HABITS User Guide

HABITS User Guide

Dear Youth Worker Friend:

HABITS is not another program. It’s an emphasis, a philosophy, a discipleship strategy of sorts.

HABITS is my attempt to change the focus of getting students to a discipleship class (to be loaded with Bible information) to helping them learn to connect with God and grow spiritually . . . on their own.

I’ve written 30+ books, I’ve worked at two churches for over 10 years each, and I’m more proud of the idea of HABITS than anything I’ve ever done. I hope you’ll soon understand why I say that.

You haven’t just purchased a bunch of various resources. Rather, this production pack is filled with tools that will equip your students to begin developing their own spiritual habits right away.

The HABITS material doesn’t depend on you being out another night of the week and it won’t result in students becoming dependent on a discipler or addicted to a youth ministry program in order to grow spiritually. But, it will require you to understand the why before you move to the how. Then, when you understand the idea behind the HABITS it will require your enthusiasm for personal spiritual growth, your encouragement to those who are interested, and your continual emphasis on students developing spiritual habits and not just attending programs.

For the next several pages I will try to explain the why and the how regarding these resources. My prayer is that they serve you and become a helpful aidein your questto assist students in developing life-long spiritual habits.

God Bless you in your efforts,

Doug Fields

Doug Fields is a Pastor to Students at SaddlebackChurch in Orange Country, CA. He’s been in youth ministry since 1979 and is the author of 30+ books including Purpose Driven Youth Ministry—which is the best-selling youth ministry book ever written. His resource company, Simply Youth Ministry, is committed to simplifying youth ministry and saving youth workers time. He speaks all over the world but is most committed to staying at home with his wonderful family. He’s a graduate of VanguardUniversity and Fuller Theological Seminary.

The Story Behind the Strategy

The saddest times in my youth ministry career happen when I am reunited with a former youth ministry student who no longer gives his or her faith any priority. I wish I could say that all the positive stories about former students, who are now in full-time ministry or raising Godly families, balance out the anguish I feel for the others who have walked away from God and the church. Unfortunately, they don’t! I’m always left to wonder what went wrong in his or her life and I often allow guilt to raise its ugly head and question my role in their spiritual development.(“If only I had done more, they might still have a vibrant faith.”)

Several years ago I ran into Jake Brazelton at the mall. He was in his mid-twenties and the story of his life (post-youth ministry days) was in complete opposition of God’s ways. He had not only graduated from our youth ministry, he had graduated from his faith. None of our leaders would have ever guessed Jake would wander from his faith. He was a consistent participant for four years. We could always count on his attendance at all of our programs. I hate to admit it, but he was even in my “discipleship group.”

Jake and I talked for nearly an hour at the mall. After our conversation I realized that he knew about the Bible, Christian doctrine, and theology, but that he never quite learned how to maintainhis faith and grow on his own. As a teenager, his spiritual growth came as a result of attending youth ministry programs. As long as there was a program, he was growing. Our programs became his drug, and he was an attendance-addict. I asked myself, “Where did I go wrong?”

God used my conversation with Jake to get me to do some serious evaluation of our youth ministry. I realized that we had designed a youth ministry that allowed committed students to become committed to programs. I was helping with their addiction (you could say that I was “selling” them their drug of choice). Plus, in addition to committing to a program, many of these graduating students were more committed to their discipler more than they were to Christ. Too many conversations with ex-students, like Jake, caused me to rethink discipleship and what we were trying to do with students.

Don’t miss this . . . It could really help!

I have read dozens of books on discipleship, and the only consistent element I’ve found is the inconsistent definition of this task. With each read I tried to get my mind around the author’s specific definition which would lead to a distinct way to disciple students and the ideal program for them. This has yet to happen, which makes the goal of discipleship-making difficult.

Added to the multi-faceted methods of discipleship are the unique growth patterns of each adolescent. Students respond to spiritual input in different ways. This means we can’t franchise a discipleship program that will work with every student. The bottom line is that there is not one specific way to disciple students.

My definition of discipleship is simply “helping students become more like Christ.” For some students it can take six months before we begin seeing measurable growth; for others it can take six years! Because of this, our discipleship attempts must have a personal and relational element to them. In my early years of youth ministry, my style of discipling students had been 50% educational and 50% relational. Most youth ministry discipleship programs have basically the same structure reflected in different methods. They have a component of teaching combined with an element of adult attention.

