I really liked Kurt’s post on training volunteers over on SimplyKurt.com. Here’s a clip, hopefully you’ve already made his blog a regular stop:

-You Will Never Cover EVERYTHING! Our training for small group leaders last about 3 hours which seems like a long time until you actually get down to it. The reality is that there is so much involved in leading a small group of junior highers that 3 hours really only allows you to cover the bare necessities. Because of this it’s important to identify what those bare necessities are and make sure your leaders hear the most important stuff at the front end of their volunteer tenure.

-Embrace The Idea Of Ongoing Training. Because you can’t cover it all in one or two training sessions, create a culture of “ongoing training” with your volunteers. Take them to coffee, send them links to websites, attach an article to an email, point them to blogs, books etc. that will encourage them.

JG

Here’s the new Simply Youth Ministry 2010 Conference brochure … see you in Chicago February 2010!

JG

Oh man, how badly do I want to go to this game? Ha!

The STAR WARS festivities will start before the game with appearances by STAR WARS and Star Wars: The Clone Wars characters in Autograph Alley. The pre-game on-field ceremonies will include these characters, one of whom will also throw a ceremonial first pitch.

Dodgertown, Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be located in the Lower Reserve sections 56 and 60. All fans sitting in this section will receive the free T-shirt and enjoy unlimited ballpark favorites such as Dodger dogs, nachos, peanuts, popcorn, and soft drinks, as well as a STAR WARS themed menu including Cloneburgers with cheese, R2-BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, and Ice Sabers (popsicles). Group tickets for the section are $35 and individual seats are $45. Full details can be found at www.dodgers.com/starwars.

JG

Had the privilege of meeting the members of Casting Crowns this past weekend - one of our small group leaders gave us some great seats and meet n’ greet passes to the concert up at UCI. I’ve heard and enjoyed their music before, but didn’t really know the band’s whole story. It was great to see that youth ministry takes a front seat to their hearts and music. They have enormous credibility in that area – at intermission they invited all of the youth workers in the audience to a special room to meet the band and for encouragement and prayer. So great:

At the core of Casting Crowns is Mark Hall, a man who never would have thought leading a band into the wilds of the business of music would enter into his calling. His place, he thought, was to serve young people.

“I’ve been a youth pastor for about 12 years, and every church I’ve been in, music’s always been a part of it,” Hall says. “We’d usually start up a band made up of students so we could lead worship in our Wednesday night programs, and as the student ministry started to grow, the band would go off and play and do things in the area.”

The unit now known as Casting Crowns grew out of two of Hall’s stops along his youth ministry path, first coming into being while leading a youth group in Daytona Beach, FL., then transplanting and growing when Hall and his family accepted a position in Atlanta.

Here’s some lyrics from their song What This World Needs that was certainly inspired by youth ministry, right?

What this world needs
Is for us to care more about the inside than the outside.
Have we become so blind that we can’t see?
God’s gotta change her heart before He changes her shirt.

What this world needs
Is for us to stop hiding behind our relevance.
Blendin` in so well that people can’t see the difference
And it’s the difference that sets the world free.

And from Stained Glass Masquerade:

Cause when I take a look around
Everybody seems so strong
I know they’ll soon discover
That I don’t belong

So I tuck it all away, like everything’s okay
If I make them all believe it, maybe I’ll believe it too
So with a painted grin, I play the part again
So everyone will see me the way that I see them

Good stuff … very encouraging concert for any youth worker.

JG

Fun watching the Yankees take on the Angels yesterday – beats a day at the church office anytime! A friend of HSM generously gave the team access to their suite on the club level for yesterday’s game. It was so much fun, always great hanging with the high school team, even if the Angels lost.

JG

One of our fantastic HSM volunteers Parker created FACE, a character that turns our screen into a living breathing person. He was voiced by Jake Rutenbar during the service, and is sure to make a appearance again soon. You can now even control him yourself right now for fun!

