“Careful with these jet skis, they have more power than most people understand,” a leader told one of our staff members on a junior high summer camp. “Please refrain from the temptation to ride alongside another watercraft and splash them with your wake.”

You and I both know that a jet ski gets old pretty quick if you are not bobbing and weaving in the water and occasionally using the power of your floating Ducati to douse people with the spray of your wake. On that trip I was given the incredibly sought-after role of driving the pontoon boat from the beach to the cliff jumping site with groups of students. While on one of my many trips a fellow staff member approached our slow moving vessel on a jet ski. She had the look in her eye that said, “you have no idea what is about to hit you!”

She was right. As she approached the rear of the boat, she hit the throttle while going over the wake of my boat, attempting to splash the students. The wake abruptly changed the course of the jet ski and she slammed into the back of the boat, striking the engine at full speed causing it to explode like we were hit by a torpedo. Dead in the water I was forced to swim (…SWIM!) the boat to shore.

The power of the jet ski was too much for her to handle.

Power has an ability to effect people like nothing else in the world. Abraham Lincoln said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

Saul was the picture of absolute power in the first Century. Given authority by the high priest, he used his power to protect Judaism by persecuting and destroying the first church. Stopping at nothing, Jesus took it upon himself to end the destructive cycle that Saul had begun. In a radical disorientation, everything that Saul once knew was completely changed. Everything that he once stood for was uprooted, leaving a ghost of a man. In total contrast to the egotistical maniac that once stood, Saul was blind and led by hand to Damascus.

Saul was re-purposed by Jesus. His life built upon death and destruction was re-purposed to speak life into the world in the name of Jesus.  Saul had to die so that Paul could be born.

Jesus understood power. “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” [John 13:3-5] In full knowledge and understanding of his power, he got up to serve his followers.

You are powerful, but what is your character saying about the way you use it?

P.S. this post has nothing to do with the leader’s character…just a story.

I love that our church makes these simple explanatory videos of complex topics.  Check out this latest one about the nature of the gospel and its mission for you and I.

You mean I don’t just make a flier, put some kids in a group, and let the magic happen?

For whatever reason, small groups have become a burden to youth pastors.  We know that we are supposed to offer them, parents expect them, and something in our ministry would be missing with out them.  As mentioned in the post below, I spoke at a youth workers conference on Saturday about creating a successful small group ministry.  Here is the approach I went with:

• Small groups are good if they accomplish: community, relationship, and deeper faith in Jesus.
• Small groups are significant if they are intentional and missional about shaping the culture around them.

My hope is to model our small group ministry after Jesus, in that he selected a group of boys and spent an intentional 3 years with them before handing over the keys to kingdom.  We must ingrain the mission of God into our small groups and challenge them to change the world by the way they follow Jesus.

If you are further interested in my talk, you can download the .pdf of my teaching notes here.  SuccessfulSmallGroupMinistry_teaching notes

I was honored to speak at a friend’s church today to a room full of youth pastors from all over California.  God is clearly doing some incredible things in the lives of students!  Gary, the pastor from the church, has created a resource that anyone in ministry needs to download.  Here is a video talking about it:

Go to the iTunes store and search for Waveuth Network and BAM…its yours.

A good story captures our emotion like nothing else.  They have a way of communicating truths in a rich way that inspires us to live our lives differently.  There are 4 primary components to every story: protagonist, ambition, conflict and resolution.  Without each of these elements, the story won’t sit right with us.

It’s interesting how much our lives are like stories.  We are the protagonist and we want something with our life.  In reality if we want something lame, our story will be lame.  But when we want something noble, bold, or powerful, our story will follow.  Ambition is what drives our story.  But good ambition will always be followed by conflict.

Every good story is filled with conflict.  This is where most of the story takes places, its where we see what the protagonist is made of, its where we get inspired to overcome obstacles and never give up.  We talked this weekend in junior high ministry about creating a good ambition for this school year so that each student has a great story when June comes around.  We spent most of our time talking about the conflict that is guaranteed to take place.  Consider it a gripping part of your story when things get tough, you feel like giving up, you are losing hope…but keep moving forward.

Your story is powerful.  We each have a story that is being written by the author of life.  What story is being written with your life?

(Donald Miller has some amazing material on the concept of story…you should check him out here.)

Life happens and we learn stuff. For instance: when coffee tastes bad, we add more sugar. Or when a Matthew McConaughey movie comes out, we know to skip it.  But some lessons are better learned at camp. Here are a select few that I learned this year at summer camp.

