Josh GriffinMore PostsPOLL DAY: Reading the Bible

How has your personal spiritual life been lately – specifically your Bible reading?

JG

TagsComments 4 View Comments December 14, 2010

Josh GriffinMore PostsSimply Youth Ministry Podcast: Episode 148

The gang gathers round the table full of Christmas cheer. The team has big changes to talk about. They also talk about facebook and students owning their faith.

JG

TagsComments 1 View Comments December 8, 2010

Josh GriffinMore PostsGUEST POST: A Lot of Questions, Not a Lot of Answers

Please humor me, this is just the a Youth Pastor throwing stuff against a wall to see what sticks…

The following questions questions come from some of the planning meetings we are having at our church to set down a 2 year and 5 year plan for the ministries here:

  • As we are looking at the possibilities for the next few years at FBC, maybe we need to focus more on asking the right questions before we present a polished, pretty answer.
  • If we are presenting a polished answer, does that rule out the fact that ministry to imperfect people is messy and ugly sometimes?
  • Who are we as a Church? Really, not on paper, Truly?
  • If you do not know who you are as a church, how can you plan your ministries effectively?
  • If one of our core values is Family, then do we to focus on the ENTIRE family (where are age group holes we are missing?)
  • Example: age 18-30 – NO CHURCH in our county is effectively reaching this age group including us! It’s so much more than students that go off to college… If we fail to reach that age group, does that lessen the impact of the students the youth ministry produces once they are out of that “Safe Zone”? Do they leave the youth ministry prepared with no where to go? Are we willing to invest in “preventative maintenance” –> ie help them at the High School to 25 age to learn life spiritual truths, so that we are less likely to be helping them pick up the pieces at 25-30 that might be failed relationships/marriages, unplanned children, addictions, etc….
  • What other “holes” exist in our ministries?
  • How do these “holes” affect the future of this church?
  • If we do what we’re doing right now for the next 2 or 5 or 10 years, what will FBC look like? If we don’t want that, what are we willing to do to prevent that? Does the vast portion of our congregation (and Parke County at large) care what our church did 50, 10, 5, or 2 years ago? Are they more concerned about what we are doing now and planning to do for Christ?
  • Are we willing to push our congregation to BE the church by showing them how instead of telling them how?
  • What are we doing that makes people want to bring their friends and neighbors and family members to get involved?
  • What are we doing that drives them away?
  • Are we willing to possibly offend parents by pushing them to live a better example to their children? Are we willing to truly call sin what it is?
  • Are we willing to help them take off the masks without fear of what it may reveal?
  • Are we truly producing COMMUNITY among believers – both inside and outside the walls of FBC?
  • Do we have any “clunker fridge ministries” at our church that are there “just because”. (a “clunker fridge” is one from 30 or 40 years ago that kinda sorta keeps soda cold in the garage, but uses 3 or 4 times the electricity of a newer fridge and is long past its prime of usefulness….)
  • Do we need to be willing to admit that we might be part of the problem before we can help produce the solution?

These were some of my questions. I don’t really place any of them higher in priority than any others, but I hope that some of them can help you and challenge you in your ministry.

Brent Lacy is Youth Pastor at First Baptist Church, Rockville, Indiana. He is a Dad to 3 Kids, a Web Developer, an IT Consultant, and Blogs about Ministry, Tech, and Culture at MinistryPlace.net.

TagsComments 1 View Comments November 28, 2010

Josh GriffinMore PostsGUEST POST: Foundational and Attractional

While I was watching Food Inc. a few weeks ago I had a very peculiar thought… And no it wasn’t I can’t believe I’ve been eating that food… But that one of the farmers they were interviewing, made a comment that as farmers began looking to grow (the size of their farm, make more money, etc.) they stopped looking at the product they were making and the people who were to be the end consumers. Then I realized that as Youth Pastors we are more often than not tempted to try and accomplish this same thing… At so many churches there is either explicit (hopefully not) or implicit expectation of growth. And there becomes this stigma that if your youth group isn’t growing exponentially then you are not a “good” youth pastor. This in turn adds an added pressure or stress to grow… So growth becomes silently more important than the spiritual health of your students. And to get more students coming each week we slowly start teaching “softer” topics and not pushing buttons, and as a result we give students what they want instead of what they need. To the detriment of their spiritual development.

This needs to change CNN recently had an article posted on their homepage about the rise of moralistic therapeutic deism (the idea that God basically wants you to feel good about yourself by being a good person). The thought behind the article was that more and more teenagers are practicing this unauthentic Christianity. Yes part of this trend is based on parents and their lack of living the authentic Christian life in front of their children, but I believe part of the blame should rest heavily upon the shoulders of Youth Pastors. I believe wholeheartedly that there needs to be attractional elements to our ministries. But at the core we as Youth Pastors need to make sure we are being just as foundational as we are attractional. Because the bottom line is this entertaining Youth Pastors beget students who want to be entertained, but praying Youth Pastors beget praying students. If we as pastors began to pastor our students instead of trying to grow our group what would happen? Would we see a drop in attendance? Maybe? Or would we see a rise in fervency?

