Parents and Confirmation

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to spend some time presenting about confirmaton at the Michigan District Confirmation Symposium, a lutheran gathering dedicated to spending time teaching and having conversations around the topic of confirmation/catechism.  Because of the time that we have spent as a church, specifically in the middle school ministry, developing a family based approach to confirmation, I was asked to present on the topic of parents in confirmation.  My hope was that besides laying out what our program looks like I would offer a few principles that are important when involving parents in confirmation regardless of the context of your church or the method of your program.  The following are the notes from the first half of my session about some principles that we all need to strive for in regards to the parents of students in our confirmation programs.

What we need for in parents and confirmation:

1. We need pastor dads.

Imagine what life would be like if we outsourced our jobs as parents.  Perhaps we could hire somebody to go to basketball games and cheer our kids on.  We could hire someone to sit in on parent-teacher conferences.  We could even outsource changing dirty diapers and losing sleep.  This might sound absurd, but it is exactly what happens often when it comes to spirituality.  Parents commonly outsource the role of teaching the Bible to pastors and youth leaders.

What would it look like for confirmation to encourage fathers and mothers to be the spiritual leaders in their homes?  What would it look like for confirmation to be something that helps parents teach their kids instead of being a class their kids need to attend?  What if confirmation took seriously the words the small catechism begins with, "As the head of the family should teach the household."

2. We need to help parents teach their kids.

If parents do live out their role as parents, our job as a church is finding ways to help and encourage parents in that role.  Many parents feel inadaqueate to teach their children the Bible, so it is crucial that in this the church partners with parents so that they can help them do what only they can do.

As a part of our family based confirmation, our goal is to give parents tools that they can use so they can be the primary teachers of the Bible in their home.  What better thing than for a kid to learn from their parents as they drive to the soccer game, sit down for a family meal, or are tucked into bed at night?

3. We need to help families realize mutual transformation happens through mutual fascination.

The faith development that happens is not solely in the life a child, but it is a mutual thing.  As parents and children do life together and share with each other, the growth of faith in the life of a child encourages the faith of a parent and the faith experiences of the parent encourage and teach the child.

Confirmation is a tool.

If these are the things that we want to be a reality within our confirmation ministries, the way we design our confirmation program should be done in such a way that it encourages those things in happening.  For many ministries, confirmation is programmed in a way that not only doesn't encourage those things to happen but it sometimes even encourages the opposite.  Realize confirmation is an important tool as we disciple teenagers and help parents live out their role as the primary spiritual nurturers.

Stealing in Youth Ministry

If you are in youth ministry, you steal people's ideas.  It's inevitable.  The question then becomes what is appropriate and inappropriate when it comes to taking somebody else's idea and using it in your own ministry.  As I was recently reading "Steal Like an Artist" by Austin Kleon it got me thinking about what does good theft look like within ministry and what kind of theft crosses lines.

Remix vs. Rip off

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A remix is an alternative version of something; it's made using some of the original components but remade into something different.  A rip off on the other hand is an imitation and is meant to copy something else.  All ideas originate somewhere.  Whether you realize it or not, we are either riping off someone else's idea or remixing it into something new.  William Ralph Inge briliantly said, "What is originality?  Undetected plagiarism."  This is true of all creation, not just youth ministry, but as youth workers scramble to continue being creative within their student ministry they are forced to decide whether or not they will make remixes or rip offs.

Youth ministry requires coming up with ideas for new messages, illustrations, events, programs, and more weekly.  The creative burden in youth ministry is extremely high, so it is no surprise that we look for places to help give us ideas of things we can do and say within our ministry.  What we do when we find ideas determines whether we a simply ripping off somebody else's creative work or are remixing the idea into somehting new.

Some Questions To Ask Yourself:

• Are you trying to make a copycat idea?
• Are you trying to plug-n-play somebody else's idea in your own context?
• Are you taking pieces of many ideas or one entire idea?

Photo Credit: Jeroen Kenis

How To Make Retreats Cost Less

Whenever a student comes home from a retreat or camp, it is clear that there is an incredible value to what happens on a retreat.  Every time I get a chance to talk to parents about helping their kids get involved in our ministry, I let them know that the best way to do so is to get them on one of our trips.  There is something significant about taking a group of students out of their normal context that allows for incredible things to happen.  Students build deepr relationships with other students that they don't normally build within weekly programs.  Adults get more time to care for students than they do in an average week.  And the teaching time has greater impact as it is done with more frequency and in a different environment.

