The new LAUNCH bumper video that one of our talented volunteers pulled off this week. Nice!

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: LAUNCH: Ready for Re-Entry (week 1 of 5, series premiere)
Sermon in a Sentence: Getting ready to go back to school starts with a check of your heart and forming habits that will get you through the year.
Service Length: 70 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend I asked Ryanne Witt to teach while I was away at a wedding. She’s been on the HSM team longer than me and been at the church literally forever (even came through HSM), and works as the coordinator of our volunteer team. She plays a great role in training, coaching and caring for them and this is one of only a couple times she’s spoken at our entry-level program. She made it look effortless and was completely comfortable, even though I know the time, preparation and prayer that she put into it as well. I have long-realized the importance of multiple voices to our students, and loved having her teach this weekend. The message centered on loving God and preparing our hearts for what God was going to teach us in the year ahead. She had a GREAT application – that as of today we’re 30 days from school starting, and how it takes 28 days to form a habit. She encouraged students to choose a spiritual discipline (and suggested 1 of 6 choices on the back of the outline/program) that would help them be ready for re-entry.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: The program was super simple – there was a simple opening element of fun that involved a target, a water balloon slingshot and Fun Size candy bars. Simple and clean summer program getting the students to think about LAUNCH. The collective groan of students when we started talking about going back to school was awesome, too.

Music Playlist: The Time Has Come, How He Loves, You Hold Me Now, Let My Words Be Few, So I Look to You

Favorite Moment: Two this week – 1) Ryanne teaching was awesome, and 2) one of our volunteers made some simple “rockets” to use as stage decoration – when the countdown hit “zero” they launched one of them by pulling a string and it flew into the air. Hilarious.

Up Next: LAUNCH week 2

We used this video in our LAUNCH series opener to help convey the truth about the Great Commandment. Good stuff, looked great and very student-friendly.

JG

Appreciated the post over on VolunteerYouthMinistry.com today about being a sought after counselor. Thought Dennis had some good insight and thoughts, here’s a clip of his thoughts, head there for the rest:

- Longevity in ministry is gold. Stick it out and you’ll be the go-to person eventually. Even if you don’t have your own teenagers, there’s a great amount of relational wisdom to be gained by spending a few years working with students. Your beliefs will be solidified or revolutionized by what you encounter. When you go to counsel a student, you’ll come from the perspective of observational or hands-on experience rather than tentative theory.

- Sharing your story lends credibility. When I talk to students about their issues, I relate something from my own life that shows I understand what they’re going through. I’m careful not to dominate the conversation with my stories, I just share enough to relate and build trust. The key is to not only share a couple of facts, but the emotions that I felt when I went through what I share. Doing this during a regular conversation builds the trust needed to become their go-to person for counseling when they’re ready to open up on a deeper level.

JG

With fall right around the corner a new season of student ministry is quickly approaching.  Many of us have an endless checklist of what needs to get done from writing messages to planning all events.  It’s easy to get overwhelmed and I know we constantly think to ourselves, “If I only had a few more ministers this wouldn’t be so overwhelming.”  But, where do we get them?  How do we recruit?  And even if we get ten new ones we feel as if we need a few more.  What we need to do is create a culture of personal invites, a culture where we invite people to see more than an hour of volunteering.  We get it by painting a picture of vision, but before we paint the picture we need to pray.

It all starts with a prayer. And I know most of us are like, “Well, duh.”  But I’m serious pray, but be specific in how many and who you need.  If you don’t know the answer to those questions then you need to figure that out.  But pray specific and persistent and ask God for those opportunities.

Next comes the ask. There are many of us who have asked people before and we’ve done that through mass emails, or a letter campaign.  In a letter or email you can usually paint a picture through the words of your vision, but sometimes the invite needs to be more personal.  That’s when we turn to our ministers to recommend someone.  They’ll have the capacity to reach out to people you may not know.  And while all those methods are important and necessary to do, the most effective way is one that deals with patience.

Doing the Invite. I’ve begun spending my Sundays meeting people in the church, getting to know them, sharing a little bit about myself and then sharing with them a little of what I do.  As you get to know them invite them to check out what it is you do in student ministry, then follow up with some time where you can gather their feedback.  Do it over a cup of coffee or lunch, but ask them to share with you what they learned about what you do.  When you show someone how they are needed they’ll be more willing to invest themselves into the vision you share with them.

