image via Orange42

This probably might be your preteen. Anxious and ready for summer to come. I have so many fond memories of summer break. Sports, water, the beach, vacation, camps, etc. But if there is one word that comes to mind about preteens and summer, it’s the word “bored”.

At some point with the excitement of summer coming and the tests that school gives to put a nice bow on the school year, we forget to make plans for what to actually do during the summer.

This year we are going to help this for our preteens! We are compiling a checklist of activities for them to take place in. Basically a ton of activities for them to accomplish during the summer. There isn’t a plan for a prize or a contest being made out of the checklist. We just want our students to dream big of the things that they can accomplish during the summer months.

So here are some things to think about as you are planning your summer for your preteen ministry or your own preteen.

1. Ways to beat the heat – think of some fun ways to give your preteens opportunities to beat the heat.
2. Community – What ways are you planning for the community that your preteen is a part of? Small Groups, sports teams, and neighborhoods are all examples of areas to plan for.
3. Volunteer Opportunities- What ways can your preteen serve this Summer? What groups do they want to focus on serving?
4. Fun – What are some things that you preteen would just eat up? One Direction concert, Backyard campout and cooking dinner for the family are just a few different kinds of fun that your preteen might enjoy
5. Make memories – As baby Cannon is on the way, this is something that I have been dreaming about for my own son. What can you do to make a memory that will last a lifetime? Summer Campis definitely in the mix here!

What are some things that you are planning for your preteens this summer?

photo by Leo Reynolds

Sometimes you have things that just get stuck on your mind. Lately there have been a few ideas, thoughts and things that I just can get off my mind. Here they are:

1. The Gospel

My mind and heart have been reawakened to the glory of the gospel. It’s literally changing so many things about the way that I teach, explain and plan for my preteens, that it’s constantly something that I’m thinking about. God’s plan, our fall, Christ’s life, death, resurrection, our response, and God’s reconciliation of creation to Himself. One specific idea related to the gospel I will share later. I felt it was significant enough to get 2 spots.

2. Parenting

As I write this, my wife is 8 days from due date. I have had a distinct desire to just hold and kiss and spend time with my son the past week. It’s crazy. It also has gotten me to think about all of the sermons, books, and blogs that I’ve read on parenting. It’s also why this song from Elvis has been resonating in my heart:

Little things I should have said and done
I just never took the time

I’m praying that this isn’t what I look back on when it comes to parenting.

3. 5:1

This is an idea that I heard about from the Orange Conference from Kara Powell, author of Sticky Faith. She talked about as ministry leaders that we need to be more worried about the 5 adults voices in the lives of our students rather than our 1 adult for every 5 students.

I can not shake this one.

It’s so easy to communicate to parents and so helpful. I’ve already shared this with parents at 2 separate meetings. I love getting to talk about it. Man if I could help parents grasp this, I truly believe volunteering, faith, and collaboration would look very different at Brookwood Church.

4. Cannon

Yeah, my son. I’m so pumped for him. I’m worried for him, I’m excited for him. There has always been the thought in my head that God may have only created me to be a dad and a husband. I can’t wait to see the journey that God has planned for us.

If I haven’t already shared this, my son is at an increased chance for Down Syndrome. We chose not to take any tests to find out if he does or not. I don’t think about this a lot, but believe me, it’s in my brain. God is in control and we are all in on our baby son, but to think that it doesn’t scare the living crap out of me would be dishonest.

5. Switch

God has been giving me some new vision for Switch. Mainly, that I need to release a lot more control. I love to teach students, however, I am not the only one that can teach 5th and 6th grade students at Brookwood. That is not what God has called only me to do.

I can’t wait to see how this happens, but God is already moving on this front. Can’t wait.

6. 2 services

Our church is moving to 2 services. We’ve always done 3 services since I’ve been here. It’s exciting and challenging logistically but it’s such an opportunity to pour vision into our families. I can’t wait to see what God is going to do!

7. 6th graders

For the first time in a while, I’m excited for 6th graders to move into 7th grade. Our newest addition, Brian Schwanbeck, is the pastor to students in grade 7 and 8. He has so many things on his mind to grow and challenge the rising students. I can’t wait to see what they are going to accomplish together.

