kurt johnston | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts How We Do What We Do

It will come as no surprise to most of you that we have a very specific strategy concerning our approach to youth ministry. While your paradigm/process/strategy/purpose (call it whatever the heck you want) may look different than ours, having an easily articulated method to your madness is worth considering. Our youth ministry is centered around three simple “arenas” we think are ultra important in teenagers lives. Right now all of our youth ministry programs fit into one of these three arenas, each with a very specific purpose:

LARGE GROUP: We want to EXPOSE students to Christ, his kingdom and the 5 Purposes.

PRIMARY PROGRAM: Weekend Worship Services
Our weekend services are designed to give students a taste of what the church is all about and an entry-level chance to be exposed to the teachings of Jesus. All students are welcome, and the message is designed to have applications for seekers and the sold out. The services have a high level of student involvement with adults only in the most critical roles (teaching, etc). This is our most visible program to the public and also the most visible to the pastoral leadership of the church as well.

SMALL GROUP: We want students to EXPERIENCE Christ, his kingdom and the 5 Purposes with others.

PRIMARY PROGRAM: Life Groups
Our small group program meets during the week (on Tuesday or Wednesday nights) and divides up the large group into groups of 8-10 students. Groups are ideally made up of teenagers in the same grade, gender and geography enabling them to form a strong community through their high school years. Every group has an adult leader who leads the discussion and teaches a curriculum that’s separate from the large group program. Our goal is that a student goes beyond simple exposure to Christ but will begin to experience discipleship, ministry, and community.

INDIVIDUAL LIFE: Ultimately, we hope students will EXPRESS Christ, his kingdom and the 5 Purposes through their lifestyle.

PRIMARY PROGRAM(S): Grow booth, missions trips, events, serve projects
Basically in this arena we have a ton of options that students can choose as an individual. They’ve been exposed to Christ at the entry-level program, they experience Christ in a small group—now they have the chance to express or live out their faith in a myriad of choices presented to them at this level. We offer lots of Serve opportunities and resources to help students grow, and a few key events/camps throughout the year as well.

What does your process look like? Share it 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.

3 View Comments August 29, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts 5 Questions with Kara Powell, Author of Sticky Faith

“Sticky Faith” is making waves in the youth ministry world, so we thought today we would interview Kara Powell, the person behind the movement, and get a little insight into what churches can do to help teens develop a “sticky” faith.

K&J: Explain where the Sticky Faith concept originated.

Kara: Actually, it originated in the mind and heart of a youth leader who was a Fuller student. As a youth pastor, she noticed how many youth group students from her church drifted from their faith after high school graduation. The Fuller Youth Institute worked with her to do an initial pilot study of just the students from her church, which raised provocative questions about the long-term trajectory of youth group graduates. From there, thanks to a grant from the Lilly Endowment, we were able to broaden our research team of Fuller students and faculty to study 500 students over a period of six years to try to figure out what leaders, parents, and churches could do to build faith that lasts.

K&J: What are some concrete examples of some first steps a church can take to get sticky?

Kara: As we’ve tracked with churches throughout the country, there seem to be three primary first steps that parallel our major research findings. First, leaders are trying to make sure that they are teaching what we call the “Sticky Gospel” of grace instead of the “gospel of sin management” (to quote Dallas Willard) of behaviors. So Sticky Faith begins with making sure that students know that their faith doesn’t revolve around behaviors, but rather an ongoing experience of God’s unconditional love for them. One of the messages our team is trying to spread to young people (including my own children) is that Jesus is bigger than any mistake.

While the first step focuses on the core of our faith, the second and third steps are more about relationships. We’ve seen that young people who are involved in inter-generational relationships and worship tend to have more mature faith in both high school and college. It’s been exciting to see churches take steps toward inter-generational relationships—ranging from periodically cancelling their youth group on Sundays so that young people are involved in one big worship service to specialized mentoring for high school seniors.

The final and third step relates to partnering with parents. So many parents are what we call “Dry Cleaner Parents” who think they can drop their kids off at church all dirty at 9 am on Sunday and pick them up 90 minutes later, with the youth or children’s ministry team doing the cleaning. That’s a far cry from the type of partnership between parents and churches that is best for Sticky Faith. So a big part of our research involves how to support and equip parents with ideas ranging from more training to involving parents more in youth ministry events and programs.

