SATURDAY MAY FIFTH

AUBURN, CA

Can’t wait for KINDLING 2012.  For more info, visit the KINDLING link above, or check out the promo video with ideas that were shared at KINDLING 2011.  Get registered early.  Only 100 spots available.

It is a tradition that goes back to the 6th century credited to Saint Benedict. In his Rule (the agreements that shape the community of Benedictine monks), Benedict required a prayer service – one of many – at the end of the work day. It is a time when the monks come together for a time of silent reflection and group prayer.

I first learned of Compline when I lived in Greater Seattle. St. Mark’s Cathedral has held a Compline service on Sunday nights at 9:30PM since 1956. Everyone enters the nave in silence and sits down on wood pews in this cavern of a sanctuary beautifully constructed from polished concrete. A men’s choir enters and flows towards the back of the room. Somewhere, out of sight, the a cappella Georgian chants start. No sound system. No drums. No words on a screen with dancing backgrounds. No announcements. Just peaceful melodies carrying the words of scripture for 40 minutes. And, as peacefully as they entered, the choir files out. Those that have congregated for Compline usually sit for several more minutes in a contemplative silence and then start drifting out slowly.

The most amazing part of the whole experience: the vast majority of the congregants were between 15 and 25 years old. Read more »

This post is in a series going through Doug Fields‘ book Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry. The twelfth chapter asks, what do I do now?  It is all about defining a realistic job description for your first two years.  I’ve been on staff at OroNaz for almost one year as the youth pastor, and three years before that in a staff support role for the prior youth pastor, Shawn.  Finishing the book with this chapter is great.  Tony Morgan said on his blog a few years ago that it takes at least a year to figure out what you are actually hired to do at any given church.  Even the best of job descriptions can fade, change, morph and grow as you figure out the church and the church figures you out.  If you haven’t done the hard work of defining your role through the process listed below, I encourage you to do it.  Understanding expectations and how your story fits with the story the church is telling can make or break your tenure.

Here are some highlights from the chapter:

• Expectations exist, whether spoken or not, and you need to discover them to be effective and healthy.
• When expectations – even unrealistic expectations – aren’t fulfilled, the youth worker looks bad, never the church.
• When it comes to your weaknesses, realize that people will discover them anyway!
• If you don’t talk about what you value during the interview process, you wind up in a church that doesn’t value your family time or your personal life.
• Most youth workers overestimate what they can accomplish in one year and underestimate what they can do in five years.  Approach your first two years with a healthy dose of confidence and reality.
• Applause is due to the people of God who take care of their personal and inner worlds and finish the youth ministry marathon.  Sadly, youth workers mostly receive praise for what they do and not for who they are.
• Develop your inner life and protect your personal life.
• Schedule several days a year – entire days – to spend extended time with God.
• Finding the balance between people and tasks will be a lifelong quest, but ministry is all about people.
• You won’t get everything right, and you won’t get everything wrong, but you will get great rewards for serving faithfully.
• Discover What’s Expected of You Process: (btw, it’s never too late)
  • Tell them who you are, strengths and weaknesses.
  • Ask what is expected of you, who has these expectations, how are they evaluated, and what does success look like?
  • Tell them about your priorities for your personal growth, family, and passion for ministry.
  • Identify your goals for realistic developments in the first 2 years.
  • Evaluate whether or not the expectations line up with what you believe you can accomplish with God’s help.
  • Begin with attitudes and actions that will build a healthy youth ministry.  Or, if necessary, begin again – move on.

This has been an invaluable book, and I reccomend it to anyone starting off in a volunteer or paid youth ministry position.  You can check out more of Doug Field’s writings and musings at www.dougfields.com.

Thursday March 1, hang out with us and watch a collection of presentations about Jesus, the church and making a difference.  The awesome thing about this free online experience is that every presenter is between the ages of 13-19.  I am already making a list of student leaders that I will be inviting to watch this with me, to get them excited about what God wants to do in and through them right now.  Schedule it now.  Click here to register (don’t worry, it’s free).  Then you’ll get reminder emails up until the date of the webcast.

Here’s to students being the Church now!

I remember it clearly.  I pre-ordered it.  It came late.  I was frustrated because I couldn’t read it and it was already out.  Amazon had failed me.  But then it came.  Donald Miller‘s Million Miles in a Thousand Years.  Bright yellow cover.  Bicycle spokes.  Why were there spokes?  I devoured that book.  Mostly because of what Blue Like Jazz did to me.  Blue Like Jazz had resonated with me so strongly that it later shaped curriculum that I have used with college students, high school students, and even some jr. high students.  It changed the way I talk to God.  It changed the way I journal.  It changed the way that I see people.  God used that book to change me.  (Thanks to Stephen Campbell for telling me I had to read it at Josh Fitzpatrick’s wedding reception).

