Are you going to blog the Simply Youth Ministry Conference? At least tossing out some Tweets? If so, leave a comment here and I’ll post up the official list as well as a recap of the best posts each day. See you next week in Chicago! Wooohooo!

JG

I think there are some legitimate reasons for removing a student from your small group – and there are some other reasons that maybe feel right, but absolutely aren’t. Here’s a couple I’ve seen in the past couple of years in our ministry

I’ll remove them from the group – they aren’t showing up anyhow
Just because a student isn’t showing up doesn’t mean you should let them go – it actually means you might have an opportunity to go the extra mile and care for them. Be faithful to call them and check up on them, even if it feels futile. A student not showing up is an opportunity, so don’t be discouraged by it. We divide the large group into small groups for this very reason: so that someone will care for them and notice when they’re gone. Don’t give up on them yet – the next call or text could be more meaningful than you will ever know.

I’ll remove them from the group – they don’t seem to care about group
If we removed a student every time they were dejected or apathetic we wouldn’t have too many students in small groups! In fact, if I’m honest I don’t always feel like going to or participating in church stuff myself sometimes. Again, this is an opportunity to care for them, to coach them about the importance of community and accountability – if they get these concepts as a student their adult life will be so much better! Jesus cared for his sheep, but took the time to go after those that wandered off as well. Let’s do the same!

JG

My friend and former intern Josh Pease (now heading out in a speaking/writing career) wrote me the other day about some new ideas he’s trying with his rather large small group. I asked him to share a bit more for the blog, and here’s his thoughts. Hope it is helpful!

Being a small group leader – by its very nature – is difficult. And the bigger the group, the harder it is.

My group currently runs anywhere from 11-15 students, and the energy I’ve used trying to get them to focus for 40 minutes of lesson is ridiculous. For the last couple years it seemed I spent more time telling people to be quiet than teaching them.

That is until about a month ago, when I completely revamped how our small group operates. The changes I’ve made have led to us having our best month of small group in the 3 years we’ve been together. And while I’m not saying it makes everything perfect … it’s working really well for me. So if you have a bigger small group — and are feeling frustrated — here’s a quick look at someting that has helped me.

The day of small group – I text my guys with the passage of Scripture we’ll be reading that night, a reminder to bring their Bibles, and a couple questions to think about if they decide to read the verses in advance (only a couple do … but hey).

7-7:15 – My guys trickle in. When I feel like most people are there we start off with “Story Time with Devon” (he always has a crazy event from the last week to share. I only mention this because it sort of helps in getting people quiet). I then recap the passage & questions from the text and tell them to break up into their groups.

7:15-7:45 – Everyone breaks into groups of 3-4 people. These groups – which are the same each week – were divided by me to hopefully be socially comfortable (hey, my friend is in here!) but also a little challenging (hey … I’ve never spoke two sentences to this guy!). Spending time really creating a good relational mix for each group was important. Spiritually mature with immature. Distracted with focused. It takes time to find the right tensions, but is worth it.

Each group is led by a student who I see as one of our spiritual leaders and who I’ve explained the new vision to and asked to help (I invited the guys I wanted to lead to my house on Sat. morning for breakfast). The leader’s job is simple: keep the group on task. Make sure the group reads. Encourage them to ask and answer questions – the ones I gave them but also, hopefully, their own insights.

7:45-8:20 – The groups come back together. Here’s where the payoff for ME kicks in. Because my guys have already read the Scripture AND been thinking about it, they’re more inclined to participate. Rather than me doing a “cold open” where I have to convince them they should listen, they already have questions they want to know the answers to. Or things they’ve thought of and want to share. At the very least they’re more likely to answer questions I ask. And I think there’s something about having been in a smaller group for 30 minutes that makes them a little calmer too.

The key I’ve found in this time is to let them drive the discussion (I simply open up the floor to any questions/insights they had), but slowly leading them to a key idea from the passage that I think is important. So if we’re reading about the woman at the well, and the question I gave them is “what obstacles were in the way of Jesus talking to this woman?” then I will slowly ask follow up questions to their answers. The goal is for them to see how the obstacles between Jesus and the woman aren’t that different from obstacles they face when talking to people about Jesus.

