Sabbaticals are Needed

This past summer my brother--who's a youth pastor in Wisconsin--and a senior pastor friend of mine both went on sabbaticals. A little over 2 months of time to refresh themselves and renew their passion for ministry. They both took advantage of the time. My brother went on vacation in North Carolina with his family, a marriage retreat with his wife in Colorado, and read a ton of ministry books. My senior pastor friend got the opportunity of a lifetime, visiting Greece and Turkey, as well as a week long silent retreat in a monastery. Both have told me how needed their sabbaticals were for renewing the drive they have for transformational ministry.

Yet, as I talked this past weekend with my senior pastor friend, it saddened me to hear that not everyone was supportive of his taking time off. Even though he got a grant from the Lily Endowment, which paid for his trips and paid for an interim pastor to take his preaching duties, many were still against his sabbatical. He told me how one board member had so adamantly opposed his sabbatical that he left the church because of it.

So sad. People don't fully understand the amount of time, energy, sacrifice, and heart pastoral staff put into their ministries and people. They need extended time to unplug from work, silence themselves before God, soaking up his wisdom and grace. And we, as members of the church body need our pastoral staff to have sabbaticals because they come back fully charged and ready to do better ministry than they did before.

If you're looking to go on a sabbatical, next year or five years from now, check out the Lily Endowment. This amazing group gives away about 120 grants every year to pastors going on sabbatical, to the amount of $45,000. You need to write an application, but they walk you through what a good one looks like. It's worth it though.

Thoughts on Youth Worker Training

Over the weekend I had the opportunity of going to a youth worker training at a friend’s church. I like going to other company trainings for two reasons: 1. because I volunteer in a youth group and can never have too much training, and 2. because I like to see how other companies are doing it. The training was supposed to be from 8:30-12:30, but we didn’t really get started until about 9:15 because us youth workers like to show up late. The training focused on three individual topics: small groups, evangelism, and mentoring. All great things to talk about, but it was a lot to fit into three hours (when you added in the breaks, each session was between 45-55 minutes). By the time we finished I was tired and had a lot of material to look over, but it got me thinking about training in general. So here are my few observations for youth worker training, in no specific order:

1. Balance content and experience

Too often we make the mistake of trying to cram a TON of content into our trainings (that’s what happened this past weekend) and we simply overwhelm those we are training. For some reason we think the real value is solely in the content, but that’s just not true. With the variety of learning modes out there, we need to present content in multiple formats (auditory, visual, and experiential) or we will lose many we are trying to train. Plus, just like when planning sermons, people only retain a small amount of the information they hear anyways, so why not get creative and develop new, innovative ways of delivering your content so they internalize it. Less is more my boss always says.

2. Allow time to process and share

Speaking of internalizing, there was almost no time this past weekend for us to think through what we were receiving for training. There was only one pair and share, but only for five minutes (we needed way more for the subject matter). We also needed just time to internalize what we were learning and how to apply it for our own groups, or at least more discussion with others to help us apply the training.

3. Question asking is key

Even though the trainer told us all at the beginning he welcomed questions, not once did he ask us if we had any questions. I had to interrupt him a couple times to ask a question. People need to be invited to ask questions, for they won’t all interrupt to do it. And especially if we are teaching a complex subject. Plus, as trainers, we also have to ask the participants questions. The trainer this weekend didn’t ask us any questions about our own ministries, which could have been so helpful for applying the training.

The Power of Half

Heard about this family on NPR last week. Pretty cool stuff, especially because it was the daughter leading the way.

You can learn more about the family and their story at http://www.thepowerofhalf.com/

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

We Go to KidStuf

Sweet new video from NorthPoint Community Church. Thanks Josh Griffin for making me laugh by posting this!

KidStuf Live Promo - "Be$t Family" Music Video from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Free student leadership e-book!

Doug Franklin, the President of LeaderTreks, has just written a new e-book called Student Leaders are Church Leaders and he's giving it away for free.

Student Leaders are Church Leaders provides a simple way to weave student leadership development into the fabric of your ministry. You don’t have to start over, add another program to your already long list, or scratch your current plan. Youth ministry is still about outreach, evangelism, discipleship, missions, and worship; it’s just better when led by students. This book will help you understand the theory of student leadership while giving you practical steps you can take to give your students ownership of the ministry. Whether you have a student leadership program or you want to start one, this book will help your students lead now.

Download a free copy of Student Leaders are Church Leaders at http://leadertreks.org/studentleaders-churchleaders.html