baptism | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts NEW! 10-Minute Moments Student Devotional: The Basics

I’m excited to announce that Simply Youth Ministry is releasing a new student devotional book this week: 10-Minute Moments the Basics. It is a 30-day student through the book of John that is perfect for foundational spiritual growth or new believers. Here’s a little insight from the product description:

Want to help teenagers build a lasting life of faith? It all begins with a solid foundation! 10-Minute Moments: The Basics will help students in their spiritual journey, whether they’re new followers of Jesus or have been Christ-followers for years. The truths in this book aren’t called “basic” because they’re childish or simplistic; they’re “basic” because they’re foundational and essential to leading a life that honors God.

Teenagers will discover a fresh understanding about God from the Gospel of John, one of the clearest and most-read books of the Bible. They’ll explore the fundamental beliefs and teachings of Jesus, and they’ll encounter a deeper of everything God has done for us. Each day’s reading only takes about 10 minutes—a great step toward building a personal habit of daily time with God.

JG

1 View Comments February 25, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts NEW! The Basics DVD Curriculum

I’m excited to let you know about a new resource that Simply Youth Ministry and I will release next week – The Basics: Foundations for Your Faith is a new 4-week DVD curriculum for small groups. It might be a good series for a new believer’s class as well. Here’s a little blurb from the official description:

The best coaches, the most effective teachers, and the strongest leaders all know this truth: If you want to build something that endures, you have to start with the basics.

That idea applies to our spiritual journey, too. The Basics will help students explore, discuss, and apply some of the core truths of the Christian faith. The truths in this series aren’t called “basic” because they’re childish or simplistic; they’re “basic” because they’re foundational and essential to leading a life that honors God.

Each week, your teenagers will explore key Scriptures that relate to these topics, discuss the significance of each biblical truth, and consider how it relates to their lives today.

The Basics is ideal for students who have recently become Christ-followers or for teenagers who are exploring the claims and truths of the Christian faith—but students who’ve been followers of Jesus for years will benefit, too.

You can order it right here!

JG

3 View Comments February 22, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts Baptism from Start to Finish

article.2013.01.09 From time to time we pause from the normal posts to answer a few questions from you—the Youth Ministry Nation. Here are a couple we received in the past few weeks, all relating to baptism.

1. How much time do you believe students need after becoming Christ-followers before they should be allowed to be baptized?
Great question! While each church or denomination may have specific programs, rules, or structure, the example we see in Scripture is that baptism was often immediately after conversion. When someone trusted Jesus, they got baptized. Take some time to investigate what traditions your church holds to in this area, and make sure you have a conversation about the baptism process before you run someone into the water and then get into hot water yourself.

2. Do you have a baptism class? Is it required before you are baptized?
We don’t have a specific baptism class in our church for students—we definitely do in our children’s program, and every student 6th grade and under is required to attend before they can be baptized. In junior high and high school we simply interview the student who inquires about baptism and talk about their faith and why they want to be baptized. Usually early in the conversation an experienced youth worker will be discerning enough to know if the student is ready or not.

NOTE: We always get parental approval before baptizing a teenager in our youth group for two reasons: 1) We don’t want the parents to miss out on the celebration and 2) We don’t want to baptize a teenager against a parent’s wishes (we once baptized a student of a completely different religion, MUCH to the disapproval of Mom and Dad).

3. What do you think a student needs to know before they get baptized?
The Scriptures show us that they need to understand that Jesus is the way of salvation and trust in him as their Savior—after that, they’re good to go. Remember, baptism is just a symbol of the transformation of the heart that has already taken place.

If you’re looking for some passages to study as you begin to answer these questions for yourself and your youth group, consider these: 1 Corinthians 15, Mark 1, Acts 8, Romans 6, Matthew 28

4. Do you have any baptismal studies resources you could share?
Yes! The one we would recommend first is the student version of our membership classes where baptism and salvation are the central topics of the first class: CLASS 101-401 Curriculum

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.

