Let me open this in prayer. Lord, we, this week, will spend time specifically on Thursday with friends and family, Lord, taking a moment to give thanks to you for the blessings you've given us. God, we do want to thank you, even today, because you do so much. We thank you for your grace that just continues, Lord, to be the foundation of our life. We thank you, God, for your son, Jesus Christ, and the work of the cross that we might have a relationship with you. Lord, we thank you for things like our clothes and the food that we've eaten today, the rest we had last night. And though those things may be in limit, God, you certainly are sustaining us. And we thank you for your providence, O Lord, the way in which you govern all things and all actions. We would ask, Lord, now today, as we continue to talk about youth ministry, the ministry in the church, just ask that you would give us clarity, open our eyes, and teach us new things, Lord, that we might be more effective in a way in which we build to your spirit, your kingdom. We thank you for this and Jesus' name. Amen. One of the great things about being able to teach a course like this is that it constantly challenges me as a youth pastor. People often ask, what I do as a youth pastor? Is it the youth specialty convention over the weekend in Dallas, where I spend a lot of time with a lot of different youth pastors? There was probably, I'm not sure the numbers in that one, probably 3,000 youth workers were there. They call them youth workers, which means pastor and or volunteer or whatever you want to give your title as. Your director or student ministry is the news. But there were literally thousands of people. And they had this convention hall, I don't know if you've been to one, I mean you've been to a youth specialty conference. And one person, okay, you walk through the door and there literally is just stuff everywhere that teaches you how to do youth ministry, and some of the titles are hilarious. The subtitles are even funnier, subtitles such as everything you need to know about. And as I was thinking about that, I started thinking about this class years ago, as I told you at the beginning of the semester, this was the only class that covenant offered in terms of theology, of youth ministry. And I was looking at the syllabus and I was thinking, you know, we've really added a lot to it over the course of a year or two, and we've moved some things from this course on to others. But the last thing we would ever want to say is everything you need to know about youth ministry, even though this is a foundation's course, this certainly is not everything you need to know. And one of the things that we hope would happen in this course is that you'd be equipped with knowing where to go for more resources. But more importantly, how to think about youth ministry. Today we're going to turn a corner, we're going to move from talking about relational ministry, and what relational ministry is, and what the profile of a relational minister looks like into the program side, those two terms often have created debate. Are you relational or are you programmatic? The problem with that is I've never seen a youth ministry that didn't have programs. I've never seen a youth ministry in a church that didn't have some type of Sunday morning activity, a Sunday night activity, or a midweek Bible study, something like that. So there are programs. And how do our programs, though, work to help us build relationships? I know relational ministry is a huge theme today. In fact, the next, I guess in late spring, the issue of youth worker journal, which you especially puts out, is going to be on relational youth ministry. I'm very excited about that because I'm a firm believer in the pursuit of relationships in ministry because that's a biblical model. But we have to look at how programs and hints at. So to finish up on relational stuff, I want to back up a little bit to where we were at the end of last week. One of the questions that was asked, and I don't think Mike is here today, but one of the questions that was asked was, how do you spend time when you have so many different students? Now, some people go, I'm in a small church, so I have to worry about that. Really, you do, in a sense, because there's only so many people that you can spend time with in terms of discipling. It's possible for us to do multitudes and Christ modeled this in this model. Remember what we said at the end of last week? He fed how many? 5,000 plus, 4,000 plus. So he took care of people's basic needs. But then when it came time to those that he was really training, calling to build a church, he picked 12. Another 12 people would say there was a handful of three that he was certainly intimate with. And so many ministries have adopted that. Well, that's what our ministry is going to look like. I don't think that's a mandate. I don't think it's a biblical mandate to say, well, I only need to have three people in focusing on intimately. And then another nine that I can be a little more intimate with, and then I'll just kind of do the other stuff with the thousands. I don't think Christ is saying, well, if you have more than three or less than three, you know, you're not really doing the ministry the way I want, and therefore I'm not going to bless it. But I do think there are biblical principles in that paradigm that we should look at. My young life leader, Tom, who I've talked about through this semester because he taught me the most I know about youth ministry said, I'm never going to ask you, Mark, how big your youth group is. And I'm thankful. Because in Dallas, there are three days. I bet the question was posed to me 50 times. What do you do? How many of you have passed your test for? Oh, how big your youth group? Why are people asking the question? Because then somehow, in some way, that merits their art success. As I told you at the beginning of this semester, if I said, look at a few hundred kids coming, people feel what about me. This guy knows what he's doing. He's really good. If I say, I've got five, and we're struggling because those five kids really are pretty lousy. I'm not that good of a youth pastor. I've gone past my peak. My prime is over. I'm no good. And so it's not that significant of a question. Tom would say, I'll