Off the Agenda: Conversations for Building Church Leaders

I recently sat down with Jennifer Oxford, regional leader for Student Impact, the youth ministry of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. Jen has five years of ministry under her belt and lots of experience orienting volunteers into a world that is new to them. Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Jen that we just published in our Orientation Guide for Volunteer Youth Leaders.

What advice would you give a volunteer who is just starting out?
The first six months are very awkward. It’s like going back to junior high or high school. You’re the new person without a lunch table. You go home every week and think, What am I doing? But even those confusing times help you become a better leader, because you can empathize with the new students coming into the group. And it does get better.

I would also suggest that someone starting out should mentally commit to serving for two years. Once you get through the initial awkwardness, you start to sense real ministry happening. If you don’t wait out the awkward time, you won’t truly get into the heart of ministry. It’s worth it to persevere, but it takes time to transition into youth ministry.

What should a new youth worker expect?
[Students] end up learning because of who you are, rather than what you’re teaching. That’s why it’s important to commit to two years—because your life speaks volumes. Eventually, they’ll begin to learn from the Bible and through spiritual disciplines, because they see you learning that way and teaching them. It’s all about relationships and time.

Is there a specific kind of person who is best suited to work with students?
In many youth groups, you see leaders who are in college or in their early to mid-twenties—you know, “hip” people. But I recruit parents. I recruit people from all walks of life. The person God calls to youth ministry is the person he has a plan for. I have some students who don’t have a strong parental presence in their lives; having an older, “un-hip” adult lead their small group meets a tremendous need. If you feel passionate about working with youth, then you’re the person that’s supposed to be there, whether you’re 20 or 70.

What are the difficult issues that youth volunteers will face?
When you start working with youth, you become aware that they are confronting serious realities. I’ve worked with students who are dealing with the death of a parent; struggling with their friends who are starting to party; encountering drugs, pregnancy, sex, rape, and jail. Some are thinking about suicide, or grieving friends who’ve committed suicide. These issues don’t affect every student, but many will know someone who is affected.

Does being a leader include correcting, maybe even rebuking a student?
Definitely. If you have junior high students or even high school freshman, there will be a goof-off factor, and you need to find a balance between building community and teaching the lesson you’ve planned. With some topics, students goof off because it hits too close to home. When that happens, you need to discern the importance of your topic. If it’s worth pursuing, you need to say, “No, guys, we’re going to settle down and talk through this.” Other weeks, they might need to have some fun, and you can scrap the agenda.

What's one piece of advice you'd give to someone just starting in youth ministry?
Step out in faith and just give it a try. I don’t think there’s anywhere else where you can make such an incredible difference in someone’s life. You experience highs and lows, but you are also given many opportunities to do God’s work.

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Ministries close down. Programs come to an end earlier than expected. No one enjoys these events. Perhaps the people who have to pull the plug enjoy them least of all.

It still happens, however, and ending a ministry can even be seen as an act of stewardship. We asked Leith Anderson how to close down a ministry. His answer doesn’t contain too many surprises, but it may motivate you to do what leaders are called to do—to make decisions.

Seven months ago, the editors of BuildingChurchLeaders.com launched this blog to connect church leaders through conversations about ministry, leadership, and spiritual formation. Watching Off the Agenda step into this space has been, and continues to be, very exciting.

However, this blog is only one branch of our ministry. To become further involved in the ministry of equipping and inspiring church leaders, you need to check out the articles, discussion panels, and more than 400 leadership training downloads available in our store.

Full access to those training downloads—the cornerstone of our ministry—is available to BCL members. We’ve set up a special offer for Off the Agenda readers to enable you to join this community of church leaders for $20 off the regular price. Use this link to become a BCL member for the reduced price of $79.95.

If you’re interested in acquiring five or more memberships—in order to equip a multi-site church, a district, or even a denomination with these resources—send us an email and we’ll give you the details on how you can sign up for as low as $39.95

Matthew 4:2: “Jesus fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards, he was famished.” It was then that “the tempter came.”

What an understatement. When you haven’t eaten for almost six weeks, you’re not just famished, you’re dangerously weak. Your muscles and bones hurt. Your electrolyte levels are way off. You’re not able to think clearly.

You’re so hungry your eyes are practically rolling back inside your head.

