debrief | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Youth Ministry Year in Review

If you are in a working position in your church likely you have some form of yearly review process. Whether you sit down with your board or your immediate supervisor you will get graded in some way shape or form. In some contexts this can be a real pain, others its just sitting down for a quick lunch. No matter what you do, it is a needed step.

But, my question is what review process do you do of your ministry and yourself?

If you are like me you are probably biased one way or the other. Either you think you are doing an exceptional job or you are constantly critiquing yourself. So I think it is healthy to get an outside perspective, but not from your supervisor(s).

This year I decided to ask those close to me what they thought of my ministry. Some where helpful and gave me direct criticism while others sugar coated the whole thing. So I decided to take it to another level: Asking the parents of my ministry.

Now in some ways this is a big risk: I have parents who can be super critical and others who I am pretty sure send everything right to their junk mail. But I put it out there to see their review of our ministry.

Here are some questions I asked them:
What was your students favorite moment of this last year?
What topics would you like to see covered in the 2013 teaching calendar?
Are there ways in which we could improve communication with you as parents?
Can you think of anyone you think would be a good addition to our ministry team?

So far with the questions I asked I have heard roughly what I thought I would hear back. The nice thing about this system is it gives you a good perspective. It is like grading in the Olympics throw out the best and worst review and you will likely find common ground in the middle.

So what are you doing as a review process for yourself and your ministry?

Kyle Corbin has been serving youth as a volunteer or pastor for over 10 years. He is currently the youth pastor at the Bridge Church in North Vancouver B.C. You can follow his blog at: kylecorbin.blogspot.com or Twitter: @CorbinKyle

Add Comment December 30, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts POLL: 2012 – Good, Bad or Ugly?

Would love to know what you thought about 2012 in your life – was it good, bad or ugly? Vote in today’s poll!

JG

1 View Comments December 26, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts The Problem with Always Looking Forward

My default setting is forward.

I don’t do a good job of looking at the past – in fact, my memory is absolutely terrible. When someone holds a grudge against me I always think to myself, “I wonder why?” because I don’t remember the altercation or conflict that led us there. When people talk about the good old days, I have a hard time thinking that the time I’m living in isn’t the good old days. And while there are a lot of cons to this wiring, as I was journaling this morning I thought of a couple series cons:

When you only look forward …

… you don’t appreciate the past
When all you can see is today forward, you cheapen the sacrifice of those that have come before. While this must be balanced with the temptation to dwell on the past, appreciating and respecting the history is very important. Typically this type of attitude leads to high turnover and or disgruntled people who sacrifice thier souls for the cause.

… you don’t celebrate the past
When you’re always moving forward, there is always the next big thing to tackle and have to hurriedly keep feeding the machine. Celebration needs to be an integral part of every family, team and ministry. Reflect or you just might miss it.

… you don’t learn from the past
This one is the most obvious, even a cliche in today’s world. If you don’t learn from your history, you are doomed to repeat it. There is a reason this sentence sticks around year after year. Debrief, analyze, make it better. Dont’ just rush on to the next tentpole on the youth ministry calendar.

With these learnings in mind – I’d encourage you to take a little time here at the end of the year and appreciate, celebrate and debrief the past season of ministry. Have a few round table discussion, send some thank you notes and tell God about the past … as you start to look forward again.

JG

Add Comment December 14, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts 3 Practical Teaching Tips When Speaking to Teenagers

One of the key roles of a youth worker is speaking to teenagers. For some this is a gift that comes naturally—lots of youth workers are gifted speakers, while others have had to learn how to communicate effectively to an audience. Regardless of your skill level, these tips will either affirm what you’re already doing or help you push forward in your skills on stage.

Find Your Preferred Outline Style
Everyone has a preferred style of notes—I (Kurt) prefer a simple student outline with a few speaker notes written in the margin. I (Josh) prefer a fully written out manuscript when speaking to teenagers. Experiment with both and you’ll quickly find what works best for you and gives you the most comfort on stage.

TIP: Kurt’s style allows for more spontaneity, while Josh’s ensures what is meant to be said actually gets said!

Practice It Once or Twice By Yourself
Prepare your lesson early enough to provide time to run over the talk out loud as if you were giving it live on stage. Work on your delivery, and add new thoughts and ideas to your outline as you progress through the run-through. So often great lines, dramatic pauses, or a fresh idea come through when you’re practicing. Too often what looks good on paper doesn’t work verbally, so get the kinks out before you’re in front of your students. I (Josh) have made this a non-negotiable part of my lesson prep. Kurt, on the other hand…well, the results speak for themselves!

