REC MAN presents Ninesquare in the Air

By day, David Reichley is the mild-mannered director of Wayfarer Camp. But at camp, David turns into REC MAN, whose curly blond wig has the ability to help any and every camper have fun. Each month, REC MAN will present a new game that you can use in your student ministry.

This month for RecMan we bring you Ninesquare in the Air. This is an awesome game that has potential of getting lots of people involved in competition all at once. It is also a game that allows students who aren’t extremely athletic to still compete and have fun. I played this game myself while at the 2010 Youth Specialties Conference, and it was a huge hit. It’s a simple game that follows the same pattern as the classic game foursquare, but with an aerial twist.

Via 9squareintheair.com

Preparation: Set up a ninesquare court in the air. Use some kind of pipes to create an airborne court.

Supplies: You will need a pipe structure and some kind of ball.

Participation: Begin with one player in each square. Any other players should stand outside the ninth square so that one can enter the game after each elimination.

Start: The “king” (the player in the center square) serves the ball from the center square to any other square by hitting the ball up and out of the center square. This is how each round begins.

Finish: Play for a certain amount of time or until every player has had a certain number of turns to enter the game.

Rules: Players must return the ball to any other square. If a player fails to return the ball to another player’s square, that player is out.

A double hit also results in elimination.

During game play, players are not allowed to touch the game structure. Doing so also results in elimination.

When a player is eliminated, he/she leaves the square and goes to the end of the line. The other players advance to fill the open square, with one new player joining the game. This process repeats after each elimination.

Via 9squareintheair.com

This game is even better caught than taught, and so I recommend you go to this website to see videos that show just how fun Ninesquare in the Air can be! You can also purchase supplies there if you don’t want to build your own.

Signed,

Your friendly neighborhood REC MAN

What is the biggest threat to God’s best in your life?

By Robert Neely

In the days after 9/11, all of us living in America were especially aware of threats around us. The U.S. government even created a terrorism warning scale on which different colors described the current threat level. For years, that threat level color appeared on the tickers at the bottom of news broadcasts, alongside weather forecasts and the latest headlines.

The reason this threat scale was so prevalent is that we all want to be aware of the threats around us. But the truth is that we are far too often unaware of the threats on the inside.

This is especially true as we live out our Covenant relationship with God. The threats that come from inside us are usually more damaging to this relationship than any external threat could be. Still, too often we get it backward and focus on the external threats instead of the internal threats.

This certainly happened to Abraham and Sarah in the story we find in Genesis 20. Abraham and Sarah were afraid as they lived in a place called Gerar because they believed there was “no fear of God in this place.” (v. 11) They were especially afraid that the king of Gerar, Abimelech, was going to kill Abraham and take Sarah as his wife.

Why would Abimelech do such a thing? There are a couple of reasons. The first would be any physical attraction he had to Sarah. Also, Abimelech could stake a claim to Abraham’s household and wealth through this kind of relationship.

So Abraham and Sarah lied, as they had in Genesis 15, and said that Sarah was Abraham’s sister, not husband. Believing Sarah was available, Abimelech sent for her. But before they could sleep together, God revealed to Abimelech that Sarah was married.

The face that this happened before they slept together is important. “Abimelech had not gone near her.” (v. 4) That’s because a few chapters before, Abraham and Sarah had been promised a son within a year. Sarah was not yet pregnant, and if she had slept with Abimelech, he could have claimed that any son was his heir, not Abraham’s.

Had that happened, the child of Covenant that God had promised Abraham and Sarah would have had questionable paternity. In the days before DNA tests, this could have called the entire Covenant God had made with Abraham into question. How could anyone have known for sure that God had kept His promise?

So God stepped in immediately to prevent any paternity questions by making sure Abimelech did not sleep with Sarah. In fact, Abimelech and his entire household suffered with some form of barrenness or sexual dysfunction. (v. 18) This left no doubt about whether the king had slept with Sarah. God told Abimelech that he knew the king had done nothing wrong: “I know you did this with a clean conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. This is why I did not let you touch her.” (v. 6)

Abimelech rebuking Abraham, by Wenceslas Hollar. Via Wikipedia.