K&J: Are there tools and resources to help youth workers grow in this area?

Kara: Thanks to funding from amazing donors and foundations, we at the Fuller Youth Institute have been able to develop a host of practical resources, which can be accessed at stickyfaith.org. The Sticky Faith books and our Sticky Faith Cohorts have been two of the most powerful forces for change, and we also have a host of free resources available on our Web site.

K&J: What are a few other sites/books you would recommend to help students keep their faith after high school?

Kara: We are big fans of the reThink/Orange group led by Reggie Joiner and his team. Their “Orange” philosophy in which the “yellow” that is the light of Christ in the church combines with the “red” that is the heart of love in the family closely parallels our own research. We highly recommend their work, as well as the College Transition Initiative hosted by Walt Mueller, Derek Melleby, and the Center for Parent and Youth Understanding.

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 August 21, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Kurt Johnston’s “After Camp” Message

Kurt did a brilliant job of teaching an “after camp” message during our summer Midweek series in HSM. It was one of his best talks I’ve ever heard about coming back after the camp high into the real world. The video above has a few clips from it – thought you might like to hear some of it as well!

JG

2 View Comments August 21, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Back to School Youth Ministry Resource Bundle – $59

Simply Youth Ministry is running a back to school bundle sale that is pretty incredible – for $59 you get:

Not sure how long it lasts – but a good deal for sure!

JG

Add Comment August 20, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts How to Do the Volunteer Thing Well

This week we’re talking volunteers! A key part of any youth ministry is the leadership team. If you’re doing ministry all alone, you’re going to bottleneck growth or burn out—take time to build a great team and you’ll never regret it.

But building a great team can be a big challenge! Today we’re going to blast out a few bullet points that we think will help you surround yourself with a great group of like-minded youth workers:

Recruit Well
• Ask God to lead you to the right people within your church.
• Look for key places to find people—men’s/women’s Bible study groups, the college ministry, leaders moving up with their younger students, etc.
• Resist the urge to just make a blanket announcement; you’ll get “zeros” who will hurt you in the long haul or “heroes” who are already volunteering for everything and are overcommitted.
• If you have a red flag at any point in the process, pass on that person. Better to have a difficult conversation before than have to clean up a mess after.

Place Well
• In part of your interview, talk through their passions and gifting.
• Personality plays a big role in success of using volunteers well. Factor in personality.
• Place people based on their available time; if someone is stretching to be a small group leader, it might be too much commitment and you might want to suggest another role.
• Finally, place them according to their gifts and availability…not according to your needs!

Train Well
• Prepare your people for common challenges they will encounter in their role serving students.
• Promise (and deliver on that promise when necessary) that you’ll be there when they face something they don’t feel super prepared for.
• Resource them with articles, books, and back-pocket guides to help them group as a leader.

Encourage Well
• Remember their birthdays, send encouraging notes, etc.
• Be present when you speak to them; pouring into them is, by extension, pouring into your students.
• Gather regularly for celebration, training, and story-telling.

What else needs to be done well in order to build a great team? Add your thoughts!

This post was written by Josh Griffin and originally appeared as part of Simply Youth Ministry Today free newsletter. Subscribe to SYM Today right here.

Add Comment August 9, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts How to Plan a Teaching Calendar

How many times have you planned your lesson on a Saturday night while also trying to watch SNL? How often do you pray for red lights on the way to mid-week so the Holy Spirit can “lead you” to come up with something to talk about once you get there (as if the Holy Spirit can’t lead you a few days ahead of time!)? If you’re like Josh, this has happened more than a few times, and if you’re like Kurt, it has happened WAY more than a few times.

We all know that few things are less sexy than planning out a teaching calendar. We also know that few things are more important. But where do you start? Today we want to share with you ONE strategy for creating a teaching calendar. There are lots of approaches…but here’s one of the ways we do it ourselves.

CONSIDER TEACHING IN “THIRDS”
We like to break our teaching into three primary categories: Christian Education, Life Skills, and Felt Need. We try to spend approximately one-third of our teaching calendar in each category. We don’t cling to the schedule, but use it as a loose guideline.

