life groups | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Small Groups Launch Tonight

Tonight we’re launching our school year-long small groups program in our High School Ministry – the mission is that it would fulfill the primary purpose of fellowship and secondary purpose of discipleship. We want people to connect in relationship, centered around life and biblical teaching. Tonight is essentially a “getting to know you” with some fun elements thrown into the mix. Here’s the three big changes (here’s all of the posts that mention ‘small groups’ if you’re interested, too )we’re launching tonight and tomorrow night:

Leader dinner – instead of a separate monthly meeting time or another scheduled time of training, we’re meeting a little early each week for dinner, training, encouragement, vision and prayer for about 45 minutes before small groups start. I’m counting on this being a big win in developing a TEAM.

Online attendance - instead of not knowing the pulse of our small group attendance, we’re introducing churchteams.com to the team. It sends out an email to the small group leaders, and all they have to do is check “yes, we met” and put a checkbox by the students that attended. They can drop in notes as well that will be sent to their group, coach and/or the SG team.

Meeting in The Refinery for the first 10 weeks – well go back to meeting in homes soon, but for now we’re meeting in different spots all over the new building. We’ll start with a short time of welcome, announcements and large group teaching, then quickly jump into the groups.

Here we go!

JG

Add Comment September 23, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts 2 Promises to Our Small Group Leaders

I made some promises to our small group leaders tonight during our small group training. These quotes aren’t quite verbatim, but here’s the gist of what I said we would do. We’ve got a lot to live up to in these simple statements, I think:

“We will respond to you no later than the next day.” We will be available to you when you need us the most – within 24 hours of contact. If you send us an email with a request for prayer, you will be prayed for. If you need a resource, we’ll find it, and if possible order it for you. If you’re having trouble with a student, we’ll help jump in whatever way you need. If you have a tough situation and don’t know what to do, we’ll go over some responses and help coach you to the desired result. Anything less than a near-immediate, caring and active response is unacceptable. Availability.

“You will be treated like family.” We will eat together around a table once a week. We will pray together. We will share hurts, ideas, love, celebrations, problems and praises. We will know each others names and smile when we see each other around the church. We will take a genuine interest in family, life, job, and calling. If there is tension, we’ll address it aside and present a unified front to students. We will not accept lone rangers and rogues – we are going to be a great team. Familiarity.

JG

Add Comment September 11, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Small Group Attendance Training Video

HSM volunteer Chip and I created this little screencast today to demonstrate some new attendance software we’re using in our small group ministry. It is from www.churchteams.com and is super simple – it sends small group leaders an email with a unique link so they can check in who was there and send comments to their group and/or coach. Really happy with it so far, the real test will be in the next couple of weeks as we roll it out.

JG

Add Comment September 9, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Small Group Statistics This Year

We’re heavy into the small group administration time of the year right now – I just got a few stats from our group as far as breakdowns by gender and class that were interesting to me. Here’s where we’re starting this year, and some observations from last year as well:

52% Female students
48% Male students
38% Freshman
27% Sophomores
22% Juniors
13% Seniors
37% got together 1-3 times outside of normal group
34% got together 4-6 times outside of normal group
96% of leaders said that email was the best way to communicate with them
39% said texting was another good way to communicate with them
25% of our small group leaders won’t be returning next year
81% read the weekly small group leader email
75% canceled 0-3 meeting times during the year
15% canceled 4-5 meeting times during the year
8% of our leaders are starting over again with freshman

JG

Add Comment September 4, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 14

Message Title: Confessions of an Ex-Homecoming Queen (featuring Allison Murray)
Sermon in a Sentence: The pressures of life get in the way of students living the way God intended – authentic, real and genuine before Him.

Key Verse: The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. John 10:10

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 5 out of 10. The one-hit wonders with different speakers are hitting us in a nice groove this summer. Getting ready for a powerful fall and the new 40 Days of Love whole-church campaign.

Attendance: down 16% from last weekend, up 31% from the same weekend last year.
Service Length: 75 minutes
Understandable Message: A- Allison Murray, one of our 2-years interns, is finishing up her last weekend here on staff. She’s a great small group leader with a great story, so we took the chance this weekend to share her story with our students at our entry-level program. Because there were so many stories in her talk, the message was very understandable. We together agreed that she could have used more Scripture during the talk, but she did a great job keeping students connected with a great illustration and some interactive elements along the way.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: B/B+ Volunteers were actively involved at the tables and greeting students. Students led in the band, and handed out programs and pens as people entered. Students were on stage for the opening game and also one came up as an illustration during the message.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: B+ “Church is boring” went right out the window when we opened up with Rock Band on the Wii at the beginning. After a silly countdown video called Nobody’s Perfect, we selected some students to come and perform a random track. It was so fun!

Music Playlist:. We Shine, Everlasting God, Inside Out, Mighty to Save

Favorite Moment: I have two favorite moments this week! There was great power in the standing ovation the students gave Allison this weekend, a response to her small group’s love for her and the impact she has made here for the past 2 years. I also enjoyed the song/arrangment of Inside Out this week, I think it just hit me where I needed it, a moving moment for sure. Solid weekend.

