life groups | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts 6 Reminders When Ministering to Students

Spent some time today crafting our small group leader training tonight, thought it might be helpful for you to read and/or use in your ministry as well.

The main passage was from I Thessalonians 5:12-27. Here’s the whole passage, and some thoughts to follow:

Dear brothers and sisters, honor those who are your leaders in the Lord’s work. They work hard among you and give you spiritual guidance. Show them great respect and wholehearted love because of their work. And live peacefully with each other. Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.

See that no one pays back evil for evil, but always try to do good to each other and to all people. Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. Do not scoff at prophecies, but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good. Stay away from every kind of evil. Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. God will make this happen, for he who calls you is faithful. Dear brothers and sisters, pray for us. Greet all the brothers and sisters with Christian love. I command you in the name of the Lord to read this letter to all the brothers and sisters. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

The context of this passage is the 2nd coming of Christ and how someday followers of Jesus – awake or asleep – will be with Him. Then Paul gives some specific actions to those that are alive. In the context of youth ministry, there are some powerful thoughts:

HELP THE WEAK (v. 14)
We share in the priviledge of serving students that are hurting and lost. It is our calling to help those that are stumbling to walk again and those that are seeking to find Him. What an honorable calling we share as part of this ministry to high school students.

BE PATIENT (v. 14)
How many of you have “that one kid” in your small group? By last count, we had over 25 “that one kids” coming to HSM. You’ve probably got one in your group, and that’s why Paul tells us to be patient with them. Longsuffering, slow to anger, slow to punish, quick to bear the offense of a teenager who speaks quickly and thinks later.

PRAY CONTINUALLY (v. 17)
What a powerful tool is at our disposal as small group leaders – we can go directly to God when we minister to students. Share your insecurities and your inadequacies and He will fill you with His spirit to give you the words to say and actions to take.

BE THANKFUL GOD IS USING YOU (v. 18)
God has put you in your small group for this moment! He wanted you to be there for this crisis, He picked you for these students. You didn’t pick HSM – we didn’t pick you either – GOD put you here as a minister. As you serve, say a prayer to God and thank Him for giving you this chance to serve His kingdom.

REMEMBER GOD IS FAITHFUL (v. 24)
God will use His word and your words to minister to students. It might not always feel like it, in fact – most of the time it won’t. BUT, God is faithful, the pressure is on Him to fulfill His promise that it won’t return void.

KNOW THE TEAM IS BEHIND YOU (v. 25)
Don’t serve alone – there is a great team that shares in the calling of serving students and this church and together. As the pastors and ministers we will support each other, keep each other accountable and share life (and many meals) together.

JG

1 View Comments October 6, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts 3 Different Types of Care for Small Group Leaders

I was talking with Katie Edwards the other day around the office (she’s the co-author of the excellent Youth Worker Training on the Go with Doug Fields) and we talked through the needs of small group leaders at varying points in their experience. She probably hates talking to me, since all of our conversations become blog posts, but still – too much good stuff to keep it to myself:

Rookie Leaders -ATTENTION
This part of your team needs the most time. Pour into them, offer trainings, round table discussions, mentoring, encouragement and coaching. This should take up the bulk of your leader time, but that should be expected and will make sense because you are preparing them to mature as leaders into the next two categories.

Experienced Leaders -BELIEF
This group is trained and prepared, and has already seen their fair share of youth ministry successes and failures. What they need most is belief. Belief from the leadership that they can do this. That they are an integral part of changing lives, that you believe in them and what you are doing.

Veteran Leaders – CONTACT
This select group that make it through the attention (newbie) and belief (experienced) levels of experience need occasional contact more than anything else. They have been coached, trained and believed in for years, you just check in every once in a while to lend a hand or offer advice and they’ll be just fine.

Think about your leaders this week – what care do you need to give them today?

JG

2 View Comments October 6, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts 4 Ways Small Group Leaders are Spiritual Leaders

In the 6 Roles of a Small Group Leader, I listed the 6 primary functions of our team of volunteer leaders that care for students in our life groups. Here’s a little more on the first and most important role of all in my opinion, the spiritual leader:

WALK WITH GOD: Active in your faith and a growing believer
We expect small group leaders to be spending time with God, praying and modeling the spiritual disciplines. We give plenty of grace for the ups and downs of walking with Christ, but expect leadership to be growing on their own. Most importantly we desire hearts that are sensitive to God’s leading and Spirit.

