5 Things I Love About My Youth Leadership Team

Behind every youth pastor, there's a team of awesome volunteers (and sometimes co-coordinators!) who help make things even more amazing! Tonight's new post is a little reflection about the qualities I am thankful for in my youth ministry team! Consider it a bit of a shout-out, but also think of this post as a list of things I think are super important to have as a part of any successful youth ministry team!

My amazing 2011-2012 Emmaus Youth Group leadership team! (From left to right) Laura Glendenning, myself, Angela Henderson, Alicia Fortier, Simon Pelletier, Laura Griffin. Gaby Szabo in absentia. Photo courtesy of Jillian Agustin

I have been so blessed this year with an amazingly wonderful team! I get the infinite pleasure of working alongside some of the lovely people ever, who are all my best friends! We have really connected and work really well together, and everyone is super dedicated to our ministry. Couldn't do it without you guys!

That brings me to #1! A youth ministry team should be tight! If there's no chemistry between the leaders, not only will things flow less smoothly, but the teens will really be able to tell and there will be a disconnect. If the leaders don't love eachother, how can they really encourage the teens to love one another and effectively build community with them?

When our leaders get together, we have tons of amazing conversations, lots of ridiculous rabbit trails and things always diverge into an onslaught of raucous laughter. At the same time, when things get serious, we are able to have a really great discussion and, although we can get a little ridiculous and goofy at times, we always manage to say everything that needs to be said. And that's #2 for me! A leadership team needs to be able to communicate with eachother about serious things and come to helpful conclusions but also be able to enjoy eachother's company and laugh together.

#3- the better the individual leaders' relationships with God are, the greater overall quality during those discussions and in the teachings each week. If you have a team of leaders who at least pursue deeper relationships with God, regardless of where everyone is at, there is an attitude of commitment to that and that really shows.

On the topic of attitude, #4! Youth leaders should be committed and have a good attitude about that! They should *want* to come in on Friday nights. If your volunteers feel like they're being forced to show up to meetings, they clearly aren't volunteering and shouldn't bother coming. We don't want lukewarm people in ministry, we want people who are passionate and excited about doing God's work and being a part of the team!

And that's #5- a team should be just that- a team! I can't have volunteers on my team who are insubordinate and argue with myself and Angela. If we're completely off base with something, it's definitely respectable to call us out on that. It's a different story, however, when a volunteer feels the need to take charge of the lesson and lead it in a completely inappropriate direction, and won't listen when we ask them to back down. We have had issues with this kind of thing in the past, but I am thankful that our current team are all really lovely and able to feel like part of the team without overstepping boundaries.

My team has been so incredibly faithful, and it's really cool watching them all grow together! It's been such a blessing working with a group so dedicated and amazing, and I look forward to many Friday nights to come with my fantastic youth ministry team.

Monday Morning Mentions!

Hey everyone,

I'll (hopefully) find time to write a little more in terms of actual content later today, but for the time being, I thought I'd do another shout-out post!

A little while ago, Angela Henderson, the co-coordinator of Emmaus Youth Group, started up a blog where she writes about the things that are on her heart and on her mind- and you can find a link to that blog right here!

Ange has been with our group for about two years now, and makes an amazing addition to our team!

Also, she's a great cook! Here's her serving up her awesome homemade chili at last year's Winter Retreat! (What is up with my moustache.. that was a bad idea...)

The next shout-out is for "Lamb", who, if you have ever attended Crosstalk Ministries Day Camps here in Montreal, needs no introduction. For those of you who haven't, go check out this blog!

And last, you should follow Simon Pelletier, one of the other leaders from Emmaus Youth Group, on Twitter @hipster_moose! At the time of my writing this post he hasn't actually tweeted anything yet (shame shame) but he assures me he will eventually!


Aaaand that's all for now, because I am going to watch a bit of TV then head out for lunch with an old friend.

ttyl,

The Bible in a Year: Week 11

Well, it's been about a week since my last post, sorry about that!

This past week was my "reading week" at school- but when you have two classes and one of them is Phys Ed, reading week really becomes "watching TV and hanging out with friends week"

Speaking of readings, I am actually a few days behind on my Bible readings for this week, and am going to spend the morning fixing that. Because I've fallen behind a bit, I don't actually have much to say today (again) so I'm going to use this post for a couple of shout-outs instead!

