johnny was here . . .

Advice on buying kids first guitar

2011-07-25T08:14:00.000-07:00

I get the following question about once a week. 20109 -2010 @foundationRED guitarist, Michael Miyahara, and I lay out a complete answer in print that we can finally refer people to. Great resource!

Question: Hey band guys! My little Johnny has been saving up his money from birthday, allowance, (rarely true) etc and wants to buy an electric guitar and amp and take lessons. We have been doing research to try and find something in his very limited price range and we are getting two different suggestions from the people at the guitar stores:

A. Buy him a youth size/half size guitar for him to learn on and then go full-size when he grows

B. Go ahead and buy him a full size guitar so he won't have a sudden transition to "full-size" in a couple of years.

So my questions for you gurus of guitar are these:
1. Which of these scenarios would you recommend?

2. Do you have any suggestions as to inexpensive brands when it comes to guitars? We are looking at about a $200-$250 budget total (for a cheap amp and guitar). I know this will not be much of a guitar at that price, but any direction you can point us in would be helpful as I know nothing about any of it!

Thanks guys!

We suggest going with the larger guitar body. Unless you are starting your child out on an instrument at 4 years old then these youth style guitars are a sales gimmick. Guitar playing is very much about muscle memory, and he will get use to the spacing between the frets. After a few years of playing you can pretty much find your places on the fretboard without looking, and to change sizes completely when he gets that comfortable would be like starting from scratch. Try and stay away from the all in one packages. The hardware on the guitars is just terrible and his guitar will go out of tune ALL of the time, which can be very frustrating when you're just beginning. This is the most common reason kids quit an instrument. When a guitar will not stay in tune they will never hear the accomplishment being made in practice. It really steals the FUN.

Stay away from companies like Rogue, Fernandes, Laguna, AXL. Sorry sub par guitar companies but in all fairness you have been stealing musical joy from children for years now.

Squier and Dean are decent, BC Rich is pretty much trash, and you MAY be safe with Ibanez, look at the hardware (tuners) carefully.

The best pick would be an Epiphone, they build pretty good products (except for their all in one packs) in all price ranges. ESP LTD isn't a bad brand either, they usually build guitars that look REALLY cool, and a lot more expensive than what they actually are.

Highlights

Stay away from whole package deals with with straps/pics and amp in a box!
Craig's list and Ebay are going to get you a better guitar as long as you remember our brand clues from above
15 minutes of practice a day are better than 2 hours the day of your lesson :)

Here are our guitar picks:
Les Paul look a like at 149.00

SG Ephiphone at 169

Here are our amp picks

Line 6 Amp 199.00

The first is an ESP LTD EC-10, a single cutaway les paul style guitar. Friends of mine in high school had these and I was always supremely jealous, they are great looking, great sounding, great playing guitars for $150. Plus their sunburst finish looks a lot better than Epiphone's in the low end stuff.

The second is an Epiphone SG Special. Most people would probable recommend a Les Paul, but the SG shape and flatter neck will make for easier access as he is learning. These sound great, and SG is a rock legend! Nobody uses these anymore...it'd be pretty cool to bring them back.

Although they look cool you will want to also stay away from non-conventional shapes. The V shaped, X shaped, whatever guitars are really uncomfortable, and sometimes impossible to play sitting down.

For amps:

There's no way you're going to be able to find a tube amp for your remaining budget, not to mention tube amps need to be turned up to get their purest sounds, and as proud as you're going to be the first time he plays "Smoke On The Water", you're not going to want it taking over the house for two hours per night.

That leaves us with solid state, which opens a world of possibilities. My honest take would be Line 6. Their amps kind of do it all, in a very user-friendly format. He will be able to experiment with different effects and different amp types, which makes for hours of fun per day.

Here's the pic, the line 6 spyder series. You'll have to stretch a little bit...or look on ebay or craigslist...but these amps are a beginners dream. Beware of "mini" amps, as their sound is, well...small. (by "mini" I mean any speaker smaller than 12")
This is the smallest Spyder series they make.

Have more gear or worship questions? Ask @foundationRED twitter account

CIY Jr High Update!

2011-07-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

Many exciting new things happening on the jr high front at CIY:

Dates for the 2012 Believe "Word" tour are finalized! HERE

We are finishing promo and will be announcing special artists/speakers in the coming weeks.
Team Believe will be headed to Israel, Rome, Ireland, Germany and England as we tell the story of God's story next year on tour.

We are also pumped about the jr high training and leader gathering event of the year- CAMPFERENCE!!

http://middleschoolministrycampference.com

Mark Oestreicher was here a few months ago at Scott Farms planning with the CIY team to get the word out on this awesome new event. We are working on many details now and can't wait to worship/hang out with our tribe only in Michigan!

and yes, . . . a HUGE announcement is still coming :)

Stuff I'm remembering . . . Again, about speaking

2011-06-20T18:23:00.000-07:00

Remembering stuff . . . again -hanging with kids this summer

Concrete & Abstract- I'm trying to live in the middle here resisting the temptation to go with either extreme. Jr highers are not incapable of abstract thoughts, they are newbies. If they are beginning to dabble in abstract thought I hope that they do so first in a healthy faith based environment (Church stuff yo!) .

Yes, it's old to you. It's not old to them. Don't do Other stuff that keeps you interested and loses them.

Kids are afraid of being made fun of in large groups, one mistake can destroy many bridges . . . Do other stuff

If it takes longer to explain the meaning of a song than to sing it . . . do Other stuff

Aside from the bible, stories from your personal experience connect better than . . . Other stuff

Teach kids to pray, it's more important than . . . Other stuff

Being willing to & even looking for opportunities to laugh at myself, helps create the attitude I want my fellow workers to share better than any . . . Other stuff

Churchy words can be redeemed. Do the work to define them.
& don't assume they know simpler words! Mine last week: rebellious. Yep, if I hadn't defined it clearly from the beginning #wastedtime #thanksgirlincaf

Kids are not important only when they show up, sometimes they have . . . Other stuff

Remembering names is more important than . . . Other stuff

Don't belittle their problems, culture or pain or they will find . . . Other stuff

"It's Friday", as much as we make fun of it, is a great song this summer! Have your band cover it.

MY kid is in the audience . . . #fear

2011-06-13T10:45:00.001-07:00

For years I've looked forward to the day that my sons would be involved in my ministry with great anticipation. What I didn't expect to happen was the onset of puberty to make MY kid crazy. I've told many parents over the last 12 years that the swings in mood, growth and friction are perfectly normal. The words rolled off my tounge so easy. I'm afraid I even walked away from some of those conversations actually thinking I helped- #sigh #gasp

Now I'm looking a milestone dead in the eyes this summer. My son will be at the camp I'm speaking at-as a CAMPER. As the dates have drawn closer I can honestly say I'm sweating it a bit. My youngest brother and sister will also be jr high attending campers. My parents were divorced when I was young. Mom remarried and had two great kids. She told us they were pregnant with their first on our wedding day. When My wife and I were blessed with our first my mother and wife were both pregnant at the same time with boys. Many of the stories that surface as I speak with kids deal with my difficult Jr high years and my parents divorce. Both my mother and wife have been questioning me about my talks this summer at camp. The uniqueness of this situation has pushed me to think differently on some things.

As I've been kicking around thoughts as a parent of kids going to camp I'm challenging myself on many thoughts I used to have as professional :) camp staffer. So, as I'm experiencing a middle school kid living in my house I'm mulling a few things over that I'm not done processing yet but would love to throw out there. Here ya go!

Nothing is more encouraging than positive feedback on my kid from another adult in their lives.

You can do amazing things for me and I'll be grateful, if you do the smallest thing to show interest in my kid I'll NEVER forget the genuine effort!

As a parent I'm confronted with the reality that: We are scared. We don't want to mess our kids up and we second guess ourselves constantly. We know we are not supposed to parent out of reaction to our up bringing or other outside factors, but sometimes we do anyway.

I want to land on the side of quanity time not quality time. Planned quality time seems to blow up in our faces. With quality, there are better chances that some of it will be quality.

This summer, have fun! But please challenge my kid, they might be in to more stuff and deeper stuff than we want to admit.

If you are working with middle school kids and don't have kids of your own, don't feel unequipped or without the necessary tools to make HUGE impact. Be mindful of some of these emotions parents are wrestling through and take them seriously.

Believe Back Stage Pass Staff Video

2011-03-16T07:03:00.000-07:00

Nick McNabb, Believe video tech, made this intimate video of our team working, laughing and doing life together on the road. Thanks so much Nick! I love you all and feel so blessed to travel with you on the road. Amazing, cool video. Romans 10:15 says, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news."

My friends, your feet are beautiful!

2011 CIY Believe NOW Tour Crew from Nick McNabb on Vimeo.

NEW Believe Leader's Guide!!!

2011-02-17T08:24:00.000-08:00

God made all sorts! The reality of this is only heightened when you work with jr high kids. As adults, we are as dynamic in our personalities as the kids we work with. The only catch is we are usually more set in our ways. So this post is for a specific kind of youth leader (and we love all types). Chances are, if you are reading this then you are EXACTLY the type of person who will love our "Leader's Guide to Believe".

You don't HAVE TO READ this document. One of the great things about Believe is that you can show up and experience the whole weekend with you kids in the moment. We plan it FOR YOU! However, if you like to know whats coming next then this is for YOU! I like to think of my buddy Alan Mercer when I put tools together like this. Alan, this one is for you . . . or awesome youth leaders like you! We've put every piece of info you might need to know to help guide your kids through the weekend!

LEADER'S GUIDE TO BELIEVE!

Also Check out our VERY simplified version:

BELIEVE'S READY TO GO CHECKLIST

*please don't request for 'edit access' simply print the page

Take Believe Home with our free resource "Session 6"

2011-02-15T17:52:00.000-08:00

Believe Session #6 The weekend doesn’t have to be over! Team Believe wants to help you take the Believe experience home. Our “Session Six Package” has everything you need to have one more Believe session when you get home. Use these links to collect band chord charts, Eric’s special “Session Six” video, our take home activity, “NOW Action Step”, and talking points for simple talks with your kids on the Session #6 theme.
• Opening Session Video (download this to start your session)
• Send your band here (for cool stuff like the chord chart to that Lion song!)
• Session #6 Video with Eric Samuel Timm• Download Action Packet for "NOW Action Step"
Use this as soon as you get back to the church or for Sunday morning, Wednesday night or even a wait a few weeks after your Believe event. The kids who attend your group during regular weekly programming won’t be out of the loop. The session will work as a stand-alone message and recap for the main theme of the Believe weekend.

Opening Session Video

Use this one minute video to start your session. For those students who attended the Believe event it will be familiar and or those students who did not attend believe, the main thought of the weekend will be introduced – “What are you going to do for God NOW?”

NOW Action Step

At Believe we looked at the story of Yuseph on Saturday morning. Yuseph is a young hero of the faith whose faith, like Esther’s, put him in a place to decide whether or not he would do something NOW for God. There are many other Christians around the world that are not free to worship God. When we write letters to the leaders of our Country the views of Christians have to be taken seriously. We encourage you to download the prepared letter for Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and have kids sign it. Join 50,000 kids across all CIY 2011 programs in writing our Nation’s leaders on behalf of Christians around the world enduring persecution.

Other stuff to know about at Believe!

Don't forget to bring a small tube of black and white acyrilic paint for lunch group project (we give you the box and directions. Just bring the paints and sharpies.

Doors & CIY Station open at 3:00 PM Friday afternoon for adults (seat saving allowed)

Follow Believe band(Foundation Red), National Tricycle Racing Leauge & Believe on Facebook
&
Twitter Believe Band(Foundation Red), National Tricycle Racing Leauge & Believe.

Tulsa Believe moved to MAY!!!

2011-02-06T11:48:00.000-08:00

Due to weather-related postponement, the Tulsa, OK CIY BELIEVE event has been rescheduled for MAY 13th & 14th, 2011 at the Tulsa Convention Center. All registrations will automatically transfer to the MAY 13TH & 14TH event. If you are already registered for this event and would like to switch your registration to either the St. Louis, MO event, February 25th & 26th or the Arlington, TX event March 18th & 19th, please call 1-888-765-4CIY to make this change. Again, thank you for your patience as we work to help make BELIEVE part of your spring ministry plan for 2011.

Believe Set Lists 2011 NOW TOUR

2011-01-15T19:41:00.000-08:00

Believe 2011 NOW Tour Worship Sets

We want for you and your kids to enjoy singing songs at Believe that you know and can fully participate in from the beginning. We also like to help you introduce new songs to your group and Believe is the perfect environment for your group to experience moments together around a new song.

There are 21 song slots during the weekend. The master set list has 10 songs (today :)). Some are ‘core songs’ for the weekend while others are filler ‘one timers’ we hope everybody is already familiar with. We love teaching kids about worship corporately. One goal we had this year was to give the speakers a little bit more time. In so doing we have cut a tiny bit of time from the band. Everybody speak up if you have an opinion (johnny@ciy.com) and we can make changes mid tour based on evaluations. We pray that our list and tools help you go beyond the event in your ministry!

Get music from Believe here:
ITUNES PING LINK

Youtube links
Our God
Like A Lion
These are Your Words
Everywhere I Go
Arms Open Wide
No One Like You
Cannons
Take it All
We Shine

CHORD CHARTS
Our God
Like a Lion
Arms Open Wide
These are Your Words
Cannons
No One Like You
We Shine
Take it All

Believe 2011 “NOW” Tour Session Guides
Friday Night Session #1
Our God
Rise and Sing
Like a Lion
Lovely Noise

Friday Night Session #2
Undignified
Like a Lion
Cannons
Arms Open Wide
These Are Your Words (before speaker)
These Are Your Words (after speaker)

Saturday Hanging @ Believe Session #3
Spark’s Concert Set

Saturday Pre-Lunch Session #4
Lovely Noise
Like a Lion
We Shine
speaker and then some other cool stuff :)
Arms Open Wide
These Are Your Words

Saturday Post Lunch Session #5
Take it All Versus
Rise and Sing
Our God
I See You
These are Your Words
Like a Lion

More T - designs and other updates

2010-10-12T13:13:00.001-07:00

Many things are coming together! Believe launched the Beta version of the new Web site. You can now download the Leader version promotional video right from the Believe player too. If you are not following Believe on twitter then check out the join link on the bottom of every page. Team Believe will be in Michigan next week. Wanna do lunch?

Believe Update: NEW Designs and giveaways!

2010-10-05T13:26:00.000-07:00

One major value at Believe is our tradition in telling Bible stories. This year we will look at the life of Esther and ask kids what it is that they too can do NOW as kingdom workers. The best tool we can think of to get this job done is a Bible. We know that many of your kids have a few Bibles at home they can lay claim to. There is a marked difference when we couple the powerful shared experience at Believe with a Bible that feels like it was a special gift just for them. Here is the cover art work. Every attendee on the 2010 Now Tour will recieve a Believe ESV translation.

Here is a preview of two new Spring Believe Shirts we'll have on tour. Many things are coming together. Have any thoughts about the design? We are also wanting to do a Believe Veteran Vollunteer T that has a throw back feel. Any thoughts? Both of these T's will be available to Believe insiders on the new Believe webb site very soon!

Believe NOW Film Week Day #3

2010-09-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

We had an amazing week filming for the Now Tour. The final launch of www.ciy.com/believe will be up this week. The use of cardboard and the bobble heads are a thread that is running throughout everything so it's been great to see that spill over onto the new website as well.

Over the next two weeks Team Believe is concentrating on the two biggest changes to the 2011 tour: NO REGISTRATION at Believe for those who choose to pay in full before & integrating a new team member to oversee volunteers exclusively at Believe.

We will be posting the inside material we have added to the 2011 Believe Bible later this week too. It is going to be a sweet year of attendee giveaways this year.

Day #2 Shoot Week

2010-09-21T19:59:00.000-07:00

Believe Film Week Day #1

2010-09-20T19:29:00.000-07:00

Awesome Day shooting on 5 locations with 2 teams! Team Believe is working with Eric Samuel Timm getting ready for the 2011 Now Tour. We are telling the story of Esther at Believe this spring. Esther was a hero of the faith who did something for God in her "right here" moment. Our video content will challenge students to look at thier right here moments and do something right now!

"Believe Insider's" print promo release

2010-08-16T08:28:00.001-07:00

CIY Believe is very excited to release the 2011 publicity and 2011 NOW Tour Dates! As Believe INSIDERS, we want you to be the first to see the new publicity. This stuff hasn't even come off the press yet. It will soon though, so keep an eye on your mailbox during early September. In it you will find some returning faces as well as some new ones. No matter who you recognize, be sure to visit all of our artists online to tell them which event location you will be at!

2011 Believe Artists:
Illusionist - Jared Hall
Artist - Eric Samuel Timm
Speakers - Mark Oerstreicher, Kurt Johnston, Scott Rubin, Heather Flies, Chad Monohan & Jon McCallon
Special Extreme Sports Guests -NTRL Racing Sensations Eddie & Cameron Falcon.

