- It’s never happened before, so I’m sorta excited that a book I co-authored with Marko a few years ago is being released in Spanish.

- Couldn’t be more excited about the Broncos and Tim Tebow! It’s a risky pick, but I think the potential payoff is huge. Time to order a Tebow jersey!

- Heading to Portland this weekend to speak at Believe. If you have never taken your junior highers to a Believe event, you should. It’s a 24-hour event designed specifically for young teens, and I have never seen a better camp/conference. This is the last stop of this year’s tour, so you have plenty of time to put it on the calendar for next Spring.

- In two weeks we are kicking off a brand new series called “The Guy/Girl Thing” that won’t focus so much on sex and dating, but more on understanding the opposite sex, learning how to appreciate each other etc.  I’m excited about the three weeks we have planned:

WEEK ONE: A fairly traditional lesson, talking about the importance of healthy relationships with opposite sex.

WEEK TWO: Katie Edwards and I will be randomly/spontaneously working through some of the thoughts in the “99 Thoughts About Girls/Guys”  books we wrote together. The idea is that we will just sit on stools and hunt and peck through the books and see where the discussion takes us.

WEEK THREE: We are seperating the guys and the girls and each group is doing “guy” [...]

Continue Reading “Random Randomness”

I never saw the movie, but I like the phrase. Mostly because I’m an ideas guy and have grown quite comfortable with “failure to launch” being a normal part of my experience.  For many people dreaming, asking “what if”, imagineeering and pie-in-the-sky thinking is frustrating and even pointless because it isn’t reality based and seldom yields results. 

I disagree. I think that type of thinking almost always yields results. The results may not always be what you originally hoped for or expected, but bold, outlandish, unrealistic thinking typically spurs on conversations that result in tangible progress that helps you move forward. In my ministry career, I have had dozens….scratch that; HUNDREDS of “failure to launch” ideas that, although they didn’t come to fruition, spurred our ministry toward other fantastic opportunities.

Don’t let the fear of failure keep you from dreaming!

The fact that one of the chapters in my upcoming book discusses the topic of evangelism, and having just spent half a day with Greg Steir at our annual junior high Summit really has me thinking A LOT about the topic lately.  Here are some things that have been bouncing around in my head:

-  How do we continue to create a sense of evangelistic urgency in our students?

- Why have we (by “we” I mean most of the youth workers I have talked to, including myself) seemingly completely abandoned a more traditional proclamation of the gospel in so much of our methodology?

- How are we  equipping our students to share their faith, be salt and light, live missionally etc.?

I have other thoughts, but those are the big ones I have been writing about, talking about with others and thinking about.

- Finally finished the manuscript for The 9….Best Practices of Youth Ministry! I’m sure there will be some re-writes, but feels wonderful to be done with the majority of the project.

- Have spent the last two days at GROUP Publishing in Colorado with at the annual junior high pastor “Summit”. Each year, for the past eight, a group of about 20 of us gather together to talk shop, sharpen and challenge each other, pray and hang out. This year was different because we are missing several of our regulars, but it has been a fantastic time.

- Saw Date Night the other night….I was pleasantly suprised.  Not going to win any awards, but enjoyable.

- Today my son, Cole, turns 13 and in a couple months my daughter, Kayla, will turn 16. I’m still 30.

Last night my wife and I had dinner with some friends who are getting ready to start a full-time middle school position at a church in the D.C. area. It is is his first full-time position and, up until now, he has only worked with high school aged students as a volunteer. He asked me what some of the differences are. There are many, but here are a few of the biggies:

- Your ministry is almost as much to parents as it is to junior highers. You have to keep them informed, you have to keep them excited about your ministry, you have to stay in their favor etc. Because they don’t drive, and because JH ministry does so much more “extra curricular” stuff than a typical children’s ministry, mom and dad’s willingness to shuttle their kids to and from your program is a major factor.  You also have an incredible opportunity to provide a little bit of hope and help to parents who are new to raising a young teen.

- Lessons: Keep them short, simple and highly tangible.

- Relational time: You just can’t expect the same depth of conversation, “give and take” etc. when you are spending time with a junior higher.

- Building trust: It’s much easier with junior highers. In fact, it takes almost no time at all.Most of the time, if a junior higher feels like you like them and are interested in them, they will like you back and instantly begin to trust you.

- “Preventing” Vs. “Fixing”: [...]

Continue Reading “Some Differences Between Jr. High & High School Ministry”

- My blog isn’t dead, just slowing down for now. Partly because we are in the long, slow process of creating a new “Simply Junior High” blog that will include additional contributors, some fun special features etc. The process isn’t “long and slow” because the blog is so amazing it’s taking a long time to create, but because the good folks at Simply Youth Ministry are swamped right now.

