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Here are a few gossip killers for your youth ministry:

1. Put the truth out there – knowledge kills gossip because the nature of gossip is to be 1/2 truths and secretive. If there’s gossip going on about your ministry, get the truth out there or at least dispel the myths.

2. Bring the parties together – if one person is gossiping about another, rather than allow it to go on, bring the gossiper to the subject of the gossip and clear the air. Setting this as the standard for your ministry and following through on it as often as it happens will change the culture of a gossip-laden youth group.

3. Teach your way through it – consider teaching a series on the love of Christ and the nature of love. When we genuinely love like Christ, there’s no place for gossip. Gossip tears down, while love looks out for the interests of others.

4. Hold a reconciliation event – if the problem has taken over your group, hold a reconciliation service. After a message on Christ’s love and healthy conflict resolution, have them share how gossip affects them. Allow them to confront the issues being gossiped about and commit to healing the group

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- Helping a student work through his doubts and issues toward spiritual health
- The phone call from a student who trusts me enough to ask for help
- Getting an invitation to a student’s event when the paid youth staff don’t
- When a student who blew off my advice comes back in frustration and asks how I knew what would happen if he went down that road
- A student who says thank you
- Serving in ministry alongside volunteers who used to be my students
- Parents who ask how they can help (and they’re not trying to invade their child’s space)
- When a student and his family becomes like family
- Students from years before Facebook was created send a friend request to reconnect
- Encouraging or giving guidance to another volunteer leader (and the occasional staff member)
- Writing my thoughts in my blog and being affirmed by other leaders who have been helped by it

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In the November/December issue of Group Magazine, Rick Lawrence has an article on page 10 about how we damage students by saving them from mistakes and making decisions for them. On this topic, the article reads,

The handicap is real: If kids can’t decide which pasta to pick [A subject addressed earlier in the article], how can we expect them to decide anything for themselves? Angie [Franklin]… told me: “If we don’t make students owners of the church, why would they not walk away?” Why indeed. Owners are responsible for what they own; consumers, on the other hand, consume and then move on.

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This may not be as much of an issue anymore with every kid and their dog having a cell phone. However, there have been many times I’ll take students to an event and give them a time to meet back. Sometimes there’s that group where none of the students have a watch. You can bet they won’t return on time.

The solution: bring a couple of old watches with you. You’ve probably got them sitting in a drawer somewhere. If you don’t, you could pick up a couple cheap digital watches to have on hand. This will help you make sure each group has no excuse for not being back on time. That doesn’t mean they won’t try. You’ve just reduced their resources. Setting the alarm to go off 10 minutes before the return time will help, too.

Good luck getting them back on time.

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A group of our high school students left for Kenya this week. Two of them were not allowed to board the flight because their passports were within 6 months of expiration.

If you’re taking students on an international trip, make sure the passports are good for more than 6 months. Just to be safe, a year would be better.

The two students plus a staff member were able to leave the next morning thanks to expedited passports and a trip to Los Angeles. They’re doing some great work with orphans in Kenya. I’m guessing the passport fiasco won’t be the highlight of their awesome trip.

Happy traveling! Send a postcard to VolunteerYouthMinistry.com!

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Traditions get kind of a “that’s my grandpa’s generation” reputation around the church. I’m kind of a fan of tradition and rites of passage. I believe it’s important to have a connection from one generation to the next.

All of this came to the forefront of my mind tonight when I saw a guy wearing a Kappa Phi Kappa sweatshirt. I was a member of Kappa Phi Kappa in college. It turned out this guy went to the same college so we were part of the same chapter, but separated by over a decade in active membership.

This stranger and I spent about 20 minutes talking about traditions and legends of the fraternal order. Our conversation included rituals and legends. It was funny that he knew about some of the stories that happened when I was in college. I was able to fill in some gaps in his information.

While it was fun to talk about that stuff, it really doesn’t mean anything to me. I would much rather have that conversation about the heritage of the church; sharing legends and filling in gaps in information about that, instead. I don’t really have those conversations, though.

I remember Tony Campolo getting us all worked up about protecting the heritage of the church and passing down the traditions to the next generation. The 2,500 youth workers in attendance were all whipped into a frenzy on the topic that year at the National Youth Workers’ Convention. Since that time, the concept has been dormant in my mind. I wish it wasn’t. I’d like to do something about it. I’m glad I have a platform as a small group leader and blogger to begin the conversation.