When Abimelech learned that Sarah was married, he went back to Abraham to confront him about his lie. He asked Abraham to explain himself, and then he asked Abraham for help. Abimelech even gave Abraham and Sarah gifts in an attempt to get their blessing.

Abraham prayed for Abimelech, and God healed him and his whole household. The blessing of children returned to Abimelech’s household through Abraham. As God had promised back in Genesis 12, He had blessed the one who had blessed Abraham.

Abraham had thought that Abimelech was threatening the fulfillment of God’s promises, but Abimelech had done nothing wrong. The ugly truth was that Abraham himself, the bearer of the Covenant, was the biggest threat to the fulfillment of the covenant.

What Abraham did in this passage is all too familiar to us. We know that the bearer of the promise is the biggest threat to relationship with God because we too have acted faithlessly in ways that have threatened the Covenant.

Abraham threatened the Covenant through a failure to trust. He did not trust God to do what He had promised to do; instead, he was afraid Abimelech would kill him before the promise was fulfilled. So instead of walking in faith, Abraham deceived Abimelech, and because he did, God went to extreme lengths to protect the Covenant. Abraham’s harm impacted Abimelech and his entire household.

We need to admit that, like Abraham, we do not always walk in faith. We act faithlessly in ways that violate our Covenant relationship with God. We are faithless when we forget God, overlook God, disobey God, distrust God, and sin against God. This faithlessness takes different forms, and all of them violate the Covenant relationship God has made for us. Someone must pay the price for this violation. The Covenant was cut in blood, and now someone must pay in blood for the violation of that Covenant.

Thankfully, Jesus died Himself for the times when we do not die to self. Even when we are faithless, God is faithful to His Covenant promises. Grace is the engine that makes Covenant work. God is so committed to atonement that He intervenes. He intervened to protect the Covenant when Abraham lied to Abimelech, and He intervenes on our behalf as well. He does this through the sacrifice of Christ. The price that must be paid for our violations of Covenant was paid by the blood of Christ. This is why the idea of atonement is so tied in with forgiveness. Jesus sacrificed Himself to atone for the ways we have broken Covenant so that the Covenant relationship can continue.

We respond to this sacrifice, this grace, by walking in faith. Sin is a struggle of faith. We don’t trust that God will give us what we need, so we grasp onto possessions instead of being generous. We don’t trust that God will provide fulfilling relationships, so we exploit others to gain popularity or to find sexual gratification.

But it does not have to be this way. Instead of being faithless, we can walk by faith. We can have faith that God is going to do what He has promised. We can have faith that the way God fulfills His promise will be even greater and even better than we can imagine. We can have faith by obeying God and by embracing the responsibility that God calls us to take on.

And as we walk by faith, we will find ourselves living in faithfulness. We will be honoring our Covenant relationship with God not out of obligation but out of trust. We will live with grace because we live by grace.

And as we do we will find that the threats against our Covenant relationship with God will slowly disappear, because we are focused on dealing with the threats on the inside and not just the outside.

This post is adapted from the One Life series from Room 1228. Find out more at www.room1228.com.

Upcoming webinar: How to start a discipleship movement among teens

The 3DM team is hosting several webinars this spring, and there’s one in particular we wanted to make sure you knew about. On March 8, Dave Rhodes is hosting a webinar on How to start a discipleship movement among teens.

Here’s the description:

Starting a movement among teens by discipling people like Jesus did. Most youth pastors we meet want to start a movement. The truth is you can, but you can’t do it aside from discipling people they way that Jesus did. He started the greatest movemental force in the history of the world and we’ve found that it might even work best with teens and young adults. In this webinar, Dave Rhodes — sought after speaker and co-founder of Wayfarer — will talk about how to make that a reality with the teens in your church.

 The webinar is March 8 from 3-4 pm Eastern time. There is a nominal cost, but it’s totally going to be worth it. You can sign up here.

Please plan on joining Dave on March 8!

What’s the Dirty Little Secret of Youth and College Ministry?

By Jordanne Bonfield

For some time there has been a secret brewing underneath the surface of most churches we see around us.

