Because it was Easter, we didn’t have junior high services this past weekend. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t eventful! First, a small team from our junior high ministry returned on Saturday from a trip to the Philippines where students helped lead a PDYM youth conference, participated in local church services, ministered to the community in a variety of ways and much much more.

Several of us from our student ministries team partnered up to run a significant portion of our child care for Easter Sunday. We headed up the 1-3 year-old age group and it was a blast. I’ve never seen so many well skilled youth ministers so overwhelmed! We really had no clue what we were doing but had a ton of fun doing it. The experience certainly served to remind us all of our calling to students.

After a long Easter of children’s ministry and family time, Rachel and I dropped into bed feeling really tired but really fulfilled and mindful of the power and significance of Christ’s resurrection. It was a good day.

On tap? Feels like we are headed into a busy, but eclectic little season. In the next 5 weeks we are focusing on Global missions, teaching our 3-week sex and dating series, co-hosting a “how to survive junior high” event with our children’s ministry, leading a service day to the inner city and running an 8th grade retreat. Additionally during the same time I have to squeeze in a speaking trip for Believe, a trip to New York to preview an upcoming social awareness project and help create 15 weeks of video small group curriculum. All this while trying to be better at the only thing I really care about: Loving on my family.

Speaking of my family: Cole turns 12 today which is hard for me to fathom. I am ditching work today so we can hang out together. Nothing crazy planned……at least that he knows of!

Bethany Johnson heads up our junior high small group ministry and she is doing an amazing job! So good, in fact, that I really NEVER need to think about details and am freed up to write curriculum, dream about big picture things etc. Here are a few small group items on my mind today.

- Trying to set most of today aside to start work on writing “scripts” and study questions for two new sets of junior high video curriculum that I want to have in our leaders hands for next season of small groups. One set will be on the book of Proverbs and the other will be called “The Red Stuff” and will focus on Jesus’ words.  If I can just chart a basic course for each today I will feel pretty good.

- Small Groups. I have felt a little (not a lot, but definitely a little) unsettled about our small group structure for a while and am really torn between the ideas that our strategy is a good one that just needs a tiny bit of tweaking and attention vs. maybe it’s time to really begin to re-think junior high small groups and open the door for a variety of groups such as affinity groups, deeper learning groups, larger groups focusing more on relationships etc. In my “gut” it feels better to allow lots of freedom and variety, but organizing such a strategy feels like a nightmare at best! I guess at the heart of my struggle is this: Is it better to design a structured program for small groups that keeps everybody heading the same direction or is it better to be organic and allow freedom, customization etc. of each group?

- What is the best way to follow up with, encourage, hold accountable etc. the leaders of each group? Currently we have a “coaching structure” that feels like it should do the trick quite well. For example, I am a coach to about 8 small group leaders. Where it breaks down (and when it breaks down, it really breaks down) is when coaches don’t coach. I know this because I am a horrible small group coach and my guys would be justified in feeling un-coached! While this approach feels right, it hasn’t ever really proven to be as effective as it could/should be.

- I love small groups! Just thinking about small groups puts a smile on my face. They are flawed, frustrating and figuring them out completely won’t happen for our ministry any time soon, but I can’t imagine leading a junior high ministry without their existence at some level.

I asked myself this morning as I was channel surfing the wide assortment of news shows if it is possible to be addicted to the news. I decided it isn’t. I’m not an addict, but I do like news.  So a new, semi-regular, feature here on my blog will be “News To Me!” where I will link to a few news stories that catch my eye.  Commentary may or may not be provided.

GM Plans to Partner With Segway.  Huh?

Some Communities Are Printing Their Own Currency. This makes sense to me.

Remember This Guy?  A year for chucking a shoe….good thing he missed!

The Weekend: I wasn’t there this weekend, but all indications are that it was a great weekend. Attendance was very low, but the service went great I was told. It was the second week in a short series. We now take a one week break for Easter. We cancel our youth services on Christmas and Easter so families can worship together.