never ask you how big your youth ministry is, how many kids are coming. Instead, I'll ask you, who are the key people you're investing in? And you can only invest in so many. You know, children, having your own children. My wife and I have three. I've talked about them this semester. Kaden is 16 months old. Matty's a little over three. He cares a little over five. I told my wife just last night. She said, do you think I want to do more? Because our pattern has been every two years at this time. She's been pregnant. And so this is the time of year for her to be pregnant. And she's not. And I said, I don't know. What do you think? She says, I don't know. Part of me wants to have maybe five. I'm like, I don't know. I was from a family of five right in the middle. I'm not sure I want that for our children. And I said, but maybe four, I don't know. I said, but you know what? I feel strapped already. I mean, we've got three. And I don't feel like I have enough time with any of them. I'm not sure what we're going to look like to have more. Now I'm not talking here about what these large families or small families. But just the reality of, we only have so much time to give. And for most youth pastors, if they were brutally honest, and I said, what do you want your youth group to look like? They'd probably say big. I really want a large group. Because often, it strokes their personality. It strokes how they see themselves, as opposed to, you know, I don't really want to have a very big youth group. I like it to have it at the perfect size where I can manage to disciple well as well as do some outreach. Most would choose size because it seems like something bigger is happening. And it might be. But at the same time, it could be huge. And nothing could be happening in terms of long-term results. So the question I'm trying to draw out is, how do we handle numbers? What is our strategy when our ministry gets to a size where we can't be just intimate with that many? In your syllabus, there's a little chart. It looks something like this, which basically is a paradigm for what the numbers are going to look like. The numbers are not specific, except at the bottom. And we call this different levels of relational ministry. Starting at the top, this being level three, level two, and level one. You can call this anything you want. But the idea is that at the top, there's going to be a massive number of students that you are ministering to. Now, what do I mean by massive? Massive could be anywhere from 20 on up to 2000. It depends on how you define it. If you say the whole community, well, then I could just include all of Chesterfield, or all of St. Louis, or all of the world. I'm not trying to be that broad. Instead, I'm thinking more of, in my community, there are five major high schools. Of those five, there are three that I could really invest in as a ministry team. However, personally, I need to have a group of level three students that I'm somehow in contact with. So this number is totally out of sync. I don't know 2000 high school students, even though they're out there. So you begin to think how many students do I know at a level three relationship? There's not really an amazing relationship. It's just I know you. I have a conversation with you. I know something that you like. These are the kind of kids that when I walk on to a campus somewhere, they might recognize who I am. Oh, that's that guy that does crew. Oh, that's that young life leader. Oh, that's so-and-so. There's some symbols of a relationship. Not deep, not lasting. But certainly, there's some type of a connection. And we can only have so many of those. But the number goes on forever. So you've got to kind of begin to think realistically. Alright? If there are, let's use the number 100. If there are 100 students that come to your youth group and you're the youth pastor, how many of the hundred are going to be at level three? How many of the hundred are going to be at level two? And how many of the hundred are going to be at level one? Now, I'm using the number 100 because it's easy, not because that's the ultimate goal. Alright? Because I can tell you of youth ministries that have 3000 students that come every week. And you can go, wow, I can tell you of great youth ministries that have 10 students that come every week. And you go, wow, so it's not a numbers game. But let's use the number 100. If you have 100 students who are part of level three, then you're talking about students who are somewhat hesitant to invest in everything you've got. They're interested, but not living for it. Does that make sense? And they have some form of name recognition with you. But there's still the kind of kid that when you walk into a school and they're there, they might be a little nervous just because of who you are. In that phase or this level, you're going to have the majority of your numbers. Alright? How many? Anyone want to guess? Out of 100. Okay, Steve Red, off the sheet. Thank you, Steve. I know I saw a lot of other people looking, but you didn't have the courage or something else to raise up to say that's what it was. How many of you would say that seems about right? Probably out of 100 students, 60 or 70 would be about right. Okay, so if we have 60 or 70 of these students, then automatically that leaves 30 or 40 left in each of the phases to try and look at. Level two says this. It's a medium sized group, some trust and some accountability. Average to good attendance in your program, but there's still somewhat cautious about spending time necessarily together. That's going to describe a large majority of what people's youth groups look like. You know, we're pretty excited about the kids and who are there. We're pretty excited about what they're doing and how they're acting. But we still see that they're not where they want to be. Remember that we have this goal that students are moving up. Okay, let me get over here so the camera can see. Students are moving up this way. From spectator, seeker, believer, disciple, leader. As we go down this, we recognize that this is filled with spectators and seekers. This begins to be filled with believers on up to a low level disciple. That's what I actually call some of the students that are great. Here, a low level disciple. All right, as there's