Ruthlessly Debrief Your Talk
There’s nothing more vulnerable than walking off stage and allowing someone to critique your message…BUT, it’s a key component of improving your delivery. Fight through the pride and let your volunteers, a key leader, or your spouse (man oh man are our spouses honest with us) help you get better each week.

You’ll improve greatly if you open yourself up for honest feedback. The truth of the matter is this: People are critiquing you anyway; why not give them permission to share their observations!

So there are a few ideas to help you teaching teens. Add one in the comments!

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 October 9, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Youth Ministry Debriefing for Dummies

You wake up exhausted. Was that overnighter a dream? Where did your black eye come from? Why is your arm in a cast? Why are there 13 missed calls from various parents? What speeding ticket?

If you’re like us, after a big event or activity the last thing you want to do is re-live all the details. If nobody died, you probably count your blessings and move on to the next order of business (or should we say the next order of “busyness”?) And it’s the busyness of youth ministry that typically keeps youth workers from taking the time to evaluate our events and activities.

After all, you spent 2 months getting ready for summer camp…why spend one day debriefing it upon your return (that’s a rhetorical, sarcastic question)? So, after a big activity, get some rest and when your head does clear of sleep deprivation, here are a few ways to debrief like a professional event planner:

Gather the troops to celebrate
Have an evening after a big event already marked on the calendar to take time to celebrate what God did at your event. Make a sort of reunion feel to the night, including pictures, video, even a student testimony or screenshots from Facebook™ of people talking about the event. Make it known that debriefing will be part of the celebration. We reserve this type of nights for camps, retreats, mission trips etc. There’s probably no need to plan a special night just to celebrate a successful bowling outing.

Talk about “The Good”
Start with the highlights — this will get everyone centered on why you did the event in the first place and get the discussion going so it’s easier to share the lowlights. What did God do? What were the stories and celebrations from the event? What went flawlessly? What was surprising?

Talk about “The Bad”
Potential improvements are easy for some people to see — so work on creating a list of what wasn’t best and quickly think of how to improve them. Time is best spent creating a list of things that could be improved rather than focusing on solutions — it is much easier to attach someone with a particular skillset to a problem later. Start the debrief asking people to “speak the truth in love”.

Talk about “The Ugly”
Things happen. Stuff gets broken and things bomb. Only the worst offenders get on this list — don’t put things that could be easily fixed here, only stuff you swear you’ll never do again.

Send off apologies/thank yous
In the course of youth ministry events you may be required to apologize for something that happened. You may want to offer to fix a lamp that was broken. Or return something that was stolen. And for sure a quick thank you to everyone involved in the planning, pulling off and follow-through of the event will go a long ways in making sure the next one is even better.

Here’s hoping your next event, and the debrief afterward, go great!

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.

1 View Comments February 3, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Links from Creating a Series from Scratch Workshop at NYWC

Hey everyone from NYWC 2011!

Thanks for making our youth ministry workshop so fun this weekend — I enjoyed meeting many of you and here are the links from Every 7 Minutes: Keeping Students Engaged During Your Talk workshops I promised you today:

JG

2 View Comments October 5, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts 25 Questions to Help You Debrief Your Summer Youth Ministry Calendar

Last week we talked about debriefing your summer calendar, and we got a great response from it (largely asking the question, “how?”) and thought it might be good to devote a whole article on the topic. So today we’re going to list 20 questions to help you begin to evaluate your summer youth ministry calendar:

What did we plan that was a success?
What surprised us that was totally awesome?
Where did we get blindsided?
Was there a good balance of evangelism, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and worship?
Did we lose/gain momentum at any time this summer?
What was an epic fail?
Where were the wins with parents?
Is there an event we need to move to a different place in the calendar?
Was the format of our website/Facebook/blog/printed calendar clear?
Was there enough promotion for our events? How could we make it better?
Is there a sacred cow we need to shoot?
Where were our leaders unprepared?
Are there opportunities to integrate our students into the church body we should consider next year?
What event should we never do again?
Were there any surprising turnouts in numbers?
Where did we communicate poorly?
In what circumstances did parents contact us?
Who is a key volunteer we need to circle back with now that summer is over?
Was it easy for parents to find out information/download forms/get a registration packet?
Were entry level — core students challenged this summer?
What was so great we need to consider making it an annual tradition?
Which volunteer was incredible and needs to be challenged to be a small group leader this school year?
What events seemed best to invite friends to?
Where did I as the leader have the most fun relationally hanging with students?
Where did we see the most decisions made for Christ?

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 August 31, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts POLL: How was your summer?

Summer is winding down, in many places pre-season athletics are starting and it is just about time to head back to school. We’ve still got a full month of time off before our first day of school, but it begs the question – how was your summer? Vote in today’s poll!

JG