 Hi, everyone. Good morning. Welcome to the course on Youth Ministry, Introduction to Youth Ministry. I hope you are doing well. We had a good weekend here and good to see you. And it's always good to see you too. We will pray and we'll get started. And as we go on, people will join us. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for this new week. Father, we thank you that your mercies are new every morning. Father, even as we take time to learn about Youth Ministry, Holy Spirit, I pray that you would continue to teach us, help us to be sensitive to the leading of your voice. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. Let me go ahead and share my screen. Are you able to see? No. Try that again. Sorry. Just give me another second, please. For some reason it's coming up blank. I don't know what the problem is. I don't want to waste time with it. I hope it's okay if you're not able to see the screen. I request you to keep your PDF handy. I apologize because I don't know what the technical problem is. It's not sharing. Okay. So in the last class, we looked at Chapter 4, the organizational aspect of Youth Ministry in your PDF, Page 15. We went through how the Youth Ministry is organized at all people's church. You can just follow along with me to do a quick recap. The structure, the way it's set up is Senior Pastor oversees everything and I'm under his supervision and then, and the core team is under the supervision of, I guess, so there's Senior Pastor, Youth Pastor, and then the core team. And the role of the pastor we see is that he is the one who provides general vision, direction, and motivation. And he shares his goals for the Youth Ministry through the Youth Pastor. He shares his goal, his heart, his vision for Youth Ministry through the Youth Pastor and then the Youth Pastor takes it to the team and also it's not to say that everything is only given by the Senior Pastor but it is also the role and the responsibility of the Youth Pastor to come up with different strategies for the Youth Ministry, different outreach strategies, different plans, etc. The role of the Youth Pastor. There's only three or four points here but as I always mention, this list is not exhaustive. That means it's not just these three points. I say the role of the Youth Pastor is just make a relationship central, lead with care, rely upon God. It doesn't end there. There's so much to our role. Some of the key points that we looked at as a role of the Youth Pastor is one, make a relationship central. As most of you are already leaders in your churches or some of you might be future leaders in the church some of us are very comfortable in going and meeting people. We are not always extroverts as they say but some of us would be introvert. I like to be to myself. I don't want to go. I don't like going and talking to people much and whatnot but as leaders, as ministry leaders we don't really have the choice, our responsibility, our job our role calls for us to go and engage with people like speak with them, build a relationship with them. That's going to go a long way. More than anything you ever teach or preach what they will remember is the relationship that you and that person shared. Build a relationship. Make that central. Having said that, let us to the second point leading with care. We simply saw one line that says the youth don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. I don't think we need to re-emphasize that but then finally rely upon God in everything that you do in everything that you are planning, in your strategies, in your vision, in your goals, in your missions, etc. We see that, I am just reminded of this passage in the Bible from the second Samuel at least, time and time again David will go up and ask God. It will say, David inquired of the Lord. David inquired of the Lord. He would go into a battle. He would go and ask God, if I go and fight against the Philistines now will you hand them over to me? God will say go. He will go into another battle. Just because God said go the last time, David is not overconfident. He said yes the last time, so I am going to attack this battle as well. It shows his humility where he goes back to God and asks, should I go and do it again? It should be a constant reminder for us to keep inquiring of the Lord. Go back to him and ask, be dependent on him. Be sensitive to the leading of his voice. He has a plan, which is so much better than ours. His ways are higher, his thoughts are higher. If we can just constantly lean on him, rely on him for strategies, visions and goals, our ministries would flourish for his kingdom. We just quickly went through the role of the core team members, the expectations of them. Very briefly we went through how the youth meetings are organized at ABC. We have MYM, which simply means monthly youth meetings because there are four, five locations. I can only be at one location at a given point. We have one monthly youth meeting once a month. Then we have a combined youth meeting called PIDSTOP that happened once in three months or two months depending on the schedule where all the youth of all the five locations comes together and have a time of fellowship and learning. That is called PIDSTOP. You can call it whatever you want to and then the importance of life groups. It says the life groups are the life of youth ministry. In fact, it's the life of the church where that's where discipleship happens. That's where fellowship is built. Relationships are built. So life groups are crucial. We spoke a little bit about going into schools and colleges and ministering to kids and students there. We are calling that campus elevate. That's the student ministry, which most of you have been part of, by the way, isn't it? Those were the few things we saw in Chapter 4 how the youth ministry is organized at ABC. You can go through it and see what is necessary for you, what will fit best suit your ministry at your location at the church that God has placed you and kind of tailorize it, customize it to your needs. Now we'll look at Chapter 5 the challenges in youth ministry. Chapter 5, challenges in youth ministry in your PDF. Please follow along in page 20. We're going to look at this chapter in two categories. We're going to divide this