Our junior high ministry has lots of strengths, and more than its fair share of weaknesses! One of the things we seem to do best is get kids connected in a small group with about 10 peers and an adult leader or two.  We have a fairly defined purpose/goal for our small groups, but I often wonder if a “narrow focus” for our small group ministry as a whole is the right way to go, or if we would be wiser to loosen up a bit and let individual small groups take on their own feel and personality….in essence becoming a custom-made small group for the kids in that particular group.

CURRENTLY: Our small groups all meet on Tuesday or Wednesday night, they are expected to choose curriculum from a pre-approved “menu”, We create the calendar of meetings and events for them, they are all same grade/gender with no mixing of other “tribes”, they all meet for the primary purpose of “fellowship” with a strong dose of “discipleship”.

BUT WHAT IT: We loosened it up? what if groups could form however they want and meet whenever they want for whatever purpose they want? What if we trained and empowered our leaders to decide what the spiritual pace of their group is and pick their own curriculum…or have no curriculum at all!  I know things would get a bit squishy, hard to define, hard to measure and hard to control…but things would also get very interesting in a hurry.

We have probably all heard the saying, “It it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.  I believe that is a saying that has caused lots and lots of people and organizations to wait too long before they begin thinking about change and progress. The truth is, by the time something is noticeably broken it is often well beyond repair. I don’t know what, if anything, about our small group ministry will look different a year from now, but I’m thinking about it!

QUESTION:  Is there something in your ministry that is working well, maybe so well that you haven’t thought about how it might be improved? Try it…it’s kinda fun, and really important.

- As I type this, there is a 30-something guy in Starbucks spending time with a high school student…which is awesome. In the middle of what seemed to be pretty intense “mentoring” the guy’s phone rang and he took the call.  it TOTALLY ruined the moment.  May those of us who work with students be willing to be fully engaged (Kurt, preaching to himself).

-  Saw “Brothers” the other night. It’s rated R, so some may choose to avoid it but I found it quite compelling, disturbing, encouraging all at the same time. It is a little cliche, but a good story overall.

- I am swimming about 4 days a week and loving it. However, I have discovered that I am extremely hungry after swimming….WAY more so than after any other form of exercise. Any swimmers or health professionals out there that can explain this?

- Spent about 2 hours yesterday afternoon with Josh Griffin, our high school pastor, talking about youth ministry…specifically the future of ours. I think the next 5 years will take us on an incredible ride, and I’m thrilled he’s helping to lead the way.

- …Almost ten minutes later, and “30 something mentor/cell phone guy” is still yapping away while the high schooler is twiddling his thumbs…literally!  Uugghhhh!

The team I lead is in the early stages of some significant change,  and I’m learning something interesting about myself along the way: Even though I am the one who has initiated this, I may also be the one holding it back the most!

Here is my initial list of “why leaders who want to implement change  sometimes struggle to do so”.  Some of these I have seen in myself, and others came to mind while I was chewing on the subject. I would love to hear your additional thoughts.

-  Very few people “bleed” the ministry like the leader does, so he/she usually has more history with the status quo and has probably invested the most into it. In short, it’s often very hard for the leader to actually make the changes he/she knows need to be made.

- If the changes don’t go well, everybody else gets to hide behind the leader and say, “It was his idea!”.  The leader has no place to hide.

- The leader has to defend/sell/propose the changes to those higher up the food chain…which isn’t always an easy sell. Many leaders don’t have the political pull, the trust of sr. leadership, the “fight” etc. to go to bat on behalf of the changes they want to implement.

- Oftentimes, a leader will point to roadblocks (tradition, budget, resources, climate of the church etc.) as an excuse to not make the change. While all of these things must factor into change, they can easily become the reason change is never implemented.

- Healthy change takes work! Many leaders love to cast vision and then move on to the next big idea without ever getting their hands dirty. But change takes more than simple proclamation, no matter how eloquent the leader can communicate the need (Think about President Obama…great example of change not happening automatically just because the vision is cast…).

There are certainly more…those are just my initial reflections. What would you add?

A few totally unrelated thoughts:

- Tiger Woods: Sadly, lots of people have marriages that are in trouble and lots of people contribute to, or respond to, their marriage trouble by having an affair. And for most people, they get to navigate all the ramifications in private. I really wish we would let Tiger and other public figures do the same. He messed up…but why are the details any of my business?

- Token Tiger Woods Joke:  “Apparently, he drives an SUV the same way he drives a golf ball…into the trees.”  Of course, the irony isn’t lost that the only reason I can pass that joke along is due to his problems being aired in public.

