revkevjr Christianity, Compassion, Family, Jesus, Kindness, Life, Missions, Outreach, Serving, Student Ministry, Youth Ministry

Nicaragua Mission Day 2

This morning we had devotions at 7:30am followed by breakfast at 8:30am. At 10:15am we met the girls from Villa Esperanza for the first time, and we were all partnered up with one of them whom we sat next to during the ride to church, conversing with them so they could work on their English and for us to work on our Spanish. At church we enjoyed some great worship followed by a message by an American interpreted into Spanish.

Insert Crazy Story Here: As the preacher was delivering his message I kept thinking he had a similar accent to where I grew up. After church I went over and introduced myself. He said he was from upstate New York, not far from where I grew up. I asked him if he knew of Elim, the Bible college Ady and I attended. He did and said he knew some people from there from way back. He asked if I knew the Larkins. I assured him that I did. (Keep reading!) He said he was friends with David Larkin and also knew his brother Dan, and that many years ago he and his wife had adopted Dan Larkin’s daughter Carmen’s daughter. “You are not going to believe this,” I told him, “But I am Dan Larkin’s eldest grandson. Your daughter Jena is my cousin!” It was just a few years ago when Jena and our family were reunited. I am friends with her on Facebook but have not met her in person yet. In fact, right now she is just across town here in Nicaragua on a separate mission trip. How crazy is that!

After a picture of our family with Ted Sandquist (Jena’s dad), our team headed back to Villa Esperanza and had lunch with the girls and the staff. We then had a tour of the facilities and heard the history and vision of the ministry. We then spent a few hours playing basketball and soccer with the girls. A lot of fun! 

After dinner this evening we practiced some songs for our outreach tomorrow then watched A movie with the girls. We have an early start tomorrow. Thanks for keeping up with us and keeping us in your prayers.   

    
   

   

 

revkevjr Christianity, Kindness, Ministry, Missions, Outreach, Student Ministry, Team, Travel, Youth Ministry

Nicaragua Mission Day 1

This morning everyone got to the airport on time. After getting checked in, we prayed together and gave lots of hugs to parents, then we had lunch and went through security. Everything went well. We only two security check incidents. One leader (who shall remain nameless) had a can of mosquito repellent in their carryon. After Mike Fenimore had his bug spray thrown away we only one student who brought a full water bottle through and had to go back again. He said his mom packed it for him. (He is laughing as I write this. Parents, you can guess if the culprit was your son. lol!) We had a nice flight to Miami, grabbed dinner, and boarded our next flight to Managua. Another uneventful flight. We landed, went through Immigration, got all of our luggage, and met our Forward Edge trip coordinators, loaded the bus, and drove to Villa Esperanza. We got settled in and had a beief orientation, then we did group devos. We are about to turn in for the night. Unfortunately my computer decided to crash, so I am typing this on my phone. I have FFS (Fat Finger Syndrom), so please excuse any tuyops (typos).  

    
   

revkevjr Campus Ministry, Leadership, Mentoring, Ministry, Pastoring, Student Ministry, Uncategorized, Volunteers, Youth Ministry

10 Ways Youth Leaders Can Have Impact During Summer

stock-footage-two-girlfriends-lying-on-beach-and-chattingYesterday I wrote about why we change things up in the summer, pausing our regular weekly programs and offering fun events and a different discipleship venue. One of the reasons we stop our regular weekly programs is to give our adult leaders a break from the grind of prepping and leading lessons and so forth. BUT, that doesn’t mean they should totally disengage from students. Here are 10 ways adult youth workers can have an impact on students during the summer.

