One of our amazing summer interns, a journalism major at Pepperdine, is helping launch a 3-month experiment in HSM. In our 5-year plan for our ministry, I have us slated to go after parents with focused efforts in 2011, so this is exciting to say the least. We’re going to do a series of summer newsletters for parents – lot of info on what’s going on, what’s ahead and arm them with ideas and discussion starters for their students.

I know it is critically important to equip parents to disciple their kids, and for too long student ministry has aimed to take on that primary responsibility. We’re using The Parent Link (they’ve got a 30-day trial going on right now) as our basis for the newsletters, and highly customizing it to our own needs.

It goes out the door tomorrow – PDF to an email list and a few printed copies at the info area, too!

JG

Saw a link to RunPee.com in the latest issue of Group Magazine. Brilliant website – it tells you when you can sneak out of a movie to go to the bathroom. Simple, but strong execution of concept. Ha!

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: GROW

Sermon in a Sentence: As we grow up physically, emotionally, and socially, we also need to grow spiritually and put ourselves in a position to allow God to transform our lives.
Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 3 out of 10
Service Length: 72 minutes

Understandable Message: Jason Petty, our pastor of discipleship, mixed things up a bit and challenged students with a message devoted to showing the importance of growing spiritually. Because all healthy things grow, the goal of our spiritual growth is to look more like Jesus. However, growing spiritually is difficult without a teachable heart, which God will give us if we are willing. We have to put ourselves in that position to see God. Petty gave students deep truths to think over and made sure there were a ton of resources available to for students to grab after the service.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: Students ran cameras, lights and sound. Volunteers also greeted and did setup/cleanup.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We aired a video Jake recorded on how to approach HSM, including how to walk, how to take a bulletin and pen, and how to interact with the greeters. Fun! Also, we had a “Bible Ninja” video where students gave an infomercial for Bible Institute and expressed how much they wanted to understand the Bible, but could never seem to do it. Exciting and hopefully thought provoking!

Music Playlist: Surrender, This Is My Desire, Center

Favorite Moment: During his message, Jason made sure to not play the guilt card on students as to why they need to grow with Christ. He shared a story that continually made him spiritually guilty on how Jesus was waiting in a coffee shop and crying because we forget to spend time with him. Instead, Jason compared meeting with Jesus as the excitement and passion of how we interact with the guy or girl we “really like” and how our pursuit of that person drives us to want to communicate and get to know that person better and deeper.

(This report was written by the amazing summer-intern Kyle Cleveland, I was gone this weekend to do a wedding)

I’m very excited to announce today a new addition to the HSM team here at Saddleback – Robby Boyd is joining us to serve High School students here in Orange County. He doesn’t have a blog or a Twitter (yet, I’ll immediately start to work on him), but has been around Saddleback for a long time and just graduated with his MA from Wheaton. He has a huge heart for pastoral care of students and is going to build up a crack team of volunteers to care for them. He’ll fit in great, couldn’t be more excited about this addition to the team!

JG

My sophomore guys team didn’t take the title this year … just 2 of the 3 tournaments building up to the main event. Next time!

JG

Here it is – the new look for More Than Dodgeball!

We’ve still got about 65 little tweaks left to make on the template before it is technically finished – we did enough testing to at least roll it out tonight. As we kick off version 3 of the now 3-year old site, I thought it might be fitting to go back to the significance of the name.

So what does the name “More Than Dodgeball” mean?

More Than Dodgeball is simply a way of expressing our heart’s desire to see youth ministry as more than entertainment, glorified babysitting or church “lite.” More Than Dodgeball reminds me daily of my calling to serve God by serving students – reached with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, connected in a small group with a caring adult, growing in their faith on their own and serving God in the church and with their lives.

Please know I love dodgeball, we even played a version of it a few weeks ago in our youth ministry – but I see it as a symbol of student ministry past where purposeless activity and busyness stood as a false measure of success. Student ministry should be judged about changed lives and hearts being drawn closer to Jesus Christ, which is what we want to be all about.

More. Than. Dodgeball.

