Each week the sermon bumper video for this series grows by 20-30 seconds – here’s part 2 (of 6) for our student-version of the 40 Days in the Word campaign, The Book.

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: The Book (church-wide 40 Days in the Word campaign kickoff)
Sermon in a Sentence: The Bible is the only rule of faith and practice and has been preserved and inspired.

Service Length: 77 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend we kicked off our church-wide campaign called 40 Days in the Word. In HSM we get to take on the same subjects and theme as the rest of the church but put our own student-friendly spin on it. This weekend I made comparisons of books sales of Hunger Games and Harry Potter vs. the Bible. I also talked about preservation (using the Declaration of Independence as a modern-day example) and the Dead Sea scrolls. It was by far a more historical and classroom-oriented lesson than we would typically have on the weekend, but it was incredibly fun to research and students seemed genuinely interested in this series. Going to be fun to see where this one goes.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This weekend we played a quick game of Who Wants to Be a Fraction of a Millionaire featuring Bible trivia questions. We also had too many announcements and a hilarious video called iBible which we ripped from YouTube.

Music Playlist: Brighter Days, Lift Him Up, Words That You Say

Up next: The Book: 40 Days in the Word (week 2 of 6)

Sweet new series video for The Book, HSM’s student version of the 40 Days in the Word church-wide. Parker is doing some awesome stuff with the videos, it’ll get new addition/expansion each week of the series, too!

JG

THE BOOK
Student 40 Days in the Word Campaign

Week 1: The Authority of the Bible
Where did the Bible come from? How did we end up with the Bible we have today even though it is several thousand years old? How is the Bible different than other holy books like the Koran or the book or Mormon? Didn’t men just write it? The Bible is our only rule for faith and practice and was written by the inspiration of God and preserved for us without error today. But here’s the dirty little secret of Christians: no one reads it.

Week 2: Love, God
Why was the Bible written? The Bible is God’s love letter to us. The Bible tells Jesus story. The Bible reveals so much about life, God and eternity. We’ll cover the whole Bible themes as a whole and end with the idea that the Bible essentially ends with “Love, God” and then gives us ultimate challenge to love God.

Week 3: Bible Words You Need to Know
There are some huge words and concepts in the Bible that need to be explained and reveal huge truths about God and our relationship with Him. What does “sanctification” mean? How are we “born again”? Does “Ask Jesus into my heart” appear anywhere in the Bible? These questions and more in this message about Christian language you might here at church.

Week 4: OT Survey
An overview of the entire Old Testament in 30 minutes. We’ll cover each of the major divisions of the first half of the Bible and hit on themes and observations from a look at 35,000ft. A clothesline on stage will be hung with pictures of various important events covered in the Scripture.

Week 5: NT Survey
An overview of the entire New Testament in 30 minutes. We’ll cover each of the major divisions of the first half of the Bible and hit on themes and observations from a look at 35,000ft. A clothesline on stage will be hung with pictures of various important events covered in the Scripture.

Week 6: How to Study the Bible
This weekend we’ll cover the basics on how to study the Bible. We’ll do our best to explain and make practical the Bible study techniques of observation, illumination, meditation, interpretation and application. The message will end with a recap of the series as well as a challenge to spend time with God every day.

JG

Recently sat down and carved out the sermons and series for our weekend entry-level services this fall. Here’s the next batch of where HSM is headed, starting with the wrap up of our end of summer back to school series:

September
LAUNCH: Ready for Re-entry: Relationships
LAUNCH: Ready for Re-entry: Stress & Schedule [Fall Kickoff Weekend]
Happily Ever After: Intro Weekend
Happily Ever After: Girls

October
Happily Ever After: Guys
Serve Weekend / Ministry Fair
NEXT (church-wide campaign)
NEXT
NEXT

November
NEXT
NEXT
NEXT (offering weekend)
Thanksgiving 1-off

December
Christmas Series
Christmas Series
Christmas Series
Combined with adult services for Christmas

January
Combined with adult services for New Year
Best Year Ever
3D: Decision
3D: Devotion
3D: Defeat

JG

Next month, Saddleback Student Ministries will participate in a church-wide giving campaign. We talked at length about how we could get students involved, and landed on an idea we read a while ago in Group Magazine. It was from a youth worker who gave out 144 envelopes, each numbered from 1-144. When kids took an envelope, you raised/gave an offering that matched the number on your envelope. In the end you actually raise thousands of dollars!