such a thing. So this is going to be filled with maybe, you know, 30 to 40 students out of 100. So 30 to 40% is what you can look at. But then you have level one students, which means then out of this, that you're going to have maybe maybe five to 10 students who are part of a high level commitment in your ministry. Deep trust, deep accountability. Students are very involved, very committed to everything that takes place. And they enjoy spending time together because they're here. They're leaders. Now, whenever somebody says how your ministry is going, how do you feel about things? If you're focusing on up here, you're going to be challenged to feel very good about things very often because it's going to constantly be a roller coaster. If people say, well, what about these middle level kids? You're going to begin to feel like, well, it's still a little bit of that roller coaster. There's some highs and there's some lows. This is where the parable of the sewer is so painful in its reality. You're going to have students who are here that are beginning to push towards this one. Suddenly, they kind of almost go back there. And so if you're constantly placing your identity in this area, you're going to struggle. So where do we place our identity? It really is in the kind of work that we see God doing here, which is going to require on our part lots of time, lots of investment, but the numbers are small. So the question is asked then, well, Mark, it looks like then you're playing favorites based on this paradigm. In other words, if you've got 100 kids, you're seeing only five or 10, you're going to totally invest in. Isn't that like playing favorites? Isn't it possible that people would say, oh, you like them better than you like me? How many of you felt like that about a teacher in high school or middle school? Did you ever fill that way? They're one of the favorites. They're a pet. I know when I was in high school, one of my young life leaders, getting Jim Taylor, did a great job. I was one of the four or five guys that he spent a lot of time with. And I remember different students saying, oh, he just likes you better than he likes everybody else. And I thought, that isn't true. It can't be true. I mean, yes, you're an unlikable guy. But go on. There's no possible way that he really fills that way about the rest of you. And so I'm supposed to question back to them. I said, do you think it's possible that maybe Jim spent so much time because I'm as interested in Jim as he is in me? And that's really where the low level, which is really the high level, begins to switch. Suddenly, students aren't so interested just in you investing in them. They kind of turn and say, I'm also interested in investing in you. Does it make sense? And that's where you begin to see the sweet relationship. Reality is, though, you can't spend that kind of quality time with that many students. So what do you do? Your ministry is going to go through phases. If it's a brand new ministry, you're going to go through a phase where all of a sudden this happens. And what I'd like to do for just a little bit this morning is kind of tell you through testimony what this looks like practically in a ministry that is now five years old. People will say things like, well, you can't see any real fruit until three years or five years. I don't think there's any true biblical evidence for why that's the case. I think people to say things like that because it seems right. There is certainly going to be a season of time where you're waiting for the maturation of students' faith to really grow. But let me tell you a little bit just about the ministry at Chesterfield and where we are now versus where we were five years ago when I started. I started at Chesterfield in the middle school ministry. And I knew right then, principally, I'm only part of time. I'm limited in what I can do. But I need to begin to spend time with key students. So the first thing I did was I looked for the most attractive kids. The kids that are the most athletic, the kids who would really reach out to their friends. Kids that are good grades, good money, kids that were easy to spend time with. Kids that just really were sharp and would be beautiful and attractive and make me feel good about who I am hanging around. And I began to spend time with only those kids. I picked them, some kids that weren't as attractive, kids that weren't as athletic, kids that weren't as fun and funny, would call. But I had to choose. I'm not going to spend time with you because you're not going to do anything for the kingdom of God at a school because who would come to an event that you invited them to because you're you. I need to spend time with the other kids because they're the ones who are going to go into the schools and have an impact on other people's lives. And so I did because I limited time. And so I was like, we begin to spend time with those kids. Lots of other people came. Now some would say I was playing favorites. Was I? Good. Wake up. I'm glad some people seem to be going, oh my goodness. I suddenly don't have much affection for this classling longer. What I describe for you is not at all what happened. But what happens a lot. We naturally begin to think through strategies that are often more centered on patterns of the world attractiveness and ability. Whether than what God calls us to do, does it make sense? I never walk into a room and begin to scan a room and go, you, you and you. Instead, I pray, Lord, would you rise up leaders within this group? How do I know what leaders look like? One, they had some level possess gifts of leadership. Not necessarily manifested now, but something you can see in the future. But what are gifts of leadership? It doesn't necessarily mean articulate. It doesn't necessarily mean attractive. One of the key things is availability. Are they available? Are they going to be willing to make this a priority in their life? And so at Chesterfield, five years ago, I began to look for those students. And it didn't happen in one meeting. It might not even happen in one semester, even a year. But I said, Lord, who are they? Who are the students? And a group of guys. Their name were Josh, David, Paul, and Tony came into the group. Now there were some girl leaders as well. Julia and Laura, my