Gotta A Game?

Send In A Game And Get $100.00 In Downloads!
Simply Youth Ministry is set to create a new edition of "Game On!" and is looking for games. If you submit a game that ends up being one of the 24 used in the new resource, SYM will give you $100 worth of free downloads. Here's the criteria:
- Game must be original
- Include a title for the game, a brief supplies/cost list, an "objective of the game" that summarizes it and a clear, easy to understand explanation.
- Games need to be games that can be played indoors and can be group games, mixers, team challenges, individual physical challenges, etc.
- Submit your game to Nadim at Nadim@simplyyouthministry.com by Friday, September 19th and be sure to include contact information so you can be notified if your game is used.

24 Hour Blitz

Our junior high team is away for a 24 fall planning retreat. Fine-tuning and clarifying roles, planning the fall calendar of events and teaching topics, and creative brainstorming are all part of our schedule.

So far we have talked about what real teamwork looks like, added a few really exciting events and activities, made a little tweak to our small group schedule and eliminated a highly successful sacred cow (after at least an hour of seriously passionate conversation and debate). We have three hours together this morning to finish the tasks at hand.

In my opinion, this fall is shaping up to be fairly different than any in the past but quite a bit more exciting, too.

Random Randomness

Things that I have spent anywhere from 10 seconds to 10 minutes thinking about today:

- Internships: What makes them a win/win (a win for intern and the ministry)?
- Internships: Do they have to be two years long to be effective?
- Olympics: Crazy how a communist country ripe with human rights violations can look so appealing on television and under a certain spotlight.
- Starbucks: Why am I here instead of Peete's?
- Communicating to teenagers: Is it as important part of a youth ministry program as we think it is?
- Youth Pastors: What are the top 3 or 4 qualities of a truly effective one...one that can be successful in any size church and setting?
- Student Leadership programs: Ugg! So important, but are they really? Do they ever accomplish what we hope they will?
- Coffee: Why does it result in such bad breath?
- Public restrooms: Even though they all have that little chart that shows who cleaned it and how often...they are usually nasty.
- Leadership: So many books, and 'irrefutable laws', but certainly there are a handful of non-negotiables?

Mistakes Can Be A Springboard

Just saw this interesting list of the 10 worst gadgets of all time. Fun, little piece, but I would have LOVED if it included some list of what these products ultimately led to. My hunch is that some of them, though huge flops, were actually the predecessors to some pretty sweet stuff.

Can you think of a time a significant ministry "flop" turned out to be a springboard for something really great?

Great New Junior High Resources!

Middle School Talksheets
If I remember correctly, Youth Specialties has been publishing Talksheets since somewhere around the mid 80's. If you are looking for a GREAT way to get your middle schoolers talking about and engaged in your lesson, it's tough to beat Talksheets. The newest edition by Terry Linhart focuses on the life of Jesus.

My Changes and My Future (from the Middle School Survival series)
This six-book series comes to a close with the final two books written by Mark Ostreicher and Scott Rubin. Now that the series is complete, I'm hoping they package them in a cool "box set" parents can give their junior highers.

Group's Emergency Response Handbook
This book is about a year old, but somehow I just stumbled upon it and....WOW! Full of one-page insights into how to minister and respond to issues of grief, divorce, gender identity, addictions and more. On Group's site, it looks like maybe this is only available as a download, but I'm sure there is a way to get hard copy if you'd like. This is a book I would put in the hands of every volunteer in your ministry.

Gentle Reminders That I'm Getting Older

Today I was reminded that I'm getting older by...

- Taking my soon-to-be freshmen daughter to her new high school to meet with counselor to discuss class schedule etc.

- Spending about an hour outdoors today cleaning my side yard. It's going to take about 3 hours in my air-conditioned house to recover.

- Talking to my neighbor who recently suffered a stroke and had heart surgery...he's only about 10 years older than me.

- Grumbling under my breath as my son decided to trade a bunch of his video games etc. in at Game Stop to get a PSP. His other stuff is perfectly good and they don't fetch much value in trade-in (I hear my dad's voice in my head as i type!).

- Talking to a guy who is about to run a half marathon and realizing I couldn't even run a 1/10th marathon!

Random Randomness

I'm on a short vacation to Palm Springs so not thinking too much about anything very blog-worthy.

- Week 7 of our Summer Series "Full Service Summer" was smooth. Each summer we do a 10-week series and, depending on the series we pick, it can either be incredible or start to feel way, way too long. This summer has been really good. I think the key to long series is to have some sort of "umbrella" theme but let each lesson stand on it's own...trying to build off of each lesson for too long is where we seem to run into problems.

- Saw Wal-E last night and was pleasantly surprised. Such limited dialogue made good story telling a must.

- Check out Zombo.com (S.O. To Erik Williams)

- The first part of our vacation is exactly the kind I like: Lazy, nice hotel, swimming, movies, sleeping in (although I have a hard time doing that), eating out, reading...just being lazy. The highlight today will be the super fancy all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet.

- The second part of our vacation will entail a bunch of chores and projects around the house. Cleaning the side yard, pulling weeds, cleaning up planters, working on dirt bikes to get ready for riding season. Not nearly as fun or lazy as part one.

Xgames Gold Medal

Kyle Loza, a GREAT young man who grew up in our youth ministry (he broke his ankle at junior high camp bombing a massive hill on a dirt board), won the gold medal at X-games for best trick in freestyle MotoX for the second year in a row. If you haven't seen this you'll need to watch it a few times to comprehend.

Summer Camp Reminds Me...

Summer Camp Reminds Me That...

- A good jr. high camp speaker is clear, simple, and short. Ours this week has been all three.
- My wife is a really good cook.
- Junior high boys cabins have always and will always smell like warm feet.
- Organized recreation brings out the very best and very worst in people.
- Junior high girls cry very easily, and so do their counselors.
- Paintballs hurt.
- Pranks always start off innocent enough and always escalate out of control.
- "Lights Out" really means "Okay gang now is the time we suggest you begin to start thinking about getting ready for bed....brush your teeth, take a shower, play some games, wrestle, go for a night hike and then turn your lights out in a few hours."
- Most of our students live life at a really frantic pace and slowing down for a week is good medicine.
- God is in control, that he is a very present creator, that he loves his creation very much, that he has a unique, remarkable plan for every one of our students and we are privileged he allows us to play a small part in that plan.

Monday Miscellaneous

- We had a GREAT weekend in our junior high ministry. The lesson felt good (Car Battery..."How To Re-charge When You Feel Drained"), the games were fun, music was great and our live "bit" that we've been doing each week during the lesson was one of the strongest yet. But, perhaps the highlight of the week was that we finally had some acoustics installed in the ceiling of our room which made the sound much, much, much better. I was amazed at how much more attentive and involved the crowd was, which is logical since they could actually hear what was being said from stage!

- We're up at camp right now. The first night was great and day two seems to be off to a good start. Tons of kids who are new to our church and youth group. This is our 11th year at Thousand Pines and I'm still convinced it's the best camp experience for our group.

- News you've probably already heard: Youth Specialties has joined forces with Mark Matlock and Wisdom Works. Two really, really great organizations that, together, will do make a great team as they look for ways to minister directly to kids. Good stuff.

- One of my weird, quirky, favorite things about heading up to Thousand Pines is the library of old ministry-related books in the house I stay at. I stumbled across one today written 25 years ago. The topic: How the 'battle' between the fundamentalists and the more liberal theology is poised to rip apart evangelicalism as we know it. The back cover suggests this book offers a practical reminder about what evangelicals should, and shouldn't cling to. Not sure I'll read the whole thing, but it sure seems like it may have been more prophetic than people probably realized back in '83.

For Those Who Love Sports

In what has to be the slowest time of the year for sports fans, this selection of recent sports pictures itched my scratch.

Of course it was the first one that caught my attention. Denver Bronco Rod Smith's retirement brought tears to my eyes, too.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

THE GOOD:
Spent most of the day today visiting our three regional campuses at their high school summer camp. We take our junior highers to the same camp next week, so it was an added bonus to get a sneak peak ahead of time. Our three regional campuses are doing a great job and it was really fun to spend a little time with the staff and students from those campuses.

THE BAD:
It was really, really hot. We left right when organized rec. time was starting and I couldn't bare the thought of 400 high schoolers being forced to create cheers, run around with banners and compete for cheesy points. The camp does a great job with rec, but to me camp rec always equals bad. Am I alone in that sentiment?