Usually by this point, there’s a cool “ah ha!” moment where a Bible passage they’ve already engaged personally becomes alive to them.

8:20-? – I then send students back into their same groups to pray together. Usually I encourage them to pray about something directly connected to what they just read. Again, the student leader drives this conversation, but in a very laid back way. His job is to make sure everyone is encouraged to share if they want. What I’ve found is that – since my guys largely drive themselves to/from group– they will continue to hang out well past our 8:30 end time, just catching up with each other.

So basically in one small group night: our students spend at least 45 minutes in groups where they know everyone and feel listened to, they engage the Bible on their own, that story is made relevant to their life, they gain some keys on how to read the Bible for themselves hopefully, every person gets a chance to pray/be prayed for, and all I have to do is lead 30 minutes of discussion where most of my job is simply to ask follow up questions.

It’s been pretty nice.

Weekend Teaching Series: Q (week 1 of 3)

Sermon in a Sentence: Any reasonable quest for truth should start with Christianity.
Service Length: 76 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend we kicked off our series focusing on apologetics. We brought in Sean McDowell, a local high school teacher and background in Apolgetics (you might know his dad), to help ask questions and help our students to know why they believe what they believe. This weekend focused on the quest for truth, and we had made a big push for everyone to pray about/bring a friend with them to this series. Sean is turning his talk into a resource that will eventually be released on his website.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: Our stage design volunteers/students helped create some cool new light-up boxes to give the stage a fresh look for the month – the boxes have various color lights in them and can be stacked in different ways each week. Students led us in music, the choir was on this weekend, and cameras, lights, sound and control room were all managed by the 18-and-unders. Lots of student greeters (thanks to the choir sharing duties) and still light on the adult volunteers in the room, especially at the 6:30pm Saturday night service.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This weekend we opened by using PollEverywhere in a new way – we posted a picture on the screen, and asked students to text in their captions for it. It worked REALLY well! We have some funny students – it was a nice new use of the system and good clean (moderated) Valentine’s Day fun. The choir sang the GLEE cast version of “Somebody to Love” and we also had a couple guys jump up and play a crowd game called Hate to Love Me, funny questions about love and Valentine’s Day that everyone seemed to enjoy as we got things warmed up.

Music Playlist: Somebody to Love, Tear Down the Walls, Rise & Sing

Favorite Moment: At the end of the service, we had a couple students come up and talk about an accident involving a couple of students from one of our largest high schools. They talked about the spiritual movement that is happening on campus, and invited people to pray after the service as a group for one of the students that is in a coma. So many came out to pray … good stuff.

Up Next: Q:  (week 2 of 3)

Video we used this weekend to open our “Q” weekend teaching series in HSM.

JG

Here’s the x3watch software that Doug/I talked about during The Sex weekend series in HSM, too. I’m installing it on my home computer now, check out the full site here.

JG

Killball highlight video from a few weeks ago – so sad my boys and I took 3rd. Ah, there’s always the Killball Cup later this year!

JG

Yesterday we featured the LIVE Curriculum in the Radicalis youth track yesterday – I was blown away how great it is. All online, easy connection with your volunteer team, integration with texting, totally editable. REALLY neat. Check it out!

JG

The latest episode of the Simply Youth Ministry Podcast. Enjoy!

JG

Highlights from Day 3 here at Radicalis.

JG

Want to work in HSM? Intern at Saddleback – maybe not you but someone you know. Pass it on! Details here. The video was, of course, written/shot/edited by interns. Special thanks to Becka for leading the charge to pull it off!

JG

Shared a few learnings about social media in the youth ministry track of Radicalis. Doug asked me to talk a little bit about getting community students into our crowd program, here’s some of what I jotted down in my Moleskin before jumping on stage:

Start to text your students immediately (SMS)
One of the very first moves I made when I became the High School Pastor at Saddleback was to move us quickly to texting. Email is dead to a teen. There are a ton of great texting services out there, we use SimplyTxt but you can check out Tatango, Duffled and more. Move to SMS right now, and please know it won’t be long before Facebook (and whatever’s next – ha!) ruins SMS as we know it, too.

