We used to do our weekend teaching series in our youth ministry back-to-back, but recently we’ve been doing more 1-offs in-between series. Is there a strategy, you ask? Kinda-sorta … here are some current thoughts, chime in with yours in the comments, too!

1-Hit-Wonders between teaching series…

… gives you extra time to gear up for what’s next.
I like the space between series because it gives us a chance to breathe. We get a little bit of extra time to work with volunteers on a new stage design, get the word out for an extra week, and let’s everyone let down just a bit. Not that the 1-off’s are throw away by any means, but they are certainly less effort than a series kickoff or finale for sure.

… lets the primary communicator take a weekend off.
Taking a break between series also gives you a chance to take a break. You know that I totally believe in the power of different voices, so why not use the in-between weeks as a way to bring up other communicators. Plus, you need the break for sure.

… allows you to hit topics that aren’t big enough for a whole series.
Building in some 1-hit-wonders to your teaching calendar is a good idea because there are a ton of topics you want/need to cover from God’s Word that simply don’t warrant an entire series. When you work out the big arcs of where you’ll be teaching in the next season, build in some other opportunities to address issues that can be tackled in a week, too.

… it provides an opportunity for you to address current issues/problem areas.
When a current event hits the scene and fits a topic you want to cover, you’ve got a spot for that. When a crisis hits your youth group, you’ve got room to address it. When you see a weakness or blind spot in your ministry, you can jump right on it. Having some “off” weeks will give you a chance to plan for more Spirit-led surprise weekends.

JG

Pretty hilarious sale going on over at Simply Youth Ministry starting today – Andy Brazelton is considering a music career, and if the sale goes well he can keep his day job and not release a CD. When you watch the music video, you’ll know why I’m encouraing you to head over there. And, awesome deals on sermon series, books and great youth ministry resources.

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: This is My Story (1-off)
Sermon in a Sentence: Student stories that demonstrate the power of God, changed lives and the hope we have in Him.
Service Length: 59 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend was all about stories – we asked students to share their stories in a unique mix of formats. A couple of them were on video (check them out here and here), others were live, one was done with a song and displayed silently on screen. The message was clear – our stories have value, and Jesus gives us hope. The challenge at the end of the service encouraged students to share their story with someone (like a small group leader) who would care for them.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: This weekend an adult never took the stage – and I loved it! We had good volunteer involvement in the crowd and greeting, but this weekend was run completely by students. A student owned the program, coordinated testimonies, orchestrated all of the moving pieces and pulled it off. A great team of students jumped in to serve – the band, lights, camera, sound, skit, testimonies, editing, dress rehersal, graphics and more – it was all done by them. Super cool – and a nice break for the adults the weekend after Thanksgiving, too.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: The environment was welcoming and positive, though we didn’t have too many typical fun elements. We did had a fun preview trailer for the “Grelf” Christmas video series we’re doing, and the hosts of the weekend set things up with announcements as well. We also brought back the LifeHouse skit - it seemed to fit so well with the stories we were telling. We kind of jumped pretty much straight into the content for the sake of time/feel/direction.

Music Playlist: What I’ve Done (Linkin Park cover), Overcome, This is My Story, Desert Song

Favorite Moment:  Lots of great moments, the favorite for me was at the Sunday 11:15am service – Mariah, one of the students who shared her story, celebrated her 1-year birthday of being clean today. We surprised her (and the crowd) with cake for everyone to join in and celebrate with her. So cool – I’m beyond proud of ALL of the students that shared this weekend. Wow.

Up Next: Christmas Series (week 1 of 3)

A little update on our goals from the Do Something series that ended last weekend – we’re going to continue a few of the goals until Christmas and see if we can’t top them off. Exciting!

JG

We all are, or will be; in ministry situations where things just don’t go the way we think they should.  Frustration levels rise, bitterness sets in, and possibly even pride festers. This is dangerous territory for anyone, but especially dangerous for those in the ministry.

When negativity sets in, and you find yourself beginning to pick apart everything that everyone does and says…the time has come for you to take a good look in the mirror and see what you can do to change the situation.