My good friend Alex Richards is currently preparing to run a marathon with Team in Training, as a fundraiser for cancer research! Alex is an amazing guy who faithfully serves the Lord through his work with Crosstalk Ministries, and you can learn a little more about this project, and make donations, by clicking this link!

Alex's sister, Natalie Richards, also a great friend of mine and soon-to-be guest-speaker at Emmaus Youth Group, has spent the last five or six months doing missions work in Cambodia, and you can read more about her trip by checking out her blog!

My former youth coordinator and good buddy Reg Mclean, and his band The Fundamentals are currently raising money to help produce their debut album! This is super exciting because they're really great, and you should definitely like them on Facebook and, if you feel so inclined, make a donation!

Last but certainly not least, I'd like to shout out to my good friend and former bandmate Lilo Lynx! She's a promising young singer-songwriter and you should definitely go check her out over on Facebook!

Well, that's all for today! Thanks for dropping by, and be sure to keep checking back for more fun stuff! :)

New Year's Eve

Well, it's the 31st of December, 2011, and you know what that means: It's New Year's Eve! As of about 7 or 8 hours ago, there have been people partying in various time zones to celebrate a new year, all over the world! (Except maybe China. They'll get theirs in February)

People have been asking me all week if I'm excited for the new year. I think I definitely am, and I think a part of the reasoning behind that is that I was a little unsatisfied with 2011. Or at least, this is what I have convinced myself of. So, I've decided I'm going to write a post reflecting on ten things that were particularly great about 2011, so that I can look back fondly and not remain convinced that it was mediocre!

1. 2011 was a big year for me in terms of blogging stuff- in that, so far, it was the ONLY year for me! So that's kind of exciting! I have had over 1600 hits since I started writing in June, and that number just keeps growing! Thanks to all of my readers, regular or occasional, for making that possible!

2. I turned 18 this year! (This is the part where anyone reading my blog who *didn't* know how young I am goes "what?!") I am now officially old enough to be considered an adult, to vote, to buy alcohol (at least in Montreal) and to gamble! I don't particularly want to do most of those things, but it's still nice to have options!

3. I met an amazing Australian, Nathan Royters, who is totally awesome, on fire for Christ, and I'm excited to say will be moving in with me this summer when he gets back to Montreal!

4. Emmaus got a rector! In June/July (I forget at this point) we were blessed with the arrival of Keith Ganzer, a fantastic preacher and all-around cool guy who's been a really great addition to our community.

5. I got a laptop! And just in time too- I got this thing and about a week later, my desktop PC decided it hated itself and died. It's not beyond the point of fixing, I'm just too lazy and not computer-savvy enough to deal with it. Maybe that will be another goal for 2012...

6. I went to Crosstalk Ministries' Senior Youth Camp for the first time ever, and met a whole bunch of really amazing people! Shout-outs to Mark Latulipe, Paulo Gonzales, Liam Julien, Mike Still and all the others!

7. Thanks to Mark, I got my first real job! I've been a proud member of the Braxon team since September, cleaning carpets and such, along with Paulo! I also got another job, as the janitor at St Stephen's Anglican Church in Westmount, so I guess this year has been a really good one in terms of work stuff.

8. I also started an acapella band, the Brovertones, with Paulo, Nathan, Tim Blais and Josiah Henderson! So far we've only really worked on one song, and only three of us were there for it, but it sounds really great and it's better than nothing, I think!

9. I wrote a song! And while it's true that I was hoping to be done with it back in July and am still ironing out some kinks, I'm happy to say it will definitely be ready for release sometime in the next month or two, recorded and everything! So keep an eye out for that!

10. Last but certainly not least, I got to spend even more time working with the lovely kids at the Emmaus Youth Group. I've known most of them since before I was their age, so it's been such a blessing watching them grow up and being able to be a part of their lives!

So, after writing all that, I am no longer convinced that 2011 was a mediocre year. It was pretty darned exciting actually! And I'm even more excited to see what God has in store for me in 2012.