JG

Enjoyed my first audiobook on my walks last week – I’ve still been enjoying the silence, but thought it might be fun to listen to something for a change. Thank God It’s Monday is about strategies to unlock the potential in your team and make for a remarkable workplace. Good stories, good principles, lots of passion – all focused on how your workplace helps or hinders productivity. Good stuff – and although it is different “hearing” someone speak – but you get so much more personality as well as good content. B-

Oh man, how have I missed this? Looks incredible.

JG

Chris sent me this link to a news story about a youth pastor who gave up his life saving a kid who was drowning. Here’s a clip of the powerful story, our hearts go out to the family for sure.

According to the Itasca County Sheriff’s Department, they received a 911 call at about 5:30 p.m. Sunday.

Paul Shorma and Kayla Domagall were amongst the crowd of 30 on the beach outside Zorbaz restaurant on the shore of Pokegama Lake when the call for help arrived.

According to witnesses, a group of young people were on a house boat on the lake, en route to a sandbar to swim.  That’s when witnesses say the weather turned and the waves on the lake grew to about 3-foot swells.

One youth was struggle with the waves when Junker and Hermiston went out to help him with a life jacket. The youth was able to make it to safety but both men didn’t make it back.

The community where this happened consists of about 8,000 people so you can imagine the HUGE impact on the town.  He grew up in Grand Rapids, Now was the youth pastor at the Baptist Church and his dad is the Senior pastor at the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in the same town. More information and to make a donation to his trust click here.

JG

We’re sending teams to Africa and the Dominican Republic this week – I found this little section in one of the training notebooks I thought might be useful to you. 5 ways parents can help their student with the mission trip:

1. Please take time to pray with your student before they go. Pray for their safe travel, for good health, that God would use them to change lives, and that He would grow them more into His likeness on this trip.

2. Please double check their packing. DON’T let them overpack. An iPod and camera are OK, but they don’t need to bring all their electronic gadgets with them to Africa. NO LATOPS or other bulky/expensive electronics. And, it’s Africa…not a fashion runway…so don’t let them pack a ton of clothes. Also, help them think through the carry-on bag. As a team, we need to be prepared to have luggage not show up at the airport. It happens all the time, so pack a carry-on accordingly.

3. Be prepared to not hear from your child everyday! I know some of you have talked about international call plans on your child’s cell phone. If you do this, you still need to be prepared to not talk to your child everyday. They will not be allowed to use their cell phone unless we are at the hotel. With the time differences, it is very difficult to plan talking times. We will have two cell phones, and every student will have the chance to call home when it is convenient for the team and in case of emergency, so you will hear from them. Also, we will encourage your students to email home, and we’ve set up a blog for you to check in on the team where we will post pics and videos.

4. Please be on time to pick up your student from LAX. They are going to be very tired, and very excited to see you. If you need help making pick up arrangements, please don’t hesitate to email or call Danny. We can certainly help arrange that if you are working and cannot make it. No worries! Just let us know ahead of time so we’re not waiting at the airport after 30 hours on a plane … haha.

5. Be prepared to be patient with your student when they return home. It takes a few days to recover from traveling internationally. Jetlag and culture shock are real. Your students will be experiencing life-changing sights, smells, sounds, and stories. Be ready to let them process that safely with you at home. Ask them question. Pray with them. Cry with them. Look at pictures together. Listen. It’s our expectation that they will come home a little different from this experience. Anticipate that and be ready to help them talk about it.

JG

Tonight our Xbox 360 gamerscore crossed another milestone – 27,000 points. Thanks largely to Tom Clancy’s HAWX and Air Combat 6 – as well as a smattering of The Bee Movie Game and Paperboy with the kids. My Xbox360 blog is downright blissful right now!

JG

This week trips leave for both the Dominican Republic and Rwanda. We’re so excited for our students – you can check out blogs for each trip here and here. I’m so pleased with the progress we’ve made in missions over the past year and a half – I didn’t think we would be where we are today until 2010. Yeah!

JG

Andy just told me that Simply’s new Summer 2009 virtual catalog of youth ministry resources is now online. Head over there and check it out!

JG

This fall we’re headed into a church-wide campaign called Life’s Healing Choices, based on Beatitudes. The series will really help focus adults into Celebrate Recovery and students into Life Hurts, God Heals groups. You can join us, too! Hit the link for more details:

Did you know that Jesus’ Beatitudes are one of the most effective teachings on the topic of personal spiritual healing and renewal in the Bible?

