“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 saw this over on Doug Fields’ site. I like this because I’m a big proponent of doing ministry with the entire family in mind. This list is written by Doug from the perspective of being a dad of 3 kids who have gone through our high school ministry:

1. Another significant adult is caring for them and cheering them on.
2. They are encouraged to grow spiritually on their own by someone other than mom/dad.
3. They find support during turbulent times in their life.
4. A caring presence at their sporting events or key activities.
5. Someone who is excited to see them at church.
6. Someone actually notices and misses them when they’re not at church or small group.
7. A caring friend leaves them affirming voice messages: “I was just thinking of you and wanted to let you know I think you’re the greatest.”
8. They can serve as a “neutral adult” who doesn’t freak-out over bad grades.
9. They have a “safe” person to talk to.
10. The small group leader becomes a tender, yet truthful voice when they need a little correcting.

My prayers were answered! We brought an intern onto our staff to help us with our overwhelming load, but also help him get his feet wet in ministry. Now the surprisingly difficult task is releasing responsibilities to him. I thought that would be the easy part. However, I don’t want to overwhelm him or trust him with tasks above his competency level.

Today I’m starting to get a grip on how I can help him best:

- I’m going to help him get set up with his blog and social media so he can build an audience as he learns. This could be one of the most useful assets when he’s in the job market later on

- I’ll spend time explaining the why behind what we do. Once he can capture the why, the “what” (method) will come more naturally

- Yesterday I had him write small group questions for this week. Before reading them, I made an agreement that nothing is personal if something gets used or not. The experience of thinking through the questions and writing – the process – is great training. Truthfully, he wrote great questions and we’re going to use them almost word for word

What I’m discovering is that having an intern is an amazing privilege and responsibiity. Our team wants to equip him to the best of our ability to get our stuff done, but set him up to majorly win. If we use well this amazing gift God has entrusted to our team, I’m sure he’ll be faithful to trust us with more down the road and one day my email and voicemail boxes will be at zero and other churches will be blessed with some well-equipped servants of the gospel.

This blog post is a little bit heavy. I share it with the intent of helping others think through their actions if they ever have to remove a student from their ministries. This isn’t one I enjoyed writing, but if my goal is to help other in-the-trenches youth workers, I have to share the ugly stuff, too.

Rather than going into the “why” of the matter, I’m going to share some important actions I took which made this a less explosive situation (and two actions I could have done better):

What I did right:
1. I had solid reasons for making the decision. Nothing was personal against her or out of anger on my part
2. I gave the situation a month and a half cooling period. The student was not allowed to attend during that time. We revisited the situation prior to making the final decision
3. I discussed the situation with trusted and confidential advisers
4. I clearly communicated my reasons (which I had to do a few times)
5. I made my superiors aware of my decision and the reasons behind it before announcing it to the family. Part of this was seeking their support, part of it was allowing them the opportunity to give guidance if they wanted

What I could have done better:
1. Making the decision: Although I did have a brief conversation with her parents by phone before making the decision, I should have had a more in-depth conversation in person
2. Communicating the decision: I communicated this decision over the phone. I should have done it in person. I did have a follow up meeting in person which went very well.

Late tonight Pastor Rick Warren sent out a note on Twitter recommending this blog to youth ministry volunteers. As you’ll see in the chart below it had quite an impact on the amount of traffic I got in the last hour and a half of the day. Today’s been pretty amazing, too.

While it’s fun to get the exposure, this is a great example of a bigger youth ministry lesson. Our words as youth workers can breath life into our students like Rick’s words breathed life into this blog. We need to be continually breathing words of life, encouragement and potential into them so they’ll be an impact in the lives of others for Christ.

It’s not enough that we get God’s Word into them, we’ve got to insire them to look for what God wants to do through them. Pastor Rick sent a lot of people to my blog last night. My blog has a lot of great stuff on it from the past few years I’ve been writing it. Somehow his mention tonight has inspired me to be even more diligent in my work with students and sharing what I learn with others. That’s exactly the effect we should have in the lives of our students if we inspire them the way Christ wants us to.

