Posted by Kurt Johnston

I don’t use the word “genius” very often. My 8th grade son, however, thinks the word is…well….genius, and used it quite liberally.

His most recent use was when we were listening to a song on the radio.  After a line in the song that says, “I want to be on the cover of Forbes magazine, smiling next to Oprah and the queen…” he blurted out that the song was genius. 

 “On the cover of Forbes magazine, smiling next to Oprah AND the queen?  That’s genius”  were Cole’s exact words. 

Genius? probably not.  Catchy song? For sure.  Of course if you can write a line that 8th graders all across America think is “genius” then maybe it is.

I’m having trouble uploading the video, but here is the link.  CAUTION: Foul language in the comments section of video.

Posted by Kurt Johnston

This past Sunday I visited one of our regional campuses to see their youth ministry in action. It’s something I try to find time to do on a semi-regular basis but in reality don’t end up doing as often as I would like, mostly because all three of our regional campuses are lead by incredible youth Pastors who don’t need me looking over their shoulders.

I was reminded of the power of healthy leadership yesterday when visiting our Irvine campus led by Leo Galarza. What I saw Sunday was really encouraging: The ministry recently split JH and HS into two separate groups and each is growing since the split, both bands were led by student leaders, volunteers were EVERYWHERE….teaching, running audio, greeting students, setting up and tearing down.

The whole thing was quite impressive, actually. And it was all because of Leo. but here’s the twist: Leo was nowhere to be found…in fact due to some family issues, Leo has been out of the country for almost THREE months!

Make no mistake, Leo is a strong leader and his presence is greatly missed….but his strength as a leader has been proven NOT by the fact that his presence is missed but by the fact that even though their leader is missed, nothing else about the youth ministry is missing at all!

For you to ponder:

- when you are going to be gone, how much work does it take for you to prepare everybody for your absence? The more you equip and empower others day-to-day, the more easily they can fill gaps left when you are away.

-

Posted by: Heather Flies

Some of us call it junior high ministry… some call it middle school ministry… some have 6-8th grades… some 7-8th grades… in our ministry, we have 7-9th graders.  I know, it’s weird, but I love it!  I love having students for three full years and I LOVE the depth and maturity my 9th graders bring to our ministry.

As much as I love it, with any three-year program, and I would argue even two year programs, it’s a challenge to keep that “top grade” engaged and fed.  Year after year, right around January, I hear statements like this from my top grade students:

–> “The seventh graders are so immature.”

–> “I don’t like the games we do.”

–> “I feel like you’re teaching to the 7th graders, not us.”

–> “I already know all this stuff.”

I’m not kidding, it’s the SAME comments EVERY year.  Even though we have a specified doctrinal class (year-long) for ninth graders only– even though I use Greek and Hebrew in my teaching– even though we engage 9th graders in leadership.  My initial response, if I’m honest, is to be annoyed, personally hurt, or indifferent.

This last year, however, my volunteer staff and I decided to take a different approach.

1) We were proactive: On our 8th grade retreat (just two months before they officially became 9th graders in our ministry), we had a straight forward conversation about the tendencies of 9th graders.  We challenged our incoming 9th graders to be different– to sit in the front row, rather than the back.  To engage the 7th graders and mentor them rather than ignore them.  To understand that we all need to be life-long learners & there is always something they can learn from the teaching.

2) We asked questions: One of the first weeks in January, we asked the 9th graders to stay after for ten minutes following our mid-week program.  We acknowledged, right off the bat, that they probably had noticed some differences between them and the 7th graders– they all laughed.  We said, “We want to honor you guys as our 9th graders– what are some things we could do that would help you to feel ministered to?”  They had some great ideas!

3) We listened AND responded to their ideas: For the remaining months, we chose one week to pull the 9th graders out half way through our mid-week program and go deeper into the topic.  During our “Love Spectrum” month for instance, we had 9th grade-only conversations about sexual pressures & temptations– a conversation we would have had to be more conservative about if 7th graders were in the room.  We also set up a couple 9th grade duos to coordinate the games for our mid-week program.

4) We created an event just for them: Last week, we held the inaugural “9th Grade Formal Dinner Cruise” on Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota’s finest and largest lakes (we have nearly 14,000 lakes! .  We gathered a group of 9th graders a month before the event and asked them to design the night’s program.  We marketed it as a 9th grade only event– “You have the opportunity to do something we’ve never done before!”  The response was amazing!  Girls found after-prom dresses at Macy’s for $23 and guys borrowed jackets and ties from their dads.  We met an hour before hand and took great pictures– most same gender, trying to promote the idea of it being a 9th grade event, not a date night.  Then, we cruised for three hours, enjoying food, mingling, and the “Red Carpet” theme.

