fall kickoff | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts The 4 Naturally Biggest Youth Ministry Weekends of the Year

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

Add Comment January 15, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts The SinScanner 2000

This was a video one of our volunteers (Parker, you’re the man!) made as an object lesson in this week’s back to school talk called You Are Here. In my talk I shared how so many people are intimidated by church – they feel judged and like people are looking down on them with condescending. It is as if they are being “sin scanned” and their sins will be on display for all to see.

I plugged in a little platform with rope lights and this “booted up” on the main screen. I interaction with it a few times, for the voice authentication part and especially the part about denial. It ends abruptly, and the bit ends with me holding the cord that I had just unplugged as it got to some serious sins.

Funny and hopefully effective illustration of how people when they enter the church doors for the first time – and how we want to make HSM a safe, warm, fun and life-changing place.

JG

5 View Comments September 15, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts When to Buy Youth Ministry Resources

You’ve got a limited budget for your youth ministry - if you’ve got one at all. Maybe you’ve had some cuts this year, or maybe you’re in the rare group that even got a little budget bump. Here’s when I think are the best times to buy youth ministry resources:

Late Summer – small group material, volunteer training/development
Right now is the best time to check out potential resources for your small groups. Check out curriculum from a few different sources, and be sure to download samples to make sure it fits in your context. Think about building your volunteer team as well, look for good resources to pour into your people and help them become better youth workers.
Some suggestions: LIVE, 99 Thoughts for Youth Workers (ha!), Youth Leader Training on the Go

Fall – personal development books/tools
November and December are slow months for me personally (small groups are going, campaign is over, the big kickoffs and back-to-school launch are done) so during the holidays I like to read. Pick a few books that you’ve been wanting to read, order them and be sure you make the time to read them, too.
Some suggestions: Thriving Youth Groups, Sustainable Youth Ministry, Speaking to Teenagers

Winter – updates to small group curriculum, retreat help
Winter is the time when most youth ministries work hard to carry over the momentum from the fall. The weather has changed, and the “newness” of the year has faded. Take some time to research possible retreat centers or winter camps, then find some resources to help you pull it off. I like to do some mid-year evaluation on our small group materials then, too.
Some suggestions: Camp in a Can, Guy Talk Girl Talk

Spring - summer materials, missions trip stuff
Youth ministry usually changes in the summer, so change up your resources to go with it. Try something new – maybe go for something unexpected. Also, most missions and workcamps happen around Spring Break and summer, so think of what tools will help your missions effort, too.
Some suggestions: Mission Trips from Start to Finish, Prepare Go Live

Sales – everything
Whenever there’s a sale on stuff you’ve been looking to pick up for your youth ministry, pick it up to stretch that dollar even further. Buying many things at once helps to save on shipping from online retailers, too.
Some clearance suggestions: Igniter Videos, Youth Ministry in the 21st Century, Every Young Man’s Battle

When do you buy youth ministry resources?

JG

3 View Comments August 30, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Summer 2009 Teaching Calendar

Finished up the High School Ministry (HSM) summer teaching schedule this week, thought you might enjoy a glance at where we’re headed. We wanted to rip off School Wars from junior high, and I’ve been wanting to teach a series called Post Secret, but neither of those are in the cards for this summer. We also pushed back the sex series we had planned to the Fall as well:

May
LABELS – week 2
You Own the Weekend – Mission Viejo
You Own the Weekend – Tesoro
You Own the Weekend – Everyone else

June
Giving Series – 1 of 2
Giving Series – 2 of 2
Senior Weekend
Promotion Weekend
Summer Kickoff Weekend (Grow)

July
Summer Road Trip – 1 of 5
Summer Road Trip – 2 of 5
Summer Road Trip – 3 of 5
Summer Road Trip – 4 of 5
Summer Road Trip – 5 of 5

August
Summer 1-offs – 1 of 4
Summer 1-offs – 2 of 4
Summer 1-offs – 3 of 4
Summer 1-offs – 4 of 4

September
Summer’s End Extravaganza Gladiator Weekend
Fall Kick off Weekend

JG

4 View Comments April 24, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts Best of 2008: Favorite HSM Weekend

My favorite weekend service of 2008 was from the end of HSM’s Save the Planet series – the series finale had some really strong elements and I loved the clear opportunity for students to accept Christ. It was our first entry-level weekend series in The Refinery after the grand opening, and was also the launch of our summer’s Bottles for Bibles program. We had several paintings made during the message and revealed at the end (and hang in my office now). Here’s the review of the weekend, and pictures of all three paintings. The whole series pointed to that moment, so excited for life change and see what God would do in our new space.

Favorite HSM Weekend:
Save the Planet Series Finale

Honorable Mention:
Love in Action: Operation Christmas Child
Xmas: Finding the Christ of Christmas Series Finale
Grand Opening Weekend in The Refinery
Love in Action: Global Soles
Fall Kickoff: A Message to Each Class

JG

Add Comment December 22, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 18

Message Title: HSM Fall Kickoff Weekend
Sermon in a Sentence: In each of your 4 years in high school you will face challenges – we want to give a faith challenge to each class as well.

