Excited to have Sean McDowell here at HSM next weekend. Found this clip on his blog – pumped to have this stuff in front of our students!

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: Each 1, Reach 1

Sermon in a Sentence: Sharing our faith should be a normal part of our lives – we show it by our actions and our words.
Service Length: 70 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend we took a panel approach to teaching the lesson on friendship evangelism, Taffy (our worship pastor) was the speaker and he enlisted 10 students to come on stage and answer questions as he gave his talk. It gave the message a very grounded feel – these are normal students like you, praying for their friends, walking as best they can with Jesus, and sharing their faith. This is always a tricky subject to teach on at our entry-level program, but it gave me a chance to affirm our belief that the weekend is the place to invite your friends for the first time and give them an idea of the exciting stuff in the weeks ahead for HSM.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: Students greeted and ran the lights, camera, sound and band. Students appeared on stage  as part of the panel in the message and cleaned up after each service as well.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We were weak this week in this area – we had a nice highlight video of the recent Killball tournament, as well as some funbanter over HSM’s latest Facebook page, called You Know You go to Saddleback’s HSM When … which got a good response. I liked this Bluefish.tv video, too.

Music Playlist: Solution, With Everything, To The Ends of the Earth, Tell the World

Favorite Moment: We gave each student a candle on the way in this week, and at the end talked about the power of each one, reaching one. In just a few seconds the entire room was filled with candlelight, which students’ help through the song. We encouraged them to pray for their friends that they could invite, or look through their recent calls/texts and consider how they might be a part of that person’s spiritual journey.

Up Next: Q: (Aplogetics series featuring Sean McDowell)

A fun little evangelism video we used this weekend, we cut it before the product tag line at the end. Clever!

JG

Sometimes you just have to share the bulletin doodles you find after the youth service. This after last week’s sex series finale.

JG

Somehow, Mark Oestreicher (former president of Youth Specialties, author, youth ministry dude) and I have never actually met. Yet – here’s the weirder part – we’ve become friends in spite of that (thank you, Internet!). In the last few weeks, we’ve talked on the phone and had a bunch of email, text and Facebook interaction. Somewhere in the midst of these last weeks, Marko’s new “Youth Ministry Coaching Program” came up, and I asked him if he would answer a few questions about it for the blog.

So, here you have it – 3 questions for Marko:

JG: I know you’ve written about this on your blog, but what are you up to these days?

Marko: Bon-bons and daytime TV, man. No, actually, I’m pretty stoked about the stuff God’s been leading me toward. Speaking opportunities and writing projects that are right in my wheelhouse. And I’m launching two things: a consultancy for organizations that focus on justice/relief/missions/advocacy/education, helping them in the arena of youth and young adults, and the ‘youth ministry coaching program’.

JG: Yeah, so that last bit, tell us about it. What’s unique about it?

Marko: I’ve spent much of this last year in a leadership coaching program with John Townsend (the “Boundaries” guy). So I’ve taken some ideas from that process and experiences I’ve had of hosting multi-day dialogues with youth workers, and mashed them up into a 360 whole-life development program intentionally tweaked for youth workers. When I say “360”, I’m referring to the fact that it will be a small cohort (10 or 12 people) who will journey together for a year, meeting 6 times for 2 days, and staying connected via online tools and phone calls. I will guide the program, but the whole group will speak into each other’s lives. We’ll wrestle with youth ministry stuff, to be sure; but it will also be about each participant’s emotional, spiritual and relational health and maturity.

JG: Sweet. What should people do if they want to consider it more?

Marko: Check out the details on my blog here. There’s a simple application process. I hope to have the first cohort selected within a month or so, and we’ll get going in April or May.