Download the whole PDF version HERE

Not signed up for Believe Twitter? Be sure to start following us now to always be aware of the latest news about CIY Believe!

New Believe Promo Video for 2011

2010-08-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

Believe is excited to Release the official promotional video for the 2011 Spring Believe Tour - "NOW". Now is all about the story of Esther and how jr high kids can decide become Kingdom workers in whatever situation they are in - NOW!

Read Josh Griffin's post about the Believe Tour on his Blog: http://www.morethandodgeball.com/

a thought for jr higher's and Angels talking to them

2010-07-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

I love the questions that jr highers ask. I by that I mean I usually hate the questions that jr highers ask in the middle of EVERY lesson that take us to a Sonny’s buffet of tangential abyss. Wow. That was therapeutic. I totally didn't even know that was inside of me! ha!

I'm working on a project right now that is dealing with jr high students hearing and their calling from God. If you work with jr high kids you know they have a unique ability to dive into the deepest subjects that baffle man kind in one second and then wonder about how fart’s get their smell in the next. So as I am pounding through all the things a 6th grade jr high boy would ask about the subject, “hearing God’s calling”

(Some of you are laughing right now at the myriad of rabbit holes this daunting task alone has presented in theory)

You know that a question kind of like this is going to come up because you have most likely tried to answer it in the last week yourself, “Why doesn’t God do cool stuff like part the red sea anymore?”

Some of you answered this question like this: “The Lord enabled you to stop playing PSP long enough for me to get through an entire lesson! In my book that is a miracle in direct proportion to the Red Sea parting!”

With that in mind I took a stab at one of those types of questions. As always, please through in your two cents on the hot topic below with comments and real ministry moments. Here is the excerpt:

A specific word about Angels:
There would be no need for a book like this if God still used Angels as His main mode for telling us our calling. During Old testament times there were not copies of God’s word laying in the Tabernacle lost and found. But who are we to say God won’t fall back on the angel option instead of, say a text. So here is our official stance on hearing your calling from an angel: If an Angel told you to do something, it is God’s calling on your life. (They don’t carry angel identification cards from what we can see in the Bible. To identify an angel look for: music from out of nowhere, wings, glowing faces and robes that look the brightest white you’ve ever seen.) From our research we saw Angels had a two main jobs when appearing to mortals: telling people their calling from God or killing. So if you see an angel and they don’t say, “Do not be afraid”, then be afraid.

Great new Jr High Parent Tip

2010-07-07T20:14:00.000-07:00

Getting the trust and support of parents in ministry is huge and the best window for hitting a home run is just around the corner. We all want to have great relationships with parents and at times we work tirelessly trying to win them over . . . or even catch them for a few seconds in the hallway at church. This is your chance to sow little seeds and reap huge! Of course you’re going to spend time thinking of the best way to welcome kids into your ministry this fall! Take some time to help parents transition their kids into jr high.

My oldest son is entering Jr high this fall. Although I’ve been working with jr high kids for 10 years in ministry, my wife and I are still finding ourselves anxious as our son prepares for this fall. There are many parents who have children entering jr high for the first time that are experiencing a sense of the unknown or even fear of the school year to come. This is an opportunity to reach out, meet a real felt need and build a bridge that will yield crazy results for the next three years.

Here are some tips and ideas to get you started: (if you have more please comment)

• Get parents who have had kids go through jr high come to an evening program or casual setting to talk with kids and new parents, give advice and pointers
• Find out when the school does orientation and partner with them or offer an afterglow with refreshments; go ahead and invite teachers, the principle, sell school T-shirts and such
• Let parents know you plan to visit kids at school their first week for lunch
• Offer to Pray with these parents specifically for this. Prayer is our weapon against fear. The parents will never forget your intentionality to their situation.
• Make jr high survival kits for parents and kids, include: before & after school safety tips, a fall activities schedule for ministry at your church, a top ten list of things they should know about their school (DO YOUR RESEARCH – but don’t name mean teachers  they’ll get that info at the water cooler.
• Encourage parents to tell their jr high stories to their kids. Kids never tire (ha, usually never tire) of hearing NEW stories from their parent’s childhood. Don’t let them trick you into stopping, they love it, they don’t know how to show that they love it 

as we all pack up for the summer . . .

2010-06-10T21:14:00.000-07:00

The offices here at CIY this week are at their peak of activity. Summer staffers are getting to know each other and all of our brainstorming meetings from last October are finally being brought to life. It is exhilarating being in this atmosphere, knowing that as we ate lunch together today our paths would separate over thousands of miles across America.
I’m reminded of a highlight from last summer’s travels as we anxiously anticipate all the wide eyed students who will experience a Move high school event, Knowsweat service project or Engage trip very soon. I was speaking at one of our more jr high intentional Knowsweat service projects. This night we moved the entire room to a tight focus on a small center stage where the day’s activities would culminate with our nightly programming. It was Wednesday which is a double sided sword. If you have spent much time on student trips then you know some of the common patterns: Wednesday can be a major break through day in pushing through walls that kids have had up all week, exhaustion can start to set in; but more times that not it seem s to take about three days of retreat from the tyranny of our pop cultured driven world for kids to hear the voice of God speaking clearly. As a speaker and programmer who had poured into this evenings events my hopes were high.
The stand out moment happened about 7 minutes into my HIGHLY engaging talk that evening. With such a cosy room set up there was a bit more energy in the room between speaker and audience. I remember walking through a few rows and looking more kids in the eyes thinking we are all really tracking together in this moment. Then I saw it. I was mid sentence and almost completely lost my train of thought. Sure this kind of thing has happened to every person to publicly speak but it was more eventful this night for me due to two downright funny occurrences.
The first sticky point in this story is that because the way the room was set up with all of us so tightly knit together into the center of the room there was no hiding such a sight. In normal conditions most folks wouldn’t know and there would be no distraction at all. There we all were however, confronted with the reality of this moment that totally caught me off guard.
Secondly I just so happened to catch the eye of the youth worker in charge of this student simultaneously as I happened up on the whole scene. Because of her mirrored reaction to mine there was no way we could brush this over. It was going to be a total distraction of epic proportions.
As I energetically weaved from one point ready to land another I spun on my heal and right in front of me sprawled out over two and a half chairs was 8th grade boy unapologetically crashed during this intense moment. I know I said it, we have all had kids fall asleep on us! Unfortunately just as I clearly stopped, stunned at this picture the kid made a huge bear like gurgle, sighed like he was home tucked in bed and readjusted his position before falling back into an almost coma like sleep. Every student in the room instantly realized I was speechless from suppressing laughter while still trying to hold the moment I was in . . . whatever that was.
At that instant I recollected many conversations I’ve participated in that brought perspective to my immediate situation and the stark reality of what we do in youth ministry. We toil, plan, pray, communicate, promote, explain, and execute so many trips over the course of just one summer season. Sure, sometimes the light bulb moment for a kid actually happens during the special song on the night we think it will . . . but most of the time some freaky series of events unravels in such a way that we scratch our heads and wonder how in the world God used THAT to touch a kid. The comforting thing is that He will have His way no matter what. If you are like me; it’s good to hear things you already know but will most likely forget on the interstate when the air conditioning goes out . . . again 
1. Even though he uses other goofy ways than what we thought he would, still plan well cause sometimes he goes conventional just to keep us honest
2. Get to know a kid’s story. You may not know that the most Spiritual thing happening in that kids life could be a nap in the middle of your sermon
3. Take some time to think back to a special trip you had in adolescence. Remember the moments that stuck with you the most?

Brent the Stunt Guy Update Stay in Touch

2010-06-09T08:12:00.000-07:00

Brent the Stunt Guy was one of your student's favorite artists on the Jesus Tour 2008, The Connect Tour 2009, and The Speak Tour 2010. Brent and Amanda felt the call to full time Mission work in the Phillipines during the Speak Tour. As God was talking to the students attending the event Brent also clearly felt a pull away from his stunt ministry in America to missionary work.

We are excited to watch thier adventure and we want to invite you to watch as well. Stay connected to thier ministry on Brent the Stunt Guys Web site and on Brent's twitter account.

Two great student or yoth leader summer games that lead to discussions

2010-05-27T06:53:00.000-07:00

Two great student or yoth leader summer games that lead to discussions

Summer is an awesome time to hang with students and enjoy a diferent pace of life. Recently the staff here at CIY has done the following two activities and had a blast (The cart race evidence is all over Facebook).

One question I ask youth leaders consistently is, "What does your summer look like?" You guys are BUSY!!! We already knew that our kids had crazy schedules and I GET IT! This is when we have a chance to be with kids so we go go go go . . .

In the midst of the busyness of summer, don't miss those moments that make it all worth it. Below are two great games that could help start the season off right. Try them with your kids or do a special youth coach get together. If your ministry partners are anything like we are at CIY then you will have many spin off discussions and build some great relationships along the way.

Barnga Game click here for the downloadable direction pages
This is a great game to see how people communicate, lead and handle conflict. The gist is players are seperated into seperate tables for game playing. Winners move to play together and loosers move to play together. The trick is that every table has a seperate set of rules and talking is not allowed. The first round goes easy when everyone has read and understands the same ground rules. How will people handle a new environment with new rules? This is a great game for helping high schoolers talk about moving away to college or helping youht coaches discuss the unseen youth culture that is right under there noses!

Cart Race click here to get CIY 500 Cart Race Rules
One would think that getting together to build race carts wouldn't need such detailed ground rules! People are competitive folks! Here is how we structured our CIY 500 :) Your adults and kids know thier summer schedules. They have everything planned months in advance. Use this as a mystery fun day. Tell your group how to dress in advance but not what they are doing until they get there. Invite parents and friends (or the whole church) to show up at the end of the day for a cookout and the big race!

Great quick YOUTH LEADER training tool

2010-05-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

I was at SYMC this past spring and Kurt Johnston showed an entire episode of King of the Hill. In this episode Bobby goes to youth group . .. funny. The resulting conflict is one of the best tools for gaining/teaching perspective in considering our role as youth workers. If you do one night of leader training a year. Get this and watch it. Then discuss the role of parents and how your ministry interacts with them.

King of the Hill Season 8 Episode 2: Reborn to be wild

Sunday's Coming

2010-05-10T07:07:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen this yet take a minute. If you are like me you will laugh and groan a bit at the unfortunate truth.

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

2010 Messiah Tour

2009-12-29T11:21:00.000-08:00

I've been busy putting together the set lists over the break for the tour. The sessions are laid out differently this year so it's been a new experience. For those of you who want the new songs the links are to listen and buy are included on the google document! HERE

Get the Chord Charts on the Foundation Red Esnips account. See link Below.

We never want to suprise youth leaders with what is going on. The following link is a basic layout of the entire weekend session by session. This is the most detailed sequence events to date! View it HERE.

2010 Messiah Set Lists

2009-12-23T15:42:00.000-08:00

2010 Messiah Tour Set Lists Christmas DRAFT

Welcome to the planning process. EVERYONE has an opinion about worship :) and so we try to listen diligently. Foundation Red is the house band for the Jr High Believe Tour and we only do Jr high events. This year we have some new faces like Hetti Marie and Billy Brimblecom. You are going to LOVE them and your kids will see that they love the Messiah passionately.

Below is a draft of our sets for the tour. This is very dificult and every song has a purpose. If you want to see something on the list that is not there then let us know. IT'S NOT TO LATE. We have lots of goals in putting the set list together. It's nice to have keys that girls can sing in and Hetti will be leading many songs throughout the weekend. Hopefully your kids learn some new songs and have a ton of familiar tunes too. (that is the tough part)

New Songs to Believe

Rise And Sing Listen/Buy Here

Stronger Listen/Buy Here

Alive And Running Listen/Buy Here

Your Name High Listen/Buy Here

To Know Your Name (available on Itunes Australia only, sorry guys!)

How He Loves - David Crowder's recorded version. We will only do the chorus tagged onto another song. I feel like the words in the verses will drag and take to much explaining to do. I am not against really explaining a song. We will do that. We simply have to be choosy how many times we do it and on how many songs. Listen/Buy Here

Special Songs

Here I am to Worship - Moment Song Listen/Buy Here

Forever - This is the classic Tomlin tune your kids should know from 'big church' :) but our twist on it is a total hip hop feel. It will be a breath of fresh air stylistically from the standard anthemic Hillsong feel Listen/Buy Here

Carry over tunes from last year

Today is the day Listen/Buy Here

We won't be quiet Listen/Buy Here

Happy Day - we can bring songs like this back and do them at least once but are your kids SICK of it yet? Listen/Buy Here

I am Free - Yes this is an oldie but kids LIKE IT . . . right? It is also a very high energy song that just WORKS at getting kids involved. Listen/Buy Here

Sing Sing Sing Listen/Buy Here

From The Inside Out Listen/Buy Here

Hosanna Listen/Buy Here

Hanging with Heather at Woodale

2009-10-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

Heather Flies is one of the most solid jr high pastors I know. I was reminded again about how stoked I am that she is on our Spring Messiah Tour when I was visiting her Church last Wednesday night. See the 5 things Heather said below at our adult leader meeting that were rock solid!

One of the things i do is visit all of our speakers (ALL OF THEM are full time youth workers) with their own kids. Tonight is special because both Darin Streblow and Eric Samuel Timm (Believe special artists) are also hanging out! I am so used to being our context where I serve at Christ Church that it was healthy for me to be in a new fresh environment and see youth ministry models from the outside. I get to do that about once every two months or so traveling with Believe and it's always so telling. Anyway,I had a great time hanging with past Believe tour comedian Daren Streblow and my dear friend Eric Samuel Timm. Lots of laughs. Check out Heather's adult meeting notes, are you doing this stuff?

If you are missing the opportunity to circle up with your volunteer leaders before kids arrive then you are missing out! It was obvious to me that Heather's team was quite used to this ritual and Heather's comments were so great I had to share them here. None of Heather's quick reminders were rocket science or even new ideas but how many of us forget these things and need to be reminded consistently? When was the last time you reminded your adult leaders these things? Check out Heather's quick list:

Pray for kids when you are not here. Heather had note cards from the week before where kids had the opportunity to write two things for someone else that they prayed for and one thing for themselves. Right there and then we broke off into groups of three and prayed over the cards messages. If you don't do it when you circle up with leaders then what makes us think they are ever going to do it on their own throughout the week? We have to model what is really important.

Don't fear kids! You are at least 15 years older than them. They don't bite. Engage them!

Sponsors: Don't talk to each other. We can do that anytime. We all agreed to be here tonight to invest in kids. Talk to kids!!

Look for new kids: When you find them, connect them. Heather mentioned the names of some kids who had agreed to serve by hanging with new kids. Don't saddle those leadership kids with new kids every week though. That is not healthy for them either.

Look for the kids who are alone but don't neglect the gregarious kids. They need attention too.

Remember that you may be the only positive adult interaction and healthy touch they get all week. Your investment matters!

Building of a Tour Day 3/ Week 1

2009-09-17T06:40:00.000-07:00

The Crown of Thorns Cantata (no, we’re not kidding)
I call this opening session sequence of video, live drama, music and theatrical props, “The Crown of Thorns Cantata”. Partly in jest, partly not. We have been struggling to come up with a term that communicates these little experiences in our sessions that are like rides at a theme park. It’s not just a video or a sketch. It’s a everything we have in our tool bag to communicate. I realize all the negative connotations that come to mind of painful Easter play moments but it’s time we reclaim the true beauty of the term. Cantata can freaking ROCK!! That really is what it has developed into.

Since October of last year the Believe team has had in the back of our minds the nagging question, how do we top the Brent moment from last year’s tour. I know all the Sunday school answers here about how it’s not our job to top it every year blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I get it. I tell myself those things all the time and at a certain level believe them too. But, we have 9 months to plan one event that people give a whole weekend to come to! It should freaking ROCK! We are sons and daughters of GOD- the greatest creative mind EVER! It should be awesome. Not to mention that this year we are telling kids about the Messiah.
Well, this has been an amazing week and I can’t wait to see kids experience this for the first time in Anaheim, CA! In a nut shell, this Cantata will be the crucifixion from God’s perspective. We’ll start with God drawing texts that confronts us on our misinterpretation of Jesus and then move to a dramatic presentation of Eric drawing a crown of thorns. This will culminate in God (Eric playing the role of God) turning his back on Jesus as Jesus is taking the upon the weight the world’s sins. We don’t stop with that. The music keeps going and we transition with scripture leading the way into a beautiful crowning ceremony. (Remember the Mosaic statue of Christ we have been creating throughout the weekend? It is revealed live here and kids see God applaud the work of His Son. God will invite all of us to acknowledge the full work of Jesus.) There are some secrets we want to hold onto for the live event; but here is what the session is going to look like and how the Cantata will set up everything perfectly.

