Recently I had the opportunity to lead a conference on Rural Youth Ministry. In preparation for this I ask some youth ministers in Kentucky that are working in rural areas to tell me what they were doing that was successful in reaching students in rural areas. And as always, I am amazed by what God is doing in youth ministry here in Kentucky. Let me share a few of the insights gleaned from the conversations we shared.
Keith Abrams, youth minister at Westport Baptist said, “I have kids that get to youth group by horse back, tractor, and 4 wheeler...so I guess we are rural.” He continued, “I think a big part of why our group works is because I grew up just like them...hunting, fishing, farming, cussing, chewing, dirt-biken, 4 wheelin. So I have common ground with them.”
Jay Montgomery, Associate pastor at First Baptist Carrolton said, “In rural areas, school events are their social life.” The “rural areas are big on family (birthdays, holidays, special events that everyone celebrates aunts/uncles, cousins, etc.).” Also high school “graduation is one of our biggest events in the community. As is the County Fair and local festivals-everyone attends to see who else is there!”
“Bus ministry is a necessity”, commented Wayne Yeager from Immanuel Baptist in Pikeville”.“ I can tell you that we have our pre-bus ministry numbers and post-bus ministry numbers. We practically doubled overnight. When I was at Crittenden, KY, I could tell students to meet me at church at a certain time or that our meetings were on Wednesdays at 6 and they would come. Here, I have to go get them. In fact, I don't do an event anymore unless I have a bus and time to go and get students. It impacts our numbers that much.” He continues, “ We pick up kids as far as 30 minutes away from church and my bus run goes about 1 - 1.5 hours each Sunday and Wednesday.”
Montgomery concurs saying, “Bus ministries work well because of there not really being a centralized town/city/demographic area. Our route for taking home kids, about 10 middle schoolers, takes about 90-100 minutes. These kids would not come otherwise.”
“Hard work is important to rural people”, said Ryan Coffey, youth minister at Eubank Baptist in Pulaski County. “Two years ago I had a deacon that wouldn’t support anything I did. His son was in my group and the deacon constantly was a thorn in my side. One day they got in a bind with their hay crop. His son called and asked if I would help them put up hay. I worked about 8 hrs in the hot sun and when we finished he tried to pay me. I wouldn’t let him and I told him to make a donation to the youth fund instead to help pay for students to go to camp. The next Sunday he gave me a personal check of $100 and gave an additional $100 to the youth fund. Since that day, he has been one of my strongest supporters. Hard work is important.” Keith Abrams agreed saying, “They” (the students) “like to work. They do great with mission projects. They love it when you jump in and get your hands dirty with them.”
On doing events in the rural communities, Tree Akers, youth minister at Northside in Elizabethtown said, “
With some of our activities, we would use the resources they had (farm, fields, etc.) to pull off events (hayride, bonfire, yuck day, etc.). We took youth ministry to them, and didn’t wait for them to come to us.”
Yeager commented, “Travel is REQUIRED. We don't have a lot of places we can take students. No fun centers. No malls. No amusement park nearby. We have a bowling alley, Mr. Gatti's and a movie theater. If you want to go to a baseball game, amusem ent park, etc, you have to travel at least 2 hours.” Which means, he continued, “Creativity is REQUIRED. When everything is a good distance away, and you have students who can't afford a whole lot, you need to get creative on how to have events that will impact students and get them out on a budget.”
Abrams said, “My kids aren't impressed by fancy or big show type events. My best-attended event every year is a hay wagon ride to a huge bonfire. We cook hot dogs and smores. The kids just like hanging out”
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posted by: Joe Ball on October 7th, 2008
I have spent most of the last 3 days without power. The remnants of Hurricane Ike hit Louisville on Sunday morning and knocked the power out about 1:15 Sunday afternoon. It could have been worse. We had no wind damage, no trees down, just no electricity. 60 of the 120 counties in Kentucky were affected by wind damage and power outages. Over 300,000 homes in the metro Louisville area alone were without power. As I write this Thursday morning over 100,00 still are. LG&E our service provider is doing a yeoman’s job of getting powered restored. Most schools have missed 3 days of classes; other like Jefferson County will be out all week.
But I think as churches we missed a fantastic opportunity to "be the church".
Here's what I mean. Sunday night most churches rightfully so cancelled services. But Monday, Monday provided ample opportunity for us to "be the church" in our community. Every community had people with down trees, no power, students out of school and government officials saying not to get out unless you had to. So did Tuesday and Wednesday and Today.
So where were we......Why didn't we mobilize students and adults that were staying home to clear limbs, cut trees, deliver meals and ICE. I heard of only one instance on the news where any church did anything. They opened up their building for people to shower in, And believe me a hot shower would have been welcome. While we had water to shower, there was no power to the water heater. We had a great opportunity to make an impact in our communities, to meet our neighbors and to as my friend Wendy would say "be Jesus with skin."
This is not an attack on disaster relief efforts or teams. They do a fantastic job and I am not sure they were needed here. The need in the gulf is far greater. Dare to Care did a great job of providing food for people who needed it, but why did they have to? Every community affected had a church in it, some more than one church.
We had resources: cooks (some of the best cooking in the world happens at church), students with nothing to do (the internet doesn't work without power), and hours and hours of daylight, with warm days and cool nights. We missed a great opportunity to be light in a dark world. Let’s hope that next time we are better prepared.
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posted by: Joe Ball on September 18th, 2008
This was originally posted at Monday Morning Insight.
Halo 3 is well on its way to becoming the most popular video game ever made. The shoot-em-up multi-player game has now found itself in the hands of church ministers and youth pastors. Church leaders are using the game to draw in youth, particularly teenage boys, from communities. They claim that teenage boys are often the hardest demographic to reach, and video games such as Halo 3 help to attract new members. The use of the game as a promotion for youth functions has raised several ethics questions.