wife spent more time with them. But together, there's a group of about seven, which I would put in that low category. The bottom of the pyramid, which is the highest. I talked about it. So here we are, just beginning to spend time together. And I began to share with them a vision, a biblical vision, for what I thought God was calling us to do in this ministry. So as we got into this ministry, all of a sudden they began to catch a vision for it. I remember taking them out to dinner one night. We went to the Casa Garda Grill, a nice Mexican restaurant here in St. Louis. There's only one or two, and it's probably number two. And so we went there, and we ate, and I began to share with them this vision. And suddenly they got excited. They were in ninth grade. We had middle school together, now we're in ninth grade. And all of a sudden they began to take it on themselves. And they were part of massive changes. Today, they are juniors and sophomores in college. And when they come home for Thanksgiving break, like many of them came home this last Sunday, getting ready for this week, there's relationships that are solid. Since the time that they started the ministry, probably 200 students have graduated in those five years from our youth ministry program at some level, somewhere, some very committed, some hardly committed at all. There's no possible way I could spend time at the bottom of that pyramid with 200 people. Is there? I mean, could I write 200 letters a month? Could I spend time making 200 phone calls, 200 emails? It's impossible. And that's the nature of youth ministry because it's so relational. It's that you're going to graduate. When David and Tony and Paul graduated three years ago, they had a graduating class of about 20. The next graduating class was 42. The next graduate graduating class last year was about 38. So the numbers are pretty consistent. Years before that, there were a number of others. You see what's going to happen as you're in this relational ministry is that there's no possible way that you can maintain relationships with them. The emails will become, they'll come firing at you and you're like, this is going to be impossible. Unless you're just doing that general one, this is dear crew. That was what they were called. Sure to miss you guys. You know, that's not real personal. And so you realize that this model has limitations because you can't spend time with that many people. So what do you do? That's when there's a shift in your ministry when it moves away from one person as the key leader to multiple people investing. When I started that ministry back in, you know, 95, 96, it was me and it was two other people, both still in high school. Boy, name squeak. Another guy named Mike. We were the leaders. And we got another leader named Robin. Then I began to realize, you know, we're going to get a lot more people if we're going to have the kind of impact. Because what has to happen is that paradigm in my own life needs to be shifted so that there's that paradigm and a lot of other people's lives. Does that make sense? Then for instance, if we were a leadership team, you could do the simple math. 5, 10, 15, 20, 20, 20, 30, 30, 40, 40, 40, 50, 55 in our camera. A woman's 60 people could be in the paradigm in the low level being impacted at a high level of discipleship. Does that make sense? The problem is somebody has to step up and then be the primary person investing in the leaders who are going to invest in the students. Because those 5 that you're pouring your time into aren't the only students you'll ever be in contact. You'll still have level 2, and you're going to also have level 3 contacts. And so somebody's going to need to be nurturing them. So suddenly what will happen in a youth pastor's life is somewhere in the context of that leadership team, there will even be students, I'm sorry, leaders that you also have that pyramid with. Once your leadership team gets to a size, you won't be the same to all those people. Are you choosing favorites? Absolutely not. It's largely going to be based on calling first and availability. It's going to be a significant part of that. For example, in the three or four years that we've been doing this with lots of leaders, there have been, there's been turnover every year. Seminary students come in, they serve for a few years, and then they've got to go to their own place where God has called them. And so another couple of seminary students in, in our ministry, Steve and David have now entered into the process of all the leaders on this team, and it's not massive. There are certain leaders who have more time and availability. Therefore, those leaders are going to be the ones that I've probably spent more significant time investing in their life at a high level that they might invest in others. Does that make sense? And so this paradigm is critical because it's how relational ministry is going to work. If you choose not to do that, then you'll do what's called the loan ranger mentality, and you'll have a nice group of, you know, 15, 20, 25 students. Where in that you're ministering to maybe five at the deepest level. But if you begin to invest in other adults at a high level, they'll be able to do the same thing. And then you can multiply. You see how it works. It's not very complicated. It's simple, but it's totally different than what most ministries do, where most ministries center on. Let's have events that we can draw on a lot of people and let's just see what happens. It'll be exciting. Relationships can last forever. Memories of a program are going to fade unless it's pretty dynamic. And then what you want them to remember probably won't be what they do. It's just reality. Any questions about this so far as we kind of wrap up this last part of the relationship side. Keep thinking through it then practically. What will you do when you enter into a church for the first time? How aggressive will you be at pursuing leaders? Most of the time, you're going to be aggressive at filling spots. School teacher, Bible study leader, small group leader, somebody going over tree. But you won't be thinking strategic about person to invest in this group of kids' lives. Another person to invest in this group of students' lives. And that's what God calls us to. I really don't get