40 days | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 208

Weekend Teaching Series: You Are Here (What on Earth Am I Here For? church-wide campaign, series premiere, week 6 of 6)

Sermon in a Sentence:
Service Length: 63 minutes

Understandable Message: This week Parker Stech taugh about friendship evangelism.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We wanted to promote our Engage Spring Break mission trip – so brought a student up on stage who went on the trip last year and did a Q&A with her. We also had a couple fun videos. Lots of students involved in the program from the greeting to production as well.

Music Playlist: He Is Alive, Your Love Never Fails, One Thing Remains, We Shine, Here For You

Favorite Moment: After the service a couple of great youth workers were visiting from Indianapolis, IN. They were awesome – had a great time at Red Robin after the service talking about youth ministry, and some thoughts on where they were headed in the next season of ministry. So fun!

Up next: Worship Together Weekend (all-church, no HSM services)

Add Comment February 28, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts You Are Here Series Arc

Every series we take students through has an “arc” or a journey from point A to point B we want them to grow in. Here’s the series arc, as I call it, for our 40 days church-wide campaign called You Are Here. We took the adult curriculum, What On Earth Am I Here For and made it more student-friendly:

January 19/20 = You Are Here (week 1)
You matter To God! At some point of everyone’s life there are questions of ones purpose, meaning and importance in one’s life. Trust me, you are not alone. When we have those feelings they are just a lie the enemy feeds us, but the good news is that we matter to God. This week we will be looking at what exactly this means and how it applies to our lives.

January 26/27 = You Are Here (week 2)
When we think of music, our minds immediately go to music. That is only part true. Worship is something way more than singing songs; it is a life style and has way more importance in our lives than just singing. Worship is about surrendering, but surrendering to God is not about loosing, it’s about gaining. This week we will take a deeper look into what worship looks like.

February 2/3 = Worship Together Weekend (week 3)
This week at Worship Together Weekend we will continue our You Are Here series up in the Worship Center as a whole church family talking about fellowship. Being in Christian community is one of the keys to living a life for Jesus. It allows us to share our lives, experiences, services and suffering together as one body. There is nothing like being able to do life with people who love you and love God. How cool is it we’ll be all together for this weekend, too?

February 9/10 = You Are Here (week 4)
God doesn’t want us to just know Jesus Christ, he wants us to become like Jesus Christ. This has been God’s plan for us since the very beginning. How do we do that? We become disciples. Not only do we become disciples but a good disciple makes more disciples. We will be looking at how we can become better disciples of Christ and how God uses our life circumstances to become even more trusting in Him.

February 16/17 = You Are Here (week 5)
Everyone is called to do ministry, whether you know it or not. There is no such thing as a non-serving Christian. What matters in life is not how long you live but how you live your life. We want to help you find your SHAPE in how you can serve God and serve others while we are here on this earth.

February 23/24 = You Are Here (week 6)
We are supposed to tell others about Jesus and the hope that He brings them. But why this is such an important aspect in our walk with God? How do you do that without being “that guy” or “that girl”? It is our calling and responsibility to share Jesus and this week will be learning on how to effectively do so.

JG

Add Comment January 31, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 208

Weekend Teaching Series: You Are Here (What on Earth Am I Here For? church-wide campaign, series premiere, week 2 of 6)
Service Length: 72 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend our student ministries worship pastor Taffy took on the topics of being created for worship and community. He talked about the passion and energy of the Florida State Seminoles football crowd and how passionate and full of worship they are for their team. Then he took that in the direction of what would it look like if we were that passionate about Christ, moving together for the cause of Christ. A great talk, lots of energy,

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This week we had a pretty straightforward service – a couple fun videos, a volunteer introduction and songs mixed in throughout the message.

Music Playlist: Avalanche, How He Loves, Revelation Song, Forever Reign, The Earth is Yours

Favorite Moment: I love having a volunteer on stage every week – we want to help students get to know our incredible volunteers and we brought up a different one at each of the 4 services. Love them so much – they are making such a huge difference in the lives of our students!

