Josh GriffinMore PostsPOLL: Do you listen to secular music?


I’ve got a feeling this poll will be a little polarizing. Do you listen to secular music? Would love to know your thoughts about the type of music a youth pastor can listen to and vote in this week’s poll!

JG

TagsComments 7 View Comments January 2, 2012

Josh GriffinMore PostsMoreThanDodgeball’s Year in Review: Top 5 Blogs of 2011

I read about a jillion (with a “j”) blog posts every week. There are a ton of different blogs I subscribe to, but here are my favorites from 2011:

DougFields.com – I’m so glad my friend Doug Fields got into the blogging game. He is the best blogger in youth ministry and I read his stuff, every word of every post, because it is brilliant. OK, I skip some of it just like you do on my blog – but it is filled with incredible youth ministry, marriage and leadership insights and is not to be missed. Best new blog of the year!

DougFranklin.com – solid blog from LeaderTreks’ Doug Franklin doesn’t stray much from the student leadership drumbeat. Solid, consistent posts that are easy to rip off and share with your volunteers like you wrote it yourself!

Learning My Lines – Walk Mueller is in youth ministry culture, and cares about it more deeply than I ever will. I love that I can get up to speed on issues and influences of teenagers in seconds.

Glass House Spouse – Another GREAT new blog – this one focuses on the spouse of someone in ministry. Honest, funny, candid – I love it, my only hope would be that it becomes daily in 2012.

More Than Gossip - My friend Neely McQueen is doing some great work on her blog More Than Gossip. She’s always got an insight or observation from her focused ministry to girls. I learn a lot from her and appreciate the heart she puts into the site. Check it out!

What was your favorite blog in 2011?

JG

TagsComments Add Comment December 31, 2011

Josh GriffinMore PostsMoreThanDodgeball’s Year in Review: Best Book of 2011

This year I read quite a few books – you can see most of the book reviews here on the blog by using the book review tag right here. Which book was the best? Before we get there, here are a couple of runner-ups:

Pray for Kaia – Youth worker Ryan Donovan tells the most touching story about his daughter’s painfully short life. I literally cried my way through the end of this books. An absolute testimony to faitfulfulness in the middle of unspeakable pain.

Onward – Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz writes a way-too-long but great history of his little coffee company and a vision of the values they are taking to the future. Really interesting story of the Starbucks journey.

Stuff Christians Like - Jon Acuff takes his best stuff from his blog and drops it into a fun book making fun of but loving Christians. Excited Jon is a speaker at SYMC this year, excited to hear him speak in person about youth workers. Ha!

Lord, Save Us From Your Followers – Dan Merchant brilliantly shows us the clearest picture of what Jesus intended His followers to live by contrasting it with how we (himself included) have managed to mess it all up. Innovative stuff, even if I’m late to the party since the book was published 4 years ago.

My favorite book from 2011:

Steve Jobs – I realize it was trendy to read this book this year and kinda lame to make it my favorite – but it has to be conceded that 2011 will forever be marked by the loss of Steve Jobs. I think I’ve learned as much what TO do as what NOT to do by reading about Steve’s life and management style. Incredible success, incredible failure.

What was your favorite read this past year?

JG

TagsComments 1 View Comments December 31, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts4 Things That Are Changing in Youth Ministry

There has been a lot of talk this year about the changing shape of youth ministry. As we wrap up one of our last articles of 2011, we thought it was a good idea to talk about a few of these changes … and point out a few things that don’t seem to be changing anytime soon. Up today, a few ways youth ministry seems to be evolving.

There are now many, many voices
It wasn’t that long ago that you would go to a youth worker training event or check out the youth ministry books online and see just a handful of resources by a handful of people. Today, youth ministry is rapidly expanding to include scores of voices from all sizes of churches and experiences. Thanks to the world of blogging, podcasts and Twitter, you can access the wisdom and experience of countless of youth workers with the click of a mouse or a push of a button on your cell phone while sitting at a red light (wait, is that even legal anymore?). There is room for your voice, too! The best voices are from the trenches of day-to-day youth ministry — so blog, tweet and podcast away!

