Posted By Kurt Johnston

By now you have likely heard some bits and pieces around the withdrawal of Starbucks CEO, Howard Shultz, from Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit. As an incredibly loyal Starbucks patron, I was saddened by Shultz’s decision to back out of his contract to speak at the summit; partly because I think he would have had some awesome leadership wisdom to share with the crowd, but mostly because it was sad to see him cave in to the demands of a fairly small number of folks who had signed a petition stating they would boycott Starbucks if he spoke at Willow because it is “anti gay”.

If I was Bill Hybels, I’m not sure how I would have responded….but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been like this.  Below is a 7-minute lesson on leadership, charity, and Christ-like action.  Brilliant.

Posted By Kurt Johnston

I am admittedly grumpy this morning. I will cast some of the blame on a summer that has been incredibly busy and disjointed….both personally and professionally. None of the following rants come after spending time in prayer, and very few are feelings or thoughts that I want to be held accountable for at a future date. But because I am grumpy today, I have somehow managed to waste much of my morning thinking about things that currently increase my “Grump Index”. such as:

- church and ministry influencers who say things like, “there is more than one way” or “this will need to be contextualized”, yet are actually proponents of doing it ONE way in virtually EVERY context.

- Media outlets (whether liberal or conservative) who try to mask their bias under the banner of journalism….or worse yet, don’t even try and just assume we are too stupid to see through it.

- The refusal by most of the older generation to begin to hand over even a litle power and influence to the younger generation. Dave Gibbons once said that the key to long-term church health and growth is “when the older generation sets aside their preferences for the sake of the next.” I asked him how often this happens, and he said very, very rarely.

- Complainers. I know, it is a bit ironic for this to be on my list. But seriously…folks who are marked by cynicism, sarcasm and complaining drain the life out of [...]

Continue Reading “Random Rants”

If there are any middle-school-ministry people who’re going to be at the Leadership Summit this week, let me know! I’d love to get some people together on Thursday evening at my house & talk about the craziness of jr. high ministry, and how we can lead better.

One of the things I love to do is to keep Learning about Leading. Our Sr. Pastor has been the catalyst of this fantastic event for over 10 years, and it has impacted my ministry mindset in profound ways each summer. It’s a blast to “translate” the learnings into a student ministry setting. Howard Schultz, Seth Godin, Len Schlesinger, Hybels & others … I can’t wait to learn from these people.

http://www.willowcreek.com/events/leadership/

Posted By Kurt Johnston

By now, most of you who are regular blog readers have seen this years list of the top 20 youth ministry blogs as determined by Youth Specialties and their scientific(ish) formula.

Those blogs are written by some brilliant folks….many of whom are good friends of mine. But I noticed something while looking over the list: Less than a handful of them are written by folks who currently make their
living as a youth worker in a local church setting.

I think the world of youth ministry “voices of influence” needs to include some more men and women from the local church. obviously those on the blogging list love the local church, serve the local church, and have in most cases done some hard time within it…so they are all worthy of their place of influence. But, I want to also learn from people neck-deep in the same stuff I am neck-deep in; you know, the daily grind of local church youth ministry.

So, please share a name or two of somebody who is serving in the local church as it’s youth pastor who has a blog you read, a twitter account you follow, or otherwise influences and helps shape your youth ministry thinking.

If they are on the list of Top 20 bloggers, you don’t need to include them here. This isn’t a competition….I won’t list results in order…I simply want to add a few names into the bucket of people I learn from, and you might, [...]

Continue Reading “Influencers…..Who Are Also Trench Diggers?”

Posted by Kurt Johnston

Tension has gotten a bad rap. Because it can be problematic and uncomfortable when experienced in some aspects of life, we often try to avoid it in EVERY aspect of life.

But I want to suggest that much of the tension we fel in ministry is actually a good thing; a rudder that helps us safely navigate the ministry ships we captain. A few examples:

- the tension we feel between a fun/goofy junior high ministry and a more serious/challenging junior high ministry likely keeps us doing a little bit of both.

