Triple Your Youth Ministry In One Year Bonus

Nitty gritty time with this bonus post on this series.

No matter how we did ministry with the bells and whistles, our ministry was about 1) powerful praise and worship....the music we did was all worship music, 2) Strong teaching based on applying the Word of God to your life, 3) Having a call to salvation, and 4) Being led by God.

The rest of the stuff was the icing on the cake. We never were about icing though. But we weren't all cake either.

You can have all icing and there will only be a superficial youth ministry. You can honestly have all cake and it could be the lamest thing around. I know that is tough to swallow for some pastors. We all think that if we just go in and open up the "Word", it is and will be enough. Sound great right.

Listen people that is not the culture we live in. You can pretend it is. You can wish it was. But it's not.

I can also tell you that if you have all the "stuff", and if it isn't bathed in prayer and the Holy Spirits leading...it means nothing.

Vice-versa...I've seen some well meaning people who pray and open the "Word" and are led by God but never see any results.

Why is it???? Is it about personality??? NOPE. Is it about money??? NOPE. Truth is I don't think they are called or have "worked on" their ministry.

Work like it depends on you, and pray like it depends on God.

God will send you people when He knows you can handle the growth and when He knows they are going to be saved and discipled. Whether you have all the frill stuff is irrelevant.

Bottom line....if God ain't in it, it ain't gonna happen.

Triple Your Youth Ministry In One Year Part 7

For the last post of this "Triple Your Youth Ministry In One Year" series, I will have to admit that the topic is one that I am most passionate about and feel it is the main reason we grew.

It's About Lives Being Saved And Making Disciples

When it comes down to the money in the bank....this is it. We have always had a passion for creating an experience that reaches beyond our walls. One part of the culture or DNA we have sought to create is one that is oriented to seekers.

It is one of the reasons that I believe God has blessed us with growth. Jesus' mission as stated by him was to "seek and save that which was lost." His prime motivation was to restore mankind to a proper relationship with God.

When you take the focus that you are going to reach the lost in youth ministry, you are partnering with God to fulfill His mission. I believe you get in a divine mission alignment. That is you are aligned with God's mission thus you are operating on a higher level of impact.

How you can put this in effect:

• Call To Salvation - Every week the most important time of the night for us was at the end when we gave a call to salvation. We always gave one. We would ask for two things: 1) Those that have never had a relationship with God and 2) Those that followed God once but felt they were off track. We also called those forward to the stage to lead them through a prayer.
• Follow Up - After our call we had team leaders who would take these teens to another room and counsel them through what was going on, give them a bible and reading info to help them get started, and take down any info so we could follow up.
• Evangelistic Series - Do a whole series on this topic. We did one called Lost that went through Philippians 4:13. We took kids through the process of how people rely on their selves and end up lost to totally relying on God. Many time our series had some type of evangelistic theme.

The other aspect that you must not forget is that it is not just about getting them "saved". It is about making disciples. God didn't call us to make Christians...He called us to make disciples.

You need to determine what being a disciple means in your context. Sit down with your team and ask the question - What does a fully devoted follower of Christ mean for our ministry? Get their input. And then organize your ministry around that. If your goal is, "taking someone who is far from God and developing them into a fully devoted follower of Christ". Then that should be reflected in your process.

If you are a youth pastor what impact have you had in your ministry?

If this series has been helpful to you or you think it could be helpful in ministry for someone you know feel free to put a referral link to it on your site. Part 1 has a list of all parts to this series.

Triple Your Youth Ministry In One Year Part 6

Last week we started a series called "Triple Your Youth Ministry In One Year". There is so much in this topic. I have to say that there are many factors that can go into this. There are seven parts to this whole series.

To get caught up make sure you check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

I'm really excited about the last part of this series which will be on one of the main reasons we do ministry, we'll be getting to that after this one. But today I want to talk about an issue that I see a lot of ministries getting caught up in.

Today is about "a cool youth room will get them there but love will keep them".

There is such a trend today of having all the latest "toys" for your youth room. In fact, it is almost taught that in order to have growth in your youth ministry you have to have a game room and game time so that teens can come and have a great time.

Honestly, from my perspective, that is not true at all.

In fact I don't think you have to have a game room at all to have growth. Now I'm sure that many of you reading this would not expect to hear that, but in our first ministry all we had was just a youth room and remember we tripled our ministry in one year there.

