- LATELY, I have been thinking quite a bit about the need for junior high youth workers to be willing to do the tough work of getting into the minds of our kids instead of asking students to get into our minds. It seems that we often try to get students to laugh at what we think is funny, go “wow” at what we think is cool, want to talk about topics we find interesting etc. It’s easier to minister that way, but it’s not as effective. As adults, we need to be willing to go to their level instead of hoping they will come to ours.

- QUESTION: Do you know your teaching style? Andy Stanley posed this same question to a group of pastors a few weeks ago and it has stuck with me ever since. While I definitely seem to have a style, I’m not sure I have ever really dissected it to see if it’s the most effective style for communicating to junior highers. I am in that process now. Note: this feels much more important when I take seriously the whole “Me entering their minds instead of expecting them toenter mine” idea.

- FINGERS; I’m glad I have ten of them. I am spending a few days with my good friend Scott Rubin, and yesterday I had the first-time experience of operating a snow blower to clear his driveway and sidewalks. I naively assumed that a snow blower was just a big vacuum that somehow sucked the snow into the machine and blew it out the chute. What I didn’t know was that there is a big “fan/chopper/swirly thing” that serves to break the snow up before it shoots it out. At one point the chute got clogged and I reached way down into it to clear the snow only to have my finger get caught briefly in the “fan/chopper/swirly thing”. Luckily I had gloves on and the snow blower was idling so no damage was done. Just a little bit of pain and a whole lot of “Scott…why didn’t you tell this California kid that snow blowers are also finger choppers!” It never crossed his mind that he had to warn me not to jab my whole hand down the snow blower chute. After all, he has been around snow blowers for years, while it was a foreign experience for me.

- ASSUMPTIONS. The snow blower incident and Scott’s assumption that I understood the inherent dangers posed got me wondering how often do we as junior high youth workers assume certain things about our students. Many of us have been around junior high ministry for years and so much of what it entails has become second nature to us. But, it’s completely different for our students! They are first-time travelers on the road of early adolescence…it’s foreign to them. Far too often, I’m afraid, I assume things about them that I shouldn’t. Note: again, this goes back to that whole “entering their minds instead of expecting them to enter mine” thing.

I have gotten out of the habit of posting a recap of our weekend program each Monday. Let’s see If I can get back in the swing.

SERIES: This was week two of our “Cup Of Joe” series in which we are taking a look at Bible characters whose names start with “JO” Week one was Jonah, and this week was Joseph. Our theme and stage decor is a coffee shop setting. We are trying something new and making the entire program a play of sorts with everything happening in the context of a day in the coffee shop. My lesson takes place over coffee with somebody different each week. It’s been pretty fun.

ATTENDANCE: Below average. The holiday weekend combined with about 50 kids gone on a missions trip made this a fairly light weekend.

MUSIC: Music struggled a little bit. Mostly, it was just really inconsistent.

VOLUNTEER INVOLVEMENT: Volunteer involvement was a little low due to a lack of volunteers at church and our program is a little more “stage driven” than usual during this series.

FUN FACTOR: Overall it was a pretty fun weekend. Students seem to like the fact that we are trying something new and mixing things up a bit.

Today, we (Saddleback Church) are wrapping up our first 4-day “Radicalis” conference, and I have to say it was really, really good! Here were a few highlights for me:

Andy Stanley’s message on preaching was full of wonderful nuggets; someofwhich I will paraphrase here:

- “If you don’t have a ‘burden’ for it, don’t preach about it until you do.”

- “Find a compelling passage, rub their noses in it, drive it home and make it stick, and send them out with one way to apply it to their lives.”

- “Going long doesn’t prove how smart you are, it proves that you are under-prepared.”

- “Don’t memorize the whole thing…just memorize the ‘flow’ of the message; where you want to go with it.”

Mark Driscoll’s message about the cross, coupled with Rick Warren’s message on Radical Compassion, was a very powerful experience. What stuck out most to me was the simple reminder that at the end of the day our theology is nothing more than this: The Cross.

Spending three days with youth workers in the youth ministry track was so much fun. I’m not sure anybody will ever be able to convince me there is any other group of Christian leaders who are more fun to hang around than those who work with teenagers! I met lots of new friends including a wonderful woman who has taken “Kurt and Scott’s Junior High Adventures” and turned it into a 12-hour training session she uses to train youth workers all throughout Egypt!

Radicalis convenes again next year, February 8-11. Join us!

- BIG NEWS FOR MARK OESTREICHER AND MAYBE FORYOU, TOO! Markohas just laid out details of his plans to starta youth ministry coaching plan. If you are looking for a fantastic opportunity to be mentored by one of youth ministry’s best thinkers, I couldn’t recommend this opportunity more highly!Check here for more details.

- Just heard that Taylor Guitars is giving away five free guitars at our Radicalis conference next week! I found this interesting because I had heard in the past that Taylor never gives away free guitars…that they don’t sponsor musicians etc. So this seems like a pretty big deal. As a fun side note, Bob Taylor served on the board of elders while I was at Skyline Church in San Diego and both of his daughters attended our junior high ministry. Now that my son, Cole, is an avid guitar player I have always wanted to try to get a deal on a Taylor for him….you know, Bob’s way of saying “thank you”. But to date, I haven’t found the courage to ask.

- This weekend we are starting a new series called, “Cup O’ Joe”. We are decorating the stage like a coffee shop and I will be telling the story of a different Old Testament hero of the faith each week. Each person highlighted will have a name that starts with “JO” (thus the creative, and somewhat confusing, title/theme of the series). We are teaching on Jonah, Joseph and Joshua. Should be pretty fun as we have some creative ideas for teaching within a coffee shop feel.