David Cook, professor of Christian ethics at Wheaton College, said, “The church rightly is concerned about the impact of video material on everyone, especially young people,” Cook said.
“Sexual content and violence are often features in that medium and the church ought not to be encouraging or promoting such videos,” Cook continued.
Some churches say team play on Halo 3 encourages fellowship and togetherness.
Sweetwater Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga. offers Halo 3 for its youth. The gaming is usually followed by something to eat and a lesson.
Church leaders in favor of the game say it is an effective modern tool to reach the elusive audience of boys and young men.
Other churches and youth organizations feel there are better ways to involve youth in the gospel.
“The Wittenberg Lutheran Church and Student Center would not offer Halo or similar video games as a way to draw in youth from the community,” Alyssa Moehring, president of the Wittenberg Lutheran Center at ISU, said. Moehring went on to say that the center often holds fellowship nights for youth, who are encouraged to bring friends.
While the fellowship nights often involve board games and food, Halo is not a consideration.
“If we believe that Christ is the way, the truth and the life we must find winsome ways of expressing that truth which will draw young and old alike into investigating and finding Jesus Christ and all that He brings into the lives of those who seek to be His followers,” Cook said.
Opponents of Halo in youth groups point out that the video game associates arousal with killing.
They fear the churches might be offering violent content that some children would not have access to elsewhere.
So… what do you think? Is your church using Halo 3? Would you? Why or why not?
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posted by: Joe Ball on September 11th, 2008
“
The sky is falling, The Sky is Falling”, shouted
Chicken Little after the acorn fell on it’s head. When ask how he knew this he replied “I saw it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears and part of it fell on my head”. And while the sky really didn’t fall on Chicken Little there was cause for alarm, after all his head did hurt.
I don’t want to be accused of being Chicken Little and sounding a false alarm but it maybe time to sound the alarm about youth ministry in Kentucky. In looking over statistics over the last 30 years, I have noticed a trend. Youth (ages 12-17) baptisms have steadily declined over this time period. And while I know that baptisms are not a true measure of discipleship and that not all churches report and that fewer churches are reporting today than reported then…I have heard all the debate, the truth is we are loosing ground at a phenomenal rate! And we are baptizing fewer and fewer while the number of youth this age in Kentucky keeps growing and growing. Just about every school system in Kentucky is about to build, building or just finished building.
A look at the numbers: The last year that we baptized more than 4000 students… 2000. The last year we baptized more than 4500…1990. More than 5000…1982, and it has been since 1975 since we baptized more than 6000. And every student in our youth ministries was born after 1990. In the last reporting year we have on
Kentucky Baptist Convention churches only 50 baptized more than 10 students that year. Out of almost 2400 churches, only 50 had double-digit baptisms. In fact there were some associations, that all their churches combined did not have double-digit baptisms of students.
It isn’t any better in the
Southern Baptist Convention either. In the past month I got from
NAMB, preliminary data on the top 100 churches in the SBC in youth baptisms for 2007. The magic number to be one of the top 100 churches in the entire SBC in student baptisms was 33. I was glad that 2 of our Kentucky Baptist Convention churches were on that list, but saddened that more weren’t.
So we are we to do? I wish there was an easy answer to that question. One thing we do is to be more intentional in our evangelism efforts. It was refreshing to sit with Danny Pacetti, the youth minister at
Jefferstown Baptist Church and hear him talk about how they are going to be more intentional in their ministry.
One of the places they are going to do this is with Uptown. J-town Baptist for 10 years has successfully sponsored Uptown. On Friday nights it is a place for students to come and play games, hang out, be with their friends, etc. Pacettie says, “Everybody in J-town knows what Uptown is and where it is”. It has been a safe place for parents to drop off their students.
Most communities, he continued, have a “real need for a space for their kids to hang out and get together with their friends, as churches we can utilize that need”. But part of his frustration came in that students that came to Uptown were not being reached with the Gospel. Pacetti says that their commitment this year is to be “intentionally verbal” with “every individual” that enters Uptown.
There is an old adage that says, “a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step" ;. For Chicken Little is was a step toward the king where he met Henny Penny, Ducky Lucky Goosey Loosey, Turkey Lurkey and the others. For Danny and the youth ministry team at J-town Baptist it is a step to be more intentional at Uptown. For me it is a commitment to be more intentional in sharing the Gospel when I am with students.
The sky is falling and I know it because I see it with my own eyes, hear it with my own ears and have been hit over the head with the reality of the truth.
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posted by: Joe Ball on September 2nd, 2008
On this episode of the despising none podcast we have a conversation with Rodney Goodlett of Kentucky Youth Alive. A former youth minister Rodney's heart is to reach students for Christ, connect them with a local church, and disciple them into lifelong followers of Christ. Our conversation today centers on the local school campus, using students as campus missionaries, campus clubs and community outreach events to reach students with the Gospel.
Rodney also can help with the seven project, a community outreach event that has had tremendous success in the communities it has been in Kentucky.
You can email Rodney at ky7@mac.com
Here are the links to resources mentioned in the podcast;
www.thesevenproject.com seven project student site
www.thesevenproject.org seven project site for youth leaders
www.yausa.com Assemblies of God youth site with information on campus missionaries and Youth Alive clubs
To listen to the podcast, click the podcast icon below and select "open" OR right-click the icon and select "save target as" and save the file to your hard drive. You can then play the podcast episode in your media player.
HINT: Choosing "save target as" is usually quicker and more efficient.
The podcast is also available for download at itunes. To access it there go to the itunes store, click on podcast and search for despising none
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posted by: Joe Ball on August 26th, 2008
