They’re putting up a new sign in front of our church. The old one has been there for about 30 years, and was starting to crumble. My friend Bruce works on projects like this for the facilities team here; he was describing to me the cool design of the sign, and what it’ll look like when it’s done. It’s going to be terrific. Then, with satisfaction in his voice, he mentioned that he just got done remodeling some of the little kids ministry rooms in our church. The rooms are way more functional now, and they look fantastic, too. Last summer he worked his tail off updating our old chapel… but the great result was visually evident as soon as you walk into that room.
But that got me thinking about middle school ministry, and how the work that we do is designed to impact the soul of a young teenager. Which is really, really hard to “see”!
It’s so different from finishing a “project”, and being able to stand back, look at our work, and say “it’s all done!” Renovated, updated, complete…. Not so much. People are a “work in progress”, right? I know that I am! And I’m a long way from finished.
These middle schoolers that we’re serving have so much life in front of them yet. And the stuff that we’re trying to build into them could effect them for the next 50 years or more! Everything we do to try to point them towards a life with Jesus can have profound impact, eternal impact. On them, on their friends, on their current family, on their future spouse, on their future family. Grandkids, even! But most days it can be pretty hard to see… so that’s what I’m trying to remind myself of today.
I’m trying to notice what’s invisible!

I’m not a business man, but I saw this one coming for years. For lots of reasons, one biggie being that their online business is about 1/10th that of Netflix, Blockbuster has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and hopes to reorganize.

Some leadership things popped into my head when I was thinking about the Blockbuster saga; some of them may even apply to youth ministry:

- Change isn’t bad….in fact sometimes it is necessary for your survival.
- If it ain’t broke, it will be soon enough.
- it isn’t about what you think works….it’s about what your “customers” think works.
- objects in mirror really are closer than they appear.
- if outsiders recognize problems before leaders on the inside do….there are BIG problems!
- Success almost always breeds complacency.

Share one of your own!

It’s been a busy start to the school year! (can you relate?)
For me, I think this year’s been over-busy.
And this morning, when I took a minute to look back at yesterday, I realized that in all the action of the day, I hadn’t overtly, intentionally included God. Sure, I prayed to him in a couple of meetings… And I meant it! And I didn’t “run from God” at all yesterday.

But this morning I was thinking about how Not Running From God is way different from Pursuing God.

I don’t want to just “not run from God”. Today, I want to really Pursue!

Posted By Kurt Johnston

- I was recently struck/challenged by the amount of what I call “God Talk” we use in our junior high ministry setting. By “God Talk” I mean the fact that we talk about God….a lot, but don’t talk about Jesus nearly enough. Some may see it as semantics, but I think it is more than that. In a culture where just about everybody is pro-god, I want students to begin identifying more and more with Jesus. Not sure where this is leading me, but I think it’s the right direction.

- Speaking of Jesus, we are about to wrap up a three-week series we called “Give Me a J!” which is a look at who Jesus is, what did he have to say, and what it means to us. It’s been a really great series. So good, in fact, that it will likely become a super series at simply junior high. But in case you don’t want to pay for it, here are the very basic key points from each week:

WHOIS HE: 1. God in a Bod. 2. The Promised Savior 3. The Only Way to Heaven

WHAT DID HE HAVE TO SAY? In a word, his message was about FREEDOM.

1. Freedom From Sin 2. Freedom From Acting Religiously 3. Freedom From Selfishness

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO ME? 1. If You Don’t Know Him, Meet Him. 2. If You Do Know Him, Share Him.

- Do you have Xbox live or use your Wii online? If so, and you enjoy television and movies, then I strongly recommend considering the online Netflix subscription for only $9.00 per month. the number of movies and television shows that are available to watch instantly is quite impressive. Of course, you can subscribe even without Xbox or Wii, but will only be able to watch on your computer Vs. your television.

- I find the Tea Party movement fascinating. If they can manage to stick to their original agenda (in case you wonder, TEA stands for “Taxed Enough Already”), they may have some legs….and may even be able to attract some moderates to their side of the discussion. But if they begin to meddle in other traditionally conservative issues (abortion, gay marriage, immigration….) I think they will loose effectiveness. Of course, I don’t really follow all this stuff enough to have a strong feel for it….it’s just an extremely un-educated observation about politics; which I’m interested in to some degree.

- Just got the new EVO phone. I may have crossed the line into a realm of technology/bells and whistles/awesomeness that I shouldn’t have. I truly can’t figure the thing out.

