A Blast From The Past

In the current issue of YouthWorker Journal, there is a short interview with David Elkind who, while I was in college, was responsible for some of my early exposure to adolescent development, and the struggles young teens face in our culture.

His book, All Grown Up and No Place to Go, was required reading for one of my classes. Originally published in the mid 80's (It's been updated since then), this book served as a catalyst for my understanding of the importance of ministry to younger teens.
I think it remains required reading for youth workers.

My Life Will Never Be The Same

I finally broke down.
I bit the bullet.
I asked permission.
I signed up for X-Box live.
I played Halo 3 until midnight last night.
I found it amazing.
I think my life will never be the same.

Some Of My Biggest "Ah Ha" Moments

This June will mark my 20 year anniversary in junior high ministry. I'm sure that I will do a much more honest and thorough reflection of stuff I've learned, but today I was thinking about some of the bigger 'Ah Ha' moments I've had in ministry. Moments where the light bulb went off above my head and something changed as a result.

Some of my 'Ah Ha' moments, in no particular order:


- I'm not irreplaceable.

- I don't have to be cool.

- Everybody 'loves' junior high kids (we have to, we're Christians right?) but some people actually like them. Those are the people to build my team around.

- Functioning as a leader first and a Pastor second is a mistake.

- A lesson doesn't have to be long to be good, but if it's going to be long it has to be good!

- Parents need to be viewed as an ally not an enemy.

- To be effective, I have to surround myself with people who are smarter, more gifted and a lot different than I am.

- Pride ruins everything.

- I don't deserve anything I've been given.

"No Way"

In our junior high ministry, our team tries to create what we call a "No Way" moment once in each series. A "No Way" moment is simply something we do in the program that causes kids to think, "No way....I can't believe they did that in church".
Our chocolate slip n slide is a 'no way' moment.
Our cow tongue toss is a 'no way' moment.

This weekend, our lesson was on the power and importance of being connected. As a 'No Way' moment, the entire junior high music team and our paid staff performed the 'all in this together' song from High School Musical. Because I couldn't make any of the rehearsals and didn't have the entire dance memorized, I got handed the solo free-style dance toward the end of the bit. I don't know how to dance and had put zero thought into my big debut.

My 8th grade daughter Kayla already regrets my decision to free-style in front of our entire ministry, and I'm sure I'll live to regret it, too.

The audio is terrible because it was recorded from a video camera in the back of our room. My solo is toward the end....if you can bear to watch.

Sweet Child Of Mine

The longer you listen, the funnier it gets.

On the web...

I've probably referenced these sites somewhere in the past, but the two sites below are my favorites for youth culture research.

The first, www.cpyu.org , is faith based and is a great place to send the parents of your students who are looking for encouragement, information and resources.

The second, www.Ypulse.com, is not faith based but is a sought-after site by marketers and media executives who want to keep a pulse on youth culture.

Random Ramblings...

- The air is clear today. Even though much cleaning up and rebuilding of homes and lives remains, it is wonderful to have clean air and a cool breeze.

- Despite a devastating O.T. loss last night, the Broncos are still better than the Rams and Dolphins!

- After a crazy busy month, this week is somewhat slow.

- This weekend we have our first-ever small group Fall retreat. It's a 24 hour relationship-building extravaganza that should be really fun.

- Hilarious, but subtle, line from The Office: The tag line at the end of Michael's commercial: "Endless paper in a paperless society."

- I've decided Don Cheadle may be my favorite actor. It seems like he's fantastic in every role he plays.

-Just spent much of the weekend teaching about Moses. What a life he led.

- The newest onslaught of spam in my inbox is trying to sell me exotic watches. I don't get it.

Weekend Wrap Up

Lesson Topic: Week Two of our Series: What's The Point? (40 days of Purpose)
'Fun Factor': Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Average
Music: Average
Lesson Quality: Above Average
Length of Lesson: 26 mins
Student Response: Above Average

Taffy, our student ministries worship pastor, taught this weekend and was, as always, a big hit with the students. His energy is off the charts which makes for fun lessons whenever he's teaching. The band was led by our high schoolers which is a nice change of pace once in a while. However, even though the quality goes up when they lead, I would always rather see junior highers leading!

Believe #1

I rarely accept invitations to speak to junior highers at camps, retreats, etc. but decided to bend that rule a bit this Fall. This weekend, (Fri-Sat) I'm speaking at my first of three Jr. High Believe events. Jr. High Believe is a 'junior high only' tour that heads into about a dozen cities. I attended a Believe event a few years ago and was really impressed with their commitment to trying to put on an event geard specifically to young teens.

At the time, they had bigger name speakers...people who do big stage stuff for a living. However, the speakers weren't necessarily junior high friendly. Since then, they've made the decision to invite more speakers who speak to junior highers on a regular basis. That's where I came in. Other cities will have Jason Raitz and Scott Rubin (both from the junior high ministry at Willow Creek). This switch combined with the fact that I really like the Believe director, Johny Scott, made it feel like a fit for me.

It will be interesting to hear how the Believe team feels about the trade-off. Junior high pastors who aren't professional speakers Vs. Professional speakers who aren't junior high pastors.

Hoops of Hope December 1

I've mentioned it before, but since December 1st is about 5 weeks away, I figure it would be a great time for another shout out.

Hoops of Hope was started by Austin Gutwein when he was 10 years old. Austin is the son of one of my best buddies, Dan. Austin is now in 8th grade and Hoops of Hope is stronger than ever with several thousand students participating each year.

In a Nutshell:

- Hoops of Hope raises money for kids who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Specifically children in Africa.

- Your youth group kids get sponsored by friends and family to shoot 1,000 free throws on Saturday, December 1st (World Aids Day). If two kids are rotating at a hoop and taking turns shagging for each other it's about a 4 hour event.

- All you have to do is secure a local gymnasium or school yard or pull together a few portable baskets.

- 100% of the money goes directly to help kids. Last year, Hoops of Hope was able to build a school in Africa!

If you're interested. visit their website. They do all the work for you...they'll set up a web page for each of your students so their sponsors can donate online. I've never seen an easier way to get junior highers involved in something that makes a difference.

The picture above was taken last week. World Vision took Austin and his dad to Zambia. The people in this region had never even SEEN a basketball. Austin (in the middle of the crowd in orange shirt)took the first-ever free throw and shared what he hopes his efforts will help accomplish. AMAZING.

Comic Relief

The air quality the past couple days has been really bad due to the fires. When you step foot out of your house it smells like a massive fire pit complete with ashes swirling about. In fact, much to the delight of children everywhere, school has been cancelled today due to the nasty air.

Yesterday I was sitting in Starbucks and witnessed a fantastic Kodak moment. Walking side by side up to the doors were two people who weren't with each other. The first was wearing a mask/filter device over his mouth. The second was puffing on a cigarette. Classic.

I wanted to shout out to the smoker: "Hey lady, toss the cigarette and just breath deeply...save yourself a few bucks today."

Ugly Me

I've been spending quite a bit of my quite/reflection time lately pondering my sin nature. Why, as Paul states, I often find myself doing those things I don't want to do and unable to do those things I want to do. How is it that the ugly side of me seems to always come out naturally despite some of my best efforts otherwise?

I have lots of ugly parts, but it may be that the ugliest part of me is my self-absorption. I like being me. In fact I LOVE being me, and the rest of the world should like me as much as I do and behave accordingly! I'm painfully aware of my situation and have been taking strides to allow God to do some heart surgery.

While some people may write off 'little sins' or small incidents as nothing to worry about, I somehow get bothered by those the most. I have pretty much figured out how not to let my self- absorption manifest in big ways. But the little ways are just as ugly and the remind me that my sin nature isn't going away any time soon.

A dumb example that reminded me of this just this morning:
The fires in our area of been pretty intense for the past couple of days. Several of our friends have been evacuated, our church has been set up as a fire-relief station and as a staging area for fire fighters. Last night when I turned onto my street the flames were very visible in the not-too-distance. Ashes were falling from the sky and my kids were anxious.

I spent about 30 minutes this morning watching the news and praying for the whole situation.
Then I headed out to my favorite 'hole in the wall' coffee shop to do some writing and lesson prep. When I walked to the door, I was greeted by a little note saying that due to the fires and smoke the coffee shop would be closed for a few days. I WAS TICKED! Why in the heck would a little smoke cause them to close? Don't they know how badly I wanted to tuck away and work? Now I have to be inconvenienced by heading to Starbucks who, by the way, would never think of closing it's doors! Ugly me. Stupid me. Selfish me.

