Because we didn’t have youth services this weekend, our family had all day together on Saturday with nothing planned. So we decided to have a ‘choose your own adventure’ day. Each member of the family got to choose something they would like to do and we’d all do it together before heading off to the next destination. Here’s how we spent our day:

Brunch at The Pancake House (Kayla’s Choice)
Looking at Model Homes in new development nearby (Kurt’s Choice)
Walking around shopping Center and stopping for Coffee at The Coffee Bean (Rachel’s Choice)
Going to the movies to see ‘Meet the Robinson’s’ (Cole’s Choice)

Very fun.

After over a month of repeats, The Office made its return last night.
Some life lessons I learned:

- If ‘the man’ is keeping you down, it may be because ‘the man’ is actually being kept down himself.

- Somebody always has to speak first.

- If you want 12%, ask for 15%.

- Three grown men don’t fit in the front of a pick up.

- I’d rather be hit with num-chucks or a karate star thingy than sprayed with pepper spray.

- Never buy a suit in a hurry.

- I’m a very gruntled employee.

A few months ago I read somewhere (how’s that for credible research?) that only 2% of young teens have ventured into the world of blogging. For a while that stat felt about right, but it seems like, at least in our youth group and within a certain group of kids, the number is rising. I wouldn’t call my daughter, Kayla, an early adaptor but she created a blog this week and seems to really be into it. She even has a little journal where she writes down her ideas for upcoming posts.

I’m interested to see if blogging becomes a middle school trend.

The core leadership of our student ministries team is away for a quick overnight retreat. Other than just a chance to hang out and have fun, our time is focusing on two questions:

1) Share a time you felt proud to be ‘one of us’
2) How would you describe the past, present or current ‘culture’ of our student ministries team?

I’m excited to see where the conversation takes us.

If you haven’t read the article I linked to in my last post, you really need to! If you know me at all, you know that I tend to err on the side of simplicity and pragmatism. So, even though I was fascinated by the conversation between Rick Warren and Sam Harris, I found myself frustrated at the whole thing. Here’s why:

- Rick’s core belief is that God created man. For him, everything flows out of that.
- Sam’s core belief is that man created God. For him, everything flows out of that.

Since theism and atheism are both faith-based belief systems, how do you prove the other guy wrong in a debate?

A couple weeks ago, Rick came into a staff meeting just a few minutes after he had finished his discussion/debate with leading atheist Sam Harris for this Newsweek article. He shared just a few highlights that left me starving for more details! I’m running out for a date day with Rachel, but can’t wait to read this in it’s entirety.

Attendance: Average
Lesson Topic: Why Easter Matters
‘Fun Factor’: Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Average
Music: Above Average
Lesson Quality: Above average
Length of Lesson: 24:00
Student Response: Above Average

Each year, we cancel our youth programs on Easter weekend, so we built this weekend around Easter. Our games were Easter themed, Our songs were Easter themed and the Message talked about three reasons Easter and the empty tomb matter (the empty tomb is proof, the empty tomb is powerful, the empty tomb is permanent). All in all, it was a great weekend. One of the highlights was the music. We sang several older, classic worship songs and learned a new one that students seemed to really like.

If you are looking for an Easter message for mid-week or this weekend, you can download the free outline and audio from the lesson I taught this weekend at www.simplyjuniorhigh.com. It should be up by late this afternoon or early Tuesday.

Yesterday, our junior high team holed up for about 8 hours worth of long term planning. We talked about virtually every aspect of our ministry but camped out for a significant amount of time discussing and, to some degree, debating our approach to ‘educating’ our students. We talked educational philosophy, learning styles, content, scope and vision, large group learning, small group learning, helping kids grow on their own etc. Several times throughout our conversation, Jaime would interject something along the lines of ‘There’s no way we’ll all agree on this….entire school systems can’t agree!’ or ‘Jen (his girlfriend) and her teacher friends have this exact same discussion all the time and they’ve never figured this out…that’s why we have public schools, home schools, charter schools etc.’ I would reply something along the lines of ‘Sure we can!’ or ‘We’ll figure it out because we have to figure it out’ or some such arrogant statement.

In the end, we figured it out….kind of. I think (because it’s only kind of figured out, I’m still not exactly sure…) we decided a few things when it comes to how we’ll approach Christian education in our ministry:

- The ‘feel’ of junior high ministry is more important than the formal teaching time and content of that time. In other words, creating a safe place for students in early adolescence may be the best lesson we could teach.

- Our ministry is always teaching. Formal or not, just about everything that happens in our ministry is teaching our students something.

- We decided to begin the process of pinpointing the 10 topics that we want every junior higher to be exposed to in their two years in junior high. These topics will each consist of a three week large group curriculum, a 1-3 week small group curriculum and materials that students can use on their own for deeper learning. The rest of the curriculum will vary from year to year as we see fit.

So, instead of totally random/felt-need stuff or a concrete 2 year comprehensive curriculum we landed on a ‘both/and’ that has some stuff set in stone from year to year and other stuff that is much more flexible.

Here’s where I’d love to hear some input: What are your 10 non-negotiable topics that you would want every junior high student to learn about over the course of their two-three year experience in your ministry?