Josh Griffin | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 153

Weekend Teaching Series: LAUNCH (series finale, week 3 of 3)
Sermon in a Sentence: Get ready to go back to school by starting the habit of spending time with God every day – walk with Jesus.

Service Length: 72 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend we want to send students back to school armed and prepared for each day ahead. The best way to live life is to walk with Jesus – so we challenged them to spend time with God everyday in His Word and in prayer. I challenged students to live out Proverbs 4: 20-27 and to pay attention to God’s Words so that they stay on the right path. I asked a couple students to help teach this weekend and they did a super job helping make spending time with God seem possible. It was important this week to make sure we went from ideological to practical, so we created 14 days of text devotionals (I’ll post them later this week) and gave away a TON of 1-Minute Bibles by Doug Fields.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We had a fun Life Group rap called “Life Groups Win” to promote the upcoming deadline for small groups, and had a funny tribute parody video to the “Footprints in the Sand” infamous Christian poem. Everything played well and for a holiday weekend attendance was up and so was the energy. Must be about time to go back to school!

Music Playlist: Our God, God Above All, Forever Reign, Burning Ones

Favorite Moment: This weekend I used 2 students to help me teach the talk this weekend – one was a senior and the other a sophomore. They did great! Seeing them teach was an incredible experience – made me think I should do that more often! Just picked out the next 2-3 who will do it in the future …

Up next: No HSM – 9/11 Memorial services in big church

1 View Comments September 6, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Showing Up During a Crisis in Your Youth Ministry

When crisis hits your youth group … think of it as an incredible opportunity to serve your students and their families. Time to jump into action! In future articles we’ll cover some specific things to say or to avoid — this is more of a take from 50,000 ft. that we hope will be helpful as you serve students this school year.

Let’s say that someone in your youth ministry was in a pretty bad car accident and it is midnight. How do you respond to a crisis like this? Here are some principles that should translate to this and other situations:

Be the First to Show Up
In a real way, you are a tangible expression of Jesus Christ in the lives of your students. Showing up immediately in crisis assures them of their connection to God and of God’s love for them. They find incredible value in your presence, so show up as soon as possible. Assure them that God loves them and there is hope. If you have any question whether or not you’re welcome, go and be turned away rather than not go and regret it later.

Be Present
When you’re there, make sure you’ve got time to give them your full attention. There’s nothing worse than something that is an all-consuming-crisis for someone else that doesn’t carry that same weight with you. Turn off your cell phone, make great eye contact, cancel other appointments so you can give the situation proper time. In short… give them your full attention.

Be Available
In times of crisis a family or student may make some special requests of you. Do everything in your power to make it happen, even if it isn’t in your talent wheelhouse. Lean into your team to help you pull of whatever you can.

Show Up Later
When someone is in crisis — usually a ton of people jump at the chance to help. That’s the beauty of the church and the power of community in action. The problem is that people’s problems lose some of their attraction over time. Make sure that you show up at the front of a crisis, and circle back when everyone else is gone. You might find an incredible window to minister to people when there’s less of a crowd around.

Thank you for serving students! Thank you for being there when their young lives hit a serious crisis. It is a privilege and heavy responsibility to walk through tough times with them. Thanks for doing what you do!

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 September 6, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Our Student Ministry’s Featured Resource of the Fall

This year instead of featuring a growth/discipleship booth with a ton of different options, we’re going to feature just one resource and hope to push most all of our students that way. This fall we started (just this past weekend) promoting the One Minute Bible by Doug Fields. We gave a TON of them away and think it has the potential to be a game-changer in helping students grow on their own. We even had a student come on stage and try to beat a 1-minute timer by reading a day’s devotion out loud. He was always close … I guess 1-Minute Bible was a better title than “53-second Bible”. Anyhow, thought one of these ideas might trigger a discipleship idea that would work in your context, too!

JG

Add Comment September 5, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts POLL: Background Checks for Volunteers

We’re heading into fall … which means a ton of new volunteers are going to be needed to help with your youth ministry. What a great time! Now … this is a must in today’s culture – have all of them been background checked? This is a non-negotiable for us – vote in today’s poll where your ministry fits in!

JG

UPDATE: The gang over at Simply Youth Ministry told me that SYMTools has a great solution for the youth ministry that doesn’t have background checks yet. Be sure to check out their TEAM online volunteer software – might just be perfect fit!

7 View Comments September 5, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Weigh In — Volume 11: Having an “Invitation”

From time to time I post a question that comes into the blog for YOU to answer. What advice would you give this youth pastor who is asking about having a formal invitation at youth group. Help them out in the comments!

I have a question for you: we’re revamping our youth ministry altar call and wanted to know a couple of things about what you guys do: do you have an actual invitation? If so, when there’s an altar call and youth come up, what do you give them to follow-up … if anything? Do you have a discipleship program that takes them from there?

Your turn … weigh in!

JG

2 View Comments September 5, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Music Video: Life Groups Win

The boys put together what may be our best Life Group promotion video ever. So fun … Life Groups win.

JG

6 View Comments September 5, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Youth Minister – Church Revivalist?

Who comes first, the youth minister or the young people?

Many churches would respond with the first option… The youth minister.

As a result, they hire a youth minister (usually part time), and expectantly hope him/her to bring about revival. To save the church. To fill the pews with families and young people.

I don’t think this should be the case. A youth minister is not a church revivalist.