It's the little things, our first responses to simple situations that often reveal the ugliest parts of our self.

Welcome Home

Returned from a great weekend away at Y.S. and now I'm about to sit in an all day executive meeting with the church team. Back to the real world!

Weekend Wrap Up

I spent this weekend at the Y.S. Convention, woke up super early this morning to drive back to the O.C. So instead of my usual weekend wrap up from my ministry I'll wrap up some of my experiences this weekend.

General Sessions: I really enjoyed the general sessions this year. I think it was primarily because the subject matter of the speakers hit me a bit more personally than usual. I'm a Doug Fields fan, and I get to hear him teach quite a bit, but his message on envy was perhaps the best I've heard from him in a long time. Not sure anybody in the crowd could say 'not me' to what God was saying through him.

Workshops: I sat in some and I taught some. According to the Y.S team, the workshops this year were some of the lowest attended ever. They attribute it to the fact that the conference is in San Diego and the weather was amazing....probably some truth to that.
My buddy, Phil Shinners attended a workshop that rocked his world. I don't know the title of the workshop or who taught it, but I'll do some research and post about it in the future, but the premise was this: We've all been taught and probably believe the LIE that we can change the methods without changing the message when in fact every time you change the method you do, in fact, change the message. Really interesting....and a pretty strong statement that, according to Phil, he backed up well.

People: Lots and lots of youth workers and lots and lots of opportunities to connect with old friends. I got to spend some time with two youth pastors who used to be volunteers in my ministry and are now serving the local church full time. Really fun to hear how God is using them.

Middle School Youth Workers: Always my favorite group of people to be around! The workshops were fun and energetic. Last night a small group of about 13 of us went to dinner together and had a blast.

Middle School Ponders Birth Control

Wow. I saw a portion of this story on the news this morning and found the article here.

Jury Duty Blues

I haven't served on jury duty in about a decade, and have managed to postpone my last 3 or 4 summons, but not this week...which, of course, is an absolutely terrible week to have jury duty.

Instead of being asked to report one morning to see if you are assigned a case, I have to call EVERY morning at 11:00 to see if I have to report that same day by noon. If not, I have to repeat the process the next morning. If, after a week of this process I haven't been called in, I have served my civic duty. It has made planning my week virtually impossible...everything is 'tentative' due to the fact that I may find myself driving to Santa Anna on a moment's notice.

As I was whining about it, I find myself thinking that If I should ever find myself on trial(falsely accused, of course)I sure hope I have a jury of people who aren't totally ticked about serving and take their service seriously...so I will do the same if called (hand on my heart as I make that pledge).

Weekend Wrap Up

Lesson Topic: Week Three of our Series: Get Out Of My Face! (dealing with conflict)

Attendance: Below Average

'Fun Factor': Above Average

Volunteer Involvement: Average

Music: Above Average

Lesson Quality: Average

Length of Lesson: 23 minutes

Student Response: Above Average

We wrapped up our series with a lesson dealing with forgiveness...the ultimate conflict killer. Week two of 'Choctober' include our chocolate slip n slide down the center isle and free chocolate blendeds for all visitors. All in all a pretty good weekend.

On a side note...

I read very little fiction. About the only fiction I read is John Grisham stuff. So when I was in the bookstore last night and saw his new book, Playing For Pizza, I grabbed it. Playing For Pizza is a football story and one that I liked quite a bit (It's a short novel and finished reading it this morning...). It follows a year in the life of a down and out NFL quarterback who finds a fresh start in a small Italian football league. If you are a Grisham reader because you like legal drama, don't buy this book. It's nothing deep....just a fun read if you're a sports fan.

Random Randomness

- Best quote from the Office this season: "I'm not super stitious, but I am a little stitious".

- Second Best: "There's about to be a whole lot of stupid up in here!"

- I found a GREAT coffee shop about two miles from the church yesterday. I'd heard of it before, but had never been there. It's big, empty, with a super cool atmosphere and vibe. I spent 10 hours there writing 5 small group lessons, editing 4 others and working on a weekend message.

- Next week, I have to write 5 lessons on the life of Moses....I've never taught on him before (other than 10 commandments or quick overview), so I'm a little apprehensive.

- Anybody going to Y.S. in San Diego next weekend? Maybe a dinner gathering of JH workers?

- Today I was given my very own hard hat so I can walk around our Student Zone job site whenever I want. When I commented that it didn't look super sturdy the response was: "These are really just for looks to please the insurance company. Anything that hits your head hard enough to kill you will kill you even if you have a hard hat. " Not real comforting.

- Funny that we're teaching a three-week series on the proper way to handle conflict. I am an avoider of conflict and when I find myself in it, I rarely handle it properly. I'm doing most of the teaching, but may be doing most of the learning, too.

Ministry Pictures Wanted

Simply Youth Ministry is putting together a catalog dedicated completely to junior high resources and they're looking for fun pictures of junior high ministry in action.

If you have a picture or two that you'd like to submit (and you have permission from parents of kids in the picture), they'd love to put it in the catalog! Just send a digital copy of the picture to Andy Brazelton at andy@simplyyouthministry.com

Podcast Guest

My friend, Kerry Mackey, hosts a weekly podcast for church leaders. I am his guest this week as we talk about a different approach to implementing the purpose-driven paradigm in a youth ministry setting. You can listen to it here.

Also, be sure to check back in a couple of weeks when his guest is Matt Casper; co-author of Jim and Casper Go to Church.

Junior High Ministry 101: Talk to Parents

An incident last night reminded me that it's been quite a while since I posted a 'junior high ministry 101' thought.

Yesterday afternoon my 10-year-old son, Cole was wrapping up football practice. I had started to put my junk in the car and wasn't paying much attention to what was happening on the field, but when Cole came to the car he was upset...his eyes were watering and he was complaining that some of the guys on the team were taking cheap shots etc. Being the caring dad that I am I said something like: "It's football...shake it off". That was the end of it.

A few hours later as a house full of us were watching Monday Night Football, I got a phone call from Cole's coach. He said he had noticed Cole was upset when he headed to the car and wanted to check on him. We talked for a few minutes and during that time the coach shared a ton of super encouraging words about Cole and also a few observations that he thought could help Cole on the field and with his relationships with the team.

At the end of the conversation I thanked him for the call. The fact that he even noticed Cole was upset was big...him calling later on to talk to mom or dad about it was HUGE.

A few of the people watching football with me also work with junior highers and we took a second to talk about the power and importance of communicating with the parents of our students. Almost all of the parents in your ministry REALLY love their kids and are super thankful you are playing a role in their life. Your words of encouragement, sharing things you've observed, keeping them in the loop etc. may be the simplest, yet most valuable, thing you do.

It took the coach 5 minutes of his time, but he has won me over. I trust him with my son more, I respect him as a coach more, and I respect him as a person more because he made the effort to talk to me.

Monday Miscellaneous

Took the weekend off to go with to the desert with a group from church. There were 32 families in a massive circle of RVs, dirt bikes, quads and sand rails. We had a great time and the 'church service' around the camp fire on Saturday night was fantastic.

A crew from our Children's and Student teams went to Catalyst last week. For most of them, it was their first time. The majority said it was the best conference they've been to. I have yet to go. For some reason, there always seems to be a conflict in my schedule.

Our junior high services went well. We are in our second week of our three week conflict series, 'Get Out Of My Face'. That, combined with week one of Choctober combined for a fun weekend.

I'm heading into what feels like my busiest season in a long time for 'producing' stuff. I need to write discussion questions for about 6 small group lessons, write 5 messages for a junior high conference, write 2 youth specialties workshops and complete a few other significant church-wide projects all in the next two weeks. yikes.

Choctober

Today we are shooting videos for 'Choctober'. Every October for the past several years we turn octocter into choctober and build the majority of our programming around chocolate. Chocolate games, chocolate prizes etc.

This year, three of us from three different churches are filming videos together that we can show in our junior high ministries. Dumb, chocolate themed contests that will most likely end in some horrific amount of chocolate being consumed, thrown or dumped on us.

