Every now and then when I put my head together with the people over at Simply Junior High, we come up with a decent resource for junior high youth leaders. Recently, we have started created stuff with the students themselves in mind. Really, the desire to write for students started when I partnered with Mark Ostreicher on the Middle School Survival Series a couple years ago. Recently, I wrote the first of what I hope will be many ’10-minute moments’ devotional book geared toward young teens.

And now the newest, shortest, cheapest, and easiest-to-read books for students yet are hot off the presses. And because I like the simple stuff, I think they are my favorite resources SJH has created in a long time!

“99 Thoughts About Guys…For Girls Eyes Only” gives girls 99 super short, but super insightful tidbits of insight into the world of guys. Katie Edwards, who I have worked with for almost a dozen years, provides some fun female commentary.

“99 Thoughts About Girls…For Guy Eyes Only” gives guys 99 short, but super insightful tidbits of insight into the world of girls. Katie wrote this one, and I provided the male commentary.

What I love about both of these little “books” is that they can be read by a student in about 20 minutes. But in that short time, they will get a whole bunch of really useful insight to help them build stronger friendships with the opposite sex.

I’ve noodled on this quite a bit, and feel like there’s much more to it than a blog post, but I will toss this out there in a less-than-thought-out form.

On one hand, I believe that every leader has a “terminal velocity” to their leadership capacity and abilities. In other words, we each have a speed, pace of life, maximum capacity, maximum level of influence etc. that we reach and we simply can’t go any faster, do more stuff etc. Like a bowling ball falling from the sky, at some point we max out. Your “terminal velocity” may be different than mine, but we all have it….at least I tend to think that’s the case.

But, on the other hand, when the power of Christ is moving in us we are capable of far more than our natural skills would ever allow. Think about Peter…certainly in the flesh, his terminal velocity was limited. He was an un-educated fisherman. Then Christ entered his life.

But we all know of Godly leaders who seem to “max out”. Don’t confuse “max out” with “burn out”. I’m talking about Godly men and women who are spiritually and emotionally fresh, with tons of vision and ideas etc. that simply reach a limit to what they can accomplish….their leadership and ministry terminal velocity can’t do more.

But, I can do ALL things through Christ, right?

This past weekend was one of the best in a really long time. We formally kicked off our “experiment” around tables (we sat around tables last weekend but that was a spontaneous dry run) and, frankly, it couldn’t have gone better.

ATTENDANCE: Attendance was really high, I think we are finally out of the Holiday slump that seems to hit our youth ministry each year.

FUN FACTOR: Last week’s program was minimal, but this week was one of the fullest, funniest and most fun we’ve had in a while. We kicked off our 3-week “Friends” series. virtually every aspect of our program tied into the subject matter and sitting around tables allowed for more creative programming as well as some discussion time after the lesson.

LESSON: The lesson seemed better than usual. I kept it short and sweet to allow for about 10 minutes of table discussion that seemed to go fairly well. This week’s lesson, The Power Of Friendship, focused on some of the reasons friendships are such a powerful force, for good or bad, in our lives.

MUSIC: Music was great! Entirely led by our junior highers, and we had a couple of new ‘recruits’ playing for the first time.

VOLUNTEER INVOLVEMENT: Very high. We had a fair number of our mid-week small group leaders commit to leading a table during this three week series. They did a fantastic job of leading their tables, which really does seem like the key to a table format.

I spent a few minutes on the phone with a Youth Pastor this morning and somewhere along the way, the conversation touched on “bottlenecks”…those things that get in the way and slow ministry down. We didn’t identify any, just mentioned the concept briefly. Since then I’ve been thinking about junior high ministry and some of the potential bottlenecks youth groups face. Here are three that have jumped out.

MICRO-MANAGEMENT
My job as the point person for our junior high ministry is to empower, equip and encourage the paid and volunteer team I lead. When I get too caught up in details and try to micro-manage every aspect of our ministry it only slows things down and ultimately discourages growth. I have also learned that if my direct supervisor is a micro-manager, ministry is slowed down just as much because I don’t feel the freedom to empower others and let ministry loose. Really, micro-management anywhere in the “chain of command” serves to slow down all areas of ministry below.

