Archives For creativity

I Don’t Fail, I Experiment

March 7, 2013 — Leave a comment

When it comes to ministry and trying new things I go all in. Our team goes all in. The moto when it comes to trying something we never have done before is, “The best idea wins. If it worked last year it doesn’t mean we NEED to do it again. If there is something better let’s do it.” Let’s be creative. Let God move. Plan something that would not work unless God came through. Failure is something that will always be probable I guess. But…

IN THE EYES OF GOD THERE ARE NO FAILURES, BUT FORCED GROWTH.

What we are so worried about? Failing. We don’t want to fail, it makes us look bad. No one wants to fail. The idea that in God’s eyes there is no failure, only forced growth, is encouraging. Every time we fail to do something, it helps us grow in some way, shape or form. Failure forces us to grow, helps us learn from our mistakes. We can take this idea in our faith journey and in our ministry.

Are we ever going to stop messing up and failing? No, sorry. We are human and that is what we happen to do. It is what we do AFTER we fail which will define us. If we just give up, we fail. If we don’t, it was just an experiment and research on the right way of doing it.

James 1:2-4

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

In creativity, Leadership, Ministry Idea, student ministry, Youth Ministry , , , , ,
permalink

Insta-Life Series

December 26, 2012 — 1 Comment

instalifeweb

This had to be one of my favorites series that we have come up with so far. Because Instagram is such a huge thing for students, we thought this would be the perfect way to use whats hot in the app store and bring it to life as talk about how God is working in our lives. Below are parts we used to speak to our students during the series: teaching illustrations, games, and what we wanted students to get our of the weekend services. Hope this is of some help!

Series Arc:

InstaLife: Jealousy – Wanting Someone Else’s Username:Being jealous shows that we are not satisfied with what God has given us, that what we have is not enough. The Bible tells us that we need to be content with what we have because God would never forsake us and leave us with nothing. In order to go head to head with jealousy we need to become more like Jesus and less like ourselves. We need to stop wanting and ogling what everyone else posts through Instagram.

InstaLife: Being Fake – Look Behind the Filter:We post pictures online for everyone to see. We will post pictures on this app to allow other people to get a little glimpse into our lives. Many post pictures of the life they wish they had or pictures from only the good parts, giving the false perception to everyone who sees it thinking that you are just fine and dandy when in reality you are truly hurting. It is time to stop pretending that everything is okay and come to Jesus get out from behind the filter.

Games: The game is simple – someone turns over control of their Instagram account to the host of the show, who is then given permission to do whatever they want in exchange for prizes. In this case we used the Wheel of Destiny to let it randomly choose what would happen. Some of the options included:

  • deleting 10 random friends
  • trolling someone’s profile (aka liking all of one person’s pictures)
  • posting a picture of another girl in the room and tagging it #newgirlfriend
  • $5 to Starbucks
  • become Instafamous – everyone in the room takes out their phone to follow them
  • Week-long hack – the phone stays logged in and randomly in the week we hack them again
  • … and many more!

We had previously hooked up an iPhone to our main screen using an Apple TV so the whole experience was sick and flawless technically, too. Oh and also painful … and hilarious. The students who played along were good sports and hosts were loving but ruthless. Another epic game we’ll for sure use in the future, too!

-3

Sermon Illustration:

20121217-105343During the message our team made a real life Instagram picture on stage in front of the students eyes (picture above) and talked about how we try to make the perfect picture to portray to everyone else when sometimes our real lives are not doing too hot. We explained how God can see through the “filters” we put up and just wants us as we are, right now, with no filter. How he wants authentic and real, not posed and faked. So the above picture we brought in items one by one to make “the ultimate picture”. Then explained how that was not our real selves and God wants us #nofilter, just as we are.

It was powerful, and you can see it in the eyes of the students as they were convicted because they know they do this every time they post a picture online.

You can download the series notes for cheap HERE.

*The game description was taken from morethandodeball.com because he had already explained the game perfectly.

In creativity, high school ministry, Ministry Idea, service programing, student ministry, Uncategorized, Youth Ministry , , , , , , ,
permalink

Ministry Idea: Photo Wall

December 18, 2012 — 2 Comments

photo

This is our photo wall as you walk towards our high school meeting room. It is literally full of pictures of our students from every event that we do and also from some of our services. We try to make sure we have a camera everywhere we go so we can continually update this wall. It’s pretty easy to make as well. We had a wall with nothing on it, that looked boring and we developed a whole bunch of pictures, got an easy stick spray from Micheal’s Arts & Crafts and started to post them. Here is why I like it:

It’s easy:  If you have a space in which you can do this, take advantage. We had a wall, we had tons of pictures, and it relatively cheap.