Add Comment January 15, 2013

Geoff StewartMore Posts Those Days That Make It All Worth It: Follow Up Post

A few weeks ago I shared with you about having the opportunity to baptise a man whose daughters both were a part of our youth group with one being a leader the other a high school senior. Their dad had been sick for some time but recently made a decision to give what remained of his life to Jesus as well as get baptized. He passed away 10 days ago, and I officiated his funeral this past weekend. I have officiated many funerals in my short ministry career, but none were as challenging as this one. I could barely speak at times as the emotions were almost too much. But in the end, his life was honoured and the work that God had done in and through him celebrated. I thought I would share with you this video that we made, it was the opening of the memorial service and to me it was so encouraging for a few reasons:

1 – The Gospel was proclaimed loud and clear from a student and a leader not a pastor

2 – It made it clear that Jesus was the only way

3 – All who attended the memorial were able to hear the Hope that Lauren and Georgina have in Christ and Christ alone.

If you have 7 minutes, I hope this can encourage you today.

-Geoff

2 View Comments July 5, 2012

Geoff StewartMore Posts Those Days That Make It All Worth It

A few weeks ago I got a phone call from one of my small group leaders named Lauren who asked if I could come by her house and meet with her and her family. I had a feeling this call was coming at some point, but we had prayed for months that it wouldn’t. Lauren’s dad had been fighting cancer for several years and where hope had been, now was the realization that the end of his life was near. I have performed many funerals in my short ministry career but never have I had the opportunity to sit with someone and discuss their own memorial. Challenging doesn’t beging to describe it, but I can also say that it was a tremendous opportunity to encourage her dad and to affirm what a tremendous job he had done raising two remarkable daughters.

You need to understand a bit of her Lauren’s journey to truly appreciate this story so here it is in a nutshell. She is a graduate of our youth ministry and gave her life to Christ near the end of high school and has never looked back. She has served as a leader in our ministry for 3 years now and pours herself into her small group girls week in and week out. While she diligently led and prayed for her group, she was also praying for her dad in the midst of his illness that he would come to know Christ as well.

Lauren would send texts and ask people to pray for her as she had conversations with her dad, asking us to pray when she gave him a Bible, sharing the wins and losses in her sharing Jesus with her dad. There were times in the past years where you could sense fear and discouragement from Lauren about her dad, but she always remained hopeful even as his health declined and her dad could have easily hardened towards God.

As our discussions around memorial plans wrapped up Lauren leaned in and said, we also wanted to talk to you about baptizing my dad and my sister. The look on her face as she said that was something I will not soon forget. Her dad had given his life to Christ not long before we met that day and you could see the joy on Lauren and her sister Georgina who had spent years sharing their faith with their dad as now he was sharing his desire to take this step of baptism. Georgina is graduating high school this year and had been thinking about getting baptized for a while so the thought of taking this step with her day was one she could not pass up.

We wasted little time and a few days later, I met the family at their house again and found Lauren, Georgina and their mom meeting me at the door and behind them in his house coat and swim trunks was their dad. We made our way down to their hot tub and where first Lauren, her mom and dad watched as I baptized Georgina who no sooner was she under the water, but was back up and helping her dad into the hot tub. Georgina sat beside her dad keeping him stable and comfortable as he we went through the standard baptism questions and then carefully helped me as we baptized her dad.

The water was warm and Richard enjoyed feeling buoyant so the three of us decided to stay in and spent the next hour in the hot tub while Lauren and her mom sat beside and I was able to just listen as they shared countless stories and memories about their family.

We don’t know how much longer Richard has, but do have certainty about where he will go when he does pass on. Its days like that, that remind me that lives are transformed when we are bold enough to talk to people about Jesus and its moments like this that put the toughest days in perspective and make it all worth it.

GS -Twitter

3 View Comments May 29, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts The Metrics of Youth Ministry

Really enjoyed this post over on Nick Farr’s Everything Pastor blog – this week he talks about numbers in youth ministry and I though it was right on. Here’s a clip of the post:

Myth #1: Numbers don’t matter.

The truth is–numbers DO matter. The Bible talks about numbers a lot. (Read the book of Numbers for an example.) God wants us to have healthy ministries and we cannot know what healthy ministry looks like unless we create specific goals and measure them. Measuring goals is the key. You can have all of the goals in the world for changing your church, youth ministry, community, etc., but if you can’t measure your progress you’ve failed.

Don’t be ashamed–count.

A word of caution: Don’t allow numbers to become everything. Put them into perspective of God’s plan. Just like money can be the root of all kinds of evil, so can numbers. However, money/numbers aren’t sinful within themselves.

The second myth that youth pastors buy into is that they know what’s going on in their ministry and have a good grasp of everything.

Great rest of the article – head there now to finish reading …

JG

Add Comment February 13, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts How to Do Student Baptisms

My friend AC was just licensed as a minister and asked me to walk him through our baptism process since it is his 1st baptism this weekend. Going to be great! Here’s what I sent him:

Fill out a baptism card
Before every baptism service we have cards that students fill out with their basic information, as well as a few questions about their faith and spiritual life. Parent permission is required to be baptized in our high school ministry.

Explain what baptism is
Baptism is a symbol of what God has already done in our hearts. He has made us a new creature, He has washed away our sins. This is only possible through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Baptism doesn’t save you, it is normal water and actually nice and warm on a cold night like this — the water is a picture of the cross (the water and the person form a cross), the death (when the person is put under the water) and the resurrection (when the person is brought back up) of Jesus Christ. Today you are identifying yourself as a follower of Jesus Christ and taking this first step of obedience.

Ask everyone to participate
The baptism isn’t just about one person — it is also a time to celebrate and commit to walking alongside them in community as well. We have several traditions in HSM, one being that we all cheer (and join with the rejoicing in Heaven) when someone comes up out of the water. We also take a moment to pray for the person being baptized as well.

Pictures/videos
Pause for a quick picture break!

Ask the individual questions/testimony
At this point, I like to ask the person being baptized a few questions about the faith and testimony. For sure they need to be able to articulate the basics of their love for Jesus.

The actual words/process of baptism
Well, (name) based on your testimony, it is my privilege to baptize you on the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Buried with Him in baptism (put them under the water), raised to walk (bring them up) in newness of life. [everyone cheers!] I like to hug the person being baptized, and then splash a few other people gathered around. Ha!

Invite others to be baptized
As I wrap things up I like the tradition of inviting others to be baptized — it rarely happens right there, but we have baptisms on the first weekend of every month and want to make it a practice to make that known.

Got any questions? Leave it in the comments and I’ll do a FAQ follow-up post!

JG

Add Comment February 7, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Combining High School and Junior High

There’s a lot of talk in the student ministry world about how to cultivate a good relationship between the student ministry and the “big church” ministry. People write blogs about it. There are break out sessions at conferences about it. And I’m pretty sure that there’s a 37-point plan in a book at a bargain bookstore to make it work exactly right

We talk a lot about that relationship, but we don’t talk a lot about the relationship inside of the student ministry house. What relationship is that? It’s the relationship between the high school ministry and the middle school ministry.

At most churches where the student ministry is split, the middle school and the high school ministries rarely ever do anything together. They each have their own band, their own leaders, their own traditions, and generally just do their own thing.

We combine our middle school and high school for our fall camp each year. Over the past couple of years we have noticed a really cool vibe between them. All of our students interacted really well together. The high school students modeled what worship looked like to the younger students. The younger students reminded the older ones that were “too cool” to worship what it looks like to worship Jesus without caring what people think about you.

It was an environment that we realized needed to happen more than one weekend a year.

Last week we combined the two ministries for a worship night. We took over our worship center, combined bands, and planned a night that we thought could be very special. We wanted to base the entire night around baptisms and what came from that surpassed any of our expectations.

We were able to baptize 18 students and a leader.
We had at least five students accept Christ for the first time.
We were able to “recreate” that camp/retreat experience where students put everything aside and focus completely on Jesus.

One of the coolest moments of the night didn’t happen between two students. We invited family and friends of every student that was getting baptized. One grandma brought a friend of hers to the service. At one point during the night, the friend leaned over to the grandma and said, “I think it’s time we bring Jesus into our conversations.” This friend had no connection to our ministry other than being friends with the grandma of a student that was getting baptized but she still heard the Gospel and still was able to meet with Jesus.

The pictures from the night blew up on Facebook. Students were talking about it all over Twitter. We were able to get a recap video in “big church” this past Sunday to celebrate the night. All of the attention was able to be focused on Jesus and students making the decision to follow him and be baptized. We were able to build up our students and celebrate their decisions in front of our entire church.

Oh, and as for the whole relationship between the student ministry and “big church,” I haven’t written a book but having your senior pastor and executive pastor witness a ton of students worshipping together is a pretty good way to establish that relationship.

Have you ever combined your high school and middle school ministry? Do you do it consistently? Why or why not? How does it work?

Jonathan Carone is in his second year of internship at Two Rivers Church in Knoxville, TN. See video, pictures and a photo recap of the weekend he wrote about here, here and here.