Josh Griffin | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Parents Connecting

We all want to connect with parents right? It’s crazy for anyone to think that one youth pastor and a team of leaders could be held responsible for the spiritual development of a youth group of any size. The spiritual development of youth is about partnershipsleveraging the influences to have a greater impact on every student. Therefore, it is critical that we help to foster the connection between parents and our leaders so that no group- youth workers, small group leader, or parents- feel like they are going it alone. There are two things that we have done to help foster this partnership in our goal to reach youth.

1) Small Group Leader Cards
It is imperative that every parent not just know we have Small Group and Life Group leaders, but that they really know those leaders and who they are, as people. Parents should be able to email leaders and have open conversation outside of church, invite leaders over for dinner, to a sports game, or to a play featuring their student. Leaders could even be on game show as part of the family (Hey, it could happen!). We want them to have access to fun facts about their student’s leader, and really get to know who they are. Most of all, it should be made easy for parents to pray for the leaders who are taking a role in their student’s spiritual development. So we put together a card for every leader that includes a picture, their email, the area they serve in, and a few fun facts. It is kept on our Youth Information Wall, and we encourage every parent to take their leader’s card, put it on the fridge or in their office; wherever they will see it often.

2) Small Group Leader/ Parent Breakfast
In addition, we find times for our leaders and parents to get together. Our goal is to foster discussion in a way that allows them to get to know each other better and see that we are really all on the same team after all. Everything at the breakfast, from placemats to discussion cards are all made to gear and guide discussion. From prior experience and great feedback, it is clear that both parents and leaders enjoy this time together. Although this relationship that is being fostered by the church is absolutely a new world for some of our parents, everyone loves and sees the value in it. Our Pastors love the fact that the! breakfast is a multi-generational activity, our leaders love it because it gives them a way to connect with parents, and our parents loved being able to put a face to a name, and to hear from their leader’s mouth how much their students are valued. This is also effective in afternoon saturday lunch formats, as well as evening dessert nights. Indeed, there are many great adaptations to this idea; all with the same goal in mind, connecting youth small group leaders and parents. No youth pastor wants the be the only person that every parent sees and talks to about how to better love and serve their students.

There is always more we can do to connect our small group leaders with parents, so what am I missing? What are you doing at your church that I and others can steal? Leave a comment!

Justin Herman is the Jr. High Minister at Christ Presbyterian Church in Huntington Beach, CA. He has been in youth ministry for seven years. Justin speaks at camps and FCA meetings, writes, and is a social media fanatic. He breathes for Jesus and the creativity that is so vital within youth ministry. He was born in NYC, raised in Buffalo, educated in Missouri, and now lives in California. You can connect with Justin @HeyJustinHerman or Facebook.com/HeyJustinHerman.

4 View Comments December 21, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts How To Write a Youth Talk

Every youth worker is going to be a little different when it comes to preparing a talk — but hopefully this week we can challenge you to try some methods that really work for us as we do our best to teach God’s Word each week in our youth ministry. So please know this certainly isn’t THE way to write a talk, but it is one way. When I (Kurt) was in college my homiletics professor forced us to master the art of writing the classic three point sermon. He said that when we were through with the class we could write sermons however we wanted, but his job was to make sure we knew at least ONE way. The key isn’t to do it our way, but to find a process that helps you best prepare to communicate God’s Word to students.

Know where the lesson or series is heading
What are we trying to say in this lesson or series of lessons? Where are we trying to move students with this talk? Before you start driving, know which road you are traveling down.

Whiteboard everything you can capture in a brainstorm meeting.
Almost all of our talks begin on the whiteboard using lots and lots of collaboration. Students are there, volunteers are there. There is no such thing as a bad idea (although we’ve been doing this long enough to know that isn’t entirely true). Take a picture to make sure it is captured and not accidentally erased by the church janitor before morning.

Pray over and crank out the 1st draft
What started on the whiteboard now makes it into a Word document and becomes digital. Points, passages and illustrations start to take shape. Maybe you’ll write the talk out word for word, more of a speaking transcript like I (Josh) like to do. Maybe bullet points like I (Kurt) prefer. Just make sure you’re making progress on the message God wants you to share with your students.

Another day, another draft
This collection of thoughts and ideas needs to be honed into a discernible message — so you refine it into the 2nd draft. This is really the beginning of the shaping process. Ideally you’re fairly happy with the talk by this point — some weeks you’ll be ahead of the game, other weeks you maybe won’t have even started it yet. Either way, press on.