Students love it: They really do. I can’t tell you a time where I do not look over at it before or after service in which a student is looking at all of the pictures. It’s like a real life Instagram wall that gets updated with new pictures every time we do something. They are always trying to find the new ones that we put up.

New people get a glimpse of your ministry: Seeing a bunch of pictures can tell the story of your ministry before you even meet a new person. A new student can take one look at the photo wall and tell them what you do as a ministry for fun, in serving, what services look like, what events you do. They might even tell if they will like it or not, who knows. But its the first glimpse into your ministry, it could be your biggest advertisement.

It seems to work for us, maybe could be a good idea for you? Try it out and let me know.

In creativity, high school ministry, Leadership, service programing, student ministry, Uncategorized, Youth Ministry , , , , ,
permalink

Winter Retreat Re-cap

December 12, 2012 — Leave a comment

Unknown

A few weekends ago we had our High School Ministry Winter Retreat. We went up to Mile High Pines somewhere in the San Bernardino Mountains and spent 3 days up there with 210 of our high school students and it was a great way to get away from the business of a normal schedule and spend time with friends and leaders in a small cabin.

Here are some of my favorite moments and notes from the weekend:

  • Winter camp has a special place in my heart and this was my first one being on the planning team for HSM at Saddleback.
  • We made it so you had to be in a Life Group to register. This is different from out summer camp or weekend services, it is a discipleship retreat.
  • Students who were not in a small group still got to register with the condition that they were placed in a small group and would now be apart of that small group after the weekend.
  • We brought in a guest speaker, Ron Merrell, who did an incredible job speaking and teaching our students. He had such a read on them that he changed his last two messages because the Holy Spirit prompted him to and he was right i a huge way.
  • We had Friday night, Saturday morning and night, and Sunday morning sessions. 4 messages in 48 hours, all-powerful and challenging.
  • We had some student leaders lead workshops. We had 5 workshops taught by the seniors in student leadership and students got to pick 2 of them to go to. They killed it! It was awesome to see the students step up and teach and respond to them.
  • We had an amazing worship leader. He knew how to lead our students into worship with a dinky sound system, but students sang SO loud.
  • We stripped down worship. It was just the guy and a guitar. We did this intentionally because our students have a full band every weekend. there is something about the simplicity that students just respond to in a tremendous way with a guy who knows how to lead.
  • It was amazing to walk around the camp and see all our leaders in one-on-one conversations all over the place. So many great conversations happening and God moving in their lives in a huge way.
  • Saturday night was my favorite night, hands down. We had an amazing message, incredible worship, and we invited students to take communion and had all our leaders up front for prayer. And how the students responded.
  • Sunday morning we had the students write letters to themselves a year from now with their spiritual goals. We had them seal it, address home, and we are going to send it to them a year from now as a reminder. (I’ll be posting on this in more detail later.)
  • It was just amazing to see all of the laughter and fun all students were having. They are hilarious and it was just amazing to spend time with students who I don’t get to hang out with on a regular basis.

It was a success and I already can’t wait until next year.

In creativity, God, high school ministry, Leadership, organization, service programing, student ministry, Uncategorized, worship, Youth Ministry , , ,
permalink

4 Reasons Why Hand Written Notes Work

November 28, 2012 — 5 Comments

I just wanted to try something last week to see what sort of response I would get.

Last week wrote 7 hand written letters to 7 the junior guys in my small group. I hand wrote them in a page in my personal journal, talking about how proud I am of them, loving seeing them grow in Christ, and talk about some personal stuff going on in their lives and that I was praying for them, and then sent them out. I waited to see what the response would be. I mean, these were 16/17 year old guys, tough guys. How would they respond to a little hand written note?

I waited a few days and then all of the sudden I started to get text after text from the guys in my group about how awesome it was to get a hand written note and they never get them anymore. Some said it mean so much to them that I would stop and write something to encourage them, even though I just saw them a few nights before at church. I even had a mom tell me that her son has it hanging up in his bathroom because it mean so much to him and it encouraged him. I was blown away.

There are a few things I can pull from this little experiment that I need to remember:

  • Communicating through social media (texting, Facebook, etc.) is convenient, but hand written, personal notes mean way more than a quick text or Facebook message.
  • Students take note that you cared about them enough to stop in the craziness of the week and hand write something to them. Hand writing notes takes WAY longer than shooting over an email, but it is WAY worth it.
  • Students could never have too much encouragement. To know an adult is thinking about them, praying for them, and encouraging them to keep walking in faith, they can have the confidence they need in Christ to do amazing things.
  • It is not hard to do. It’s actually really easy and is something I should be doing every single week.