THE UGLY:
I'll be the first to admit that my youth ministry mindset is often one of "anything you can do, we can do better". While visiting the camp today it didn't take long for me to switch from a mindset of "I'm just here to visit some of my team and students" to "I'm going to critique each aspect of camp and come up with reasons we could provide a better camp by doing it ourselves." I get that part of my role is to provide the best possible experiences for my students and to ensure they are getting their money's worth at events etc. But it is shocking to me how quickly and easily I judge and criticize the efforts of other Christ-loving brothers and sisters who, at the end of the day, have the same goals for my students as I do. I DON'T want to run camp and I'm so thankful we go to an incredible camp that does an incredible job.

Junior High Ministry Prizes

Here are a few things I probably would have given away as prizes 10 years ago that I couldn't get away with today.
- Squirting Cigarettes
- Switchblade Comb
- Potato Gun

Obama and McCain Civil Forum

The rumors have been confirmed. On August 16th, Saddleback will host both candidates in a civil forum. Rick Warren will lead the discussion. Should be interesting.

Monday Miscellaneous

- This weekend was week #5 of our 'Full Service Summer' series. Overall, it was a great weekend. Bethany, a member of our JH team taught a great lesson on how to put the brakes on temptation. It was the first weekend of the Summer that attendance was fairly low.

- Wasted most of the evening last night watching the Deadliest Catch marathon.

- Kayla is at Disneyland, and Cole is at a buddy's house so Rachel and I spent some time on a 'date' shopping for sales on riding gear. Bought two new helmets and a jersey.

- Tomorrow we say goodbye to Allison Hibbard. Allison grew up in our junior high ministry, served as an intern for two years after college and has spent the last 5 years as a member of our full-time team. She's moving to Kenya for six months. Not sure what our ministry will be like without her.

Friday; And I'm Wondering...

...What the easiest way to lose 10 pounds is. I've heard you can loose it just by drinking water instead of soda. For the first time in my life, I'm a little heavier than I want to be.

...If Heath Ledger is really as good in Dark Knight as we've been hearing. We'll find out tonight.

...Why Cherry Coke and Sweet Tea have such a grip on me. Most likely the reason I need to lose 10 pounds.

...How many of the "core" kids in my ministry have ever had a spiritual conversation with one of their friends.

...When our junior high ministry will have a new intern or two. This is the first time in several years that we've been without. Intersted?

...Why CBS cancelled 'Cane' after one season. A decent show that, I think, would have picked up steam.

...If the ministry I lead has done a good job recently of loving, thanking, encouraging our volunteers. Our ministry would fail to exist if it weren't for them.

Encouraging Kids To Serve

At the PDYM student leadership conference we have had two teenage guests who are both making a significant impact for the kingdom share their stories.

Bethany Hamilton is the young woman from Hawaii who was attacked by a Shark a few years ago while surfing, and lost an arm as a result. Bethany had a promising career ahead of her and was tagged as one of the best up and coming female surfers. Since the attack, Bethany has refused to give up the sport she loves and has continued to climb the professional surfing ranks. She also travels the world sharing her incredible story and her love for Jesus.

Austin Gutwein is the high school freshman who started Hoops of Hope when he was 10 years old. Hoops of hope raises money for children orphaned by HIV. Austin loves basketball and decided he could get others to join him in a 'shoot-a-thon' to make a difference in the world.

Bethany is using something that happened to her to make a difference in the world and Austin is using something he's passionate about.

What a simple way to encourage our students that they can make a difference. When God allows crazy things to happen to us, it is an opportunity to use that experience to encourage others. When God puts passions in our lives, we can use those passions to encourage others. Every single student in your ministry has one or the other or both!

What Do The Experts Know Anyway!

I was snooping around CPYU.Org and stumbled across this recent list of Top 10 television shows.

Rank TV Program Audience (in millions)

1. America's Got Talen t (NBC) 12
2. Wipeout (ABC) 9.5
3. Criminal Minds (CBS) 9.1
4. So You Think You Can Dance - Thu. (Fox) 8.8
5. CSI: NY (CBS) 8.5
6. Two and a Half Men (CBS) 8.5
7. 60 Minutes (CBS) 8.2
8. House (Fox) 8.1
9. CSI: Miami (CBS) 8
10.Hell's Kitchen (Fox) 8
Source: Neilsen Media Research

Do you remember several years ago when the "Reality T.V." craze kicked into high gear? At the time, most television experts and pundits went on the record as saying that reality tv would only last a year or two. It's interesting that in the list above, 4 of the top 10 tv shows are reality shows. In fact, 3 of the top 4 fall into the category!

The lesson: Experts and pundits aren't always right. Every field has its experts, and in every field, those experts can often be wrong in their assessments and predictions. Youth ministry is no different. And is often the case in other fields, the youth ministry experts, pundits and predictors of things to come are often far removed from the real world of youth ministry. I appreciate the wisdom and observations of men and women who observe trends, society, theology and try to help us figure out where it's all heading. But I also realize that they can be wrong. It doesn't make them less smart or less authoritative, just wrong sometimes.

Keep reading, keep going to seminars, keep talking to people you respect. But don't change your entire ministry based on what today's hot youth ministry topic is among the experts.

When I look at that list I notice a couple things:
First, things change and progress, and that's vital to progress.
Second, while some things change, lots of things stay the same.

Perhaps that's not a bad way to look at youth ministry.

Some questions to chew on:
- What things in your specific ministry have changed that you didn't expect?
- What things did you think would have changed by now that haven't?
- What things desperately need to change and you are willing to make it happen?
- What things must never change?

Monday Miscellaneous

- Week 4 of "Full Service Summer" went really, really well. Heading into the weekend, I didn't love my lesson and after teaching it twice on Saturday night I really didn't love my lesson. But I was kinda stuck with it so headed into Sunday committed to giving it my best shot for final two services. My final evaluation of my lesson is this: Students seemed to like it and my insecurity of wanting to always be funny and captivating made me feel like this lesson wasn't very good because it wasn't as funny or captivating as normal. We had great attendance, games were fun, music was great, and the horrific acoustics in the gym couldn't even hold us back...even though they tried really, really hard.

- Played poker last night (we never play for money...just for fun). I went "All In" in the third hand and got schooled. My three Aces got beat by a straight. Needless to say I was home sitting next to Rachel on the couch much earlier than planned.

- I'm reading The Shack and, to be honest, I'm a little disappointed. Disappointed only because I expected it to be either the most amazing, world shaking and spiritually inspirational book of all time (based on what so many people say) or the most heretical, blasphemous, faith-wrecking book of all time (based on what so many people say). It is what it is: A good read with some great inspiration wrapped in a creative allegory.

- Spending the morning this morning working on my general session message for our PDYM student leadership conference. I feel nervous and unprepared and I believe I speak the session right before Francis Chan which will certainly set him up to look REALLY good! Better that I go before him than after him, I suppose. Wow, insecurity about teaching seems to be a recurring theme for me lately.

- Hoping to go for an afternoon surf today which would be the third time this week. I love Summer.

If Junior High Youth Group Was Like Costco

....Kids would need a membership card to get in (bummer)
....Grace, encouragement, acceptance etc. would come in mass quantities (brilliant)
...It would be well organized (brilliant)
...Some offerings would never change, but lots of things would be rotated out (brilliant)
...The stuff we sell at our snack shack would be the best deal in town! (brilliant)
...There would be lots of kids on the outside looking in (bummer)

Okay, that's about all I've got. It sounded like an easy analogy but maybe not. Shoot us your contributions!

Junior High-Friendly Resource

Even though '10-Minute Talks' wasn't written specifically for junior high workers, I think it could be an incredible tool for people who work with young teens. What JH youth worker couldn't use a couple dozen short, sweet, simple lessons to keep on hand for when they find themselves in a pinch? I have a feeling I'll grab this book far too often!

Random Randomness

- This week is flying buy! I've been gone since Tuesday morning on our annual "Burly" trip for JH guys. We limit the trip to 50 students and try to beef up on leaders so the event feels highly relational.

- Last weekend was week 3 of our "Full Service Summer" series. The object lesson was on the Exhaust Pipe. Application: Our outside actions, attitudes and words are closely related to what's going on "under our hood".

- Saw Hancock with a couple buddies on Saturday night. Above average but not great. The best part of Hancock (and, in my opinion often the best part of most movies he's in) was Jason Bateman. He has slowly become my favorite actor.

- I often say that junior high ministry is more about "long term fruit" than what you see in the moment. A recent example for us is Kathryn. Kathryn was in our ministry about 10 years ago. She went away to college, struggled in her faith for a bit and has returned this summer as a volunteer in our ministry. Her faith is strong and her servant's heart is amazing. She points to her junior high years in our ministry as key to her life experience. A great reminder of importance of young teen ministry.

- On Monday night our family went to the beach. It was the first time I've surfed in several months and I am still sore! It's amazing how quickly one gets out of 'surf shape'. The highlight of the night was watching Kayla and Cole paddle into their own waves.

