This past weekend was a great reminder of the importance of feeling confident with your lesson and how confidence, or lack thereof, in a lesson has a huge impact on how well it is received.

The lesson this weekend was first and foremost a gospel presentation. We had told our students that if they brought a guest with them, their friend would hear a clear presentation of the Gospel and would get one of life’s biggest questions answered: “Is it really possible to know for sure that you are going to heaven?”

We planned a really fun weekend and I felt like my talk was pretty decent, but I wasn’t sold on it. It felt too long, too complicated and not easy to understand by un-churched 13-year olds. But, I had it prepped and ready to go so that’s what I went with at our first service. Then, at the last minute (as I was literally walking onto the stage) I decided to try to tweak it a bit which made me feel even less confident. Nothing disastrous happened, but the lesson simply fell flat. I lacked confidence, I struggled to move quickly through too much material etc. As a result, students were not well engaged and what should have been the highlight of the weekend, actually turned into on of the low points.

In between services I decided to make one of my stories the entire focus of the message. I yanked about half my content out, made the lesson much more narrative in nature and felt WAY more confident and comfortable when I was speaking. As a result, students were totally engaged. They were making eye contact with me, listening intently and responded very well. The attendance at the second service was almost three times that of the first, but the level of chatter, and the amount of distractions was cut in half.

It was a really tangible reminder of the importance of thinking through my lessons, being comfortable with the content and remembering my audience.

- Our Junior High program this weekend was one of our best in a long time. It was nothing fancy, just jam-packed with lots of elements and variety. Attendance was up with the start of school, and lesson focused on a short, simple gospel presentation. Next weekend we kick off our church-wide “40 Days Of Love” series that we are calling “The Face Of Love”. We have some fun stuff planned and it should be a good series.

- Saturday was our community-wide grand opening of the Refinery and it was a huge success. Approximately 4,000 (of which at least half were on our campus for the first time)people showed up for a three-hour open house. Good stuff.

- Our high school ministry is kicking butt! I technically oversee High School as well a Junior High, but have very, very little to do with anything going on in that department. Josh Griffin has been leading the charge for about 9 months now and, in my opinion, the team and the high school programs have never been stronger. The brand new auditorium that was built for their use in the new building is already too small to handle their Saturday night crowd…a great problem to have but also a bummer in a BRAND new building!

- It rarely happens, but this weekend a junior higher tracked me down after service to tell me that she spent some time telling her parents about my talk from last weekend and how she will always remember it. Of course, the part she remembered and shared with her parents was the goofy story I told to set up my talk. It didn’t seem like she actually remembered what the lesson was about. Oh, well…baby steps I suppose.

-We learned a lesson this weekend that I would like to pass on; one I’m sure you already know: Junior Highers love rubber bands. To promote our new program, The 3, we put stacks of promo cards on each chair. It made sense to rubber band them together, but we didn’t consider the fact that having rubber bands in the hands of hundreds and hundreds of junior highers could have an effect on our program!

- Guilty pleasure of the weekend: A group of “The Guys” went to see a late night show of ‘Death Race’ last night. Totally lame, but totally awesome guy flick.

- Painful moment of the weekend: Before the movie a few of us “old fellas” went for a late night skate at our new skate park. There is a new 5-foot half pipe that I have been promising to drop into and last night felt like a good time to fulfill said promise. I finally made it on my third try, but slammed really hard the first two times. Hard enough that my 42-year-old body is feeling it this morning.

In an effort to bolster some of the in-roads into our community and to leverage our new building, our junior high ministry is kicking off a monthly outreach program this fall. We’ve never done an ongoing program of this sort, so we’re super excited.

We’re calling it THE 3.
- The 3rd Friday of each month.
- 3 hours long (7 – 10)
- 3 bucks to get in.

This part isn’t part of the promotion, but we are also challenging each of our ‘church kids’ to invite 3 friends each month.

A few things I have been thinking about and/or working through lately…

- I’m not entitled to anything.
Entitlement has never been a struggle for me. I grew up in a poor, but loving family and my dad had the best work ethic I’ve ever seen. But as I’ve gotten older, become a bit more “successful” and as my tenure at my current church grows, I’ve noticed myself slipping into an entitlement mentality every once in a while. I don’t like it, I think it’s immature, it wreaks of arrogance.

- I’m no different than the next guy.
I’ve had a few mentors and a few colleagues step away from ministry far too early because of missteps that should have been avoided. I often find myself slipping into a judgemental mode or becoming angry at the dent they put in the reputation of ministry leaders. But then I realize that I’m really not a whole lot different than the next guy…any of us are a few dumb decisions away from the same paths.

- Life is short.
How cliche is that! But man is it ever true. This week I performed the funeral of an 84 year old man who lived a good life. I’m exactly halfway to that age and it’s hard to fathom that my life really is halfway over. It might be time to start a bucket list.

- Very little matters.
At the funeral, nobody talked about this gentleman’s accomplishments, wealth etc. The conversation totally revolved around memories, impact he had made into the lives of others and words of wisdom he was known for. Why the heck do we try so hard to achieve that which nobody really cares about?

