- Today I started working on my JH workshop for NYWC  in L.A.  Are you going? it’s not too late to join the action!

- Speaking of sweet conferences, have you checked out the Simply Youth Ministry Conference coming to Chicago in February?

- And while I don’t know much about it, here is the coolest conference website I have EVER seen!

- Enough about conferences. I think my fantasy football team may be one of the worst in history. Why do I put myself through the pain?

- This weekend is our official “Back To School Weekend”, and I’m super excited about it. We have some really fun stuff planned, we are unveiling three new T-shirt designs and instead of a lesson we filmed three little info-mercials about why our ministry exists, how we hope to serve them this year etc. Should be fun.

- Ear buds kill my ears. So as I type I am wearing a borrowed pair of big, thick, fatty headphones borrowed from a friend. I know they don’t look cool, but man are they comfy!

- Ellen as a new judge on American Idol……yes or no?

A friend sent me this list from Perry Noble’s blog and I thought it was worth passing along.

16 SIGNS A LEADER HAS LOST HIS MIND:

#1 – He refuses to admit his mistakes.

#2 – He begins to blame the problems on people or circumstances rather than actually seeking out what the problem might be.

#3 – He refuses to listen to the team assembled around him.

#4 – He fights every idea that isn’t his own, thinking his originality is what must keep the church afloat.

#5 – He refuses to face reality.

#6 – He is unwilling to make the necessary changes because it would be highly unpopular.

Read the entire list here.

Because it was so fun, I am going to steal a feature from Marko’s old blog. Should he ever come out of retirement I will gladly give him back this fun tradition.

The best caption for this picture will win a book of your choice from Simply Junior High.

AND THE WINNER IS: “Harold was the founding, and only member of “Hell’s Loungers”

Ed, please contact me at kurt@saddleback.com and let me know what book from simplyjuniorhigh.com you would like.

- Without question, today was one of the oddest days of ministry in my 22 years. Nothing bad, just odd and eventful.

- My annual Denver Broncos prediction: After what looks like will be a winless pre-season, I predict a record of 7-9 for my beloved team. I am in complete mourning and shock at what has become of the franchise. How did it go so wrong so quickly?

- Here’s an out-of-the-ordinary book recomendation: Rick Warren’s Bible Study Methods. I thumbed through it today for the first time and it is really good.

- I twittered about it yesterday, but wanted to mention it here: Instead of a separate PDYM conference, we will be joining the Purpose Driven Super Conference on February 9-12. Plan now to join us as we talk about youth ministry for a a day and a half!

- Thursday marks the grand opening of a new Chick-Fil-A about 2 miles from the church. I have worked so hard to give up sweet tea but I’m not sure I will be able to stay away. Officeing out of Chick-Fil-A with free sweet tea refills is a temptation no human can overcome.

Lesson: Our 10th and final week of our Summer series! Each week we have looked at a famous Bible verse and put it under the microscope in our “lab”.  We saved the most famous of them all for this week: John 3:16

Lesson Length: 23 minutes

Music: Average. The quality was great and the energy of the band was fantastic. But the band was made up entirely of High School students which, in my mind, means it’s never as good as when our junior highers lead.

Attendance: Above Average….our biggest weekend of the Summer.

Volunteer Involvement: Fairly high. Since switching to “sections” and giving leaders more ownership over their section, we have seen an increase in their commitment to the weekend.

Fun Factor: Below average. Students don’t respond as well to music when it isn’t led by their peers, and the games we played were a bit slow. We played two trivia-based games which worked great individually, but coupled together as our only games made the program feel a bit dull.

 This summer marked my 13th Summer at Saddleback, and in less than one week it will officially be “in the books”.  A few things that have stuck out:

- Our Summer series, “The Lab”, has been one of our best in a long, long time.  Because we typically teach in 3-week blocks, our 10-week summer series usually begin to feel too long around week 4! But this year seemed to work well. I think it was the combination of really good content mixed with fun programming ideas.  Most of the fun programming ideas came from some of our younger, college aged leaders who really stepped up made some great stuff happen.

- Summer camp remains a mystery to me. It’s too expensive and our attendance is dropping every year. But it’s also a highlight of every summer! I’m becoming more and more convinced that we need to find a non-traditional way to give students a “camp” experience that is cost effective.

