Approaching Anxiety

May 6, 2024

 

I recently had a conversation with a teenager where I was asking them to explain a certain behavior pattern they’d been exhibiting recently. Their face went blank—almost dead-eyed—and they didn’t speak for a long time. After a painfully silent two minutes, I asked again, “What’s going on? What are you feeling that’s leading you to act this way?” They said: “I don’t have a reason. Maybe there is no reason. Maybe this is just who I am.”

You’ve probably had a similar conversation with a student before. It’s possible you’ve had a similar conversation with yourself. One of the downsides of being a human being is that, more often than we’d care to admit, we have no idea why we do what we do. We just know that, in the moment, it made sense somehow.

 

What I want to share from the gospel on this isn’t the end all be all of the epidemic of anxiety today’s students are navigating. In fact, I’m barely going to touch on the intricacies of anxiety or mental health issues. You’ll find far more educated people to listen to and books to read on that topic if you want to get into the weeds on it—which I would recommend. What I want to share on for just a few minutes is how the gospel addresses the answer that teenager gave me: “Maybe there is no reason. Maybe this is just who I am.”

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It’s the most rudimentary concept in all of Christianity—God created. If you were to share the gospel story with somebody, you would start at this point, and yet sometimes we forget the significance of this plot point in the gospel narrative. In the beginning, God created. In other words, there was nothing, and then God created and there was something. Out of oblivion came order because God creates. And from the moment God created...from that point on...there was order...structure...reason.

 

Because God created, nothing is chance, chaos, or without reason.

 

Without God creating? Sure, we can chalk up all kinds of things to random chance. Chaos. “This is just me” mentality. But since God created, that doesn’t work. There is something behind every action, every behavior pattern, every moment. There is order because God created. That means:

 

Nobody is anxious without reason.

 

There is a reason behind the anxiety your students face—possibly more than one. And that reason isn’t solely rooted in external circumstances. In fact, it’s almost certainly not primarily rooted in external circumstances. There is a reason for their anxiety, and it’s rooted in the lens through which they see themselves, God, or others.

But because there is order behind the anxiety in our hearts and minds, we know God is able to reorder our hearts and minds and deal with whatever the cause of our anxiety was. And that means we have hope for a future without anxiety.

 

Because anxiety has a reason, we have hope.

 

So when you approach students about their anxiety, I want to encourage you not to approach it as if “that’s just the way they are.” When God created, He brought all disorder and oblivion under His dominion. Yes, sin is a practical problem on earth, and so is the disorder that sin has brought. But there is a reason behind all disordered things humans deal with, and that includes anxiety. So approach students from a place of hope, knowing that when the gospel recolors the way they see themselves, God, and others, there’s hope that they’ll live anxiety-free.

Mike Haynes is a full-time youth pastor and the creator of G Shades Youth Ministry Curriculum. Feel free to reach out to Mike anytime over email at mike@gshades.org!

Mentoring In Youth Ministry

April 29, 2024

 

I had the pleasure of having a conversation with Brent Aiken on the Student Ministry Conversations podcast the other day (the episode releases in a few weeks). The conversation was around evaluating curriculum in the world of youth ministry. It was a really amazing conversation, and I’d highly recommend you to add their podcast to your rotation in general.

 

In that conversation, Brent and I both spoke a little bit on how curriculums don’t disciple your students. You do. In fact, curriculum can’t disciple your students. Not even G Shades. Only you can do that.

 

It’s led me to dwell on the importance of mentorship in youth ministry over the past few days. It’s something I think most of us inherently understand about this role—we get to mentor kids. It’s like...basically the whole thing. But I also know that youth ministry can sometimes be so heavy on sermon prep, budget balancing, meeting attendance, and event planning that sometimes we forget about the most important thing any of us can do in this job, and that’s step into an influential role in a kid’s life.

 

I mean, God is infinitely and intimately familiar with the burden of running a complex system. I’m sure balancing all things in the cosmos is even more difficult than balancing the not-nearly-large-enough budget the Board of Elders gave you this year. And yet despite the fact that God has plenty on His plate to manage and orchestrate, He makes Himself available to us. And better yet, He pursues us.

