 Mom or Dad, how do you respond to uncertainty and confusion in your life? When things that are happening in your world, in your personal life, in your work life that you don’t understand, how do you process and how do you respond? Your response to uncertainty in your life will more than likely be your child’s response to uncertainty in their lives. As you parent your child you responsibility first and foremost is to be a reflection of Jesus and show them the Gospel. Your teenager is trying to process through a ton of situations and circumstances all while figuring out who they are. How you parent in times of uncertainty may be some of the most important parenting you will ever do.
Now that you feel the pressure, relax! God would not have given you this task of parenting in the first place if He didn’t think you could do it. He will give you what you need, when you need it, however you will need it. Helping your teenager through uncertainty is a big deal and there will be some common responses you will see and probably feel yourself. On response is selfishness. I am sure you are fighting self centeredness with your teenager regardless of whats happening in life. Especially when things are crazy around you, self centeredness is a common response because it is a way to have control. Usually uncertainty and confusion means a lack of control. Being selfish is a way to bring everything in to control whats going on. This attitude is the opposite of how God calls us to live. When you react selfishly you start caring more about your well being than anyone else. When you react selfishly you make decisions that are all about you. When you react selfishly you become callus the needs of those around you. When you react selfishly you relinquish trust in God and act like everything depends on you. Our selfish response keeps us from living the life that God calls us to live! Another response to uncertainty and confusion is fear. Being fearful can be paralyzing and hold you back from living the life that God intended. It is natural for teenagers to be fearful of the unknown, the uncertain and the confusing. As a parent, leaning into that fear and uncovering “the why” behind it is so important. Help your teenager realize that our God is the God of hope, not fear. Fear consumes and holds you back, hope multiplies and propels you forward! When you react in fear you paralyze yourself from what could be. When you react in fear your focus is on the wrong thing. When you react in fear your trust is misplaced. When you react in fear your eyes are closed to what God is doing all around you. Our fearful response holds us back from living life to the fullest as God intended. Here are a few passages of scripture to read with your teenager and reflect on with them: Matthew 14:22-32 Mark 4:35-41 Some questions to help you engage with your teenager: What things in life are you afraid of? Why? If God was standing right next to you when you are afraid, would that change anything? Why or why not? How did Jesus respond to His disciples fear in the passages of scripture above? What is one small step you can take to be less fearful and less selfish?
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 COVID-19 is here at it has completely changed the way we are doing youth ministry, church and relationships in general. Do you have a plan? Have you taken time to be strategic with how you are going to stay in front of your students, to engage them spiritually, to help them have some human interaction. There are students who are going to feel more isolated than ever before and need someone to reach out and care about them. This is a time in our world that is going to change how we do things, I believe for the better! Let's be honest, this quarantine is not for the faint of heart. Let's get into it!!
Communicate Better Your communication has never been more important than right now! Do you have a newsletter, do you have an email list of families to communicate with, are you clear and concise with your information, have you asked for feedback on your communication to families? All of those questions are important. It's time to communicate better. Go LIVE Does your ministry have a YouTube page, Facebook Group, Instagram, etc? Use it consistently but not to much. If you were used to meeting on Wednesday nights with your crew. Go LIVE on Wednesday nights. and engage with your students. My recommendation is to use Zoom. (www.zoom.us) It is a video conferencing tool that offers a free basic account that gives you a lot of great features to use to interact with a group of people. Using Zoom, here is what your live service online could look like: Countdown Welcome Play a Game - get creative (home hunt - contest to see who can bring the home item to their screen first) Have a devotional to share, do a S.O.A.P. study with your group over a passage of scripture, show a video Have some discussion questions ready about the devotional Ask for Prayer requests Wrap up For an awesome tutorial on how to use Zoom and the Sidekick App from DYM (downloadyouthministry.com) check this out: https://blog.downloadyouthministry.com/how-to-use-zoom-and-sidekick-for-youth-group-online/ Be consistent with your LIVE events. Make sure you let your students and leaders know well in advance when and how they can access the event. Add Fun Think of fun ways you can engage your students in a fun way throughout the week. We are doing a quarantine challenge. Each week we have a different challenge for our students to record themselves doing. Week 1 - The Impossible Shot - video record yourself making a trick shot at home Week 2 - Epic Blanket Fort - video record yourself giving everyone a tour of your blanket fort Week 3 - Chopped - video record yourself making a delicious gourmet meal, mandatory ingredient is hot dog We will vote on the best one and then I will probably find a random object laying around, spray it gold, wear a hazmat suit and deliver it to the student who won! You can have fun in so many different ways. Do not stop trying to help students have fun things to do to engage in your youth ministry. Middle school and high school students are bored, give them something fun to do! Leverage Students Another thing we can do is set loose our students to do ministry to each other. Why not let your students lead out and give a devotional online? Have students record themselves with a devotional thought, a passage of scripture that has been teaching them something and what they are learning through it. When they send you the video, post it on your social media platforms you use for your social media. Don't stop there, put it out on your churches social media platforms and allow students to lead the way through this weird time. You can leverage students in a lot of different ways. Do not think it all has to be on you! Get Relational This gives you, the youth pastor, the opportunity to really minister to students. Phone calls, emails, group chats, zoom hangouts, live events and a myriad of other tools are in play and your students need you to care about them in a way they didn't even realize they needed. Just because you can't be physically in front of your students doesn't mean you can't be relational, care about them and minister to them effectively. Use this time to kick your ministry up a notch. Pray a lot for our country, for your students and for God spirit to move powerfully in our world.  Do you have a plan in place when something goes wrong in youth ministry? Im not talking about your message not going the right way, someone throws up during the game or you run out of pizza before 7th grade Billy got his slice for the night. I am talking about the unforeseen serious issues that will inevitably happen at some point. Are you ready?