From talking to many middle school ministers, I know this is a challenge for everyone– whether your top grade is 8th or 9th.  Much of it is developmental, I believe, but there are things you can do to engage them and honor them.  Trust me, it’s worth the time and effort!

Based on an extensive study by Luther Seminary, THE 9 unwraps nine “best practices” of youth ministries that seem to be finding success in their efforts to develop spiritual maturity in their students.

This is the first book I have written (co-authored with my friend, Tim Levert) that isn’t solely focused on junior high ministry. That, combined with the fact that much of the content was dictated by the results of the study, made it an interesting project for me.

If Youth ministry 2.0 is where we used to be, and youth ministry 3.0 is where we may be heading someday, then I think this book is an excellent resource for the current state of youth ministry in the local church.

Check it out here.

Posted By Jared Moine

MAN, I NEED VOLUNTEERS!

For the past couple weeks, I have noticed more and more that my service seems like “The Jared Show.” I preach, I run games, I give the announcements.  I would probably also lead the music, if I wasn’t afraid my singing would turn students away from Jesus!   I have always known that volunteers were important, I was one for years, but now the importance of adult volunteers is really hitting home for me. I have come into this new position of middle school pastor, and as I’m learning a new church, two things have really hit me about volunteers.

One, you can never have enough.  Finding more volunteers and learning more about the ones I already have is going to determine the effectiveness of my youth ministry in the first year. I’ll be the first one to admit that this is hard. I love students; that’s why I’m doing youth ministry, but I need adult volunteers if I hope to have a youth ministry larger than ten.  I need caring adults to help make my weekend service run; I need small group leaders to help grow a healthy ministry where students are known. I just need a team that I can rely on and empower to do more than I could ever do on my own. The plan is already in place to recruit more and work is being done to get to know better the adults who have already been serving at my new church. If you’re not in the season of recruiting more leaders I urge you to do it. Its hard and sometimes painful but well worth it because the second thing I have been learning about volunteers is that amazing, Godly adult volunteers are the backbone, hands, feet and really every other body part of a healthy youth ministry. I’m reminded of this point whenever I get to observe one of my volunteers being used by God. Whatever it might be, as volunteers are being used in the areas of their giftedness, God is given the glory. I’m trying to think of ways to better use, encourage, and grow the few volunteers I have and trusting God to multiply my workforce. I need more but I also need to use what I have to the best ability right now.  Last week I had my first “design team meeting” where I had some adults and high school students come to the office to help me come up with ideas for our next series. I think it went well and I think they enjoyed being able to speak into to vision for the services. Plus, we had a great time laughing at some of the more ridiculous ideas…like having Alex Ovechkin (hockey player and hometown hero in the DC area)  show up to a service just for shock value.  I also took a risk and allowed one of my college age volunteers run a game this weekend.   He did a great job, and it was nice to NOT be on stage for a few minutes.

If you aren’t recruiting volunteers I would encourage you to do so now, before the fall hits. As summer winds down and the school year starts, this is a great time to ask people to volunteer for your ministry. Promise to support them and do your best to train them, but don’t be afraid to ask them to help. If you have volunteers, spend this last month of summer getting to know them better and helping them to do even better ministry.

I know I need to do both!

Posted by Kurt Johnston

I am so excited to finally be able to announce that the first year of the LIVE small group curriculum for junior high students is all online and ready to roll!  As you prepare for a new school year of small groups, I hope you will consider investing in the LIVE curriculum.

It has been a long time since I have been this excited about a new resource…and I can’t wait for our small groups to start using it.  Check it out here, I think it may be a good fit for your ministry, too.

On Thursday afternoon of last week I got a phone call asking if I would be willing to speak in our adult services the upcoming weekend due to Pastor Rick having suffered an eye injury. The conversation went almost exactly like this:

voice on phone: Kurt, Pastor Rick is hoping you can teach this weekend…he is still in quite a bit of pain.

Kurt: Ummm….ummmm….sure. I would be happy to. Is there something specific for me to speak on?

Voice on phone: No….do you have something in your file you can use on short notice?

Kurt: Ummm….ummmm….I have only taught adults three times in my life so my file is pretty thin.

