Archive - June, 2010

Youth Pastor with Free Time

June 29, 2010 in Youth Ministry with 2 Comments

Ok not really free time but I'm reengaging with being a youth pastor this week after my 4.5 months of hospital chaplaincy and a week of speaking at a camp.  What I've realized is that I have tons of time to do things and I have to rethink how my productivity flow is going to work.  So I'm doing something.  This week I'm making a list of what I do each day and when I do it.  Sort of a test of my current work flow. I realized today that I spent a lot of time talking to my staff (which I love) but I didn't have a specific agenda for each of the impromptu meetings. There is a ton going on this week as we get ready for a missions trip next week but I'm finding myself with a lot of time to engage in things I've been putting off.  

Here's a sample of what tomorrow will look like. 

Generally Here's what Wednesdays during the summer look like.

9-10 e-mail and response stuff to specific needs. 

10-12 meetings with staff and general availability to anyone who needs me.

12-1 Quick Lunch

1-4 Project Dallas our every week local missions project we do in the city. 

So here's a question.  How do you as a youth pastor/youthworker organize your days?

Youthfront: Storytelling and family vacation

June 22, 2010 in Friends, Teaching, Who I am..., Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

Now that I have finished my time at the hospital I am taking a needed family vacation.  We're up at Youthfront Camp South this week near Kansas City where I am teaching a group of High School Students. What I love about YouthFront is that their learning model involves some amazing ways of connecting students beyond the traditional "camp speaker" type set up.  So I share in the morning and then they have some reflection time to connect with it followed that night with a concrete experience focused on the same topic and then another great response time.  The goal as I see it is to reach a diverse group of students in very different ways all aiming at giving them more than just the "right answers".   

There are some very specific "rhythms" to how this camp runs too with morning prayer and midday prayer times.  Today before lunch at 12pm I walked into the chapel to see 200 students laying around on the floor engaged in an amazing time of corporate prayer and worship. 

On another note I'm hanging with my friend Mike King and tonight met with Chris Folmsbee of Barefoot Ministries.   Mike and Chris are involved in a ton of things but one close to my heart is the new Youth Ministry Magazine called "Immerse: A journal of Faith, Life and Youth Ministry"  which I am on the advisory board for and do some writing in.  

This is the Rood families first time in the Midwest and so far it's been real nice.  We're hoping to actually get to drive into Kansas City at some point this week and sample some of its barbecue which I hear they think rivals Texas pretty well.  

Thanks for all of you who have been praying for me during my time as a chaplain this spring. It was an amazing experience that really changed me and I know that I am a better pastor and person because of it. I'm still looking forward to seeing what God will do with it all. 

Listening to a heartbeat stop: No one should die alone.

June 16, 2010 in Who I am... with 8 Comments

This may actually be the last post I do about my time as a hospital Chaplain.  This last Sunday night when  I was at the hospital I was contacted by a nurse from my floor that a patient wasn't doing well and would probably die that night.  

The story was really sad. It was a 52 year old man who was a tree cutting specialist who had gotten electrocuted when he was trimming a tree.  His family had been with him for 3 weeks in the hospital but they had decided to withdraw care because the doctors had said that he would not recover. They had left earlier in the day.  

I told the nurse that I believed no one should die alone and that they needed to call me when he was close.  

I got a call at 9pm that night. The told me to come up.  I met two nurses in the room.  They told me it was very close.  One nurse grabbed my hand and asked me to pray.  We did that and then he handed me a stethoscope and told me to put it on and listen to the heart beat.  

I literally listened to the heartbeat stop. 

The two nurses told me they were going to leave and I told them I would stay for a while.  I sat in a chair next to the patient and just talked to him.  This is the first time I've ever really been just alone with a dead body. I sat and looked at him and just knew that "he" was no longer there.  But,  still I talked to him.  I told him I was sorry his family wasn't there. I told him that I was glad to be with him and I got up and read to him all the cards that were in his room.  I felt like it was my moment to care for him. 

I sat for 20 minutes talking to him.

If you would have asked me 4 months ago if I would have ever been comfortable doing that I would have said no.  Entering into this chaplaincy thing I had almost zero hospital experience.  In my own life I'd never experienced death.  This was one of the greatest things I could have done for me as a pastor. I'm glad my denomination requires it. 

My time at the hospital has changed me.  I'm a much different Pastor now.  I don't have it all figured out or even close to it but I do know that I'm comfortable saying that I believe no one should die alone. 

Steps of Justice: My friend Phil Cunningham

June 10, 2010 in Justice, Missions, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

2  Check out www.stepsofjustice.org

I want  to tell you about someone that I believe in who is doing something amazing for the world and especially for Youth Ministry.

I met Phil Cunningham in 2001 when he was leading Missions Adventure Summer camp trip for YWAM Seattle.  Phil and his family moved to Seattle to actually start the base there.  

Phil and I became friends and stayed in contact while I was a Youth Pastor in Los Angeles.  We mostly saw each other at National Youth Workers Conventions and then each summer as he became my go to guy to run trips for my youth groups.  Over the years Phil has partnered with me in Seattle, Vancouver, Fiji, Costa Rica, Dallas and Cambodia.

Some where in the midst of this we went from friends to great friends and from ministry partners to doing life together.   Phil is now one of my regular weekly phone calls, accountability partners and someone I turn to anytime I need encouragement, to bounce an idea off of or just to help me dream big. 