I was in a position where I assumed that the whole church (and at times the world) was against me.  And we all know what happens when we assume… If a staff member didn’t say “Good Morning” to me, I believed that they didn’t like me.  If somebody brought a gift for one staff member, and not me, I believed that they didn’t like me and that they “had it out for me.”  When I discovered that I was being lied to about a situation, I took it personally and felt attacked.  Eventually, it got to the point that I took everything that was happening in the church personally.  Whether or not it had to do with the student ministry or myself, I took on people’s offenses as an attack.

The day quickly came where God (spiritually) smacked me upside the head and really convicted me.  Despite the human errors that were happening, he showed me how good it really was.  I mean, how was I to think that humans were going to act in a divine way?

The point is this: Maybe – just maybe – the “wrong things” that I was pointing out were just part of a large snowball that I had grown.  I had to change my attitude, and learn to accept the fact that we are all human.  Whether you work in a Christian Ministry or not – we all make mistakes. It really hit home when I was teaching the students the verse found in Colossians 3 “Just as God has forgiven you, you must forgive.”

Strange enough, when my attitude changed; when I chose to forgive – I saw a change in the situation.  Sure, people are still people and things happen that I don’t really agree with…  But, it’s a lot easier now, because of the attitude that God has given me.

Today, if you’re in a rough situation, if you just want to throw up your hands and give up… Stop. Pray. Ask for a new attitude.  Ask for patience, forgiveness and love for those you are ministering beside.  You’ll be surprised by the change.

Andy Disher is a youth worker, avid Simply Youth Ministry Podcast listener and Twitterer.

This fall, we began a series on Sex and Dating.  It is not the first time we have talked about this topic but it was the first time in over 2 years that we have done that.  One of the reasons we didn’t talk about it for a bit was because I did the teaching the last time and it was a very awkward time.  I know that is a lame excuse, but it definitely caused me to think twice about teaching it again.

So this year, we decided to bring in a local Christian non-profit come in and teach about it.  They came in and taught for 2 weeks (1 group for the high school students and 1 group for the middle school students).  Although I was grateful that they taught about this subject, it did not go exactly as planned.  Because of this, I thought of many things I that I did wrong during this process.  So, I figured I would pass on my lessons learned on in case anyone is getting ready to bring in an outside person to share to your youth.

Here’s what I learned:

Meet with the teacher beforehand and share what you hope to accomplish during their teaching time. Although I did meet with our teacher beforehand, I did not let them know the make-up of our youth program.  Not all youth groups are similar in students that attend, so had they been better prepared for the type of students we have, they might have tweeked their overall presentation a bit.

Make sure you know exactly what they are going to share. You don’t want to be thrown any curveballs during the presentation as they may share something completely outlandish.

Be prepared to follow up afterwards.  When you teach on anything, it is always good to have a follow up strategy.  This is even more important when you teach on such an important subject or an outside teacher comes in to share.  One of the best things Katie, my Associate, did after one of our meetings was she grabbed a bunch of girls immediately after the presentation was over and began to process with them what was said and how they were feeling.  You may not need to do something like that, but following up in the next week would be a great start.

Do a thorough evaluation afterwards. Oftentimes organizations will give you an evaluation to fill out.  However, I have found that most of them are pretty generic.  This particular group’s evaluation was very generic.  Therefore, instead of writing out an evaluation, I went and met with the person who presented and gave them a verbal one.  I have found that when you write up something, people may misconstrue your comments.  So, if you have some harder things to say on an evaluation, it is better to talk it over with them rather than write it.  Speak the truth in love, but definitely speak the truth.

In the past we have had a variety of outside teachers come in and share and overall I highly recommend them.  Working at a non-mega Church, it can get overwhelming and you can drain yourself too much doing multiple teachings every single week.  So, if someone else can come and share competently with your youth, why wouldn’t you take the night off?  But, just great as it can be to have a night off, it can be a lot of work as well if not done right.

Have you had similar experiences and learnings?  Post them so we can all know how to do a better job on the front end so that we don’t have as much to do after they share.

Tom Pounder is the Youth Ministry Director at Cedar Run Community Church in Herndon, VA. He blogs regularly at NotaMegaChurch and can be Twitter-stalked as well.

The OC Register has the story on this wild story from the church:

A former Los Angeles police officer was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of a series of burglaries at Saddleback Church, officials said.