And that is when Satan shows up. He doesn’t come right after Jesus is baptized, when the heavens open up, and the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus and rests on him and God says, audibly, so people hear it, “This is My Son, whom I love.” Instead, Satan waits until all that is a distant memory, so distant, that it seems like, “Did that really happen?” Satan comes on Day 40.

Have you ever had an amazing encounter with God, when everything seemed so clear, and so affirming, and you heard his voice—but later, you were in such desperate shape you could hardly remember any of it; in fact, you questioned it?

In the summer of 1998, I went to a Christian conference, and there, a woman I barely knew, prayed for me. She prayed the most astonishing prayer I have ever received. She said things in her prayer that revealed my inmost heart, things I had told no one, except God in prayer. And then she said that despite my not having gone to seminary, I would be released into pastoral ministry, which is virtually impossible to do in my tradition.

I walked away in a daze. I knew the heavens had opened up, the Holy Spirit had descended, and God had spoken.

Continue reading "Satan Comes on Day 40"...

—Kevin Miller is executive vice president and publisher of Christianity Today International and serves as an editorial advisory to BuildingChurchLeaders.com.

There are still a few weeks to go before the Vacation Bible School season kicks off, so if you’re looking for some quick promotional ideas to generate buzz, here’s one my church is trying.

The great thing about this idea, which our Christian education director found online, is that it provides publicity for your VBS throughout the neighborhoods near your church AND it helps raise money. You can’t beat that.

It basically costs about $120. It also requires the creation of a sturdy sign, some time developing its promotion at your church (for a sample video our church made, see below), and a group of volunteers to help see it through during the course of a few weeks.

It goes like this: You purchase 20 or more plastic, bright-pink lawn flamingos (you can find them through an internet search using "plastic flamingos" as your keywords). And you construct a wooden, sandwich board sign promoting your church’s VBS–the dates, the location, and the theme, plus a holder with flyers people can take with them.

Then the fun begins.

Continue reading "Quick Tip for VBS Promotion: "Flamingo" Marketing"...

People who don’t go to church may be turned off by a recent trend toward more utilitarian church buildings. By a nearly 2-to-1 ratio over any other option, unchurched Americans prefer churches that look more like a medieval cathedral than what most think of as a more contemporary church building.

The findings come from a recent survey conducted by LifeWay Research for the Cornerstone Knowledge Network (CKN), a group of church-focused facilities development firms. The online survey included 1,684 unchurched adults—defined as those who had not attended a church, mosque or synagogue in the past six months except for religious holidays or special events.

"Despite billions being spent on church buildings, there was an overall decline in church attendance in the 1990s," according to Jim Couchenour, director of marketing and ministry services for Cogun, Inc., a founding member of CKN. "This led CKN to ask, ‘As church builders, what can we do to help church leaders be more intentional about reaching people who don’t go to church?’"

Ed Stetzer suggested that the unchurched may prefer the more aesthetically pleasing look of the Gothic cathedral because it speaks to a connectedness to the past. Young unchurched people were particularly drawn to the Gothic look.

Stetzer noted that despite these survey results, most of the churches that look like a cathedral are in decline. Just because someone has a preference for the aesthetically pleasing, Gothic churches doesn’t mean they’ll visit the church if that’s the only connection point they have to the congregation, he said.

"Buildings don’t reach people, people do," Stetzer said.

This post originally appeared on a blog operated by editorial advisor Ed Stetzer. It is an excerpt of an article, which can be accessed here.

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Newsweek recently interviewed Anglican bishop N.T. Wright. Whether or not you have an opinion on our brother from the U.K., one thing is clear in Wright’s work: he does his work with a pastor’s heart.

A few quotes from the Newsweek interview stand out, especially since Wright spends much of his time speaking to people who would call themselves Christians (as, I suspect, many of us do too).

As you read on, note how Wright’s view of the resurrection sees it as literal, historical, relevant, and comprehensive to every aspect of life. Such a view can transform and inspire ministry. May it do so more and more in each of ours!

The full interview (well worth the read if you’re into this kind of thing) can be accessed here.

NEWSWEEK: When you talk about the resurrection, are you telling people something they haven't heard before?

N. T. Wright: Usually, yes. People have been told so often that resurrection is just a metaphor, and means Jesus died and was glorified—in other words, he went to heaven, whatever that means. And they've never realized that the word resurrection simply didn't mean that. If people [in the first century] had wanted to say he died and went to heaven, they had perfectly good ways of saying that.

