Parent Ministry Pillar #2: Competency

This is part 3 of a 4-part "Foundations of Parent Ministry" series.

It was the summer of 1996. The outfitter was called "Shotgun Eddy." The river was the mighty Wolf River in northern Wisconsin. There were twenty high school students and five adult leaders, including myself. The 14 mile, eight rapids, two waterfalls rafting trip-of-terror lasted six hours. It was the day I learned the vital importance of competency...and it was the one day of youth ministry that I will never forget!

As we began our journey, we tied our lunch boxes to the inside of our two and three-man rafts, secured our life jackets, grabbed our paddles and pushed out from the shore. Most of the teens and adults on the trip had been whitewater rafting before, but never like this - on our own without guides. It's the special feature that sets "Shotgun Eddy" apart from all the rest. They allow you to raft the river without trained guides and were recommended to me by a respected youth pastor and friend who had taken his kids on the trip the summer before.

The students and leaders became restless after about an hour on the river. I had promised them a day of excitement and adventure, but all we had done for the first hour was paddle down the river because the water was too shallow and was moving slowly. They had all taken off their shoes and had removed their life jackets. For months prior, I had hyped this rafting trip, and the kids were enjoying the fine art of insulting me, suggesting that I was all hype with no punch. Then it happened!

As we moved through what seemed to be another lazy bend in the river, we heard a man desperately yelling for us to get to the right side of the river. At first, none of us responded, but after seeing the man on the shore jumping up and down and vehemently waving and pointing, we all sprang to attention. None of us had time to row because we were all frantically putting our life jackets back on. Few had the chance to put their shoes back on or grab their paddles. The roar of the water and sudden speed at which we were moving indicated that my prophecy of rapids and waterfalls was coming true. Needless to say, the insults stopped!

One by one, the rafts disappeared - backwards, sideways, diagonally. No one had time to straighten up their rafts but me because I was in the back. I was in a two-man raft with a 14-year old girl who was sitting in the front facing me as we went over the waterfall. I flew out of my seat and plowed into her, knocking her out of the raft and into the rapids. Somehow, I managed to stay in, and once I gained my composure, I was able to see that no one else had stayed in their rafts. Speeding through the rapids were upsidedown rafts, paddles, shoes, lunches, and people - twenty-four in all! It took us 30 minutes to collect everyone and everything.

To make a long story short, the trip went downhill from there. One of our adult leaders - a mom who came along to cook for us - rode through one of the jagged rock-filled rapids on her rear end and was bruised from head to toe. In the scariest event of the day, one of our other adult leaders - a young lady whose wedding was one month away - flipped out and rode the rapid trapped underneath her raft. She didn't pop back up until a good minute later. She was sure she was going to die and was in shock the rest of the trip. I had to hold her in my arms through every remaining rapid, knowing that if she fell out again, she would probably die of fear. Most of the students were scared to death and were begging me to let them get out and walk.

I learned a valuable lesson that day about the importance of competency. I will never again get on a river without a guide. I realized how necessary a competent guide - someone who knows the river and knows how to navigate it - is to the success and safety of a whitewater rafting trip. In the same way, youth workers must be competent in what they do. The river of adolescence and family life is fast-moving and dangerous, and families desperately need a competent guide - someone who knows the river and knows how to navigate it - to help them move through it successfully and safely.

The second of the three "foundational pillars" that must be in place in order to ensure a successful, long lasting parent ministry is the pillar of competency - which can be divided into three sub-categories: knowing God and His Word, knowing the youth culture, and knowing the family.

Knowing God and His Word
The number one reason why the youth worker position exists in the local church is to lead kids into a relationship with God through Christ. It is very easy to lose sight of this when most of our time is spent in front of a computer (searching the web for the lastest and most exciting game, making brochures and hand-outs, and visiting sites that help us stay on top of the youth culture), or in a both at the local McDonalds with a kid who is more interested in his milkshake than in having a relationship with God. We must always remember that our number one calling is to love kids and lead them into a life-changing relationship with the Lord.

This means that we must first of all be commited to growing our own relationship with Him by being disciplined in the areas of prayer, meditation, and Bible study ourselves. We must never allow our ministry to slowly destroy our own spiritual lives. This has been a real struggle for me because - like a lot of youth workers - in addition to my students and their parents, I have a wife and three children - one of whom is of youth group age herself. Trying to balance ministry and family is hard enough...to throw the development of my own spiritual life on top of all of that is almost impossible. However, if I don't, how good of a husband, father, and minister will I be?
A book that God has used to re-energize my prayer life is the biography of George Mueller called George Mueller: Man of Faith and Miracles by Basil Miller. The book chronicles the life of Mueller, who God used mightily to provide food, clothing, and housing to thousands of orphans in Europe in the 1800s. Mueller dedicated nearly all of his adult life to long periods of daily prayer (sometimes praying daily for the same thing for months and even years), fully trusting God to provide for the overwhelming financial needs of his ministry. God rewarded his faithfulness in prayer by providing for every single need - sometimes in miraculous ways. The key to Mueller's ministry success was his dedication to prayer.