Encourage students to update Facebook about their church experiences/decisions (Facebook)
I love it when a student updates their Facebook status with something about faith or church. We encourage it on a weekly basis – you can grab this promo slide and add it to your rotation this weekend, too. Their friendship circles extend far beyond yours, they have acquaintances that will see what they post and hopefully respond.

Don’t let your best stuff sit on a hard drive (YouTube)
Too often we work hard to create a powerful video or skit, play it for our students, then let it die a sad death in the corner of an old hard drive. Never again! Think about the latest video you created as an opportunity for social media marketing. When someone from your community searches Google or YouTube about your student ministry – what will they find? If you’re serious about taking some good first steps in social media for your student ministry, upload every video you can and let the community stumble on them and get in on the conversation.

JG

Thought I should compile some links and info that we talked about during the Radicalis youth track. Even if you’re not here there might be some stuff that catches your eye, so click away!

• The 2nd Greatest Story Ever Told
• 4 Student Testimony Reminders
• “We Are Tesoro” rap video
• 5 Ways to Get the Word Out About Your Student Ministry
• You Own the Weekend FAQ
• Letter to Student Leaders after You Own the Weekend
• 6 Things I Look for in an Intern
• School Wars
• Moving Students from an Event to Church
• An understandable message
• Debriefing the weekend
• Threshold events
• Dr. Eugene Henry
• Star Wars Movie Night
• David and Goliath video
• update your status now slide
• SimplyText
• Polleverywhere

JG

Day 2 at Radicalis. Good times!

JG

We played this video as part of The Sex series. Jared and Alanna’s story of doing it right!

JG

So fun that Saddleback has a new iPhone app – it launched this week – you can watch the morning general sessions this week during Radicalis, too. Check it out!

JG

Here’s the recap of Day 1 of Radicalis. So fun!

JG

This is the time of year when small group leaders get into the thick of real-life and students get extra busy toward the end of the semester. Both the leadership and students face pressures this time of year and momentum starts to stumble after the holidays. Look for these indicators that it might be time to bring in some help if one of your small groups starts to hit these walls:

+ Your Group is Too Big
This is a GOOD problem – but it is a problem. When a group grows, it’ll lose some of the magic that made it so attractive to new students in the first place. More importantly you’ll also lose the intimacy and community that make a small group special. You might not need to divide up the group totally, just consider adding a co-leader to help you break up the group for times of discussion and accountability.

+ You Cancel Too Often
It might be time to get a small group leader if you find yourself having to cancel more often than you would like. People travel, schedules change, duty calls. But if it is calling too often, consider bringing in the cavalry to pitch in while you’re out.

+ Your Group is Getting Your Leftovers
Serving in a small group takes some serious effort – and if your plate is simply too full to handle the commitment, consider adding in a co-leader to give you the extra octane you haven’t been able to provide. Maybe ask a parent to join you and take some of the responsibility of the night. Maybe ask a college-age youth leader to jump in with that vigor and passion you’re out of at the end of the day.

+ You Have Trouble Maintaining Order
You might have the right size group, but for some reason things are always out of hand. While there is always a certain amount of chaos that is normal in every group, if there isn’t some sort of step-by-step progression happening with your students, it might be time to ask for help. Now remember that everyone is a rookie before going pro, so don’t be too eager to bail leading the group alone. If you need help and it would serve your group better, then by all means lets do it.

JG

Some suggested youth ministry resources to help small group leaders:

We play a silly little game from time to time in Wildside (junior high ministry at Saddleback) called Trout Toss. We played it today during the youth ministry track at Radicalis. A new record was set – incredible!

JG

Excited to have Sean McDowell here at HSM next weekend. Found this clip on his blog – pumped to have this stuff in front of our students!

JG