student leadership | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts Student Leader Notebook Due Tomorrow

OK … the PDYM Student Leadership notebook is due to the printer … and I’ve got miles to go before I sleep. Argh! Let’s get cranking – the conference is going to be SO much fun – can’t wait!

JG

student leadership

Add Comment July 5, 2006

Josh GriffinMore Posts The 3rd of July

While the 3rd of July doesn’t have nearly the clout of July 4th here in America – it sure was a great day here in Southern California. The church gave everyone the day off, so we spent the day in the sun and around the house cooking for the family on the grill and spending time with the boys in the pool. And for good measure, spent some time editing some videos for the PDYM Student Leadership Conference. Ah, such is life – in the home stretch.

Tomorrow we’ll hang with the Fields and friends and do the fireworks thing, should be fun!

JG

Add Comment July 3, 2006

Josh GriffinMore Posts Brainstorming MADE

We’ve got a new series of videos we’re producing for the PDYM Student Leadership conference in a few weeks. Here’s a shot of the white board from Fields’ office when the team (Jake, Jason and I) were done last night. It will eventually become the 4-episode story of a regular student named Hillary that is “made” into a student leader who is part of the greeting ministry. Good stuff.

JG

student leadership

Add Comment June 30, 2006

Josh GriffinMore Posts My Plate This Week

Been cranking on PDYM Student Leadership tasks this week, as my job centers around the programming for the event and being the on-stage host. Looks like some pretty busy weeks ahead for the team!

At SYM we’re cranking on digital downloads of resources, as well as a new community section of the website with Blogs, forums, polls and more. It’s really going to be great at some point in the near future. I think we’re shooting for a soft launch of the community section a week from Friday. We’ve also added tons of new bundles, too, here’s some of the stuff that’s now off my plate and on the website.

NEW DOWNLOADABLE RESOURCES
God’s Extreme Makeover
The Power of Sex
Made
Camp in a Can Vol 2 – Fill it Up
Leaders Are Learners: Student Edition
and more …

NEW RESOURCE BUNDLES
Sex Series Bundle
Purpose Bundle
Made and Exposed Bundle
Transcript Bundle
Junior High Books Bundle
Miles to Cross 5-pack
Fresh Start and 2nd Greatest Story
and more…

JG

student leadership

Add Comment June 21, 2006

Josh GriffinMore Posts Jumpstarting Student Leadership

Matt and I wrote an article for Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox. You can check out the full piece on pastors.com and here’s a clip:

What are four things you can’t get enough of?
1 — More time with your family
2 — More sleep
3 — More caffeine
4 — More overnight events

OK, so it didn’t make a list of the top four things we need, but as youth workers one thing we all want is student leadership. We’ve got some volunteers, and we’re passionately leading the way, but we would love to have some of our youth accept God’s call to lead our ministries. We’ve all read those “youth” stories in the Bible — you know, David, Jeremiah, Timothy, Samuel — and we sincerely believe God wants to use people early in life, but getting there is difficult.

As youth workers, we strongly believe that students can make a real difference in the world. They aren’t just the church of tomorrow; they are the church of today. At least, that is what we hope we can train them to become.

Our hope to develop young leaders through the youth in our church is only eclipsed by our struggle to unlock their zeal. There’s nothing more painful than seeing the wasted potential of those entrusted to our care or a life mired early by guilt and shame. It can be a pit of despair for most youth workers, but I’m here to say there’s hope.

The hope isn’t in the outspoken ones who show up to everything. We all have a few “natural leaders,” who rise to the challenge. And if you don’t have youth like that, you at least have regular students who are fun to be around, and you can count on them to do some basic ministry tasks. But biblical leadership, and therefore our calling, isn’t limited to equipping the cute, fun, or popular — much less the kids that attend every single event. They aren’t student leaders; they’re stalkers.

We are called to prepare all of our students for the work of the ministry. It’s a daunting task, but one that must be attempted if we’re to adequately prepare the church. To that end, here are a few practical ideas to help jump-start some of the leadership potential in your students and take your ministry to the next level.

JG

Add Comment June 14, 2006

Josh GriffinMore Posts 60+ Hours This Week?

Whew. Been a very long week, and it’s just Thursday night. Here’s a few of the plates that are spinning these days:

PDYM Student Leadership Programming – Met today with some of the HSM/Wildside staff to go over the upcoming conference. We’re jamming the 4 days with plenty of videos, skits, songs and activities. We’ve got a very talented team pulling this one off, we settle on the main schedule next week then pitch it to the rest of the group. Starting to really shape up good for our first pilot event.

Booked Something Like Silas - A great band from San Diego, they’ll be with us all week leading songs as well as performing one concert. This is a big score for this small of an event (<500 total). Sweet!

Booked Dana Daniels – he’s part magician, part bird handler. He’s totally funny, and we’re working to get him into the opening act of Student Leadership.

Student Leadership Article for Ministry Toolbox – Matt McGill and I wrote a 1,000-word column for Pastor Rick’s Ministry Toolbox on Student Leadership. It’s called Jumpstarting Student Leaders in Your Ministry or something like that, I’ll be sure to link to it when they take it live. We shot a pretty funny author shot today in a palm tree.

PDYM Newsletter – Sent out the June issue of the PDYM Neighborhood. It had a new poll on MySpace and blogging, a great article by Kevin Valentine on discouragement, and freebies for graduation. I’m happy with this particular issue, I think it’s beginning to gain some traction. Neely does such a great job with community.

40|40|40 Sale at Simply – I spent the better part of Sunday putting up the big sale, and the better part of Wednesday taking it down. What goes up, must come down. Lots of work, but I love getting great resources into the hands of youth pastors. The discount doesn’t hurt, either. Lots of work though!

Started the PDYM 2007 Promo Video Project – As I mentioned in an earlier post, I met with a dude from the PS3 team at Sony who is volunteering to do the PDYM 2007 promo video. Sweet!

So somewhere close to 40 hours for Simply this week, and maybe 20ish for PDYM. Did some Passion stuff in the cracks, and concentrated on all other available free time to be with the family, have a 10-year anniversary and such.

Who needs sleep?

JG

Add Comment June 8, 2006

Josh GriffinMore Posts Austin Carty: From Exile Island to Saddleback Church

How cool is it that PDYM Student Leadership is getting one of the castaways from this season’s Survivor? Very excited about Austin Carty coming to Saddleback Church this July to challenge students in their spiritual journey and faith in Jesus Christ. Just announced today!

JG

student leadership

Add Comment May 23, 2006

Josh GriffinMore Posts New Speakers Added to PDYM Student Leadership

Pretty exciting day today – we added Greg Stier, Jay Strack and Jim Burns to the speaking schedule for PDYM Student Leadership Conference. Good stuff, those guys are GREAT – this is going to be a powerful event for students this July.

I think my favorite part of the whole thing is the idea of my students finally “getting” what PDYM is all about and getting on board with the vision for the church. Gonna be cool watching it ‘click’ for so many of them,

If you’ve got student leaders, get them this.

JG