The man is identified as Charles Mottern, 45, of Irvine. He was taken into custody and booked on suspicion of burglary, possession of stolen property, evading arrest and resisting arrest. His bail has been set for $100,000 and he is scheduled to appear at Harbor Justice Center on Nov. 30.

Since August 2008 Saddleback Church officials have reported a string of burglaries at the church, said Orange County Sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino. Items stolen include cash, camera equipment, computers and radios.

Last Thursday church security personnel interrupted a burglary in progress at 5 p.m., said Amormino. They chased the suspect and saw him drive off in a black BMW.

JG

A little youth worker “thank you” from Doug Fields and the crew at Simply Youth Ministry. Happy Thanksgiving!

JG

A little youth worker weight-loss contest is officially in the works. Starts December 4th – watch for details!

JG

Episode 118 of the Simply Youth Ministry Podcast is now online – and big news – we’re recording another one today at 1pm Pacific! JG

Weekend Teaching Series: Do Something (series finale, week 3 of 3)
Sermon in a Sentence: People all over the world are hungry – let’s do something about them in Jesus’ name.
Service Length: 61 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend the message was all about action – there wasn’t a ton of talk needed! For the previous two weeks we’ve been doing something – packing shoeboxes for kids to have a Christmas and hear about Jesus, signing up for ministries, bringing in hundreds of canned goods and clothing items to give to the needy. And this week, we put out the most impossible goal: to pack 100,000 meals in one weekend. We would be packing food for our Saddleback food pantry, local foodbanks in the community, and food items to be taken on mission trips to Mexico, even Africa. The message this week was in the activity – my heart was that the experential elements of this weekend would create a memory that would last a long time in students’ minds.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: This weekend was the culmination about 5 weeks of meetings, logistics and empowerment. Honestly, the whole project kept growing and growing until we had more than 30 pallets of bulk food ready to be packaged for families. It was an incredible concert of moving parts and personalities, we learned a TON and despite a few minor hiccups and blowups the whole thing really came together. Student leaders stepped up, our adult team was unreal, and as always, my teammates on our HS team were super.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This was work this weekend! But we had some fun by doing the “big church” welcome live from down in The Refinery. It was a total blast, and helped the whole church see what we were up to. We had a great background playlist going as well, so lots of great music (Party in the U.S.A. was the most popular, by far, right or wrong) filled the gym as everyone pitched in to package meals.

Music Playlist: iPod playlist

Favorite Moment:  The whole event was run by one of our killer 2-year HSM interns, making that by far my favorite moment. Becka took this thing to a whole nother level and things really came together, she is a great minister with a huge heart. Other highlights: amazing students staying late, student leaders being at many/all services, an exhausted late night Denny’s run, seeing everyone work so hard, watching pallet after pallet being loaded up on the trucks.

Up Next: STORIES (1-off)

I really liked this older post from Jeff Borton on the roles lead youth workers play with their volunteers. Here’s a clip of the article, hope he gets back to blogging soon, because that’s good stuff.

3. Manager. Am I being a wise steward of our volunteers time and resources? Do I frustrate volunteers by not casting vision and reaffirming their role in our process? Are the people that are “on the bus” in the right seats? As a manager of volunteers, am I managing with efficiency? Are leaders being challenged and exercising their gifts?

4. Cheerleader. Leaders need to hear encouragement. The “wins” and victories must be celebrated both personally and corporately. Leaders need to know that their commitment and contribution are recognized and valuable. They need to know that their investment is making a difference.

JG

Working with teens with a wide range of Biblical knowledge, I’m often reminded of how many times students are singing songs in worship, but yet don’t realize that the lyrics are based on Scripture.  We hand out a “What’s Up” flyer each week after our large group gathering that has an update on upcoming events, as well as a short devotional related to our current series.  Periodically, the devotional will be written based on a worship song that  is currently in our “playlist”, or that links to the week’s talk.  Here’s an example of one of these devotionals — feel free to download and use if you find it helpful.

Bethanie Carlson is a volunteer leader for high school ministry Grace Community Church Raleigh, NC.

