here are a handful of innovative movements I long to see in youth ministry, and am committing myself to.

go organic, buy local
youth ministry simply must become more organic and local. of course, your practice of youth ministry is local. but i’m addressing the whole engorged body of thinking and resourcing and modeling in the world of youth ministry. sure, national events can be great (heck, the youth cartel hosts some of them!). but remember that model church isn’t in your neighborhood, and isn’t populated by your teenagers and parents, and doesn’t necessarily share your values.

do not listen to me (or any other youth ministry “expert”) when we tell you what you should do. we might stir your thinking or imagination (and that’s a good thing); but you and i simply must cultivate an active life of spiritual discernment and organic contextualization when it comes to our approaches, models and methods.

integration
i don’t know how we’re going to do this. and i’m certainly not the only one saying it. but we have to work against the isolation of teenagers, particularly in our churches. this, alone, is the single biggest failure of youth ministry over the past four or five decades.

models and practices for non-professional youth workers
sorry to be the doomsday guy, but the era of professional youth workers is going away, eventually. it might linger longer in certain denominations (like, southern baptist) or geographies (like, the south); but it’s on the decline, and it’s not going to return.

small churches, of course, have long done youth ministry without paid staff. but mid-sized to large white, suburban churches (where the majority of paid youth workers exist) have no idea how to even think about youth ministry without paid staff; and very soon, the money is just not going to be there.

what other innovations do you think are needed in youth ministry?

i’m guessing most of you have heard about “we love our youth worker” by now. i thought i had blogged about it months ago; but the other day i was looking for that post, and no such thing existed. so here we go!

“we love our youth worker” is a grass roots movement, not a business or ministry organization. it was initially started by friends of mine in england, a couple years ago. after absolutely stunning viral engagement there, some good-hearted youth workers in new england (hmm, england/new england — maybe…) took the lead on bring it here to the states, where it’s just now launching.

we love our youth worker is a covenant, signed (ideally) by both churches and youth workers. churches and youth workers make seven commitments to each other that serve as a baseline for health, longevity, and communication. churches can make it known, during a hiring process, that they have signed the WLOYW covenant; and that say something to candidates who know. likewise, youth workers who sign the covenant are making very specific commitments to their churches.

here are the seven commitments churches make:

We will pray and spiritually support
We will give space for retreat and reflection
We will provide ongoing training and development
We will give at least one full day of rest per week
We will share responsibility
We will strive to be an excellent employer
We will celebrate and appreciate

and here are the seven commitments youth workers make:

We will pray for our church, its leaders and members and our community
We will make our own spiritual growth a priority
We will commit to continued learning and growth
We will take at least one day off each week and vacation time
We will ask for help and share the youth ministry with others
We will strive to be excellent employees
We will celebrate our church’s investment in youth ministry

man, that’s some healthy stuff.

in my work, as you can imagine, i have heard horror story after horror story of churches that mistreat youth workers. and, of course, i sometimes hear stories of youth workers with less-than-stellar practices and communication skills. signing a covenant isn’t a guarantee, of course; but it elevates important communication about expectations.

here’s the endorsement i wrote almost a year ago for the “we love our youth worker” website:

I have found that the single biggest reason for the friction that is all-too-common between youth workers and churches boils down to mismatched expectations and both sides adopting postures of suspicion. My deep hope is that, when churches and youth workers agree to the 7 commitments in WLOYW, both will have a framework for shared expectations, and – maybe more importantly – a posture of support and mutual encouragement. Yes, Lord, may it be so!

i strongly encourage you (whether you’re a paid youth worker, or in some other role in a church, volunteer or paid) to poke around the website. you can easily find the process for accreditation, as well as a pdf booklet, and a powerpoint presentation that will help explain the whole thing.

the youth cartel strongly endorses we love our youth worker, and hope that thousands of churches and youth workers will get on board.

this time around, i just captured one fantastic comment. but it needs a bit of a set-up:

my co-leader, gary, was leading the discussion on (theoretically) what kind of man they guys want to be. he started by having everyone draw little caricatures of ourselves and label them with characteristics and the like. then he intended to make a transition to looking at john the baptist, as an example of someone whose primary focus was that his life would point to jesus. but, in the moment, he made a very, very tiny logic jump, and a 6th grade guy did not let him get away with it!