Same Sex Middle School Classes

There certainly are a lot of intriguing reasons for it.

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/30/ap/national/main3312765.shtml

thoughts?

Meet N Greet

In a previous post, I mentioned that last night was our annual Small Group Meet N Greet.

We started this tradition a few years ago in the hopes that, because all of our small groups meet off site, we could provide a formal opportunity for parents to meet our leaders and each other at the church campus a week before groups started meeting in homes. We had become surprised at how many of our leaders mentioned they were having a hard time meeting the parents because they'd pull up to the house, slow down to about 10 miles an hour and shove their kid out the door. We thought the Meet N Greet would help our leaders meet each parent and put a parental 'face' to each student.

It has proven more successful than we ever imagined. At the meet n greet, students find out what group they've been assigned to (most already know because they've been called ahead of time by their leader), they get their student notebooks, their C-group t-shirt, maps to the host home etc. We typically have almost 100% attendance.

I took this picture of part of our worship center from the stage.

It was a great night and we were able to meet a ton of parents.

Weekend Wrap Up

Lesson Topic: Week One of our Series: Get Out Of My Face! (dealing with conflict)
'Fun Factor': Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Below Average
Music: Average
Lesson Quality: Above Average
Length of Lesson: 23.5
Student Response: Above Average

I was really excited about this series heading into it, and I think the first week went well. I used week one to set up the issue of conflict and talked about the reality that most people don't handle it well. I set the stage for next week's lesson on how to properly deal with it.

We seem to be having fewer and fewer weekend volunteers showing up which is disturbing. Not sure if they are easing back into the Fall or if we've simply managed to lose a few. It's definitely something we need to take a closer look into.

Music was 'average' not because of quality, but because of who was leading. Once every couple of months, we have an all student band of high schoolers leading in Junior High. I love giving them the opportunity, and they do a great job. It's just that I hate not having junior highers leading music! But it is fun to see the older students come and 'give back' to our ministry.

Exciting Progress

The grand opening of our Student Zone is slated for this coming June. Even though we've been assured that this date is fairly accurate, I've been hesitant to get my hopes up.
But, seeing the building beginning to get wrapped in insulation brings a shot of optimism.

I spent quite a bit of time yesterday brainstorming operating hours, ways the building will help us reach our community, etc. I'm beginning to get excited.

But, it's also a really strong reminder that buildings and programs don't change lives. To suddenly rely on our student zone or hope that it is some sort of silver bullet for our ministry would be a huge mistake. Even when we move into this incredible facility, our ministry focus will be the same: Connecting students to caring adults who can help point them closer to Jesus.

No building can do that!

Training Day

Right now I'm sitting in a room as people trickle in for our annual, mandatory, sexual harassment training day. A certain episode of The Office comes to mind.

Speaking of the office....can't wait for tonight's season premiere. My family is taking my dad to the LA County fair so I'll watch it late tonight.

Open Season

Our small group season has officially opened. We start about a month into the school year to allow our kids to get back into the groove of homework, etc.

Last night, we kicked off with the first of two small group leader training nights (we offer two for convenience...leaders pick one). About 1/3 of our leaders are brand new this year and a good chunk of those leaders have moved up from our children's ministry. Our children's ministry has an INCREDIBLE small group program and each year we get leaders who want to continue leading the same students they've had through out elementary school.

Next Monday night we will have our annual 'Meet N Greet' which allows students and parents to meet their leaders, get maps to the host home etc. It's the only time all year that all the small groups and their parents get together at one time. It really is a major event for us.

Finally, the following week we begin meeting as groups in homes. This year feels like it's shaping up to be a great one.

Weekend Wrap Up

Attendance: Average
Lesson Topic: One Hit Wonder: How To Stick Out
'Fun Factor': Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Above Average
Music: Above Average
Lesson Quality: Above Average
Length of Lesson: Not sure....
Student Response: Above Average

This weekend, Allison and Bethany tagged-teamed the lesson. Next week, we kick off what I think will be an interesting, but challenging series: "Get Out Of My Face...how to handle conflict"

On a side note...we spent most of the weekend painting my daughter's room. When she was about 5, we painted it a sand color and decorated it in a Hawaii theme. It was more our idea than hers, and she never really loved it. She's been asking for a room makeover for several years and we finally got around to phase one which was the paint. She wanted all white with one blue wall. I took the picture because I've never seen her room this clean and thought I'd enjoy the moment.

Sometimes It's All In The Presentation

I spent some time browsing through this booklet produced by the U.S. Department of Education for parents of young teens. There's actually a whole lot of good stuff. Unfortunately, there's also a whole lot of really goofy looking illustrations. So bad, in fact, that I had a hard time getting past it.

It made me think about the 'look' of certain things in my ministry that I feel are really important. Are some things taken less seriously, or is my ministry deemed unprofessional, out of date, untrustworthy etc. simply by how aspects of it look?

Summit Update #1

Not sure if there will be a Summit update #2, but...

After being delayed in the twin cities for over an hour trying to catch my connecting flight to Grand Rapids, and driving about 2 hours to the camp, we arrived last night to catch the tail end of dinner. Kind of a bummer when the three hosts of an event show up 90 minutes late!

The camp we are staying at is fantastic. Spring Hill feels massive (not sure what the actual acreage is) and has tons of cool features. Paintball, a really nice skate park, lake, pool, two sets of really long zip lines, rope courses, etc. They even have an old WWII Bomber that they've turned into guys dorms. I gotta think it would be a perfect place for a junior high camp. In fact, Marko came here to camp when he was in junior high. That was certainly before the paintball, and skate park. Come to think of it, the WWII Bomber was probably still dropping bombs somewhere!

A great group of about 40 or so 'middle school only' youth workers are here. Last night, we spent 90 minutes simply going around the circle introducing ourselves and putting possible discussion subjects on the 'board'. I think we've got the potential for some really lively and insightful dialogue.

Weekend Wrap Up

We had a great weekend. Megan Hutchinson, who heads up our ministry to hurting kids, wrapped up our 'Old Timers' series with a great lesson from the life of Esther.

I'm heading out to a junior high summit with about 50 junior high youth workers until Wednesday night, so probably not much blogging.....

New Resource Website

Until now, I've never found youthministry.com to be a super helpful site. It launched yesterday with a brand new look and a whole bunch of new resources from a variety of folks as well as a ton of free articles and downloads.

Unconditional Love

It must take an amazing amount of unconditional love to accept the fact that Chris Farley has been reincarnated as your three year old daughter.
(SO to my sister-in-law, Rhonda)

Currently Reading:

Last night I sat down to glance through Jim and Casper Go To Church, and didn't put it down until I was finished.

It's an easy read with lots to say.

However, I do have one critique that, in my opinion, makes this book much less valuable as a practical ministry resource: The fact that Casper is an atheist.

True atheists make up such a small part of our population, that a book based on an atheists initial impressions seems to miss the mark. How many practicing atheists are visiting our churches? I think somebody who is open to the idea of church but hasn't attended in years for all the usual reasons, or has never been, may be a better candidate. It seems to me that many more people in the 'I'm kinda open' category visit our churches than do atheists. It's possible that some of the observations and reactions would have been the same, but I can't help but wonder how they'd differ.

Unwritten Expectations

A little while back, Josh Griffin had a post listing 10 questions to ask before taking a youth ministry position. You can see his list for himself here.

While I agree with his list, I think I would add one more, very important question:
"Can you please share some of the unwritten expectations I would be expected to fulfill?"

Most churches have a few written expectations that they will measure your success by, but EVERY church has just as many, if not more, unwritten expectations that you are being measured by as well. The failure to meet unwritten expectations is just as dangerous to your job security as the failure to meet written ones....the scary part is that most youth workers have no clue what those unwritten expectations actually are. And they vary from church to church. Some examples:

- The youth pastor always makes the hospital visits to students and would never ask a volunteer to do that in his place.

- A good youth ministry is one that has something for students at least 3 times a week.

- Pastors kids should be given special privileges.

- If you don't teach verse by verse, the lessons aren't deep enough.

- The youth pastor should be in the office as much as the executive pastor is.

My hunch is that few, if any, of these would be discussed in a formal interview. However, these are classic examples of the type of unwritten expectations that every church has of it's youth pastor.

Weekend Wrap Up etc.