I remember the first crisis I had to face when I first started in youth ministry. I was paralyzed at the idea of going into the home of some students I barely knew whose dad had just passed away. I’ve learned a lot since then. Seeing this article from Kurt Johnston and Josh Griffin confirmed what I’ve learned during the many years between then and now, but also made me wish I had this information back then.

The best way to deal with a crisis is to prepare for it before it ever happens. This article will move youth workers a giant step toward that goal!

Here’s a clip of the article. Read the entire text by clicking here

Let’s say that someone in your youth ministry was in a pretty bad car accident and it is midnight. How do you respond to a crisis like this? Here are some principles that should translate to this and other situations:

Be the First to Show Up
In a real way, you are a tangible expression of Jesus Christ in the lives of your students. Showing up immediately in crisis assures them of their connection to God and of God’s love for them. They find incredible value in your presence, so show up as soon as possible. Assure them that God loves them and there is hope. If you have any question whether or not you’re welcome, go and be turned away rather than not go and regret it later.

Be Present
When you’re there, make sure you’ve got time to give them your full attention. There’s nothing worse than something that is an all-consuming-crisis for someone else that doesn’t carry that same weight with you. Turn off your cell phone, make great eye contact, cancel other appointments so you can give the situation proper time. In short… give them your full attention.

Be Available
In times of crisis a family or student may make some special requests of you. Do everything in your power to make it happen, even if it isn’t in your talent

I used this a couple of times last week at high school summer camp. “You’re not in trouble, but…” is the perfect medium I’ve found between the lands of Knuckleheadville and You’reawesomeistan. When student isn’t really being “bad”, you just need him to take a break from driving everybody crazy, we too often resort to discipline when what we really want is a break.

Next time Chris, or Suzy or some other kid in my youth ministry is on my last nerve, but not really being “bad”, I’ll say, “You’re not in trouble, but I need you to…”
- Quit shooting Nathan with the water gun
- Stay off the roof
- Put the chainsaw away
- Quit driving the church van when the pastor’s looking… you’re only 12

In addition to this, something I learned from working with Doug Fields over the years is to partner with another leader to take turns managing the extra grace required kid every youth ministry has.

Last night I happened upon an over-nighter being thrown for some students in our High School Ministry. The leader of these boys is one of my former students. It was a huge blessing for me to see him serving in ministry. He’s actually been doing this for a couple of years, but this was my first time to see him with his small group students.

When he was one of my students, I frequently made comments that assumed he would be involved as a leader in our ministry one day. I do this with all of my students. I’ll say something like, “When you’re a high school small group leader…” Doing this opens their eyes to a possibility they may not have otherwise considered.

It’s great to see students come back and serve in our ministry. He’s not the first and he is far from the last. It’s great to know that, as he believes in his students, in the not-too-distant-future, I’ll have some youth ministry great grandkids.

I started a new ministry to recently to help troubled students. It’s going great! In fact, it’s almost “too” great. We’ve got an overabundance of volunteers. The ratio is something any ministry leader would salivate over.

However, with volunteers comes the occasional turmoil. Here are a few nuggets I’ve implemented while working through occasional blow ups between volunteers:

1. Determine the aggressor

It could be both leaders are aggressors in their own ways. However, if you can pinpoint which leader is the most demanding or hard to work with, that’s a great starting point to dealing with the issue. The next 4 points will largely be focused toward training this person to work toward the greater good of the ministry while learning how to be flexible and use more effective methods of communication.

2. Point out inflammatory comments

A leader I have confronted used extreme words to communicate her displeasure. Phrases like utterly disgusted, morally outraged, deeply saddened, throwing me under the bus were all extreme ways of communicating feelings in a way that prevented her co-leader from having a fair chance to respond and work through the issues.