CONSIDER TEACHING IN SERIES
We try to teach each topic in a 3-week series format. The primary reason is simply because it’s tough to cover a subject in one 30-minute lesson. A series-driven calendar allows you to take a longer, more expansive look at the topic on hand.

CONSIDER THE HOLIDAYS AND TIMELY EVENTS
As you prepare your calendar, and as you pencil in the various series at the various times, pay close attention to where Holidays fall and plan the right series at the right time. Consider timely events such as back-to-school season, New Year, and the Prom to help spark creative and timely lessons.

You’ve probably heard (and agree with) the mantra that goes something like this: “Your students will never remember your lesson…but they will remember your relationship with them.” And while that’s almost universally true, lets not make the mistake of using that as an excuse for poor planning when it comes to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.

Have some tips for planning a teaching calendar? Share them in the comments!

This post was written by Josh Griffin and originally appeared as part of Simply Youth Ministry Today free newsletter. Subscribe to SYM Today right here.

Add Comment August 7, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Why Summer Activities Matter

Ah, summer ministry is finally here. The change of pace and the escape from church office hours is welcomed; the excitement of camp is all around you. Summer can be one of the most influential seasons in ministry—here’s why we love it and why your summer activities matter so much.

Embrace the change of pace.
When things change, people pay more attention. When you shake things up over the summer you’ve got a chance to be creative in your teaching style, or give guest speakers a new voice to your students (and we don’t mean expensive guest speakers…we mean student leaders, the dad with a cool testimony, etc.). Don’t let the summer be the same old thing—time to experiment!

Plan things to be ultra-relational.
Summer activities are an excuse to hang out with students. Take advantage of that opportunity. Dial down the program and work hard to create space for conversations and real life to be exposed. You might be surprised how the barriers come down when it isn’t over-programmed. Keep a journal and at the end of summer it will be exciting to see how God worked.

Make sure you make some “me” time.
If you’re not careful, you could plan out every waking minute of the summer and end up burned out by August. Don’t make this mistake; usually youth workers make it once and learn from it, or didn’t survive and changed professions by the next summer.

Summer activities build momentum for the kickoff of the school year.
A great summer makes for a great fall—work hard to invest in your people this summer and the returns will last until Christmas.

This post was written by Josh Griffin and originally appeared as part of Simply Youth Ministry Today free newsletter. Subscribe to SYM Today right here.

2 View Comments July 26, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Raising Kids in Ministry (Josh)

Whether you have kids or not, take advantage of the topic this week to think about your family and ministry and how they work together cooperatively—and how they fight each other.
The stages of kids in youth ministry vary…I’m in the thick of it right now:

NO KIDS
You are living the dream. You AND your spouse are doing great ministry together. You both have unlimited time and have little or no boundaries on time or energy. These are great years to do youth ministry—soaking up experience and experiences left and right.

ONE KID/BABIES
Youth ministry remains pretty easy at this stage. You can just throw the little one into a car seat and let them sleep while you’re finishing up a late youth group night or volunteer meeting. Every once in a while you see shades of how this can’t last forever, but largely it isn’t a significant change…yet.

LITTLE ONES (I AM HERE)
This is where I’m living right now—my four kids are all 10 and under and are in our ministry lives 100%. My wife’s role has changed within the day-to-day ministry but that feels right after a little time. My kids are total insiders and get to jump in on some youth group activities and have lots of older friends who are in our youth group. At this stage the number of nights out matter so much, and balancing family and ministry is in its most crucial stage.

JUNIOR HIGHERS
This one is just around the corner for me—my goal is to make this a super fun stage having them in our ministry. For the first time in my life I’ll have a teenager—and he’ll be in my youth group! I won’t hide too much from my kids at this point about the realities of ministry, and hope to have very open and honest conversations with them so they see both the good, bad, and ugly of the church. As an added bonus, I would imagine there’s a big credibility gain with parents when you’re in it alongside them, too.

Where does it go from here? Honestly, I’m about to figure it out. I’ve talked to enough youth workers to realize it is possible to raise amazing kids that are healthy, balanced, and grounded while their parents lead a youth ministry. It’s definitely one of my lifetime goals.

Take a minute to think about what stage you’re in, and your future family and youth ministry. Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments, too!

This post was written by Josh Griffin and originally appeared as part of Simply Youth Ministry Today free newsletter. Subscribe to SYM Today right here.