You are here: Home / Archives for high school

Small Group Leader Roll Never Really Ends

October 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Last night was the “meet and greet” night for High School Ministry here at Saddleback Church and I got to meet some new guys in my small group. It was an awesome night and I really have some great students in this group and I’m excited for the new school year.

And then today I had lunch with a former student of mine from my last small group. Sitting and talking with him at lunch and going over some stuff in his life made me think about how we never really leave a student’s life, not if you’re doing small group right. I have a whole new batch of students that God has placed in my care and I’ll do my absolute best to walk along side them and help strengthen their walk with God, to be there for any problems that they open up and share and need help with, I’ll be at sporting events and school plays, and going out of my way to let them know that besides their parents they have another caring adult in their life they can depend on.

But, I’ll also keep the door open to my past students. Just because a student is no longer in your group does not mean that God wants you to end the teaching and role model and mentoring to that student.

I think it’s important to know the role you play in a student’s life as they mature.  My role now will be more of a mentor to past students and a couple have asked me if I would mentor them. I think it’s also important to note a couple of points here also.

  • I’m a single guy and I have time for this. If your married with kids, don’t sacrifice your family time and make them second. Being single, God expects a little more of me since I have the time.
  • If you decide to mentor former students, put it on them to arrange a time to meet and to follow through with this. It’s part of the growing up process and also, they have to want a mentor in their life, more than you want to mentor them.

The bottom line is when you sign on for Student Ministry remember that your job is not always done just because they graduated junior high and went to high school, or graduated high school and went to college.

Filed Under: Small Groups, Spriritual Life, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , ,

It’s time for Summer Camp!

July 24, 2012 by 1 Comment

As you read this I’m at our High School Ministry’s Summer Camp! I love this week, it’s such an awesome opportunity to reach out to students, to meet new students and see God change lives right before your eyes. For me it’s also a chance for me to meet the majority of the guys that I’ll have in my small group in September.

I’ve spent a lot of time in prayer before camp this year. Very intentional prayer asking God for some very specific things for camp. First I’ve prayed for all of the students at camp. We’re taking 750 students this time, the largest summer camp we’ve ever had. Just the logistics of camp need prayer this year! Once I got the list of students who will be in my cabin I’ve been praying for them by name, asking God to use me in that student’s life as He needs me to work and that camp will be an amazing, life changing experience for them.

I’ve prayed for our high school staff. I love these guys, they do a ton of work in a short time and always manage to plan out and pull off amazing camps every year! I’ve prayed for our high school pastor, and for all of the volunteers that will be going to camp.

I’ll be back next week with some great posts about camp and the amazing things that happened this week. But for now I ask for your prayers. After you read this, say a prayer for Saddleback Church’s High School Ministry Camp and for the students and for me and keep us in prayer this week.

Filed Under: Summer Camp, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , ,

Quick Summer Camp Reminders

July 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment

This is a time of year that Steven and I both love; it’s time for summer camp!  I leave this Sunday for high school camp and in two weeks Steven leaves for junior high camp. We’re both really looking forward to camp this year because we both will have entirely new groups of students.

There has been so much written about summer camp these past few weeks but if you’re a leader at camp this summer here’s some quick reminders:

1. Pray like crazy. Pray for camp, for the students, for the leaders, for the worship team, and for your pastors.

2. Be intentional like crazy. Make sure every student in your cabin knows you care and do your best to establish a relationship with each one.

3. Know their names! One of the huge things that say you care is when you take the time to remember their names. I’ve made a goal to have that done within the first 24 hours.

4. Be involved. Don’t sit on the sidelines; don’t be afraid to be crazy, get dirty, whatever it takes to connect with students. Put your cell phones, smart phones, tablets, etc. away and make the week about the students, not the work that might be piling up at your office. The work will be there when you get back; this might be the opportunity for you to make a huge impact in a student’s life. Don’t miss the chance!

