Archive for 'High School'

Orange Leaders Forum (Part 2)

Posted on 26. Apr, 2009 by .

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Reggie spent a few minutes talking about why students are dropping out of church.

We haven’t given them a better story as they aren’t as intrigued by our story. They’re more intrigued by the world’s story.

As a church, our power is that we can give them a better story. When they engage in this story, it’s less likely that they’ll walk away from their faith.

Reggie came back to this later in the day as he was talking about the three Dials:

  • The Wonder Dial: Faith
  • The Discover Dial: How truth affects my life
  • The Passion Dial: How I serve

Too often in Student ministry, the wonder and discover dials are maxed but not the passion dial. This is a serious mistake. Teenagers need to know and see God work through them.

“Until you give a teenager something significant to do, they’ll never feel significant.”

I’m no expert in student ministry. All I know is what I experienced and some of the things that I have seen. However, as a teenager I got really involved in a mission agency and from the time I was 16-19, I spent nearly six months in India, Venezuela, Morocco and Russia. These trips impacted me to the core and no other experience shaped me like these did. Here is where I know in my heart that there is some truth to this. As a 16 year old I came back from a life-changing trip to Venezuela. While there I personally led hundreds to faith. I had a tangible sense that if I died the next day, I knew I would stand before God and I knew the words that he would say. “Well done good and faithful servant.” That’s pretty significant for a 16 year old.

Since then I’ve seen many different ministries. I’ve seen some really good kids invest a LOT of time and a LOT of money in Christian Leadership programs for the purpose of equipping them to be phenomenal leaders in the church. However, I’ve seen dozens of them flounder in their faith and make decisions that will lead to huge set-backs. They may come around eventually, but I’m seeing potential squandered. They’re great leaders, but their hearts haven’t been captured. What would it look like to capture their hearts first and let the leadership stuff come later?

So, how can we amp up that Passion Dial?

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Chad Swanzy: Creativity is his middle name.

Posted on 24. Apr, 2009 by .

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I thought I’d introduce someone to you in case you didn’t already know him. Chad Swanzy is the Student Ministry Pastor here at Gateway. He came on staff about six weeks before me last year and I really enjoy working with him. Unfortunately for me I haven’t gotten to work as closely with him this last year as I would have liked (that’s changing this year though). One of the things I admire about Chad is his creative genius.

Perhaps it’s his need to be resourceful that sparks creativity, always maximizing resources on a shoe string budget. However, he connects very well to the students he leads and he connects through every medium possible. He’s constantly building sets, creating environments, designing totally insane games or filming promotion videos. He also connects to kids through every medium possible. He connects to the kids through the ministry blog and through facebook. Every message is published to iTunes and available via podcast and he’s streaming Wednesday night services through Mogulus. Actually one night there was supposed to be bad weather for small groups, so he broadcast the meeting over Mogulus and many from the group participated that way. Absolutely amazing.

The inspiration for this post was a recent video he pushed out to his kids promoting his next series. The video was very cool. Then a few days later how wrote a blog about how he made the video. Wow! I didn’t know he made it, I thought he got it from somewhere else. His blog post will show you how creative and resourceful he really is.


choices series intro from chad swanzy on Vimeo.

Here’s his blog post explaning how he made the video.

Here’s a video he made a few weeks ago to prep kids or baptism. Again, he connected to them through his blog, facebook and every other medium.


What is baptism? from chad swanzy on Vimeo.

Last of all, here are two of his camp promo video. One of them yo0u may have already seen on my blog, but it’s funny enough to be on here again. Enjoy.


Did somebody say Summer Camp?! from chad swanzy on Vimeo.


Uprising Presidential Camp Promo from chad swanzy on Vimeo.

You can follow Chad here:
Website
Twitter

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Orange 2008: Rethinking Family Ministry

Posted on 02. May, 2008 by .

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Like the Rethinking Children’s Ministry, this breakout was more of a round table discussion. On the stage was Mike Clear from Discovery Church in California, Daren Kaiser from Scranton, PA, Dave Fox from Indiana and Reggie Joiner. Each of these men serve as the Family Pastor at their churches (except Reggie of course).