We had a great weekend. Attendance was up (Summer is finally over) and excitement was high. We are in week #2 of our "Old Timers" series and this week our lesson was on Shadrach and his two friends. For the first time in a real long time, I ditched most of the message after the first service because I felt like I really missed the mark. I think it was the right move because the next two lessons seemed to be on target.

This is the first Monday of the school year which means date day! To kick off our date day season, I'm going to surprise Rachel with brunch at a mystery location that Leigh Sarti recommended. Should be fun.

Tonight also kicks off our Monday Night Football rotation. Tonight, dinner and the game at Ron and Katie Edward's house.

Wow...I really love the Fall!

Zinger!

The following story is 100% accurate.

Today, I returned to the gym for the first time in about 3 years. While not grossly out of shape, I have put on a few pounds and developed some lazy habits that are bound to catch up to me as I head into mid-life.

Having not lifted a weight in 3 years, I decided it would be a really good idea to 'ease back into it'.

as my buddy (who is also 'easing back into it') and I were working on our triceps, a woman in her mid 60's looked at the amount of weight I had on the machine and said, "Wow, if you go any lighter you're going to have to trade beds with your wife."

Her statement caused me to think about three things:
1) I can't believe a 65 year old lady would actually drop a zinger like that....hilarious!
2) Apparently 65 year old married couples sleep in seperate beds and assume the rest of us do, too.
3) I'm weak.

A Short Tribute

Had a couple really busy days on Tuesday and Wednesday and just couldn't find time for a post. So, although this post is probably a couple days too late in coming, it's on my mind.

The Church lost a good man in the passing of D. James Kennedy.

About 20 years ago, I was a brand new youth pastor in a church that was implementing Evangelism Explosion, a door-to-door follow up program created by D. James Kennedy. The basic idea of the program was that church members would visit people who had visited their church and, by asking two very simple questions, determine the direction the conversation would go. The focus of 'E.E.' was to train lay people in how to share the gospel and lead somebody to relationship with Christ. As a staff member, I was required to go through the program.

It was a canned, 20-minute presentation that covered 5 key areas: Grace, Man, God, Christ and Faith. I'll be the first to admit that the program had more than it's fair share of problems and the idea of sharing a canned presentation makes my skin crawl. However, to this day any time I share my faith or my journey with Christ I almost always use parts of the E.E. presentation.

I'm not a fan of television church ministries, and I'm not a fan of canned evangelistic programs. D. James Kennedy was a master of both. But I was a fan of his and I'm sad we've lost him.

Weekend Wrap Up

Attendance: Above Average
Lesson Topic: Week 1 of "Old Timers" (King Saul)
'Fun Factor': Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Above Average
Music: Above Average
Lesson Quality: Average
Length of Lesson: 21.5 minutes
Student Response: Above Average

As you can see...it was an above average weekend in just about every way. Every way, that is, except my lesson. To be fair, teaching on King Saul isn't super easy and I struggled a bit during our first service. I fine-tuned a few things in between services and feel like the rest of the weekend went pretty well.

We did a great job building a theme throughout the program. We played a silly game called "The StacKING of the burgers" and the winner was king for the day and got to sit on a throne on stage with snacks etc. We played "King, Sword, Dragon" and gave away little Lego castles as a prize. We had a fun King Saul video to set up the lesson. All in all a pretty good kick0ff to the series.

Random Randomness

- We had our end of Summer beach baptism last night which was really neat. A funny highlight was losing a tiny, very slippery, 7th grade boy under a massive shore-break wave that caught us off guard. Talk about baptism by immersion!

- This weekend, we're starting a series called 'Old Timers' and we're going to take a look at a different Old Testament character each week. This week we'll be looking at King Saul. A fun element is our weekly video in which we got John Allen, our 77 year old volunteer, to dress up in a bible costume and share the story of the person of the week. He dressed the exact same for every video and just changed his opening: "Hi, I'm Saul", "Hi, I'm Shadrach", "Hi, I'm Esther"....should be pretty funny.

- Got turned on to a website called www.highrisehq.com yesterday. It looks like it could be a pretty cool tool for managing volunteers, students etc. It's sorta a database meets outlook meets personnel manager.

- On December 1, we are hosting our first Global Youth Summit on Aids. It's being tagged on at the end of the adult summit. I'm super excited about the potential to raise awareness and compassion in the students of So. Cal.

- My wife refuses to let us sleep with the air conditioning running (she has some crazy sense of financial responsibility, or something....) and the last three or four nights have been brutal. Windows open, fan running and a wet wash cloth by the bed to keep me cool!

Systematic Relationships

This is a follow up to the post and discussion from a couple weeks ago regarding regarding the importance of junior high relationships. Here's a follow up thought:

As your ministry grows, the ability to be relational with students becomes both more important and more challenging at the same time. I think there are probably three strategic ways to keep the relational touch in a ministry that is growing:

1) Recruit more adult leaders to help thus keeping the student-to-leader ratio small enough to ensure relational ministry.
2) Implement some sort of small group structure that allows the big group to feel smaller and helps emphasize the importance of relational ministry.
3) Create systems that help the ministry 'feel' smaller and more relational.

I think strategies 1 and 2 are probably getting most of the effort and attention (at least I know they are in our ministry). But what about strategy number 3? What systems can and should be in place to ensure kids don't fall through the cracks? What type of follow up strategy? How do you track kids? Do you take attendance? Do you have a database software and if so what is it (this is an issue for us right now)?

There's nothing sexy about systems, but certainly they are the third leg of the relational stool.

Thoughts?

Internship Opportunities

Most of you would have no interest in this, but....

Our church offers 2 year internships, and our junior high team has a couple of spots opening up soon. If you are a college graduate looking to get some incredible, hands-on, experience we'd love to talk to you about the details of our internship program. You can read a little bit more about it for yourself here.

Weekend Wrap Up

Attendance: Average
Lesson Topic: Week 10 of our summer series: Road Trip Summer (Temptation)
'Fun Factor': Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Below Average
Music: Above Average
Lesson Quality: Average
Length of Lesson: 22 minutes
Student Response: Average

Overall, a pretty decent ending to our Summer program. The highlight was our spontaneous game of "Singing Bee".

We had a game that didn't work very well at our first service, so in between services we quickly created our own version of Singing Bee. We simply picked two songs that we had loaded onto our iPod and played them for everybody to hear until we got to the chorus. At that point, we paused the song and the contestant had to try to sing the chorus....it was super fun.
The two songs we used: Since You've Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson and Fabulous from High School Musical 2.

Top 2 Volunteer Tips

If you are the leader of your junior high ministry, one of your roles is to develop some sort of team of volunteers to help you lead your ministry. Getting people on the team is a big step, but how do you keep them on board? Let me share, what I believe, the two most important things to do with your volunteer team:

1. Get Them On The Same Page: A team that works against each other is doomed. One of your most important roles is to get everybody heading the same direction.
- Why does your ministry do what it does?
- Why doesn't it do what it doesn't do?
- What are the ministry values?
- What is the purpose, mission, strategy etc. of your ministry?
- What are the expectations of being part of the team? What do you expect from them and what can they expect from you?

2. Encourage Them: Training is important (in fact it's one of the key ways you keep everybody on the same page), but I've seen far too many well trained volunteers leave youth ministry because they are worn out and discouraged. My theory is that if you keep your leaders encouraged, you'll have plenty of time to train them!

My suggestion:
- A formal interview process on the front end that allows you to get to know the potential volunteer. Do a background check, ask for and call references, work the potential volunteer through your purpose statement. Be clear in your expectations and what it takes to be a member of your team.

- Monthly or quarterly training meetings with the entire team.

- Regular, ongoing encouragement.
emails, coffee dates, group outings etc. Simple, low-maintenance ways to encourage your team and let them know you appreciate their sacrifice.

Random Randomness

-We are wrapping up our Summer series this week. I like the idea of a Summer-long series, but 10 weeks always feels long.

- We are on a short, three-day, vacation in Palm Springs with Ron and Katie Edwards. Ron's parents have a time share so we are staying in a REALLY nice resort at no cost.

- I went golfing today in 106 degree temperature and hoped to play alone. Instead I got paired up with another guy who had the foulest mouth I've heard in a while. He used all the classic words about a thousand times each and introduced me to several phrases I'd never heard. The Pastor and The Cusser on the course together. It was actually a pretty good time.

