Enjoyed reading Jeremy’s post over on REYouthPastor talking about burnout and youth ministry. He asks some good questions, and I’d love to read some of your thoughts on the subject or burnout. Here’s a clip of his stuff, head over there to read the whole thing and comment if you would like:
Pain is part of the youth pastor job description. Does experiencing pain and exhaustion season a youth pastor? One of the biggest negative aspects of being a youth pastor is that working with students stunts our emotional and life growth.
Many youth pastors try so hard to dodge the ?burn out? bullet.
We try to take more days off, vacations, see a psycho-therapist, take a monthly spiritual retreat, and pursue spiritual formation but it seems like we are only left with more exposed pain, exhaustion, and burn out. There is this belief that if you burn out, you are a bad youth pastor because apparently you didn?t take enough days off or establish healthy boundaries. I think the exact opposite is true.
America?s best youth pastors are the youth workers who have learned and persevered through their many painful and hurtful church experiences. The youth pastors that persevere make it, but the youth pastors that live in the past and become jaded don?t make it.
My point ? the best youth pastors are the youth pastors who burn out or get burned because very early on they learn to forgive and to let go.
JG
We are excited to finally roll out the new SYMC website for 2011. The new site has the speaker line-up (although there’s more to come there), the great Training options, and all the registration details you need to know. There’s so much there you’ll have to check it out what Doug and the rest of the gang have planned.
We are so excited, I hope you join us in Chicago, March 4 – 7 2011.
1 September 2010
posted by Scott Rubin
Some of your churches are like mine, and you encourage some of your volunteers to ?take a breath? during the summer months. We push the pause button on our small groups in June & July so that our faithful volunteers can vacation, rest, and be ready to jump back into investing in junior highers once the school year begins. Honestly, our ministry is less effective during those months, and I miss those volunteers like crazy, but for us it?s the best choice in the long run. (and, it probably explains why so many of our volunteers have stuck around for years & years!)
So last week, I was anticipating the ?re-arrival? of our school year volunteers. I said to our staff team, ?Who?s one person that you?re really really looking forward to serving alongside of this year?? It was fun to hear people?s answers? and look forward to this fun we?re going to have together this year, as we point middle schoolers towards Jesus.
Later that day, I decided to take 4 minutes & jot a note to one of those volunteers? and tell them how much they?re valued around here ? and why. It?s a habit I?m trying to ?re-create? ? because honestly, I?ve gotten a little sloppy with it! (Which is crazy, because when I get an encouragement note, sometimes I?ll carry it around with me for a few days!) Thoughtful words are really meaningful to me — and in about 4 minutes, I can put some fuel in someone?s tank just by jotting them a snail-mail note. In a mailbox full of credit card offers and cable-tv-advertisements, a card from you would be a welcome site!
Yesterday I was on an hour long live radio show with Faith Radio in Saint Paul, Minnesota. We talked about the book I wrote with Reggie and Abbie called, The Slow Fade. They asked me a bunch of questions, people called in and sent emails to ask questions. If you’re interested in listening to that interview via podcast, click here.
Here?s a thought-provoking twist on an old game that you can use at a youth group meeting to help kick-off your fall and to generate a great discussion about community and commitment to each other. With this new twist on the classic Hide and Seek, from back in the day, your youth will have to make a decision that will provoke deeper thoughts as to: “Why we hide sometimes,” “Why do we not seek others out” and “How does it feel to be ‘found’.”
Hide and Seek (with a twist)
There are a lot of changes happening in our student ministries right now. In the midst of the crazy summer so many other components are moving in different directions. Many of the changes are great, and needed. And it will be exciting to see how God will unfold all that we have been praying for. But there are a few changes that I (as the wife) do not like so much and don’t understand. It is these changes that I don’t know what to say, and not say, and just what to do. My pride wants to shout at my husband, “Hey, did ya think it all through? Are ya real, REAL sure about that one?!” And my favorite, “Listen to me, listen to me, just listen to me!” BUT…..I know I shouldn’t.
I don’t know if I’m alone on this one, or what?? Anyone else fear change as much as me? I totally trust my husband and his call to this ministry. I do believe he is brilliant and gifted and a wonderful leader. Buuutttttt, what do you do when you don’t agree with it all?? Nothing? Pray? Vent, and visit this site?
I did take a big step (for me) this weekend. Our Pastor asked us to choose one area in which we would come to God daily for the summer and ask his guidance. I was certain that I was going to ask for wisdom concerning all these changes happening for us [...]
Ur YM has kicked off for the fall or is about to. How’s ur voluntold team looking?
Mark DeVries in his epic book, Sustainable Youth Ministry, says u should have 1 adult volunteer (engaged and relational I would add) for every 5 of ur youth. How’s that going for you?
