Prayer Stations for Middle Schoolers

Yesterday we launched our four week easter series with a look at the Garden and Betrayal. Instead of doing our usual teaching time, we led students through a few different prayer stations. I'm feeling a little like Ben Franklin here as I rushed to put this together and am frustrated because it could have been much better. Oh well, not the first time I've learned from failing.

Here are some ideas to help you pull off great prayer stations for middle schoolers:

~Pick a readable version for your passage of Scripture. The Message can be really great with this, and really abstract, unfortunately. Sometimes the ICB version is the easiest to go with.

~Keep reading passages short and use BIG fonts. Some of our kids still struggle with reading while others FLY through it.

~If your station takes more than one sheet of paper, place them side by side instead of placing them on top of each other. This makes the reading feel more manageable and gives students another active learning aspect as they physically step over to read the next sheet.

~Add clipart or drawings. Make them fun to read instead of just blank words on a paper.

~I'm sure this is obvious...but have something tangible. If you are talking about food or taste...have something for kids to eat or snack on. If you are talking about Jesus' suffering, have some nails, hammer, or a crown of thorns to touch. If you are talking about praying in the garden, have a black table cloth and let them write thier own prayers with gel pens.

~As you are waiting for all the students to return to debrief, give kids paper to draw or journal and begin the process.

Check out this book by Dan Kimball and Lilly Lewin. I met Lilly last September at YS in Sacramento.

My Amazing Wife, Jen Rawson

Tonight is a VERY exciting night for our family because Jen is leading a 2 hour seminar for girls and their mom's for the Valley Center School District!

Jen is very passionate about helping girls have healthy self-images/self-esteem. That was the idea behind her Bible study series that was put out by YS last year. But this is the first time she is going to be able to take it to a public school!

The school counselor was HOPING for 30 girls to participate. She thought they'd probably get 20 to sign up, but if they could get 30, THAT would be awesome. As of yesterday there are 50 girls signed up! When you include the mom's, mentor's, and sisters that will be attending as well, there will be over 100 women listening to Jen talk about self image.

SO COOL!!! She has a really good presentation that combines fun and humor with such an important message for our girls. Lots of fodder for discussion. And the message could alter some of these families lives forever.

Youth Pastors Pet Peeves

I received information from another youth ministry here in town this week for a pretty cool upcoming event. Wanting to know more, I checked out the website.

i was reading the bio of the youth pastor, a guy I've never met, and I noticed something that made me laugh out loud and kind of sad.

He had a bunch of typical info listed: Name, wife, kids, favorite food, hobbies, etc. Here's what he wrote under "Pet Peeves"

Pet Peeves: Dudes in flip flops and mandles, bad driving, reading.

Really? Reading is your pet peeve? duuuuuude...I totally hope this is a joke. Because if it's not, what does that mean?

I learned early on that "Leaders are readers." This is definitely a good reminder that I need to be reading more so I can be a better leader.

Donuts, Fellowship, a monkey and a fish

Just got an email from a local donut shop offering a sale for churches.  Here was their ad:

 

Now thru April 5, Get donuts delivered every Sunday

For Just $5 a Dozen.

 

No Questions, No Contracts

Show Your Congregation What Fellowship is all About

 

The last line was the one that through me off.

 

Is this what Christians really think of when they think of fellowship?  Instead of the intimacy of sharing lives together, do we often settle for small talk over donuts?  How do we perpetuate this?  In a church that does have a shallow understanding of fellowship, how do you deepen it?

 

I wonder if my non-Christian friends perceive this to be what Christians really think fellowship is as well.  That begs the question as to what we all see real fellowship as being.

 

I’m reading a book by dave gibbons called the monkey and the fish and it has been so convicting and energizing.  I think of our students and how can they experience real fellowship together and share that with their hurting friends.  How can I get middle school students to experience community?  We try to do this through small groups and I think we do a good job, but certainly not the best job.

 

What are some ways you are trying to create real intimacy and life sharing in your ministry?

2009 Stuck in the Middle Recap

Last weekend we took our middle school students back to Stuck in the Middle, a GREAT conference for 6^th-8^th grade students.  This was one of the best year’s ever.  The Josh Weaver Band was a HUGE improvement over last year.  Alan Mercer, Sean Meade, and Andy Jack all did a great job during the main sessions.  The late night activities were decent.  The Comfort Inn and Suites was the best ever, right across the street. 

