This past weekend was one of the best in a really long time. We formally kicked off our “experiment” around tables (we sat around tables last weekend but that was a spontaneous dry run) and, frankly, it couldn’t have gone better.

ATTENDANCE: Attendance was really high, I think we are finally out of the Holiday slump that seems to hit our youth ministry each year.

FUN FACTOR: Last week’s program was minimal, but this week was one of the fullest, funniest and most fun we’ve had in a while. We kicked off our 3-week “Friends” series. virtually every aspect of our program tied into the subject matter and sitting around tables allowed for more creative programming as well as some discussion time after the lesson.

LESSON: The lesson seemed better than usual. I kept it short and sweet to allow for about 10 minutes of table discussion that seemed to go fairly well. This week’s lesson, The Power Of Friendship, focused on some of the reasons friendships are such a powerful force, for good or bad, in our lives.

MUSIC: Music was great! Entirely led by our junior highers, and we had a couple of new ‘recruits’ playing for the first time.

VOLUNTEER INVOLVEMENT: Very high. We had a fair number of our mid-week small group leaders commit to leading a table during this three week series. They did a fantastic job of leading their tables, which really does seem like the key to a table format.

I spent a few minutes on the phone with a Youth Pastor this morning and somewhere along the way, the conversation touched on “bottlenecks”…those things that get in the way and slow ministry down. We didn’t identify any, just mentioned the concept briefly. Since then I’ve been thinking about junior high ministry and some of the potential bottlenecks youth groups face. Here are three that have jumped out.

MICRO-MANAGEMENT
My job as the point person for our junior high ministry is to empower, equip and encourage the paid and volunteer team I lead. When I get too caught up in details and try to micro-manage every aspect of our ministry it only slows things down and ultimately discourages growth. I have also learned that if my direct supervisor is a micro-manager, ministry is slowed down just as much because I don’t feel the freedom to empower others and let ministry loose. Really, micro-management anywhere in the “chain of command” serves to slow down all areas of ministry below.

“PERSONALITY-DRIVEN” LEADERSHIP
Since the point person’s role is to empower, equip and encourage others to lead, what happens if that leader insists on being in charge of, present at, on stage during and getting credit for every piece of ministry? Obviously ministry slows down. As your ministry grows and expands, it’s impossible for the point person to be a major force in everything. I believe this is one of the major bottlenecks to healthy ministry. Sure, a charismatic leader can attract a crowd [...]

Continue Reading “Identifying Bottlenecks”

- Every now and then I will read the Huffington Post. It’s a bit too liberal for my tastes but I find it quite interesting. Recently I stumbled across this article about global warming. I believe in global warming but wonder if it hasn’t been radically exaggerated for political and financial gain. I was surprised to see an opinion like this one voiced at the Huffington Post.

- I am just finishing up Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers, and have found it to be my favorite Gladwell work yet. If you like sociological stuff, you will find this riveting, I think.

- I am, for some reason, struggling to write small group discussion questions on the topic of Sex and Dating. I have taught it hundreds of times, but we’ve never introduced it in our small group setting. I think the tension is creating something on a tough topic that our adult volunteers feel comfortable and confident leading.

- It doesn’t happen often, but today I find myself feeling rather melancholy…sad almost.

We had a good, but interesting, weekend. We kicked off a month-long experiment of seating students around tables instead of in rows. For years and years, this practice was a habit of our high school ministry and we never had the room to do it in our JH meeting space. Plus, I liked the idea of holding it back so when students entered the high school program it felt new and different….”Wow, we get to sit around tables instead of in rows!”. I’m not sure they ever really got that excited about it, but that was my hope. But in our new building, the high school auditorium won’t accommodate tables due to the sloped floor and fixed seating, and our JH room is plenty large so we decided to take an old high school strategy and try it in our JH program.

Even though it will be much more work to find the appropriate number of adult table leaders, write some discussion questions around our lessons etc. there really is a TON of potential with the tables. Our program instantly felt smaller, more relational, more ‘visitor friendly’ and it gave way more ownership to our volunteer leaders. I’m not sure we will make it a permanent fixture in our program, but it does have some promise.

ATTENDANCE: Attendance was a little low…still feels like families are in a holiday hangover of sorts.

FUN FACTOR: The program was super minimal; a game, a fun “Top 10″ list and music. We bolstered the program [...]

