More Than Dodgeball | Youth Ministry Blog by Josh Griffin

Josh GriffinMore Posts Text Announcements at NYMC

In case you haven’t heard, you can sign up to receive text message announcements in Columbus this coming week at the Group National Youth Ministry Conference. Someone told me they might do other fun things with it, too, so you might want to sign up if you’ll be there!

JG

Add Comment February 19, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts Book Review: It

It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It by Craig Groeschel is a fantastic book on leadership and the local church. We’ve all been to churches that have “it” and visited some that clearly didn’t. From the first page of the book to the last I was nodding my head in agreement with LifeChurch.tv’s pastor as he journeyed me through what a church must be and it’s leaders have to become.

He boils down the modern church with all of it’s trappings to come up with a description of what a healthy “it” church looks like. He focuses on walking with God, failures, teamwork and other classic leadership teachings. He profiles maybe a half dozen churches (Granger, NewSpring, etc) that have “it” right now and warned everyone that “it” comes from God and isn’t because of personality or performance. Groeschel borrows from tons of other leadership books and teachings but frames it in such a way that you can intuitively see whether a church gets “it” collectively or not. The best part of the book aren’t specific principles, but in the way Craig details how they do and don’t do those things. Brilliant transparency about the good, the bad and the ugly.

Here’s the challenging part – as you read the book, you’ll throw what he says up against your church. You’ll question whether your church has “it” or not. And I think that’s the point – he is giving a friendly reminder to all churches and church leaders, like yourself, to strive for what God intended the church to be, not what it has become.

Next year, I want you on the “it” list. A

JG

Add Comment February 18, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts When Adult Leaders Go Above and Beyond

This weekend our adult volunteers went above and beyond. Waaayyy above and beyond. We were planning a discipleship retreat in the mountains (details here) and had to come off the mountain because of blizzard-like conditions that would have stranded us up there until today. Instead, we did a full-on overnight at The Refinery to end the event. Kind of a “bait and switch” that was beyond our control – but out leaders TOTALLY stepped up without flinching.

Here’s what our team sent out today, excited to deliver goodies to them this week:

Chi Alpha team!

Wow … I just wanted to shoot you a quick note today and let you know that you are LOVED and APPRECIATED. You must be exhausted! How do I know? I’ve attached an image of the first draft of this very letter that I started to write last night. Ha!

Click image to enlarge

I can’t tell you how thankful I am for you. I watched you all serve so selflessly this weekend. Long bus rides, terrible food, harrowing bus rides, rustic to rough accommodations, great teaching, awesome cabin time, kids who just wouldn’t fall asleep, patrolling for make-out sessions, having life-changing conversations, caring for students, snow ball fights, long talks about big things, having a total blast and counseling students in need. I am blessed to share the calling of youth ministry with you. Wow.

This week, HSM is going to deliver “recovery packages” to you at the office or at your home. You’re going to need some extra kick to get back up to speed again, so let us help you and at the same time say thanks for going WAY BEYOND what you signed up for. I will brag on you for months (especially at the conference in March), because you’re the best of the best.

So expect a special delivery no later than lunch on Thursday! It will be delivered by someone who is probably hopped up on caffeine or somewhat illegal chemical substances, too, so watch out if they start twitching.

Thanks for loving God and serving students.

JG

Add Comment February 18, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts Testing Poll Everywhere

I just signed us up to use Poll Everywhere at the GROUP Conference next week. We’re going to use it to poll the audience using their cell phones. Here’s a quick test of their poll software both on the web and via phone. Very cool piece of technology.

Here’s the web version:

And a cool vote by SMS version, too:

This is going to be fun.

JG

Add Comment February 18, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 40

Weekend Teaching Series: None, this is a 1–off in-between series
Sermon Title: Love

Sermon in a Sentence: To love and how to be loved as a High Schooler, with the understanding of how Christ loved us.

Key Verse: Ephesians 5:21 No one hates his own body, but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cared for the Church.

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 2 out of 10
Attendance: Down 7% from last weekend, up 47% from last year. This includes the attendance from the Chi Alpha retreat in Big Bear.

