Had a great day with the boys in the 7th row of Angel stadium today watching the Angels romp on the visiting Indians. It was a great high-scoring affair, complete with a grand slam and everything. Perfect afternoon!

JG

Just coming off of a couple of amazing days off after a over-the-top busy season of youth ministry - today was a full day of family fun at the San Diego Zoo. It was flawless, primarily because we followed all of the “rules” to get the most out of your day at Six Flags, Sea World, Disney or the like. What rules, you say? I’m glad you asked:

1. Buy your admission tickets on eBay. We got into the zoo today for 40% off the lowest rates we could find.
2. Plan to get to the park late to avoid traffic on the highways. Don’t sweat the morning crowd, they are staying in a hotel nearby and will beat you there and jam up the lines anyway.
3. Take any parking space you can find when you arrive. Don’t bother to hunt, all of the good ones are long gone.
4. Bring some bottled water in with you to the park to save on concession impulses.
5. Do a nice loop of events and rides to get you started in the morning, break for an early lunch.
6. Trek back to the car, enjoy a simple lunch you packed in the cooler.
7. Move your car to a fantastic parking spot near the entrance to the amusement park, since people that arrived early have already started to leave.
8. Restock your water supply. You can buy a case of cheap water the day before you leave for the price of a 20oz. inside the park.
9. Fully hit up the park for the rest of the day. The crowds are thinning dramatically as the day wears on, which means more rides, more shows and much shorter lines. Stay until close.
10. With the money you save, take another trip next month.

JG

Message Title: Confessions of an Ex-Gangster (featuring JPetty)
Sermon in a Sentence: Gossip hurts people to a greater extent than we realize, so we must take godly steps to avoid it by talking in a way that praises people and honors God.

Key Verse: “Gossip separates the best of friends.” Proverbs 16:28

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 3 out of 10. Our easiest weekend in the Refinery yet, just a few elements. Programming for last week’s PDYM Conference was complex, so by comparison this weekend was a breeze.

Attendance: down 10% from the previous weekend, up 57% from the same weekend last year
Service Length: 71 minutes
Understandable Message: A- Petty used a story about his childhood “gang” to emphasize the way we treat people and “beat each other down” with our actions and words. He pointed out that he we gossip out of revenge and insecurity, but it’s a huge deal because it wrecks friendships and shows we don’t trust God. Petty challenged us to be like his friend Wally, who found the best in people and countered the gossip when others talked poorly of them. Griff ended the service with, “Petty was an ex-gangster; we hope you’ll become an ex-gossiper.”

Volunteer/Student Involvement: B/B Volunteers were actively involved at the tables and greeting students. Students led in the band, and handed out programs and pens as people entered. We were expecting a jump in student leadership, but many student leaders had isolated themselves to the separate balcony. A few students, however, stepped up.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: B The PDYM Student Leadership highlight video at the beginning was exciting; we hope it will draw more students to attend next year. Scotty dressed up like a gangster and did a rap on stage that made the crowd go wild. We had a gangster game and used the Interactive Church remotes to answer questions; the students enjoyed that.

Music Playlist: The Time Has Come, Breathe on Me, Grace, You Never Let Go

Favorite Moment: In the middle of Petty’s message, he asked the question, “Have you ever had a relationship that was hurt by gossip?” He asked people to respond with their Interactive Church remotes with either “A. Yes” or “B. Not yet.” About 80% responded “Yes,” powerfully illustrating just how prevalent and painful gossip can be. Petty talked very personally with the students and connected on a deep level.

Overall grade: B+

(this report was written by HSM summer intern Kyle Cleveland)

PDYM Student Leadership Conference 2008 Recap Video from Joshua Treece on Vimeo.

What a great week!

JG

Find out with this link if one of the the 700 Starbucks that are closing is your neighborhood favorite. Apparently we had a few too many Starbucks around here, since 3 within a couple of miles of the church are closing their doors next month.

JG

PS: Wyoming, you are safe. No Starbucks closings in your neck of the woods.

I’m watching the ESPY Awards on ESPN - and it hits me. Why isn’t the church this good?

The show is spectacular - killer graphics, amazing presentation, heartfelt moments, powerful stories - everything really comes together for a night that totally speaks to the heart. In just a few frames, you will carry the girl who tore her ACL rounding 1st base and couldn’t finish her homerun trot. In a moment you will watch a man be paralyzed in a football game, journey his slow and painstaking recovery, then miraculously watch him take his first steps … finally to walk out live on stage just moments after the video fades.

