Another of Andy Stanley’s random leadership thought from his closing general session at DRIVE.

Thought #2
“The next generation product almost never comes from the previous generation.”

Andy’s takeaway for us:
Change is coming, and change is usually good. Most of the significant changes in ministry won’t be brought about by those leading the way today. They will be brought about by the next generation of church leaders. Current church leaders need to decide if the will fight change or fund change. Older leaders need to learn to be students not just critics.

What might this mean in a junior high setting?
- How much of my current approach to junior high ministry is fresh? How much of it is simply stuff that has worked for me in the past and doesn’t seem broken so I’m not really open to changing?

- How can older JH leaders begin to “fund” some of the thinking and innovation of younger leaders?

- Am I willing to learn from younger leaders who will usher in next season of JH ministry, or am I a critic of their way of thinking, leading etc.?

At the final General session of DRIVE, Andy Stanley decided to toss away his plans to teach on vision casting and share some of his recent random thoughts about leadership in general instead. For the next 50 minutes or so, he focused on five thing he’s been pondering based on five quotes that have stuck out in his mind.
Over the next few days, I’ll share super quick overview of each of these 5 leadership thoughts and throw out a question or two about how they may relate to a junior high ministry setting.

Thought #1
“To reach people no one else is reaching we must do things no one else is doing.”
- Craig Groeschel; founder of Lifechurch.tv

Andy’s big thought related to this quote was that obviously the majority of things church’s are doing must not be what most people are interested in because most people aren’t going to the things church’s are doing! Even a super cool worship service must not be what most people are interested in because most people aren’t going to super cool worship services…they are doing a bunch of other stuff instead.

Andy’s takeaway for us: Become preoccupied with those we haven’t reached instead of being preoccupied with those we are trying to keep.

What might this mean in a junior high setting?
- Does my ministry have at least as much focus on reaching un-churched kids as it does ministering to kids who already know Jesus?
- Is there a new way to begin reaching kids who don’t show an interest in coming to programs?
- What is one thing that nobody else is doing for junior highers that you have the resources, passion and ability to do in your ministry?

Just sat through a workshop giving a brief overview of the middle school ministry at North Point. Pretty simple stuff:
- One weekly 65-minute program that includes two songs, a game, a 12-minute message and 25 minutes in small groups. This happens during both adult services.

THAT’S IT! They also do three overnight events/camps per year. Nothing else. Anything else is expected to happen through the small groups.

Interesting that they feel content with a “less is more” approach. Are they onto something?

What does your junior high ministry look like?

- The weekend was fantastic. On the main campus, our junior high ministry was in its second week of our “Simmer Down” series. This week the lesson was on bitterness which was, in a sense, a continuation from last week’s lesson on Anger. Music was great (we had a couple new kids playing and singing in the band), the games were fun and students seemed to track well. We also kicked off our student ministry program at our Irvine campus. Attendance was higher than expected and the overall atmosphere was really fun.

- Right now, the entire student ministry team is in Atlanta for the Drive Conference at North Point Church. The opening session starts in a couple hours. I really have no idea what to expect from the next 2.5 days. The most intriguing aspect to me is the wide variety of really great sounding workshops; as there seems to be a lot of fresh topics being offered.

- I rented a GPS system for the rental car I’m driving. At the time it sounded easier than getting directions for the entire carpool every time we go somewhere. I figured the lead car could just follow the GPS and get us easily to each destination. I’m not sure what’s going on, but our GPS is totally messing us up! Telling us to turn on streets that don’t exists, self correcting in the middle of directions that then turn out to be wrong. So funny, but so frustrating.

- Heading out to cracker barrell for dinner. Grits, anyone?

- Our youth ministry at our regional campus in Irvine opens this weekend and we are super excited. Excited about the work God’s going to do in the lives of students and excited about unveiling the carpet ball table our 78-year-old volunteer made for us!

- One of my daughter’s best friends has an interesting condition, I think. Her sense of smell is fine, but she can’t smell skunk. Huh? How does that even happen?

- My favorite guilty pleasure song right now: Thrash Unreal by Against Me! (I’m sure there’s a way to link to it, but I don’t know how…)

- This weekend is our second week of “Simmer Down…three emotions that will get you in hot water” So far it is shaping up to be a good one.

- Tonight we have a father/son deep sea fishing trip. The boats leaves the dock at 7:00 p.m. and we return at 11:00. My son is only a 5th grader, but I’m sneaking him along with me on this one!

beep, boop, beep, bop…..

I’m no Jack Bauer, but the last 24 hours have, for my simple little life, been quite busy.

- yesterday afternoon I found myself in quick little meetings that seemed to never end. Meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting. lasting till about 6:30.

- Last night’s festivities went something like this:
* Drove to movie theater for sneak preview of Iron Man.
* Grabbed two pizza slices at mall before heading in.
* After the movie went to Tommy’s burgers for chili-cheese burger
* Then went on a hunt for late night ice cream but had to settle for frozen
yogurt.