  1. Go to camp or on a missions trip with students. One week at camp or on the mission field can offer as much (if not more!) relational time with students than a full year of seeing kids once a week for Bible study, or before and after service.
  2. Attend summer events. For us, most of our summer events are designed to be fairly low-prep and to simply have fun together. As far as discipleship, I personally lead our summer Bible study. As such, adult leaders can simply come and be with students without the burden of prepping and facilitating.
  3. Lead summer events. If you happen to be an adult with the extra time on your hands during the summer, why not volunteer to help lead one or two or ten of the events.
  4. Champion summer events. Probably 75 percent of our summer events are planned for the evenings, but a couple of them do happen during the day. That inherently means many of our adult leaders can’t attend because of work. When that is the case, adults can still serve and have impact by championing what is happening with students. Shoot the kids a text and encourage them to attend, share the event on social media, etc.
  5. Take a student out for ice cream. Who doesn’t like ice cream during the summer? Whether ice cream, frozen yogurt, Italian ice, or (we’ll even expand it to …) coffee, breakfast, lunch, dinner, or dessert … take a few students out one-on-one. They will never forget it! I even offer to reimburse our leaders. (If you’re one of my leaders, I am reminding you of this.)
  6. Take some students to the beach. If you’re inland, take them to the lake or river or pool or water park. While you’re driving and hanging out, engage them in conversation about God.
  7. Have students over for a BBQ. Why not invite a handful of students to your home and grill out? Perhaps they’ve never been to your home. This is a great way for students to see you in another context. Plus, who doesn’t love grilling out in the summer?
  8. Do one-on-one mentoring with a core student. If your schedule permits, and you have the passion to do it, invite one or two of your core students to meet you for a Bible study or for mentoring in an area of their life over the summer. One thing I like about summer is that kids have more availability to meet during the day. Perhaps they can meet for breakfast once a week.
  9. Send notes. I am a big fan of snail mail. Everybody loves to get something in the mail. Whether it’s a card in the mail, a message on Facebook, a pic on Instagram, an e-mail, a text … pray for your students, then send them a little something to let them know you are praying for and thinking about them during the summer. Encourage them to be connecting and growing, and let them know you are cheering for them.
  10. Grow Yourself. Invest in your own spiritual growth and development so that you have more to offer students. Pick a book to read at the beach or on vacation that will help you grow in God and as a leader. Listen to a leadership podcast while you’re driving to Florida.
revkevjr Christianity, Fellowship, Fun, Ministry, Pastoring, Student Ministry, Volunteers, Youth Ministry

Changing Things Up: Youth Ministry in Summer

summer-break-glassesDuring the summer we take a break from our weekly programs on the weekends and midweek. We do this on the biblical concept of Sabbath. We do it to give our regular adult volunteers a breather from the weekly preparations and leading, so they don’t get burned out. We also do it to affirm the primary importance of families, giving them the chance to sit together in church, and to encourage more quality time together while the kids are out of school.

In place of our regular programs we simply have weekly events designed around the value of fun and the purpose of fellowship. We want our students to enjoy themselves and have fun events to do and to which they can invite their friends. It’s also a great way to help lower the “threat” or “intimidation” level for students who are making transitions, whether from Kid’s Ministry to Student Ministry, or from Jr. High Ministry to Sr. High Ministry.

I also offer a Bible study in a casual environment for student who would like to intentionally deepen their faith during the summer. I do it late enough in the morning so that students don’t feel like they can’t sleep in (not to mention, because I am not a morning person) – usually at 10am. Last summer I had students join me at a diner and we did a study on the Holy Spirit. This summer I am inviting students to join me at my house for Philippians and Pancakes.

Tomorrow I will write about how volunteer Adult Youth Leaders can maximize their impact over the summer months.

Every summer we experiment and have fun. If you’re in youth ministry, I would love to hear some of the things that you do to change things up in the summer. Share some of your success stories, funny stories, as well as stories about things that were not so successful. 

