I’m reading Walt Mueller’s book Engaging the Soul of Youth Culture
, and in it he talks about the fact that young people are stressed and hurried.
It is true that all over the world young people are looking for ways to relieve stress in their lives. I thought this article over at YPulse was interesting about how young people relieve stress. According to the article that YPulse references, “stress is the invisible global constant afflicting youth of all ages in all markets.”
5 Ways Young People Relieve Stress
- Listening to Music – 65% of all young people on the planet listen to music to relieve stress. I wonder what they’re listening to.
- Watching TV – 48% watch TV to relieve stress (but not the news…it stresses them out)
- Talking to Friends – the use of technology has made this even more available as a stress reducer
- Sleeping
- Praying – young people who pray more are less stressed. Ypulse says, “Stressed youth on average pray 3.7 times per week. Relaxed youth pray 8.8 times a week.”
Check out the article on YPulse for the Top 12 Ways Young People Reduce Stress.
I’ve been stunned lately by the deaths of some family and friends. My grandmother died late last year. My Uncle died last week. One of my best friends from high school was found dead this morning.
Thinking about death makes me think about what I do on a daily basis. It makes me think about the way I treat people and respond to situations. It makes me think about the plans I make and how I spend my time. It makes me want to dedicate myself to live better.
When I think about life and death, I am drawn to James 4:14.
Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
We have a short time here on earth. We have little time to influence people. I want my short vapor of a life to count for something. I want, when the mist is gone, for Christ to have been magnified by my life.
Nothing else matters. I will miss the people who we have lost in the last few days. They influenced me. They are in my memories. Their lives counted. I want my life to count for something.
What would happen if we lived life in light of James 4:14? What would happen if we realized how short life really is? I’m sure my daily decisions would be different. I’m sure I would live to make a greater impact both in my family and in the lives of those around me.
Andy Stanley, in his book Communicating for a Change, talks about a thing called “the preacher’s burden.” He says it’s the thing that “if you don’t preach it, you will die.” The thing that your audience has to hear.
I was supposed to preach on Friday in chapel at the Seminary, and I had prepared like never before. I had studied the passage. I had prepared my outline. I had boiled it down to one thing. I had the perfect illustration. Then the phone rang.
It seems there is someone in town that the Seminary wants to preach on Friday instead. The guy is part of an organization that helps the Seminary a lot, and they called me today (Wednesday) to let me know that they want him to preach on Friday, the day that has been on the calendar for me to preach since the start of the term.
So what do I do with the burden? I am convinced the Seminary students, professors (including me), and administration need to hear the sermon I was going to preach. I have the burden. I might explode if I can’t tell them what I felt God had told me to say.
They tell me that I will get a chance to preach next term. It will be my turn again, I’m sure. But in the meantime, I guess I have to put into practice the concept that God taught me and gave me a passion for while I was preparing to preach. Could it be that the message was more for me than for the Seminary students?
So what do you do with the preacher’s burden when it turns out that you don’t get to preach it? Are there other ways to get the message out?
One of my biggest fears when I get up to speak in front of a group of young people, students at the Seminary, or even in “big church” is boring the drool out of people while I’m speaking. Seriously, I have nightmares about people sleeping while I’m teaching about the the book that has caused more life change than any other book in the history of the world.
Jim Rayburn, the founder of Young Life, is quoted as saying, “It is a sin to bore a kid with the gospel of Jesus Christ.” I agree. If God took the time to carefully reveal Himself to us, why do we bore people with this life-changing message?
I bet many youth workers and pastors are the same way. Nobody wants to be remembered as the boring teacher. Nobody wants half of the congregation to snooze through the sermon. None of my students would admit to wanting to bore people while they are teaching.
Well, the good news is that there are some principles that we can apply to our teaching to cut down the bore factor. Here they are.
Five Secrets to “Bore No More”:
- If you don’t know where they are, it doesn’t matter where you’re going. You must understand the level of understanding your students have of the topic. It makes no sense to teach about something that they have already learned (at the same level of teaching). Be sure to know as much about your audience as possible so you can teach new things or old things from a different perspective.
- You learn better the things that interest you. If you are 16 years old and have the option of learning how to drive a car or how to wash the dishes, you will probably choose to learn how to drive a car (unless someone can convince you of the connection between washing the dishes and finding a girlfriend). Find out what interests your students and teach it to them.
- Fulfilled needs leads to effective teaching. When we feel a need, we will go to various lengths to find the answer and fulfill the need. What are the needs your students have right now? Find those out and teach about them.
- Without stimulated activity, there is no learning. Teaching is not the act of transferring the teachers notes directly to the notebooks of the students without it ever passing through the brains of either one. It is an interaction with material. Teaching causes life change. You must figure out how to stimulate activity in the learner, or there will be no learning or teaching taking place.
- The teacher and the lesson are the same.Your life teaches your lessons and applies what you teach for good or bad. Live what you teach, or the time you spend preparing will be worthless.
What are your thoughts? What would you add? How can you apply these principles?
(image by Phoenixdailyphoto on flickr – if you’re reading in a reader, it’s worth clicking to check out the picture)
If you like this post, check out this book by Andy Stanley (the link is through my Amazon Associates Account): Communicating for a Change: Seven Keys to Irresistible Communication
. It’s got some great ideas for crafting and communicating messages.
We finally switched to the email management system called Mail Chimp to send out our email newsletters. It was getting too difficult to manage the subscriptions to it, and using Mail Chimp makes it easier for you to sign up, change your email address, or even unsubscribe from our list (not sure why anyone would want to do that).
Tomorrow is the first issue that will go out using the new format (sign up here or below). You have the option of receiving the pretty, HTML styled version or the plain old text version. Either way, we hope it helps you pray for our family as we live in Mexico City and work in Latin America.
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We send out an email newsletter about once every two weeks with all the latest information about what is happening in our family and ministry as we live and work in Mexico City.
If you would like to be "in the know" about our ministry to train youth workers in Latin America, please fill out the form below and we’ll add you to our list.
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Last week in our Youth Ministry class we talked mostly about how to create lesson plans. We talked about putting in details like goals, indicators, transition statements, and other things.
Today, in the continuation of that topic, we started talking about the big picture of how to create a teaching plan for youth ministry. It’s not enough to know the details…we have to know where we are going with each of those lessons.
So, we started off the class with this powerpoint game called What is it?. I created it to use in either an English or Spanish setting, so it’s bilingual. The first image is a super close up of an object. The participants have to guess what it is. After ten images, the answers are given. There’s even a bonus in case of a tie.
Feel free to use the free “What is it?” powerpoint game for your ministry. My students did fairly well. I don’t think it’s too difficult or too easy. Have fun with it, and let me know if you use it.
Oh…and while you’re at it, maybe you’re looking for a free Easter Powerpoint game. I created a trivia game about Peeps (the candy) a while ago. Click here for the link to the free Peeps Powerpoint game.
