The Power Of One Word

I am a big fan of high school ministry. I was employed as a chaplain for 4 years and got to experience, first hand, the rewards that come from well executed, well delivered and well thought through programs. I love getting among young people, in their environment, where they rule the yard and where their characteristics, norms and behaviours begin to evolve.  I find it an essential and enjoyable part of youth ministry.

 

However, throughout the week I have a lot of things that call my attention. I have attendance roles to check, services to plan, pastoral calls to make, sermons to write and Occupational Health and Safety matters to ignore (only joking). Throughout my short career in youth ministry, I found one word that saved me from wasting my time on what wasn’t important and refocused my mind to what deserved my complete attention. That word is simply… “NO!”

 

You can’t say yes to everyone

 

 

If you’re seen as a person in your church community that is passionate and competent, you will quickly and unsurprisingly become the centre of attention for many pastors and leaders in need of help. Expect phone calls, expect taps on the shoulder and expect a lot of, “we’ve been praying and think you would be perfect for x,y and z”. This shouldn’t surprise or frustrate you. Matt 9:37 says, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few”. There is always more work to be done!

 

The sign of a great leader is someone who has the strength of character and the humility to say, “I’m sorry. I can’t do that. It’s not my focus”. As the leaders of a ministry or leaders in a ministry, we need to respect what God has made us accountable for and be diligent in protecting the integrity of our responsibilities. If you’re saying yes to something you are saying no to something else and when we spread ourselves too thin our potential level of impact is damaged.

 

I know that God will give you everything you need to be successful in ministry. My prayer is that we will all learn what deserves our “yes” and what deserves our “no”.

 

Much love,

 

Carl.

 

  

A Christian response to the deceit of Ps. Mike Guglielmucci

This was not the week I had expected.

This past Wednesday night, I had planned on watching USA crush AUS in the Basketball, eating alot of chocolate and laying my head to sleep with nothing to think about except how much I enjoy my reverse cycle air conditioner and an oversized dooner. Unfortunately, I received a phone call around 830pm alerting my attention to a local website reporting that Ps. Mike Guglielmucci had faked his life threatening illness.

I felt a range of emotions over the next few hours. Immediately it was disbelief; perhaps someone was selfishly manipulating the truth to play a disgusting hoax of incredible proportions. However, it turns out my hero was the one to blame. The facts were confirmed and the reality of the situation began to set in and my emotions were running wild.

It’s hard to know what to think when something so huge sits so close to home. Ps. Mike preached at my church. I had shaken his hand and made a conscious effort not to squeeze too hard so I could protect his brittle bones. My Dad died of cancer and I had passionately prayed for Mike so he could avoid the same fate my Father had experienced. Needless to say, I was finding my emotions hard to keep in check.

It seems as though everyone has their own story of how Ps. Mike had influenced their life and I wonder how your emotions have been travelling?! Maybe you’re wrestling with feelings similar to mine. Maybe you feel alone in your pain and unable to ground one intelligible sentence. Or maybe you don’t feel anything and simply classify yourself as an interested bystander.

No matter how you feel, there is something you need to know…

It is okay to have emotions that are unexplainable, unreliable and unpredictable. It is okay to feel intense anger, frustration and disappointment. It is equally okay to feel compassion, sympathy and love. THERE ARE NO RIGHT OR WRONG EMOTIONS. There is no immediate emotional reaction that should leave you feeling unhuman or unchristian. I strongly encourage you to grieve and accept that this is a terrible situation and a dark day in the Australian Christian Church. Perhaps you could grab one or two trusted friends and vent your pain, knowing that your words won’t leave the room.

However, at some point you need to, as an individual, be able to intelligently and clearly communicate an appropriate Christian response to the matter of Ps. Mike Guglielmucci’s deceit. Through research (and not rumours), the Christian community must be able to respond to questions from our non-Christian friends on the faith we hold so dear. It is our duty as responsible and mature Christians to be able to respond to our family, friends and strangers with an intelligent response grounded in the truth. For, as we all know, only the truth can set us free.

So, feel the emotion and rest in the enormity of the situation. But, do not stay there. This world still needs the church. Nothing has changed. We are still the salt and still the light. Let’s continue to lift each other up and be the community God intended us to be and Christ gave his life for.

Much love,

Carl Robinson.

What for Who

Young people make me laugh.

I run a bible study group for boys in year’s 10-12 and I love it… BUT … it’s not the easiest thing I’ve ever had to do! Over the years, there has been joy, confusion, angst, excitement, pain, elation and grief and that’s just what’s been running through MY head, let alone the thoughts and actions of my young people.

Bottom line… running a youth ministry is hard work!

However, there are a few tips that can help put our best foot forward and provide the greatest care and encouragement for our community of young people. Whether you’re working with a group of two or 200, there is a basic principle that crosses over all numerical boundaries and it is simply that, no two groups are the same! They will go through stages and you need to be prepared to cast vision, empower and celebrate moments of transition.

Barnes in his book, Leadership with Young People (2002), discusses the movement of a group through four different stages of development. Firstly, the forming stage identifies the initial stages of a group that lacks productivity and requires considerable directive leadership. Secondly, the storming stage refers to a challenging time in the groups growth in which boundaries are tested, leadership is criticized and “team members jostle for superiority and clear roles” (pg. 43). Thirdly, the team journey’s to a norming stage where consistency is achieved and plans and standards are regularly agreed upon. Lastly, the performing stage is attributed to a team that is functioning effectively and motivated by its own sense of pride, vision and eagerness.

My life as a leader got so much easier when I finally understood that not all groups are at the same stage! Soon after I received this great revelation, my effectiveness increased as I began to tailor our programs, events, bible studies and conversations to move through this essential process.

Why not spend 1hr this week focused on identifying where your group may be in this timeline and how we can better fulfil our privilege of serving the young people in our care!

Much love,

Carl.

Why vs. What

When I first started working in the youth department at Hope Valley, I made some good decisions and some bad decisions. I knew that God had called me to work with teenagers and I felt my heart for the congregation growing bigger. So, the decision to join the Hope Valley team was easy. The hard decisions came after!In my first few months I made one crucial mistake. I had seen many youth ministries and networked with a number of local church youth pastors and, unfortunately, assumed that all youth ministries were the same. I assumed that our young people had the same passion, desire and longing to love Jesus as the other youth groups in our area. Oh boy was I wrong!

Let me ask you a question. Have you ever run an event that failed? I mean really bombed out?! I have and I trust that I’m not alone (well… hopefully not!).

Our youth ministry had a big turn around when we started to focus on the why behind the what! Let me explain… The volunteer leadership team, which I have the privilege of leading, has a long history of running excellent events. However, our focus had gradually shifted away from asking, “how can we help our young people fall more in love with Jesus?” and more towards “what cool event can we run this term?” We were running events without questioning the purpose!

This steep learning curve taught me one valuable thing… PURPOSE IS EVERYTHING!

What events is your youth ministry running? Are these events strategically designed to inspire your young people or do you, just like I did, need to ask yourself some tough questions?!

I often feel God tug at my heart to be asking the right questions… What are we doing and why are we doing it?

I pray that, in your ministries, you would always seek to answer the “why” before continuing on with that “what”. I strongly believe that God honours Christians that have the boldness to ask the tough questions.

Much love,

Carl Robinson