There are a lot of great camps that provide incredible experiences; unfortunately if you are trying to do your retreats for around $100, you won't be left with many options.  I love the experience that some of these camps provide, but I cannot fathom charging $300 for our summer camp.

How To Make Retreats Cost Less

1. Go Yourself

Instead of deciding to go with a big camp that is charging you for the whole experience, put something together yourself.  Run your own program, find your own  campground to sleep at, bring your own leaders, and deal with buying your own food.  Some of these things can be a pain to deal with, but they each also can save you a great deal of money.  One of our best retreats is one that we go to Lake Ann Camp when they are not running their summer camps and put on our own program at their facilities.  It's a win for both of us!

2. Speak Yourself

An easy way to drive up the price your retreat or event is hire a "professional" speaker or band to play for you guys.  I understand the value of having quality music and teaching, but your kids don't care the name of the speaker or band.  Find a good teacher and musician within your ministry and have them be the main teacher.

3. Be Yourself

Don't feel like you have to produce the same experiences that you have seen at other retreats and events.  Some of those might be great ideas, but that doesn't mean your retreat has to be the same experience.  One retreat might be a weeklong camp experience while another may be a weekend long trip at a campground.  Do what most naturally plays to your strengths and budget so that you can choose activities confidently and create a memorable experience.

Photo Credit: CCCPxokkeu

Steal Like An Artist

I recently read the book "Steal Like an Artist" by Austin Kleon; it was an incredible read about finding ideas, taking them, and making them your own. It was a quick, easy read and had a lot of great art throughout the book. Austin has a blog that describes many of the things in the book, but the whole package of the book was full of great insight.

Here are a few quotes that really stuck out to me:

"Everything is up for grabs. If you don't find something worth stealing today, you might find it worth stealing tomorrow or a month or a year from now."

"What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original."

"Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use - do the work you want to see done."

Cooties: The Sex Talk

This past Sunday we finished our 4 week sermon series titled "Cooties."  Cooties was a series all about dating, relationships, friendships with the opposite sex, and sexual purity.  For the final week of the series we focused on sexual purity, to do this we broke the group into two and spent time discussing the same topic with just 6th and 7th graders and again with 8th graders only.  The message was very similar, with some more explicit details for the 8th grade message.

Good things, used wrong ways.

Sex is a good thing.  It was a part of creation.  When we read the creation account in Genesis 1, God not only creates male and female, but he also commands them to be fruitful and multiply (aka: have sex).  God created sex; it was his idea and he even called it "very good."  This is an important reality for us as we talk about sex because it's easy for us to get caught up in an idea that sex is bad and we shouldn't do it.  Sex is good...when it is used the way God intended it to be used.

Just like many good things; because of sin, good things often get used in wrong ways.  Too much water can make someone die.  Too much food might make someone extremely obese.  The internet can allow for a wealth of information or it could allow for anonymous bullying.  These are good things and can be very good, but they can also be misused.  After sin enters the picture in Genesis 3, humanity starts to use good things in wrong ways.  Sex, which is a good thing, when used in the wrong way can be very damaging.

Gross, God, or Gift.

There are three possibilities for how we might think about sex.  Two of them are common, but not biblical.  And the third is bibilical but probably the least common.  Many people think gross as soon as they hear the topic of sex.  In fact, gross might be most common in settings like a church where it is easy for us to simply give they message that "sex is bad."  Sex is not gross; God created it.  The most popular thought pattern in culture is most likely god.  This is the idea that your own desires rule regardless of how that lines up with what God has set as the standard.  The culture worships our own desires, often found in sexual behaviors, as god.  The third way we can think about it is as a gift.  God created it, God designed it, and God has given it to us so we need to be responsible and use it the way that he intended it.

7 Things I Love About Middle School Ministry

Often within minutes of someone finding out that I work with middle school students, I hear a response along the lines of "I'm glad someone can do it."  I suppose that some people might call me crazy for loving to spend time with students who are young teenagers, but I love it.  I love the fun we have, the relationships that we build, and the life change that happens.  When I was a senior in high school I fell in love with this age group and am lucky enough to spend my time week in and week out getting to share Jesus with these kids.

Here are 7 Things I love about this age group:

7. They are fun. Other ages might be fun too, but middle schoolers really know how to have a lot of fun.

6. They can still act like kids. They haven't gotten "too cool" to do dance around and do crazy things.

5. They can have great conversations. While they can still act like kids, they also can have incredibly in depth conversations that are a privelige to have.

