Here’s HSM Fall calendar – we handed them out this weekend bundled along with a few promo cards for Pumpkinfest and our weekend services. Our hope is that students will keep the calendar and hand out the cards to their friends and invite them the church.

The calendar is a simple and clear design – we are only doing a few events so the focus is on on-going programs like our weekend services and Life Groups.

JG

This is such an exciting time of the year and if you have a lot of Youth Pastor friends on Facebook or Twitter, its so encouraging to read all the status updates and tweets leading up to the fall launch.

For our team, it’s been a fall of thorough and over the top intentionality with our students and potential students. Each week last year we collected information on every new student / guest and kept a record of it, and last week we called every student on our roster, every guest, every camp follow up we were given. It took a total of 12 man-hours to do, but the benefit was a 70% increase in attendance at our fall launch compared to last year. As much of a challenge as it is to call all those students I cannot say I am surprised at the outcome, since I know so many students just want to know that they are valued and wanted. A phone call is many times more powerful and meaningful than a text or FB, so if you have the resources to do it, I would encourage you to.

The other half of our strategy for this fall was to try and make it easier for our students to invite a friend out. I was trying to avoid an action packed promo video full of our best-of highlights, to me that would equate to a bait and switch leaving new comers disappointed that it wasn’t always crazy fun. We thought instead to do something that our high school students could post on Facebook, twitter etc, that was an invitation to our group. Its not a promo, not a best of, nor is it funny, but a sincere appeal to non-Christian students in our area to come be a part of what is happening. I am stoked about how it turned out, and I cannot wait to see what God is going to do with it.

Geoff Stewart is the Pastor of Jr & Sr High School for Journey Student Ministries at Peace Portal Alliance Church and regularly contributes GUEST POSTS to MTDB. Be sure to check out his Twitter stream for awesome ministry goodness. Want to get in on the fun and write up a guest post yourself? See how right here.

This weekend we start our Secrets fall kickoff weekend teaching series. Thought it might benefit you to see where we’re going over the 2 weeks:

Week 1 – Why Do We Keep Secrets
Everyone has secrets! We are all broken and messed up. We all have seasons of life that includes ups and downs where we feel close and far to God and others. But our secrets make us sick. Too often we hear what the Enemy is saying – “you are trapped, you can’t overcome this, don’t tell anyone’ instead of what Jesus is saying – “you are forgiven, you are loved, let me carry this for you, you can do this.” Student testimony.

Week 2 – Dealing with Our Secrets
Get help! This week we’ll focus on being living in absolute transparency before God. How to be real, how to pray, how to make things right first with God then second with people. This message is about redemption, freedom, forgiveness and the cross. Includes a significant push for Life Groups.

JG

In a few days we kickoff the new school year with a new weekend teaching series called Secrets. This past weekend we asked students to anonymously share their secrets on a card we provided. No names, no rules, just secrets. And a promise that we would address the topic full on the next couple of weeks. Some incredible things were shared … some pretty serious themes started to emerge, thought I would share them here:

• Many teens aren’t virgins, but everyone including their parents thinks they are
• Porn, sex, masturbation easily ranks as the number one set of issues
• Self-worth, image, identity and values are probably the second most popular secret/struggle
• Our students look good on the outside, but have all sorts of secrets just under the surface

More on this as we get into the series for sure … we may have just discovered the plan for the whole teaching calendar in this stack of paper.

JG

The fall is one of our favorite times in our youth ministry. Summer is over and everyone gets ready to go back to school. And in our ministry – it also means “back to church” (we have church during the summer but attendance is much, much lower)!

As our regulars interact with their friends from school, something awesome starts to happen – it seems like the same pattern every year – they start bringing them to church! The fall seems to bring tons of opportunities for friendship evangelism and a boost of momentum.  It doesn’t happen automatically, we’ve worked to create this kind of culture. How do you build this type of culture in your student ministry?  Here are some ways that work for us:

Have a “fall kickoff” weekend
Our goal is that every youth service is safe for non-believing students – we always include an element of fun and an understandable message. But for fall kickoff we go all out – bigger and better than normal – and most certainly will include a clear Gospel presentation. Last year we handed out a bunch of youth group branded school supplies for our students to share with their friends as the school year started. They turned out to be fantastic conversation starters!

Host a big event right at the top of the school year
Every fall, our high school ministry hosts Pumpkinfest, a massive outreach event at the end of October, and our junior high ministry runs an event called The 3 ( $3, 3^rd Friday of the month, 3 hours)! We honestly don’t do too much outside of youth group in the fall – these are it! And for us, they pay off big time. A great activity will get people taking in the schools and on Facebook. You’re not into activities and events? You don’t have a budget or space to accommodate something like that?  No problem!  The principle isn’t “do something big and crazy”, but rather “do something different and creative…something that builds some momentum as you head into the fall”

Pray about it!
This is the season that sets the tone for the entire year for us. A great start gets us off and running through Christmas. We are sure to cover it in prayer and ask God to do something life-changing. This one doesn’t go without saying … we need to be reminded that we serve and do our part, but the real work is up to Him.

Make sure the next step is clear
With the natural momentum of the fall in youth group, make sure your students know the next step in your discipleship process. For us it is small groups, so not a week goes by without us talking about, promoting, showing a video or texting about getting in a group. Want to start the fall out right? Don’t be satisfied with entry-level ministry alone…challenge students to take the next step!

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.

Weekend Teaching Series: LAUNCH (week 1 of 3)
Sermon in a Sentence: You don’t want to hear it … but the school year is just around the corner so we’re gonna help you get prepared.