gary asked: who’s the best man who ever lived?

the guys: jesus (of course)

gary: we’re going to look at a guy named john the baptist, who was jesus’ cousin. and, because he was jesus’ cousin, you know, he’s probably a good example for us also…

6th grade guy: that doesn’t mean anything! my cousin’s good at gymnastics, but that doesn’t mean i am!

hilarious. and, well, accurate. the things middle schoolers won’t let us get away with…

first, i love the new, clean look of The Youth Cartel site. adam felt our initial site (only 6 months old!) needed a facelift.

there are a few cool new things in the store worth a mention:

one’s a cool freebie: a “gospel of john” sampler of The Way bible. you can see the amazing design of this bible, and read some sample selections. it would be very difficult for me to be more pleased with this puppy. hope you’ll check it out, and consider getting copies for the high schoolers and young adults in your life (we really had young 20somethings in mind when we were creating the content, but that means that most high schoolers will dig it, because it is not juvenile or patronizing). for this free sampler, click here, and scroll down. you’ll see the download link.

then, a couple other things. when we were raising funds for the extended adolescence symposium, we offered mp3s of the day and an abridged ebook of that content, to people who supported the event at various levels. we’d only asked the presenters or permission to use their content for that purpose, so we’ve been telling others, as they inquire, that we can’t get them those resources.

but one of the youth workers who really wanted the mp3 and ebook contacted one of our presenters. to make a long story short: all the presenters were extremely gracious and have given us permission to make this stuff available.

you can download the mp3 of the entire day for twenty five bucks.

you can download the nice-looking ebook, expertly abridged (all written content from the event – just not all of it) by paul martin, for ten bucks.

or you can download both the mp3 and the ebook for thirty.

rock it — that’s some good stuff!

starting very soon, i’ll be speaking in 4 locations for barefoot ministries’ $5 training. it’s a very cool half day of training, for (can you guess?), five dollars. the day is targeted at volunteer youth workers, and is ideal for teams to attend together. check out the $5 training site for more info and locations.

the third seminar that day will be on how volunteers can work with parents. i also wrote a short ebook for barefoot on this subject. here’s the closing few paragraphs from that:

Don’t be overwhelmed, my friend. We parents (well, at least most of us) don’t want to take all your time. We don’t want to change you. We are immensely grateful for how you bless us and our kid with your time and focus.

Just remember that we’re here, please. Remember that we care passionately about our children, and would sacrifice our own lives for them if necessary. Remember that we mean well, even though we’re not perfect. Remember that we’re afraid we’re not doing this well, and that our precious children are going to go off the deep end because of our inadequacies.

We don’t need you to reinvent your entire ministry to come hold our hands. But we need you to communicate with us. We need you to listen. We need you to be curious about our motives and assume good. We’d love you to tell us what you’re seeing about teenagers and youth culture and—especially—our own son or daughter.

If you do those things, we will be so blessed, so grateful, that we will forever be your biggest fan. We will speak highly of you, and praise you to all peoples!

Ok, I’m getting a little cheesy there. But you get the idea. From me—a dad—thanks. Really.

so, i was working on a project i couldn’t say much about for more than a year. occasionally on facebook i would mention that i’m working on a bible, and people would jokingly ask if i was re-writing it. nope, instead i was just playing a role in creating what i think is the most amazing young adult (16 – 30 year old) bible available today.

when i was in middle school, i carried a copy of The Way. it was the groovy bible, baby, with awesome hippie lettering on the cover. really, it was the very first youth bible, and broke a million barriers. heck, i was watching vera farmiga’s amazing movie, higher ground, the other day, and the 70s version of The Way was used in a scene.

a month after i left YS, back in the late fall of 2009, tyndale publishers contacted me, asking if i’d help them think about a new bible for young adults, reviving the old The Way brand. they brought me in for a day of consulting, where we talked about the needs of today’s teenagers and young adults, and dreamed about what a helpful bible could be like. in early 2010, at tyndale’s request, i created a proposal for what the project could be like, including a bunch of elements. they loved it; and in september of that year, we signed an agreement for me to be the general editor.