 

The best part:  Our kids came away with their highlight being Andy Jack’s seminar on contemplative prayer and the discovery room where they participated in a number of different prayer stations.  GREAT stuff!  Cant’ wait to go back.

 

If you’ve never been to Stuck, it’s worth your time.  For more pics go here!

 

Here is the recap article I wrote for our church newspaper:

 

First Church middle school students spent Friday and Saturday, February 20 and 21, in Kansas City for a weekend conference for 6^th-8^th graders called, “Stuck in the Middle.”

 

“I liked ALL of it!” said 6^th grader Drake Walden.  “The music, the fun stuff…I just liked it all.”

 

The main sessions focused on four chapters of God’s Story.  The first chapter was illustrated by a beautiful pot that stood for “the way things were” and how God created the world and everything was good.  The second was about “the way things are” and how sin had entered the world.  The speaker took an identical pot and broke it which gave students a great picture of our brokenness and need for a savior.

 

The third chapter had another identical pot that had been broken but was glued back together.  This was about “the way things can be” and how Jesus puts our lives together.  said, “When your pot breaks,” said seventh grader John Willome, “[God] can rebuild you and make your life better.”  The last pot was identical to the first and illustrated “the way things will be” and how Jesus will give us new bodies in the life to come. 

 

After the main session on Friday night students were treated to a concert along with a scavenger hunt and games.  Saturday was packed with more main sessions, a comedy concert, and “Learning Labs.”

 

The favorite of most students was called, “The God Hunt” where they were taught different forms of contemplative prayer.  Seventh grader Tatiana Mooradian said, “We went into this small room and were encouraged to relax and close our eyes and talk to God and think about bad and good moments in our lives.  This was a time when we could ask for help for the bad moments and thank God for the good moments.  It was really cool.”

 

A number of other students went another Lab called the “Discovery Room” that was set up with different prayer stations.  Eighth grader Bryce Saunders felt like he “was there with God in the room and that He was praying with me.”  Zack Maxwell, 7^th grader, said that when he was praying, “it felt like He was there.”

 

The last session Saturday ended with a “blessing of shoes” that no matter where these students walked, they would be ministering wherever they go, as ministers on staff at “God’s Church.”  For students at First Church, “Stuck in the Middle” was another great step in their faith journey.

 

 

 

 

My daughter had surgery today

My daughter had surgery today and a buddy of mine was annoyed that he got his update via facebook.  So I just sent him this email.

 

Everything is good.  They are home resting.  She is only having tubes in her ears so it’s not that major of a thing.  Everything went great.  Charis has been having trouble hearing since the summer.  Lots of ear infections.  Got to the point of her actually reading our lips before we said, “Frick!  This is ridiculous!”

 

Really hard for me since Jen HATES swimming and she had tubes in her ears.  I remember friends who had tubes in their ears and they couldn’t get their head wet and so they didn’t like to go to the beach or swim, etc.  I LOVE swimming and so I have been fighting this not wanting my kid to hate swimming.

 

But it was just not getting any better.  Our doctor recommended us to this doctor who she felt would be honest with us and tell us whether Charis needed tubes or not.  Really hard for me because I’m just so distrusting of doctors.  I could see some guy who is having tax issues or needs to finance a trip just telling anyone, “yep, your kid needs tubes.”  I know that is a bad attitude.

 

So we went a couple weeks ago and Charis again failed her hearing test.  (We tried to rule out anything and even went to Wichita State where they train all the Ear Nose and Throat Doctors and had Charis go there.  She failed the hearing test there and it was super thorough.)  The Dr. said that she did need tubes and if we didn’t get them there would be permanent hearing loss. 

 

Sidebar:  someone commented on my facebook that we should not ignore ear aches and that their kid has permanent hearing loss because, I assume, they didn’t treat it seriously enough.  Dude, I would never forgive myself…

 

We dropped our kids off at a friend’s house this morning and took Charis in.  90 minutes of waiting!!!!  We were there at 6:50 am for a 7 am appt.  Charis was the second one in for this doctor and she went in at 8:23 am.  The operation itself went really quick. They came and got us as soon as Charis started coming out of the anesthesia.   We walked in and a nurse was holding her in her arms (that is SO comforting to see when you are worried about your kid.)

