weekend in review | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 20

Weekend Teaching Series: The Face of Love: a 40 Day Journey, week 2 of 6
Message Title: Kindness is Not a Sign of Weakness
Sermon in a Sentence: God values, accepts, forgives and believes in us – as Christ-followers we should do the same, living out kindness like Jesus.

Key Verse: John 8:1-11. The story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery.

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 6 out of 10. Several video cues, but nothing too dramatic. Typical weekend, I would say?

Attendance: down 10% from the previous weekend, up 32% from the same weekend last year
Service Length: 61 minutes
Understandable Message: This week I focused on just one story from Scripture, the woman caught in adultery. Jesus showed acceptance, belief, forgiveness and value in his interaction with this woman, and I challenged students to do the same. When we show kindness to someone, we are more like Christ.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: Students ran the lights, camera and band this weekend. We also called up students to do the announcements in an accent that the audience chose – trying to make that boring time alive. Volunteers still look like chaperones instead of shepherds, which is a concern to me. This weekend the energy in the room was high, underscoring the need for more volunteers to help channel that in the right direction with relationships.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We had some great media clips this weekend, and Love Tips from Dom continues to please. We also launched our PB&J collection drive for 40 Days of Love with Jif Baker (real name: Jeff) who danced on stage in a full PB&J outfit to the song “Peanut Butter and Jelly Time.”

Music Playlist: Cannons, From The Inside Out, Spirit Fall

Favorite Moment: Obviously, the worst moment in youth ministry video cue history made this weekend memorable for all eternity.

Notes: This was week 2 of an unusually long (for us) 6-week series. We’re matched up with the entire church for 40 Days of Love.

Add Comment September 26, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 19

Message Title: Love is What Matters Most (The Face of Love: a 40 Day Journey, 1 of 6)
Sermon in a Sentence: Love is at the very top of the list – there is no greater pursuit in life – make time for those you love and put love into action today.

Key Verse: Let love be your highest goal! I Corinthians 14:1

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 7 out of 10
Attendance: up 1% from last weekend, up 40% from the same weekend last year.
Service Length: 79 minutes

Understandable Message: Fields served up the weekend message with a great illustration on love using a eye dropper to represent the love of the world compared to the pitcher of love from God. Jason Petty spoke in the middle about the importance of time as a demonstration of your love. Very strong opening weekend for the 40 days.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: During the message we had a skit written and performed by students that helped students see a picture of what taking a regular conversation and taking it to a deeper place. It was set up as an “interruption” in the service so it was a fun break during the talk. Students also played in the band, ran cameras and greeted. Still working on volunteer involvement. A nut we’re just not cracking right now.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We opened up with a video called Love Tips from Dom. The we played a game where we turned the camera on the audience and played a song from Sixpence None The Richer (“Kiss Me”) like they would up at the Staples Center during a Laker game. So funny (we encouraged slapping instead), and it tied in well despite being a little misdirection to the theme of love. We also had a striking narration and song called The Face of Love [Sanctus Real] at the beginning that turned the corner from love-boy/girl to love-serving-giving-difference-making. Powerful stuff – the background video during the song included a slideshow of students serving in the community and on missions trips.

Music Playlist: Face of Love cover + 3 worship songs (sorry I forgot to write them down)

Favorite Moment: Several really great moments in this service – the team worked hard – it was a really well put together experience. I really enjoyed the power of the final moments of the talk, as Doug was pouring water from the pitcher overflowing in the glass saying, “God IS love,” he mentioned, “if I get electrocuted and die, I would be OK if that was the last thing you heard from me.”

JG

Add Comment September 18, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 18

Message Title: HSM Fall Kickoff Weekend
Sermon in a Sentence: In each of your 4 years in high school you will face challenges – we want to give a faith challenge to each class as well.

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 8 out of 10. Lots of videos to create, a major musical opening number to perform. Tons of cleanup – ping pong balls and confetti, lots of pictures called for on screen, longer than usual program.