I can’t stop thinking about how amazing the presentation of it all was. It was an epic night of nights, the magic of sports combined with compelling stories of sacrifice. 

The full force of the ESPN Network produces an amazing show, something really worth watching. Each story was like a mini-movie, and each moment was carefully choreographed so you would stay fully engaged (even my wife watched it). Over the span of a few hours you would laugh, cry and most importantly, never miss a single moment.

One single local outlet couldn’t possibly pull off an entire program of high quality that the network could provide. The pooled resources of the network produced a truly amazing experience.

Yet we try do church as autonomous, local stations. I’m all for that and love the freedom it provides, but wonder if it come at the expense of what might be. What if there was a way to use to power of the Christian network to have one compelling narrative on par with the best anyone has to offer? Is it even possible?

What if there was a church network that provided powerful, gripping stories of changed lives. They scour the earth for the best stories, shoot/edit in HD and distribute. The network’s encompassing website was fully-functioned and on the cutting edge of technology - and provided a clear gateway to local congregations. The network produced loads of downloadable graphics and made available top-tier artists and designers to assist with production. What if the network made available a massive library of ready-made resources ready to be dropped into the program? What would your weekend look like if the resources of the network were behind you?

I understand that the church is much, much more than a show. I’m not looking for the churches of the world to unite as one. I’m just saying there are enough like-minded churches out there that could be utilizing the power of network to do something great to spread the most important message of all - Jesus Christ.

OK, back to the ESPYS - I can’t wait to see what happens next.

JG

The Espy Awards were brilliant as always (I’ve got another post on that in a bit) - this video includes some of the best moments of the night. If you don’t have time for it all, skip ahead to about 5min in for the story of this year’s V Award winner. A couple of other amazing moments here, too. Wow.

JG

Fresh off of 2008’s Purpose Driven Youth Ministry (PDYM) Student Leadership Conference comes the announcement of next year’s dates for the event. Mark your calendar now and plan to come out to California and join us in 2009. Tuesday, July 14 through Friday, July 17. See you there!

JG

I type out most of my weekend talks like a script - there are little details I add in by hand and some stories that get embellished and ad-libbed, but for the most part, I totally write it out. You?

JG

I’m intrigued by Youth Assistant, a new resource that was added to SYM … wish there was a demo of it so I could give it a trial run. Either way, it is a promising youth ministry software that tracks communications, manages attendance and much more. Check it out - and if you’re using it, post a review of it in the comments.

JG

Not sure if there is a magic number, but I’m curious in the results.

JG

Just saw this press release about the two presidential candidates headed to Saddleback next month. Awesome!

Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, respective presumed Republican and Democratic presidential nominees, will end the primary season by making their first joint appearance of the 2008 campaign at Saddleback Church on Saturday, Aug. 16 at the Saddleback Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion. Dr. Rick Warren, founding pastor of the 22,000-member Orange County, Calif. mega church and moderator for the event, made the announcement today upon confirmation by both campaigns.

“We’re honored that the candidates chose The Saddleback Civil Forum on Leadership and Compassion for their first joint appearance, an unprecedented opportunity for America to hear both men back-to-back on the same platform,” Warren said. “This is a critical time for our nation and the American people deserve to hear both candidates speak from the heart — without interruption — in a civil and thoughtful format absent the partisan ‘gotcha’ questions that typically produce heat instead of light.

“The primaries proved that Americans care deeply about the faith, values, character and leadership convictions of candidates as much as they do about the issues. While I know both men as friends and they recognize I will be frank, but fair, they also know I will be raising questions in these four areas beyond what political reporters typically ask. This includes pressing issues that are bridging divides in our nation, such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate and human rights.”

Warren confirmed that, at the candidates’ request, this two-hour event from 5-7 p.m. (PDT) will be held in a non-debate format and open to all media. Both candidates also requested that questions be posed exclusively by Warren, instead of a panel or members of the audience. Each will converse separately with Warren for approximately one-hour, beginning with Sen. Obama as determined by a coin toss. This historic forum will be the only joint campaign event prior to each party’s national convention.

JG

You know about the new The Office webisodes, right?

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: Save the Planet (3 of 3)
Message Title: Broken Planet, Broken People
Sermon in a Sentence: A look at how the world is messed up because of sin and how people are messed up, too.

Key Verse: Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous. Romans 5:18,19

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 6 out of 10 - we made significant changes to the original order of service after the 4:30 service that really helped flow and energy.