- I think I’m going to get an iTouch.
Had to have something light weight in here! Plus, I’ve been thinking about it like crazy and it sounds like something that I’m entitled to, that the next guy already has, and will make my short life a little more meaningful.

- Junior High Ministry had a great weekend this past weekend. We started a short, two-week, series called “New” and highlighted all the new programs and opportunities happening in our ministry this fall. We tied it all around the Newness that Christ offers. We had a hilarious, 4-part video that consisted of four different infomercials. A good weekend.

- Last night I saw “Traitor” with a couple of buddies. I actually really liked it and found myself having a tough time figuring out the direction it was taking. It’s probably worth seeing in theater and certainly a good rental recommendation.

- Man, are the TV networks working overtime to try to convince us that “Gustav” is the next Katrina or what? Obviously it needs to be taken seriously but it feels like they are trying to create news instead of simply reporting it. But what’s new?

- Anybody have an iTouch? I can’t get an iPhone because I can’t switch service providers, but I’m thinking about an iTouch….any thoughts?

- Off to spend the last day of Summer with Cole at the Vans Skate park…his favorite place to skate.

Okay, all I can say as we head into the next 60-something days of presidential campaign craziness is WOW.

- Democrats have fresh, young, African-American rock star caliber presidential candidate with little experience but lots of great ideas partnered with steady, seasoned DC insider.

- Republicans have steady, seasoned DC insider presidential candidate partnered with a fresh, young woman with little experience. Not sure if she’s a rock star, but she’s no dud.

- History will be made either way, which I think is an awesome thing. I’m so excited that my kids will have a black president or a female vice president. Really, it’s about time.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a riskier move than McCain’s choice for V.P. Talk about swinging for the fence!

The biggest downside to me would be that if it backfires and McCain gets beat in a landslide, much of the blame will be put on Palin and that just sets things back again for women, which would be a drag. But Obama in the white house ain’t a terrible historic statement either so that’s a trade-off, I suppose.

The next two months promise to be interesting.

It’s been a crazy week in the Johnston family mainly because we are getting ready for our daughter to enter her freshman year of high school. She has spent her entire life in a much smaller christian school and is now heading into a public high school with a freshman class of around 700 students. Yesterday was the freshman “link” which consisted of four hours worth of meeting upper classmen, being introduced to administrators, going on a scavenger hunt to get familiar with the campus and more. Today was “round up” which was a one hour forms frenzy to make sure everything is in order for the year.

It is an exciting time. It’s also an anxious time….for her and for us. The best part, though is that her impending move from a small, safe, christian school to a large public high school has cracked open the door for some great conversations.

With high school on my mind, I stumbled across two books that grabbed my attention. Neither of them are new, but neither of them really jumped out at me until recently. “The Price of Privilege” and “Doing School” both look like important reads.

Feel free to recommend a book that should be higher on my “must read” list.

I think I may need to go on the record (whatever ‘the record’ is…) as saying that the term “team” has become overused and virtually meaningless in most ministry settings. Just because you work with a group of people doesn’t make you a team; it probably just makes you a work group.

As the leader of a ministry, I really do want the group of people I lead to be a team, but it doesn’t happen just because I want it to. I think in order to function like a team instead of just a work group, you need to identify what defines a team and then constantly work toward that goal.

A few characteristics of a “Work Group”:
- The end result or product is most important.
- People are specialists and never contribute beyond their specialty.
- Usually has highly defined and highly functional chain of command.
- Trust, camaraderie, liking each other etc. aren’t crucial for success.

A few characteristics of a “Team”:
- The people and the journey is just as important as the end result or product.
- People may have specialties, but contribute in other areas to help the team when needed.
- Much more “fluid” chain of command. The person “in charge” may change from project to project or moment to moment depending on the situation at hand.
- Trust, camaraderie, liking each other etc. are vital for long-term success.

I have absolutely NO problem with work groups….In fact work groups may be more effective at, well at getting work done! I’m just suggesting that we not diminish what a real team setting looks like by calling every group of people one.

- This weekend marked the end of our 10-week summer series, Full Service Summer. We wrapped it up with a lesson on using our past to help us navigate our future using the rear view mirror as our object lesson. Over all, I think it was one of our best Summer series in a real long time. Momentum stayed high and each lesson stood alone which kept a long series from feeling too long.

- Closing ceremonies of the Olympics, however, did feel too long…about 2 hours too long. The Olympics are over; blow out the torch and be done already…of course my wife was glued to the television through the whole ordeal.

- Taking Cole and his buddy to Six Flags Magic Mountain today. Should be fun despite the fact that it should be over 100 degrees.

- Don Cheadle is one of my favorite actors and the other day I was thinking that he was past due for a new movie. Last night (during the painfully long closing ceremonies) I saw a trailer for his new movie, Traitor, that opens THIS Wednesday! How is it that I’ve heard nothing about this?