Josh Griffin | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts It Costs $30 to Join a Youth Ministry Life Group

A couple years ago, we started to charge students to join a small group in our youth ministry. Why? Good question – honestly, I’ve had to explain this on occasion to parents, so writing it out here will help me articulate the answer. Just for perspective, as a youth group we budget $0 for Life Groups, the money raised by registration fees goes to cover resources, trainings and materials. Here’s the details:

LIVE Bible
The most important item a student will receive is their new Bible. This year we moved away from the Life Application Bible to use the LIVE Bible. Really, really like this Bible, excited to get it in students’ hands. The Bible retails for $22.99 but can be picked up for $15-18 pretty easily.

Alternate Resource
In the case the student already has a LIVE Bible, we offered up some alternate resources for students to use over the course of the year. This year we gave a Bible study book or a pocket Bible commentary.

Student Journal
We gave students a small journal to write down their learnings and record prayer requests from their group. We’ve printed different ones over the years, sometimes they’re simple like a little Mead notebook with a sticker on it, sometimes more complicated. Either way, we want students to have something in their hand to write down what they’re learning.

LIVE curriculum
Students don’t feel the actual return on this one like getting a physical item like a Bible or journal – but they’ll feel it each week during the teaching time. LIVE isn’t cheap – $499 for the first year and $99 every year after, but we love it and it has quickly become part of our 4-year teaching plan.

Training
Once again, something students won’t feel tangibly, but it should be felt intangibly every moment of the school year. We pour into volunteers, giving them training, discussion groups, resources (like 99 Thoughts for Small Group Leaders) and more. Every minute we pour into small group leaders is a chance to pour into 5-10 students.

Not saying that your youth ministry should charge for small groups next year, but it is working for us, and students are getting a TON of bang for their thirty bucks.

JG

4 View Comments November 5, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts Few Youth Group Events … More Youth Group Activities

This fall we’ve been trying out some new ideas with our fall youth ministry calendar (you can see the actual calendar here if you missed it a couple months ago). It is always tough to make adjustments when things are going well – the tendency is to settle in and keep doing whatever is working. So our motivation was to make things even better was not without risk – but it felt like it was the right time to pull the trigger.

Here’s some of the theory behind some of the changes we’ve made in HSM’s events and activities philosophy:

No More Events
This fall, we had one single event on the calendar for our students. PumpkinFest. Now, we planned for it to be big, we pushed it for weeks. This was not just the only event, it was going to be the one to be at! But other than that one event – you couldn’t find a budget-killing, overnight black hole of time and money planned for our youth group. While we’ve never been an event-driven student ministry – but this is a big change from a youth ministry based on the event to event hype machine from one big thing to the next.

More Activities
So streamlining events and going for more effective has led us to this: more activities. Let me explain the distinction, because on first glance that might sound conflicting. Events take you out an extra night of the week, they take a ton of resources, they take a ton of manpower. Events are a ton of work, and most of the time, not enough return. Often times they’re effective in bringing a crowd, but have little effect on reaching people for Jesus Christ or much less even increasing the number of students attending regular services. Here’s where activities are different than events; they’re attached to an existing program. Activities are a pancake breakfast on Sunday morning. Activities are bingo nights with great prizes after after youth group or hanging out at Chic-Fil-A after small groups. Activities are easy, and fun, build community and hold hands more closely with the actual church.

I think there’s room for both in youth ministry, but I’m loving doing less events and more activities. Thoughts?

JG

8 View Comments November 4, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts POLL: Paying for Evangelism

An interesting discussion came up on last week’s Simply Youth Ministry Podcast (episode 144, click here to watch it). The discussion was about giving your students an incentive (money, discounts, prizes, etc) for bringing their friends to church. The team seemed pretty much opposed to it, but I didn’t see it as a big deal. Curious as to what you think? Vote today!

JG

15 View Comments November 3, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts Simply Youth Ministry Podcast: Episode 144

Here’s the latest episode of the Simply Youth Ministry Podcast. Enjoy it – just recorded another one today, too!

JG

2 View Comments November 3, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts Gifting an iTunes Song Idea for Your Student Ministry

A couple of weekends ago we came up with an idea to help bring the message home and into a student’s life each morning. We gave them a song from iTunes and a challenge. All they had to do was promise to listen to the song each morning for a week – the point I was trying to make was as you get ready in the morning, make sure you’re getting ready spiritually, too.

