- Said farewell to our 8th graders this past weekend, my daughter being one of them. Spent the time between each service giving more “check book tours” of our new building.

- Today, all hands were on deck at 7:00 a.m. (haven’t had a day off in several weeks) to begin the grunt work of moving in furniture, assembling things, cleaning, vacuuming, moving piles of sand and numerous other last minute projects to get ready for first grand opening tour this Thursday night.

- Heard an interesting question earlier: Who do you think is facing bigger odds: Rocco Mediate against Tiger Woods or Lakers winning two against Boston at home? My vote goes to Lakers facing tougher odds.

- Kung Fu Panda: Go see it.

- Today is Kayla’s 14th Birthday. A bunch of her friends surprised her with an early morning kidnapping. She really does have a fantastic inner circle of friends who treat each other well, and look out for each other.

- Our junior high department just traded our old, beat-up RV for a sweet 1976 Ford Ranchero that will double as a utility truck for our ministry. I think it gets about 5 gallons to the mile!

- I have suddenly lost a bunch of my interest in the political race. I just can’t get excited about either candidate. Not sure I love the type of change I think Obama represents (although I do like his charisma) but don’t care much for the status quo that I think McCain represents either (not sure he knows what the word charisma means). What to do.

THE GOOD:
After more than four years in the making, we are slated to move into The Refinery (our new student ministry center) next weekend, June 21-22 which happens to be the first weekend of the Summer and also our promotion weekend. The place is amazing and energy and anticipation are at an all time high.

THE BAD:
There are still quite a few loose ends, specifically the certificate of occupancy. Yesterday the fire marshall walked through and gave us a fairly short list of things that needed to be fixed. Every day that we wait for the green light to “move in” means one less day for all the stuff we need to do before our first programs in just over a week. It’s kinda like getting the keys to a house. At that moment, the building will be ours but we have to get it cleaned up, set up, organized, tweaked etc.

THE UGLY:
Because we have so much promo in our church body and the community announcing the grand opening date, I cringe to think about the consequences if we miss our deadline.

Yesterday, when I posted about Group’s new LIVE Bible, I was having trouble downloading information from the website so I linked to Amazon instead. Here is the link to a much better description (including a video) on the Group site.

- Crazy, but amazing weekend! We wrapped up our “Heroes” series with a lesson about the men who brought their paralyzed friend to Jesus. In addition to our usual jh program, we were giving “checkbook tours” of the Refinery before and after every service. Additionally we hosted our end-of-the-school year volunteer appreciation BBQ. So needless to say things were a bit hectic.

- Saw Kung-Fu Panda with my family over the weekend. I gotta say, I think it is one of the more enjoyable animated films I’ve ever seen. Just dumb, silly humor.

- As of last week, our junior high ministry officially has ZERO interns for the first time in about 5 years. In the past we’ve had as many as five at a time so this feels fairly foreign. If you know anybody who would be interested in a two year internship, pass them my way!

- Not sure the Lakers can come back from an 0-2 start to the series. Because of how both teams have played in the playoffs, I honestly thought the Lakers would take the championship easily.

- Had a really nasty hotel experience last night: I arrived to my room at about 1:30 a.m. only to find that the bed had been made but sheets not cleaned….dirty, hairy, totally gross. There was no housekeeping available at that hour so the front desk handed me a set of clean sheets and pillow cases so I could change them myself. Truly a disgusting scene.

Okay, after sifting through the “You might be a junior high youth worker if…” entries I noticed that the vast majority of them fell into one of two categories: Classic, timeless bits and bits using current culture as the context. Because of this, I decided to award TWO winners. A winner from each category will receive $50 in resources from Simply Junior High.

CLASSIC, TIMELESS CATEGORY:
“You have a budget category entitled “Damage Repair”.
contributed by Corey Willoughby

CURRENT CULTURE CATEGORY:
“You have students who are 12 years old at youth group, but 26 on facebook.” Contributed by lifeline leaders

Congratulations! Please shoot me an email at Kurtj@saddleback.net and I’ll reply with information to claim your prize.

- You’ve ever been blamed for the new stain on the fellowship hall carpet.
- You’ve ever been caught toilet papering your senior pastor’s house.
- You’ve ever found your left eye twitching uncontrollably during a lock-in.
- You’ve ever purposely hit a 7th grader in the head during dodge ball.
- Quality time away for you and your spouse really means driving in the same van to camp.
- Your day off is spent staring into the mirror and chanting, “I’m smart enough, I’m good enough, and doggone it, people like me” over and over again.
- You’ve ever blocked the jump shot of a tiny little 6th grade girl and shouted “In Your Face!” at the top of your lungs.
- You’ve ever been asked when you’re going to get a real job.

Add one or two of your own…The winner will receive $50 in free resources from Simply Junior High.

This morning, I had a great disucssion with Josh Griffin, our high school pastor, about our current small group structure at Saddleback. We talked about strengths and weaknesses, follow up, curriculum, developing leaders, quality control etc. It was actually a really energizing conversation because, quite frankly, our groups have been going so well for so long that we haven’t done a real good critique of them in quite a while.

Which leads to a question that may be worth asking yourself: What are areas in your ministry that are working well that may need a check up?

I’m great at evaluating and improving on the weak areas of my ministry, but this morning’s conversation reminded me that even some of the strongest aspects of our ministry need to be examined on a regular basis.

- Yesterday, Rachel and I celebrated 17 incredible years of marriage. To list the ways my life is better because of her would require a book, not a simple blog post.

- We were away on a short anniversary getaway, so I missed the junior high programs this weekend, but the team said they were amazing. We brought the sixth graders over a few weeks early for a “sneak peak” of our program which included a guided tour of our new youth center that is set to open in a few weeks.

- Speaking of the youth center, “The Refinery” is unbelievable. It’s a state-of-the-art facility that is, frankly, mind blowing. I must be one of a handful of youth pastors in the country who get to minister in such a facility. But, It’s just a building. I’ve been working hard to keep sending the message to our youth team and others that ministry to students is still all about building relationships, not building buildings.

- The revised and updated version of “Controlled Chaos”, now titled “Middle School Ministry Made Simple” is set to release in August. I should be honored and excited that Standard Publishing believes in it enough to give it another run (it’s about 35% new material), but I’m actually feeling really conflicted over the whole situation for a couple of reasons.

- Shameless Plug Warning! If you work with middle school students, you really should subscribe to the Simply Junior High Newsletter. It’s packed with a ton of insight, tidbits and encouragement. If you don’t work directly with young teens, buy it for somebody you know who does.

The Good:
Our student ministry team has been expanding (new regional campuses, a few newer hires, etc.) but it feels like we are starting to gel as a group. I’m a believer that “fit” is more crucial than “skill” on a team and I feel like our team fits together well and is well skilled at what they do.

The Bad:
Each year, we take a retreat with our youth team and spouses. It’s a major highlight for us because we get to hang out, relax and gear up for Summer. Unfortunately because of the schedule of our new student center opening we had to change our dates this year at the 11th hour. The result: A few of our team had already mad plans and couldn’t change them. I absolutely HATE that my poor planning results in them missing out.

The Ugly:
I feel like our students and their families are under major attack. Divorces, sudden deaths and “run aways” have been on the increase lately. I hold onto the belief that when amazing things are about to happen, Satan gets busy.