Continue Reading “Weekend Wrap Up”

I’ve never been good at reflecting, and as a result I think I often fail to cherish, to grow, to learn and to thank God for his ongoing work in my life. ‘08 was a very, very full year in many ways. A few learnings from this year that stick out:

- If you let them, the nature of youth ministry, the expectations of your church and the expectations you put on yourself will overwhelm you. I feel like all three were in full effect this year and, to be honest, I didn’t manage any of them the way I would have liked. For the first time in a 20-plus year career I felt “at the end of my rope” more often than not.

- My wife is amazing. I don’t talk about her much, she never travels with me and very few people outside our circle of friends and our junior high group would recognize her if they saw her. When we got married seventeen years ago, she was an 18-year old college freshman who really had no idea what she was getting into. She has already spent almost half of her young life playing a vital role in my ministry, cheering me on, loving the people around her and being an incredible mom.

- I have really good friends. My closest circle of friends is an amazing bunch of about 5 people. I gain so much from their friendship and need to work at making sure I enrich them in equal [...]

Continue Reading “Looking Back”

Won’t post month for the next week or so due to the fact that we are out in the desert with the family.
I hope you had an incredible christmas and have found some time to relax, reflect and rejoice.

We didn’t have junior high or high school ministry programs this weekend due to our church-wide Christmas services, so I have no wrap up to report.

But, I am working on a fun little ‘bit’ for next weekend and thought we could all contribute and all have something fun for our next Junior High service. I want to create a silly Top 10 list.

Here’s the List: “TOP 10 MOST RETURNED CHRISTMAS GIFTS OF 2008″
The list needs to be completely goofy. Add as many as you want and then we can all pick and choose the ones that work for us.

A few to get us started:

- “Will It Burn?” By Hasbro
- “Official Belly-button lint from a guy who went to junior high with a girl who knows the Jonas Brothers”
- “Bag O’ Cherry Flavored Glass” from Brach’s Candy Company
- The 2009 Kurt Johnston swimsuit calendar (insert name of appropriately funny guy from your group).

As you can see, I need help. But maybe we can create a funny bit we can all use.

- Sitting in the coffee shop I have a perfect view of the snow atop our local foothills. It happens once or twice a year and only stays for a couple days so it’s a fun treat for the eyes. It could also be a fun treat for the body if one is willing to hike about three hours as there is no access for vehicles. I’ll enjoy it from a distance, thank you.

- To be honest, I’m really shocked at how much outrage/controversy/firestorm Rick Warren’s invitation to participate in Obama’s inauguration has stirred up….mostly from those on the left who feel somehow betrayed by Obama. That they don’t understand politics, and that’s exactly what this is, confuses me. Every President has a pastor give an invocation, and to ask Rick Warren who represents the faith of such a large number of Americans is a savvy political olive branch for Obama to extend. I’m constantly amazed at how intolerant those who holler for it the loudest often are. Plus….me likey Rick Warren.

- Tonight we have our Christmas edition of “The 3″ which is our monthly Junior High outreach night. We’ve got pictures with Santa, Christmas Carolokee, A Christmas Scavenger hunt, A “snowball fight” and more planned. Should be fun.

- The countdown has begun for our annual dirt-bike trip to the desert (Ocotillo Wells) the morning after Christmas. We go riding several times a year, but this is always our longest trip. The only dilemma so far is that I [...]

Continue Reading “Random Randomness”

This past weekend was one of our best in a long time. We had it packed with music, fun programing and a really good message. BUT, it was also a tough one. For some reason we just couldn’t dial it in. My message was good one service, but not the next. A game was well received by one crowd but not another etc. It was really a roller coaster weekend. The highlight of the weekend may have been two first-time students who came in late, missed all the “fun” and only got to hear the lesson. One of our volunteers overheard them talking on the way out about how much they liked the lesson and how much it made them think. Very cool.

MUSIC: Music this week was really good. We sang Christmas songs and had two special numbers that were led by soloists…one by a 7th grade girl and one by an 8th grade girl. We had 5 songs which is more than usual but it flowed well.

FUN & GAMES: Another round of “Jaime I Help You?” went pretty well. This week he recycled diapers to make a diaper wreath and used a pickle jar to make a funny snow globe. We showed a video comparing/contrasting Jesus and Santa which was actually pretty powerful, a crew of our team did a fun rip-off of an old SNL Christmas song bit, and we played a game in which students bobbed in eggnog looking for [...]

Continue Reading “Weekend Wrap Up”