 

We stayed in there for 30 more minutes and were discharged.

 

So all is well!  Can’t wait to see if she can hear better.  Follow up check up is in a couple weeks.

 

40+ Spiritual Experiements for Lent

Tonight we are helping our middle schoolers prepare for next Wednesday’s Ash Wednesday service by giving them a heads up of what it means a week before.

 

We’re also going to give them a handout with some ideas of “Spiritual Experiments” they can do for Lent.  I took most of them from James Bryan Smith’s book “A Spiritual Formation Workbook.”

 

Feel free to use it for your own church setting!

 

40+ Spiritual Experiments for Lent

(Adapted from “A Spiritual Formation Workbook” by James Bryan Smith)

 

 

1.                   Pray for 5 minutes before you to go to bed.

 

2.                   Try to “tame your tongue” today by only speaking when you have to.

 

3.                   Read 1 Corinthians 12:8-11.  Do you have one of these spiritual gifts?

 

4.                   Write an encouraging note to someone who needs it this week.

 

5.                   Read the Bible for 15 minutes.

 

6.                   Whatever you do today, do it for the honor of God. 

 

7.                   Pray without words (in silence) for 5 minutes

 

8.                   Don’t watch any “screens” today (TV, computer, video games).  Use that time to be with your family.

 

9.                   Read Luke 11:13 and pray for the Holy Spirit.

 

10.               Do some extra help around the house as a gift to your family.

 

11.               Meditate on the John 1:1.  Read it over and over and over and over and…

 

12.               Attend a non-United Methodist Church service.

 

13.               Write a letter to God telling how you feel.

 

14.               Say two good things about someone or something for every time you 

 

15.               Read Galatians 5:22-23.  Choose one fruit you’d would like to see grow in your life.

 

16.               Do a secret act of service.  Do a kind deed without being asked or expecting to be thanked.

 

17.               Read a chapter of the Bible before falling asleep.

 

18.               Give out flowers at nursing home.

 

19.               Tell God “Thanks” by listing out 10 things you are thankful for.

 

20.               Memorize the 10 commandments

 

21.               Read Ephesians 6:10-17.  Which piece of “armor” do you need the most right now?

 

22.               Server others with your words.  Speak well of someone today and guard their reputation.

 

23.               Talk about your faith in Jesus Christ with a relative or close friend.

 

24.               Listen to Handel’s Messiah.

 

25.               Pray for your C-Group leader

 

26.               Keep the Sabbath.  Take today and just relax.  No work.

 

27.               Ask your parent’s which Fruits of the Spirit they see in you?

 

28.               Serve others by letting them have their “space.”

 

29.               Share God’s love with someone today.  If necessary, use words.

 

30.               Invite God to your mealtime.  Don’t simply say a quick prayer before eating.

 

31.               See if you can wake up praying!  Give your day to God in that prayer!

 

32.               Write out a confession in a journal.  Be honest.  You won’t be telling God anything he doesn’t already know.

 

33.               This Sunday, really worship when you go to church.  Pray and sing with all you got!

 

34.               Serve someone else by letting them serve you.  Don’t deny someone that joy.

 

35.               Memorize a verse or passage from Scripture and recite it to someone.

36.               Go play with some little kids!  We often see God through the lives of children.

 

37.               Take a walk in a park or watch the sunset and give God thanks for his creation.

 

38.               Do a “treasure” check.  Read Luke 18-30.  What do you need to give away?

 

39.               Read Romans 12:6-8.  Do you have one of these spiritual gifts too?

 

40.               Pick up trash at a park or school.

 

41.               Read from the book of Proverbs.  There are 31 of them, one for each day.

 

 

Making Small Groups Memorable

Seriously, my wife is amazing. A-MAZING. She never ceases to amaze me.

Jen has a sweet little 6^th grade girl in her small group that is having a really difficult time transitioning from 5^th grade. We have tried all kinds of things but the little girl just doesn’t connect that well. She has checked out our Sunday morning program and our Wed night small group program, but she just doesn’t want to come. Her parent’s are pretty frustrated and feel at a loss of what to do.

