On August 1st, I became a part-time student ministry director.

Due to some recent budget decision at my current church, I was moved from full-time to part-time pay.

When most people heard that news, they felt sorry for me. They expressed frustration. They thought that I’d be crushed. Well I’m not.

Here are the reasons:

• Having all of your financial NEEDS (and many of your financial wants) met by other people’s tithes is a ridiculous blessing. We’re STUPID lucky to live in an era of history where it is normal for a church to fully compensate their “staff.”
• Sometimes, I think it MAY handicap the ministry as lay-leaders begin to rely on the “professionals” to do the work on ministry. They turn into consumers of religious goods & services which completely separates them from the best blessings of ministry.
• If I took a spiritual gifts test, I’d score high on the gift of evangelism. It’s pretty freaking hard to build relationships with non-church peeps when you move to a new city to work in a church. It’s not impossible, but I’m excited to pick up another part-time gig that allows me to rub shoulders with those who could use a pastor in their lives but would never set foot in a church.
• I went to a church in college that was part of a network of church plants. One of that networks core values was that all of their pastors would be bi-vocational. I’ve never been in a more spiritually vibrant & healthy church.
• I have the opportunity & necessity to more urgently invite others to join in what God in doing in the lives of teenagers. For the past two years, I’ve too selfishly clung to this blessing on my own, it’s time to share it with more people.

This weekend, I had the opportunity to lead a breakout session with Joel Burkhead at CLUE (Campus Life University of Excellence). I had a blast working with Joel (an old high school buddy of mine). But something I noticed about the other youth ministry peeps there stood out to me.

As a parachurch ministry, these guys & gals were freed up to do outreach aimed at those outside of the church walls. They don’t have a lot of “church kids” sitting around a this camp. They have some teens who are leaders who are only there to learn how to better share the story of Jesus with their peers. They also have some teens who grew up outside of a church setting.

Because of this, the youth workers end up aiming outside of the church walls. They aim to train students to minister to their peers within the context of school, not the context of a youth group. They minister to teens in a completely different paradigm.

I realized that this approach is SO refreshing. I need to help students learn to minister in THEIR context, not in mine. I need to reach teens in THEIR setting, not in mine. I need to orient my ministry about connecting with youth on THEIR TURF, not on mine.

Hey peeps. Here’s some youth ministry offerings…

35 questions to get conversations rolling with teenagers (and others…)

These missional group workbooks from Thrive Ministries look fantastic!

Here is a great list you could mail/email to soon-to-be college freshmen.

I came across ZACH’s blog. It’s pretty sweet stuff. Also, he doesn’t live that far away from me. I’m gonna hunt him down and buy him coffee.

The transition from High School to College can be tough for teens & even tougher for their parents. Here’s a list you can share with parents to let them know you care.

Youth Ministry Twitter-er of the week: Neil Christopher (@Evolitionist)

Check out Dieter Rams 10 principles of Great Design. What if you ran your church programs through those checkpoints?

I’ve started writing on 750words.com everyday. I usually just take a quick mental inventory of my life and try to elaborate on the lump in my throat.

Lee Bezotte explains what to expect when you’re going into ministry. A Great Article!

Here’s a great list of things to do in the 10 years it takes for you to become a master of your craft.

Eugene Cho’s got a BALLER thought about how he’d advise Lebron James through THE DECISION.

Matt Clever tells us what we already know, but don’t act on.

ROOM 1228 has got GORGEOUS designs for your ministry. I haven’t seen  anything coming out of a ministry that looks this good ever…

Check out the blog MY MILK TOOF. Made me realize that it doesn’t take crazy amounts of money to convey a story, it just takes intention.

ChurchCreate writes about Leaving Well in Ministry.

Slideshow on 6 ways to guarantee a lousy kick-off to your fall programing.

A hoodie with built in headphones & ipod/mp3 player jack!

Chuck Bomar has a few thoughts about getting onto a college campus to make ministry connections.

The “best book on the nature of church history.”