Stop, collaborate and listen
At this point, send your message out to a few close friends to review – don’t create your messages in a vacuum. Let a few creative/discerning friends talk through it with you for clarity, perspective and editing.

Use the feedback and you’re ready to go
Done. Deliver the talk and ask a few friends for specific feedback on the delivery and clarity of the message. Over time, you’ll become great at both the preparation and delivery of messages in your youth ministry!

Share how you prepare a talk in the comments!

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.

Add Comment December 20, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts More Than Words With Friends

My friend Bobby sent me this little video – he’s the Student Pastor at a church in GA and his team put together this spoof song for a recent event. So enjoy More than Words with Friends (a takeoff of the old Extreme song called More than Words).

JG

Add Comment December 19, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM’s Christmas Music Video 2011

Christmas Rap from HSM on Vimeo.

Another epic Christmas music video from AC, Chris and even a litle hook sung by yours truly. So fun!

JG

Add Comment December 18, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Make the Dificult Call First

Have you ever got a message on your voicemail or read the subject of an email and a pit instantly developed in your stomach? I have. I remember getting a voicemail from a parent that was upset with me. To say the least…she was livid. As I listened to her message, I hoped that she just wanted to scream at me over voicemail and would forget to ask me to call her back. She didn’t and as she concluded her message, she gave me her phone number and told me to call.

You may think that I’m a super pastor and handle those situations with ease. I’m not. I did what most people do–I avoided. I instantly came up with a bunch of urgent to-do items and calling her back was easily put off until later in the day. I remember thinking that I should just suck it up and call her back instantly, but I didn’t.

Fast-forward a couple days and as I waited for her and her husband to come into my office for a face-to-face, I was scared to death. Not only did I forget to call her back as the day went on, I waited to the next day.

The first few moments after they entered my office, she told me that I didn’t see her call (or this issue) as urgent. I see where she was coming from, but in all honesty, what she didn’t know is that I wanted to run away and enter the witness protection program. I always knew that dealing with conflict and angry parents were a part of the gig, but this wasn’t what I signed up for in student ministry. Where was the metro worship pastor playing kumbaya?

The meeting was a mess and nothing I said helped the matter. After a good fist pounding on my desk, several colorful words, and awkward moments of “I’m catching my breath” silence the ordeal was over. That day, I learned that I needed to make my most difficult call first. I realized that doing so forces me to handle situations I don’t want to handle. It also keeps me from accidently forgetting or stressing about it the rest of the day. I’ve compiled a “To-do” list for handling tough issues like this. I hope it helps!

Pull out your Bible and read Philippians 4:5
Make a list of a couple key points that you want to communicate
Allow them to vent their frustration (Resist the urge to interrupt and defend yourself)
In response, control your tone of voice
Admit any personal fault
Thank them for contacting you

These steps won’t guarantee that everything will go away. I still resist the urge to put off hard conversations, but experience has taught me that implementing these items can spur healing and forgiveness.

What is the hardest call you’ve ever had to make?

About Nick Farr: By the age of 30, Nick has served as a missionary, creative arts director, student pastor, graphic designer, freelance photographer, and now church planter. He’s married to an amazing woman and has one daughter. He’s regularly blogs at http://www.EverythingPastor.com

3 View Comments December 18, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Tim Tebow Mic’d Up!

Don’t know what today’s game holds, but what an awesome video of Tim Tebow mic’d up!

JG

tim tebow

Add Comment December 18, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Holiday Giving Not Spending

In 2009 the amount was $41.2 billion. Last year saw impressive growth, moving up to $45 billion. That’s almost a $4 billion increase in a single calendar year. It may sound like Wall Street employee bonus checks, but this is the amount of money Americans spent at retailers on the four-day Black Friday weekend, which includes Cyber Monday.

That’s roughly $11 billion spent per day, primarily on consumer electronics and the accessories and media that make them hum. Throughout the entire holiday season–essentially Black Friday through
Christmas day–more than $450 billion was spent last year in the United States. This, on top of the billions we spend the other 360 days of the year on the same products. It’s hard not to pass judgment on this type of frivolous spending, particularly when there are so many needy people in the world, in our own neighborhoods. To be sure, many of these purchases are intended to brighten the holidays for a lot of unfortunate children and families, which has given me and my family time to reflect on just what holiday giving is all about, and how we could change our pattern to better reflect our personal desires to live in a better world.

For a lot of years we made “Christmas Angel” purchases at our local shopping mall, helping to meet the specific requests for underprivileged kids. We don’t have a lot of money, but we certainly have more than so many others and knew we could easily help a child or two have the same bright and cheery Christmas morning as our own child. This form of giving brings our family a lot of happiness, but we’ve always wanted to do more.