Fight to carve time out of your schedule for prayer, meditation and Bible study. Analyze your daily schedule and cut where necessary so that you can fit these vital disciplines in. For me, it means that I get up 30 minutes earlier to walk and pray. I walk to strengthen my physical heart, and I pray to strengthen my spiritual heart. I keep a devotional Bible on my desk at work so that I can read some Scripture before I hit the ground running, and I keep another Bible by my bed to read a chapter or so before I hit the sack. We are always telling our students to make time for God, but how serious are we about this in our own lives? If you want to be effective in any type of ministry - to students or to their parents - maintaining a healthy and growing relationship with the Lord is essential.

Knowing the Youth Culture
In my first year of full-time youth ministry, I was driving a vanload of kids back from an event. The van did not have a tape player, and there were no good Christian radio stations in my town, so I flipped the dial over to the 80's station. It was the early 90's at the time, and I was only six years removed from high school myself. The song, Owner of a Lonely Heart, by Yes was on, so I cranked it up, expecting the kids to sing along with me. To my shock and utter horror, not only was no one in the van singing, but they were staring at me with a look of disgust. They had never heard the song before, had never heard of the band before, and it was unanimous...none of them like the song! It was then that I realized how fast the youth culture changes, and no matter how much you think you know about it, there's always more to learn.

In order to be an effective youth worker, you need to be in tune with the youth culture. This does not mean that you need to like it, but you do need to know at least something about it in order to effectively understand and communicate with today's teens. In the same way, parents need to be up-to-speed as well, but often feel completely overwhelmed by the task. This is where a youth worker - no matter how old, how young, how experienced, or how inexperienced - can be a great resource for parents.

As you attempt to keep up with the youth culture yourself, bring your parents along for the ride. Here are some suggestions on how to keep up with the big three youth culture mediums (music, movies, and TV) both for you and for your parents...

MUSIC
1. I visit http://www.billboard.com/ regularly. When I'm there, I click on the "The Billboard 200" link to check out the top albums and "The Hot 100" link to keep up with the top singles.

2. Then, I visit the official web sites of the groups or artists who are on top of the charts. I find out the addresses of the web sites by doing a Google web search.

3. Once there, I spend a couple of minutes surfing the site, checking out bios, discographies, and news about each artist or group.

4. If song lyrics are not available on the group's or artist's official web site, I then go to http://www.lyrics.com/. Lyrics to thousands of songs can be found there.

5. If this seems like too much work, you can visit http://www.pluggedinmagazine.com/. This is Focus on the Family's youth culture web site and contains many current pop music album reviews.

MOVIES
1. My first stop is at http://www.pluggedinmagazine.com/. The guys and gals at Plugged In do a great job of helping parents and youth workers stay on top of the movie scene. They review literally hundreds of movies each year with reveiews of new releases being posted every Friday. Their reviews are thorough and fair.

2. I also spend some of my "movie culture time" online at http://www.rottentomatoes.com/ This site contains the reviews of movie critics and reviewers from all over the country. After reading dozens of brief reviews on any one movie, you ought to be able to get a good feel for what the movie is about and what messages it is sending to it's viewers.

3. A great site for helping parents and youth workers to use movies as discussion starters is http://www.teachwithmovies.org/ They provide discussion questions designed to get parents and teens talking about the issues brought up in the movies. This previously free site now charges a samll fee for full access.

TV
1. Again, my first stop here is http://www.pluggedinmagazine.com/ as well. The gang at Plugged In also does a great job of helping parents and youth workers stay on top of the TV scene.

2. I spend a little bit of time every once-in-a-while surfing the web sites of the major television networks, learning about the different programs targeted toward teens that they air. My online visitation routine consists of MTV.com, ABC.com, NBC.com, CBS.com, Fox.com, and WB.com.

3. Every week, I keep up with the current Neilsen TV ratings. Nielsen puts out the a list of the top 20 most watched programs each week and can be accessed at www.nielsen.com/media/toptens_television.html

Both Plugged In and the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding (cpyu.org) put out youth culture magazines that provide good overviews and coverage of all three mediums. Do you want to earn respect with parents and gain instant access into their world? Then, get a handle on today's youth culture and show parents how they can do it as well.

Knowing the Family
In order to become an effective minister to parents, you must become a student of families - especially if you are not a parent of a teen yourself. Read books on parenting, observe other families, regularly talk about parent issues with other parents of teens, visit our web site frequently, and buy all of our cassettes! Learn as best as you can what it is like to be a parent of a teen.

Wayne Rice, founder of Understanding Your Teenager, jokes that unless you are a parent of a teen, "you have no idea what it's like to be mad at your kid 24 hours a day, seven days a week!" It's not easy parenting a teen. Now that I have three of my own teens to deal with, I am experiencing much of what I could only ask about before. Even the really good kids give their parents grief now and then. In order to help your parents navigate the choppy waters of adolescence, you need to become a student of not just teens but of parents as well.

I have always surrounded myself with parents of teens who allow me to ask them what it's like to be them. For most of my ministry career, I was a father of little kids and was well aware that I didn't know what it was like to parent a teen. By having parents who were willing to help me address the issues that other parents of teens would bring to me, I was able to minister to them even though I wasn't one of them.

Parents of teens aren't quick to take advice from those who aren't parents of teens. However, if you prove to them that you are competent in the Word, an authority on the youth culture, and that you are a humble student of the family, willing to listen and learn, you will earn the right to be heard with the parents of the teens in your ministry.