Challenging Church: Youth and Children Ministry

Current Church Reality -
The youth and children ministries of many of our churches have taken it upon themselves to teach Biblical truths to kids age 0-18. We have a great number of activities focused on helping kids learn about God's love, the way of salvation, the life of Jesus, and many other theological and spiritual topics. We spend lots of time, energy, and money doing what we can to lead kids in the right direction.

Church Challenge Question -
All of this is well and good, but what if instead of putting all of our time, energy, and money into leading kids in the right direction we devoted more time, energy, and money to helping parents lead their own kids in the right direction?
I've been in youth ministry now for almost 6 years and there is one thing I am sure about - youth pastors don't have near as much influence on the spiritual formation of teenagers as their parents do. I would take that a step further and say that parents have a greater influence on the spiritual formation of their kids than the efforts of the children and youth ministers combined. There is nothing that compares to the teachings (intentional and example) the parents provide during the first 18 years of their life.
If what I just wrote is true, then why is it we as youth and children ministers take it upon ourselves to be the primary spiritual leaders for kids? Which begs the follow up question, why do parents depend on youth and children ministers to be the primary spiritual leaders for their own kids? Here's what I think...
1) Children and youth ministers have been trained to see themselves solely responsible for the spiritual health of kids. When a kid we've served falls away, we feel as if we failed. It was our fault that kid chose a different direction. If this is how we're trained, which leads to how we feel, of course we respond as the primary spiritual guides. It's all about us getting the job done.
2) I love the way Regie McNeal talks about ministry in his book Missional Renaissance. He shows how the service industry has affected churches. In the 20th century, people began contracting out services they didn't want or know how to do. If you didn't want or know how to mow your lawn, you hired a lawn boy. If you didn't want or know how to clean your house, you hired a maid. If you didn't want or know how to pay your taxes, you hired an accountant. And if you didn't want or know how to lead your kids spiritually, you dropped them off at church. Through that whole experience, parents forgot the Biblical mandate to spiritually raise up their kids.
I've been thinking a lot about this challenge over the past year or so. I'm still fleshing it all out, but I'm trying to figure out how the church can support and equip parents to be better spiritual guides for their families. I've got to believe that if we spend more time, energy, and money equipping our parents then we'll have a better chance of reaching this generation before its too late.

The Little Booger

Thought I'd post a quick pic of the little guy. He's starting to grow out of the baby phase and is beginning to look more like a little boy. Crazy.

This is a little something I taught him. Mom thinks its pretty funny.

Challenging Church: Where the Money Goes

Current Church Reality - According to a survey done by Your Church in 2009...
1,168 respondents-
• Median church operating budget is $295,300.
• One-fourth of the respondents’ church operating budget (excluding capital fundraising) is less than $200,000.
• 14% of respondents’ church operating budget is $1 million or more.

Church Challenge Question: According to this survey, inward spending (salaries, building, utilities, maintenance/cleaning, property/liability insurance, office/administration and equipment/supplies, denominational contributions/fee) currently makes up 82% of our church expenses. Outward giving (international and domestic mission support) makes up 10% of church expenses.
Question - Does this seem off kilter? I realize that paying staff can pay dividends outside the church and there are necessary costs of keeping a building up and going, but something still seems wrong here.
I'm not sure that I have an answer to this overloaded spending scale, but I sure would like to see churches start showing our priorities through our spending...well, maybe we already are.

3 Years and Counting

Yesterday was Melissa and my 3rd wedding anniversary. It's been an amazing journey and I can't imagine doing it with anyone else.

To my wife - You have made me a better person. You challenge me when I get too confident, you care for me when I'm down, and you love me no matter what. God has blessed me with an amazing wife and I can't wait to see where He leads us next. 9-12-21!!!

John Ortberg at Lifeserve Conference

If we really want to help someone grow we will have to help them in a way that fits their wiring. Our great model for this is God Himself, for He always knows just what each person needs.

He had Abraham take a walk,
Elijah take a nap,
Joshua take a lap,
Adam take the rap.

He gave Moses a forty-year time out,
He gave David a harp and a dance,
He gave Paul a pen and a scroll.

He wrestled with Jacob,
argued with Job,
whispered to Elijah,
warned Cain,
and comforted Hagar.

He gave Aaron an altar,
Miriam a song,
Gideon a fleece,
Peter a name,
and Elisha a mantle.

Jesus was stern with the rich young ruler,
tender with the woman caught in adultery,
challenging with the disciples,
blistering with the scribes,
gentle with the children,
and gracious with the thief on the cross.

God never grows two people the same way. God is a hand-crafter, not a mass-producer.

Challenging Church: Paid Staff

Current Church Reality - The church pays people to be full or part-time leaders. This includes senior pastors, associate pastors, church admins, youth pastors, children directors, choir directors, secretaries, and many more. If there's a ministry to be done in the church, we'll usually find a person to pay to do it.

Church Challenge Question - Why not only pay leaders to train and equip God's people for works of service according to Ephesians 4:11-13?

As a full-time paid staff person at a church, this question has caused me to completely rethink how I serve as a leader in the church. No longer can I see myself as the person who does all the ministry. It's my job to help develop others so that they might use their God-given gifts to be a part of God's mission to redeem the world. This means empowering, equipping, and encouraging people to see all they do as a ministry no matter where they serve, inside or outside of the building.

If we continue on in the current church reality paying staff to do the work of the church, we'll continue to see people in the church confused about their role and the church confused about it's role in the world. This shift will have to begin with our staff job descriptions and the behavior for which staff is rewarded. It's a big shift.

LifeServe Conference

I've just wrapped up my first ever LifeServe Conference in Loveland, Colorado. The focus of this conference was helping train church leaders to equip people to serve. A couple of great nuggets I plan to take back to my team...

• Externally Focused - A huge emphasis was placed on the church being missional (people of God partnering with Him on His redemptive mission in the world). Good ideas were given to help guide the Church into this existence.
  
• Getting Closer to Jesus - We always talk about being a disciple of Jesus. To be a disciple is to follow and get closer to Jesus. Where might we follow Jesus to get closer to him? Where did he hang out? Yep, you got it, the "sinners." We need to rethink where we hang out if we want to be a disciple of Jesus.
  
• Where We Serve - One of the things we at our church have been thinking about is how we might better engage our members. To follow up with the "getting closer to Jesus" point, we're going to have to think of inside the church walls service and outside the church walls service as parallel ministries. We often promote inside the church walls service as "real ministry" and in doing so we limit people and discredit ministry outside the church wall.
  

My favorite quote of the conference came from Wayne Cordeiro. "You teach what you know. You reproduce what you are."