Service Length: 84 minutes
Understandable Message: We divided up the message into 4 sections this weekend. We had a 7-minute block for each of the classes of high school. Doug challenged the freshman class with a specific lesson about faith. I came in and spoke to sophomores and juniors, with Fields batting cleanup with seniors and then endcapping the whole message as well. The point of the talk was clear – wherever you are in high school, take a faith step/challenge. Don’t waste a minute of high school years – put into action your faith in Christ.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: Students were all over the place this weekend, it is always fun having the student choir there because of the high energy. Students played in the band and were featured in the videos. Every student got to play the crowd game as well. We still need to concentrate on volunteer involvement – we have tons of needs, but program is tumping people at times, which is a concern.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: The weekend was so fun – we opened with a video introducing our new HSM intern, Rebekah, then jumped into an over-the-top Cold Play cover song. We had given everyone a ping pong ball (they wrote their name on them), and they would win a prize when it landed closest to the bullseye of the target on stage on the count of 3. Great energy to the opening, completely disarming to a first-time student.

Music Playlist: Viva la Vida (+2 worship songs at the end)

Favorite Moment: There’s great power in a message that has been setup well. Doug brought the message home in the last few minutes of the talk as he challenged seniors (and really everyone) to own their faith and to grow on their own. It was a powerful moment for sure.

3 View Comments September 11, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 17

Message Title: Essentials of a Deeper Life (2 of 2)
Sermon in a Sentence: The way to a deeper spiritual life with strong roots that can withstand the challenges of life starts with spiritual HABITS.

Key Verse: Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted! Matthew 13:8

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 5 out of 10. This is a short series that connects our summer efforts to our Fall Kickoff next weekend. The look and feel for the series is nice, and this has a solid “back to school / start the year off right” sort of direction to it.

Service Length: 63 minutes
Understandable Message: HABITS is a classic PDYM acrostic for Hang Time with God, Accountability with another believer, Bible Memorization, Involvement in Church, Tithing and Study Scripture. We worked to make each point memorable – for the Hang time with God we had a student come on stage and read a passage from the 1-Minute Bible while we put a timer on the screen. The goal was to not encourage racing through devotions, but helping them understand to get a starting point for a daily connection with God.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We had a little skit before the talk this weekend, we called up 4 volunteers on stage and had them (with a preassigned student narrator and one staff person) reinact the Matthew 13 parable of the seeds. So dry … so awesome. I the welcome/introduction, we played this pogo stick video that everyone loved/cringed at. During the talk we also played this funny tithing video that got a strong reaction as well. Killball after the 2nd Saturday night service also created an amazing amount of energy in the crowd.

Favorite Moment: I opened up with a story about going in my parents attic last week on vacation and finding some old toys (the 1985 Robotech Transformer was my favorite) so I brought it on stage to talk about not just growing “up” but growing “deep.” Taffy, our song leader for the series, ran up and we timed how fast he could transform it from jet to robot. I think his personal best was like 20 seconds or so. So fun, made for a nice conclusion, too.

Add Comment September 1, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 16

Message Title: What’s in a Name? (featuring Jeff Baker)
Sermon in a Sentence: Given names throughout histroy have carried plenty of significance – and God gives all of our names new meaning when we accept Him and live by the fruit of the Spirit.

Key Verse: The Fruit of God’s Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Galations 5:22-23

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 5 out of 10. The real challenge this weekend was time – and time was very short. Coming off of a camp week is no easy task. Not to mention that whole Obama/McCain thing at church Saturday night. We played a couple of prepared videos, enjoyed some songs and Jeff had a creative object lesson in his talk.

Service Length: 61 minutes
Understandable Message: We used Nooma 18 (Name) to set up Jeff’s talk. Jeff is a 2-year intern heading into his final 6 months on staff – he did a good job of setting up the significance of the names in biblical history and how today we earn nicknames and identities from other people instead of focusing on how God created us to be.

Favorite Moment: Everyone was given a “HELLO my name is…” badge when they walked in. For sure the best moment was when Jeff wrote ‘stubborn’ on a name tag, wore it and talked about that trait in his life. Then he took another, wrote ‘peace’ on it and placed it over the top. Everyone was encouraged to write on their name badge as well.

(note: we only had 2 student services this weekend due to the Civil Forum here at Saddleback.)

Add Comment August 18, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 15

Message Title: Disciple (featuring Taffy)
Sermon in a Sentence: The 12 Disciples were simple, ordinary people – who were extraordinary because they followed Jesus – and we are the disciples of today.

Key Verse: Glory to Him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:21

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 7 out of 10. Little media challenge, but with several different speakers, paintings on stage, lots of transitions and things happening there was plenty to get right.