What I do believe is that your youth room should be relatable to teens.

Basic Elements In A Youth Room

• Stage - Believe it or not some don't.
• Lights & Fog - The reality is you don't have to use a lot of money for this. We wired our youth room up with shop lights with colored bulbs and ran extensions wired to light switches. With about 16 you could run 4 colors and change the stage dynamics. Use colors for the back stage and walls and whites for lighting.
• Projector or TV's with Computer - Hooking this up adds a graphic appeal to the room.
• Sound System - Again you don't have to put a lot of money...with about $2,500 you can get a great starter system with 12 channels. You should work to eventually have sub woofers with a 24 channel board.
• Fresh Paint - Honestly, with lighting, dark colored walls work the best.
• White Spandex Geometric Shapes For Rear Stage - The white will pick up the colors of the light.
• Theme - Go back and read Part 4. If you don't do it by series, you could create a theme for the whole year. Keep it fresh.

We were very technical with all we did.

We had countdown video's with music, opening promo videos, live worship band with lighting and smoke, video announcements, series with theme decorations, and used movie clips in our messages. We even created our own 5 part reality game show called "The D Factor". We had a podcast with a weekly talk show. We went all out using everything and method possible.

Here is the twist though...

ALL OF THAT STUFF DOESN'T MATTER...IF THERE IS NO LOVE.

You can have the coolest youth room possible and if you don't love teens and that runs through the core of your team then they aren't going to stay.

Tripling you youth ministry isn't just about numbers...it isn't just about getting them in the door. It is about keeping them there and developing them into disciples of Christ.

You and your team must have a core value of loving teens and wanting to help get them to where God wants them.

Numbers without disciples means nothing. You can have a cool room but if their is no love there it means nothing and they aren't going to be staying for long.

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2008 Ideas

Got lots of ideas storming my head about this blog for 2008. I really want to take it to a whole new level.

I want to elevate this blog to what it's ultimate purpose should be.

Hopefully if you have read for any amount of time now you will know that I had a subtle shift at the end of 2007 with starting my own personal blog. There was a reason for it.

The reason was so that this blog could live up to it's potential.

With that being said here are some of my ideas:

1. I am about building community. So I want to bring a guest blogger on board for this blog. Ultimately this is my brain child but it is not just about me. It is about getting the best content to develop others. So if you would like to guest blog on a permanent basis, write a post and email it to me. You can find my email address in my profile. I'm looking for the post to be based on my theme here. The purpose of this blog is to influence and develop others to make a difference in their world. Although we have a ministry theme I don't want to be limited exactly to that but am trying to stay predominantly in that genre. I can see us branching out to helping business leaders, family leaders, etc...All through January I will be accepting posts if you want to give it a shot. I will be judging really tight...imagine Simon tough. Don't let that scare you off...let it inspire you to excellence. If for nothing...challenge yourself. Top five entries will get props with the post showing up here on the blog and the number one post getting the spot.
   
2. Although I would love for blogger to catch up...I don't see it happening that fast and might need to take this blog to another platform. My first thought is taking it to wordpress and then hosting it through it's own website. I want to create its own identity/brand and bring even more legitimacy to the blog. If you would like to partner with us by donating to make this a reality let me know and I'll give you details.
   
3. I want to bring you guys into the mix with your input. What would you want to see out of this blog? How about a podcast? Video cast? What ideas could you see?

Lay down them comments for me....please. Take the challenge.

Leadership Resource - The Potential Blog

I want to share a great resource for you. For the past few months I have been keeping an eye on the Potential Blog.

The Potential Blog comes out of Flamingo Road Church, a multi-site church located in Cooper City, southwest of Ft. Lauderdale and north of Miami, Florida. Flamingo is led by Troy Gramling.

As Troy puts it, "Potentialblog.com is committed to sharing leadership principles and insights that you can apply in your life, business and ministry. We're partnering with leaders to reach their God potential - because we're not there yet."

This blog hosts a great weekly podcast along with daily principles of leadership. It shares the experiences of some great leaders throughout the country, not only in church but in business.

Drop this one in your RSS reader and/or your iPod and start reaching your potential.

Triple Your Youth Ministry In One Year Part 5

Who really is responsible to make the youth ministry grow?

