Josh GriffinMore PostsMoreThanDodgeball’s Year in Review: Top 10 Guest Posts of 2011

Every weekend I get the privilege of posting a guest post or two from the More Than Dodgeball community. It is open to everyone – provided it is solid and fits some basic requirements (like somewhere south of 500 words, and isn’t a blatant infomercial for something – if you’re interested get the scoop here). These are the best of the best – the most popular guest posts from 2011:

  1. Becoming an Indispensable Staff Pastor by Justin Lathrop
  2. Top 12 Things You Should be Saying to a Guy Who Struggles with Porn by Nick McDonald
  3. What to do with the Kid Who Hates You by Geoff Stewart
  4. Taste And See: Sharing God’s Goodness Through Grief by Ryan Donovan
  5. Youth Tracker by Bradley K. Chandler
  6. 43 Top Church Website Resources by Zach Younkin
  7. I’ve Failed as a Youth Pastor by Steve Ingold
  8. Make the Ask by Geoff Stewart
  9. The Curious Question of Campus Lunch by Sean Kahlich
  10. When Good Ideas Go Bad by Geoff Stewart

JG

TagsComments 1 View Comments December 30, 2011

Josh GriffinMore PostsGUEST POST: 11 Great Ministry Moments of 2011

  1. Meeting our new 7th graders — Every year we get to welcome in a new class of 7th graders into our Mid-High ministry. I have LOVED every one of these guys!
  2. Mission Trip to Arlington, TX — We sold out for this trip in 2 weeks and had an incredible time serving the city of Arlington, learning Spanish on the fly, and playing dodgeball in Cowboys Stadium!
  3. NERF War — It’s every kid’s dream: have a massive NERF war with no adults around. We expected a few students to come, but we blew the doors of the place and we’re STILL picking up ammo from it!
  4. Thanks for Abortion – Two years ago I spoke about abortion. Two days ago a student (who is now in high school) came up to me and thanked me for that message. This student has a friend who is struggling with what to do with her unborn child and that message two years ago has been really helpful!
  5. TRIBES — Last summer we did a 6-week competition designed to bring students to Christ through recreation. Towards the end, individual tribes were larger than our entire first night!
  6. DISCipleship Hole-In-One – We played disc golf all summer. I got a hole-in-one. The guys in my group got to see a reaction they’ll never forget. Moving on..
  7. Greeters Kidnapping a Student – We have a greeters team in our ministry. One Sunday they “kidnapped” a new student who had walked in with her parents and brought her down to the youth area. She’s been coming ever since.
  8. The Change to Cell Groups – We used to do small groups one way, realized it wasn’t achieving the goals for which it was designed, so we’ve overhauled the way we do things. Now our students are being pushed to be “on mission” and they don’t have teachers, they have coaches. It’s awesome!
  9. Night of Impact & Goats – We challenged our students to raise money to buy goats for an orphanage in Africa. In one month they raised enough money to buy over 13 goats!
  10. Transfer for the Gospel – One of my students (who grew up going to a private Christian school) decided to follow God and transfer to a public school this year so he could have MORE opportunity to share the Gospel. Put that in your pipe and smoke it cultural stereotype of teenage boys!
  11. My Entire Volunteer Team – Without my team, none of this could have happened. They love God and like teenagers and I am proud to serve with them in this crazy ministry to 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students!

Sean Kahlich is the Mid-High Youth Minister at The Kirk of the Hills — check out his youth ministry blog called Awaiting Epiteleo.

TagsComments Add Comment December 29, 2011

Josh GriffinMore PostsGUEST POST: 6 Essential Resources For Sermon Preparation

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I am a youth pastor who oversees and teaches 7th, 8th, and 9th grade students. And anytime I prepare to teach a passage of the Bible to them, these are some of the first books I grab. Here’s why these are some of my essentials for teaching:

  • The ESV Study Bible — I use this because it has a very comprehensive section of notes which helps me keep my message on track with the Biblical context. Plus, it gives me other ideas of points I may have missed.
  • The IVP Bible Background Commentaries — I use these because they unpack the cultural background of everything that happens in a passage. So when you read, for example, in Ruth 4 that the kinsman-redeemer took off his sandal and gave it to Baoz, you get 150 words or more on the cultural meaning of this action at the time it was written. This is indispensable for knowing what’s going on and for helping contextualize it for a younger audience.
  • The Illustrated Guide To Bible Customs & Cultures — I use this because it has pictures. And it’s not as heady as the IVP Commentaries.
  • Zondervan’s Teen Study Bible — I’ll check in here to see if there are any teen-friendly explanations/illustrations of a certain part of Scripture. When they do, it’s usually pretty helpful for my audience (and is often something I hadn’t originally thought of).
  • The Student Bible — The one pictured above is the same Bible I used when I was a student in a youth ministry. The publisher put in some short student-friendly thoughts, but this Bible also has my notes and markings from when I was a student. It helps me remember what was important to me when I was the same age as my audience.
  • The Message//Remix — I don’t teach from this translation, but I read it as I prepare to pick up any other nuance I may have missed in the previous resources.

I pull these books off the shelf each week as I prepare to teach my students the truths of God’s Word. And for me, I’ve found them to be essential teaching tools in youth ministry.

Sean Kahlich is the Mid-High Youth Minister at The Kirk of the Hills — check out his youth ministry blog called Awaiting Epiteleo.

TagsComments 2 View Comments February 26, 2011

Josh GriffinMore PostsGUEST POST: The Curious Question of Campus Lunches

As a youth worker, I try to spend a regular amount of time eating lunch on school campuses. Youth workers either do this, or they don’t do this, and there are a number of reasons why.

I know a few guys who won’t step foot on a school campus and they have their reasons, most of them weak, some of them forced. (For example, when I lived in St. Louis not many schools would even allow me to come).

I know other guys who will eat on campus with students, but that can look very different:

  • You might see the youth worker that brings a volunteer with him and both are dressed in the same “our youth ministry” t-shirt with a stack of invite cards to their next event
  • You might see the youth worker that sits on the stage or stands at the door and as his kids notice him they’ll move towards him and soon the gathering is very noticeable
  • You might the youth worker at one table, and then another, and then another, and then…

Campus lunch can viewed a lot of different ways, and most views are well-intentioned. For me, I go to a school each week for one reason: to communicate to my kids that I care about their world, too. If I expect them to come to the church (my world) and hear what I have to say, it makes sense that I step on campus (their world) and see what’s going on beyond our programs. I want them to know their world is important to me so they’ll understand why my world should be important to them.

Most of the campuses at which we have students are very different. One makes me fill out reams of paperwork just to get in the front office. Another gives me a visitor sticker and thanks me for coming. One campus has a fight every lunch period, every day. In another I’ll get the stare-down trying to figure out if I’m the new kid or someone’s dad.

Every campus has a different culture. And to the population at large, the youth room in a church is a different culture. So for me to be on campus, I think it helps say, “You know I don’t belong here, but I came anyway because it’s worth it.” That can translate to the faithful student, the fringe student, or the friend of a student who comes into my ministry area and feels the same way.

So what about you? What’s your take on campus lunch contact work?

Sean Kahlich is the Mid-High Youth Minister at The Kirk of the Hills – check out his youth ministry blog called Awaiting Epiteleo.

TagsComments 12 View Comments January 8, 2011
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