To make matters worse, the leader would be pleasant and have no problems in person. However, it became predictable that she would fire off an inflammatory email full of these phrases when she returned home after our weekly event.

3. Train leaders to be healthy communicators

- Communicate in person – How I prefer my leaders to communicate is face-to-face. People will typically be more gracious in person. Somehow, the safe distance of a computer makes people more willing to rip each other apart and regret it later.

- Assume the positive – Your issue with another leader may seem completely justified in your mind. However, that’s a big part of the problem, it’s in your mind. Our minds tend to have imaginary conversations with people where we are always in the right. When we confront the person, we’ve already got both barrels loaded with flawed ammunition. If we start from the vantage point of being a learner instead of an aggressor, we allow the person to help us understand where she’s coming from. Usually, we’ll find we’re on the same page, just reading it differently.

4. Nip it in the bud

- Don’t let a lot of time go by before you address an issue. In this case, the aggressor kept canceling the meeting for a variety of meetings. I eventually called her into the office for a meeting with me without the other leader present so we could discuss the issues. At that point, I was willing to take what I could get. I had already discussed in detail with the leader being attacked her side of the story. I just needed to address the issues with the other leader.

The longer you let turmoil roll around in your ministry, the more damage and division it can cause. It’s like a bull in a china shop. If you want to protect your ministry from further damage, you’ll deal with issues (even though it makes you uncomfortable) before it spreads… which can’t be a good thing.

5. Dismiss a leader who is unable to change

- In this case, I decided to dismiss the aggressor. This was the 2nd co-leader she was having issues with. I could tell she had a great heart for ministry, she just lacked the skills to work with others to make it happen. Normally, I would not be so quick to dismiss a leader. However, this was a pretty cut and dry situation. When a leader isn’t a fit, he or she usually knows it before I do. By the time I’m ready to cut the cord, they’ve already probably started thinking about their exit strategy

- When I brought her in for the meeting the first words out of her mouth as she was sitting down were, “I’m resigning”. I think she kind of expected me to talk her into staying. We talked about her, her role in the ministry and the issues she was having. She had some very valid points. I also thanked her for some very valuable input and contributions she made to the ministry. When I told her I would accept her resignation, the look on her face said, “Well, THAT backfired.” It was, however, the best decision for the health of our ministry.

She will go on to serve in other ministries and do great. I have no doubt about this. If I had let her remain where she wasn’t a fit, I would have held her back from finding fulfillment in ministry and helping those God designed her to be a blessing to.

If you tell a students, “Dude! Go brush your teeth, your breath stinks!”, you’ve thrown away an important youth ministry opportunity. Taking a different approach to this and other embarrassing situations can become a strong foundation for insider, deep relationships.

Case in point from last weekend… (I’ve had done this many times)

Last weekend one of my students had a raging case of bad breath. Super halitosis! In my mind, I said, “I’ve got this.” I’ve developed a script I use in this exact situation that shows I care, gets me to have an insider experience with the student, while also solving the problem.

Me: You know I love you and always look out for you, right?
(This sets the stage for sharing difficult information. This is always shared best and appreciated most through a good relationship)

Student: Yeah (usually with a smirk, look of confusion or deer in the headlights stare because they think you know one of their hidden secrets)

Me: I gotta tell you that you have dragon breath. Let’s find you some gum.

Student: Thanks. I’ll do that.

(I’m not done yet. This next part is done tongue in cheek, but it is where I demonstrate the modeling I’m doing for them to do for others)

Me: Remember, I’m always looking out for you!

Student: Yeah, I know. Thanks!

Me: Your friends didn’t do that for you. They just let you stand around with bad breath. Huh? huh?

Student: (smiling) Yeah.

—-

Next time that student encounters bad breath in a friend, he’s got a model to follow in how to deal with it in a way that strengthens a friendships and builds an insider experience. It’s the insider experiences that cause friendships to go deep. This little one can be a door to bigger ones.