-  President Obama: In the interest of full disclosure; I didn’t vote for Barack Obama primarily because I just wasn’t convinced that he had enough experience for the most important, most stressful (note the increase in grey hairs already on his head!) job in the world. And, in my humble opinnion, his charisma, youth and oratory skills allowed him to hide his inexperience.  Bottom line is that I’m not sure our President has ample leadership experience, and it seems like watching him navigate health care and the war(s) we find ourselves in are bearing this out. BTW, I’m not convinced John McCain would have been any better. My feelings are that men/women who serve in the senate don’t typically have enough exposure to the types of decisions and leadership scenarios a president faces. I’m certainly not like B.C. Israel crying “Give us a king!”, but I would like to be led by somebody with a confident, authoritative voice.

- Exercise: In my quest for a new form of exercise (my wife and I cancelled our rarely-used gym memberships), I have been contemplating getting into mountain bikes. The cost scared me off as did all the recent stories of friends who have had pretty bad wipeouts and injuries. I’m convinced it may be more dangerous than riding my dirtbike!  My new exercise: Swimming Laps. Yesterday was day #2, and I swam 16 fairly brisk laps in an olympic sized pool….almost died!

- Junior High Ministry: For the next two weekends in our junior high ministry we are having “Reindeer Games” which will be a program that has music as usual, 4 christmas themed games, and then a short video-driven message. I filmed both lessons yesterday and I’m actually pretty excited about them.

The good folks at Simply Youth Ministry are having a massive Christmas sale and talked Andy Brazelton into making a promo video. I’m Not sure how this video will help increase sales, but it’s stinkin’ hilarious!

The winning caption wins the book of your choice from Simply Youth Ministry. Entries welcome until Monday afternoon. Here’s wishing you a wonderful Thanksgiving.

UPDATE…WINNER: After much debate, the winning caption goes to David: “You think if we smile big enough, she’ll actually cook it?”

David, shoot me an email at kurtj@saddleback.com with your mailing address and the book of your choice from the simply youth ministry website and we will send it out right away!

- This past weekend we wrapped up our three-week, “Piece Of My Mind” series. One of our volunteers who is an executive at UPS did a FANTASTIC job of sharing his heart with our students. So apparently the answer to the question “what can brown do for you?” is: Lead an excellent JH lesson!

- I read Tony Jones’ blog because he makes me think about things I normally don’t in ways I normally wouldn’t. I haven’t made any comments about the YS sale to YouthWorks! because I really don’t know enough about either organization to have any credible insight. But, I have said in a few circles that I believe the youth ministry world needs a vibrant YS. Here, Tony has a great post sharing some of his insight that helps me feel confident YS will continue its youth ministry calling under its new ownership.

- Speaking of Youth Specialties, I’m pretty sure most people that read my blog also read Marko’s (but I don’t think most people that read his also read mine as I’m sure he has WAY more readers), but in case you don’t, you can see here that he is available for speaking and training events.  He is a fantastic communicator/trainer, and I’m trying to come up with an excuse to use him myself!

In Tuesday’s post, I mentioned that I have asked our JH and HS teams to begin to brainstorm what a cleaner, more streamlined ministry plan might look like.  There was only one comment left in the comments section, but I thought it was a powerful one:

“Perhaps a bigger “what if” for most of us is what if we were allowed to try that.”

I really don’t know of many churches that give the leaders and pastors more freedom to try new stuff than Saddleback. Throughout the years, Pastor Rick has encouraged us to think differently, try new things, make changes, and make mistakes…and he has led by example. But, with that being said, change is ALWAYS tough and it will be tough for us to make significant changes to our ministry, but we simply have to try.  And I think that would be my response to the comment above.  You may not be allowed to try to make changes, but as a leader, you have to try to try!

In our setting, ministry has simply become too cluttered.  Our calendar of events and programs is cluttered, our infrastructure is cluttered, our team is cluttered (and I’m not talking about my office!), and our work days are cluttered. There’s lots and lots of really good stuff happening, but much of it has been overrun by all the clutter.

It won’t be easy, and I’m sure we will hit some obstacles along the way (both internal and external). But God is doing something special in our ministry and things are better than ever and I feel like we are poised for something amazing….I don’t want the clutter to get in the way.

Simply Youth Ministry is having a huge sale as they prepare to move their warehouse to a new location. Tons of books are on sale for $3.99 and shipping is free if you spend over $99 (use the promo code: COLDOUTSIDE).