When someone is out to get you

If there is a group or person out to get you, keep your supervisor informed, get her/his perspective, try to get to the heart of your antagonist's antipathy.

1. Can it be ameliorated without sacrificing something core to your being or ministry?
   
2. Do they need an apology?
   
3. Does the situation require a face to face meeting with the other person, you and your supervisor? (Never alone!)
   
4. Can you just wait them out? Enemies usually will die, move or get tired of the project. The problem probably has to do with their children not getting what they wanted. When will these children graduate?
   
5. Weigh the value of your ministry there against the aggravation. Actually aggravation shouldn't have anything to do with it – it is matter of what is best for Christ's church.
   

Unknown Destination Trip: Schedule

A typical Schedule:

One of the characteristics of the Unknown Destination Trip is that there is nothing typical about it. The only thing our youth can count on is that we will not do the same thing twice. The length of the trip, the distance covered, the types of activities are all different from one trip to another. There are, however, a few types of activities and schedules that are somewhat common, and I often revert to a common outline. Many of the comments in this post will assume this "starting point" outline. As I research a potential Unknown Destination, I will modify - or throw out entirely - this outline.

A possible outline of activities

Friday night departure for base station. Leave after work. All are to come "pre-fed." Sometimes we will arrive at the church where we will be spending the night late at night. One of the fun "unknowns" is simply exploring a new church, late at night.

Saturday morning. Prepare our own or fast-food for breakfast. We often will then do a service project - working a soup kitchen, clothes closet, homeless shelter ...

Saturday afternoon. If the major fun activity is in the evening, we will often spend the afternoon exploring our new environment or playing games in a park.

Saturday Supper. Usually an unusual place or a place that is peculiar to the area.

Saturday evening. Some special activity or event that will be viewed as "fun" by the youth.

Sunday morning. Worship in the church we are staying in. We generally go to their early service, change into casual clothes then go out to eat.

Sunday afternoon. Sometimes stop for one more activity before returning home.

Accounting and money for large activities and trips

Leaders of youth are often more interested in the youth and the activity at hand than the mundane matters of money – and many a youth leader has gotten in hot water for mishandling of money. So here are some comments about money:

• Always have extra cash on hand to bail out a kid or two.
• Try to arrange to have a cash advance for fast-food and incidental expenses. I generally plan on $5/kid for breakfast, $5/kid for lunch and $10/kid for dinner for fast-food meals. If someone wants to spend more than this allotment, they can do so out of their own spending money. Often a youth who doesn't spend their allotment will cover the cost of the youth that needs more than the average.
• For fast food meals and other receiptless situations – issue kids or groups of kids whole bills (such as a $20 bill to a group of four) and get the change back and put in an envelope (I always keep a supply of dollar bill sized envelopes at hand). At a more leisurely time you can count the change and calculate the total cost of the meal or activity and put this on your ledger (I use the back of the envelope for a temporary ledger).
• Get a receipt for cash spent any time you can and stick in the envelope.
• If you can sell the Trustees on it, get a corporate credit card, if not, get a credit card separate from your own that you use only for church related activities. Use it any time this is possible, carrying large amounts of cash is a pain and potentially dangerous and harder to account for.
• Always produce a balance sheet of any complicated or expensive activities.

Discussion ideas for help youth make good decisions

• “Employers always search the Internet for information about a candidate, what will they find about you? How will they react to that information?”
• "How would it feel to have a nude or suggestive picture of you get out and go viral?  Everyone who sees you might have seen the picture?"
• “What would happen if you were at an unsupervised party and it was raided (even if you weren't drinking)? What would be the repercussions? What would your school do? Your parents?”
• " If you are alone with someone and they ask something of you that you don't want to do, how do you get out of it?  What if they say they'll lie and tell people you went along with them?"
• "What would happen to you if you let someone cheat off you and the two of you were caught?"

A new youth program should always start with Middle School/Junior High

It is a fact of life that middle schoolers (6-9^th to be more specific) are more flexible and willing to try things than their older peers. High School youth are often set in their ways and want institutions like a youth group to remain consistent and constant – even as they get bored with the sameness of it!! High School youth are also pretty well booked up with activities they established at the beginning of their Freshmen year. To get them to do something new or at a new time is difficult.
So whether creating something new or trying to make a major change, start with the Middle Schoolers.

Youth teaching children

In a Church School setting it is easy to recruit older youth to be teachers, but it helps to do so with care. Some considerations:

• Talk to the high school teacher if there is one. Don't blind-side them by taking their students away
• Select carefully. Just as with adults, some are gifted in this way and others are not. If you need to use those who aren't gifted, recruit them for some other activity perhaps even being your personal go-fer, supply cabinet supervisor, media specialist...
• Give them training. Depending on the situation this can vary. It may be a teacher training session, it may be serving as an assistant to a skilled teacher. (Be sure to talk to this teacher in advance and convince them to start turning some of the teaching assignments over to the youth, working toward the time the youth does the whole lesson from beginning to end, including planning and evaluation.)
• Except in the most extreme cases all teachers should be a part of a team of teachers/leaders, but an all youth team is acceptable as long as they are competent.

Grace at meals

At meals, take volunteers for saying Grace for meals letting whoever says Grace go first in line. Make sure that a person doesn't get it every time. In a restaurant, where the youth are sitting at separate tables, remind each table to say their own grace.