Sunday and Yesterday:My cousin, Tamal, passed away about a week ago after being in and out of a coma for the past 10 months. Sunday, family and friends gathered in Brentwood area (just up the street from OJ’s old pad….weird) for a gathering. My uncle (Tamal’s dad, my mom’s younger brother) had asked beforehand if he could come home from the gathering with us and stay for a day.  So Sunday night and all day yesterday was spent with uncle Gerow who I really haven’t seen much in the past 5 years or so. We talked a lot about faith, the church, organized religion, Christ’s main message and tea. Actually we talked a whole lot about tea. Uncle Gerow was married for years to a Japanese woman (Tamal’s mom) and has completely embraced the Japanese culture and all things tea related. To be honest, I was a bit hesitant about the 24 hours we were to spend together, but it turned out to be a wonderful time.

BELIEVE:The reason I wasn’t at church was because I was speaking at Believein Atlanta. Believe is a fast-paced (6 general sessions in less than 24 hours) “conference” for middle school students. The topic revolved around the life of Jeremiah and focused on this topics: ” I have formed you, “I have set you apart”, “Don’t be afraid, I am with you” and “Speak my words”. One of the highlights was having dinner with Jared Hall, who performed several times during the weekend, after the event. Everybody else managed to get flights home Saturday night but we found ourselves alone and lonely. So a man date seemed like the perfect option. Jared is a really neat young guy with a fantastic ministry and it was really fun to get to know each other a little better. Jared performs almost exclusively for churches and if you are looking for an “illusionist” who is really funny and extremely un-goofy, Jared may be perfect.

This Week: I have a surprisingly slow week with all of our high school team and most of our junior high team away on Spring Break missions trips and no weekend service to prep or lesson to write due to Easter. So I plan to do a whole lot of catch up work and tinker with some big picture stuff that I have been hoping to find time for.

If you’ve read my book Controlled Chaos (recently revised and updated as Middle School Ministry Made Simple) or if you have ever heard me speak about junior high ministry you are familiar with my insistence that one of the best things a junior high youth worker can do is to walk down junior high memory lane from time to time.

The reality is that as we age and the farther away from our own junior high experience we get, the more likely we are to forget what it’s actually like to be in junior high. For this reason, I think it’s wise to do a few things once a year or so:

- Visit your old junior high school. Drive around the perimeter, walk the halls if possible and maybe even drop in to see one of your favorite teachers (of course this won’t work for me as all of my junior high teachers can only be found in retirement homes….).

- Browse your junior high yearbook. Look at pictures, read what people wrote when they signed it.

- Walk you old stomping grounds. Go to the mall you hung out at, go to the field where you played little league, visit the Taco Bell you and your friends frequented.

I try to do most of these exercises at least once a year, and when I do I’m surprised at how many memories come flooding back. I’m reminded of my struggles, my fears, my insecurities, my hopes, my successes etc. And ultimately I’m reminded that though much has changed in our world since I was in 8th grade, the journey my students are on isn’t much different at all.

Rachel and I both grew up in Whittier, California, an area about 45 minutes north of where we currently live and one that has seen some fairly dramatic changes over the years.  Today for our date day (I took an extra day off this week due to the absolutely crazy schedule our youth ministry team kept last week with the PDYM conference) I decided I wanted to go on a “Whittier Tour” and spend the day driving through our hometown. We spent about 2.5 hours visiting various child-hood and young adult-hood stomping grounds.  Not that you care (unless you are familiar with Whittier…) but here were our major stops.

- Granada Middle School: While it’s technically in La Mirada, it was where I spent grades 6-8

- Bretheren Christian School: Rachel’s junior high

- Cal High: My High School. Cal is short for California….such a great school they named our state after it!

- La Serna High: Rachel’s High School

- My childhood home on Chadsey and my teen years apartment on Mulberry.

- Rachel’s childhood homes (4 or 5 different ones!)

- First Family Church: This was the highlight of the day! This is the church where I came to Christ in high school, it’s where Rachel grew up, it’s where we met, married and spent the first 6 years of junior high ministry on staff. The church has gone through some really, really exciting changes in the past few years and it was so fun to tour around with the new Pastor and some of the staff.  As luck would have it, while on our tour we ran across Carlos, a lifelong friend who we grew up with who now serves on the church board of elders. If you know anybody in the Whittier/La Habra/La Mirada area looking for a church home First Family is worth a visit.

- Oceanic Arts: My friend Chris Schmaltz’s dad, Leroy, is a legend in the world of Tiki carving and art. He and his partner have owned and operated Oceanic Arts since the late 50′s. Chris and I worked there off and on all through high school and college.