it was an absolutely massive project. from early january of 2011 through late august, i had a deadline every three weeks. i recruited a primary writing team of 3 others (and myself), and an additional 150 or so contributors. i worked to concept all the pieces, and got them into good enough shape for the remaining editorial process at tyndale. i also recruited and worked with a team of talented photographers to select hundreds of gallery quality black and white photos to compliment and illustrate the 400+ extra-biblical elements. the result (with massive contribution from the editorial and design teams at tyndale) is a bible, in the new living translation, that i am completely proud of, and would love to see in the hands of any high school or college student. it really is that good.

the more than 400 additional elements are very carefully designed to help connect the reader with The Way of Jesus.
Elements include:

- Book intros that connect biblical content with the life of young adults today.
- This is my Story segments written by young adults seeking to connect their stories with The Way of Jesus.
- What I Wish I’d Known segments written by seasoned Jesus-followers, reflecting back on their own young adult years.
- Lament segments — honest cries to God expressing a particular question or dissatisfaction with the way things are.
- Living in The Way segments providing short links between the biblical text and real life today.
- Hundreds of gallery quality black & white photographs complementing and illustrating various segments.
- Interactive QR codes that lead the reader to additional online content and opportunities for engagement.

Contributors include: myself, Tash McGill, Crystal Kirgiss, Holly Rankin Zaher, Seth Barnes, Mike Hogan (of the David Crowder Band), Chris Hill, Gary Haugen (IJM), Matt Maher, Rich Stearns (World Vision), Ginny Olson, Austin Gutwein, Alex Harris, Phyllis Tickle, Charlie Peacock, Dan Kimball, Frederica Matthewes-Green, Scot McKnight, Jeanne Mayo, and dozens more.

The Way will release about april 1. but when i got back from my silent retreat in the desert the other day, i had an email in my inbox from adam mclane, my partner in The Youth Cartel, sent to our email list. the email was offering a pre-sale special:

A Special Pre-Sale Offer

We’re selling 3 different editions of The Way in our online store.
Soft-cover (Retail: $24.99) Our price, $20.99
Hard-cover (Retail: $29.99) Our price, $25.99
Leatherlike (Retail: $44.99) Our price, $38.99
Pre-order any combination that totals 10 copies or more of The Way and Marko will send along a personal note. (If you’re interested in 40 copies or more, please contact me, adam, for an even bigger discount.)

One of the fun things about our online store is that any order over $65 automagically gives you free shipping. In this case, that’s just a couple of copies. Cool, right?

Three Reasons to Pre-Order The Way From Us
1. Your order supports the ministry of The Youth Cartel.
2. I love to commit my buddy Marko to writing lots and lots of personal notes. It’s good for his soul.
3. My kids, 8 & 10 years old, pack every order from our store. Not only are they really good at it, you just might get something special in your box. You won’t get that level of awesome from Amazon.
To take advantage of this pre-sale deal, click here.

we hope to have a sample pdf on our site soon, so you can see how freakin’ amazing this thing looks. there’s really nothing like it on the market right now — visually or content-wise.

recently, rusty and barry from the student minister podcast interview me about my new book for parents, understanding your young teen: practical wisdom for parents. my part starts about 13 minutes in, and lasts about 30 minutes long. i had a nasty chest cold that day, and sound a bit like a male joan rivers; but, whatever.

we talk about early adolescent development, cognitive development, masturbation, doubts, and a bunch of other stuff. hopefully it will be helpful to you.

you can stream the podcast by clicking here.

a wonderfully thorough review of my latest book, understanding your young teen, on zack weingartner’s blog. a bit from the beginning:

The first time a parent came to me as the youth group leader to ask for parenting advice was crazy. It was crazy for a lot of reasons, but the primary reason was that I was only 19 years old and the student in question was 14. I had nothing to say, mostly because I had nothing to offer – I was trying to figure out how to respond to the Elders’ request that I take my lip ring out and stop dyeing my hair green.

