- Oh, Denver Broncos and Jay Cutler how did it come to this? Not sure where I land on this one. Broncos: How could you have been so stupid as to let it slip that you were interested in somebody else?  Cutler: I understand you’re ticked off, but swallow your pride. Are you really willing to get traded just to prove a point?

- Race To Witch Mountain: Not often I see a kids movie that borders on lousy, but this one does.

- Girl Scout Cookies: You haven’t touched my lips in years. But I bought a few boxes of you this year and I think I love you.

- For the first time in a long time (maybe the first time ever), we are completely stealing a series from our high school group. “Sunday Old School” is a very junior high-friendly series they just completed that we are kicking off in two weeks.

- Next week marks the return of our Purpose-driven Youth Ministry Conference!  I am a lot more excited than I thought I would be.  If you are joining us, be sure to track me down and say hello.

- I am seriously thinking about purchasing about 5 acres of desert property. You can buy it for the cost of an expensive dinner date (okay, it’s not quite that cheap, but close) and for some odd reason I really like the thought of owning a chunk of land to pass down to future generations. Of course I can just see the [...]

Continue Reading “Random Randomness”

A large portion of our time at this year’s Junior High Summit was spent in discussion with Dave Gibbons, Pastor of New Song Church and author of The Monkey and The Fish. If you have any interest in doing church a little differently, having a global mindset, and thinking outside the box, his book is a must read. 

The conversation was really rich and I’m sure I will post more thoughts about it all but wanted to share two random, mostly unconnected tidbits that jumped out.

1) RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: In order to avoid becoming obsolete, many of the world’s leading companies spend a lot of time and money on R&D. Gibbons sited google as an example….apparently, a very large portion of their budget is spent in this area to help make sure they are constantly moving forward.  Might churches be wise to adapt a similar strategy? Might junior high ministries be wise to do the same?  If so, what type of “R&D” should we be doing?  That’s worth thinking about.

2) MINISTRY TO THE “FRINGES”: One of the ways churches can continue to grow, thrive, reflect kingdom principles etc. is to purposely neglect the “vortex” of our ministry and look for ways to adapt to the changing culture around us. By allowing leaders to experiment with stuff outside our usual methods, programs, strategies etc. (the “vortex”), we give our ministries a chance to adapt to the changes going on all around us instead of simply clinging on to our comfortable vortexy (my [...]

Continue Reading “R&D, Vortexes and Fringes”

I’m away at a junior high ministry summit for a few days and won’t be blogging. A couple quick updates:

- Our first weekend of “School Wars” was shockingly successful. I’m super excited about the next two weeks.

- An interesting part of “School Wars” is that we are cancelling music for all three weeks. Partly because having music simply doesn’t fit the program and partly just to give our band kids a break.

- As I type this, I am waiting to hear the results of my son’s doctor appointment. He broke his wrist over five months ago, but we didn’t realize the severity of the injury and waited FOUR months to take him to the doctor! Today we find out if it looks like the bone is healing or if he will need surgery to repair and pin his wrist.

- The 21 Junior High Ministry experts I am with four three days are an amazing group of people. Each year I leave our time together feeling sharpened and inspired. I’m sure this year will be no different.

I come from the perspective that there are very few “neutral observers” in the world, thatscientists, futurists, cultural observers and the like almost always approach their craft with a built-in bias; they begin the process with something to prove. Therefore, there exists a tendency to pay more attention to evidence that supports your bias than to evidence that seems to be contrary to what you hope to prove, discover or observe in action.  All of us could make a good sized list where this is obviously happening (creation vs. evolution, global warming, the economy, foreign policy etc.).

And, it’s happening in youth ministry. The conversation about the current state and future of youth ministry is such an important one. So important, in fact that I wonder if we do the conversation harm when we ignore the fact that much of our observation of youth ministry, how we interpret the history of youth ministry, what we think of the current state of youth ministry and where we think it is or should be headed in the future is clouded by a host of outside influences. Our theology, our own personal youth group experiences when we were teenagers, our lack of youth group experiences when we were teenagers, how we have been treated by church leadership, how our parents modeled or didn’t model healthy faith, the size of our church, the pressure we feel or don’t feel to ‘perform’…..all of these and a massive host of other things totally influence us and shape our youth [...]

Continue Reading “An Admitted Bias…”

It’s Thursday and much is happening in life and ministry. Slowing down for a few minutes to think about some randomness feels pretty good right now!

- School Wars: Lots of people have asked me to explain School Wars, our 3-week outreach emphasis that kicks-off this weekend. The best way to describe it is that it is somewhat similar to classic team competition at Summer camps or in youth groups of yester-year. We are forming 8 school-based teams that will compete in a wide variety of competions (nobody will be forced to participate…..volunteers only) over the course of three weekends. The atmosphere will be an “American Gladiators meets Mad Max meets urban jungle” with volunteers dressed up and serving as team captians. Instead of a 3-week teaching “series” we are basically going to present the gospel message differently all 3 weeks. So, each week is actually the same message wrapped up differently.

- Jersey Mike’s: Do you have one in your area? I’m a lover of sandwiches, and Jersey Mike’s is my new favorite. So tasty.

