Weekend Teaching Series: You Own the Weekend: Tesoro HS (series finale, week 5 of 5)

Sermon in a Sentence: God gives us faith, faith that can move mountains.
Service Length: 67 minutes

Understandable Message: The message this week was taught by a couple of students and a couple more shared their stories. The message focused on having faith in God, and how powerful that faith is, in that it can move mountains. Students taught the story of Peter/Jesus walking on the water to teach this biblical truth. Fun twist – when I went to our adult services this weekend it was fun to hear Pastor Rick teaching on the same passage. Awesome!

Volunteer/Student Involvement: This ENTIRE weekend service (and the whole series, really) was put on by students from start to end. Students made the videos, did the speaking, greeted at the doors, decorated the room, played in the band, picked the songs and hosted the weekend. An adult was assigned to mentor and coach the student leaders in charge of each weekend.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: The students played a silly video they created at their school, as well as brought in several school-specific groups (jazz band, glee club, etc) – the drum-line was my favorite! We played the new camp promo video and pushed for students to sing up online for camp. We Are Tesoro still reigns as the best YOTW video of all time.

Music Playlist: Your Name High, One Pure and Holy Passion, The Stand, Solution

Favorite Moment: This week I just reflected on an amazing 5-weeks where out students have done everything. It was a powerful experience – and our highest attendance in HSM history. An epic series, so proud of our students. Wow.

Up Next: The End – What Happens When Its Over (series premiere, week 1 of 2)

Jake promotes Summer Camp in HSM (I think we’ll reuse last year’s promo video at some point, too).

JG

Recently sat down and carved out the sermons and series for our weekend entry-level services this summer. Here’s the next batch of where HSM is headed:

May
You Own The Weekend – Tesoro HS
The End: Hell
The End: Heaven

June
Camp Promo Weekend
Senior Weekend
Trinity: Father
Trinity: Son

July
Trinity: Holy Spirit
5 Ways to Be Awesome: Lessons from the Book of James (chapter 1)
5 Ways to be Awesome (chapter 2)
5 Ways to be Awesome (chapter 3)
5 Ways to be Awesome (chapter 4)

August
5 Ways to be Awesome (chapter 5)
Are You Ready? Preparing for the School Year Ahead
Are You Ready? Temptation
Are You Ready? Relationships

September
Are You Ready? My Heart
Are You Ready? Stress & Schedule [Fall Kickoff Weekend]

JG

Live Large Preivew

Want to read the first chapter of Live Large Shine Bright Be Different? You can (embedded above) right here – hit full screen and enjoy! I hope the book will be useful for your students – we’re giving them to graduates next month as a gift from our student ministry.

JG

Doug Fields and I co-authored a new book for students, Live Large Be Different Shine Bright. And … it came out today! You can grab a sample chapter and more over on Simply Youth Ministry or in a couple days from Amazon. So excited!

Somewhere along the line, an expectation has crept into church youth groups that once you begin to follow Jesus, you just magically turn into a completely mature Christian. Well, that’s just not true!

In Live Large. Be Different. Shine Bright., Doug Fields and Josh Griffin share about some important character qualities that will help teenagers live large, be different, and shine bright. A lot of what Doug and Josh write about doesn’t seem to get much sermon time, but these topics are definitely worthy of consideration and experimentation—topics like competition, laughter, cliques, encouragement and several others will help teenagers in the process of being a more vibrant follower of Jesus.

These two youth ministry veterans definitely have a deep love for teenagers and a passion to help them become more attractive as they discover what it means to follow Jesus.

JG

I love reading business books – but take in a fair share of other genres as well. How about you – vote in today’s poll!

JG

The latest SYM Podcast now hits Blip.tv – and Katie Edwards first show! Enjoy.

JG

Great new video from Student Life. Saw it over on The Glue – good stuff.

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: You Own the Weekend: Mission Viejo HS (week 4 of 5)

Sermon in a Sentence: Treasure He who treasures you (or “Ye”  – since it rhymes!).
Service Length: 65 minutes

Understandable Message: Students chose the two parables of the Hidden Treasure and the Pearl (Matthew 13:44-46). The message was broken up into two parts (one part for each parable). I think both messages had strong biblical truths in them, but the parables weren’t necessarily the right support for them. Students walked away the knowledge that they were treasured by God, but there may be some confusion of what each parable really means. You can watch the intro video they made here.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: This ENTIRE service was put on by students from start to end. Students made the videos, did the speaking, greeted at the doors, decorated the room, played in the band, picked the songs and hosted the weekend. It is always a little hard for our volunteers during a student-run weekend because they feel like they are searching for jobs.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: The opening song “Meet Me Halfway” was a super fun way to get people pumped up. Two girls entered from outside to do the rap and dance with the band. The surprise was fun, and gave the song lots of energy.