Cheers,

Tom

Recent Goings-On

So you might be wondering what I've been up to recently that's kept me so busy!

Or you might not, that's cool too.

Either way, I figured I should talk a little bit about how I've been spending my time the last couple of weeks!

I finished school a couple of weeks ago, so it's weird that I've had less time to write recently than before. You would think that being done with all my classes would give me more time, but that's not really the case. Christmas is a really busy season for me- and probably for a lot of us, now that I think about it! I was asked to lead the music for the Emmaus Christmas Day service this year, so I've been thinking a lot about Christmas music lately.

We also wrapped up youth group this past Friday night with our annual Christmas Party! That was pretty amazing- we had a gift swap, only we did it "yankee-swap" style and it was a lot of fun to watch people steal gifts from eachother. Hot ticket items included a package of bacon, an Edward Cullen action figure, some Angry Birds merchandise, a lock of hair and lunch for 3 at a tasty dumpling restaurant.

Also this weekend was the December edition of Crossroads! Crossroads is a monthly youth service hosted by Crosstalk Ministries, where I have the pleasure of helping lead musical worship alongside some truly wonderful people! It was a really great service as we celebrated the advent season with a spaghetti dinner, a special Eucharistic service and a ginger-bread house making (and eating!) competition.

 I've also been working, and eating more pizza than is probably healthy, and enjoying the company of friends and family! Last night I had the final meeting of a small study group I was attending this semester, as most of the group are heading back to Singapore next week! A quick shout-out to Abigail, Leroy and Tommy and all of your companions! Praying for you guys to have a safe trip home and looking forward to hearing from you soon :)

Well, that's the end of my exhausted ramblings for now. I'm still pretty wired though so I will probably write up something that's actually interesting and provocative in a few minutes.

Benefit Concert for Goa

Another one of those two post nights! Mad world!

This one's less of a post, and more me linking you to a video you should take a look at! It's an interview with my voice teacher, Jacinta Luis, about our recent concert to raise funds for music education in Goa, India.

The video was filmed and edited by Sinath Yip, a student at Dawson College, and you can find it right here!

Blessings,

Tom

Monday Night Shout-Outs!

Hey Ladies,

So I kind of just feel like doing a shout-out post to a bunch of people you should totally follow on Twitter and/or check out their blogs! In the last few months since I started getting involved in social media, I've kind of become more aware of just how many cool people are out there writing things and also of how many of them are fellow believers with interesting and insightful stuff to say! So take a look at some of these heroes as I shout out to them in tonight's post! I will aim to do a post like this once or twice a month, depending on how many outstanding people I find at any given time :) So, without further ado, here we go!

The first person I'm going to shout out to is Carl Jones! This guy has quickly become one of my favorite people on Twitter! He's a really cool, open, honest former youth pastor with lots of great stories and insights on his blog. I interviewed him briefly in my last blog post, and he'll probably be doing a guest post here in the near future! You can find his blog by clicking his name above, and follow him on Twitter @Youthguy07!

The next person I'm going to shout out to is Sierra Nichole! She's a great blogger and Twitterer with a heart for Jesus and a great story! She put together the blog challenge I've been participating in this month (and the one I'll be taking part in next month!) and has been a real blessing by organizing all of it and putting in so much of her time into social networking! @iSierraNichole is her Twitter name, go follow her!

Next up is an old friend of mine, Erin Pressner! We worked together at a day camp years ago and now her little sister is one of the teens at my youth group! She's a wonderful girl with a great heart and a fun food blog, with a bit of a twist- it's all food she can eat, and with the dietary restrictions her health situation places on her, there's a lot of creative ideas there! You can find her on Twitter @rinrinjii!

Last, but certainly not least, PAULO GONZALES! A member of my acapella band, the Brovertones, and a wonderful guy, Pow is an up-and-coming filmmaker and a close friend of mine. Right now he's doing a social experiment for which he's given up Twitter and Facebook and such, and is doing a lot of video blogs on Youtube (linked in his name above). He'll be back on Twitter eventually, and you can follow him @PowLoTheOddMan!

So that's it for tonight's shout-outs! More posts coming later this week, probably! :)