- Fired Up About: I’m a little fired up over all the talk about how broken, innafective, outdated, and (insert favorite criticism here) the local church and youth ministry are. Really, we suck that bad? Or is it just in vogue to take pot shots right now?

- Best Movie That I Bet You Haven’t Seen: “Flash of Genius” is a wonderful movie about the invention of the intermittent windshield wiper and the saga of one man’s fight [...]

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When I re-designed my blog, I switched it over to word press because I have been told forever how awesome it is (actually, I didn’t re-design my blog, Chris Davis did, and I didn’t switch it over to word press, he did because he knows how to do those types of things!). But I’m having trouble figuring it all out. I’m not a techie so switching to a new platform for my blog (wait, maybe I am a techie….I just used the word ‘platform’. Not sure if I used it right, though.) is proving to be rather stressful.  But it does look like Word Press will be smoother for me and easier to use once I actually figure it out. But that means I have to actually try to figure it out which takes effort and techie skills. Shoot.

It snuck up on me, and it came and went without fanfare (not that it really deserves any), and I’m certainly the only one who keeps track, but yesterday marked my 12-year anniversary here at Saddleback. This morning as I was spending a little bit of time reflecting on my experience here that began in 1997, many things flooded my mind. Most of them were good.  Of course, I can’t think about my life at Saddleback without thinking of Pastor Rick and the role he has played in my ministry journey. And while Rick is certainly a great leader and visionary and I have learned A TON in formal staff meetings etc., it’s the smaller little interactions and observations that have made the greatest impact on my life. I could literally list dozens and dozens, but here are three:

- His lifestyle of contentment and generosity. Certainly when you sell 30 million books it becomes easier to be generous and content, right? I’m not sure. I tend to believe that success and money usually serve to heighten our character flaws not eliminate them and replace them with new virtues. In other words: Whoever you are in want is who you will be in plenty.  Before his window of afluence and influence opened up, Rick was generous, content and modeled that to the rest of us at Saddleback. Today he lives in the same house he has lived in for years and years, he drives an old Ford Expedition (in fact my Expedition is just [...]

Continue Reading “Happy Anniversary To Me…”

After spending three days with some really wonderful junior high/middle school youth workers, I am reminded of a few things. Generally, junior high youth workers…

- Are incredibly enthusiastic and passionate about this age group. This makes sense considering the fact that most of them are volunteer or part-time, that junior high ministry is still considered the place to “cut your teeth”, and that junior high ministry still, in many churches, is almost a “purgatory” between children’s ministry and high school ministry. There really aren’t a whole lot of external reasons to be involved in this ministry which I think makes those who are a little more passionate about what they do.

- Are good thinkers. I had so many good conversations about young teen ministry with fellow youth workers who really want to do it right and make an impact. It truly felt like an “iron sharpening iron” weekend.

- Are staying involved longer. It felt like a larger-than-usual percentage of attendees were junior high ministry veterans. Because junior high ministry is often the entry point to youth ministry, the turn-over rate is really high. That trend feels like it is slowing down a bit and it seems that there are A) more full time junior high youth workers who feel called to stay in it longer, B) More part time positions at churches which allows the church to keep somebody involved longer, and C) more volunteers who have fallen in love with this age group and are simply [...]

Continue Reading “Junior High Youth Workers”

If you work with middle school kids and don’t read Mark Ostreicher’s blog, you really need to. His post yesterday was a great reminder of why I respect him so much and enjoy reading whatever he writes.

I’m thankful for the friendship we have forged over the years, and even more thankful that it isn’t a “cookie-cutter” relationship of complete like-mindedness. We differ theologically and methodologically (not even sure he knows what a “method” is), and he is one of the sharpest minds in youth ministry while I am one of the more simple-minded guys out there. A conversation between us is likely to look like this:

Marko: “Dude, (he’ll start with that word to make you think he isn’t all that smart), what do you think about the emerging, post-emergent, incarnational, communal, ecclesiastical, eschatological and formational implications of the current state of young teen ministry?” Note: I’m not sure I spelled all those big words correctly.

Me: “Dude, (I also start with that word to make you think I’m not all that smart) you wanna play dodge ball and then eat stuff?

Now THAT is an iron-sharpening iron relationship! This morning I’m thankful for Mark Ostreicher. I’m thankful that God is using him to shake me up a little bit and make me think outside my box. I’m VERY thankful that God is using him to do the same thing to the youth ministry world at large.

My question to you is this: Who do you have in your life [...]

Continue Reading “YSMARKO.COM”

I have no answers, and I’m not even sure WHAT I think about these things, but this is stuff on my mind today:

- Where is youth ministry really headed? Does it have to be headed anywhere specific? Is it our role to try to figure that out and direct it that way?

- When does being pragmatic become a liability? To me, theology and doctrine without practical application is somewhat pointless but I wonder at what point pragmatism gets in the way?

- If Christ were to whisper into my ear his top 5 priorities for youth ministry, what would they be (pragmatism at it’s finest!)?

- If I eat two chili dogs for lunch, what are the odds I will suffer from heart burn later?