small group leaders | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts How to Communicate with Students

Thought we would take a quick look this week at ways to communicate with students—ways that are Hot or Not. Here’s our take; feel free to offer your opinion in the comments as well:

HOT: Facebook
This is where our money is at right now—the highlight of the tools we’re using to communicate with students. The only downside is that a youth ministry page requires constant updates and management to really be effective. And there’s a desire to spend time on our OWN pages instead of building up the church site. Facebook is where it’s at, so get on board to get it mastered just in time for your students to move on to something else.

NOTE: Our junior high ministry uses Facebook, but not as strategically as high school. We walk a fine line due to the reality that Facebook has age restrictions, but most junior highers are still there.

NOT: Email
When you’re communicating to parents, email is as hot as can be. The older people get the more possessive/stagnant they become with technology. Students on the other hand are quick to jump on what is next, usually before adults have even heard of it. If you are emailing students and it is working, realize that it is a miracle of God and won’t last very long. Email is out.

HOT: Texting
Probably right up there with Facebook is texting—it comes in two flavors: individual and mass, and both work incredibly well. Use a service like Simply Text or Duffled to build a list of everyone, and don’t discount the power of a personal text from their small group leader or youth pastor. Texting is where it is at right now for sure.

NOT: Paper
You’ve gotten very good at Publisher 2003. I get it. You like clip art and flyers made on the church photocopier. We do too, but those days have past. Sorry to be the one to break it to you.

HOT: Facebook event pages
Different from your main Facebook page are the event pages you create for service projects, mission trips, or special events. These are usually syncing with many students’ phones now, so you get calendar reminders as well as triggers built into to social media. A classic win-win-win situation.

HOT: Calendars
Calendars, if they make it home, have a tremendous return. Put a magnet on the back and you might get on the refrigerator for 2-3 months!

NOT: mass postcards in the mail
The shelf life is just too short for a postcard for a series and the cost is typically prohibitive, too. I love these and am sad to see them already fading out, but unless you’ve got cash to spare or a cheap printer to crank them out this one is dropping quickly.

HOT: individualized postcards from small group leaders
This one will never go out of style. Try it out this week: Pick up some postage-paid postcards and scribble out a few handwritten notes this week and see if it works. Or just trust us…no technology will ever replace the power of a handwritten note!

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.

8 View Comments 1 day ago

Geoff StewartMore Posts Jr High and High School Mash Up

Youth workers work hard, and I have so much respect for the ones that run two different nights for Junior Highs and High School students. In many ways its a necessary part of ministry as running a program for sixth grade to twelfth grade is challenging if not impossible to effectively engage students in such a diverse age range. We felt that same challenge in our group but did not have the resources to go to a multi-gather format. So after much thought and prayer we decided to completely overhaul our youth night to help alleviate many of the challenges we had been seeing in years past. So here is what we did, why we did it, what is working and what needs tweaking 8 months in.

Why did we change things?

For the past few years we have been facing real challenge of students making the leap from our kids program to high school. They were going from being the big fish in the pond to feeling like minnows in our student ministry and the intimidation was a big factor. Our youth night has been Thursday nights from 7:30-9:30 for 10 years now and for some parents of younger students this is a deal breaker, it was too late for their kids and up until this point our response was simply sorry.We also recognized like many of you, that resources were finite at the church and running a two night program would be a strain on our volunteers, worship teams, and myself and my family. The group was out-growing our facility and having 25 small groups trying to find a place to connect and focus was getting more and more difficult. Changes needed to happen, we needed to split the groups but going to two nights just wasn’t going to work, so here is what we did:

The Good: We are now 8 months in and things are going really well and here are a few of the highlights:

Early start time for Jr’s has meant that there is much less fear of coming to Youth. Young students arrive with their peers and when they join the older students for Worship they come in a wave of junior high energy.
Early end time has made grade six and seven parents more willing to send their kids and those students bring friends.
Two teaching times means that we can talk about issues differently and at a level that is challenging to both groups and has us no longer teaching to the middle or losing the young students with a high school level sermon
Having a game for the junior high students gets their energy out and means that we don’t have to have a game during the main session all the time which the high school students appreciate.
Running small groups at two separate times it allows us to effectively double the usable space in the building by using the rooms twice.
The High School-only hang out time before has matured that time and our high school students are showing up earlier and earlier each week just to connect.
We have added a half time position to cover off the Jr High coordinating but have maintained the same worship teams, volunteers and our costs have not changed either.
Grade 6 is a flex year where families can try youth and if it its too much their students can stay in kidsmin for one more year. Its a safety net that was never there before and it works.
Students now will attend youth group on the same night for 7 years and it makes it easier to prioritize instead of switching between Jr/Sr High night.

The Challenges: It hasn’t been completely smooth sailing but we have learned a lot this year:

Having such a concise and regimented schedule means that anything that runs long, or a technical glitch and keep the train from hitting the stations on time which can be challenging for people like me.
Our 30 minute worship set can keep us from being sensitive to the Holy Spirit and while early in the year we were quite rigid about the schedule, we have learned to be attentive and embrace moments that may extend the worship time and cut into small groups.
Grade 8′s are funny. The outline has grade 8 being a flex year and this year our grade 8′s are old for their age and dealing with challenging issues so having them with grade 6′s is not something they always want to do. We moved them up after spring break to High School for which they were thankful.
Having two leaders meetings has proven challenging and the frequency and quality of the preservice meet ups has diminished throughout the year
Writing two versions of the same sermon or two unique talks has been more work than we bargained for, but we have finally found a groove in that department.
Parents with students in both groups were vocal about the annoyance of coming to the church twice but with us offering activities before and after those concerns have diminished.

I am so thankful that we chose to do it this way and would make the same choice again to do it.Have you tried something similar? Do you have a question about it? Post a comment and lets chat about it!

GS – Twitter

10 View Comments May 9, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Preparing for Growth in Your Youth Ministry

A youth worker sent me an email with a question about preparing for growth in their ministry as they were seeing larger classes in their children’s ministry heading their way – it looks like their ministry is on a path to double soon. Here’s part of how I replied to him, thought it may be helpful to you as well:

Infrastructure is absolutely key. I would definitely start building a team of leaders with all your energy. You might be tempted to think adding more programs but I think people and systems are the best choice.

Adding a position
Getting another staff person, even part-time, is a crap shoot. Flirt with it in your mind, but in my experience that is usually where it stays. Typically leadership waits to see results and staffs late, or staffs intentionall what is hurting instead of what is building. Ironic, but want to be real with you so you don’t get your hopes up. I do think it is time to ask for help before it is too late. And either way, start pouring in to your leaders and building a team of people, paid or not.

Core Leaders
Start a core team of people who are totally on board with the vision of your ministry and love and follow you. These are the people you’ll do life with and know the best. You need to trust them. They will trust you. You need to eat together, laugh together and develop some inside jokes and memories as soon as possible.

More Leaders
Next, I’d work on developing as many additional leaders as I could. Get your small groups/life groups super small next year, so they can scale and grow with more students as they start entering the ministry. If each group has 4 students, you could easily give them 6 the next year and 8 the year after. So make them all super small right now and get the rookies some experience and get ready with an infrastructure for growth.

Systems
This is where you can prepare for growth as well – make sure that all of your systems are ready to scale as well. Take a look at your communications tools, your curriculum, your web presence, your parent ministry – all of these systems need to be able to scale up to double/triple their size. If not, you need to ditch the tool now before it dies under the strain of growth. Take care of these things now and adding students is a breeze.Wait and it will crush you and slow your momentum to a crawl.

Other random stuff/links to consider:

JG

1 View Comments May 3, 2012

Josh GriffinMore Posts Links from 99 Thoughts for Small Group Leaders Workshop at NYWC

Hey everyone from NYWC 2011!

Thanks for making our youth ministry workshop on small group leaders so fun this weekend — I enjoyed meeting many of you and here are the links from the 99 Thoughts for Small Group Leader trainings I promised you this weekend:

JG

Add Comment September 30, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Live Curriculum Video

We’re about to kickoff the Life Group year – training is tonight and tomorrow night!

This year we’re continuing to use the fantastic LIVE curriculum for our high school small group lessons each week. LIVE comes with a powerful web tool to help us communicate with our volunteer team and scales easily to add new groups and leaders. It is what we use every week of the small group year and we love it. Check it out in the video above and read more over on Simply Youth Ministry, too.

JG

1 View Comments September 27, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Simply Youth Ministry Best-Sellers 2011!