into two main sections. One is the perspective from a leader. Challenges in youth ministry for the youth pastor or youth leader. And then the second half we'll see the challenges that the youth are going through in this given day and age. We'll start off by looking at just a couple of challenges that a youth pastor or youth ministry leader will have to face. So the first thing that you would see is common challenges faced by youth leader, the number one thing is impatience. It's a huge challenge for us. Impatience. That means we want results yesterday. We just think about it. We need things to happen at that moment. And that leads to impatience. And then impatience will lead to frustration. Angry. And then that frustration will lead to disappointment. And then at the end, even before you know what you might want to give up on what God has called you to do. So the first challenge we want to address or look at is impatience. This is a typical feature of young leaders who normally aspire change and a new way of doing things. Many young leaders want change to occur yesterday. Unfortunately sometimes their area of organization is not ready for these changes. When we take up a new role in ministry or if you're just new to youth ministry, any ministry for that matter, we think to make ministry better, we need to bring in changes. Which is true partially. But then we come and change everything, expecting results to change immediately. But it doesn't work that way. Here's what I would like you to remember guys, is youth ministry, I want you to look at it as a marathon and not a 100 meter sprint dash. Okay, what is a marathon? We all know what is a marathon, right? You run a race for minimum 5 kilometers to 30 kilometers, right? 100 meters dash, it will be done in say 20 seconds, 15 seconds. That's, you run, you sprint like a cheetah. You just go from one end to another 100 meters, it's done, 15 seconds. But a marathon takes time. Okay, anyone of you is an athlete, been in sports who understands athletics? Anyone? Siddharth, Dave, Kannan? Okay, I know we all play basketball in church. Sorry, not basketball, volleyball. What was I thinking? Okay, so I'll give you an example of a person who is a 100 meter dash sprinter and then another person who is a marathon runner. Now the way both of them train for their sport will be so different. Now marathon is about endurance, right? You have to not just be strong physically, but you have to be super strong mentally. You have to think, you have to strategize. Okay, this is where I'm going to pick up pace. How am I going to last for so many hours? How am I going to push myself for 30 kilometers, 40 kilometers? How am I going to keep going? Okay, so the way they train is completely different. And so I remember, you know, I think I was in seventh grade or something in school, I don't clearly remember. I was into sports, I was into all kinds of athletic sports, long jump, high jump, but hockey, volleyball. But I was also a 100 meter dash sprinter. I was not a marathon runner. And so one day a TV channel came to our school and they said they want to organize 10 kilometer marathon around this area of, you might, you guys know, Hennu college first, right? And so it's like, okay, and you guys are going to come in the TV and all of that. Wow, I'm going to come on TV. Okay. And then, okay, there I am at the start line and the whistle goes off. And there are like about 50 some people on the road. Okay, you know how marathon is a lot of people. I'm running. Okay. So I lasted a little more than 100 meters. I kind of touched 200 meters after 200 meters. I'm out of fuel. No more gas, you know, because I was like, I can't do this. I didn't even last one kilometer. I endured one kilometer with great challenge and this marathon was a 10 kilometer marathon. And so I did not understand or know or made an effort to train for a marathon. But here's the challenge with us in ministry is that we approach a certain ministry that God places you and you want expecting changes to happen, like that instantly microwave results. You put this bottle of water in say, okay, you want it to become hot in 30 seconds impatience. But what we forget is ministry, youth ministry in our context is about endurance. It's about marathon. You start training yourself differently. You train yourself in different altitudes where the oxygen level is less. How can you push? Can you push? And that's why when you see in Hebrews chapter 12 verse 1 says, let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. Okay, let us run with endurance. He's not the writer of the Hebrews is not just calling us to be a hundred meters dash is like this in life and in general ministry is we got to endure. Anyone can come and survive for a month and do something very fancy for a year and then it's easy to quit. But then for you to do it month after month after month after month and year after year after year enduring different challenges, enduring different highs and different lows that you might face that's when our character is tested. Right? And I don't want to go through the example of the people in the Bible who waited, who endured but you know them all right Joseph, David Moses, Caleb who all had to wait and endure patiently and they all looked at it as a marathon and that's the only thing is going to help us with this challenge of impatience. God doesn't give the promised land to Israel in one day. Israel was a gradual conquest. God put together a journey that allowed them to develop their faith and confidence as they learned to depend on him. Similarly the foundation of your ministry is strengthened as you develop faith, skills, leadership, experience, character, discipline, passion, and endurance. Enjoy the period of this race of like that's like a marathon. Enjoy it. Cherish it. Knowing that God is teaching you something and you are learning something. Hope you are. So that's the first challenge for the youth pastors, youth leaders in this day and age. The second challenge is time management. Time management. Now when you are in ministry there's always going to be work. It is always going to keep you busy because ministry demands that. It's like you're working, working, working constantly, working. It's like on paper you might