JG

My buddy Parker is getting some serious web fame. Cryingwife.com is blowing up! So random, so awesome. If you don’t know the story behind the video (embedded above), here you go:

My wife cries after almost every movie we see together with a happy or sad ending. One day, we finished watching all 6 episodes of Star Wars (one per day) and she just lost it! I couldn’t help but laugh because she was crying about R2D2 and Vader! So, I jumped up, grabbed our camera, and got an amazing interview from her. I then did what any loving husband would do… I uploaded it to YouTube

JG

Not sure how I missed this earlier … but Pastor Rick’s Purpose Driven Life was the inspiration for the song “Temporary Home” on Carrie Underwood’s latest album. Cool! Here’s a clip from USA Today on the topic:

She’s even better friends with Mike Fisher, a center for the NHL’s Ottawa Senators. They’ve been dating about a year. But just because Play On features a song in which a woman tells her mother “Giving me away is not goodbye” doesn’t mean that Underwood has immediate plans to change her last name. She points out that she wrote the song with Idol’s Kara DioGuardi, who wed in July.

“In my case, many years down the road, when I get married” – Underwood chuckles – “if I get married, to whomever it might be, it’ll be really tough on my mother,” she says.

Fisher did contribute to Play On, suggesting the title for one of its songs. The idea came from a devotional study of Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life that the couple did together.

“In the book, he talks about this being our temporary home, that we need to do what we can here but remember that this is literally a stop,” Underwood says. “We’re headed someplace else.”

So Fisher suggested Underwood write a song called Temporary Home. Her initial reaction? “I was like: ‘Stick to hockey. I’ll stick to songwriting.’ ”

But the idea grew on Underwood. She wrote a ballad, with verses depicting a boy in a foster home, a single mother in a halfway house and a man in a hospital bed. She worked with Last Name co-writer Luke Laird and Zac Maloy, another Oklahoman.

JG

Killer new T-shirts for the blog will premiere at the nearly sold-out Simply Youth Ministry Conference in just a couple of weeks. Want one? Find me and the conference and let’s barter for something until I run out each day. I’ll be giving a few away on the blog if you can’t make it!

JG

Met with the creative youth pastor minds behind Claim Your Campus yesterday. Such a simple, free, powerful idea. Inspiring.

JG

There are 5 parts I think are in a typical small group night in our youth ministry (add a 6th in the comments if you would like). These don’t happen each week, they don’t always happen in order, but these are definitely things we want to happen regularly in our high school small groups.

COMMUNITY || Talk about life and hang out.
It feels most natural to start off a small group night with a relaxed atmosphere. Students usually show up over the span of the first 15-minutes of group, so some casual non-programmed time up front talking about the water polo team or the hilarious new Youtube video is usually time well spent. Plus, it’ll give you a little honest glimpse into what your students are into when they’re not with you at group.

ACCOUNTABILITY || Spend time sharing the good, bad and ugly in our personal life.
Transition the time of hanging out into a time where you talk about real-life stuff that’s going on. If there’s something we talked about the week before that might make a good transition, throw it out there. It doesn’t have to be super serious – some nights it will and some nights it will be random, funny stories everyone shares. Begin to focus the group and talk about personal discipleship decisions, Bible reading, girls/guys, purity, etc.

TEACHING || Instruction encourage students in their walk with God.
Part of the purpose of small groups is giving students a lesson/teaching, so we spend a few minutes talking over a story, passage or principle from the Bible. They key is helping them make it personal.

CHALLENGE || Ask them to take a step forward.
What is your challenge this week? Students are asking “so what” I issue a challenge to the group. Maybe the challenge is a resource I want them to tackle with me. Maybe it is a article I read online I copied for them to check out on their own. Maybe it is a prayer I ask them to pray. Either way, make sure you invite them to take a spiritual step forward.

PRAYER || Spend a few minutes in specific prayer for the members of your small group.
Cover last week’s prayer requests quickly and then jump into what is on the hearts/minds of students this week. Usually the group ends in prayer than quickly moves to the COMMUNITY stage again for fun/games/stupid for the last bit of time in the evening.

JG

The new catalog from Simply Youth Ministry hits today!

