Josh GriffinMore Posts10 Ways a Church Could Tell Students They Love Them

A friend wrote in to the blog a while ago asking me for some ideas on how a church can let students know they are loved. Here’s a few ideas off the cuff – add your own in the comments!

10. Give the student ministry the best room in the building to meet in.
9. Don’t just tell them they are the future of the church, let them demonstrate it by giving some genuine leadership opportunities.
8. Program your weekend services with the “under 30″ crowd in mind.
7. Use a reference or illustration that intersect with their world.
6. Consider messages applications to a student’s life, not just adults.
5. Give them ownership of an entire weekend adult service.
4. Invite a few of them into the planning/brainstorming meetings for adult events/services.
3. Have some adult leadership show up to a youth service and join in.
2. Celebrate the student mission projects and trips in the adults services.
1. Let a student share a story/testimony in front of adults.

JG

TagsComments Add Comment July 25, 2008

Josh GriffinMore PostsSave the Planet Series Arc

We’re starting a new 3-week series this week called Save the Planet. It introduces our summer theme of service projects and emphasis on evangelism. Here’s the idea for the arc of the series so far:

Week 1 CREATION — The Beauty of the Earth
The Creation Story, Genesis 1
Job “Have you…” passages
The earth is God’s, it deserves to be taken care of
Debunk naturalism, pantheism
Passages of Scripture that compare God to Creation
Clip from NASA Missions: When we left earth
Resource: The Case for a Creator
Promote: Bible Institute — Creation

Week 2 CALLING — Be a Good Steward
The Creation Mandate
Refinery Green building information
Clip from documentary
Go green, care, abuse, dominion
Illustration: Care for gerbil
Not to please environmentalists, but God
Promote: Bottles for Bibles promotion starts

Week 3 CORRUPTION — The World Needs Fixing
Paradise lost, sin, disorder, chaos, shattered
Not just the world is broken, we are broken
Adam and Eve … fast forward to the Cross
We are broken and need to be fixed
The fix is Jesus, Son of God the Creator
End the series where it began — with God

JG

TagsComments Add Comment June 24, 2008

Josh GriffinMore PostsHSM 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

TagsComments Add Comment January 10, 2008

Josh GriffinMore PostsHSM 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

TagsComments 2 View Comments January 10, 2008

Josh GriffinMore PostsSJH Podcast Episode 24

The latest free podcast from Simply Junior High is up – grab it and learn about service projects and missions for that student’s age group. Kurt is joined by Matt Hall for this month’s show!

JG

TagsComments Add Comment March 19, 2007

Josh GriffinMore PostsThe State of High School Seniors

There’s a GREAT article in today’s Christian Post about youth ministry. This is a must-read for youth workers … seriously, this is some pretty solid stuff. If you’ve wanted to know what church seniors are thinking, why they attend, what they want more of – well, here’s some data to think about. Lots of implications from these revelations, I might list them in a future post. Here’s a clip of the article – really, do yourself a favor and hit the link for the complete story.

Studying the current state of seniors and the type of students youth ministries are developing today, the College Transition Project received responses from high school students around the country for wave one of the milestone study. Surprisingly, the top reason students go to youth group is because of their youth pastor.

According to the responses received, 162 of which were usable, 68 percent said it is “very true” or “completely true” they go to youth group because they like their youth pastor. The second most popular reason was “I learn about God there,” which was followed by 58 percent who said “It’s fun.” Other reasons listed as “very true” or “completely true” by at least 50 percent of the students included “I feel comfortable there,” “I’ve always gone to church/youth group,” “It’s a place where I can learn to serve,” and “It feels like a real community.”Some youth workers expressed ambivalence about the top reason students listed but they also raised the question if it’s possible that the students have become “too dependent” on their youth pastors.”

Interestingly, seniors’ connections with their friends at youth group don’t rank as highly as many would have guessed,” noted the report. “By average score, seniors ranked the options regarding community and a sense of belonging seventh, eighth, and tenth.”The least likely reason students listed was that their parents make them
go or that they feel guilty if they don’t go.

Students were also asked what they wanted to see more of in youth ministry. At the top was the desire for more service projects. Following that, 70 percent of the respondents wanted more or much more time for deep conversation; 65 wanted more mission trips; 65 percent wanted more accountability; and 58 percent wanted more time to worship. Ranked last was the desire for more games.

JG

TagsComments Add Comment October 25, 2006

Josh GriffinMore Posts2 Movies Over the Weekend

I haven’t had one of those “I have nothing to show for this weekend” type of a weekends in a long time. This was finally one of them!

Of course, that doesn’t count if you include a pile of serious quality time with the family and a few services at Saddleback. But, I didn’t work on any projects, stayed far away from email and basically shut myself off from getting anything productive done except investing in relationships and relaxing.

And I did watch a couple of movies.

The first of which was Lady in the Water, which Matt dragged me to on Friday. Not only was the storytelling weak and uninspired, the visuals left me really wanting more. When they wanted to explain part of the story, a character just talked for 3 minutes about what would happen next – then you watched it on screen. Then when that was over he got up for 3 minutes and talked about what would happen next, then you watched it. Repeat and rinse a few more times and that’s the movie.

Aside from a few neat angles it was totally lame, I’m just glad I didn’t have to pay for the ticket (Thanks, McGill). Read Treece’s thoughts if you think there’s anything redeemable there, because I sure didn’t. C-

The second movie was My Super Ex-Girlfriend, which I saw tonight with the Fields’ family. Talk about a bomb – terrible plot, horrible special effects and the worst acting since Justin Met Kelly. Put that quote on the trailer! I didn’t know if I should be embarrased more for Uma Thurman for being in the movie, or me for being in the movie theater! The only redeeming quality is that I got to see the train wreck with friends, so you can talk about how bad it was forever and ever. All bad movies from now until I die will be compared to this one.

Though I did like the guy from The Office being in it. Anyhow, super-lame, I’m again just glad I didn’t have to pay for the ticket (Thanks, Fields). Allison agrees on how lame it was. D-

JG

TagsComments Add Comment July 31, 2006
Previous 3 of 3 12 Next