programming | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: #FAIL – Not Ministering to Student with Special Needs

I recently read an article called #FAIL in youth ministry and how to deal with distractions while preaching (you can read it here). Students need to understand the rules and when they don’t follow them during service, a youth leader needs to come along side and correct that behavior.

The illustration that was used in the article turns out to be a special needs student who was the distraction. Granted, the youth pastor or the leaders didn’t know about this student at the time, but the lessons learned from this situation didn’t reflect that they were a special needs student who couldn’t control their actions.

So here are some lessons that could have been learned:

1. Our youth service is not more important than people. I don’t know of very many churches that accept special needs children and their families. If they do, they are very rare. My son, who has special needs, makes all kinds of noises in church that would definitely count as a distraction, but people have grown to accept my son and love on him every time they see him. ::You should see him worship God ::

2. We can use that situation as an opportunity to teach students to love and respect everyone. Teenagers love to be in their groups that are comfortable. Let’s get them to get out of the coziness of their friends to reach out in love to these students. This is not a one time love, but it has to be shown over time.

3. After knowing that the student has special needs, why not create a buddy system for these students where a student would be with them the entirety of the youth service. It would create a sense of peace in the parents to know that someone cares about their child, and buddy would be able to help curb the response of the peers wondering what is happening.

These are just a few suggestions. I am still trying to figure out how to minister to special needs students and their families. I know that it is a huge mission field for sure. If my oldest son didn’t have the needs, I might have reacted the same way. It is my world that I live in all the time, and for a church to rally around these students would shine brightly for Jesus.

Bill Peterson is the youth pastor of Crossfire, a ministry of the Worship Center in Leesburg, VA.

5 View Comments November 14, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Do Something Series Idea: Operation Christmas Child Boxes

Shane wrote in and asked this:

I wanted to see if you guys would be putting the “Do Something” or “Love in Action” Series online somewhere? I like the idea you guys had tying in the Operation Christmas Child boxes and wanted to use the same series progression if possible.

For the past couple of years we’ve done a couple of really fun and active series with our students in HSM. One series was called Do Something, another similar one we called Love in Action. Both were great series where instead of a traditional message we had students get out of their seats and really do something instead.

If you want to read about the weekend services in more detail you can right here:

I love it when youth workers ask about this series and how they can get involved with some of the same organizations we used. We had students write letters to the families of fallen soldiers (Children of Fallen Soldiers), pack food for families who will visit a local food pantry (OC Food Bank) and many more but my favorite of all was packing shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child (visit their website here).

It would be so awesome if you wanted to give it a try – maybe a 3-4 week series or 1-off project like this could work in your youth ministry, too! Start by choosing which one to take on (like Operation Christmas Child in this example) and have your students join in on helping your students add to the over 100 million children around the world have heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ through a simple shoe box. We even set up a little “store” where students could shop for products to put in their shoebox and took up a collection at the end of youth group to pay for shipping. Everyone had such a blast with this particular weekend – and it is poignant to see how simple items like soap, a toothbrush/toothpaste and school supplies, we can meet a very physical need while sharing the powerful message of eternity.

I’d love to read about what you choose do to demonstrate Christ’s love in action. Tweet it or talk about it on your blog when it is over. Be creative and come up with new one – we’ll steal it next time we do the series, too! Just make sure you have your students DO SOMETHING soon!

JG

1 View Comments September 24, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 196

Weekend Teaching Series: I Am __________ (series premiere, week 1 of 3)
Sermon in a Sentence: Shut up and be a gossip-stopper.

Service Length: 74 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend we kicked off our big fall series – this is a critical time of year to capture students who are starting off the year right in church and making a real effort to attend. This year we’re doing a series called I Am Blank and filling in the blank every weekend with a typical mistake/problem area/blind-spot of the Christian life. This week the message focused on gossip and it was super interesting to prepare this week being hyper-sensitive to the topic. It seemed like everywhere I went there was gossip! It made for lots of illustrations and reminders of just how much we need to stop gossip and slander it it’s tracks.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This week we had a fun but simple game – our version of 2 Truths and a Life with students using their cell phones (and polleverywhere.com) to vote on which as the lie. It was a fun game and the prize was a Twinkie Shower from the balcony – lots of fun, even though it probably isn’t wise to sugar everyone up right before you ask them to listen to the talk for 30 minutes. Lots of energy in youth group this week – KILLBALL was after the 6:30 and as always it didn’t disappoint. Although my team, the Deep V’s, came in 2nd which was frustrating.