IN COMMUNITY YOURSELF: Pursuing healthy, godly friendships and relationships
Just like we challenge students to join a small group – it would make sense that we value this as adults as well. We realize this is an additional commitment and possibly another night out of the week, but modeling community is critical as a growing adult.

MODEL: Actively pursuing accountability in your life
The small group leader has to have healthy accountablity in their life – the student small group is not the place for adult accountability and confession.

FAITHFUL: Attend a regular church service
Church attendance is also important in the life of a small group leader. We are part of our church and want to be connected to the vision and direction of our senior pastor. At the same time, we realize that small groups are a pouring out, and we need to be continually filled up as well – church plays a role there for sure.

JG

Add Comment September 30, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts 3 Thoughts on Training Small Group Volunteers

I really liked Kurt’s post on training volunteers over on SimplyKurt.com. Here’s a clip, hopefully you’ve already made his blog a regular stop:

-You Will Never Cover EVERYTHING! Our training for small group leaders last about 3 hours which seems like a long time until you actually get down to it. The reality is that there is so much involved in leading a small group of junior highers that 3 hours really only allows you to cover the bare necessities. Because of this it’s important to identify what those bare necessities are and make sure your leaders hear the most important stuff at the front end of their volunteer tenure.

-Embrace The Idea Of Ongoing Training. Because you can’t cover it all in one or two training sessions, create a culture of “ongoing training” with your volunteers. Take them to coffee, send them links to websites, attach an article to an email, point them to blogs, books etc. that will encourage them.

JG

Add Comment September 25, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts Casting Crowns and Youth Ministry

Had the privilege of meeting the members of Casting Crowns this past weekend – one of our small group leaders gave us some great seats and meet n’ greet passes to the concert up at UCI. I’ve heard and enjoyed their music before, but didn’t really know the band’s whole story. It was great to see that youth ministry takes a front seat to their hearts and music. They have enormous credibility in that area – at intermission they invited all of the youth workers in the audience to a special room to meet the band and for encouragement and prayer. So great:

At the core of Casting Crowns is Mark Hall, a man who never would have thought leading a band into the wilds of the business of music would enter into his calling. His place, he thought, was to serve young people.

“I’ve been a youth pastor for about 12 years, and every church I’ve been in, music’s always been a part of it,” Hall says. “We’d usually start up a band made up of students so we could lead worship in our Wednesday night programs, and as the student ministry started to grow, the band would go off and play and do things in the area.”

The unit now known as Casting Crowns grew out of two of Hall’s stops along his youth ministry path, first coming into being while leading a youth group in Daytona Beach, FL., then transplanting and growing when Hall and his family accepted a position in Atlanta.

Here’s some lyrics from their song What This World Needs that was certainly inspired by youth ministry, right?

What this world needs
Is for us to care more about the inside than the outside.
Have we become so blind that we can’t see?
God’s gotta change her heart before He changes her shirt.

What this world needs
Is for us to stop hiding behind our relevance.
Blendin` in so well that people can’t see the difference
And it’s the difference that sets the world free.

And from Stained Glass Masquerade:

Cause when I take a look around
Everybody seems so strong
I know they’ll soon discover
That I don’t belong

So I tuck it all away, like everything’s okay
If I make them all believe it, maybe I’ll believe it too
So with a painted grin, I play the part again
So everyone will see me the way that I see them

Good stuff … very encouraging concert for any youth worker.

JG

1 View Comments September 24, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts Changing the Name of Small Groups

Some conversations this week combined with our small group leader training has me thinking about changing the name of our small groups. Just a far-fetched idea and rambling at this point, but thought I would share it here and see if there would be some action in the comments.

The primary purpose of our small groups is fellowship. We emphasize “life-on-life” conversations, accountability and community. Secondarily we strive for discipleship, asking small group leaders to teach Bible topics and lessons in a relevant and personal way to our students. We’ve called these groups in the past “Area Bible Studies (ABS)” and currently HSM Small Groups. But I’m wondering if the name combined with the emphasis on a curriculum, tips the scale toward discipleship and undermines the value of sharing life authentically together? I’m wondering if by default students expect a Bible class or theology lesson, instead of bibical community centered around God’s Word?