have a weekly off and whatnot but you'll never know. You might get a call here and there. It's like okay we need you here pastor, we need you there pastor, we need you to come to this, we need you to do that etc etc etc etc. Now there will come a time where you will just snap. You will just lose your temper. Oh come on, I need a break. I can't keep doing this. Have you been there? Has anyone been there or is it just me? Okay. There are many demands of youth ministry will keep you busy. In your notes it says you will eventually snap or burn out if you don't manage your time. To do this you need a healthy understanding of your priorities based on the church's value and expectations. One reality you'll quickly learn is that youth ministry in general never ends as I just mentioned. Remember this line if you don't manage your time people will manage your time for you. If you don't manage your time people will manage it for you. In a simple way how you can have control of your time is by learning to say no. Learning to say no. I think it's a very Indian thing is that we like to say yes to everything because we don't want to make that person feel bad if a person asks for help or a favor and what not. I can do this. I can do this. You've committed to a lot of people now but you will not be able to do any one of those work properly. While doing other people's work you have forgotten to do your work. Oh, I forgot to do mine. Remember this word prioritize. Prioritize your work, your role your responsibility. Make sure that you get your work done. In everything that I just mentioned I'm not saying don't help people. But in work is work. I think another tendency that we tend to have in ministry is that ministry it's okay we can just take a chill pill and I'll help everybody else and what not. But then if you can just bring that little corporate mindset and say my work is important because if I don't do this it is going to affect a lot of other things. For example, I'm the youth pastor and I'm planning for the youth camp and I have to plan the announcement dates and send it to the media team way in advance. Is that work important or not? If I don't send the dates they are not going to get the dates from me and then all the slots will get full and everything else is going to get affected. I'll be in Russia and say no no no I need these dates and they'll be okay okay how do I accommodate this now they're going to go in a panic mode and what not. Now all of that happened because I did not do my work properly and in the process I was trying to do and help everybody else's. What happened is that I did not prioritize my work and manage my time. So I want to encourage you to learn to prioritize and manage your time because if you don't manage your time people will manage it for you okay. This is a beautiful book and I would encourage you to read it and if you want it please message me I have a PDF of it and I'll give it to you. It's called Deep Work by Cal Newport okay I would encourage you to read that and it's in your notes by the way Deep Work by Cal Newport it's an excellent book on time management skills how you can develop it okay. Now most of you or some of you might already know that I serve as the youth pastor and associate worship pastor that means I have to take care of the certain aspects of worship ministry as well. So this is how I kind of divide you know categorize my time or prioritize my time I would say is say from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. the first half I'm only going to focus on youth ministry. I am not going to let anyone come and distract me or talk to me about any other part in the ministry unless I get the work done fast for that day from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. you know this is what I'm going to focus on no matter what the temptation is it's like somewhere in the corner of your brain is like talk about worship ministry do that do that work is that still pending like no I'm going to stay focused I'm going to finish only the youth ministry work and then get into it because then what will happen is when you're working on something related to youth ministry and then okay this quick thing requires attention from worship ministry and you do that and that one thing will lead to another thing in worship ministry and that another thing will lead to another thing if you get what I'm saying it's like when change reaction let's just keep going you know so it's very important to stay focused prioritize plan your time etc etc okay and then the second half from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. I look at everything related to worship ministry and and from 5 30 to 6 30 if there's any other miscellaneous work that needs to be done general work that needs attention and what not okay so how you can go about managing this time ask yourself when you are at your best spiritually mentally emotionally and physically okay ask yourself when are you at your best like when are you like sharp and thinking straight you know when all those creative juices are flowing spiritually mentally emotionally physically okay for some of us it could be early morning for most of us it could be late night okay we come alive from midnight 12 o'clock when the whole world is sleeping that's when we are like alright this is my zone okay whatever it is you recognize it you identify what works best for you and then complete most of your important tasks during that time okay those that's what I will call it as the most productive time okay what am I calling it most productive time you have to identify that okay from between 6 a.m. to 8 30 a.m. is when I am at my peak I'm fresh I'm thinking straight and what not that's when I'm going to respond to all the emails get all the work done I'm going to delegate work assignments whatever etc etc and that's how you learn to manage time now this is just a couple of pointers there's so many skills ideas pointers on how you can manage your time well okay and yeah I mean one of the things that's kind of helped me is now I said 9 to 1 p.m. right 1 p.m. that I work focus on youth ministry that doesn't mean I don't take breaks okay 9 to 1 p.m. is almost like 3 and 3 and 4 hours right it is important for you to take breaks so you set