Photo via timesunion.com

It’s that senior leaders virtually never invest in youth and college pastors. On average, youth ministers stay at a church only 2 years. Could this be part of the reason?

Unfortunately, I have seen this play out up close and personally.

Coming from a small Christian college, many of my friends entered youth ministry. I saw some of them using youth ministry as a holding pattern until they had enough experience to become senior leaders.

But while too many use youth ministry as a steppingstone, I also know many youth and college ministers who are really passionate about the next generation. They eat, sleep, drink, and pray it. Far too often they find themselves severely under-supported and under-developed by the senior leaders in their churches. So they leave.

I’ve seen that youth and college ministers tend to believe that they aren’t worth hearing from unless they have a position of authority. Apparently youth ministers don’t have much acknowledged authority. Instead, they are usually seen as agents of fun and games who have a few good talks. Basically, they are seen as the adolescents they lead – and therefore as those shouldn’t be given any “real” responsibility.

Most youth ministers reading this right now are probably nodding their heads in agreement, but they can’t talk about it for fear of losing their job or of being punished for asking for help.

In my eight years in youth group, I had three different youth pastors. I never could figure out why these ministers left so soon after arriving. I didn’t know about the pressure they lived under to balance their lives and ministry, all the while not having a voice that was heard in the church staff context.

It’s interesting, isn’t it? We expect these young men and women to enter into one of the toughest roles in the church, but we practically feed them to the wolves. Youth ministry isn’t all games, camp trips, and fun. There are high expectations for these young ministers to be able to handle everything that will come their way.

What comes their way? They deal with teens and their problems (suicide, massive identity issues, underage drinking, bullying, drugs, and sex, to name just a few). They deal with helicopter parents and their expectations. All the while, the leadership above them chooses to be hands off because it doesn’t understand the next generation (and rarely tries to). To top it off, we expect these ministers to balance their own lives along the way. How can we expect a 22-year-old minister to handle all of these things well?

How could they? From my experience, most youth and college ministers have never been discipled themselves. Yet we expect them to effectively make disciples of the next generation. I find this absolutely perplexing. Youth and college ministers are no different than any other disciples – they will reproduce what they have been taught and trained to do.

So instead of making disciples, youth and college ministers try to grow a program that is “successful” in the eyes of others in order to earn the right to be heard. If you are a senior leader reading that last sentence, I ask you to read it again. Your staff will follow your example, whether you want to admit it or not. If you are set on numbers and production, then your staff will inevitably follow you down that path, because nothing else they do will seem right.

Believe it or not, it’s not always the desire to be successful or famous that drives youth and college ministers. The next generation of church leadership really does care about spreading the good news of Jesus among teenagers. But they can’t figure out how to do it on their own.

From what I’ve seen, young ministers value their senior leader’s input and accountability, but they are rarely given a chance to be heard. This generation of leaders has a strong, natural desire to be led and discipled by those who have gone before them – but no one is doing that for them. This is a hallmark of the Millenial Generation. There’s a giant scrolling marquee on their foreheads that reads “DISCIPLE ME!”

I am begging senior leaders to open their eyes and truthfully evaluate the way they lead their staff.  When I look at what Jesus did, I see a great example of how to lead their followers. I honestly don’t care how many sermons you’ve preached on Jesus calling Peter and John out of the boat if you aren’t living it yourself.

In Mark 1:15-20, Jesus told Peter and John to follow him and promised that he would make them fishers of men. In the three years that followed, the disciples lived with Jesus, ate with him, stayed with him, and traveled with him. Over time, Jesus released them to do what he had done. Matthew 28:18-20 isn’t just a cool verse to memorize. It is Jesus sending his disciples out to do everything he taught them. After inviting the disciples to follow him, Jesus trained them and then released them to live out all that he gave them.

One writer described our failure in multiplying leadership this way: “The time has come to humbly acknowledge before God that we have failed to train men and women to lead in the style of Jesus. Whether through ignorance or fear, we have taken the safe option, training pastors to be theologically sound and effective managers of institutions rather than equipping them with the tools they need to disciple others.”

