Most small group leaders won’t have the experience of dealing with a student in imminent danger of abuse or neglect. We do trust you to use discernment and handle most of the typical situations that will arise during the small group year. But there is the chance that a student will reveal something extremely serious, and this is how we’re preparing for that eventuality. Here’s four steps of response to a major crisis taught during small group leader training this week:

Step 1: Alert the Student
Let the student know that you have the responsibiltiy to make someone else aware of the situation. While we still very much agree to the covenant that includes confidentiality, a small group leader should never promise to “never tell anyone what I am about to tell you.” In some cases, you simply must. Let them know that you are not prepared to handle these types of situations alone, and that you care for them and want to make sure they are safe. Be ready for the student to object, and do your best to ease their fear. Do not let them talk you out of taking the next step. Just encourage them, and let them know they will not go through this alone.

Step 2: Partner with the Team
Call the church office – these situations are never easy to handle, and we want to help you through it. Our team can help you decide if this situation is, indeed, one in which a report to authorities must be made and discuss further action with you. Even if you aren’t sure this is “big enough” to warrant reporting to the authorities, let us know what’s going on so we can pray for you and help you lead your student back toward health.

Step 3: Report to the Authorities
After partnering with the team, together fill out the report and beging the process. You’re not expected to be a professional with this, so don’t worry if there are questions that you cannot answer.

Step 4: Follow Further Instructions
The church team will instruct you on what steps, if any, need to be taken from here. Most likely, your role in the reporting of the situation will be complete at this point, it woudl be rare for your involvement to be required beyond the initial report. Continue to pray for the situation and that it will be resolved quickly.

Again, these steps should only be followed in the most extreme cases of abuse or neglect.

JG

I’m very excited to announce today a new addition to the HSM team here at Saddleback – Haley Veturis is joining our staff to serve High School students here in Orange County. She is active on Twitter, and was a key volunteer before joining on as a 2-year intern starting last month. She has a big heart for students and her background in production is a huge add. She is building up a crack team of students and volunteers serving on the weekend. If you’re interested in becoming an HSM intern, details here!

JG

Spent some time today crafting our small group leader training tonight, thought it might be helpful for you to read and/or use in your ministry as well.

The main passage was from I Thessalonians 5:12-27. Here’s the whole passage, and some thoughts to follow:

Dear brothers and sisters, honor those who are your leaders in the Lord’s work. They work hard among you and give you spiritual guidance. Show them great respect and wholehearted love because of their work. And live peacefully with each other. Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.

See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people. Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. Do not scoff at prophecies, but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. Stay away from every kind of evil. Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful. Dear brothers and sisters, pray for us. Greet all the brothers and sisters with Christian love. I command you in the name of the Lord to read this letter to all the brothers and sisters. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

The context of this passage is the 2nd coming of Christ and how someday followers of Jesus – awake or asleep – will be with Him. Then Paul gives some specific actions to those that are alive. In the context of youth ministry, there are some powerful thoughts:

HELP THE WEAK (v. 14)
We share in the priviledge of serving students that are hurting and lost. It is our calling to help those that are stumbling to walk again and those that are seeking to find Him. What an honorable calling we share as part of this ministry to high school students.

BE PATIENT (v. 14)
How many of you have “that one kid” in your small group? By last count, we had over 25 “that one kids” coming to HSM. You’ve probably got one in your group, and that’s why Paul tells us to be patient with them. Longsuffering, slow to anger, slow to punish, quick to bear the offense of a teenager who speaks quickly and thinks later.

PRAY CONTINUALLY (v. 17)
What a powerful tool is at our disposal as small group leaders – we can go directly to God when we minister to students. Share your insecurities and your inadequacies and He will fill you with His spirit to give you the words to say and actions to take. 

BE THANKFUL GOD IS USING YOU (v. 18)
God has put you in your small group for this moment! He wanted you to be there for this crisis, He picked you for these students. You didn’t pick HSM – we didn’t pick you either - GOD put you here as a minister. As you serve, say a prayer to God and thank Him for giving you this chance to serve His kingdom.

REMEMBER GOD IS FAITHFUL (v. 24)
God will use His word and your words to minister to students. It might not always feel like it, in fact – most of the time it won’t. BUT, God is faithful, the pressure is on Him to fulfill His promise that it won’t return void.

KNOW THE TEAM IS BEHIND YOU (v. 25)
Don’t serve alone – there is a great team that shares in the calling of serving students and this church and together. As the pastors and ministers we will support each other, keep each other accountable and share life (and many meals) together.

JG

A video promoting Life’s Healing Choices campaign (HAPPY is our student version). Would work great with Life Hurts, God Heals groups for sure.

JG

I was talking with Katie Edwards the other day around the office (she’s the co-author of the excellent Youth Worker Training on the Go with Doug Fields) and we talked through the needs of small group leaders at varying points in their experience. She probably hates talking to me, since all of our conversations become blog posts, but still – too much good stuff to keep it to myself:

Rookie Leaders -ATTENTION
This part of your team needs the most time. Pour into them, offer trainings, round table discussions, mentoring, encouragement and coaching. This should take up the bulk of your leader time, but that should be expected and will make sense because you are preparing them to mature as leaders into the next two categories.