8. Writing

I love writing. I’ve been blogging since I was a junior in high school. That was almost 10 years ago. I blogged for me to process through things. It’s helped. Now this space is being read by people around the world. I’ve been making a concerted effort lately to write for others, rather than for myself. I feel like it’s helped my writing.

However, I still like to write for me. So I’ve got something that I hopefully will pour some major time into soon. It’s a big writing project. I’ve always dreamed of writing a book. I’m ready to start

9. Gospel Centered Homework

This is an idea from a book that I read entitled, “Gospel Centered Discipleship”. Phenomenal read! Rather than explain the idea fully, here’s a video with the author and Matt Chandler talking about Gospel Centered Homework:

This idea has changed how I look at my message preparation. I’m pretty real when it comes to my students and I always try to prick the lies, but I’ve never had an organized way of thinking thru it. Now I do.

Hang on Switch!

10. Mentoring

I’ve had the desire to take part in ministry mentoring for a while now. It’s something that’s always on my mind. Being a dad soon, has piqued my interest in the subject. I have some incredible men around me.

Some older: Dad, dad-in-law, Mike Hepola and Josh Bradley

Some at similar ages: Jared Patrick and Brian Schwanbeck

But I’ve really been thinking thru what this looks like for the younger ones around me. Full on, straight up mentoring younger men thinking about pursuing ministry in some format. I’m praying that God points me in the direction of some men that I can pour my life into.

So that’s what’s been on my mind. What’s on your mind?

How your preteen ministry is structured is one of the key elements in making things smooth and consistent across the board for families. I pointed this very thing out in my breakout at the Orange Conference. I think this is one of the key things that allowed Switch, our preteen ministry, to start off so well.

Structuring Issues

When Mike Hepola, our family pastor, started to consider beginning a 5th and 6th grade ministry, one of the things that Mike and myself really took a lot of time to analyze was our current family ministry structure. We looked at everything about children’s and student ministry to get a good picture of where we were at the time and where we wanted to end up.

I think this step was key because I had spent two years working on the Children’s Ministry team and Mike was the Student Pastor who oversaw all of student ministries before he made the jump to Family Pastor. We went over a ton of stuff and were pretty honest with where both ministries were at. Eventually we came down to a few keys, but to try to give you a summary of some of the things that we thought thru, here’s a picture taken from my breakout slides:

We looked at our structure from birth to high school. Here are some things that we knew were problems with this age group:

• worship – preteens weren’t engaged in children’s ministry and were intimidated by the environment in middle school
• check-in/drop off – parents were not a fan of dropping off their kids at the student building. Preteens felt like “babies” in 5th grade because of the check-out process
• teaching – preteens were bought out of the programming in children’s ministry (rightfully so, same for 4 years. 1st and 5th graders in the same room)
• small groups- because of the structure of children’s ministry, 5th grade small groups were built for 2nd and 3rd graders rather than 5th graders. We wanted to see more discussion.
• lack of stickiness – besides outreach, our families weren’t sticking well thru this stage of life.

Proposed Solutions

After a few meetings with Mike, we came up with a few key differences (baby steps) between Children’s Ministry and Student Ministry.

• Graduated check-out process - such a key. Big deal for our preteens
• Live worship – with 5th and 6th grade students. This is something I love to see every week. Can’t wait to tell you about some of the things our volunteers are doing for this during the summer.
• Hybrid program – small groups on the back-end of large group programming, but shorter and more discussion based than children’s.
• Location – main campus rather than the student building.

Keys

1. Every structure is different – you can’t just assume ours looks like yours. God has called you to the church that you are a part of, not my church. Your structure should and will look different.
2. Collaboration – you have to work together with children’s and student ministry. I think we take this for granted at Brookwood, but our teams work well together. This is a must if your ministries are to flow well together.
3. Input from families – We asked a ton of questions to parents and students. Future and past, old and young, traditional and non-traditional families all were asked their input. We had a ton of relational equity built up because we were solving a problem.

All of this really helped propel Switch to a place of momentum from the start.

How about your ministry structure? What are some areas that need to be tweaked? When was the last time you sat down and had a conversation involving your student ministry team and your children’s ministry team?

Facebook and social media in general are where students spend a majority of their time. In fact, here is an infographic via Online Schools that should tell you a bit about where our teens spend a lot of their time:

Courtesy of: Online Schools

So with technology and specifically, social media, being something that preteens are interested in, what stance should we take?