4. Middle School is hard. Most people would never want to go back to their middle school years; there need to be people in their lives that love them in the midst of this difficutl age when everything changes.

3. They are building a foundation for the rest of life. Because of brain development, the faith development that happens during this age is foundational to the rest of their life.

2. They are overlooked. A lot of people tend to overlook middle school students; I love that I can minister to them and teach them what it means to follow Jesus.

1. They are awesome to teach. I love to teach middle school students; there is not much greater than having a room full of middle school students engaged as we open the Bible.

Photo Credit: Candrews

Cooties: Friendship, Dating, Etc.

This past Sunday, we began our new sermon series for the middle school ministry for the month of February.  Cooties is a series about friendships, dating, identity, and sexual purity.  For four weeks we are going to be looking at what we can learn about dating and relationships during the middle school years.

More Than Friends

During middle school, it is very normal for people to begin having the desire to be "more than friends."  Because of the changes that are happening, during this age we begin to look at the opposite sex differently.  While 3rd graders focus on playing tag with the opposite gender, 7th graders begin to have all kinds of ideas about what it means to be boyfriend and girlfriend.  These new attractions are normal; it's part of growing up.  Now, what we do with these new attractions is a very important discussion to have.

Is Dating in Middle School Beneficial?

The Bible doesn't ever say that dating in middle school is a sin, so I cannot say that it is not allowed.  It might be a sin, however, if dating in middle school is causing you to sin in the way you're treating others, the way you're talking or what you're doing with your significant other, or if your parents say you are not allowed.  But let's say none of this is happening, is dating in middle school beneficial?

In 1 Corinthians 10:23 Paul writes, “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”—but not everything is constructive."  Paul isn't specifically talking about dating, in fact he's talking about dietary laws.  But I think the truth of this statement holds significant value to the dating discussion in middle school.  Dating in middle school may be allowed, but is it helpful?

If you say yes...

I would argue it's not beneficial, but you might argue yes.  And if you argue yes there are some important things to be aware of that might come along with dating.

• What do your parents say?  If they say no, don't do it.
• Spend time in groups while dating in middle school.  You can really get to know people this way.
• What will you do when it comes to break ups?  Do you want to deal with that yet?
• What's your motivation for dating?  Is it something other than finding a future spouse?
• There are a whole bunch of new temptations.  (You need to be thinking about your sexual purity)
• Can you maintain your normal friendships while having a boyfriend/girlfriend?

That's a lot to think about and manage.  At some point even with everything that comes along with dating, it is still worth it because the benefit is finding a spouse but is that something you want to be worrying about in middle school?

If you say no...

I think that's a smart decision; I am not saying you shouldn't like or "like like" people.  There will still be certain individuals that you have crushes on and you want to spend more time with than the others, but you are simply deciding that the most beneficial thing is to not worrying about having a boyfriend or girlfriend right now.

So what do you do?

1. Don't date. If you don't think it's beneficial, don't do it.

2. Learn to be a great friend right now. The qualities that will be important for you in being a good boyfriend or girlfriend or finding one, will probably be the same qualities that are important in having a good friendship.  Right now learn how to be a great friend to the opposite sex and that will be of significant value when you do decide to start dating.

All Access: How to Pray

 

This past Sunday, we finished our sermon series for our middle school ministry entitled All Access.  Because of the death and ressurection of Jesus we have complete and total access to our God; since we have complete access what does our prayer life look like?  The third and final message was all about "How to Pray."

We commonly recite the words that Jesus taught when his disciples asked him how to pray:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." - Matthew 6:9-13

Jesus taught the disciples this prayer; it is loaded with significance for us as we pray.  Here are a few of the observations that we spent time discussing on Sunday.

Pray with confidence. When we approach God in prayer, we approach him confidently as his children.  We have no rights to call God our father, but because of Jesus we know that we can go to God as father and we can be confident that he loves us, provides for us, and will do what's best for us.

Honor God's name with words and actions. We need to remember that not only is God our father, but he is holy.  We honor God in our prayers with our words and we also do the same with our actions when we do what is right.  When we pray we should be worshipping him and our actions when we are not in prayer should match the words we use when we do pray.

Needs > Wants. Daily bread is not about asking God to provide for our needs.  When we pray to God we should pray that he would provide for our daily needs and also thank him that he has given us our daily needs like a house, a family, food, and clothes.

