“But Derick,” you say. “You are a youth pastor! What are you doing canceling your time with your teens and playing with 4th and 5th graders? Slacker!?!”

Well. The name calling is a little over the top, but I will answer your question. Here are three reasons why I firmly believe that youth leaders should be LOUDLY involved in VBS and other such children’s ministries.

1. I can connect with future youth students.

I know I write this a lot, but ministry is all about RELATIONSHIP! Just last night I told one of my youth students who is a group leader at VBS that his greatest ministry this week wouldn’t be the teaching time but would be the relationship time. I told him that 10 years from now, he wouldn’t remember the sermons that I preached but he would remember the week he and I spent working side-by-side at VBS. By spending time at VBS this week I am able to have relationships with future students ahead of when they join youth. They will feel as they already belong to the group because the have a relationship with me.

2. My current youth students have an opportunity to minister.

Not only that but by not having youth they aren’t torn between missing youth and having that opportunity to minister. What good is spending all of our time teaching them the importance of sharing God’s Word and showing the love of Christ to others if we aren’t going to encourage them to do it every chance we get?

3. If we want our youth groups, our student ministries succeed, we MUST support children’s ministries.

The time of drawing hard lines between Children’s ministry, Youth ministry and Adult ministry is quickly coming to an end. It is time that we blur the lines. The more I sow into children’s ministry the more I sow into the youth ministry for the future. The more that adults sow into the youth ministry, the more they are sowing into the future of adult ministry. We must not have the segregated view of church. The us-and-them mentality must go! We are a FAMILY! By taking this week and pouring myself into this VBS, I believe I am doing just that. I am sowing (in one way or another) into all facets of not only my church but all the churches in the city, even into the city itself.

What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

[submitted by Derick Brown]

Many of the “Newbies” won’t actually start attending youth until the end of the summer, but this event gives them a chance to slowly immerse themselves in the youth group. It gives them a taste and then a couple of months to get their minds ready for the shift.

Check out this video from the event.

Do you do anything like this for your youth group? How do you welcome the newcomers?

[submitted by Derick Brown]

“Sleep Aid” = 1/2 .lb bacon cheeseburger with onion rings and guacamole… it’s an over-the-counter drug. Try it.

My main area of non-sleep focus was this blog post. I have a blog list but none of those seemed right for this week. For many posts, I write about what I’ve been experiencing most recently. Doesn’t apply this week. Nothing super interesting has happened. So I rolled over and asked my wife this question,

“What do you think is the one thing a new youth pastor should know?”

To which she groggily replied, “When teenagers realize or feel that we care about them, they are more willing to listen to what we have to say.”

Um… That’s pretty much the whole post. Never forget that programs mean nothing if our students don’t have relationships with us. The greatest words in the world will be lost on ears that don’t feel loved by the mouth speaking them. Often 10 minutes of sharing inside jokes and listening to their problems will do more for the life of a student than a month of great programming. Then, when we have that relationship – when we have that insider’s pass to their life – we can speak the love and freedom of God into it.

Look at Jesus and the lady at the well. He didn’t start preaching at her. He didn’t condemn her for her sins. He talked with her. He had a nice civil conversation with her. Then, when she was ready… when she was comfortable with Him… when she felt safe with Him (that He wasn’t going to condemn her), she opened up and Jesus was able to not only speak into her life but also to forgive her and free her from a life she desperately needed to get away from.

Teaching comes through relationship.

[submitted by Derick Brown]

Great news for youth pastors attending this year’s Hills Alive music festival: as you can see above, youth pastors are being honored in a big way!

We’ll be releasing a detailed schedule soon, but for now we’d like to see Black Hills area youth pastors take on two hour shifts at the tent. What’s involved? Just being there to welcome, encourage, showcase resources (that will be provided), hang out, and pray for other youth workers that come to the tent. If you’re game, be sure to let Kyle Goings know at June’s Network Gathering at Alternative Fuel. If you can’t make it to the gathering, email us at rapidcityyouth@gmail.com to sign up for a time slot. We need you!