After my breakout at the Orange Conference, I got a few questions about how I handle social media with preteens. Here is my response:

1. The Law

I always have a few friend requests from preteens on my facebook friend request feed. Please know, my marketing degree and my strategy on communication screams accept to all these friend requests. I want families to trust us. But, I also know that the law on minors giving their information away online is in my corner. COPPA requires very strict privacy procedures when it comes to children under 13, aka a preteen.

It’s important to understand that it’s not against the law for someone under the age of 13 to give their information online, but they require much more policy procedures.

Facebook does not allow users under the age of 13, because they use personal information of all users of Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg has actually gone on record as saying, they will fight COPPA at some point:

“That will be a fight we take on at some point,” he said. “My philosophy is that for education you need to start at a really, really young age.”

However, without verifiable parental consent, right now facebook can not collect information from those under the age of 13.

It is not against the law for a user of facebook to have a profile and be under the age of 13 (I always thought that it was, but I learned a few days ago that it is not). It is however against the terms of service of Facebook.

2. Some reported facts

Here is a piece from an article on facebook and COPPA:

Now, none of these rules seem to have stopped some 7.5 million children under the age of 13 from joining Facebook, according to recent statistics from Consumer Reports. And arguably, Facebook could be fined for COPPA violations now as it’s certainly trafficking in this data. In all fairness to Facebook, the social networking site does say it makes a good faith effort to kick under-age users from the site. About 20,000 under-13-year-olds are expelled from the site a day, Facebook’s chief privacy officer recently told the Australian parliament.

via hackeducation

7.5 million under the age of 13, 20,000 kicked per day.

That’s a lot.

You no doubt have heard of or even seen someone you know if under the age of 13 on Facebook. So what can we do about it?

3. My Stance

This is my stance and like everything on this blog, even though I work for Brookwood Church, is not necessarily the opinion of Brookwood Church.

I report users under 13

I report any user that sends me a friend request and is not 13 years of age. That’s right, I report the preteens in my ministry if they are on Facebook.

I let them know in my services, in my small group, and in conversations that Facebook does not allow them to be a user if they are under the age of 13. There are no 13 years old in Switch, yet. (that I know of offhand).

We have a Facebook page

We have a Facebook page for our preteen ministry, you can view it here: Switch Facebook Page.

We use that page to communicate to parents and parents only. It’s a place for resources, event promotion, and discussion. But the content is designed and communicated to parents. We don’t hold contests for preteens or anything designed for preteens on Facebook.

We do post pictures of preteens, usually from events on the facebook page.

We have a photo/video consent form for every event that we have for Switch. It is signed by parents if they are ok with their child’s picture being included on promo, facebook, etc.

Our events are private

We share invitations to the event, rather than making them public. This allows only approved people to view the pictures that are posted.

I communicate this with parents

I try to let as many parents know my stance as possible thru casual conversations, trainings, via email, etc. It’s important that they know my policy but more importantly they know why.

Why?

I ultimately think COPPA is a great thing as long as people follow it. I think things like cyber-bullying and identity theft and even online relationships could be curtailed if more parents were a bit more pro-active when it comes to their child’s interaction online.

It’s important that we discuss the difference between public and private, authenticity, and relationship in order for them to successfully navigate social media well.

I think it’s tough for them to grasp a few of these concepts at their age.

NOTE: Not all parents of preteens agree with me. It is their child and their responsibility to guard them and protect them and to teach them and model for them digital practice as well as all the things off of the digital space. I do not have any problems with them choosing differently than my opinion. I also let them know that if their child does send me a request online that I will report them.

Ultimately, I’ve gotten almost 100% positive feedback. Parents love the fact that I am taking the stance that I am. I am usually in the parent’s corner rather than the preteen on this one.

How about you? How do you use facebook for your preteen ministry?

As a pastor to preteens, I often see parents worried and anxious about having certain conversations with their child. It’s so important to make the most of these moments. These are conversations that every parent needs to have and every child wants to have with their parents. No matter how much these kids whine, complain, and try to run (in some cases) you must push thru to have those conversations.

So here are 3 talks that you should be thinking about having with your children very, very soon.