excited about deciding on thinking, okay, I need a Sunday school teacher. I get about excited about thinking about finding an adult that God brings to us and says, I want to really invest in the student's life. And we've talked a lot about leaders. I'm not going to go over that whole stuff again, but recognize that what we're about to talk about in programs is going to be founded and fundamental with who is leading it at the bottom level. And that's where we turn our attention to programs. If you turn to page, you'll begin to see the scene called programs with vision. The reason I title it that is because most programs have none. They're simply being done. Why? Okay, that's what you're supposed to do. What's probably one of the greatest programs like that? Yeah, Sunday school. Why do we do Sunday school? It's always been done that way. What's the purpose for Sunday school? Why do you do Sunday school in your church? Most folks can come up with some answer. It's not really any different than what they do at other times of the week, different Bible studies, et cetera. But they simply do it because it's something we're supposed to do. And here we want to talk about being very purpose driven, that's Doug Phil's word, strategic about how we're doing it. So we call it programs with vision. So in the semester to recap, we started with our own personal calling and identity. Then we talked about vision. Remember this part of vision statements? We're trying to get a sense of what we're doing. This last Sunday, I introduced a girl named Lindsay Zohman and I interviewed her in front of the church with this meeting and she's a high school student. And as I was thinking to the questions I was going to ask her, I used our vision statement. I didn't ask her through the vision statement. I didn't say, you know Lindsay, our vision statement says, how do you respond to the first part? Have we been successful? But as I was thinking about the questions I was asking, I thought about bringing students into the body of Christ, nurturing them in their relationship with Christ, equipping them to serve in the name of Christ. And if people were there, they could see or whether and they were, they could see different things that I was doing. I opened up with questions such as, tell me about how you got involved in Chester Phil's Youth Ministries. And I told the story of the first time she came, she hated it. And she said, I didn't want to see anybody. I didn't want to walk in with anybody. I just kind of wanted to do my thing. My parents made me come. I hated it. Now at the end, she's a senior. She's showing up an hour early. She's setting up. She's getting into the breakfast ready and she's greeting kids who come. Many of who feel like she did two years before. Does that make sense? Why? What's changed? As our program changed and become so dynamic that it is a little empire. You know, changed. God moving in earth through relationships changed her whole perspective on everything else we do. Nothing looks radically different than it did three years ago when she started. Many relational youth ministers do not like to use the word program for fear that their ministry will be perceived as simple as simply a program oriented approach to reaching kids. However, and I said this before, I've never seen a youth ministry that didn't have programs. So nice school, youth group meetings, small groups, etc. Programs are an important part of any healthy ministry. Doug Fields presents the formula and his book, Purpose of the Youth Ministries that we start with our purpose. What were the purposes? Do you remember? They're five of them? Okay. We're shit. Say it loud. All right. Fellowship. Evangelism. He had another report also. What else? Just that was ship which he also called growth. That was the last one. Ministry also called missions. I'm abbreviating there. The evangelism were outreach. He also then said we have five audiences. Do you remember what those were? We can use the terms I use. Spectator, seeker, believer, disciple, leader. The formula goes like this. You take your purpose. What is our purpose? And pick one. Though you're going to have multiple things probably, I mean fellowship is probably going to exist almost everything you do. Pick one primary thing. Add it to the audience you're trying to reach. That then equals what your program is. So purpose plus audience equals program. It's not that sophisticated of a formula, but it's so much lacking in the majority of churches. Just spend time thinking of your own ministries. How focused are they in what they're trying to accomplish? And it doesn't mean they can never change. We're going to talk about when to make changes later. But how specific are they? And are they on target? I look at this all the time. And I'm not always very satisfied with how our stuff looks. So step back and go, you know, we can do a better job here. If you lead a small group, for instance, at our youth ministries or in our youth ministries. Typically on a page that I would give you with the content that we're doing in a small group, we'll be able to cover page David. Objectives for the purpose of study, but even before you get into the study, what I have in the front of that. Yeah, evaluation sheet, which goes down a lot of different stuff. What's the content of the valuation sheet? Chief. That's hard to say. That's a skit. That's a mixture. Write it down. Send it into the new specialties. You might get 50 bucks. All right. Go ahead. Or did you waste time? Was what? See, David's got the photograph. Remember, it is the refreshments. Good enough plenty. In other words, did you run out of food in two minutes or was there enough? What was the host family greeted properly? Did they feel good about you guys being there? And so leaders, whether they use it or not are constantly made aware of I need to be evaluating how well this is going. And you might be thinking, man, that's pretty ridiculous. Excellence is what God calls us to. You can only have excellence in ministry if you're evaluating what you're doing. Most ministries are not excellent. We feel good about them because we got them over with. But they're not excellent. And it requires people coming in. I think it does. People coming in who are not emotionally attached to it, who can point