“PERSONALITY-DRIVEN” LEADERSHIP
Since the point person’s role is to empower, equip and encourage others to lead, what happens if that leader insists on being in charge of, present at, on stage during and getting credit for every piece of ministry? Obviously ministry slows down. As your ministry grows and expands, it’s impossible for the point person to be a major force in everything. I believe this is one of the major bottlenecks to healthy ministry. Sure, a charismatic leader can attract a crowd but if that leader doesn’t allow others to rise up and take a share of the spotlight, the ministry will be limited.

POLICIES
Obviously we need policies, but how many? If it takes filling out two online forms and a hard-copy that has to be hand delivered to church janitor in order to add an extra row of chairs to your meeting space, you’re in trouble. When I look at Saddleback’s history of growth, both church-wide and in our youth department, one of the key factors seems to be a shockingly limited amount of formal policy. In fact, historically as we have added policies over the years we have limited growth. Don’t neglect good policy making. But don’t create bottlenecks by creating them when they aren’t needed.

Okay…add your “bottlenecks” to the list!

- Every now and then I will read the Huffington Post. It’s a bit too liberal for my tastes but I find it quite interesting. Recently I stumbled across this article about global warming. I believe in global warming but wonder if it hasn’t been radically exaggerated for political and financial gain. I was surprised to see an opinion like this one voiced at the Huffington Post.

- I am just finishing up Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, Outliers, and have found it to be my favorite Gladwell work yet. If you like sociological stuff, you will find this riveting, I think.

- I am, for some reason, struggling to write small group discussion questions on the topic of Sex and Dating. I have taught it hundreds of times, but we’ve never introduced it in our small group setting. I think the tension is creating something on a tough topic that our adult volunteers feel comfortable and confident leading.

- It doesn’t happen often, but today I find myself feeling rather melancholy…sad almost.

We had a good, but interesting, weekend. We kicked off a month-long experiment of seating students around tables instead of in rows. For years and years, this practice was a habit of our high school ministry and we never had the room to do it in our JH meeting space. Plus, I liked the idea of holding it back so when students entered the high school program it felt new and different….”Wow, we get to sit around tables instead of in rows!”. I’m not sure they ever really got that excited about it, but that was my hope. But in our new building, the high school auditorium won’t accommodate tables due to the sloped floor and fixed seating, and our JH room is plenty large so we decided to take an old high school strategy and try it in our JH program.

Even though it will be much more work to find the appropriate number of adult table leaders, write some discussion questions around our lessons etc. there really is a TON of potential with the tables. Our program instantly felt smaller, more relational, more ‘visitor friendly’ and it gave way more ownership to our volunteer leaders. I’m not sure we will make it a permanent fixture in our program, but it does have some promise.

ATTENDANCE: Attendance was a little low…still feels like families are in a holiday hangover of sorts.

FUN FACTOR: The program was super minimal; a game, a fun “Top 10″ list and music. We bolstered the program a bit by adding some table interaction. Overall it was a really fun weekend.

LESSON: We didn’t have a lesson. Instead, we handed out a short survey to get to know our students better which included questions like favorite movie, favorite radio station, how often they come to church, what they would like to learn about, have they ever invited a friend, etc. We also gave them a little New Year’s Self Assessment that they filled out for themselves and put in a self-addressed envelope which we will mail back to them in 6 months so they can be reminded of some of the goals they set etc. Next week we will kick off a 3-week series on friendships.

MUSIC: Once a month our band is led entirely by high schoolers. While the quality is usually higher, I never enjoy it as much as when our junior highers lead.

VOLUNTEER INVOLVEMENT: It was really high this week primarily because sitting around tables forced them to be more proactive with students which was cool.

I’ve never been good at reflecting, and as a result I think I often fail to cherish, to grow, to learn and to thank God for his ongoing work in my life. ’08 was a very, very full year in many ways. A few learnings from this year that stick out:

- If you let them, the nature of youth ministry, the expectations of your church and the expectations you put on yourself will overwhelm you. I feel like all three were in full effect this year and, to be honest, I didn’t manage any of them the way I would have liked. For the first time in a 20-plus year career I felt “at the end of my rope” more often than not.

