Greetings From Stumpy Point

In the late 80's a group of us began to try to spread the word that youth ministry was very important to the survival of the Quaker church in North Carolina.  Led by Doyle Craven, we did workshops designed to take the fear out of working with teens.  We also began to publish a newsletter called The Youth Ministry Grapevine, full of tips and trends that would help whoever worked with students at Friends Meetings all over the state.  I wrote a regular column for that publication under the name of Bubba, and called it Greetings From Stumpy Point.  Stumpy Point was a small, fictitious church where Bubba was the youth pastor.  Here is one of my favorite columns, from March of 1989.  Enjoy the flashback.

Hello again, Grapevine readers!  Do you often feel uncomfortable trying to visit with your high school or middle school youth?  Sometimes we get the picture in our minds that when we are one-on-one with our kids we need to be doing one of three things- evangelizing, counselling or advertising.  We don't want to miss a chance to lead them to Christ, to turn their lives around or to promote our youth groups.  And certainly all of those things are important.  But none of that is really visiting with your youth.  When you visit you should talk about the things they want to talk about in a setting that they are comfortable in.

Here's an example of how NOT to visit!  About a year ago I asked one of my high school guys, Bob, to come see me at the church.  He stopped by, came in my office and sat down.  He looked like a man before a judge, about to be sentenced.  For the next 45 minutes I talked about my youth program and how it could help Bob.  He blinked and nodded a few times and then left quickly when our time was up.  It took me almost a year to get Bob to come back.  But I learned from my mistakes, and after a few more disasters I figured out that my office was not the right place.  It was MY turf.  Visits should take place on theirs!  So now I do most of my visits at Bart's Burger Doodle over a milk shake.  I have learned that the true value of one-on-one time with youth is not in what I say, but in what I hear!

A good visit is invaluable in helping you establish good relationships with your students.  They open the door to all the other important things we hope to accomplish.  So get out there of the kid's turf and visit with your youth.  And good luck getting the church Finance Committee to give you a milk shake budget!  See you next issue...

Bubba