Now those teachings are available this fall in a brand-new, 8-week church-wide spiritual growth campaign called Life’s Healing Choices and the experience will transform your church. Join Rick Warren and Saddleback Church for this 8-week journey on the Biblical road to total spiritual renewal for every member of your community.

JG

Just wrapping up the thoroughly enjoyable book by Daniel H. Pink, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. Being an avid right-brainer (creative, rule bender vs left-brainer analytical, by the book) myself, I was interested in how we were going to take over from a system dominated and so rewarding of the left.

In short, the book makes a strong case about the future of American innovation and economy – how abundance, Asia and automation are helping devalue the traditional analytical thinking and forcing us to tell stories, play, create and design. The payoff of the book is basically that R-directed thinking is the wave of the future, but both left and right brains are needed in the new world we live in. There are all sorts of implications for youth ministry – my mind immediately was drawn to chapters on empathy and meaning, how important it is to feel needs and have a purpose for life. A good book – not too heady either. B+

JG

This has been a long time coming – I blogged about a 4-year plan that Simply Youth Ministry was developing for small groups forever ago – and here it is! The LIVE cirriculum just went live – check it out!

JG

Each year my wife and I get away (here are the vacations we take each year) sans kids for our annual Student Ministries staff retreat. We just now got back from Palm Desert where the sun gently kissed my face each day. Being in youth ministry 13 years now, I realize a) how important it is to get away from the pace of youth ministry, b) how much your spouse values the down time and c) how rare it is to receive this gift from your church each year.

I like the concept of retreat – pulling back from the front lines to prepare to attack again. Not surrender, but rallying the troops back together for another surge. That’s exactly how I would describe this annual trip – pulling back from the front lines of youth ministry and gearing up to do it again. We are fighting a spiritual battle, and too often the concept of retreat is shunned because, “the devil doesn’t take a day off.”

If you have the opportunity to retreat each year – send a note to someone right now and thank them for the precious gift, especially in these economic times. If you don’t – consider starting small and adding a modest increase to your budget, or ask someone in your church with resources if you can use their cabin for a long weekend.

Man, I needed that.

JG

I just liked this picture.

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: Promotion Weekend
Sermon Title: 4 Ways to Survive the Next 4 Years
Sermon in a Sentence: Some keys to surviving your high school years: good friends, a tight small group, serving and sharing your faith.
Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 6 out of 10
Service Length: 64 minutes

Understandable Message: Coming off the road trip made for a short week of prep. Instead of my usual manuscript (2,000 words or so) I wrote up some talking points around the main theme and Scripture. I tried to stay targeted on freshman specifically, but made sure the teaching was appropriate for all classes to take something away from. I talked through the way friends influence us – they can get us in trouble – and used this clip from Land of the Lost to illustrate it. At the end of the talk, we used PollEverywhere to let upperclassmen give their advice to the freshman (in 140 character bits), and it made for some hilarious moments. Some were serious and some were funny – but they were all great.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: It was an all-student band, students also ran cameras, lights and sound. Students and volunteers also greeted and did setup/cleanup. We had a high-energy crowd, so there was far more talking than usual. We’re gonna have to add something to the program to address it.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We had a Rock Band opener that during the bridge transformed from video game to the live student band. We jammed on the plastic instruments while they played – it was totally fun. We also had a fun game up front based on Scene It! that was good, too. And of course Uncle Zed, a hick character played by one of our team members, who read a children’s book to all of the freshman, an annual tradition in HSM.

Music Playlist: When You Were Young. We Shine, Til I See You, Hosanna

Favorite Moment: This weekend is the 1st anniversary of The Refinery! Hard to believe we’re already one year into the new building. We had cake to celebrate and started something new called After Party, a 10-minute connection time for first-timers.

3,266 miles traveled from start to finish
10 minutes per episode
21 days until the first episode airs
1 shot of a Netherlands biker gang
7 states
7 days
0 amount spent gambling in Las Vegas
86 top speed, in mph
1 nights spent in a Wal-Mart parking lot
31 length of the RV, in feet
1 near death experience at the rodeo

JG