Attendance: up 13% from the previous weekend, up 73% from the same weekend last year
Service Length: 67 minutes
Understandable Message: B+The message was really the classic story of Jesus coming to save the planet. This weekend focused on the spiritual aspect of the series theme, clearly showing the curse of sin and God’s plan for forgiveness. The whole point of the weekend was a celebration of salvation and extending an invitation to others to experience God’s love.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: B/A- There weren’t any volunteers on stage this weekend, but they were actively involved in the crowd and at the tables. Several sat in the balcony as well, helping first time students feel welcome. One of our adults did several paintings on stage this weekend as well. Students led in the band, and handed out programs and pens as people entered. I’m expecting student leadership to really jump after this week.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: B Most of the fun was in the message - we wanted this week to feel epic as the ending to the series so we left some of the game-type stuff off the radar this week. There was still plenty of fun in the message/welcome and the environment was cool.

Music Playlist: Meant to Live (cover), All Because of Jesus, Louder Than Creation, Rain Down

Favorite Moment: We had 3 paintings on stage this weekend, to represent each of the 3 weeks of the series and the progression of the story. Check them out here - so cool.We had students text in response to the invitation - we celebrate the students that accepted Christ. Yeah! Changed lives is what it is all about.

Notes: The Bottles for Bibles campaign got off to a strong start with 750 bottles collected. This weekend took place just before the start of the PDYM Student Leadership Conference is this week.

Overall grade: B

Someone TPed our van last night while we slept.

There will be revenge! Was it an inside job? How did they know where we were staying? Does the brand of paper used (cheap, 1-ply with leaves printed on it) reveal any clues? Do the people that did this know what we are capable of?

There will be blood. Or at least more TP.

JG

Bethany Hamilton, the national champion surfer who was bitten by a shark a few years ago, came and spoke at Student Leadership last night. They played the new documentary from Walking on Water, then she came out and answered questions. It was a fantastic night from a completely sold out teenager, living her life complete in Christ. Awesome.

JG

More than 45 of you entered the Simply All Access contest (over the weekend no less). To enter, all you had to do was post a comment with a money saving tip for your youth ministry budget. There’s a ton of great comments so be sure to check out the post for some wisdom from our youth worker community around this place. [plug] And be sure to check out Simply All Access, too - everything you need for your youth ministry for $299 a year. [/plug]

So congrats to our random winner Chris who wins the contest! Here’s the winning comment he made:

Well this year I did a pay one price for all summer events. 500 bucks covers Camp, Mission Trip and Back2School Beach Retreat and any smaller stuff we do (messy olympics, friday night live, game room open, etc). Then the fundraisers we did all went to their pay one price summer. That also saves me the trouble of keeping up with who paid what. We did itemize for those that are here for only part of summer, but for the most part. POPS (pay one price summer) worked out great….so far.

JG

We’re kicking off the PDYM Student Leadership Conference tonight! The theme this year is “Look” and Fields will start us off with a session called Look For. I’ll be around in the morning for session #2 on spiritual growth, Look Different. Should be a blast - there’s a great buzz already!

JG

• God and the story of Creation
• Sin has broken the planet and the people
• Jesus loves the world … and loves you

JG

After posting the Me video that I was going to use in my PDYM Student Leadership talk this week, Kyle pointed me to this classic spoof of it as well. Ha!

JG

Don’t know if you remember the Scarred series we did in HSM a few months ago - it just landed over at Simply Youth Ministry today. Good stuff, they’ve added to what we did with some motion backgrounds, intro videos and more. Check it out, and click here for any blog posts about that series, too.

JG

The title of the Student Leadership session I’m working on for this week is “Look Different” and focuses on spiritual growth. I’m thinking about using this video to illustrate change over time.

JG

Josh posted 5 things to do at the PDYM Student Leadership Conference this week here at Saddleback.

1. Meet Me
I try to meet new people every year, especially freshmen and sophomores. So if I don’t get a chance to come up and meet you, come up and introduce yourself. PS-If you found my blog and are coming from out of state, make sure to meet me)
2. Meet Other People
My one regrets from the last two times I went is not meeting people from other churches. Branch out, there are so many people from different places. It’s awesome.

JG

Here’s the Save the Planet that a student did. So great - he responded to a message about serving and has made some great stuff so far. The video covers the whole arc, from creation to conservation to the cross. So great!

JG

Here’s a video from a few weeks ago that opened up Save the Planet. When it ended, the band came in with a huge song. So cool!

JG