If you’ve read my book Controlled Chaos (recently revised and updated as Middle School Ministry Made Simple) or if you have ever heard me speak about junior high ministry you are familiar with my insistence that one of the best things a junior high youth worker can do is to walk down junior high memory lane from time to time.

The reality is that as we age and the farther away from our own junior high experience we get, the more likely we are to forget what it’s actually like to be in junior high. For this reason, I think it’s wise to do a few things once a year or so:

- Visit your old junior high school. Drive around the perimeter, walk the halls if possible and maybe even drop in to see one of your favorite teachers (of course this won’t work for me as all of my junior high teachers can only be found in retirement homes….).

- Browse your junior high yearbook. Look at pictures, read what people wrote when they signed it.

- Walk you old stomping grounds. Go to the mall you hung out at, go to the field where you played little league, visit the Taco Bell you and your friends frequented.

I try to do most of these exercises at least once a year, and when I do I’m surprised at how many memories come flooding back. I’m reminded of my struggles, my fears, my insecurities, my hopes, my successes etc. And ultimately I’m reminded that though much has changed in our world since I was in 8th grade, the journey my students are on isn’t much different at all.

Rachel and I both grew up in Whittier, California, an area about 45 minutes north of where we currently live and one that has seen some fairly dramatic changes over the years. Today for our date day (I took an extra day off this week due to the absolutely crazy schedule our youth ministry team kept last week with the PDYM conference) I decided I wanted to go on a “Whittier Tour” and spend the day driving through our hometown. We spent about 2.5 hours visiting various child-hood and young adult-hood stomping grounds. Not that you care (unless you are familiar with Whittier…) but here were our major stops.

- Granada Middle School: While it’s technically in La Mirada, it was where I spent grades 6-8

- Bretheren Christian School: Rachel’s junior high

- Cal High: My High School. Cal is short for California….such a great school they named our state after it!

- La Serna High: Rachel’s High School

- My childhood home on Chadsey and myteen yearsapartment on Mulberry.

- Rachel’s childhood homes (4 or 5 different ones!)

- First Family Church: This was the highlight of the day! This is the church where I came to Christ in high school, it’s where Rachel grew up, it’s where we met, married and spent the first 6 years of junior high ministry on staff. The church has gone through some really, really exciting changes in the past few years and it was so fun to tour around with the new Pastor and some of the staff. As luck would have it, while on our tour we ran across Carlos, a lifelong friend who we grew up with who now serves on the church board of elders. If you know anybody in the Whittier/La Habra/La Mirada area looking for a church home First Family is worth a visit.

- Oceanic Arts: My friend Chris Schmaltz’s dad, Leroy, is a legend in the world of Tiki carving and art. He and his partner have owned and operated Oceanic Arts since the late 50′s. Chris and I worked there off and on all through high school and college.

All day long Rachel and I kept talking about our roots, our heritage and how blessed we were to grow up in loving homes, with good friends such fond memories.

Lesson:Week one of our two week ‘mini series’, “Sunday Old School” (Rahab)

Attendance: Lower than average.

Music:Music was great! It was an all junior high band led by a high school student. As a closer, they played a very cool version ofJesus Loves Me.

Volunteer Involvement: Felt a little lower than usual. Maybe coming out of our ‘School Wars’ series they were ready for a break.

Student Involvement: Lower than average. Other than the band, students weren’t used much.

“Fun Factor”:Different than usual, but high. We really played up the old school sunday school theme and played older games, sang older songs etc. It’s not something that would work very often, but for a two-week series it seems fun.

Creative Twist:Instead of me telling the story of Rahab and then teaching, we had a team member dressed up like an old man in a rocking chair reading a version we wrote. It was very true to the biblical account and we just added a few funny jokes and pictures here and there. Then, later in the service I taught for about 12 minutes.

It makes sense that one of the first items cut from church budgets in these tough times is conference attendance. By the time you add up travel, hotel, food, rental car and conference registration, the cost of a conference can be close to a thousand dollars. But I think attending some sort of conference every year is important enough to figure out how to make it happen even in tough times.

