Tonight at a memorial service for Jessi Rees, I got some insight about why we die and have funerals.

Jessie was only 12. Why would she die and why would we have a memorial service? Memorial services aren’t a new concept. They have graves dating back to ancient times. It’s something we’ve always done, but why?

I could go into a deep research project on this, read several books and scour the web. The answer, I think, is probably quite simple and the reasons are probably multiple – and I don’t think they all have to do with the dearly departed. I believe God is up to somethings much bigger. Here are a few that I imagine:

• Funerals help us remember we our time here on earth is limited
• We’re forced to wrestle with our own connection (or lack of) to God (more than 100 people committed their lives to Christ at tonight’s memorial)
• Reminders that life is more about what we give than what we get are plentiful
• Through a funeral, we are able to make a connection to each other on a deeper level. Grief, along with honoring a life, mixed with being confronted with our eventual demise and eternal destination, opens the door for life to get vulnerable and deep in community. That can be a very good thing
• Funerals make us want to be better people and live our lives the way God intended

I’m writing this post while sitting in a volunteer leadership event. Its a GREAT event. They’re doing a great job. Pastor Rick Warren came and spoke, videos and pictures of stuff we’ve done were put up on the big screen. Letters of changed lives as a result of our work have been shared. It’s been awesome!

All that said, the most encouraging part of the entire meeting, no knock against the meeting itself, was a couple of text messages I got from a youth ministry friend during the event.

I spoke at a retreat for his youth ministry in Kansas a couple of months ago. He sent these messages about how I impacted his students and gave credibility to some material he’s using because I know the people who wrote it.

The takeaway, other than being encouraged, is:

1. General words of encouragement to the crowd is great, personal words specific to an individual for sacrificial contributions are deeply impactful and straight to the heart

2. Being an encourager and pouring into the lives of others, while not immediate, comes back on you. Encouragement, much like revenge, then can sometimes be best served cold. Sometimes years after pouring into the life of a knucklehead student (not the case with the students in that camp I mentioned), all those years of wrestling with a kid to lead him down the path of God’s way will bring the encouragement of a thank you. It’s so great!

3. Leaders don’t lead for the sake of being encouraged. Their focus is on impacting the lives and situations around them. It’s an act of dedication, love, purpose, or something outside themselves. However, when they’re blind sighted with encouragement, it really packs a punch.

One of my life verses is 1 Thessalonians 5:11, “Therefore, encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.” We each need to serve without our own benefit in mind. I think we have that down. However, we also need to encourage our co-laborers (fellow volunteers) so we’re all preserved and encouraged to carry out the call.

I’m super thankful for my friend in youth ministry, Justin Dougan, for illustrating that for me tonight. I guess I should quit blogging and pay attention to the meeting now. Stay strong for the cause of Christ through youth ministry.

“But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began. (Luke 15:22-24 NLT)

Tonight, I’m amazingly excited to go to the baptism of a prodigal son! He left our youth ministry and his family a few years ago and went down some extremely dark roads. Today I got a message from his brother that he has returned home and to his Creator and is being baptized tonight. The hour is late, I’ve got lots to do, but nothing could keep me from the celebration that’s about to take place.

Never give up. Chasing prodigals doesn’t work very well. However, the work God does through us before they run comes back to them when they’re done running. So glad today we have another example of the proof that we can never run so far from God that we can’t go back. So glad today we also have a reward for the work we do in youth ministry – the celebration of a son who was dead come back to life!

I was this great post by Jonathan Tripp over at SimplyYouthMinistry.com. The article is about one of my favorite topics: Training Youth Ministry Volunteers. I put a clip below. Head over there to see the entire article.

Training
As a volunteer, I was excited to get to attend training sessions. Now, I get so many thanks from my volunteers for training opportunities. Whether we drive for hours or just across town, time together along with great information makes for a good combination. It always irritated me when I was given a task without enough information. Always make sure your volunteers fully understand what you are expecting from them. Some may need more explanation than others. Don’t assume that just because you’re the youth minister that you can’t learn from your volunteers either. Some may have been doing this longer than you. Sharing ideas and offering training times helps to ensure everyone is on the same page in regards to the youth ministry of your church.

Caring
If volunteers don’t feel cared for then they won’t want to use the training that you provide. I wanted to know that I was being ministered to as well as helping to minister to the youth. My volunteers are the same way. Send them a note. Give them a call. Know what’s happening in their family. I once called one of my biggest volunteers to ask about a new family issue they were dealing with and found out that no one else had called to check on them. It meant the world to them at the time. My wife and I also love to make special Christmas ornaments for them commemorating the year. One of the most special ideas is to hold an appreciation dinner hosted (and served) by the youth themselves to say, “Thank you,” to volunteers, parents, and sponsors for the year of support.