The teaching moment:

As with many things related to God we don’t understand much. Jr high kids are no different to the 1st century Jew when it comes to placing expectations upon the Messiah. We can go through the general list of things that were expected for the Messiah to bring and see the parallel expectations that jr high kids and people of Christ’s day have. Jews under Roman occupation wanted justice. They wanted a political and physical redemption for themselves in their lifetime. Jr high kids find themselves needing this same kind of ‘saving’. Perhaps they are picked on, made fun of. They literally get what it means to need a physical Messiah to meet a present need. There is a sense of urgency that both the 1st century Jew and a Jr high student understands.
Likewise, we all have our personal boxes that we try to put The Messiah into. Eric will be painting these thoughts in text on a canvas with our point of reference coming from the canvas:
We want a Messiah that makes us popular, who gives us more video games, who makes us rich.
The Messiah is more than a cosmic cop, kill joy, vending machine, genie in a bottle, or a nice person
The Messiah I sent gives more than happiness, eternal life, forgiveness, justice, a church to belong to
The Messiah is my Son. He is the way, the truth the life YOU NEED. He is MORE.

This session happens on day two of Believe after lunch. Up to now we have had an incredible amount of energy on the screens with Eric acting as God. Eric will be communicating directly to the kids in a calm manner thus setting up the storm that is to come. We get a picture of God working through all types of means to bring a plan for reconciliation together. We don’t understand how God works. It’s mysterious. And as soon as you think you have it figured out you can bet you’re wrong.

God is essentially saying that the Messiah He gave us is SO MUCH MORE than anything we would have been able to construct. Our incomplete version of the Messiah is false because it doesn’t come close to describing the whole work of Christ. God is screaming through the life, death and resurrection of His son that His better is always better.

The crucifixion scene:

After Eric is finished painting text in this teaching moment the music will change drastically taking us into a new and more intense direction. Here the kids will see Eric portray God’s wrath, justice and righteous anger. Eric will put the tiny text brush down and force himself upon the painting ferociously painting with all his energy this messy crown of thorns. This could lend itself to being to abstract so we will constantly be firming up what kids are seeing on the screens with concrete explinations. Another differentiating jr high intentional quality of Believe is that our speakers don’t come into the program with a huge agenda to communicate apart from the already singular focus of the main session. I like Kurt Johnston’s statement about speaking at believe, “we really more of a tour guide pointing out and clarifying again for kids what they are experiencing during the weekend”

The Crowning:

The disciples thought that the Messiah had failed. They had to be questioning everything he had said to them. But when the world saw disaster God foresaw victory.
We saw a crown of thorns.
God was creating a crown of jewels for His son who redeemed everything that was previously destroyed in Genesis chapter 3 at the fall of man.
So in our sequence of events we just saw a depiction of the crucifixion from God’s point of view but the story isn’t over. For a time we are going to shift our attention from the screens to the island stage in the room. While the screens have shown Eric painting a crown of thorns, he has been painting live also the entire time what we thought was a version of the same thing. In fact, Eric has been painting the foundation for what will be a different type of crown. The music will morph into more triumphant themes as Eric really starts to show that the live crown is NOT one of thorns. As he starts to get into revealing a jeweled crown the screens will start to direct our thoughts to a scriptural picture of Christ’s completed work. The music, Eric’s theatrical choreographed painting and the scripture on screens will all pulse. This resounding chorus will culminate in Eric crowning the mosaic Christ. Just to give you a glimpse into the whole effect, the canvas that Eric is working on is a round canvas that he maneuvers around vigorously creating a literal crown. As all the elements rise in intensity the crown Eric has painted live will start to rise off the stage with all the other mosaic pieces falling into place under the crown. This will lead into an anthemic worship set where we celebrate the Messiah. OFF THE HOOK!

Building of a Tour 'Behind the stage' Day 1/ Week 1

2009-09-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

CIY productions will be filming this week with special artist Eric Samuel Timm in anticipation for the 2010 spring 'Messiah' Tour. Last year on tour, Eric played the part of God reaching out to a young Jeremiah played by Brent the stunt guy. Eric is back and we are excited to tell you all about what's coming this year! Check in all week on Twitter and Believe staff Blogs for behind the making of a tour week #1.

With a theme like "Messiah", you have to be very careful. It's one thing to have a character embody Jeremiah on stage in a fable narrative. You have to be much more careful when dealing with the person of Jesus. It can quickly become hokey or downright heretical. With that in mind we wish to show the determination, creativity and resolution that God has as he sets His plan in motion to reconcile man to Himself through the work of Christ.

One protective filter we have given ourselves as we tell 'the greatest story ever told' is to use LOTS of Scripture to define the pictures we are applying to theological concepts. In fact, every video will start with a foundational premise from scripture. This will also help simplify every main session for kids to track with.

To personify the Messiah we will be building a mosaic statue depicting physical elements of Christ's body while attaching characteristics of Christ to those attributes (hands, eyes, heart, crown first of thorns and then a King's crown) By starting in the concrete thinking realm and moving abstract we will gently guide kids to process what kind of a Messiah Jesus is. Another point of clarification will be to intentionally use scripture to define what kids are seeing Eric do with paint -both live on stage and pre-recorded for the video screens. The learning atmosphere we are creating this year for your students blends youth subcultures of skateboarding, Japanese Manga art with a far east (orient) theme. No, there will be geisha dancing :) Actually, Eric might. Don't encourage him.

So the mosaic picture of Christ we build on in every session, and unveil in session 5, will be communicated in a manga form. Don't be surprised when you don't get the classic long haired North American Jesus, Thomas Kincaid didn't consult. Although Eric has been consulting and performing on the Believe Tour for 4 years we have never used all our resources at CIY in preproduction with his art form. So this year we're going to kick it up. Every session that Eric paints live, a video will play that perfectly compliments, in sync, the live performance.

Building of a Tour Messiah Mosaic “Jesus sees more” The Messiah Sees more sequence will happen during main session #4. We will be looking at John 4 where Jesus encounters the woman at the well. Our angle of emphasis will be the Messiah's ability to see so much more than we are able to. Just as Jesus sees the Woman's whole life we want to tell Jr high kids that the Messiah sees everything about them too. In every session our concentration will be on how the true Messiah is more in all measurable ways. The main point of Main Session #4 is that the Messiah sees more. Eric will help modernize this idea for Jr high kids. This Messiah we speak of isn't trapped in an ancient world. He is alive today moving about us. His Kingdom is all around you even when we don't see it. The Messiah is asking us to be a part of this unending Kingdom.

The piece of the mosaic sculpture for this session are the eyes of Christ. The video literally starts with God carrying the weight of a huge canvass to the roof of a high rise industrial building. God stretches the material out and labors over a painting that will eventually be revealed from the perspective of a helicopter flying over a large urban city. The Messiah is not an old story only. True, its historical but this History lesson has game changing implications here and now. It is relevant in our current world. He sees more than you could imagine. Sitting on that well 2000 years ago, God saw the heart and deeds of a woman. He also saw airplanes, Internet, iPhones and Jr high kids today.

This spring on tour Eric will have a few more tricks up his sleeve AND tucked in the video. It WILL keep kids on the edge of their seats. Its not hard to do because its God's word delivered with the respect and creativity it deserves. See pics and timeline of the video shoot!

Great new Small Group resource for Jr high Students!

2009-08-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

8/18/09
Brooklyn Lindsey has written an awesome new resource with Zondervan and Youth Specialties called Opposite Day that you have to check out! We might all poke fun at the old ‘Would you rather’ books today (why does familiarity breed contempt?) but the fact is that those resources worked GREAT to get kids talking AND STILL DO! That is why we all know what comes after, “Would you rather kick a puppy or . . . (if you don’t know what comes next then the answer is below). Of course everyone who has ever worked with Jr high boys knows that 8th grade boys will answer “Both!”. Brooklyn's new book is like a new and clever second generation Would you rather that will get your kids, and leaders, talking. Get it and check out Brooklyn’s other resource, “Confessions of not so supermodel”.

I met Brooklyn a few years ago at a Jr high youth worker meeting and was blown away at how many ideas she had. I was impressed not only with her Rolodex-Idea brain that didn’t stop but also her deep passion for kids, Jesus and injustice. I was so pumped to open up a copy in my mailbox of Opposite Day. When Brooklyn described her new project to a small group of jr high pastors at dinner we all had a great time batting the idea around. During our 4 day meeting the term opposite day became it’s own punch line several times. I knew then that this project had legs.

Believe invited Lindsay to come and check out our Florida event last spring. I knew that she would be a valuable source of ideas and would ultimately push us on some aspect of what we do. We had a great time and look forward to have her speak more into our intionality with jr high programing. Lindsay will be featured in our 2010 Messiah Tour publicity mailing next month in a powerful quote endorsing the Believe Tour. Here is what she had to say about Believe:

What impressed me most about the junior high believe tour was it's ability to do exactly what they claim to do, lead Jr. highers in worship and discipleship that makes sense to them. They keep things insanely creative, surprising, passionate, relevant, and totally Jr. high. I love that many of the worship leaders are junior high students themselves. They rocked. It's one of those affordable and accessible events that's a "must do". Clear away the clutter on your ministry calendar and make room for junior high believe, you won't be disappointed!

Opposite Day is another resource Believe will be carrying on the Messiah Tour as we ramp up our jr high intentional resources available online and at CIY events!

Answer: . . . .or make a child cry.”

A look at the Best from the Speak Tour

2009-08-13T07:33:00.000-07:00

Today I am cranking out content for the new Believe Web site. Publicity will hopefully go to print later today and when it hits youth pastor's desks in the next few weeks we will have all the new Messiah Tour content up on the web. Here are some looks at last year's event.

NEW Middle School Ministry Book

2009-08-12T11:16:00.000-07:00

There is a great new resource for those of us who live Jr High Ministry called Middle School Ministry: a comprehensive guide to working with early adolescents.

I received a pre-release copy a few months ago and was asked to write a quote endorsing the book. At Believe, our hopes were high for the book from knowing both authors for their time speaking on the Believe Tour in recent years. Mark Oestreicher and Scott Rubin (Speaking at our Atlanta and Michigan Events) have made a significant contribution to raising the skill level and insight you ht workers may have with this work. Believe will be carrying and promoting this new tool on our spring 2010 Messiah Tour. I hope you don't wait until then to pick a copy up for yourself and all your fellow Jr high teammates!

New publicity leaked

2009-08-04T10:21:00.001-07:00

The word isn't out yet but here is a sneak peak at our new ad coming out in Youth Worker's Journal and in Interlic's fall YLO issue.

It has been difult for us to find a price based incentive for new youth ministries to check Believe out that doesn't seem to penalize all of our great ministry partners. We got it figured out and it's going to rock. The deal is that Believe is going to be only 25.00 for every new registration! Click here to read the details of the special price promotion.

We realize that the current economy is having an impact on the programming decisions that youth pastors make. We didn't know what to expect last year for attendance as the country began to feel the financial crises during the middle of our tour. What happend is we experienced the largest attended Believe tour in our 11 year history. And what a great tour of ministry it was as we looked at lesson's for jr high students from the life of Jeremiah.

We have experienced steady growth as leaders across the country talk to each other and recommend Believe. In part, some of our growth was due to ministries trying a new spring event instead of planning thier own. At the end of the day it takes lots of time and investment to put an event together for your students on your own along with everything else leaders do on a weekly basis.

The exciting thing is that our awesome administrative staff at CIY has not cut corners on the event to make the 25.00 registration happen. In fact, our plans for the Messiah tour are the most ambitious I have ever been apart of. We are quite excited and look forward to seeing many more students as we amplify Christ's call to be Kingdom Workers in 2010!

Believe Welcomes Hetti-Marie

2009-08-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

I got the Believe Director job from my first real contact with CIY as a subcontracted worship leader. I've been leading jr high students groups specifically in worship for ten years now and if there is one thing I am very picky about at Believe it is most definately the worship aspect.

Many kids come to Believe and have thier perspective of what it means to sing corporately in the faith community challenged. Over the past few years Worship at Believe has evolved into what I would call a much more healthy model. In the early years I mimicked what I saw modeled. There was a single guy leader with an acoustic guitar standing out front leading every song. We didn't have the Hillsong model of community led worship until these last few years. Thank God for what they are doing and how it is chaning our views of what the gathering of Christians calling upon the Lord can look like.

With my involvment as an MC at times during the weekend event it has been great to have other worship leaders co lead our song times at Believe over the past few years like: Yancy, Robert Pierre, Jordan Howerton and most recently Issac Schade.

This year we are proud to welcome to the Believe Stage Hetti-Marie. Hetti is a childrens pastor at Strong Tower in Nashville, TN. She has a amazingly talented voice with a countenance on stage that will point kids towards Jesus. I can't wait to watch her make her mark on the feel and flow of next year's Messiah Tour. It really is going to be awesome. Visit Hetti-Marie on Myspace or her Website!

the building of a tour

2009-07-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

I have been in crazy brainstorm meetings for months now. Most of that has to do with video on the tour. For about 4 months I have had the general direction for the theme content. It has been a strugle however. I've not felt like we were coming close to telling the Messiah story even close to how interesting, compelling and exciting as it deserves. Much of our verbage seems trite to me. The meaning doesn't. Jesus is real and amazing. When I start to tell of the Messiah I feel myself going back to old metephors and analogies that even I am bored with.

Below is the roadmap for the theme as it currently sits. Jayson French, director of ciy events, and a great programer himself, made the comments in italics. Let me know what you are thinking. The tough thing to do in a quick weekend is trying to walk the line of giving enough information for kids to make educated decisions about thier believe system and mobilizing them at the same time! These things need to be happening concurrently with each single take home haveing a mobilizing vantage as well that all point in one single mobilizing point for the weekend. see what we have so far and comment! please!

Theme Content

It’s been called the greatest story ever told. It’s origins flow from the beginning of time. Elders traditionally spoke of one who was to come. When the prophecy was finally fulfilled many didn’t understand or believe until he was gone.
He is more- Main Session Take Home
Text The birth of the Messiah
They expected him to change everything. He did; but not their way or in their time. He came for more than one Kingdom of people who existed at one time. He came to establish an eternal Kingdom.

Somehow you’ve got to find a relevant way to show that they wanted a political Messiah. This won’t translate to a Jr. High kid at first…so you have to draw a comparison. I think your tie in can be that sometimes we want a certain kind of Messiah...one that fixes our parents marriage…one that heals our grandparents…one that makes us better athletes, etc. I can see a tie in that we look for a Messiah that we want…just like the early Christians…but we need to know that He is so much more. Make a turn that we should be thankful that He is more…because what we would ask for isn’t nearly enough. He doesn’t just fix marriages…he fixes the biggest problem of all…our separation. I could see this turning into a strong evangelistic appeal. What amazing news!
I wonder what a Jr. High Messiah would look like? What would they choose to be saved from? How do you exegete their culture and know what they want so bad? Popularity…acceptance…ability?

He Sees more- Main Session ‘Take Home’
John 4 The story of the woman at the well
When he met people he saw deep into their lives, the things they did and the people they were. He called every person he touched, to work in His Kingdom. Even though he can see the mistakes of our past, he invites us to join and work in His Kingdom.

I’m feeling that Jr. High is the time to start dealing with some more specific issues. I wonder if you can carefully deal with the sin. I’m watching Justin roll into Jr. High and hearing about some of the stuff going on…and it’s time to call them to stop sinning now. If not..it gets too far out of control by High School. You’ve still got a chance to get them to stop. He sees more than their sin and mistakes…and He still forgives and chooses them. How can you help them process that? I think it would help make the transition between sessions.

He wants more. Or Gives More – Main Session ‘Take Home
In defeating death he proves His promise is true. The Messiah’s Kingdom will never end. He was more than anyone ever expected. He still sees everything. What he wants to be in charge of your every part of your life. He wants jr high students to be workers in His Kingdom.
Okay…so true…but make it sound like the privilege of partnership. I agree with your point…but make it sound like they GET to have Him in charge…and they GET to be a part of something bigger than them. Granted…you can’t shy away from Lordship…but even submission can bring adventure. What about HE GIVES MORE…and talk about how he has given each one of them a Spirit with boldness. He has given them a purpose…etc.
SO…maybe…He IS more…a better Messiah than you could ever think of. You are underestimating what you get when You let Him be the Messiah He came to be…
…and because He IS more…He SEES more…He sees your sin…and won’t hold it against you. He provided a way… and the good news is that it doesn’t disqualify you from His love or His Service. He sees more than your awkward moments…more than your mistakes…more than your problems. He SEES you…and HE made you…and HE saves you…and HE cares about you…because He SEES you. He hasn’t forgotten you…
…and because He SEES more.
He GIVES more…He has a plan for you…that’s why He saves you…because your life being make right gives Him Glory. He wants more than you attendance at church, or your singing a few songs…He wants to give you the Holy Spirit who will help you on an amazing adventure that starts now.

The Moment

2009-07-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

For me, the entire theme of Believe can usually be summed up in one picture from the event. These are always my favorite moments. No matter how many times I see it I am always touched in a new way. After programing faith based events for over 10 years I have never been involved with a moment so powerful every single time it happened. I have explained the whole story dramatically to people before and if any moment in time was one of those, 'you just had to be there' type of things- then this was definitely it!!! I've never been more excited or proud to be apart of such an awesome picture of God's love, and grace. This one moment will never leave the minds of those who experienced it together. 40 years from now I am confident that students will still have image on their hearts of Eric holding Brent the stunt Guy. Hopefully they will live in such a way that 'the moment' will describe the feel of their walk with Christ. Brent, Eric, Believe Staff . . . thanks for the great Speak Tour!