Posted by Jared Moine (for those of you who are new, Jared is a junior high pastor in the D.C. area who is in his first year of full time junior high ministry. Thus, the name of his column.

We’re Making Changes

The high school pastor and I have successfully talked the senior pastor into a crazy idea we both had and to both or our surprises, after some thought, he said yes. Up until this weekend our high school ministry has always had their “worship service” entry level program on Wednesday nights and since I have been here we have been having our middle school ministry service on Sunday nights. Both nights work and allow us to use the new, main, and only building. Our adults had been using the main building on Saturday nights and three times on Sunday morning. Since being here, I’ve noticed that only one of our services is full on Sundays and our Saturday night crowd is a good crowd but not massively growing and mostly full of people who come out of convenience that weekend. Meanwhile, both the high school pastor and I feel our student ministries need a change to make them healthy. We have a strong desire to have our students plugged in to small groups, and with the main high school service happening on Wednesday nights, finding another night of the week available, proves difficult. That, combined with the fact that most students don’t have much to do on Saturday evenings, we decided that Saturday would be our ideal time to have student services. However, this would require a significant shake up within the adult world of our church. We are so blessed to have a senior pastor who not only believes in us, but also believes in the importance of student ministries. We must have said the right things, because our senior pastor agreed to allow us to make this change that affects the whole church. This is huge and exciting and mostly scary. This is the first time for me to have a crazy idea, and to then get a chance to put it in place. If it’s great, then I’m part of a genius decision. On the flip side, if it sucks, it was my idea. That’s a scary sink or swim scenario that I, for the first time in ministry, find myself in. It’s terrifying, yet I think this is what faith is suppose to be all about, carrying out plans that you think are right and good, yet you don’t really know if it’s going to work.

Maybe you’re someone in the same shoes as me and you’re just getting started and everything is a new faith building exercise, or maybe you have been in your current job for a few years now and have really settled in and are doing some great ministry in a place where you know the culture and know what works for your students. If you have settled in, chances are you know what you are doing and you know that you can pull everything off. This is a good place to be, and to be honest I pray a lot to get to that place soon but there is something amazing about living in the moment and trusting God to make something grow. My prayer would be for those of you who have all the experience in your craft of youth ministry, that you would not be afraid to fail and try something new. Maybe it isn’t a complete shake up of your church, but just a small change could push your faith into an exciting new adventure. However, maybe God does have some big plans for your church and it’s you who needs to have the faith to dream and share an idea with a trusted ministry partner. Our current new adventure started with the idea of “what would be the best time for us to do youth services?” As we brainstormed the Saturday night plans kept getting better and better until finally we made a positives and negatives list and the positives in making a switch were so great that we even convinced our senior pastor.

I don’t know what God may have for you, but I do know that He always wants to grow our faith and the older and wiser we get the bigger steps of faith we need to be willing to take. Our next step starts this Saturday, when does yours?

Posted by Kurt Johnston

I don’t use the word “genius” very often. My 8th grade son, however, thinks the word is…well….genius, and used it quite liberally.

His most recent use was when we were listening to a song on the radio. After a line in the song that says, “I want to be on the cover of Forbes magazine, smiling next to Oprah and the queen…” he blurted out that the song was genius.

“On the cover of Forbes magazine, smiling next to Oprah AND the queen? That’s genius” were Cole’s exact words.

Genius? probably not. Catchy song? For sure. Of course if you can write a line that 8th graders all across America think is “genius” then maybe it is.

I’m having trouble uploading the video, but here is the link. CAUTION: Foul language in the comments section of video.

1 September 2010

posted by Scott Rubin

Some of your churches are like mine, and you encourage some of your volunteers to “take a breath” during the summer months. We push the pause button on our small groups in June & July so that our faithful volunteers can vacation, rest, and be ready to jump back into investing in junior highers once the school year begins. Honestly, our ministry is less effective during those months, and I miss those volunteers like crazy, but for us it’s the best choice in the long run. (and, it probably explains why so many of our volunteers have stuck around for years & years!)

So last week, I was anticipating the “re-arrival” of our school year volunteers. I said to our staff team, “Who’s one person that you’re really really looking forward to serving alongside of this year?” It was fun to hear people’s answers… and look forward to this fun we’re going to have together this year, as we point middle schoolers towards Jesus.