This is my goal. To keep up with this experiment until it becomes a normal weekly thing to write at least one note to a student and send it to them during the week.

In Communication, creativity, high school ministry, Leadership, Ministry Idea, personal growth, student ministry, Youth Ministry , , , , , , , , , , ,
permalink

Stuff Jesus Didn’t Say Video Messages

October 24, 2012 — Leave a comment

 

This last weekend we used these two videos to teach part of the message in HSM. It is the first time we tried to integrate videos in the teaching, but I thought it went really well. Students seemed to love it and remember it.

In creativity, God, high school ministry, Ministry Idea, service programing, student ministry, video , , , , ,
permalink

HSM Weekend Videos

October 21, 2012 — Leave a comment

Some awesome videos we are playing this weekend. Pretty epic promos to get our students excited for HSM’s Halloween Party. Also, continuing our high school sports recaps, where we cover our local schools sports in one minute.

Videos are huge in our services. It adds a great dynamic to the service and with this generation that we preach too, nothing gets student’s attention like video. There is something about it that just makes them quiet and so focused.

Pumpkinfest Promo!

Sports Minute Vol. 4

In creativity, funny, high school ministry, Ministry Idea, service programing, student ministry, video , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
permalink

How To Speak To Teenagers

October 17, 2012 — 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago at Saddleback Church, we had Doug Fields and Duffy Robbins (easily the top two youth ministry communicators in the world) and give an open presentation of their workshop of “Speaking To Teenagers”. This was a workshop that was basically picking their brains, getting an inside look in their heads on how they go about communicating to teenagers. It was open to any youth pastor who wanted to come and it was awesome to see and hang out with 170 pastors and youth workers and volunteers come and learn. I thought I would writ down some of the points we went over to share with you all.

Question: How do we communicate warmth and likability to a roomful of kids in the middle of a talk?

  1. Use their names in illustrations, in referencing common memories- anyway you can.
  2. Use humor. We never laugh with our enemies.
  3. Avoid profanity and vulgar language  Research has shown that “people who casually use profanities and vulgarities to pepper their speech are often perceived as abrasive and lacking character, maturity, intelligence, manners, and emotional control.”
  4. Draw references to what you in common with your students.
  5. As often as possible, when you’re using rebuke, correction, warning or accusatory type language, speak in the first person plural. 
  6. Stand as close as possible tot he group and if feasible speak from the same level as your students.
  7. Be conversational.

Doug and Duffy are not only the best communicators, they are also some of the funniest people on the stage. I’m talking hilarious. They gave some tips on how to use humor in a message. Here are some notes on that:

  1. Exaggeration: Any kind of overstatement related to people, places, sizes, the way people feel or act, and personal experiences.
  2. Surprise: Making use of unexpected or unusual feelings, events, etc.
  3. Absurdity: Using materials that are illogical in thinking or in language.
  4. Human Problems: Situations in which a person appears foolish or is simply the victim of everyday life (bloopers, candid camera, etc.) Doug and Duffy both said to try and use our own faults and mistakes as much as possible. It makes for better illustrations and makes it more personal.
  5. Sarcasm: Teasing or bringing attention to someone’s faults (this is the lowest hanging fruit on the humor tree).
In creativity, funny, God, high school ministry, Ministry Idea, student ministry, Youth Ministry , , , , , , , , , , ,
permalink

HSM PumpkinFest Video

October 10, 2012 — Leave a comment

This is a great, funny, simple video from two guys that I work with (Travis and Parker) on our weekend planning team promoting our huge Halloween party that HSM hosts every year. Pumpkinfest! When we say awesome, we really mean it. It is a fun environment to be in and it brings in a ton of students into our student building the Friday before Halloween.

In creativity, funny, God, high school ministry, service programing, student ministry, Uncategorized, video, Youth Ministry , ,
permalink

First Edition of the “Inside [HSM]” Magazine!

October 9, 2012 — 1 Comment

At HSM at Saddleback, we are extremely excited to announce the production of our very first “Inside [HSM]” Magazine. It is something that we worked on all summer long, it took a ton of work and planning from our team, writing articles and editing, but we have the Fall edition of our magazine. Every inch of it was done in house by someone on the HSM team. It has our fall series, events, calendars, funny bits, a comic and much more. We have been handing it out to all our students, leaders and parents for free and they have been eating it up! You can scroll through below and check it out!

We are currently working on our second edition which should be ready by January!

If you want a hard copy, email me, and I will see what I can do!

In creativity, Free Stuff, funny, high school ministry, Leadership, personal growth, student ministry, Youth Ministry , , , , , , , , , , ,
permalink