I feel like I’ve had one the busiest, most diverse, but most fun weeks in a long time.
- Last weekend I was in Palm Springs Speaking at Believe. We took a handful of our 8th grade student leaders to check it out to see if it’s something we might want to do as an entire ministry next year. They loved it and I hope we can fit it into our schedule of events.

- I stayed in the desert for two extra days to ride dirt-bikes with some friends which was great.

- Tuesday through Wednesday I took our Student Ministries Core Leadership Team on a short retreat. The goal of this retreat (which consisted of our intern director, high school pastor, junior high director, volunteers director, music director, minister to hurting kids, and both regional campus youth pastors) was really just to spend some quality time together and rally around a few key issues.

- Yesterday I spent the day with about 20 other junior high youth workers from Southern California for our “So Cal Connection”. We meet twice a year to hang out and toss a variety of topics on the subject. If you are a junior high youth worker in the Southern California area and would like to know about future gatherings I’d be happy to fill you in.

- Right now I’m getting ready to board a flight to Phoenix with Matt Hall and Katie Edwards. We will then drive three hours to an Indian reservation to explore some future missions opportunities. We get home about 11:00 tonight.

- Beginning tomorrow I will serve at 5 of our easter services.

- Haven’t been to a theater for a movie in a while and feel like I’m over due. The most recent movie I saw was Michael Clayton on a plane ride. It was a lot different than I thought it would be, but pretty good.

- Something on t.v. bothered me so much that I actually hollered at it. Must not have bothered me too much, though, because I can’t remember what it was. Gosh, I am becoming my father.

- Is it just me or does it seem like the purposeful cycle of the media is to build people up simply to tear them down? Maybe that’s what I was hollering at.

- Gonna spend Sunday afternoon and Monday dirt bike riding out in the desert with some buddies. No families this time, just a guy trip.

- Because I love Shave Ice so much, I’ve been promising to purchase a shave ice machine for the new student building at our church. I just found out the machine that makes the good stuff costs $2,500.00! I’m asking myself if I promised to buy the machine or just said I might buy the machine!

- This weekend I speak at my third, and final, Jr. High Believe. It’s in Palm Springs so we’re taking about a dozen of our leadership kids to let them check it out and see if it’s something we want to plug our entire ministry into next year. My hunch is that they’ll totally love it…other than the speaker, of course.

By now you’ve probably heard the recent news that 1 in 4 teenage girls has an STD. Here is Wall Street Journal article and some interesting discussion.

This month marks the 10-year anniversary of the MP3 player.

Tonight I’m teaching a short parenting workshop at my kid’s school and I’m super nervous about it. I really don’t like putting myself in the position of “expert” of any kind, so I’m hoping to present in a way that communicates that I’m just a struggling parent myself! I’m trying to create a series of “pictures of parenting” that I’ll work through. I’ll update tomorrow with an honest report of how things go tonight.

Ridiculously cheesy but I had to give it a try. I guess I’m not as tough as I like to think I am.

15

Years ago, Group Publishing actually had an entire magazine devoted specifially to junior high magazine. They discontinued it a dozen or so years ago but have decided to give it another try…almost.

Instead of a magazine, Group and Simplyjuniorhigh now have a monthly 12-page newsletter focusing on junior high ministry. Each issue will have some training, some research, some interviews, some lesson ideas and some other really great stuff. Forty Bucks for a year feels a little pricey, but it’s probably the cheapest way to get ongoing, monthly training and encouragement.

I would suggest you buy one subscription and then photocopy key articles etc. to give to the volunteers on your team (but I don’t know if that’s legal!).

We’ve landed on a name for our new student building. Thanks a ton for all of your suggestions. A few names that got us thinking and were in the running were:
- The Hub
- The Foundry
- The Warehouse
- The Mill

Ultimately we landed on ‘The Refinery’ as the name. We think it matches the look of the building and also has a great biblical tie-in. Since nobody suggested Refinery, I will hold onto the $100 worth of free Junior High resources until somebody suggests an easier contest!

I’m sitting in Peet’s Coffee (my favorite new hang out because their tea is great) enjoying a pot of English Breakfast tea while I journal (something I’m trying to do once in a while even though I’ve never been good at it….but today I’m being good at it). What started out as a normal cup of tea has turned into a great cup of tea because of the conversation at the table next to me.

It’s a young married guy and a student who looks like he’s in 9th or 10th grade. The moment they sat down I thought, “looks like a youth pastor hanging out with a student to me.” Sure enough. As soon as they sat down the conversation begins to take a classic mentoring/discipleship turn: Small talk followed by a little bit of catching up followed by some deeper conversation followed by some great discussion about the life of David. As I listened I was reminded of a few things.

- Relational ministry really is the best kind of youth ministry. There’s no doubt in my mind that the 30 minutes this kid has spent with his youth worker is way more effective than anything else that particular youth ministry has going on.

- Kids respond to caring adults. Relational ministry isn’t easy, and takes a ton of extra time and effort but the pay off is huge.

- I don’t do enough of it. Maybe the biggest reminder for me as I watch this whole thing unfold is that I simply don’t do enough one-on-one ministry with kids. I’ve got a ton of excuses for why it doesn’t happen like it should but none of them are really all that valid. Time to step up.

GREAT WEEKEND.

1st…it was week #1 of our new series, “Bad Girls”. Each week we will focus on a bad girl from the bible, and a different woman from our team will teach. This week the bad girl was Jezebel. We’ve taught this series once before several years ago and it was a big hit so I’m excited to repeat it. Plus, I get a little teaching break!

2nd…most of us weren’t there this weekend because it was our annual volunteer leadership retreat. Each year we invite all our junior high volunteers plus their spouses down to San Diego for an over-nighter. We hang out, eat good food, play games, have worship, share communion and pray for one another. There is no training and no tight schedule. It’s basically our way of saying thank you to the team for their ministry. We charge $25 per person and our ministry picks up the rest of the tab. We typically only have about 1/3 of our team attend so it’s a little smaller and way more relational than a typical staff meeting or gathering. The best part may be the fact that almost every year we end up having a spouse of a volunteer join our team because he/she had so much fun on the retreat.