First Third Conversations

By Derek Tronsgard

Last Christmas my wife's sister joined us while we opened our presents.  A few weeks ago I did pre-marriage counseling for some friends.  Yesterday I showed a friend a picture of my dog.

Pretty unremarkable...

...except when you consider the fact that I live in Minnesota.  My sister-in-law lives in Denver and was at the dinner table via Skype. The engaged couple lives in North Dakota and were talking to me face-to-face …

By Dr. Nancy Going, Director of the CYF Distributed Learning Program at Luther Seminary

I saw a job description last week for a Children's Ministry Leader, which listed as "able to write curriculum" at the top of the list of other capabilities this church was looking for. 

Have you noticed how common it is when times get tough, and there are fewer kids showing up, or fewer families committing to the program you are running, or fewer people in the pew on Sunday morning, for leaders to spend …

By Neil Christians

  I was sitting in our new member class eating, eating lunch and talking to some new families when the question came up.

“So, what do you do for the church?”

“Well, I work with children, youth, young adults and families. Pretty much from birth through 30 years old; the first third of life.”

“What do you do with all the different age groups? What is your primary area of responsibility?”

What is it that we do? How do you explain this …

By Dr. Nancy Going, Director of the CYF Distributed Learning Program at Luther Seminary

  Here is how the job that many Youth ministers or pastors find themselves doing asks them to spend their time. Is this true for you?

Events planning (even if the event is a small group system), event recruitment, curriculum assessment, curriculum writing, marketing (finding goals and language to attract people to the programs) and then recruiting other adults as chaperones at the minimum, or ministry partners …

By Andy Sahl

"Andy, I don’t think I want to be an intern anymore."  

I really couldn’t believe my ears.  For years our few spots for high school interns (high school students that help with our middle school program) was a coveted role.  For the last two years we’ve added the number of inters and only allowed them to serve for a semester instead of the whole year.  There is honor and status in being an intern.

The young man asking to be relieved of his intern …

By Dr. Nancy Going, Director of the CYF Distributed Learning Program at Luther Seminary

  Leaders in Children and Youth Ministry have ALWAYS had a unique view of the church.  

Unique, generally because of the type of people that God calls to lead from the second chair.   (An aside:  Have you ever thought about that? You chose not to be the Senior Pastor, why was that?)

And unique, because you see things about the Church and your congregation that no one else can see in quite …

By Neil Christians

This is part 2 of this post. See Part 1 here.  

Reflect

We are the ones who hold up a mirror to our students. We need to show them what they cannot see; themselves as a beautiful and wonderful creation in the image of God. Everyone needs to know these three things.

First is that they are okay . Deep within each of us, we feel that we are defective in some way.  We are broken and wonder if God somehow made a mistake in making us. This is never more evident than …

By Neil Christians

At the First Third Conference on “Why Can’t Church be more like Camp?” there was a lot of talk about adults needing to prepare the table. This is what happens at camp which most of us don’t do effectively in the church. So in our congregations, we need to prepare the table for students as they come to church and then expect God to work in their lives. We prepare the table for them to have God moments. We must create on environment where they feel comfortable …

By Derek Tronsgard

  Earlier this week Mike King led a First Third Dialogue session talking about the power of space in our ministry and it got me thinking.

About a year ago a woman in my congregation cornered me on Sunday morning. 

“We need to talk,” she said.

Crap, I thought.

She went on to share her frustrations about my Confirmation kids' presence in Sunday morning worship.  The kids' behavior was just fine, she explained.  They were participating fully in …

By Dr. Nancy Going, Director of the CYF Distributed Learning Program at Luther Seminary

Crowds have been a part of Youth Ministry culture since Youth Ministry began. The Christian Endeavor Movement found itself with 50,000 attending its 1895 meeting.  Denominations started their own fellowships in response, and many still hold large events that are a fixture in the youth ministry calendars of their churches.  With large events come celebrities, people who excite the crowd. Large churches …