- My daughter downloaded most of the songs from High School Musical 2. How embarrassing is it to admit that I actually like most of 'em!

- I flew out to Colorado a few weeks ago to shoot 10 video small group lessons and learned today that something went wrong and two complete lessons never got captured. Now I'll need to fly back out for one day to re-shoot those which is a total bummer, but I promised my team we'd have 10 ready to go by Fall.

- I'm watching sports center and most of the stories are revolving around NFL and College football. The season is almost here! GO BRONCOS.

Barry Bonds Card

I was going through a bunch of old stuff while working in my garage, and ran across some old baseball cards. To my astonishment, I found a Barry Bonds rookie card, mint condition. I really think that at some point in the future Bonds will be exonerated of most all steroid charges and will go in to the Hall of Fame distinguished as the best hitter of all time.

If you, or anybody you know, might have an interest in buying this card, let me know ASAP. I'm giving it 2 weeks and then putting it on Ebay and taking whatever I can get for it. I've included a scanned copy of the card to show it's condition - as you'll see it is in MINT condition.












(SO to Alan Mercer)

Maximum Occupancy

...I'm wondering if this is what it looks like when Willow Creek takes their junior high ministry to the local water park.

Reaching the Un-churched 13 year old

I've been doing a whole lot of thinking lately....maybe a little too much. It seems like the majority of my recent posts are trolling for answers and insight which serves as a reminder that we'll probably never totally figure this thing out!

Here's my current wrestling match: What does a truly effective weekly junior high program look like?

In our setting, we've got a variety of programs for students at a variety of places in their spiritual journey, but we do have ONE PRIMARY program each weekend that is more of an entry level experience for students. This is the program we hope will attract un-churched students and the program we hope our regular attenders will invite their friends to.

It's a solid program, and one that I think is serving us well, but we're missing something.

Is it that we need more adult volunteers loving on kids? Is it that we need a better follow up system to help us notice when students are missing? Is it that we need better lights, a new fog machine and bigger screens (gosh, I REALLY hope it isn't that...)? Is it that we need to radically examine how we teach the gospel? Is it that the program is fine but we need to be spending more time with students on campus, at games etc. earning the right to be heard?

This could prove to be a lively discussion....so don't be afraid to fire away with your ideas, your successes, your failures and your reactions to what others say.

Training, Resources, Encouragement and More..

A reader recently posted this comment:

"I just discovered you, the simplyyouthministry newsletter, and the simply jr. high podcast. One question: where do I look to get your best training material? Podcast, articles from the newsletter, or somewhere else? (I miss the podcasts! But I’m sure you are crazy busy). If you have time, please let me know."

This reader may already be aware of the fact that there are plenty of other, BETTER places to get junior high resources and training, but I thought it would be worthwhile for everybody to share a few places, companies, people, events etc. you go to for your training, resources and encouragment. If you feel so inclined, include what that particular organization's 'specialty' might be.

Junior High 'Worship'

I've been in a little email discussion with several junior high youth workers concerning the best way to approach music/worship. Some questions that have been raised:

- What types of songs are best?
- Should students be able to understand all the concepts the words and theology of the songs they are singing?
- How often should new songs be introduced?
- Other than singing, what elements are being mixed in to the worship time?

Great questions.....what are your thoughts?

Weekend Wrap Up

Attendance: Below Average
Lesson Topic: Week 8 of our summer series: Road Trip Summer (How To Handle A Breakdown)
'Fun Factor': Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Below Average
Music: Above Average
Lesson Quality: Above Average
Length of Lesson: 24 minutes
Student Response: Above Average

We had a really fun weekend. One of our interns, Brian shared the lesson and did a fantastic job! He told a great story that inner twined through the whole lesson that really connected with our students. Games were fun, music was great. All in all a good weekend.

Going Green

Today, we finished shooting our small group video curriculum....we shot 10 lessons in two days! Yesterday we were on location for the 'Bible Stuff' series and today we were in the studio filming the 5 lessons for 'Tough Stuff'...that's me doing a stupid "I have no torso" bit in front of the massive green screen. By the end of two frantic days of filming, we were getting a bit loopy.

I've already been asked if these videos will be made available, and if so when. Yes, Group Publishing is producing them for Simply Junior High and we hope to have both sets of video curriculum available by November 1st.

Video Road Trip

I'm on a quick road trip trying to film 10 video small group lessons in two days. Last year, we filmed ten lessons that our leaders could throw in the dvd player without any prep. The idea was that they would be used when a leader hadn't had time (or taken the time) to prep the usual lesson, if it felt like the group needed a break from the usual curriculum or for any other reason.

We purposely only filmed 10 lessons because we didn't want the use of video curriculum to become the norm in a small group. Despite the super poor quality lighting and sound, our groups absolutely loved the stuff.

So this year we are going way more professional in hopes of producing a much higher quality resource for our leaders and students.

I've written ten 'scripts' but I tend to freestyle quite a bit so it should be interesting. We've budgeted our time to allow about one hour per video! I'm stressed about the next two days, but excited to put some better stuff in the hands of our leaders.

Weekend Wrap Up Etc..

- Weekend: It was a pretty good weekend over-all. The weekend immediately following Summer Camp is always interesting because students are super tired, but super excited at the same time. I ditched the programs on our Lake Forest campus to head down to our San Clemente campus (A beach town about 30 minutes South) to be a part of their first Saturday night youth service. About 25-30 kids showed up and it was really fun. In fact it was fun enough to make me pause and wonder what the heck I'm doing in a massive ministry setting. The whole vibe was super mellow, highly relational and just wonderful.

- Another camp: My 10-year-old son, Cole, heads off to camp his afternoon and is pumped. Our children's ministry seems to do everything really well, and camp is no exception.

- Still another camp: We head out next Wednesday to our second summer camp...Beach Camp. This camp is only open to about 80 students and is much more laid back than our traditional summer camp. We stay at a church near the beach and spend the days hanging out surfing, body boarding and laying around. Oddly, this camp seems to be gaining popularity while our traditional camp seems to be losing popularity.

- Football Season! I spent much of last night at a friend's house with my family. In addition to a few rousing rounds of Guitar Hero, we watched most of the Hall of Fame Game between the Saints and the Steelers. I can't believe football season is almost here.

- Worst Show Ever: I was channel surfing late last night and stumbled across "Rock of Love" on VH1. I'm not even willing to link to it. Ridiculously bad television.

Two New Books!

The next two books in the Middle School Survival series were released on Friday.

I'm super excited about all six books in the series (four of which are now available and two more coming from Mark and Scott Rubin, Willow Creek's JH Pastor) because I truly believe they are fantastic books to put in the hands of young teens. In fact, Phil Shinners at Mariners Church bought 250 copies of My Faith (one of the first two books that were released about 10 months ago) and gave one to every student in his ministry and is teaching through it all Summer long.

I really do get a smile on my face thinking about a middle schooler flipping through the pages of these books.

Weekend Wrap UP

Attendance: Average
Lesson Topic: Week 6 of our summer series: Road Trip Summer (How To Jump For Joy)
'Fun Factor': Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Below Average
Music: Above Average
Lesson Quality: Average
Length of Lesson: 20:16 minutes
Student Response: Average

This week on our Summer Road Trip, we stopped at Disney World, the happiest place on earth. Our lesson took a look at the idea that happiness is fine, but we should really be pursuing joy. I think the lesson was interesting, fun, short and kinda funny....not bad, really.

We played a great game called 'Will it Float' (borrowed from David Letterman). We had an aquarium on stage and dropped several random items one-by-one into the water. Students had to vote for float or sink for each item. It was a total hit.

We leave for Summer Camp today which is why this post is up earlier than usual.
Not sure I'll post every day.

Random Randomness

- I'm sitting in our newest Starbucks but may need to move to my old location for future Starbucks Sessions. This one seems to constantly smell of vinegar. Maybe a cleaning solution of some sort? It doesn't seem like anybody else notices, but I can't ignore it.

- I've been writing some small group curriculum and have been pondering the life of Paul. We're set to dedicate only one lesson to him, but the more I think about his life before Christ, his conversion, his ministry, his writings, his influence etc. it's tough to come up with only one lesson. For now I'm turning it into a lesson on dedication. Paul was extremely dedicated in each life role.....