5. Don’t get so wrapped up in serving God while you’re at camp that you forget to worship God while you’re at camp. Find a few minutes each day for a quiet time. Reconnect with God yourself each day. For me being a morning person I slip off early in the morning before my guys wake up and have a quiet time.

This year I have a cabin of 10 freshman guys…pray for me!

Filed Under: Summer Camp, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , ,

Getting the torch passed on to you

July 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Last night I got to meet the freshmen guys who will be in my high school small group this coming school year. I was so excited to see them and talk to them and let them get to know me. I’m taking Steven’s junior high small group and Steven and his co-leader Kyle had invited me and my new co-leader Michael to be at their last night of small group and to introduce us.

The first thing that was very obvious to me was the love these guys have for Steven and Kyle. I could tell for some of them this was going to be a sad night and I knew it would be sad for Steven and Kyle as well.  Check out Steven’s post from yesterday if you haven’t already. They have poured into these guys for two years and have done an awesome job.

Here’s how we did the transition:

  • Before the group met, the four of us sat down and they talked about each of the guys in the small group, the best way to connect with each one of them and where they are in their walk with God.
  • Once we got to the house where they meet, Steven introduced us, told the guys about the friendship we have and how we share a ministry together and all about us. Then he opened it up for us to talk to the guys a little bit and then he let them ask us questions.

This made for a very smooth transition and I’d recommend this for others who are passing their student small group on to new leaders.

When I got home last night I prayed for this new group and for each of the guys by name. I also prayed for my old group that God would help them in their next phase of life as college students.

The torch has been passed and I’m ready to get started with these guys. Some of them will be at high school camp with me next week. Thank you Steven and Kyle for the amazing job you did with these guys, God has gifted both of you with an incredible talent for student ministry, and these nine guys you have handed off to me are proof of that!

 

 

Filed Under: Small Groups, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , ,

It’s never too early to start planning for fall

May 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Since it’s Monday, this would normally be a post that Steven and I would write together. Steven has finals this week so he’s taking some time to study. We’ll be back to our regular schedule next week.

This past week our junior high and high school ministries at Saddleback Church spent some time planning out the fall calendar. That might sound strange since it’s not even summer yet, but if you want to be effective and make sure that things don’t fall through the cracks you really need to plan for the future with enough time to fix any issues that might come up along the way. It made me start thinking about my new small group and what I want to do this fall. I’m going to have a new group and also a new co-leader, so here’s what I need to do before fall:

  • Spend some time with my new co-leader and establish with him what we want to accomplish with our new group and how we’re going to get there
  • I also am “mentoring” my new co-leader at the same time so I need to make sure I’m growing and stretching him at the same time
  • I want to spend some time with the former leaders of my new group so I can get to know some background on each of the new guys. And while this isn’t necessary, it sure gives you a head start with helping to grow students in their faith if you have a heads up on what life application lessons we need to go over.
  • I want to see where our High School Ministry is going this fall, what will be the weekend lessons, what do they want us to teach on.
  • I want to plan out some serve opportunities. That’s a huge way to help students grow their faith when you get them serving others.
  • I want to plan out some fun events with the new group. Those events help them bond with each other, and help bond you to them as well. It also lets them see you as a person, not just a leader. Nothing brings you down to their level faster than getting smacked in the side of the head with a dodgeball!

Question: Have you begun planning out your fall schedule for your student small group? Any good plans you want to share we’d love to hear them!

Filed Under: Mentoring, Small Groups, Uncategorized, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , ,

God has a sense of humor

April 18, 2012 by 2 Comments

I have an amazing group of guys in my high school small group and one of them is a total prayer warrior. He usually closes our group in prayer each week and he does a great job doing it. Tonight, he wasn’t feeling good but he still wanted to pray. Something I never thought would happen with him, happened tonight. While he was praying he said something funny. Not intentionally but it came out that way. Most of the other guys began to laugh and hard as I tried to be the grown up in the group and not laugh, I did.