In a perfect world and our current discipleship process, I would say that groups should be 70-80% fellowship, and 20-30% fellowship. I wonder if it could be done without specfic materials at all, but share the outpouring of the leader’s and students’ walk with God. I wonder if there is a more accurate expression for our groups that convey the purpose more effectively.

Maybe we should call them … Life Groups.

If you have small groups, what purpose do they serve and what do you call them? I’d love to know and discuss.

JG

23 View Comments September 17, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts 6 Roles of a Small Group Leader

Here’s was my favorite part of our small group leader training from last night. I taught each point, then a veteran spoke about the subject for a bit, then Jake ad libbed a little scene showing how “not” to live it out this year. So fun, I’ll unpack each of these more in the coming weeks, too:

You are …

1. … a Spiritual Leader

2. … a Youth Pastor/Shepherd

3. … part of the HSM Team

4. … an Administrative Guru

5. … the Teacher

6. … a Relational Expert

JG

2 View Comments September 16, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts 3 Rules for Small Group Leaders and Facebook

We love that our volunteers are on Twitter and Facebook! It seems like everyone is enjoying the benefits of social networking these days – so it shouldn’t come as a surprise your volunteers are interested or already involved for sure. Most use the technology to their groups’ benefit, though from time to time we’ve had to have conversations and consider removing volunteers for what they put online. At small group training this week I’m going to ask our small group leaders to apply these three simple guidelines when updating social networks:

Remember what you post is public
Here’s the big deal – a joke that is funny between a few friends might not be funny at all out of context or in the harsh light of public view. Remember that everything you post – picture, status update or essay, becomes completely public the second you push submit. You can never really take it back once its out there, so be wise and use discernment with everything you post.

Remember what you post influences students
Your students are checking out your profile. They look up to you. They are eager to make a connection with you, and since they’re always on Facebook they’ll almost always see what you post. But it is so much more than just seeing – what you say, what you value, what you show yourself doing – it all influences students – the good, bad and ugly. When you give an inch, they may take it a mile. Of course, it works the other way as well, when you use social media positively, it can have a significant encouraging influence on them, too.

Remember what you post is a reflection on our student ministry/church
Your character and faith is reflected in every post that you make so if you are doubtful about something, here’s a simple rule to follow: DON’T POST IT. Just like behavior on a youth ministry trip is a reflection on the church and student ministry, know that what you post adds or detracts to the reputation of the church and ministry … and ultimately Christ.

What guidelines do you share with your leaders about Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media?

JG

5 View Comments September 15, 2009

Josh GriffinMore Posts 4 Reasons Why We Have Small Groups

Writing up a whole new batch of leader training this year for our small group leaders. Here’s some of the “why” I’ve been writing about small groups:

CARE: Small groups make the large group small
We like the anonymity our large group program provides, but love the attention to individuals that small groups give. Instead of being an unknown in a crowd, we help students be known and loved as an individual young man or woman.

COMMUNITY: They are an integral part of our discipleship process
The weekend service is just the beginning – we want to encourage students to take spiritual steps forward in our process. Small groups is that next step, and is the gateway to other parts of the journey like serving and growing deeper in their faith. A breakdown at this level can hinder spiritual growth.

WISDOM: There is power in an adult life intersecting with students’ lives
There are all sorts of influences in a student’s life – we believe that pairing them with a well-trained, loving leader is a powerful way for them to grow spiritually and taste spiritual community. Someone down the path of life a little further can provide impactful insight, encouragement and warnings in the life of a high school student.

ACCOUNTABILITY: In community there is plenty of positive peer pressure and reinforcement
Being in a small group with other committed Christians encourages students to grow together, to make wise decisions, and have present accountability speaking into their lives. We imagine a place where students are encouraged on God’s path and wise decisions are encouraged – and when someone makes a poor choice they are greeted with love and a push back onto God’s path. Small groups provide that environment of attention.

Why do you have small groups?

JG