- My family had dinner with our potential children's pastor and his wife last night. GREAT couple and I'd be thrilled if they joined the team.

- Haven't read a really good book in a little while. Any suggestions?

- Leaving to Summer Camp on Sunday which is always a highlight.

Talk To Jesus

I truly don't know what to think about this.

(so to a blog I refuse to link)

Even Safer Than A Disney Movie!

Since almost every Disney movie is rated PG, I'm not sure what a 'G' rating means any more. But apparently my blog is safer viewing than most Disney movies.

Click here to get a rating for your blog.

(so to Matt Doan)

My Own Tag Thingy

I've been tagged several times to participate in random exercises and they usually turn out to be kinda fun. Today, I'm going to start my own Tag Thingy. Here it is:
"IF YOU HAD TO BE A _____________ (who would you be and why)"

1. FAMOUS PERSON FROM HISTORY: Peter. Hung out with Jesus, a bit of a rebel, helped change the world even though he had no real idea that he was doing so.

2. CELEBRITY: I would want to be a working celebrity who isn't so famous that I could never go out in public. The kind of celebrity that when somebody finally does recognize me they say, "Hey, aren't you that dude......" So, I'll go with the guy who plays the Microsoft/Windows Character on those Mac vs. Microsoft commercials that are so popular. I'm sure he makes a good living and every now and then somebody comes up to him and says, "Hey, aren't you that dude who plays the Microsoft/windows character on those commercials?

3. ATHLETE: My first reaction was John Elway, but the reality is that most football players can't walk very well by the time they're 50. So instead I'm going to go with Tiger Woods. I know that this choice goes against my 'can't go out in public' philosophy, but if I'm super competitive and if I'm an athlete I want to be the best athlete in the world.

4. FAMOUS MUSICIAN: Rob Thomas from Matchbox 20. I've always been a fan and he can go out in public without much trouble.

5. CHRISTIAN MOVER AND SHAKER: Kirk Cameron..... Actually I'll say Bill Hybels. He started a church movement that has radically impacted the way we do church, he's an author, a family man, has been at the same church for three decades. I really don't know much about him, but I respect what he's done for the kingdom. I truly could say Rick Warren because after working for him for 10 years I actually respect him more than I did from a distance which is saying something. But, I'll go with Hybels 'cause he's got a better tan.

That was sorta weird because I like being me a whole lot.....but fun to think about. Okay, I'll tag
Chris, Allison and Craig . Just to clarify; the categories must stay the same.

Help Wanted!

I'm wrestling with these issues in our ministry right now. A few feel like age-old struggles that I should have figured out by now or that I should realize will never be figured out. I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of them:

- How realistic is it to have a working 6 year teaching plan that corresponds with the high school ministry? It sounds great...to make sure we cover what we want etc. but also feels confining.

- Would you ever use sophomores or juniors in high school in leadership positions in your middle school ministry? If so, in what capacities? We currently only use seniors, but find ourselves turning away really great students who are younger.

- What's the longest series you've ever taught in your junior high ministry? Occassionaly we do six-week series (usually as part of a church-wide campaign), but they feel so stinkin' long.

- How much is too much to charge for Summer Camp? Currentyly, we charge almost $400.00 for 5 nights at camp. Attendance is down a little this year and I'm beginning to wonder if 'traditional' Summer Camp needs to be re-evaluated.

- How can the church break the cycle of overworking our best, most willing, volunteers?

Weekend Wrap Up

Attendance: Below Average
Lesson Topic: Week 5 of our summer series: Road Trip Summer (Start Serving)
'Fun Factor': Average
Volunteer Involvement: Below Average
Music: Above Average
Lesson Quality: Above Average
Length of Lesson: 20.5 minutes
Student Response: Above Average

The weekend was great, but I think we've hit our mid-summer slump. Lots of families and volunteers away on vacation so attendance took a hit. The series has been fun and this week's lesson on Serving/helping out others seemed to hit well. The highlight of the weekend for me was a brand new 7th grade girl singing on the worship team who has an amazing voice and wonderful attitude....very fun.

Skate Park Frenzy

My 10-year old son, Cole, and I are heading out this afternoon for a 24 hour Skate Park tour. Our goal is to skate at as many skate parks as we can in a 24 hour period. We'll skate all afternoon and evening, stay at a cheap hotel and then continue the hunt tomorrow. We have half a dozen skate parks in our local area, but are excited to discover what lies in other parts of O.C. and L.A. County.

We've been looking forward to this for quite a while. Hopefully I'll survive the experience without any broken bones.

Global Struggles

My trip to the Philippines and Singapore was my first to Asia. While the Philippines felt quite Western, Singapore is much more Eastern in feel. I'm still wrestling through many of the things I learned and what the implications may be for my youth ministry setting. One thing that stuck out is how much youth ministry has in common around the globe but how differently we view these commonalities and how differently we try to address them. Such as...

- Problem of teenagers feeling connected to larger church body.
- Struggle of youth workers to gain respect among other church leaders.
- Struggle to minister to parents, not just kids.
- The issue of students walking away from church and faith after teenage years.
- The concern of culture dictating morals etc. to our students.

The churches in the Philippines and those in Singapore all listed these as some of their key struggles. The church in America would likely list them as ours, too.

Glad to know we aren't alone.... :)

Glad I'm Home Because...

It's 12:15 and I just woke up after about 20 hours of travel. Some random reasons I'm glad to be home:

-I really missed my family. Not usually away from each other for so long.

-No fear of corn being served with my shave ice. Yes, I actually found a good shaved ice place in Singapore only to find they serve it with corn at the bottom. Oh, the horror.

- I can go see Transformers. We saw 'Live Free or Die Hard' in Singapore. They called it Die Hard 4.0 which I think is a better title due to the plot line.

- I can actually begin to enjoy Summer. I feel like Summer had already gotten off to a slow start, and being out of the country for two weeks really set me back. I'm ready for beach days, summer activities with the youth group and afternoon golf.

- Iced tea that isn't made from Lipton's instant powder. Asia must be keeping the Lipton Tea Company in business. The instant variety is served almost every time you order.

- Buying a guitar for Cole. He worked really hard to raise his grades. Every grade we were concerned about was raised by at least one letter so, as promised, it's time to go buy him a new electric guitar. He hasn't quit talking about it from the time we hugged hello at the airport.

- Wildside! I've missed two weekends in a row which is really rare for me. I miss our students!

Pretty Cool

In Singapore, I've been spending my training time focusing on young teen ministry and spent significant time discussing their various stages of development. One area we talked about was that young teens are at a time in their life where it's crucial to give them experiences and memories that "put handles" on their faith so it doesn't just remain a bunch of head knowledge that doesn't connect with their real world experiences.



Then today I visited My daughter's blog. Kayla is attending the Student Leadership Conference being hosted at our church and posted about this experience she had there. A perfect example.

Sick In Singapore

I felt it coming on last night and now my cold has hit me head on. I'm stuffed up, have an ear ache and my eyes are burning. It's the wrong time to be sick because I'm speaking five times between Thursday and Sunday....bummer.

However, Singapore is amazing and our host is a wonderful man with a tremendous desire to see the youth workers in this area equipped for ministry. The conference really should be a neat time of training and encouragement. As usually happens on these types of trips, I'm already feeling like it is me who will be leaving the most encouraged.

Boracay Bliss

Finally managed to get some Internet connection.

After spending a day-and-a-half together, Matt Hall and I said farewell to the junior high team as they headed home after about 9 days of non-stop ministry. Matt and I are hanging out on Boracay for an extra day before heading to Singapore for a youth ministry training event.

This afternoon we played nine holes of golf at this course. The green fees included our own caddies who carried our clubs, helped us line up putts and dug through tall grass looking for our errant golf balls.

Oh My Manila!

A quick post from a high-rise condo on the outskirts of Manila before heading out to join the entire team. The fourteen hour plane ride was fairly uneventful save to highlights:

- Watching the movie "Wild Hogs" twice.
- Hitting a piece of turbulance that made the plane drop so suddenly I literally went weightless and left my seat. Awesome!

Driving through town was utterly chaotic. I'm told there are traffic laws, but I couldn't figure them out.

I'll be joining the junior highers in just a few hours....the missionary who picked me up at the airport says they've been champs.