The life of Jesus and his ways of multiplication aren’t just a theology to be memorized and believed. It is a calling to a life of obedience that has to be actively lived. Jesus had a natural way of reproducing who he was in the lives of his disciples. Senior leaders need to follow this example, whether they run a mega-church or a church of 50. It starts at “home” with family and staff – including those hotshot youth and college ministers with whom you don’t think you can relate.

Let me be bold and say that if you want your youth minister to stick around for longer than the two-year average, it’s going to take some effort on your part. You’re going to have to make an investment that will grow and last. And we’re not talking about a bigger budget (though that would be nice!). We want to spend time with you! We want you to invest in us. We want to make different mistakes than the ones you have made. Help us do that. We want to believe that you want us on your team for more than the numbers we produce in our youth or college ministry.

Thankfully, my ministry experience has been different from the dirty little secret. I come from a team and a church culture that is constantly cognizant of the next generation of leadership. I think of Robyn, who was the high school director in the same church where she discovered Jesus as a teenager. I think of Shibu, who has run a middle school ministry for seven years. I think of Dustin who has been a high school director for more than six years in the church where he found Christ. Theirs are rare stories, and the common denominator with these ministers is the investment that the leaders who went before them made in them. These leaders made it past the two-year average because of the relationships they had with those leading them.

The senior leadership I have been around for the last 10 years would agree that it is imperative to invest in your staff if you want to have a church that carries on long after you are gone. I’ve seen probably 100 next generation leaders come through my home church to be trained and discipled and then released into the ministry of the church and beyond. I’m only now realizing how rare of a thing that is. We haven’t always done it perfectly, but my senior leaders have made an effort for many years to grow the next generation.

I’m a rarity among my friends in ministry, given that I’ve stayed in one place for 10 years. I can’t take the credit. I have had wonderful disciplers and investors who helped me and challenged me to grow.

Here are some next steps I’d challenge senior leaders to think about:

• Look over the Scriptures and really study about what Jesus did with his disciples. I would highly suggest the book Building a Discipling Culture by Mike Breen and Steve Cockram. It has helped me put tangible actions to the method of discipleship.
• Talk to your youth/college minister and give him or her an opportunity to be really honest with you without judgment or reprimand. Listen to what they need before you decide what to do next. Don’t make assumptions.
• Be honest about your expectations for your youth and college staff. Do those expectations need to be adjusted based on where they are in their growth and abilities?
• Consider how you will begin to invest intentionally in the lives of the staff you lead. If you have a large staff, ask others around you to help you think creatively about multiplying leadership. It’s not a microwaveable process. It takes time.
• Examine your own life and ask others to be honest with you about where you could grow in your leadership with your staff.  There are avenues of coaching and support that will help you (including from the Wayfarer team). My boss asks us annually how he can improve in his leadership. That has given me with a great example to follow.

Remember that we are called to live out the things Jesus taught, not just to memorize and teach on them. Start at home. Start with your family and staff.

If we do, maybe together we can clean up the dirty little secret.

Jordanne Bonfield is on staff with The Gathering Network, a new church plant of Heartland Community Church in Kansas City, Kansas. You can connect with Jordanne on Facebook. 

There must be more than this

By Kandi Pfeiffer

It was Day 4 of solitude.  I had left my husband, my two children and my city to spend time alone, praying and asking God to show me if there was really MORE to this “Christian life” than what I had experienced to this point.

I was raised in Texas by wonderful parents.  We were dysfunctional, like most are behind closed doors, and we went to church every Sunday, like most do in the South. I was known in my home church for being the bold, energetic one who received much disapproval over my flip-flops and raised hands during church services. It fed something in me and made me feel all the more alive  when even the slightest expression of myself made others upset.

When I graduated high school, an option to model came up. So I traveled to New York, Europe, and Japan over the next seven years. I attended church in these various places, and no matter where I was, I found that the teaching always seemed to communicate the same thing: “Believe in Jesus and experience TRUE LIFE.”  This declaration was then followed by rules and consequences and expectations and, inevitably…  HELL!