Steven Furtick has a series of short videos on How to Survive & Thrive in a Church You Don’t Like. Check out the list of videos below:

• Video 1: simply an intro to the series. you can skip this video if you’d like.
• Video 2: Focus on What You Can Effect
• Video 3: The “One Thing” Principle
• Video 4: Keep Your “Secret Playbook”

I bookmarked this article by Seth Godin and find it to influence my thinking all the time. As a youth pastor, who are the voices in your head that cause you to stop short of doing something remarkable. In the past, I’ve had a couple of parents who complained about everything (their teens were the same way). It was those parents’ voice I’d have in my head when I was planning the summer schedule or planning a lesson. Who are the voices in your head?

Youth Ministry Twitter of the Week: @YWjournal. LOTS of interesting convos and topics regarding youth ministry.

HSM has a pretty cool idea to help address the questions (both doctine & real life) that teens are asking.

Church on the Move pumps out some GORGEOUS free resources. (ps, get most of my free artwork from CYMK)

Seth’s Blog wrote about how “validation is overrated.” Youth pastors: get this through your think skull. Your pastor, parents, teens, volunteers aren’t ALL going to make you feel as validated as you want them to make you feel. Click the link and let the idea sink in…

Media Salt highlighted a service which – for $1.99 – gets you music to use in your videos without being a copyright scoundrel.

Last week was my 1 year anniversary with Allie. So now that I’m a marriage guru, I’ll share 9 ways to remind your wife that you love her. For the female youth workers, I’m sure it’ll work on your husband as well. For the single youth workers, just be glad you get to save money…

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas. Sometimes I have a great one and sometimes I have LOTS of horrible ones. Steven Furtick talks about being a steward of the ideas God places in your hands and then describes how he captures those ideas.

I’m on Facebook. Wanna be my friend? LinkedIN too.

Jonathan McKee drops an information bomb concerning the perception of how & where teens are connecting with media (if you’re like me, the results will surprise you).

Give a “thumbs up” to the presenters you’d like to see for this year’s NINES conference. I’d love it if you voted up “youth leaders.”

I might be late to the game, but I’ve really loved the stuff coming from OrangeLeaders.com lately.

The “Steps of Justice” program is a super simple practice you could implement for your teens or yourself this summer. They’ll learn to get informed, pray for, participate in big time social issues. Check out the website here.

And since I know some youth pastors who have to tighten up the budget, check out Bill Shrink. It’s a website that can price shop credit cards, tv service, cell phone service & even find the cheapest gas station for your commute. Check it.

Finally, if you have any students that struggle with depression or cutting (you do), then sign up for Kary Oberbrunner’s training day focused on YOUR SECRET NAME. I had a 45 minute conversation with Kary about the nature of cutting & depression and it changed my life & ministry. If you’re traveling, you can sleep on my couch. (you can also order Kary’s book). If you have any questions, you can ask me (and I’ll help all I can) via twitter. Or just go straight to the source and ask Kary on twitter.

Youth pastors, student pastors, pastors of students, youth workers, student ministry directors & directors of student ministry (i think that covers most of the titles youth pastors get):

Here is something you can do right now. Send a text message to all of your students (we use Simply Txt) and ask them:

Quick Survey: what are you doing right now?

I did this last week & replies back from loads of our teenagers. It allowed me to chat with them for a bit via text, took up an hour of my time & (hopefully) helped the “church world” overlap with their “real life” a little bit.

Matt wrote up an AWESOME list of youth ministry’s must-read books.

Though we know it’s true, sometimes it is hard to convince teens that Jesus is better than xbox.

You and I both know that updating facebook & twitter is pretty common. But what about while giving birth?

This week’s Youth Ministry Twitter Hero (aka. follow this person or you’re not cool): Tom Roepke.

Youth Leader Stash is the first website I go to when I need a last minute game or ice-breaker.

When I was in 8th grade I decided I wanted to be a youth pastor. At the time my dad was a self-employed hog farmer.

Before I could even get to college my dad beat me to my dream job and he’s been one heck of a workhorse in the Jr. High Ministry world.

You won’t find his name if you google him, he hasn’t written a book & I don’t think he’ll be making his rounds in the youth ministry-speaking circuit ever.

Bu that’s because he’s too busy working his @$$ off DOING ministry (not just talking about it), planting trees & being an awesome father/husband/man.

Nice work pops. Happy Father’s Day.

(remember when you used to run a video camera the whole time while skiing down a ski slope and yelling “SWEET!” millions of times? We’re gonna show that video at your funeral or something.)