Music Playlist: Dancing Generation, Here For You, Child of God, How He Loves, Your Love is Strong

Favorite Moment: LOVED hearing Hannah (from our team) share her story of gossip in high school – it was crucial to bring all of the points of the message together. It took a lot of strength to dig through your past and then share a big failure with a bunch of students it is a BIG deal. It was absolutely perfect and I’m so proud of her. Really made the message come to life.

Up next: I Am _____________ (week 2 of 3)

Add Comment September 19, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Three Opportunities To Embrace Right After Kickoff

Kickoff for the fall, there is nothing like it. Everyone is focused on getting plugged in, connected, signed up and registered. The summer dreams have come to an end, school is back in session and the thought, “Here we go again.” races through your mind.

For some of us the beginning of the year stresses us out and for others it excites us. There is so much to do, so much to get done and then BOOM! The year starts and we are off. It’s like a marathon where the anticipation before the race is killer; however, once you get moving you settle down.

Kickoff is a season that can race by; however, it’s also a season that needs to be embraced. On top of fun memories of moon bounces and wild games, it’s really a season when you can strengthen your foundation. It’s a season when you need to:

Recruit New Ministers – The best time to recruit other ministers is when the program is in full swing. That way potential volunteers can:

See the program in action.
Talk to actively serving ministers
Ask questions they might not have known to ask if inquiring during the summer

When you recruit new ministers right after kickoff you’ll have a positive excitement that will be contagious.

Invite More Teens – It makes sense to invite someone to an event before it happens; however, your ministry isn’t an event. While you want to build up hype and momentum before the program begins you’ll want to put more afterwards. By continuously inviting teens to your program your creating an open enrollment feeling. So many times we give up on a class or a program because we miss the first session. Ministry should be treated like any relationship, where you can step in at any time.

Build Margin – Once the year begins we feel our margin slip away; however, there is no better time. You should be letting your leaders loose, let them fail, succeed and problem solve. As the point person you should be able to take a step back, observe and take in the experience. As soon as the year gets going, slow down and find that pace because it’s going to be a long year.

Kickoff is not the end of summer and it isn’t just the beginning of your ministry year. It’s a mile marker that you should utilize to grow stronger. Look for the opportunities in every situation and continue to move forward.

What other opportunities do you see during kickoff?

Chris Wesley is the Director of Student Ministry at Church of the Nativity in Timonium, MD. You can read more great youth ministry articles and thoughts on his exceptional blog Marathon Youth Ministry.

Add Comment September 8, 2012

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 GUEST POST: How to Make a Free Planning Center

Planning Center is a beautiful service to lead and organize your music team and techies. BUT, only if you have the budget for it. And let’s face it – a church plant youth ministry barely has enough money to get you a microphone cable. You can save a bunch of money by using other sites and services to provide nearly the exact same module for your music & production team. It won’t be as pretty but it will get the job done FOR FREE! Here’s how:

1. Create a website – use one of the many free website creating services online. I’ve used Weebly and Google but there are tons more out there. (Example)

2. Schedule teams with Google Docs – you can publish your team’s schedule for free using Google Docs. Make a spreadsheet, publish it to the web and make the link accessible to your team. (Example)

3. Upload songs and sheets - host all of your music and song sheets on a free file sharing website. Currently, I use MediaFire as our host and it’s working like a charm!

4. Create a Facebook Group – everyone is on Facebook these days AND everyone responds to being “tagged”. Create a group for your music/tech team on Facebook and use it as your main way of communicating. And “tag” each member that is scheduled for the upcoming Sunday in a wall post within the group. This is their reminder that they’re on to serve!

Gary Hale is the Student Ministries Director at High Pointe Church in Puyallup, WA. Check out his blog he created for youth workers in church plants – Student Ministry in a Box.