love | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts Lifelong Learners: Instilling a Love of Learning

In your ministry, you have influence. You can use this influence to shape the way each student views learning about Jesus; His love, creation and His expectations of us. You can create engaged and active learners who are eager to learn more. Instilling the love of learning in those you minister to can be done by engaging your students through their creativity and simply by loving them!

Engaging your students through their creativity

Look for ways to be a blessing – Take a stuffed teddy bear to someone who isn’t feeling well, bring a copy of last week’s sermon to someone who missed church, smile when you pass someone by, buy someone a Bible. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Simple is powerful.
Build things together – Houses for the homeless, a set for a ministry video, build a new podium for your senior pastor. When you build things together, you are learning about teamwork and about caring for other’s through skills you may or may not have had before.

If you are not so creative, delegate tasks to the students who are, they would love to put their talents to work! Someone great at designing t-shirts, have them design some for a fund raiser. Someone great with woodwork, have them design a set for a play geared toward teaching other’s about Jesus. Someone great with the camera? Have them take some pictures for a new ministry photo album. Short on ideas? Ask the creative ones, they will have many ideas on how they can use their talents to serve the ministry.

Simply love them!

This means showing grace in what may seem to be the worst situation. Things happen. They are here today, done with tomorrow. Loving others should be our focus. Remain at peace through the storm and let God handle the details.
Listen – Sometime we are so busy teaching and talking, we forget to listen. Take some time out to hear what they’ve got to say.
Be transparent – Be real with them. You have struggles just like them.
Spend time with them with no expectations – Let time spent with them flow whether it be into conversation or into a crazy fun game night!
Be involved in what they enjoy – When you enjoy being around someone, you’ll make the time to be involved in what they enjoy. It could be you showing up at their soccer game, going to the mall with a group of students or going to the arcade. Spend time in their world.

When you engage your students through their creativity and simply love them, they are actively learning about Jesus; His love, creation and His expectations of us. They will leave your ministry with the tools needed to equip others with the love of lifelong learning as well. Which is so important because this is how we grow in spirit and in stature, we’ve got to be actively engaged and eager to learn more for all of our lives.

Ashley Fordinal is the Children’s Church volunteer at Family Life Church in Sulphur Springs, TX.

Add Comment March 30, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Leading by Example

When God places you in a role of leadership, it is not to be taken lightly. He wants to live through you and wants to make a life changing impact in the lives you come in contact with. To do this, you have got to be willing to lead by example so they will have someone to imitate. “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” (Hebrews 13:7)

Living in transparency
We all have short comings. It is important to allow others to see that in you. It is especially when you are in a role of leadership and all they ever see is the perfect side of you. I like to invite the children in my ministry into my world and allow them to live in my imperfect world if only for a moment. I show them it is okay to be imperfect and God can and will still use you anyway. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Love when it hurts
“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is born of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God–for God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8) Love does not stop loving when it doesn’t feel good anymore. Love keeps on loving even when it hurts. It goes to enormous lengths to comfort, to guide, to protect and to lead. With God’s love, we can lead our youth to Jesus.

Speak life
Whether with your youth at church, at a concert or at home; you should watch the words you choose. Words have the power to either lift someone up or drag someone down. It is never okay to speak down on someone even if it is only meant for fun. We are raising up planet shakers and our words should reflect just that. Speak life into your youth group. Speak life to the kid who no one would give a second look. God has incredible plans for each of them. Speak life, see life.

Let’s take our leadership role seriously and choose to lead by example, allowing God to use us to positively impact the lives of the youth of tomorrow.

Ashley Fordinal is the Children’s Church volunteer at Family Life Church in Sulphur Springs, TX.

Add Comment February 23, 2013

Josh GriffinMore Posts Love Your Spouse

Married? Not married? Not married, and haven’t had a date in years? Wherever you find yourself today, here are some thoughts about loving your current…or future…spouse.

Love unexpectedly.
Youth workers love surprises–but too often our spouses end up with the predictable and stable part of our lives. While there’s nothing wrong with stability, it’s also a good idea to take the same creativity that helps you think up crazy games and invent an unexpected way to love your spouse. This week, make it a goal to love your husband or wife in an unexpected, surprising way.

Love your spouse in front of your students.
There’s nothing wrong with letting your students see that you love your husband or wife. That doesn’t mean you need to incessantly refer to them as “hot” (that’s actually a pet-peeve of ours, and our wives ARE hot), or make out with them in the church van on the way to the retreat. But it’s important to remember that your students are watching your relationship; it might be the most important lesson you teach them all week.