- It seems like the more activities we cram into our summer calendar, the worse the attendance is. I wonder if there is some universal law or formula at play that goes something like: there are only X number of students who will participate in events, and they will only participate in X number of events that cost somewhere between X and X amount of money.  For sure, there are some students who come to just about everything, but most don’t….so why do we constantly feel the need to cram our summer calendars full of activities?

-  The more we give ministry away, the better it becomes! This year we handed off larger chunks of our ministry to volunteers and summer interns than ever before and the results were tremendous. The only downside to this that I can find is that giving ministry away seems to create more activity which adds to the dilemma I mentioned above.

If you take a few minutes to reflect on your summer, share them with the rest of us.

If your church is anything like mine, the status of our economy has impacted your church’s and your junior high ministry’s financial situation. Perhaps you’ve had your budget cut (if you were lucky enough to have one to start with!), or maybe your ministry is being affected by the financial stress the families in your church are experiencing. Or maybe, like it is for us….it’s a combination of both!  To be certain, ministering in these tight times provides some unique challenges. But, there are also some unique opportunities that come our way when funds begin to run dry.  Here are a few things I’ve thought about as we plan for our Fall. I’d love to hear your input as well.

- Focus on quality not quantity. Doing fewer activities and outings gives our ministry the opportunity and energy to pour extra time, energy and attention into the events we offer making them of higher quality than they have been in the past.

- In tough times, attendance usually goes up and people are usually more receptive to the gospel. We’ve noticed a spike in attendance during this recession. We all know that crisis (remember what happened right after 911) causes to think about spiritual things. To be fair, most of our junior highers aren’t coming to church or thinking about God more because of the recession, but they have probably overheard their parents conversations.

- When funds go down, creativity goes up! When your ministry budget is cut and when families are trying to cut back, it forces a leader to think outside the box and come up with creative ways to minister. If you embrace this, it can be a wonderful opportunity to do something new.

- Tight times provide you the opportunity to “kill” something you otherwise couldn’t. Sacred cows, the expensive retreat, etc. Very few people will argue with the “We are ending XXXXXXX to help be better stewards during these tight times.”

- It’s been one of those crazy, weird, busy weeks and I just haven’t had/wanted to find the time to post which hasn’t happened very often.

- Last weekend’s update: 8th week of our 10-week “Lab” series. We took an up-close look at Romans 12:2.

- Tomorrow we are taking a crew of students to harvest oranges for needy families through an organization called “Second Harvest”. Should be super fun.

- If you are a movie fan you must see District 9….one of the coolest movies I’ve seen in a long, long time. If you are a movie fan you must not see The Goods….one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a long long time. In fact I walked out early in the film.

- If you are a reader let me recommend three books you need to read. I’m in a lazy mood today so I’m not even going to link to their amazon page: “Middle School Ministry” by Mark Oestreicher and Scott Rubin, “The Tale Of Two Youth Workers” by Eric Venable, “The Unlikely Disciple” by Kevin Roose and “The Year Of Living Biblically”  by A.J.  Jacobs.

- Brett Favre…I’m a fan and I’ll be cheering for him but I honestly don’t see this whole scenario ending well.

Below is a super short little article I wrote for a newsletter a few months back. Since I don’t think very many people actually read the newsletter in which it was published, I thought I’d re-post it here:

Part of being a Christian, or a Christ-follower, is striving to become a little more like Jesus, right? I want to lead more like Jesus, I want to love people more like Jesus, I want to make choices more like Jesus would etc.  But if I’m totally honest with myself, it’s shocking how the way I live my life, the way I lead, the way I treat others etc. is often nothing like the way Jesus would!  In fact, most of the time, I am embarrassingly un-like Jesus. Of course the fact that I’m a wretched sinner and he was God incarnate probably makes for an unfair comparison, but you get the drift.

I recently started a little routine that you may want to try, too. I bought myself an old-school bible that has Jesus’ words in red. I’m a bit lazy, and I want his words easy to find! Whenever I find myself having a particularly “un Jesus-like” day, I take some extra time to read the red stuff in God’s word. When I read the words that Jesus himself spoke, I am quickly reminded of who I serve and the model he set for how I am to pursue life. In Christ’s words I find encouragement, hope, conviction and challenge. In his words I see how I ought to live and am reminded of my need for a savior because of how I actually live.

Paying a little extra attention to the red stuff has been good for my soul.

Below is a video an 8th grade guy made to promote our small group ministry. When you place a value on letting students use their gifts in your ministry, it’s really fun to see what happens!

Click To Play