Mistakes
One of the biggest mistakes I have made regarding volunteers is to expect that the outcome of their work will always match the grand vision I had in mind. Don’t be afraid to admit that you made a mistake. Maybe it’s your vision. Maybe it’s their execution of you vision. Maybe it’s that you put the wrong volunteer on the wrong task. If they aren’t successful (at least some of the time) then they won’t want to keep trying. It won’t matter how much caring and training he gets; if he can’t sing then he can’t sing (don’t let him continue to lead worship as youth stop attending). You also can’t be afraid to point out mistakes made by your volunteers. It’s part of training. Be gracious. Be kind. Be honest. Be firm.

I had dinner with a student tonight to talk about a Christian club he started at his school. I’m very proud of this student and gave him a lot of encouragement and ideas. I also made sure I expressed to others in front of him how proud I was.

Tonight, however, we’ve exchanged a few messages on Facebook about how mad he is that I didn’t hear some things he didn’t say and how much I let him down. Seventeen years ago, when I started in youth ministry, that would have really thrown me for a loop. I would probably have been devastated and tried to appease his every point of discouragement. Fortunately, experience has me taking a different approach.

SOME WISDOM ON THE TOPIC…
This might be helpful for others, so I thought I’d jot down some reality checks in case you come across this:

- Beware of projectiles: He’s projecting inner insecurities and frustration onto me, I did everything I could with the information I had to give him what he needed. I must not internalize those misplaced negative feelings. He had them long before he met me and will deal with them in the way he chooses. I’ll give guidance, but the decision to make healthy choices is up to him.

- Speak truth to misplaced frustration/rage: Many (possibly all) of his frustrations stem from inner doubt and insecurity. My response to his Facebook email attacks were to show how I communicated my support tonight, that I believe in him, and that he had my full attention, and I gave him as much time as he wanted. Much of tonight’s attacks were about how he’s hurt that, in his opinion, I didn’t allow him to address the issues (the ones he didn’t tell me he wanted to discuss).

- Allow the message time to take hold: He’s still angry and hurt at me (really a reflection of his longtime inner torment). However, I imagine when he cools down, and has time for my words to sink in and take hold, he’ll begin to understand what I had to say. If I tried to get him to see that before I went to bed tonight, it would be futile. Experience tells me to speak the truth and give it time to sink in.

- End a conversation, even if it’s not over: We have not resolved these issues, but the conversation was not moving in a healthy direction. I told him I was done for the night, but invited him to spend time with me again soon to hash this out. A mark of maturity in working with students is realizing effective relational ministry happens over a season and through effective conflict resolution.

This student is awesome and will be fine. This is, however, our first conflict. While conflict isn’t fun or attractive, it has amazing power to deepen a relationship if handled well. For that, I’m thankful and press on in this ugliness. To read more about dealing effectively with conflict, click here.

There’s more to this story. Read The Day After Students Attack for my notes on the follow up to this conversation.

Here are a few tips for counseling your students with their parents:

- Don’t be available at a moment’s notice. If you can delay the appointment for at least a few hours after the explosive argument, they’ll have a chance to cool down and the session will be more productive

- Start the appointment with prayer. Prayer brings God into the conversation and reminds the counselees that they are Christians. That’s a little tongue in cheek. But, really, sometimes this will help the gloves not come off so much during your meeting.

- Begin with stories of what they like or appreciate about each other or a fond memory. Everybody has to share something. This accomplishes 3 things: 1. It softens everybody in the room, 2. It shows you are going to lead the meeting, 3. It sets a positive mood.

- Stay on point until the parents and student understand each other. Tackle one issue at a time. THIS IS ESSENTIAL!!! The tendency will be for the conversation to go down secondary paths not related to the current topic. You are in control of the meeting. When somebody (parent or child) takes the conversation down an unrelated bunny trail, it’s important that you pause and redirect the person back on track until a common understanding is reached. You’re not looking for buy in or agreement, you’re looking to help them understand each other. Good questions during this time are often, “How would you have handled that if you were the parent?” and “How would that have made you feel if you were the child?”

- Keep the conversation moving. The tendency will be for families to harp on a subject much longer than they need to. They’re pouring out their pain and it feels good. You’re leading the conversation so it’s your job to come to an understanding and move on to the next topic. Once understanding is met, announce, “Now that we have an understanding there, we’re going to put that on the shelf for now and not revisit it again in this session. What’s the next issue?”

- Summarize and suggest action steps. Repeat every issue discussed in the meeting as well as the understanding everybody came to on each topic. Give some ideas that could help them communicate better or be more considerate of each other.

- Close in prayer.

Sometimes a student will reveal something monumental in their lives that we’ll need to help them through. Conversations I’ve had or other leaders have told me about include such topics as drug use, gender identity, sexual impurity, abuse, thoughts of suicide, among others. These can catch any youth worker off guard. However, it’s always an honor to be trusted enough by a student for them to reveal such big issues. When we know how to help them share, we can make experience easier for them.