What does the resurrected body look like?
The analogy that I use is this: if you are with somebody who is very sick, you say, "Poor old so-and-so, he's just a shadow of his former self." He's still recognizable as the same person. Who we are at the moment is just a shadow of our future selves. There's a real you, a real me, which will one day be there and we'll say, "My goodness, you're looking well." There's a sense of "like but more than."

How do you reconcile your orthodox theology with your progressive politics?
…The resurrection gives you a sense of what God wants to do for the whole world, and it gives the church the courage to say, "God's new world has actually begun already." The church can then say to the powers that be, whether it's George W. Bush or Gordon Brown or the United Nations, "We are urging you to do justice, and we're going to hold your feet to the fire and go on reminding you when you're getting it wrong and congratulating you when you're getting it right."

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Chris Blumhofer is associate editor of BuildingChurchLeaders.com.

My great-grandfather was born during the Civil War, and his parents named him Robert Lee Shelley. Want to guess which side of that conflict they were on?

I didn’t know this until recently, thanks to my dad’s genealogical research, which traced the family to Grand Glaise, Arkansas, where the Shelleys ran a sawmill and a small hotel. Since this revelation, I’ve been newly interested in the character and leadership of my great-grandfather’s namesake.

I learned, for instance, that one of General Robert E. Lee’s most significant moments of leadership was not on a battlefield but on the eve of his surrender.

After four years of warfare, during which, except for the final campaign, he had repeatedly out-performed his opponents, he now had to face the reality that he could not continue the war against the well-resourced Union Army. His Army of Northern Virginia numbered 15,000, while Union forces under General Ulysses Grant numbered 80,000.

His soldiers weren’t ready to quit. Even with their shortages of food and ammunition, they would greet him, “General! General! Say the word, General, and we’ll go after them again.”

The night before he met with General Grant to discuss an end to the war, his artillery officer, E.P. Alexander, recommended that the Confederate Army should “scatter like rabbits and partridges in the woods” and fight a guerilla war.

It must have been a tempting suggestion. Lee had already lost his home and virtually all his worldly goods, including his savings and investments. Worse, he had lost a daughter, a daughter-in-law, two grandchildren, and countless friends and comrades. A patriot who loved his country and his home state, he now was deprived of citizenship and liable to be tried for treason. Why shouldn’t he give his men permission to continue striking back at those who had carried out the Union’s policy of total war, destroying much of the South’s countryside?

But Lee looked at Alexander and shook his head.

“The men would have no rations, and they would be under no discipline,” he said. “They would have to plunder and rob to procure subsistence. The country would be full of lawless bands in every part, and a state of society would ensue from which it would take the country years to recover. The enemy’s cavalry would pursue… and everywhere they went, there would be fresh rapine and destruction.”

Lee told Alexander that he mustn’t think of what surrender would mean in terms of lost honor; they had to do what was best for their country.

Alexander recounted later, “I had not a single word to say in reply. He had answered my suggestion from a plane so far above it that I was ashamed of having made it.”

When I found that story in H.W. Crocker’s book Robert E. Lee on Leadership (Prima, 2000), I asked, “What does this say about Lee’s character?” Perhaps a leader’s most difficult task is to view the current situation from a higher plane, to see beyond the immediate situation to the long-term effects.

This requires more than 20/20 eyesight. It requires a wisdom that rises above accomplishing my current agenda.

Have you and your team ever prayed for a “God’s-eye view” of your ministries? When we do, it both humbles and energizes us.

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Marshall Shelley is editor of Leadership journal and an editorial advisor to BuildingChurchLeaders.com and Off the Agenda.

Eight weeks ago, Leadership journal partnered with BuildingChurchLeaders.com (our main site), as well as a few other sites at our parent company, to spread the word about Scot McKight’s Hermeneutics Quiz.

Tens of thousands of church leaders—even entire church staff teams—have used it to gauge their approach to Scripture and, if you’re like me, uncover a few blind spots along the way (one of my more obvious blind spots: a high view of Scripture but a low view of the Sabbath).

If you haven’t taken the Hermeneutics Quiz, here’s your opportunity. It’s a great way to engage one of the more important questions of ministry: how do you read the Bible.

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Chris Blumhofer is associate editor of BuildingChurchLeaders.com.