In Million Miles, Donald talks all about the making of Blue Like Jazz into a movie.  How hard it was to edit his life into a story that people would want to watch and actually walk out of the theater without shrugging their shoulders with indifference.  This April 13, that film will finally hit the big screen.  In case you haven’t seen it yet, here is the trailer:

Brandon Heath and special guests i am “they” will be at Oroville Nazarene Church on February 4th.  Tickets are $20 a piece and all proceeds benefit The Axiom youth center.  You can purchase tickets at iTickets.  If you need more info, send Kurt an email here.

If you are a youth worker, chances are that you have some sort of iOS device in your tool bag right now.  One of the more frustrating things about iOS is how it handles (or doesn’t handle) podcasts.  I love podcasts.  Almost every time I am behind the wheel I am listening to this pastor or that thought leader.  It was always a pain to find new podcasts and keep in sync with my computer.  Until I found Downcast.

Downcast is only a couple bucks and does (almost) everything I ever hoped for in a podcast app.  You can listen at regular, double and triple speed.  You can skip back 15 or 30 seconds and skip ahead 30 seconds or 2 minutes.  You can set a sleep timer.  You can share it with others through Facebook, Twitter, email and even text message.  It is a great way to share what you’re listening to with other leaders or students in your ministry.  You can create your own playlists.  And one of the coolest things is that you can actually send the audio or video file to your dropbox account so that you will have it backed up and available on any computer.

The only thing that it is missing that I would still love to see in any podcasting app is the ability to set a bookmark midstream and tag it with a note.  Then being able to go back and search through your notes would be priceless.  Maybe in the next version.

As a bonus, here are the top 5 podcasts I’ve been listening to lately:

1. NewSpring Church (Perry Noble)
2. Passion City Church Podcast (Louie Giglio)
3. And Stanley Leadership Podcast
4. The Village Church (Matt Chandler)
5. Foundation (Kevin Rose) {disclaimer – not a Christian podcast.}

What/who are you listening to?

This post is in a series going through Doug Fields‘ book Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry. The eleventh chapter asks, how do i make changes?  Every youth minister faces it in the first two years.  There is no way that you are going to do everything the same as the last guy (or girl).  And learning how to handle change and do it well during our first two years can help create a culture of change that will be incredibly beneficial down the road, following where God leads.  Here are some highlights from the chapter.

• You can’t experience the benefits of change without experiencing a little pain.
• One’s spiritual maturity corresponds with a willingness to accept change; even though one would love to repeat the familiar, a right heart is open to change.
• Change isn’t a theological issue (God isn’t against change) as much as a sociological problem (people don’t like change).
• If you’re unwilling to change a program, you’ll soon find it ineffective.
• God is creative.  He’s not limited to your ideas of how he should work.
• Too often we go to a seminar or read a book and get ambitious about change without consulting God or wanting to know his agenda for our ministry.  Without significant prayer and an attitude of dependence on God, don’t even consider change.  You’re not ready.
• The people who hear about the change will immediately have some questions, so it’s important that you’ve already asked and answered them.
• Never allow vocal critics to linger and take continual shots at your change.  They won’t go away quietly.  Go to them.  Talk face-to-face about their issues.
• Going too fast too soon can hurt you, so be patient.
• Use the change process to strengthen your faith and your leadership skills.

Only one chapter left!

You may have seen the AT&T commercials that featured the founder of TOMS shoes, Blake Mycoskie – or actually purchased a pair of slip-on shoes that gives one for one.  For every pair of shoes that TOMS sells, they give a pair to a child in need.  They have also recently added glasses to their one for one movement.  In September of 2011, Blake’s book Start Something That Matters hit bookstores and kindles everywhere.  I had preordered the book and was pleased to find out that even with this book, a new book will be provided to a child in need.  I wanted to hear more of the story behind TOMS and how it has become so sustainable.  A while ago I heard Mike Foster say that

“You will never be able to fund the mission entirely with the mission.”

Our mission in youth ministry at the OroNaz church is to unleash a generation of youth to change the community of Oroville and the world around it.  Knowing that there are 2000+ students in the high schools in our town alone meant that we had to do something to reach more students than we were able to through sunday school and Wednesday night services.  Our youth center, The Axiom, was birthed out of that idea, but it is still difficult to build, maintain and sustain momentum.

If you have any dreams and ideas that just won’t quit nagging at you, urging you to expand your reach in a movemental, sustainable way, I fully recommend reading Start Something That Matters.  It isn’t going to give you cool games or sermon illustrations, but may be the thing that tips the idea that is sittin just beneath the surface, waiting to change the face of ministry, love, compassion and care in your town.

It’s almost Thanksgiving, which means that non-stop shopping and shipping and cooking and eating and wrapping and lighting and chestnuts roasting on an open fire are right around the corner. Every year it seems like it is a struggle to get students to think of Christmas beyond their list. An awesome resource that we have found and used for the last couple of years is the Advent Conspiracy stuff. There are a ton of free resources – graphics, videos, sermons, outlines, newsletters, research, etc. – at their website. Check out the promo video below: