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Josh GriffinMore Posts Successful Youth Ministry Summer Calendar

This summer we took some risks and planned a summer calendar for our high school youth group that looked pretty different than years past. I think for the most part it paid off – here are some of the new ideas (for us) and the results:

Summer camp moved to the beginning of the summer
This was the biggest game-changer for us – for years we’ve let camp be the “end of summer event” that catapulted us into Fall Kickoff and the new school year. I blogged about the Benefits of Early Summer Camp, not in an effort to justify the move but to make sure we took advantage of the strategy behind the move. Camp now kicks off the summer, and gives us momentum in a typical downtime for youth groups. COST: $299

Midweek Bible Study replaces small groups
For the longest time our small groups (now Life Groups) have met only during the school year. But this year we decided to have a discipleship/worship/fellowship gathering call WE(MID)EK all summer long. The consistency was a win – students knew that every Tuesday night we gathered to sing, pray, learn and connect. And yes, I realize that Tuesday isn’t midweek but it was the last day available. Cost: FREE

Bible study just for girls
This year one of the ideas was to have a Bible study just for girls – not necessarily on girl’s issues (it was actually an Old Testament character study) but so girls could learn together away from the distractions of the boys. Bagels & Bibles was a great 8-week success – and the guys want one next summer, too! Donuts & Dudes, here we come! Cost: FREE

Fun and relational time every Friday
Every Friday we spent 2 hours at the park, and 2 hours at The Refinery hanging out and playing games. Athletic kids loved the outdoor games, and everyone loved the cold Cokes at lunch. Great opportunity to bring friends or have a surprisingly deep conversation. Cost: FREE

Lots of guest speakers over the summer at the weekend worship service
This summer I did a significant amount of teaching when our freshman we’re incoming, then turned it over to other voices in our youth ministry team. This past weekend, two volunteers spoke, which was incredible. It gave me a chance to go on vacation and for our students to hear from different personalities, styles and backgrounds. COST: FREE

Two service projects, no mission trips
This summer we didn’t go on any mission trips – saving that for our Spring trips to Kenya and Spring Break trip to New Mexico. But our students were involved in service projects in the community, we did a Pancake Breakfast for a needy area and helped pull off Operation: Backpack. COST: FREE

JG

Josh GriffinMore Posts Evaluating Your Summer Youth Ministry

Noticed that Doug and Matt’s YM Daily yesterday had some great thoughts about looking back and taking time to debrief, evaluate and celebrate the past season. They had some great questions to think about (which I think I’ll answer in a future blog post) that would be good to think about this week as you enter the new school year.

…| What happened during the summer that was great? What do we want to be sure to repeat in the future?
…| Where did God show up? What victories could we celebrate?
…| Where was I surprised? What last minute “audible” or changes was I forced to make?
…| What went wrong? What could have been better?

JG

Add Comment September 1, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM’s Fall 2010 Calendar

Here is HSM’s Fall Calendar that goes to print this week – you may notice some echoes of the Summer Calendar in it still. Couple big things we’re starting to really push as we head into fall:

Services – 1/4 of the calendar is dedicated to our central program. Our 4 entry-level services each weekend are the top of the funnel where students enter our discipleship process. In some ways, the calendar acts as much for invitation as it does for information.
Life Groups - a huge amount of space is dedicated to the 2nd step in our process – getting connected in a Life Group.
1 event – We have just 1 real “event” in the fall – Pumpkinfest is in its 3rd year and we’re still really excited about it.
A few activities – We have several low cost, fun activities planned in the fall – each of them are directly connected/linked to a weekend service. I’ll post more on this strategy soon!

JG

8 View Comments August 27, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts Finding Rest this Summer

Enjoyed this article about making time for yourself and for your family in the down time of summer. With a full summer calendar, that might not be as easy as you hope, and Mike gives you some tips on where to find space in this season. Here’s a clip:

2. Take vacation before/after the busiest time of the summer.
With so few weeks to get everything done during the summer, it’s tempting to neglect taking vacation. Why would any youth worker take an entire week away from the students when this is prime time to minister? Because that youth worker knows the impact of the rest of the summer depends on it. Obviously I’m not suggesting you randomly (foolishly) pick any week during the summer to take vacation. There are certain weeks that will be better than others. You can’t take vacation during the week you’re helping with VBS or camp. And it might not be wise to take vacation the week before a mission trip or week-long conference.
Try taking vacation a few weeks before a big trip, that way you still have time to take care of any final details. Or if the first part of the summer is event heavy, wait to take your vacation after its all done. This will give you a chance to relax without any need to think about an upcoming event. Whether you take your vacation before or after a busy season doesn’t matter, what does matter is that you take vacation.

