saddleback hsm | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts BIG NEWS: We’re moving to Dubai!

If you know me very well at all, you know I talk about living in Dubai all of the time! Well, today we have an exciting announcement – we’re moving there in 4 weeks! We’ve been working on getting everything arranged since December (which is why we only called the HSM position interim) and today we can officially make the announcement.

In related news, Saddleback is going to be starting 6 international campuses, and we’re the ones taking it to the Middle East. My friend Stiller is headed to Madagascar, Tully to Columbia, and Z to Italy. So crazy!

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Were also pregnant with triplets, I’m voting for Hillary and my reverse vasectomy was successful! HAPPY. APRIL. FOOLS. DAY.

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JG

Add Comment April 1, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Dear God – Week 2

Just finished week 2 of the Dear God series – our service mainly focused on the afterlife. We answered student’s questions about Heaven, Hell, other religions and how to get to Heaven. It was very interesting to sit in big church this morning and hear Pastor Rick on the very same subject. Watch his message here live this afternoon or click the “current series” tab in the coming days to watch it in the archive.

Next week Doug comes with the finale of Dear God, taking on a stack of questions people asked about the purpose of life and how to live a successful life in God’s eyes. We also started work on a small booklet that answers 50 tough questions, which should be done the week after Easter. We finished the list of questions Friday, so I’ll post them here when they get entered into the computer. This has been a good series for HSM – we get a bit of a break with Easter and a guest speaker, then we jump into a series on gifts and a series on sex. Should be a great Spring!

JG

Add Comment March 9, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Google Searches That Lead Here: Volume 43

Haven’t done a post like this in a few months – here’s a few of the interesting or unique words that people Googled to find my blog this week.

jordin sparks lip sync
text message video youth game
a big star wars fan …
colbert report rick warren
youth ministry lemonade
30 days to live
brian berry youth pastor
2008 superbowl commercial amp actor
alden allen newspring
bringing sexy back bible series
cheesy line contest
children’s ministry conference saddleback church
choose your own adventure youth ministry
chris sligh
creative outreach invitations for easter
difference between blogs and critics
famous dodgeball stories
junior high youth group invitation
kami gilmour blog
larry king “chip on their shoulder” “sense of humor”
leadership cliques
leadership team meeting formats
order pens for my church
pictures of saddleback hsm student ministry building
raquetball wounds
simply youth ministry coupon
the great mullet hunt 2008
things to do at a youth overnighter
travel advisories ensenada

JG

Add Comment February 18, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Choose Your Own Adventure Results

The results are in from our online poll and series topic card. Here’s the topics for the next 3 weekends for the Choose Your Own Adventure series in HSM:

Week 1: Parents
Week 2: Stress
Week 3: War

JG

Add Comment February 7, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Be an Intern at Saddleback Church!

Every thought about joining the High School team at Saddleback Church?

There’s actually quite a few different opportunities to think about from junior high, college, childrens, small groups, missions – you name it, we’ve got an intern there. But since I’m all about HSM, let’s focus on high school ministry here – if you’ve got a possible candidate, have them hit this link and check it out! I guarantee it would be two years they would never forget.

JG

Add Comment February 6, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Ordering New Pens

So we’re about to order some new pens for High School Ministry – sounds simple, but we’ve got issues.

As we go into the Student Zone this summer our service times will change so we can’t put them on there. The correct service times are on the HSM blog, but do we really want http://www.saddlebackfamily.com/blogs/hsm/index.html (the URL is way to long) on the side of a pen? And what about logo? Tough to know if we might rebrand in the coming weeks leading up to the grand opening of the new student building.

So what’s the solution? How about this:

HIGH SCHOOL MINISTRY
Google “HSM Blog” for the details

JG

Add Comment January 17, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Starts Texting

OK, we went with TxTsignal that I blogged about before – I’ll give you a review when we’re 30 days in. We loved the free trial, and are planning on giving the service a real run for it’s money. If you want to receive texts from HSM, you can sign up yourself right here! So exciting – a new day of communicating has arrived. We send out first SMS out tonight!

JG

Add Comment January 11, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Summer Service Projects

Go Green

We finished up the HSM staff planning overnighter with a brainstorming meeting on the ways we can serve the community this summer. Really our goal is two-fold: 1) serve the community, and 2) raise awareness of our ministry and expose more of the tens of thousands of students in the county to Saddleback’s High School Ministry.

There’s a bunch of really creative ideas placed tenatively on the calendar at this point – my favorites include taking the Save the Planet theme and using it as a ‘double meaning’ by collecting bottles that we recycle and use the funds to purchase Bibles that we’ll take on the mission trip to Ensenada. Save the Planet is good for the environment but it is also about sharing the Good News. Hmmm …not sure if that is cheesy now that I look at it or intensely cool. I’m going to say cool.

We’re also looking to have students visit retirement centers, homeless shelters, adopting a stretch of the highway, serving other local churches, random acts of kindness. We are also going to do some fun community influencing days like bringing donuts and coffee to the summer school teachers and hitting up local skate parks and beaches with free bottled water and invitations to the student ministry. Oh, and my favorite, we’ll be collecting a “mountain of shoes” for World Shoe Relief that will coincide with the grand opening of the Student Zone.

This summer, we want to serve where there are needs, and show up where there are students. Excited about what we came up with … had some good prayer time as a team there and it will be exciting to see how it all firms up in the next 11 weeks before we go public.

JG

Add Comment January 10, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Summer Theme

Today I announced the direction for our summer program in HSM. I feel like the stage is set to serve our community in a significant way. Service projects, community givebacks, raise awareness, make a difference, help someone in need, random acts of kindness, kingdom assignment. Saddleback has historically had an element of the attractional model (which we will still have in force on the weekends) with a crowd-level entry level service on the weekend – but during the week we want to mobilize our students to serve the community, using what I think is a complimentary model of in-breaking.

My goal is that we will create a buzz in the community. That we will become truly known for something. That when someone moves to the area they immediately hear about what is happening through our students. I believe our students are ready for this, our volunteers will get behind it, and our staff is up for it.

Summer of 2008: Save the Planet.

JG

2 View Comments January 10, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Best Week Ever – Week 1

Here’s a picture from the “invitation of sorts” on Saturday night’s HSM service at Saddleback. I spoke on having the Best Year Ever and laid the groundwork for the New Year and where we’re headed – the trips, the Student Zone grand opening, the upcoming teaching themes and the purpose for our ministry. It’s my first weekend leading the High School Ministry, and the students were really great, and at the end I thought this image said it all. We had a couple of great songs to end the commitment of giving 2008 to God. Yeah!