We believe that this is just the beginning of something new and awesome at Hills Alive. Thank you for supporting the festival and area youth workers! For more information, email hillsalivefest@gmail.com.

Last Saturday I had the great privilege and honor to be the keynote speaker for six of our town’s graduating home schoolers. I think that what God had me share with them is a good thing for us all to remember all of the time so I want to share three main points with you today. Use it with your students… use it for yourself.

1. What qualifies me for life also qualifies you.

I am not qualified to be a pastor, youth leader, husband, father or guy walking down the street because of any worldly paper I have ever received.  It is not a diploma or degree that defines me or allows me to succeed in life. The only defining factor in my life, the only qualification I need to succeed is the one given me by Christ. I am qualified by Christ, just as He qualifies you! Regardless of how smart a person is, how much schooling they have or have not received, it is Christ that we should look to for our qualification and value. Papers are pretty. Christ is awesome.

2. Freedom Defined

Graduates are all about the freedom. That’s when we lose lots of good Christian kids to the world. They graduate and step into a world of perceived freedom justified by the “Christ came to bring freedom” mantra.  Galatians 5:1says, “So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.” Christ did come to set us free. No argument there.

Romans 12:2 says, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let  God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think., then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” I would say that Christ came to give us freedom, not through the abolishment of the law, but through the better understanding of it.

So then dear friends. Don’t look at life as an adult as freedom from the rules set by parents or Christianity. Rather, seek out God’s truth. I believe you will find that “rules” aren’t a hindrance to happiness but rather a gift to help you be successful.

3. Life is a battle.

When we are children, our parent’s fight our battles. As we grow, they let us fight more and more of our own battles until we become adults. It is then that the battle becomes our own. Then we have kids and start to battle for them. Circle of life right? We battle for safety, knowledge and a healthy future. My advice to everyone is this;

Be smart. Don’t take your newfound freedom (either in Christ or in becoming an adult) and automatically dismiss everything you have ever known. Have a battle plan. Build on the foundation your parent’s fought so long and hard to make (and protect) for you. Take this freedom and use it to search out God’s will in your life. His good, pleasing and perfect will.

[submitted by Derick Brown]

Not likely! Prepare yourself, I feel a rant coming on…

Seriously! When did anything like that EVER happen? Our Father, the Holy and Omnipotent Creator of heaven, earth and Diet Pepsi has only ever tried to bring people TOGETHER! So then, why do we so often encourage the segregation of adults and teens?“Oh, but Derick! We don’t! We only long for the unification of the body!” you might say. Fine then, lets test that. Here’s a little Q & A for ya!

1. When was the last time you spoke to a teenager?

2. When was the last time you spoke to a teenager you didn’t know?

3. When was the last time you jumped in to a circle of kids and just started shaking hands?

The point? Oh yeah, the point! I realize that most people who read this are youth people and already agree with the subject matter. My challenge is this, YOUTH LEADERS UNITE! Let’s take an open and loud stance against adult-teen segregation. We have the power to make a difference!

I understand that we feel obsolete sometimes. I understand that there IS a generational gap. I also understand that there are some things that don’t change generation to generation. I understand that God made us a body so that we could work together. Teens are part of the body, too. Us old people (I’m 28) need youth just as much as the youth need us! One of my senior pastors from back-in-the-day used to say that the adults in the church are the resource and the youth are the energy to get things moving.

Bring on some older people as youth volunteers. Encourage them that they are NOT too old to be youth workers. Build mixer events. Have activities that teens and adults can work together in. Invite some teens to men’s/women’s retreats. Fight the “Us Versus Them” mentality. Build relationships. Strike fear in the heart of segregation. Make “never the twain shall meet” never happen again.