For me,

Brent the Stunt Guy X-Ray and Injury update!

2009-07-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

Every time Brent does a stunt I can barely watch. It's a dangerous job for sure. Just to keep you all in the loop I wanted to post an xray and email from Brent's wife from this past week. Make sure you read the part about how Brent kept going through his routine and finished his talk before going to the hospital. Our prayers are with them for a quick recovery.

Letter From Amanda:
7/1/09

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:4-7

This is the quote from Paul that Brent read to me when he woke up Monday morning. The events from the day before were still heavily on our minds. Sunday morning we were at First Baptist Church in Vincennes, Indiana. Brent was performing in both services to get the congregation excited about the youth outreach that was happening that night. Brent was almost finished with his second performance when he fell from his ladder. The impact from the fall broke his arm, yet he proceeded to share with the church the reason why he performs. When he was finished we made our way out and went to the ER. After some xrays, they called an orthopaedic surgeon in, and he recommended surgery.

After much debate, we decided to return home for medical care. There's an orthopaedic surgeon that goes to our church, and we were able to get an appointment with him yesterday afternoon. Again surgery was recommended. So Brent is scheduled for outpatient surgery Saturday, July 4th, at 7:30 a.m. central time. They are just going to insert a nail (or rod) down the middle of his bone to bring everything into alignment. He will only be in a sling for a few weeks and then he can start regaining movement. After about three months he can start training again. Many of you may be wondering, "Do they have insurance?" Yes, we do!

We would much appreciate your prayers for the surgery Saturday and the upcoming rehab. We have already started cancelling shows that we had booked, and everyone has been very gracious to us. We are continuing to keep our eyes and hearts focused on God's agenda and not ours. Thank you all so much for the wonderful support that you provide for us in prayer.

The xray was too cool not to share so I have it attached.

7/6/09

Thank you all so much for all the prayers this week and this morning. Brent went into the surgery holding area right around 7 a.m. He was given a nerve block in his neck to really help numb the shoulder area. They say it's a pretty painful area for surgery. (I'm thinking any area is a painful place for surgery!) Then around 7:45 he was off to the OR. The doctor came out to the waiting area around 9:30 and said that everything went great. He showed us the pictures of the nail and screws in his arm. As soon as we get them on a disc, I'll be sure to share those, too! Around 10:45 Brent was on his way back to his room. He took a nap and then got to eat a little bit. After that he was pretty alert. The first thing he wanted to do was to check the status on the Tour de France! So we put the laptop right in front of him, because he couldn't put his contacts in just yet.

We should be able to go home tomorrow afternoon. Brent is really strong and healthy and he's doing really good today. He's starting to move his fingers, so the nerve block will be wearing off within the next few hours. Once that wears off, he'll be taking more medication. Just pray that the meds take care of the pain. Can't thank you enough for all the prayers. We both have peace and know that Brent is in good hands.

Amanda Longenecker

Believe 2010 Messiah Tour Dates

2009-05-12T12:53:00.001-07:00

It has been a long time since Believe was a Spring only loaded tour. i have been apart of nine tours and this will be my first ever all spring schedule. This past year's Speak Tour about Jeremiah was completely awesome and I'm looking forward to the next year. Here are the official dates set to be on the CIY Web site and our publicity in the weeks ahead. If you came here, you got'em first!

Spring 2010

January 29-30 - Anaheim, CA

February 5-6 - Tulsa, OK

February 12-13 - Cincinnati, OH

February 19-20 - Chicago, IL

February 26-27

March 5-6 - St Louis, MO

March 12-13 - Kissimmee, FL

March 19-20 - Arlington, TX

March 26-27

April 2-3 - EASTER

April 9-10 - Atlanta, GA

April 16-17/17-18 - Anderson, IN

April 23-24 - Holland, MI

April 30 - May1 - Portland, OR

Trends in Youth Ministry Tools

2009-02-16T14:44:00.000-08:00

I had a great opportunity to hang out in San Antonio Texas last week with a bunch of youth pastors. It was a refreshing week with lots of hanging out and late night coffee sessions. For those of you who were involved with the discussion on trends in youth ministry and youth pop culture below are the notes I promised to post. I also put the link to Student Ministry Connect. This is a relatively new social network just for those of us involved in student ministry! I know that the last thing we all need is another web site to manage BUT this one is actually worth the time and has a great feel. Log on and sign up. You will see Yancy and other pre-teen/ jr high banner wavers!

It can be difficult, even when you hang out with students in your ministry every week, and we have all made that mistake where we incorrectly reference something in pop culture and kids look at us like we have suddenly become completely out of touch. At the end of the day, I'm in the camp that says loving students is more important that knowing every nuance of a student's subculture . . . but it doesn't hurt to do some quick homework. Paul modeled this for us in his travels. Here are some links and tools that could help you with just a few minutes a week.

trendwatching.com
cypu.org
mryouth.com
repnation.com
simplyyouthministry.com
Student Ministry Connect

tools for texting students:
constantcontact.com
eztext.com

Believe Team Van Wreck

2009-01-29T06:45:00.000-08:00

It has been a crazy start to the Believe spring tour Travel . . .

In 40 years of Christ in Youth travel history we have never had a staff vehicle wreck. We were blessed yesterday to have no injuries as one of our 15 passenger vans rolled 50 miles west of Joplin Missouri. I was scheduled to fly out on Friday morning and meet the team in Anaheim for our second Believe stop this spring on the Speak Tour. I quickly met up with our team and am on the road with them now in somewhere west of Amarillo, TX.

Last weekend our speaker, and my good buddy, Jason Raitz’ house burnt to the ground the day before our Flagstaff AZ event. No one was injured severely in that situation either. Jason’s family was at the Church and his little brother, who was at the house at the time of the fire, was treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation. Jason tells the whole story and how the church has come around them during this storm in his blog.

Next week the Believe Team travels to Tulsa, OK and I’m somewhat anxious and nervously looking forward to a quiet normal Believe weekend.

On other fronts, may people have been emailing in asking about Foundation Red set lists for the current Believe Tour. Here is a link to a published set list for the Speak Tour.

2008 - 2009 Jr High Believe Speak Tour

Also, others have been asking about next year’s theme, Messiah Tour 2009 2010. The following is a published version of our artist and speaker theme working document. It will be morphing over the next few months as we continue to pray, evaluate and listen to comments from this spring tour.

Believe 2009 – 2010 Messiah Theme Document

Scott Family Christmas Pictures

2008-12-04T18:48:00.000-08:00

build a fire, dance around it, speak into the life of kids, reapeat

2008-07-15T07:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a phone interview for an article to appear in a Christian magazine. One of the questions that the writer submitted prior to the interview was, “why do tweens and jr high students need their own music when they can just listen to the music now that they will eventually listen to when they are teenagers?” I intended to steer the interview as much as possible to the underlying theme of what is wrong with our current systems and practices for walking beside the youth in our churches as they grow up. We have traded many traditions in our faith for rearing children for a ‘just get through it’ mentality. In so doing, the real damage done is a failure to equip students with a faith that holds together during life’s crisis moments. (AKA Jr High)

I feel like the greatest lesson for transition into tween ministry within the church came from the Disney Movie "Brother Bear". I know, forget about all the stupid new age overtones and see how the community walked their young through a process of maturing into adult hood. The key to me was how they were all involved. Remember the party around the camp fire when the whole community presented the young Indians with their tokens. How awesome would it be if we were constantly be sitting our students down and affirming the gifts that we see in them. We need to let them know that those gifts are needed in the Body. (NOW and when they graduate)

I firmly feel there is great significance in the concrete right of passage they had set up on the movie. You were allowed to put your hand on the wall and join the larger adult community (or in our case, join this more mature age group of tween ministry in the church) when the whole community gathered around you and acknowledge your growth. They made it a BIG STINKING deal.

Rights of passage are a strong force in so many cultures around the world. Have we neglected the purpose and shaping power in these corporate faith traditions in protestant America?

Furthermore, we all know that the most important things happen in Big Church and the Sr. Pastor says it . . . perhaps this would be the best place to start. HEY! ALL you SR. Pastors out there reading this discussion (that you find fascinating) on transitions in student ministry: Make this important. Let's build a fire, dance in big church and hand out wooden tokens to our kids.

Rent the freaking movie! It's awesome.

Evan at Willow . . . classic

2008-07-08T09:03:00.000-07:00

The Believe Staff and I recently visited Scott Rubin and Jason Raitz at their Willow Creek Jr High Sunday Morning services. (we like to see the people who speak on our tour with their own students) Evan (the keytar player from Believe) was with us and we took this photo of him in the sanctuary. It's a funny picture when you think about the quintessential jr high awkward stage of life.

We just posted Evan's promotional ">rap for the Believe speak tour. I am excited to see the new version posted (hopefully today) with the director's comments included. (t was done in honor of the old VH1 pop up video. I'll post a link when it is up. For now, check out the funny regular version.

Believe 2008 - 2009 Line up

2008-06-25T11:08:00.000-07:00

I have been working hard with the Believe staff on next year's Jr High Believe tour. Our first event is in Baltimore! I was just there last week doing some promotional lunches. It's going to be awesome. Our theme this year is speak. We will be looking at the life of Jeremiah and we have a great cast of speakers and artists to help us do that: Speakers; Scott Rubin, Steve Carter,Nathan Head, Kurt Johnston, Jason Raitz, Artists; Eric Timm, Jared Hall, Brent the stunt guy, The Rubyz and Dust Graphic Novels.

As you can see our look has gone comic book crazy. We have partnered with Dust graphic novels so get ready to see Believe comic book style. Check out our artist line up as super heroes (they are in real life anyway since they work with jr high students!)

introducing Evan

2008-01-28T08:57:00.000-08:00

For those folks who attended last year’s Believe Tour you will remember the 14 year old boy Robert Peirre who joined us. It worked out great having an actual jr high student with us on tour in many ways. I was forced to think about every component of the event through Robert’s eyes. I can remember many conversations back stage about various elements of the program and how I changed them after talking with Robert.

Well this year we are fortunate to continue the tradition of having a jr high student actually with us! It also serves as a reminder to all of us who work with jr high students regularly how different every student really is. Let me introduce you to Evan. Evan will be playing the keytar on stage all weekend. Be ready for the killer Chicken Dance song on Saturday afternoon. If you are joining us at Believe this spring be sure to have your students all log onto www.savethekeytar.com to learn the moves to, soon to be world famous, ‘Mas Tortillas’. Mas Tortillas will be featured at Believe during break times.

Just to give you a glimpse into the nutty mind of Evan check out this cartoon that him and his Dad recently worked on. We can’t wait to see you and your students this spring!

the new toy on the Believe Tour

2008-01-24T13:49:00.000-08:00

So we have a stunt guy on this year's Believe tour and he did so well not hurting himself this fall we thought we would award him with a new crash mat. The mat came in yesterday and the staff couldn't help but try it out. Brent, I hope you put it to good use, we had fun with it as you can tell!

Time to start all over again

2008-01-11T07:51:00.000-08:00

I am working on next year’s jr high Believe event theme. The way that I usually enter our artist planning meeting is with an overarching theme and the take home message for all 5 sessions already laid out. We then spend our time talking about the best way to make that session come alive. What I need to start hammering out is that road map of the overarching theme and the 5 take home statements. For instance, as our artist group met for this year’s tour I had only this ready to go: The theme is CONNECT. God wants to connect with you so listen, speak and look. That was divided up into 5 sessions. I also knew our Bible content would be the life of Moses.

God has used two things in my heart over the past 3 months as I have labored over next year’s theme idea. The first was a sermon at youth specialties by Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil. She gave an awesome talk using The Lion King as an extended metaphor for reclaiming our identities as the people of God and our role, as student workers in pointing students back to their true calling. This session really resonated with much of what I felt our students were dealing with at Christ's Church and started me down this path.

The second is a quote in a book by Chip Wood called Yardsticks: Children in the classroom Ages 4 – 14 A resource for Parents and Teachers:

"Twelve’s greatest need is to be with their friends. Teachers and parents take a back seat on the long ride toward the driver’s license. The primary developmental struggle is the confusing struggle for identity: the child/not child begins the search for fidelity in relationships. This is an all consuming quest beginning at twelve. Minutes turn to hours on the telephone and in front of the mirror. Twelve’s define themselves by jackets, hairstyles, shoes, CD’s, tapes, movies, videos, TV preferences, sports teams, the mall, the dance rage, what older kids are doing. School becomes the place to be, but not always for our intended purposes."

Jeremiah 1:4 -10. would be a big starting point of inspiration for the tour. I just don’t have it fleshed out as of yet. I do see us using this text in programming. Students think that they are whatevers or random particles without specific direction. The Bible Character we would look at for the weekend is currently Jacob unless something else just knocks us off of our rocker.

It is an exciting process but I always feel so much better when I get the language down for the theme and main session take home messages.

let me know your thoughts!

A look at Arlington Believe

2007-09-30T15:43:00.000-07:00

The Believe in Arlington, TX was great! Jason Raitz was our speaker, Eric Timm is painting on the tour, Yancy is a special artist! It was the most solid start we have every had at Believe. I can't wait for Gatlinburg next weekend.

2007-09-05T09:04:00.000-07:00

Jaded is the term that describes some people's encounter with the still growing worship resourcing industry. I think this group of people look much more like Brett McCracken, who's blog I have linked to here, than the masses they point to.

I saw Chris Tomlin last weekend. As I looked at the crowd I laughed at the fact the closing, 'Headlining' band for this festival was a worship leader. All day long bands were on stage; but for that evening, the biggest deal all day, was a worship band. Is this bad? Doesn't this simply mean that our church values corporately connecting through the art of music with God? I don't want to make this about Chris Tomlin. I don't personally know Chris and I could care less about your interaction one time back stage with so and so and all the crap they did to you that destroyed your faith. Quit being a freaking baby!

I digress.

At this concert event there were words on the screen. Students were more interactive during this segment than any other band I saw all day. It was God focused. We were all quoting lots of scripture together. These were the only songs all day long that my 4 year old son knew . . . it's not because I am a worship leader either, I listen to country music at home. I'm using this as an example because while I watched the cultural experience I was aware of the unity we were all sharing. As youth groups from different churches and even in my own family.

I agree with much of what Brett McCracken has said in his blog. I am just sensing a flinch in my stomach in the form of a push back because this seems a bit to close to a crack on the church. It is the church that is purchasing and perpetuating the movement in the worship industry. Perhaps the church copies the wrong things in an effort to re create some experience. Some of these leaders may have motives that are wrong. Perhaps, just perhaps, is there more good here than bad?

Before we all heave a ton of bricks on the those dirty marketers who ruined true grass roots worship . . . wait. I think about the 4 couples in our small group. I think about how Sunday morning touches them. Walking away I could discuss in detail the transitions and nuances in the production. Our small group friends really don't care!

With that small push back, Brett McCracken says some great things including a long list of artists who are kicking it! Ha! Here's a great list from Brett's blog:

Here are just some of the reasons why I’ve become so jaded with what modern evangelicals have come to call worship music:

* It’s 90% crappy, knock-off Keane or secondhand U2 (i.e. it is usually very predictable and unoriginal)
* It’s an industry. How bizarre and kind of disgusting that branding your music as “worship” and selling it as an “experience” earns the most money in CCM.
* It’s a very fickle, trendy industry. Every month there’s a new “it” song that eventually filters down to every evangelical church across the world… only to be replaced by a new “it” song a month later. No more standards, no more canons.
* It turns its nose up at good writing. Most worship music wallows in bad water imagery, fire metaphor, or pseudo-sexual verbiage (“Jesus your love is ravishing, intoxicating, orgasmic, etc).
* It’s more about creating an emotional response than eliciting a profound spiritual reflection. The measure of a good worship leader is often how many in the audience stand up or raise their hands out of their own volition.
* It’s much too happy and self-satisfied. “Make a joyful noise” does not mean “don’t worry, be happy.” Some of the most beautiful (and yes, joyful) hymns have come from places of sorrow and brokenness (e.g. “It is Well With My Soul”)
* It’s much too focused on the words. Can’t the music be worshipful on its own? Could not an all-instrumental song be just as worshipful as one with lyrics?

how long has the worship conversation been going on?

2007-08-22T11:22:00.001-07:00

I feel the next major conversation about worship will be dealing with how performance driven worship bands are. There are a few tipping points that will push this conversation into our churches. Many churches are still deeply entrenched in the conversation about cultural relevancy (contemporary vs. blended vs. traditional). The new trend discussion but will performance driven worship vs. (and I am reporting here) "a more worshipful experience".