This might be surprising to you but I will say...it is your teens.

One of the reasons that we have always had growth is the fact that we have always pushed our teens to be missional. By missional I mean it is their responsibility as Christians to reach out to their generation. When you get right down to it, they are the ones that are right in the mission field with their friends on a daily basis. They are the ones that God has placed in that position of influence. They can go where no youth pastor can go.

I believe that God holds us all accountable to reach our generation. Truth is...it's a cop out for them to give any excuse as to why they are not reaching out to their friends.

I'll tell you though that as a leader I do make sure that I have my ducks in a row. I think that is my responsibility. Ultimately I would never blame them if I haven't done my part in equipping and motivating them to ministry. Personally, we have put many of the things in place in this series so that we could take away any excuses there might be.

Cast Vision
There isn't anyway around it. To get them involved it starts with painting them a picture of what could be and inspiring them to go get it.

Set Ministry Goals As A Group
Gather the core of your youth together at the beginning of this year and set some goals. Get them in on the process so they don't just feel like it is totally you pushing it. Make them feel the ownership.

Speak Their Language
Now that doesn't mean that you have to speak their slang or by just saying crap or suck you are being culturally relevant. What it does mean is that if you go around speaking Christianeze you could very well be the one that is keeping them from coming.

In my classroom I was over-hearing a conversation of three girls who were talking about a Christian lady who they thought was weird because of all the Christian talk. These were unchurched kids who were turned off to church by the weirdness of how some Christians talk.

Just be real and be relatable

Hold Them Accountable
It is imperative that you are holding them accountable. And that does go back again to casting vision. It is about holding them accountable to what God's Word does say on the matter. You have to plan time in your teaching to get this point across and not just once. You need to find ways to slip this in often. You could even plan a whole series around it.

How do you inspire the teens in your church?

Spread The Love

Before you start thinking that this is only a youth ministry blog...let me assure you that the purpose of Making Difference Makers is about developing and influencing others to make a difference in their world.

Since I am a pastor this may lean more to the church ministry side. This series, Triple Your Youth Ministry really is about leaving something behind for all the youth pastors out there.

I know there are many youth pastors out there that have a dream about making some maximum kingdom impact. If you have a youth ministry blog or are a pastor...please feel free to give this series a link in your blog.

Here is the link for the whole series:
http://jaycurlee.blogspot.com/2007/12/triple-your-youth-ministry-in-one-year.html

Whether you feel it is for you or not it may help someone out there reach this next generation.

Spread the link love.

Much thanks to Terrace for spreading the word already. If you are a youth pastor out there...make sure to check out his blog.

Triple Your Youth Ministry In One Year Part 4

If we are going to talk about tripling your youth ministry then we have to talk about momentum.

Momentum is something that is continually built upon with each smaller success. To be honest this has to be set in motion before the year ever starts.

I like to think of momentum almost like a train taking off. Did you know you can stop a train from starting with only a wooden block? Because of the sheer weight involved, a train starts slowly and uses a tremendous about of energy to get going. But once it's momentum is going it takes less energy to keep it going.

The same is true with youth ministry. You have to begin to establish momentum that will catapult you to reaching more teens.

Two ways we did that was through SERIES and BIG DAYS.

Do Your Teaching In Series
We saw a lot of success by teaching in series. With our series we would center them around one main point and build that point each week. Not only was our teaching a lot better but it created a great hook for teens to reach out to their friends.

If we were starting a new series in February this is how the process would look like as we went through it. I'll take you through our Elev8flix series promotional. Click on the links throughout for the pictures.

• Two weeks out finish promotional graphics, power point teaser graphic, business card size handouts, and video trailers. We would begin with announcing the new series in our youth meetings and encourage our teens to invite their friends.
• One week out we would give out business card size handouts that would promote the series. This size is an easy convenient way for teens to pass out at their school. Click [here] for an example. We encouraged our teens to use every method of technology to invite their friends: txt, myspace, facebook, handouts, youtube videos, email, etc...
  
• Weekend before we would decorate our youth room to coincide with the series. With Elev8flix we made two giant size popcorn boxes with white and yellow balloons as the popcorn and then put up reels on the wall. View [here], [here], [here], and [here]. I wanted to do a red carpet down the isles but that wasn't in my budget. Really your imagination is your only limit.
• 3 days out we send text messages, emails and leave graphic invites on our teens myspace comments.
  