Attendance: up 10% from last weekend, up 32% from the same weekend last year.
Service Length: 75 minutes
Understandable Message: B+ Taffy and 3 students walked the crowd through each of the 12 disciples. Each of the students were engaging and funn, but with equally strong content. There’s something powerful about students speaking on stage. The application was for Christians who need to be living out being a disciple, but Taffy also made a strong appeal for all to drop what they are holding on to so tightly and follow Jesus.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: B+/A Volunteers were actively involved at the tables and greeting students, we’re starting to notice that the 2 downstairs corners of the room are breeding ground for evil. OK, it’s not that bad, but kids who don’t care about the message now know where to hang out. Student involvement was off the charts – with students doing almost everything for the weekend. Taffy and the team did a great job of leading an dpreparing for this weekend.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: A The summer interns had a great programming bit up their sleeve that I had no idea about! They interrupted the game that I thought we were doing, to do a full musical number “Time of My Life” complete with confetti and streamers. Made my night – we gave each of them and engraved gold medal in honor of the Olympics as well.

Music Playlist: Count Me In, Pure and Holy Passion, The Stand, Take It All

Favorite Moment: I love the simple paintings on stage – each of the 12 disciples were painted (somewhat cartoony) and hung from the ceiling. At the end of the message, after talking about each of the disciples, they turned the pictures around and pictures of ordinary students were pasted on the back. During the response songs at the end, students were looking at ordinary students like themselves and the call of being a disciple.

Overall grade: A-

Add Comment August 10, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 14

Message Title: Confessions of an Ex-Homecoming Queen (featuring Allison Murray)
Sermon in a Sentence: The pressures of life get in the way of students living the way God intended – authentic, real and genuine before Him.

Key Verse: The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. John 10:10

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 5 out of 10. The one-hit wonders with different speakers are hitting us in a nice groove this summer. Getting ready for a powerful fall and the new 40 Days of Love whole-church campaign.

Attendance: down 16% from last weekend, up 31% from the same weekend last year.
Service Length: 75 minutes
Understandable Message: A- Allison Murray, one of our 2-years interns, is finishing up her last weekend here on staff. She’s a great small group leader with a great story, so we took the chance this weekend to share her story with our students at our entry-level program. Because there were so many stories in her talk, the message was very understandable. We together agreed that she could have used more Scripture during the talk, but she did a great job keeping students connected with a great illustration and some interactive elements along the way.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: B/B+ Volunteers were actively involved at the tables and greeting students. Students led in the band, and handed out programs and pens as people entered. Students were on stage for the opening game and also one came up as an illustration during the message.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: B+ “Church is boring” went right out the window when we opened up with Rock Band on the Wii at the beginning. After a silly countdown video called Nobody’s Perfect, we selected some students to come and perform a random track. It was so fun!

Music Playlist:. We Shine, Everlasting God, Inside Out, Mighty to Save

Favorite Moment: I have two favorite moments this week! There was great power in the standing ovation the students gave Allison this weekend, a response to her small group’s love for her and the impact she has made here for the past 2 years. I also enjoyed the song/arrangment of Inside Out this week, I think it just hit me where I needed it, a moving moment for sure. Solid weekend.

Overall grade: B+

Add Comment August 5, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 13

Message Title: Flooded (featuring Josh Pease)
Sermon in a Sentence: We’re sunk when we try to live on our own power because God wants us to do our good works through him instead of for him.

Key Verse: Jesus looked at them intently and said, ‘Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.’ Mark 10:27

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 4 out of 10. Pretty simple weekend, very few elements. One glitch in starting a video, but it turned into a funny bit.

Attendance: up 4% from last weekend, up 76% from the same weekend last year
Service Length: 70 minutes
Understandable Message: A Josh Pease used a story about getting his car stuck on a flooded street to illustrate how silly it is when we try to get unstuck in life on our own power while completely ignoring God’s ability and willingness to help. This was a strong message that was easy to understand and apply. Josh’s use of the illustration had two key attributes: it was memorable, it was immediately applicable to the student’s lives.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: B/B Volunteers were actively involved at the tables and greeting students. Students led in the band, and handed out programs and pens as people entered. Still noticed that many student leaders had isolated themselves to the separate balcony. A few students, however, stepped up.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: B The video of the cameras trying to keep up with Josh Pease at the beginning was very entertaining. It could probably be tied to the theme of the service, but I’m not sure that was the point. It seemed to be just an element of fun to reinforce the point that church doesn’t have to be boring; it can be fun.

Music Playlist: The Grateful, Salvation is Here, All I Need Is You Lord, Hosanna – Dominik dominated this weekend. He’s got great talent combined with a powerful passion for worship.

