If I were honest, this is one of my top ten most hated things in youth ministry. I wish it didn't even need to exist, but sadly it does and most of us hate it.
During the talk time is when most of the issues arise. Games, events and things categorized as "fun" usually don't get a lot of troublemakers in the mix...probably becuase those kids are actually doing what is "fun" rather than annoying the crap out of you with their junky behavior. Granted there will always be one (at least) who no matter where, no matter what there are issues with that student.
How do we handle these always in our face issues of discipline, respect and behavior? On the one hand we don't ever want to teach that Church and Christianity are a form of "Behavioral Modification" which sadly many youth ministries and churches alik have done causing a mass exodus of young adults. On the other hand there is a strong desire for the teens present not to miss out on what God wants to say to them...whether its an evangelistic message or a message that causes them to grow. When kids disrupt, it causes the whole crowd to miss out on the talk.
So again, what do we do? How do we handle this stuff? These questions have haunted me this year because it seemed that whatever we did it didn't work. Students would get kicked out, come back after they "served their time" and would then again get kicked out.
One thing I found was if/when you could get ahold of the home (be it grandma, mom, dad, or other guardian) the students would change their tune, for the most part. It was a tough year though so the ACAC Student Ministries Team is hitting the summer hard with ways we can improve our discipline and still make it a place where people of all backgrounds, ethnicities and the like can feel safe, comfortable and loved.
Below are a few ideas we're wrestling with in which we hope to impliment this coming school year. Feel free to comment or add your own ideas because we are looking at all things to improve this segment of our ministry.
1. Set up a booth and a notebook. Here we will have a leader at the booth so if/when a student gets kicked out it gets written in the notebook by the student. There will also be a line where they write in their home number. They will then be told to call their parent/guardian to inform them they are being kicked out. This will help us keep track of who got kicked out, how many times and will also give us the phone number to the family so we can follow up.
2. Re-train (or Train) Leaders to be more incarnational. We have GREAT youth leaders and I love them deeply, however sometimes they are afraid to engage with the students. This can be true in the game time and in the talk time. When leaders don't have at least a first-name relationship with these teens, they will not have ample respect from those teens, which in turn leads to defiance. I will be writing a blog on "Youth Leader 101" where I will put all the training we will be doing with our leaders on this subject and others
3. Set up a Prayer team. I believe in prayer! This year at the very end, I set up a time for leaders to come early and pray with me for the night. This will continue but we will also be asking our current prayer team to either make a new team just for Students or to engage in some heavy prayer for these teens (more so than previously done). This includes me praying more for them and the ministry. I am guilty of not taking these matters before God.
4. Hold strong to our system of the 6 R's.
Respect the Leaders
Respect the Property
Respect Others
and if you don't comply with the above we will:
Remind you that you're in the wrong
Relocate you away from where you are
Remove you from the program
Although this has been in place, we have not written down boundaries of when to progress to the next step. No one has been on the same page and it causes issues. Some people (like myself) are a bit more gracious and let some minor things sldie. Others are heavy handed and come down really strong right away on things I percieve as minor. Getting on the same page will go a long way to healing some of the issues we have.
Well, that's the brainstorm...you got any ideas?
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