out. So you know what? This isn't so good. This is kind of weak. This is, you could probably improve this. Don't be afraid of that. If you're afraid of it, it's simply because you're afraid people are going to reveal weaknesses. You're weak. You don't know everything there is to know about youth ministry. I don't know everything there is to know about youth ministry. Doug Fields doesn't know everything there is to know about youth ministry and we could always be improving what our programs look like. So as you seek to develop and improve your own programs, remember the following. And here's a list of bullets that I want to kind of work through. And I really like us to discuss. First of this, use what works. What do you think I mean by that? Use what works? Yeah. Yeah. Scrap it. I like that. Scrap it or adapt it. Okay, that's a paper title right there. Scrap it or adapt it. You know, why are we afraid to scrap something? It's an indication that we fail. Yeah. And we did. It didn't work. But if you scrap it, it's an indication that you're not afraid to fail. And the next time you probably won't. Much greater sign of a leader is a person who's constantly scrapping these because they didn't work. That somebody is doing the same thing, though it doesn't work at all. So don't be afraid to scrap. Now there's some things you're not going to be able to scrap. You know, some of the school for many churches probably doesn't work that well, but it's not going to be scrapped. But you can certainly adapt it. You can make changes, make it better. You know, we started doing some things I didn't want church years ago. I appeared in St. Louis. It didn't work. And I went into the session and said, I love just to not even do something school. They laughed at me and said, but we're going to do it. So let's make it better. Can I do this? Try it. Didn't work. Kind of try it. Didn't work. Try this didn't work. And so we continue to work to improve. Finally, we get to a place. I'm like, ah, this may be taste like what we're getting. But I don't go. We've arrived. Now it's good forever. We'll make changes as we go. Watch what other ministries are doing. Once the advantage of doing that, yeah, learn from it. In fact, I just came from a lunch where there's a lady here who's interviewing us based on what we're doing with the Youth and Ministry Institute, because they have received the possibility of submitting their own proposal, starting their own type of organization, not the same as ours at all. I'm not even centered on youth ministry, but it's the same idea. So she comes asking questions. What worked? What didn't I told her? I told her both sides. This worked well. I wouldn't do this. This did not work at all. There's nothing wrong with that. That's reality. So what else is that important about seeing what other people are doing? Do we get boxed in? Yeah, we do. David said to me when he first came back, because Mark's still using the same old jokes. Well partly because that's point number one. They work still most of the time. And even if they don't, they're kind of funny. And I can use it in class. So see, David is still working. But I've got to be warned to think much different. And so who should I find to go watch what they're doing? What kind of ministry should I look at? Look at, look at. Complete the sentence. The kind of ministries you should study and evaluating how to do your own is. Okay, good. All of them in any of them. Here's why sometimes we begin to think, all right, I need to look at the best. I need to look at the best and the brightest. All right, so that's Willow Creek and probably Doug Field stuff. So look at those. The only problem is they're starting with much more money, much larger numbers. Should you look at them? Absolutely. That's why I have you read his book because there's principles that are transferable. Like if somebody said, describe two words about Willow Creek's ministry. That's exciting to you, Mark. I would use these two words. Outreach and excellence that they're committed to outreach and they're committed to excellence and everything they do. Well, even if I disagree with their principles and why they're doing it, can I not learn something from those two principles and say they should be a part of what we're doing as well? Absolutely. Should I think about how they're implementing that excellence? Absolutely. But what about ministries that are smaller? What can I learn from somebody that's smaller or seemingly behind compared to where this ministry is that you're leading? Why would you look back? Okay. So since of affirmation, we were here, now we're here. That's one angle. What's another angle? Yeah, exactly. So it can remind you of the core principles that you were trying to instill in those in the ministry you're leading back then. And the other reasons why one I can think of is that people, regardless of where God has them in terms of size, placement, have minds, have creative energies and have hearts. So to interview what they're thinking about ministry can really stimulate typically in the smaller churches, the youth pastors who are either beginning in their ministry. And so they might be younger than you and they might have great ideas about how to reach a generation that they're closer to than you are or they're led by people who are older. They become tired of the big show, tired of the large ministry, and so they've gone back to something a little simpler, a little sweeter. And so you have a lot of years to learn from them. Certainly you have people in the middle, doesn't make sense? But the idea is you can learn from all sides. Right. Another point is don't model the impossible. To model the impossible would be for me in my circumstance to go to some church with, you know, a $50,000 program budget for each class and say, I'd love to do what they're doing. And to give back home and realize that the $500 I have to spend per class is probably not going to allow me to accomplish what they have done. And that's the weakness when we become so excited about different groups like Willow Creek or Doug Phil's deal that we just can't implement some of the program stuff that they do. That doesn't mean though, you can't implement the principles of excellence and creativity. That's always available. I mentioned this