1. Purity, Sex, etc.

Last year, the youngest mom in America was 11 years old. Please don’t avoid this conversation because of fear. I cannot tell you how important it is to talk to you child about sex. Here are some pointers:

• Don’t stress about having one big talk. Make a few small talks and encourage openness with your children.
• Fight for your child’s heart. I hope that you have already established the idea of a heart thermostat. Check it often.
• Know who is influencing your child. You are their gatekeeper, it’s your responsibility to know this.
• Be honest about your experience. Don’t downplay sex. It’s enjoyable. You like it. It’s important that they know God created it for pleasure as well.

There are numerous resources available on talking about sex with your child. Be vulnerable and honest with your child and they will respond. This generation can spot fakes faster and better than any generation before. They will be able to spot you if you are fake with your answers.

2. Responsibility/Becoming an adult

Your preteen has probably voiced that they aren’t a baby anymore. They are right. However, as a parent you know that they have a long way to go in the responsibility department. Let them make choices and hold them accountable for those choices. This is the time that you start to give things away to your kids if you haven’t already.

Did you know back in the day, adults were considered people over the age of 13? Teenager was a word that was coined by Reader’s Digest, not by doctors or psychologists. Do you believe that your child has what it takes to be a single minded, Christ-centered, biblically anchored, world changer?

If not do a self assessment on how much you believe in your child. If you don’t believe in them, it’s on you not on them. Paul tells us that God equips all of us:

God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out when you have faith that God is speaking through you. 7 If your gift is that of serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, do a good job of teaching. 8 If your gift is to encourage others, do it! If you have money, share it generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.

-Romans 12:6-8

If your kid has to prove to you that they have what it takes, it has more to do with your outlook on the ability of God to equip than your child’s shortcomings.

Please believe in your child.

3. Faith

If you haven’t talked about faith in a real way, chances are that your child has already started to drift away. Are you living faith authentically? Does your walk, match your talk? Are you involved in a small group?

You are the primary voice in the life of your child, it’s your responsibility in every area of your child’s life to be the one shaping, encouraging, challenging, and pushing. Your preteens want to ask questions, make sure that you answer authentically. Work on these follow-up questions:

• Why do you think that?
• Is this something you are thinking about or have decided on?
• I don’t know, want to have another conversation after we’ve both gotten some more information?
• How long have you felt this way?
• How can I help you?

Don’t allow their questions to go unanswered, but don’t make something up either and don’t demonize them for asking questions, allow them a safe place to think critically about their faith.

More Pointers for Preteen Parents

Volunteer – your child needs to see your faith have legs on it. Put legs on it

Connect- With adults that you want to pour into your child. With parents of other preteens. And with other adults. If you don’t connect and model building relationships, it’s tough to get your child to do so.

Talk- Over and over again. Let your child know that you want to have conversations with them. That you are interested in every area of their life. Let curiosity become your ally.

Pray- Never underestimate the power of prayer. Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the father pleading for us. Take advantage of the connection that you have with him. Ask him to move mountains for your child while at the same time whispering to them.

Parents, what are some of the most important conversations that you have had with your child? Which conversations are you the most nervous about?

He laid out the key for us this morning: Mutual Submission. 

It seems simple enough, but man it’s tough. I am definitely not in a “pastor diva” driven culture, but I know some people who are dangerously close to developing that culture as they start their churches. I am thankful that the story my pastor is telling is one of being involved in walking out the gospel authentically and doing the messy work.

Two takeaways for me:

The best starting point for developing this culture is to ask the question: How can I help?

A great way to put the ownership in the hands of those that you delegate to but obviously with the understanding that you actually will help them with what they ask.

Second for me is:

• what is rewarded is repeated
• what is punished is ignored
• what is neglected is neither

Such a good talk. Leaders should hear that talk from today, all of it.

Yes I can read that!! Rude. JK. Anyway great session, lots of challenges today.

Also went to 2 breakouts, one on leading change by Carey Nieuwhof and Values of a Small Group Leader by Chef. Here are my summaries for both:

Carey Nieuwhof – Leading thru Opposition

• Do the math. (How many people are really opposed to the change?)
• Deal gracefully with the opponents of change
• Look for truth from those that you will build your church on.