- I woke up at 2:00 a.m. with my mind twirling. About what, I’m not sure (probably about the fact that I ate two pieces of pizza, a chili-cheese burger and frozen yogurt for dinner!). couldn’t get back to sleep until 5:30.

- My wife called me at 9:00 a.m. panicked because she forgot that our son had a little part in his class play at school at 9:20. She was in her women’s bible study and wanted to see if I could hustle to the school. I did. He was great.

- Didn’t get into the office until 10:45 so felt like I was already behind on way too many tasks to list. Of course, if I did a better job of listing them, I may actually figure out a way to chip away at those tasks.

- Went on a date with Rachel for lunch. Seems like I haven’t spent any time with her lately so a spontaneous lunch date seemed like the best solution.

beep, boop, beep, bop…

For years and years I carried around a bulky day-timer because I liked having the feel of ‘paper’ in my hands and enjoyed the ease of jotting down notes on a whim etc. But then, like most other people, I got sucked into the world of Palm Pilots and then smart phones and felt the pressure to get rid of my old-school ways. Recently I decided to take a half step back in time and bought several Moleskine notebooks. I opted for the smaller-than-usual ruled soft notebook (192 lined pages @ 3.5 x 5.5) because they fit so well in my pocket.

I have to say, my world has been changed…or changed back. It’s already hard to imagine not having one handy in my pocket.

I realize it’s Tuesday, but figured I’d go ahead with my new Monday Miscellaneous tradition:

- Didn’t post yesterday because, frankly, I forgot. I got up fairly early to head out to an all day golf tournament for my kid’s school. A friend of mine owns the insurance company that insures the school so he always buys a foursome for the otherwise way-too-costly-for-me event. We had a great time. He also bought us each 10 raffle tickets for some pretty cool prizes which, of course, I didn’t win.

- The weekend in Junior High was an interesting one. Really good in some areas and not so good in others…very much a roller coaster of sorts. Music was probably the best in a long time. One of our games was great and the other really struggled (even though it was a great, creative idea…). In fact it struggled so much that we tweaked it for the second service and then totally eliminated it from the third. Our new series “Simmer Down…three emotions that will get you into hot water” seems like it will be pretty fun. This week the topic was Anger; and more specifically how to deal with dangerous anger.

- Our Student ministry program at our new regional campus in Irvine kicks off this Sunday. Leo, our youth pastor at that campus, has been working like crazy recruiting volunteer leaders, setting up the youth room etc. I’m excited to see what God is going to do at the new campus.

- Our junior high and high school departments are in a little bit of controversy because we have decided to post-pone all of our missions trips to Mexico for the next 6 months due to the increased danger. Mexico always has certain risks, and many feel like nothing much has changed other than media attention but our missions department feels like violence has increased enough to warrant not taking students. Some families are are thanking us for our cautious approach and others are frustrated by it.

- Incredible progress is being made on our new student facility, The Refinery. All signs still point to a June 21st grand opening which happens to be promotion weekend so we are getting really close! The building is amazing.

One of the biggest frustrations in leading a junior high ministry is the relatively small amount of resources and curriculum written specifically for young teens. So, I am excited to see that Youth Specialties is releasing four new 8-week middle school studies around really crucial topics. Ken Rawson and his wife, Jen, told me about this project a while back and I am really glad to see these great studies available for folks like me and you! The four studies are:
Becoming a Young Man of God
Living as a Young Man of God
Becoming a Young Woman of God
Living as a Young Woman of God

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about organizational culture; how do you define it, who sets it, how to navigate it etc.

Every church in America has it’s own culture. Your church has yours, my church has mine, and chances are they are fairly unique. When talking to fellow youth workers who have had bad experiences at a previous church, I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the biggest contributing factors is a failure to navigate the culture of that particular church. It’s really tough to pin-point or define the culture of any particular church, but it exists and the ability to recognize and function well within it is one key to longevity and success in the church setting.

- Is the work environment casual or formal?
- Are you expected to tell your supervisor where you are during the day?
- What meetings can you afford to miss and what ones must you make sure to never miss?
- What type of humor is allowed in what settings?
- Is the church led by type ‘A’ personalities or not?
- How loosely or tightly are office hours tracked?
- Is there an expectation that most good work happens when you are in the office?
- Does your church value ‘sacred cows’ or is it open to lots of changes?
- Are there certain leaders who expect to be treated in a certain fashion?
- Is email the preferred method of communication amongst staff or face-to-face?

…and the list goes on.

Try this exercise: write a one paragraph definition of your church’s ‘culture’ and ask others you work with to do the same. Then, spend some time together and identify the areas that were common to everybody. Chances are those areas are the true culture of your church and the less common areas may be individual values or experiences.

What I’ve learned and what I’ve seen others learn is that one person rarely changes the culture of the church. Culture is developed over time; for better and for worse and the wise youth worker is one who can appreciate it, understand it and navigate it.