Big Ol' Jet Airliner

This afternoon, I'm heading to the Philippines and then to Singapore and won't be home until July 17th. I think this will be the longest I've ever been away from my family which makes me dread the trip even though it's going to be fantastic.

In the Philippines, I'll be joining a team of our junior high students who have already been there for about a week. We'll be doing some local ministry stuff then leading a one day Purpose-driven Youth Ministry conference for about 600 local youth workers. From there, the students will come home and I, along with my co-worker, Matt Hall, will fly to Singapore to be part of a three day youth ministry conference.

I'll be posting occasionally while I'm gone.

I wonder if the Philippines has good shaved ice?

Oh Shave Ice, Where Art Thou?

I'm not a huge sweets/dessert kind of guy, but I do have one true love: Shave Ice. Not just any old garden variety, either, but the real Hawaiian style stuff. Good shave ice....the kind that is super fluffy and melts in your mouth...is hard to find. In fact, I've never found the good stuff here in California. Sure, there are places that sell their version of 'shave ice' but it is always too crunchy...more like a snow cone than true shaved ice.

HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO SHAVE THE ICE MORE FINELY?

I'm thinking about contacting Al Gore. Since he created the Internet and is on his way to solving our climate issues, he can certainly figure out a way for the mainland to have decent shave ice.

Weekend Wrap Up

Attendance: Average
Lesson Topic: Week 2 of our summer series: Road Trip Summer (Get Connected)
'Fun Factor': Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Above Average
Music: Average
Lesson Quality: Above Average
Length of Lesson: 18.5 minutes
Student Response: Above Average

After a busy weekend last week, it was nice to feel like we are settling into our Summer groove. Attendance was decent, the program was fun and the new 7th graders seem to be transitioning well. The worst part of our Summer theme is the hassle of parking an RV in front of our JH Tent every weekend for decor. We have to get security to remove parking bariers, drive it onto campus and then remove it every weekend. But, how can we have 'Road Trip Summer' without an old 1988 RV?

Junior High Ministry 101: Faith Development

As they enter adolescence, young teens go through a ton of developmental changes: Physical, emotional, social, intellectual and spiritual. For those who minister to this age group, the spiritual development often proves to be the most challenging and sometimes frustrating when, in reality, it should be one of the most exciting because it provides fodder for wonderful discussions.

Kids who have grown up in church and developed certain assumptions suddenly begin to ask questions about their faith. While this sometimes feels threatening to adults (especially youth workers and parents), the reality is that without asking some of these questions and wrestling to own their faith, most junior highers won't develop a mature trust in Christ that lasts. The questioning is a REALLY good thing.

On my 13-year-old daughter's blog, she posts a question about faith....it's one of the first times I've seen her ask this type of question, and it's super exciting!

Here's what she posted (re-printed with her permission, of course!):

"Tonight I met a girl who was very nice and super great, but something was different about her. I thought she was a Christian, but how can I know for sure? I was comparing our lives (in my head), and realized that mine was totally different, and that mine mainly revolves around the church, and I am not so sure if hers does. I know that it isn't a bad thing to be super involved in church, but is there a point when it is too much? And at that point, where you begin to schedule things around your "church plans". I don't know what got me thinking, but I also don't know what to think. All I know is that there are so many people like this girl out there, and it's crazy to think that some of them don't even go to church, or have maybe even never heard of it."

In that short post are several issues that Kayla simply wouldn't have wondered about a year ago. Part of her intellectual and social development is the sudden ability to observe lifestyles of other people, compare them with her own and question how this relates to being a Christian.

Junior high students are asking questions. They may not post these questions on a blog, or even come directly to you for answers, but questions like my daughter's are on the minds of most of the students you minister to...

And that's a REALLY good thing!

Retreat Highlights

Our junior high and high school teams plus spouses returned yesterday from a fantastic four day retreat. A few highlights:

- The realization that over 1/3 of our team has been with us for less than 2 years.
- Our PDYM quiz (very interesting to see the rookies on the team do so well!).
- Working through the 'Elements' that make up our team culture.
- Playing 'speed frisbee' in the pool (that's not the name we all call it....but I don't think we call it by any name).
- A massive bowl of delicious guacamole.
- Getting to know our newest team members a little bit better.
- Beating Matt Hall at golf (a rare occurrence).
- Riding the elevator with Hulk Hogan's wife and daughter.
- Waiting 2.5 hours for food at Red Robin (really more like a low light).
- Lots laughs, lots of great conversation and lots of relaxation.

Weekend Wrap Up

Attendance: Below Average
Lesson Topic: Week 1 of our summer series: Road Trip Summer
'Fun Factor': Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Above Average
Music: Above Average
Lesson Quality: Below Average
Length of Lesson: 12 minutes
Student Response: Above Average

An incredibly busy, but fun weekend. It was the first weekend of our new service schedule plus promotion weekend. Our schedule was:

Saturday:
3:00 7th grade parent meeting
4:30 Service
I ran up to the baptismal to baptize a family in between services...
6:30 Service
8:00 7th grade game night

Sunday:
9:00 Service
11:00 head out to our paid staff and spouse retreat in Palm Springs!

We'll be together in Palm Springs until Wednesday afternoon.

A New Day!

When I was in College, one of my professors would start our 'Missions in a cross-cultural context' class by making us sing a song together. He didn't just do this at the start of the semester, but at the beginning of EVERY class! To make things worse, it was the same, cheesy song every time. I had never heard the song before, and I don't think I've heard it since.

Yesterday was a tough ministry day. One of the worst in a really long time. This morning when I woke up, that cheesy old song was running through my mind.

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning, new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness, oh Lord. Great is thy faithfulness."
(sung to the tune of a really old, dorky christian song!)

That's it...that's the whole song. A song that, this morning, doesn't seem so cheesy.

Got Culture?

On Sunday afternoon, our entire student ministries team, along with spouses, is heading out to Palm Springs for our annual Staff Retreat. Amazingly, the church picks up the entire tab for this 3 night retreat because they recognize that each year just as we come out of a crazy school year, we head into what feels like an even crazier Summer! They support our need to get away to relax and re-charge.

Heading into our retreat, I've spent some time trying to identify and quantify our day-to-day culture. Who are we as a team? What are we marked by? What do we value? How do you know if you 'fit? etc. Without question, we have a culture that is unique, but trying to create a tangible representation of that culture (both the 'real' and the 'ideal') proved to be quite a challenge. I think I landed on something I'm ready to share at the retreat and I'll post about it when we return.

In the meantime, I'm going to toss this out to you: Can you define the culture of your student ministry or church team? Anybody want to share?

Shuffle It Up

A while back I was tagged to list the first 5 songs on my iPod when I hit shuffle. Today, I was tagged by Stacy to list the first 15. No cheating allowed! However, I do need to make this disclaimer: I get a good portion of my music from my daughter so that may explain some of what you see!

1. Eaten By The Monster of Love: Sparks
2. Surrender: Cheap Trick
3. Enough: Chris Tomlin
4. U Got The Look: Prince
5. Hear Me: Kelly Clarkson
6. Behind These Hazel Eyes: Kelly Clarkson
7. Pour Out My Heart: Everybody Duck
8. Photograph: Nickleback
9. Girlfriend: Avril Lavigne
10. 100 Years: Five for Fighting
11. Ring of Fire: Johny Cash
12. I Could Be Happy: Altered Images
13. Don't Stand So Close to Me: The Police
14. Something Beautiful: Natalie Grant

Let's see....I'll tag Kayla (we'll see how many of our songs are the same....), Brent, and John.

Weekend Wrap Up

Attendance: Below Average
Lesson Topic: Week 2 of "When I Was Your Age"
'Fun Factor': Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Average
Music: Above Average
Lesson Quality: Above Average
Length of Lesson: 21 minutes
Student Response: Above Average

We had a really fun weekend! Shaun Blakeney, our high school Pastor, taught the lesson so that our 8th graders could have a chance to meet him before they move into high school. Our music was strong, games were great and the overall energy of the weekend felt really high. Because it was Father's Day, our attendance was so low on Sunday night that we decided to combine our junior high and high school programs which is something we rarely do.

13 Candles

Tomorrow, I will become the parent of a teenager. Kayla will officially enter her teen years and, even though I know nothing significant will change instantly, Rachel and I will enter a new stage of life to some degree.