Confess. Confession is an essential part of our prayer life.  We all sin, therefore, confession should be a part of our prayers.

Ask for help. No matter how motivated we are to change things and no matter how badly things get around us, we cannot simply will things to change.  We need God's help.  We pray that God will help protect us from evil, keep us from temptation, and to help do what is right.

What the Church Can Learn from Pixar

Pixar is one of the most creative companies in the world.  They consistently push the boundaries of technology, release hit movies, and tell touching stories.  I have loved Pixar movies since I first saw Toy Story and I continue to love both their movies and their approach to being a creative organization.  In the Church we may not be creating movies, but a significant portion of our work is about telling the story of Christ and life change within our midst and finding creative ways to do so.  Because of this I think we can learn a lot from Pixar's approach to fostering creativity.

Empower the creatives.

If there are people that are trying to be creative within your church organization, whether they are trying to be creative in their planning of a worship service, their student ministry, or the management of a staff, it is important that they feel empowered.  In most studios, specialized deparments generate movie ideas while another department works on making those ideas into a film.  At Pixar the job of the development department is not developng the movie, but finding people who will work well together, keeping their team healthy, and helping them solve problems.

Perhaps the best way to help our creative teams is not finding more inspiration, but helping them to work well together.  Empowering the creatives is less about teaching them to be more creative and more about helping them as a creative team.  The student ministry team is empowered not when they realize they have innovative ideas, but when they can work well together.

"If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they'll screw it up.  But if you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they'll make it work." - Harvard Business Review on Pixar

Show Unfinished Work

At Pixar there is a group of people consisting of eight directors called the brain trust.  The idea is that the group can get together and show a work in progress and follow up with a discussion about making the movie better.  Because of the amount of trust in this group of people, they refine creative ideas without an ego preventing critical feedback and without hesitancy from the other members to not pull any punches.

When is the last time you were able to bring a raw, unfinished idea to your team and work it out?  Having a peer culture allows for good ideas to be developed into great ideas.  It allows everybody on the team to offer the insight and challenges.  What would it look like for you to present your sermon series idea before a "brain trust" of people to help you work it out?  What if you were able to write music and present it to a "brain trust" within your church?  What if you could take your student ministry retreat idea and work through it with your team and knew that doing it together would make it significantly better?

All Access

This past Sunday we started a brand new series for our Middle School students entitled "All Access."  For 3 weeks, we will be discussing prayer.  Because of the death and ressurection of Jesus we have complete access to God.  Because we have complete access to him, it is important that we use that access we have and continually be praying.  Throughout the series, I will be sharing some of my notes from the lessons (except for the first lesson, which I did not give).  If you're looking for a series on prayer and want to steal any of these ideas or graphics, feel free.

Week 1: Why Pray?

Week 2: What is Prayer?

Week 3: How to Pray?

For a copy of our additional background slide: download it here.

Sermon Series Branding Questions

[This post is a part of the Creating a Sermon Series series]

Creating a sermon series brand that both communicates and intrigues churchgoers can be a very difficult process.  An important part of the branding process is the point where you work through key details that need to be discussed in order to execute the series.  In order to help our team discuss the branding, I put together a few different questions to help work through the details.  There are certainly other important questions and discussions that may come up, but these questions help set up a framework for us to discuss some of the creative elements to our upcoming series.

1. Series Details

• What's the big idea?
• How long is the series?
• What are the topics and texts for the weekends?
• Who will be preaching?
• What dates will this take place?

2. Theming/Branding

• What should it be called?
• How should the series look and feel? (Eg: think of images, metaphors, movies, tv shows that have the "feel" we are looking for)
• What enviornments are we trying to create?
• What about pre-service music, lighting, and stage design?

3. Preaching Details

• What's a concise version of the messages?
• Are there any concepts that we could illustrate? (This is an opportunity to think of videos, props, pictures, etc.)
• How can this message beyond lived out beyond Sunday (The web, books, small groups, etc)

4. Music

• From the previous discussion, is there enough to work with for direction on weekends?
• Could any of this lead to series specific songs?
• Are there any songs that help communicate the ideas of the series?

5. The Deliverables

• What graphics need to be created and by when?
• What videos (bumpers, promotion videos) need to be created and by when?
• How are we promoting this series?  When do these elements need to be finished?

