A recurring theme in our junior high team conversations lately seems to revolve around the value of providing students with variety vs providing them with consistency.  Here are some areas of ministry that this has bubbled to the surface:

- Weekend Music: Is it better to have one music/worship leader that is in front of students each weekend, or is it better to mix it up? One leader can build momentum, create a consistent level of quality, create a music “culture”, build relationships with students off stage that helps the “on stage” presence be more effective etc.  Having a variety of music leaders….four or five that rotate….has some obvious benefits, too.

- Seating and room set up: Is it better for students to have a consistent experience (be that around tables, in rows, on the floor) that they can depend on or is mixing it up better?

- Large Group teacher: Is a team approach better than having one person who does bulk of the teaching?

Much of this discussion, if not all of it, comes from the fact that we have been mixing things up much more lately than we ever have. In my mind, it makes a TON of sense to have a ton of variety in our weekend program. But, the interesting thing is that after a few months of variety, I’m feeling oddly drawn back to some sort of consistency. I feel like students never know what to expect when they come through our doors…which is something I thought would be a really good thing, but am beginning to question.

Let’s hear from you: How much variety is too much? Do young teens flourish in a stable environment? How do you wrestle with this?

- The new Simply Junior High catalog can now be accessed online. If you work with young teens, there are some great new resources.

- Speaking of new resources, we are getting ready to film THREE new sets of small group video curriculum next week which will include Bible Stuff 3: The Red Stuff (words of Christ), Bible Stuff 4: Smart Stuff (book of Proverbs) and Tempting Stuff. I’m super excited that Scott Rubin, the junior high Pastor at Willow Creek, will be teaching The Red Stuff series!  Look for all three sets of curriculum to be available by late Summer.

- Just read this article which I found to be quite interesting. It was passed on to me by Jana Sarti, the director of our intern ministry.

- I am sitting in Starbucks dreading my 11:00 dental appointment. Since I really dislike going, I haven’t been to the dentist since 2005! Let the fun begin.

This is my first post all week because I have been in three full days of youth ministry discussions that  has captured my thinking. Without going into details, here are nutshell highlights of some discussions I’ve been in:

1) Our student ministry “Core Leadership” (department heads, directors and regional campus leads) escaped for a couple of days to discuss two key areas:  1, what do you LOVE and HATE about youth ministry? 2, What did you think about this book (I had an advanced copy that I photocopied, with the author’s permission, to give the team)? Both discussions were really rich and the second one led to some great conversation about how we can better train our adult leaders to be good question askers, listeners and fellow journeyers instead of “answer givers” and “information imparters”.

2) We talked A LOT about what a good “entry level”  weekly large-group program for students really looks like. How important is a tight program? Is a program that is jam-packed with games, videos, comedy bits etc. really all that much better than a fairly trimmed-down program? Do students value the production quality as much as we think they do? Would we be better off spending less time during the week on production of the program and more time with the leaders and students who come to it?

3) Today I was with a group of about 20 junior high youth workers and we talked about a bunch of different stuff.  We talked about teaching: How important is it to have a teaching strategy? How important is the lesson anyway?  How does the “feel” of our program help or hurt the impact of the lesson time?  We talked about camps: How much is too much to pay for a camp experience? How important is camp? Are there alternatives to traditional camp?  We talked about discipleship: Is a strategic discipleship program better than a loose, organic approach? Just because a student goes through a class and fills in a booklet full of blanks, are they truly discipled? How do we find and train leaders who want to put the time into relational discipleship?

Needless to say, I have lots to think about!

- Church in jeopardy of loosing it’s meeting space over sex series.

- Serbian union leader eats his own finger. Talk about dedication to a cause!

- Have you seen iCarly? Your younger students sure have!

- Some interesting history about Hollister.

- Random, obligatory Broncos news.

