Don’t Be A Flight Attendant

Actually, you can be a flight attendant if you want. I have nothing against them. I actually find the majority of them to be quite pleasant. Here’s what I mean …

Have you ever stopped and thought about the fact that on most planes, 90% of the passengers don’t listen to a single word of the pre-flight safety spiel given on all airlines?

On a flight from Memphis to Birmingham this week, I watched a particularly perky flight attendant give one of the most impassioned and animated safety briefings I’ve ever seen. And not a single person (that I could tell) even noticed she was talking.

While I can’t assume to know her motives, it seemed to me that her passion was more for her own entertainment. Our response wasn’t necessary.

Heaven forbid there are parallels between the ubiquitous, and ubiquitously ignored, pre-flight safety speech and your discipleship efforts.

Are you going through the motions of small groups because that’s just what you’re supposed to do?

Do you push on with your scheduled activities/gatherings in spite of obviously not engaging your students?

Are you motivated more by simply having a place to be than by actually providing a meaningful service?

My hunch is that none of this describes you. But it’s a good challenge for us all to remember as we disciple students.

Oh, and it’s not just methodology. Some years ago Delta shook things up by filming a pre-flight safety video using clever camera work, high production value, and a particularly dynamic flight attendant. It caused a stir for a while … Months later? The video would play virtually unnoticed, the new method falling as flat as the old.

The truth is this: if your audience doesn’t value your message, how you deliver it will only hold their attention for so long.
(Photo Courtesy of Flickr/Creative Commons by kudumomo

Don’t Miss A Post! Subscribe to Andy’s Blog by Email.

Rethinking How You Run Small Group Discipleship

Think of your relationship with your spouse (or, say, your best friend if you’re not married). How was this relationship formed?

If you’re like most people, you were assigned to your spouse having not met him or her ahead of time. You may have signed a formal contract at the beginning governing the way you act while in this relationship. The times you were to meet with your spouse were dictated ahead of time. You could occasionally meet outside of these times, but you had to have permission. Like most people, the topic of conversations were given to you ahead of time. And there was likely some checklist of sorts of “points” or things you were to cover each time you met. This structure, of course, naturally and easily led to a blossoming relationship …

So, obviously, this is not how your relationship with your spouse started or grew. What I just described is a structure that isn’t exactly conducive to building a relationship.

And yet, if you are a youth minister who has adult volunteers lead small groups in your ministry, this is often the kind of environment in which they get to know their students.

In many ways, this is counter-intuitive to how most of our other relationships are formed. When you fell in love with your spouse, it wasn’t because you met regularly at a certain time and followed a checklist of responsibilities. It happened organically.

I wonder if the better way to form discipling relationships is to have a more fluid set of guidelines that don’t dictate behavior as much as they do give it boundaries within which to operate. I wonder if the goal shouldn’t be to allow enough freedom (as much as possible, given the age of your students and the confidence you have in your adult volunteers) to let the relationships form as relationships are naturally inclined to form.

Do you need structure? Of course you do. It would be irresponsible not to have some structure. But you must also know that with structure comes restriction. It’s very difficult to overlay a multi-layered structure of behavior over the delicate work of relationship building.

How can you re-think your strategy to allow for a more natural, more organic, more un-artificial growth of the discipling relationship?

Don’t Miss A Post! Subscribe to Andy’s Blog by Email.

Re-Discovering Your Awe For God, Part 2

Yesterday I wrote a post about what to do when you feel distant from God. You can see the post here.

One of my friends, Amber, asked a really thought-provoking question, one that really resonated with me. She asked: “so then…how do we rediscover our awe? i feel like so often i long for those early days of being a believer and that new fire. but so much refining has happened since then. you can’t go back. but how do you go forward to where you were in the past? sorry, rambling. and probably doesn’t make ANY sense. but this is something i’ve really been struggling with lately.”

Having asked myself this same question SO many times, I thought I would spend some time trying to address it.

And because I thought there was much wider application, I answered her question on the ym360 Blog.

If you’re interested, you can see my response here.

Don’t Miss A Post! Subscribe to Andy’s Blog by Email.

What Do You Do When You Feel Distant From God?

What do we do when we feel like we’re not where we need to be with God?

Do we turn to disciplines such as Bible study, prayer, service, etc, as a way of reviving a spark in our relationship with God.

What do we do when our ministry isn’t where it needs to be with God?

Do we turn to programs or spreadsheets when we don’t see the results we like in our ministry?

If we do, it shouldn’t surprise us. This is the same logic we follow when we see our waistline expand. Or when our car starts making noises.

The problem is that our faith isn’t like our Ford. We can’t get it back “runnin’ right” by grabbing a toolbox, popping the hood, and going to work fixing the problem.

To get our faith back on the right track, we have to first re-discover our awe for the person of Christ, and a true appreciation of what He saved us from. We have to remember what it was like to need Christ with every ounce of who we are. We have to be radically moved by an authentic encounter with Christ, heck, with every encounter we have with Him

Disciplines, practices, and methods help keep this awe alive. They help bring an absolutely essential depth to the relationship.

But a step-by-step plan for spiritual growth will not awaken you to a vibrant, relevant faith. Only drawing closer to Christ will do that.

Don’t Miss A Single Post! Subscribe to Andy’s Blog by Email

One Wonderful Question

Every couple of weeks I take my two oldest girls to breakfast before school.

I can’t tell you how valuable this time is for me.

