fun | More Than Dodgeball

Geoff StewartMore Posts Guest Post: Games That Engage

Games have so much potential to add to the youth group environment and help students be ready to better engage with the message and worship. They are such a great way to include all the students in something ridiculous, break the ice, get some energy out before the message and mix friend groups up so they interact with other people! In my opinion, games are the bomb diggity!

I had very little idea of what made a good game before I got my job as the Junior High Director. Growing up, I was the student that hated playing! Now games are a huge part of my life, I love playing them, and I am slowly learning what makes a great game.

These are the three best things that I have found that I can do to ensure the maximum amount of my students play and enjoy:

1) Make it visually appealing. My biggest wins have been games where the students walk into the gym and KNOW something’s up. (Best games hands down: life-size Angry Birds, Pirates, and Minute to Win It)

2) Keep it simple. Don’t overcomplicate with unnecessary rules. My students have Sesame Street attention spans. Yours probably do too! The less rules the better. Get them playing and add rules if you need to. I usually DO but it’s easier if they’re already well on their way to understanding how the game works. Keeping it simple is also awesome for kids who show up a bit late. They can easily get the hang of things and don’t need a huge string of instructions as they come in.

3) Include different skills/abilities. This is the biggest thing! If you create a game that is only for athletic kids, chances are, only the athletic kids will have fun. Have several different challenges within the game that can allow for every student to feel successful in some way.

4) Get your leaders involved! If they get into the game and are willing to laugh at themselves and get sweaty running around, your students will be SO much more enthusiastic! I cannot emphasize the difference it has made to our games when the leaders buy in, and do what it takes to see all their kids engaged in the games. Incredible.

What have you found with your crew? What have your major wins been? I’d love to snag some new ideas from you guys!

Emily Bruins is the Junior High Director at Peace Portal Alliance Church in Surrey, BC. She gets to work alongside Geoff Stewart and it’s pretty awesome (Geoff did not force me to say that)

Add Comment May 4, 2013

Geoff StewartMore Posts The Harlem Shake = Great Youth Ministry

Love it or hate, the Harlem Shake craze is here for a few weeks and its high-time to take advantage of it. Last week we decided to make one on Valentines day and students were into it in a big way. Josh has been in Rwanda so HSM team took advantage and made another awesome version of it as well. We decided to tag the information about when and where we meet so that students can share it with their friends and tell them a bit about who we are. These are great youth ministry because it gets everyone involved in something that is fun, sharable and totally different than anything they would be a part of anywhere else.

If your group has done one, please post it in the comments because I will be honest, I LOVE these things!

This is from my Youth Group called Journey here in Surrey B.C. Canada

This is HSM at Saddleback awesome video.

-Geoff @geoffcstewart

44 View Comments February 19, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts How to Create a Winning Team

Was reflecting on this past year of ministry and how I’m so privileged to serve in our church and have a great group of people I work with on our church staff and amazing volunteer team. Probably lots of similar things have been written about building a winning team – but it has been fun and challenging to do these things in our youth ministry:

Love
Genuinely love your people. You can fake it for a while, but it eventually comes out that it is all about you. Make it all about them and all about Jesus and you win.

Laugh
The team that laughs together, stays together. Ministry is draining, challenging, and inspiring. Make sure you laugh along the way – it’ll double the life expectancy of your people.

Value
Make sure they KNOW they are loved. Make sure it is obvious you are thinking about them, promoting them, speaking highly of them. You shouldn’t have to say anything, they should just feel it. Typically when there is doubt in this area, they feel undervalued, ignored, under-appreciated, worthless.

Believe
Give your people real, audacious projects. Trust them with critical situations. Give them the ministry while you’re away on vacation, and don’t take it back when you return. Belief goes a long way when building people.

Would love to know what you do to build your team, too!

JG

2 View Comments December 20, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Sports Minute: Volume 2

Another edition of the HSM Sports Minute (see Volume 1 here). REALLY loving this series! Such a simple, current connection to their world. If you get good enough you could film a new video in 1 minute each week!

JG

Add Comment September 26, 2012

Geoff StewartMore Posts Changing Things Up: 7 NIGHT

The summer this year flew by and I can’t believe we are going to kick off our new school year of Journey in just a few days. Over the summer, I spent a lot of time praying and thinking about what we needed to change this year and set out a few goals and one of them being:

We need to break up the year so that our youth gather wouldn’t continue to be a replacement for Church.

The reality was that with worship, preaching, small groups and community, it ticks off most of the boxes as far as what life in the Church is like. There is huge value in all of those things, but we discerned that we needed to make some adjustments to break up our year to help students connect more on Sundays and from that came 7 Night

We have Journey (our youth group) Thursday nights with Jr High from 6:30 to 8:30 and Sr High from 7:30 to 9:30 with them overlapping for worship. It has been a great model for us, but we have been finding that especially in the long stretch after Christmas, we would lose momentum, as the program was similar week in and week out. Not only that, but few students are attending on Sunday services but since we are not “Church” we are free to rejig to help alleviate these challenges we have noticed.

So this year we have decided to work in 6-week teaching modules with the 7^th week being something totally different called 7 Night. The start time for 7 Night is 30 mins later for the Jr High and 30 mins earlier for Sr High. If we do an event that night, we are committing to the cost being only $7

7 Night happens every 7^th Week @ 7:00pm and cost $7

The first 7 Night is the week of Halloween, the second is 2 weeks out from Christmas, the third is Valentines day, the fourth right after March break and the last on is near the May long weekend (Canada). So far we are planning a student run talent show, 5 minute film festival, Inner-city missions night, and are working on finding a youth group to crash one night.