This week we had an incredible experience for our Do Something series – we did Hunger Day where we challenged everyone not to eat for 24 hours and experience what it was like to feel hunger. I joked about how I continually graze throughout the day, and assured them that all of the adults would join in as well. It was amazing! We had a ton of responses to the text we sent out half-way through the day, thought it might be fun to share a few with you, too:

• It was great and really eye opening… After I had fasted it was hard for me to eat again which is weird because I love eating.
• At least I knew I was going to be able to eat come 8:30. And it’s scary to think that there’s people who don’t know if theyre going to get a meal when they get home.
• I’m hungry, but the thing is, at 9:40, 24hr, i get to eat. a lot of ppl dont have that.
• Spent lunch talking with 3 friends who also weren’t eating about poverty around the world, what we can do in our everyday lives, and in prayer. It was awesome.
• Im doing horrible…Today was pizza day. I frowned. Oh well, kids are starving, so i can go a month without pizza day.
• Its harder than i thought! I want to complain and stuff but i know that that will ruin the purpose. But its such an eye opening experience!
• im so hungry but im using every opportunity to tell people about it. i prayed my entire PE period. its hard but its totally worth it
• this is hard! i didn’t realize how lucky i was just to have food. i’ve prayed for all those who aren’t as lucky as us.

JG

I love work! I really do … I’m called to youth ministry, called to this church, and stinkin’ love what I do. But … I’ve had some great (and sometimes difficult) conversations with influential people in my life recently, and am making some adjustments to my weekly schedule to make room for What Matters Most. Here are a few of the adjustments:

• No laptop at home, very few exceptions
• No home computer/email until kids are in bed
• Drop off the kids at school every morning
• Arrive 1/2 hour early to the office for solo spiritual time
• Home by 5:15pm during a normal weekday
• Lunch with the family one weekday a week
• Take Thursday mornings off until noon
• Family dinners 4x a week
• Workout 3x a week
• Turning phone off Sunday afternoons
• Monday day off still remains sacred
• Pick up kids one day a week and leave early from the office
• Bring kids to the office for an hour then take them to small groups
• Better communication between home/school calendar
• Reducing the amount of “clutter” activities on the calendar

Do you need to work less?

JG

Great hockey game last night with the two oldest boys – one of the dads of some HSM students hooked us up with some seats for the game. Tampa Bay went down in overtime! So fun.

JG

Here’s a little video to help our small group leaders learn how to use the attendance software for their groups. Kurt (student ministries pastor) takes the lead on it, followed by Chip, one of our great volunteers who selected the system and oversees it for us!

JG

Here are some interesting stats from HSM’s small groups this year:

• Girls 54%
• Guys 46%
• Freshman: 27%
• Sophomores: 28%
• Juniors: 26%
• Seniors: 19%
• Largest percentage from a single school (tie) 16%

JG

We’ve been using ChurchTeams.com the last couple of small group years to get reports from our small group leaders about their groups and to keep a constant flow of communication happening between us. It isn’t the most elegant site/system we’ve ever used, but it simply works! Here’s some of the conversation I’ve been getting back from my coaching group the past few weeks:

• Guys: Great subject material this evening. Remember your three action steps to take this week. You will be asked to comment on your actions, or responsibility taken at the next meeting. I will not be with you next week: mission trip to Guatemala. Pray for me and our work to bring the love of Jesus Christ to these people. Don’t “pass the buck” this week. Stand up for the truth. Show love in your daily lives. God Bless You-Bill
• Topic: how drinking wine is biblically acceptable — complete with object lessons!!! (is anyone reading this?)
• One of my girls is in ICU with possible viral meningitis.  No visitors allowed.
• Tonight we talked about girls and how to keep the girl while staying focused on God.  We spent time talking about the importance of dating Godly girls and the risks of ‘missionary dating’.
• Prayer that each of these young men will grow deeper in their faith this year. Please pray that some of them will not act like squirrelly freshmen next week at group!
• Hey guys, fun group tonight! You guys were off the hook. Zack…. Please don’t eat a burrito before study again!! Next week we are getting together for dinner And hot fudge sundaes at 7pm at the Soda Fountain. Let me know if you need a ride and I can come get you. I look forward to seeing you. I love you guys a lot. Blessings, Chip

JG

Here’s a little Flash update of our progress on HSM’s Do Something goals so far.

JG