CONFERENCES ARE IMPORTANT BECAUSE…

- They are like camp for youth workers.

- You rub shoulders with other men and women “in the trenches” who share the same passion and challenges you do.

- You get ongoing training that is very specific to youth ministry.

- If you go with from your church, you get to spend some incredible team time together.

- You get to “decompress” for a few days while also refreshing your soul.

A FEW IDEAS TO CUT CONFERENCES COSTS:

- Pick a conference that is within driving distance. Nowadays, there are so many great conferences to choose from that you shouldn’t have any trouble finding one fairly nearby.

- Buy food at a grocery store and go back to your hotel for meals instead of eating out.

- Try to find a “host home” instead of staying at a hotel. Lots of conferences work alongside local churches to help find you a host home if you can’t afford a hotel. If the conference doesn’t do this, call a few of the local churches to see if they have people in their congregation who open their homes to missionaries, traveling pastors etc.

- Take advantage of “Early Bird” rates. Almost every conference offers discounts if you sign up early.

- Rob Peter to Pay Paul. Ask your supervisor if you might be allowed to use money from other budget areas so you can still attend a local conference.

Yesterday was a bit busy so here is an update from last weekend in our junior high ministry:

SERIES: Our final week of “School Wars”, a series built around school competition. We had no worship music for the entire series, we focused on the school competition aspect of the series and each week we shared a gospel message via video. It was the first time we had ever done a team-based competition and we learned a few things….primarily that the vast majority of our students really liked the change even if they didn’t particularly love the competition part. Tons of students brought first-time guests.

ATTENDANCE: Our attendance for the final week of “School Wars” was really big….our biggest of the year.

VOLUNTEER INVOLVEMENT:High. Lots of volunteers stayed for multiple services to help run games, organize the teams, greet guests, etc.

STUDENT RESPONSE: High. We started a subscription to Poll Everywhere, an amazing text-based survey service. We decided to take a risk and ask the students to give us their feelings toward School Wars. The questions came up on the screen and we instantly saw their live responses. Their options were: “Loved It”, “It Was Okay” and “Didn’t Like It”. The overwhelming majority (about 80%) said they loved it, about 15% said it was okay and about 5% said they didn’t like it. If you can afford the service, some type of live text-based survey program holds a TON of potential in your junior high program.

NEXT UP:This week we are starting a short, two-week series called “Sunday Old School”. Again, we polled our students and asked them what classic bible story they would like to learn more about. The options: Zacchaeus climbs a tree, Daniel and the lions den, Rahab saves the spies and Joseph and his coat of many colors. The Winners were Daniel and the lions den and Rahab so those will be our focus the next two weeks.

Apparently, a high school in Texas was allowing students to settle disputes by putting them in a steel cage and letting them fight it out. I love this quote by the principal…the person in charge of quality education:

“That’s barbaric. You can’t do that at a high school. You can’t do that anywhere,” Mr Moten said. “Ain’t nothing to comment on. It never did happen. I never put a stop to anything because it never happened.”

“Ain’t nothing to comment on….”! Oh, Texas.

When I jumped into junior high ministry over 20 years ago, one of the first things I did was subscribe to GROUP magazine and I’ve been a subscriber off and on (mostly on) ever since. Each issue is crammed full ofa really good mix of educational/philosophical articles and super practical ministry ideas that you can plug directly into your setting.

A subscription costs about $30.00 per year and is, in my oppinion, the best thirty bucks you can spend. Where else can you get encouragement, tips and tricks, ready-to-use ideas and food for thought delivered to your door for only $30.00? If you follow the link above and scroll to the bottom of the page, there is an offer for a free issue of GROUP so you can check it out for yourself.

For too long the junior high ministry I lead has had a teaching strategy that feels too loose. In essence our plan has been this: 1) Identify four or five key things we want to teach each year and make sure we cover those. 2) rotate from a felt need/topical series to an expository/bible education series every month. While that has served us well, we are in the process of re-tooling our strategy. Here is what we have landed on so far as a two year plan:

- 1/3 of our lessons will be on key christian education/doctrine issues that we are still in the process of narrowing down to approximately 33 lessons, most of which will be in three-week series form.