During the message, students were asked to fill out a response card with their iTunes email address
We didn’t have a backup plan for non-iTunes students (sorry!)
We chose a different song for each gender to help make the message more specific
As the girls put on their makeup, we asked them to play the song “Beautiful” by Bethany Dillon and challenged them to be beautiful on the inside and the outside.
As the guys get pumped up in the morning, we gave them the song “Awake and Alive” by Skillet to listen to as a reminder that the day is God’s and to commit their path to Him.

Students seemed to really dig the idea … hopefully the money was well spent. If you don’t now how to gift a song in iTunes (you can do a whole bunch with one click) you can find out how right here. Maybe this idea will work for you sometime soon, too!

JG

4 View Comments November 3, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts Student Leadership Conferences That Might Be Good for Your Core Students

We’ve held a Purpose Driven Youth Ministry (PDYM) Student Leadership Conference here at Saddleback Church the past several years, and right now we’re taking a little break from it in the current season. I imagine it’ll come back again soon, details of it’s return will be here first, but what are other great options for your core students to get some training. Google is sending a lot of searchers to my site looking for the answer – so here are some thoughts on great student leadership events coming soon:

Student Leadership University (official website) – I’ve been to a couple of Jay Strack’s Student Leadership events with students and had a total blast. He has a unique and memorable teaching style and each event is set in a unique location. Lots of tracks available, including some advanced international stuff. Not something for a ton of students, if you’ve got some hungry kids looking for workshops, community and challenge, this might be some good stuff.
Converge 2011 (official website) – I’ve never been before, but love the lineup for this event in Indiana. I was privileged to record a “digital presentation” for the event. Sounds like a really great program they’ve got planned with some serious names teaching.
Dare 2 Share (official website) – I really like Greg Stier – he’s a one message kinda guy, but he’ll challenge your core students to reach out to their non-believing friends with the Gospel. High energy, conference-like event, with a ton of locations all over the US. Not something I would necessarily go to every year, but could be a solid challenge for your students.

What other great student-leadership/core-kid event, training or conference isn’t on my radar? Post it, promo it, plug it in the comments!

JG

5 View Comments November 2, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts Weigh In: Volume 3 – YMCA Youth Group

Every so often we take a question, perhaps an unanswered one from the Simply Youth Ministry Podcast, and pose it to you the MTDB community to answer instead of our show’s panel. Here’s a great one that came in — if you have some wisdom I hope you’ll share in the comments!

I’m brand new to the youth ministry world and would love your ideas, tips and thoughts on how we’re doing youth ministry. We are going to start our youth group soon and will be meeting in the local YMCA. It has lots of potential – full access to the pool, gym, weight and more. The problem is I’m not sure how to program each night to use this amazing building/facilities wisely. Help me out!

Now — weigh in!

JG

8 View Comments November 2, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts POLL: Favorite Taco Bell Salsa

Youth workers love Taco Bell. There, I said it. Cheap, fast, delicious … perfect. And now with 2 new sauces to choose from, it just got even better. Your thoughts on the best sauce of the bunch, please!

JG

3 View Comments November 1, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts CONTEST: 9-Square Youth Ministry Game Giveaway

The gang over at 9 Square in the Air has given me a full game of 9 Square to giveaway! Looks like is would be super fun at your next retreat, event or summer camp.

Want to enter? Leave a comment – post your name and where or when you would play the game in your youth ministry setting. The winner will be announced on Friday – check out their site if you want to know more – or check them out in person at the Nashville Youth Specialties Convention!

JG

97 View Comments November 1, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts Guiding the Discussion in a Youth Ministry Small Group

Matt McGill over at Love God, Love Students had a great post about the discussion he leads with his small group guys. Thought some of these tips might come in handy for a volunteer training in your future:

I don’t ask questions because I know there are “three or four” correct answers…who knows what insights will emerge?
we can’t interrupt one another, cause it’s hard to share and harder when we’re interrupted
there will be silences…you may feel it’s awkward
I’ll be learning along side you, and sometimes I’ll be quiet after a response trying to understand it better, I’d rather understand a new thought than have my next “agenda item” ready to fire off
Some thoughts will be half baked, and sometimes we’ll start taking and then not know how to end the thought
I don’t answer very many questions…I don’t really need to because usually we come to the right answers together…this is really frustrating for some

JG