Middle School Ministry Interviews: Jay Reynolds

I met Jay Reynolds at the Middle School Ministry Campference put on by the Youth Cartel.  One of the great things about the conference was that it was a great opportunity to meet other people who love working with middle school age students.  Jay is on the Middle School Ministry team at Hope Community Church.  This post is the first in what will hoepfully be a series of Middle School Ministry Interviews.

Most people think it'd be crazy to work with middle school kids, why do you do it?

Many people ask me that question with the idea that I don't quite have it 'all' together for my choice of profession and ministry.  I love hanging out with middle school students because they are fun and crazy, which is also my personality.  It is the realm of awkward meeting truth, meeting adventure and freedom.  What better age to begin to mold a generation than to work with middle schoolers?

If a middle school student left your ministry knowing one thing, what would it be?

I would want them to have a personal relationship with Christ and know what that means.  It took me years beyond middle school for me to understand that.  If they can grasp it during 6-8th grade, their life will be radically changed!

What are the top 3 favorite parts of your job?

3. Working with an amazing team of staff and volunteers to reach out to students!  Loving leaders will filter down to leaders loving students.

2. Using my gifts of design (I'm an artist), teaching, encouraging, and missions.  I get to utilize my gifts for God's glory.

1. I get to see God do things bigger than I could ever do.  I love getting to see students finding leaders to pray as they come to know Christ, students getting dunked during a baptism night, and simply the look on a student's face when they "get it."

What's an average night at Hazardous look like?

Average.  I hardly think Hazardous is average, but let me try to explain.  Hazardous is crazy, exciting, fun slammed up with God for a whole night experience. It's an action packed night without a dull moment.  We serve free pizza and let them hang out on the front end of the night to build relationships and get some food.

We kick off the evening service with a cover song of something heard on the radio to help build a bridge to students that don't go to church.  After some throw-outs (candy, glow bracelets, and shirts), we jam out a little more with up-beat songs.  Games are a huge part of Hazardous too; they get students involved and the gross factor is always important.  We play 2 rounds of games, the first round is an "all in game" that includes everyone and the second is an "up-front game", which is where the gross stuff happens with a few people on stage.   We transition into teaching worship - you can't expect students to worship if they are not taught.  We teach through songs and through our message.  Our teaching will always show aspects of the gospel.

What's been your favorite message/series at Hazardous?

Baggage.  We finished this series last spring semester.  Through the course of the series we challenged students to confront the baggage in their lives.  At the end of the series, we had a night where we challenged students to grab a rock out of the bag, write their baggage on it and leave it behind.  It was a powerful night and a great service.

Youth Ministry Bootcamp

This video by YouthSpecialties does an awesome job making fun of some classic youth ministry stereotypes.  If you are a youth worker or know one, enjoy this portrayal of what a youth ministry bootcamp would look like.

[tentblogger-youtube CvPtRRBTMP4]

Graphic Design in Youth Ministry

[This post is a part of the Technology in Youth Ministry series]

In youth ministry, there will be some element of design that needs to happen.  You might have to design a flyer for a summer retreat, a handout for your weekly message, or even a website for people to stay in touch with what's happening.  For some people the classic hand-drawn flyers that are photocopied a hundred times will work, but some of us want to use design tools to make flyers and images that stand apart.  Graphic design is a difficult thing that people dedicate their lives to learning and to getting paid very well to do.  At the same time graphic design, while not at the same level as the professionals, is approachable and can be done very well in your ministry.

Getting Started in Graphic Design for Your Ministry

1. Download some software.

Obviously if you are going to start designing graphics, you cannot do it without some software.  Choose the software you want to use and start playing with it.  Find some videos onine and make yourself familiar with the program and the tools it offers.  There will be a lot that you have no idea how to use, but if you can figure out some of the basic functionality (such as text editing, layers, shadows, etc) you will be off to a good start.

• Best: Photoshop
• Cheaper: Pixelmator
• Free: Gimp

2. Play with somebody else's design.

One of the best ways to learn how to design is to try to copy somebody else's work.  One of the great ways you can do this is download some free artwork in the photoshop (.psd) file format.  Once you download the file you can get an idea of how the image was created.  What layers were used?  What effects were put on each layer?  Were there special fonts that were used?  Once you've manipulated these designs, consider finding something else that you like and re-creating it without downloading a pre-made file.

3. Get some cool fonts.

If you are going to design stuff, it is crucial to learn how to find good typography.  There might be a lot of fancy design elements you want to use as you get started, but don't skip the step of learning good typography and what effects will help or hurt a font.