• The first week of a series is really an intro and doesn't get to the meat so those who come usually come back to hear more.
  

Host A Big Day Every Quarter
Another thing that really built up our momentum was utilizing big days. We would do a back-to-school blast and a schools-out blast. To tag on these big events we would launch a series. This proved for some to continue to return to hear more. We would utilize all of the above promotion but the day of the event would be a little different.

• One hour before meeting time we would open up our parking lot with inflatables and basketball goals for teens to hang out and have fun. We would also have extra video games on hand for teens to play. If your youth ministry already has a game room go even extra with some new stuff. [Here], [here], and [here] for pictures.
  
• We would then have our normal youth meeting that would end 15 minutes early that would culminate in a school versus school competition. Ideas for this: hamburger or hot dog eating contest. Highest school weight. We like school versus school because it is a great reason for teens to reach into their schools. At one event we had 12 different schools represented.
• The after event would be a concert with a band.
  

Now before you think these were just about kicking up our number average you have to realize that at every youth meeting we had a call to salvation. These were events that teens would really go all out to invite their friends. You also can't do these events unless you have a great plan and team in place. You also have to read this full series to get an idea of how all of these worked in conjunction of each other.

Big key here is don't think you have to go all out. Start small. If you aren't used to teaching in series, plan maybe 4 or 5 for this year. Add one big day to coincide with one of the series and use some of the ideas in marketing your event. As you get comfortable do more. There really are no tried and true rules. Just Go For It!!!

Make sure you check out Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this series.

Triple Your Youth Ministry In One Year Part 3

“If I have seen further than others,
it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”
Isaac Newton

One of the greatest players who ever played basketball was Michael Jordan. One of the things that made him good was when he needed to rise to the occasion and win a basketball game, he could take his team on his shoulders and do it. What I think made him great though is that he understood the value of a team and that he couldn't do it without them.

If you spend anytime taking the advice I laid down in Part 2 of this series you will soon come to understand that youth ministry and ministry of any kind takes....TEAMWORK. You can't do it alone. Well, let me take that back. You could technically do a lot by yourself but you would never get the growth you desire unless you are willing to take people along with you on the journey.

Let me give you a few reasons why people don't implement more teamwork:

• They love the lime-light. They get in a position that most have never been in. All the sudden people are looking up to them and they are the center of attention. Don't fall into this trap. It is a sure-fire reason for failure.
• It is hard. Teamwork takes work. It takes working with others, bringing out the best in them. It takes communicating to people more concisely and consistently.
• Lack of knowledge. Sometimes people can't do it cause they don't know how or where to start.
• Afraid to give up something. Sometimes that something is control.
  

No matter what the reasons are, if you don't implement a team oriented system you cannot grow your ministry. The growth of your ministry will be in direct proportion to the number of volunteers you get involved.

Three types of team members in your church to get involved:

1. Parents - I know some students bar their parents from going. That's ok. There are many ways you can get parents involved from internet to mailers...graphics...prayer teams...etc. Parents can have a lot of buy-in since they have a teen involved.
2. Church Members - There are many people that may not have teens but have a passion for reaching out to them.
3. Teens - It is your responsibility to be training teens to do the work of the ministry. Getting them involved creates a greater level of buy-in for them. They can probably do a lot more than you think.

As you launch out into this next year let me give you a little practical advice to start building your team.

Make A List
List out every position that you could possibly have for your youth ministry. Create a flow chart for it all. This will be a target to help you get started. Here is an excel file of my last one to help you get started - Youth Ministry Flowchart

Pray
Sounds simple but it is effective. Take your list and begin praying specifically for God to bring you someone. You have to realize that you must pray like it totally depends on God to make it happen...cause it does.

Recruit
Truth is if you don't have a team its because you haven't asked. Remember it is one step at a time. Don't look at the flowchart and think you have to fill it all. Get as many on board as you possibly can. You need to recruit like it depends on you to make it happen.

Develop The Ones You Have
This is something you must be very intentional about. One reason we retained so many volunteers over the years is that we poured into them. Create job descriptions so they know what they are responsible for. Set up training events to help them be successful. Develop them to lead others. You must create a leadership development system. If you don't take care of the team that you have you won't have one for long.

How do you put value into your team?