When I jumped into junior high ministry over 20 years ago, one of the first things I did was subscribe to GROUP magazine and I’ve been a subscriber off and on (mostly on) ever since.  Each issue is crammed full of a really good mix of educational/philosophical articles and super practical ministry ideas that you can plug directly into your setting.

A subscription costs about $30.00 per year and is, in my oppinion, the best thirty bucks you can spend. Where else can you get encouragement, tips and tricks, ready-to-use ideas and food for thought delivered to your door for only $30.00?  If you follow the link above and scroll to the bottom of the page, there is an offer for a free issue of GROUP so you can check it out for yourself.

For too long the junior high ministry I lead has had a teaching strategy that feels too loose. In essence our plan has been this: 1) Identify four or five key things we want to teach each year and make sure we cover those. 2) rotate from a felt need/topical series to an expository/bible education series every month.  While that has served us well, we are in the process of re-tooling our strategy. Here is what we have landed on so far as a two year plan:

- 1/3 of our lessons will be on key christian education/doctrine issues that we are still in the process of narrowing down to approximately 33 lessons, most of which will be in three-week series form.

- 1/3 of our lessons will be on the topic of “Junior High Survival Skills” (what we call this category in house….students won’t know this is what we call it). These are topics we know our students need…they may not know they need them, but we do! We are still in the process of narrowing down to approximately 33 lessons that will include jr. high survival skills such as making wise choices, peer pressure, friendship, sex and dating etc.

- 1/3 of our lessons will be “felt need”. What are students talking about? What is going on in culture right now that we need to address? Is there world news and issues that we can look at from a biblical perspective etc. These 33 lessons can’t really be listed ahead of time.

Here’s where I could use your input: What are some non-negotiable christian education/bible instruction/doctrine truths that you would include in those 33 lessons?

What are some key “junior high survival skill” topics you would be sure to include?

- Oh, Denver Broncos and Jay Cutler how did it come to this? Not sure where I land on this one. Broncos: How could you have been so stupid as to let it slip that you were interested in somebody else?  Cutler: I understand you’re ticked off, but swallow your pride. Are you really willing to get traded just to prove a point?

- Race To Witch Mountain: Not often I see a kids movie that borders on lousy, but this one does.

- Girl Scout Cookies: You haven’t touched my lips in years. But I bought a few boxes of you this year and I think I love you.

- For the first time in a long time (maybe the first time ever), we are completely stealing a series from our high school group. “Sunday Old School” is a very junior high-friendly series they just completed that we are kicking off in two weeks.

- Next week marks the return of our Purpose-driven Youth Ministry Conference!  I am a lot more excited than I thought I would be.  If you are joining us, be sure to track me down and say hello.

- I am seriously thinking about purchasing about 5 acres of desert property. You can buy it for the cost of an expensive dinner date (okay, it’s not quite that cheap, but close) and for some odd reason I really like the thought of owning a chunk of land to pass down to future generations. Of course I can just see the reading of the will now: 

LAWYER: “…and to Kayla and Cole, your dad leaves you the 5 acre property in the desert” 

KAYLA AND COLE SIMULTANEOUSLY: “Ah, Crap.”

A large portion of our time at this year’s Junior High Summit was spent in discussion with Dave Gibbons, Pastor of New Song Church and author of The Monkey and The Fish. If you have any interest in doing church a little differently, having a global mindset, and thinking outside the box, his book is a must read. 

The conversation was really rich and I’m sure I will post more thoughts about it all but wanted to share two random, mostly unconnected tidbits that jumped out.

1) RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: In order to avoid becoming obsolete, many of the world’s leading companies spend a lot of time and money on R&D. Gibbons sited google as an example….apparently, a very large portion of their budget is spent in this area to help make sure they are constantly moving forward.  Might churches be wise to adapt a similar strategy? Might junior high ministries be wise to do the same?  If so, what type of “R&D” should we be doing?  That’s worth thinking about.

2) MINISTRY TO THE “FRINGES”: One of the ways churches can continue to grow, thrive, reflect kingdom principles etc. is to purposely neglect the “vortex” of our ministry and look for ways to adapt to the changing culture around us. By allowing leaders to experiment with stuff outside our usual methods, programs, strategies etc. (the “vortex”), we give our ministries a chance to adapt to the changes going on all around us instead of simply clinging on to our comfortable vortexy (my word, not Gibbons’) stuff. The fringes….the stuff we aren’t quite comfortable with, the people we don’t naturally associate with, the things that are in culture but not yet in the church etc. is the stuff we need to begin to think about or else we run the risk of being an outdated relic. Think of your community for a second. Can you name a church or two that once was a vibrant part of your community but instead of being willing to consider the “fringes”, insisted on feeding the “vortex” and is now merely a shell of what it once was?  What are the “vortex” parts of your junior high ministry?  What “fringes” might you need to begin paying attention to?

If this is of any interest to you, be sure to check out Mark Ostreicher’s blog in the weeks to come. He usually posts fairly thorough transcripts of our discussions (give him some time, it takes a couple weeks for him to get around to it.).