- My Plug For An Expensive Piece of Awesomeness: If you are a reader, you need to get a Kindle! Yes, it is expensive but it really is an impressive/convenient/wonderful item to have in your back pack (that’s the beauty…you can carry around dozens upon dozens upon dozens of books in your back pack!). It is the best “luxury purchase” I have made in a long time…mostly because I don’t make too many luxury purchases! My most recent download: “Lincoln On Leadership”. My favorite leadership book is now with me everywhere I go. Amazing.

- To try something new, we created a “Prayer Room” in our student ministries suite. We had an extra office so we decided to decorate it and dedicate it solely to prayer and reflection. It’s complete with candles, a board for writing down prayer requests, an iPod playing hymns, a comfy couch etc. Nobody is allowed to use this room for anything other than prayer. Not a ton of traffic so far, but it’s neat to know it’s there if needed.

- Today is cold, wet and windy. Having 3-4 days of rain in a row in Southern California is really rare and a fun change of pace! I’m holed up in Starbucks doing some writing and getting ready for “Staff Camp”.

- “Staff Camp” is our team’s 3-day getaway where we do lots of long term planning, lots of work and have lots of fun. That’s the plan, anyway because this will be our first one.

- I am really excited about, and having trouble finding the time to write, a new book that should release in early fall. The Best Practices In Youth Ministry takes a look at an extensive study that was conducted to determine why some churches seem to have more success fostering “mature faith” in their students. I am co-authoring with a long-time buddy of mine, and it has been really fun to take a massive study and break it down into a user-friendly youth ministry resource.

- Want to contribute to the book? One of the features we would like to include in the book is about ten, 300-400 word, essays entitled, “I Hate When That Happens”. These need to be stories of something that has gone horrifically wrong in your youth ministry! It can have to do with a program that went bad, a relationship scenario, a volunteer story, a youth group vs. “big church” story etc. If you are interested, please contact me at kurtj@saddleback.com

- New Blog coming soon!I am in the initial stages of phasing out my personal blog and replacing it with a “Simply Junior High” blog that will include a team of contributors from the world of JH ministry. These men and women are good friends with a ton of junior high ministry experience and insight. The result will be a whole lot more content andencouragement from a whole lot more perspectives. I will keep you posted on the timing of this move.

Found a blog post from about six months ago by Kara Powell that is well worth the read. The post itself is great, but the best fodder for discussion is found in the comments.

WEEKEND WRAP UP: This past weekend we kicked off our new series, “Flipped”. This series takes a look at some of the ways Jesus flipped the world’s ways of thinking upside down. This week’s topic was “Power Doesn’t Matter”. Matt Hall, one of our team members, did a fantastic job of helping students look at Jesus’ view of what true power is all about. We played a game we called “Flipped Phrases”, which was a rip off of Mad Gab which went over well. We also had a cool backdrop/sign on stage with our “Flipped” logo on it that we flipped over halfway through the lesson, which was a pretty fun little visual.

STAFF CAMP: We are trying something new in a couple of weeks. Because of budget cuts, we lost the ability to take our team to a conference this year for ongoing learning etc. So, in a creative moment we decided to take the money it would cost for ONE person to go to a conference and put on our own, in house, conference for our entire student ministry team. We have asked a couple of the other pastors on our team to share with us, we will do some reading, some training etc. Should be awesome….but could be a flop!

CHANGES: A couple of months ago I posted here that our team is in the beginning stages of streamlining our programs, re-evaluating how we spend our time etc. Two months later and we are still taking some baby steps toward some fairly significant changes that we will ease into throughout the summer and into fall.

HARRY REID: I’m not sure which is worse, the horribly offensive language he used to make his point, or the sad sad sad reality that what he said is probably true. Actually, I do know which is worse. One is one man’s display of ignorance and racism while the other is that of an entire society.

RADICALIS:It’s not to late to join Pastor Rick, Andy Stanley, Mark Driscoll and others at Saddleback’s Radicalis conference. The conference includes NINE HOURS worth of youth ministry training and discussion with Doug Fields and our Saddleback student ministry team.

If you work with students, you really should consider joining us for SYMC in Chicago in February! Advanced registration closes in two weeks, and you don’t want to miss the action.

In addition to the fabulous general sessions, the great conversations and opportunities to make some new friends, I (along with Scott Rubin, Katie Edwards and Johnny Scott) will be hosting a total of almost 16 hours worth of junior high ministry stuff! We have a one-day “pre conference”junior high ministryseminar, a 4-hour intro to junior high ministrytrack and a 4-hour advanced junior high ministry track.

Register, grab a parka, and join us in Chicago!

As a friend of Marko, I was devastated when he left Youth Specialties. I was sad for him andwondered what the future held for an organization that has helped lead the charge of youth ministry for so many of us for so many years.

TodayI learned that Tic Long has returned to YS as its new Executive Director, and I must say that I am thrilled! In recent months I have said in several conversations that I believe the youth ministry world needs “a vibrant Youth Specialties”. As a guy who has been around for a little while, I owe a large debt of gratitude to Youth Specialties and I am excited that Tic is at the helm as it heads into this new season.

I’m super excited about two brand new resources available at Simply Junior High! We’ve created a “Smart Stuff” small group video curriculum as well as a “Smart Stuff” 10-minute moment book for your students. Each resource takes a look God’s wisdom found in the book of Proverbs.