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Shelter Rock Students Summer Calendar 2015

Beach border scene with striped towel, flip flops and starfish on old weathered blue painted wood decking. Space for copy.

revkevjr Leadership, Ministry, Small Groups, Student Ministry, Volunteers, Youth Ministry

Expressing Gratitude for Great Leaders

At the end of each school year, we always take time to thank the great team of adult youth workers who serve students with us. This year we catered a nice dinner, hired a jazz band, and invited our team and their families for a pool party. Good youth ministry is impossible without a team of adults who love Jesus, love students, and love connecting students to Jesus. I am so grateful for the wonderful adults God has surrounded me with to minister to our youth! If you are a lead youth worker, invest in and appreciate your leaders! If you’re going to spoil anybody, spoil your volunteers. They deserve it!

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revkevjr Campus Ministry, Outreach, School, Student Ministry, Youth Ministry

Operation Finish Well

I am about to share with you two of the most important things about good youth ministry, so read all the way to the end.

I know, I know. Probably 90% of you reading this live in places where school has been out for several weeks. But here in New York we find that keeping our kids in school for half of the summer is benef … no, wait, is utterly ridiculous! But, for (I am certain) politically-motivated financial reasons, most of our students are still in school.

Last year my good friend Laurie Bolton sent me an idea that she did with her students that I knew instantly I wanted to do. She delivered “study break” goodie bags to her students while they were in finals week. So, this year I went out and bought lots of junk food and little goodies, wrote a poem; we bagged them up, and divvied them up by zip codes among our team of awesome adult youth leaders who delivered the surprises to unsuspecting students. This, we called Operation Finish Well. It was awesome!

Perhaps you are a healthy food person and you are offended that we would deliver sugary goodness to our students. Someone even told me that the sugar would kill their precious brain cells, and that we should have taken them healthy snacks like fruits and veggies, etc. I get it. I understand. You’re totally right. We should have. But I had two thoughts about this … 1) We wanted our kids to be excited when they received the packages. 2) We are actually trying to help our kids learn humility. I’ve been told that the students in our area are really smart, and we think we are serving them and teaching them that they are no better than anyone else by killing off a few brain cells in order to be more average. I’m kidding, of course. lol! (Seriously, point noted.)

This whole operation highlighted two hallmarks of good youth ministry. 1) Stealing ideas, and 2) Junk food.

Feel free to re-steal (But give Laurie props for the idea!).

And feel free to give your students healthy food … which most students will consider junk food and promptly throw away. lol! (Sorry, I was in a joking-kind-of-mood writing this. I’ve been reading Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan – the funniest book I have ever read. Post about that coming soon.)IMG_3359 IMG_3362

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Passing the Leadership Baton

Many of you may remember the excitement we experienced 8 months ago when our youngest daughter Natalia started the first-ever Christian Club in her middle school. All year they averaged almost 30 students in weekly attendance, and it was awesome watching the influence they had in the school and beyond. A few weeks ago, they received a Certificate of Merit from the New York State Assembly for their project of sending Valentines to Veterans which is going to be framed and displayed in the school!

After an amazing school year, yesterday we attended the final club meeting of the year. We have been so proud of our girl for all of her hard work and leadership. She assembled a great team of her peers and led them as together they led the club all year. Perhaps the most impressive part of her leadership is that right from the start she recognized that as an 8th grader this was her final year in the middle school, but she wanted the club to continue long after she was gone, so she was looking for future leaders from day one.

About 3 months ago, she and her team really started praying, watching, and talking with the younger students who had been faithful and active in the club, and who had a desire to be lights in their school. Two months ago she approached two 6th graders and asked them about the possibility of them leading next year. After they accepted, she began training them, giving them opportunities to lead, and giving them leadership feedback. Yesterday, as we celebrated a great inaugural year for the club, Natalia and her team formally handed the baton of leadership to the aforementioned students and prayed over them.

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So this happened tonight … (2 Doors Down)

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Video: Natalia Speaking at Youth For Christ Banquet

Last night was one of the greatest highlights of my life as a father and as a youth pastor. I had the privilege of sharing the stage with my daughter at the Youth For Christ banquet as she shared about starting a Christian Club in her middle school. Our family is so proud of her!

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Natalia with banquet speaker Pastor Dimas Salaberrios of The Bronx

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