Josh Griffin | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Training Day

As student minister’s one thing we have to always strive for is to be a perpetual student of our craft. We can never know too much about youth ministry. This is one thing that I defiantly do not have a problem with. No matter what I have done in my life I always threw myself into it full force. When I played drums in band in high school I studied, not only in school, but on my own. I listen to instructional by well known drummers at the time, I went to drum clinics, and dissected drums solos by popular drummers. When I joined the Army as a Military Police officer, I took baton instructor classes, correspondence courses, and unarmed self defense training. As youth ministers we must constantly be students of our own art. How do we do that? Here are some quick sources for training!

1: The Bible: I know I know, you’ve heard it a million times but that doesn’t make it any less true. The better your relationship with God the better off your ministry is.

2: Blogs: The cheapest form of training out there! Find a youth ministry mentor such as Josh Griffin at morethandodgeball.com, Doug Fields’ Blog, Stephanie Caro’s blog, or even my own at lifeintheymfishbowl.com. Want find great ideas to try? Read a blog. Want training on ideas to help grow your youth group? Read a Blog. Also there are non blog websites out there that are great. One I love is youthministry.com. Great articles and great ideas.

3: Certificates: Many colleges offer online youth minister training for a small price. Plus you get a handy certificate to hang up on the wall. Another place to check out is youthsphere.tv. This site offers a great certificate and great training under the giants of youth ministry.

4: Group Magazine: Some of the best youth ministry ideas delivered to your door once every two months. Nuff said!

5: Other youth ministers: Your local youth minister’s network is a great source of training. You can pick up great life lessons while sitting down for a cup of coffee.

6: Youth Minister’s support networks: many denominations offer great youth minister support networks who can offer great advice and ideas.

7: Conferences: I’ve often heard conferences called the poor man’s seminary. That’s about the truth. With SYMC coming up you have the option of the large conference and it’s many options but also don’t over look the smaller local conferences that are out there, if money is an issue.

8: College: This option is not for everyone, but if you feel like God is calling you for a deeper commitment this is a great option. I’m currently enrolled online for a degree with a Student Ministry emphasis. There are many great colleges that offer Youth Ministry Masters degrees also many Seminaries that offer degrees with youth ministry minors.

9: Books: Some of the best training I’ve ever received was through two books, “Purpose Driven Youth Ministry” and “My First Two Years in Youth Ministry” both by Doug Fields. Books are the best way to glean ideas from well renowned youth ministers. Not just Doug but many giants of youth ministry have published books that are great training resources.

10: Last but not least: This one may strike you as odd…..your senior pastor. I know your thinking “He did not just say I could get training from the old man/woman” Yep I went there! Some of our senior pastors were youth ministers once. They can be great resources for ideas and wonderful sounding blocks. I was thinking about revamping our “Sunday School” class and asked our senior pastor what he thought. Low and behold we had the same idea and he had many small details that I hadn’t pondered.

If you look around there are many great resources out there for youth ministers to learn from. We really have no excuse to not stay on top of our game. You owe it to you church, your kids, and yourself to be the most well trained youth minister you can be.

Kevin Patterson is the youth pastor at Dawson Springs First Baptist Church in Dawson Spring, KY. Be sure to check out http://www.lifeintheymfishbowl.blogspot.com/ to regularly get in on his learnings, too!

Add Comment February 5, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Epic Fail

Have you ever really messed up? I mean, completely blown it. I have and I thought there is no way to recover from this one. I have finally figured out that it is okay to mess up and fail! Congratulations, you didn’t do it!

The great thing about failing is that it is not the end result. It is part of the process. Another element in life. For instance, Abraham Lincoln’s resume:

1 View Comments February 4, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Jesus Pwn3d You

We played this video last week in HSM … so funny.

JG

1 View Comments February 4, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts “The Guide” HSM’s Interactive Touch Screen

HSM resident creative genius Parker Stech is pushing us in some incredible new directions. Here’s one example: this (video above) is how we’re encouraging students to take a next spiritual step through a touchscreen. Working on a way to get something like this out there for everyone to use … stay tuned.

JG

5 View Comments February 3, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Youth Ministry Debriefing for Dummies

You wake up exhausted. Was that overnighter a dream? Where did your black eye come from? Why is your arm in a cast? Why are there 13 missed calls from various parents? What speeding ticket?

