student leadership team – garyalbritton

THE CORE: DEFINING WHO WE ARE & WHAT WE DO

November 7, 2012 garyalbrittonLeave a comment

Are we developing faith within the life of students that sticks? Are we developing a “Sticky Faith,” a faith that will continue on after the walls of this church are in the rear view mirror?

It is our desire that Westhill would be place where the foundations of a lifelong faith in Christ are formed. A place of life change, where students are introduced to Jesus and the world around them is radically shaken by the transformation they have experienced.

ENGAGE:
Following Jesus has never been about us, it has and always will be about building His kingdom. The church was called, then gathered, then formed for the purpose of being sent out. We are called to go and engage the world with the message of Christ. We engage the world through serving those around us in our schools, our community and our world. We share a responsibility to invite people to experience the story of Jesus through our life on display for all to see, as a city on a hill.

EQUIP:
The most important relationship in the life of a student is their relationship with their parents. We highly value this relationship above all other relationships in the life of a student. Since we place so much value on this relationship, we are committed to doing all we can to help equip and assist parents in every way possible.

CONNECT:
We are not simply a Student Ministry we are a part of a church. It is vital for students to find connections outside of our ministry to build relationships with other caring adults who are willing to pour into the life of a student to mentor and disciple them in their growth in Christ.

CREATE:
We strive to create an authentic family atmosphere within WSM. A place to belong, to feel accepted, loved and a place where they are not judged. We desire to create environments where students develop relationships with other students and caring adults, who will help them to see a bigger picture of what the Kingdom of God looks like here on earth.

EMPOWER:
We want Westhill to be a place which models servant leadership for our students and then entrusts them to serve. These students are leaders now, in their schools, in their home and in the church. It is our desire for students not to merely be here, but to find a place to plug in and serve. We want to create a safe place for students to lead and a safe place to fail within our ministry. We want to see every student plugged into a ministry within the context of our Student Ministries. It is our desire as 11th & 12th graders they would serve in the same ministry in the larger church.

CREATING MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIPS IN STUDENT MINISTRY

March 12, 2012 garyalbritton3 Comments

How well do you remember Middle School? I hated middle school. The world around me was changing and even my own “world” was changing, if you know what I mean.

Then there was high school and college. From the age of 11 through about 25, your world never stops changing. Throw into the mix unstable home environments for many, bullying and the constant desire to advance up the social ladder, it is no wonder why these can be some of the most difficult years in a young person’s life. What if the church had a different way to respond to the problems? For years youth ministry has seen the incredible value of creating adult relationships within the context of student ministry. Now others such as Chuck Bomar (Slow Fade) are coming in and saying the relationships are the key to the transition from High School to College. What if student pastors and ministers had an even bigger picture of the life of a student and possible impact of their ministry?

The national average tells us around 60% of church kids will walk away from their faith before they graduate from college. I believe there are several reasons this is happening. However, instead of just stating problems I want to talk about solutions. I want to help equip parents better disciple their own children. I also want to help teenagers connect and develop relationships with other adults in the church, to encourage them and help them to bridge the gaps during times of transitions. This is where TRANSIT comes in. Transit will be focus around several key transitional times in the life of a teenager. First, the move from 5^th to 6^th grade. This is an enormous jump in adolescences. The second jump is from 8^th to 9^th grade with the transition from Jr High to High School. The next significant transition is moving from Junior year into Senior Year. The final key transition comes as they make the jump from High School to college. Of course there are other milestones that will occur along the way, but I want to focus on these four times.

At Westhill, I have been thinking through transitions for students. The one thing I am discovering is the transitions are constant. But what if the relationships we were creating for students to transition from High School to college were the same relationships the student had when they transitioned from 5^th grade into 6^th when they entered our ministry? How could this work? What would it look like?

