Archives For relationships

GUEST POST: Students and Their Gifting

August 28, 2012 — Leave a comment

One of my favorite parts about my job is that I get to help students discover their gifts.  I believe that knowing how you are gifted is a key characteristic of not just an effective leader, but a kingdom worker in general. God specifically created each one of us with unique talents and abilities that we need take full advantage of.  It is a huge part of us finding our identity in Christ.  We need to find security in who God created us to be so that we aren’t consistently trying to become who we feel others want us to be.  Normally, that message is taught about moral integrity, but I believe that it can also apply to Godly servanthood and leadership.  When it comes to student leadership, I always encourage students to lead according to how God created them.  While I want them to be looking at other leaders and applying leadership skills that they have observed, I don’t want them to lead like someone else who has different gifts. When we aren’t using our gifts, we are keeping ourselves from reaching our full potential.  I got to see a great example of this a couple months ago.

This summer, we took our student leaders to the Student Leadership Conference (if you aren’t already going, you need to go next year!). At the conference, two of our students (Delaney and Ashley) got the opportunity to lead a workshop.  Each girl got to teach their workshop two times, which allowed for them to learn a valuable lesson. The first time around, both workshops fell flat.  After some debriefing, we found that the problem was that they weren’t using their gifts. For example, Ashley is an incredible writer, often sharing her poetry in our weekend services. Being the writer she is, she wrote a beautiful lesson on how to lead like Jesus. Now Ashley is great at communicating what she has written down, but isn’t strong when she teaches off of memory.  The first time she led her workshop, she abandoned what she had written and taught outside her “sweet spot”, where she fell flat. Because of that, we told her to read off of what she had written.  99% of the time, that is the worst advice you can give to a speaker, but with her, it was perfect.  She started her workshop by explaining that God has gifted her with writing and she began to read off her message with the passion in which she wrote it.  The results were powerful and impactful, with several students walking out talking about it.

Once Ashley made use of the gifts that the Lord had given her, she was able to lead like never before. That is what I want to see all students doing, making use of their gifts! If you are wondering how to help the students in your ministry do this, here are a couple resources you can check out:

  • Student Leaders Start Here by Doug Franklin: What I love is that this book is a workbook.  It teaches students leadership principles while allowing them to take quizzes to find out more about their spiritual gifts and leadership style.  We are currently taking our students through it.
  • Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath: It is a secular book, but it is incredible. When you buy the book, you are also buying an online strengths quiz.  The book walks you through the pros and cons of your strengths.
  • Congratulations… You’re Gifted! By Doug Fields: This book takes you through the S.H.A.P.E acrostic (Spiritual Gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experiences).  We use the S.H.A.P.E. model even in our adult ministry at Saddleback Church.

What are you doing to help your students find their gifts?

 

Colton Harker is the Student Leadership Coordinator at Saddleback HSM.  If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact him at coltonharker@gmail.com or on twitter at @ColtonHarker

In Guest Post, high school ministry, Leadership, Ministry Idea, Relational, student ministry, Youth Ministry , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Service Programing vs. Relationships: Can You Do Both? (Part 3)

May 23, 2012 — 4 Comments

Past couple of Wednesday we have been looking at the constant battle between service programming and relational ministry. To recap, there is a fine line that all ministries need to balance when it comes to having a great, well ran service and having real, authentic, true relationships with the people who come to the service. Not everyone has a team of people to help them plan and service and focus on relationships. I am thankful to be on a team that we all can put together a great service and still focus on relationships, but I have not always had that. I know both sides.

Last week, I said relationships are the number one thing when it comes to a service. Relationships is what keeps people there, it is where the life changes come from. A church service is just a means to get people within the relationships with leaders or pastors, and ultimately Jesus. While the service can be ran with music, games, a sermon and a funny video, everything within the service should be pointing the students to someone they can talk to and get connected. The lights and music might intrigue them to come in, but after 3 weeks without making a connection with someone that person most likely wont come back.

