Josh Griffin | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts Making Announcements Fun and Memorable

This weekend we did our best to make announcements memorable with ParkerBot the Awkward Robot. The idea was to announce our Pumpkinfest event coming this Friday night – so during the middle of the traditional announcement we had the robot come on stage and interact with the emcee. It was a funny bit – I think that the robot is going to make an appearance at the event, too.

Parkerbot Visits HSM from HSM on Vimeo.

Just saw that we posted a little video of it, too. Fun!

JG

4 View Comments October 27, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Following Up on a Life Group Lesson

Was talking to one of our awesome Life Group leaders last night about how he follows up with his small group of boys. I’m so glad he blogged about it, too, so you can share in our conversation. Here’s a clip from Matt’s post called “Quiet Time Challenge” over at Gen2Gen:

1. I text them all this morning to remind them what we had talked about and I’ll text them back tonight and ask them to tell me what they sacrificed today to find an extra 15 minutes for a quiet time. I’ll keep the text messages coming for the next 3-4 days.

2. We have a private Facebook page for our group, I’ve asked them to post what they are sacrificing. So far two of the 12 already have!

3. I don’t want to constantly harp on this to them, but I want to keep this idea going in their mind and get them to develop a quiet time as a daily habit. I know what a change it made it my life and I want them to experience the same thing.

JG

Add Comment October 27, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts New 3-Week Sermon Series Released: Trinity

I’m excited to point you toward a new resource published by Simply Youth Ministry called Trinity. It is a 3-week series on The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. You can read my blog entries from the series when we did it in HSM [week 1, week 2 and week 3] to give you an idea if it would be helpful in your youth ministry setting as well.

When planning youth ministry sermons, it’s sometimes tempting to shy away from deep theological topics. Why is there evil in our world? Why did God give Adam and Eve the choice to obey or disobey? Why does God permit boy bands to exist?

The Trinity can be a challenging topic to address, but this sermon series with Josh Griffin will help your students gain a clearer understanding of who God is–the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

God is a Father who rescues sinners as the Son, and the Holy Spirit dwells inside us and guides us. Understanding the Trinity will help your teenagers realize that God is not some distant God who simply created the world and left it all to its own devises. God truly is close by.

JG

Add Comment October 27, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Xbox360 Gamerscore 51,000+

Been a challenging fall to get in videogame time – between the fall kickoff of our youth ministry and the launch of Life Groups – there’s little time for fun and games. However, today we finally hit another 1000 point increase in gamerscore, thanks in part to Gears of War 3 (A+), Toy Story 3 (A), Kinect Sparkler (B) and Sonic Unleashed (C).

JG

Add Comment October 27, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 157

Weekend Teaching Series: Facebook Official (week 3 of 5)
Sermon in a Sentence: 7 questions to ask about your dating relationship.
Service Length: 76 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend I wanted to focus on a biblical perspective to dating – although dating isn’t implicitly mentioned in the Bible and is a much more modern cultural invention of ours. For sure the Bible does talk plenty in principle about WHO to date and HOW to date so that’s the perspective of the talk. I shared a bunch of personal stories from my dating life including heartbreak, and eventually how I met my wife. The talk was designed to build on Doug’s narrow vs wide way challenge from last week and included 7 questions to ask about their current/future dating relationships.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This is the last weekend before our Pumpkinfest event, so we spent a little chink of the program with a funny skit that included an awkward robot and our stage emcee. Really funny stuff, as always trying to make annoucements both memorable and engaging. We also played a funny video from RhettandLink about Facebook profile pictures and dating.

Music Playlist: Enchanted [Taylor Swift cover], Oh Lord, Your Love is Enough, Grace, Cannons

Favorite Moment: The conversations after the service were the best. Nothing like a series like this to get students thinking … and talking. Several students were convinced it was alright for them to date someone of a different religion – by far the most popular discussion this weekend after the talk.

Up next: Facebook Official (week 4 of 5) [Doug Fields teaching about sex]

3 View Comments October 26, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts 15,000 Comments Giveaway: Mission Trips from Start to Finish

Congrats to Shawn Shoup on winning FLIPPED in Day 1′s giveaway and congrats to Tony B on wining a copy of LABELS from Simply Youth Ministry on Day 2. Want to get in on the winner? Leave a comment on this post and you could win Mission Trips from Start to Finish. Thanks for helping MTDB have over 15,000 comments!