What other questions might you ask?  For a great example of how to brand a sermon series, check out Mars Hill Seattle's Battle Plan.

A Visit to Santa II

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Branding a Sermon Series

[This post is a part of the Creating a Sermon Series series]

Branding the sermon series is the part that is one of my favorite parts of the series preparation.  It is the part of the planning that we really begin to think about what images, words, and symbols will help make this series of messages memorable.  What visuals will help not only make it memorable, but help communicate the message that we are trying to share.  The branding stage is the stage that a sermon series begins to look like an actual usable sermon series.  The branding is when the series gets a title and begins to be fleshed out into all the elements that make up a sermon series.

Branding is the "name, term, sign, symbol, or combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers."  In the context of a sermon series, it's the name, terms, signs, symbols, or comibantion thereof to help church-goers identify the vision and message of a set of sermons and encourage them to listen.

Branding a sermon series might include:

• Title: What words are you going to use to identify the series?
• Graphics: What's the visual feel (colors, images, sermon slides, etc) that you are going to use to identify the series?
• Tagline: Is there a subtitle that helps further communicate your message?
• Staging: Can the brand recognition be enhanced by a certain stage set-up?
• Video: Is there video that you want to use as a part of the series brand? Is there a video bumper that helps lead into the sermon?
• Sermon Titles: Is there a way you want to tie your individual sermon titles into the actual series?

[The above list is an adaptation from Tentblogger's Introduction to Branding]

A quality brand has been seen to evoke great passion amongst followers.  Apple, with their simple name, logo, and design have shaped the way their customers view their products.  Not only do they successfully sell their products, but they turn customers into passionate evangelists of their brand.  And Apple users don't just use Apple products, they brag about Apple products.

Don't expect sermon series branding to convert people.  Your creativity abilities are not going to motivate somebody to get out of the pew and into the neighborhood.  A creative title doesn't move a passive churchgoer into an active evangelist.  That's the Spirit's job.  But branding a sermon series will help create an important sermon series recognition.  When a slide is shown, when a 30 second video clip appears, or when the title of a sermon series is spoken, the message and direction of a well-branded series will be recognized.

Photo Credit: Captcreate

Where Do Ideas Come From?

Where does an idea come from?  What is it that sparks the imagination so that it creates a painting, a screenplay, a poem, or a song?  I am fascinated at what it is that makes one day seem like a day where creativity spills out of my brain and other days it feels like scratching nails against a chalkboard.  I don't think there is a trick to make your day an idea-filled day, but I have noticed a few places that seem to help me generate ideas.

Ideas come from ideas.

We may like to believe that our ideas are completely original and purely from our own imagination, but the truth is that instead our ideas are likely connected to other peoples' ideas.  This doesn't mean we are stealing their ideas, in fact, it's not even close to that.  But the reality is that ideas, whether good or bad, inspire us to think of other ideas.  We may have an idea for a brilliant sermon series that was inspired simply from a word mentioned in an interview on TV.  It came from another idea; although there is no way anyone could ever figure out what the inspiration was.  You might have a bad idea for video clip to use, yet when discussing it with the team, it triggers somebody else with an idea that fits perfectly.  This is common.  Ideas inspire more ideas.  The more ideas you come up with, the more they will inspire.  The more creative inspiration you consume, the more ideas you will generate.

Ideas come from hard work.

Some days it feels like all your ideas are terrible and there is not a creative bone in your body; those are critical moments in your creative work.  You may not come up with any usable ideas on a day like this, but the creative work of putting ideas on paper improves your ability to generate ideas, and as we learned from the previous point, it may inspire other ideas on another day.  Creating, just like most other skills, requires us to work on it and improve the craft.  We will come up with great ideas if we go through the hard work and improve our abilities of creating by creating even on the uninspired days.

Ideas come from doing other stuff.

Have you ever had a moment in the middle of the night when you had a brilliant idea?  I have, and I've also had moments where I felt the idea was so brilliant that I could not possibly forget it...only to wake up the next morning only remembering I had a great idea and not remember what it was.  There is something about not working specifically on an idea that allows the brain to be creative.  I'm sure there's some science behind it, but all that I know is when I do things completely other than what I'm creating, it often allows my brain to be more creative.  What are mundane everyday tasks that you can do that will allow you to stop working on your ideas so your brain can be creative subconciously?

Where do you notice ideas coming from?

Photo Credit: Steve and Sara

Holiday Projection Show

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