Hell didn’t sound fun, but the conditions to acquire TRUE LIFE didn’t sound fun either. Somehow, when God was explained, the relationship between us & him always came across as strangely manipulative to me. If you do ____, God will be happy, and if God is happy, maybe you’ll get a treat.

Sounds like dog training, doesn’t it?

via spcala.com

It wasn’t until years later that I realized my own relationship with God quite often fell into this stream of thinking. I had “repented” of drinking and drugs and short skirts and foul language and clubbing and boys and more, all in hope that my sacrifice would be great enough to win me a treat. And if I could do all this with a wagging tail, maybe I would get a few pats and cuddles too.

Although I had several genuine and incredible experiences with God over the years and was quite head over heels for him, I found myself often viewing him as a distant, reserved Father. Father had the power to bless me, but for that to happen, I just had to win him over again and again and again.

So there I was in Day 4 of solitude.  I had presented my entire bag of tricks in hopes of something radical, something miraculous, something as big as what the Bible boasts. But now my bag was empty and my tail was no longer wagging. I broke down. I sprawled out on the floor and sobbed, “I have nothing left to give you!”

An image suddenly came to mind of me dressed in layers of extravagant clothing. One by one I handed each article over as an offering to God, but now I was completely bare and crouched in a ball on the floor, ashamed at my nakedness. While I connected with the image, I heard a voice speak softly. I didn’t hear it with my ears or with my mind, but inside the depths of me.

The voice was gentle and kind, “I don’t want those things. I want you.” This made me cry even more. “I don’t know how to GIVE myself to you!”

“But I do,” the voice responded.  “I know how. Just stay here and be with me and let me be the Giver.”

Somehow it all began to make sense. Although I had not realized it, I had been working so hard to do what was “right,” to be a good Christian and sacrifice all I could to make God happy that I was His daughter. But in this lifestyle I had created, I had placed myself as the giver and God as the receiver.

In only second,  my paradigm was shifting. In the image Jesus began drawing close and was now on the floor beside me. “I want you,” he spoke again gently. I was dirty and battered and could not understand why he would want me this way, but somehow, in His presence I believed. I lifted my face to look upon his, and when I looked into his eyes, love poured forth from him into me. It poured over my questions; it poured over my doubts. It poured over my fears, my shame and my dirty, battered body…

And I began to receive.

Kandi Pfeiffer and her husband Eric are part of the 3DM team. Kandi is also the director of EDGE, the high school ministry at Pawleys Island Community Church. You can connect with Kandi on Facebook or Twitter.

Moving from family vs. mission to family on mission

By Dave Rhodes

Following Christ and raising a family can be difficult. It is the battle of good loves. So how does our relationship with Christ affect our most central relationships?

This battle of priorities is usually answered in one of two ways. Some people neglect their families in the name of Christ. Other people neglect the hard calls of Christ in the name of their families. As you look around the Christian world today, you see byproducts both of these divergent ways of seeing Christ and family.

In the generation before mine, family was too often treated as an obstacle to ladder climbing. Many fathers sacrificed their wives and kids not to spread the gospel but to further their careers. Some misused the gospel to cover over their own ambitions. It was ladder climbing with a Christian excuse.

I think my generation has made the opposite error. In the name of protecting our families, we have created a system that sounds right at first but ends up in a ditch on the other side of the road. Our generation’s error is putting our sense of calling after our sense of family. So we have preached family as our first calling. The mantra is to choose to cheat your call before you cheat your family.

The problem with this perspective is that it is hard to be honest and still align it to the lives of Jesus, Peter, Paul, and just about everyone in the New Testament. Jesus, Peter, Paul, and others had a different perspective.

In Mark 3, Jesus’ mother and brothers are outside a house where Jesus was teaching. Jesus heard that they are waiting for him outside. Most scholars think they had come to commit him to an insane asylum. When Jesus heard that they were there, he addressed the crowd: “‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ he asked. Then he looked at those seated around the circle with him and said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.’” (Mark 3:33-35)

In Matthew, Jesus says more shocking words:

Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn “a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – a  man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.^” Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10:34-37)

Paul encouraged the Corinthians in much the same tone:

What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.

