Help for Young Life Leaders NOW

Over the summer I normally try to post a couple things that I learned over the previous school year. If you want see the series as it has developed over lots of years then click here. If you have anything you learned from last year that you would like to tell me about, send it my way smcgever (at) pv dot younglife dot org

Some of you know that I work for Young Life and that after working for a certain number of years you have the option to take a sabbatical, or a break from Young Life, to rest and refuel in different ways so that you can come and keep going strong.

I realize that many people reading this do not work for Young Life (my primary aim is for volunteer leaders, so hopefully this is you reading this!), but I’ve heard a few staff read it too. I made a list of some of the things I learned during sabbatical that might be helpful to those leading in Young Life. Some may be more relevant than others depending on your role, but I just thought I’d lump together and let you sort them out. Enjoy, here they are in no particular order…

1. A YL team should be able to operate without YL staff for quite a while (if not permanently).

2. You probably need rest more than you realize (and rest looks very different for different people).

3. When you are gone you are reminded that quality training helps makes things sustainable.

4. You appreciate others giving their lives away even more.

5. Some people rise up in YL leadership only when the void is actually there.

6. The Lord puts some people on your heart you may have been too busy to remember.

7. Lots of people who in truth have the resources to take a sabbatical will say, “I should really do something like that”, or perhaps more common, “That must be nice…”

8. It is just another reminder that John the Baptist was on to something when he said, “He must become greater, I must become less”.

9. Going out of town, or the country, is almost required to do a proper sabbatical in our uber-relational ministry.

10. Your family will really be blessed.

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PS… If you are looking for summer camp follow-up resources see this post and maybe this too.

Over the summer I normally try to post a couple things that I learned over the previous school year. If you want see the series as it has developed over lots of years then click here. If you have anything you learned from last year that you would like to tell me about, send it my way smcgever (at) pv dot younglife dot org

I’ve been wanting to say this for a while, not just ‘this year…’ but I’ve been noticing it in my YL travels recently and if anyone happens to read this I hope it resonates with you too.

Please, don’t ever say this phrase, “Young Life changed my life”. Please, please, don’t ever say this. Put simply, please give Jesus the credit for anything that He deserves credit for in your life. Now, the last thing we need is a semantics police going around shaking our head in judgment at YL events as this phrase will inevitably be said in your presence in the near future. The reason I’m bringing it up is not to judge anyone who says it. The reason I’m bringing it up is two-fold…

Most importantly, Young Life idolatry is an extremely easy and entirely unsatisfying sin to fall into. Young Life idolatry is rampant. When I say idolatry, I’m primarily thinking of the Ten Commandments type of idolatry (#1 and #2 mostly) you can find in Exodus 20 and Deut. 5. Now it is not wrong to like something a lot, to be very thankful for something, to have a deep sense of loyalty and appreciation, but often the lines get blurred by those who have been impacted deeply by anything, including Young Life. So most importantly, identifying Young Life as the thing that changed your life… this is a sin, additionally it simply is not true. Or, if it is true, then you are in big trouble and should probably call an experienced YL leader or pastor and they can help you understand why this is a dangerous place to be.

Second, I’m bringing it up because we need to train people new to our ministry better. I’m giving a pass, or a mulligan, to any student by the way (this phrase comes up in almost every Work Crew testimony)… I’m not expecting them to have any terminology down. I’m also giving a pass to any new leader in their first year, please just do contact work and love some kids, we can coach you on the verbiage as you go. But, for anyone who has been in leadership for even a little bit, please realize the pervasive misleading power of our words when we say that “Young Life changed my life”. This attitude at its worst will create disciples of Young Life (which there are many), rather than of Jesus.

I should point out that this is not only a Young Life issue. No matter how hard I try to avoid it, I am on pretty much ever ministry mailing list in the world. Just yesterday I received a brochure from a very well known youth ministry conference (they call it the “2015 Teen Evangelism Training Conference”). The brochure was very well done, it highlighted all of the speakers and bands and had a really cool look to it. In a big bold font it had a quote from a past attendee in all caps, “THIS CONFERENCE HAS LITERALLY CHANGED MY LIFE. – Bethany, Student”

If I wrote this properly then I hope what I communicated is that Jesus is the source of any good and perfect thing that we find in the wonderful ministry of Young Life, and I think we should give Him the credit He deserves when we talk. If I wrote this poorly then it probably sounded like some grumpy old person typing away on their Windows 95 computer with a dial up modem who has to ask teenagers how to work their cell phone and likes to just complain about everything. My aim was the first description, not the second.

Do you like YLHelp? Spread the word: email | twitter | facebook

PS… If you are looking for summer camp follow-up resources see this post and maybe this too.

Over the summer I normally try to post a couple things that I learned over the previous school year. If you want see the series as it has developed over lots of years then click here. If you have anything you learned from last year that you would like to tell me about, send it my way smcgever (at) pv dot younglife dot org

This year we worked to focus on two things in new ways, discipleship and contact work. I began a while back by asking people what they were doing to improve at contact work. From there I went and geeked-out by setting up a way to get everyone tracking their contact work via their phone, a system which would then update everyone on their team that they did contact work as a friendly reminder. Then, in our monthly area leadership meetings, we planned fun ways to highlight people knocking out of the park with their contact work and came up with games to get everyone thinking more about contact work.