I never would have seen this coming but it caused his whole prayer to be funny. But at the same time he was sincere and he hit each of the other guy’s prayer requests. He kept adding things that would make us all laugh. I kept reminding myself that God has a sense of humor and that sometimes it’s good to lighten up, but this was prayer time. Soon we all lost it, and everyone was in the midst of the laugh that you can’t stop no matter how hard you try.

That’s when it hit me…I had one guy tonight who was in a really bad mood, he was quiet most of the night and when it came to prayer requests he flat-out told us, “I’m in a bad mood tonight, I don’t have any requests, just go on to the next person.” I looked over at where he was sitting and he was laughing so hard he was almost doubled over. Here I was, thinking how bad this prayer time had been, but God knew one of those guys needed something to break his bad mood. He came up to me after prayer time and told me he had not laughed that hard in a long time and it felt good.

God will even use something that at first may seem totally disrespectful and just plain not right as an opportunity to break through to someone who needs His help. I saw it happen tonight.

Filed Under: Small Groups, Spriritual Life Tagged With: , , , , ,

Sometimes The Real Ministry Happens Before and After Your Small Group Time

March 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

My high school small group has been studying and unpacking Philippians these past two weeks. Last night my plan was to unpack chapters 3 and 4. I spent a lot of time on this lesson, I read and re-read those two chapters, read two different commentaries on Philippians, and I was more than ready and was feeling good about this lesson.

Our group always starts off with a “go around the room and tell us how your week went” session. Usually this takes just a few minutes. I say usually but as you can probably tell by now that didn’t happen last night. Everyone had a lot of stuff to talk about, good and bad and we spent the first hour just doing that. At first my initial inclination was to try to hurry this along, I had a great lesson that would need at least an hour and a half.

That’s when I remembered something that Steven and I have written on before. Sometimes the real ministry happens before and after the planned lesson. I just let the guys talk. I chimed in every now and then with some advice but for the most part I sat back and watched as they ministered and counseled each other, it was so great.

We eventually got to an abbreviated version of the lesson I had planned and it went off great, the guys loved it. Last night was a very successful small group night because I remembered to let God run the group and not me. I let God’s plan for the night happen, not mine. This morning I thought to myself that a couple of the guys had some pretty heavy stuff they needed to talk about, if I had cut that part of our small group short that would not have happened and some prayer requests would have been missed.

 Thank you God for running small group last night and for helping me to remember that my high school small group is not about how great of a lesson I can prepare, it’s about how I am preparing these guys for life after high school and making God be the focus.

Filed Under: Small Groups, Spriritual Life, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , ,

Finding Joy in All Circumstances

March 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I’ve discovered that the guys in my high school small group love to unpack scripture. It’s one of my favorite things to do, I always want to know more and know about what circumstances were going on at the time scripture was written. It helps you to understand Paul’s letters and get more out of them when you realize most of them were written when he was in prison. For instance this week we talked about finding joy in your life and we unpacked Philippians chapter 1 and 2. Paul was in prison when he wrote Philippians and even though he was being imprisoned for spreading the gospel, he was writing about finding joy.

Once I started talking about Paul writing from prison my group had as many questions about Paul as they did scripture. It hit me that I’ve spent a lot of time on scripture but not a lot of time talking about the authors of the Bible and how God inspired them to write. So tonight I shifted gears a little and lucky for me I had just read some great commentary on Paul so I had some information to pass on and we had a great discussion about Paul. I really want my guys to leave this small group at the end of their senior year this summer and take with them a desire to dig deep into scripture, not just during hard times but all the time. When you spend time with the Bible each and every day it makes resisting temptation easier.

Tonight we reinforced that you can find joy in any circumstance when you trust God, and use whatever situation you’re in to encourage others and not get discouraged yourself. I think tonight’s lesson was as much for me as it was for my high school guys.