I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs – how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world – how he can please his wife – and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world – how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 7:29-35)

What was Jesus saying? Was Jesus encouraging people to neglect their families? Was Paul against the family structure? Personally, I think both Jesus and Paul were advocating something entirely different. Family and mission are not supposed to be in dichotomy with each other. Choosing a priority between the two results from a fallen system of a broken world. Instead, we are called to imagine something different. I think this means developing a family on mission.

The family unit of the New Testament is united not by blood but by mission. If I am leading my family well, we should all be on mission together.

This definition of family, then, goes beyond bloodlines. As a father and husband, I should do everything in my power to instill this in my own family dynamic. Creating an extended family means inviting those close in mission into my home. Together we raise our kids, work out our callings, pay our bills, and enjoy the life God gives us. It is not communism, but it is communal. This creates an atmosphere where family and calling can live together.

I have seen this work out in my own life in a couple of ways. First, when I was dating, I dated intentionally and had this in mind. I knew that if my relationship with God didn’t determine my relationships, then my relationships would soon determine my relationship with God. I had seen too many people sacrifice calling in the name of love, and so I determined to find someone who would work out the call of Christ with me instead of holding this call against me.

Second, Kim and I make a concerted effort to not talk of my work as work. We use words like calling and mission in our family. So when I travel to speak, or when our sense of calling asks us to do hard things, it is not because of dad’s ambition to climb a ladder but because of God’s call on our family. We also encourage all of our family to be part of the mission. It is not my calling. It is our calling, and each of us has a role to play. Mission is the family business.

The extended family network was the dynamic that changed the world. It was a family on a mission. Some of this family was blood, and some of it was not. But this group of people acted as a family that was united by mission.

In case you are wondering, this is not just a way of life for those of us in professional ministry. It is a way of life for all of us. Our kids need to know that there is more to life than being a successful businessman or a famous actress. The pursuit of money cannot carry the weight of family. But mission can.

Sometimes our jobs are our mission. If you are a teacher or doctor or lawyer or maintenance man, it should be easy to see your job in this vein. Sometimes our jobs finance our mission.

Either way, our families should be on mission, not in tension with it. And when our family is on mission, it is the most powerful force in all the world.

This is adapted from Dave Rhodes’ book Redefining Normal. You can read more excerpts and purchase it by visiting www.wayfarer.tv/redefining/.

—

The 3DM family has written a lot about this issue over the last couple of weeks. Here are a few posts that are worth checking out on the subject of having a family on mission…

Mike Breen :: Sacrificing Mission on the Altar of Family (and how to avoid this problem)

Sally Breen :: How to Prevent Parenting Alone

Elizabeth Paul :: Partnering in mission when you have small children Part 1 // Part 2

Illustration: Hard-boiled egg

Each month here on the Wayfarer Blog, we share one of the illustrations that our speakers have used to communicate spiritual truth.

This month, we’re featuring an illustration that Dave Rhodes used last summer at Wayfarer Camp and in many other settings – the picture of a hard-boiled egg. In this illustration, Dave shows how the hot waters of discipleship form us into the kind of followers of Jesus who can withstand the pressures of testing.

2 Corinthians 4:8-9: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

Practical tips for reaching college students

By Jordanne Bonfield

For the thousandth time, I found myself on Terri’s couch watching TV with her.  During a commercial break, Terri was trying to break through to me about pursuing counseling. Senior year was taking its toll on me, between a major life change, some family hardships, and the acceptance of a full time ministry job after graduation. It had become clear that I needed some deeper processing and some new tools to help me move forward successfully to the next stage of life.  Terri was my dorm mom at the time, and she had been ever present in my four years of university.

My college years were the era of Friends, Survivor, American Idol, and The Bachelor. Those were reality television’s humble beginnings. What those shows remind me of now are some of the pretty great times with our dorm mom Terri. Even though I didn’t love the shows, I’d be there just to hang around her.  The counseling discussion was not a light conversation for reality TV watching, but it was necessary nonetheless.