 

In the midst of complex system management, God still values simple relational mentoring.

 

He invites us to be with Him. He gives us insight into how He operates. He gives us chances to try His way out and shows us grace when we fall short. He’s invested in the (relatively speaking) unimportant details of our lives that feel very important to us. The God of the universe mentors us in Christ.

 

Can I just remind us as youth pastors to do the same for our students? To not forget that these kids are three-dimensional human beings with lives outside of church? Your sermons are so, so good...really. They’re the best. But your students need you to be interested in their world as much as you want them to be interested in yours.  

 

Your students need your presence every bit as much as your preaching.

 

So I know camp season is coming. I know grade transitions are coming. I know you’ve got your own vacation lined up. And I know you’re about three weeks away from the deacon surprising you with yet another last minute “great serving opportunity for the teens/youths/young people!” Like, you’re busy. I get it. But if you stripped away all of the programming and set up systems to meet with students and talk about life and Jesus, it would be enough. Just as when God does away with the old things and all that’s left is to be in His presence for eternity, it will be enough.

 

Mentor your students. Maybe not even all of them. But at least one or two of them. And if your reason for not doing that is because you don’t have enough time, you should highly consider investing in a curriculum that simplifies ministry for you. I’m biased, but I think G Shades is your absolute best option. And, as timing would have it, we’re releasing Season 6 Thursday May 2!

Mike Haynes is a full-time youth pastor and the creator of G Shades Youth Ministry Curriculum. Feel free to reach out to Mike anytime over email at mike@gshades.org!

A Gospel Lens For Youth Ministry Fundraising

April 25, 2024

I’m going to be honest. I hate fundraising. It’s probably my least favorite aspect of youth ministry. But I think that’s actually why my perspective on fundraising may be helpful for you—especially if you hate fundraising too.

For a long time, I thought I hated fundraising because it’s a lot of work. Fundraising events are no joke if you want to plan them well.

For a long time, I thought I hated fundraising because it reminds me how often churches are under resourced. I’m certain I’m not the only church worker who’s ever thought “you know...if more people in our church actually tithed...”

For a long time, I thought I hated fundraising because I had a bad experience getting yelled at by a neighbor when I went door-to-door as a teenager trying to fundraise for my youth group.

I’m sure all of those are contributing factors to some degree, but the real reason I full-body cringe when I think about fundraising actually has a lot less to do with the workload or effectiveness of fundraising, and a lot more to do with something deficient in my own heart.

 

For a lot of us, we hate fundraising because we have a poverty mentality around our time, energy, and resources.

 

Fundraising requires doing a lot of leg work and often spending some money on the front end in the hopes that there will be a significant return on that up-front investment. Good, healthy fundraising requires a core belief that there’s plenty to go around. That there’s plenty of time to plan things that are important. That there’s plenty of energy to put into what matters. That there’s plenty of money in our community if we’ll give them something compelling to give to. And that there’s plenty of reasons to trust that God will provide.

 

Good, healthy fundraising requires an abundance mentality.

 

 And if you’re anything like me, you have a bit of a hard time with that. But God doesn’t seem to have a hard time with that at all. The gospel is, if nothing else, a story of God’s abundance and willingness to invest in us in order to yield a great return. What God invests in the context of the gospel and what we invest in the context of fundraising events is obviously different, and the return God sees and the return we see is obviously different, but the lens is nonetheless there. God is not stingy with His time, energy, or resources. He gives lavishly, and trusts immensely. And if He does so with us, we have infinitely more reason to give and trust Him.

 

So, as for the X’s and O’s of creating a fundraising event? I’m not the guy to ask, to be honest. But I do know that it’s entirely possible the real reason you struggle so much with fundraising has less to do with fundraising itself and more to do with the condition of your heart. And this kind of reflective, gospel centered paradigm for youth ministry leadership is helpful in all kinds of areas, not just fundraising.

If you’d like to learn more about how to adopt a gospel lens to address the things in your heart that might be holding you back from effective youth ministry, consider purchasing the book Life Through The Lens Of The Gospel. And if you’d like your students to adopt a gospel lens, consider using our curriculum.