Reggie began by explaining some of the different models of family ministry. One model is the departmental approach. This is where each department (student and children’s ministry) does it’s best to connect with parents. Another model is the supplemental approach. This is where a family pastor is hired to add programs to supplement parents ministry. This pastor more or less informs the other staff members (children’s pastor and student pastor) what he/she is doing. The Orange model is an integrated model. There may or may not be a family pastor (best if there is) that helps family ministry integrate through all the ministries.

Through a family ministry approach (integrated), the goal for teenagers is not perfect attendance in student ministry, but that they become fully integrated into the fabric of the church.

Reggie perfectly answered the question, “How do you effectively make a children’s ministry team and student ministry team feel like a unified team?” The answer? Meet together. Duh!

In an integrated strategy, you remove ministry silos and territorialism. In this strategy, student and chidlren’s teams work together on budgets, calendars and other things.

Reggie shared that there are three dials that need to be turned in the life of a child. The Wonder Dial, the Discovery Dial and the Passion Dial. The Wonder Dial is the understanding of faith, creation and who God is. The Discovery Dial is the understanding of how I personally fit into this knowledge of God, specifically relating to having a relationship with Jesus Christ. The Passion Dial is understanding my relationship with those around me.

So, when an integrated family ministry operates with the knowledge of these dials, the team can work together to turn these dials at the appropriate times within ministry. For instance, the Wonder Dial will be turned most during the preschool years, and only a little beyond that (mainly for outreach opportunities). The Discovery Dial is turned the most in elementary ministry and and student ministry and the Passion Dial will be turned the most in student ministry. Implementing this in an integrated strategy allows everyone in multiple ministries to be on the same page.

Here are a few more points made by the presenters:

  • When you believe that what happens at home is more important than what happens at church, your calendar will slim down (from events).
  • Who owns the strategy to “educate” the parents? It’s owned by the whole team, led by a leader.
  • Every parent wants to have the right relationship with their kids… every kid needs a right relationship with a parent.

Oh, there was one more thing. Reggie shared four words and said that most parents fall into one of these four categories:

  • Acquainted
  • Connected
  • Engaged
  • Invested

Acquainted are usually the parents outside of your church… they don’t come. They aren’t against God or anything… they just don’t come. The Connected parents are attending your church. Engaged parents are ones that assume responsibility for spiritually raising their kids and Invested are those who are actively involved in discipling their kids… they’re doing this regularly.

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Orange 2008: Family Ministry Around the Table

Posted on 28. Apr, 2008 by .

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This was the first pre-conference breakout I attended. It was led by Dave Fox, the Family Ministries director at “The Bridge Church” in Decatur, IN and Darren Kizer, the Family Ministry Director at Parker Hill Community Church in Scranton, PA.

The heading for this breakout were guided by these statements:

“We will be focusing on an integrated strategy for family ministry. In this strategy, leaders and parents are leading with the same end in mind.”

Darren started things off by bringing out a bottle of Diet Coke and a Mento. Yeah, we know what that does. He explained that the the Mento represents the influence of the church in 10 years. the Diet Coke represents the influence of the family in 1 year. This is very Orange-ish! What happens when you strategically and intentionally combine the influences of the church and family? Yeah, great point!

They spoke about several key ingredients for integrating strategy:

  • Know you vision
  • Direction: who is part of your team?
  • Developing a “Espirit de Corps.” All for one and one for all… a pride of belonging to something.
  • Defining “wins” for each area and ensuring that each area knows and understands the wins of each area.
  • Plan collectively so we can impact specifically.

They also spoke about questions that invite teamwork and intentionality (great questions for a family ministry staff meeting)

  • Are we connecting with parents?
  • Are hand-offs crisp and tight? (The relay race is won or lost in the hand-off)
  • Are small groups a big deal?
  • Are we making volunteerism attractive?
  • Are students serving strategically?
  • Are we synchronizing the calendar

By asking these questions we:

  • Fuel productive tension
  • Reveal unstated expectations

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