Some of the underlying elements at play in the old conversation have been: the songs chosen for corporate worship (hymns vs. choruses), if songs contain enough scripture, if drums are used in the presentation and on the list can go. We are all rather familiar with this old discussion. Digging deeper we find intertwined is the personality and countenance of the main leader in the corporate setting. Specifically, was this person showy or not. Are they perceived as authentic in their desire to point people towards encountering Christ during the service. The success of a church changing their worship culture largely leans upon the perceived motives of this main one leader. The tradition in many of our churches of one main leader has many roots of it's own. Challenging that model is difficult. It takes more work to have multiple leaders exemplifying community on stage. Some serious further consideration concerning it's long term ramifications on the culture of a church should be done. There are plenty of healthy examples. One will find there are still strong leaders involved. They are just leaders with a broader stewardship view of art in the church than the Matchbox 20 looking band leading worship.

Our churches have purchased electric instruments (yes I'm smiling), acquired artists and technical directors as student ministries have followed suit. Yes the pervasive influence of main stream pop culture infiltrated our church when CCM decided to make a subculture with sub par art! I would challenge church leaders to attribute those things to God which he deserves. Some of our advancement in the arts has not come from main stream pop culture but in fact from the gifting of the Holy Spirit to individuals in the body. This has happened in concert with all of nature echoing we are truly being made in the image of our creator as creators.

It is difficult to make general statements about the church or the overall state of the Church in America. Let's try anyway. There seems to be a surge in worship feeling more concert like and presentation focused in the coming years. I can foresee a large group of people who are still ministered to by this and fully participating in the corporate service with even less inhibitions. I do not personally advocate this direction which will cause division in our body.

On the other hand I see a large push back from those who feel it is unauthentic and does not bring glory to God. My gut tells me that much of this worship war aligning will come from music preference more so than methodological opinions. This group of people will agree that our gifts should be used in the body to celebrate Christ. The point of tension will be centered around just how produced will we allow our services to become. The main question this group will pose is, "where will it lead?". Will services previously designed to encounter God become so entertaining that we lose our purpose of eklesia?

One major happening confusing this whole new conversation will be the state of Christian music today. I don't necessarily think this stems from something bad; but 5 of todays top 10 Christian songs are by worship band/leaders. (See Billboard top 10 here)
These bands rose in popularity because they were touching the pulse of Christian interests through the rise of worship experiences over the past 10 years. There is a large group of people pointing to the marketed and secularization of worship music.

These conversations are VERY OLD! Check out this link to see the riff Niceta, Bishop of Remesiana, settles on weather or not Psalms should be sung out loud in church or not. He then goes on to describe proper artistic nuances for appropriate corporate singing. It is almost like he's introducing us to this new wave of worship conversations we'll all soon find ourselves in.

a ray of hope . . . kind of . . .

2007-08-21T15:26:00.000-07:00

I was excited to see the results of a recent study Dr. Gary Zustiac shared with me on what makes jr high students happy. Time with parents. That is the great part. The other side of that is just because this makes them happy, or so they related to this study, doesn't necessarily mean they are receiving quality time with parents.

There seems to be plenty of evidence out there right now about the demise of the nuclear family along with it's impact on students. It is refreshing to see a study show signs of influence from parents. The question still is just because many parents hold this influence are they exerting it. The more pertinent question for those of us ministering to Jr. High students is what is the best forum to encourage, inform and persuade parents to exercise this authority.

The link has some other interesting findings from the Jr High world view as well.

and still more on the worship discussion

2007-08-20T07:39:00.000-07:00

After all the thoughts we have shared I saved some of mine for now. These comments all also resonate with much of the evaluations I read over last year from student leaders on the Believe tour.

Johnny says . . .

• I would also rather cut three slow songs to talk about one so students can connect with it in a more meaningful way. I think it is okay to plant seeds with songs in student’s minds to ‘marinate’ as Brandon said; but it needs to start from something concrete and also have an immediate win. For instance, I don’t think students understand the shortness of life and the depth of it’s “valley of the shadow of death” scripture reference in Matt Redman’s “You Never Let Go”. Nor do I think they can grasp the concept of death being sweet when we sing of an “end to these troubles” as I do at 31 years old . . .er young. I do however see that they know pain in their life and it is just as real to them as it is me. They do seek a father who will never let go of them. That is an immediate win they understand that is grounded in the scripture that will grow with them on their faith Journey.

• Marko’s comments are the same things he was challenging me with during last year’s tour at times. It was good. I think we become familiar with songs and our students so much that we fail to invite (not guilt!!!) them to participate in worship (physically and contemplatively). The phrase ‘suggest to students’ is key. Jr high students are at a place developmentally where they no longer are satisfied with going through the motions at church because the adults ask them to (churched and unchurched students). I think we should encourage this. Help them realize what they are struggling with without perhaps even knowing it. I’m finding students more engaged when they are told that this worship time is theirs to use to connect with God. Telling them that they DON’T HAVE to sing if they feel the need to just sit and listen for God. Or giving them the permission to go to the sides or back of the room to kneel are concrete ways that communicate we are only providing another way for them to worship God.

• Also, one practice I have recently adopted is to take the text of every song in a given evening of programming and put it in one word document without any of the chord chart information. I then read through that message. Many times we pick songs on the ebb and flow or ‘feel’ we are going for. When it comes time for a transition into a slower set we then really think about the words. This practice opened my eyes in a different way to our overarching message on any given night.

• This is a small thing that we do but I see big results. I put medium hand clapping songs up front in sets saving the songs that my students are likely to celebrate in active ways on in the three and four spot. People in general like to warm up to an experience. An invitation to jump around doesn’t seem as intrusive after I have warmed up my vocal cords, moved my hands, looked around the room, watched the band for a song, gave someone a high five during a meet and greet time and acclimated somewhat into this cooperate identity. If you blow your best participation songs up front because you just want to come out swinging you will have no steam when the students are up to your speed fasty! They haven’t been at Church all day waiting around. Along the same lines I see a direct correlation between high levels of activity/participation during songs of celebration and involvement in small group questions (or other program elements). The rational here being: if this is a safe place to jump around and let my cool guard down a little bit then it might also be a safe place to share feelings, and so on.

• To me the ‘hook’ in songs are the tipping point on weather or not we’ll do it after the filter of: “does it say what we need to say tonight in an age appropriate way”. I want to have kids walk out humming the unforgettable parts of songs or see an upbeat song become a rally point for a small group. There are so many people writing incredible songs that have scripture in them that I just won’t settle for a song I can’t remember the melody too. We should be melody snobs for our kids! For instance, “You Never Let Go” by Matt Redman is a song that seems to strike a deep (and many times painful) cord with many students the very first time when it is set up well. It has an incredible tag that my two year old loves, scripture, hope in light of past hurt but I think this is all delivered effectively because the ‘melodic hook’ is so strong. We are all talking about this because the Spirit works through music, I think that the Spirit, being an artist, is a melody snob too 

Some more songs:

• Steve Fee’s “We Shine” (you can lead the students in scream/chanting the chorus really cool on this one with your fist in the air . . . that never gets old)
• “Your Love Endures Forever” by Tree 63 . . . hmm might be By the tree. I always get those two tree bands mixed up. Easy Chords/playability for youth bands
• And yes, anything by United HillSongs, like “Take it All”

Jr High Believe’s 2007 – 2008 Connect Tour Set List:

Believe Connect Se...

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continued discussion on leading jr high worship

2007-08-17T07:14:00.000-07:00

In light of yesterday’s comments I asked Yancy Richmond, new to the Believe tour as a worship leader and artists to weigh in on our conversation. Yancy has been doing pre-teen and jr high worship leading for about 7 years. Until recently she has been on staff in Tulsa, OK at Church on the Move working in Oneighty with programming and bands. We are excited to share this new chapter with Yancy has she joins the CIY Believe Tour and the CIY Superstart Pre-teen Tour.

Yancy says,

Jr. high students change. One week you do a song it they love it. They're into it, everybody's having fun, clapping, singing.........next time you do the song, it's flat, they are bored. You scratch your head and think well 3 weeks ago you loved the song, what's the deal? There are songs that work for your group for a season. Let go. Don't keep forcing "Here I Am To Worship" week after week. It's a great song. It's even better just a couple times per year like pulling out home movies and having fun with the good ol' days. "How Great Is Our God" is headed there. Keep things fresh. Pay attention to your students and tweak your set-lists based upon them. I will tell you a couple songs that worked great with our students from day 1: Yes, You Have by Leeland, You Never Let Go by Mat Redman, You Are Good by Jeff Deyo, We Shine by Steve Fee.

Lead them. It's as simple as that. I've found that most local church worship leaders are singing songs but they aren't necessarily leading through their stage presence, action and example leading the group. So #1 it takes a strong personality, focus and drive. If you are leading worship you need to lead in countenance which speaks louder than words and sets tone/culture (part of the job title, in my opinion). How do you do that? It starts with a plan. Have a plan of where you are going to go, things you want to say etc.(In just the same way a speaker practices their points worship leaders should write and practice their transition. You NEVER here of this! The audience trusts you to take them on a worship journey. If you don't have a map-they're not going to get there.

From my experience of leading worship at Oneighty-Our services were very content driven and focused regarding the theme of the night and the best ways we could teach, convey, live and breathe that theme. What does that mean? Two things. The first, just like Johnny mentioned (not yet posted), know the lyrics of the song. Plan songs that tie in to what the message is. I know not all subjects have a corresponding worship tune we can sing but there are a lot of lines that can be drawn......will the students always get that we were pointing to the subject even during our worship time? Not necessarily but music captures times in our lives. What if the next time that student hears that song or it pops in their mind they are reminded of what they were taught in that message? That is seeds taking root in their lives. Number two, don't get in a church rut. We didn't just plan our services the same way each week. 3 songs, offering, announcements, message, game, over. We planned our services around each individual theme. What is best. What moments do we want to create for our students to best illustrate that talk. Sometimes that means less worship time....sometimes that means more worship time. Occasionally that may mean a whole night of worship. Plan your set around what you need ie. Energy, participation, emotional, sincere worship.

I was once told by a young adult youth leader that thinking back on his teenage years he didn't want to just be told to worship but he was much more compelled to worship when he was told a really good reason as to why he should worship. This conversation stopped me in my tracks and really made me decide "if I don't have anything good to say I'm not going to say anything." I'm not going to just be hot spiritual air that doesn't inspire my group of students to sing any louder or worship any harder. What are you teaching your students about worship? This isn't something that's going to happen in one message about worship.....your students aren't going to perfectly figure it out in one night but week by week, nugget by nugget you can build a foundation in them that loves and desires to worship.

Believe 2007 - 2008 Connect Tour video

2007-07-30T14:25:00.000-07:00

I have been hard at work on this coming year's theme and here is one of this year's theme videos!

sneak peek at the new Believe Promo

2007-07-20T15:01:00.000-07:00

Hey all,
This just went to print today! It is the new Believe promo for 2007-2008 Tour season. You can check it out in a PDF format. This years speakers are: Kurt Johnston, Scott Rubin, Steve Carter, Justin Lookadoo, Nathan Head, and Jason Raitz. Special guests hanging on the Believe tour are Robin Sanders, Joby "the Village Idiot"; Painter Eric Timm, comedian Taylor Mason, Brent the stunt guy and artist Yancy Richmond.

You can get some info on this years theme, CONNECT, as well.

Believe 2007 - 200...

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Believe artist meeting

2007-06-08T08:05:00.000-07:00

We had the Believe Connect artists at CIY headquarters last night. This is always a fun planning meeting for the creative experience at Believe. This next tour is going to be incredible! See some of the art below that we are using for our promotional DVD thanks to Eric Timm.

Sick of ordinary head shots!

2007-05-30T07:56:00.000-07:00

We are excited about our artists this year on the Believe tour. I can't say just yet, perhaps another week or so; but we are going to have fun with our publicity. Instead of the normal boring glamor head shots we are going to have everyone distort their normal looks. Here's my sample. Fun stuff.

You have 7 seconds . . . 6 . . . 5 . . . 4

2007-05-11T20:44:00.000-07:00

I am 31 years old today. As my good friend Karla says, “I am celebrating another 29th birthday!” ha! It did hit me hard last night when during our Foundation Red Band Picnic one of the players prayed this for me, “Lord, be with Johnny as he has to travel in a band with guys who are all a decade younger than him.” Ha!

Today’s post is about knowing who you are and what it is you do. You would be surprised how many competent trained professionals simply miss opportunities because they can not master this simple idea.

During a meeting at work today I stated that the President of the United States only gets 7 seconds to make a point so why should we think we will get any longer. I was challenged on this statement by some around the table. Think about it. It is true. The president may speak on the White House Lawn for an hour. Unfortunately, what you will end up seeing is footage of him talking while the media gives their editorial. This is usually followed by a 7 second clip of the President speaking. Because advisor's know this they routinely practice what is called a “sound bite”. A sound bite is a concise and intentionally worded 5-7 second impression of their position on any given topic. Ultimately, this sound bite is the impression much of America has to base their perception upon.

I see this play out all of the time in Directing the Jr High Believe Tour. In any given trip I meet numerous potential artists to partner with on the Believe tour. A good friend of mine, Tim Grable, works for National Speaker’s Bureau. It is not uncommon for Tim to bring talent to talk with us about our theme and a partnership of some kind. This past fall we were looking for a Painter to come on the Believe tour. I am not talking about Rick Alonzo painting with neon colors to Carmen songs here folks! This is Believe. I wanted to kick it up a notch. We had visions of painters repelling from the ceiling and using mops, brooms, paint ball guns. Our vision for this element was highly engaging, teetering dangerous.

I must have met 5 painters at Youth Specialties last fall. I couldn’t get one of these folks to tell me in 30 minutes what they did. When Tim and I tried to let them in on our vision there was a fog over their face. I could read through it clearly, “I’ve never done that before”, their blank looks told me.

Enter Eric Timm. Eric told me in 5 seconds who he was and what his passion was. Sure he risked not being bland and covering every base. There was a great chance that our interests would not have matched up. After explaining in 30 seconds what we wanted to do on the Believe tour Eric responded enthusiastically. Eric is on our tour next year. Check out http://www.no1underground.com/ to learn about Eric!

Point: Do some soul searching to find out who you are and what you are passionate about. Learn how to communicate that to others. Stop caring if they accept it or not. If they are not interested it will save you, them and the local church we are called to serve lots of time!! Eventually you will find people you can serve with!

New FR Summer Set List Chord Charts

2007-05-09T21:15:00.000-07:00

We have been working hard all week long on new Foundation Red Worship Band material. You can follow this link to all of our new chord charts. We can't wait to see you at conference this summer! Just click the esnips link below and while you are there check out all the other cool ministry tools.

Believe Backstage Video

2007-05-07T06:40:00.000-07:00

We had this boat we traveled with for the final session, "Jesus came to call you to action". During load out this boat began to embody the difficulty of setting up and tearing down every week. At our last Believe the crew got their wish.

8 Reasons Spider Man was NOT a good movie

2007-05-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

I am rarely overly critical about movies. There is one general rule of thumb I live by where most real critics would disagree. I never watch movies twice (Footloose being the natural exception to the rule). Spider Man 3 would be the perfect example as to why I have instituted this rule.
Reasons that Spider Man 3 sucked:

1# It was like they had 14 openings to this movie and couldn't decide which one so elected to put all of them in the film.

2# Was this a Hallmark special? I seriously thought I was watching lifetime television for women. It is supposed to be an ACTION HERO movie.

3# Peter Parker was annoyingly goofy the whole movie!!

4# When Harry dies the crying by Kirstin Dunst & Toby Mcguire was some of the worst acting since . . . Let's just say all the old Batman movies.

5# Some more plot development with the black stuff would have been nice!!

6# The ending was so freaking long I kept waiting for them to run out of options and finally do the Scooby Doo ending. (A reference to Wayne's World to make you happy)

7# The one redeeming quality was the scene with a waiter who repeatedly calls Parker 'pecker'. This scene makes the sucks list because I realized that the movie could have been good!

8# The previews before the film to Pirates of the Caribbean set my hopes to high . . . Like for a good movie.

The Perking Mullet

2007-05-01T20:02:00.000-07:00

Today's post will forecast that USA worship bands will be a tipping point influencing modern American pop culture to welcome back the mullet.

One: A few weeks ago in Panama City, FL I experienced my first legit mullet sighting (East Tennessee Carnival workers do not count - see below- this is the real deal.) Christ In Youth premiered our summer high school event, ONES, and the worship band was Steve Fee. This was a great group of guys. Look for my podcast with Steve in the next few weeks. Steve's bass player, Heath, is the inspiration for the "perking mullet" blog today.
Two: an invitation to the blogging community to participate in coining the new phrase "perking a mullet". The definition I am offering up is: "haircut strategically designed for quick disguise upon imminent mullet ridicule or easily let out for mullet friendly environments."

I've been reading for some time now about the fashion of the eighties coming back into mainstream American pop culture. I have to admit this doesn't bother me seeing as how I was officially the last person in Indiana to stop tight rolling my pants! That was only because my wife made me stop before she would accept our engagement.

Now some of the popular fashion magazines are hinting about the return of the "mullet". I realize we have many alternate names for this (insert list).
We have all also heard the jokes about those regions in our country that never let go of the mullet. It is coming back! I am not talking about those goofballs who are just getting off the carnival circuit. This resurgence is already being seriously worn in the Netherlands and Australia.