So even though we feel like we need ministers now or we can never have enough, it’s important to have patience, to trust that God is working through you and with you.  When you take time to paint the picture whether in writing or in person you create a culture where people are invited into the vision.

Chris Wesley is the Director of Student Ministry at Church of the Nativity in Timonium, MD.  You can read more about his blog Marathon Youth Ministry.

Quite a few emails and comments from people this summer about the new self-service Pastoral Care brochure racks we launched for our High School Ministry. Honestly, it has taken a whole lot longer to produce each brochure than we originally thought, and they’ve gone a lot faster than I expected – so it’s been totally worth it. Anyhow, some youth workers were recently asking about publishing a topic list of the different pamphlets, so here’s the list of ideas as of today. I wish we could have done them all, but some ideas had to get cut and only a few are [done].

Pastoral Care Issues
1. Relationships, Dating [done]
2. Sexual Temptations/Porn [done]
3. Identity/Value/Worth [done]
4. Bullies
5. Anger
6. Peer Pressure
7. Insecurity
8. Loneliness
9. Marriage/Divorce
10. Death
11. Feeling Lost/Purposeless
12. Unplanned Pregnancy/Abortion [done]
13. Gender Issues
14. Domestic Violence/Sexual Abuse
15. Addiction
16. Parents
17. Eating Disorders [done]
18. Academic Problems
19. Stress
20. Depression
21. Homosexuality [done]
22. Cutting [done]
23. Grief [done]
24. Forgiveness
25. Suicide [done]
26. Stealing

Christian Life
1. Habits
2. Following Jesus [done]
3. Salvation
4. Serving
5. PEACE
6. Purposes [done]
7. What It Means to be a Christian
8. Baptism [done]
9. Communion [done]
10. Small Groups
11. How to Get Connected
12. M Video Games/M Music/R Movies
13. Alcohol/Drugs [done]
14. How To Grow/A Few Ways to Grow

Theology
1. The Bible [done]
2. God [done]
3. Heaven/Hell [done]
4. Is Jesus the Only Way [done]
5. Theology Terms
6. Environment [done]
7. Humanity
8. Sin

HSM General/Funny
1. Snuggies
2. Fun In the Refinery
3. HSM Insider Terms
4. Ninjas
5. Star Wars
6. Pirates vs. Ninjas
7. Fashion Don’ts [done]

What are we missing? Leave a comment!

JG

Do you work with junior high students? Check out the BELIEVE Tour (an awesome junior high-only event put on by CIY). Love what they do – our junior high ministry at Saddleback goes every year! All you have to do is leave a comment with the city you would want to win the tickets in – I’ll pick one at random next Friday and you win a pack of 5!

• January 28-29 Anaheim
• February 4-5 Tulsa
• February 11-12 Peoria
• February 18-19 Cincinnati
• February 25-26 St. Louis
• March 11-12 Kissimmee
• March 18-19 Arlington
• March 25-26 Portland
• April 8-9 Atlanta
• April 15-17 Anderson
• April 29-30 Holland

JG

Just finished up reading Soup, another business fable from Jon Gordon. This time he goes after the ingredients of what make a healthy team and focuses on creating a winning team culture that rallies your people to the cause and around an optimistic leader. Honestly the first few chapters really drew me in – not because I’ll ever run a company called Soup, Inc but because he outlines what I’ve felt but been unable to articulate about the importance of team culture. Couple of standout quotes:

• You create a culture of greatness by expecting great things to happen – even during challenging times.
• Leadership is foremost a transfer of belief.
• People follow the leader first and the vision second.
• It is through relationships that you can shape people to be their best.
• We are transformed by our spiritual relationship with God and our relationship with family, mentors, and coaches and we transformothers through our relationship with them.
• Lukewarm isn’t an option. No one likes cold soup.

Good stuff – loved it! Super simple, easy read.

JG

What do you think – should I add a youth ministry job openings page here on the blog? I’m curious if it would benefit you in some way. I’m thinking of something ultra-select, not just a free-for-all. Thoughts?