Interesting Survey About High School Personas

It turns out that your persona in high school (nerd, jock, cheerleader, etc.) has strong influence on your future career. Read more about it here.

I had a hard time placing myself in a specific category...I was a weird mix of the entire bunch. I guess that's why I'm I weird mix today.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

THE GOOD:
The past couple of weeks have been like a breath of fresh air to me. Because it's summertime and because of our crazy schedule, I have been more "hands on" with our junior high ministry than I have in quite a while. I've always been really involved in most of the bigger day to day stuff, but in order to pull everything off in this season I've been doing everything from building stage props to shopping for prizes to coming up with the game ideas to working the information booth....you name it, and I've had my hands in it. I'm not sure it's been good for everybody else to have me up close and personal, but it's been GREAT for my own joy factor.

THE BAD:
As amazing as our new facility is, one thing stands out as HORRIBLE....the acoustics in our junior high room. Because of budget constraints, we eliminated acoustic treatments about a year ago while we were building. But the sound is so bad in our room that without some solution, I really believe we run the risk of attendance dropping. Students simply have to work too hard to clearly hear what's going on.

THE UGLY:
Last weekend during my lesson there was a brand new crop of cute little 7th grade girls sitting right up front. During most of my lesson they were talking fairly loudly amongst themselves. In a moment of weakness I called them out in front of entire group, which isn't the ugly part. The ugly part was my attitude and super sarcastic tone. Here's what I said (please read in your most sarcastic tone of voice):
"Hey you girls wouldn't happen to be brand new 7th graders would you? Yes? Oh, that explains why you're so immature and squirrley. Here in Junior High, we actually try to be respectful when somebody else is talking."
Ouch. Needless to say they didn't interrupt my lesson after that. The only redeeming piece of that story is that I tracked them down after service to apologize for the way I handled the situation which seemed to earn me some favor and grace.

Monday Miscellaneous

- Our second weekend in our new building was MUCH smoother than our first. We managed to iron out lots and lots of wrinkles, which felt really good.

- Week 2 of "Full Service Summer" went well. The object lesson for the week was the steering wheel and the lesson was built around the idea of steering your life and choices God's way. The acoustics in the junior high room are really bad which adds some significant challenges, but we'll get that dialed in. Our new 7th graders don't seem quite as tiny and nervous as usual...they are jumping right in!

- Couldn't resist the temptation to see Wanted with the guys the other night. I should have. Too dark for my taste.

- We drive two big SUVs (one was a gift and the other might as well have been...)and the price of gas is killing me. I've never been called an environmentalist, but my conscious is beginning to question the need to burn oil at the rate we do. Of course I'm honest enough to acknowledge that my concerns about the environment seem to have only increased as the price of gas has!

- The car I want to replace my Expedition with is a Scion XB. Anybody have one or have any informed opinions?

- Looking forward to a super lazy day off. Absolutely nothing planned.

Popular Podcast Topic: What To Do When You're New

A couple of months ago I recorded a podcast with Leo Galarza, who at the time was brand new to Saddleback as one of our regional campus youth pastors. The subject was "What to do when you're new". Super basic, sound input that garnered lots of feedback. I thought I'd post it here in case you missed it.

Finally Summer

Now that we have moved into our new building and now that promotion weekend is behind us, it is FINALLY time to start the Summer season. This Summer, more than any other, we are adhering to the "Cheap and Easy" philosophy of events. Other than our Summer camp and one other over-nighter, all of our events are super cheap and super easy for students to attend. No sign ups, just show up.

The trend with our families seems to be the more spontaneous they can be with their decesion to attend an event, the better the attendance. I wish they planned for youth activities the way they plan for sports and school events, but they just don't. We decided to quit fighting the system and try to join it. So things like dodgeball, frisbee golf on campus, open Refinery nights, meet us at the park etc. are quickly becoming Summer-time staples.

Would be curious to hear your thoughts and experiences...

Lemonade Burglar

A couple of days ago, I saw some really young kids selling lemonade on a fairly busy street corner and thought to myself, "man, I wonder if lemonade stands ever get robbed".
Today I saw this story.
Don't mess with 12-year-olds and their livelihood!

Monday Miscellaneous

- Saw Get Smart on Friday night. Fun, but average. Updating classics always seems to be a risky business.

- We opened our new student center, The Refinery this weekend and it was unbelievable. The energy level was off the charts. Additionally, we brought back our fourth youth service (Sundays at 11:15) that we eliminated a year ago. The result: almost 150 extra junior highers. Well worth the effort.

- I went home SUPER sick after the 11:15 service and missed the final night of our church-wide grand opening tours. Our team has been working around the clock for several weeks and even though I felt like I was on my death bed, it felt terrible to not be there with them.

- Our Summer series, Full Service, kicked off fairly well. Each week we will look at a different car part and build an object lesson around it. Should be fun.

- I think I want some ice cream.

Box Boy

This picture pretty much summarizes my life for the past week. In a hectic rush to get the Refinery open for last night's "sneak peak" and this weekend's student ministry programs, Our entire team has been on site chipping in.

What I haven't done this week:

- Thought about the budget of our summer events.
- Looked at our summer camp registration list.
- Participated in church staff meetings of any kind.
- Returned a phone call from my executive pastor.
- Worked on my weekend lesson.
- Met with an upset parent.
- Debated elders over the importance of valuing the young teens of the church.

What I have done this week:

- Assembled air hockey tables.
- Broke down and discarded truckloads of cardboard boxes.
- Swept, power washed, swept, power washed.
- Broke down and discarded truckloads of cardboard boxes.
- Moved hundreds chairs and tables
- Broke down and discarded truckloads of cardboard boxes.
- Assembled concrete picnic tables
- And I think that was all just yesterday!

It's been one of the best weeks of ministry in a long time!

Dear Blog

Dear Blog,
I'm sorry that you and I haven't been spending much time together lately. It's not that I have lost interest or moved onto something sexier, it's just that I've been busy lately. I still think of you and long to spend time with you but you know how life can get. This isn't a 'Dear John' letter and I hope you can trust me when I say that you mean just as much to me today as you ever have. In fact, I hope our relationship is strong enough to weather a slightly stormy season.
Blog, I enjoy our friendship and look forward to continuing to see it flourish. I will still try to visit you on a daily basis to catch up but when that can't happen, please understand that it is only for a short time.

Love,
Kurt

Monday Miscellaneous

- Said farewell to our 8th graders this past weekend, my daughter being one of them. Spent the time between each service giving more "check book tours" of our new building.

- Today, all hands were on deck at 7:00 a.m. (haven't had a day off in several weeks) to begin the grunt work of moving in furniture, assembling things, cleaning, vacuuming, moving piles of sand and numerous other last minute projects to get ready for first grand opening tour this Thursday night.

- Heard an interesting question earlier: Who do you think is facing bigger odds: Rocco Mediate against Tiger Woods or Lakers winning two against Boston at home? My vote goes to Lakers facing tougher odds.

- Kung Fu Panda: Go see it.

- Today is Kayla's 14th Birthday. A bunch of her friends surprised her with an early morning kidnapping. She really does have a fantastic inner circle of friends who treat each other well, and look out for each other.

- Our junior high department just traded our old, beat-up RV for a sweet 1976 Ford Ranchero that will double as a utility truck for our ministry. I think it gets about 5 gallons to the mile!

- I have suddenly lost a bunch of my interest in the political race. I just can't get excited about either candidate. Not sure I love the type of change I think Obama represents (although I do like his charisma) but don't care much for the status quo that I think McCain represents either (not sure he knows what the word charisma means). What to do.

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

THE GOOD:
After more than four years in the making, we are slated to move into The Refinery (our new student ministry center) next weekend, June 21-22 which happens to be the first weekend of the Summer and also our promotion weekend. The place is amazing and energy and anticipation are at an all time high.

THE BAD:
There are still quite a few loose ends, specifically the certificate of occupancy. Yesterday the fire marshall walked through and gave us a fairly short list of things that needed to be fixed. Every day that we wait for the green light to "move in" means one less day for all the stuff we need to do before our first programs in just over a week. It's kinda like getting the keys to a house. At that moment, the building will be ours but we have to get it cleaned up, set up, organized, tweaked etc.

THE UGLY:
Because we have so much promo in our church body and the community announcing the grand opening date, I cringe to think about the consequences if we miss our deadline.

LIVE Bible Update

Yesterday, when I posted about Group's new LIVE Bible, I was having trouble downloading information from the website so I linked to Amazon instead. Here is the link to a much better description (including a video) on the Group site.

New Bible For Students!

For years and years and years, the bible we have recommended and sold to our junior highers has been the Life Application for Teens. And for the last couple of years I've felt like it may be time to make a switch, but I love the Life Application so much that I just haven't been able to find something that I like enough to warrant replacing my old friend.