Music Playlist: Meet Me Halfway (Black Eyed Peas cover), Inside Out, How He Loves Us, and Your Love is Strong

Favorite Moment: Students handed out gold coins as a takeaway for students to keep in their pockets, purses, backpacks etc. and be reminded that God treasures them.

Up Next: YOTW: Tesoro HS (series finale, week 5 of 5)

[this report was written by HSM staff and volunteer recruiter extraordinaire Ryanne Witt]

Silly announcement video from Taffy about auditions this coming week.

JG

Jessica Torres (on the HSM team) is responsible for mentoring and shaping the final weekend of the You Own the Weekend teaching series in our ministry. She’s been coaching her Tesoro High School students on a great greeting ministry and shared some great thoughts with them this week. I asked her if I could share them here on the blog – thought it might be helpful in your ministry setting, too:

Before the service
Everyone be in “places” 10 minutes prior to service starting.
Open doors 5 minutes before service starts.
Greeters in room – encourage students to “move in”, carry bulletins and pens in hand.
Greeters at doors – welcome students, pass out pens and bulletins.

During service
There must always be a greeter in the theater by the doors welcoming and passing out pens/bulletins to latecomers.
Quickly help students coming in late to find a seat.
Sit with a student who is alone and be engaged during the service (singing, listening, taking notes-you are part of setting the mood).
Be available to pass out pens/bulletins to students we missed as they entered the theater.
Don’t be afraid to politely ask “chatty” students to please step outside if they wish to have a conversation.
DO NOT stand in the back of the theater blocking the doorway.

End of service
Make sure to prop doors open right before the service ends. Be in position before all of the students are dismissed.
All greeters be at doors at end of service to collect pens.
Clean theater. Pick up trash, pens, etc. that might be left on the floor.
Make sure you’re all stocked up with pens/bulletins for the next service.

JG

FIRST … determine who really needs to be corrected:

If it is a group problem, address it as a group.

If it’s a couple of people, pull them aside together.

If it is an individual problem, address the individual.

THEN … talk to the appropriate people.

Pull them aside
Don’t pull off a major correction in front of the whole group; make sure you pull people aside after group time and begin a conversation. If you are fortunate enough to have a co-leader and the situation is distractive enough, the co-leader could remove the student.

Be clear on what they’re doing wrong
Address the problem directly. If it is causing a problem with the whole group, help the student to see how his or her actions are distracting everyone. Usually a student will know, but some are so self-absorbed, they don’t realize how they are affecting those around them.

Show grace
Be quick to show grace in this situation. You did it—you initiated the conversation and asked them to make the change. Be strong and firm, but followed quickly by love, mercy, and grace. The more seasoned the youth worker, the easier it usually is to show grace. If you are new to youth ministry, carefully temper your response. A line I used last night that had an immediate and positive response was, “You will never do that again.” Sometimes solving a behavioral issue will be that simple.

Look for and encourage correct behavior
Be on the lookout for when the student follows your rules—when you see it, make sure you comment on it and encourage the student when he or she has a good night. Your affirmation will be meaningful and restorative.

Followup later after a set amount of time
If appropriate, set a follow-up date to make sure that the student has made the appropriate changes. Use this time to build a stronger relational connection with your student—the bond will prevent it from happening again—or if it does happen again, you’ll have an open door to correcting the behavior.

JG

If you listen to constructive criticism, you will be at home among the wise. If you reject discipline, you only harm yourself; but if you listen to correction, you grow in understanding. Fear of the Lord teaches wisdom; humility precedes honor (Proverbs 15:31-33).

Some suggested youth ministry resources to help small group leaders:

Students from Mission Viejo created this sermon bumper video as part of their You Own the Weekend, illustrating the parable of the treasure buried in the field.

JG

Amazing video done by students at Mission Viejo High School – we played it at the opening of this weekend’s You Own the Weekend: Mission. Fun!

JG

Been thinking about that old statistic that always gets thrown out about how long youth workers stay at a church. Thought it might be interesting to see how long your shortest stay was on a church staff. Vote now!

JG

This week HSM was happy to announce that Phil Chenery was added to the HSM staff here at Saddleback. He originally interned here the past 2 years with children’s and junior high before landing on the high school team.

He just completed his Master’s event and has already proven himself as a master event planner. He has a great heart for missions – he was on HSM’s recent trip to Kenya and planned the New Mexico mission trip, too. I couldn’t be more excited to welcome him to HSM! Oh, and he’s British – what an accent!

JG

Really great and accurate portrayal of modern church in this clever video from the DRIVE Conference. Ouch!

JG

Dustin’s story from Capo’s You Own the Weekend in HSM (read the full weekend in review here).

JG

Congrats to Team Ty-Die who scored another victory, this time at our annual HSM Bowl. Now on to the Killball Cup …

JG

At work I still use Firefox almost exclusively … IE when I have to … and Google Chrome at home (it renders full-screen video the best since we don’t have TV). This video is brilliant on top of brilliant.

JG