Even as I write this, my mind goes to the pain in the past of the church. I believe it’s important to pass on the good with the bad. It’s who we are and what we want the next generation to avoid becoming.

Got comments about keeping the heritage of the church alive? I’d love to read them.

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Check out the Skit Guys’ online

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A while back I sent this text message to a student, “Made you look.” He, in turn, texted that to everybody in his contact list.

It’s kind of stupid, but good for an easy laugh and great for a funny memory. An easy-to-create memorable experience is gold in youth ministry. Showing our lighter side also makes us more approachable and familiar to our students.

Try this on one of your students and see what response you get. If you don’t get a laugh, just don’t tell them it was my idea.

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Thanks to the growing readership of this blog, I’m starting to get requests to train volunteer youth workers. While it’s an enormous honor to be asked, it also means I need to write some training sessions. I’ve got 16 year’s worth of youth ministry experience and conferences up in my head, and tons of material on this blog. Formulating it all into training material, however, is proving to be a beast of a task. There’s so much to say and decisions about the best way to communicate the information.

That’s where Disneyland comes in. Tonight I went by myself to have some fun while thinking about the task of training leaders. It’s amazing how the mind works. While Disneyland is sensory overload at its highest, somehow being there was incredibly helpful for me to formulate some ideas to build the training around. While I was riding Thunder Mountain and Indiana Jones Temple of Doom, my mind was churning out session titles, illustrations and “must-share” youth ministry principles. What an amazing and unexpected benefit of slacking off at Disneyland when I should have been at my computer writing!

I’m not sure going to Disneyland will always solve my writer’s block issues. However, I’ll for sure try it again. Maybe there is such a thing as focusing so hard on writing that the act of focusing actually causes writer’s block. The mind is kind of funny like that. It will be fun to find out if Disneyland is the cure. Since I have an annual pass, I’ll be sure to test this theory as often as possible.

I’m far from being done with the training material. However, I’m much closer than I was before I got to Disneyland tonight. Hopefully I’ll be in your town before too long doing a youth ministry volunteer training. Be sure to come say hi!

If you’re interested in bringing me to your church or event to encourage, equip and train youth workers, please download my speaking request form. I expect to be ready to do my first training by the middle of April, 2010.

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My 3 is a new monthly post for paid professionals to speak 3 bits of wisdom or encouragement into this otherwise “by volunteers for volunteers” community. I’m very grateful to Kurt Johnston of Saddleback Church for being the first youth pastor to contribute.

Here are 3 gems he shared:

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Speak Up! Because you have so much “skin in the game” as a volunteer, you have earned the right to speak up. If you have a paid youth pastor leading the charge at your church, make sure you let him or her know what’s on your mind, what you are dreaming about, what you are concerned about etc. You are a wealth of experience, insight and information. Don’t hold it in!

Take A Break! You may have never been told this secret: It’s okay to rest. It’s okay to miss a Wednesday night or skip a Sunday or decide not to attend the lock-in. I have seen way too many volunteers push themselves too hard and ultimately get tired, burned out and frustrated because they feel like they shouldn’t ever skip something happening in the youth group. When this happens, everybody loses….and the enemy wins.

Thank You! I really, really hope the church you serve does a good job of expressing their gratitude. But in case they don’t, please let me. THANKS! I think those of us who get paid to serve students often forget how significant the sacrifce you make really is. Sure, we think we know, but I’m not so sure that we really know! And even if we do know how you sacrifice by juggling a full time career with youth ministry we probably don’t really know what it feels like unless we have been there ourselves, which I haven’t. The only other job I’ve ever held is that of pizza delivery boy in high school and college. The ironic thing is that as a Junior High Pastor, I probably get paid less than when I delivered pizza….and I still deliver a ton of pizza!

Because I’ve been in full time ministry since the age of 22, I have never had to try to balance all the “grown up” stuff that most volunteers have to. Thank you so much for sacrificing in ways that many paid youth pastors don’t fully understand!

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Kurt Johnston is the Students Ministries pastor at Saddleback Church. He’s been married to Rachel since 1991 and together they have two fantastic kids, Kayla and Cole.

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Are you a youth pastor or highly a highly influential person in the world of youth workers who would like to contribute a My 3 entry? Please send it here

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