Here is a list of things you need to at least have thought about before they happen: Student has a seizure -call parents, keep them posted on whats happening, communicate clearly and often with them until they arrive at your church or at the hospital -call paramedics -someone on your team needs to go with to the hospital, if not you then an adult team member -if you do not go to the hospital initially, you need to go after programming to check in and be with the family Student confesses addiction (drugs, alcohol, porn, etc) -If they are confessing addiction in their life, they are more than likely at a point where they want help, this is your chance to love them where they are and make sure they know you are in their corner. -Encourage them to talk to their parents, go with them if need be -Do not let them off the hook with telling mom and dad (unless your wisdom and discernment tells you that it shouldn't happen because of the family circumstances) -Get them and their parents outside resources (counseling, addiction centers, books, etc) -Walk with them, they will need encouragement as well as challenged to continue taking steps towards health Student hits head/breaks arm/physical harm happens -call parents, keep them posted on whats happening, communicate clearly and often with them until they arrive at your church or at the hospital -call paramedics -someone on your team needs to go with to the hospital, if not you then an adult team member -if you do not go to the hospital initially, you need to go after programming to check in and be with the family Student has a panic attack -call parents, keep them posted on whats happening, communicate clearly and often with them until they arrive at your church or at the hospital -call paramedics -someone on your team needs to go with to the hospital, if not you then an adult team member -if you do not go to the hospital initially, you need to go after programming to check in and be with the family Student admits sexual/physical/verbal abuse -bring another caring adult into the conversation so there is accountability on your part, especially if is with the opposite sex -you need to ask the right questions when you get into these conversations: -Is it on going? How long ago did this happen? -Do you feel safe at home? -Have you ever told anyone else about this? -how often is it happening? -Depending on your relationship with the family, you need to meet with them that night to talk -Depending on the severity of the abuse, you may need to call the authorities. -Sexual Abuse Crisis Hotline -police -If you are in a state that is a mandatory reporting state, you will need to call child protective services to report the abuse -You need to be ready to walk along side this student/family -This means having conversations about this with your leaders so they are not blind sided by this either Student runs away during youth group -there is no way to prevent this situation entirely but you should be looking at how safe your programming is so that students can’t easily slip out a door -get with your leaders to see if any of them remember seeing anything -call parents, keep them posted on whats happening, communicate clearly and often with them until they arrive at your church -call police -do not stop looking, calling, searching until the student has been found -following up with the student and family may be just as important as helping them look Student has an allergic reaction/anaphylactic -call parents, if you are not aware of allergies, let them help you handle the reaction and let them tell you what they want done, stay on the phone with them -in the case of serious reaction keep parents posted on whats happening, communicate clearly and often with them until they arrive at your church or at the hospital -call paramedics in the case that it is a serious emergency (parents make the decision, if you cant get a hold of parents you make the best decision you can with the information you have on hand) -someone on your team needs to go with to the hospital, if not you then an adult team member -if you do not go to the hospital initially, you need to go after programming to check in and be with the family Natural Disaster (Tornado, Hurricane, Earthquake, Thunder Storm, etc) -Stay up to date on the weather, you should have plenty of time to know when bad weather is going to hit -if its a pop up storm know where you should go in your building in the event of an weather emergency -have an adult team member monitor the weather for you so you can focus on the students -make sure your adult leaders know what to do in the case of an emergency, talk to them about it and train them on the response -Have a plan in place to communicate clearly to parents in light of an emergency Family Emergency for one of your students -when someone reaches out to you with information about the family of one of your students -be ready to help and do whatever the family needs -this one is tough to have a plan for but you at least need to think about it Does your process change because its one of your adult volunteers? Please do not put off figuring out how these situations play out in your ministry. This doesn't mean you will be 100% prepared for every circumstance but at the very least you will be able to react in a prepared way that is rational and in your students best interest when something does happen. Your students deserve a youth pastor who isn’t going to wing it in a moment of crisis. |
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