And, unfortunately, this girl doesn’t connect very well at school either. She had a birthday party last month and none of her “friends” showed up.

DANG! Middle school is TOUGH!

So Jen’s small group decided to do something that I just love. They threw her a surprise birthday party last night! This girl loves Garfield so Jen bought a Garfield cake and got her a Garfield book and the other 8 girls in the small group brought gifts and a couple of them arrived early to decorate the room. The girl was truly confused, since her birthday was last month! Her mom stayed the whole time which really helped her and even dad stopped by.

I’d love for this to have a youth ministry fairy tale ending! You know, this changes the girl’s life, she feels the love of Christ, she all of the sudden has all her social skills, she goes to college, becomes the first female president, and then invites Jen and I up for the inauguration and she credits it all to Jen and that bday party. Yeah….right.

This is what makes student ministry fun, small groups memorable, and the kind of love that helps us all love our neighbor a little more.

Post Camp Letter to my Students

Last year at camp we closed our week with a time together with just our youth group. It was nice to talk about the week and what they had gotten from it. At the end, I gave them each some paper and a pen to write themselves a note that would be mailed to them in 6 months. basically a "Hey, It's been six months since camp. Remember this committment that you made. How are you doing with that?" kind of letter.

I got the idea from when I was a sophomore in HS and attended my first CIY event with my youth pastor. I was in a D-Group (ah, all the little names in youth ministry) with a bunch of people I didn't know and a youth pastor I didn't know. But at the end of the week he did this same thing. and 6 months later I received my letter in the mail.

Of course, being a dork, last year I forgot envelopes so my students just had to trust that I wasn't going to read them, which of course I did. JUST KIDDING! I even had them fold it in wierd ways so they woudl KNOW that I didn't read them. Anyway, I'm sending them today and hope they'll be an encouragement to them. And here's what I wrote to them as well:

---

February 12, 2009

 

 

Hey Camper!

 

It was only about 6 months ago that you and I were at Youthfront swimming, riding the ATV’s, eating ice cream, and playing some crazy life sized board games.  

 

I absolutely LOVE camp!  And growing up, I made some very significant life decisions at camp.  I hope you’ve been able to make some during our times together at camp too.

 

On the last night of camp I gathered you guys all together and we shared some of our highlights of the week together.  At the end I encouraged you to write yourself a letter that I would mail to you in six months or so.

 

Well….here it is!  

 

Again, I have not read any of your notes.  I don’t know whether you wrote yourself reminding you about something you learned or if you wrote that I have some seriously sweaty armpits (which is true).   The notes have stayed inside my computer bag, nearly forgotten about, until today.

 

No matter what you wrote, I hope you’ll think back to some of the things we did together and some of the memories made.  I hope you’ll remember that feeling of God’s closeness and his amazing love for you.  I hope that you’ll keep practicing what you learned at Mid-Day…to be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10) and that sometimes the best way to hear God’s voice is to be silent and listen.

 

Looking forward to listening together,

 

Ken Rawson

1984 Hungry Hungry Hippo Finalist 

 

 

Dealing with Difficult People

In Doug Fields' book "Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry" he has a great chapter called "Why all the conflict? Dealing with difficult people."

First of all, Doug is easily one of my youth ministry heroes. Beyond that, this book and this chapter are so helpful. In dealing with personal conflict he offers this great outline for a face-to-face conversation:

Observation (apparant behavior)

Using "I" statements, describe the situation without labeling or defensiveness. "Hey, I'm hearing you make negative statements to our students about our ministry." Then have real examples of what they did/said. "You said things like, 'That won't work' or 'How can we do that' at two of our weekly programs."

Interpretation (apparant behavior)

Offer your own interp on why they are doing this. "i'm wondering if you you're feeling like we aren't thinking through all the details."

Feeling (how it affects you)

This is important that they know how this behavior makes you feel and how it is affecting the ministry. "I feel like you are communicating division and a lack of respect for others on this team."

Desired outcome (mutual resolution)

What is your goal? What do you want to see happen because of this conversation? "I'm wondering if you'd be willing to outline the details you think we are overlooking. Maybe we can talk about this privately so our students don't hear them first. what do you think?"