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: The Sex Series (week 2 of 2)

Sermon in a Sentence: Your questions about sex answered.
Service Length: 84 minutes

Understandable Message: This week we focused on the tons of questions we received last weekend – each student had a tear-off card on their program that allowed them to turn in questions about sex. We tackled a ton of big ones – porn, masturbation, homosexuality, forgiveness, sexual abuse, etc and a few silly ones as well that students turned in as a joke. My hope is that if a student came to church this weekend, they were presented with the God’s clear plan for your sex life. They also had their questions answered, and were given hope for restoration and healing if they had already messed up. I taught some of the segments live, and Doug Fields was on video for others.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: We had a great band this week, and the student testimony was absolutely fantastic. So proud of Viki for sharing, her story about wandering off God’s path for sexuality, the consequences and forgiveness was powerful. Students also volunteered running the control room, lights, sound and cameras.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We couldn’t resist using the Chip Dancing video again, he has a great sense of humor and is an incredible volunteer. We used PollEverywhere again this week to ask direct questions about sex students could answer anonymously. And like the KissCam at the Lakers game – we turned the HugCam on the crowd and had some fun with that, too.

Music Playlist: Yours Forever, Freedom is Here, We Shine

Favorite Moment: By far my favorite moment was during the last song. We allowed students to text the word “COMMIT” and then their commitment on the big screen. It was powerful to see students committing their lives to Christ, asking for forgiveness, stopping the addiction to porn, and so much more. SUPER simple, super cool.

Up Next: Each 1 Reach 1 (1-off)

#1 – We DON’T talk about sex all the time
But when we do, it’s because someone in their lives need to. Would you rather have your kids hear it from us…or figure it out?

#2 – We DON’T play games all the time
But when we do, it’s because teenagers need an outlet of fun just as much as an inlet of Scripture. And we like to give them the fun they can wake up and still feel good about in the morning.

#3 – We DON’T do everything last minute
But when we do, it’s because youth ministers have an adaptability that is necessary when working with the ebb and flow of teenage emotion. Doing things last minute does not disprove #2. We do plan ahead. We sign up for mission trips a year in advance. We create teaching calendars based on semesters or themes. We do everything we can to get the who, what, where, when, why, and how much into the hands of parents for as many things as possible. But sometimes things change. And making those decisions is a mark of a true leader.

Sean Kahlich is the Mid-High Youth Minister in Tulsa, OK and blogs over on Awaiting Epiteleo.

Fusion student ministry forwarded me this video they did based on the LABELS super series from Simply Youth Ministry. Fun – love the ending!

JG

Here’s Saddleback’s response to the crisis in Haiti … pray, give, go.

JG

I’m so excited that the new film To Save a Life (read my review here) did so well at the box office last week. It is playing in about 450 theaters in the US – if there’s one near you go this weekend and take a group of students. It was written by a youth pastor, and could really spark some great conversations.

• To Save a Life is the top fan rated film on Fandango!
• Well over 250,000 people saw the film in the first three days or release.
• Their Facebook page is really jumping -  hundreds of life changing comments and growing by thousands each day.
• A student shared about how he attempted suicide on Friday. He was unsuccessful and then went to the film that night and became a Christian and excited about helping others through that dark place.
• Messages about students saying they are going to reach out to people at school starting today and stories of kids walking out of the theater and turning to their friend to ask how to become a Christian.
• If you are hurting and need to talk, call 1-800-273-TALK.

JG

Which of these typical youth ministry moments make you cringe the most?

JG

Saddleback’s High School Ministry has experienced incredible growth over the past two years. Here’s a little of what I shared at HSM Staff Camp this past week to my team as we focus on what’s next for HSM:

I think there is a direct correlation of strong relational youth ministry and participation.

When a ministry focuses primarily on programs and steers clear from getting their hands dirty in the real-life issues facing a student, growth will be short-lived. Now, please hear me on this – I love programs, I sometimes wish we had lasers in our youth room. But I know that while fun is very much one of our values and programs are very important – the best youth ministry happens in small groups, or one-on-one, sharing life. The best youth ministry happens when a caring adult is invested in the life of a student.

HSM is at a turning point in our ministry – I believe that we have two choices – we can rely on more programs and hope to keep the growth, or we can focus on “good enough programs” and turn as much energy as possible into people. When we pour into a volunteer, we exponentially affect our youth ministry. When we pour into a student, we turn a nameless person in the crowd into a participant.