We are better together. At camp we spend more time together than we do in a full year of weekend services. We eat together, play toghether, and talk together. By being together we develop the kind of unity that Jesus prayed for on John 17. It is through the connection made at camp that we begin to show the world how much God loves them.

Silence can be deafening. I tend to forget how noisy my life is until I get to camp. With cell phones, TV, Facebook, work insanity, and a growing family at home, life is loud all of the time. We gave students 20 minutes of silence in the dark one night to (ironically) listen to God. No talking, just listening. It is shocking how loud God can be when we give him the space to talk.

Our story is actually God’s story.  The majority of the time we teach students about God by reading scripture (which is absolutely necessary).  But we tend to neglect the power of God through our own stories.  3 volunteers shared their personal life stories at camp as if they were a current junior high student.  We heard how their life was transformed by our gracious, loving, forgiving God.  We heard the gospel through their life and learned that our story is actually God’s story.

Camp is an incredible place for life change and I cannot wait to share stories from the next one!

Wow, I cannot believe how fast the summer has gone.  I apologize for the lack of postings during the summer months, things just got too crazy.  We had VBS, Mancation, Girls Palm Springs Retreat, 4 Yo-Ho Thursdays, 2 Doheny Beach Days, and our Oakbridge Summer Camp!

And in the middle of all of that I had my first kid!

All that to say, summer is over and I am back.  Looking forward to sharing some new insights with you soon!

One of the best things a ministry can do is adopt a cause together.  We have been raising awareness and money for a breakfast program in a partner village in Mexico called Rojo Gomez.  200 kids show up every school day to get breakfast at the local church.  Because their parents work and money is an issue, these kids would normally only get one meal a day.

We have committed to raising 3,000 meals.  Currently we are at 1,000.  I wanted to share a story with you about one student who understands the power of caring for others.  Madison’s mom sent this to me:

“Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share my daughter’s story.

Madison told me on Friday night that she wanted to follow the plan of the week and support Rojo Gomez by raising money on Saturday. She wanted to sell lemonade. I thought to my self great, I’ve got no lemonade, no cups, no sweets or even a table for her to use!  Well her father bought a cool wooden stand for $5 at a garage sale and I went shopping for the goodies. Madison, her 9 year old brother and two girlfriends decorated the stand and dragged it out to the corner. I quickly made a small batch of brownies and off they went to raise money for Rojo. Well after selling 16 quarts of lemonade and a batch of brownies, Madison raised over $100!

Boy was I surprised since it was cool and windy outside- who would want lemonade?  God must having been shining down on those kids at that corner because there were so many people stopping they could hardly keep up! Anyways I am so proud of Madison and I hope the money helps those in need.”

I love when junior high students get it.  I tend to forget how much God can use a couple of kids selling lemonade.

As church workers, we are accustomed to this being one of the most attended church services of the year.  We invite, we tell our people to invite, we make embarrassing videos that make people feel comfortable after they’ve been invited…

But when I say “don’t miss Easter” I actually mean, “YOU, Don’t Miss Easter!”

There is a tendency for church workers to get overwhelmed in this season and we forget the power of this next week.  We neglect the reality of our life, and often the pain we may bring with us during this time.  So I have a suggestion for you.  Pick up N.T. Wright’s Christians at the Cross and read through it each day of Easter week.  Wright delivers a series of Holy Week messages to a broken community with this hope:

“I am convinced that when we bring our griefs and sorrows within the story of God’s own grief and sorrow, and allow them to be held there, God is able to bring healing to us and new possibilities to our lives.  That is, of course, what Good Friday and Easter are all about.” [pg. xv]

I may be speaking to myself here, but my hope for all of us during this busy season is that we would experience Resurrection Power in a new way because today is the first day of God’s new creation.

There are some things in junior high ministry that I am still getting used to.  For instance, how tiny JHers are, how video games and Bieber find their way into every conversation, and most recently, how the information we give them at the weekend service may never make it home.

Communicating to parents is extremely important.  I love parents and we need them on our side.  Here are some ways that I am working towards better communication with parents:

• Check-in at the weekend service. There are many reasons for this (welcoming, tracking, no more anonymous students), but it helps get parent email and home information up-to-date.
• Point parents to other forms of information. We have a working blog, website, text updates, printed fliers, and occasional announcements in the main service bulletin.  All of these are updated with current events in JH ministry.
• Utilize parent networks. Parents of junior high students stick together and they love to talk.  Parents also run their kid’s schedule.  A healthy ministry has parents on their side who can talk about the ministry within their networks.
• Email, email, email. I am going to start a bi-monthly email blast that covers pertinent information, ministry vision, and personal learnings.  My hope is to develop an open door for communication with the parents of our students.