As I head into a difficult conversation with a parent, this outline has provided some great help for me today.

Recovering from an elbow in the nose

On Saturday my sweet boy Noah had his last regular season basketball game. During halftime shoot-around, he took an elbow from a team mate. You could tell it hurt but he didn't want to cry.

Coach puts him in to start the second half and Noah is out of it. He isn't hustling. He's not really paying attention to the game. He's not guarding his guy. He's checking to see if his nose is bleeding. He's kind of in the game but mostly not. He's going through some of the motions but most of his time is being spent touching his nose and checking, "am I bleeding? am I bleeding? am I bleeding?" He did this for 3 minutes of a 6 minute quarter.

Coach calls a time out to go over something and Noah emerges out of it a new man. The coach didn't call the time out for Noah, but it still provided a change of pace for Noah. Whatever coach said, Noah was back in the game and forgetting about his nose.

He was back to guarding, being aggressive, and sprinting down the court like he always does.

do you need to call a time out today? Do you need to just stop what you are doing and reassess your situation...maybe get your bearings? When are times when you find your self going through the motions, wondering if you are bleeding, checking your vitals instead of being lost in the joy of just playing?

To the Parents of:

Man, do I hate that! I'm sending out postcards as a reminder for a parent meeting and I came across one that says, "To the Parents of". When I see that all it says to me is "You don't know me or my family so why should I even read this?!"

Our team has to do a better job of knowing kids and thier families.

NY TIMES: Teen sex on the decline

Interesting article today from the NY Times that says new statistics say that teen sex is declining.

Today, fewer than half of all high school students have had sex: 47.8 percent as
of 2007, according to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, down from 54.1
percent in 1991.

A less recent report suggests that teenagers are also waiting longer to have sex than they did in the past. A 2002 report from the Department of Health and Human Services found that 30 percent of 15- to 17-year-old girls had experienced sex, down from 38 percent in 1995. During the same period, the percentage of sexually experienced boys in that age group dropped to 31 percent from 43 percent.

The rates also went down among younger teenagers. In 1995, about 20 percent said they had had sex before age 15, but by 2002 those numbers had dropped to 13 percent of girls and 15 percent of boys.

“There’s no doubt that the public perception is that things are getting worse, and that kids are having sex younger and are much wilder than they ever were,” said
Kathleen A. Bogle, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at
La Salle University. “But when you look at the data, that’s not the case.”

I wish there was more documentation for the following quote. I've had youth workers vehemently profess their belief in lots of kids engaging in rainbow parties. I just don't see it. Here's the quote:

As for that supposed epidemic of oral sex, especially among younger teenagers:
national statistics on the behavior have only recently been collected, and they
are not as alarming as some reports would have you believe.

Again, I appreciate the quote, but would like documentation:

“I give presentations nationwide where I’m showing people that the virginity
rate in college is higher than you think and the number of partners is lower
than you think and hooking up more often than not does not mean intercourse,”
Dr. Bogle said. “But so many people think we’re morally in trouble, in a
downward spiral and teens are out of control. It’s very difficult to convince
people otherwise.”

Of course this begs the question as to what may be causing a decline. I'm sure abstinence groups will begin taking credit for part of this, and it'd be tough to argue that they don't have some sort of influence. Especially in an age of easily accessed pornography, I wonder what is happenning culturally as an influencer.

Leave your take and let me know what you think the cause is.

I KNEW she was lip syncing!!!!

Funny way to introduce a difficult topic: body image

The issue of body image has typically been relegated to girls and has been a difficult subject for many to talk about. I've noticed that this issue is not just for girls anymore.

You may have heard the illustration of how rediculous Barbie's body is and that if it were made full size she'd have to walk on all four's, etc. etc. Here's one trainer's take.

Leave it to the Onion to give another take on it. And while it's tongue and cheek, it gives another great way to talk about a difficult subject and a great lead in to the Barbie doll illustration.


Bratz Dolls May Give Young Girls Unrealistic Expectations Of Head Size

Becoming a Young Woman of God being used in Nicaragua

Found a cool story about Jen's book "Becoming a Young Woman of God" via Google Alerts (ht to Kirk).