JG

Usually, when Doug speaks people listen. And his ideas are usually brilliant. But this time … giving away nearly $10,000 of stuff in a contest in exchange for you checking out or considering Group Workcamps? The prize list is impressive, head over there to throw your name in the hat.

JG

Was bouncing around on Google Analytics today and saw an interesting trend.  There was one search that was far and away the most-search-for phrase on my blog – like hundreds more than the next closest. So what is the most popular search on MorethanDodgeball.com?

Click here to experience it for yourself! It is a search looking for more information about the “hooks” we use in our high school ministry. For the past year, everything we print has had a hole in the top of it, so students could hang in up in a place where they would see it. We give away HSM hooks each weekend, encouraging students to hang it by their bed or a mirror so they could reflect on what they learned that week at church. It was one of the ways we went after

If you’re interested in getting some yourself, we purchased the hooks at Clearmedia Promotional Products.

Just as an aside, here are a couple more of the top searches recently:

• Business Cards
• Backward$
• Game/Games

JG

Just finished up reading Green Like God: Unlocking the Divine Plan for Our Planet, a new book by Jonathan Merritt. The book is an attempt to reclaim environmentalism from the left, and make Creation care an issue that everyone should care about, regardless of political sides. According to Jonathan, caring for God’s creation is largely a spiritual issue and an act of worship to the Creator. He’s careful to distinguish between worshipping the creation and the Creator, and is quick to admit the shortcomings of his own journey. I like it that just a few years ago he held many of the traditional (read: irresponsible) views that many Christians still share.

To be honest, green is a “something” to me – I still have a loooooong ways to do – but loved the series we did called Save the Planet a couple years ago and The Refinery at Saddleback was Lake Forest’s first LEED-certified building. All in all, I really dug the first 2/3rds of the book – before it begins to read like any other environmental book you can’t seem to avoid these days. To me, what sets this book apart is the Biblical perspective on creation and our responsibility to care for it, which was refreshing and encouraging to read.

JG

Thriving Youth Ministry in Smaller Churches is a solid resource for those looking for encouragement in the trenches of youth ministry. Rick writes it in a very conversational style, only helped by Stephanie Caro’s interjections of fun and insight throughout the book. Having served in a smaller church (for 7 years) and now a much larger church (for 6 years) I love seeing the strengths of good youth ministry shine through, regardless of size. The book was a great reminder of what make small churches great, and what to focus on to stay healthy.

JG

Get Thriving Youth Ministry at Simply Youth Ministry

I’m excited to announce that in January we’re starting a new program to help the hurting students at Saddleback. It is called The Landing and it is a year-long version of Celebrate Recovery program. Our church leadership has been wanting to run a parallel program to Celebrate Recovery for adults and children. This is it! Life Hurts, God Heals is still a great option as well – you can check that out right here as well. Either way, stop for a minute today and think about the hurting kids in your ministry and what you can do to serve them.

The Landing is an all-new, year-long program that helps teenagers travel the path to freedom, healing, and wholeness. This dynamic resource mirrors the content presented in the successful Celebrate Recovery program. The lessons deliver hope-filled truths and real-life strategies for giving young people the tools for making wise choices and developing healthy patterns for living.

Use The Landing as a way to minister to teenagers in your church and community who are struggling with life-controlling hurts, hang-ups, and habits. Or simply implement the curriculum in your small groups, Sunday school classes, or midweek program to give all of your students insights on following the path to freedom. This resource will complement your efforts if you church is using the Celebrate Recovery ministry for adults and the Celebration Station content for kids—but it also flourishes as a stand alone option!

JG

Thought this graphic was of particular interest to youth workers in how to coach volunteers to connect/get student ministry. Good stuff to think about – thanks for the Fuller Youth Institute blog for pointing out the original study. Interesting!