- My wife is amazing. I don’t talk about her much, she never travels with me and very few people outside our circle of friends and our junior high group would recognize her if they saw her. When we got married seventeen years ago, she was an 18-year old college freshman who really had no idea what she was getting into. She has already spent almost half of her young life playing a vital role in my ministry, cheering me on, loving the people around her and being an incredible mom.

- I have really good friends. My closest circle of friends is an amazing bunch of about 5 people. I gain so much from their friendship and need to work at making sure I enrich them in equal measure.

- My dad was amazing. To be certain, he wasn’t “amazing” by most of the world’s criteria. He wasn’t a “leader”, he wasn’t “powerful”, he wasn’t “successful”, He didn’t own much (in fact, when he passed away a few weeks ago my brother and I literally inherited a laundry basket full of belongings). BUT he loved Jesus more than most people I’ve met, he loved others relentlessly, and he was in every way the kind of man the world needs more of….even though they don’t realize it.

- People matter most. Friends, family, co-workers, casual acquaintances, the strangers that cross my path etc. Making the most of the encounters God allows one to have may be one of life’s greatest opportunities.

- I am passionate about ministry to junior highers. I turn 43 in a couple weeks and I have long ago lost count of how many times I’ve been asked if I want to pursue another area of ministry. My calling to junior high ministry, and my passion for it, remains as strong as it ever has. If God has something else in store for me, I will do it…..but I sure hope he doesn’t!

Won’t post month for the next week or so due to the fact that we are out in the desert with the family.
I hope you had an incredible christmas and have found some time to relax, reflect and rejoice.

We didn’t have junior high or high school ministry programs this weekend due to our church-wide Christmas services, so I have no wrap up to report.

But, I am working on a fun little ‘bit’ for next weekend and thought we could all contribute and all have something fun for our next Junior High service. I want to create a silly Top 10 list.

Here’s the List: “TOP 10 MOST RETURNED CHRISTMAS GIFTS OF 2008″
The list needs to be completely goofy. Add as many as you want and then we can all pick and choose the ones that work for us.

A few to get us started:

- “Will It Burn?” By Hasbro
- “Official Belly-button lint from a guy who went to junior high with a girl who knows the Jonas Brothers”
- “Bag O’ Cherry Flavored Glass” from Brach’s Candy Company
- The 2009 Kurt Johnston swimsuit calendar (insert name of appropriately funny guy from your group).

As you can see, I need help. But maybe we can create a funny bit we can all use.

- Sitting in the coffee shop I have a perfect view of the snow atop our local foothills. It happens once or twice a year and only stays for a couple days so it’s a fun treat for the eyes. It could also be a fun treat for the body if one is willing to hike about three hours as there is no access for vehicles. I’ll enjoy it from a distance, thank you.

- To be honest, I’m really shocked at how much outrage/controversy/firestorm Rick Warren’s invitation to participate in Obama’s inauguration has stirred up….mostly from those on the left who feel somehow betrayed by Obama. That they don’t understand politics, and that’s exactly what this is, confuses me. Every President has a pastor give an invocation, and to ask Rick Warren who represents the faith of such a large number of Americans is a savvy political olive branch for Obama to extend. I’m constantly amazed at how intolerant those who holler for it the loudest often are. Plus….me likey Rick Warren.

- Tonight we have our Christmas edition of “The 3″ which is our monthly Junior High outreach night. We’ve got pictures with Santa, Christmas Carolokee, A Christmas Scavenger hunt, A “snowball fight” and more planned. Should be fun.

- The countdown has begun for our annual dirt-bike trip to the desert (Ocotillo Wells) the morning after Christmas. We go riding several times a year, but this is always our longest trip. The only dilemma so far is that I promised a friend he could use my bike (he’s thinking about buying it) because I was supposed to have my new one by the time we leave. Right now, it looks like I won’t have my new bike and I don’t want to break my word to my friend so I’m bikeless! BUMMER.

- Each year I try to read a new fiction book on the trip. I rarely read fiction so it’s usually the only one I read all year. Any suggestions?