alarms okay whatever if you have this one of the small cube kind of clock that you can set alarm for every 30 minutes or in your phone like a recurring alarm focus on it for 30 minutes take a 5 minutes break stretch and then come back and set alarm for another 30 minutes focus that's called deep work that's what Cal Newport talks about in his book is deep work that means there you know and he gives examples of Bill Gates and so many other very famous established people about how they get work done and why are they successful etc so that's the second challenge the third challenge which is huge the youth pastors and youth leaders in youth ministry is discouragement okay discouragement maybe the single most powerful feeling that entices in a great women and men to exit prematurely from youth ministry okay look at those lines very carefully that the discouragement could be the most powerful reason or feeling that will make you quit okay quit give up prematurely okay the nature of discouragement is abrupt one day you are feeling like you are the best youth pastor and the next you are thinking if you are really having an impact it happens to the best of us okay one day one moment you are like awesome this is the best job in the world next day you are like oh gosh why am I here okay so what we have to keep in mind guys is that anywhere where people are involved the task becomes difficult in a context of youth ministry and there are so many there could be so many reasons that you can get discouraged in ministry there are so many reasons one I have just listed out a few things in my experience one is lack of respect people don't have respect for you they don't respect you they don't respect your decisions they don't respect your time they don't respect what you say they are like they do what they want to do etc etc so you feel disrespected and the second thing is sleep deprivation okay so at the time of me making notes writing these notes that's when Ethan was born and challenges of a new baby is challenging you don't get to sleep much but with the work and what not so you are sleep deprived you are walking around like a zombie trying to keep you have to get work done so you can get discouraged with that conflict and confrontation problem problem problem with people okay you have to confront someone and you don't really like to confront you don't like to go ahead and say that hey what you did is wrong but that comes up and with that you get discouraged miscommunication and misunderstanding too many calls and emails to return to okay that's me you'll get there okay criticism youth who are difficult to like come on okay I was not a youth my youth leaders liked because I was very rebellious I was very naughty I was just too hyper uncontrollable it was like a dynamite that I could go off anytime okay so I kind of relate to that okay there will be some people that you might just not like who who will irritate you and that will just discourage you and what not this is be fair people operating failure to please everyone failure to please anyone when you receive an email of disappointment from a parent of a youth or another pastor whoever saying Russian I'm disappointed with you how could you do this how could you take the youth to that place when you know that it is so dangerous how could you choose that topic why you didn't choose my son for this I am disappointed in you is anyone relating to what I'm saying getting an idea but those are all the kind of reasons and it might you might face so many other new challenges but the point is they come up to discourage us and the devil the enemy will use it to make us quit in our ministry prematurely but that's when the writer of the Hebrew saying run this race with endurance just when you feel like giving up just keep pushing one more step one more step one more step one more step just keep going day by day right and he says in your weakness my strength is made complete and my grace is sufficient for you so in the grace of God you take another step in the grace or in his grace you face another day right he's like okay Lord you give me the strength for today you give me the oxygen for today you give me the oxygen for today you supply my needs you are my strength you know when I am weak so and all of that is the beauty of ministry yes there are challenges where is there no challenge right but strength comes from him and he's the one who gives us the strength to endure and helps us run this race with endurance so just a few pointers what I mentioned there is practical steps to battle discouragement practical steps to battle discouragement okay be confident that you are not alone as it says in Psalm 23 verse 4 even though I walk through the darkest valleys deep valleys I will fear no evil for you are with me your rod and your staff they comfort okay so we are not in this alone and Matt Redman in his book called unquenchable worshipper he talks how God uses our season of brokenness to make us more like him okay so how can you help yourself find an experienced mentor okay find an experienced mentor pray about your mentor look at people inside and outside your church and then ask yourself who inspires me who encourages me who confronts corrects and challenges me and who do I respect etc etc right respect and if you find a mentor and if you have a time of appointment with that person don't be late to those meetings respect that your mentor's time show up before time show up before time this is one principle that I follow which I learned in a movie it says you are late if you are on time you are on time when you are early can I say that again okay it's from a movie called drumline and says you are late if you are on time you are on time when you're early so if you're meeting if you decided to meet someone at 10 o'clock and you show up at 10 o'clock that means you are late it's always good to be early say 9.55 9.50 it talks something it will show something about your character and it will say that I value my time and I value your time as well okay so just a practical tip of how to battle discouragement and managing your time etc etc okay and then take a long hard look at your weekly calendar and make sure there's a long time okay a long time make sure you have time for yourself have