We’re going to take that same idea and use it starting next month – we’re numbering a bunch of envelopes (and rebranding the student version of the giving campaign NEXT! instead of the “Decade of Destiny” offering) and asking students to take one and bring it back a few weeks later with their offering.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

JG

Had a question the other day about which weeks of the year are typically the biggest for our youth ministry. There are weekends that perform well because of content (a sex series, a series with high student involvement like You Own the Weekend = we save these for the typically slower times), but here are a few weeks that naturally draw in students:

Fall kickoff weekend
The first weekend back as school in the fall is always our biggest of the year. Summer is over and students are anxious to see each other and get back into the school year routines. We typically put a ton of energy into the fall launch of our youth group and do our best to encourage everyone we can to to attend. As you wrap up next summer, consider putting extra energy, promotion and effort into the Fall kickoff and see what happens. It could be big!

Campaign Kickoff
Every fall we also do a church-wide campaign. Typically they lose steam by the end of the series, but the kickoff and first few weeks are usually very strong. Consider working with the leadership of your ministry to pull together a campaign that the whole church gets behind and see what happens in your youth ministry.

Post-Thanksgiving heading into Christmas
Typically the week after the Thanksgiving break is good for student attendance – many students were gone over the holidays and in the stretch to Christmas things slow down and they make more time for church. We plan a Christmas series that usually does well heading into the holidays. Make Christmas extra special – people are more likely to head to church that time of the year.

The first of the New Year
It is natural for students (and their parents for that matter) to concentrate on turning over a new leaf in the new year. Our New Year kickoff is similar to the fall kickoff – lots of effort and energy as we focus on new beginnings and goals.

Now that I look at the list, its interesting to see how they are all stacked in the first half of the school year. Huh.

JG

This fall we’re headed into a church-wide campaign called Life’s Healing Choices, based on Beatitudes. The series will really help focus adults into Celebrate Recovery and students into Life Hurts, God Heals groups. You can join us, too! Hit the link for more details:

Did you know that Jesus’ Beatitudes are one of the most effective teachings on the topic of personal spiritual healing and renewal in the Bible?

Now those teachings are available this fall in a brand-new, 8-week church-wide spiritual growth campaign called Life’s Healing Choices and the experience will transform your church. Join Rick Warren and Saddleback Church for this 8-week journey on the Biblical road to total spiritual renewal for every member of your community.

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: Sunday OLD School (series finale – week 3 of 3)
Sermon Title: Ruth
Sermon in a Sentence: Because Ruth was faithful, loving, hard-working and — most of all focused on God — her story was used as a part of God’s greater story.
Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 6 out of 10.

Attendance: Up 9% from last weekend, up 53% from same weekend last year
Service Length: 73 minutes
Understandable Message: Katie Edwards spoke and did a good job of making the story of Ruth seem fresh and relevant. She used some super-old school animated videos that helped visualize the story, while at the same time providing some good humor elements. Katie also had printed out pictures hanging behind her that were visual reminders of different stages of the Ruth story. It was great having a female speaking, especially about the story of Ruth — we tend to be pretty male-heavy (no reflection on Griff) most weekends, so this was a nice change.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: We have student volunteers directing, running cameras, the lights, and assisting on the sound board. We still have a pretty light adult presence on our weekends, but the ones who do show up are incredible. Favorite adult volunteer moment was watching one of them jump at the chance to sit with one of our mentally-challenged students.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We have two series videos: one that starts the service and one that sets up the message. The latter — which got a so-so response week 1 — has gained momentum throughout our series and we actually had mild cheering/clapping for it at our 6:30 service … we’re slowly wearing them down. We also did a half funny/half serious promo for our New Mexico trip. During our intro/welcome I read an essay entitled “Why HSM loves New Mexico and You Should Too” … it was a slightly bizarre, yet ultimately heartfelt, pitch for students to go on the trip (Griff blogged about our need to promote trips better here).

Music Playlist: The Time has Come, Give us Clean Hands, May the Words of My Mouth, Everything

Favorite Moment: But easily my favorite moment of the weekend was our last “throwback to Sunday School” element of the series. During our opening we had puppets lip sync to a montage of *NSYNC/Kelly Clarkson/High School Musical songs. It was ridiculous, and childish … and our students LOVED it. It was a great way to wrap the series.

Next up: Refuel (church-wide campaign)

(this report was written by HSM staff Josh Pease)

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