Part of my struggle has been that so many Bibles for teens are just plain dorky, and not something I get excited about selling to my students. That's always been part of the allure of the Life Application for Teens; it's simple, classic, and great for teenagers.

Today at the Large Church Youth Ministry Summit at Group Publishing, they put something in our hands that has me questioning my loyalty to the Life Application Bible. The LIVE Bible (not sure I love the name. Is it live as in "Wow, this bible makes me feel like I'm listening to Jesus' voice live and in person." or is it live as in "Wow, this bible really helps me live like Jesus."?) is fresh, trendy looking, edgy, but not dorky and full of really neat features such as artwork contributed by students, stickers to customize the cover, great insights etc. And best of all, it seems really junior high friendly.

My hunch is that after almost a decade of faithful service to our students, I will be trading in the Life Application Bible for The Live Bible....if I can figure out how to pronounce the name!

Monday Miscellaneous

- Crazy, but amazing weekend! We wrapped up our "Heroes" series with a lesson about the men who brought their paralyzed friend to Jesus. In addition to our usual jh program, we were giving "checkbook tours" of the Refinery before and after every service. Additionally we hosted our end-of-the-school year volunteer appreciation BBQ. So needless to say things were a bit hectic.

- Saw Kung-Fu Panda with my family over the weekend. I gotta say, I think it is one of the more enjoyable animated films I've ever seen. Just dumb, silly humor.

- As of last week, our junior high ministry officially has ZERO interns for the first time in about 5 years. In the past we've had as many as five at a time so this feels fairly foreign. If you know anybody who would be interested in a two year internship, pass them my way!

- Not sure the Lakers can come back from an 0-2 start to the series. Because of how both teams have played in the playoffs, I honestly thought the Lakers would take the championship easily.

- Had a really nasty hotel experience last night: I arrived to my room at about 1:30 a.m. only to find that the bed had been made but sheets not cleaned....dirty, hairy, totally gross. There was no housekeeping available at that hour so the front desk handed me a set of clean sheets and pillow cases so I could change them myself. Truly a disgusting scene.

...And The Winner Is

Okay, after sifting through the "You might be a junior high youth worker if..." entries I noticed that the vast majority of them fell into one of two categories: Classic, timeless bits and bits using current culture as the context. Because of this, I decided to award TWO winners. A winner from each category will receive $50 in resources from Simply Junior High.

CLASSIC, TIMELESS CATEGORY:
"You have a budget category entitled "Damage Repair".
contributed by Corey Willoughby

CURRENT CULTURE CATEGORY:
"You have students who are 12 years old at youth group, but 26 on facebook." Contributed by lifeline leaders

Congratulations! Please shoot me an email at Kurtj@saddleback.net and I'll reply with information to claim your prize.

CONTEST: You Might Be A Junior High Youth Worker If...

- You've ever been blamed for the new stain on the fellowship hall carpet.
- You've ever been caught toilet papering your senior pastor's house.
- You've ever found your left eye twitching uncontrollably during a lock-in.
- You've ever purposely hit a 7th grader in the head during dodge ball.
- Quality time away for you and your spouse really means driving in the same van to camp.
- Your day off is spent staring into the mirror and chanting, "I'm smart enough, I'm good enough, and doggone it, people like me" over and over again.
- You've ever blocked the jump shot of a tiny little 6th grade girl and shouted "In Your Face!" at the top of your lungs.
- You've ever been asked when you're going to get a real job.

Add one or two of your own...The winner will receive $50 in free resources from Simply Junior High.

Time For A Check Up

This morning, I had a great disucssion with Josh Griffin, our high school pastor, about our current small group structure at Saddleback. We talked about strengths and weaknesses, follow up, curriculum, developing leaders, quality control etc. It was actually a really energizing conversation because, quite frankly, our groups have been going so well for so long that we haven't done a real good critique of them in quite a while.

Which leads to a question that may be worth asking yourself: What are areas in your ministry that are working well that may need a check up?

I'm great at evaluating and improving on the weak areas of my ministry, but this morning's conversation reminded me that even some of the strongest aspects of our ministry need to be examined on a regular basis.

Monday Miscellaneous

- Yesterday, Rachel and I celebrated 17 incredible years of marriage. To list the ways my life is better because of her would require a book, not a simple blog post.

- We were away on a short anniversary getaway, so I missed the junior high programs this weekend, but the team said they were amazing. We brought the sixth graders over a few weeks early for a "sneak peak" of our program which included a guided tour of our new youth center that is set to open in a few weeks.

- Speaking of the youth center, "The Refinery" is unbelievable. It's a state-of-the-art facility that is, frankly, mind blowing. I must be one of a handful of youth pastors in the country who get to minister in such a facility. But, It's just a building. I've been working hard to keep sending the message to our youth team and others that ministry to students is still all about building relationships, not building buildings.

- The revised and updated version of "Controlled Chaos", now titled "Middle School Ministry Made Simple" is set to release in August. I should be honored and excited that Standard Publishing believes in it enough to give it another run (it's about 35% new material), but I'm actually feeling really conflicted over the whole situation for a couple of reasons.

- Shameless Plug Warning! If you work with middle school students, you really should subscribe to the Simply Junior High Newsletter. It's packed with a ton of insight, tidbits and encouragement. If you don't work directly with young teens, buy it for somebody you know who does.

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The Good:
Our student ministry team has been expanding (new regional campuses, a few newer hires, etc.) but it feels like we are starting to gel as a group. I'm a believer that "fit" is more crucial than "skill" on a team and I feel like our team fits together well and is well skilled at what they do.

The Bad:
Each year, we take a retreat with our youth team and spouses. It's a major highlight for us because we get to hang out, relax and gear up for Summer. Unfortunately because of the schedule of our new student center opening we had to change our dates this year at the 11th hour. The result: A few of our team had already mad plans and couldn't change them. I absolutely HATE that my poor planning results in them missing out.

The Ugly:
I feel like our students and their families are under major attack. Divorces, sudden deaths and "run aways" have been on the increase lately. I hold onto the belief that when amazing things are about to happen, Satan gets busy.

A Hidden Jewel

On our mission trip, we were staying at a local church about 20 minutes away from the reservation youth center. Friday night as I was exploring the church, I stumbled upon a large room that was set up for a massive Rummage sale the next morning. To know me is to know that I absolutely love Garage sales and all things second-hand and cheap. I couldn't resist the temptation to browse around to see what I might find. As I snooped around, I stumbled upon a notebook from the early 90's titled "Teen Clinic" by a gentleman named Dave Ray. It looked like....well it looked like an entire teen clinic in a notebook. How could I resist! I put $3.00 in the little jar and headed back to our group, my head filled up with wonder and anticipation of what this "Teen Clinic" may hold in store. I haven't started reading it yet, but I will....oh yes, I will.

Random Randomness

Missions Trip:
Our missions trip to the reservation in AZ was great. Aside from the usual missions trip highlights, a highlight for me was the fact that a huge percentage of the students that attended the trip were kids who aren't super involved in our ministry. Many of them were kids who I've never really met so I had a great time learning new names, hearing new stories and all that good stuff.

Weekend Program:
It was week two of our "Heroes" series and our subject was the "Sinful Woman" (the woman who poured her perfume on Jesus' feet). Jason Petty, one of our high school pastors taught and did a fantastic job.

Small Group Curriculum:
I'm spending all day tomorrow editing/tweaking/re-writing 10 scripts for small group video curriculum for next school year. We're setting aside two days in a couple of weeks to try to film all 10...YIKES. But, our leaders and students seem to really like the stuff so it is time well spent.

New Regional Campus:
This weekend we will launch student ministries on our 3rd regional campus in Corona, a community about 45 minutes East. Sadly, I won't be able to be at the launch because I'll be on vacation.

Coke:
It's time to make it official: I have switched my loyalty from Pepsi to Coke. Even typing this makes me feel disloyal and like I'm betraying an old friend. I'm sorry, Pepsi.

Apache Indians...Here We Come!

I'm leaving in about an hour on our Mission trip to AZ to partner with a youth center on an Apache Indian reservation. I'm going along with a team of four dads as part of the "early crew" who will shop for food, supplies, meet with the leader of the youth center etc. so we're ready to go when our students arrive tomorrow night.

Likely won't be posting much over the long weekend.

Grappling For Resources?

Jr. High Grapple, a new resource from Group Publishing has me really, really interested. Much more than merely curriculum it is an online community, gives students a chance to vote for upcoming program elements and more.

I'll be really interested to see how this resource is received and used....I love the idea, but it also feels really different and risky, which is why I love it so much!

If you try it, I would love to hear your reports.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I've tried creating "features" in the past but I haven't had much success being faithful to them, but I'm going to try it again. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly will be a new occasional post in which I'll feature a good, a bad and an ugly from my ministry.