• Free Fonts: Dafont.com
• Font never to use: Papyrus

4. Do some tutorials.

It may be a bit more difficult to find tutorials if you are using a photoshop alternative like Gimp or Pixelmator.  Photoshop is the standard, but if you are looking to save money these will certainly be some of the hurdles that you have to face.  The web is filled with great tutorials for all kinds of designs that you could be trying to create.  Finding a great site like PSDTuts+ can be a great help as you learn some of the techniques in doing design.

5. Learn from other people.

There are a lot of good designers and there are also a lot of people who don't design well. Unfortunately the church is often full of bad designers; make sure you find some other people who design well so that you can learn from them.  Find communities like Church Marketing Sucks and their Church Marketing Lab so you can learn from others through feedback and viewing other people's work.

Photo Credit: thinkdanijel

4 Reasons to Use Guest Teachers

I've never been much of a fan of bringing in "professional" speakers to teach students in our ministry.  And I'm pretty sure that most of our students don't really care much either.  That being said, I am a big fan of using "guest teachers" within our student ministry.  The main difference between the two, in how I'm defining them, is that the professional is someone brought in that costs money and has no connection to your ministry; the guest speaker is someone that is a volunteer within our ministry and already has strong relationships with the students.  I think that using guest teachers is not only helpful to myself as the leader, but I think it's a very important component to our teaching times.

4 Reasons to Use Guest Teachers

1. You need a break. Teaching every week of the year, sometimes multiples times a week, can be a huge burden.  That's a ton of messages to develop, create, and communicate.  Allowing someone else to teach and yourself to have a break will help you to stay creative and a few weeks ahead.

2. Kids like hearing other people besides you. Having other voices speaking to the students is a huge value; as students get used to your speaking, it becomes extremely valuable for other teachers to come in as another voice reinforcing the same message.

3. You can train new preachers. The best way to get better at preaching is to preach more.  If you have people on your volunteer team that like preaching and teaching or college-age students that are considering ministry, you have an incredible opportunity to help teach them how to preach.

4. You're not the only one with something to say. As you start developing leaders within your ministry that have a heart for preaching, not only will the develop skills but they might also have things on their heart that they want to share with your students.  Let them share what's on their heart and work with them as they say it.

What are some other reasons that you have found to use guest teachers?

Photo Credit: Ganatronic

How I Got into Youth Ministry

Youth ministry is a fun job.  When I was in high school, I started thinking about youth ministry as a job because of it.  The student ministry had an incredible impact on my life, and I could potentially get paid to go on all kinds of fun trips.  Why wouldn't I want to do this?  My initial thinking was accurate; doing youth ministry, I do get all kinds of incredible opportunities for fun experiences and actually get paid for it.  But anybody who is in youth ministry will tell you, it's fun but doing it for a career requires more than just liking the job.

Around that time in high school all my friends started volunteering in the middle school ministry at my church and I wasn't invited.  Like most high school students, not being included with my friends was very upsetting.  When I was in high school, there was no chance that any of the leaders would've looked at me at thought, "This kid is going to do youth ministry."  It really is not surprising I was not asked to serve because no one would have ever thought that I would have any interest of ability to spend time talking to middle school kids.  For some reason I thought I should do youth ministry so I got the courage to ask if I could also serve in the middle school ministry and everything changed.

I tried it out.

With any job, getting experience is key.  For me, being in a healthy student ministry was the best experience I could get.  As I served on a team that functioned well together and built relationships with the leaders that became great friends, I grew significantly as a leader.  I loved youth ministry and did everything I could do be around it, and I learned a lot because of it.

I fell in love with the kids.

Over the course of volunteering in middle school there was a significant shift that happened.  Initially youth ministry was something that could possibly be a fun job, but after having the chance to attend a middle school winter retreat I felt like I loved the students.  I hadn't felt that before, and it changed the way I saw student ministry.  I couldn't wait to spend time with them and get to know them.  Youth ministry is a very fun job, but if it's something you want to do for life it has to be more than fun, you have to love the people you serve and the people you serve with.

How'd you get into youth ministry?

Photo Credit: Majorie

Producing Videos for Youth Ministry

[This post is a part of the Technology in Youth Ministry series]

In youth ministry, it is highly likely that at some point you will want some type of video to use with your students.  The video might be a promotion for an upcoming event, an illustration for a teaching, or a highlight reel from the recent retreat.  Students are regularly consuming all kinds of media from a variety of sources, and it is important that our student ministry knows how to use some of this same kind of media so we can redeem it for a good purpose.