Couldn’t be more excited to see that 4 resources of mine made it into the best-seller list from Simply Youth Ministry this year. I think I’m most proud of 99 Thoughts for Small Group Leaders with Doug Fields, and The Way I’m Wired with Katie Brazelton. If you’ve used any resources we created this year – thank you so much – I hope they’ve been helpful!

JG

Add Comment July 26, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: Not Ashamed of Attractional Youth Ministry

Let me start by saying, my name is Geoff and I am not ashamed being part of an attractional youth ministry. A few months back I attended a Youth Pastors gathering in my area, and the topic of attractional vs missional ministry came up, and the proponents of each began to discuss and debate the virtues of each and it became clear that the two camps were miles a part. Not only that, I was told that I was running an attractional ministry and that they are not effective in growing students. EXCUSE ME?? I get frustrated when other Youth Workers write off “Attractional Ministries” as having no substance, and are merely entertaining students. I don’t agree and feel they can be effective and here is why.

You get one chance to make a first impression: Having a student in the Church for the first time is an honor, but it is important to look at it through their eyes. It is important to understand that churches can be intimidating and they are probably coming with preconceptions and ideas of what it will look like and what is going to happen. The fellowship time before we start and the first 15 minutes of our services is designed for new students, seekers and non-Christians, it is intended to help make them feel comfortable and welcome. The bells, whistles and flashy elements are for these students, they ad credibility and help to challenge their idea of what Church is like.

We have Lasers, but they don’t matter: Our Services are packed with Worship, lights, haze and sometimes lasers, but students do not stay because of them. Recently I met a focus group of 30 students and asked them questions about our ministry, and when it came to what keeps them coming back, not one of them said it was lights and lasers. In fact, most said it was having a small group leader who cared about them and challenged them in their faith that was most important.

We are about seeing the Lost Saved: The lights, the smoke, the videos, it’s all a lot of fun, but the purpose is not to entertain, its to compete. Not competing against my buddy Tyler or Kevin’s Ministry down the road, but against X-box, TV, drugs or just plain apathy that keeps students from coming. My heart is to see the Holy Spirit get a hold of these teens, but if that means having fancy lights to get them in the door, I will do that. There are 4000 High school Students within 15 minutes of our Church, they need to know Jesus.

Students are sharing their faith and serving : If you ever have wondered how community kids end up at a Youth Group, they are invited, intentionally. Encouraging students to invite friends to Youth allows for conversations to happen, about God, faith, Church and life. Having a place that is safe to invite your friends to is a good start. Having more elements of the service allows more students to serve in ways they are passionate about. We add elements to allow more people to serve, one in four students serve on one of the Worship or Technical teams, this is a great way to develop a Kingdom building group.

We share the Gospel with students: I have been told in the past that Ministries like ours water down the Gospel, or worse don’t share it at all. I can tell you this, that no matter if your are Missional or Attractional or both, Jesus is the center, he is the reason we get up in the morning and come to work. We share the Gospel in its fullness and apply it to the lives of today’s students, relate in a way that they can understand, and wrap their minds around and hopefully engage it in a real way. We equip our students with the Gospel so that they would follow the Great Commission, and bring those friends to a place where they can be learn, engage and be discipled.

This subject tends to put a bee in my bonnet, I love being a Youth Pastor and if a Youth Ministry can attract students to come to the Church, learn about Jesus, challenge them to know Him better, facilitate them being involved in our community and build his kingdom, then I am all in. God deserves everything I have, every resource I can use to help build His Church. Before you write of a Ministry, go check it out, hear the heart of the Pastor for their students and go see what God is doing there.

Geoff Stewart is the Pastor of Jr & Sr High School for Journey Student Ministries at Peace Portal Alliance Church and regularly contributes GUEST POSTS to MoreThanDodgeball.com. You can, too! See how right here.

20 View Comments October 23, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts Common Sense for Small Group Leaders: Think Wisely

Taught a small group leader training for our volunteers a couple weeks ago – just ran across it in my Moleskin tonight and realized I haven’t had a free moment to share it with you. Simple stuff, just an encouragement for our Life Group leaders, young and old, to think wisely:

Think wisely about what you post on Facebook
Please realize that what you post is public, permanent and reflects on our ministry as a whole (see more on this subject here). Use common sense when you post pictures or status updates – read everything through a second time before pushing send or submit. And don’t forget – something that is questionable will always be taken out of context. There is a huge difference between a joke between friends at a coffee shop and a joke that will most certainly be misunderstood posted for the world to see.

