We had a good, but interesting, weekend. We kicked off a month-long experiment of seating students around tables instead of in rows. For years and years, this practice was a habit of our high school ministry and we never had the room to do it in our JH meeting space. Plus, I liked the idea of holding it back so when students entered the high school program it felt new and different….”Wow, we get to sit around tables instead of in rows!”. I’m not sure they ever really got that excited about it, but that was my hope. But in our new building, the high school auditorium won’t accommodate tables due to the sloped floor and fixed seating, and our JH room is plenty large so we decided to take an old high school strategy and try it in our JH program.

Even though it will be much more work to find the appropriate number of adult table leaders, write some discussion questions around our lessons etc. there really is a TON of potential with the tables. Our program instantly felt smaller, more relational, more ‘visitor friendly’ and it gave way more ownership to our volunteer leaders. I’m not sure we will make it a permanent fixture in our program, but it does have some promise.

ATTENDANCE: Attendance was a little low…still feels like families are in a holiday hangover of sorts.

FUN FACTOR: The program was super minimal; a game, a fun “Top 10″ list and music. We bolstered the program a bit by adding some table interaction. Overall it was a really fun weekend.

LESSON: We didn’t have a lesson. Instead, we handed out a short survey to get to know our students better which included questions like favorite movie, favorite radio station, how often they come to church, what they would like to learn about, have they ever invited a friend, etc. We also gave them a little New Year’s Self Assessment that they filled out for themselves and put in a self-addressed envelope which we will mail back to them in 6 months so they can be reminded of some of the goals they set etc. Next week we will kick off a 3-week series on friendships.

MUSIC: Once a month our band is led entirely by high schoolers. While the quality is usually higher, I never enjoy it as much as when our junior highers lead.

VOLUNTEER INVOLVEMENT: It was really high this week primarily because sitting around tables forced them to be more proactive with students which was cool.

I’ve never been good at reflecting, and as a result I think I often fail to cherish, to grow, to learn and to thank God for his ongoing work in my life. ’08 was a very, very full year in many ways. A few learnings from this year that stick out:

- If you let them, the nature of youth ministry, the expectations of your church and the expectations you put on yourself will overwhelm you. I feel like all three were in full effect this year and, to be honest, I didn’t manage any of them the way I would have liked. For the first time in a 20-plus year career I felt “at the end of my rope” more often than not.

- My wife is amazing. I don’t talk about her much, she never travels with me and very few people outside our circle of friends and our junior high group would recognize her if they saw her. When we got married seventeen years ago, she was an 18-year old college freshman who really had no idea what she was getting into. She has already spent almost half of her young life playing a vital role in my ministry, cheering me on, loving the people around her and being an incredible mom.

- I have really good friends. My closest circle of friends is an amazing bunch of about 5 people. I gain so much from their friendship and need to work at making sure I enrich them in equal measure.

- My dad was amazing. To be certain, he wasn’t “amazing” by most of the world’s criteria. He wasn’t a “leader”, he wasn’t “powerful”, he wasn’t “successful”, He didn’t own much (in fact, when he passed away a few weeks ago my brother and I literally inherited a laundry basket full of belongings). BUT he loved Jesus more than most people I’ve met, he loved others relentlessly, and he was in every way the kind of man the world needs more of….even though they don’t realize it.

- People matter most. Friends, family, co-workers, casual acquaintances, the strangers that cross my path etc. Making the most of the encounters God allows one to have may be one of life’s greatest opportunities.

- I am passionate about ministry to junior highers. I turn 43 in a couple weeks and I have long ago lost count of how many times I’ve been asked if I want to pursue another area of ministry. My calling to junior high ministry, and my passion for it, remains as strong as it ever has. If God has something else in store for me, I will do it…..but I sure hope he doesn’t!

Won’t post month for the next week or so due to the fact that we are out in the desert with the family.
I hope you had an incredible christmas and have found some time to relax, reflect and rejoice.

We didn’t have junior high or high school ministry programs this weekend due to our church-wide Christmas services, so I have no wrap up to report.

But, I am working on a fun little ‘bit’ for next weekend and thought we could all contribute and all have something fun for our next Junior High service. I want to create a silly Top 10 list.

Here’s the List: “TOP 10 MOST RETURNED CHRISTMAS GIFTS OF 2008″
The list needs to be completely goofy. Add as many as you want and then we can all pick and choose the ones that work for us.

A few to get us started:

- “Will It Burn?” By Hasbro
- “Official Belly-button lint from a guy who went to junior high with a girl who knows the Jonas Brothers”
- “Bag O’ Cherry Flavored Glass” from Brach’s Candy Company
- The 2009 Kurt Johnston swimsuit calendar (insert name of appropriately funny guy from your group).

As you can see, I need help. But maybe we can create a funny bit we can all use.