a hobby you know have a hobby it's super crucial go play batminton have you know football learn something new cooking class I don't know it's very crucial guys okay for ministers for leaders in ministry to have a hobby something to do outside besides the ministry part painting whatever it is okay so have a hobby all of these are practical tips to overcome in battling discouragement then finally make a personal commitment to last okay make a commitment saying you know come what may I'm going to last I'm going to keep pushing I'm going to keep enduring okay the fourth challenge is communication we are in page 23 by the way in your notes communication communication is important but what's more important is getting your communication right communication is more than passing along a verbal set of commands great leaders understand the effective that effective communication is more than talking okay if you can highlight that in your notes please go ahead and do that as well okay great leaders understand that effective communication is more than talking okay we need to understand the power of communication because of miscommunication world wars have happened okay it's powerful it is strong so being able to communicate it's not just related to speaking like it says here right so but here communication is a skill okay so learn to be clear in your communication with your senior pastor make sure he stays up to date with weekly bi-weekly monthly quarterly report so you are communicating something about youth ministry with your pastor right you're telling him this is what happened last week this is how many young people who came to this youth meeting in this month we covered so and so topics and so many this is how many times we met what are you doing you are being accountable communicating by being accountable right because you are under the supervision of your senior pastor okay so that's important to remember communicate clearly what your vision is with the senior pastor and the youth core team right in chapter two we've learned about the power of vision right youth ministry with the vision being able to communicate that with your senior pastor and he sees what your goals are and then have multiple channel modes of communications with your audience right have say for example newsletters emails website updates text messages social media so many platforms mediums we have today in our day and age to communicate with our audience seamlessly on a regular basis make use of all these mediums all these modes which is going to be very helpful okay and there is no such thing as making one point too many times that means it is okay to keep reiterating your vision okay keep communicating often don't think are you okay if I keep saying this one more time what will that person think how many times will this person say okay this is one of the reasons why we play the vision of all people's church announcement in our church announcement video every Sunday right every Sunday is like why you we don't say you have to play this thing every Sunday salt and light in cities salt and light salt and light for how many years we've been playing no it's a crucial reminder time and time and time again to know okay this is our vision that's where we have to go that is where we have to go just consider the story of Joshua and Caleb when Caleb and Joshua finally get their promise they are 45 years older than when they received it but for those 45 years they were fixed okay that's the goal that's the land I'm going to get that's the land Moses told me I was going to get and then Caleb says I am stronger than ever I am stronger today as I was stronger that day when I went in so I am going to possess that land and so he was just fixated focused on his goal and so there is no over communicating at all you can keep communicating as much as you want as often as you want okay repetition is good make sure flyers and posters have the information if you're planning an event make sure it has all the necessary information about where, when, who, what, how much because if they don't you failed to communicate clearly okay so communication is another important challenge that as pastors as leaders in ministry we need to learn to communicate very clearly it is a skill guys okay you know what is a skill right if you want to learn say dancing or coding or graphic designing it's a skill that you are going to learn you are going to invest your time in okay I'm going to sit for one hour and I'm going to learn graphic designing you are spending your time in learning it so communication is a skill so if you are here and if you're telling that communication is not my strength what am I going to do about it what are you going to do about it there's like endless supply of resources available on the internet on helping you become a better communicator so make use of it okay and then finally intimacy with God intimacy with God this may be the last point last challenge but your intimacy with God is your fuel for the fire in you and your ministry it is what keeps you fresh with revelation after revelation with encounter after encounter okay so in my earlier point I mentioned that you ministry will always have a work to be done but ministry for the for the law should never take priority or precedence over our ministry to the law okay our ministry for the people should not take priority or precedence over our ministry to the law amen and so no matter what you do make sure you are fueling that fire of you by building that intimate relationship with him okay so what were the five challenges that we looked at the first one is impatience learn to run the race with endurance and the second one is time management if you don't plan your time people will plan your time for you discouragement and communication and intimacy with God okay so and if you can address and face these challenges then you will be healthy and your ministry will will will thrive okay and with that I will we will end this session today okay does anybody have any questions guys anything you would like to add or say or something because I've been the one who's talking all the time okay I guess not but I stopped the recording thank you all for joining and I'll see you once again tomorrow okay take care God bless you