I'm now on the first part of our annual mission trip called Going Public. It's a hybrid choir tour/mission trip. My posting may be infrequent the next week (not that it's been super frequent lately). If you want to check out what we're doing you can read the Going Public blog.

Labels: youth ministry

I'm excited because I just walked up to my office and passed a contractor dude. He was carrying a set of blueprints and had a t-shirt that said something like "demolition contractors." Looks like we're getting closer to the first steps of our building project!

Labels: youth ministry

Had a great night out with our graduating high school seniors last night. We took about 20 students down to Balboa Island and went on a little harbor cruise. Then, it was off to Fuddruckers for some great food. THREE of our guys ordered the one pound burger. It was massive (the pic shows it next to a third pound burger). I'd only heard of one person eating that thing before (way to go, Doug Elliott). I'm going to miss this class. I've seen most of them grow up since 7th grade (minus the two years I lived in the OC).

Labels: youth ministry

Kurt had a post the other day where he asks how to make two student ministry teams (jr. high and high school) feel more like ONE student ministry team. I don't have all the answers, but here are some of my thoughts that I'm processing through:

• Have jr. high staff run registration for high school large events (camp, etc.) so that high school staff can focus on mingling with students and parents. Then do the opposite with large jr. high events.
• Occasionally pull in team members from the opposite team to a meeting they would not normally be involved in. The outside eyes and voice may be helpful.
• Run a handful of events together over the course of the year - these could be parent nights/training, volunteer training, worship night, etc. Don't just delegate parts of the event out from the get-go, but sit down together and plan it out. Then delegate the parts that need to happen.
• De-segregate office space.
• Establish a prayer partners ministry that matches up partners between the two teams.
• Make sure the point leaders of both ministries make a concentrated effort to speak highly of the opposite team's members (specifically and corporately) to the point leader's team, to the opposite team, and to the team member specifically.
  

Labels: youth ministry

Last night we had our annual youth choir program which is followed by a reception for the graduating seniors. Our church has a really cool tradition of throwing a reception for them where they all decorate tables with pictures, tropies, candy, etc. Then everyone walks around the room and checks stuff out.

So, my job at the choir program was to close out the night and invite everyone across the hall to the reception. I got up and started talking about what a great class it was and totally started crying in front of several hundred people. This is the first real class I walked with through jr. high (and now high school). I'm really excited for all of them, but sad to see them leave our high school ministry. And now I'm known as the super-sensitive youth pastor at our church.

Labels: youth ministry