If the studies are correct, that people make their minds up within the first 2-90 seconds, youth ministries have a whole lot of ‘first impression’ opportunities. The studies also indicate that once somebody forms an opinion, for good or for bad, based on those few initial seconds, they are unlikely to change their mind. WOW!

A few first impression opportunities in a typical junior high ministry:
- A visitor walks into your meeting room.
- A parent shows up to a parent meeting (wouldn’t that be nice!).
- You make an appearance on a public school campus.
- Your ministry’s website.
- Promotion Sunday

There are countless others. I’d be interested to hear what you think the top 3 ‘first impression’ opportunities might be.

Last night we had a 90 minute gathering with our small group leaders to touch base. Since we are nearing the half-way point of our small group season, it felt like a good time to remind them of a couple of basics concerning the lesson time in their groups. I shared three super basic reminders:

1) Remember, the lesson time is about them, not you.
Peer pressure, wise choices, honoring mom and dad etc. are topics I’ve taught dozens and dozens of times as a junior high pastor. To be honest, I’m sick of teaching this kind of stuff but it’s NOT ABOUT ME! Small group isn’t the time to take what you’ve been chewing on in your own spiritual journey and try to turn it into a junior high lesson.

2) Experiential learning is the best kind of learning.
Studies indicate that people retain about 60-70% more information when it involves some sort of hands-on, experiential learning. Avoid the temptation to simply lecture your small group for 30 minutes.

3) Mix it up!
Don’t do the same stuff over and over again. utilize a wide variety of experiential learning opportunities. If your students absolutely love something, don’t over-use it or else it will become old and ineffective. A ‘Field Trip’ lesson is amazing until you start doing field trips every week….then they lose their luster.

A quick review of three movies I’ve recently seen:

I Am Legend (Rated PG13).
Quick Thought: Pretty much the usual Wil Smith fare
Best Scene: The line of light slowly disappearing while the dogs wait to attack.
Review: Thumbs Up

Walk Hard (Rated R).
Quick Thought: I can confidently say it’s the worst movie I’ve ever seen.
Best Scene: None. I’m embarrassed by the fact that I didn’t walk out!
Review: Thumbs Down

No Country For Old Men (Rated R)
Quick Thought: Great story told much too slowly. Terrible ending.
Best Scene: Every Tommy Lee Jones scene
Review: Sideways thumb

Lesson Topic: Week One of our Series: It’s Okay To Be Short
Attendance: Above Average
‘Fun Factor’: Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Average
Music: Average
Lesson Quality: Average
Length of Lesson: 22 mins
Student Response: Above Average

Our ‘It’s Okay To Be Short’ Series is taking a look at two of the shortest books in the Bible, Philemon and 3rd John. We shortened our games, shortened our songs, shortened our announcements etc. to try to set the stage (I’m not sure students totally got the connection, but it was a fun effort…). It was our first weekend back to a ‘normal’ junior high program since before Christmas so that alone felt great!

We just got out of an all staff meeting with Pastor Rick. We don’t usually have staff meetings on Fridays, but since we’ve been a bit scattered throughout the holidays, I think he just wanted to re-connect. It was awesome. There was no agenda; we simply sang some worship songs and then Rick opened up the discussion to anything anybody wanted to talk about. For the next 90 minutes or so Rick talked off the cuff about the various topics we brought up:
- Politics
- Separation of Church and State
- Systematic Theology
- Church History
- The current situation in Kenya
- Saddleback’s path into the future
- and several other topics raised by our staff

It was really good stuff…I could have sat there for another 90 minutes

Lots going on in my life and in my head:

- I was really sad to see Hawaii get trampled by Georgia. Unfortunatley they proved the critics right…that maybe they simply didn’t belong in a game with the big boys.

- My daughter and I head to Kenya on January 22 so obviously I’m keeping a close eye on the political unrest facing the country.

- Our high school Pastor has accepted a position at a great church in Florida. This means big changes for us as we head into a new season in our youth ministry.

- For Christmas, I bought my wife Season 3 of The Office. Man, it’s funny stuff.

- Sitting in the airport right now on my way to Akron, Ohio to teach a one day college class on junior high ministry. I’ll be back in my own bed by midnight tomorrow night.

- Standard Publishing has asked me to update my junior high ministry book ‘Controlled Chaos’. It was written in 2000 and surprisingly there hasn’t been another significant junior high ministry book released since.

- Along the same lines, GROUP Publishing is taking a bunch of my junior high ministry columns and turning them into a ‘best of’ book. It won’t be a comprehensive look at junior high ministry, but rather a whole bunch of unrelated essays on the topic. I think the best part of this book is that they’ve asked Scott Rubin, the junior high Pastor at Willow Creek, to write comentary to each essay. I think this is set to release in February.

- We’re getting ready to kick off a fun series in our ministry: “It’s Okay To Be Short” will look at the two shortest books in the Bible.

- My wife and I were talking the the other day when the reality finally hit us that we only have about 4 years until our oldest child heads off to college; that our ‘window’ with her is beginning to creep shut.

- That also means I only have about 4 years until I’m in my mid forties….I guess my window is creeping shut, too!

I’m posting from our rented RV camping in the middle of the desert at a place called Ocatillo Wells. Each year for the week in between Christmas and New Year we head out here with several other families to ride dirt bikes.

Three of us happen to be youth pastors and we try really hard not to talk shop for the entire trip although I already ruined it by asking a programming question of one of my friends. Even though it’s a riding the trip, that is only a small part of the fun. We spend a ton of time just sitting around doing nothing which is fantastic. We throw things, launch thing into the air, light things on fire…..all the usual stuff, which is always followed by me reminding my 10-year-old son how dangerous it is. Cole’s highlight is when families toss their old christmas trees into the bon fire which makes a blazing inferno the likes of which he only sees once a year.

As I sit here on my laptop (I’m not actually sitting on my laptop, but you know what I mean), my son is playing his Nintendo DS, and my daughter is listening to her Ipod and checking text messages. Not sure I can really call this camping.

If you need a new year’s lesson and want to save a bit of prep time over the Christmas holiday break, feel free to borrow from us. Below is our new year’s lesson called “Bounce”. The big idea is how to bounce back when you mess up. Pretty basic new year’s lesson….nothing too deep here.

Simply Junior High is creating it’s first-ever print catalog and they need your help. They’re looking for pictures of junior high ministry in action. If you have any fun pictures of students in your ministry we’d love the opportunity to put them in the catalog.

You can send pictures to andy@simplyyouthministry.com
Include the name and location of your church and a brief caption to go along with each pitcture.

Also, by sending photos, you are confirming that you have received permission from parents for the images of the student to be included in print material.

I was in our High School services all weekend, so really didn’t get a flavor of how jr. high went. It was our second week of our ‘unwrapped’ Christmas series. Our lesson was ‘What’s So Merry About Christmas’.

The highlight of the weekend was spending Sunday afternoon with my brother and his family and our dad. That was capped off by the discovery of an amazing Shave Ice place about 10 minutes from our house. I’m a lover of shave ice but could never get the real stuff (only the fake, crunchy kind…)until now. Look out sweet tea, there’s a new vice in town!

Now we get a short break: No youth services this weekend so families can attend our Christmas services together and then a jh/hs combo service on the weekend between Christmas and New Years which has become a fun tradition for us.

Spent all day yesterday running various errands, Christmas shopping and beginning to get ready for our desert/dirt bike trip which begins the morning after Christmas.