So here is my plan is to begin this May with students who are finishing 5^th grade and moving into 6^th grade. We are going to have a memorable weekend designed for parents and their students. We will spend time worshiping together as families; and praying over each other, helping to equip parents and students for this huge time of transition. The weekend will end for the new 6^th graders with a Rite of Passage Ceremony. Parents will sit down with their son or daughter and help them to pick out 3 or 4 adults in our church they consider to significant in their life. The adults along with their parents will make up the group. During this ceremony, the adults which the student has invited will share some positive character attributes they see in the student and each adult will give the student a specific charge. The ceremony is built around 6 key topics, FAITH, HOPE, LOVE, PURITY, INTERGRITY & FAMILY (Concept taken from James McBride’s Rite of Passage). To close the ceremony, I will give these adults a special charge to walk with these students through Jr. High and High School. The mentor’s goal becomes helping in their transition into college and career and to them get connected to a church, no matter where they end up. My desire is this relationship is one that will last a lifetime.

So how do we keep these relationships fresh and the commitment strong? My hope is to come back each year through Jr. High and High School and have something geared toward the 6 key topics. Not a full ceremony every year because I think it would lose significance. Still having something every year to pull the student, parents and adults back together to re-commit to their walk together. During these events I want to provide parents and students with resources that will be helpful to them in their journey. My desire for our student ministry to start focusing as much time on the mentors and parents as we do the students.

Here is what I am thinking right now as far as special weekends.

6^th Grade – Ceremony – Transition from Elementary to Jr. High
7^th Grade – Purity Covenant with parents and the group
9^th Grade – Transition from Jr. High to High School
16^th Birthday (Equip Parents to do their own Rite of Passage ceremony with their son or daughter. Rite of Passage is a great resource for the ceremony.)
Finishing 11^th Grade – Preparing for the next step
Finishing 12^th Grade – Tying this into our Senior Sunday and allowing the group of mentors to each give a charge, a blessing and a gift to each student.

So these are my initial thoughts and I would love to hear yours as I continue to develop these ideas in our ministry. As I mentioned, I am beginning with our 6^th graders this May so give me some of your thoughts.

RE-VISIONING YOUTH MINISTRY

March 8, 2012 garyalbritton1 Comment

If you look back to the prototypical youth ministry model of the 80’s and 90’s, the model I and many of my ministry friends grew up in, we saw churches pulling the teenagers out from the church as a whole and segregating them.

There was the church and there was the youth ministry. Unintentionally conveying to parents, it is the “professional” youth ministers job to disciple your children. Teaching students this ministry is here to serve you and meet your needs. Over the past decade we have seen the overarching problems with this model. Ministers are trying to frantically reverse the direction of youth ministry that became so ingrained in the DNA of churches through the 1980’s & 1990’s.

The goal has become connecting students back to the church, trying to convince parents it is their responsibility to disciple their children, and trying to move students back into the role of leaders and planners. Now don’t get me wrong, I loved the youth ministry model I grew up in. I had a blast but, with all we are learning about what youth ministry has been producing, I think we have some serious questions we must answer moving forward. According to Barna Group research, 59 percent of teenagers who are active in their youth groups today will stop attending church at some point between the ages of 18 and 29. Show how do we begin reconnecting?

Connecting to the church – The problem comes for most teenagers in the transition from High School to College/ Work. Chuck Bomar & Reggie Joiner address this issue specifically in “The Show Fade,” and is well worth picking up a copy to better understand the problem. Part of the job of a successful student ministry must become connecting students with older mentors in the church who will commit to a relationship with a student. It is key that the relationship must be built to continue after high school, regardless of whether the student goes off to college or stays home. This year we are allowing incoming 6^th graders to choose 3 to 4 significant adults in their life. These adults are going have the opportunity at a special ceremony to give a charge to the 6^th grader. Then each of the adults will be given a charge to commit to walking with this 6^th grader and building a relationship with him through Jr. High, High School and into college. These students need significant relationships with other adults who believe in them and who they look up to, to challenge and encourage them. Connecting students to the overall church body is not simply throwing together a few all together events; this is about building meaningful relationships.