Maybe we would actually see our group grow because we are training them how to lead their friends and their schools to Christ… But then again what do I know? I’m just a twenty-seven year old youth pastor…

Nathan Derenski is the Youth Pastor Church on Fire Ministries. He Tumblers: www.natederenski.tumblr.com and Twitters: @natederenski

TagsComments 2 View Comments November 14, 2010

Josh GriffinMore PostsStudents Leaving Their Faith

Much has been made of the “students leave their faith after high school” statistic in the past few months. Multiple books are coming out each month helping to try to address it. My friend Sue Tafalla sent me a link to another article on it, and one sentence in particular really stood out:

Imagine a group photo of all the students who come to your church (or live within your community of believers) in a typical year. Take a big fat marker and cross out three out of every four faces. That’s the probable toll of spiritual disengagement as students navigate through their faith during the next two decades.

I’m imagining it … and don’t like what I see. Let’s fight it, friends.

JG

TagsComments 3 View Comments October 26, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts5 Keys to Big Event Planning

Phil (on our HSM team) is the captain of event planning. He posted the 5 Keys to Event Planning on his blog yesterday and thought you might benefit from the link. Here’s a couple of them, head there for the complete thought:

1. Know the purpose of the event
Why are you doing what you are doing? You need to figure this out early on. It may be an event that you’ve come up with yourself or one that you’re planning for another team member. If it’s the latter, ask! If it’s the former, check that there is a point and it isn’t simply something that you will find fun (though hopefully that will play at least a part). Write a mission statement, one sentence that sums up the event that can come back to to help you stay on track.
Even for a simple parent reception ask yourself what the intended outcome is…do you hope to meet parents yourself, present something to them, help them connect to each other, honor them as ministry partners or just take a moment to pray.
Never put an event on the calendar simply because it was there last year.

2. Know WHO the event is for
Parents, Students, Staff, Volunteers, Newcomers, well connected students, Christians, the whole youth group…
This is vital. If you plan a camp and invite non-Christians then your teaching must reflect that. If you want to run a discipleship retreat, figure out how to attract the specific demographic you’re after and tailor the retreat for them.

3. Work out a budget
Do this early on. Don’t fall into the mindset of “money doesn’t govern my ministry” because in many situations (like on the paper report you present to your senior pastor) it does!
Start with the big costs like Venue, Transportation and catering and then add in the next level of costs like a guest speaker etc.
Remember to ask questions when booking all of these, never assume anything – your budget will hate you for it. Check what you should tip a bus driver (I always ask to have the tip included in the contract), factor in room tax, check to see what A/V equipment is available and whether there is an extra charge. Don’t feel like you’re asking too many questions, remember, you are the client!

JG

TagsComments Add Comment October 23, 2010

Josh GriffinMore PostsClear Names for Your Youth Ministry and Youth Group Events

We’re making some little name shifts in our youth ministry these days – moving away from calling events by catchy, cool names and calling them by far less cute but very clear names.

Over and over again it feels obvious that insider names are nice for the core kids, but completely alienating for outsiders and confusing for people who bounce in and out. If you’re using a cool name for your youth event, plan on explaining it to parents and new students. If you’re using a Greek word for your small groups, your effort to please your hermeneutics professor will be lost on a 13-year old incoming freshman.

Clear wins every time. Here’s a few examples of what I’m talking about:

HSM Summer Camp
We used to call our summer camp by the destination camp we were attending, so we would call it Hume Lake or Camp Ojai. I love the traditions, but think it requires explanation to adults and clarity when a student shares their testimony about what happened there. Why not just call it camp? So now we call it HSM Summer Camp, enabling us to be very clear about what it is and less about the actual location. It also allows us to change camps without losing momentum or rebranding.

HSM Winter Retreat
This one had a great name originally – Chi Alpha (which means Christ First or Christs’ Ambassadors) – but honestly it wasn’t working in our culture. The students that attended last year loved the event, but when talking about it they would inevitably call it a “spiritual growth retreat” or “discipleship retreat” – so why didn’t we? Now that I think about it – even “discipleship” might not be clear, maybe we should even be considering a more student-friendly and clear word like “grow.”

We’re simply called HSM
I know that “the high school ministry at Saddleback Church” or “HSM” isn’t the sexiest name on the block. I hear of youth group names like IGNITE, maXimum or Warriors of L.I.G.H.T. and I think how boring ours sounds. But the clarity is worth it. Even within our own church, and I love our college ministry (Crave) and junior high ministry (Wildside), but they have to be constantly explained to outsiders.

So that’s what I’m thinking, and where we’re moving these days. Anyone agree/disagree? I’d LOVE to be convinced of the value in creating brand and identities with creative and unique names for groups and events.

JG

TagsComments 25 View Comments September 29, 2010

Josh GriffinMore PostsGROW ON THE GO: Mobile Discipleship for Small Group Leaders

I couldn’t be more excited to launch a new non-program for discipleship in our ministry we’re calling Grow on the Go (actually we’re revising and bringing this back from HSM past). We’re taking some simple small plastic bins from Target and dropping in some great biblical resources to help our small group leaders challenge students to take a spiritual step. To get a fuller understanding of how small groups are connected to spiritual growth and discipleship, maybe check out 5 Parts to a Typical Small Group Night or 6 Ways to Help Small Group Students Take a Spiritual Step.

So when a Life Group leader recognizes an opportunity to challenge a student to grow on their own, they have some tools right there (or in the trunk of their car) at their disposal. So what’s inside the bins? Glad you asked! We put 1 or 2 of the following resources in the mobile version of our Grow Booth:

I’m convinced that including a little bit of training on these tools at the beginning of the year and putting them in leader’s hands will make a big difference!

JG

TagsComments 3 View Comments September 20, 2010
Previous 9 of 20 45678 1011121314 Next