Later that day, I decided to take 4 minutes & jot a note to one of those volunteers… and tell them how much they’re valued around here — and why.
It’s a habit I’m trying to “re-create” — because honestly, I’ve gotten a little sloppy with it! (Which is crazy, because when I get an encouragement note, sometimes I’ll carry it around with me for a few days!) Thoughtful words are really meaningful to me — and in about 4 minutes, I can put some fuel in someone’s tank just by jotting them a snail-mail note. In a mailbox full of credit card offers and cable-tv-advertisements, a card from you would be a welcome site!

Posted by Kurt Johnston

This past Sunday I visited one of our regional campuses to see their youth ministry in action. It’s something I try to find time to do on a semi-regular basis but in reality don’t end up doing as often as I would like, mostly because all three of our regional campuses are lead by incredible youth Pastors who don’t need me looking over their shoulders.

I was reminded of the power of healthy leadership yesterday when visiting our Irvine campus led by Leo Galarza. What I saw Sunday was really encouraging: The ministry recently split JH and HS into two separate groups and each is growing since the split, both bands were led by student leaders, volunteers were EVERYWHERE….teaching, running audio, greeting students, setting up and tearing down.

The whole thing was quite impressive, actually. And it was all because of Leo. but here’s the twist: Leo was nowhere to be found…in fact due to some family issues, Leo has been out of the country for almost THREE months!

Make no mistake, Leo is a strong leader and his presence is greatly missed….but his strength as a leader has been proven NOT by the fact that his presence is missed but by the fact that even though their leader is missed, nothing else about the youth ministry is missing at all!

For you to ponder:

- when you are going to be gone, how much work does it take for you to prepare everybody for your absence? The more you equip and empower others day-to-day, the more easily they can fill gaps left when you are away.

-

Posted by: Heather Flies

Some of us call it junior high ministry… some call it middle school ministry… some have 6-8th grades… some 7-8th grades… in our ministry, we have 7-9th graders. I know, it’s weird, but I love it! I love having students for three full years and I LOVE the depth and maturity my 9th graders bring to our ministry.

As much as I love it, with any three-year program, and I would argue even two year programs, it’s a challenge to keep that “top grade” engaged and fed. Year after year, right around January, I hear statements like this from my top grade students:

–> “The seventh graders are so immature.”

–> “I don’t like the games we do.”

–> “I feel like you’re teaching to the 7th graders, not us.”

–> “I already know all this stuff.”

I’m not kidding, it’s the SAME comments EVERY year. Even though we have a specified doctrinal class (year-long) for ninth graders only– even though I use Greek and Hebrew in my teaching– even though we engage 9th graders in leadership. My initialresponse, if I’m honest, is to be annoyed, personally hurt, or indifferent.

This last year, however, my volunteer staff and I decided to take a different approach.

1) We were proactive: On our 8th grade retreat (just two months before they officially became 9th graders in our ministry), we had a straight forward conversation about the tendencies of 9th graders. We challenged our incoming 9th graders to be different– to sit in the front row, rather than the back. To engage the 7th graders and mentor them rather than ignore them. To understand that we all need to be life-long learners & there is always something they can learn from the teaching.

2) We asked questions: One of the first weeks in January, we asked the 9th graders to stay after for ten minutes following our mid-week program. We acknowledged, right off the bat, that they probably had noticed some differences between them and the 7th graders– they all laughed. We said, “We want to honor you guys as our 9th graders– what are some things we could do that would help you to feel ministered to?” They had some great ideas!

3) We listened AND responded to their ideas: For the remaining months, we chose one week to pull the 9th graders out half way through our mid-week program and go deeper into the topic. During our “Love Spectrum” month for instance, we had 9th grade-only conversations about sexual pressures & temptations– a conversation we would have had to be more conservative about if 7th graders were in the room. We also set up a couple 9th grade duos to coordinate the games for our mid-week program.

4) We created an event just for them: Last week, we held the inaugural “9th Grade Formal Dinner Cruise” on Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota’s finest and largest lakes (we have nearly 14,000 lakes! . We gathered a group of 9th graders a month before the event and asked them to design the night’s program. We marketed it as a 9th grade only event– “You have the opportunity to do something we’ve never done before!” The response was amazing! Girls found after-prom dresses at Macy’s for $23 and guys borrowed jackets and ties from their dads. We met an hour before hand and took great pictures– most same gender, trying to promote the idea of it being a 9th grade event, not a date night. Then, we cruised for three hours, enjoying food, mingling, and the “Red Carpet” theme.

From talking to many middle school ministers, I know this is a challenge for everyone– whether your top grade is 8th or 9th. Much of it is developmental, I believe, but there are things you can do to engage them and honor them. Trust me, it’s worth the time and effort!