Experienced Leaders -BELIEF
This group is trained and prepared, and has already seen their fair share of youth ministry successes and failures. What they need most is belief. Belief from the leadership that they can do this. That they are an integral part of changing lives, that you believe in them and what you are doing.

Veteran Leaders – CONTACT
This select group that make it through the attention (newbie) and belief (experienced) levels of experience need occasional contact more than anything else. They have been coached, trained and believed in for years, you just check in every once in a while to lend a hand or offer advice and they’ll be just fine.

Think about your leaders this week – what care do you need to give them today?

JG

Last time I checked I was clocking in around 1,500 a month, which seems awfully high to me. No doubt though, students love to text and many youth pastors find it a great way to connect. How about you?

JG

Liked Kurt’s simple post this week about running through you talk and making sure it will teach well. Here’s three of his acronym for TEACH, head there for the rest:

• Is it True? Have I used scripture appropriately, I’m I being true to the text? Our my opinnions backed up by God’s word?
• Is it Encouraging? Do I encourage students toward some sort of life change?
• Is it Applicable? Have I helped them apply this to their lives? Have I provided some action steps?

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: Happy: Week 3
Sermon Title: It’s A Choice
Sermon in a Sentence: The road to happiness is paved with a passionate love for God and others.
Service Length: 75 minutes
Bible: Matthew 5:6-7 (NCV)

Understandable Message: This week Doug Fields covered the verses from The Beautitudes - happiness comes loving God and others. He contrasted the world’s way (seeking power, praise and pleasure) against God’s design (love God and love others). Fields explained righteousness using Paul’s words from Philippians 3:7-9 (I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ). Fields is the king of illustrations. He used cardboard cutouts (one of himself and one of Jack Bauer) and a white sheet symbolizing God to illustrate his own journey toward God and how even a guy like Jack Bauer needs to make the same journey. It was fun, simple, clear, and easy to understand. At the end of the message, Doug gave the students three choices. They could be apathetic and tune out, indifferent and turn away or merciful and take action.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: Students ran lights, camera, sound, control room, band, greeting, stage design, and cleanup. Volunteers helped greet and sat with students. Lots of students involved this weekend, I love it!

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We played a game of Comedy Sports. Two teams of 3 students representing two of our area schools competed in 3 games like on the TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway. I liked this game because there was great crowd interaction. Download the program sheet for this weekend here.

Music Playlist: Be Okay (cover), Yours Forever, Desert Song, Overcome, Take It All

Favorite Moment: In the 6:30 service, we had one of those moments youth workers play in their minds over and over for years to come and wish we could go back and fix. The cardboard cutout of Jack Bauer was pretty flimsy so it didn’t stand up on its own. It fell and landed inappropriately on the cutout of Doug. We lost the crowd to laughter and disbelief for a while. I wasn’t sure we would get them back. The favorite moment could also be the worst moment. I guess it’s my favorite because I’m glad it didn’t happen to me.

Up Next: Happy – Week 4

(I was on vacation this weekend, so this report was written by Dennis Beckner, long-time HSM volunteer and youth ministry volunteer blogger extraordinaire)

VolunteerYouthMinistry.com has a great article about dealing with a student that wants to leave small groups. Head over there to read part of a back-and-forth conversation between a couple of our volunteers this week about the subject. Here’s a clip:

So I have been attempting to meet up with my student since Wednesday, but she has cancelled on me a couple times, and she just told me she probably wouldn’t be at Bible Study on Wednesday because she’s failing all her classes and needs to study. So, what do I do at this point? Do I just keep trying to set up meetings? I think she is going to keep avoiding me, and I would really like to speak to her parents. I’m not sure how to go about doing that – any advice would be much appreciated, of course!

JG

During my vacation this summer we had all sorts of GUEST POSTS here on the blog. It was so successful that I now post a guest post every weekend (if you want in, send one in!). The most popular guest post this summer was from Nick, and he took his ideas and expanded them into a sweet free eBook with some other youth ministry voices and is giving it away for free on his blog. How cool is that? Download it right here!

Looking for a resource filled with creative ideas to build relationships with students? This is a free resource from Ministry Allies full of relational ministry ideas, including hanging out with students, working on projects together, going to cheer on other students together, and a ton of other great ideas.

JG

Another in the series of HAPPY Public Service Announcement (PSA) videos during our Happy series.

JG

A fun video celebrating a recent service project with an organization called Feed the Starving Children.

JG

I’ll admit I was a bit scared when we launched our youth minitsry website http://www.lyf.net last year using a content management system called drupal that I was unfamiliar with. I  had to learn it from scratch and was a bit hesitant but ended up loving in the end. Now  our website is easy to update and is pretty unique in my opinion.

Several years ago we started using a ministry tool http://www.tuggle.it to help connect  our students and leaders and give leaders the tools they needed. Yes we were on  Facebook, but using new technologies like Tuggle gave us a unique web presence that  created a very real environment for students to connect online.