 

In the meantime, camp and mission trip season is coming. Abundance mentality. We can do this. Let’s go get ‘em!

Mike Haynes is a full-time youth pastor and the creator of G Shades Youth Ministry Curriculum. Feel free to reach out to Mike anytime over email at mike@gshades.org!

Cultivating A Culture Of Worship

April 18, 2024

When was the last time you went to a concert?

If you’re me, it’s been a while. I just don’t value the experience enough for the financial and time investment required. But I can recall going to enough concerts in my lifetime to know that the energy at a good music concert is infectious. When everybody knows the words to every song and sings and dances with reckless abandon, it’s a pretty incredible experience.

I would imagine most of us want that kind of environment in our youth ministries during worship time. And, unfortunately, I would imagine a lot of us are pretty far from that ideal (my own ministry included). So I want to state up front that I don’t have this completely figured out. If you walked into my youth ministry environment on a Sunday morning, you’d see a lot of teenagers staring emotionless up at the screen or maybe the cute girl that sings on stage. But even so, it’s my belief that a gospel lens can cue us on just about anything, so I want to turn our attention to the gospel and see if we all can’t pick up a helpful lens through which to see student worship ministry.

 

See, the gospel is transformational—not just inspirational. A lot of us tend to look at specific areas like the culture of worship at our youth group, and we want to hyperfocus on that area and find every human tip and trick to improving that area of ministry (we do this in our own personal lives too, don’t we?). But the gospel isn’t a matter of gritting our teeth and building ourselves up through tips, tricks, and strategies, one area at a time. The gospel is most powerfully at work within us when we fix our eyes on Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit to do the rest.

So with that in mind, let me turn your attention away from the glazed-over students mumbling lyrics in your student space, and give you a question to fix your eyes on instead:

Have you taught the gospel in such a way that your students can connect personally with worship lyrics?

Worship is the overflow of personal connection. We connect with God in worship not because the tech team has finally configured the lights just right, but because what we’re singing is personal and true for us. This is, after all, why people are all in at a T-Swift concert. Whether you like her as an artist or not, it is generally the case that Swifties feel a deep connection with Taylor Swift, so singing loudly and proudly at her concerts feels like a no brainer.

The God of the universe is personal. The gospel is personal. The story of Jesus intersects with our individual stories in a million different ways. But it’s possible your students don’t know that yet. So are you teaching them the gospel in a way that’s personal?

 

If you’re using G Shades curriculum, you’re starting to. And if you haven’t started using our stuff yet, you should. Because while I can’t promise equipping your students with a gospel lens is going to turn your youth ministry into a weekly Maverick City music video, I can promise you that your students will connect through worship on a deeper level when they understand how deeply personal and transformative the gospel is.

Mike Haynes is a full-time youth pastor and the creator of G Shades Youth Ministry Curriculum. Feel free to reach out to Mike anytime over email at mike@gshades.org!

Building A Resilient Youth Ministry

April 11, 2024

This time of year four years ago, we were just beginning to discover that what we initially thought would be a few weeks of the world shutting down was actually going to drag on for much, much longer. None of us had ever experienced anything like COVID, and the rate of innovation on how to do church well went through the roof.

But, for most of us, something that didn’t go through the roof was the numbers in our youth ministry. If your Zoom youth ministry journey went anything like mine (and it’s possible it didn’t), during the first three gatherings, you had borderline more students at youth group than you would’ve had in a normal gathering. But then the screen fatigue and depressed apathy set in for your students, and your numbers plummeted.

I pray that we’ll never experience something like COVID again, but it’s likely that in some way, shape, or form, your ministry is due for a season of uncertainty between now and the time you leave. And, when it does, I think most of us would like to see the ministry continue to thrive—or perhaps even grow stronger. So the question is: How can you build resiliency in your youth ministry?

 

You know, Jesus was known for answering a question that was asked of Him by not really answering the question. I’m sure it was very frustrating for the person who asked, but that’s exactly what I’m going to do here. Because:

I’m not entirely sure the desire to “build a resilient youth ministry” is a healthy one.

