Josh Griffin | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts Becoming a Team

Dan has a great new post on the PDYM blog about transitioning to a new church. This week he takes on becoming a team in your new place of service. Good stuff, here’s an excerpt:

Cast the Vision Often
It is important for your team to know where the ministry is headed and why. This will help answer questions about why you are doing certain things a certain way and not doing some things that may have been good in the past. It also allows them to begin to tell others about what is going on in the student ministry. This keeps you from being the only voice speaking on behalf of students!

People want to be Heard and Valued
While we talked about past events and future events we asked for input. It was so good to hear from the team what they thought could enhance our events and ministry. Allowing the team to share ideas and insight gives them ownership of the student ministry. Plus it and helps them see their value on the team.

Have Good Communication
This can be tough, but bad communication leads to confusion. We try to send out a weekly e-mail to ALL of our volunteers. This e-mail contains a week review and highlights some things we want them to be aware of. Along with e-mails, we point our volunteers to our website where they can gain specific forms, helps, curriculum and training. This has been a tremendous help for us and cuts down on supply cost.

JG

Add Comment October 9, 2007

Josh GriffinMore Posts Found Jesus and Colorblindness on the Same Day

As part of the ordination process my brother gave his testimony. My favorite part was him talking about kneeling down beside the green couch and praying to receive Christ. He then said that sadly he also then found out that the green couch was actually yellow and he was colorblind, too.

So he found Jesus and found out about colorblindess on the same day.

SSSoooooo funny. I’m proud of him. What a great older brother. And I love being with family and meeting nephews and nieces I’ve either a) never met before, or b) its been years since I saw them because we live so far away.

JG

testimony

Add Comment October 7, 2007

Josh GriffinMore Posts My Brother’s Ordination

In in Illinois with my youngest son (who could fly for free) for my big brother’s ordination this afternoon. Took a quick trip over here to spend some time with all of my family who also made the trek. It’s been a blast!

JG

Add Comment October 7, 2007

Josh GriffinMore Posts More Student Zone Updates

It’s been an exciting week here on campus – there’s been a ton of progress on the Student Zone in the past couple of weeks. See pictures and more of it here on the ETV (Extending the Vision) blog. I’ve just updated it today with a bunch of new posts!

JG

Add Comment October 5, 2007

Josh GriffinMore Posts Matt Casper to Speak at EPIC

Just noticed that Matt Casper, author of the book I recently read, is coming to Saddleback to speak to the 20-somethings. Sounds like fun … would love to go to this. Noticed that Kerry had a recent podcast with him, too. Cool …

JG

Add Comment October 5, 2007

Josh GriffinMore Posts 5 Things to Look for When Hiring Staff

Thought Perry had a good post today about what to look for when hiring staff to your team at church. This is good when you’re thinking about future hires – and as an aside, translating this article to a volunteer context might be a way to use this perspective in your ministry today, too:

#2 – Potential – At NewSpring Church we hire for potential…where a person has been OR the amount of education a person may have doesn’t really matter to us. Seriously, we have ONE person with a seminary degree on our staff…and a couple of our key leaders never completed their college degree. You give me a staff full of fire and passion to change the world and I couldn’t give a rats rear end about their “formal training.” Many times I have made a hire and the person actually has no experience in the area in which they are being hired for…but what they did have was raw passion and a desire to learn…and I have seen God do some amazing things with these people!!!

#3 – Character – Are they godly? Do they love Jesus? If this is unclear then I would not make a move…IF that kind of thing is important to you!

#4 – Chemistry – Do you like them? Seriously…can you get along? Do you actually enjoy seeing them heading your way in the hall? There are too many churches in America where there is no staff unity because the pastor has his staff hired for him by some flippin committee who doesn’t know JACK about the day to day operations of the church. Ask yourself…are they likable? BUT please understand that, even if you like them, this does not mean that you should hire them! BUT…it is nice to enjoy the company of the people you work with!

JG

Add Comment October 4, 2007

Josh GriffinMore Posts MySpace Session Notes

Simply Youth Ministry is going to give away my session PowerPoint from the session I’ve been teaching recently called My Space on MySpace. If you’re going to talk to teenagers about the online world or planning to in the future, grab them now for free. I hope they will be of help to you as you prepare a talk on the subject!