I’m away at a junior high ministry summit for a few days and won’t be blogging. A couple quick updates:

- Our first weekend of “School Wars” was shockingly successful. I’m super excited about the next two weeks.

- An interesting part of “School Wars” is that we are cancelling music for all three weeks. Partly because having music simply doesn’t fit the program and partly just to give our band kids a break.

- As I type this, I am waiting to hear the results of my son’s doctor appointment. He broke his wrist over five months ago, but we didn’t realize the severity of the injury and waited FOUR months to take him to the doctor! Today we find out if it looks like the bone is healing or if he will need surgery to repair and pin his wrist.

- The 21 Junior High Ministry experts I am with four three days are an amazing group of people. Each year I leave our time together feeling sharpened and inspired. I’m sure this year will be no different.

I come from the perspective that there are very few “neutral observers” in the world, thatscientists, futurists, cultural observers and the like almost always approach their craft with a built-in bias; they begin the process with something to prove. Therefore, there exists a tendency to pay more attention to evidence that supports your bias than to evidence that seems to be contrary to what you hope to prove, discover or observe in action.  All of us could make a good sized list where this is obviously happening (creation vs. evolution, global warming, the economy, foreign policy etc.).

And, it’s happening in youth ministry. The conversation about the current state and future of youth ministry is such an important one. So important, in fact that I wonder if we do the conversation harm when we ignore the fact that much of our observation of youth ministry, how we interpret the history of youth ministry, what we think of the current state of youth ministry and where we think it is or should be headed in the future is clouded by a host of outside influences. Our theology, our own personal youth group experiences when we were teenagers, our lack of youth group experiences when we were teenagers, how we have been treated by church leadership, how our parents modeled or didn’t model healthy faith, the size of our church, the pressure we feel or don’t feel to ‘perform’…..all of these and a massive host of other things totally influence us and shape our youth ministry perspective and, In my opinnion, create a bias in one direction or another.

So let’s keep talking! But let’s do so recognizing a couple things:

1) Youth ministry is more ‘art’ than ‘science’. There really is no singular formula for success. Trying to put God in any box, be that the box of a formulaic approach or the box that he can’t work within such formulaic approaches doesn’t make sense.

2) We are all biased to an extent (based on those outside factors I mentioned), and those biases keep us from truly being neutral in the discussion. 

I know some of my biases…I know from what perspective I enter the discussion:

- I think the state of youth ministry is, at it’s core, okay. I don’t believe it is broken (although parts of it are) or in need of a complete overhaul.

- I believe God is at work any time caring adults choose to enter the lives of students and that this isn’t automatically helped or hurt by the size of the church, the strategy of the youth ministry etc.

You don’t need to admit your biases in the comments (although you are welcome to do so), but I do encourage you to identify them so you can more honestly enter the discussion.

It’s Thursday and much is happening in life and ministry. Slowing down for a few minutes to think about some randomness feels pretty good right now!

- School Wars: Lots of people have asked me to explain School Wars, our 3-week outreach emphasis that kicks-off this weekend. The best way to describe it is that it is somewhat similar to classic team competition at Summer camps or in youth groups of yester-year. We are forming 8 school-based teams that will compete in a wide variety of competions (nobody will be forced to participate…..volunteers only) over the course of three weekends. The atmosphere will be an “American Gladiators meets Mad Max meets urban jungle” with volunteers dressed up and serving as team captians. Instead of a 3-week teaching “series” we are basically going to present the gospel message differently all 3 weeks. So, each week is actually the same message wrapped up differently.

- Jersey Mike’s: Do you have one in your area? I’m a lover of sandwiches, and Jersey Mike’s is my new favorite. So tasty.

- Fired Up About: I’m a little fired up over all the talk about how broken, innafective, outdated, and (insert favorite criticism here) the local church and youth ministry are. Really, we suck that bad? Or is it just in vogue to take pot shots right now?

- Best Movie That I Bet You Haven’t Seen: “Flash of Genius” is a wonderful movie about the invention of the intermittent windshield wiper and the saga of one man’s fight against the auto industry. I really, really liked it.

- Amazon Kindle: I have wanted one since they came onto the scene. Anybody have one? Are they worth it?

- Junior High Small Groups: Tomorrow we have a follow up meeting to a conversation our team had a few months ago about our small group system. I really do think we may be on the verge of making some strategic and potentially awesome tweaks.

When I re-designed my blog, I switched it over to word press because I have been told forever how awesome it is (actually, I didn’t re-design my blog, Chris Davis did, and I didn’t switch it over to word press, he did because he knows how to do those types of things!). But I’m having trouble figuring it all out. I’m not a techie so switching to a new platform for my blog (wait, maybe I am a techie….I just used the word ‘platform’. Not sure if I used it right, though.) is proving to be rather stressful.  But it does look like Word Press will be smoother for me and easier to use once I actually figure it out. But that means I have to actually try to figure it out which takes effort and techie skills. Shoot.