Let me introduce you to "Maddie" a 17-year old college student who is spending six months or 171 days "living and teaching in rural Nicaragua for Project Chacocente."

She is working for an organization called "Out of the Dump" that "moves families from the city dump of Managua, Nicaragua to the clean air and fertile soil of rural Masaya, where the people learn skills for living independently. Chacocente is a non-profit, integrated project that aims to transform people, not just give them food and/or housing."

In Maddie's blog she talks about how she was given Jen's book to lead some of the girls through a Bible Study and the tension of translating it culturally.

"I got the book from Omar the first day I got here, and most of it looked great.. the first chapter talks about our culture and what it expects of women, how our culture sees women, and how we can be who God wants us to be. All good stuff. There was, of course, the fact that the entire book is in English, so I'll have to translate what I want to get across to them, which will be a challenge. But what struck me as an even greater challenge as I read the book was that this was written for middle-school girls in the United States, which wouldn't be a problem besides the language.. except that it's all about culture. So the culture it's talking about is American culture. My challenge is finding some way to translate this culture into something that applies to them.

And actually, maybe what I'm talking about is not pop culture.. the stuff the book is referencing when it talks about how ¨the media¨ portrays women. What bothered me was the part about choices.. choosing who we want to be, the kind of careers we will have, etc. that I don't think fully translates into this culture. Because as much as I want to believe that these girls will have more opportunities than their mothers had and that I can make a difference in that, deep down I know that these are choices that have already been made for them. I want them to have dreams, but I'm not sure that their world can support them. I fear that there is not much I can do to guarantee that they can be all they can be, because of their educational level, economic status, and the world they are inheriting. Chacocente is helping with the first two as much as they can, but I know that it will take much more than a bible study to change the world situation they are already growing up in."

Wow. When I was 17, I wasn't dealing with anything like this.

Maddie brings a great question. And while Jen's book was written with the mindset of American Teens, even those dear sisters living in the garbage dump won't experience the life Jesus promised without finding thier identity in God and having a relationship with Christ.

Of course, I think the harder question we deal with is, what is God's dream for those girls? What if God's dreams for them aren't what we assume they are?

Join us in praying for this amazing 17 year old who is doing something amazing with the lives of people in Nicaragua. You can read the rest of her her post here.

A cool story from Marko's small group

Yesterday I blogged about a fun story from Marko's small group.

In November, he blogged a really cool story about his small group that is using my first book, "Becoming a Young Man of God."

When Marko was posting one of his Year in Review's, he put this one down as one of his favorite youth ministry moments of the year. Pretty humbling. (again, people don't really review curriculum on thier blogs, so this stuff is really cool to hear about.)

"awesome small group last night with my 6th grade guys. last week was a bit rough, so it was nice to have a night like this where it seemed we accomplished something (i know we accomplished something last week — we were building a relational foundation for the stuff to come in our three years together. but it’s still enjoyable to have a week where the conversation seems to be about more than farts, guitar hero, girls, and whatever else pops into their heads unannounced).

we meet at my house, in the little “guest house” in our backyard. when the guys were arriving, zach looked in the little kitchen and (seeing the teapot on the stove) asked, “can i make some tea?” “uh, sure, i guess so,” i responded, still trying to figure out if he was kidding or not. he went on to describe how he makes tea for himself every morning, and how he’s somewhat of a tea snob, and really only likes english teas. i decided to join him in a cup, thinking that might lessen the chances that the other guys would tease him. but, instead, it meant that everyone wanted tea.

when it came to choosing vessels to hold said tea, i went for a mug. but zach spotted jeannie’s old teacup collection (i used to buy them for her on international trips, but that ended long ago, and there are about 10 different frilly teacups with wildly variant designs, and they were all sitting on display on the shelf in that little kitchen), and said, “i prefer to use a teacup.” and, as i offered the other guys a MUG, or a teacup, they all wanted to choose a dainty little teacup. i had a green ginger tea, as did my 20-ish co-leader. the guys either had decaf mint, ginger peach, or green pomegranate tea.

we decided it needs to be a new tradition for us, that we have tea each week. one of the guys — bryson, the squirreliest of the group, one of the most wonderfully random middle schoolers i’ve ever met — even started saying “huzzah!” to everything.