Some of u are doing great. Skip the rest of this blog then and go back to chatting on FB.
For the rest of you: having trouble getting enough good volunteers?
Three reasons why: 1) Have you asked the right people?
2) Have you given them a specific job description with clear cut expectations, boundaries, plans and purpose?
3) Are you spending more time with ur teens than w ur volunteers?
Let any one of these three facts go awry and that’s a place to start figuring out why ur begging and pleading for help. Why ur pulling out hairs u can’t spare from ur head. Why uve even resorted to asking the SP if he would like to help “chaperon” the MS lock-in. Ur are one desperate YP if it comes to that!
Stephanie
PS-u can always tell when i’m posting from my phone. grammer, spelling and abbreviations don’t seem to matter to me.
I saw this on @Zondervan‘s twitter today, and I thought I’d pass it along. Right now you can get a free copy the TNIV Bible in Ebook format. It’s available for both the Amazon Kindle
Pick the link for the version you would like to get:
In honor of Tax Day the folks over at Simply Youth Ministry are having a special sale. Save 15% on any orders over $99.
I know I’ve had my eye on some of the Media products that are already marked down 50%.
The Igniter Backs are great. I’ve used a few of the volumes and have really liked them. The Tracks look really good also.
LINK: Simply Youth Ministry Tax Day Sale
Got some time to kill? Here are The 100 Most Iconic Internet Videos. Lot’s of classics here you may have forgotten. Here’s the Top 10:
10. Sneezing Baby Panda
9. ‘Lazy Sunday’
8. Where the Hell Is Matt?
7. David After Dentist
6. ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ (Rick roll)
5. Chris Crocker, ‘Leave Britney Alone’
4. Barack Obama’s First YouTube Address
3. Grape Lady Falls
2. Christian The Lion
1. Star Wars Kid
There’s lots more on the list. Some great ones I had forgotten about. Do you agree with their rankings?
LINK: The 100 Most Iconic Internet Videos [Full List]
There’s a church in Sweden that had it’s member donate Legos and they used them to create a life size Jesus for Easter. My church isn’t quite that cool, we only had cross with flowers. It’s sounds like a great Youth Room decoration.
Link: Swedish church unveils Lego statue of Jesus Christ
Yesterday Simply Youth Ministry and Worship House Media launched the Simply Youth Ministry Media Store, a new media store with a focus on media for youth ministry. It a huge collection of movies, backgrounds, countdowns, still images and software with youth ministry in mind. There’s also a great section of Easter stuff if you need any last minute videos or backgrounds.
They also provide weekly freebies that are great (check out the link on the homepage).
LINK: Simply Youth Media Store
Gmail introduced its new Gmail for Mobile web app for Andriod, iPhone, and iPod touch. They have tweaked the interface to allow for easier searching and basic archive, delete, etc. functions, but the most interesting update is that the app allows for offline reading of recently read messages using Gears for Andriod and SQLite for iPhone (according to Engadget). It was an allover great experience for me when I tried it out, and as earned a home screen icon on my iPhone. Check out their video (and TUAW’s review)for a demo and more information:
This may not be super geeky, but it’s a super great deal. You can pick up Youth Leader Training on the Go for only $7.99 (Retail $29.99). It’s a great resource from Doug Fields for keeping your volunteers trained and encouraged. It contains 52 training sessions that work great in your team meetings. Plus an audio CD with 12 short audio trainings, and a CD with all the handouts. It’s worth checking out.
I’ve had a lot of conversations lately about presentation software, and I would love to know what you use in your ministry. I know we had a similar poll a few months back, but it’s seems like a lot of people have been switching and thought it would be interesting to ask again:
I would like to do a series on the most popular ones.
After thinking about the latest Macheist, seeing all the tweets touring the great deals, and the new, amazing apps unlocked by selling enough to donate over $400,000 to charity, I caved. Boy am I glad I did! I found an amazing RSS reader app. To call Times an RSS reader is like calling “Pride (In the Name of Love)” by U2 a song or calling Michelangelo’s Pieta a sculpture..
I love all the news sites and blogs that are available on the internet, but consuming that information has been tedious at best. The problem is that most RSS readers present the content in something more akin to an e-mail reader. That would be great if I wanted or needed to attend to all of the pieces of all the RSS feeds I was interested in, but I don’t. For me RSS is much closer to a Newspaper. There are generally a couple of articles on each site that I care to read, a couple that I’d like to scan and well over half that I do not care about at all. I need something to help me browse the feeds I’m interested in, and Times does that with flying colors.
Times takes the RSS feeds you program as well as several that come preloaded (Digg, NYTimes, Engadget, etc.) and presents them in [...]
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