already, but don't be afraid to fail. You will be, we all are, and failure does not feel good. But the sign of failure is a sign that you truly are seeking after things that are going to be excellent. Make changes at the right time. I cannot emphasize the significance of this. Of all my failures and there have been many in ministry, the one that has probably most, most significant in its negative impact is not making changes at the right time. I like change. I like constantly stirring things up seeing if we can make it better. People who don't like change, they're hard to be, you know, they find me hard to be around because I really like to make sure things are better. Now if it gets good, it's not like I want to change it every week, but if it's not excellent, then I want to make changes. And reality is sometimes you can make changes premature. People aren't ready for it. And when you do that, you know, it's going to be hard to get anybody to follow you. When is the right time to make a change? It's easy to talk about, but when do you do it? Okay. Okay. Beginning of the year, which in student ministry will probably be the fall. So during good seasons of transition. However, don't make changes without getting people ready for the changes that you want to make. Even if it's in the fall, use the months that come ahead to begin to sweep. Let me give you an example. I wanted to make a significant change this fall in terms of our program. This was my idea. I wanted to basically say on Sunday nights where we typically had our large group youth activities. I wanted to say we're not going to do anything anymore. Based on the busyness of culture, based on the way in which we as a youth ministry sometimes feed their addiction to activity, I want to stop. I wanted to do something totally different. And what I want to do is have students come in to the sanctuary by themselves to spend time alone with the Lord in a season of silent prayer, meditation and worship. Not corporate, not singing, no talk, no message. In fact, with a few leaders standing at the front and students could come down and they could ask for prayer, but the leaders would be counseled not to give them counsel. In other words, this isn't time for you to dialogue with the students about where they're at. Instead, it's time for students to dialogue with God, to commune with God. But they can kind of have prayer. And then you can make note of that. I prayed with Jessica. I prayed with Brian. And then during the week, you can make contact with them. Now, the reason I want to get towards this is I think it's going to help counter the addiction kids have and how their Sundays don't look like a Sabbath at all. It's just one more busy life moving, moving, moving, moving. And so Sunday mornings, they come Sunday nights, they come, they forget about their homework. So they leave the youth group at 9 30 or 10 at night. They go home to a pile of homework. As they get ready to do their homework, they stay up late. If they stay up late, they're going to wake up the next morning. And chances are they didn't do their homework because they were tired. So they get up and they're immediately faced with the reality of being tired, which probably lead to some level of emotional frustration, anger, depression, whatever. And then they'll be faced with the reality of, I didn't do my homework. So now I need to get it done. I don't have time to get down. So what must I do? Cheat. If I'm cheating, which is not that big a sin for most of them in their thoughts, they start the week off really well, don't they? Just had a great Sunday experience with the Lord. And now I'm not taking care of my body, mind or soul. I'm cheating. And it's not even 8 o'clock. I haven't really gotten in the first hour yet. I'm off to a great start. With that in my mind, as I evaluated where the students were, I began to think about this would be a radical change. Sundays will be restful. Students will come in. They'll spend time alone with the Lord. We'll encourage them to do that. It's pretty radical. Totally different than what we've done in the past. I was ready to do it. And I will get there. That is something I think God wants our group to experience. But I realized if I did it this year, based on where the students were, it won't work. It would have worked for last year students. We had a great senior class. A lot of leaders that would have really bitten into it and did it. But we don't have that right now. And so what would have happened Sunday nights, my prediction is most of the students would have not come and would have went to other churches or just would have hung out doing something else, probably going to a movie or something. We weren't ready for it. How did I know we weren't ready? By listening. Pitching the idea slowly to a couple of students watching their interaction. So what did we do? When we made a subtle change, we moved towards small groups, which David and Steve knows has some of those principles in it that I just mentioned. But ultimately, I want that to move towards what I just described. But I'm waiting patiently for the right timing, building a case for it, helping students get excited about it. And then I think it's going to be unbelievable in their life. But I've got to get them there. I can't just say, we're not doing any group anymore. Instead we're having this niggle solo thing. You do every week. I know you've never done this in your life, but it's going to be the greatest thing you've ever experienced. It wouldn't work. It's going to be very creative, very patient, and slow. Any other thoughts on doing that? Making decisions at the right time? Okay. A couple more before we take a little break. Include your student's input in the evaluation process. I used to be really afraid of evaluation. Why? Yeah. And especially when you think about who you're asking to evaluate. You're not asking the most stable emotional group in the history of the world to evaluate you as a person and what you're doing. Are you? You know, it's kind of scary to think about these questions. What do you like about our youth group? What do you like about me? What do you not like about me? What's been the most significant thing you've done in this youth ministry? What has been the least significant? You know, you see the