- the tension we feel between large, attractional programs and small, intimate, organic, relational programs should help us see the value in each.

- The tension we feel between wanting young, cool, energetic volunteers and older, more mature volunteers should help us see the beauty and validity of leaders in every stage of life.

Tension in ministry is good because it reminds us there is another option, a different way, a varying viewpoint.

Please share a ministry tension, that at first glance, may seem problematic but is actually healthy. Let’s learn from each other.

Posted By Kurt Johnston

Just got back from a PEACE (Saddleback’s term for missions)trip to Costa Rica with a load of JH and HS students. Way too many powerful and hilarious highlights to share, but here is one that is both powerful AND hilarious: On Sunday, I had the honor of preaching in our host church to a crowd of about 1,000 wonderful folks. They were in the middle of a series on prayer, and asked me to teach on the Lord’s Prayer. It was one of the more fulfilling preaching moments of my life…and was made much
better for the audience by my interpreter, Juan (a super sharp young guy who looks just enough like Johnny Depp for me to make a few funny references during the sermon). Since I have never preached from the Lords Prayer, I decided to borrow (read steal) some content from a SEVEN week series Pastor Rick taught at Saddleback a few years ago. I decided to try to combine all seven sermons into one, which prompted my tweet along the
lines of, “combining seven of Rick Warren’s sermons into one for sermon in Costa Rica…this could be interesting”. Which prompted a hilarious text from Matt McGill in response:
“Dude, each of Ricks sermons are like seven-in-one, so you really just
combined forty nine!” Genius.

Have you checked out the premiere of The Simply Youth Ministry Show? Future guests include Dan Kimball, Kara Powell, Greg Stier, [...]

Continue Reading “Random Randomness”

Posted By Kurt Johnston

Big disclaimer: I am currently in a Costa Rican coffee shop on a short-term missions trip with 50 junior high and high school students. It is possible my perspective is slightly influenced by my current euphoria.

Lots has been said about the various pitfalls to short term missions. chief among the concerns are the damages that can be done when we create a culture of rich Americans swooping in to throw money and man-power at a given community for a short period of time, then ride off into the sunset without addressing the TRUE needs of the community. Another concern is that we may be teaching our students that caring for the less fortunate is an event that happens once or twice a year….not to be bothered with again until the next youth group trip.

I’m not an expert in cross-cultural ministry, but those two critiques make a ton of sense to me. Tough to argue….and I have seen those negative realities first-hand. There has to be a better way, and I am so thankful for the men, women and various organizations that are dedicated to wrestling this to the ground.

In the meantime, local church youth pastors will likely continue providing these types of experiences for their students. Here are two baby steps we are taking to try to address both of the concerns I mentioned above:

1) We ALWAYS partner with local churches, and strive to make them the heroes…not us. This week in Costa Rica, everything [...]

Continue Reading “Fresh Thoughts….REALLY Fresh Thoughts On Short-Term Missions”

Posted by Scott Rubin

So last week I was walking through our ministry area, engaged in good conversation with a volunteer. The early arriving middle schoolers were starting to fill the place, and there was some strange combination of soccer/hockey going on – fun stuff. As I walked towards a doorway with a cup of coffee in my hand, I was really dialed into what this volunteer was saying… trying to make eye contact with them, instead of all the chaos around me. ☺

I never saw it coming.

A split second before I appeared in the doorway, an 8th grader (with a powerful leg) had kicked a ball towards the goal — but missed badly. The ball scored a direct hit on my nearly-full cup of coffee, and I was DRENCHED! My shirt, my face, my entire head. And honestly, the words that formed in the back of my head were some version of “YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!”
But somehow at that same moment, I realized that there were about 8 pairs of eyes staring at me, and people were frozen in their tracks to see how I was going to react. I’m not necessarily a poster-boy for “Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry”, but this time I somehow realized in time to get it right. It was clearly an accident, and the kid who kicked the ball was really sorry. I was glad that I didn’t lose my cool.

One of the people who watched the [...]

Continue Reading “Reaction Time – almost blew my cool!”