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: 5 Ways to Be Awesome: A study through the book of James (week 5 of 5, series finale)
Sermon in a Sentence: Independence is part of growing up – but always be dependent on God.
Service Length: 63 minutes

Understandable Message: This week we pulled the past month together and brought home the last chapter of the James series. I spoke on the last few verses of James 5 – talking specifically about prayer and rescuing people with our prayers and with our actions. Lots of work to do to recap where we had gone in this series – so Robby came up and did a pre-intro/recap of the past 4 weeks. Students have been in and out a lot this summer, so we made a intentional emphasis on the series review. The message had a clear plan of salvation included, and emphasized followers of Jesus to pray earnestly out of a sincere and right heart. One practical way we applied the message was to ask students to subscribe to a 7-day message stream that reminded them to earnestly pray for something/someone. So excited, about half of the students participated!

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: During Robby’s intro he talked about “things that were awesome” including some funny apps on his iPhone – he also asked a polleverywhere.com survey question where everyone could respond with their phones. For this week, we worked more of the humor and bits right into the message, and minimized the program elements. A student who just graduated wrote a great drama/dance that had a girl dreaming about Heaven set to Phil Wickham’s Heaven Song. It was beautiful, and a unique element we don’t get to feature that often!

Music Playlist: The Earth is Yours, Consuming Fire, Nothing But the Blood, Savior of the World

Favorite Moment: The student testimony this week was incredible. It was about a student named Nolan who received Christ in the last few weeks. His new friend Connor prayed for him and help lead him to the Lord. You can read the entry from his blog that inspired it. So awesome – Nolan getting baptized Saturday night was a powerful moment, too.

Up Next: LAUNCH: Ready for Re-entry (week 1 of 5, back to school series kickoff)

During the message this weekend, I had an idea to use Duffled (the tool we use to send text messages to students) to send out text reminders to students each day this week. I typed up a few messages that students could subscribe to help remind them to put the message into action this week. Most of my talk focused on prayer, so here are the 7 messages that will be sent out this week to students who subscribed:

Awesome! This week you’ll get a few days of text messages reminding you to pray, or give you encouragement to talk to God. Be dependent on Him this week!

A REMINDER TO PRAY FROM HSM: The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. James 5:16

A PRAYER OF CONFESSION: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. -1 John 1:9

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” -Philippians 4:6-7

GIVE GOD A PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING: Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. Colossians 4:2

PRAY WITH A PURE HEART:
When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. James 4:3

PRAY FOR SOMEONE WHO IS SICK: James says the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.

This is the last prayer reminder from HSM’s 5 Ways to be Awesome series. We hope you’re developing a habit of prayer and dependence on God! If you would like prayer or need to talk about something in your life, grab anyone wearing an HSM shirt at a weekend service. HSM loves you!

JG

Enjoyed this post over at Effective Youth Ministry – it focuses not on just creating but actually using a purpose statement. A purpose statement is critical to your youth ministry, if you don’ t have one get started by reading Purpose Driven Youth Ministry for sure! Here’s a clip, head there for the rest of the solid perspective:

LIVE by those goals, every week and every day. Keep them in front of you and use them to set your agenda each day. Constantly ask yourself, “Is what I’m doing right now accomplishing this quarter’s goals?” If not, don’t do it!

Review all of your goals each quarter and set new quarter goals. Did you accomplish last quarter’s goals? Why or why not? What did you learn?

Revise everything annually. Your purpose statement and big goals may not change much, but always be ready to make adjustments as you go along. Don’t keep goals just because you used to think they were a good idea. If they’re not a good idea anymore, change them.

JG

Fun little video (made in seconds with Animoto) to play at this weekend’s services highlight a serve project HSM pitched in on called Operation Backpack.

JG

Recently sat down and carved out the sermons and series for our weekend entry-level services this fall. Here’s the next batch of where HSM is headed, starting with the wrap up of our end of summer back to school series:

September
LAUNCH: Ready for Re-entry: Relationships
LAUNCH: Ready for Re-entry: Stress & Schedule [Fall Kickoff Weekend]
Happily Ever After: Intro Weekend
Happily Ever After: Girls

October
Happily Ever After: Guys
Serve Weekend / Ministry Fair
NEXT (church-wide campaign)
NEXT
NEXT

November
NEXT
NEXT
NEXT (offering weekend)
Thanksgiving 1-off

December
Christmas Series
Christmas Series
Christmas Series
Combined with adult services for Christmas

January
Combined with adult services for New Year
Best Year Ever
3D: Decision
3D: Devotion
3D: Defeat

JG