Partnering with parents – The goal is not for the minister to disciple the students, rather the new goal becomes equipping and encouraging the parents to take ownership of their children’s faith. The idea scares so many younger parents because they were not discipled by their parents. They grew up in the same model of youth ministry that we did and so it was not modeled for them. Our job is to help parents connect with their kids. With so many other obstacles including overcrowded schedules, not knowing how becomes the final reason not to. So we walk along with parents simply pointing out some ways to disciple their children in the time they have. Parents are great about praying with their children when they are younger or reading them a Bible story but as they get into their Jr. High and High School years they freak out at the idea? In reality, nothing has to change. Read and pray together, grow together and I promise it will strengthen the relationship. Don’t make things more complex than they are.

Plugging students into ministry – We live in a narcissistic world and we have drug our churches into the same mindset. If you are looking for a place to point the finger, look no further than the church leaders. People show up with an expectation to be fed, after all it is the “mission of the church” we have unknowingly conveyed. It is the expectation of adults and it’s no wonder why it has become the expectation of the students as well. We must teach students, especially the leaders, to come not with the expectation of being fed but with the expectation of feeding and serving others. Students will grow more in their faith through self sacrificial service than they will ever learn showing up week after week, holding a sign that says “feed me!” My goal is for our students to be serving in the safety of our youth ministry, for it to be a safe place to learn and even make mistakes. Our ministries are set up to reflect the ministry structure in our church. My hope is during their junior and senior year they would be serving in that ministry in the larger church context.

I believe these connections are vital to building more effective student ministries. What are some other ways we need to be working to connect students back to the church? What are some ways we need to be working hard to partner with parents? What are some ways we can be working to plug students into ministries?

CORE PURPOSE FOR STUDENT LEADERSHIP

February 27, 2012 garyalbritton2 Comments

This past week I have been thinking a lot about the goals I have for our student leadership team. Student Leadership is not a new idea, but many times in Student Ministry the leadership team simply consists of the popular kids who make the decisions about the fun activities the group will do.

So as I have been processing the direction of our leadership team I came to a realization. The realization is this… I talk about prayer a lot, we even pray as a part of our times together, however, I would say prayer has not been a priority for our leadership team. It has not been the focus. The focus has been on what WE NEED to do rather than on what we NEED HIM to do. This past week I tried to really begin engaging our leaders in prayer.

For me the problem was twofold. One, there is so much to be done at times it is easy to jump right in. After all in ministry the work never stops. Two, I wonder if from time to time I get so focused on all that has to be done, that I subconsciously suppress prayer because it is ultimately my job to get it done. So what about the words of Jesus in John 15?

⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

The last part of this verse has really been making me think, how much ministry am I trying to do on my own? Am I teaching these students that ministry is all about them? Because Jesus says without Him it is going to fail and our work is useless. I am not saying stop working hard. In fact I believe the exact opposite is true. We must work as if it depends on us and pray like it depends on God.

I firmly believe making prayer a priority for student leaders begins with a mentor teaching them to pray, not through lessons but through actually praying. I want to hear all of our leaders pray. I want to give them specific things to pray for together in our group time and throughout the week alone. Mostly I want them to see me modeling prayer. Not simply rehearsed and antiquated words from our past, but a true passionate heart being poured out to God, a heart that truly believes, if God does not show up then our efforts will be wasted. We must be developing hearts that beg and plead to be a part of building God’s kingdom. Through the modeling that they might see prayer in a different light, as if our very life and ministry depends on God, because it does.

There are lots I want our student leaders to learn in the time they are a part of our ministry, but above all else I want them to see the essence of prayer in the life of a leader. To boldly ask God to do the impossible through their life and ministry because I believe teenagers will not truly understand the work and power of the Spirit until they see the Spirit at work in their life. As pastors, ministers, leaders, and shepherds may we never take lightly our commitment to prayer. It should be the bedrock on which our leadership is built.