questions and also you can look at the students answering them, especially you say, don't put your name on it. You know, they're going to be real honest. It can get really ugly fast. I mean, if a girl or a guy's in a bad mood, they're probably going to seek everything pretty negative. It's not like if they're in a bad mood. They're going to say, I'm in a bad mood. I recognize that. So I'll step away from that and evaluate clearly. Instead, they just let it all flow and suddenly this whole thing stinks. I don't even know why I'm here. It's a waste of time. So I wouldn't evaluate. I'd do it sometimes through conversation, but never formally. And I'm not even seeing you should do it formally now, like handing out a sheet. Some people do it. I think it's great. But I constantly am evaluating through conversations with students, not formal. Not saying you're going, OK, to tell me how you felt about this, but just asking them questions. How are you doing? Well, let me ask you this. What can we do to help you more effectively? As you ask that question, they're going to talk about what you're already doing. Kids will do that. They usually don't think that far ahead. They might say, I don't like it, but they're not thinking about a solution. So if you say, hey, Steve, tell me what do you like about what we're doing? They'll say, I don't like it. They'll say, maybe this and that. If I say, hey, what are we doing that's really helping you or how can we more effectively help you to probably talk about what you're doing? I will help them hear that. And then you can get into specific things. I love this question, for instance, Sharon, if we could change one thing about Sunday mornings that would encourage you, what would that be? She might say, I wish the talks for shorter, or I wish we did more of this. I don't know. I always come hungry. Is it going to be new with food? I think it'd be great if we had food. Maybe we could do that. Include students in the conversation. If you let them give input, what are they going to feel like you respect them? And more so than that, you've given them a little bit of ownership of what's taken place. And this generation of students, as all generations really love ownership. I mentioned here evaluate frequently. How often do I evaluate every week? Every day, every week, every month. That's pretty much the way I do it. Personally, and I'll talk about this later on in the semester with time management stuff, but I try to evaluate things that we do each day. Then I evaluate every week, every program that we've done. I don't spend hours doing this. I simply step back and go, did it accomplish its purpose and objectives? Was it good? Was it bad? How do we need to make it better? Then I try to get away once a month, just to kind of think more global. And then once a year, I try to get away for three or four days, just to step back and look at everything we're doing. Out of that, I never come back going, oh, we have hit it. It's done. No more changes. It's perfect. Why? Because we're falling people. And my leadership team, maybe, is perfect as it's ever been, but somebody's going to get sick or somebody's going to decide they don't want to be a part of this ministry. Something's going to happen. It's never going to be absolutely perfect this side of heaven. So we will constantly be making changes. One more before we break for a couple of minutes is this. Have fun. My senior pastor asked me this question a lot, and it's rhetorical. And it's more of a statement. He says, are we having fun yet? Are you having fun? If you're in ministry and the answer to that question is no, ask what would make you happy? If it's more numbers, it's not going to make happy. If it's a bigger budget, it's really not going to make happy. Are you having fun right now in the circumstances that God has you in? Are you having fun in seminary? That's a hard question. A lot of papers. It's late November. Finals are around the corner. Papers are coming. Don't forget, I have those of you who have to report papers to me. I know it's hard, but it's very easy to lose joy. That's not going to leave when you get out of seminary. I'm a lot busier now than I ever was in seminary. In seminary, it was a lot of ways easy because it was so focused during seminary. Not other things, I had another part-time job in a little bit of family. But it was at least pretty much this percentage of my life was focused in school. I'm not saying suck it up. Come on guys, life's easy in seminary. Believe me. I'm simply saying it's not going to suddenly be, I've got nothing else to do now that I'm out. You're always going to have more to do than you can do. And the temptation is going to be to lose joy. Satan will want that to happen. So in programs, you need to step back and ask the question, are you having fun? One of our largest events we do for outreach is near football. I've told you about it already. This year, I entered into it totally different. I don't know why. It was just God. I walked into it and I don't know if you two will remember me saying this, but I said, you know what? I'm just excited to play. I'm excited to be side by side with the students tackling one another, laughing. We've done that thing six years. I think it's the first time in six years I have felt that way about that program in the past has been I hope it's a success and I can't wait for it to end so I can scratch it off and get ready for the next day. And at the way our world works right now, task, scratch, next thing, task, scratch, next thing. We need to move away from that. Move towards, oh, I've got an event coming. I can't wait Sunday school, Sunday morning. The inner into it going, oh, I have full students are here. Our massive number of students are here. I can't wait to be side by side with them. Or is it, I can't wait to get that over with. I can't wait to get worship over with. I can't wait to get on our next thing. You could come in Sunday night. I can't wait to get that over with. Or is it what a joy to be setting in the midst of students just sharing with them the gospel. It's going to be challenging. See or seek and savor that what God's called you to. Seek him. See with the relationships that he brings. Let's take a short break and we'll come back and conclude this part on programs.