It snuck up on me, and it came and went without fanfare (not that it really deserves any), and I’m certainly the only one who keeps track, but yesterday marked my 12-year anniversary here at Saddleback. This morning as I was spending a little bit of time reflecting on my experience here that began in 1997, many things flooded my mind. Most of them were good.  Of course, I can’t think about my life at Saddleback without thinking of Pastor Rick and the role he has played in my ministry journey. And while Rick is certainly a great leader and visionary and I have learned A TON in formal staff meetings etc., it’s the smaller little interactions and observations that have made the greatest impact on my life. I could literally list dozens and dozens, but here are three:

- His lifestyle of contentment and generosity. Certainly when you sell 30 million books it becomes easier to be generous and content, right? I’m not sure. I tend to believe that success and money usually serve to heighten our character flaws not eliminate them and replace them with new virtues. In other words: Whoever you are in want is who you will be in plenty.  Before his window of afluence and influence opened up, Rick was generous, content and modeled that to the rest of us at Saddleback. Today he lives in the same house he has lived in for years and years, he drives an old Ford Expedition (in fact my Expedition is just as nice!) and is honestly one of the most generous men I have ever met.

- His genuineness. Simply put, Pastor Rick is the real deal. He loves Jesus, he loves the church and he loves others. When I was interviewing at Saddleback, the final meeting was a dinner date with Rick and Kay. Heading into that dinner, Rachel was pretty adamant that she wasn’t attracted to Saddleback, that it was too big,  would be too impersonal, and that we would, frankly, be lonely and miserable. We spent a couple hours with Rick and Kay and not once did he try to “sell” us on the church. Instead he talked about life, let us ask probing questions and listened intently whenever Rachel spoke. I’ll never forget the walk back to the car that night when Rachel simply said, “I’m in.”  Has his world changed in the past few years? Yes. Has he? Not that I can tell.

- His spontaneous nature. Sure, serving under a spontaneous leader has it’s frustrations (just ask anybody on my team….yikes), but I’m convinced Rick’s ability to make quick decisions, change course in mid-stream, hand off responsibilities etc. has been a key factor in Saddleback’s success over the years (and I’m aware that it has contributed to some of our failings, too. But I’ll take the trade off!).

Finally, my favorite Rick Warren story:

Several years ago I’m driving home on a Friday night after work. It’s about 5:30 or so and my cell phone rings.  “Kurt, this is Pastor Rick. We just got a new pool table set up in our garage. Why don’t you call a bunch of junior high kids and invite ‘em over to our house. I’ll order the pizza.”  What do you do with that?!?! I’m tired, looking forward to a night with my family when Rick Warren calls and wants to host a spontaneous junior high party! Honestly, my first gut reaction was one of frustration and feeling ‘put out’.  But then I realized that most senior pastors of churches far smaller would NEVER invite the junior high group over, that most youth workers would LOVE to have their students feel valued in the same way.  I called several small group leaders and within an hour Rick’s house was full of junior highers. Funny, he hasn’t invited us back since!

John Maxwell likes to say that everything rises and falls on leadership. If that’s true, then my incredible 12-year journey here at Saddleback really owes more to Rick than to anybody else. Perfect? No. Flawed? Uhhh….you bet. A leader I hope to serve for 12 more years? Without doubt!

After spending three days with some really wonderful junior high/middle school youth workers, I am reminded of a few things. Generally, junior high youth workers…

- Are incredibly enthusiastic and passionate about this age group. This makes sense considering the fact that most of them are volunteer or part-time, that junior high ministry is still considered the place to “cut your teeth”, and that junior high ministry still, in many churches, is almost a “purgatory” between children’s ministry and high school ministry. There really aren’t a whole lot of external reasons to be involved in this ministry which I think makes those who are a little more passionate about what they do.

- Are good thinkers. I had so many good conversations about young teen ministry with fellow youth workers who really want to do it right and make an impact. It truly felt like an “iron sharpening iron” weekend.

- Are staying involved longer. It felt like a larger-than-usual percentage of attendees were junior high ministry veterans. Because junior high ministry is often the entry point to youth ministry, the turn-over rate is really high. That trend feels like it is slowing down a bit and it seems that there are A) more full time junior high youth workers who feel called to stay in it longer, B) More part time positions at churches which allows the church to keep somebody involved longer, and C) more volunteers who have fallen in love with this age group and are simply refusing to move out!

- Are feeling more appreciated than ever before. Despite the lack of external motivators, it does seem like more and more junior high youth workers feel like they are valued and appreciated by the church they serve and the church leaders they serve with.

- Are so dang fun! I can’t remember the last time I laughed as much, as hard, and as consistently as I did this weekend.

As usually happens when one goes somewhere to “minister to others”, I ended up feeling like I got the most out of the weekend. God used this weekend to remind me of the importance of young teen ministry. I didn’t really think I needed a reminder, but perhaps I did and I’m thankful for it.