testimony | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts Blair’s Story from How to Raise Your Parents

One of our Life Group leaders, Blair Wilson, shares his story on video on the last week of the How to Raise Your Parents Series.

JG

Add Comment May 28, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 139

Weekend Teaching Series: How to Raise Your Parents (series finale, week 3 of 3)

Sermon in a Sentence: Real-life parents answer your real-life questions. Each service will be completely different!
Service Length: 76 minutes

Understandable Message: This week we tried a first in HSM – the parent panel. I’ll post more later about my learnings on how to run a good panel, but for now, I’ll just say it was awesome. We had parents commit to at least 2 services if possible, so we had different parents throughout the weekend. It was incredible to hear their heart and passion, as well as their vulnerability and love for their kids. We had some parents, who I introduced as not perfect by any means, but that loved Jesus and loved their kids. It was awesome. I have almost 500 questions that students sent into us during the 4 services, excited to do a series of posts on them in the future – I think they will be super insightful for youth ministry or even parents themselves.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We had pretty straightforward programming this weekend – lots of student greeters and student leaders running the night. We had a video testimony about trust/parents featuring a Life Group leader, Blair Wilson, who really messed up as a teenager – that was solid, too. Tons of student involvement with students texting in their questions to polleverywhere.com which we moderated and pushed to the screen.

Music Playlist: Dancing Generation, Mighty to Save, Sing Sing Sing

Favorite Moment: The parents were incredible. They made the services – and I loved the unpredictability of each service. You didn’t know the questions, you didn’t know the answers – so each service was unique and honestly, really interesting. Oh, and using my iPad2 to push the questions students had texted in right on to the big screen was techno-fun, too.

Up Next: Stories (1-off)

3 View Comments May 24, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Steven’s Testimony About Identity

This weekend in HSM Steven shared his story about finding identity in Christ. Part of Tesoro High School’s You Own the Weekend services.

JG

Add Comment March 14, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts Quinn’s Testimony This Weekend in HSM

Quinn’s story from Trabuco Hills’ You Own the Weekend in HSM.

JG

Add Comment February 27, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts The Golden Voice of Ted Williams

I used the amazing story of Ted Williams in my talk this weekend – and my buddy Rob pointed me toward a little backstory on the guy who “discovered” him. Here’s a clip of the CNN article called How Faith Helped Uncover the Golden Voice:

Looking through the lens of faith
But the reason Chenoweth stopped goes deeper than his job.

It’s “standard operating procedure” for him, he said, to stop and talk to people who are homeless, whether he’s carrying a camera or not.

“It’s part of my faith,” he said after some prodding about his motivations. “You may not be able to help someone with money, but you can at least say hello, how you doing, and look at them.”

Doral Chenoweth III, his wife, Robin, and their children Cassie and Kurtis went on a personal mission trip to Tanzania.About 14 years ago, Chenoweth said he was assigned to photograph a homeless ministry at New Life United Methodist Church in downtown Columbus. He was so impressed by the ability of the 50-member congregation to help the homeless that he and his wife joined.

The church’s pastor said that Chenoweth routinely invites people who are homeless to the church for meals and medical attention. He’s also photographed people on the street and displayed their photographs to emphasize their humanity, said the Rev. Jennifer Kimball Casto, New Life’s pastor.

JG

Add Comment January 10, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts The Landing Testimonies Video

A video we used to tell the stories of 3 students this this weekend in HSM’s services. Love celebrating he amazing changed life through Christ! What is The Landing? Glad you asked – details here.

JG

4 View Comments December 5, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts GUEST POST: 43 Top Church Resource Websites

There are plenty of websites that promise to help you do one thing or another in your ministry. Below are seven categories of resources that I hope you will find helpful:

Curriculum Resources

Walkthru.org — Bible studies ranging for those for individuals to church-wide studies
SimplyYouthMinistry.com — Doug Fields site full of Bible studies, videos and small group resources.
Youthministry.com — A website dedicated to youth ministry. Full of free resources and articles that tackle the hard topics.
Symlive.com — Simply Youth Ministry small group curriculum. I personally use this.
Open.Lifechurch.tv — A website full of free resources. I’ve spent a few hours looking around the site and don’t feel like I’ve even scratched the surface.
StuffICanUse — Another website that is full of free resources.
XP3 — A subscription based website that allows you to download messages.
MyGrapple — An online community that allows students to go online to complete challenges to complete the lesson from Sunday School.
EyeOnYouth — CE National’s own Biblical-based studies