All day long Rachel and I kept talking about our roots, our heritage and how blessed we were to grow up in loving homes, with good friends such fond memories.

Lesson:Week one of our two week ‘mini series’, “Sunday Old School” (Rahab)

Attendance: Lower than average.

Music:Music was great! It was an all junior high band led by a high school student. As a closer, they played a very cool version of Jesus Loves Me.

Volunteer Involvement: Felt a little lower than usual. Maybe coming out of our ‘School Wars’ series they were ready for a break.

Student Involvement: Lower than average. Other than the band, students weren’t used much.

“Fun Factor”:Different than usual, but high. We really played up the old school sunday school theme and played older games, sang older songs etc. It’s not something that would work very often, but for a two-week series it seems fun.

Creative Twist:Instead of me telling the story of Rahab and then teaching, we had a team member dressed up like an old man in a rocking chair reading a version we wrote. It was very true to the biblical account and we just added a few funny jokes and pictures here and there. Then, later in the service I taught for about 12 minutes.

It makes sense that one of the first items cut from church budgets in these tough times is conference attendance. By the time you add up travel, hotel, food, rental car and conference registration, the cost of a conference can be close to a thousand dollars. But I think attending some sort of conference every year is important enough to figure out how to make it happen even in tough times.

CONFERENCES ARE IMPORTANT BECAUSE…

- They are like camp for youth workers.

- You rub shoulders with other men and women “in the trenches” who share the same passion and challenges you do.

- You get ongoing training that is very specific to youth ministry.

- If you go with from your church, you get to spend some incredible team time together.

- You get to “decompress” for a few days while also refreshing your soul.

A FEW IDEAS TO CUT CONFERENCES COSTS:

- Pick a conference that is within driving distance. Nowadays, there are so many great conferences to choose from that you shouldn’t have any trouble finding one fairly nearby.

- Buy food at a grocery store and go back to your hotel for meals instead of eating out.

- Try to find a “host home” instead of staying at a hotel. Lots of conferences work alongside local churches to help find you a host home if you can’t afford a hotel. If the conference doesn’t do this, call a few of the local churches to see if they have people in their congregation who open their homes to missionaries, traveling pastors etc.

- Take advantage of “Early Bird” rates. Almost every conference offers discounts if you sign up early.

- Rob Peter to Pay Paul.  Ask your supervisor if you might be allowed to use money from other budget areas so you can still attend a local conference.

Yesterday was a bit busy so here is an update from last weekend in our junior high ministry:

SERIES: Our final week of “School Wars”, a series built around school competition. We had no worship music for the entire series, we focused on the school competition aspect of the series and each week we shared a gospel message via video.  It was the first time we had ever done a team-based competition and we learned a few things….primarily that the vast majority of our students really liked the change even if they didn’t particularly love the competition part. Tons of students brought first-time guests.

ATTENDANCE: Our attendance for the final week of “School Wars” was really big….our biggest of the year.

VOLUNTEER INVOLVEMENT:High. Lots of volunteers stayed for multiple services to help run games, organize the teams, greet guests, etc.

STUDENT RESPONSE: High. We started a subscription to Poll Everywhere, an amazing text-based survey service. We decided to take a risk and ask the students to give us their feelings toward School Wars. The questions came up on the screen and we instantly saw their live responses. Their options were: “Loved It”, “It Was Okay” and “Didn’t Like It”. The overwhelming majority (about 80%) said they loved it, about 15% said it was okay and about 5% said they didn’t like it.  If you can afford the service, some type of live text-based survey program holds a TON of potential in your junior high program.

NEXT UP:This week we are starting a short, two-week series called “Sunday Old School”. Again, we polled our students and asked them what classic bible story they would like to learn more about. The options: Zacchaeus climbs a tree, Daniel and the lions den, Rahab saves the spies and Joseph and his coat of many colors.  The Winners were Daniel and the lions den and Rahab so those will be our focus the next two weeks.

Apparently, a high school in Texas was allowing students to settle disputes by putting them in a steel cage and letting them fight it out. I love this quote by the principal…the person in charge of quality education:

“That’s barbaric. You can’t do that at a high school. You can’t do that anywhere,” Mr Moten said. “Ain’t nothing to comment on. It never did happen. I never put a stop to anything because it never happened.”

“Ain’t nothing to comment on….”!  Oh, Texas.