know".

Learning to pace myself. Taking small steps toward big things.

I want us to reach a lot of teenagers for Jesus. I want us to have a strong presence in local schools. I want to build up teams that train teenagers to become leaders in the local church. 

I want what I want and I want it now! However, I know that it is the small methodical steps that will move us toward our goals, not large leaps. Because of this we are walking our way through a series of questions that will get us to where we need to be. 

Where do we want to be in the fall?

We have a very detailed picture of what our youth ministry looks like as far as team members, ministry departments, school outreaches, small groups and facilities by October of this year. 

What do we need to do in order to get there?

It doesn't do anyone any good to have an idea of where we want to go but not map out exactly how to get there. So we have come up with a six step journey to our fall destination. 

Step One - Capture a Clear Vision

Step Two - Give the students ownership. 

Step Three - Create Momentum

Step Four - Raise up a team of leaders. 

Step Five - Have strong summer gatherings. 

Step Six - Keep walking out step two through five. 

The last ten weeks we have been walking through the game plan.

Last night was a strong step in the right direction. We had very strong attendance, new volunteers meeting, kids responded amazingly well to the message on authority and everyone had a blast during our activity time. 

Next week we will take a few more steps.

We will continue our "Look at life a whole new way" teaching series.  We will get our new team members officially plugged into their host, registration, cafe, production, and activities teams. We will open our mini Cafe, as well as launch our new game room area with Fooseball, Air Hockey, 14' Video Game Screen, and board games for students to hang out and enjoy. 

We are not where we want to be. But at this pace, we will be right where we need to be when school starts back up in the fall. I'm learning to pace myself and so should you. 

Here are a few questions for you and your team.

Where do you want to be in the fall? 

What is your game plan to get there?

What do you need to start doing that you are not?

What do you need to stop doing that is keeping you from moving forward?

Who do you need to add to your team?

What is your game plan to add them?

To continue to grow as a leader and ministry be sure to check out GROWTH VIDEOS and YOUTH MINISTRY UNIVERSITY

HELP! I CAN'T DO THIS ON MY OWN. Four questions I ask myself in order to build a team.

Nine weeks ago when I jumped back into the role of Youth Pastor here at TheCHURCH at Visalia we only had a few volunteers serving in the Youth Ministry. If I was going to Pastor a growing church and lead the student ministry to where it needed to go, I was going to need more help. A lot more. 

So we started to ask questions and walk through a step by step process of team building. Last night we held a VIP Banquet for people that are interested in finding out how they can make an impact in the lives of the next generation. Sixteen adults filled out applications and were added to our volunteer team! 

I've found that statements like "I need more help", "I have too much to do", or "I can't do this on my own", never changes anything for the better. Statements don't cause change, questions do. 

Here are four questions I ask myself to help build a team. 

Why are we doing this ministry?

It is so important to clearly define why you are doing what you are doing. If people don't know why they are doing something ... they will quickly stop doing it. Give people a cause to role their sleeves up and rally around. 

What needs to be done each week?

What are the things that need to be done each week? At ECHO, (our student ministry) teenagers need to be greeted. We need to gather the information of all first time guest so we can follow up with them. Students need a great worship experience and message that will inspire them to change. We need to give teenagers a compelling reason to attend. Because of this, we we will have food for them to eat before service as well as activities for them to enjoy after the service. We need to follow up with those that attend. And students need to a place to draw close to each other as they draw close to God in a small group environment. 

Because these things are what need to be done; we will establish a ministry department for each of these items. We wrote up job descriptions for Host Team, Registration Team, Service Production Team, Cafe Team, Activities Team, and Community Groups. 

It is important to note that we wrote up the job descriptions before we recruited the workers. God will never give us anything that we are not ready for. So we create the ministry and then God will give us people to do the work of the ministry. 

Who do I know that I could personally invite?

I've found through the years that many high level volunteers are not primarily moved by corporate pushes to volunteer but rather personal invites. So I when I need help, I always ask myself, "Who do I know that would be great to serve in or run this ministry department". Then I set up a coffee meeting, cast the vision of "why", hand them a written job description of "what", and invite them to join the team. 

How can we inspire individuals from the church body to serve?

One of the best ways to inspire a large group of people to begin to serve in our ministry is:

1 - Inspire them with a message on serving. Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. So teach a message on the "why" of your ministry and give them the faith they need to serve. 