Up next: Worship Together Weekend: You Are Here (week 3 of 6)

Add Comment January 30, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 207

Weekend Teaching Series: You Are Here (What on Earth Am I Here For? church-wide campaign, series premiere, week 1 of 6)
Service Length: 68 minutes

Understandable Message: You are not an accident! This weekend we kicked of Saddleback’s latest 40 Days campaign, What On Earth Am I Here For? We called it You Are Here and the first week was an overview of that focused on God having a purpose for your life and a specific calling on what He wants you to accomplish. My hope was that students walked away with a basic understanding of Psalm 139 and Ephesians 2. Students seemed to respond well to the talk, excited for what is ahead in the series!

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This week we did “App Showdown” and had contestants go head-to-head to last the longest on the just-released Temple Run 2. It was a hit, although we stumbled with some technical difficulties for some reason all weekend as well. We also introduced our new intern Daniela, who did a fun bilingual bit on stage as well.

Music Playlist: Hall of Fame (The Script cover), He Is Alive, Here For You, 10,000 Reasons, Overcame

Favorite Moment: I loved a video from Right Now Ministries that Justin found that we dropped into the talk. It really helped students get the concept of turning their life from about them to about God, and asked a great question about what they would be willing to trade from the American Dream for God’s Plan in their life. I’ll post it later this week- good stuff!

Up next: You Are Here (week 2 of 6)

Add Comment January 23, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts Be a Trader Video

My friend Justin suggested we use this video in our kickoff message during the kickoff weekend of the You are Here series. Think it is really cool, has a great message and fit well with the talk. Check it out!

JG

Add Comment January 22, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts The Book Series Bumper Video (complete)

Here’s the final and full version of The Book series video that Parker made for our student-version of the 40 Days in the Word campaign. So, so good!

JG

Add Comment March 2, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 172

Weekend Teaching Series: The Book [40 Days in the Word church-wide campaign] (series finale, week 6 of 6)
Sermon in a Sentence: How to Study Your Bible

Service Length: 82 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend was the conclusion to The Book, our student version of the 40 Days in the Word church-wide campaign. In the finale I wanted to help students learn how to read the Bible, but took it from the opposite angle with the message being titled, “Don’t Read The Bible” which got some great reactions. The idea was that if you read the Bible, it will change you completely. I also asked 3 students to share how they read the Bible as well, so it wasn’t just a pastor telling them they should but they could hear from students who were doing their best to read and live out the book in real high school life.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This weekend we played a get to know you-type game where we put 2 contestants on stage (in this case Travis and Justin – two new guys on the team) and put up a random fact about them where students could text in who they thought the fact was about. We used polleverywhere.com, with a custom background so it looked much slicker than their default results template. The winners got a Twinkie shower which was hilarious and over the top, too. We also had a fun video or two to round out the night. So fun!

Music Playlist: We Shine, God Above All, Love to Learn, Amazing Love, Divine and Holy

Favorite Moment: I always love students sharing on stage – gives such credibility to the talk. The whole place got so focused when students took the stage. Way to go Sofie, Brad and Paula!

Up next: You Own the Weekend: Trabuco Hills HS (series premiere, week 1 of 6)

Add Comment February 27, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 171

Weekend Teaching Series: The Book [40 Days in the Word church-wide campaign] (week 5 of 6)
Sermon in a Sentence: New Testament survey.

Service Length: 79 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend I wanted to take students on an overview of the entire New Testament – helping them see the big picture of the second half of the Bible. We discovered each of the major divisions, focused on the big picture view and zoomed in just a little bit to help understand communion, etc. During each point I had a couple guys on stage drawing/painting an image of that part of the Bible so we had a full timeline of the Bible hanging on stage when the talk was done.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This weekend we introduced Justin and Travis – the 2 new staff members on the HSM team. We had a fun video and did a quick interview with them on stage. We also played a few funny videos – during the recap of last week I played the David & Goliath voiceover video and then for an illustration we played the video of the dad shooting his daughter’s laptop (because she had posted some bad comments and him and his wife).

Music Playlist: Go, Savior of the World, Thank You, Hosanna, How He Loves

Favorite Moment: I loved having communion at the end of the service this weekend – it just felt right as we worked through the New Testament in the Life of Christ and the early church. It was a great finale to the service – we had our team around the room at stations for prayer as well. Love it!

Up next: The Book (series finale, week 6 of 6)