Perhaps the biggest part about tomorrow is that just thinking about it has made me realize how quickly time passes. It seems like I've only blinked once since Kayla was born. I'm afraid to blink again because if I do, she'll be headed off to college. Two more blinks and I'll giving her hand to some punk (actually, I'm sure he'll be a fantastic young man, but right now he's probably a 13-14 year old punk....)!

Random Randomness

The ladies in my family are at the mall, the boy in my family is at a buddies house and I'm relaxing in front of the t.v. watching the golf channel. Life is pretty good for the Johnston's! Lots of stuff running through my mind today:

- Had a dream last night that I was eating dinner with the entire Hilton family...Paris, Nicky, mom and dad. Mrs. Hilton was asking me how much money I give to missions projects each year and was fascinated by the whole idea of tithing and giving. I wonder if dreams actually mean anything or if they are completely random.

- Today I saw a fantastic example of conflict resolution between co-workers. Somebody recognized they had been hurtful and was quick to make it right and ask for forgiveness. It's refreshing to see Christians act like Christ!

- I attended both Kayla and Cole's classroom award ceremonies today. Man, I love my kids!

- We are about a week away from our annual student ministries staff retreat in Palm Springs. 4 days of relaxing with the team and their spouses. Good times.

- Beginning the last weekend of June, we are switching our weekend service times for junior high and high school. We'll be adding an additional Saturday night service and only having one on Sunday morning. It's going to be a HUGE adjustment for church families but should set us up to reach more students in our community.

- On the table under my television sits the entire set of DVDs for the British version of The Office. My brother-in-law loaned them to me several months ago and now that there is absolutely nothing worth watching on T.V. it may be a good time to check 'em out.

Speaking to Students

I was asked to read the manuscript of a new book by Doug Fields and Duffy Robbins called Speaking to Teenagers: How to Think About, Create, and Deliver Effective Messages.

I'm only about 1/3 of the way through it, but I think it may turn out to be one of my favorite youth ministry books in a long, long time! It is so practical and full of incredible insights into preparing to speak to students. If you regularly teach a group of kids, you need to get this book when it is released!

For those of you who don't want to read an entire book, and believe that I'm probably smarter than Fields and Robbins combined, I offer my super short 'TEACHING 101' seminar below:

- The first minute is the most important minute.
- It doesn't need to be long to be good.
- If it's going to be long, it needs to be good.
- Students like to laugh.
- Students like stories (especially real life ones...not from an illustration book).
- Be real.
- Be relevant.
- When possible, include active learning ingredients. Students learn more when they experience it.
- Offer specific application steps.
- The last minute is also the most important minute.

Wow, that's the worst seminar you've ever attended! Good thing it was free.

I have no idea when their book is set for release, but I urge you to buy it when it's available. I really do think that by implementing some of Doug and Duffy's insight, you will be doing yourself and your students a favor.

Almost Home

As I post this I'm sitting in the drive thru of In 'N Out Burger in Riverside. We had a great trip...the best part really just being the road trip with the dudes.

My golf game was average, my wound is oozing. It will be good to be home in an hour or so.

Weekend Wrap Up

This is a tale of two days happening simultaneously. The usual weekend junior high festivities mingle with a comedy of Kurt Johnston errors.

Junior high festivities went great: A solid weekend (low attendance), followed by a fun family picnic.

The personal saga that was running parallel was a different story told in three chapters:

Chapter 1: OUCH!
In between our two Sunday morning services, I was climbing high about the ground in our JH storage area (a gated, fenced, enclosed area) and as I was climbing down, I decided to push off and jump backward the rest of the way like you down when climbing down a fence. All was fine until my butt landed on the corner of a piece of plywood sticking out from where it was being stored. I completely ripped the entire left side of my pants and my butt was totally exposed and there was a foot long gash running all the way up! To say it hurt would be an understatement. When my buddy, Matt Hall, looked at to "ASSes" the damage, he broke down laughing like a little baby. Today, my butt is swollen and sore.

Chapter 2: LOST!
After church, I was shopping for the picnic and put my Cell phone in a nifty little tray in the shopping cart created just for such items. Of course I left it there and didn't realize it till several hours later. I called the store and they hadn't seen it.

Chapter 3: DANG!
I got to the park with a truckload of supplies only to find the parking lot completely packed due to a soccer tourney. I decided to back into a handicapped spot just long enough to unload the gear so I could avoid lugging it too far. As I was unloading, a policeman came up and starting writing a ticket! I tried to explain that I wasn't 'Parked' in a handicap spot but was just 'unloading' he told me there is zero tolerance and proceeded to write me a $275.00 ticket!

But now I'm in Phoenix for two days of golf with friends so all is well. As long as my butt lets me swing a golf club.

The Annual WOW Awards

Tonight is our 3rd annual WOW Awards Ceremony. The WOW Awards is a night put on by our church to honor our volunteers. We run it sorta like an Academy Awards night with hosts, presenters from each department etc. I never seem to look forward to it, and really don't think our junior high volunteers need the night because we do a pretty good job of honoring them all year round, but I always end enjoying the night and our volunteers do, too.

After the WOW Awards, we are having an after party at Fudruckers which will be a fun way to cap off the event. WOW..it's going to be a long night!

Junior High Ministry 101: The Importance Of 'The Feel'

A couple of years ago Chap Clark made the following comment at a gathering of middle school youth workers:

"In ministry to young teens, the feel of the ministry is more important than the content."

That comment launched us into a discussion around the idea that creating a ministry that feels safe, accepting, comforting, etc. is actually more important than the content you teach because of the crazy place young teens are at developmentally.

I think I agree with Chap. That isn't to say biblical instruction, learning doctrine etc. don't play a part in junior high ministry; they do. It is to say, however, that how a ministry feels to a young teen is equally important (so maybe I don't agree that it's 'more important', but that it is equally important). Creating positive memories, building relationships, creating a safe place to ask questions and share doubts, providing lots of experiential learning, surrounding students with caring adults etc. are crucial pieces of an effective junior high ministry.

If we can create an atmosphere in our ministry that is comfortable to junior highers during the 2-3 toughest years of their lives, we'll probably keep them around for years to come which will provide plenty of time for deeper content.

Worship Conference

Each year, at the end of June, our church hosts a fantastic worship conference. I know nothing about music, I have no idea what a good worship conference looks like, but people who do know that kind of stuff have told me that this conference is a great one. If you happen to be a local youth worker and are interested in taking some of your students, track me down. I can get you a special student rate that is not advertised on the website.

Weekend Wrap Up

I wasn't at church this weekend due to our anniversary escape and haven't heard the details.

- It was the last weekend for Stephen Perry, an intern who is on his way to a full time middle school position in West Palm Beach. He spoke, and I'm sure he did a great job.

- We opened up registration for all of our Summer events, camps as well as small groups for next year.

That's about all I know. Rachel and I borrowed a convertible bug (thanks, Karen) for the weekend and spent two super lazy days driving around the beach, visiting open houses, eating good food and enjoying each other's company. church really was the farthest thing from my mind!

Random Ramblings

- Sixteen years ago today, I married the beautiful Rachel Salzman. Today Rachel Johnston is more beautiful than ever.

- I took the weekend off for our anniversary, but we can't figure out what to do.

- We're beginnng to look for ways to make our student ministries team feel a little more like one team instead of two competely seperate silos. It feels challenging and I'd love to hear from anybody who has made progress in this area.

- Changing our youth service times in a couple of weeks to try to make room on campus on Sunday mornings: Our Current Youth Times are Saturday @ 6:30, Sunday @ 9:00, 11:15, 4:30
Our New Times: Saturday @ 4:30 & 6:30, Sunday @ 9:00.

- 'Pirates': I hate the ride at Disney Land, didn't really like the first movie, haven't seen the second, therefore have no desire to see the third.

- I knew this day would come: I'm getting burned out on Chic-Fil-A (the food, NOT the sweet tea).

- My son has really been struggling at school this year. At the same time, he has developed a love for guitar and seems to be excelling at it. Several months ago we agreed that if things turned around at school we would purchase an electric guitar. I'm thrilled that with only 2 weeks left in school, it looks like I need to find some guitar money.

- We've been wrestling with the fact that we charge over $350.00 for a week of Summer camp. It just feels like too much. I just received a brochure for a weeklong Christian surf camp. The cost: $1,200.00.