THE GOOD:

PRIZE WHEEL: We invested a couple hundred bucks for a decent quality spinning prize wheel. It has about 30 slots and each slot has a different prize listed. Instead of constantly buying prizes that we think kids might like (and spending way too much time and money...) we decided to buy a tub full of goofy prizes and let kids spin the wheel to see what they win. Plastic dinosaur, can of corn, rubber spatula, pair of socks etc. are all on the wheel and ready to be won. Students totally love it.

THE BAD:

WEEKEND FOLLOW UP: Man, we just can't seem to get this one right. I really want to do a better job of following up on students who attend our weekend program, but I have an aversion to mandated check in systems. The result: really poor follow up! Because we don't take it seriously, we simply aren't following up on students the way we should. I have to figure this one out...probably just sucking it up and creating a mandatory check-in of some sort.

THE UGLY:

VOLUNTEER DISILLUSIONMENT:

Had a tough meeting with a key volunteer in our ministry the other day. We mad a major decision that effected this particular volunteer significantly. While it was the right decision, his response made it clear that the process by which we made it was flawed. Flawed to the point that a significant level of trust was broken and I wanted to own our part in the process. It was one of those long, uncomfortable conversations that you hate to have but know you need to have.

Monday Miscellaneous

- Joined Twitter about a week ago. Interesting. I'm surprised that I enjoy getting frequent updates from buddies.

- This was a great weekend in our JH ministry. We kicked off our "Heroes...from average to awesome" series with a lesson on Gideon. Lots of creative elements, great music and a pretty good lesson. We had students totally engaged from start to finish.

- I'm sure I'll see Indiana Jones even though I'm not a huge fan and I've heard this one is a bit of a let down which is a bummer considering all the hype and incredible hassle to get it done.

- It's hot, hot, hot and I'm realizing that I'm not quite ready for Summer. I'm ready for all the fun it brings, just not for the heat!

- Last night, a crew of us snuck into the Refinery, our soon-to-open student center, to play the inaugural game of basketball on the new court. High temps mixed with stuffy building mixed with lack of running water. But we had a Great time.

- Not sure which I'm more excited about: Our upcoming Mission trip to the Apache Indian Reservation in AZ. or my vacation that immediately follows. I haven't taken a full week off in well over a year and we have absolutely nothing planned for this one....which is PERFECT!

Leadership Gold #5

The 5th, and final, nugget from Stanley:

“When your memories exceed your dreams, the end is near.”

- Most churches are living in the “good old days” and trying to figure out how to recapture them instead of creating new ones.

Takeaway: Don’t let past success or current momentum overshadow your vision…keep vision out in front.


Question for junior high ministry: Are you more excited about the past successes of your ministry of the future potential? What memories from the past are actually jeopardizing your future?

Twitter Dee, Twitter Dumb?

Okay, I'm not so sure about this but I got talked into trying twitter. Sounds kinda dumb, but sure seems like lots of people are lovin' it so I'll give it a shot.
www.twitter.com/kurtjohnston

If you have an account let me know and I'll follow you.

Leadership Gold #4

The fourth nugget from Andy Stanley:

“If we got kicked out and the board brought in somebody new, what would they do? Why don’t we just walk out, come back in and do it ourselves?”

- Sometimes the most obvious, important changes are the ones current leadership doesn’t see or is unwilling to make.

Takeaway: Acknowledge what’s not working and own up to why you aren’t doing anything about it.

Questions for Junior High Ministry: What’s in decline? Where are we manufacturing energy (in other words, what things are we spending way too muchtime convincing ourselves and other people are important, when nobody seems to believe that's the case)? What underlying assumptions do we have that may no longer be accurate?

Leadership Gold #3

The third random leadership thought from Andy Stanley at Drive:

“What do I believe is impossible to do in my field but if it could be done would fundamentally change my business?”

- Most great advances were once viewed as impossible or unreasonable.

Takeaway:
Pay attention to the people who are breaking the rules.

Question:
What is the “impossible dream” in your junior high ministry? What is something you want to see happen but have never been able to achieve?

Think big...what is something that can't happen, but if it could would fundamentally change junior high ministry as a whole?

Leadership Gold #2

Another of Andy Stanley's random leadership thought from his closing general session at DRIVE.

Thought #2
"The next generation product almost never comes from the previous generation."

Andy's takeaway for us:
Change is coming, and change is usually good. Most of the significant changes in ministry won't be brought about by those leading the way today. They will be brought about by the next generation of church leaders. Current church leaders need to decide if the will fight change or fund change. Older leaders need to learn to be students not just critics.

What might this mean in a junior high setting?
- How much of my current approach to junior high ministry is fresh? How much of it is simply stuff that has worked for me in the past and doesn't seem broken so I'm not really open to changing?

- How can older JH leaders begin to "fund" some of the thinking and innovation of younger leaders?

- Am I willing to learn from younger leaders who will usher in next season of JH ministry, or am I a critic of their way of thinking, leading etc.?

Leadership Gold

At the final General session of DRIVE, Andy Stanley decided to toss away his plans to teach on vision casting and share some of his recent random thoughts about leadership in general instead. For the next 50 minutes or so, he focused on five thing he's been pondering based on five quotes that have stuck out in his mind.
Over the next few days, I'll share super quick overview of each of these 5 leadership thoughts and throw out a question or two about how they may relate to a junior high ministry setting.

Thought #1
"To reach people no one else is reaching we must do things no one else is doing."
- Craig Groeschel; founder of Lifechurch.tv

Andy's big thought related to this quote was that obviously the majority of things church's are doing must not be what most people are interested in because most people aren't going to the things church's are doing! Even a super cool worship service must not be what most people are interested in because most people aren't going to super cool worship services...they are doing a bunch of other stuff instead.

Andy's takeaway for us: Become preoccupied with those we haven't reached instead of being preoccupied with those we are trying to keep.

What might this mean in a junior high setting?
- Does my ministry have at least as much focus on reaching un-churched kids as it does ministering to kids who already know Jesus?
- Is there a new way to begin reaching kids who don't show an interest in coming to programs?
- What is one thing that nobody else is doing for junior highers that you have the resources, passion and ability to do in your ministry?

Less Is More....no it's not, but maybe it is, isn't it?

Just sat through a workshop giving a brief overview of the middle school ministry at North Point. Pretty simple stuff:
- One weekly 65-minute program that includes two songs, a game, a 12-minute message and 25 minutes in small groups. This happens during both adult services.

THAT'S IT! They also do three overnight events/camps per year. Nothing else. Anything else is expected to happen through the small groups.

Interesting that they feel content with a "less is more" approach. Are they onto something?

What does your junior high ministry look like?

Learning to Lead

As I mentioned in my post on Monday, I really wasn't sure what to expect at North Point's DRIVE conference. Now that the first full day is wrapping up, I must say that I have really enjoyed the time. In a word, the conference is about leadership. Virtually every general session and workshop has leadership as a central theme. In fact, the leadership theme runs so deep that I've noticed many attendees are experiencing a bit of frustration that may come from one of two things:

1) Much of the material for discussion is coming from the large church perspective. Although the content is amazing, I think there could be a more intentional effort to wrap it in transferable principles for the average church worker.

2) So many people who work in church settings feel like they really don't have much of a leadership platform in which to implement the stuff they are learning. I think some practical application steps on how to implement the content and "lead from the middle of the pack" would be greatly appreciated.

But, if you are interested in learning some really great biblical leadership principles from a church that is doing what they are called to do well, then I would highly recommend this conference next year. I feel like I've really been stretched; my moleskine is rapidly filling up.

Youth ministry training...not so much. Leadership training...incredible.

Monday Miscellaneous

- The weekend was fantastic. On the main campus, our junior high ministry was in its second week of our "Simmer Down" series. This week the lesson was on bitterness which was, in a sense, a continuation from last week's lesson on Anger. Music was great (we had a couple new kids playing and singing in the band), the games were fun and students seemed to track well. We also kicked off our student ministry program at our Irvine campus. Attendance was higher than expected and the overall atmosphere was really fun.

- Right now, the entire student ministry team is in Atlanta for the Drive Conference at North Point Church. The opening session starts in a couple hours. I really have no idea what to expect from the next 2.5 days. The most intriguing aspect to me is the wide variety of really great sounding workshops; as there seems to be a lot of fresh topics being offered.

- I rented a GPS system for the rental car I'm driving. At the time it sounded easier than getting directions for the entire carpool every time we go somewhere. I figured the lead car could just follow the GPS and get us easily to each destination. I'm not sure what's going on, but our GPS is totally messing us up! Telling us to turn on streets that don't exists, self correcting in the middle of directions that then turn out to be wrong. So funny, but so frustrating.

