Jr. High Retreat
Whew! Had a crazy weekend! Thursday through Saturday I was on a jr. high retreat to Minneapolis (called MUUUCE) with a bunch of our jr. high kids. We had a great time! If you follow me on Twitter, you got a play-by-play of the weekend, complete with pictures, everything from pillow fights to decapitating monkey stuffed animals to worship to roller coasters and the Minnesota Twins.

The highlight of the weekend for me was this conversation with an incoming 7th grader:

Sitting next to each other on the grass, he looks at me with a very concerned expression and says, “I just felt the earth rumble!”

Me: “Are you sure?”

7th grade boy: “Yes! The earth just shook!”

Me: “Oh, I farted, that’s all.”

He looks at me in amazement for a second and then says, “WOW! That’s incredible!” lol He totally believed me! I didn’t have the heart to tell him that such a feat is absolutely impossible.

Check out the video of our trip and lots of pictures. (I made that sweet video at Animoto.com in about 5 minutes. You should seriously check out Animoto for your youth group highlight videos.)

Annual Parent/Student Info Meeting

Every year toward the end of the summer we have our annual parent/student youth ministry information meeting. Last Sunday evening was that time for us. A couple people saw me twittering about it as I pulled materials together and asked for an overview of what I do with parents and teenagers at this annual meeting. Here’s the outline of our agenda:

• Look back on last year’s ministry (reflections, ideas, events, highlights, lessons learned, etc.)
• Cast the vision for next year’s ministry (I taught an overview of Deep & Wide.)
• What that vision looks like in our ministry (a breakdown of every weekly meeting and event, who it’s for, where it’s at, what they’re studying, introducing leaders, etc).
• An overview of a couple big annual events we do each year.
• Communication (how the youth ministry communicates with students and parents, where to find info and stay up-to-date, how to get on mailing lists, overview of our youth group website, parent newsletter, etc.)
• Q&A

The meeting is mostly for families of incoming 7th graders and those transitioning from jr. high to high school. It’s also for new families who joined our ministry during the school year and want an overview of the whole ministry. Plus, it gives me an opportunity to communicate our vision and the movement of the ministry as a whole so people don’t get too lost in just their individual little area of it.

Posted on August 18, 2008