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 8 out of 10. Lots of videos to create, a major musical opening number to perform. Tons of cleanup – ping pong balls and confetti, lots of pictures called for on screen, longer than usual program.

Service Length: 84 minutes
Understandable Message: We divided up the message into 4 sections this weekend. We had a 7-minute block for each of the classes of high school. Doug challenged the freshman class with a specific lesson about faith. I came in and spoke to sophomores and juniors, with Fields batting cleanup with seniors and then endcapping the whole message as well. The point of the talk was clear – wherever you are in high school, take a faith step/challenge. Don’t waste a minute of high school years – put into action your faith in Christ.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: Students were all over the place this weekend, it is always fun having the student choir there because of the high energy. Students played in the band and were featured in the videos. Every student got to play the crowd game as well. We still need to concentrate on volunteer involvement – we have tons of needs, but program is tumping people at times, which is a concern.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: The weekend was so fun – we opened with a video introducing our new HSM intern, Rebekah, then jumped into an over-the-top Cold Play cover song. We had given everyone a ping pong ball (they wrote their name on them), and they would win a prize when it landed closest to the bullseye of the target on stage on the count of 3. Great energy to the opening, completely disarming to a first-time student.

Music Playlist: Viva la Vida (+2 worship songs at the end)

Favorite Moment: There’s great power in a message that has been setup well. Doug brought the message home in the last few minutes of the talk as he challenged seniors (and really everyone) to own their faith and to grow on their own. It was a powerful moment for sure.

3 View Comments September 11, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 17

Message Title: Essentials of a Deeper Life (2 of 2)
Sermon in a Sentence: The way to a deeper spiritual life with strong roots that can withstand the challenges of life starts with spiritual HABITS.

Key Verse: Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted! Matthew 13:8

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 5 out of 10. This is a short series that connects our summer efforts to our Fall Kickoff next weekend. The look and feel for the series is nice, and this has a solid “back to school / start the year off right” sort of direction to it.

Service Length: 63 minutes
Understandable Message: HABITS is a classic PDYM acrostic for Hang Time with God, Accountability with another believer, Bible Memorization, Involvement in Church, Tithing and Study Scripture. We worked to make each point memorable – for the Hang time with God we had a student come on stage and read a passage from the 1-Minute Bible while we put a timer on the screen. The goal was to not encourage racing through devotions, but helping them understand to get a starting point for a daily connection with God.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We had a little skit before the talk this weekend, we called up 4 volunteers on stage and had them (with a preassigned student narrator and one staff person) reinact the Matthew 13 parable of the seeds. So dry … so awesome. I the welcome/introduction, we played this pogo stick video that everyone loved/cringed at. During the talk we also played this funny tithing video that got a strong reaction as well. Killball after the 2nd Saturday night service also created an amazing amount of energy in the crowd.

Favorite Moment: I opened up with a story about going in my parents attic last week on vacation and finding some old toys (the 1985 Robotech Transformer was my favorite) so I brought it on stage to talk about not just growing “up” but growing “deep.” Taffy, our song leader for the series, ran up and we timed how fast he could transform it from jet to robot. I think his personal best was like 20 seconds or so. So fun, made for a nice conclusion, too.

Add Comment September 1, 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 5 Reasons You Should Let Someone Else Teach Next Weekend

I’ve taken off the last 3 weekends from teaching after our Refinery Grand Opening and Save the Planet 3-week series. It has been such a good break! Here’s 5 reasons I think you should recruit some volunteers to teach for you all of the month of August.

it builds up your team – you might just have a great communicator in your volunteer pool and not even know it. Maybe there’s an adult with a great story that needs to be shared with your students. Maybe a few students just returned from a trip and they have a desire to share the impact the experience had on their lives. There might be an intern who could step up and develop that skill or giftedness. Either way, take a weekend off to develop someone else.

it helps students that learn from different teaching styles -you’ve found the groove in your personal teaching style – good for you! There’s only one problem: not everyone learns in the same way that you teach. Give your varied students some varied teaching styles and watch the unengaged light up like they never would when you’re up to bat. No offense, really.

it offers a difference voice and a different perspective - beyond teaching style, sometimes just a different voice causes people to wake up. And not only that, but a different perspective (older, younger, different race, gender, etc) can help shake things up as well.

it gives you a chance to take a break – why does the lead youth worker have to do all of the teaching? While it sometimes feels that the prerequisite for the youth pastor to be the primary communicator – primary doesn’t mean all of the time. Take a break for your own sanity and well-being. Another aside as I type this: it also gives you a chance to focus on the rest of the weekend program since you don’t have to spend as much time focusing on the talk.

it gives you time to gear up – you’ve got a big Fall planned, there’s the kickoff weekend to remember, too. And don’t forget about camp! Take some time and let others do some teaching up from so you can gear up to start out the new school year right.

JG