Voice on phone: Okay. Thanks a ton for being willing to help out…you will do a great job.

I love my Pastor, I love my church, I love that they felt comfortable making a last minute request, and I loved the opportunity to speak to the adult congregation at our church. Here are a few observations that struck me.

- Adults are a pretty easy audience. The pressure I felt was purely one of what I would call “content creation”….can’t give adults the same level of content you can give JH students….BUT adults are an easy audience! They all want to be there, they don’t send text messages or get up in large clumps to use the restroom. They don’t flick the ears of the kid in front of them and they don’t pass gas loud enough for the entire room to hear.

- Despite that….they really are just big teenagers. They have similar insecurities, similar struggles and similar hurts…..they are just packaged a little differently.

- Many of them have no clue about our youth ministry. I was shocked at how many parents introduced themselves to me saying things like, “we had no idea the youth ministry was in such capable hands” or, “we have never been down to the youth area…what else is going on for my teenager” etc. This was an eye opener for me and a reminder that no youth pastor can
assume parents are as informed, connected, in the loop etc as we often think.

- I am glad to be a junior high pastor! In 14 years at Saddleback, I have spoken in the adult services two times. I would certainly welcome the opportunity again, but last weekend reminded me that my giftedness and my calling (funny how those two things go together) revolves around ministry to young teens…and I couldn’t be happier!

Posted by Johnny Scott

I love the questions that jr highers ask. And by that I mean I usually hate the questions that jr highers ask in the middle of EVERY lesson that take us to a Sonny’s buffet of tangential abyss. Wow. That was therapeutic. I totally didn’t even know that was inside of me! ha!

I’m working on a project right now that is dealing with jr high students hearing and their calling from God. If you work with jr high kids you know they have a unique ability to dive into the deepest subjects that baffle man kind in one second and then wonder about how fart’s get their smell in the next. So as I am pounding through all the things a 6th grade jr high boy would ask about the subject, “hearing God’s calling”

(Some of you are laughing right now at the myriad of rabbit holes this daunting task alone has presented in theory)

You know that a question kind of like this is going to come up because you have most likely tried to answer it in the last week yourself, “Why doesn’t God do cool stuff like part the red sea anymore?”

Some of you answered this question like this: “The Lord enabled you to stop playing PSP long enough for me to get through an entire lesson! In my book that is a miracle in direct proportion to the Red Sea parting!”

With that in mind I took a stab at one of those types of questions. As always, please through in your two cents on the hot topic below with comments and real ministry moments. Here is the excerpt:

A specific word about Angels:
There would be no need for a book like this if God still used Angels as His main mode for telling us our calling. During Old testament times there were not copies of God’s word laying in the Tabernacle lost and found. But who are we to say God won’t fall back on the angel option instead of, say a text. So here is our official stance on hearing your calling from an angel: If an Angel told you to do something, it is God’s calling on your life. (They don’t carry angel identification cards from what we can see in the Bible. To identify an angel look for: music from out of nowhere, wings, glowing faces and robes that look the brightest white you’ve ever seen.) From our research we saw Angels had a two main jobs when appearing to mortals: telling people their calling from God or killing. So if you see an angel and they don’t say, “Do not be afraid”, then be afraid.

Posted By Kurt Johnston

By now you have probably heard about the unfortunate firing of a Department of Agriculture employee over race-related comments that have since appeared to br taken out of context.

In the article linked below you can read more of the details as well as see an example of what I believe was a missed opportunity for President Obama (hopefully it works…I’m still not quite sure how to do some basic functions on the iPad). When mistakes are made and things begin to go a little haywire, it is tempting for leaders to pass the buck and affix the blame elsewhere.

In this case the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, may be very much to blame….but I think Obama missed a great opportunity when he publicly pointed the finger Vilsack’s direction.

Our culture has created a climate where leaders are afraid to admit any level of fault because their foes are lurking in the shadows ready to pounce on any mistake or sign of weakness (sadly our church cultures are not a whole lot different). So in an attempt to look strong and confident leaders often reveal weakness and insecurity by pointing fingers and hoping none of the crap that just hit the fan splatters on them.

Why am I passionate about the topic? Because I have made the mistake several times myself and have seen the lack of trust it causes in those I lead. I have also managed to get it right a few
times and have enjoyed the trust it builds.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2010/07/obama-vilsack-jumped-the-gun-on-sherrods-ouster.html

Still learning,
Kurt