Step outside yourself

My wife and I had the privilege of accompanying our three preschool age children to a "Preschool Pajama Party" tonight at our church.

It was an incredible experience. An hour and a half of one hundred plus preschoolers (in pajamas) enjoying family pictures, crafts, face painting, singing and a movie with popcorn.

My kids had a blast, and my wife and I felt blessed to spend an evening together enjoying this event as a family. I am extremely grateful for the staff and volunteers who invest in my children each week. It brings great joy to my heart to watch my three year old daughter run out of her class each week, with a big smile on her face, unable to contain her enthusiasm about what she just learned about God. However, It also brings joy to my heart to know that my church cares enough about me spending time with my family, and connecting with other families, to prioritize an event like this.

Two observations I have after tonight:

1. I have been attending Ada Bible for just over eleven years, and have connected deeply with teaching, worship, small group community, and serving in student ministry. I love all of these things, but the fact that our preschool department took the time to create an event that values my family, impacts me in a new and different way. One night of family fun has given me a deeper passion for my church. I have only been a parent for three and a half years, but already I suspect that parenting can feel very lonely, and it means the world to know that our church believes in what we are doing and is there for us as parents.

2. I have been working for the church for just over six years. Honestly, I have a great appreciation and respect for everyone that works within the church, but most of my time and passion is spent in student ministry. When you invest yourself deeply in one aspect of an organization, it is extremely important to remember to look at what others are doing, even within the same organization. Otherwise it is easy to succumb to pride or potentially get stuck in a rut. Tonight's event reminded me again of the deep importance of connecting with and encouraging families as they lead their children.

Meet Volunteers Where They Are

Each week, we ask our student ministry small group leaders to accomplish 4 goals in their small group time

1. Connect as a group: give each student the chance to share a little about their week with the rest of the group.

2. Put handles on the teaching: give students the opportunity to dialogue about the teaching, look in God's Word together, and put "handles" on it, so they can carry away a specific idea of how this applies to their lives, and ultimately understand the concept in a deeper way.

3. Create an environment where students feel safe asking questions

4. Pray: model prayer as a faith practice and create a community where students learn to pray for one another throughout the week.

While we don't use a specific curriculum, we do...

1. Devote several leader training sessions to the basics of leading a student small group.

2. Connect each leader with a coach who cares for them, helps them grow as a leader, and occasionally sits in on their group time to evaluate and encourage them.

3. Offer them resources/further training/specific ideas to improve their small group time.

One of the ways we resource leaders is by sending them a lesson summary each week. This consists of a basic outline of the teaching, key scripture, and potential questions for small group time. From there, we leave it up to the leader to mold their small group time into a meaningful experience.

One of our goals is to meet volunteers where they are, in the midst of their busy lives. In attempt to make lesson summaries easily accessible and more memorable, we began sending our volunteers short video summaries each week.

A dual purpose:

We have also been sending these videos to our students' parents...

1. to continue to build relationship with parents

2. to keep parents informed on what we are teaching

3. to facilitate further conversation in the home about spiritual things.

Here is an example of this week's summary.

Lesson Summary Nov 1 and 4 from Jon Grunden on Vimeo.

We would love your feedback, ideas, critiques, or encouragement on this idea as we continue to grow. Please feel free to leave comments below.

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.

Ugly Like Me

I heard a song on the radio the other day that I hadn't heard in a few years. I was on my way home from work, flipping through channels, trying to unwind from what had been a long and stressful day at work. Truthfully it had been a long month of work getting ready for another ministry year launch. As with almost anything we do in life, the kick off of a new year presents the opportunity to step back and see the bigger picture, or get so lost in the details that we lose perspective on who we serve and why we are here.

This particular day was a "lost in the details" day. Despite checking several things off my "to do list", I left work feeling more overwhelmed by what had to be done tomorrow than I was when I started work that morning. Then a song came on the radio...

The song was "Outside" by Staind. I was familiar with the song from radio play in my college days, but I honestly had never paid attention to the lyrics. For whatever reason, a couple lines from the chorus jumped out at me that day.

I can see through you
See your true colors
'Cause inside you're ugly
You're ugly like me

I am not certain what the song is about, but in this particular case I couldn't help but think about the students we serve. They are bombarded everyday with products and messages that are packaged neatly, but offer them false hope. As adults who watch youth culture, it is easy to believe that if we package ourselves nicely, we will have the opportunity to really influence students with truth, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Students can see through us, and they know we are "ugly" too.

This is why authenticity in our relationships with students is so important. If we pretend we have it all together, we are only fooling ourselves. Students can smell fake coming a mile away. They may spend massive amounts of money on products the media has told them will make them whole, but the slightest hint of fakeness in relationship will scare them away instantly.

We all really desire to be authentic, but are we willing to do what it takes to be authentic? Are we willing to be vulnerable? Are we willing to let students see the ugliness in our story?

I'm not suggesting that we should walk around with our hearts on our sleeves. It is extremely important that we maintain professionalism and draw healthy boundaries, but we need to balance that by owning our mistakes and letting students take an honest look at who we are and where we have come from.

Important Note: There are some things in our stories that students don't necessarily need to hear. Being authentic isn't about airing our dirty laundry or telling our deepest darkest secrets, it's about about maintaining a healthy vulnerability about our struggles, and talking about God's work in our lives through these experiences. Discernment is of extreme importance.

What Keeps You Coming Back for More - Part 2

One of the things I love most about my job is the opportunity to serve with an outstanding team of volunteers. I am constantly humbled and overwhelmed by their wisdom, passion, devotion, and creativity. If you happen to be one of said volunteers, please know that you are amazing and it truly is an honor to serve with you.

Every volunteer is significant and every volunteer leaves a legacy. Whether it's one year, or twenty, God uses the time we give. Last week I blogged about the volunteers in our ministry who come back year after year. I wrote about a volunteer named Scott, who has given the last eighteen years of his life serving Jr. High students and leaders, and why I think he "comes back for more" each year. You can check it out here if you like.

Scott is one of the most humble and wise men I know. After reading my thoughts he agreed to add some of his own. Here they are. Enjoy and feel free to leave comments. I would love to pass them on to him:

"First I want to confirm a couple of the statements that you put forth.

First, I do believe that God made me for this. I often tell leaders that if they are doing what God has called them to do they will find life in that mission. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve shown up at LifeLine dead beat tired, not feeling well or just plain old wanting a night off but by the time the students arrive I’m all in and when it’s over I’m ready to go for another round. I can’t think of another ministry that pulls at my heart like Jr. High. Add that up and yes, I believe God made me for this.

I try to keep the big picture in mind. One of the sermon tid-bits from my past that bolsters me is this, “ministry is brutal”. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to say, “I’m done”. There have been many disappointments and frustrations but if this is indeed what God has called me to do then what other choice do I have. As long as I don’t feel God moving me to do something else then why would I change.

And then I wanted to add two other ideas;

The people whom I labor with are an encouragement to continue on. There is something special about serving our Creator with other likeminded individuals. There is a bond and camaraderie that is difficult to explain. These people become near and dear as we encourage each other to be the best we can be at our respective roles. In truth they become what I would loosely define a small group.

The paydays are sweet. We don’t do it for the payday but man-oh-man is it sweet when it happens. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ended up in tears watching the baptism of a kid who’s come through the LifeLine, or when we hear stories of students giving their lives to Christ. Does it get any better than that? Isn’t that what this is all about? I’m to the point now that I have students who have passed through my sphere of influence and are now returning to become leaders themselves. How cool is that? Our labor is not in vain."