Emphasis on parent ministry
Youth ministry is no longer just about students (actually, it has never been just about students, but we are finally waking up to this reality), it is about reaching, equipping and empowering parents to be the primary discipler of their teenager.

Team-based ministry
Youth ministry was never meant to be done alone! One of the radical shifts still gaining steam is the networking and collaboration of youth ministries worldwide. Everyone is beginning to understand the value of sharing resources and pooling our creativity to inspire others and share the timeless message of Christ.

Church together
Youth ministry is no longer an island to itself. Churches and youth ministries are actively seeking out ways to serve together, worship together and learn together. By all means there is still plenty of room for age specific, segregated ministry to happen, but connecting adults and students together in healthy spiritual mentoring relationships is a needed and welcome change.

What else do you see shifting in youth ministry right now?

This post was written by Josh Griffin and Kurt Johnston and originally appeared as part of Simply Youth Ministry Today free newsletter. Subscribe to SYM Today right here.

TagsComments 1 View Comments December 30, 2011

Josh GriffinMore PostsMoreThanDodgeball’s Year in Review: Top 10 Guest Posts of 2011

Every weekend I get the privilege of posting a guest post or two from the More Than Dodgeball community. It is open to everyone – provided it is solid and fits some basic requirements (like somewhere south of 500 words, and isn’t a blatant infomercial for something – if you’re interested get the scoop here). These are the best of the best – the most popular guest posts from 2011:

  1. Becoming an Indispensable Staff Pastor by Justin Lathrop
  2. Top 12 Things You Should be Saying to a Guy Who Struggles with Porn by Nick McDonald
  3. What to do with the Kid Who Hates You by Geoff Stewart
  4. Taste And See: Sharing God’s Goodness Through Grief by Ryan Donovan
  5. Youth Tracker by Bradley K. Chandler
  6. 43 Top Church Website Resources by Zach Younkin
  7. I’ve Failed as a Youth Pastor by Steve Ingold
  8. Make the Ask by Geoff Stewart
  9. The Curious Question of Campus Lunch by Sean Kahlich
  10. When Good Ideas Go Bad by Geoff Stewart

JG

TagsComments 1 View Comments December 30, 2011

Josh GriffinMore PostsMoreThanDodgeball’s Year in Review: Top Pages and Tags of 2011

I don’t have too many static pages on the site, but here are the Top 3 most popular pages on MoreThanDodgeball.com

  1. Recommended Youth Ministry Resources
  2. My Books / Sermon Series
  3. Pastor 1st, Speaker Guy Second

The 4th most popular is the Contact Page – if you ever need to get a hold of me that’s where you can find me. And here are the most popular tags from this year as well – tags will pull up all of the blog posts around that subject:

  1. object lessons
  2. youth group names
  3. youth group calendar
  4. youth group games
  5. small group curriculum
  6. youth pastor gifts
  7. youth ministry apps
  8. how to raise your parents
  9. iPad
  10. series ideas

JG

TagsComments Add Comment December 30, 2011

Josh GriffinMore PostsMoreThanDodgeball’s Year in Review: Top 10 Posts of 2011

So glad that so many of you found my blog helpful this past year! It was awesome to look back on the stats for the year and see what people really paid attention to as I write and/or share about a little bit about youth ministry every day. In this end of the year series I’m going to look at some interesting trends and or list out some popular stuff from the blog in case you missed it the first go round.

Up today is a list of the Top 10 blog posts from 2011, based on the sheer number of views of that page. Some are old, some are new. Here they are!

  1. 25 Sermon and Series Ideas
  2. Group’s Youth Ministry Salary Survey
  3. Cookie Face game from Minute to Win It
  4. 11 Exit Interview Questions for Summer Interns
  5. Top 10 Worship Songs in Our Youth Group
  6. Free Speaker Countdown Timer
  7. How to Fire Your Youth Pastor
  8. Facebook Hack Game for Your Youth Group
  9. My 6 Steps Preparing a Youth Ministry Talk
  10. Great Small Group Questions

JG

TagsComments Add Comment December 29, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts4 Ways to Unify a Team

A couple weeks back at our State of HSM annual meeting I shared a few things that I believe that make a good team great. Thought I would share them with you as well!