Just this past week I launched a new website http://www.whatisyourproblem.tv using a new WordPress theme. I’ll admit I’m not 100% sure the direction of this student talk show will take but I believe allowing students the opportunity to lead is a risk worth taking.

Whatever the current state of your web presence for your youth ministry is I encourage  you to try new tools and new ways of reaching teenagers online. Who knows it may turn out to be really great if you just give it a chance.

Brandon Riley is a creative media producer for Sugar Creek Baptist Church. Check out his blog at http://www.partoftheglue.com.

Why am I so excited for this event? The whole Refinery, filled with Xboxes.

JG

Loved reading Perry Noble’s post about serving in his youth ministry this morning (a senior pastor from SC) – he’s figured out one of the most amazing joys of youth ministry – when you serve students, you grow so much yourself. I feel it myself, I see it in my team – and small groups leaders tell it to me every week. Here’s a clip of his full post, head over there for the rest:

About three or four months ago I really felt the Lord impressing upon me that I really needed to spend more time investing in our teenagers here at NewSpring Church…which was weird for me because I feel that we have a pretty incredible youth ministry going on and the last thing they needed was me getting in the way.

So…I fought this urge for a while until it became so strong that I was just about to bust.

What came out of me praying through this was God leading me and Lucretia to spend this next school year pouring our lives into 12 or so students (juniors and seniors) that are currently involved in the youth ministry here at NewSpring.

I met with some of our youth staff here at the Anderson campus and asked them to prayerfully select this crew…and they put together a team of teens that have so much potential that it blows my mind.

And ‘Cretia and I are FULLY INVESTING in the lives of these young men and women.  I meet with them at least once a month for the purpose of seeing what Jesus is doing in their lives…and asnwering any questions that they have came up with in regards to Scripture, the church, leadership and life in general.

JG

I’ve been posting a few of our program sheets from our weekend service lately – in part because quite a few people have been asking for them and in part because I think they are something very important to use each week, especially at your entry-level service. You can check out examples from the past two weekends in review (Happy week 1 and week 2) if you missed it. While ours aren’t perfect, my plan is to soon post about how to create a great program sheet. In the meantime, here are a few reasons why they are such an effective tool for your on-stage programs:

It helps everyone know what to do
The most basic function of a program sheet is to simply tell the team what is happening next up front. It keeps everyone in the loop, from the kid running sound to the student giving her testimony. The program sheet is a great communicator to keep everyone informed.

It helps you see the flow/emotion
I love seeing the big picture – and a program sheet helps you see if all of the elements are coming together. It lets you make adjustments and cuts quickly, and have a spot for specific notes to debrief. If someone is timing each element as well, that can be very helpful when identifying what is dragging.

It makes sure you are prepared
When you have a program sheet, you have to be prepared. Each element has been thought through and ready to go. While there’s still room for last-minute changes, it helps keep you focused on what needs to be done. I used to be famous for the Sunday night specials (stoplight sermon prep on the way to church) but not anymore!

It identifies ruts you might be in
If there’s one thing I am always leery of, it is predictability. I love it when a service contains something unexpected – some sort of an “oh man I didn’t see that coming moment.” Having a weekly program sheet gives you an “at a glance” look at your student ministry week to week. Maybe it’s time to change it up, drop in a video or try a special speaker.

It helps you be gone
This weekend … I’m out of here. We always plan a family weekend away in October after the launch of small groups and the kickoff to the school year. We need it so badly right now, too. Of course, I’ve got a great volunteer teaching this weekend (Doug Fields – ha!) and the program sheet gives me the security that everything will be fine while I’m enjoying the airshow with my family.

JG

Doug Fields’ new book Fresh Start came out this week and is now available from Simply Youth Ministry – I’m just about done with it and will review it soon, but wanted to let you know you can now grab it online.

Doug Fields says, “It’s not about trying harder; it’s about plugging into God’s transforming power.” As He did for King David and Isaiah in the Bible, God is eager to provide that power – even more than once.

Fresh Start is your guide to moving from stuck to starting over. And it doesn’t take a self-help program, positive thinking, or transcendental glow sticks to achieve it! Doug will demonstrate that when you are willing to cooperate with God and the possible, He has more than enough power to do the impossible and transform your life.

“‘Stuckness,’” Doug writes, “was never part of the abundant life that Jesus promised.” Indeed, He came so that we can move forward, “have life . . . and have it to the full” (John 10:10). So come on! Take the first step. Your fresh start begins today!

JG

This week I gave away 5 copies of 99 Thoughts for Youth Workers instantly here on the blog – and today, Twitter followers can get in on the fun. Just RT or Tweet the link about 99TFYW and I’ll pick 5 at random today to win, too. Thanks for spreading the word!

JG

Want to read the latest issue of Group? Now you can, right here on MTDB!

JG

A little video during the countdown of our Happy series (week 2). Some fun movie clips of happily ever after endings to tie in with the theme.

JG