Well he has dreamed big and I'm stoked to let people know about it.  This last year Phil and I got to hang out at a bunch of the National Youth Workers Conventions and the whole time he told me about this idea that he was having to put more justice related material into peoples hands.  He has been working on this project all winter and it is finally launching tomorrow.  I'd love to have you go check out  www.stepsofjustice.org

The Tagline of this project is "Practical Steps of Justice That can Change the World"  I believe that Phil is doing that and that his mission is something worth finding out more about and following along with.  

Phil isn't turning this into a business, he's not trying to sell you something to make money.  This is a project where his goal it to recoup the costs and hopefully make it sustainable so he can produce another one.  

Check him out at: www.twitter.com/philcunningham or www.twitter.com/stepsofjustice

Youth Ministry/Chaplaincy: an intersection of hope and grief

June 8, 2010 in Education, Highland Park Presbyterian Church, Youth Ministry with 4 Comments

The last few months I've been catching a bit of crap from people for blogging more about work at the hospital more than my job as a youth pastor.  At first I was frustrated about that a bit but then I just owned the fact that I tend to write about the areas in my life that I'm growing the most.  This 400 hours of hospital Clinical Pastoral Education has been the biggest growth area for me this spring and I now vow to write about it without feeling any guilt. 

At the same time I am a Youth Pastor and it is what God has called me to be.  I love youth ministry and building something that will ultimately draw students towards a long term life of discipleship with Jesus and hopefully a desire in them to "go" and make disciples.

This spring has been pretty rough combining these two things.  The hospital eats up a lot of time and this was a season that the Youth Ministry had some great needs.  I'm very thankful that I will be finishing Chaplaincy in 10 days and will be able to fully focus energy back on the Youth Ministry side of my life. 

The last week though there has been some great intersections between Youth Ministry and Chaplaincy. Here's two quick stories:

Last week I had a chance to sit with a mother and her 16 year old son.  He'd been accidentally shot and had been in the hospital for about a month.  When I went into the room I was immediately struck by how the mother and son were interacting.  They were finishing each others sentences, telling me stories together and really seemed to be enjoying each other.  My interaction with them was great and I remember thinking "I wonder what it is about this tragedy that has brought them together so close?"   It was a really rewarding time and I saw in them the way a major difficult situation can bring the family together. I've thought a lot since my time with them about how this experience will forever shape them as a family and I wonder how much "better" their relationships will be because of this.  

Tonight I had a much different experience.  I had to be with a family when they found out that their 16 year old son was officially brain dead.  He had drowned in a pool.  This situation was incredibly difficult and I  just sat with the family for a while without saying anything except "I'm sorry, " There just wasn't anything needed to be said during this time of grief.  The mother  has had her future story with her son altered forever.  The "what if's" will now always remain just that.  My interaction with this family was still as a youth pastor but it was vastly different because in this situation hope was gone.  

We talk a lot about future stories both in chaplaincy and in youth ministry.  Most people that I spend time with in the hospital have had their future story radical altered instantly.  

What I'm learning at the intersection between my two lives right now is that the "Present" is the only reality that really makes sense.  Focusing too much on a future of possibilities that can change instantly only brings disappointment. 

I've learned a ton about myself. About how I deal with grief and how I can be a more "present" person in the ministry that I lead.  I'm praying for the next 10 days where I will be working a total of 48 hours at the hospital.  We're also kicking off a summer service program tomorrow at church and taking a ton of kids to a baseball game tomorrow night.  I'm hoping that this is a great and rewarding 10 days of being present wherever I am. 

Youth Ministry Video: Watch some of what I love about Youth Ministry and Youth Specialties.

June 7, 2010 in Video, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments


SoberVirgins: I just got punked

June 5, 2010 in Books, Education, Youth Ministry with 3 Comments

  Sobervirgins
 In my last post I mentioned how I got to spend some great time for a few days talking about how youth workers can be trained better and what primary research has been done that we need to find ways of getting into their hands.   There were some pretty amazing people there and quite a few of them are pretty sharp.  This has been a three year project that I've been pretty lucky to be a part of.  Two of the guys are good friends and also PhD candidates in Practical Theology at Princeton Seminary.   

I told them about an idea I had for a book dealing with Youth Ministry and specifically from a Youth Pastors perspective what it is I feel like parents want me to do.  The book Title is "SoberVirgins" which often times is what I feel parents care about when sending their kids to youth group. If their kids can just somehow graduate from High School with those two words still defining who they are then they feel like the "church" has done it's job. 

Anyways my two "friends" bought the domain name and created a fake book cover giving themselves the authorship of the book and me the "forward".  I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard but at the same time I was also realizing that this project might have some legs to it.  It is something that all 3 of us are really passionate about and something that we are uniquely positioned to talk about.  

So to my friends. Jason Santos and Andrew Zirschky good punk and I'm looking forward to making this project a reality.  

Youth Ministry Training: dreaming and scheming

June 4, 2010 in Education, Teaching, Youth Ministry with 4 Comments

Sitting in a room with some great people working on a Youth Ministry Training module aimed at providing theological reflection and education for youth workers.  

CYMT (Center for Youth Ministry Training) has organized this for the last three years and it's good.  Hopefully after three years we have worked out the kinks and are putting things into place that will be useful for youth workers.  

We've been kicking around how this looks for a while now and have finally landed with a model that might be most helpful.

I should probably state the place I start in all of this is that we don't do enough reflection time in the midst of training.  I love the conferences I get to go to but I generally come home from most conference tired and with a bag of resources that ends up in a corner of my office for too long.

I'm wondering how many people feel the same way as I do.

1. Do you buy books and resources that you don't read?

2. Do you wish you had more time to reflect during or after a conference?

I'm hoping to hear from some of my youth ministry friends about what they think they, their volunteers and the youth ministry world as a whole need. 

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