Great Advice from the Veterans

Last night was our first small group leader training night. It was awesome to see all the men, women, guys, girls, and ninjas who have such huge hearts for students. Of course there was free food, so that was a plus. We were assigned tables with other leaders to get some diverse conversations going. Our table was awesome. Some of us were fresh out of the box, while others were on their 4th year. The great thing about youth ministry at Saddleback is that everyone is clearly there for the same reason, the students. Everybody is very open to giving advice, sharing stories, and offering support. Great community.

Josh (of morethandodgeball.com) got up on stage and offered for some veterans to stand up, grab the mic, and give some insight to all of us n00bs. The first guy that got up gave some great advice about "life changing students". He told us about a few years ago when he told his guys that "Two of you in this group, statistically, are going to make life changing decisions during the course of this year." My initial, internal response was, "Oh, he means they're going to commit their lives to Christ." Or something happy along those lines.

As he continued his story, he revealed that those life changing decisions were not happy at all. And sure enough, two of his guys were making them. The moral of the story was that you need to make a deep connection will all of your students. They all have something going on and as their leader, it's your obligation to understand and help them. That made me think about the group I lead with Boyd. We love our guys, but do we really know their troubles? We're going to make it a goal to connect with our guys at that level.

Dennis Beckner (of volunteeryouthministry.com) got a hold of the mic and told a story about the culture that formed in his group. He talked about this giant, neon American flag hanging on the wall in their meeting room. Apparently it's pretty ugly (or that's at least that's what I imagine). One day, when Dennis walked in the group, all of the guys began singing the National Anthem. I can just picture a group of high school guys trying to stay in key! So, that became a common thing in their group. That's great because now the guys have a bit of culture that they can identify with. That's their group. They sing the National Anthem as a joke in front of a ridiculous, neon American flag. They own that and I guarantee that it brings them closer together.

There were more, but those two were my favorite. It gave me two solid goals for our group: 1. Encourage culture within the group, 2. Build those deep relationships with your guys. It kind of seems obvious that those two concepts should be applied, but when you're with a group of high school kids, it's easy to forget your goals. I'm excited!