Ever find yourself super busy doing all sorts of super good, even important, ministry stuff but wondering if you are doing the right ministry stuff? I know that just because something is good, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good for my schedule, my ministry, my family etc. Below is a list of the major “stuff” I’m participating in over the next 6 weeks or so. It’s all good, but is it all good for me? 

JUNIOR HIGH BELIEVE: I leave tomorrow and fly home Sunday. I speak at this event twice each year and absolutely love it. It gives me a chance to speak to students outside my own church which I don’t do very often.

CORE TEAM RETREAT: Next Tuesday-Wednesday I will take our “core” team away (youth ministry department heads and directors from our four campuses) for a time of team building, brainstorming etc.

SMALL GROUP VIDEO CURRICULUM: On May 12-13 I will be filming 15 junior high small group lessons. I actually only teach about half of them, but play a role in the whole process. This serves two purposes: It provides great bible studies for my own students as well as providing a good resource for other junior high youth pastors.

TEACHING IN COLLEGE MINISTRY: On May 14 I am slotted to guest speak in our college ministry. The primary reason I try to do this every May is because they allow me to recruit summer volunteers. Last year after I spoke, we had 21 college kids sign up to be summer volunteers, camp counselors etc.

6th GRADE PARENTS NIGHT: On May 15 we are hosting (check this out: the children’s department is actually the host AND they are paying for it!) a “Help, I’m The Parent of a Junior Higher” event. I will be sharing with parents of incoming junior highers.

GUEST SPEAKING AT MY HOME CHURCH: On May 17th I am speaking at my home church in Whittier, CA. This is the church I attended as a teenager, it’s where I came to know Christ, It’s where I met Rachel and it’s where I served for the first six years of my junior high ministry career. after two Sunday morning services, I will be speaking to their entire church leadership at a luncheon.

Of course all of this is on top of my day-to-day duties as our student ministries and junior high Pastor.

To say I’m overwhelmed and bordering on paralyzed is probably an understatement.  All of this stuff is good, and all of this stuff has meaning, value and ‘pay-off’ of some sort.  But is it the RIGHT stuff? Is it stuff I should be doing now?  Does God really look at this list and say, “Yep Kurt, that’s exactly how I want you spending your time.”? I know that life is about juggling…..I’m just not sure I’m juggling wisely. I feel like something is bound to drop.

Ever feel the same way? What do you do in those times?

About 10 months ago, our student ministry department moved into an amazing new facility. “The Refinery” is about 52,000 indoor, and close to the same amount of outdoor, space that consists of a multi-purpose gymnasium, a theater, an indoor half-court, games, pool tables, eating areas, coffee shop, deli, outdoor grill house, high def monitors throughout and more. I’m thankful for it , but truthfully it’s more than any youth group really needs.

Which brings me to a plot of dirt.

last night I was giving an old college friend and his ministry team a tour of the building and  I couldn’t wait to point out my favorite part of the whole place: a backyard-sized plot of dirt surrounded by some trees. 

You see, this plot of dirt is our “camp ground”. It’s set apart to be a place for small groups to set up a few tents, light a fire and spend the night together. There is still some work to be done on it (trees aren’t grown in well enough to provide privacy etc.), and it hasn’t yet been used to it’s potential. BUT….in a high tech youth ministry world of facebook, iPhones, texting, twitter, blogs, video production and state-of-the-art youth buildings a simple plot of dirt where conversation can flourish, relationships can be strengthened, and memories made is my favorite part!

This past weekend we kicked off a two week series on Global Missions/PEACE (Saddleback’s missions strategy). Two weeks on missions isn’t the easiest junior high topic, but I think we got it started on the right foot.  A few big picture reminders from this weekend’s program:

1) While the band we had was REALLY good musically and vocally, they lacked anybody who really wanted to “lead” the crowd in singing. As a result, music really lagged this week because interaction from stage was pretty much non-existent. It was a great reminder that junior high kids really do need somebody to lead them in worship and singing.