Here are some questions and comments I use to help students share more about their issues:
1. Tell me more about that
2. How did this start?
3. This must have been a tough time in your life
4. Who else knows about this?
5. How did your family/friends react? or How do you think they will react?
6. In an ideal world, what would you like to see happen in this situation?
7. Tell me about your relationship with God while this has been going on. What do you believe he can do in this situation?
8. As I help you through this, that help might not always be easy or fun. You will have to trust me along the way that you’ll be better off as we deal with this together

All of these questions are designed accomplish five goals:
1. Gently pull the information out of them
2. Build a sense of safety
3. Become source of help
4. Create an opportunity to reveal the grace side of God
5. Lead to other questions and deeper conversations.

These conversations are tough emotionally, but are a great pathway toward intimacy between you, the student and God. Once you make it through helping one student, you’ll want to have more.

Three tips about these types of conversations:
1. Reflect their emotions. It’s healthy to have a wide range of emotions throughout this type of conversation including some comic relief. Laugh with those who laugh. Mourn with those who mourn. It’s incredibly draining, yet awesome.
2. Replace surprise with compassion. When you find yourself wanting to screech, “You did what?!?”, that’s the time to hold your composure and affirm them for taking the scary step of sharing it with you.
3. Show tough love. While you are compassionate, understanding and encouraging, don’t be afraid to set boundaries and standards. They’ll still mess up, but with you holding them accountable, they’ll be on the road toward health. If you don’t do this, you’re nothing more than a place for them to dump information to relieve themselves of guilt.

So, what shouldn’t I do?
1. Ask questions that elicit guilt. They don’t help and the student already realizes a need for change (which us the only “healthy” use for guilt in counseling situations).
2. Make comments that might intimidate or cause fear. The only place fear should appear is in relation to the specific steps necessary to move toward healing. Intimidation has no place in the healing process.

I love our students. They’re incredibly helpful around the church, passionate about the causes of Christ, eager to sign up to go on mission trips, etc. With some of them, however, there’s a huge disconnect with the work of the church and their interactions at home. I’m not surprised anymore, but I am at a loss for how to help these students take their church attitudes into their home lives.

In the eyes of students, there are a variety of reasons for the disconnect:

• Life at home is unfair
• Parents are unpleasable
• You hurt most those you love
• There’s too much history. Everybody knows my faults so I can’t hide. I might as well be what they expect.

While I have counseled a couple of families on this topic, I’m still figuring out how to bridge the gap of how the students shine at church and rust at home. Here are a few strategies I’m testing:

• Colliding worlds. I’m interacting with parents more so they feel comfortable coming to me for help. This helps me get to know the student behind the mask and deal with the real issues there
• Listen, but don’t feed. Students need to vent. I get that. However, I try hard to leave it at that. The basic truth is students love their parents, they just drive each other crazy. Students need a safe place to scream about what’s happening at home. I’m careful not to encourage their feelings, but I’ll let them get it off their chest.
• Connect the dots. This is a huge eye opener for students that has to become an art form for youth workers. It’s not easy to do well without pushing a student away. In the last point, I wrote to listen, but don’t feed. Connecting the dots happens after students have cooled down and you’re in a different conversation with them. Something they say will shed light on why a parent reacts a certain way or has a rule or doesn’t trust. At that moment, I’ll engage the student in a conversation about how that nugget of discovery impacts their life at home. It’s fun to see the lights go on when I offer a different way to communicate that same message in a healthier way.

While I’ve been doing this stuff for years, I’m being more intentional specifically about relationships in the home in this season of ministry. I’ve still got some learning to do. I’m sure there will be more posts about this in the future.

I’d love to know what you think. Please comment on this post if you have some ideas.

Thanks!

Dennis

Even though I’m a volunteer, I started a tradition of meeting with parents of students who attend my small group Bible study. It’s great! Parents typically don’t contact me because they don’t want to intrude on their kid’s world. I don’t contact parents because I think they’re busy.

Since I started this last year, my contact with parents has increased immensely. I’m now partnering with them and even doing some light family counseling to help them communicate with their sons who are in my small group.

The biggest reason I held this meeting is I want to expand the influence of our small group time into the home. I want the entire family to impact our small group and I want what happens in small group to be reinforced at home. Here are two ways I’m doing this:

• Weekly e-mails to parents (Posted to this blog as Family Focus)
• Occasional meetings with parents

I’m posting the documents I used for the meeting in case they’re somehow helpful for other youth ministry leaders. Take what you want, edit it, make it your own.

• October_16_Parent_Meeting_Agenda
• Parent_Information_Cards
• Basic Life Group Information