Of all the fashion comebacks we have seen over the years this one haircut seemed to have no chance for another run! I do want to make the prediction that the Christian music community will be one of the major tipping points because of the influence of Australian band United right now on the songs they are pouring out. The Holy Spirit seems to be directly funneling so many songs that are touching the heart of this generation. I have a tremendous amount of respect for these guys. They also are unabashedly sporting this look. You have to be able to see this kind of fashion statement all the way through during this early adapters stage. We are on the cusp of student culture accepting this as soon as Holister puts the poster up! I only have this to see to those of you who are fence squatters. . . If you're going to ride this train do not be hesitater's! Commit!
I've followed Kirk Cameron through, fully participating the first time. I will be sitting this one out. However, I will be a frequent visitor to a new blog on mullet's I found doing research for this post! Click here.

monumental band decisions . . .

2007-04-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

Foundation Red is entering it’s 10th summer leading worship for conferences. Among the most debated things in band life I find myself once again at the crux of those monument decisions every band must make.

Fortunately, I have been doing this long enough not to fall to the pressure of other band members when it comes to these two most crucial points. The first is, “Just what kind of band picture should we take.”

Answer: Take a goofy one and nobody try to look hard because chances are you just recently moved out of your parent’s house! Stop it!

The second debated issue is, “What are our t shirts going to look like?”.

Answer: I have enough t-shirts in my garage that have our band name on them to buy a 2001 4 Door, short bed, pick up truck with around 80,000 miles . . . cash . . . which is what I need right now. So we are not going to put the band name on the shirt.

(Indecently, while we are on the issue of band names, I am still stuck with a band name that everyone in the band wanted but me. I am the only person left in the band. I still have the band name.)

Below is our first option for summer shirts. Let me know what you all think. Yes grandma, you especially. No grandma, I don’t smoke.

Autism, the Response of the local church and the effect upon student ministry yet to come

2007-04-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

With the growing number of Autistic children born every year what issues will student ministries face in 5 years? April is the national push for Autism awareness. I've watched a few TV specials on this topic but was really taken back at a regional conference I got to mingle at in Atlanta.

The Facts: In 1995 one in 10,000 children born was diagnosed with Autism.
In 2006 one in 150 children born are diagnosed with some degree of autism.
see Autism Society of America

It did not happen to me. All three of our boys are healthy and developing normal as far as we know. There were not lots of parents with my blissful story at this gathering. Teresa told me her own heartbreaking story of caring for a jr high aged child with mild to severe autism. Teresa is a Christian with a mission field she never sought out. "Its like receiving a death notice for a loved one but the grieving process never ends.". Teresa has coped through much pain to see the opportunity God has given her to now be a comfort to others.

As I walked the halls listening into informational meetings, seeing treatment vendors, and thumbing through the books on display I caught the eyes of individuals. I saw the parents that recently found out their unborn child is autistic. I noticed the women who have been coming to these events for so long they had become a loving community to each other. I sensed despair on one hand and hope on the other. What I really saw was parents, siblings, and ordinary people deciding to enjoy life to the fullest potential they can.

I am a jr high minister. I am clearly not highly educated in the medical field of this affliction. I am however, like my new friend Teresa, finding myself asking how the Church factors in to all of this. The event was not a faith based event. I did however find it interesting that a senior staff pastor from North Point (a prominent church in Atlanta) was a key note speaker at the event. Teresa went on to explain to me that many of the new parents have quit attending their home churches after finding that the church had no way of knowing how to meet their needs. The guilt and eventual resentment felt towards the church is disturbing.

The church is changing and growing at a crazy speed. Large churches with specialized staff continue to abound. Emerging churches with tight knit communities of fellowship seem to be just as able to meet the ministry needs of families with autistic children. It seems that Chap Clark’s call to the church, for adults relationally investing in students, rings ever so true.

Stuck in the middle

2007-04-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

I never know what other conventions or shows the Believe Tour could be next to from week to week at a venue.
We have shared convention space in the past with some funny, and scary groups. As we book space for Believe now we ask very pointed questions about who else will be in the convention center. We've had a transvestite convention above our floor. We've had beer festivals (these are usually very calm and polite people). One time we had a massage training seminar down the hall. They didn't exactly appreciate the rock and roll for Jesus :)

This weekend we were at the Gwinnet Center in Atlanta, GA. It is an awesome venue and we had 1300 jr high students attending. Our neighbors this week were quite dynamic. The Believe conference was held in the main convention center. Bill and Gloria Gaither (along with the largest collections of Prevost buses I've ever seen at once) played the arena. Our whole team was invited in by the rigging company (we new a guy) to look at their awesome set up. It was very impressive even if you don't like that style of music.

On the other side of us in the fine arts theater was the 80's rock band "Cinderella". Being a child of the 80's I was really wanting to sneak a quick peek. It didn't happen.

I remember going through that time when I was convicted at camp to through away all of my non-christian music. For me at that time it was necessary and beneficial.. Man is my iTunes bill expensive now! Ha! Buying back all of that old Bon Jovi :)

I wish I could have been in the parking lot to watch all three groups exit and mingle. I love those people watching exercises. Jen doesn't like it when I watch people . . .

Struggling with Worship Team Issues

2007-04-13T05:21:00.000-07:00

I recieved this question yesterday on the Foundation Red Myspace account thought it would hit home with other people.

A young man writes:

I really need some advice on something involving praise and worship leading..

If you remember, I play in our praise and worship band, and I (along with others) have noticed that the mindset of the band is: "I don't care, I'm just here because I signed up." I don't mean to judge their hearts, it just seems that when we practice, it's a mad rush to finish as quick as possible and to keep it as simple as possible...and the music produced reflects that. It's not terrible, but it's definitely not the best we could do...especially not when we're playing to worship God...

I guess what I'm asking is this: have you ever encountered something like this with Foundation Red or any other project? if so, what did you do?

I'll keep on praying about it...In the meantime, thanks!

Let me encourage you by applauding your desire to bring your best to Jesus through your own personal art. He gave it to you and you should give it back. I want to challenge you to stay involved and giving to the local church. The Church is the bride of Christ even when the music is not produced up to the level we think it should be.

Here is a perspective change that might bring more joy to your experience in serving right now. We must realize that there will be a dynamic range of music ability in the places where we serve. If we are there to edify, (serve, encourage and lift up) the body of Christ then your focus should not be to personally fulfill your musical desires. We do need to corporately bring an offering to God that costs us something. This is a matter of dying to one's self. Look at it this way. If you are putting in personal practice time and increasing your ability to bring a better offering then that is pleasing to the Lord. When you show up only to find that others are not where you are technically at when it comes to understanding music you have a choice to make. You can be upset that they have not met your requirements to participate in the Churches corporate celebration time or you can let your example quietly shine. You can choose to then help them during the time they have come to give, making it the best it can be.

Here is an illustration I use often with this question. On a scale of one to ten let's say that you have the potential to play at a "7" as far as musical ability goes. Let's say for the sake of the illustration that the people you are frustrated with are only bringing a "3" to the table. Your desire is for everyone to be at a "7" with you because that would just be a blast right? I believe God is calling you to help the group arrive together over time at a "5".

I have seen this situation play out so many times in ministry my friend. A talented musician gets frustrated with the leader, the system, politics, style and removes themselves from the community of artists at a local church. I rarely see God bless this type of attitude. However, I have witnessed countless examples where a young musician submits and serves where God has placed them. These individuals are blessed with an extra portion of ability, leadership and wisdom to eventually have their desire to play with other talented musicians on professional stages. More importantly they have learned the lesson of being apart of the larger community of the Church. Remember that God is the giver of all our creative gifts. He gives them to bless the Church. When we take possession for whatever reason of these gifts ourselves no good comes from it.

On a final practical note I would say if you are seeing areas where more organization could take place to make the overall worship service better then I would say that should be interpreted as the Holy Spirit telling you to do those things necessary that you see to prepare the whole group. Take the initiative within the system your leaders have established, to serve. I mention this because I sensed that you were representing the "feelings" of others in the band as well. Musicianship can be an aspect of one's worship before the Lord. If you have a leader that is bottlenecking the groups music ability I would pose some questions about what that leader sees as necessary in your life to allow some more freedom to you during the corporate assembly time of your youth group.

I hope this helps. Every time I write a message like this I am reminded of the recurring phrase in Matthew, "he who has ears to hear, let them hear."

confessions of a worship leader . . . changing

2007-04-12T10:08:00.000-07:00

I wrote this email to my wife from backstage at a CIY spring break conference. Blogs can be so boring and fake. There was realness to this that compelled me to post it.

I've been processing some things lately. I know we've talked about it here and there. Its starting to take shape for me this week. I’ve stood on this little piece of ground in such a defensive manner over the past two years. As I look back now I see myself as a child throwing a tantrum. I know you have even heard me say, "I am a worship leader", in such a threatening tone. It should be translated as, "I'll take my ball and go home!". What has been so funny looking back at countless conversations with Jayson (Jayson French is the Conference Department Director at CIY) about this is that he's told me in a confused expression, “I'm not trying to get you out of worship leading". I see now that I was responding out of fear of loosing an identity other than Christ. I was saying that to the Spirit who was calling me to just trust.

Part of this discussion stems from me feeling a bit pulled to speak on the Believe Conference. It looks like I am going to speak at Believe next year a few times (2 tops) and have Jordan Howerton (currently interning with Foundation Red right now) lead worship at those two events. I’m kinda looking to that to be a launch for the next tour where I would do a larger portion of the speaking. It’s not something I want to give up, but I think if I offer it to God when he gives it back it will be fresh and deep.

Honestly, I'm scared. Change is scary. Most people think that keeping the status quo is safer. Risk is actually safer than just doing only what I do now until the wheels fall off. I need to do this over the next two years. It will be a slow growth process.

It might be more of a sabbatical than anything. I am more comfortable calling it that than saying I am not going to be a worship leader anymore. Marko’s podcast actually got me thinking about the freedom in saying “no” and giving your well a chance to deepen naturally through the process of Sabbath. I will always be a worship leader because I am a worshipper in community of Believers. For 6 years it has been a snowball of preparing for tours while on tours. My margins for creativity have been caving in slowly.

Perhaps that alone is the telling part in this whole journey. In the realization of my true context (insert a theology of living in the community of other believers as being synonymous with things we say like "being a Christian", or "knowing Jesus"). I am free to be the worship leader God has always been calling me to be.

This is a special week for me because it's a culmination of a few things: I get to sit back stage and just enjoy the singing that is being led so skillfully by Steve Fee!
The long time producer of my band, Jon Hill, is moving on to the next chapter in his ministry away from Foundation Red. I get to watch him from the front row this week take that leap.
Also an old FR bass player's parents are here and I've been encouraged by their testimony surrounding Tony's experience in FR.
God uses funny things to speak to us at times.

5 years ago I would have been anxiously gleaning every nuance I could snag for my own personal repertoire as a worship leader. That in itself is fine, but my foundation would not have the peace I feel now in my identity. There is a common denominator within the artistic community of insecurity. God desires to restore all things that the fall of man broke. He heals our brokenness. As artists, our art starts to reflect this continual renewing process. For me right now it an exploring process.

You of all people know that I never sought out a ministry to jr high students. I was called to this and God has shown up to give an added blessing of joy in my calling. God slowly shows himself to us. I was not ready to make room artistically to explore other things the Spirit was calling me to. God works to align our identity with him and not with what we do.

Marko podcast

2007-04-05T12:19:00.000-07:00

Wow, this spring has been a whirlwind. Jen and I moved our 3 boys out to the country. It took them all of about 3 minutes to find the muddy creek out back and cover themselves head to toe! Yeah, Momma was freaking out! ha! I just got the hose out and sprayed them down.
I did slow down to catch Mark Oestreicher back stage at St. Louis Believe to do this podcast. It has been such a blessing having Marko on tour this year. We get off the Believe Jr high subject just a bit to talk about Marko's Sabbatical and future book writing. At the end we talk a bit about the more "interactive" stage Believe will be exploring! Great stuff! Enjoy

Click here for the Marko podcast

Johnnyout

FR Podcast and deep thoughts on Church signs

2007-03-01T13:23:00.000-08:00

I drive past a church everyday on the way to the office. They have a sign and frequently change it's message. If I EVER see the person who's job description this falls under I will have to pull over and talk with them. They are terrible. I usually arrive to the office in a grumpy mood because of the asinine things I see posted there weekly!

I have been meaning to post a creed for my blog. A brief statement to my readers, (Grandma, and my church small group:), promising no trite Christianese crap that so many bloggers are guilty of. I have not done that yet. It is coming.

I must say that in advance so I don't upset all the home school (I was homeschooled so I can fly that joke!) moms wearing denim jumpers with Noah's ark animals needle stitched on . . . wow, I don't know where that came from . . . oh, yes I do!!! It came from the ladies who looked like that and told me that you couldn't run in church when I was a kid! That is a DUMB rule!

Anyway, I have an idea for all the churches out there who have plagued people driving by their houses of worship with STUPID quips. This just came to me. I am asking all of you to be real! Be funny, be inteligent, be compelling, say something worth reading! If you can't think of anything how about just, "JESUS LOVES YOU". I came up with one that felt real to me last night. Somebody put this on thier church and send me a picture of it please!

Here it is:
"Start attending church now. You'll get enough reps in by Easter we won't be able to guilt you."

Oh, and by the way: This post is to announce the new Foundation Red Podcast! Subscribe for more tangent like rantings such as the one above :)
(if you taught me in Sunday School, and you feel like I was describing you I just want to say . . . Thank you for giving to the Lord . . . for I am a life, that was chan ay ya anged . . . )

Click here for:

FR's Podcast

Cincinnati Believe was awesome

2007-02-28T10:35:00.000-08:00

We had a great weekend at Cincinnati Believe. It has been fun hanging with Robert Pierre on the tour. In our leader's meeting I say that I am used to telling people back stage to stop wrestling. Even though Believe is a Jr high intentional event we don't have students travel with us. It has been quite funny at times.

This last weekend was a first for me though. I have never received a "wet willy" backstage at Believe. Thanks Robert! The pictures below show some of the fun we had. One of Robert's main concerns during a weekend is weather or not I will remember the jump on 'Dancing Generation'. It is not uncomon for Robert to remind me while on stage about this crucial component of the weekend. You can see our mad skills below.
peace

I love middle school ministry

2007-02-16T13:49:00.000-08:00

We are always searching for things we can do to engage the students during worship at Oasis (Our mid week jr high service where I serve locally.) A few weeks ago we had the students write out their prayers on a section of the wall we had prepared with some long streams of paper. Students were to go and write whatever they wanted to during a slow song set. We wanted to do anything we could think of to get them more responsive during our worship times. Last Wednesday night I was talking with some students near this project and decided to write a few. I started with one written in sparkly purple. The hand writing was neat and I was confident that it was a girl's prayer. After reading a few I wanted to share my favorite one with you all. I just had to take a picture of it. Middle school students are great. Jesus loves them, hears them and I am a butt head for laughing when I read this. I am okay with that though because my laugh was also a prayer. I was just reminded for a second how awesome it is to work with jr high students.

Reality is

2007-02-15T07:30:00.001-08:00

The greatest Valentines Day Gift I could give my wife . . . I know some of you were quite fearful of reading on . . . but you did because you are sick like that. Tomorrow morning I will attempt to hold back the three boys who live at my house. They can sniff out a sleeping Mommy. They just feel it in their deepest being. It is as if I can actually here them saying to themselves, “Hey, is my Mommy sleeping? I will not have it! Wake up woman! Wake up and get me something! Anything, just wake up!”.

I announced my ambitious plans to my wife on the eve of Valentine’s Day: “Honey, I am going to wake up and make you breakfast in the morning while you sleep in. What do you want for breakfast?”

- “biscuits and gravy would be great.” (only a small hint of skepticism heard in her voice)

. . . “Honey, how do you make biscuits and gravy, I mean, if you were going to do it? I know how I would do it. I am just wondering how you would do it is all.”

Please hold your applause. While I did have the best of intentions it didn’t exactly work out. I pictured her sleeping in and waking up to breakfast in bed. I wanted to hear her say that she was completely refueled. Of course, I am a guy and that would be me ‘fixing’ something. How I long to fix things.

Let’s just say it was rough. My youngest son, Finnley, was in his chair yelling some of the most unintelligible things I have ever heard. I have had animals communicate more clearly their desires than the interaction I was experiencing with my son. Jen came out into the kitchen, “He is asking for a drink and his blanky.” I don’t think a team of voice analyzers could have broken that code. Mom knew what he was saying.

For about two weeks the commercials have been playing telling all of us how perfect this holiday should be. Reality is actually better than the picture we see portrayed to us on television. I would be homicidal if I had to live in a Hallmark ad.

Tulsa is done, on to Cincy!

