Josh Griffin | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts The Book Series Video: Week 5

Here’s the latest series bumper video from the 40 Days in the Word series (student version called The Book). Each week of the series the idea was to add another 20-30 seconds of content to introduce what would be talked about that weekend. This is the best so far! Final version coming next week!

JG

Add Comment February 20, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 171

Weekend Teaching Series: The Book [40 Days in the Word church-wide campaign] (week 5 of 6)
Sermon in a Sentence: New Testament survey.

Service Length: 79 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend I wanted to take students on an overview of the entire New Testament – helping them see the big picture of the second half of the Bible. We discovered each of the major divisions, focused on the big picture view and zoomed in just a little bit to help understand communion, etc. During each point I had a couple guys on stage drawing/painting an image of that part of the Bible so we had a full timeline of the Bible hanging on stage when the talk was done.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This weekend we introduced Justin and Travis – the 2 new staff members on the HSM team. We had a fun video and did a quick interview with them on stage. We also played a few funny videos – during the recap of last week I played the David & Goliath voiceover video and then for an illustration we played the video of the dad shooting his daughter’s laptop (because she had posted some bad comments and him and his wife).

Music Playlist: Go, Savior of the World, Thank You, Hosanna, How He Loves

Favorite Moment: I loved having communion at the end of the service this weekend – it just felt right as we worked through the New Testament in the Life of Christ and the early church. It was a great finale to the service – we had our team around the room at stations for prayer as well. Love it!

Up next: The Book (series finale, week 6 of 6)

Add Comment February 20, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Promoting Winter Camp

Every event the question comes up: How are we getting the word out? And, of course, every few months the answers morph and change as the world of communication evolves. What we’ve learned is that there is no one answer that suffices. We have to repeatedly communicate to both kids and parents in lots of ways. We utilize our website, posters, invitation cards, text, Twitter, but far and away the most effective the past few years have been Facebook and YouTube. I work with middle school students, so some of them are not old enough or their parents do not allow them to have a Facebook page yet. However, the majority of families in our community either have a student or a parent who’s on Facebook, so we have a profile for our ministry that we update daily. The challenge is to keep up with where students are at and be creative in capturing their attention. Every week we have students make announcement videos, and when we have a special event like camp we’ll make special promo videos. Here are 2 fun, creative videos we made to promote our winter camp this year.

Kevin Mahaffy is the Middle School Pastor at Southwest Community Church in Indian Wells, CA. Check out his blog and more at http://revkevjr.blogspot.com/.

1 View Comments February 19, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts The Old Testament / New Testament in 60 Seconds

NewThru30: The New Testament in 60 Seconds from Elevation Church on Vimeo.

NewThru30: The Old Testament in 60 Seconds from Elevation Church on Vimeo.

I Tweeted last night that we were continuing The Book series (40 Days in the Word Campaign) in our high school ministry by teaching a New Testament survey in 30 minutes. My friend Terrace shot me a couple videos from Elevation Church that would fit perfectly if you want to do this series or a similar one in the future!

JG

Add Comment February 19, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Not Settling For Good Enough In Ministry

You may have seen a youth group that has just settled. The students know what is coming next in program, you have not done anything new in five years, there is a lot of insider talk going on and any new people that want to come to youth group find themselves left out. You have probably played the same games every four months, the lessons seem to be oddly similar week to week, and praise and worship has become stale. I have been to a couple of them and I find my heart breaking for what more their could be.

I have worked in some very different places as I have served as a paid youth worker. Sometimes the community of youth workers did amazing ministry that inspired me to go far and above what I thought was good enough for youth ministry. Other times, I have served in an area where the youth workers did just enough to look good and get their pay check. The organization I am working with now, Club Beyond, does not settle for good enough.

We do youth ministry in chapels on military bases which means we have high expectations for being great in ministry. Traditions can be a great thing, but if not navigated well, you can fall into a youth ministry rut.

So is your youth ministry settling for good enough? Take this quick survey:

What is the state of the spiritual formation of your students?
Has your youth group format changed at all in three months?
Do your students ask the tough questions and do you address those questions at some point?
Are you excited the day of your meeting or think more about what is going to happen afterwards?
Have your teenagers, volunteers, parents, and yourself been challenged at all in the last four meetings?

These might not be fun questions to answer, but for your students to thrive at youth group, you need to provide a ministry that is thriving too.

Jeremy Smith is a 26-year old youth pastor at the Air Force Academy chapel, working for Club Beyond, and attending Denver Seminary for his Master”s of Arts in Counseling Ministries. He has been involved in Youth for Christ for eight years — check out his blog at Seventy8Productions.

Add Comment February 18, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts I Am a Youth Worker. I Am the 99.

I am Youth Worker. I am the 99.

I am underpaid and overworked — working a full time job to pay the bills and doing my best to honor God and my students with the spare time that I have to put together the service each week for youth group.

I stayed up late last night talking to a student who’s relationship break-up resulted in their crisis and many tears. I’m up early this morning on my way to work.

I want to be involved in the youth ministry network in town but it’s just not feasible. I need the encouragement, resources, networking, and tools that they offer, but I can’t make it with my work schedule.

I often times compare what I have to the youth worker down the street with interns, a monthly budget, and a youth building and recreation center. It’s not like I’m trying to compete (How could I?), but I sometimes finding myself wishing I had more of what you do.

I’m just as passionate and work just as hard as the full time, paid guy, but I do it after my day job — not as my day job. As a result, I’m burnt out, tired, and sometime — no, many times — feel like giving in.