Printing Media

NextDayFlyers — Cheap printing. Get your orders in early and save even more!
LogoDogz — Custom embroidery, screen printing and promotional products
Powerpoint Sermons — Subscription packages of jpeg stills and motion backgrounds
GetPaint - Free Photoshop style program for download
sxc.hu — Free photo exchange
Shutterstock — Subscription based photo downloads

Videos

Wing Clips — Inspirational Movie clips
Worshiphouse Media — site full of mini-videos, videos, stills and software
SermonSpice — Website full of videos and countdowns to use before you start teaching
BlueFishTV — Full of full-length videos, clips and stills to use throughout your services
Deidox — Testimonial videos featuring real people
I am Second — Professional athletes, celebrities and others share the importance of Jesus in their lives
Animoto — Turn videos and pictures into amazing slideshows

Organization

Planning Center — Get your service organized using this great website. I personally use this as well!
Here to Lead — The official blog of Michael Lukaszewski
Dial 2 Do — Create reminders for yourself for free. Other features do cost $3.99/month or $39.99/year.

Purchasing Resources

Dealnews — Find the best deal on pretty much anything
Musicians Friend — Great deals on musical instruments and audio equipment.

Parent Resources

Plugged In Online — Want to know what the new pop album says? What the new hit movie is about? Check out Plugged In for an honest review.
The Center for Parent Youth Understanding — Understand today’s culture and how to impact it

Other Resources

Monergism — Great articles from many of the fathers of our faith
CARM — Apologetics
x3 Watch — Free Accountability Software
Safe Eyes — Internet filtering software
SimplyTxt — Text all of your youth group kids at once using this awesome program
Poll Everywhere — Text message polling software. Free for the first 30 users, price increases from there
Covenant Eyes — Another great accountability and filtering software
Grooveshark — Great music streaming service
Big Huge Labs — Do funny things with your photos
Open Resources — More free church media
YouVersion — Interactive Bible
TokBox — Free video chatting
SurveyMonkey — Create free surveys
Zamzar — Convert files online for free

Did I miss any services that you use? If so, let me know in the comments.

Zach Younkin helps out wherever needed in the Delaware Grace Brethren Youth Ministry. You can follow him on Twitter at @zachyounkin and check him out on his blog.

5 View Comments November 20, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts Clear Names for Your Youth Ministry and Youth Group Events

We’re making some little name shifts in our youth ministry these days – moving away from calling events by catchy, cool names and calling them by far less cute but very clear names.

Over and over again it feels obvious that insider names are nice for the core kids, but completely alienating for outsiders and confusing for people who bounce in and out. If you’re using a cool name for your youth event, plan on explaining it to parents and new students. If you’re using a Greek word for your small groups, your effort to please your hermeneutics professor will be lost on a 13-year old incoming freshman.

Clear wins every time. Here’s a few examples of what I’m talking about:

HSM Summer Camp
We used to call our summer camp by the destination camp we were attending, so we would call it Hume Lake or Camp Ojai. I love the traditions, but think it requires explanation to adults and clarity when a student shares their testimony about what happened there. Why not just call it camp? So now we call it HSM Summer Camp, enabling us to be very clear about what it is and less about the actual location. It also allows us to change camps without losing momentum or rebranding.

HSM Winter Retreat
This one had a great name originally – Chi Alpha (which means Christ First or Christs’ Ambassadors) – but honestly it wasn’t working in our culture. The students that attended last year loved the event, but when talking about it they would inevitably call it a “spiritual growth retreat” or “discipleship retreat” – so why didn’t we? Now that I think about it – even “discipleship” might not be clear, maybe we should even be considering a more student-friendly and clear word like “grow.”

We’re simply called HSM
I know that “the high school ministry at Saddleback Church” or “HSM” isn’t the sexiest name on the block. I hear of youth group names like IGNITE, maXimum or Warriors of L.I.G.H.T. and I think how boring ours sounds. But the clarity is worth it. Even within our own church, and I love our college ministry (Crave) and junior high ministry (Wildside), but they have to be constantly explained to outsiders.

So that’s what I’m thinking, and where we’re moving these days. Anyone agree/disagree? I’d LOVE to be convinced of the value in creating brand and identities with creative and unique names for groups and events.

JG