We started looking for charitable organizations that were already helping children around the world, primarily to see if we could find a really good fit. In short, we want our charitable donations to do the most good. Our search yielded a great deal of exciting and even inspiring information. Did you know that for a measly $4,500 nearly 500 people in Sudan and Sierra Leone, Africa can drink clean water from their own well? For $6,500 the same number of people in Uganda and Kenya can get the same clean, fresh drinking water so badly needed. The amount of money spent on one holiday weekend in the United States could build 10 million freshwater wells.

Now, they don’t need that many wells, but that’s the point. If we spent a mere 10% less on just Black Friday weekend and put that $4.5 billion into a charity like The Water Project or the Advent Conspiracy through its partnership with Living Water International, we could effectively end the very serious and lethal water problems in these four African countries, which include drought and contamination.

We looked further into this and discovered that $10 will provide fresh drinking water for one person for an entire year. Ten lousy bucks! $50 will help an entire family, and $250 will provide fresh water to an entire classroom for a whole year.

Less than a twenty-five percent of what is spend over Black Friday weekend, and approximately two percent of what is spent throughout the holidays–$10 billion– will solve this problem once and for all.

Can you imagine these Central African nations with no water-related problems? So can we, which is why we’ve made a couple of important choices this year. As in years past, we’ll eschew Black Friday and all its trappings, and we’ll ensure that we help an entire classroom have fresh, clean drinking water for an entire year. Won’t you join us?

Imagine what we could do for hunger!

Tim is a marketer for Cabledeal.org. He is an avid promoter of global issues and prayerfully wishes there was more he could do to help those with true needs. To learn more about Tim and to see what he is up to follow him on Twitter @TimLCooley.

Add Comment December 17, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: 3 Reasons To Be Friends With All Your Students On Facebook

I think most of us in the camp of facebook being a good ministry tool, although its effectiveness at time to communicate and actually elicit some sort of response to who is attending an event, or can help out at an event can be minimal. I am still of the belief that Facebook is useful and here is why I make a point to be a FB friend with every student possible that is a part of our group.

Humility: Lets admit it, most of us have gone home after youth group and scanned through Facebook to see what students wrote for a status update and if they mentioned being at Church. This is less about pumping up my own tires, and more about spotting trends. How did we teach tonight and did it stick? Are students sharing what happened or grieving missing the newest episode of Glee. More often than not, there is not much posted, and perhaps that is a reflection of how the night went. Its not a litmus test, but a decent indicator of whether or not we were clear in communicating God’s word and if we helped them understand how to apply it. The other half of the humility coin, is realizing just how much work needs to be done. My heart breaks regularly as I watch students wander down paths of destruction and pain and any time someone tries to pat us on the back about our ministry I want to reply with “we are not even close”. There are thousand of students near us that need to know Jesus and there is so much to do and just we can’t get full of ourselves.

Accountability: Facebook was gives us the ability to have a window into students and leaders lives that we never had before and vice versa. I love that students have a view into my life and can see the things I do when I am not “on” and I hope that they would see that my faith, my love of my wife goes deeper than just saying it. I want students to see my whole life and that means I need to live it. For students, since you are one of their hundreds of friends, they tend to be pretty real on FB which allows us to engage in parts of their life that are sometimes not good and have conversations about their struggles. I have been able to intervene with students before they get too far down a path of destruction and those conversations are not fun, but I am thankful to be able to have them.

Follow-up / Connection: This has been a huge win for us as far as getting students plugged into our program. We have lots of summer camps near us and several send us a list of students that made decisions, or showed interest in being a part of youth group when they got home. The challenge has always been cold calling students and inviting them to an unfamiliar place and everything we tried just seemed to miss. This year we plugged each of the names into Facebook and that revealed any friends in common who were a part of our group. Taking that information we contacted them and let each student know which of their friends were already here. We then took that list of friends in common and chose a few current students to suggest that they invite the new ones to our group. Retention of camp referrals and “new the church” students has increased significantly.

It’s a delicate balance being “friends” with students and remaining their leader and it’s a unique luxury that not even teachers are allowed to have. I see it as an opportunity to lead them better, encourage them more and model my Christian walk with more than my words on a youth night.

Geoff Stewart is the Pastor of Jr & Sr High School for Journey Student Ministries at Peace Portal Alliance Church and regularly contributes GUEST POSTS to MTDB. Be sure to check out his Twitter stream for awesome ministry goodness. Want to get in on the fun and write up a guest post yourself? See how right here.