What You'll Want To Get Started in Video

Good Quality Camera

With any of these things there will be a low, easy entry into making videos and also higher end, more expensive equipment.  If you are looking to just get into making videos and want something that will easily shoot quality video and can be used by students or brought on retreats I would consider using an iPod Touch (or iPhone if you already have one).  An iPod Touch will shoot at the same quality as a Flip HD camcorder, but can do significantly more on the device itself.

Here's an example of video that can be shot on an iPhone:

[tentblogger-youtube eBREcEK1HXo]

If you're looking to produce a more professional quality video, I would recommend using a DSLR camera with video functionality.  Some of the things you might notice in a camera like this will be the ability to adjust frames per second (great for shooting slow motion stuff), have more control over video settings like ISO, exposure, aperture, etc.  A DSLR also allows for some awesome depth of field in shots (the shots where one thing looks in focus and another out of focus)  As soon as you enter into this category you will spend significantly more money on the camera and the equipment required to make this all work.  The camera we use is the Canon Rebel t2i.  You'll also want to spend some money and get a good, versatile lense with a camera like this.

Here's an example of video that can be shot on a DSLR:

[tentblogger-vimeo 14618201]

Video Editing Software

Once you've gotten the video you want, you will need to find a way to compile the footage and put it into an actual video.  If you have a simple video you want to make and you decided to use an iPod Touch, you could simply use the iMovie app and quickly edit the video on the device.

For simple video editing: iMovie or Adobe Premiere Elements

For advanced video editing: Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere

Good Quality Audio

If you've been choosing the higher end in the previous two categories, you're going to also want to invest in some good audio equipment.  While initially you might think that producing a good video is all about what it looks like, you'd be surprised at how crucial good audio is.  If you're not going to have any audio besides an audio track in the background, this doesn't matter.  But if you're going to have actors or a teacher, you'll want to invest in good audio.  You can still have actors and a teacher without good audio and simply use an iPod Touch, but if you're investing in a fancier camera and hoping to have high quality productions; good audio is just as important as good video.

Zoom h4n or Tascam Handheld Recorder

This will allow you use to XLR mics or the built-in audio recorder to capture your audio.  Any of these will be significantly better then the built in recorder of the camera; an XLR mic will definitely be the best of the options.  Having one of these devices will allow you to use a boom mic or lavalier mic plugged into the recorder and simultaneously record audio and video.  Once you drop these both into your video editor you will then want to sync up the audio so the voices match the lips.  If you are using Final Cut X, this is a built in function; if not there is an awesome video editing tool called Pluraleyes that will do the trick.

Photo Credit: Wilamor Media

A Tale of Two Tables

This video by the Fuller Youth Institute does a great job of pointing out what often happens in churches.  It's a great reminder that as youth workers, we should be finding ways to integrate our teenagers into the life of the whole congregation.  What are some ways your church is trying to help students within your ministry be integrated into the overall life of your congregation?

[tentblogger-vimeo 33564282]

Technology in Youth Ministry Series

If there were a group of professional ministry workers that tended to be on the cutting edge of technology instead of lagging behind the rest of the world, it would be youth workers.  Technology is an incredible opportunity for youth pastors to utilize a tool that is integrated in the life of a teenager to help them grow.  Youth workers spend their time ministering teenagers whose lives are woven together with technology.  Youth workers spend time using technology to produce content for their ministry, communicate with students in their ministry, teach the gospel, and to connect professionally with other youth workers.  While many of us in youth ministry know a lot about technology, there are often certain areas that we have an interest in utilizing within our ministries but need some tips on getting started.

Technology in Youth Ministry will be a series that does just that.  It will help provide some basics on how to begin utilizing technology in different areas of your youth ministry.  If you're looking to make videos, I'll share some tips in how to get started with the video editing process.  If you're looking to find apps that will be helpful to you as you work with students, I'll share some apps that I feel like every youth worker should have.

This post will serve as the general Table of Contents for this series and be the place to reference all of the posts that are a part of the series.

Upcoming Posts

1. Producing Videos for Youth Ministry

2. Graphic Design in Youth Ministry

3. Apps for Youth Ministry

4. iPad Apps for Youth Ministry

5. Blogging in Youth Ministry

5. Text Messaging in Youth Ministry

6. Social Networking in Youth Ministry

7. Building a Youth Ministry Website Using Wordpress

Are there any other topics you'd like to see in this series?

Photo Credit: JGarber

Parents and Confirmation

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to spend some time presenting about confirmaton at the Michigan District Confirmation Symposium, a lutheran gathering dedicated to spending time teaching and having conversations around the topic of confirmation/catechism.  Because of the time that we have spent as a church, specifically in the middle school ministry, developing a family based approach to confirmation, I was asked to present on the topic of parents in confirmation.  My hope was that besides laying out what our program looks like I would offer a few principles that are important when involving parents in confirmation regardless of the context of your church or the method of your program.  The following are the notes from the first half of my session about some principles that we all need to strive for in regards to the parents of students in our confirmation programs.