Did this revolutionize contact work in our area? No. Did we improve and raise the bar, absolutely. One leader logged over 140 instances of contact work over the course of 7 months! Will we keep using this system? Not sure. It might be better to use every 2-3 years as a way to refocus people and add a little caffeine boost in reaching out to students.

I strongly believe that the most important and unique part of our work in YL is contact work. Club, campaigners, camp… are all available in slightly modified forms in my community through other ministries (youth group, Bible study, different camps), and for this I am super thankful. But, in my 20 years of leading in this area, I can tell you that virtually no one has a sustained effort to go where kids are at in my community in the name of Jesus.

A veteran YL friend told me an old story of when YL was first explained to some people in Germany, who also happened to be prominent theologians. After hearing the vision and method of YL, these people tried to come up with a word or phrase in German which would be a good translation of “Young Life” to explain it to others in Germany. What these people decided was that they would just call the group “Contact Work” because they thought that was the essential essence of what they had just heard.

I am glad to be part of our organization of “Contact Work” and would love any ideas of how to do it better, send them my way!

If you have a second and need a laugh, here is a fun 2min contact work video I found today.

Do you like YLHelp? Spread the word: email | twitter | facebook

PS… If you are looking for summer camp follow-up resources see this post and maybe this too.

Over the summer I normally try to post a couple things that I learned over the previous school year. If you want see the series as it has developed over lots of years then click here. If you have anything you learned from last year that you would like to tell me about, send it my way smcgever (at) pv dot younglife dot org

If you like golf you are going to love and hate the details in this post. Some of you may know that I recently had a sabbatical with YL and spent three months with my family living in St. Andrews, Scotland. There I spent a lot of time with my family, spent a lot of time working on my PhD (when I’m not on sabbatical I do this in my spare time), and a lot of time playing golf. Since I am an alumni and past student of the Univ. of St. Andrews I can buy a student pass to play unlimited golf at all seven of the courses in St. Andrews, including the Old Course. I will spare you the details of how great this was, just check my personal fb or Twitter if you want to know more.

Here is the point… After about 6 weeks I decided to dig deep into my pockets and pay for golf lessons. You see, I am a self-taught golfer. I taught myself to play using my grandma’s golf clubs while watching Ken Venturi give tips before commercials during golf tournaments on TV. And all of that served me pretty well… I made our very competitive high school golf team and can usually beat most of my friends at golf. This isn’t to brag, this is to set up my point. I figured I would never need lessons, and I certainly would not pay money for them. But, I had certain goals in my head about what I wanted to score during this time on sabbatical, so I went and paid for lessons (also the technology they have there is used for testing at the R&A and I figured the pros at the course where they invented the rules of golf would likely be pretty decent… golf… blah blah blah… golf… sorry to bore most of you).

Guess what? I got better, a lot better… quickly. Within a week I was playing the best golf I’ve ever played in my life, within a few weeks it was even better. I’ve been able to play a little since being back and the results have lasted.

Here is what is means for YL Leadership. All of us in YL could grow if we asked for lessons. Lessons in being a YL leader, being on YL staff, lessons in discipleship, evangelism, theology, people skills, fundraising, and more from our other ministry friends… even where we may be quite strong already! In fact, that might be the most important area to ask for more help. My challenge is this: ask yourself where you could use some lessons in your YL leadership? Maybe even be willing to pay for it with your time, talent and treasure. One area I’ve been trying to do this is in discipleship, I want to get better personally and I also think the church-at-large, and YL as well, could grow a lot in this. Sign me up for lessons!

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PS… If you

Over the summer I normally try to post a couple things that I learned over the previous school year. If you want see the series as it has developed over lots of years then click here. If you have anything you learned from last year that you would like to tell me about, send it my way smcgever (at) pv dot younglife dot org

Imagine… a still, solemn moment in an ancient church. One where the air hangs thick with history, richness, depth. With light shining brilliantly with thousands of colors through the endless stained glass scenes in snapshots from generations ago, each telling its own story. In almost every corner is a monument or plaque to saints through the ages, not just from a few decades ago, but from many centuries ago, with a history nearly as long before the Reformation as after the Reformation. In this place, once the pulpit of John Knox, I had the privilege of preaching on a Sunday not too long ago. The place is Holy Trinity in St. Andrews, Scotland, with origins back to at least the 12^th century. To be candid, it was one of their smaller services, but everything I just described was there just the same. I opened up the Word and gave it all I got, and the Lord moved. It was an honor and a humbling moment.

Though I was often struck deeply by this wonderful place, during our time attending church over the course of several months I reflected back to other places where I have preached: in the backyard of a middle school kid, at a pizza place over the loud roar of video game machines, at an outdoor mall amphitheater next to a Hot Topic and a Game Stop, at a high school, at a middle school, in parking lots, in the forest, in the desert, from the back of a pickup truck, and maybe best of all, in my own living room with lots of my teenage friends listening attentively (some of the time).