JG

PS: There’s still time to get 15% off most all of Simply Youth Ministry resources using promo code: THEBIG15

18 View Comments October 26, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Car Smash at Our Junior High Event

This past weekend our junior high ministry put on an incredible event called The 3. It is on the 3rd Friday of the month, lasts 3 hours and costs $3. They have had incredible themes and games each time, but this idea was next level: a car smash! So fun … made quite the mess but was super memorable and no doubt the thing talked about when kids got back to school Monday. Brilliant!

JG

3 View Comments October 25, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Coaching Your Volunteers

Ah, the fall. High School Football. You can see your breath. You’re eating overpriced nachos from the under-staffed school booster club concession stand. There’s nothing better than the crack of the football helmets hitting together. The cheerleaders in the background, the coach barking commands to his team. The team listens then works together in perfect unison to score a touchdown.

The difference between the picture we just painted and your role as a youth worker? You’re not in the stands in the youth ministry game, my friend. You are a coach. Here are some thoughts about coaching your volunteer team in the seasons ahead.

PRESEASON (late summer)
A coach in this season is focused on making sure his team is ready to perform at the highest level. Training and conditioning are the key. Preparation is essential for success on the field. In your ministry pre-season (July/August) make sure your team is trained and ready for the challenges of the season ahead.

INSEASON (school year)
A coach in this season is focused on winning games. Watching game films, evaluation and adjustments are key here. A youth ministry coach needs to constantly be evaluating services, programs and people to make sure each are working effectively. You can make changes at this point, but they have to be the right ones because the game is on the line.

OFFSEASON (summer)
This season is hardly “off” right? We recently looked back on this past summer and it felt busier than another other season this past year. So forgive us where the analogy breaks down a bit — but a coach in the off season becomes a strategist. They change up the playbook. They toss out what wasn’t working and experiment with something new. They take advantage of the lull and focus on recruiting new talent for their team. They plan ahead and make sure they are ready for when the team is assembled in the preseason once again.

Go get ‘em, coach!

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 October 25, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts 15,000 Comments GIVEAWAY: Labels Sermon Series

Celebrating 15,000 comments so far here on MTDB – so I’m giving away a youth ministry resource every day this week. Today’s giveaway is the Labels series we did a while back in HSM put out by Simply Youth Ministry. Good stuff on identity, dealing with labels, and our value in Christ. All you have to do to get in on the giveaway is leave a comment on this post. Winner announced tomorrow when we put up another giveaway!

And if you want in on some other great youth ministry resources at 15% off, use the promo code THEBIG15 in the shopping cart of Simply Youth Ministry. Now … leave a comment!

JG

37 View Comments October 25, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Parent Letter About the Sex Series

We’re in the Facebook Official series in our High School Ministry right now and about to turn the corner this weekend to talk about sex and dating. Here’s a letter I adapted to send to parents via email today. Wanted to give them a heads up about what is coming:

Dear HSM Parents,

I wanted to take a moment to inform you about the current series we are teaching in the High School Ministry at Saddleback Church. It is called Facebook Official and deals specifically and candidly about relationships during the high school years. This weekend we are in part 3 of the 5 week series and soon we’re going to be talking candidly about God’s plan for sex. Here are the details for the remaining weeks of the series:

October 22/23: Dating
Taught by Josh Griffin
7 Questions to Ask About My Dating Relationship

October 29/30: The Sex Talk
Taught by Doug Fields
God’s Plan for Sex

November 5/6: Where Do I Go From Here?
Taught by Josh Griffin
We’ve talked about friendship, marriage, love, dating and sex. How do I make changes or receive forgiveness and live differently from now on?

This series has been incredible so far — the students have been engaged and attentive to this series. We’re praying for scores of commitments and life-change to the Biblical understanding of sex.

I’m sharing these insights with you so you will know what your student will be hearing, and so you can use them as launching pads for discussion. I also wanted to give you this “heads up” because I recognize some may not feel the timing is appropriate for your teenagers’ specific needs – if this is the case, please feel free to have them attend the adult worship service with you as appropriate.

Thanks for allowing our High School Ministry team to play a small part in God’s plan for your teenager’s life!

Josh Griffin
High School Pastor

HSM meets in The Refinery at 1 Saddleback Pkwy Lake Forest, CA
Services are Saturday 4:30pm / 6:30pm and Sunday 9am / 11:15am
GET IN A LIFE GROUP: www.hsmlifegroups.com
COMING NEXT FRIDAY NIGHT: Pumpkinfest!