The thing I remember most from that crazy and difficult time is the support, love and friendship Terri gave me. She was older than me, and I respected her authority, but she always felt like my greatest of friends. I don’t remember her ever going over the top in planning events for us girls; mostly she just invited us into her life.  That meant hours in her tiny dorm apartment making cheesecakes or watching TV, and trips to Sonic or Dairy Queen or last-minute grocery shopping.

I think about Terri often now, as I am around the same age she was when I was in college. I find myself in disbelief that the college girls I invest in now are 10 years younger then me. I’m not their dorm mom, but God has brought them into my life for a reason, even if it is just to help them pass through the crazy challenges of college life.

As you can see, I mostly think about the relationship side of ministry, but that’s not to discount events. The Gathering Network, the church plant I am a part of in Kansas City, has a summer internship called the Leadership Training Project. This summer internship continues to be the biggest magnet we have for the next generation, and it focuses on discipleship.

But even after 20 years of a really great program like LTP, we are finding that we need to revamp and revise what it means to reach the next generation. The things that worked 20 years ago don’t work today. When I was an intern doing devotions in the morning, I didn’t even own a cell phone. Now, every morning we have to tell interns to turn their phones off just to help minimize the distractions.

I think we can all agree that culture has changed. It can feel like we are running the gauntlet just to even say our first hello, let alone build a relationship with them.

But in this often difficult context, I honestly believe that the highest impact you can have is your opening up your own life.

So what do we do to move into the future of college ministry? As I observe the college students of today and think back on my experiences, here are some of my suggestions. These things may seem simple, but I wish I could see more youth and college ministries thinking about them:

• Get your youth/colleges students in on the planning. Listen to what they have to say. An event driven by them instead of you is way more likely to have impact.
• Remember to aim for quality over quantity. I’d rather have 10 students at my house and have great conversations with them than be in the same room with 1,000 that I potentially will never see again.
• Don’t forget to have a relational follow-up strategy. Having an event might be cool, but what really matters is following through on the connections made during that time.

Although events can be great door openers, my real heart lies in developing relationships. As I envision what is next as a leader, I’m paying attention to these things right now:

• Be present. Find where they are congregating and GO TO THEM. This is my biggest challenge to myself for 2012.  Get on the college campuses; find the coffee shops they study in, the libraries they go to, and the places they eat. Go THERE and go there OFTEN.
• When you are there, put your phone away. It may not seem like it matters, but it does.
• Invite them into your home and your life. Let them eat your food, play with your kids, and maybe even live with you if they need it.
• If you are in college ministry, don’t discount high school students. They are paying attention to how open you are to them. Each spring during my interviews with potential interns, at least 70 percent of them tell me that they started coming to our church while in high school. Now many of them are on the path to becoming some of our greatest leaders.
• Your cool factor honestly doesn’t matter. They will think you are the coolest ever if you are just YOURSELF. Don’t try to be just like them.
• Don’t let your frustration with their lack of response to your texts, emails, or calls derail you. Get with them face to face as often as you can.

What about you?  What observations have you made about the practical steps of reaching the next generation?

Jordanne Bonfield is on staff with The Gathering Network, a new church plant of Heartland Community Church in Kansas City, Kansas. This is her first post for the Wayfarer Blog, and she will be a regular contributor. Two books she’s currently reading are The Next Christians by Gabe Lyons and College Ministry in a Post-Christian Culture by Stephen Lutz. You can connect with Jordanne on Facebook. 

REC MAN presents Kiddy Pool Kickball

By day, David Reichley is the mild-mannered director of Wayfarer Camp. But at camp, David turns into REC MAN, whose curly blond wig has the ability to help any and every camper have fun. Each month, REC MAN will present a new game that you can use in your student ministry.

This month we feature Kiddy Pool Kickball: This is kickball with a water twist. First, second, and third bases are all kiddy pools full of water. It’s a great game during the hot days of summer. We used it at Wayfarer Camp 2011, and it was a big hit.

Preparation: You will need three kiddy pools full of water. Make sure to use inflatable kiddy pools, not the hard plastic kind, because they will hold up better during the game. Home plate can be like on a normal baseball field, or you can use a cone.