Filed Under: Encouragement, Spriritual Life, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , ,

I HAD a lesson prepared for my small group…

February 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Last week I had one of those events that I call “a total God moment”.  It’s amoment when God just kind of speaks to you and pushes you in a direction and you have no idea why, but at the end of the night you realize how awesome it was and why God led you there.

I had a lesson prepared for my high school small group guys. I was going to talk about the Beatitudes  and how they apply to our lives today. I did a lot of research, I borrowed a commentary from Steven by D.A. Carson on the Books of Matthew and Luke, I spelled out practical applications, and by the time I was done I had 5 pages of notes. When I was done with this lesson my guys were going to be totally schooled on the Beatitudes, they would be reciting them in their sleep. I knew I had nailed this lesson, heck, even I understood the Beatitudes better than I ever have! About 30 minutes before my group meets I did my usual routine of going into my office in the Student Ministry building at Saddleback Church, closing my door and having some serious prayer time with Jesus before hand.

When I was done with prayer time, I don’t know why but something kept telling me that tonight was not the night for the lesson I had prepared. “No”, I thought…it has to be I’ve spent a lot of time on this and it’s good if I don’t say so myself!  But the closer the time got to my small group meeting time and my guys started arriving I kept getting this feeling that I need to skip the lesson for tonight and do something else. I put it out of my mind until we got into our meeting room, and began talking about everyone’s week. It hit me again…not tonight..put this lesson away. By then I figured it out and knew it was God telling me something else needed to be talked about tonight. The next thing I knew I started asking them to tell me what the definition of forgiveness is, and do they need to forgive anyone? Or do they need to ask forgiveness of someone? One of the guys asked me for my definition of forgiveness. I told him to me, true forgiveness means that I forever give up the right to hold against you what you have done to me. Once I say “I forgive you”, its done, its gone, it never happened.

At that moment one of the guys began talking about something he had done and needed to ask forgiveness for. It was a pretty tough issue and I was so proud of him for putting his feelings out there. And then another one, and by the time the night was over two more had text me about issues they needed to ask someone to forgive them for. That night our group’s Facebook page lit up with comments from the guys thanking me for the lesson and for helping them make some tough decisions tonight. WOW! If I had kept with my original plan none of this would have happened! God definitely knew what was best for the lesson last night and I’m thankful I heard and followed His direction. The awesome part is that I got to just sit back and watch them minister to each other! Tears were shed, hugs were given out and accountability partners were chosen.

My question is….are you far enough along in your faith to recognize when God is moving you to or away from something?

Filed Under: Small Groups, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Follow the (New) Leader – Part 3

February 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment

It’s been almost 2 months since we last checked in with the new youth leader we’ve been following. This month John talks about some ways he has connected with his students, how he has grown, and some insights into his group. If you haven’t read the first 2 editions of Follow the (New) Leader, check them out here.

How are you connecting with your students?

After our Paintballing excursion over the Christmas break we seem to have a closer relationship. The boys are really coming together as a group and include each other in all conversations and while playing sports prior to our group time. They really are a great group of guys. 

How have you seen yourself grow?

This group has really taught me how to be a better father to my kids. I communicate better with my family because I have listened to my group boys complaints about their parents not really listening to them when they talk.

What has been your best topic that has gotten the most participation so far?

Any time we discuss bully vs. protector they seem to really be in tune with this topic. They give me weekly updates on how they are helping out the “little guys” at school who are being bullied. They said that they really didn’t notice until we started talking about it.

What is something in the last month you wish you would have done differently?

We just started opening and closing our meetings in prayer. I wish I would have started that earlier in our group.

Has there been a funny line or quote from one of your students that you can share?

They each have their own pearls of wisdom that they share with the group. All the guys can relate to each other when it comes to family life at their age. Nothing really comes to mind regarding a single funny line, all my guys are jokers in their own right.

Filed Under: Follow the (new) Leader, Small Groups, Volunteer ministry, Youth Ministry Tagged With: , , , , ,
«Older Posts