This was how we would “disciple students” during my previous years in youth ministry. I had encouraged our leaders to disciple students by spending time with them and by educating them about the Christian faith and some of the necessary disciplines. What I didn’t do was to teach how to strategically focus on a practical, on-going, building-block plan to help committed students develop the habits necessary to grow on their own when they were no longer in the youth ministry. For many students at my church, our discipleship plan reinforced their commitment (or dependency on) programs and people. We had created dependence when we should have prepared them for independence.

Now I’ve come to understand that students need more than information and relationships. Youth ministries are filled with Bible-literate students who bear no fruit. These students have all the right answers (knowledge), but they’re making wrong daily choices because their faith is compartmentalized to a program. Students need more than relationships, as well. At some point they must be weaned from depending on the human and begin walking in the Spirit. This isn’t going to happen when we establish a program-based discipleship plan.

Committed Students Need Spiritual Habits, Not Programs

Since my time with Jake I’ve become more aware that if students are going to maintain their faith over the long-haul, they must develop consistent disciplines that don’t reinforce their commitment to programs or to people.

The tools you purchased were developed to help students develop the disciplines necessary to grow on their own. This type of discipleship preparation isn’t dependent on a student’s attendance at another program.

Because the word “discipline” carries negative connotations, we challenge our students to develop “habits” that will help them with their Christian walk. (You can also call them disciplines, or habits, or monkeys. It doesn’t matter to me. I’ll call it Zoo time with Bongo the Gorilla if it will encourage students grow spiritually on their own.)

Most youth workers agree with all of this in theory, but have questions regarding the application of the HABITS. Let me try to answer some of these questions.

What are the H.A.B.I.T.S.?

In order to provide students with the resources to develop spiritual habits, you must first identify the habits you hope your graduates leave your ministry with. Only then can you begin looking for the appropriate tools to assist their growth.

While there are several truths we want our students to understand about Christianity (educational), there are only a few spiritual habits we want them to develop on their own. We’ve defined six habits we want committed Christian students to leave with. These six habits may be different from the ones you choose, but don’t disregard this idea simply because our habits might differ. I believe the principle of helping students develop habits is transferable to your youth ministry, regardless of the ones you define.

We defined the habits by asking this question: “What disciplines are important for lifelong,independent, spiritual growth?” Another way of looking at it is, “What are the habits you rely on to maintain an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ?” Here are our answers in no particular order of priority. We want our committed students to:

1. Have consistent time with God through prayer and Bible readings.
2. Have an accountable relationship with another believer.
3. Memorize Scripture.
4. Commit to the church body (not just the youth ministry).
5. Understand and participate in giving/tithing.
6. Study the Bible on their own (beyond reading).

Because we focus on the word “HABITS,” we have tried to put our actions in a form that is easy to remember. Committed students need:

Hang time with God

Accountability with another believer

Bible memorization

Involvement with a church body

Tithing Commitment

Study Scripture

Remember, these are the habits we want them to develop. This list doesn’t include all the information we want them to know before they graduate. We try to cover the educational element of discipleship through several different teaching times during our weekend services, our small group Bible studies, and other occasional programs that reflect an educational and biblical dimension.

What are the Resources?

In order to help students develop these six habits, we needed to provide them with resources to aide their development. Granted, the simple provision of resources doesn’t ensure a student will be discipled and walk with Christ for his or her entire life. It will however, add to your confidence as a youth worker that you haven’t handicapped students by creating a dependence on yourself or a particular program.

Once you define the habits, it’s important to ask yourself, “What helpful resources can I provide to help students develop these habits?” It’s not enough for me to say, “I want students to study the Bible before they graduate.” To really help them, I need to give them a resource to help them study the Bible. This means I either have to depend on a Christian bookstore to provide it or I need to provide something.

I’ve done both—bought resources and created them. At this point in my ministry, I prefer to create them. I create my own because that keeps them affordable and because students seem more receptive to what I’ve created than to what I’ve purchased. It’s easy to buy a growth booklet or a journal, but when you create one, students know it’s important to you.

