Content, but Not Settled

October……20th….2009

That was the last time I posted on my blog. I used to LOVE blogging. Seriously I would blog at least once a day and often several times a day. I’d like to yell “I’m back!” but who knows if I’ll stick with it. So here you go. I’m blogging again…..today.

Anyways, that’s not what I’m going to talk about tonight. I’m sitting up in my living room just after 11pm on a Wednesday night. The only sounds I hear is my keyboard clicking and the clock ticking. Addie’s been in bed since before I got home. Nicole just crashed. We had a great night at church tonight….great energy and good group of students there. And I felt like blogging.

I’ve always struggled with contentment. Growing up I was always the kid who was stretching toward whatever was next. Couldn’t wait for jr. high to start or couldn’t wait for high school to start. Then I couldn’t wait for college and to get into youth ministry and to get married. Well guess what….that’s all happened. And now I’m 30 years old, a youth pastor, married to a fantastic wife, dad to a great daughter, and I have a mortgage. Wow, how did that all happen? So where do you go next from there?

In the last six months I’ve learned to become content. Not settled, but content. I love where I’m at in life right now. I don’t feel a NEED to move onto something more. I love my church and the students I work with. It’s not a perfect place, but I love it. So I’m content. But I’m not settled. I love our student ministry but I desperately want to see it be a place where students look outward more than they look at themselves. I love my relationship with God but I desperately want to see it grow and want to see my heart become more and more dependent on Him.

Life is good and I like where things are….but I know they won’t and shouldn’t stay the same.

Ok, I changed my mind, I’m back blogging. Check back here later or subscribe to the feed.

Picture of a Teenage Disciple

I was doing some thinking today about what a teenage disciple looks like.  Here’s a (perhaps oversimplified) look at what I think is the heart of a growing teenage disciple.

Growing heart for God (the Creator)
Growing heart for God’s people (the church, the Bride of Christ)
Growing heart for the least, the lost, and the left out (those who Jesus’ heart was for, the answer to “Who is my neighbor?”)

Parent Ministry

I’m teaching a breakout in a little over a week at Lifeway’s National Youth Worker Conference. The breakout is called “Working with Parents as a Younger Minister.” I asked for some feedback via Twitter/Facebook and was asked if I could share people’s responses. The question I threw out there was “what’s your one piece of advice to a youth pastor in their 20’s when it comes to working with parents?” Here you go!

Twitter:
joshtreece@mikelovato There is no such thing as OVERcommunicating! There is more parent ministry in youth ministry than you think! Talk to them!
mikekell@mikelovato Keep bringing it back to Biblical Truth. Stand on that authority.
samgamgee@mikelovato build strategic relationships…they can be your best of allies
kenleslie@mikelovato Advice: They must acknowledge they DO NOT know how to RAISE a teenager, but they can help parents UNDERSTAND their culture
thespiderman@mikelovato remember that they are probably pretty set in their ways and change comes hard when they’ve been parenting as long as they have
stephenperryParent ministry can’t be viewed as a program but a mindset.
also-constantly challenge your thinking and process to figure out ways/outlets for dialogue to happen at home based on what you teach…

Facebook:
- when talking about their children, use lots of profanity… just to catch them off guard.
- Get them on your leadership team so that you learn from them, develop rapport with them, and get their support for the ministry.
- Realize that your “20s” are quickly becoming a thing of the past! They don’t see you as a kid anymore, so don’t see yourself that way.
- don’t think you know it all…don’t be arrogant…cause you will learn in time young jedi
- Let them know you found out they were right. Whatever the question was…just let them know that you now know they were right. It is amazing but they will then admit when they were wrong. It works.
- Ask them to be involved in their kids lives. Ask them where they would like to help, food, sponsors, leadership. Tell them your goals and plans and ask them to get involved.
- Constantly communicate that you are their ally; that you don’t have any desire to take their place but only to supplement their best efforts to disciple their children. Also, that you are a constant student of students and want to be a resource of information & support for them as they negotiate the challenging (& terrifying to some) task of leading their children through the maze of adolescence and into responsible adulthood.

PDYM Session 5

This session is on fellowship.

- Smaller is better.
- Volunteer is better than paid.
- Shepherds are better than chaperones.
- Better is better – tweak, twist, don’t settle.

Our ministry has a sunday school style smal group structure that works to an extent but is not truly accomplishing the purpose of fellowship. I am trying to process what our next step is – tweak sundays, start groups new, or something else.

PDYM Session 3

Blogging from my phone….two takeaways from session 3.
- The crowd program is all about relationships. We are not doing great at this right now.
- A lot of the reason our ministry seems to be hanging right now is that I am kinda just tackling stuff as it comes rather than intentionally looking ahead with my planning and leading.

I will try to unpack this more when I am at a bigger keyboard.

PDYM Day 1

Last night at the PDYM conference kicked off great. If I had to sum up the night it was “It’s not about the building.” Saddleback has one of the best youth ministry facilities in the country, but until recently they’d met in portable facilities, tents, etc. Lucas and I were talking about it on the drive back to Riverside last night and both of us feel like we don’t walk into an amazing youth facility (I’ve seen a few now) and go “Oh….well they can do great ministry because they have a great facility.” Don’t get me wrong, I definitely say “Oh, this would be sweet to have.” But at the same time youth ministry is not about a building, just like church is not about a building.

Stoked for the rest of the conference. Nicole and Addie are coming down with me today. If you’re at the conference I’ll be the guy in the bright green shirt with the the hot wife and super cute 8 month old daughter.

PDYM Conference

I am heading out in a little bit to the PDYM conference at saddleback. I am pretty excited about this week. Here are a few reasons why.

- I get to hang with lucas, our jr high pastor. Should be some fun times and good thinking together.
- I will get away and meet with God. I am in the middle of a crazy season right now – ministry is busy, we bought a house, and I am still trying to figure out how to be the husband I need to be. I need this time this week.
- I want to refocus on the core of what we do in our ministry. In some ways I have coasted in ministry lately and I hate that. Its time to re-energize the biblical purposes in our student ministry.
- I want to connect with some other localy youth workers. I am a PDYM mentor in southern california so please find me if you are at the conference….especially if you’re from the IE.

I will try to keep posting here all week as well as on twitter.

Addie is Adorable

Enjoy

Better Together

I’ve been trying to think through ways of how our student ministry staff can work better together. So often we end up duplicating the same stuff (particularly in our Wednesday night program). During the month of May we’re going to team up our efforts. We’ll still meet separately (jr high and high school at the same time, different rooms).

Here are three ways we’ll be teaming up:
Creating message outlines together- Lucas and I will develop these together and then tweak them for specific JH or HS audiences.
Creating games together – we’re going to try to develop games and other fun elements that will work in both settings. When one game is more high school or junior high specific, we’ll try to help the other one come up with a good option.
Creating graphics, etc. together- self-explanatory

The Week Ahead

Here’s what I’m up to this week:

Monday
- Shots for Addie
- Admin catch-up work in the office
- On Target Evangelism Conference
- MOPS & POPS dinner at church…we’ve got some sweet outfits planned!

Tuesday
- On Target Evangelism Conference

Wednesday
- Youth Ministry Class
- Mount some TVs in our high school room
- High School Gathering – Week 3 of “Goin’ All the Way”

Thursday
- Meet with college pastor
- Meet with high school intern
- Meet with local pastor re: summer mission trip

Friday
- Day Off
- Maybe move into new house?