Tim Schmoyer, over at his Life in Student Ministry blog, recently identified some Signs that a youth leader is lacking maturity and healthy adult relationships.

You know the type:
> the automatic buddy who will always side with a teen over their parent(s) or another adult in the program…
> the confessional adult who too often shares TMI (too much information) inappropriately in public and with the kids
> the “ambulance chaser” ready to rescue any young person out of any situation, not matter how big or small…
> the adult volunteer who hangs much more often with the kids than the other adults…

Tim has a whole list here; check it out, then come on back with a comment regarding any signs that you think are missing.

If I could make a wish for any youth minister, it would be this… I wish for you to have a great eulogy.

A few years back, Robert Feduccia of OCP’s Spirit and Song led a youth ministers’ retreat for ArchBalt and invited all the participants to consider their own eulogies. If you think an eulogy that celebrates your youth ministry program successes makes for a great send-off, you’d be mistaken.

Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, recently offered the eulogy for David Gentiles, his youth pastor.  In Donald’s eulogy, he says, “I learned more about Jesus from David than any other person I know.” Now, that’s a great eulogy for any youth minister.

Read the whole thing and hope to live that sort of life.  Rest in Christ’s peace, David Gentiles.

John Rinaldo of the Diocese of San Jose recently made the argument that youth ministry coordinators should be seen as administrators.  He is calling for a shift from the perception of the youth ministry coordinator as just the youth group leader.

John is calling for a paradigm shift that Youth Ministry  is about team leadership. If we are to truly affect the lives of young people, we need to spend time equipping and empowering volunteer leaders that will allow us to more fully reach out to the youth population in our parishes. He places the priority for the youth ministry coordinator to be  equipping and empowering volunteer leaders that will allow the parish to better fulfill their mission to “the younghurch.”  Please consider reading John’s whole post.

Busy?  Great!  Lots to do?  Awesome!!  Deadlines pending?  Wonderful!!!

Really, if this stuff is all getting to you, keep it (mostly) to yourself.  Your boss and your co-workers, your best volunteers, and especially the kids don’t really need to hear all about it.

Sometimes, we will whine  just to portray ourselves as one who is a little more important as to have been burdened by so much.  Seth Godin suggests that we have the false belief that “whining equals intimacy (in our relationships.) It doesn’t. Whining and complaining is easy and natural, but it’s not a foundation for a long term relationship.”

Catch yourself when whining.  Let’s share our hopes and our dreams. Let’s share the Hope and the Dream, not just the stuff that ticks us off.

Obsessed with cool. Trendy. Impulsive. Self-focused. Caught up in the moment. Probably sounds like a description of some of the kids in your youth group. Actually, um…well…this is not an article about youth culture or the world of today’s teenagers. This is an article about those of us in the youth ministry culture and how we seem to be sliding into an adolescent approach to our faith and mission.

So starts a wonderful article by Duffy Robbins for YouthWorker. He goes on to recommend a maturity that has perspective, hope,and love. Take a moment for a little youth ministry examination of conscience.

So, I’ve been negligent on posting about this book. It’s great and worth the read. In Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, he basically tells his own story of reviewing his own life as a series of stories, but not necessarily as “a” story.

It is easy to live from moment to moment, rising up on the occasion.  Miller is suggesting that wholeness is found in the integrity of living within all the moments. Real stories, he learned, require characters who suffer and overcome.

In the end, our stories are not best told about what we have experienced as much as in hard choices that have been made.  Miller suggests that if it won’t work in a story, it won’t work in life.  He encourages the reader to examine their whole life as a well constructed narrative. “Once you know what it takes to live a better story, you don’t have a choice.  Not living a better story would be like deciding to die, deciding to walk around numb until you die, and it’s not natural to want to die.”

I also recently read The Audacity to Win, written by David Plouffe, campaign manager for Barack Obama’s primary and general election victories in 2008.  Politics aside, one does have to take note of a campaign that became a movement rewriting the rules and expectations of the game.

In telling of the preparations for the Iowa caucuses, Plouffe acknowledges the servant leadership example of Paul Tewes who “established a motto for our field staff philosophy. ‘Respect. Empower. Include.’  We wanted to be the nicest, most attentive, and most creative staff in the field.” Contrary to the methods of most national races experienced locally, volunteers were not treated as if they were to serve the professionals in headquarters, but “in many ways, they would be the embodiment of the campaigns.

