If you are a youth pastor, you need imovie.

I was goofing around this morning and made a little trailer for summer camp. If you go to lift, sign up today! The registration deadline is tomorrow!!!

A snapshot of ministry to middle schoolers

This is a short from one of our recent jhi fun nights. These type of games can only be pulled off if you get tons of leader buy in. I'm so greatful for these guys and gals. I feel like we can do almost anything with their leadership! As you can see, we had a fun time. I think this game is called, amoeba tag. 

Weekend Wrap-Up: July 11th Service

Lesson: When God doesn’t give you what you want.

Lesson Length: 12 minutes. And we added break out sessions that we'll call, "HUDDLES" at the end of the lesson. We're officially launching a small group type element in all of our middle school services on August 29th. We'll take the rest of the summer to train and work through the bugs until we have our grand opening for the fall. 

Music: We had a full band. Robby led for the first time and I am so proud of him. What a pure heart that comes through when he leads!  

Attendance: Average. As always, things that are healthy are not always big. jhi is growing in health every single week, from leadership team, youth, and their families too! We had a big first service, which was an anomaly for this time of year.

Volunteer Involvement: Average. We've put a lot of effort into reorganizing our team because we lots some key leaders. These amazing leaders transitioned out of our ministry for different reasons.. some t to pursue carriers in other states etc etc.  All the reorganization is working. New leaders are stepping up in the empty spots! More kids lives are getting touched, communication with parents and  our ability to serve new students is improving! The love of volunteer leaders is defiantly spread out to many of them.

Fun Factor: Above Average for WHOLE SERVICE. 

Games Played: Ninja Feet provided by Chad Swanzee's website!

Game Idea: Bran' Spankin' New

Last week was our 2009 new year kickoff service called by the title above about being a new creation in Christ. We decided to give two guys a makeover and have the group decide who's makeover they liked the best. We were careful to pick guys that would like that kind of thing and we were careful to say that they were evaluating the wildest craziest makeover...not which PERSON they liked the best. The 'stylist' was being evaluated, not the person being made over.


I'm generally not a fan of elimination games in youth ministry. Here are the pictures snapped from my phone. (my next phone will have a better camera)



The guy in the cream sickle suit is not Benny Hinn rooting for UT, it's our intern.




And the winner is...

French fry fling

We bought the idea and art for this game from simply junior high and our teens love it!

Our variation on the game: blind fold our tossers and letting everyone else tries to catch. We offered 1 point for each caught fry.

They went nuts and threw fries everywhere.

This reinforces a junior high rule of games: karma-whatever you throw out into a group of junior high kids...you will get back.

Ultimate 21

Here is a great summer game to play in the pool.

The object is to be the 1st player to score 21 points.

You score points by making baskets like in basketball, but this game uses an innertube instead of a hoop.

scoring:
2 points for a goal scored and then free throws are awarded...as many as can be made (from st least 20 feet away).

Play resumes on a fee throw if the ball hits the tube or the water. Goal tending/moving is allowed but not on fee throws.

The guys I work with made this game up yesterday when we were hanging out at the pool.

Add or subtract rules to suit your tastes.

My first blog from my phone.

I didn't know I could do this but I just had to post this pic of our worship leader. We played this game called donut try this at home, which inspired this game called fisher of men. We put donuts on this HUGE fishing pole and had people eat them. They loved it.