2 - Give them an opportunity to respond quickly. In the lobby or online have people sign up to attend a special VIP Banquet to hear about the roles they can play. 

3 - Announce and offer sign ups for at least 3 weeks after your message. This will give more people a chance to sign up, and allow potential attendees to put the date on their calendar. 

4 - Hold the VIP Banquet. Feed Them. Inspire Them. Inform Them. Give them a chance to sign up. 

We have walked this through and are currently in the process of adding 16 new volunteers to our team and ministry departments. If this will work for us, I know it will work for you. 

If you are wanting to master the art of Team Building, I would like to invite you to enroll at Youth Ministry University our twelve month online training course for Youth Pastors. The cost is only $75  for the entire year of training. Find out more by CLICKING HERE

10 things to do when your service sucked.

We make sure that everything looks great on our social media posts. The room looks full. The stage looks amazing. The people look like they are having a blast. But lets be honest. Every message isnt epic. Every gathering isn't packed. Every service isn't amazing. Sometimes the worship was flat, the message was off, people are bored, and something that sounded great in a creative meeting, just didn't work. 

You probably can't tell it by my Instagram photos, but I've had more, "that was horrible" moments in ministry than I care to remember. So after 24 years of great days, good days, and "what in the world world" just happened days. I thought I would talk about the 10 things we do when our service sucked. 

1. Remind ourself of the "win".

Every time we have a service that is subpar, we get together as a team and remind ourself of why we do services in the first place. We gather together on a weekly basis to "Bring people to Jesus and help them live like Him".  In order to do this our services need to be "remarkable" and "life altering". Our worship and message needs to be so good, powerful, or thought provoking that people will leave not only remarking to friends about what they experienced but most importantly begin to change the way they live. 

2. Be honest.

When we gather together as a team we have to trust each other enough to be completely honest about what happened. Nothing will change without an open and honest discussion about what we did that was not remarkable and life altering. 

3. Celebrate the wins. 

Some things did not work, but some things did. We don't want to focus only on the losses of the day. We want to take some time to celebrate the wins. Maybe someone came to the church that had not attended in a long time, accepted Jesus as their Savior, or starting serving behind the scenes. These are huge wins. They might not change the fact that our message was flat, but they did build momentum in some way and they deserve to be celebrated. 

4. Fix at least one thing before the next service. 

Some things that go wrong are going to take some time to get right. But most weeks can be fixed with small tweaks. We don't ever want to procrastinate, we want to be proactive. So we fix at least one thing before our next gathering. 

A few years ago we had an exceptionally bad weekend. The worship was flat. The message was subpar. The attendance was down and our offering was low. So I text my friend Perry Noble to see if he had any advice on how to bounce back from a tough weekend. The following three points are some tips that he gave me. We have applied them ever since.  

5. Realize it wasn't as bad as you thought. 

Because we are so invested in what we do, we look at it way more critically than others. Sometimes we are much tougher on ourselves than we should be. When the service is off a bit, we want to be honest about it but also realize it probably wasn't as bad as it seemed. 

6. Know that one bad service will not kill you. 

Jesus said that he will build His church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. If Hell itself will not stop the Kingdom of God, I doubt that bad song selection in one church service will stop God from redeeming the world. One bad service will not kill us. 

7. Keep your head up. 

Don't pout. Don't sulk. Don't put your head down. We are leaders. We can't lead anyone anywhere with our head down. We need to keep our head up and lead our church, lead our people, and lead our team. 

Making Jesus known to the world is the most important work taking place on planet earth. Because of that ... 

8. Don't Quit. 

Don't quit striving for excellence. Jesus deserves your best. Your people deserve your best. Don't have a "poor me" mentality and quit when times get tough. 

9. Do better next time. 

Regroup. Be honest. Fix problems. Do better next time. It's just simple. 

10. Remember it's never about us. 

It's not about our guitar solo. It's not about our funny story. It's not about our chance to shine on stage. The reason for gathering together is to bring people to Jesus and help them begin to live like Him.  When we have a bad service, we need to remember it's not and never will be been us.  

I hope this has helped. Now go do something great this week for Jesus!

If you want to get more practical advice check out Youth Ministry University and our Build Growth Curriculum.