Finally, I pulled Horizons & Hopes: The Future of Religious Education off my shelf recently.  One story in there has my attention:

There was this artist marooned on an island for years.  Her prized possession was a sculpture that she had created by collecting bits of metal found on the island.  In the process of shaping the work she had grown in her understanding of the sculpting process, of herself as an artist and a person, and of the way in which art gives expression to beauty and truth. Although she is very proud of her creation, she also realizes that she has grown beyond it – both as an artist and as a person. She is confident that her new work of art will express new depth and challenge her even further in her work and her life.

So she goes in search of more metal. She scours the island and is disappointed to discover that there is no more metal to be found. She realizes that she can only give expression to her new insights, her new creative movement, by melting down and remolding the first creation.

How does the story end?  However it ends does say something about the artist, does it not?

(Update:  Embedded video was not working. Here’s another.)

I’ve been reading Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.

I had heard of Blue Like Jazz, but never read it.  I understood that Million Miles was going to be about “editing” one’s life into a better story. So I bought four copies because I thought it might play into an office project.  Four copies on a blind whim… really, that’s not me.

When the books arrived, instead of delivering them right way, I put them aside.  I started reading that night and got halfway through. 

The next morning, the books were on everybody’s desk. It’s a wonderful, challenging read.

Christianity Today’s Out of Ur blog is reporting from the Catalyst conference. Malcolm Gladwell, who had written blink and The Tipping Point was one of the keynote speakers.

Gladwell told the story of the Civil War battle of Chancellorsville, VA, in which General “Fighting Joe” Hooker maneuvers his Union Army to encircle the Confederate Army on three sides, and then delivers a speech to his troops: “God Almighty Himself cannot prevent us from victory in this battle.”

On the afternoon of April 30, 1863, Union soldiers of the Fifth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Corps concentrated at this intersection. General George Meade, commander of the Fifth Corps, was anxious to push on toward Fredericksburg to tighten the vice around Confederate General Lee’s surrounded army, but General Henry Slocum had orders from General Hooker to halt and wait for his arrival.

General Joseph Hooker arrived at the Chancellor House on the evening of April 30. He used the dwelling as his headquarters until mid-morning on May 3. Instead of immediately advancing toward Fredericksburg, Hooker wasted nearly twenty-four hours before continuing their march. It was a turning point in the campaign.

Lee didn’t retreat, as expected, but counterattacked and surprised and defeated Hooker’s army. The smaller Confederate army of 60,000 defeated the larger force of 130,000 – the biggest army of the war. Hooker’s overconfidence led to his defeat and then his dismissal. Interestingly Lee then went on the offensive that continued until he reached Gettysburg, where he himself overreached and was defeated.

Hooker believed that he had all the right information and was confident that victory could be had.  His misguided certainty turned out to be horribly wrong. Having more and more information leads to greater, even excess confidence. Hooker thought he knew more than he actually knew. Mistakes are made not because of LACK of knowledge, but because of excess knowledge. Mistakes are sometimes not the result of incompetence, but because of overcompetence. Incompetence can irritate; but overconfidence is just scary.

Overcompetence mutes out the small, nagging, dissenting outside voices. When “God Almighty” can’t intervene in your plans. . .  In times of success what we need is not overconfidence but humility. It’s too easy to cut yourself off from listening to the feedback you need to hear.

My friend Cassandra recently facebooked this video, and I thought it great video both to start the year as well as a soundtrack to close a slideshow for a leadership weekend/ camp,  Join me in prayer for those who might be “out there.”

If you hear this message, wherever you stand
I’m calling every woman, calling every man
We’re the generation
We can’t afford to wait
The future started yesterday
And we’re already late

If you’re out there, sing along with me
If you’re out there, I’m dying to believe that you’re out there
Stand up and say it loud
If you’re out there, tomorrow’s startin’ now.

Throughout this summer, there has been these 1–day to 2-week periods (a fortnight) where I’m been hunkering done and attempting to get things “done.”

Without know of it, I’ve been aligned to the manifesto of the cult of done.

This originated here.  (The two folks who put it together did so in 20 minutes because they only had 20 minutes to get it done.)

To lead does not have to be about what we used to call “fire-fighting…” which is reactive problem solving.

Leadership can have a focus on doing, learning and adapting. The core idea in this manifesto, is the focus on doing, rather than first waiting to figure out what’s right.

I used to have a co-worker that would often invoke the  mantra of Larry the Cable Guy: “Get R Done.” And there is a slew of those who will readily evaluate by “What have you done for me lately?”

But, I’ve got to say. . . I’m becoming a fan of “Done!”