Service Length: 60 minutes

Understandable Message: The question I (Taffy) answered was, how to love someone and how do you know if you are being love? Then I challenged them to put it into action and be thankful. 1 Corinthians 13 is the Love Chapter but that is the outcome of love. When take the example of Christ in Eph 5:21-30 you will see how to love and be loved. TO FEED and TO CARE FOR or TO NURTURE and CHERISH. When you learn to nurture and cherish the outcome is 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: Students ran the lights, cameras, music, programmed, announcements, ran the control room, and greeted. We had some adult volunteers in the control because most of our students who are in the control room we gone at the retreat.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: Had a Love Song opener. Good video by Griff explaining what was going on for the service, and explaining why he was away. I explained to them, in the talk, that this is one message I wish we could all eat one one-on-one over a bowl of rice and chicken, because if I was to die tomorrow I thank the Lord I could share this with you. It was a little tough in the meeting a greeting area because most of our students who usually greet were away on a retreat.

Music Playlist: A Live of Love, Till I See, Jesus Lord of Heaven, Mighty to Save

Favorite Moment: Students filled out a card that asked: What is your definition of Love? They all turned in the cards after the second song and incorporated them into my talk. There were a good amount of definitions that were series, funny, and heartfelt.

Next up: Zack and Josh are doing a 1-off on Worship

(this weekend review was written by Taffy)

Add Comment February 17, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts Letter to Parents Post-Retreat

I like to write letters to parents after events. If you saw the one I wrote this summer after camp, it would be no surprise to read this one I sent out Sunday night during our Chi Alpha retreat.

Hey parents!

Chi Alpha is going GREAT! We’ve been having a blast so far and everyone is doing well.

There’s a big snow storm headed for Big Bear — so we’ve had to make some quick changes to our schedule. The forecasters said we could be stuck here until Wednesday morning in blizzard-like conditions if we didn’t leave now, so we’ve decided to leave tonight and head back into town.

BUT, Chi Alpha isn’t over!

We’ll be spending the night tonight in The Refinery and still having our remaining teaching sessions there. We’ll play games, eat and have a blast all-night then wrap up at 8am. If you can arrange to pick them up tomorrow morning it would be great. Thanks so much for rolling with the changes, too.

If you have any questions, please call xxxxx.

As for the weekend so far, it’s been AMAZING. Ben Stuart from Breakaway College Ministry has done a SUPER job walking students through holiness, growing and discipline.

If you want to listen to the three main talks (that he gave at a previous event), you can right here: Talk 1, Talk 2, Talk 3

Some great follow-up questions you might want to ask your student:

Add Comment February 16, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts Student Leader Letter After You Own the Weekend

Here’s a copy of a letter I sent out to our student leaders after this past series:

Student leaders – I couldn’t be more proud of you! I just had to write and share the 3 awesome things I love about what you did the past few weeks:

1) You invited your friends - we had 3 of the highest weekends in HSM history during this past series. That could only happen if you are inviting your friends – and you sure did! Not only that, I know several students that accepted Christ this past month and you had a HUGE part in that. So proud of you!

2) You served the church – it was incredible seeing your creativity and energy. From great object lessons to inflatable cougars, face paint, greeters, awesome, rocked out versions of the alma mater, skits and great music, you used your talents to serve God and do His work. My prayer is that this is just the beginning — that you’ve got a taste of what it would be like to own every weekend. What a great model for other students to see in action.

3) You started a movement in your schools – don’t let You Own the Weekend end with this series! Start a movement on your school campus, create a culture where students are invited to church and are greeted warmly and openly when they arrive. Live out your faith this week wherever you go.

Love you guys SO much – have a great week!

JG

Add Comment February 15, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts PurposeDriven.com Relaunches Today

Just noticed that the new PurposeDriven.com went live today. The new beta site launched in conjunction with the new Purpose Driven Connection Magazine which debuts this month, too. It looks sharp and a great new video is a behind the scenes look at Rick Warren at the inauguration. Check it out!

JG

Add Comment February 13, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts POLL: Vote for the 99 Thoughts for Youth Workers cover!

BIG NEWS: Simply Youth Ministry is going to publish a book I wrote called 99 Thoughts for Youth Workers (it’ll cost a sweet $6, from what I hear)! It is next in the series of 99 Thoughts books including 99 Thoughts for College Age People, 99 Thoughts About Girls and 99 Thoughts About Guys. This one is a collection of random thoughts and learnings from articles and blog posts, all edited up nice enough to be published. It comes out next month, and you can check out the cover mockups above.

Would you do me a favor? I’m not sure which of these I like, or maybe should scrap them and start over. Can you let me know what you think? Thanks!

Vote today!

JG