Love your spouse in front of your kids.
Same thing goes with your own children (if you’ve got them). They need to see you in love with each other, too. That doesn’t mean that everything in the home is perfect, but through the good, bad, and the ugly you share a loving commitment to each other and to Christ.

Love your spouse when no one is watching.
A consistent loving relationship can’t only show up when people are watching. Make sure you love your spouse when you aren’t trying to be a role model to your teenager. Youth ministry takes a toll on marriages. Sadly we’ve seen it first-hand far too many times. One of the best ways to model healthy marriage within your ministry context is to do the hard work of building a healthy marriage behind the scenes.

Love wins every time!

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 February 23, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Free Valentine’s Lesson from YM360

Our friends at youthministry360 are giving away a FREE Valentines lesson. It’s a solid lesson that uses the story of Ruth and Boaz to talk about the God-centered love we see in the Bible versus the broken image of love the world bombards students with. The lesson also makes the connection that the aspects of love seen in Ruth’s story are perfected in the love we see in Christ. The lesson features a really cool, really interactive PowerPoint slideshow as well as a Leader’s Guide. If you want to teach the lesson, all you have to do is roll over there to check it out.

JG

Add Comment February 2, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 159

Weekend Teaching Series: Facebook Official (series finale, week 5 of 5)
Sermon in a Sentence: Where to go from here after learning the last 4 weeks about friendship, dating, marriage and sex.
Service Length: 69 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend I spoke on how to find forgiveness and restoration for a fresh start in the areas we had covered during this series. The message this weekend was more of an “outroduction” since we kinda jumped right in up front. Doing a concluding talk like this was new for us – but it was challenging to try it since it felt like it might end the series with a fizzle rather than a bang. But it was great! Hope also spoke this weekend, bringing a great side to these topics from her experience personally in failures and successes. It was her first time to teach on the weekend and she did a great job walking students through a Biblical plan for guarding your heart and helping you find your identity in Christ first.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We had a really creative acoustic opener of a Rihanna song, as well as a new HSM Talks video about relationships that was laugh out loud funny and a little over the top. Lots of students involved, and thankfully that last homecoming weekend of the year so we’ll finally be all together once again next week!

Music Playlist: We Found Love, Healer, One Thing Remains, Forever Reign

Favorite Moment: This series has been SO great! So excited to think how students can/will/are changing their lives in these key areas with the power of God’s Spirit.

Up next: Do Something (series premiere, week 1 of 2)

2 View Comments November 9, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Summer Camp Relationships with Professor Wallace

Professor Wallace takes on Romantic Camp Relationships in this video from HSM Summer Camp.

JG

1 View Comments July 21, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 112

Weekend Teaching Series: Happily Ever After: (series premiere, week 1 of 3)
Sermon in a Sentence: Happily Ever After may be a fairy tale … but you can find and fight for true love that lasts a lifetime by following God’s ways.
Service Length: 74 minutes
Main passage: 1 John 4

Understandable Message: This weekend was the kickoff of our relationships series by talking about the possibility of having a marriage that goes the distance if you choose to love like Jesus asks us to. The message included a clear presentation of the Gospel, and challenged students to think about their future now, and become the type of person who is attractive from the inside out now rather than having to deal with the ghosts of relationship past by not forward-thinking. Couple stronger elements in the talk – I showed the picture of a recent couple (who came through the church) who got married and asked if they really had a shot at happiness or really had a 50/50 shot of making it. I asked students to fast forward to the moment on their honeymoon when this picture would be taken, and think about how to get there God’s way. In another section I used a Jenga game to show how dishonesty and breaking someone’s trust crumbles the foundation and can leave a relationship teetering or falling apart.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We played “Who Wants to be a Fraction of a Millionaire: sponsored by McDonalds” where student contestants could win $5 Arch Cards for correct answers. Each of the questions had to do with some sort of love story, fairy tale or connection to the theme of the series. We also had some fun introducing Chris Wohlers as a new member of the HSM team.

Music Playlist: Just the Way You Are [Bruno Mars cover], The Earth is Yours, Savior of the World, You’ll Come, Yours Forever

Favorite Moment: The funniest part of me was during the 2nd Saturday night service, I was pulling out Jenga blocks one by one hoping to demonstrate how relationships are fragile and how sin destroys them at the foundation. I pulled a few blocks 1 …2… 3 …4 … then more and more and more! 15 … 16 … 17 … and the stupid thing wouldn’t fall! Felt like I played the perfect game of Jenga in front of a ton of students when I really wanted it to teeter and fall. Finally just punched it over with my hand all over the stage to a roar from the teens. Amazing.

Up Next: Happily Ever After (week 2 of 3]