Favorite Moment: The most powerful moment of the night was near the end of Josh’s message. He finished telling the story of being stuck in the flood with his car. Nobody was around to help him. He didn’t want to turn to God for help because he was intentionally trying to keep God out of his life. The situation helped him realize that he can’t do everything on his own and that he needs God. The story of Josh reconnecting with God was powerful. The miraculous resolution to the crisis was even secondary to Josh’s telling how God had his attention and bonded with him in that moment.

Overall grade: B+

(this report was written by HSM volunteer Dennis Beckner)

Add Comment July 29, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 12

Message Title: Confessions of an Ex-Gangster (featuring JPetty)
Sermon in a Sentence: Gossip hurts people to a greater extent than we realize, so we must take godly steps to avoid it by talking in a way that praises people and honors God.

Key Verse: “Gossip separates the best of friends.” Proverbs 16:28

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 3 out of 10. Our easiest weekend in the Refinery yet, just a few elements. Programming for last week’s PDYM Conference was complex, so by comparison this weekend was a breeze.

Attendance: down 10% from the previous weekend, up 57% from the same weekend last year
Service Length: 71 minutes
Understandable Message: A- Petty used a story about his childhood “gang” to emphasize the way we treat people and “beat each other down” with our actions and words. He pointed out that he we gossip out of revenge and insecurity, but it’s a huge deal because it wrecks friendships and shows we don’t trust God. Petty challenged us to be like his friend Wally, who found the best in people and countered the gossip when others talked poorly of them. Griff ended the service with, “Petty was an ex-gangster; we hope you’ll become an ex-gossiper.”

Volunteer/Student Involvement: B/B Volunteers were actively involved at the tables and greeting students. Students led in the band, and handed out programs and pens as people entered. We were expecting a jump in student leadership, but many student leaders had isolated themselves to the separate balcony. A few students, however, stepped up.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: B The PDYM Student Leadership highlight video at the beginning was exciting; we hope it will draw more students to attend next year. Scotty dressed up like a gangster and did a rap on stage that made the crowd go wild. We had a gangster game and used the Interactive Church remotes to answer questions; the students enjoyed that.

Music Playlist: The Time Has Come, Breathe on Me, Grace, You Never Let Go

Favorite Moment: In the middle of Petty’s message, he asked the question, “Have you ever had a relationship that was hurt by gossip?” He asked people to respond with their Interactive Church remotes with either “A. Yes” or “B. Not yet.” About 80% responded “Yes,” powerfully illustrating just how prevalent and painful gossip can be. Petty talked very personally with the students and connected on a deep level.

Overall grade: B+

(this report was written by HSM summer intern Kyle Cleveland)

Add Comment July 23, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts HSM Weekend in Review: Volume 11

Weekend Teaching Series: Save the Planet (3 of 3)
Message Title: Broken Planet, Broken People
Sermon in a Sentence: A look at how the world is messed up because of sin and how people are messed up, too.

Key Verse: Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous. Romans 5:18,19

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 6 out of 10 – we made significant changes to the original order of service after the 4:30 service that really helped flow and energy.

Attendance: up 13% from the previous weekend, up 73% from the same weekend last year
Service Length: 67 minutes
Understandable Message: B+The message was really the classic story of Jesus coming to save the planet. This weekend focused on the spiritual aspect of the series theme, clearly showing the curse of sin and God’s plan for forgiveness. The whole point of the weekend was a celebration of salvation and extending an invitation to others to experience God’s love.

Volunteer/Student Involvement: B/A- There weren’t any volunteers on stage this weekend, but they were actively involved in the crowd and at the tables. Several sat in the balcony as well, helping first time students feel welcome. One of our adults did several paintings on stage this weekend as well. Students led in the band, and handed out programs and pens as people entered. I’m expecting student leadership to really jump after this week.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: B Most of the fun was in the message – we wanted this week to feel epic as the ending to the series so we left some of the game-type stuff off the radar this week. There was still plenty of fun in the message/welcome and the environment was cool.

Music Playlist: Meant to Live (cover), All Because of Jesus, Louder Than Creation, Rain Down

Favorite Moment: We had 3 paintings on stage this weekend, to represent each of the 3 weeks of the series and the progression of the story. Check them out here – so cool.We had students text in response to the invitation – we celebrate the students that accepted Christ. Yeah! Changed lives is what it is all about.

Notes: The Bottles for Bibles campaign got off to a strong start with 750 bottles collected. This weekend took place just before the start of the PDYM Student Leadership Conference is this week.

Overall grade: B