2) Video is still tough to beat. Yes, it can be over-used but pound for pound, I’m convinced students still enjoy video elements in a program as much or more than anything else. We had two fun (and super cheesy) videos this weekend, and both of them stood out as highlights.

3) The jury is out concerning seating around tables. As much as I love the concept, having junior high students sit around tables is really problematic. I think the only way it truly works is if there is an adult at every single table. The biggest problem for me is this: While it makes conversation, interaction etc. really easy for connected kids and outgoing kids, it is brutally painful for a shy or loner student if he/she has to sit around a table and there is no adult there help facilitate a healthy experience.

- A couple days ago I twittered asking for some book recommendations and got a ton of great responses. Because there were so many, I decided to try something fun: I asked my assistant, Karen, to compile them into a list and then to choose the three titles that seemed most interesting to her and those would be the ones I read first. Her email to me after she ordered the first three books was hilarious:

“Just so you know, I totally prayed over my selections that God would lead me to order good ones. If these are crappy, blame him!!!!!”

So…the next three books I will read based on your recommendations then picked by Karen will be “The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith” by Timothy Keller, “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto” by Mark R. Levin and “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us” by Seth Godin

- We are kicking off a short, two-week, series on PEACE (Saddleback’s local and global missions strategy). While I’m super excited about it, I’m also a little apprehensive because I’m not sure two weeks is enough time to properly address the issue but I also know that teaching about missions for any longer would likely bore our weekend crowd.

- Our children’s ministry here at Saddleback is led by an amazing group of people. Next month as a gift to our ministry they are hosting a “preparing for junior high” event for 6th graders and their parents. They are footing the bill, they are doing all the grunt work and they are putting a ton of effort into promoting it……all for 6th graders that they are losing! Our junior high team will be completely freed up at the event to meet parents and students, answer questions etc. I would be interested to know what type of relationship your children’s ministry and youth ministry have. Ours is as good as I’ve ever experienced right now.

I found this article about Domino’s recent PR nightmare really good. While the focus is on responding to internet and social networking related PR problems, I couldn’t help but see some correlations to how me might better respond when our junior high ministries take a PR hit with….be it real or perceived.

My life the past year has been a blur of busyness. There has been so much going on in my life and ministry that I have, numerous times, felt almost paralyzed by the “list” of responsibilities, opportunities, options, decisions etc. in front of me on any given day.

My number one love in ministry is simply leading my junior high team here at Saddleback. I have been in junior high ministry since 1988 and it is still my primary calling and the thing that brings me an incredible amount of fulfillment. But the truth is I just CAN’T (and shouldn’t!) do everything all the time…..even stuff I really like.  Today, I took some time to remind myself of what I think my primary roles are; the stuff that the primary leader of a ministry really can’t ask others to do on his/her behalf. Here’s my list….feel free to add or delete in the comments section.

NURTURE MY SOUL: Taking care of my soul is my primary role.

CREATE THE CULTURE OF OUR MINISTRY: How does our ministry “feel”?  How do we treat other team members? What are our values etc.?

POINT THE WAY: Where are we headed? What are our goals? What’s our purpose? What do we want to see accomplished in our midst?

SELL THE VISION: Once God gives me the direction we’re heading, pointing the way is only part of the leadership process. Not everybody will like where I’m pointing! That’s where selling the vision comes in.

EQUIP THE TROOPS: Others can help equip my team, but the primary load falls on me.

MAKE THE IMPORTANT DECISIONS:  I can empower others to make lots of day to day decisions, but the biggies fall on me.

TAKE THE HEAT WHEN THINGS GO WRONG: My role as the leader is to protect others on my team as much as possible when something goes wrong.

PASS THE PRAISE WHEN THINGS GO RIGHT: When something goes right it’s my job to pass the praise and make sure others get the credit.

BEAT THE DRUM: Vision, purpose, where we are heading, etc. isn’t a one-time job, and nobody should be more passionate about it than the leader. My role is to constantly beat the various drums.