[submitted by Derick Brown]

Last Sunday night I got home from our PM service at Destiny, put the kids to bed and picked up my laptop. I immediately jumped on Facebook to share a message about how great my day was. It read something like this, “What a great day! Great services this morning, I played bass, got two blisters (well worth it). Had a grate taco salad Pam made for lunch. Actually got a nap. Then got to help out and get ministered to by the PLBC Tour Team. Great day.” Then one of my graduated students followed up with the comment,“aaannnddd we killed Bin Laden today!!”

Initially I denied it. I asked him if he was kidding me. I mean, it’s been 10 years! I was 18 when the Twin Towers fell. That was a LONG time ago. How could we have possibly gotten to him now? Then someone told me to turn on the news because the President was going to address the nation. “Great! Just great! Now all we’re going to hear about is how President Obama put on some desert camo, snagged a grenade launcher and took out half of the Taliban single handedly!”

Sure enough, not five minutes later, President Obama got on the air and started using language that glorified himself over the brave men and women who were actually in harms way during the operation. I was disgusted. I was angry. “Great, now we get to spend the next two years hearing about how Obama killed Bin Laden. Great. Just great.” I didn’t think it was great. I thought, “This is going to be the basis of his re-election campaign. We’ll never hear the end of it!”

Then I popped over to Twitter to share some of my thoughts and I read a post from Adam McLane (Adam is a writer/student ministry guy who is also the social media/web guru forYouth Specialties – be sure to follow @mclaena on Twitter). This is what Adam wrote:

I was instantly sobered. I was reminded in that moment that while I don’t necessarily agree with what President Obama says or does much of the time, there is more to him than his office. He is a father.

I know I have written about this subject before regarding Justin Beiber, but once again I feel that we need some perspective as youth workers and as Christians. After a moment of reflection on the subject, I wrote a reply to Adam’s post:

It comes down to two things, I think. Love and respect. What kind of good are we doing for our students if we model hate and disrespect towards the President to our students? How is that helping them? What if the President’s daughters were in your youth group? What if they just showed up one Wednesday night? How would you feel? What would you say? Huh? What?

[submitted by Derick Brown]

OK now to the post.

First the video:

The Life Book is LEGIT!
It is well put together (check out the digital version here).
It is the Word of God!
The Saturation week mobilizes students to continue living as a missionary IN THEIR SCHOOL!

In case you missed it or didn’t make it to the end of the video here is a direct quote from the video from one of our students after The Life Book saturation week:

It let me know that I am part of God’s plan just by the friends that I have… He put me there to reach them!

If you are interested in finding out more about helping your students saturate their school with the word of God email me clay@thelifebook.com and we’ll get you set up!

Here is a post I did last year after we had finished our saturation week.

I have been neck deep for the past couple of weeks in our youth-led Good Friday Service preparations. Dramas, human videos, communion, mini-sermons, finding out student’s Easter plans (to see if the will be available for the service). Then finding out that students who thought they would be here won’t be and then trying to fill their spots in the dramas, human videos, and other such ministry items.

Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, my mind was running over all of the last minute preparations. I was thinking of what was left to do, what I needed to get done, how the event would run from top to bottom. I played it over and over in my mind as I was completing my going-to-bed rituals.

Then, as I laid down God spoke a phrase to me, “‎…on the eve of something great. Both now and in history.”

God was reminding me that, yeah, tonight’s service is important, and it will be great, or at least has the potential to be great. But, what is really important is what was great on this night some 2000 years ago.

My encouragement to you today is this, don’t let the particulars of the holiday get in the way of the real importance of this day or Easter Sunday. Don’t worry so much about song lists, what’s for dinner on Easter, what clothes to wear to service either tonight or Sunday morning. Remember that the good, Good Friday happened 2000-some years ago. That is the day that made all the difference. Not today, not Easter Sunday, 2011. Rejoice in that. Rejoice in Christ, our Savior who suffered and died on a Cross so that we could know grace – so that we could know Him. It was a good, Good Friday.

[submitted by Derick Brown]