Posted by Scott Rubin

Yesterday I had the honor to be a guest on the distinguished “Simply Youth Ministry Show”. Jake Rutenbar & Kurt Johnston do a great job with it, and if you haven’t see it, you should check it out. (http://show.simplyyouthministry.com/) The reason they invited me on is because the topic of the show (which I think will post on Monday) was “Middle School Ministry”.

In addition to seeing one book eat another book, and a quick interruption from a shirtless man, one topic we discussed was the challenges that come when you lead BOTH a middle school ministry AND a high school ministry. When you’re teaching the same topic to MS and HS students, is it wiser to start with the HS outline, and “simplify it”… or to start with the MS outline and “beef it up”? Check out the show. Especially if you’re an Emilio Estavez fan. (or maybe you’ll become one after you watch it.)

Posted By Kurt Johnston

In many of us, there lies a tension as we lead our junior high ministries:

Should our ministry be organic in nature, or more organized, structured and systematic?

It’s an honest tension due to the fact that most of us got into ministry because we love Jesus, like teenagers, and want to spend time with teenagers so they, too, might fall in love with Jesus….nothing more organic than that!

But over time, as we mature and our ministries begin to grow, we feel the need to provide some structure and systems to keep things moving forward. The more things grow…the more organized, and less organic, they tend to become.

But maybe we don’t have to choose one over the other. Maybe we SHOULDN’T choose one over the other. What would it look like to put strategies, structures and systems in place not to replace the organic nature of JH ministry….but to ensure and enhance it?

Share your thoughts and ideas with the rest of us.

Posted By Kurt Johnston

I returned late last night from The Youth Cartel’s first-ever “middle school ministry Campference”, and I gotta say….my heart is very full!

Instead of giving my own set of observations, experiences and arguments for why you really need to join us next year, I invite you to head over to Marko’s blog where he has written a couple of great posts that will give you a blow-by-blow peek into the action.

Posted by Kurt Johnston

One of the joys of my role at Saddleback is that I sit on the executive leadership team. This mostly means that I spend a discouragingly large amount of my time in meetings. But it also means that many of those meetings are led by Rick Warren…and Rick Warren leads pretty good meetings!

Recently, Rick shared what he considers to be the 3 most important skills of a leader. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him talk about this before, and I don’t think it is written down anywhere. And, I’m sure I’ll butcher some of his brilliance by trying to pass it along…but it was so good, I have to try:

- The ability to clearly articulate the present reality

- The ability to visualize the future

- The ability to be self-aware

It is Rick’s opinion that the easiest skill of these three is the ability to visualize the future. Anybody can have a vision of the future! You really don’t have to be a leader to visualize the future, but you can’t be a leader if you don’t.

It is Rick’s opinion that the toughest skill is the ability for a leader to be self-aware. Because leaders are good at a few things, they assume they are good at everything. Leaders often lack the ability to recognize where they actually get in the way, cause bottlenecks to progress etc.

Questions for you to ponder:

- What is the CURRENT reality of your junior high ministry? strengths, weaknesses, barriers to growth, perception [...]

Continue Reading “3 Vital Leadership Skills”

Posted By Kurt Johnston

- At the beginning of the season, I predicted Tim Tebow would be starting for Denver by week 5. Turns out I was mostly right….he started the 2nd half of week 5 and quickly showed he is Denver’s best option. Now I just have to avoid the temptation to start him over Matthew Stafford inmmy fantasy league (a league I am currently dominating, by the way).

- Had an interesting experience this weekend. We are in a four-week series called, “God Is…” last week, our lesson was “God is…LOVE”, and this week we countered with “God is…JUST”. It was a full blown lesson on God’s justice…his perfect and fair ways of judging. It was pretty heavy stuff! Over the course of the weekend, at least a dozen students sought me or members of our team out to talk about it, ask questions, and share how much they had learned. Maybe you are such a great teacher that you get these reactions all the time…not me. It was a pleasant surprise!

- last night we had the team over to our house to say farewell to Brian and Bekah Schwanbeck, two former interns who served on our JH and HS teams, fell in love, got married and have been faithful serving as the part time youth pastors at one of our regional campuses. They have accepted a junior high position at a great church in South Carolina. Last night was a wonderful reminder of the [...]

Continue Reading “Random Randomness”

Posted By Kurt Johnston

Ladies and gentlemen, this post marks the 1000th post on this blog…and what better way to celebrate (okay, there are lots of better ways) than announcing our winner for 10 weeks of junior high video curriculum from simply junior high!