Overall grade: B+

Add Comment August 5, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Student Ministry Team Blogs

Here’s all of the folks on our Student Ministries team that have a blog. As I’m getting back up to speed this week thought it would be fun to give you stuff to click on if you’re interested:

Kurt Johnston – Kurt, our Student Ministries Pastor, is a blogger that think about the youth worker when he posts. While most of the other blogs here intersect with youth ministry from time to time but focus more on life outside of ministry, Kurt manages to put both into play. He updates multiple times a week with good stuff.

Jaime Bertran – Jaime is the artsy type. His blog needs to be updated more often, but they are classic posts when he does.

Taffy – Worship pastor and small group leader. An all-around crazy guy deserves a crazy blog.

Allison Murray – Allison blogs a couple of times a week and is in charge of communications for HSM. She’s got a nice blog going during her internship and you can count on a couple of posts a week.

Josh Pease – Josh uses the inferior MySpace blogging tool, and I’m sure he has a mental bullet list on why he does it that way. Regardless, it is worth reading, though he’ll only get in a post once a week or so.

Jason Petty – Jason doesn’t have a blog, really. I just like that he at least created a profile and has an amazing picture of himself on it.

Ryanne Witt – Ryanne is our Volunteer Coordinator in high school. She’s funny, and blogs about quirky things she notices. She blogs a few times a week.

Danny Sells – Danny does Missions and Evangelism work on the HSM team. He’s been in and out of blogging, but at the moment is back in.

Bethany Johnston – Random life blog from the world of Wildside (junior high), Bethany is the small groups coordinator. Side note: her mom is on Twitter, and I respect that.

Jeff Baker – Jeff’s interning with HSM missions these days, and his blog keeps the natives back in Michigan informed of his work.

Allison Hibbard – Works on Wildside’s weekend services by day, blogs the rest of the time. One of the best bloggers in the building.

Katie Shannon – She has two first names and one blog. She helps keep the team running by covering up for our lack of administrationabilityness.

Alanna Moine – Alanna from the worship team just got married – but her blog shall return when she does.

JG

6 View Comments June 4, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Making the Leap from Junior High

I’m excited about the potential of having some of our junior high small group leaders make the jump this year as their students head into their freshman year of high school. I had dinner tonight with a few of them, and as they consider their options, I was thinking about reasons that junior higher leaders moving up to high school makes a ton of sense:

They have some experience
They don’t have to start over again
They’ve developed a heart for these students
They understand the process
They know what to expect
They are committed
They know what they’re getting into
They can help students through a challenging transition
They know the students strengths and weaknesses

Add another reason in the comments!

JG

Add Comment April 20, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts 4 Places to Recruit Volunteers

There’s a bunch of sources for volunteers -I thought I would list 4 of my favorites to help spur you on to a successful youth ministry filled with volunteers. We’re always working on this one, too!

1) Adult Services – when was the last time you were on the adult service stage recruiting volunteers. While this one is obvious, sometimes the obvious is ignored. Bulletin insert? Promo video? Take some time and create something special so that when you do get stage time, you make it count.

2) Parent Meetings - Youth workers often shy away from parents as volunteers, but in all honesty, there’s some great youth worker parents out there. I do think you have to find the right person (not the overprotecting bike-helmet moms), don’t take just anyone and especially be leery of the ones that are a little too eager.

3) Retreats – there’s often a moment at the end of a conference or retreat where people make a commitment. They take a step of growth and accept a challenge. I want our student ministry to be right there with an HSM card in hand and have us ready for that conversation. Check the church calendar or website and look for these types of opportunities.

4) College Ministry – why not drop into your college ministry next week and see if you can’t round up some new small group leaders. Don’t expect one time recruitment to be successful, you might have to develop a relationship of trust together up some great students. And remember this will be hit and miss, college students have tough schedules and can get flaky. But the star volunteers you will discover will be worth it.

JG

7 View Comments April 2, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Help! I’m a Small Group Leader

There’s a great new resource on Simply today, Help! I’m a Small Group Leader. Check it out – might be something to grab one of today and check it out, and maybe give one to your small group leaders late in the Summer to prepare for the fall launch.

JG

Add Comment April 2, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts 11 Steps for Successful Small Groups

Thought this post by my friend Kevin on the PDYM Blog will be a good reminder of some steps to follow as you wrap up your small group year and prepare for a big fall launch. Here’s a clip:

9. Celebrate — End with a Bang! If your small groups meet year-round, then find strategic points during the year during which you can celebrate what God has been doing in your small groups. Our small groups meet during the school year and then we shut them down for the summer. Therefore, at the end of the school year we have a small group celebration bash! We invite everyone to bring their friends for a day at the beach, a huge party, etc. and we just have fun. One crucial thing that happens during this celebration is that we have a time for students to share how small groups positively impacted their lives and helped them grow spiritually. This encourages those who were in small groups, and it inspires those who were not to get involved.

10. Evaluate — Honestly Assess. What is success in small groups? Answering this question is determined in step one when you ask God what He wants to do in your small groups. Now that you have run them, it’s time to take a good look at how you did. How were lives impacted? How did the individual leaders do? Did you provide them with everything they needed to be successful? If not, what do they need, and what can you do to empower them to be great small group leaders? What worked well? What didn’t? What should you keep? What should you kill? (What … not who!) Ask questions along these lines that will help you evaluate and determine how you can make your small groups even more effective the next year.

11. Repeat — Do it Again. Now take all that you have learned, implement the necessary changes, and go for it again!

JG