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Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 123

Weekend Teaching Series: The Landing (1-off)
Sermon in a Sentence: God is big enough for your hurts, hangups and addictions.
Service Length: 67 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend the message was taught by 9 people sharing their testimonies – 3 students on video and 5 students live and then Johnny Baker, co-author and founder of The Landing (Saddleback Church’s new Celebrate Recovery program designed for students). amazing stories of life change through God’s Spirit and Christian community.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We opened with a simple video promoting the landing using the iPod Touch game Flight Control but other than that – the service was really straightforward. Lots of student greeters, lots of warmth, but not a ton of opening elements of fun. We had a huge killball event planned for after the service, so the style of service was more “we’re gonna have tons of fun in a minute” but for not let’s focus on some big-time God stuff.

Music Playlist: Salvation is Here, Overcome, Beautiful Things, You Hold Me Now

Favorite Moment: For some reason, I really needed this weekend. The student stories really encouraged and inspired me personally. Refreshing and awesome services.

Up Next: I <3 Christmas (series premiere, week 1 of 2)

The Landing is a recovery program for students in crisis. Get more details here!

Add Comment December 5, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts The Landing Testimonies Video

A video we used to tell the stories of 3 students this this weekend in HSM’s services. Love celebrating he amazing changed life through Christ! What is The Landing? Glad you asked – details here.

JG

4 View Comments December 5, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts God, Save Us From Our Phones

Ryanne used this video in her weekend talk to illustrate how students are too often consumed by screens instead of focusing on relationships. Really, really great stuff.

JG

Add Comment November 29, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 122

Weekend Teaching Series: Actions > Words (Thanksgiving weekend 1-off)
Sermon in a Sentence: Words matter … but actions speak much louder than anything else.
Service Length: 74 minutes

Understandable Message: Ryanne Witt gave the talk this weekend – she did a fantastic job communicating the tension of the holidays and how teenagers typically tend to treat their parents. She wove her own testimony, failures and experiences into her message – it was the best talk she’s given to students and I’m so glad to have her on the team speaking to our student ministry. She used a great object lesson (the clanging gong was fantastic) and a video that was excellent in making her point, too. I’m hoping as students come off of concentrated time with the family and head into Christmas this message will have a lasting impact.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This was a simple weekend coming off of a full week off for both students and staff. We just had some simple Black Friday banter/YouTube videos to warm up the crowd along with some great music and the message.

Music Playlist: Everybody, Tear Down the Walls, Savior King/O Come Let Us Adore Him, Lift My Arms and Surrender

Favorite Moment: One of our students wrote a new worship song that we played for the first time this weekend. It was AMAZING. Easily the best moment of the weekend, so proud of Kyle. I’ll do my best to get it posted on YouTube soon in case you’d like to use it as well. Awesome.

Up Next: The Landing 1-off

2 View Comments November 28, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts Killball Rules

While I am a believer that youth ministry has to be more than dodgeball … we do love our fair share of it at church. We call it killball, and if you want to know the rules and all of the details on how we do it, check out Taffy’s blog post right here.

JG

Add Comment November 24, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts The Domino Effect Illustration in HSM

Amazing little video the team put together as an object lesson to wrap up our 2020: The Future is Now series. So much work – they really pulled it off well.

JG

1 View Comments November 21, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 121

Weekend Teaching Series: 2020: The Future is Now (series finale, week 6 of 6)
Sermon in a Sentence: Each decision has a domino effect on your future. Obey God’s instructions and remember what He has done in the past to move toward success in your future.
Service Length: 74 minutes

Understandable Message: This week I focused on a selection of verses from Deuteronomy 6 – Moses challenging the people of Israel before they entered the Promised Land. I wanted students to realize that their future depends on the decisions to obey God’s laws today – that each decision is a chance to move toward true success or away from it. I took some time to review the 5 weeks of the series, and did my best to bring it all together for the series finale.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This week we had great music and a fun opening game with the new Microsoft Kinect and Dance Central. Most students hadn’t seen it before, so it was comical and funny watching people try to dance. It was brilliant! We also played all of the individual mosaic photos during the Switchfoot song which made for a great moment, too.

Music Playlist: Solution, This is Your Life [Switchfoot cover], Our God is Love, With Everything

Favorite Moment: This was SUCH a fun weekend – the team did a great job pulling off some really creative moments in the service and it really felt like the culmination of the campaign. The best moment had to be the Domino Effect video at the end of the message. So awesome! I’ll get it posted soon for you to enjoy, too.

Up Next: Thanksgiving/Family 1-off

Add Comment November 21, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM’s Photo Mosaic Revealed

If you’ve followed the blog the last month during our 2020: The Future is Now series, you may remember that HSM was doing a photo mosaic as a takeaway for the series. We took pictures of our students for a couple of weeks and we got the print pieces back this week for students to take home as a reminder of the decisions they made. We used each picture of the students several times in the mosaic – students had a fun time finding themselves in the collage. If you were interested in the technical stuff behind the scenes we made the mosaic using this program click here, I think it turned out great!

JG

Add Comment November 21, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts Taffy’s Emotional Video About Killball

A moving story about one man trying to find out the details about the next killball event in HSM.

JG

4 View Comments November 15, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 120

Weekend Teaching Series: 2020: The Future is Now (week 5 of 6)
Sermon in a Sentence: Your future legacy depends on living a life filled with God’s Spirit and a life of worship.
Service Length: 79 minutes

Understandable Message: Doug Fields spoke this weekend about students leaving a legacy – and how legacy is created when someone trusts in Christ for their life and is led by God’s Spirit every day. I loved his challenge to bring Jesus into every area of life – not just when it is time for small group or go to church. He used a couple of strong object lessons including a cutout of himself and a cutout of Mr. T to help explain the choices we make and different paths people are on. A clear plan of salvation was given and some reflective questions for students to think about this week as well.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: Couple of fun elements this weekend – a great killball video promoting our after church activity happening in the next couple of weeks. Taffy also secretly videotaped a countdown video of me playing racquetball with him and a buddy and trying to hit me with every few shots. Great commentary and sillyness. We also had an over-the-top rap opener of a song our team created and performed called “In the Future What will You Discover” that tied into the theme. Fun!

Music Playlist: The Time Has Come, In the Future What Will You Discover [rap], Hosanna, Til I See You, Came to My Rescue, Burning Ones

Favorite Moment: Couple favorite moments for me this week: 1) the opening rap was so random and fun, the “flute battle” at the end of it takes the cake. Hilarious, and 2) getting to share a few words about legacy to Doug Fields and his wife was a highlight for me. Doug’s legacy is HSM/Refinery/Saddleback/me/you/youth ministry … I was honored and humbled to celebrate him this weekend at the end of the 6:30 service.

Up Next: 2020 — The Future is Now: week 6 (series finale)