- Sitting in the coffee shop I have a perfect view of the snow atop our local foothills. It happens once or twice a year and only stays for a couple days so it’s a fun treat for the eyes. It could also be a fun treat for the body if one is willing to hike about three hours as there is no access for vehicles. I’ll enjoy it from a distance, thank you.

- To be honest, I’m really shocked at how much outrage/controversy/firestorm Rick Warren’s invitation to participate in Obama’s inauguration has stirred up….mostly from those on the left who feel somehow betrayed by Obama. That they don’t understand politics, and that’s exactly what this is, confuses me. Every President has a pastor give an invocation, and to ask Rick Warren who represents the faith of such a large number of Americans is a savvy political olive branch for Obama to extend. I’m constantly amazed at how intolerant those who holler for it the loudest often are. Plus….me likey Rick Warren.

- Tonight we have our Christmas edition of “The 3″ which is our monthly Junior High outreach night. We’ve got pictures with Santa, Christmas Carolokee, A Christmas Scavenger hunt, A “snowball fight” and more planned. Should be fun.

- The countdown has begun for our annual dirt-bike trip to the desert (Ocotillo Wells) the morning after Christmas. We go riding several times a year, but this is always our longest trip. The only dilemma so far is that I promised a friend he could use my bike (he’s thinking about buying it) because I was supposed to have my new one by the time we leave. Right now, it looks like I won’t have my new bike and I don’t want to break my word to my friend so I’m bikeless! BUMMER.

- Each year I try to read a new fiction book on the trip. I rarely read fiction so it’s usually the only one I read all year. Any suggestions?

This past weekend was one of our best in a long time. We had it packed with music, fun programing and a really good message. BUT, it was also a tough one. For some reason we just couldn’t dial it in. My message was good one service, but not the next. A game was well received by one crowd but not another etc. It was really a roller coaster weekend. The highlight of the weekend may have been two first-time students who came in late, missed all the “fun” and only got to hear the lesson. One of our volunteers overheard them talking on the way out about how much they liked the lesson and how much it made them think. Very cool.

MUSIC: Music this week was really good. We sang Christmas songs and had two special numbers that were led by soloists…one by a 7th grade girl and one by an 8th grade girl. We had 5 songs which is more than usual but it flowed well.

FUN & GAMES: Another round of “Jaime I Help You?” went pretty well. This week he recycled diapers to make a diaper wreath and used a pickle jar to make a funny snow globe. We showed a video comparing/contrasting Jesus and Santa which was actually pretty powerful, a crew of our team did a fun rip-off of an old SNL Christmas song bit, and we played a game in which students bobbed in eggnog looking for candy canes.

LESSON: My lesson was on “How Do We Know Jesus Is Real?” I used Santa as my set up and talked about how tempting it might be to view Jesus in the same light as Santa: A nice legend that was invented to make Christmas special etc. My points for the lesson were quite simple:

- HISTORY Proves Jesus Is Real
- The BIBLE Proves Jesus Is Real
- PEOPLE Prove Jesus Is Real

While driving my freshmen daughter, Kayla, into school this morning we had this super short conversation:

ME: “Kayla, I’m thinking that hanging out there on a Friday night probably isn’t such a great idea. that place just seems to attract the super rowdy crowd.

KAYLA: “True, but they are the same kids I go to school with every day.”

ME: “True, but at least at school they are forced to be somewhat under control.”

KAYLA: “Have you ever seen my math class?”

Classic. But the funniest part to me is that out of all her classes it’s the MATH class that is rowdy!

- My dad’s burial at sea was overwhelmingly beautiful. A group of about 40 of us spent an hour on a chartered boat and right at sunset we released my dad into the water surrounded by a host of roses. It was a powerful moment.

- What was without question the busiest 6-month ministry season in my career is finally headed to a slowdown. Things feel like they may be back to normal (although “normal” seems to have a new definition….the old normal is gone) after the holidays. Despite the craziness, the past 6 months have been an amazing journey, and our student ministry team is stronger and more unified than ever before.

- A few posts ago, I asked readers to contribute their teaching strategy and “plans”. Thanks to everybody who posted comments and shared their insights. I am committed to thinking this through and being more purposeful (Shout out to Rick W.) in my approach to the educational part (and, as we all know formal education really is only a part of ministry to young teens) of our ministry.

- Had a heated, and admittedly biased, debate with a cowboy fan concerning this topic: If you were to start an NFL franchise tomorrow, who would you pick for your quarterback….Tony Romo or Jay Cutler? Those are the only options.

I am probably arriving a little bit late to the party due to the fact that technological stuff usually isn’t on my radar until somebody else puts it there. So, at the risk of being “so last month”, I want to point you to Xobni, a super cool application that helps you retrieve emails, track conversations etc. It really is pretty sweet.