Youth Ministry: How do you free students to dream? Hint: Hand them your credit card.

I was with a group of youth workers today in Dallas at something we called the "Unconference" which was basically just a time of prayer, dreaming and talking about Youth Ministry without any paid experts in the room or any venders present.   The goal was to engage the youth ministry community of Dallas (and a few people who flew in) to see what topics we needed to talk about and just jump in.    The format was to allow for 4  one hour long conversations about topics  that were brought by the participants. 

I was fully prepared for us to talk about Dallas and dreams for youth ministry and had my standard "If we could dream big and money was not an option what would we do" idea when someone flipped it around on me.  In one of our discussions my friend  Mark Riddle encouraged me to think about what it would look like to give students the freedom to dream. All of the sudden a switch flipped in me when I realized that I hadn't asked any students what their dreams were in a long time.   It would change my role to not be in charge but to instead be  put in the position of helping to empower them dream bigger and make their dreams happen. 

David Grant the Youth Pastor at Irving Bible Church told a story about how some girls in his group were given the freedom to dream big and they decided one day that they were going to make a 700+ sandwiches to give away to a homeless ministry.  One of the girls called him and asked for his credit card so that they could go and buy the supplies to get this project going.  He gladly handed over his card and supported something that involved a bunch of students showing up at his church one afternoon to make sandwiches. 

Are you willing to do hand an 11th grade girl your credit card?  

We talk all the time about discipling and growing students closer to the LORD but I don't always feel like I do a very good job of providing them resources to take some of their dreams and make a reality.  

So here's my challenge today.  Think about what it would look like to both challenge your students to dream bigger and how you can provide them the resources to make those dreams happen.  Maybe you are like me and  haven't created a culture of that in your youth ministry.  Maybe your first step is to give them opportunities to dream and share those dreams.  If that's the case start there.  

I think teenagers are pretty amazing and have great ideas.  Sometimes they have crazy ideas but those are often fun too.  Our job needs to be helping to encourage and to release dreams.  

We are often the keepers of the keys to make dreams a reality.  Are you wiling to make things messy in order to lovingly make those dreams come real?  

Christian Endeavor and organization with the longest roots in youth ministry that I know of has taken on this challenge at the core of who they are.  Tim Eldred recently published a book called the "4 Hour Youth Ministry: Escaping the trap of full-time youth ministry" which I think shoves us in this direction.  He is passionate about releasing students to be leaders and to engage them in real activities with meaning not just entertain them with Youth Ministry Games.  I've had some opportunity to sit with Tim and have been very impressed with the team he's put together, the complete overhaul of that organization and the focus that they have to empower students.  I'm really looking forward to seeing what they are going to lead us to in the future and think you should check out some links and get to know them.