The reason that Marko’s new book “Understanding Your Young Teen” is so important is because it goes a long way towards closing the gap in the kinds of conversations that parents and people who work with young teens have to have, both with the teens themselves and with one another. The content of the book is a training for parents (the subtitle after all is “Practical Wisdom for Parents”) but applies so wonderfully to my everyday world working with middle school students and their families that I must rave about it. Here goes:

and from the end:

This book isn’t just a quick read and put on the shelf book. It is a field guide and handbook for anyone that has the best in mind for a young teen, or a group of young teens. My kids are little, but this book will come back into play for me in a whole new way in just a few years. If you are a parent of a young teen, or a soon to be young teen this will profoundly impact your parenting, your home – your entire life. If you teach this age or pastor this age of teen – you will learn more that you can imagine and have to underline and re-read to grasp it. Marko is a voice for a change in understanding and changing the way we do everything in ministry – and now in parenting – that none of us can afford to ignore or miss.

you’ll have to click through for all the rest!

starting later this month, i’ll be speaking in 5 locations for barefoot ministries’ $5 training. it’s a very cool half day of training, for (can you guess?), five dollars. the day is targeted at volunteer youth workers, and is ideal for teams to attend together. check out the $5 training site for more info and locations.

the second seminar that day will be on leading small groups. i also wrote a short ebook for barefoot on this subject. here’s a bit from that ebook on the value of small:

Americans love all things big (and if you’re a Canadian, you are welcome to snidely agree; but while you might not share the same passion for big, I’ve still seen how Canadians assume that big ministries are better). And we have developed a strange measuring stick for success over the last couple hundred years or so. We inherently believe that Big Means Success.

Even if you hold a healthy skepticism about this measuring stick, it’s a value that permeates the church world.

But let’s undermine this for a bit. I’m going to create a comparison chart, and I’ll be the first to admit that there’s some overstatement and generalization on this thing. Bear with me, and look for at least some truth here:

Big values compliance | Small values uniqueness

Big requires sameness | Small has space for differentiation

Big is ideally suited for broadcasting a message or rallying the troops | Small is ideally suited for collaboration or discovery

Big treats participants as consumers | Small treat participants as participants

Big is great for hype | Small is great for ownership

Big shapes a movement | Small shapes individuals and community

Big is stage-centric | Small is people-centric

Big is personality driven or program driven | Small is relationship driven or, better yet, present

Big, when it comes to youth ministry, has its place. I haven’t given up on large-group teaching times or worship or moving a larger group toward a common goal.

But if we really want to see ownership of adolescent faith, and if we want to see faith lived out in the daily lives of teenagers, we have to get them talking and sharing honestly. That rarely happens in a larger group.

In a smaller context, everyone can be known, and an environment of emotional and relational safety can be fostered.

While there are myriad ways to live into the value of small, it has to be part of the core DNA of an effective youth ministry these days. This is particularly true since today’s teenagers have such a heightened need for belonging.

wednesday evening was the first official 2012 meeting for my 6th grade guys small group (last weds we had an all-church gathering to kick off the new year). i commented to the guys that we were already 1/6th through our 3-year journey together. feels like it’s only been a few weeks.

we had a full contingency of 12 guys. i had to get extra chairs from the house (we meet in my little back house/office). and let me make this perfectly clear: twelve 6th grade guys is just too many for anything with “small” in the name. maybe that’s why our junior high pastor renamed them “growth groups” this year — her sneaky little way of making them as large as she wants!

a few juicy, word-for-word comments worth mentioning:

(said with massive excitement)
“we got a cat, and i don’t normally like cats, but i can’t get enough of her!”

dude 1: “…and my last present was…”
dude 2, interrupting: “did you just say ‘My Little Pony’?”

“My low point in one word: SOPA”
(whoa, from a 6th grade guy who is clearly more news-aware than most of the readers of this blog (yes, i’m guessing that some of you are thinking, “what’s that?”))

(we had a new guy join our group, named angel. a couple of the guys go to school with him, and know him. from one of those guys…)
“wait, angel, you have a younger brother named angel too! what were your parents thinking, naming TWO of their kids ‘angel’?!?!”
(btw: angel’s younger brother is not named angel.)

and, the saddest and sweetest stab-in-the-heart comment of the night, uttered independently by three of the guys:
“the high point of my christmas holiday was that i got to see my dad.”