So, I came into the conference a little skeptical, but with mostly an open mind. All the Student Pastors who are like minded as I (and attended SYMC), had shared that this is the one leadership conference to go to. They were right, I absolutely loved it and got so much out of it.
The best way to talk about what impacted me is by down all the breakout sessions I went to and name the top 5 things I got out of each of them, followed by the top 5 things I did not settle well with me at the conference. Hopefully this will give you an idea of things I was challenged with and will help you out in your ministry as well.
Preparing Your Students For Kingdom Work (Jayson French & Chad Monahan)
- Our goal should not be to do missions for our own spiritual growth or self serving purpose, but it's more of a desire to get to know the individuals.
- We must do a better job at teaching students to read the moment on their school campuses'.
- Find ways to cultivate the hearts of students to encourage them to find 1 student and truly get to know that 1 student. This is more than surface level stuff.
- Teaching our students to look for the image of God in others, even those students they don't get along with or connect with.
- There's no reason for us to go to Mexico for a mission trip and hear an American speaker, speak to an American audience, with an American message.
- Students will go to those who are in relationally positions to help in the middle of their crisis. Never underestimate the power of presence.
- We're not only responsible for creating safe places for students, we need to become safe places for students.
- Always listen with awareness and acceptance.
- Referring some to professional help is often addition not subtraction. We must not feel like we have to deal with everything on our own, the student's issue is what's most important.
- Be prepared for personal & mass disaster, but more importantly be prepared to speak Scripture into these situations. (Training is necessary in this area)
Effective Programing for Middle School Ministry: Celebrating Chaos and Implementing Structure (Heather Flies)
- If there's chaos in your Middle School Ministry, make sure it has boundaries.
- Our structure of Middle School Ministry must be with reasoning and philosophy.
- There is a need for a good mix of chaos and structure. Sometimes students might feel there's chaos, but parents can see the structure.
- There's a need for leaders to learn to be administrative and fun.
- There a ton of activities that Middle School students enjoy, because you're not the normal church.
- Strobe Light Pillow Fight Gut Bombing Night
- Ultimate Water Balloon Fight
- Slipper Formal
- Counselor Hunt (Camp)
- Download Air Server ($15) on both computers that I use so I can show my iPad and iPhone on the screen when necessary while teaching and or playing games and videos.
- Airport Express ($99) will allow me to control music from my phone so I don't have to always go to the sound board to get something muted to make an announcement.
- Evernote is the key APP to keeping all note taking, emails, contacts, and such to stay extremely organized.
- There's a great website www.crowdcontrolgames.com that will give good icebreakers at the beginning of any of our meeting times. You download them and you have them for good.
- Other good resources:
- YM Tech Blog for constant updates
- X Clips for teaching with iPad's
- Eyetve is if you need reception to watch the Super Bowl.
- Pick Punch is where you're able to create guitar picks on the go.
- Catalyst Filter Website (sessions & articles for church leaders) Code:SYMC for $99.
- Right Now Curriculum is a must have for the church
- Mount Pleasant needs to do a better job at identifying, screening and training our volunteers so they are designed to be most effective at ministering to students.
- Implement an application process to be involved in the Student Ministry adds a layer of protection (this includes Background checks which we already do).
- Schedule in-person interviews with everyone who fills out an application and background check.
- Do not feel like you have to use everyone who fills out an application, actually you probably should decline some people as volunteers because they either aren't ready or you don't see where they fit in.
- Be more intentional on sending out training videos to leaders. SYM Tools (if we use that) has 70+ videos prepared to train, all we'd have to do is email them.
- There is a huge need to have a parent seminar over the use of social media. The suggestion was to maybe have a cop and/or online security person to lead this.
- Our Student Ministry can do a better job at empowering leaders, and equipping parents. Have leaders write blogs, choose 4-5 Student Ministry workers and 3-4 Children's Ministry workers and have them all write 6 blogs then you have enough resources for blogging for the next year.
- Animoto is a good resource to put photos into a quick video. This is free with non-for-profit organizations. This is all online based.
- A great resources to look for creating resources for parents is www.theparentlink.com ($80/year).
- Some more fantastic apps and resources for Student Ministry:
- Glympse- Parents can know where we're at on the road.
- CPYU (Walt Muller)- Free Website for Parent information
- Clips App- be able to use movie clips to your teaching
- Group Me App- chat with groups
- Group Games App- An app to play games at the beginning of activities.
- Over App- Use as promotional stuff on instagram.
Thoughts on Speakers/Worship/Creative Arts
- Greg Stier- Greg was great as always, he challenges me with the way we do ministry every time he speaks. His message over prayer challenged me to be more centrally focused on prayer, and not for it to be just an after thought. I loved is acronym Praise, Request, Admit, & Yield.
- "We need to get into the octagon with God until we have finally dealt with our issue and have yielded ourselves to Him."
- "Stop trusting in our programs, meetings, and gimmicks, and trust in prayer and power of God."
- "Make Prayer the engine, not the caboose."
- Jon Acuff- Jon was a great communicator and one of the funniest speakers I've heard. His message on being real in Student Ministry was good and effective. John wasn't a great theological speaker but was down to earth, practical, and I really enjoyed him.
- Rick Lawrence- Rick was more of a creative speaker, he had us do activities that had us focus on our sins. I enjoyed Rick's message because it made me think about how light we take sin. Sin is a serious issue and we need be prepared for junk flying into our lives at any moment.
- John Stumbo- WOW WOW WOW! I had never heard of Pastor John Stumbo before this weekend and now I want to read all of his stuff. Someone who had a virus he couldn't shake and was told he'd never eat solid foods ever again. God healed him and now he speaks about it. Youtube him and you can see the first time he spoke after he was diagnosed with his virus.
- "God is not only the God that's in the light, but he's also the God that's in the dark."
- Shane & Shane (worship)- They were incredible as always. If you do not have any of their CD's, you must go out and buy them. They are top notch worship leaders.
- All Sons & Daughters- Many of our students rave about them, but I had never really heard them that much, and I really enjoyed them. I will definitely be looking at buying their music and seeing how we can incorporate their songs into our Student Ministry.
- Jordan Howerton Band (worship)- Never heard of them or their music before this weekend, but really enjoyed them in the morning sessions. They also handed out free cd's that were awesome and they tried to get know the audience which is always good.
- Lecrae (artist)- Hyped as always, although rap isn't my favorite.
- Skit Guys (creative drama)- They are as good as it gets. If you're into drama, buy their stuff and read up on them.
Top 5 Things that didn't settle well with me:
- Schedule- I felt like the schedule could be improved. They should start off with morning worship and end with with evening worship. The workshops should all be in between there, and if I wanted to do a 1:30 session then I didn't have enough time to eat lunch.
- Break Out Session Classrooms- Almost every breakout session I went to, the classroom was overflowing with people. They need bigger classrooms.
- Track Offers- I think they should maybe offer a Track 1, Track 2, Track 3, Track 4 for those who have been some years and just need a refresher year after year.
- Breakout Session Title- One break out session title was "Sneaking Theology Into Every Lesson." Bad name, and bad thinking on that one.
- Artist- Didn't think they needed so many different artists and stuff, same some money on that.
Those were just a few things i see that could be improved, but overall I was extremely impressed. I will go back to this conference and will encourage other Student Pastors to go because it was highly beneficial. I hope this helps people understand some of the take aways I had with SYMC 2013.
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