- Part of what is keeping Simply Youth Ministry so busy is that they are putting a ton of energy into a new resource that we are SUPER excited about. If you are familiar with the LIVE small group curriculum, you will be glad to hear that we are gearing up to release a junior high version tht includes two full years of online, downloadable, customizable small group curriculum written specifically for young teens.

- I’m still up early every day with a goal of spending three hours working on The 9….Best Practices of Youth Ministry. I think it’s shaping up to become a book that will spur lots of great youth ministry thinking. This is largely due to the subject matter as well as the really, really good contributions of  my co-author, and long time friend, Tim Levert.  Tim has a PhD in Youth Ministry and serves in a United Methodist church outside Columbus, Ohio. Melding our two minds has been an interesting proposition at times! You know how it is; some people have the brains and others have [...]

Continue Reading “My Blog, LIVE Curriculum For JH, I’m A Mutt…..and other stuff”

- Just settled on final title and (almost) final cover design of new book. Actual release date is still several months away.

- I have been reminded the past couple of weeks how quickly negativity spreads.  Sarcasm, bitterness etc. can quickly poison the well.

- I filled my NCAA tournament bracket out in approximately 53 seconds (right before the deadline). Sadly, the early results reflect this.

- Next month, I speak at the Southern California District of the Assemblies of God annual gathering.  The audience will be comprised mostly of Sr. Pastors. I’m excited (and more than a little nervous) to share my heart with them.

- The Broncos recently acquired quarterback Brady Quinn.  Here is a text message exchange I had with my friend:     

Dan: “What do you think of Brady Quinn?”

Kurt: “I try not to.”

Below is email one of our small group leaders recently sent to a parent who was upset about her son getting injured while playing a game during small group. She had sent a scathing email accusing him of  negligence, etc.  He had tried to call her several times but was  unable to get ahold of her. I’m not sure there is a “professional” youth worker on the planet who could have written a better email to a concerned parent.

Dear Mrs. XXXX,
Thanks for letting me know about what’s going on with XXXXX.  I’m so sorry to have left you feeling like there wasn’t adequate supervision at last night’s C Group. I’ve been leading small groups with students for about 10 years now, and I always try hard to provide a safe, healthy environment.  That being said, I can never completely remove the possibility of an accident happening, and I think this is what happened last night.  The game we were playing was not dangerous, but XXXX had an accident and got injured.  Had I known more clearly the extent of his injury, I CERTAINLY would have contacted you immediately.  When I asked him if he was OK, he assured me more than once that he was fine and never mentioned feeling dizzy or not being able to see.  Please let XXXX know that in the future he can always tell me if he is not feeling well or is injured, and I will do everything [...]

Continue Reading “Why Having Quality Volunteers Makes Your Ministry So Much Stronger:”

- After spending the better part of 3 days with middle school youth workers at SYMC, I am (once again) convinced that many of the sharpest minds in youth ministry are found in middle school ministry!

- At a conference like SYMC (or YS or any other large gathering of youth workers) you meet lots and lots of people. It’s always such a great reminder to me that God uses an amazingly vast array of people to pour into students. I’m so thankful that the stereotypical youth worker (young, cool, plays guitar, surfs, rides skateboards, has a tattoo….) is no longer the “norm”.

- We are starting a 3-week series this weekend called “STUFF”. We are using household stuff as object lessons to teach a biblical truth. It’s a series we have done once before with great success. This week’s lesson: Take Out The Trash!

- Quite a few people tracked me down at the conference to ask me about regional campuses (basically church plants that are still part of the mother ship). Questions about how we structure etc.  My simple answer: “Treat them like a franchise with freedom”  They are a franchise in that there are certainly some things that they have to do in line with the main campus because they are the same church.  But there shouldn’t be an overly large amount of control…they need freedom to tweak the ministry to their context.

- Dear Denver Broncos, Please get rid of Brandon Marshall.

- Dear senate and house leadership, Please either sign [...]

Continue Reading “Random Randomness”

As many of you who read this blog know, I have had a junior high-themed video podcast for a few years. If you’ve never seen one of them, you can check out the archive right here.

As I get ready to “crank up” the frequency of the podcast, I would love to have your input into what it looks like as it moves forward. Here are a few options (I would put a slick survey tool here but don’t know how!):

1.  Keep it as it is:  Me in front of a camera talking about one topic for 10 minutes. Short, sweet and to the point.

2.  Kurt and Guest: Me and a guest in front of a camera talking about one topic for 10 minutes. Short, sweet, to the point with one other perspective.

3.  ”Steal” the Simply Youth Ministry Podcast format: Create a 3-4 person team and make the podcast more like a radio show lasting about 30 minutes focusing purely on Junior High topics (the SYM podcast is typically about an hour).

4. Keep us guessing: Make it a random mash-up of all of the above.

Would love your thoughts in the comment section or you can email them to me at kurtj@saddleback.com