A magnificent ancient church and a suburban cookie-cutter house with beige walls… Both are Holy Places. Hear that again, both are Holy Places. Wherever the gospel is preached, it is a holy moment. The location is just an innocent bystander. When we speak the gospel even the angels hurry to the scene to hear this magnificent news (1Pet. 1:12). Thank you for making living rooms and many other locations Holy Places throughout the world.

Do you like YLHelp? Spread the word: email | twitter | facebook

PS… If you are looking for summer camp follow-up resources see this post and maybe this too.

Over the summer I normally try to post a couple things that I learned over the previous school year. If you want see the series as it has developed over lots of years then click here. If you have anything you learned from last year that you would like to tell me about, send it my way smcgever (at) pv dot younglife dot org

In August of this past school year I met with all of the leaders, committee and staff of our YL area and told them we would have two emphases this year: contact work and discipleship. Of course we always do both of these, but I was hoping to dig in deep in some fresh ways.

We have a leadership development pipeline which has really blessed us and provided a lot of fruit. I’ve posted about it here and received a lot of encouraging emails and conversations about each part from you all, thank you! Just last week I spent about an hour on the phone talking to a quality staff person on the West coast about exciting ways they hope to implement and improve some of the ideas.

What we want to add to our development path is a focused mentoring and discipleship program for our leaders. We know if we do this well, it will bless them and it will also trickle down to bless our discieship of our club kids. There is a lot that I could say here, including my view that discipleship and mentoring can actually be, and probably should be, quite different… but I’ll save that for another time.

Though I’ve seen some stints of quality discipleship and mentoring plans, I will be blunt and say that I don’t see many people or ministries consistently hitting it out of the park. Quite the contrary, I normally see one-on-one discipleship as poorly conceived, short-lived, and often disappointing… I see this in pretty much every church and ministry in my community, with myself included on that list. I even put out a plea for help, see here, I had only one response (thank you Dan!). Please overwhelm my inbox with stories of success to the contrary, I would love to see them and learn from them!

I could also say a lot why I think discipleship and mentoring are not strong, because some of the solutions are in these issues, but this post is probably already too long and no one would read it.

Here is what we did. I researched the best discipleship and mentoring plans and ministries I could, and one in particular here in Phoenix did stand out really well, and there were others too. I came up with a plan, recruited a dozen or so mentors, had way more than a dozen leaders in my area request a mentor (had to give a rain check to many), trained the mentors in our plan in August and then got the ball rolling. I placed people together through a scientific process called “Sean harmony”, which basically included me praying a lot and then doing the best I could. All the participants signed a detailed contract of expectations, we had a monthly check-in via a Google doc form and an in-person check-in together in December before an all area leadership meeting.

So where are we at? I’ve heard enough good things to know that we’ve made progress and a lot of good stuff has happened because of it. We are certainly going to continue this program and now have an even bigger waiting list for a mentor. I’ve also heard enough challenges that I know that we don’t have it down to a science quite yet, and never will! We are in the process of debriefing the relationships, the program and our way forward.

One thing I would love to hear is anything that has worked well for you. In particular for adults disciplining and mentoring college aged leaders in a one-on-one environment. We need your help! Send it my way! I promise to share the best of it all with all who read YLHelp.

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PS… If you are looking for summer camp follow-up resources see this post and maybe this too.

For those of you that A) Don’t speak Spanish, B) Don’t live in the Southwest, or C) Took four years of French and were the president of the French club [who would do that, why would you learn French?… probably a guy that now has enough free time to blog about YL clubs]… You might be happy to learn that “cinco de Mayo” means “May 5th”… which happens to be on a Monday this year.

Adios! Au revoir!

PS… As I am out of my local club for a little bit this semester I am posting all of our clubs each week (partially to remind my team haha!) If you want to fast forward and see them all then see this link. – Sean

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Gooooooaaaaaaaallllll! Just say that enough and you will probably have a fun club. With the World Cup coming up this is a no-brainer club that can include a lot of international flavor!

PS… As I am out of my local club for a little bit this semester I am posting all of our clubs each week (partially to remind my team haha!) If you want to fast forward and see them all then see this link. – Sean

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Everyone is looking for an opportunity to wear their footy PJs outside the house. It helps you justify the purchase you made at Target when you bought them. So, let’s have a club dedicated to PJs!

By the way the picture for this post is for YL people like the legendary Judy Wilson who really love dogs.

PS… As I am out of my local club for a little bit this semester I am posting all of our clubs each week (partially to remind my team haha!) If you want to fast forward and see them all then see this link. – Sean

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It is prom season! It is a great time to help students get creative in asking their dates to prom, helping with dresses, makeup, dinner, chaperoning, and more. At YLHelp we’ve posted several times before about doing a Mock Prom Club, but it is worth doing every year.

PS… As I am out of my local club for a little bit this semester I am posting all of our clubs each week (partially to remind my team haha!) If you want to fast forward and see them all then see this link. – Sean

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