- Heading out to cracker barrell for dinner. Grits, anyone?

Random Randomness

- Our youth ministry at our regional campus in Irvine opens this weekend and we are super excited. Excited about the work God's going to do in the lives of students and excited about unveiling the carpet ball table our 78-year-old volunteer made for us!

- One of my daughter's best friends has an interesting condition, I think. Her sense of smell is fine, but she can't smell skunk. Huh? How does that even happen?

- My favorite guilty pleasure song right now: Thrash Unreal by Against Me! (I'm sure there's a way to link to it, but I don't know how...)

- This weekend is our second week of "Simmer Down...three emotions that will get you in hot water" So far it is shaping up to be a good one.

- Tonight we have a father/son deep sea fishing trip. The boats leaves the dock at 7:00 p.m. and we return at 11:00. My son is only a 5th grader, but I'm sneaking him along with me on this one!

24

beep, boop, beep, bop.....

I'm no Jack Bauer, but the last 24 hours have, for my simple little life, been quite busy.

- yesterday afternoon I found myself in quick little meetings that seemed to never end. Meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting. lasting till about 6:30.

- Last night's festivities went something like this:
* Drove to movie theater for sneak preview of Iron Man.
* Grabbed two pizza slices at mall before heading in.
* After the movie went to Tommy's burgers for chili-cheese burger
* Then went on a hunt for late night ice cream but had to settle for frozen
yogurt.

- I woke up at 2:00 a.m. with my mind twirling. About what, I'm not sure (probably about the fact that I ate two pieces of pizza, a chili-cheese burger and frozen yogurt for dinner!). couldn't get back to sleep until 5:30.

- My wife called me at 9:00 a.m. panicked because she forgot that our son had a little part in his class play at school at 9:20. She was in her women's bible study and wanted to see if I could hustle to the school. I did. He was great.

- Didn't get into the office until 10:45 so felt like I was already behind on way too many tasks to list. Of course, if I did a better job of listing them, I may actually figure out a way to chip away at those tasks.

- Went on a date with Rachel for lunch. Seems like I haven't spent any time with her lately so a spontaneous lunch date seemed like the best solution.

beep, boop, beep, bop...

My Moleskine, My Friend

For years and years I carried around a bulky day-timer because I liked having the feel of 'paper' in my hands and enjoyed the ease of jotting down notes on a whim etc. But then, like most other people, I got sucked into the world of Palm Pilots and then smart phones and felt the pressure to get rid of my old-school ways. Recently I decided to take a half step back in time and bought several Moleskine notebooks. I opted for the smaller-than-usual ruled soft notebook (192 lined pages @ 3.5 x 5.5) because they fit so well in my pocket.

I have to say, my world has been changed...or changed back. It's already hard to imagine not having one handy in my pocket.

Monday Miscellaneous on Tuesday

I realize it's Tuesday, but figured I'd go ahead with my new Monday Miscellaneous tradition:

- Didn't post yesterday because, frankly, I forgot. I got up fairly early to head out to an all day golf tournament for my kid's school. A friend of mine owns the insurance company that insures the school so he always buys a foursome for the otherwise way-too-costly-for-me event. We had a great time. He also bought us each 10 raffle tickets for some pretty cool prizes which, of course, I didn't win.

- The weekend in Junior High was an interesting one. Really good in some areas and not so good in others...very much a roller coaster of sorts. Music was probably the best in a long time. One of our games was great and the other really struggled (even though it was a great, creative idea...). In fact it struggled so much that we tweaked it for the second service and then totally eliminated it from the third. Our new series "Simmer Down...three emotions that will get you into hot water" seems like it will be pretty fun. This week the topic was Anger; and more specifically how to deal with dangerous anger.

- Our Student ministry program at our new regional campus in Irvine kicks off this Sunday. Leo, our youth pastor at that campus, has been working like crazy recruiting volunteer leaders, setting up the youth room etc. I'm excited to see what God is going to do at the new campus.

- Our junior high and high school departments are in a little bit of controversy because we have decided to post-pone all of our missions trips to Mexico for the next 6 months due to the increased danger. Mexico always has certain risks, and many feel like nothing much has changed other than media attention but our missions department feels like violence has increased enough to warrant not taking students. Some families are are thanking us for our cautious approach and others are frustrated by it.

- Incredible progress is being made on our new student facility, The Refinery. All signs still point to a June 21st grand opening which happens to be promotion weekend so we are getting really close! The building is amazing.

New Middle School Curriculum!

One of the biggest frustrations in leading a junior high ministry is the relatively small amount of resources and curriculum written specifically for young teens. So, I am excited to see that Youth Specialties is releasing four new 8-week middle school studies around really crucial topics. Ken Rawson and his wife, Jen, told me about this project a while back and I am really glad to see these great studies available for folks like me and you! The four studies are:
Becoming a Young Man of God
Living as a Young Man of God
Becoming a Young Woman of God
Living as a Young Woman of God

Culture Wars

I've been thinking a lot lately about organizational culture; how do you define it, who sets it, how to navigate it etc.

Every church in America has it's own culture. Your church has yours, my church has mine, and chances are they are fairly unique. When talking to fellow youth workers who have had bad experiences at a previous church, I've come to the conclusion that one of the biggest contributing factors is a failure to navigate the culture of that particular church. It's really tough to pin-point or define the culture of any particular church, but it exists and the ability to recognize and function well within it is one key to longevity and success in the church setting.

- Is the work environment casual or formal?
- Are you expected to tell your supervisor where you are during the day?
- What meetings can you afford to miss and what ones must you make sure to never miss?
- What type of humor is allowed in what settings?
- Is the church led by type 'A' personalities or not?
- How loosely or tightly are office hours tracked?
- Is there an expectation that most good work happens when you are in the office?
- Does your church value 'sacred cows' or is it open to lots of changes?
- Are there certain leaders who expect to be treated in a certain fashion?
- Is email the preferred method of communication amongst staff or face-to-face?

...and the list goes on.

Try this exercise: write a one paragraph definition of your church's 'culture' and ask others you work with to do the same. Then, spend some time together and identify the areas that were common to everybody. Chances are those areas are the true culture of your church and the less common areas may be individual values or experiences.

What I've learned and what I've seen others learn is that one person rarely changes the culture of the church. Culture is developed over time; for better and for worse and the wise youth worker is one who can appreciate it, understand it and navigate it.

Full Service Summer

Our Summer Theme this year is "Full Service Summer". This morning we went to a local gas station to take a bunch of pictures for our Summer Calendar that is due to go to print in about a week. We've always had a 'theme' for the Summer, but it wasn't until a few years ago that we actually started creating 10-weeks worth of lessons around it. In recent years our themes have been:

- IN MOTION
10 weeks on what it would look like if you actually put the fruit of the spirit in motion in your life

- ON LOCATION
10 weeks using a different famous land mark such as great wall of china, mt. everest etc. as backdrop for an object lesson.

- HANG 10 SUMMER
10 weeks of character traits such as honesty, loyalty etc.

For "Full Service Summer" we are hoping to use a different car part each week as an object lesson. It was a great idea at the time, but now I'm struggling. Anybody have any creative ideas for me?

Let's do this....post an idea to help me out, then post any Summer-related topic you could use help on. Camp ideas, activity ideas, promotion weekend ideas....you name it. We can all chime in.

Monday Miscellaneous

Weekend Wrap-Up: This weekend was great. Our attendance was a bit down, but energy was high. Our friends at Elevate, Willow Creek's Junior High ministry, "loaned" us an entire weekend program. I was out there last weekend and really enjoyed the program and asked if they would send us the games, the message, the videos etc. They did, and it was really a good fit for our kids.

Street Kings: Saw it last night. Typical "bad cops" movie but way over the top. Don't think I can recommend it.

Carpet Ball: I saw this game at another youth group and fell in love with it. John Allen, our 78 year old volunteer, built the one pictured above and we unveiled it this weekend. At one point, I counted 27 kids standing around the table.

Birthday Boy: My son, Cole, turned 11 a couple weeks ago but we held his birthday party last night. A crew of his closest buddies went bowling and out to pizza. Sad to see him growing up so fast, but also glad that the days of clowns and balloon animals at parties have passed.

Hurts My Heart

Over the past year or so, God has really begun softening my heart for single moms and the struggles they face. To be honest, much of my thinking and praying has been on behalf of the moms and not on their kids. A good buddy of mine just passed these stats along to me which served as a reminder of who the real victims are when no dad is present.