Understandable Message: This past weekend we kicked off our last series of summer called LAUNCH. It is a back to school series helping students refocus on what is most important as they head back to school. The summer interns asked if they could own their final weekend on staff and teach the message in 3 parts. They did a great job telling personal stories about successes and failures, as well as teaching through the story on Esther. At the end they had given each student a Popsicle stick and asked them to write a barrier/sin/problem/obstacle on it during the response music time at the end. Then students were directed to take their stick down to the cross at the front of the stage and break it in half as a symbol of God’s power to forgive sin and break down walls we put up. Good stuff.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This weekend we played a couple of fun cell phone polls on the big screen, including “where do you shop for back to school clothes?” and “what intimidates you most about going back to school?” – both got a good response from students.

Music Playlist: Take It All, The Earth is Yours, One Pure and Holy Passion, One Thing Remains

Favorite Moment: Getting a chance to circle up with the summer interns on stage and pray over them was a great moment. We only allow home-grown students to come back as summer interns (although anyone can apply for a longer internship) so these three are special to us. Thanks Cory, Mariah and Hayward!

Up Next: LAUNCH (week 2 of 3)

This week we snuck away for the afternoon to take a stab at creating the first draft of our fall youth ministry calendar. There were lots of laughs and some good ideas for what’s next for HSM. Here’s a few things that were running around in my head yesterday, and am thinking about as I continue to process the stuff we came up with for our students:

Kill the sacred cows.
Each year, everything is on the chopping block. Annual events are fun and I totally love and support traditions, but have to be careful they don’t become something doesn’t becomes untouchable. Sacred cows haunt the halls of too many churches, this will not be one of them. Nothing is sacred. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when someone offers up one of my favorites to be sacrificed, but I have to be willing to put a bullet in it.

Effective is what matters most.
This ties in pretty closely with the first principle, but what matters more is not size, buzz or fun. Those things do matter and certainly play into our decisions – but what matters most is whether the event we are putting on the calendar is effective. If a discipleship class is bombing, don’t get rid of discipleship, just search for a way to do discipleship that is more effective. If an evangelistic event is huge but isn’t bringing students to Christ and/or back to church, why bother with it? Put aside personal feelings and inferior measurements and talk about effectiveness.

Know your unique strengths, identity and culture.
Here’s a few of ours that help shape what we do: the fall has natural momentum with the launch of small groups and the launch of our weekend services. Fun after-service events have been way more effective than separate night our events. We are an evangelistic-leaning ministry (trying to balance the biblical purposes). If you know where you’re leading your youth ministry and have a firm grip on your strengths and specific culture, it will help you guide the planning session accordingly.

Last years successes can be this years successes … or failures.
Don’t change for the sake of change – but realize what worked last year may not work again. Copying the previous year may seem like a good idea (and it just might be) but be careful not to get too comfortable in the same path because they easily turn into ruts. Surrounding your past, present and future plans in prayer and asking God to guide you into your future is always a good plan.

I wrote 5 Steps to Calendar on Purpose a couple years ago … might also be helpful. What else?

JG

This weekend we gave every students a little “back to school” gift bag as they were leaving services. We wanted to put some fun stuff in their hands and get them ready for the drudgery of returning to classes. The bag was super simple, and you could do it without costing a ton either.

Here’s what we put inside:

• the latest HSM calendar
• a LifeGroups promo card
• a Pumpkinfest promo card
• an HSM pen and 2 HSM pencils
• an HSM folder and HSM highlighter
• 2 HSM stickers
• an HSM button
• a free yogurt from Golden Spoon (donated)

Just an idea you may be able to use next year!

JG

Silly little LifeGroups promo video we used this weekend. Inspires by The Asylum Youth Group at LifePoint Church!

JG

Weekend Teaching Series: LAUNCH: Ready for Re-Entry (series finale, week 5 of 5)
Sermon in a Sentence: Launching into a successful school year is best when you attend, believe, show, grow, serve and lead.
Service Length: 89 minutes
Main passage: Acts 17:16-34

Understandable Message: This weekend for the message I had students write 6 words on their outline – 6 keywords to help them think about making the most out of the school year. I wanted to challenge students who just attended HSM to follow Christ, and challenging the believing to live out their faith, grow deeper in their faith, serve to prove their faith and lead others into the faith. The message was shorter than normal, and two powerful student testimonies really illustrated the process of discipleship I was teaching. The main passage was Paul in Athens, and people’s response to it – laughter, delay or belief – and how students can have this same reaction to church/Jesus. We wrapped up the “ready for re-entry” theme with the challenge to pray that God will help you this school year.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: Lots of fun this weekend – we played a glowstick ringtoss game that was absolute chaos and visually striking, and had a text poll asking students to measure their excitement about going back to school. We did a big giveaway (a Fall kickoff tradition) and during the introduction to the message I “accidentally” forgot a giveaway and had to run out of the auditorium to get it. We had a fun video that played showing me running through the Refinery and eventually having to fight Darth Vader. Epic, hilarious, and fulfilling my life-long dream of holding a real lightsaber. I’ll post it later this week!

Music Playlist: Dynamite [Taio Cruz cover], Dancing Generation, Let Me Words Be Few, Burning Ones, Tear Down the Walls/Came to My Rescue

Favorite Moment: So many great moments! The student testimonies are always my favorite, but I also really loved the idea of students this weekend getting a small bag of HSM-branded school supplies – folders, pens, pencils, stickers, buttons, etc. Thought it was really great, and will hopefully keep spreading the word about HSM!

Up Next: Happily Ever After (series premiere, week 1 of 3]