we talked about whether a superhero is more really himself (or herself) when he’s in superhero mode, or in alter ego mode. interesting discussion about this, since the superhero mode often comes with a mask. but we all agreed that in a strange way, the alter ego is really more of a mask, and that the superhero is really being himself when he’s being a superhero (this is all stuff from ken rawson’s book, becoming a young man of god).

we said that we all have this outside “dude” we wear everyday — our alter egos. but the real superhero inside is our real identity. then i mentioned that we’re going to talk about the characteristics of that superhero over the next few weeks.

tonite’s superhero identity stuff was that we are loved and forgiven. we talked about wondering whether a girl likes us or not, and how that can go back and forth depending on the day (or hour, or minute). and we talked about how it’s easy to assume that god works the same way with us — that god loves us one minutes, but when we screw up, god doesn’t. back and forth. then i gave a quick little overview (with the guys filling in some of the blanks) about the old testament sacrificial system, and then about jesus as the lamb. i was surprised, as most of these guys have grown up in the church, that the idea of jesus replacing the sacrificial system of the old testament was a brand new idea to them. “I’ve never thought of that before!” and “No one’s ever told me that before” (which doesn’t mean no one has, of course).

i’d told them we were going to light things on fire later, and they were especially focused and engaged because of this, by the way. so i handed out pieces of paper with crosses drawn on them, and talked about what forgiveness really means in our lives. then they each took a few minutes sitting somewhere on their own and wrote stuff on the cross that they thought god might have a hard time forgiving them for. we gathered on a stone walkway in the middle of the backyard, with their papers wadded up, and stood in a circle. we prayed and thanked god for forgiveness. then, one at a time, we bent over and lit our paper wads on fire, saying, “my superhero identity is that i’m loved and forgiven.” each lit their own, but we watched as they all burned together into a pile of ash.

then we had lemonade and double-stuf oreos.

yeah. 6th grade guys. love it!"

As close to a review as I'm gonna get

When it comes to writing books, an author LOVES to have people review thier books on thier blogs. When it comes to curriculum, most people don't review it. I mean, it is a book...but it's not really. It's curriculum. It's a book of teaching plans.

Nevertheless, here's as close to a review as I'm gonna get for the second book, "Living as a Young Man of God." Marko had a fun moment last night with his group and blogged about it last night:

"last night, at my 6th grade guys small group, we were getting ready to talk about how jesus is a man we should want to emulate (we’re doing a series called “living as a young man of god“). leading up to that, we first talked about favorite superheroes, and what their strengths and weaknesses were. then i had each guy think of a man they really respect, and would like to be like (at least in some ways). we went around, and each guy talked about the man they respect, a few of that man’s strengths, and at least one of his weaknesses.

but here’s the classic middle school guys part of the story. i have four guys in my small group; and here are the four men they listed, in order:

- “my dad”

- “my cousin’s boyfriend”

- “my grandpa”

- “eddie van halen”

yes, that’s right. eddie van halen.

gotta love it."

Good times. I know of a few people who have used our books and found a couple on the internet. I'd love to hear if you have or are using them and what you think!

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More thoughts on Riddle's book

I was skimming Mark's book again tonight looking for a certain paragraph when I remembered another couple things that I like about the book:

~The book is split into two sections. The first one is all about staffing for a youth pastor. Really great thoughts on here. Most of my review was based off this section of the book because it really resonated with me.

~The second half is basically an inside look at what a youth pastor feels. And it's really great. I mean a lot of this stuff...this is stuff I have dealt with for years. Feelings of frustration based on assumptions...made by the senior pastor, and if I'm honest, many made by me.

The chapters on making youth ministry the butt of jokes, loyalty vs. disloyalty, and the need for loyalty FROM the senior pastor...THIS could be something that would really help relationships.

Of course, I get frustrated thinking, "Look if my SP has been in ministry longer than I have, they should know this stuff, value it, and be practicing it." But, we all get into our own worlds, I suppose, and we forget.

On the flip side, maybe the SP is practicing it...but the youth pastor can't be sure if she can trust it.

It would be interesting to see the reversal...a book for youth pastors written by a senior pastor that gives insight into their world as well.