I realize the majority of youth workers don’t have the time, help, and resources to create their own resources. Even those who can create their own can’t compete with the fancy layout and the colorful print jobs of published resources. But you have something a publisher can’t express—your heart! When I give something I’ve created to my committed students, they accept it as a gift from me. (I’ve never had a student say, “Oh, I wish you’d buy me something instead.”)The time it takes to create something helpful communicates that I care about their spiritual journey.

Don’t feel guilty, though, if you don’t have time to create the resources you want. That’s why I’ve made the production pack available. Our role as youth workers is to be effective before we’re creative. Basically, if someone else’s material will help me become more effective with students, I’ll use it—I hope you will too! If you don’t use it as is . . . please edit it and change it to be more like you.

What are Saddleback’s Resources?

Most of the tools will be self-explanatory as you examine them but here’s a little more information than what’s provided in the samples.

Habit #1: Hang Time with God

Quiet Time Journals

When you look through our quiet time journals, you’ll see that it’s really nothing more than a short space to write, a little design, and a few prompter questions. We’ve learned that half-sheet size journals work best. The short space doesn’t force the student to write an entire page for each day’s entry. When a student asks for a new journal, it becomes an opportunity to affirm him or her and a reason to celebrate the students’ growth and ask about his or her times with God.[You might also consider using the One Minute Bible 4 Students as a way to help them develop an appetite for God’s Word in a simple, usable format.You can check out the One Minute Bible 4 Students on-line at

Habit #2: Accountable Relationship with Another Believer

BACK TO BACK

BACK TO BACK is our new name for our 1 on 1 accountability groups. For 10+ years we called them S.A.G. 5. SAG stands for Student Accountability Group and five is the amount of time (five minutes) we ask students to connect with another Christian during the week. It doesn’t matter what you call it as long as you challenge, and then coach yourcommitted students to have one other Christian friend on their campus they can pray with and develop an accountable relationship. (I love “See You at the Pole” but one time a year isn’t enough.) We don’t tell them to pray in the middle of the campus or stand on lunch tables to draw attention to their spirituality. We encourage them to meet somewhere at school and pray together.

We regularly remind students to seek out a BACK TO BACK partner, but we always end our camps or retreats with a challenge to find one before they go home. The camp or retreat experience can quickly fade if a student doesn’t have some nudging and challenging from a friend. For the most part, students keep their same BACK TO BACKpartner during the entire school year. We have them sign the BACK TO BACK Covenant (included in the Production Pack) and then give them the business card as both a reminder and an opportunity to record their partner’s phone number and email. We also laminate their signed covenant and return it to them with a note of encouragement.

Habit #3: Bible Memorization

Hidden Treasures

The title of this resource comes from a combination of the NIV and the NASB translation of Psalm 119:11, I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you (NIV). Your word I have treasured in my heart . . . (NASB). Hidden Treasures is a simple flash-card type, Bible memorization tool.

When committed students sign up for Hidden Treasures, we give them a set of three to five verses. We’ve made them small so a student can carry them with their keys. After a student has memorized the first set of verses, we give them the next set (then the next, then the next). Again, customize our stuff and do it however you want. If you want to give them the entire set all at once—have at it.

Habit #4: Involvement with the Church Body

This is the only habit of the six that doesn’t need or require a resource to give to students. We are always talking to our students about attending the church and being involved with the ministries of our church body. We talk highly of all-church events, and we model involvement from our leaders by supporting church-wide programs. The periodic letters we send to our committed students remind them of the importance of being involved with the church beyond their youth-ministry experience.

Some youth ministries have taken this “involvement” idea and developed it as the habit of serving in a ministry.

Habit #5: Tithing Commitment

Bank of Blessings/How to Get Rich mp3

Of the other resources listed, this is the toughest one to get students excited about. Even though this isn’t as appealing of an idea, we don’t want to pass up the opportunity to have students develop the habit of giving while they’re young.

When a student signs up for this resource they are usually excited to get the bank but not as thrilled to do the work (complete the Bible study) that goes with it. Of all the resources, this is the one that doesn’t get the follow-up the others do. We do want to know if students understand everything they studied on tithing and we want to answer their questions, but we don’t want to pressure them into giving to please us rather than giving out of their love for God. The study is to inform them, the mp3 is to encourage them, and the bank is to remind them to give.