Leader Introductions

This fall, we have over one hundred volunteers between Jr. High and Sr. High. We realize that most of our students only know a hand full of these leaders. As this number continues to grow, we are trying to find new ways to help our students connect with a greater number of leaders, so that we can increase the potential relational impact.

Many of the students that we serve have access to and are familiar with video editing software. As a result we decided to invite our students (starting with Sr. High) to introduce their small group leader to us in 2 minutes or less through video. We maintained the right to edit what they gave us, but other than that, we left it completely in their control. To give them some idea of what we were talking about, we put together this simple video.

Aaron's Crib from Jon Grunden on Vimeo.

So far, nobody has entered a video, but there has been a lot of buzz about the idea. We will have to see what happens.

Something New (to us)

There are approximately fifty small groups in our Jr. High ministry currently. Every other week, instead of all the students gathering together at church, we divide them into seven homes based on school district geography. The programming that occurs in these homes is different than when we meet at church, but closely follows the same structure (game, worship, teaching, small group). This means that each home has a volunteer who is responsible to teach the content for that week. However, in addition to this task, these volunteers are also responsible to help care for the other volunteers in their home, organize programming, oversee service projects, and the list goes on.

For the last eight years, we have put the full responsibility of teaching this content on these volunteers, and they have done a great job. However, as we increase the number of cell families, increase the responsibility our Teachers have, and as our volunteers lives get busier, we have decided to try something new to continue to guarantee excellence in teaching and make life a little easier on these volunteers. This Wednesday we are trying our first partial video teaching. We still want our Teachers to set up the material, and we want them to focus on presenting the "application", but we put most of the Biblical and historical background on video. We are sure it is going to be a learning experience, and we are excited to hear the feedback.

If you are interested , here is the video portion of the teaching.

Cell Family Teaching Oct 14 from Jon Grunden on Vimeo.

Serving Etiquette: Video Announcement

I have the privilege of working with some of the most passionate, giving volunteers I have ever met. It truly is an honor to serve them and serve with them.

Every week in LifeLine we have over one hundred volunteers who invest their lives in building relationships with students with the ultimate goal of leading students closer to Christ. We know this relationship is crucial if we desire to impact a student's life, so everything we do as a ministry is designed around creating a context that is conducive to this relationship.

As with any student ministry, we realize that programming is a small piece of the bigger picture, but it is an important piece because it often sets the context that relationship occurs in. Every fall we implement programatic changes that we hope will improve this context. This fall, one of the changes we made was a move toward more video, specifically video announcements (and video teaching elements as the year progresses)

Why we made this change:

We want to get students to our events so we can continue to develop relationship with them, and we suspect that video is an incredibly effective way of conveying pertinent information.

So far:

Below is an example of what we have done so far and some things we have learned.

Learnings so far:

1. Video is memorable: I know this seems basic, but there is something powerful about putting an image with a message. Example: How many times have you heard a student quote a movie after only seeing it once.

2. Video can't replace the human element: It is important to maintain a host in the room. Someone who lives, breathes, and can react.

3. Humor goes a long way: As long as it's funny, it will be engaging, even if the video itself isn't well produced.

4. Humor needs to be explained: Just because it was funny in concept and you laughed your head off while you were shooting it, doesn't mean the students will get it. If they don't understand it, you're done.

5. Students don't need "all" the details: They just need to know where/what, and why they should be there. Their parents need all the details.

6. We have a lot to learn: We are on the beginning of this journey and we have a long way to go, but so far it has been worth the work to make it happen.