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Youth Ministry
Starting last weekend and throughout this month, our middle school is working through a sermon series called "Grow Up." This series is a part of XP3 Students produced by Orange. If you've been wondering why you havne't seen teaching notes, I haven't been posting them because several main ideas from the series is a part of the curriculum. There are times throughout the year that using produced curriculum is highly beneficial. As we are preparing for the summer season, I wanted to have a series that I could use that would also allow me some freedom creatively to begin thinking about summer events and retreat themes.
Market Colors is a new non-profit that is focused on seling hand-made products made in Africa. Poor people throughout the country that normally don't have access to any market beyond the locals and missionaries passing through are being given an opportunity to support themselves and their families by giving their products a much larger market. One of my favorite things about buying something through market colors, which will start selling items this summer, is that you aren't just buying a purse or a laptop case, but you are connecting yourselves to a story.
This series focused on the importance of both knowing the truth of the gospel and daring to live it out in our daily lives. While the game truth or dare allows us to choose one or the other, our faith requires us to choose both. When I think of what it would like like to live a life, that solely focused on the truth of the gospel, but never dared to live it out, I can’t wrap my mind around how that can be justified.
Confirmation is not something mandated by scriptures. Despite not being written about in the scriptures, the idea of instructing students on important theological issues is certainly a scriptural practice. In fact confirmation is a form of youth ministry that has been happening in many main line denominations even before modern youth ministry was prevalent. Because scriptures don't require confirmation, there are also several different ways that a church might go about doing confirmation.
I love this idea by NorthRidge's Student Ministries team. I can't wait to take it and make it my own.
In order for any retreat to happen, volunteers need to be willing to come as leaders. I am blessed to be able to have an incredible team of volunteers that help make all of our retreats incredible. Our students experience incredible life change on retreats because we have a team filled with adults that want to do nothing more than care for students. Leading up to many of our retreats, I often hear from parents, "Do you need chaperones?" While the question is a well-intentioned statement letting me know they are willing to help, there is a very significant distinction that exists between the job of a chaperone and the job of a shepherd.
The band formerly known as David Crowder Band minus David Crowder is now known as the Digital Age. I'm very curious what this will become. And I'm also curious what David Crowder is doing.
When I was a young kid, I was pretty much afraid of anything. I was afraid of swimming, even with a life-jacket on. I was afraid of eating taco bell; I actually cried when I was forced to try taco bell for the first time. When I was a kid, everything seemed to be too big a risk. In life, there will always be certain things that have some element of risk to them. And this is especially true when it comes to our faith. There are risks that comes with living out your faith. The risks may be losing respect, friends, popularity, or something else. Taking the truth of the gospel seriously, to the point that we are willing to live it out everywhere, can sometimes be risky.
With the amount of social networks available, it can be extremely difficult to know which, if any, we sould be utilizing when connecting with students. I would be pretty surprised if there was a youth worker who doesn't use at least one of these, but nonetheless, it is helpful to know what the social networks are and why certain ones might benefit you over others.
I recently saw this spoof of the Hunger Games done by the high school ministry of Mariners Church. I could easily imagine using something like this in our student ministry as a way to promote an upcoming trip.
Middle school students are very concrete thinkers. Because of that, the idea of living a life of worship can be a difficult idea to grasp if not explained properly. If we are not careful, worship can easily get wrapped up into the times when we sing and be disconnected from everyday life. How can we teach middle school students about an idea that is so important, yet often misunderstood within our churches?
Middle school youth workers can be a rare breed. While most would never dream of re-entering early adolescence, a special breed of youth workers love the age of middle school students and have given their life to building relationships with them and discipling them. Because each of us who spend our time in middle school ministry have different unique insight into working with this age group, I thought it would be fun to start a series of interviews with other middle school ministry youth workers that could share with us there insight about ministering to junior high students.
This post will serve as a table of contents for the interviews.
Interviews
Marko - Part 1 and Part 2
Photo Credit: Varjakkk
There are several reasons that you might be interested in blogging as a youth worker. It might simply be your passion for writing and for youth ministry. It might be a way to connect with other youth workers around the country. It could even be a tool to communicate to parents or train your volunteers. Whatever the reason might be that you are interested in blogging, there are a few hurdles to get over as you start blogging.
I met Jason Raitz several years ago through some mutual connections at my local church. Jason has served in a variety of ministry contexts, most recently beginning a new organization called Live Now, which serves both churches through speaking and schools through Live Now Leadership, an initiative to stop bullying. In Jason's work in student ministry, he has spent a significant amount of time serving with middle school students and one of his biggest passions in ministry is speaking to students. Because of his passion for junior high ministry and for preaching, I really wanted to hear some of his thoughts on both.