Here are the 5-week video curriculum options,,,,the winner can pick any TWO, plus I am going to toss (no pun intended) in a free chat or challenge ball because that silly resource is one of my all time favorites!
- Bible Stuff 1
- Bible Stuff 2
- Bible Stuff 3
- Tough Stuff
- Messy Stuff
- Tempting Stuff
- Smart Stuff
- Red Stuff

Now that is some GOOD stuff!

Okay….there were 57 comments,which meant 57 numbers in a hat. It was tempting to pick a winner based on pithy comments, but that wouldn’t be a truly random selection. The number I pulled was comment number 39.

OUR WINNER IS:.

Chris at 2:02am October 5
F-R-E-E that spells free, video curriculum baby!

Chris…pick your two sets of curriculum, and email me at symshow@gmail.com and we will get your prizes in the mail right away!

5 October 2011

Posted by Scott Rubin

I wonder if people will still leave comments, even if it’s not a contest and I don’t have anything to give away?

Here’s what’s making me think about this…
I sat through the whole service in our High School Ministry this past weekend, which I don’t often get to do. And I was THANKful. (even though there was a time a few years ago when I wouldn’t have used that word to describe how if felt about our HS ministry.)

I saw so many of “my” old students… except now the guys have legit facial hair, and the girls look more like women. I was grateful for the teaching they were hearing, and the leaders who were caring about them, and the mission trips they were being invited on. Even though they were never really “my” students in the first place! And I thanked our HS pastor.

In the past couple weeks, I’ve separately run into 3 different twenty-somethings who were in our middle school ministry when I first started leading. One of them had drifted so far from God during HS, and experienced a bunch of pain. Our reconnection prompted her to move back towards the church. But it reminded me afresh that middle schoolers don’t stay middle schoolers forever!

So – if you work exclusively with jr. highers…. Maybe thank a High School Pastor today.
And if you do both — [...]

Continue Reading ““Rank Your Relationship With Your High School Pastor (On a Scale of 1-10)?””

GROUP’s 2011 Sep/Oct issue hit my desk mid-September and I finally got around to reading it. The front cover made me think of our local middle outreach called messfest so I was excited when I finally got a chance to read it. Here are a few thoughts I had:
Something I liked: • Dr. Pete Wards article “The Idol Monster” has some great mind fodder for those of us who try to impact middle school youth. This monster has been around for a long time and it isn’t going away but it is something we must manage. Dr Ward said, “The search for role models is always going to be a problem, precisely because it is false worship.” One idea he shares to help us manage this monster is “We can help teenagers best by studying celebrity culture harder and deeper, not by ignoring or dismissing it.” Great read
???: • Steve Merritt wrote a very short thought on counseling that I thought was good but gave no signs when he said, “be a good lifeguard; learn the signs of drowning teenagers.” I would have liked to see a list of some signs we should be looking for.
Key Statement: Duffy Robbins, “what smells like lightweight spiritual manure to those of us who want to go deeper is actually bait for teenagers swimming in a very shallow culture.” I needed to hear that.
Creative Idea: I love free stuff and Youth ministry 360 [...]

Continue Reading “Magazine Report: GROUP Sep/Oct 2011″

Posted By Kurt Johnston

Since it is still toward the beginning of the school year, and the small group season is still fairly young, I want to give away some small group video curriculum!

Here’s how to win: leave any comment, and at the end of the day Wednesday we will randomly pick a winner. The prize is your choice of any TWO of our 5-week video curriculum.

Game on!

Posted by Kurt Johnston

I have spent much of my time this week in several sessions of our junior high and high school small group leaders training.  While I have done a little bit of the training, the VAST majority of it has been led and taught by our junior high and high school teams.  Here are some random “sound bites” from our training:

“You don’t need to love teenagers…you need to LIKE them”: Idea is that all christians “love” the teenagers in their church….but they don’t actually like them.

“You are the youth pastors of our ministry”: Idea is that most of the real ministry happens in small groups…the leaders are the true youth pastor to their kids.

“Make it a goal to set a warm, safe, affirming atmosphere in your group”

“Don’t suffer in silence….if something is going wrong, please let us know so we can help you!”

“Leading a small group will be the most frustrating, most challenging, most stretching, most rewarding, most exciting ministry you can be a part of!”

“Don’t be afraid to set boundaries….and to stick to them!”

I rarely mention numbers on this blog because frankly…..who cares.  But I will mention this fact:  After doing small groups at Saddleback church for over 15 years, this year is set to be our biggest year ever. Our junior high and high school teams have done an amazing job of recruiting, interviewing, training and placing hundreds of adult leaders who are about to embark on the ride of their lives!