Youth Ministry Tip #12: If you draw students to your ministry because of Pizza they stay b/c of Pizza. What are you drawing students with?  I know it is tempting in your ministry to do whatever it takes to get a kid to come to your event or program.  Just be very careful you don’t always trick them into coming.  Nothing puts a bad taste for Jesus in someone’s mouth than Pizza with a surprise attack of the Gospel.   If you want students to return to your ministry and to want to know Jesus.  Help them realize how much they need Him.  If you draw people to church b/c of pizza, games, and fun then keep your event that way.  Have your students build relationships with their friends and then invite them to Jesus.  You don’t have to share the gospel every time you are with a kid.  But you do have to love them and make them feel like they can belong!  That leads them to wanting to know more about the God you serve!  What are some ways that you tried drawing kids to church that didn’t work?  What ways did work?  What ways led to them wanting to know more about Jesus?

How is Apathy affecting your ministry?  What are some things we can do as youth pastors and leaders to fight against apathy?

There are several ways you can inhance your intern ministry with no or little budget.

1) Have them volunteer their time. No financial gain.  Just experience and something good to put on their resume.

2) Have interns raise all their support

3) Have interns raise some support and supplement them with a little income.

4) Have your church pay them a fair value for their time.

Pray for God to bring people up in your ministry or to your ministry to help you develop interns.

How are you using interns in your ministry?  How have you been able to grow, train and develop interns?

Youth Ministry Tip # 9: Eating Gross Stuff!  Before you have your students or leaders eat gross stuff make sure that you have checked to see if they are allergic to any foods!  You sure would hate to have someone get sick because they were allergic to dairy or peanuts.  What kind of medical release forms do you use?  What gross food do you have your students eat?

Title: New Year’s Revolutions

Idea: Make a Revolution in the way you live rather than just a resolution.

People view a revolution as a major change or transformation and they
view resolution as an attempt to try and do better but not really
believing it is a lasting life change (transformation).

Definition of revolution is: a sudden, complete or marked change in something:

Definition of resolution is: 1. a resolve or determination: to make a
firm resolution to do something.
2. the act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of
action, method, procedure, etc.

The difference between the 2 is a revolution sees marked change and a
resolution is just the desire to see change happen. Let’s move beyond
desiring to be more like Christ and actually having that marked change
in our lives.

I think you can go on to do another 2 parts. Here is an idea:

Do a week on Repentance: How often do we associate repentance with resolutions. What I mean is in church circles we look at repentance as this “I am sorry God, I want to do better”, instead of of changing our mind on the way we think about our sin. Repentance is more like a Revolution than a resolution.

Another week can be on New Creations: How do we live our life as a new creation? Just some thoughts on changing the way we think. Hope this helps!

How many times have you stood before teenagers and ask them what they learned last week or what they remember? Probably more than you should have. Usually you get the blank look of “was I supposed to remember something…” Well, I really want to encourage you to think differently on how you teach students. If you can instead of feeding them information and hoping they remember start teaching them on how to ask the right questions. Everytime you feel tempted to ask the age ol’ youth ministry question of, “What did you learn last week?” STOP! Instead ask your students, “what questions do you have from last week?” Then ask, “What questions do you have about God or Life?” Use this as a great way to get your students to walk away from a youth meeting with more questions. If you students leave with only answers they will lose their curiosity to learn. Feed them questions more than you feed them answers and then teach them how to find the answers in the Word of God.

If you are reading this and thinking that your church leaders or pastor wouldn’t let you get away with delegating so much then you probably are already seeing the stress on your life in ministry and your family. Go to them and explain how important it is to involve people in ministry and how much of a better job you will do in the areas that you put more time in. I think after 6 months of doing this you will never want to go back and in fact the ministry you are involved with will be far better and people will notice the bigger impact.

If you don’t want to release some things including teaching sometimes, being in front all the time, then I would say your issue may be more about pride and the attention ministry brings. Well…this is another tip for another day.

One of the things we as Godly men and women need to have an attitude of is Grace. I can promise you that your husband or wife will forget to do something you want. They will not get to doing something as quick as you want. They will not do something as well as you want. They will even sometimes not feel like doing what you want them to do. The question is how will you respond to this in your life. Will you be one to quickly get angry, or frustrated that the expectation you placed on your husband/wife is not met. Or will you extend Grace to them and trust that if you lovingly ask them to do it that they will more likely do what you need and do it with a great attitude?

How about take things a step further and when someone you love doesn’t meet your expectation, that you realize that your expectation being met should not be more important than how your spouse feels. What is more important, getting your husband/wife to act and do what you want or to think and feel like a loving spouse should toward you? Why do we often show our spouse we care more about the tasks in our lives that need to get done than the relationship that we want to build together.

Take this and apply it to our relationship with God. Do we put those same expectations on God? Do we look to God and get frustrated when He doesn’t meet our expectations and do what we want? Or do we realize that God does love us and wants what is best for us. What is more important to you: 1) God giving you what you want out of life, or 2) Your relationship with God growing more intimate? Do we realize that our perception and expectations we place on God and others directly shapes the ability for us to have an intimate relationship with God and with our husband or wife.

I dare you today when your husband or wife doesn’t meet your expectation to not get angry and frustrated but instead go tell them how much you love them and then find a way to serve them!

Ephesians 5, ” 22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing[b] her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— 30for we are members of his body. 31″For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”[c] 32This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”