What we need for in parents and confirmation:

1. We need pastor dads.

Imagine what life would be like if we outsourced our jobs as parents.  Perhaps we could hire somebody to go to basketball games and cheer our kids on.  We could hire someone to sit in on parent-teacher conferences.  We could even outsource changing dirty diapers and losing sleep.  This might sound absurd, but it is exactly what happens often when it comes to spirituality.  Parents commonly outsource the role of teaching the Bible to pastors and youth leaders.

What would it look like for confirmation to encourage fathers and mothers to be the spiritual leaders in their homes?  What would it look like for confirmation to be something that helps parents teach their kids instead of being a class their kids need to attend?  What if confirmation took seriously the words the small catechism begins with, "As the head of the family should teach the household."

2. We need to help parents teach their kids.

If parents do live out their role as parents, our job as a church is finding ways to help and encourage parents in that role.  Many parents feel inadaqueate to teach their children the Bible, so it is crucial that in this the church partners with parents so that they can help them do what only they can do.

As a part of our family based confirmation, our goal is to give parents tools that they can use so they can be the primary teachers of the Bible in their home.  What better thing than for a kid to learn from their parents as they drive to the soccer game, sit down for a family meal, or are tucked into bed at night?

3. We need to help families realize mutual transformation happens through mutual fascination.

The faith development that happens is not solely in the life a child, but it is a mutual thing.  As parents and children do life together and share with each other, the growth of faith in the life of a child encourages the faith of a parent and the faith experiences of the parent encourage and teach the child.

Confirmation is a tool.

If these are the things that we want to be a reality within our confirmation ministries, the way we design our confirmation program should be done in such a way that it encourages those things in happening.  For many ministries, confirmation is programmed in a way that not only doesn't encourage those things to happen but it sometimes even encourages the opposite.  Realize confirmation is an important tool as we disciple teenagers and help parents live out their role as the primary spiritual nurturers.

Stealing in Youth Ministry

If you are in youth ministry, you steal people's ideas.  It's inevitable.  The question then becomes what is appropriate and inappropriate when it comes to taking somebody else's idea and using it in your own ministry.  As I was recently reading "Steal Like an Artist" by Austin Kleon it got me thinking about what does good theft look like within ministry and what kind of theft crosses lines.

Remix vs. Rip off

[tentblogger-vimeo 25380454]

A remix is an alternative version of something; it's made using some of the original components but remade into something different.  A rip off on the other hand is an imitation and is meant to copy something else.  All ideas originate somewhere.  Whether you realize it or not, we are either riping off someone else's idea or remixing it into something new.  William Ralph Inge briliantly said, "What is originality?  Undetected plagiarism."  This is true of all creation, not just youth ministry, but as youth workers scramble to continue being creative within their student ministry they are forced to decide whether or not they will make remixes or rip offs.

Youth ministry requires coming up with ideas for new messages, illustrations, events, programs, and more weekly.  The creative burden in youth ministry is extremely high, so it is no surprise that we look for places to help give us ideas of things we can do and say within our ministry.  What we do when we find ideas determines whether we a simply ripping off somebody else's creative work or are remixing the idea into somehting new.

Some Questions To Ask Yourself:

• Are you trying to make a copycat idea?
• Are you trying to plug-n-play somebody else's idea in your own context?
• Are you taking pieces of many ideas or one entire idea?

Photo Credit: Jeroen Kenis

How To Make Retreats Cost Less

Whenever a student comes home from a retreat or camp, it is clear that there is an incredible value to what happens on a retreat.  Every time I get a chance to talk to parents about helping their kids get involved in our ministry, I let them know that the best way to do so is to get them on one of our trips.  There is something significant about taking a group of students out of their normal context that allows for incredible things to happen.  Students build deepr relationships with other students that they don't normally build within weekly programs.  Adults get more time to care for students than they do in an average week.  And the teaching time has greater impact as it is done with more frequency and in a different environment.

There are a lot of great camps that provide incredible experiences; unfortunately if you are trying to do your retreats for around $100, you won't be left with many options.  I love the experience that some of these camps provide, but I cannot fathom charging $300 for our summer camp.

How To Make Retreats Cost Less

1. Go Yourself

Instead of deciding to go with a big camp that is charging you for the whole experience, put something together yourself.  Run your own program, find your own  campground to sleep at, bring your own leaders, and deal with buying your own food.  Some of these things can be a pain to deal with, but they each also can save you a great deal of money.  One of our best retreats is one that we go to Lake Ann Camp when they are not running their summer camps and put on our own program at their facilities.  It's a win for both of us!