2007-02-13T14:09:00.000-08:00

Tulsa Believe was awesome:
I have been running like crazy lately and have not been blogging. I figured that the best way to describe what has been going on is to show you a few pictures from Tulsa Believe.
Marko has been doing a great job speaking, One Time Blind’s drama is nailing the theme, Robert Pierre has been great on the tour and the new Believe Band is kicking it! I can’t wait for Cincy here in a week!

peace

new jr high Believe podcast

2007-01-26T13:30:00.000-08:00

We are exited to announce the launch of the NEW Believe Podcast. We actually have a BIG announcement at the end of the podcast so follow this link and subscribe! If you have iTunes just click on the Believe logo to go to the Believe podcast. If you don't have iTunes . . . well, I'm speechless actually and don't know what to tell you if you don't have iTunes :)

most of the time less is more . . .

2007-01-25T08:35:00.000-08:00

Last night at our jr high mid week service our jr high pastor was pumping the Believe conference that we take our students to. It was fun for me to see what it is like from the other side. This is my full time job. I plan Believe events and here I was on the other side in a jr high service hearing with them about Believe. We take our students to Tulsa Believe. It is just around the corner and our jr high pastor, Matt Neal, told the students he had a video to share with them to "pump them up about Believe". I was excited. We work so hard on our videos that promote the Believe event. We sit in meetings and talk about how our inventive videos are going to rock youth ministries all across the country . . .

. . . and then last night my own jr high ministry reminds me of a few of the core values I myself trumpet on this blog. Believe is bigger than the program because we (no pun intended) believe in the local church and we know that it is all about connecting adults with students in meaningful relationships. The video our youth leaders made to tell about Believe is one of the best I have ever seen. I drags a bit in the middle; but it is still funny! Great job guys, it was awesome. I can't wait to see our students experience Believe in Tulsa! Less is always more . . .

Stuck in Denver . . .

2007-01-15T21:55:00.000-08:00

I am not exactly a 'jet set' kind of guy. I was recently with a speaker buddy of mine who laughed when he saw my miles. I won't get upgraded to first class for some time folks! There is this total misconception about all of us CIY workers. Youth workers will say to me, "well you must get so sick of traveling . . .". The truth of the matter is that I most likely travel about as much as most local ministers I know. I will only be out 4 weeks this summer and that will be my lightest summer in 10 years of ministry. There are 11 Believe events over the school year. It isn't that much actually.

I just came off of a mini Holiday sabatical. I got really used to spending time at home with my boys. It was hard to wake up at 3:30 in the morning last Friday for my flight to California. I did not think that this weekend would be the first snowfall in 18 years for Southern California. I also didn't plan on getting stuck for 3 days in Denver trying to get back to my truck at the Fayettville Arkansaw regional airport. Stuck is not the right word. Mom and Dad drove down from Fort Collins to pick me up for a few days. It's been fun; but I really miss my wife, my boys, my small group, my church, and the folks at the home office.

California Believe was the best one yet in terms of me actually getting to sit back and start to enjoy the weekend. I am looking foward to Tulsa in two weeks . . . I can walk home from there . . . well not really, snowmobile perhaps . . . I would have to stop every hour for hot chocholate

I fly back into Walmart . . . I mean northwest Arkansaw tomorow.

Daren's toon . . .

2006-12-15T06:57:00.000-08:00

For those of you who were with us on the Fuel tour you will remember Daren Streblow. Daren is a comedian we know and love at Believe. He did a great job for us with jr high students. This is also the same theme we used Moped Girl. Moped Girl was an awesome element of programing we stumbled upon. I had no idea that students would grap onto the character so much. It was also a nice break from the norm in programing.

Every since then we have wanted to do some sort of computer animated cartoon that had several segments we would show throughout the weekend. Well, if you know Daren then you will enjoy his first attempt at a cartoon staring himself and Merv Smiley. I like the idea of implementing a series of shorts, one for every session, during the weekend. It could be very engaging. What happened with Moped Girl was every time we went to that element it picked up steam. When she finally came out on stage at the end of her story the students were completely in the moment. It would be great to capture that kind of momentum again.

Anyway, check out Daren's toon at: http://www.rivaltoon.com/

new bass player YEAH!!!

2006-12-12T10:15:00.000-08:00

Announcement! Foundation Red has a new bass player. We made him start a new blog to commemorate the big the day. Nick Patrick has been involved with CIY and worship leading in the past and will be a great addition to FR! Check out his blog that commemorates this special day :)
http://frbass.blogspot.com

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FR summer 07 Set list & set list philosophy

2006-12-10T07:47:00.000-08:00

I didn’t plan on writing a 3 page essay on leading worship and set list philosophy when I sat down this morning. It is to much for one post so visit the “FR’s CIY Summer 07 Tour” link to check it out.

I came to work at CIY and direct the jr high Believe tour through my involvement in the worship Band Foundation Red. FR has been leading worship at youth conferences for 10 years now. The first large conference we ever led at was the Kentucky Jr High Christian Conference in 1996. Last year FR was privileged to participate in worship with over 22,000 students from every corner of our country. It was simply amazing. As players come and go from this worship band we have molded from theme to theme. As a Band, we are on the cusp of that again. We are bringing on two new players, a guitar player from Quincy, IL named Tyler Yates and a bass player yet to be named. Before practices for the summer tour starts we will interview perhaps two other new positions to FR, a singer and a specialty player.

CIY recently sent our it’s publicity for the 22 summer conferences to happen summer 07. FR will be one of the bands contributing to these awesome 1 week conferences. As stated on the publicity FR always welcomes students and youth leaders to be part of our journey as we prepare for the summer. Follow the new link “FR’s CIY Summer 07 Tour” to see: the set list come together, videos of practice weeks, behind the scenes of summer conference 07.

Click here to read about Johnny's essay on what he is really thinking when he programs worship sets for summer conference

Worship Set list b...

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Santa vs Jesus

2006-12-06T10:54:00.000-08:00

I have a good buddy that used to bring students to CIY events. Recently he traveled with the improv comedy group, 321 Comedy. JJ is a student in LA working on a grad degree and has a great blog called www.dontsqueezethejj.com.

Anyway, JJ and another guy named Chris just finished a spoof on the Mac vs PC comercials. This is with Santa and Jesus. You gotta check these out. You can tell that the they are for sale to churches so they didn't get to have as much fun with them as possible; but they are worth watching for sure!

http://www.sermonspice.com/cart/?p=catalog&CatalogProducer=297

Day 19 with no shaving of the narly man beard is going well . . . moderate itching. The goal is to look like a mountain man and shave on December 28th ready (in a new awakening kind of way) for the new year!

Peace

This is going to take some time . . .

2006-12-05T13:38:00.000-08:00

I have writen before about my involvement in the jr high program where my family attends. We love our home church and are very involved. Wednesday nights are the best night of the week for me to be consistent. Matt is our jr high guy and we both have been struggling over the coarse of this semester about how much impact we are having in the students lives in what is supposed to be our deeper Bible meeting of the week.

Just before Cincy YS we had one night where it just felt like we were watching students go through the motions and what was worse is we were guilty of just leading the motions for them. Last week Matt had the students just write down some things that were real to them. We really want to meet them where they are at with the Bible. Here is the list of things that I just read.

Here are the questions they've turned in so far: (excluding the extra ones about animals and heaven)
1. Where did sin come from?
2. What boundaries should we set when in a dating relationship?
3. How far is too far? (I assume this is in a dating relationship)
4. Do animals go to heaven?
5. How do I convince my friend to come to church?
6. Is it okay to look at your wife with lust after you're married?
7. If God has all power, why doesn't he just kill Satan and bring world peace?
8. Many people say that the Bible doesn't say much about suicide. Do you know for sure that you'd go to hell if you did? Explain what the Bible says.
9. What was it like when Jesus went to Heaven?
10. People say that drinking is a sin but Jesus himself drank wine so what's the deal?
11. When was this church build?
12. How can I get more involved with God?
13. Where did sin come from if God created all things?
14. What is heaven like?
15. Does God put people in ranks in heaven like if someone loves God with all their heart vs. with only a little of their heart?
16. Was Jesus really born on Christmas? If not, why is it called Christ-mas? And where did Jesus go when he died because he had all of our sins?
17. Is it true that ghosts/spirits are things that do not go to hell?
18. How old do you think people should be able to innocently have a boyfriend/girlfriend? and why?
19. Why is Mike Vick so fast?
20. Does God love gay people too?
21. Who is the best rocker in the world?
22. What are the signs that how Jesus is coming back?
23. If God loves everyone, why do people go to hell?
24. Where was God before he died? (not to sure about this one)
25. How can I resist temptation?
26. Why don't we talk about the OT a lot in the church?
27. When you die do you go to heaven or do you stay dead until Jesus comes back?
28. If God didn't want us to have dirty thoughts, why did he let it happen?

Jr high students are very spiritual. They think about spiritual things, they live and operate in very spiritual ways. This list is almost overwhelming. It is amazing what listening can do to infuze a ministry with new life and excitement. We were banging our heads against a wall a few weeks ago looking for real connection with students. This list has just hit me up side the head! We now have more gripping topics that we have to look into God's word to solve than we can accomplish in a whole semester!
Go figure.

CIY Staff Retreat!

2006-11-30T19:26:00.000-08:00

This past week was our ciy staff retreat. Great times. Check out the media yo! Ha! To complete my CIY experience I got the opportunity to go and shoot skeet. Yes, skeet. I took this video of my first few shots. Yes, I actually hit some of them. Fun sport. It is December and I have NO TRIPS! I am celebrating by not shaving for the entire month. Scary I know. Just about as scary as me with a gun.
peace

tough homecoming!

2006-11-29T13:46:00.000-08:00

So I came home from Thanksgiving at Mom’s house to a mess. As I walked into our southwest Missouri abode with Aiden asleep in my arms I realized our house had been vandalized. Our beds were peed on. Our unmentionables (doesn’t that sound like what the grandma on the Beverly Hillbillies would call underwear?) were “messed with”. The pictures throughout our house were all marked on. Our bedding was all marked on with sharpie markers. It was not a good homecoming. My oldest son Riley was rather upset. It was just all stupid vandalism.

What stinks even more is that I had to leave right away for our CIY Leadership Retreat. The retreat is the stinky part it is that I had to leave so quickly after the break in. I was going to stay home until we pretty much thought we figured out who did it. (we think it was a kid downt the street) The retreat has been awesome and I am looking forward to blogging about some of the great stuff we got to wrestle with on the trip. I do also have some sweet pictures of our skeet shooting expedition.

peace

Captain Para Church Event guy (that is my self mocking super hero name)

2006-11-29T07:44:00.000-08:00

I don’t know why so many ministers at some time in their lives become involved in Multi Level Marketing. Whatever it is, this is the same phenomena that explains why ministers go

into car or insurance sales after leaving ministry. My whacked personal church history is just as
crazy across the board as my (indirectly) contact with guys who have meetings
in hotel ballrooms and draw circles. My father,
my stepfather, my father in law all have at some point asked me to tag along to
some presentation such as the one I find myself in tonight. A summery:
Sasco, Amway, Quickstar, Mary Kay, Excel and tonight’s presentation –
Isagenix. My step dad is a rep who sells
this toxic cleansing systems. I have
personally made periodic cleansing a part of my health cycle. The product is great. I am going to have some fun with this presentation tonight though.

What is funny to me is that over the years (and I have been to many events such as this) I have become quite the student of sales presentations like the one I am typing about right now. I would actually enjoy doing consulting with guys like Pete tonight about their presentation . .

ah, nice, Pete just inserted one of my favorite lame jokes in a fashion that
takes trite to a whole new level. I feel
bad. This guy’s content is great. It is not that I don’t believe in the
product, it’s the “feel” that is nauseating!
He uses pauses like a tent revival preacher slowly working up to his
ask. I am just numb. Ha! It
is a good thing I have a month off right now.
I am here tonight because I love dad and he is kicking it selling this
cleansing product.

Homeboy just presented the scariest picture of the toxic chemicals in the human body
today I have ever heard. So we still have longer life spans today than we ever had.
Okay, best joke of the night: “I was
inside size 34 jeans my stomach just wasn’t.”
OOooo he is closing right now.
Cue music, seriously, Pete (picture Al Piccino) could use some help from Captain Para Church
Event guy (that is my self mocking super hero name). Wow, at the end of this sermon (cough)
presentation, it comes down to a decision.
. . . All I am saying is that if he would have us stand and turn the
lights off it would help . . . maybe plant a few staff to start coming forward
right before the big chorus (I have never done this at Believe!) . . . I am bad.
Good night . .
. never mind, the planted people just hit their mark NICE! Last thing I am going to type: I just heard someone say Amen on the other
side of the room . . . I would so love to write a mocumentary with Eugene Levy on
something like this!! HILARIOUS

accident

2006-11-09T15:59:00.000-08:00

Jen & I woke up Tuesday morning in Orlando @ 2:00 AM to catch our plane home. Long day. We had our bath time after I got back from voting. As I was getting Aiden out of the tub Finney walked in, fell on the tub and pushed two teeth up into his gums. I barely missed catching him. I feel terible. It is getting late and turning into one of those deals where you feel like you could leave the emergency room because your kid is actually fine accept for being tired. I just know that niether, Jen nor I will sleep good without hearing he is okay. Finnley just farted and laughed. Maybey we should go home. Aiden is running around in his long pajamas with cowboy boots on. We really look like the family from "Raising Arizona". I think we should have said, "He fell in the pits and cracked his gums on a 4 barrel webber we was using for beer coasters." when I walked in. We would have been helped sooner.

That was Tuesday night. The dentist is saying we just have to wait and see what happens . . . I could have stayed home and figured that out!

reality check

2006-11-09T07:24:00.000-08:00

I was in a jr high idea lab at an awesome Youth Specialties convention in Anaheim last weekend. One of the questions brought up by the group had something to do with programming so the forum moderator gave me the mic to give some insight since I was the resident event and programming guy. Age appropriateness is a big issue when you talk with veteran Jr High youth workers. I don’t remember the question or my answer; but what I do remember is what Kurt Johnston said later in that session. We all need reminded from time to time. He basically reminded us all that at the end of the day, students are people too. They also have built in, “does this stink-o-meters”.

Much discussion is had over the attention span of students when it comes to Bible study, small group time, worship elements and teaching. Kurt made the insightful comment that he has students that can play a video game for six hours without wavering in attention. What he alluded to was what we miss sometimes. Students can be just like us in that we all have plenty of attention for the things that we are interested in. I think I could watch all 18 of next Spring “Lost” episodes straight! It has my attention. As I have attended workshops this fall and listened to youth workers I hear frustration when it comes to teaching students. “They just don’t have the attention span” I hear. One goal we had on the Believe tour for many years was to change something in the program flow every 7 minutes for the sake of age appropriateness. We have not completely abandoned that methodology; but now we first ask ourselves, “Can we make this interesting enough to hold for 20 minutes”.

The reality check here as that our students are actually more like us in this way than we care to admit. I do not have this figured out yet with the students I work with on every Wednesday night. It is a constant battle every week to engage students in a way that grabs their attention and holds it. One of the definitions of entertainment is: to grab and hold people’s attention. A scripture is brought to mind when I hear that from Matthew. When Jesus was finished with the Sermon on the Mount scripture says the people were astonished and amazed. Wow! How many small group leaders wish that their students would be astonished and amazed at the Word of God. Here are some of the questions our that the jr high department where I serve are using to help us present the Word of God in the engaging way it deserves:

• Does this message, worship set (insert whatever programming element in question here) engage me in a spiritual way?
• Does this (insert element) come across as relevant to my life/ my student’s lives?
• Am I genuinely excited about this material and what can happen as I encounter students tonight?

We don't have it all figured out yet. I know that the Word of God is alive, active, breathing and sharp. The question is not in weather or not the word of God is effective. It is. The missing link is sometimes in how we present the Word to our students. It is a struggle and as long as I am wrestling with it I know I am taking it seriously.

Florida trip

2006-11-06T17:04:00.000-08:00

This has been a crazy past few days. I flew from California Youth Specialties to “Inside Out Orlando” on Sunday. “Inside Out Orlando” was a CD release party for Robert Pierre, an artist on our tour. Robert has been doing a great job at Believe this year singing. His new album, Inside Out, comes out tomorrow across the country. Justin Lookadoo was the main speaker and I got to play Ryan Seacrest and MC the event. It was a great event at the House of Blues in Downtown Disney. Today we got tickets from a friend (Thanks Bruce Humphrey!) to MGM Studios. Jen got called on to help with one of those street dance teams. It was priceless if you know Jen  Jen got to come with me and it has been great to spend time with just her; but we miss our boys and can’t wait to get home.

YS in CA

2006-11-04T09:13:00.000-08:00

I am in California today at a Youth Specialties Conference exhibiting for Believe. It has been great to see youth leaders from all over the country who come to Believe conferences and see thier excitement about this year's tour. Portland Believe is around coming up soon! See you all there.