Sure, any youth minister will use the gifts and skills God has given them to reach out, nurture and disciple young people in the gospel. But if a church is going to grow, it shouldn’t come out of the youth minister’s office alone. Instead it should come from the faithful people within the church loving their community and inviting them to partake in the life giving message of Christ. The ministry of reaching people never ceases to be the calling of the entire congregation. Once a church is ready to accept and include teens and young families, then they can look to bring in someone to assist their ministry desire.

The youth minister should never be the hired gun that saves a church. Unfortunately, too many job descriptions thrust before youth ministers, desire just that. If a church is not reaching out to families and young people, but remaining in their holy huddles, then there may be a reason the church is on life support… But what if your church already looks at you like a revivalist?

1 – Get plugged into a support network. Lean on others who are familiar with the hard road of energising people to do what God has invited them to be a part of and know the weathering it can produce.
2 – Keep an eye out for those who are sharing the gospel and serving the church. Pray that their example rubs off on the rest of the church.
3 – Most importantly, don’t forget why you ARE called to minister at that place. Keep being faithful to growing young people on the life changing transforming of Jesus.

Graham Baldock is a Youth Pastor from Sydney, Australia and has a youth ministry blog worth checking out at grahambaldock.blogspot.com

3 View Comments September 4, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Can Big Budgets Be Bad?

It’s still the second biggest taboo in Youth Ministry after salary, but ministry budgets are really important to talk about even though discussing them make people squirm. I wrote a few months back about a better way of talking about budgets with other pastors by comparing budget on a per student basis. But a pattern that I have noticed in my ministry, and I have seen in others as well, is that an increase in budget can result in a decrease in diligence of good stewardship.

To give a little context to this, 2 years ago our youth ministry had a budget of 8% of what it was in 2001. There were similar amounts of students and leaders and 75% less paid staff. In the time between now and then was a period where the group shrunk and the budget did accordingly. I will never complain about the finite budget had because it taught me a few things:

Tight budgets breed creativity: There is a great book called $5 Youth Ministry and for many youth pastors that is the name of the game. Getting creative, shopping on craigslist, building a home made catapult pumpkin launcher; this is the stuff that the memories are made of. Not having a lot of money to spend creates environment where collaboration and brainstorming happen, where students and leaders can use their gifts in ways that buying a solution might now allow.

Tight budgets promote stewardship: I can remember vividly, 3 years in a row, where I was a volunteer in my early 20′s and not paying for a youth trip because I knew that if I dragged my feet long enough that the Church would just pay for it or forget about it. Not the lesson we want to teaching leaders and students. Following up with all students and leaders to make sure they pay is a great teachable moment around stewardship, commitment and integrity. Lets face it, it is also a great teachable moment for ourselves to learn to be thorough in planning and executing events.

Big budgets can breed wastefulness: As we have transitioned from a season of very tight budgeting to one where there has been an increase, I have noticed a decrease in my urgency to return things that I didn’t need, to buy more, or to buy frivolous things. It’s easy when there is a little more to spend, coupled with the attitude that I have to spend all of my budget if I want to get it back, that can cause purchases and events based solely on the reasoning of “why not?”.

I often need to remind myself that I am spending our congregant’s tithes that they have entrusted to me to spend for the furthering of the Kingdom. Having a small youth budget is not a death sentence, in fact it’s really a formative experience to work within one. Learning to use your budget wisely will allow for your effectiveness to grow proportionately with your budget.

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.

Add Comment September 3, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Teaching Calendar – Fall 2011

Here’s a quick look at the sermons and series we’re taking on for the rest of the year in our high school ministry here at Saddleback. Really excited about this fall!

September
LAUNCH wk 3
No HSM [9/11 services in big church]
Secrets (week 1 of 2)
Secrets (week 2 of 2)

October
Facebook Official: Relationships, Friendships, Love and Status Updates (week 1 of 4)
Facebook Official (week 2 of 4)
Facebook Official (week 3 of 4)
Facebook Official (week 4 of 4)

November
Do Something: Don’t Just Listen … Do (week 1 of 3)
Do Something (week 2 of 3)
Do Something (week 3 of 3)
1-off for Thanksgiving

December
STORIES: 1-off testimony weekend
Christmas (week 1 of 2)
Christmas (week 2 of 2)
No HSM [Christmas]
No HSM [New Year]

JG

5 View Comments September 1, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts 25 Questions to Help You Debrief Your Summer Youth Ministry Calendar

Last week we talked about debriefing your summer calendar, and we got a great response from it (largely asking the question, “how?”) and thought it might be good to devote a whole article on the topic. So today we’re going to list 20 questions to help you begin to evaluate your summer youth ministry calendar:

What did we plan that was a success?
What surprised us that was totally awesome?
Where did we get blindsided?
Was there a good balance of evangelism, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and worship?
Did we lose/gain momentum at any time this summer?
What was an epic fail?
Where were the wins with parents?
Is there an event we need to move to a different place in the calendar?
Was the format of our website/Facebook/blog/printed calendar clear?
Was there enough promotion for our events? How could we make it better?
Is there a sacred cow we need to shoot?
Where were our leaders unprepared?
Are there opportunities to integrate our students into the church body we should consider next year?
What event should we never do again?
Were there any surprising turnouts in numbers?
Where did we communicate poorly?
In what circumstances did parents contact us?
Who is a key volunteer we need to circle back with now that summer is over?
Was it easy for parents to find out information/download forms/get a registration packet?
Were entry level — core students challenged this summer?
What was so great we need to consider making it an annual tradition?
Which volunteer was incredible and needs to be challenged to be a small group leader this school year?
What events seemed best to invite friends to?
Where did I as the leader have the most fun relationally hanging with students?
Where did we see the most decisions made for Christ?

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.