It might be. In your case, it probably is. I just want to open up the possibility that it’s not. The thing is, I think a lot of us as youth pastors put undue pressure on ourselves to build and create and unwaveringly sustain a “successful” ministry. Some of that might be top-down pressure from our employers. Some of it might be tying our ministry success measures to our identity. In some cases it’s probably a mix of both. But in any case, when these unhealthy factors drive our approach to ministry, we lose the ability to allow space for God to do things the way God does things.

Here's where we find our gospel lens for this. When God began communicating to the Israelites that the Messiah would come and save them, every person in Israel began to feel hope, and that hope was passed down from generation to generation as the nation continued to imperfectly (cyclically might be a better word) walk with the Lord. But then they entered the intertestamental period where God was completely silent for 400 years.

Since God didn’t speak, there’s a lot we don’t know about that period and how the people responded. But what we do know is that God’s Plan A for the gospel narrative was to enact an era of 400 years where His people weren’t thriving spiritually—where they struggled.

God doesn’t always need the arrow of success measures pointed up. Sometimes struggle is Plan A.

And if you don’t have space for that in your ministry paradigm, it’s possible your desire to build a resilient youth ministry isn’t healthy. It’s possible you’ve got some “pleasing man” stuff going on in your heart. It’s possible you’ve got some fear of failure going on in your heart. It’s possible you’ve got some “I am my work” going on in your heart.

Yes, we all want students to have a strong place to belong no matter what.

Yes, our hearts are burdened for the students who find strength and hope in attending our ministry.

Yes, it’s our job to build healthy ministries.

But also, for some reason, sometimes struggle is God’s Plan A, and if we’re going to lead through uncertainty from a healthy place, we need to be willing to embrace that. I know that doesn’t answer the question. I learned that from Jesus. But I hope the paradigm shift is helpful for your heart.

Mike Haynes is a full-time youth pastor and the creator of G Shades Youth Ministry Curriculum. Feel free to reach out to Mike anytime over email at mike@gshades.org!

Addressing Faith Doubts In Youth Ministry

April 4, 2024

We’ve all been there in youth ministry where a student asks a question or poses a challenge to Christianity that we’re not totally prepared to answer off the top of the dome. That’s a hard place to be because, let’s face it, none of us likes to look stumped in front of a group of teenagers. But, more importantly than the possibility of our ego being bruised, none of us wants anything that happens in our environment to negatively affect the students attending youth group—like a fellow student leading them away from Christ with their doubts and arguments against our faith.

I think that’s probably why some of us shut things down whenever a difficult question is asked. Now, don’t get me wrong, to some extent that kind of response is an old school (generational) response to tough questions. There’s a decent chance you don’t respond that way or train your leaders to respond that way when difficult questions are asked. But I still think addressing what’s behind that kind of mentality is going to be helpful, because the unhealthy lens that leads leaders to shut down difficult conversations about faith doubts is the same unhealthy lens that leads leaders to be worse parents, spouses, employees, and friends. So stick with me for a minute, and we’ll unpack a gospel lens to help us address the faith doubts of our students in youth ministry.

 

When my 10-year-old son was in Kindergarten, he asked a lot of questions. He actually still asks a lot of questions, but that’s neither here nor there. When he was younger, he asked what felt like TOO MANY questions. It was constant. And often times I would find myself getting mad pretty quickly with his near constant stream of questions.

I told myself I was mad because he needed to learn to be quiet.

I told myself I was mad because he was being too nosy.

I told myself I was mad because he was trying to monopolize everybody’s attention, and that’s unhealthy behavior.

But all of those reasons were crap. Excuses. Fig leaves to hide what was really going on in my heart. You know why I got mad sometimes when my son asked questions?

I got mad because he often asked questions I didn’t know how to answer (or at least articulate to a five-year-old), and it made me feel inadequate as a father. Shutting down the conversation wasn’t about him. It was about me.

 

I think for some of us youth pastors, shutting down hard faith conversations isn’t about the students, it’s about us.

We can pretend it’s about protecting the other students, but it’s not. It’s about protecting our ego.

We can pretend it’s about teaching maintaining everybody’s faithfulness to God, but it’s not. It’s about maintaining our sense of control.