JG

1 View Comments July 22, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts The 5-Year Plan for HSM

I just realized that in my last post I referenced a 5-year plan, then in a search of my blog archive I realized I’ve never articulated it here before. This isn’t exhaustive by any means, I should probably save this to drafts and scour my moleskin for more detail, but oh well. Here’s the plan of focused attack in the first 5-years in HSM, each building on the previous year’s goals and success:

2007

Observation – see where the ministry is currently strong and weak

Team assessment – see who the players are, figure out capacity

2008

Invitation – invite everyone to get on the bus

Reorg - put the players in the right position

Weekend service – make in entry-level: understandable, fun, inviting, student-driven

Refinery – grand opening of our student building

Volunteers - make them the core of our ministry, eat dinner with them once a week for 3 months

Small groups – revamp, unify, experiment in The Refinery then homes

2009

Communication – add mass texting, update HSM blog in real-time

Discipleship – relaunch HABITS, connect it to small groups and weekend teaching

Student leadership – relaunch Student Leadership with campus emphasis

Ministry teams – overhaul ministry teams to serve the church

Response - start a response card system and followup process

Pre-steps to fellowship – the jump from the weekend to small groups is big, can we make it smaller?

2010

Next step ministry – baptism, CLASS 101, Fresh Start

HSM LIVE - live stream our services

Track attendance and follow-up - thumbscan attendance swipe, automated follow-up

Hit the web – relaunch web presence, finally fully embrace social media

Missions – partner with PEACE projects world-wide

Upperclass Ministry - specific events, classes, trips for juniors and seniors

Local service projects

2011

Parent ministry – website, newsletter and regular meetings

Take a deep breath … then fix everything that’s broken

JG

6 View Comments June 4, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts My 5 Favorite Ministry Moments This Summer

I thought it might be fun to look back at this summer and pull 5 highlights from the past 100 days. What a summer! I need a vacation … oh wait, did I really just get back from one? How quickly we forget. Here’s 5 of my favorite moments:

PDYM Student Leadership Conference: This was a great conference – fun to see some of our best students stepping up in service and ministry. Francis Chan was great. Want to join us next year? You should!

Save the Planet Weekend Series: My favorite teaching series we’ve done so far was Save the Planet. In part, I was hoping to help reclaim the biblical concept of caring for the environment. There were some great videos and I thought the series arc was strong.

Amazing summer interns: We had 4 summer interns on staff for the past 72 days. They exceeded my expectations in every way. From my first thoughts before they got there to their great video sendoff, it was a super summer intern experience.

The Refinery grand opening: The first time we had students in the new student building was truly amazing. Doug spoke that first weekend and it was absolutely amazing. We did some fun videos on the opening weekend, too. The signing of the building was a neat moment, and who would have thought we would break a window in less than 3 hours?

Brilliant volunteers at summer camp: Looking back on the summer – one of the highlights has to be summer camp at Ojai. It was great to see so many volunteers in action, doing great ministry and loving on students. We’ve got a few ideas to make next year even better. The letter to parents was a big win, too. I love our volunteers!

JG

Add Comment August 28, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Fall Teaching Calendar

Here’s the latest version of the High School Ministry teaching calendar – we’re kicking off the fall with a message to each of the classes (freshman-senior) and then we kick off the fall church-wide-campaign 40 Days of Love. Right after that series we’re going to try something new – a 4-week “you own the weekend” series done by 4 local schools where they provide the band, games, speaker, testimony, videos and more. As we get closer I’ll unpack it more (and honestly, we’re just in the idea phase at the moment) but we want to creat an environment where we really reach deep within a few schools this season of HSM.

September
Kickoff Weekend
40 Days of Love
40 Days of Love
40 Days of Love

October
40 Days of Love
40 Days of Love
40 Days of Love
You Own the Weekend

November
You Own the Weekend
You Own the Weekend
You Own the Weekend
Thankfulness 1-off (Thanksgiving)
Christmas Series [Jesus, Servant]

December
Christmas Series [Jesus, Son of God]
Christmas Series [Jesus, Savior]
No services (Christmas)
No services (Combined with Wildside)

JG

Add Comment August 7, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Summer Theme

Today I announced the direction for our summer program in HSM. I feel like the stage is set to serve our community in a significant way. Service projects, community givebacks, raise awareness, make a difference, help someone in need, random acts of kindness, kingdom assignment. Saddleback has historically had an element of the attractional model (which we will still have in force on the weekends) with a crowd-level entry level service on the weekend – but during the week we want to mobilize our students to serve the community, using what I think is a complimentary model of in-breaking.

My goal is that we will create a buzz in the community. That we will become truly known for something. That when someone moves to the area they immediately hear about what is happening through our students. I believe our students are ready for this, our volunteers will get behind it, and our staff is up for it.

Summer of 2008: Save the Planet.

JG