Controls:
Mouse – controls eye movement (click and drag to move)
Q through O – controls the eyes
A through G – controls moving mouths (hold to make mouth move)
Z through B – controls static mouths (hold to make them stay on the screen)
Space Bar – controls talking mouth (hold to talk)

JG

Simple little montage video for behind the countdown during the HAPPY series.

JG

Doug Fields announced his departure from Saddleback Church today – you can read about it in the letter he wrote to our church family. Here’s an excerpt:

What am I going to do? Well, there’s not another specific job” that I’m departing to, but I am leaving staff to pursue some incredible opportunities to express my writing and teaching gifts. What I’m really doing is what I’ve taught you to do-listen for God’s whisper and obey it! Several people have said, You’re crazy to leave a secure Saddleback Church job during this unstable market.” Humanly speaking, they’re right… following God doesn’t always make sense, but I know I need to do the right thing: listen and obey.

Simply put, I am in youth ministry because of Doug Fields … very proud of him, very indebted to him and excited about what God is doing in his heart.

JG

The Simply Youth Ministry Podcast is in full swing these days – we’ve done 3 shows in 3 weeks and are planning another one Thursday. If you have never watched the show, join Doug Fields, Matt McGill, Jana Sarti and I on the team and sit in on some weekly youth ministry talk.

JG

Just saw these added to the Simply Youth Ministry website: ePods – stand-alone, video-based resources for youth ministries. They include a 7-10 minute video and a discussion-driven group curriculum with an icebreaker activity, discussion questions and a music/media option. Looks promising, can’t wait to check them out!

JG

Added a couple of more reviews to the 99 Thoughts for Youth Workers review page. Thanks to everyone that has reviewed the book so far (if you’ve got a review up I missed – let me know)! A Kindle edition is coming out soon, and I’m giving away 10 copies on Twitter and here on the blog this week – stay tuned for details on how to win a copy instantly.

If you’re interested in picking up the book for you ($5/each) or your volunteers ($4/each for 5 or more) you can grab them over at Simply Youth Ministry.

JG

A little fun video (the first in a series we’re planning) to keep with the HAPPY theme.

JG

Here’s a little demo from Parker (HSM volunteer) who built an on-screen character for our HAPPY series. We had a ton of fun with it – and later this week I’ll drop it on the blog for you to play with/download, too!

JG

It is easy as youth workers to get bent out of shape when we don’t get recognized for something we did. There’s nothing more painful to be forgotten in the wake of the other initiatives and projects of the church. At times, affirmation seems to be elusive, in fact, sometimes we tend to feel that we hear only criticism.

Knowing and experiencing this reality on a regular basis should give youth workers cause to develop these muscles to be used on a regular basis. Here are three things you probably don’t get enough of that we need to make sure as youth workers we give out generously:

Followup
Who needs a call back this week? What email has been sitting in the bottom of your inbox that needs a reply? What made it on your task list, but sits there with persistence week after week? Who did you promise something to, but haven’t delivered on? Follow-up is a scare commodity in our fast-paced, disorganized world.

Thank yous
Who needs a note from you this week? Can you crank out a couple emails that would mean the world to people who receive them? Who did something for you that needs to be appreciated? Build this into your routine of the week, or chances are you’re unintentionally burning bridges behind you if you say nothing after the ask.

Affirmation
To me this is different than thank yous – thank yous are for people who have given you something and need to be appreciated for something they did. Affirmation is for who someone is. It is an appreciation of their legacy and character that is making an impact. Affirmation is also ultra powerful way to build up someone’s self-esteem.

Take a second and create a short list of people who need one of these actions this week.

JG

A student made this little bumper video for our new HAPPY series, it played right before the message.

JG

We launched something new the past couple of weeks – and I’m pleased with the results so far. Our weekend is designed to reach several audiences from crowd to core, but from time to time regular attenders ask for “more.” To that end, we’re providing some homework each week, written by the weekend speaker and designed to flow hand in hand with the sermon that weekend and help them to grow deeper on their own.

If you want to check it out, here’s the Growing Deeper worksheet from kickoff weekend.