- 1/3 of our lessons will be on the topic of “Junior High Survival Skills” (what we call this category in house….students won’t know this is what we call it). These are topics we know our students need…they may not know they need them, but we do! We are still in the process of narrowing down to approximately 33 lessons that will include jr. high survival skills such as making wise choices, peer pressure, friendship, sex and dating etc.

- 1/3 of our lessons will be “felt need”. What are students talking about? What is going on in culture right now that we need to address? Is there world news and issues that we can look at from a biblical perspective etc. These 33 lessons can’t really be listed ahead of time.

Here’s where I could use your input: What are some non-negotiable christian education/bible instruction/doctrine truths that you would include in those 33 lessons?

What are some key “junior high survival skill” topics you would be sure to include?

- Oh, Denver Broncos and Jay Cutler how did it come to this? Not sure where I land on this one. Broncos: How could you have been so stupid as to let it slip that you were interested in somebody else? Cutler: I understand you’re ticked off, but swallow your pride. Are you really willing to get traded just to prove a point?

- Race To Witch Mountain: Not often I see a kids movie that borders on lousy, but this one does.

- Girl Scout Cookies: You haven’t touched my lips in years. But I bought a few boxes of you this year and I think I love you.

- For the first time in a long time (maybe the first time ever), we are completely stealing a series from our high school group. “Sunday Old School” is a very junior high-friendly series they just completed that we are kicking off in two weeks.

- Next week marks the return of our Purpose-driven Youth Ministry Conference! I am a lot more excited than I thought I would be. If you are joining us, be sure to track me down and say hello.

- I am seriously thinking about purchasing about 5 acres of desert property. You can buy it for the cost of an expensive dinner date (okay, it’s not quite that cheap, but close) and for some odd reason I really like the thought of owning a chunk of land to pass down to future generations. Of course I can just see the reading of the will now:

LAWYER: “…and to Kayla and Cole, your dad leaves you the 5 acre property in the desert”

KAYLA AND COLE SIMULTANEOUSLY: “Ah, Crap.”

A large portion of our time atthis year’sJunior High Summit was spent in discussion with Dave Gibbons, Pastor of New Song Church and author of The Monkey and The Fish. If you have any interest in doing church a little differently, having a global mindset, and thinking outside the box, his book is a must read.

The conversation was really rich and I’m sure I will post more thoughts about it all but wanted to share two random, mostly unconnected tidbits that jumped out.

1) RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT: In order to avoid becoming obsolete, many of the world’s leading companies spend a lot of time and money on R&D. Gibbons sited google as an example….apparently, a very large portion of their budget is spent in this area to help make sure they are constantly moving forward. Might churches be wise to adapt a similar strategy? Might junior high ministries be wise to do the same? If so, what type of “R&D” should we be doing? That’s worth thinking about.

2) MINISTRY TO THE “FRINGES”: One of the ways churches can continue to grow, thrive, reflect kingdom principles etc. is to purposely neglect the “vortex” of our ministry and look for ways to adapt to the changing culture around us. By allowing leaders to experiment with stuff outside our usual methods, programs, strategies etc. (the “vortex”), we give our ministries a chance to adapt to the changes going on all around us instead of simply clinging on to our comfortable vortexy (my word, not Gibbons’) stuff. The fringes….the stuff we aren’t quite comfortable with, the people we don’t naturally associate with, the things that are in culture but not yet in the church etc. is the stuff we need to begin to think about or else we run the risk of being an outdated relic. Think of your community for a second. Can you name a church or two that once was a vibrant part of your community but instead of being willing to consider the “fringes”, insisted on feeding the “vortex” and is now merely a shell of what it once was? What are the “vortex” parts of your junior high ministry? What “fringes” might you need to begin paying attention to?

If this is of any interest to you, be sure to check out Mark Ostreicher’s blog in the weeks to come. He usually posts fairly thorough transcripts of our discussions (give him some time, it takes a couple weeks for him to get around to it.).