Our student leaders and volunteers are pumped about it. Ask me in June if it was a success but with buy-in like we have, I think its going to be a huge success.

-Geoff (Twitter)

2 View Comments September 12, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: How to Have a Great Ministry Fair

June is one of my favorite months for a couple reasons: 1) It’s my birthday, and 2) It’s when our ministry gets incoming freshmen! One of the things that we wanted to do right off the bat is get the class of 2016 involved in our ministry. In order to do this, we wanted to throw a ministry fair!

We centered our message around the importance of using your gifts and talents to build up the body of Christ (S.H.A.P.E., as we call it) and then released the students early into the ministry fair, where they walked through a room that had 15 booths, each featuring a different ministry or serving opportunity. We got a great response from students and I’m really excited to see how this affects the serving culture in our ministry. If you want to throw a ministry fair for your youth group, here are a couple things to keep in mind:

-Feature ministries outside of your youth group. Some of us have a lot of great ministries that are completely owned by our youth group, which is great, but make sure your ministry fair roster doesn’t stop there. Always make sure you are including serving opportunities and ministries that your church as a whole offers. This is a great reminder for students that they are a part of something much bigger than just your youth group, strongly promoting church unity.

-Get students to run it. Set yourself up so that you are simply booking the room and making sure there are tables ready to go. Get students to “own” the booths. In our ministry, students run almost every ministry team, so they were the ones to run them. If your ministry teams aren’t set up that way, get some students that are really involved in it/have a huge heart for it to run the booth. It is great for students that are looking to sign up for ministries to see, and be able to talk to, students that are already involved in the ministry

-Make it fun! Get your students to decorate their tables. Our Crew Ministry (greeting team) went all out (picture is included) and had costumes, our band ministry had a student playing guitar, and our tech team had a camera set up for students to play with. Make it a competition for your students, giving awards for how creative they got with their booth. This will let your students feel more of an ownership and make the fair more inviting for the prospective students looking for ministries.

-The finishing touches. Before the ministry team leaders got there, we put a small packet on their table that would thank them and get them informed. It had a letter (to thank them for their involvement), a list/blurb about all the ministries featured and a map of where they are at (to keep them informed about the fair itself). The last detail I would push is to have a “take-away” at each table. We gave out 4×6 cards that had all the ministry info (what it is/where it is/who to contact) so that students had something tangible to walk away with.

All of our resources (leader packet and “take-away” cards) are included in this post.

If your ministry already does a ministry fair, what would you recommend?

Colton Harker is the Student Leadership Coordinator at Saddleback HSM. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact him at coltonharker@gmail.com or on twitter at @ColtonHarker.

Add Comment July 1, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Welcome to HSM! Letter to Parents of Incoming Freshman

Here’s a letter that might be something good for you to steal and use in your ministry! Apparently I wrote it a few years ago (don’t remember it until it was discovered recently) and edited it for use this year again. Here you go:

WELCOME TO HSM

Greetings Parents!

Over the last 15 years of working with high school students I’ve found that one of the most difficult hurdles to overcome is the transition from junior high to high school. For many students, they never get to experience all that our high school ministry offers because they don’t make it through the first year. I want you to know that it is my greatest desire to get your son/daughter involved in our ministry and want to help in whatever way I can.

When I talk to incoming 9^th grade students about the transition into our ministry, I use these five key words: FEAR, FUN, FAITH, FINISH, and FRIENDS.

FEAR
The transition from being the “big shot” in the junior high group to being the youngest in the high school group is scary. I want them to know that their feelings are natural and real. It is scary walking into a room of students who look older.

FUN
High school ministry is fun. We want people to have a good time when they come into our ministry. “Laughter” and “celebration” are two key words we use to describe this value of fun. Most students use the word “boring” when they describe church. Because of this, we attempt to shatter the stereotype that church is boring. You may hear of some wild things over the next four years and there’s a great chance that they were planned! (Although there is a small chance a few wild things will happen that unfortunately weren’t planned (like the time a student was attacked by a family of antelope in the Refinery. But that’s another story).

FAITH
Our primary goal is to help your child mature in his/her faith. We have a defined strategy with quality programs that assist students in their spiritual growth. Our goal is the same goal God has for all Christians—to grow into the likeness of Jesus Christ. I want to emphasize the word “assist” because I know that one’s spiritual growth isn’t solely dependent our on our high school ministry. I believe with all my heart that we have some of the very best teaching, curriculum, Life Groups, practical growth tools, and missions opportunities that a church can offer. Any level student who genuinely wants to grow in his/her faith will be challenged here.

FINISH
I want to see students finish their high school years strong in their faith. I had Wing Stop today with 2 of my favorite seniors and we reflected on the incredible 4-year journey they’ve been on. Our leadership team is affirmed when our graduating seniors have strong convictions about their faith, a lifestyle that reflects their convictions, and lifelong plans to serve God. Four years is a long time to stay involved in a youth ministry, but we know it serves as a foundation to finishing strong. We want our graduating seniors to have “sticky faith” that stays with them into and throughout their college years.

FRIENDS
“Students become like the people they hang out with.” Even though students hate it when I say it, I’ve seen that truth played out thousands of times over the years. Almost everything in high school revolves around friends! To finish strong, good friends are vital.

Although we have over 1,000 high school students that are involved in our high school ministry, we also have many ways for it to “feel” small. Although there is no way I will everyone personally, everyone will be known by a caring adult who will play the role of “youth pastor” to your son or daughter. Please don’t be afraid to ask for help…if I can’t help, I can find someone who can.

I look forward to serving you – welcome to HSM!

JG