To ramp it up even further, have multiple sprinklers spraying the playing field, and set up a slip-and-slide from third base to home.

You can use a regular kickball for the game, or you can ramp it up with a bigger ball such as a yoga ball.

Supplies: Three kiddy pools, kickball or yoga ball. Also, make sure to have a hose available to keep the kiddy pools full of water. Optional: sprinklers, slip-and-slide.

Participation: You can play with as many players as you want. Simply divide your group up into two teams.

Start: Send one team out into the field and the other team up to bat.

Finish: Play a certain number of innings.

Rules: Play this game like a game of kickball, with the following exceptions:

No foul balls. A kick in any direction is a fair ball that can advance players.

When a player makes it safely to one of the bases, they do not have to advance on the next kick. Up to three players can be safe on a base (aka in the kiddy pool) at one time.

Once a fourth teammate arrives in a pool, at least one player must leave the pool and advance to the next base. Multiple players may advance at the same time, and they may advance in any order.

Sliding into home base via the slip-and-slide is optional but encouraged.

After three outs, the half-inning ends and the teams switch from offense to defense and vice versa.

Kiddy pool kickball is a great game, and you can easily get creative and make your own rules, as you see here. The main thing is to keep safe, get wet, and have lots of fun. So get ready to beat the heat playing kiddy pool kickball!

Signed,

Your friendly neighborhood REC MAN

What do your followers say about you?

By Robert Neely

My first job was as a sportswriter. I covered many different sports for newspapers (remember them?) and magazines, but pretty early in my career I focused in on the National Football League.

I still love to watch NFL games and read stories about the league, and one of my hobbies is to write about the NFL for a couple of websites, including my own.

(At this point, I need to apologize to European readers. I’ll do my best to make this story accessible; feel free to share a comparable example from the Premier League or La Liga in the comments if you wish.)

One of the biggest stories surrounding the NFL since the 2011 season ended was just how much dissension and conflict there was in the New York Jets locker room. Players have anonymously thrown each other under the bus, and several veterans have talked about just how divided the locker room became by the end of the season.

In all of the tabloid hubbub about these issues between players, one quote resonated with me. One of the team’s leading veterans, LaDainian Tomlinson (likely a future Hall of Fame running back), said that he wasn’t surprised about the blunt conflict that emerged among Jets players.

That’s because it followed the example of the Jets’ leaders – head coach Rex Ryan and general manager Mike Tannenbaum.

“Think about this,” Tomlinson said in a radio interview. “They created this. This is the type of football team that they wanted. Mike Tannenbaum, Rex Ryan are both brash, in-your-face type of style, say whatever you want, just get it done on the field. And then it leads to other things, as guys are calling each other out and saying, ‘I’m not getting the ball,’ or whatever it may be.”

Tomlinson wasn’t talking about discipleship, but what he said highlights an important principle that we need to consider as we lead others:

You reproduce who you are.

Rex Ryan and Mike Tannenbaum are brash leaders who say whatever they want. So it’s no surprise that the players they lead developed into brash loudmouths too. These leaders reproduced who they are.

This is what Jesus sought to do with the disciples, and it’s what Paul sought to do as well. See what Paul said to the Corinthians:

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God – even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1)

As a leader, Paul was not trying to tell the Corinthians what they should do; he was trying to show them what they should do. Because he was seeking the good of many over his own good, he could challenge the Corinthians to do the same.

This is a huge bar to clear for us as leaders and disciplers. We have to be willing to say with Paul, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”

Let’s take this one step further. Since we reproduce who we are, one of the things we as leaders should do is to check our followers to see what they are saying about us.

We’re not talking about the words they say to us or about us (even behind our backs). We’re talking about what their lives say about our examples.

So how can we do this? Here are a few diagnostic questions you can ask:

• What traits do they people I disciple/lead have in common?
• Do I see these traits in myself? If not, why not – are they not there, or do I not want to see them?
• What do the traits of my disciples/followers show me that I need to change?

We reproduce who we are. So let’s think about what our followers say about us so that we can be the kinds of leaders and disciplers who can say, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”