We can pretend it’s about ignoring the distracting tangent, but it’s not. It’s about ignoring our own feelings of inadequacy.

When you’re seeing through the lens of pride, control, or inadequacy, the faith doubts of students will always be a threat.

 

And this is why we need a gospel lens for life. It’s because the X’s and O’s of ministry aren’t determined first and foremost by little tips and tricks. The X’s and O’s of our ministries are first and foremost determined by the condition of our heart. God through Christ wants to get in there and deal with your need to look put together. God through Christ wants to get in there and deal with your need to maintain control. God through Christ wants to get in there and deal with your feelings of inadequacy. And until you let Him, any tips and tricks to helping students through their doubts is going to be hollow and forced because it’s not coming from a place of genuine transformation in Christ.

 

So if you’re feeling like you might be seeing through some of those unhealthy lenses in this area of life or any others, I’m begging you to begin learning what it means to see through the lens of the gospel. Your students need a healthy you to shepherd them, and for you to not be a healthy you is to ignore the beauty of what Christ purchased on the cross.

If you’re interested in learning more about what seeing through the lens of the gospel means from my particular vantage point, head to gshades.org/book.

Mike Haynes is a full-time youth pastor and the creator of G Shades Youth Ministry Curriculum. Feel free to reach out to Mike anytime over email at mike@gshades.org!

Avoiding Volunteer Burnout

March 28, 2024

If you’ve been doing occupational youth ministry for longer than five minutes, you understand that we have no shot at doing this well without a team of amazing volunteers. It’s just too much. It’s too many details. It’s too many students—even for those of us with ministries that don’t have that many students! But burnout is super, super real. And churches are absolutely notorious for pushing our people toward it. So because I know you need your volunteers (I need mine, too), and because, more importantly, I know you want to take care of your volunteers (me too!), I want to take a few minutes to give us a gospel lens for avoiding volunteer burnout.

 

I want to remind us of something we already know. We know it because we’re pastors and/or theology nerds and/or just someone who’s been a Christian for, like, forever:

We already know how this story ends. We already know Jesus wins, and God reigns on His throne for eternity.

I think sometimes we forget to connect the dots on the significance of that. It means that God’s Kingdom is going to be just fine. And when we see through that lens, we won’t feel the need to burn people out for the sake of building God’s Kingdom.

God’s Kingdom is going to be fine.

 

Like if I can preach to an audience of preachers for just a second, two of the most famous things Jesus said to Peter were:

1) Upon this rock I’ll build my Church, and the gates of Hell won’t overcome it.

2) Feed my lambs. Take care of my sheep. Feed my sheep.

That’s the gospel lens right there. Jesus’ ecclesia is fine! He’s got it covered. Our job is to tend to (care for) the flock. So when we create high stakes, performance mentality, run and gun volunteer cultures, we’re acting as the antithesis of what Jesus told Peter in those two interactions.

 

So if this gospel lens were to color the way we treat our volunteers:

- We wouldn’t give them a hard time for missing youth ministry gatherings from time to time.

- We would intentionally give them time off.

- We would offer our student ministry to reimburse them financially when they spend money ministering to their kids.

- We would spend more time highlighting what each of them DOES bring to the table than nagging them about what they don’t.

- We would give them clear expectations about their role, and then show a ton of grace on the occasions they fall short.

- We would elevate their needs as human beings over the needs of our youth ministry system.

- We would celebrate them early, often, and in front of students.

- We would occasionally give them optional off ramps, especially when we sense that volunteering is becoming difficult in their world.

 

And, listen, when you live this way, sometimes ministry is going to get a little bit difficult. Sometimes you’re going to have to carry the extra weight for a season or two. Last Sunday, I found myself leading a small group of sophomore girls because their small group leader was out. They called me “Mrs. Haynes.”

So I get it! I really do! But the gospel would lead us to be incredibly open handed with the flock God has entrusted us with, because this is Christ’s Church, and even the gates of Hell have no shot against it.

Mike Haynes is a full-time youth pastor and the creator of G Shades Youth Ministry Curriculum. Feel free to reach out to Mike anytime over email at mike@gshades.org!