63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes--U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census
85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes--Center for Disease Control
80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes--Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 14, p. 403-26
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes--National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools
70% of juveniles in state operated institutions come from fatherless homes--U.S. Dept. of Justice
85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home--Fulton County Georgia jail populations & Texas Dept. of Corrections

Translated, this means that children from a fatherless home are:
5 times more likely to commit suicide
32 times more likely to run away
20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
14 times more likely to commit rape
9 times more likely to drop out of school
10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances
9 times more likely to end up in a state operated institution
20 times more likely to end up in prison

Ooops...re-post

I accidently deleted my entire post regarding this book, and can't figure out how to recover it, but I liked the book enough to re-post it. Sorry!

Really Good Stuff

Brandon Grissom, the worship leader for Willow Creek's junior high ministry, just released a new E.P. As usual he wrote a good portion of the songs, and as usual it is really good stuff. The most junior high friendly, I think, are Brighter and Liberty.

Monday Miscellaneous

- I was traveling yesterday from the Willow Creek conference so didn't attend our junior high program but heard it was a great weekend.

- I did get home just in time for our annual small group frisbee golf tournament. Kids sign up to play with their small group and we make a nine-hole course around the campus. Good time.

- Today my son, Cole, turns 11. He has really taken to guitar and we were told that a great way to encourage practice is to play along with favorite songs, which makes sense. We would never buy our 11 year old an iPod but that seemed like the best way for him to find individual songs that he would like to play along with without needing to buy an entire CD. So, we have an 11 year old with an iPod (but purely in the interest of encouraging his love for guitar).

- Has anybody out there played much of the Xbox 360 game 'Skate'? Cole showed me a demo of it last night and it looks amazing. Way better than Tony Hawk from the little I saw. Is it worth buying?

- Was very odd to board the plane yesterday morning in snow flurries and land in 91 degree heat wave sweeping So.Cal. I'm really not ready for Summer quite yet, but the heat does feel kinda good.

- Heading off to date day with Rachel which usually includes Chic-fil-A, walking around the mall and being lazy. I'm quite the romantic I've been told.

Willow Creek Days 2&3

I'm in the coffee shop outside Willow Creek's auditorium enjoying my Chai Latte (which happens to be much better than the one I usually get at Starbucks. Not sure why....) and reflecting on my experiences and learnings.

- Brian Mclaren was great. I was expecting controversial statements and attempts to rattle our cages, but didn't get any of that. He shared a really, really great presentation about the possibility that the church is busy addressing lots of issues that don't matter a whole lot. Good stuff.

- Had dinner last night with a student ministries team from a multi-campus church in Canada. They may have been the sharpest, nicest group of youth workers I've ever met. Some of their approaches to the multi-campus structure are quite interesting and I found myself taking mental note after mental note. I would have actually taken written notes, but both hands were busy cramming Chicago-style deep dish pizza down my throat.

- This morning, Kara Powell made a case for 4 ingredients of a youth ministry that produces students who remain Christ-followers as they enter college. Her 4 (in my words):
* A clear understanding of the gospel.
* A ministry that welcomes and provides opportunities for doubts to be shared.
* Opportunities for inter-generational relationships.
* Students learning how to feed themselves spiritually.

- Right now I'm heading in to hear Dan Kimball who is my favorite of the emerging thinkers and leaders. Partly because he has cool hair.

Willow Day One

Just getting ready to head into the first general session. Brian Mclaren is the speaker so it should be interesting and enjoyable.

Two highlights from last night:

- On the drive in I found myself tuned into a country radio station. I never listen to country and I'm not sure what possessed me to do so last night. The first song I listened to had lyrics in the chorus that went something like this... "I want to kiss you way out in the sticks, I want to walk with you through fields of wild flowers, I want to check you for ticks." Seriously.

- Because of the time change I wasn't tired or ready to settle in when I got to my hotel so I went across the street to see the movie, "Drillbit Wilson". That isn't the actual title, but I know it had Drillbit in it and starred Owen Wilson. It was actually a pretty fun little flick and one that youth pastors should see.

Willow Bound

I'm in the airport waiting to board my flight to Chicago for Willow's SHIFT conference. I don't teach until Thursday, but wanted to catch the entire conference from the beginning because it's always a great one.

Been pondering this today: What Kind Of Leader Am I, and What Kind Of Leader Do I Enjoy Following?

SELF-CENTERED LEADER focuses purely on his or her agenda and the tasks to fulfill that agenda. People are simply tools toward that end. If somebody can't help the leader achieve the agenda, the self-centered leader sees little use for them. People are only empowered to the extent that they are freed up to fulfill agenda of the leader. Ultimately, the completion of the project and the recognition of the leader is what matters most.

OTHERS-CENTERED LEADER focuses as much, if not more, on the people and the process as the actual agenda. People are viewed as team mates and considered to have just as much value, input and decision making power as the leader. People are empowered to think outside the box, make decisions, move forward. Ultimately, the completion of the project and the fulfillment and recognition of people on the team is what matters most.

It isn't always easy to break leadership down into those two categories, but I do think they are where most leadership starts...one or the other is usually the foundation for how one leads.

What Kind of Leader are you?
What Kind of Leader do you work for?
What are strengths and weaknesses of each type?

Weekend Wrap Up

Lesson Topic: Week Two of our Series 'Strange But True' (Jacob wrestling the Angel
Attendance: Average
'Fun Factor': Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Above Average
Music: Above Average
Lesson Quality: Below Average
Length of Lesson: 21 mins
Student Response: Average

Another interesting weekend! I'm beginning to think the "Strange But True" stories we picked were the wrong ones...we are having a real tough time turning them into Jr. High-friendly lessons with good application steps. If my only concern was giving out information, then these stories are amazing and great to tell, but I want all of my lessons to have some "handles" for my students. It's creating the handles each week that has been tough in this series.

On Sunday, one of our key volunteers taught the lesson (he has to teach X number of times for a seminary class he's taking)so it gave me the freedom to check out our newly opened Irvine Regional campus (Irvine is a community about 15 minutes North of our Lake Forest campus). Our youth programs don't kick off in Irvine until May but our Irvine youth Pastor is hard at work getting stuff ready to roll. It was really fun to see the energy around the new campus.

Teens and Activism

You may have seen this already, but I just stumbled upon it today. Here is a link to 81 pages of information from a 2006 survey Mtv conducted concerning teenagers and social activism.
(S.O. to Ypulse)

Confident, But About What?

A group from our student ministries team recently set a little time aside to pick one of the four gospels and from that gospel, read only the words of Christ. We then spent some time discussing what popped out.

I read Christ's words from the gospel of Mark. What I couldn't shake was the level of confidence and authority with which Jesus spoke. He knew what he was saying was true, and boldly proclaimed it. He upset people, he confused people, sometimes he explained what he meant and sometimes he didn't. But he was always confident when speaking what he knew to be true.

After spending some time reflecting on this, I came to the conclusion that I probably need to be more confident when speaking God's truths and less confident when speaking my own.

It seems much more popular in ministry/theology discussions today to get fired up and make declarations about a whole bunch of stuff we think we know (by the way, much of theology is just stuff we think we know)than to stand firm on the stuff we know for certain based on God's word.

Not sure where I'm heading with these thoughts....but I've been pondering them.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

I've always been a visual learner, and lately I've been trying to be more of a visual teacher; using simple pictures to illustrate deeper points. I haven't been doing it real well; but trying.

Then, coincidentally, I ran across this book and am totally loving it. It makes a science out of the art of visual communication.

Weekend Wrap Up

Lesson Topic: Week One of our Series 'Strange But True' (Elijah and the prophets of Baal)
Attendance: Average
'Fun Factor': Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Below Average
Music: Above Average
Lesson Quality: Below Average
Length of Lesson: 18 mins
Student Response: Average

It was a strange weekend for us. Lots of creativity went into the program, but I'd say the audience response wasn't what we thought it would be. The crowd just seemed a little dead overall. The band was an all student band which meant the quality dropped off a little bit, but it was great to see a band of 100% students! The lesson was good and bad...I feel like a did a pretty good job of telling the account of Elijah Vs. the Prophets of Baal and seemed to have the students interest, but my application didn't seem to hit the mark the way I hoped it would.
All in all, it was a well planned, well executed and creative weekend that missed the mark a bit.

Kinda Like Jumbo Shrimp...

My mind often has a hard time reconciling oxymoron's; especially ones that matter more than jumbo shrimp.
Lately I've been thinking about the bigness of God and the smallness of me. Where the struggle lies is in the tension between a sense of utter irrelevance and a great sense of esteem and worth at the same time. Scripture seems to make it clear that God spoke the entire universe into existence, and science seems to have made it clear that the universe is a massive, massive creation. In light of this it's clear that I'm insignificant. But scripture also says that the same God who spoke the world into existence took the time to knit me together in my mother's womb. When I pause to think about that I get a bit overwhelmed: God simply spoke and the universe was made, but he took the time to hand-make me! In light of this it's clear that I'm incredibly significant.