2. Speak Yourself

An easy way to drive up the price your retreat or event is hire a "professional" speaker or band to play for you guys.  I understand the value of having quality music and teaching, but your kids don't care the name of the speaker or band.  Find a good teacher and musician within your ministry and have them be the main teacher.

3. Be Yourself

Don't feel like you have to produce the same experiences that you have seen at other retreats and events.  Some of those might be great ideas, but that doesn't mean your retreat has to be the same experience.  One retreat might be a weeklong camp experience while another may be a weekend long trip at a campground.  Do what most naturally plays to your strengths and budget so that you can choose activities confidently and create a memorable experience.

Photo Credit: CCCPxokkeu

Steal Like An Artist

I recently read the book "Steal Like an Artist" by Austin Kleon; it was an incredible read about finding ideas, taking them, and making them your own. It was a quick, easy read and had a lot of great art throughout the book. Austin has a blog that describes many of the things in the book, but the whole package of the book was full of great insight.

Here are a few quotes that really stuck out to me:

"Everything is up for grabs. If you don't find something worth stealing today, you might find it worth stealing tomorrow or a month or a year from now."

"What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original."

"Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use - do the work you want to see done."

Cooties: The Sex Talk

This past Sunday we finished our 4 week sermon series titled "Cooties."  Cooties was a series all about dating, relationships, friendships with the opposite sex, and sexual purity.  For the final week of the series we focused on sexual purity, to do this we broke the group into two and spent time discussing the same topic with just 6th and 7th graders and again with 8th graders only.  The message was very similar, with some more explicit details for the 8th grade message.

Good things, used wrong ways.

Sex is a good thing.  It was a part of creation.  When we read the creation account in Genesis 1, God not only creates male and female, but he also commands them to be fruitful and multiply (aka: have sex).  God created sex; it was his idea and he even called it "very good."  This is an important reality for us as we talk about sex because it's easy for us to get caught up in an idea that sex is bad and we shouldn't do it.  Sex is good...when it is used the way God intended it to be used.

Just like many good things; because of sin, good things often get used in wrong ways.  Too much water can make someone die.  Too much food might make someone extremely obese.  The internet can allow for a wealth of information or it could allow for anonymous bullying.  These are good things and can be very good, but they can also be misused.  After sin enters the picture in Genesis 3, humanity starts to use good things in wrong ways.  Sex, which is a good thing, when used in the wrong way can be very damaging.

Gross, God, or Gift.

There are three possibilities for how we might think about sex.  Two of them are common, but not biblical.  And the third is bibilical but probably the least common.  Many people think gross as soon as they hear the topic of sex.  In fact, gross might be most common in settings like a church where it is easy for us to simply give they message that "sex is bad."  Sex is not gross; God created it.  The most popular thought pattern in culture is most likely god.  This is the idea that your own desires rule regardless of how that lines up with what God has set as the standard.  The culture worships our own desires, often found in sexual behaviors, as god.  The third way we can think about it is as a gift.  God created it, God designed it, and God has given it to us so we need to be responsible and use it the way that he intended it.

7 Things I Love About Middle School Ministry

Often within minutes of someone finding out that I work with middle school students, I hear a response along the lines of "I'm glad someone can do it."  I suppose that some people might call me crazy for loving to spend time with students who are young teenagers, but I love it.  I love the fun we have, the relationships that we build, and the life change that happens.  When I was a senior in high school I fell in love with this age group and am lucky enough to spend my time week in and week out getting to share Jesus with these kids.

Here are 7 Things I love about this age group:

7. They are fun. Other ages might be fun too, but middle schoolers really know how to have a lot of fun.

6. They can still act like kids. They haven't gotten "too cool" to do dance around and do crazy things.

5. They can have great conversations. While they can still act like kids, they also can have incredibly in depth conversations that are a privelige to have.

4. Middle School is hard. Most people would never want to go back to their middle school years; there need to be people in their lives that love them in the midst of this difficutl age when everything changes.

3. They are building a foundation for the rest of life. Because of brain development, the faith development that happens during this age is foundational to the rest of their life.

2. They are overlooked. A lot of people tend to overlook middle school students; I love that I can minister to them and teach them what it means to follow Jesus.

1. They are awesome to teach. I love to teach middle school students; there is not much greater than having a room full of middle school students engaged as we open the Bible.

Photo Credit: Candrews

Meet Elijah Oscar Grunewald

Born on February 23 at 2:56pm.  He was 6lbs 12oz and 19 inches long.  This changes everything.