I’m pretty intentional about how we spend this time, but our time isn’t overly structured, or anything. We laugh, a lot. And I make sure I have one pretty specific spiritual conversation.

But, I do make sure I ask one very specific question. It’s a question I picked up from hearing my mother-in-law pose it to my wife and my wife’s siblings. It’s simple but powerful:

“What do I need to know about you?”

The beauty of this question is that there’s no dictated framework. It’s not “How was school?” or “How are your friends?” It’s “What do I need to know about you?” When your children answer this question, it allows them to open a window to what they care about. It allows them to frame their answer on their terms.

It’s a great question—a wonderful question—for people like you and me who care deeply about the spiritual formation of the people who’ve been put in our lives.

“What do I need to know about you?” Ask your spouse, your students, or your children. You might be surprised how they answer.

Community Doesn’t Just Happen

Most people know, or at least sense, that a discipling community is a necessary element of growing into a more fully realized follower of Christ. But you can’t say, “I think I’ll have community” and watch it appear before you. It doesn’t work that way.

Building a community is like building a house.

You must first have a blueprint, a picture of what you will become. Then, you must gather the essential pieces. Finally, you must piece them together in such a way that you build what it is that you intend to build.

It’s the same with a discipling community.

There are other values, or elements, of discipleship that you can put into place much easier. You can say, “I need to know God and His Word” and begin to study the Bible. You can say, “I need to be engaged in serving others,” and begin to serve others.

Community, real community, is so much more difficult to build. Which is why so few people ever really experience it.

There’s A Better Way To Become Disciples

I spend a lot of time thinking about the process of becoming a follower, the values and practices that inform discipleship, how we are to deliver unchanging truth in a shifting cultural landscape, and so on …

And then I remember that all these things, while important and effective and beneficial, originate with me. With us. Approaches born out of a human perspective and understanding. As such, at our best they will be imperfect.

As we travel along this journey of becoming followers of Christ and helping others as they’re on their own journeys, let’s never forget that there is a better way. One that doesn’t originate with us. One that is constantly at work in our lives, in the lives of our spouses and children, and in the lives of the students to whom we minister.

The word we use to talk about this better way, “sanctification,” is from the Latin word sanctificatio. It refers to the process of becoming holy, of becoming set-apart, of becoming more like God.

It’s an issue of proximity. If we remain close to God, if we exist as faithfully as we are able with our weak will and finite understanding, God promises to be at work.

The Spirit is the agent. And the goal is Christ-likeness.

For those of us who feel the weight of the call to lead others in spiritual formation, the concept of sanctification is both a rebuke and a comfort.

Though we play an important role, the spiritual formation of those we lead isn’t nearly as dependent on us as it sometimes feels. And that’s a great, great thing.

Struggling With Students Buying-In To Your Youth Ministry?

Are you struggling with your students buying-in to your youth ministry?

If so, resist the urge to immediately begin evaluating your methodology or your programs.

If you find that you’re having trouble with students getting on-board with your ministry, the first thing you need to do is make sure you’ve completed the following two essential steps:

1. Define the values of your ministry
2. Communicate these values to your students

When you define your ministry values, you paint a picture for your students (and adult volunteers) of what’s important to your ministry. You help them know the purpose of what you’ll be doing. The goal is to create an expectation that these values will drive what you do and shape students accordingly.

If you’ve defined and communicated your values, and you still encounter issues with buy-in, you can THEN begin to measure your methodology and programming according to how they serve your values.

The bonus in all of this? If you’ve effectively communicated your values, you can actually empower your students to be evaluators. You can ask them how effective the ministry has been at meeting these values, and enlist their help for solutions.

Orthodontics And Disciple-making

My oldest daughter was recently fitted with a instrument of torture retainer, her first real foray into the shiny happy world of orthodontics.

This first venture isn’t going well.

Eating is a bear. She can barely talk. And worst of all, at least in her mind, some kids have made fun of her. My wife and I weathered the inevitable breakdown and then got to the real work of parenting:

What do we do?

Every instinct within me wanted to take the thing off myself with pliers. (Or a cutting torch … this thing is massive.) And yet there was a tension within me that said, “wait.” After all there is a medical reason for having it in the first place. And, it may be a season that may teach her some valuable life-lessons.

There is a similar tension as we seek to lead students and our children to be real Christ-followers. Or at least there should be.

As men and women tasked with contributing to the spiritual formation of students, we have to shield ourselves from dueling desires:
—The desire for students to have the “right” answers, and …
—The desire to see students live “stumble-free” faith lives.

Just as my daughter could learn some lessons in spite of the negative aspects of her situation, the same can be said for our students.

Allowing a student to wrestle with his or her spirituality may be the most helpful thing we can do. When we walk with them through their spiritual struggles, gently guiding instead of pulling or pushing, we help their faith become their own. As much as we may hate to watch a student experience doubt or spiritual frustration, we owe it to them to let them own this process.

Similarly, we have some level of influence on how our students exercise the living out of their faith. If we never create intentional opportunities for friction between students’ faith and the world, we contribute to the sheltering of their faith. Jesus created opportunities for the disciples to take risks and fall flat on their faces. We should consider doing the same thing, knowing that it’s these moments that provide the most fertile environments for real ownership of faith application.

As much as we hate it as disciple makers (and as parents) we have to resist the urge to solve all the problems for those we disciple. It’s in the struggle that most spiritual growth occurs.