I apologize for the sensationalist tone and for comparing the average youth worker to the Occupy protest’s 99%. But I’m hoping to catch someone’s attention. As a district guy in our denomination, I’ve come across stories of so many youth workers that have so little to work with. 99% might be too high of a percentage to compare it to youth workers that are not at full time capacity, but in reality, it’s probably not that far off.

I was having a conversation with a youth pastor yesterday that was telling me about their first visit to a local gathering of youth workers. I asked her if it was encouraging and her response was, “Yes, it was helpful hearing about all the different resources and ideas from other youth workers, but I also came away a little bit discouraged at how little I have to work with compared to some of the others. They were sharing ideas that were really cool, but just weren’t feasible without interns and a big budget. It made me feel somewhat insignificant.”

When you stop and consider how many youth workers are part-time or volunteer, it really is the wide majority of us. Many churches want to hire on a full time youth pastor and give them a budget to work with but just don’t have the financial resources to do so. Which leaves a lot of us youth workers feeling a bit stretched thin.

So here’s the thing: if you are the “one percent” — meaning, you are a full time youth worker and you have the luxury of having a ministry budget and other things that the majority of your peers maybe don’t — consider taking care of some of our own.

2 View Comments February 17, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Group Magazine Live: Youth Ministry Money

“The Down-and-Dirty on Youth Ministry Salaries” – the video above dives into all things ministry and money! Everything from who decides, average salaries, large church vs small church, why, what, how to support a family and our GROUP Magazine’s biennial Youth Ministry Salary Survey!

Guests included:
Rachel Cruze — Speaker, DaveRamsey.com representative, and daughter of Dave Ramsey
Tony Myles — Senior Pastor of Connection Church in Medina, OH
Brian Berry — Author, and Group Magazine’s “Family Matters” columnist

Hosted by Rick Lawrence, the editor of Group Magazine and Toby Rowe from Group Missions Trips.

JG

1 View Comments February 17, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts The Call of Duty Dilemma

Got a question in from one of our parents this week – it is a question we’re getting quite often and one I’m answering in my own home as well. A parent asked this:

I’ve been researching online because of a dilemma I have. I have 3 boys, a 9 yo. a 6 and a 1 yo. my 2 elder boys love to play Call of Duty. I know it is a violent game, but I just don’t know the right words to say to discourage them from playing it. I tried my best to say that its a violent game and its not going to do them any good but I end up losing the argument when they start saying that they are the only ones in class/group of friends that doesn’t play it.

I asked Parker to reply (he’s the resident game along with myself), and thought what he shared was excellent. He gave me permission to reprint it here on the blog in case it would be helpful to you!

Hi Parent!

Great question! First and foremost, you’re completely right. If you feel like a game is too violent, you have every right to restrict your son from playing it. He may kick and scream, but you’re not doing anything wrong by being a parent. In fact, I’m really happy that you’re not just snatching the game away and enforcing BMSS Law (Because Mom Said So). That would probably cause more issue with him. I love that you’re looking to encourage him to do the right thing rather than force him. So here are my three thoughts on restricting teenagers from violent video games:

1. Explain more about how you don’t feel: Sounds strange, but when you only explain how you do feel and your teenager doesn’t agree with you, he’ll start filling in gaps on your side to justify why he’s right and you’re crazy. So, rather than just saying, “I don’t want you playing these games because…”, add “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you’re going to shoot up a school because you’re playing MW3. It’s not that I think it makes you a bad kid. I don’t even think it’s the worst game ever that’s going to corrupt your mind.” Every point you make about how you don’t feel is less ammo for him to complain about later. He won’t be able to say, “My mom’s crazy! She thinks a video game is going to corrupt me!” In reality, you’re trying your best to raise a Godly son and you want him to make good choices in what he does in his life. You don’t feel like violent games are a choice that honors God, so you want him to find an alternative.

2. Let him choose alternatives: Some parents are okay with games like Halo because you’re fighting aliens instead of humans (that’s your own comfort level). Let him know that you’re completely okay with other games (just don’t restrict them to LeapFrog games!). If he gets to choose other games, he’ll be less resistant because you’re partnering with him, not controlling him. Just feeling that ownership of decision making can make a huge difference. So, you’re setting the game boundaries because you’re the parent, but he’s free to play whatever game he wants (as long as they’re inside your boundaries). When you talk, focus more on the games he can plan, not the games he can’t. Make it a discussion, not a lecture.

3. Buy him a replacement: If you’re going to take away one of his games, I’d suggest offering to replace it. Remember, he didn’t do anything wrong by playing MW3. It’s just something you’re not comfortable with. So, instead of taking away something he enjoys and saying, “Tough luck”, consider buying him a new game that you do approve of. If he reacts well, reward him with a newer/better game of his choice. If he blows up on you, don’t get him a game at all, but make it very clear that it’s because of his reaction, not because he likes playing MW3.

The big thing is to work with him, not drop a bombshell on his gaming life. This stuff is important to teenagers and it helps them to know that you understand the impact it makes on their lives when you remove a game from their archive. Remember, you’re still the parent and what you says goes. Just give him and support the opportunity to deal with this on a mature, win/win basis. Hopefully things go well and he doesn’t get his whole Xbox taken away!!!

I’ll be praying for you! Keep me updated!

JG

3 View Comments February 16, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts D6 Days – FREE Online Conference

On February 21st the D6 Conference is releasing a new program called D6 Days. D6 Days is a way to get a taste of the D6 Conference experience online from your laptop, iPad, tablet, or whatever. And it’s absolutely FREE.

Beginning on February 21, and for the two weeks that follow, they will be posting fresh video content from some of our current speakers, complete past D6 Conference video sessions, and audio Lab MP3′s that can be downloaded or shared. I’m excited to help host D6 with Mark Mattlock this coming year, too – but for now this is the perfect way to experience D6!

JG