Vision
We all share a common, unifying vision in our high school ministry – seeing students on the outside of faith meet Him face to face (evangelism) and their lives be changed forever. And for those that have trusted Christ to be connected (fellowship), grow (discipleship), serve (ministry) and honor (worship) Christ deeper now and into adulthood. The clear vision helps bring a team of like-minded and passionate people together. If someone is out of line, the vision brings them back into the unity of the common vision.

Learning
This year our team is going to unify by learning together. We’re going to go to a conference together – the Simply Youth Ministry Conference this March – come hang with us! We’re going to go back to the basics and read Doug Fields’ 1st 2 Years in Youth Ministry together and have some discussions about our experiences and how we can grow together as youth workers. Youth pastors must keep learning and moving forward.

Laughter
It is so important to laugh together. I want us to play together. Have inside jokes. To dig a deep well of relationship that bond us together and make us quick to forgive and trust when hit with the unexpected.

Dependent on God/Prayer
Your walk with Jesus is critically important. This season we’re all reading the New Testament together. We’re trying to make sure our walk with Jesus is more visible and something we talk about as easily as we would Sherlock Holmes or the new Coldplay album (both of which are excellent by the way). Your walk with Jesus is person, but it is also communal. As a team we need to strive to e

JG

TagsComments Add Comment December 29, 2011

Josh GriffinMore PostsChristmas Services Announcement Video

Here are the announcements from Saddleback Church for our Christmas services. So fun to get to do this …

JG

TagsComments Add Comment December 29, 2011

Josh GriffinMore PostsGUEST POST: 11 Great Ministry Moments of 2011

  1. Meeting our new 7th graders — Every year we get to welcome in a new class of 7th graders into our Mid-High ministry. I have LOVED every one of these guys!
  2. Mission Trip to Arlington, TX — We sold out for this trip in 2 weeks and had an incredible time serving the city of Arlington, learning Spanish on the fly, and playing dodgeball in Cowboys Stadium!
  3. NERF War — It’s every kid’s dream: have a massive NERF war with no adults around. We expected a few students to come, but we blew the doors of the place and we’re STILL picking up ammo from it!
  4. Thanks for Abortion – Two years ago I spoke about abortion. Two days ago a student (who is now in high school) came up to me and thanked me for that message. This student has a friend who is struggling with what to do with her unborn child and that message two years ago has been really helpful!
  5. TRIBES — Last summer we did a 6-week competition designed to bring students to Christ through recreation. Towards the end, individual tribes were larger than our entire first night!
  6. DISCipleship Hole-In-One – We played disc golf all summer. I got a hole-in-one. The guys in my group got to see a reaction they’ll never forget. Moving on..
  7. Greeters Kidnapping a Student – We have a greeters team in our ministry. One Sunday they “kidnapped” a new student who had walked in with her parents and brought her down to the youth area. She’s been coming ever since.
  8. The Change to Cell Groups – We used to do small groups one way, realized it wasn’t achieving the goals for which it was designed, so we’ve overhauled the way we do things. Now our students are being pushed to be “on mission” and they don’t have teachers, they have coaches. It’s awesome!
  9. Night of Impact & Goats – We challenged our students to raise money to buy goats for an orphanage in Africa. In one month they raised enough money to buy over 13 goats!
  10. Transfer for the Gospel – One of my students (who grew up going to a private Christian school) decided to follow God and transfer to a public school this year so he could have MORE opportunity to share the Gospel. Put that in your pipe and smoke it cultural stereotype of teenage boys!
  11. My Entire Volunteer Team – Without my team, none of this could have happened. They love God and like teenagers and I am proud to serve with them in this crazy ministry to 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students!

Sean Kahlich is the Mid-High Youth Minister at The Kirk of the Hills — check out his youth ministry blog called Awaiting Epiteleo.

TagsComments Add Comment December 29, 2011
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