Tom Shefchunas- Lead Small

• Buy the book Lead Small from the Orange Store (when it goes on sale)
• How can we give a job description to a relational role?
• Think of giving your wife a checklist or buying flowers for her every Tuesday, how does that work?
• Make values for small group leaders.
• Had to get out to be interviewed, but luckily the book is already available if you are at Orange!! :p

Reggie Joiner led off day 1. Reggie is really the reason why I believe so much in Orange. I haven’t met him in person, but when he speaks, he just resonates with my heart. His talk and game changer was about the gospel being messy. It was a challenging talk. I tweeted a lot about this session, so I won’t repeat (follow me on twitter) what I said there, but here are a few things that stuck out to me a day after hearing the talk:

• The Gospel is messy. The cross is messy. Jesus is the King of messy.
• Are we challenging our preteens to fall in love with the messy story of the gospel or our church?
• Are we more concerned with how we do ministry rather than the hearts of the people that we minister to?
• How can our kids get messy?

They also talked about the zip code 98118. 40,000 people 59 languages!! Are you kidding me?

The idea of diversity and tolerance was pushed from stage and that made me happy. I grew up in Memphis, TN in the pit of racism and nastiness towards people. I’m praying that the life that I live in front of my kids represents Jesus more. There are few things that resonate more with me than diversity, what’s hard is that it even feels weird as a white guy to talk about diversity. Jesus talked with, dined with, and made connections with everyone. Please don’t minimize the word everyone.

Jesus was in the midst of Romans, Jews, Pharisees, tax collectors, rich people, lepers, women, cripples, untouchables and loved them. Is that the gospel that we are teaching our students?

The same story that I am involved in because of Jesus, is the same story that is weaved throughout the Bible. How cool is that to bring your kids into?

Challenged by Reggie’s talk, like always, especially for a dad to be.

I was given an opportunity to talk about Preteen Ministry this year at the Orange Conference. I was so thankful to connect with over 300 leaders who desired to talk about the challenges and opportunities that this age group presents. If you were at my session please give me a comment below so I can say hi and thank you!!

My breakout was really sort of an overview of why the conversation needs to be bigger than just Children’s Ministry or bigger than just Youth ministry. How can you look at the students and the context that God has placed you in at your church and make the most of this unique age group.

Here are some things that might help you out:

My Keynote Presentation:

Make the most of Tweens (PDF format)

Preteen Ministry websites:

preteenministry.net

fourfivesix.org

mattmo.org

Curriculums that I’ve used:

preteenministry.net (geared toward Preteens!!)

252 Basics

Lifechurch.tv

Seeds.churchonthemove.com

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!!

The Eric Trap Book Review

So I was offered the opportunity to read a book and review it written by some wonderful people in Children’s Ministry. The book is called The Eric Trap: 5 things every leader has to get right.

It’s a great read and a book that I am blessed to have. The book takes you thru the story of a fake #kidmin pastor named Eric Newman. Eric has all kinds of issues that he has gotten himself into, from fighting with volunteers, misaligned priorities, and lack of self awareness. It’s a challenging read for a young person in ministry.

I’ve got a son on the way named Cannon and I want him to have the father that he needs. I want my wife to have the husband that she needs and I want my ministry to have the pastor that it needs. Because of these things, the issues talked about in this book are a shot right to my heart. It’s one thing to desire these things, it’s a whole nother ballgame to align your actions with these desires.

This book is a challenge to all people, but I think it applies most to young people to get 5 things right every time in your ministry role. You can either learn from your own mistakes or the mistakes of others.

Such a great book and a easy read. I wonder if Eric truly is fake though, maybe Sam and Kenny talked Jim into telling some best of stories and put them into the book. Or maybe Eric is Sam or Kenny or maybe even Jonathan Cliff.

One thing is for sure. I’ve been challenged not only by the book, but by my wife after talking about the things contained in it. Pray for me as I try to apply some of the principles contained in it’s pages.

I’ll be giving away two copies of the book. I’m giving one away to someone in my ministry. A winner will be picked at random using the widget below a week from today. You have a week to enter.

This book is important for you as a leader. It’s important for you as a member of any organization church related or not. It’s important for you as a follower of Christ.

Here’s how to enter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

[I received a copy of this book to review and some copies to give away.]