• What would happen if that kid who visited your ministry for the first time went from “came with a friend” to “genuine seeker”?
• What if a Sunday morning kid went from “forced by my parents to be here” to “diving deeply into my own faith”?
• How about if “that one kid” became your example of what a student leader looks like?

I think it is possible – but only with a laser focus on relational ministry. Not on lasers.

FUTURE A
I imagine a typical life-cycle here – a youth ministry that eventually plateaus in participation and ends up with a nice highly-programmed youth ministry. The growth was amazing, but sometime (maybe even years) later  interest wains and the ministry begins to return to the new normal. The youth pastor leaves for another ministry while participation is still pretty much on top, and ever since there is only talk about “the glory days” of old. Still good youth ministry, still lives being changed, but leaves me with a lot of “what might have been” questions and thoughts.

FUTURE B
I imagine a future where programs still exist, but primarily as vehicles for conversations. We still focus on creative programs and be inventive about teaching the Bible, but there’s more than the show. Leaders always have time for people. We have ranks of volunteers waiting for small groups of students to fill them. And then it happens – after a little dip in participation (some kids only came for the lasers) participation grows to new heights. Because people are primary.

So just how are we going to pull this off? More soon.

JG

Starting Tuesday, HSM is going to use Highrise. Highrise is an inexpensive web-based people management tool that we’re applying to managing our youth ministry volunteers (it could easily scale to handle an entire youth ministry even). It helps us keep track of our great team of caring adults that are pouring into students. I’ll be sure to give you an update a few months into it to see if it all pans out. If you’re interested in seeing how it works, hit up the link or sign up for the 30-day trial. Super pleased with the experimenting we’ve been doing with it the past 2 weeks.

Anyone else using it?

JG

You hate to have to do it – but sometimes you have to remove a student from your small group. Here are some suggested steps to help you in the process from start to finish:

1. Share expectations and give boundaries from the beginning
You can’t let one student rule it for the whole group. I like the 3 Strikes Rule myself – it gives you a chance for some warnings before drastic measures have to be taken. Put the power to win/lose in their hands - if they want to be in the group they’ve got three chances. At the end of a night, if someone has really blown it, let them know they’ve got a strike against them and they need to change their behavior. Go public with your plan, and consider giving everyone back a “strike” at the half-way point of the small group year. Bottom line: be grace-filled but firm.

2. Talk to the student directly when there’s a problem
Removing a student from a small group should never come as any surprise to them. Talk to the problem student when you first see a warning sign, and coach them to the correct behavior. Keep in constant communication with the student so they know they are failing to meet your expectations. Don’t bring the other members of your small group into the correction, with the exception of perhaps an acknowledgment and that you are working toward a resolution.

3. You Probably Need to Ask Them to Take a Couple Weeks Off
Don’t write them off completely from the get-go, maybe before drastic measures give them a few weeks off from small group. Ask them to think about the commitment they made at the beginning of the year to the small group and if they would like to come back and honor that commitment. You’d be amazed at how powerful a “time out” can be for them (as well as how the other students in your group will respond when they hear what went down).

4. Its Time to Engage the Parents
Don’t let a decisions as important (and potentially volatile) be done in isolation. Talk to mom and dad through the process and partner with them in helping the student’s behavior change for the better. If you can engage them during the time out stage, it’ll really help if/when you have to remove them altogether.

5. Always Keep in Communication with the Leaders of the Student Ministry
Just like you bring the parents into the matter, also bring the student ministry leader to the discussion as well. Inform them of the history of your small group and what you’ve done to help resolve the situation up to this point. Ask them to pray with you, and follow the instructions given to you by the leadership. They might try to “repot” the kid in a different group to see if a change in scenery brings a change of heart.

6. If all Else Fails … Remove the Student and Ask Them to Consider Small Groups Next Year
If a student does have to be permanently removed and all else has failed, at least leave the door open for next year. A lot can change in a year in the life of a high school student (especially the freshman/sophomore years), so hopefully they’ll take it more seriously next time.

JG