So does that mean the service should suffer? No way! I love my job. I love creating services in which are fun and engaging and well ran. I wouldnt have it any other way. Give me lights, give me videos, give me great sermon illustrations and fun ways to do announcements all day, but as long as I realize this is not the end all. All these things are to start a conversation or point to someone to have a realtionship with. After all, at Saddleback, our weekend services are to EXPOSE students to the Gospel, to get them introduced to who Jesus is, and the relationships will help guide them to EXPERIENCE Him.

So how do you add relational aspects into the service so people can be guided to start a relationship with someone on your team? Here are a few suggestions:

  • Add a 2 minute greeting within the service. Use it as a transition somewhere in the service to have students get up and meet someone new. This gives leaders a chance to talk and make a connection as well. You can read more about this in a previous post HERE.
  • Info cards. We have a tear off section on the bottom of their message notes that if a student turns it in to a leader after service for first time visitors, we will then give them a FREE GIFT, from HSM to them. 1) We get their info and we can connect them and 2) A connection is made and a relationship is started.
  • We try to focus on those students who are sitting alone. We have our leaders and our student leaders in each section go and sit with those who are by themselves. For the most part, if they are by themselves, they are new and do not know anyone. This wil get them a connection and a face to look for the following weekend.

These are just a few suggestions. What do you do in your group during service to get people connected into a relationship? What would you suggest?

In creativity, Devotional, God, high school ministry, Ministry Idea, organization, service programing, student ministry, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Service Programing vs. Relationships: Can You Do Both? (Part 2)

May 16, 2012 — Leave a comment

Like I said in part 1, I am a pastor first. That is what I feel like I have been called to do. I love talking with people, about Jesus, and genuinely hanging out with students before and after service. One of my favorite times on the weekends is the 5-10 minutes before service starts as students are sitting down and just going around meeting and talking to people. I love it. Being a pastor, it would be obvious that I am relational.

I think this is the number one thing when it comes to student ministry. Being relational and being authentic in that relationship is the number one thing students’ want/need. If you do not have the relationship side down, there would be no kids to put on a service for.

Jesus led in a way that was relational lead ministry and we can take after Him in that. For people who are all about programming services and that is their main focus and we are supposed to model after Jesus in our leadership and we see Jesus being relational, how do we answer that? We simply cannot just ignore the fact that the entirety of Jesus’ time on this earth was for a relationship with all of us. Jesus just hung out with people, eating, drinking and talking. Much like so many of our students do after service. At least with us, In-N-Out and Chick-fil-a are flooded with students simply just sitting, eating, and hanging out. In Matthew 9:10 (ESV) Jesus is reclining at the table with people, it doesn’t say using Planning Center Online to sort out the next time he was preaching, but just reclining and hanging out.

We need to be able to do this as well. If Jesus took the time to just hang out with some intentional relational ministry, we for sure need too.

The service itself is important yes, but it means nothing if we don’t have relationships to go with it. “Real ministry” happens the 15 minutes before and after the service, and the service is just helping them sit and focus on the area you are speaking about so you can then do the “real ministry” (the prayer, the hanging out, the conversation about what stood out to them, etc.) afterwards.

For some students, they will bring their friends just because they know you are the person they need to talk to about something. The relationship got them there, kept them there, and got them to Jesus. For some students, this wont be enough, they are stand offish and they are only there because the service is exciting and is a cool place to be on a Saturday Night. This is fine too, because if the service is getting them coming, if we are doing our jobs right, that will ultimately turn into a relationship which will turn to trust and then will turn to prayer.

Without relationships, we are missing the purpose that Jesus came to earth for us…to have a relationship with us.

But what about the service? If we have a boring service, then they wont bring their friends? They will be bored to death and won’t come back! These are real questions that I have thought myself. I fall into this way of thinking, but it also is my job to run a successful service. This is something I want to unpack next post.

What do you do on the relational side? Where are some of the best places you hang out and have those “real talks”? 

In creativity, God, high school ministry, Leadership, Ministry Idea, personal growth, student ministry, Uncategorized, worship , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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