If you’re like us, after a big event or activity the last thing you want to do is re-live all the details. If nobody died, you probably count your blessings and move on to the next order of business (or should we say the next order of “busyness”?) And it’s the busyness of youth ministry that typically keeps youth workers from taking the time to evaluate our events and activities.

After all, you spent 2 months getting ready for summer camp…why spend one day debriefing it upon your return (that’s a rhetorical, sarcastic question)? So, after a big activity, get some rest and when your head does clear of sleep deprivation, here are a few ways to debrief like a professional event planner:

Gather the troops to celebrate
Have an evening after a big event already marked on the calendar to take time to celebrate what God did at your event. Make a sort of reunion feel to the night, including pictures, video, even a student testimony or screenshots from Facebook™ of people talking about the event. Make it known that debriefing will be part of the celebration. We reserve this type of nights for camps, retreats, mission trips etc. There’s probably no need to plan a special night just to celebrate a successful bowling outing.

Talk about “The Good”
Start with the highlights — this will get everyone centered on why you did the event in the first place and get the discussion going so it’s easier to share the lowlights. What did God do? What were the stories and celebrations from the event? What went flawlessly? What was surprising?

Talk about “The Bad”
Potential improvements are easy for some people to see — so work on creating a list of what wasn’t best and quickly think of how to improve them. Time is best spent creating a list of things that could be improved rather than focusing on solutions — it is much easier to attach someone with a particular skillset to a problem later. Start the debrief asking people to “speak the truth in love”.

Talk about “The Ugly”
Things happen. Stuff gets broken and things bomb. Only the worst offenders get on this list — don’t put things that could be easily fixed here, only stuff you swear you’ll never do again.

Send off apologies/thank yous
In the course of youth ministry events you may be required to apologize for something that happened. You may want to offer to fix a lamp that was broken. Or return something that was stolen. And for sure a quick thank you to everyone involved in the planning, pulling off and follow-through of the event will go a long ways in making sure the next one is even better.

Here’s hoping your next event, and the debrief afterward, go great!

This post was written by Josh Griffin and Kurt Johnston and originally appeared as part of Simply Youth Ministry Today free newsletter. Subscribe to SYM Today right here.

1 View Comments February 3, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Student Ministry Jeopardy

At our January staff retreat (affectionately known as Student Ministries Staff Camp) we played a few rounds of HSM Jeopardy. It was a great chance to get to know each other better, test our knowledge of youth ministry philosophy and volunteers. Might be a fun idea to play with your people, too! Here were the categories:

1980-Present: questions about Saddleback Church’s history
Take a Look: name the volunteer (pictures only)
CooCoo Ways: questions about the funny quirks of our people
Mascot Mania: questions about our local high school mascots
High School Musical: questions relating to music in our ministry
Legends of the Fall: questions about our team’s life before youth ministry
Nuts & Bolts: questions about youth ministry basics
Animal Planet: questions about funny connections to our team and animals

Winner got movie tickets and a gift card to Chilis!

JG

Add Comment February 2, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Free Valentine’s Lesson from YM360

Our friends at youthministry360 are giving away a FREE Valentines lesson. It’s a solid lesson that uses the story of Ruth and Boaz to talk about the God-centered love we see in the Bible versus the broken image of love the world bombards students with. The lesson also makes the connection that the aspects of love seen in Ruth’s story are perfected in the love we see in Christ. The lesson features a really cool, really interactive PowerPoint slideshow as well as a Leader’s Guide. If you want to teach the lesson, all you have to do is roll over there to check it out.

JG

Add Comment February 2, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts The Book Series Video: Week 2

Each week the sermon bumper video for this series grows by 20-30 seconds – here’s part 2 (of 6) for our student-version of the 40 Days in the Word campaign, The Book.

JG

5 View Comments February 2, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Converge Student Leadership Conference 2012

Just finished up recording a “digital presenter” session for the Converge Student Leadership Conference in the Midwest. I wish I could have been a part of it live – but I’m pumped to teach on video. Looks like such a fun event! I would highly recommend either Converge in the Midwest or Student Leadership Conference on either coast! Oh, and while we’re on the subject of student leaders, Doug Franklin has been killing it, lately!

JG