Weekend Teaching Series: How NOT to Get Grounded (series premiere, week 1 of 4)

Sermon Synopsis: This week I got to speak for the first time in JH this year and it was a total blast! I gave a new talk called “make good choices” and spoke from the book of Proverbs on how we can avoid getting grounded by walking with Jesus each step of the way. I compared the wise to the foolish, and had a few pictures of what wisdom (Chick-Fil-A, catchy tunes) looks like vs foolish (Popeyes, face tattoos). Students seem to respond well to the talk and there was good discussion around tables for the 10m at the end of the service.

Service Length: 61 minutes

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This week we played DYM’s Super Bowel in honor of the big game happening this past weekend as well as a few rounds of Impossible Shot. Both games absolutely crushed and kids were surprisingly into dietary fiber. We’re going to really expand impossible shot in the future and make it a semi-regular segment as well. This week was SUPER fun, engaging and silly. The students were eating it up!

Music Playlist: Freedom

Volunteer Involvement: We had a few new volunteers this week! We’re pushing hard to have 12 volunteers at each fo the 4 services every weekend, and this week we came super close! We had some people checking things out, and some faithfuls as well. We used a high school student leader on stage with Cooper to co-host the game and that went super well. VERY happy to see the boost, now we’re got to give them mission critical roles and prep them well for the discussion time to help them stick!

Favorite Moment: I loved the fact that students are really digging the two things we’ve asked them to do this New Year so far: 1) check in with their (or their parent’s) phone number and get a name tag, and 2) share a little bit of what they learned from The Weeknd service with their parents. There’s a note/announcements for parents each week on the back of the program, and I’m continually surprised that kids talk to their parents and then text in “WETALKED” to our contact number. Pretty great!

Up next: How NOT to Get Grounded (week 2 of 4)

[also a few people have been asking to follow Mariner’s JH ministry, you can on Instagram right here!]

Weekend Teaching Series: RESET: Jesus, Fresh Starts & Screaming Goats (series finale, week 4 of 4)

Sermon Synopsis: This week we wrapped up the RESET series from the start of the New Year with Doug Fields teaching (4th week in a row, yeah!) and

Service Length: 62 minutes

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: This week we played a fun active game called Extreme 4 Corners Impossible Edition (you can find it here on DYM) but we tweaked it to have 4 colors instead of multiple choice letters and had lights in the corners of the room they kids picked their answer by going to the color they thought had the correct answer. Questions are intentionally impossible, here’s an example of how the modified slides looked:

If I’m honest with you … it didn’t go great. We switched up the game for the other services, hey it happens! Ha! But the star of the show was bringing in our friend David Wood to perform some card magic before/after services and to do a fun set on stage as well. He was awesome! Totally junior-high friendly show, through he worked super well with our high school students as well for Youth Culture Weekend which happened the past few days as well. If you’re interested in bringing in David, get details/watch videos here.

Music Playlist: Freedom

Takeaway: This week we continued to use “Pick Me” from DYM’s Sidekick App to help parents text in if they had a conversation with their kid about the program/outline service. It is working and we’re trying out best to connect JH students and their home for discipleship!

Volunteer Involvement: We’re working hard to get volunteers at each service. Having them lead at tables is SO huge and we will be working hard on this so if you come visit our youth group next time you’re in California, you’ll see 12 adults at each service!

Favorite Moment: I LOVE David Wood. Is that weird? He’s SO unassuming, so humble and so good. He may have sold his soul to the devil to get this good at magic, but I’m a fan and he crushed with our students.

Up next: NEW series! How NOT to Get Grounded(series premiere, week 1 of 4)

Weekend Teaching Series: RESET: Jesus, Fresh Starts & Screaming Goats (week 3 of 4)

Sermon Synopsis: This week Doug Fields was back for a 3rd week in a row (what a way to start the New Year) teaching about the miracles of Jesus to our students. Doug used Sidekick Pick Me to have some fun with some students who used the “check in” system from the church when they arrived and kids loved seeing their name on the screen and win King Size candy, too! The emphasis of the message was on the Living Water and the Samaritan woman at the well. no pain, past or problem keeps Jesus from loving you.

Service Length: 66 minutes

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We got to play the brand-spankin’ new Screaming or Fainting Goats Volume 2 game from DYM this week and as always that game is a huge hit. We also played into the goats theme with a clip from Justin Bieber’s Baby Baby Baby Goat music video which is a classic and made for a quick laugh, too. Attendance was a little down since 1/2 of the student ministry was at Winter Camp (also this weekend) but when you add them together it was a HUGE weekend for JH! Yeah … smart to have services for kids who couldn’t make it to camp while also going all in on the retreat, too.

Music Playlist: Alive, Only Wanna Sing

Takeaway: This week we had a couple of parent meetings that (for the first time in my ministry career) we’re actually well attended. Gave me hope! Had a blast playing games with parents, sharing the vision of the youth ministry and a short training by Doug. Get more details on that here!

Volunteer Involvement: This week our volunteers were WAY up again, but only because the team worked super hard to shake the trees to round up friends and family to serve this weekend. Most of our core leaders were away at Winter retreat, so we brought in an all-star substitute team for one week, and now it’s my job to recruit them to come regularly.

Everyone is up at Winter Camp except @DougFields who had to stay back and run junior high services @marinerschurch here’s a live look at the service now in progress: pic.twitter.com/PScCtsxmqf

— Josh Griffin (@joshuagriffin) January 18, 2020

Favorite Moment: I LOVE that we had full JH services while 1/2 of the ministry was away at Winter Camp. And I LOVE Doug being back in youth ministry! Ran point on this whole thing, practically alone. Ha! It’s so fun … I was away, too, speaking at a Winter Camp in Ohio, so missed this one but sure do love this church and team. What a weekend!

Up next: RESET (series finale, week 4 of 4)