Insignificant and significant at the same time. That hurts my head a little but makes me feel pretty good (but not too good....)!

Camping, Church and Chaos

Got back from camping with my son late last night. We had a great time being really lazy. Two highlights:
- We woke up Tuesday morning to discover that our cooler full of water, sodas and food had been stolen during the night. Nothing else from our campsite was touched so our hunch was that teenagers stole it hoping to find beer. Our hunch was confirmed a few hours later when the park rangers returned our cooler to us and mentioned that it happens several times a week and that nothing in our cooler was missing. Apparently kids from the nearby neighborhood walk through the campground, grab a couple of coolers and open them in the bushes looking for beer. Must have been a bummer to open our cooler hoping to find some ice-cold Coors only to find cokes and meatloaf!
- On Wednesday we hiked about a mile to a seal sanctuary which was pretty cool. For the walk home we each had to pick a rock and kick it all the way back to camp.
You know it's a lazy camping trip when the two highlights are solving a stolen cooler mystery and kicking a rock for a mile!

Lots of stuff happening at church right now. We are in a busy season of trying to nail down a move-in date for the Refinery (new student building), as well as wrapping our minds around all the new ministry possibilities that will come our way as a result. A really key player on our junior high team who has been with us off and on for about seven years is moving to Kenya for six months so I am in the initial stages of figuring out what our team and ministry will look like without her. Today, we decided to host a "preparing for junior high" workshop for the parents of our incoming 7th graders. The first half of the workshop will focus on basic developmental changes and parenting tips and the second half will focus on the details of our junior high ministry. As basic as that sounds, I'm actually really excited about it because we've never combined those two topics into a single workshop.

Today I'm finally finishing up the details for the revised Controlled Chaos manuscript. I'm about a month past the deadline so it feels good to be bringing it to a close. The revised version will have three new chapters plus a whole bunch of real life junior high ministry stories from other junior high youth workers. Look for it sometime in late September.

Beach Camping

It was an exciting weekend at church. We launched two new regional campuses (in Irvine, about 15 minutes North of our main campus and in Corona, about 40 minutes east.). Both campuses had fantastic opening weekend attendance and seem to be off to a great start. Leo Galarza is our Student Ministries Pastor in Irvine and we are still hunting for a part-time (that will hopefully turn full time sometime soon)Student Ministry Pastor for our Corona campus.

Today,
I'm heading off for three days of camping at the beach with my son, my brother and his son. We are heading a few hours of the coast to the Santa Barbara area. We couldn't have asked for better weather. No real plans other than hiking, swimming, playing catch, climbing trees and being lazy.

What A Week

I feel like I've had one the busiest, most diverse, but most fun weeks in a long time.
- Last weekend I was in Palm Springs Speaking at Believe. We took a handful of our 8th grade student leaders to check it out to see if it's something we might want to do as an entire ministry next year. They loved it and I hope we can fit it into our schedule of events.

- I stayed in the desert for two extra days to ride dirt-bikes with some friends which was great.

- Tuesday through Wednesday I took our Student Ministries Core Leadership Team on a short retreat. The goal of this retreat (which consisted of our intern director, high school pastor, junior high director, volunteers director, music director, minister to hurting kids, and both regional campus youth pastors) was really just to spend some quality time together and rally around a few key issues.

- Yesterday I spent the day with about 20 other junior high youth workers from Southern California for our "So Cal Connection". We meet twice a year to hang out and toss a variety of topics on the subject. If you are a junior high youth worker in the Southern California area and would like to know about future gatherings I'd be happy to fill you in.

- Right now I'm getting ready to board a flight to Phoenix with Matt Hall and Katie Edwards. We will then drive three hours to an Indian reservation to explore some future missions opportunities. We get home about 11:00 tonight.

- Beginning tomorrow I will serve at 5 of our easter services.

Random Ramblings

- Haven't been to a theater for a movie in a while and feel like I'm over due. The most recent movie I saw was Michael Clayton on a plane ride. It was a lot different than I thought it would be, but pretty good.

- Something on t.v. bothered me so much that I actually hollered at it. Must not have bothered me too much, though, because I can't remember what it was. Gosh, I am becoming my father.

- Is it just me or does it seem like the purposeful cycle of the media is to build people up simply to tear them down? Maybe that's what I was hollering at.

- Gonna spend Sunday afternoon and Monday dirt bike riding out in the desert with some buddies. No families this time, just a guy trip.

- Because I love Shave Ice so much, I've been promising to purchase a shave ice machine for the new student building at our church. I just found out the machine that makes the good stuff costs $2,500.00! I'm asking myself if I promised to buy the machine or just said I might buy the machine!

- This weekend I speak at my third, and final, Jr. High Believe. It's in Palm Springs so we're taking about a dozen of our leadership kids to let them check it out and see if it's something we want to plug our entire ministry into next year. My hunch is that they'll totally love it...other than the speaker, of course.

Teen STD Increase

By now you've probably heard the recent news that 1 in 4 teenage girls has an STD. Here is Wall Street Journal article and some interesting discussion.

Happy Birthday

This month marks the 10-year anniversary of the MP3 player.

A Little Nervous

Tonight I'm teaching a short parenting workshop at my kid's school and I'm super nervous about it. I really don't like putting myself in the position of "expert" of any kind, so I'm hoping to present in a way that communicates that I'm just a struggling parent myself! I'm trying to create a series of "pictures of parenting" that I'll work through. I'll update tomorrow with an honest report of how things go tonight.

Fight Club

Ridiculously cheesy but I had to give it a try. I guess I'm not as tough as I like to think I am.


15

Junior High Newsletter

Years ago, Group Publishing actually had an entire magazine devoted specifially to junior high magazine. They discontinued it a dozen or so years ago but have decided to give it another try...almost.

Instead of a magazine, Group and Simplyjuniorhigh now have a monthly 12-page newsletter focusing on junior high ministry. Each issue will have some training, some research, some interviews, some lesson ideas and some other really great stuff. Forty Bucks for a year feels a little pricey, but it's probably the cheapest way to get ongoing, monthly training and encouragement.

I would suggest you buy one subscription and then photocopy key articles etc. to give to the volunteers on your team (but I don't know if that's legal!).

Name Game Part 2: The Winner Is....

We've landed on a name for our new student building. Thanks a ton for all of your suggestions. A few names that got us thinking and were in the running were:
- The Hub
- The Foundry
- The Warehouse
- The Mill

Ultimately we landed on 'The Refinery' as the name. We think it matches the look of the building and also has a great biblical tie-in. Since nobody suggested Refinery, I will hold onto the $100 worth of free Junior High resources until somebody suggests an easier contest!

The Best Tea I've Had In A While

I'm sitting in Peet's Coffee (my favorite new hang out because their tea is great) enjoying a pot of English Breakfast tea while I journal (something I'm trying to do once in a while even though I've never been good at it....but today I'm being good at it). What started out as a normal cup of tea has turned into a great cup of tea because of the conversation at the table next to me.

It's a young married guy and a student who looks like he's in 9th or 10th grade. The moment they sat down I thought, "looks like a youth pastor hanging out with a student to me." Sure enough. As soon as they sat down the conversation begins to take a classic mentoring/discipleship turn: Small talk followed by a little bit of catching up followed by some deeper conversation followed by some great discussion about the life of David. As I listened I was reminded of a few things.

- Relational ministry really is the best kind of youth ministry. There's no doubt in my mind that the 30 minutes this kid has spent with his youth worker is way more effective than anything else that particular youth ministry has going on.

- Kids respond to caring adults. Relational ministry isn't easy, and takes a ton of extra time and effort but the pay off is huge.

- I don't do enough of it. Maybe the biggest reminder for me as I watch this whole thing unfold is that I simply don't do enough one-on-one ministry with kids. I've got a ton of excuses for why it doesn't happen like it should but none of them are really all that valid. Time to step up.

Weekend Wrap Up

GREAT WEEKEND.

1st...it was week #1 of our new series, "Bad Girls". Each week we will focus on a bad girl from the bible, and a different woman from our team will teach. This week the bad girl was Jezebel. We've taught this series once before several years ago and it was a big hit so I'm excited to repeat it. Plus, I get a little teaching break!

2nd...most of us weren't there this weekend because it was our annual volunteer leadership retreat. Each year we invite all our junior high volunteers plus their spouses down to San Diego for an over-nighter. We hang out, eat good food, play games, have worship, share communion and pray for one another. There is no training and no tight schedule. It's basically our way of saying thank you to the team for their ministry. We charge $25 per person and our ministry picks up the rest of the tab. We typically only have about 1/3 of our team attend so it's a little smaller and way more relational than a typical staff meeting or gathering. The best part may be the fact that almost every year we end up having a spouse of a volunteer join our team because he/she had so much fun on the retreat.