Fostering Authentic Faith In Teenagers

March 21, 2024

My wife and I recently went from parenting three kids to parenting five. No, we didn’t have twin babies! We brought in two teenage siblings we already knew and loved from around the neighborhood. Through a series of conversations with them and their biological parent over a period of a little over a year, it just began to make the most sense for them to live with us full time.

Making that jump has made me think a lot about youth ministry. It’s made me acutely aware, all at once, how different it is parenting a teenager versus pastoring one. I’m obviously a very cool parent, but I’m also really lame and the killer of all things good and beautiful (at least in the eyes of my 14-year-old!). Anyway, it’s gotten me thinking about fostering faith in teenagers—because that’s something we’ve been steadily doing in the lives of these two kids since they drifted into our orbit of influence. And obviously it’s something all of us as youth pastors think about often in our ministry roles!

How do we foster genuine faith in teenagers?

I don’t have all of the answers to that, but it’s my belief that a gospel lens can help us navigate just about anything. So let me offer a gospel lens for us on this and then share a thought or two about what it looks like to raise the next generation of authentic Christians.

 

In the gospel, God gives us an almost irresponsible amount of ownership over the direction and pace of our faith journey. I mean, for God to pay such a high price for our salvation only to watch us often squander His costly grace wallowing in darkness and immaturity just because we want to? That’s got to be deeply frustrating—even for a God who poured out all of His wrath on Jesus already.

God could force us to learn. He could force us to obey. He could rule and regulate us into submission to The Way. But He doesn’t do that in the context of the New Covenant. He gives us so much autonomy in growing in our walk with Christ. We make so many mistakes and we’re so slow to get it, and He just gives us bits and pieces of the puzzle bit by bit. Because for Him, His investment in us is lifelong and continuous—because we’re His kids and He is our Father. So for that reason (and a number of others), He takes His sweet time shaping us toward Christlikeness.

And this is why this word “foster” is actually really, really appropriate. To foster is very different than to adopt. To adopt is to say, “these are my kids and I intend to raise them through adulthood.” This is the kind of relationship my wife and I have with the two teenagers we’ve brought into our home. They are our children, and our intention is for that relational dynamic to be a lifelong one. But to foster? To foster is to say, “I’m going to love these kids and provide a stable environment until they’re able to be fully reunited with their parents.” It's temporary by nature, and that doesn’t make it worse, but it completely changes the way you see the relationship.

 

Most youth pastors and small group leaders would be wise to adopt a fostering approach to the next generation’s faith formation.

 

God is their parent, and there is much He can and will teach them after your season being a primary influence in their life is over. That means you don’t have to fret and stress about fixing every little thing about a student’s life or beliefs or behavior.

Your role is to provide love and a stable environment as you point a teenager to reunite with their Father more fully.

So...should you teach apologetics in your youth ministry? Sure, that’d be cool. But they’ve got a Father who can work with them on defense of faith stuff later, too. It doesn’t absolutely have to be you. You’re fostering faith, not parenting it.

Should your youth ministry have a robust student leadership team culture? I mean...that’d be dope. But they’ve got a Father who can call out their gifts and passions and use them for Kingdom work later down the road, too. It doesn’t absolutely have to be you. You’re fostering faith, not parenting it.

Should your teaching strategy give a complete overview of biblical framework, covenantal theology, and eschatology? That stuff’s all very helpful, sure. But they’ve got a Father who can provide avenues toward those learning paths as they grow older, too. It doesn’t absolutely have to be you. You’re fostering faith, not parenting it.

Your role matters. What you do or don’t teach matters. In fact, I believe it matters so much I created a curriculum centered around what matters most—the transformative power of life through a gospel lens. But sometimes as youth pastors we try to take on more burden than we were meant to. We’re not parenting authentic faith in teenagers. We’re fostering it. And, hopefully someday, we’ll get to see the unification with Father of these students we’re pouring into.

Until then, trust that Dad’s got this. He might seem a little irresponsible with His grace and slowness, but He can be trusted to build authentic faith in our teenagers over the course of their lifetime.

Mike Haynes is a full-time youth pastor and the creator of G Shades Youth Ministry Curriculum. Feel free to reach out to Mike anytime over email at mike@gshades.org!

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