JG

Excited to see our LABELS series just get released this week as a sermon series from Simply Youth Ministry. If you didn’t read the two weekends in review back in April when we did the series (week 1 and week 2), it was a mirror-smashing series that we really had a lot of fun with. To check it out, click the image above!

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: Happy: Week 1
Sermon Title: Step One: Realizing I am not God
Sermon in a Sentence: A study of recovery and hope from the beautitudes.
Service Length: 78 minutes
Bible: Matthew 5:3 (NCV)

Understandable Message: Doug Fields kicked off the new series this weekend in HSM. The entire church is doing this study – Life’s Healing Choices its called in big church and Happy in HSM and Wildside (jr high). He covered the first step in happiness, which is realizing that you are not in control but that God is. Doug used a couple of powerful illustrations to help our students think about the path they had planned for their lives, and presented them with the opportunity to follow God’s path. He kept things interesting a clip from Shark Tank, and a fantastic story of one of our high school students from a local high school.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: This was choir weekend which we do about once a month, so we had students everywhere and the energy was fantastic. Students sang and played in the band, and also made up the greeters, cleanup/setup and even helped me host an opening game. Students also manned lights, sound, cameras – and for the first time ever – completely ran all of the positions in video control room and computers, too. TONS of students involved!

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We had some fun with a little character called FACE, an animated smiley face that we could have do all sorts of funny expressions and voiced totally improv by Jake Rutenbar. We also had a fun game up front – a Search and Seizure game that turned into Let’s Make a Deal – all in keeping with the theme where the winner would become ‘very happy.’ Lots of fun, and epic music rounded out a solid weekend. Download the program sheet here.

Music Playlist: Sweet Home Alabama (during countdown), Yours Forever, Your Name High, Song of the Broken, Hold Me Now, Your Name High (reprise)

Favorite Moment: Doug used an illustration about playing in the dirt vs playing at Disneyland that has really stuck with me (and I hope our students this week). Really clear illustration of what we think is happiness, but God opening the gates to His kingdom to us when we follow His ways.

Up Next: Happy, week 2

Networking can be difficult in our already, way too busy lives. But there are many of us who see youth ministry networks as an important way to re-energize, fellowship, and unity. Networking happens to be a passion of mine so I thought I would share with you six things that are important to think about when starting or maintaining a youth ministry network in your community.

1) Focus on soul care: When youth pastors get together we tend to create things, this happens naturally. However we often forget that part of why we network is to recharge, and encourage each other. So many youth workers are on all the time, let meeting together be focused on relaxing, praying and laughing together, not busting out our schedules for a collaborative event.

2) Tell stories: Veterans and rookies, we have all had that one time, great ministry blunder. It’s important for us to remember where we came from, but also share success and encourage one another with stories of student’s whose lives have been changed. Be careful not to let it become a senior pastor or parent bashing session. It’s important to be honest, but it is equally important to respect people and those who are in authority over us.

3) Be intentional about time together: Get creative with the meeting place, or what activities you do together; being respectful of people’s time of course.

4) Split responsibilities: Don’t let one person handle everything. Besides, shared responsibility keeps the network from dying when that one person leaves (the number one reason I hear networks collapse).

5) Commit to each other: A network doesn’t work very well when there is no one to “network” with. Be consistent with meeting times and be realistic about how often you meet.

6) (Last but not least) Food: Good fellowship revolves around good food! Take turns providing it or see if a local coffee shop will donate food and beverage for everyone (the worst they could say is no).

Jonas Knudsen is a youth worker who loves students and blogs at Raising Ebenezer. If you want to write up a guest post for next weekend, submit your article this week.

This year we’re decentralizing our small group material, instead of a rigid and uniform cirriculum plan we’re allowing leaders to pick from close to 100 different lessons to share with their students. Among them are Guy Talk, Girl Talk 1 and 2. I’m excited about this because one of the few lessons I remember from youth ministry myself as a teenager centered around these issues from a biblical viewpoint. If you haven’t checked them out before, click on over and see if it is right for your ministry, too.

JG