Think wisely when you drive students
I’ve taken tonss of students home from small groups or to an outing – and done some questionable things while doing it. We used to “hit mailboxes” – we didn’t really, I just had a student leader in the passenger seat whack the side of the church van when I swerved dangerously close to the side of the road. If you’ve ever used the phrase, “shoot that was close” or “I wonder if we can bury the speedometer” you aren’t using common sense.

Think wisely when you consume media
Here’s the key: what you do, say, watch, listen to, eat – whatever – it all becomes a ringing endorsement in the ears of your students. As the leader of your small group, take extra caution to think about what you’re consuming and if that would be good for your student to see as an example or to participate in themselves. Your words, actions and ideas have incredible power. Think before you watch.

Think wisely when you talk to parents
You are the youth pastor of your small group – so remember that when talking to parents. I guess first off – remember to talk to parents. Communication, good or bad, directly effects the reputation or the student ministry. Take a few minutes to share with parents what you’re covering in small groups, and share a personal observation about their child. It is OK to talk differently to parents than you would to their student.

JG

1 View Comments October 18, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts Cage Fight for 99 Thoughts for Small Group Leaders

Got the best email today – a youth worker name Jerry tried to get enough of 99 Thoughts for Small Group Leaders for his volunteers but couldn’t because it was temporarily sold out (!!) at Simply Youth Ministry and Amazon. Died laughing:

Hey Team!

Take a look at this picture. Study it well. When you’re ready, scroll down and keep reading.

Let me point out a few things here. First of all, let’s start with the most obvious. The book.

This is a book I want to give you as a gift. You’re on my team and I can’t tell you how much I esteem and appreciate that fact. I wish like anything that this book came along with an expensive surf-n-turf dinner but believe me, once you open the book, you’ll find that the feast is for your soul, your spirit, your mind, and your heart as a small group leader.

Next, I’d like to point out the guy on the computer screen to the far right of the picture. That’s Josh Griffin. Josh, along with Doug Fields (but mostly Josh) wrote the book. Josh is the high school ministry pastor at Saddleback Church and he wrote this book for you. His face there is on his www.morethandodgeball.com blog site. Subscribe to it.

And the email on the left of the picture above that you can’t read unless you have bionic squinting ability, is an email from Josh Griffin himself to yours truly. I had written Josh to congratulate him on the success of the book—a book that has become quite difficult to find due to high demands. Squint hard enough and you’ll see that Josh called me “friend” in his email. So, it’s official.

Which brings me to something that you can’t see in the picture above—well, not directly. In the picture, my hot hand is holding one copy of the book I want to give to all of you. Just out of camera range are 9 other copies. I have 10 total. I ordered more than that, but 10 was all the distributor had, so that’s all they sent. Here’s the snag: The phenomenally gifted team of small group leaders I lead has 23 people on it of which you are one. Those of you good at math have already figured out that 10 is less than 23. So, how do I decide which 10 leaders get the first round of books?

Do I give it to the 10 best-looking leaders? That would make for an awkward situation at our leader meeting this Sunday, wouldn’t it?

Do I give it to the leaders who have been around the longest? Maybe, but we’ve got 2 MORE new leaders joining our ranks THIS Sunday, and they’re phenomenal too!

Do I toss a coin? That wouldn’t help in this situation!

Do I take bribes? Yes, I do.

Do I have an essay contest? I think that’s far too collegiate for us.

How about a cage match to the death, until only 10 leaders remain? Yes, that’s it. That’s the answer. We will fight tooth and nail over 10 copies of Josh Griffin’s book.

Hope to see you Sunday at 1 p.m. in The Warehouse. We will wrap up around 3 p.m….well, 10 of you will.

Also, this week we unveil our new Student Leader team for the 2010-2011 year! Come gawk at them!

See you soon, my friends! You are so loved by God its beyond description, and so loved and appreciated by me.

I want to serve in this guy’s youth group. Awesome.

JG

1 View Comments October 14, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts Parker Stech — Newest Member of the HSM Team

Today HSM was proud to welcome Parker Stech to the team. Parker (and his wife Holly) are small group leaders and Parker brings a lot of technical skills to the table. He’s a solid video guy, with cool Flash tricks up his sleeve – most importantly he gets it: he has a pastor’s heart in the body of a geek. Super excited to welcome him to the HSM team here at Saddleback!

JG