Titles are hard because I switch subjects often :)

2006-10-30T20:15:00.001-08:00

We had a meeting with the entire conference wing on the importance of bloging. Chase and I set everybody up and got people accounts . . . that was three weeks ago. This is my first blog entry since then! Ha! Life has been busy:

Believe is rocking. I like the theme and the way the weekend flows. I have changes still for week three in Portland; but overall I am very excited about how Nashville and Dallas Believe felt.

Jen and I have been so busy with suburban life. We have had parties, pumpkin patch trips, birthdays and EBay :) Check out the pics of life in Webb City
peace

Leaving . . .

2006-10-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

We are leaving for the first Believe of the tour in the morning. Awesome!

exhibitor fued . . . ha!

2006-10-06T22:40:00.000-07:00

Today was an awesome day hanging out at Youth Specialties in Austin. I love to check out all the exhibitors at these events. Seriously, if I ever did anything other than what I do now I would love to be a consultant for groups on how to exhibit. We had dinner tonight with the folks from “Hands on Originals” and devised gutsy and somewhat confrontational stunt for the next YS event. It deals with the marketing attempts of some exhibitors to get information from youth leaders. Many are giving away free I-pods if you “sign-up”. When I say many we have counted 23 different exhibitors. We are going to make shirts that say, “Want a free ipod? Buy it your self, we just do jr high events.” That should spark some good fun with the other exhibitors at the next convention. I actually had this idea last year and only talked about it. It’s time to implement! Check out the pics of our slamming booth and some friends. Dustin and Katie Kelm of the “Unishow” are pictured as well as jr high buddy Alan Mercer.

Tomorrow morning is Riley’s flag football game and it is the first one that I will miss this year. I’m bummed about that. I’m looking forward to getting back home tomorrow night to be with the family all day, do church and watch the Bronco Game!

Middle School Small Groups (class in Austin today)

2006-10-06T14:27:00.000-07:00

I am at a Youth Specialties Convention in Austin Texas today. A good buddy of mine, Alan Mercer, is teaching a class on middle school small groups. Below is a handout on what some churches are currently doing with small groups in the real world right now! Alan has been apart of my inner circle for Believe planning for about 3 years now. Check this out look at how other churches weekly small groups look.

Small Group Set up...

Hosted by eSnips

I made the promise . . .

2006-10-04T21:42:00.000-07:00

I made the promise so I had to keep it. A few weeks ago at our jr high Wednesday night program I told the room full of students that we wanted them totally involved in the worship element of the program. I said, “bring whatever instruments you have and we just want to hang out with you guys and worship.” The thing about jr high students is that they actually do listen and for the most part believe you. Benji showed up last week with a ukulele. Yes, that is right, I said ukulele. I didn’t know how to spell that before I bloged this. Benji is a cool kid with a great sense of humor so I really didn’t know if he was just goofing off. I noticed right off the bat that this was a quality nylon yuk and Benji had a great ear. He tuned it himself perfectly. He had a chord book with some Hawaiian Island songs and informed me that it was his mom’s. Three weeks later he is still bringing this thing and patiently learning his finger positions. I had to keep my word so . . . . at the end of “Tell the world” (This kicking United Live worship song we are doing right now) we did a little Jack Johnson feeling outro to the chorus with him and bongos.

It was a cool moment. The students were a bit stunned and Benji was glowing. I leave for YS in the morning. This moment tonight will stick with me as I hang out with youth leaders and attend classes. It comes down to moments like that. It wasn’t difficult to put that feature piece in. It was one of the most impacting things that happened tonight in the life of Benji and for the culture of our group. It put the proof in the pudding. When we tell students we are going to involve them then we have to do that very thing.

my day back in jr high

2006-10-03T12:21:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in a jr high lunch room in Carl Junction, MO. This school seems to be much like many of the schools students attend across this country that attend the Believe tour. I am participating in two days of observation of jr high students in environments other than church. I am struck by a few things over the past few hours. I am not saying these things are facts. These are just some of my thoughts over the last 24 hours.

1. I have forgotten that jr high boys sweat bad!
2. Jr high students are acutely aware of any change in their environment. (ie the weird old guy doesn’t usually sit in here with us!)
3. Girls are generally smarter than boys . . . this doesn’t seem to change when you are my age either.
4. The diversity in this age group is the largest spectrum developmentally than any other age other than 18-22 year olds.
5. Some kids are lonely.
6. Even though students act like they don’t want appropriate, affirming touch from adults – they need it.
7. Milk is not as good for the body as the American Dairy Farmer’s Association has led us to Believe. That is a different blog for a different time 

This is timely because I leave for a Youth Specialties conference in Austin on Thursday. I will be attending all the jr high classes at this youth leader training event. It will be awesome seeing lots of friends. What I’m soaking in today though is what I don’t get reminded of on Wednesday nights. On Wednesday nights I don’t work with jr high students in my mind. Instead, I work with Kyle, Even, Preston, Noel and Avery. I see them as my kids I know and love. I don’t see them as a demographic. For Believe I need to rethink this experience. It is so easy to forget the range of development in the students we are trying to communicate the message of Jesus to. One of the Believe tour speakers yesterday cautioned us on a fine line we were walking yesterday in dress rehearsals. “We don’t want to call students to Decisionalism.” he said. Decisions are great; but decisions need to have a broad context to take root in a students life. To develop a broader context for a student’s major faith decisions, an adult(s) must be involved (leaning, trusting and looking to the Holy Spirit) in an ongoing relationship, posturing a proper framework, for understanding the ramifications of that decision in a students mind. This can’t happen in one moment. This takes consistency in life lived together.

I do work daily in a Para church organization that has a heart to make a difference in the lives of jr high students. The longer I spend time in this school the more I am impacted by the idea that: Only the many working parts of the whole (capital “C”) Church can do the job of effectively nurturing this many students.

There is a girl who is at least two feet taller than a boy standing in line. The young man has a stack of books that seems to be at least his body weight. In my mind I am picturing these two individuals interacting in the same social setting. That is hard to comprehend. In 6 months he may be taller than she is. Jr high students are wet cement. When you make an impression it lasts.

NEW LOST Video

2006-09-22T18:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, if you are a lost fan . . . and I am, then you HAVE to watch this video that got released today. It explains the numbers and tons of other stuff. They originally said that the "Lost Experience" would be completely different from the TV show if you didn't want to follow it. (The Lost experience has been an on-line mystery search for clues into the show). Well today was the first complete release of a secret video that you need to check out. I have it posted in my favorites here on my YouTube account. Go to the Favorites reel and click on the Hanso film. Awesome!!!

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=jj122196

my heart struggle last night with 'the office'

2006-09-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

My struggle today . . . everyday . . .
I love pop culture. I do. I love busy city streets with the bustling people and the shared experience of watching “Lost” or “The Office”. I think it taps into one of my spiritual gifts I can’t name; but the gift deals with my love for community and everything closely related. I work in a funny place with VERY funny people so for me the TV premier of “The Office” was a much anticipated event. Once again I felt the Holy Spirit reminding me who I was. It happened last night in a room full of Christian friends. It came to a head today as I was giving a Youth Pastor buddy some advice on how to get his students engaged on Wednesday nights.
In all my youth ministry experience and wisdom I told this guy: “You have to use the pain, reality and conflict in their everyday lives to show the relevance of the scriptures to change our being!” Then, since it had been on my heart since last night I used my own personal life example. Here is a portion of my email to him:

I challenge you to test it on yourself bro! Look at it this way. To engage students you must be able to honestly say your lesson content would engage you. Would you pay 10 bucks to come and be challenged with the content you are putting in front of your students on Wednesday nights? I ask myself this about our jr high program every week. Conflict is amazing. I would present conflict; because in real conflict we find real emotion which translates your students thinking into this: “hey, I have an opinion here, hey, I care about this topic, hey the word of God can speak into my life and direct my thoughts, actions and being.”

The bible is full of conflict. For instance: The office was on last night. I watched it. I laughed at some parts, more than anything I was hurt because I was reminded that I am not of this world, in fact I am a stranger in this land called to something different. As America laughed at the kissing scene I hurt because Satan tried to marginalize Christians and warp our thinking. We are in a war and we are eating whatever the enemy slips into our minds. That is conflict. Am I one of those “Christian bigots” that were talked about on “Studio 60” in the premiere Monday night . . . no I’m not, well . . yes I am but not like them, no I mean . . .

I think our students will respond when we present the gospel of Jesus in it’s true light . . . . which is very difficult to follow. I love the moments they create in the show “The Office”; but last night I was convicted to be set apart. I was reminded that Satan hates me and wants to blurr the Jesus message of Love I carry to condemnation! I am not saying I won’t watch another episode or your not a Christian if you do! I am just saying that for me last night I had an encounter in my heart that reminded me I am not at home. I am not really American and a member of this media market soaking up facts about this season’s “Lost” secrets. I am a follower of Jesus. I can’t expect anything but what he found.

These are just my random thoughts . . . I might blog this today
I just did!

yesterday . . two extremes

2006-09-21T10:27:00.000-07:00

In 22 days we will be in Nashville TN for the first Believe event of the tour. Wednesday’s are always fun because of the two worlds I get to live in. I was visually reminded of this again last night as I downloaded the pictures from my digital camera for the day. I told Jen as I sat at the computer, “My life is really crazy sometimes. It is almost surreal to even me as I experience it first hand.”

You see, for this week and next our Believe Semi is unloaded and all the gear and program elements are set up downtown Joplin, MO at Memorial Hall. All of our interns are in town and preparing the details of the Believe experience. I snapped some pictures of some of the people as we set up the surprises we have in store. The screens are massive, the images are vivid and sticky so that they stay buried in the hearts of students. I can’t wait for all of the artists to join us this coming Monday for rehearsal week.

Then I drive out to Christ Church of Oronogo where I work with the jr high band on Wednesday nights. We are just getting this semester started and the students are awesome. We had a great share time before practice and the students are starting to take some ownership. I had someone take some pics of me and our band, “Artsniff and the Llamas”. Preston, our guitar player is working on a Web site for us. Our Jr High pastor, Matt, and some of us volunteers talked after the main session and shared all kinds of ideas and vision we want to implement over the next few weeks.

My continued participation on the local church level greatly impacts what happens on a larger scale at the Believe conference. Sometimes it just hits you harder when I sit back and look at these pictures sided by side. I really don’t think that Believe would be as ready as it is for this fall tour without me spending Wednesday’s with “Artsniff and the Amazing Llamas”. (We decided that you don’t always have to say “amazing” in the band name. Sometimes it is simply understood.)

Jr high students are neat. Play in wet cement. It makes a lasting impression.

last night . . . .

2006-09-16T12:33:00.000-07:00

Jesus shows himself to us and most usually when we don’t want him to! Chase and I were in Nashville on Thursday and Friday meeting with youth ministers. Around 10:00am I felt a fever coming on. The rest of Friday was rough. We had two flights and I slept as well as one can on the first flight. I had an airplane blanket over my head and was just miserable. I made it to our final connecting flights and pretty much just followed Chase through the airport with my head down looking at his suit case rolling before me.

Our seats were on the second to last row of the plain. I was in the middle, Chase was by the window and an elderly gentleman was SUPPOSED to be to my left. There was a drunk man behind us in the last row of the plane. As we were filing down the aisle I was picking up blankets and really preparing to sleep the last 35 minute flight away. My fever was high and I was just achy. It really was about all I could do to walk to my seat by that time last night. As the loud half Irish, half American Indian (we were receiving details all the way down the aisle) man roared, Chase turned to me to say, “how poetic”. We were taking our seats and Mark was ordering his Gin and tonic. He was also ordering one for every person around him. (This was his way of getting more Gin and Tonic for himself. I now know that the ½ hour flight limit is one alcoholic beverage. I now also know that when someone offers to buy you a drink on a plane it might not be for them. To say no could be hazardous. I said no.) Our plane was almost finished boarding and Mark had used the “F” word in 23 ways (none of them quiet). Chase I both agreed that two of these “F” word arrangements were new to us.

This is when the story gets good. I sat down and put the blankets over my head immediately trying to go to sleep. I heard the man behind me asking everyone if he could by them a drink. I could tell that the flight stewardess’s voice was worried to the point of calling her frantic. My honest first thought was, “seriously, I should ask her to get the air marshal back here.” His demeanor was bad enough that I quickly realized there was no air marshal on this flight. Out of the corner of my blanky I could see the elderly couple putting their bags up. I instantly knew that the pour lady was sitting right next to him behind me in the middle. Her husband was supposed to be next to me. As they stowed there bags IT got leaked. Mark was hitting people in the head with his hat . .. . hard, descriptively renaming them. He was going to drink with someone on that plane around him! Mark grabbed my blanket and ripped it off my head. “Drink with me! I’m an Okie and I’m not going to land sober!” It just came out of my mouth and cut through the air like a sharp knife making that sound you here in movies when someone unsheathes a sword. “I’m a preacher.” It wasn’t even the answer to the question. You could feel the entire back of the plane focus in without even trying to hide the fact that they were interested. The stewardess just stopped and looked at me and said, “Can he move up by you.”

I was thinking that he needed to go sit by the air marshal in handcuffs; but what came out of my mouth was, “sure”. I think Chase laughed audibly at this point. The folks in rows in our front started to position themselves to watch the 35 minute in flight reality TV show. Mark and I talked . . . . Loudly. I heard his pain. I confronted his pain with a simple message from Jesus. Mark was a miraculously recovered paraplegic. He had lost two children of his own, left his wife. Mark was an alcoholic getting older and more lonely. It’s not hard to make a drunk man share or cry. Mark cried. I cried because everything I told Mark I felt that he knew was true; but he didn’t want to accept it.

I prayed with Mark on our decent. As I finished Mark exclaimed, “I listened to every word of that prayer preacher and the whole thing was KICK A.” This is another time when Chase and some others around us laughed audibly. I got to meet Mark’s elderly parents in the lobby of the Tulsa airport. My heart is sad today for Mark. Mark says that he hates having feelings. They all hurt. He feels like a lonely looser. Mark has a whole in his heart only Jesus can fill. I really wanted to sleep on that flight. Jesus blessed me instead. He helped me see hurting people. Mark, you will never read this. But my prayer is that you let God find you, on his terms. He has always pursued you. It wasn’t science that healed you. It wasn’t coincidence that you sat by me last night. It was one more incident in your life where God was desperately seeking you. God was seeking me to. Thank you for waking me up Jesus. Show yourself to Mark.

Jesus video . . . what do you think?

2006-09-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

I am old school in many ways. I grew up going to conservative churches theologically; but the “feel” was so authentic. I don’t know what it is like to be “unchurched”. For me that would be to take away my literal family. Because of this my view of Jesus the person may have been just as warped as any unchurched person. Now I know that none of my Sunday school teachers purposefully misled me in my perception of Jesus. It just happens. We say things to kids about “baby” Jesus.

I really think that my theology over the past 10 years has been recovering to find a BIGGER Jesus. For instance: my theology of Jesus is now big enough to picture him farting around the camp fire with the apostles. This is heresy folks! He was all God all human. We need to realize that we have taken away pieces of our King and that is wrong. It steals from his whole work. Come on! 13 guys out walking and camping. You know somebody was lighting up the gas bombs! And they had to laugh about it. This idea makes me love Jesus more. I want to identify with all his humanity. Because that means he really knows me. And that gives me hope because he did it perfect!!! He lived with a group of guys and never said anything or joked about anything immoral. That is hard. Jesus did it. No coarse joking! He did it. My Jesus is big enough to conquered that. For me not to then have a picture of him laughing so hard that tears are coming out of his eyes would negate his victory over the flesh. He had to have lived life to the fullest. He had to have laughed harder, loved more and NOT sinned for me to want to follow him. I submit that Jesus farted and they all laughed and it made those who followed him due so even unto death. He was real. He was God. He was Holy. He was human.

I say all of this to reintroduce some videos that are actually rather old. A church used these videos to address our misconceptions about Jesus. I think it is totally appropriate and hilarious. My wife doesn’t like them. She thinks they are wrong. We disagree. We discussed this as a staff today and had differing opinions on whether or not they inappropriately satire the character of Christ. Perhaps I am too liberal in my opinion here. I may be wrong. I just think that we are so off base at time in how we view and present Jesus that we need something this off the wall to snap us back to our senses. We don’t have a clue sometimes who Jesus really was. I am constantly being reminded about that by Jesus himself. I love that about him. If you haven’t seen these then please do watch!!!! Here is a link to my favorite. Check the rest on my Youtube account.
http://www.youtube.com/user/jj122196

A great tool!

2006-09-06T09:17:00.000-07:00

I found this great link on Marko's blog today. Have fun with this. See the link below on how to make your own! They do other signs on this site too. It is great. I have some church signs that I won't post but you can email me for them :)

see: http://www.says-it.com

Happy NFL Kickoff Week . . . I'm for real . . . Happy NFLKW :)

2006-09-05T19:56:00.000-07:00

I am a junkie. Last year it started with my first Fantasy Football League. This year I am in four leagues. It isn’t what you think. Although I do love the sport there is so much more for my new fascination with this facet of the game. It has to do with the fellowship, the banter between friends and the camaraderie I get to share with so many buddies I normally wouldn’t talk to that often. I know I asked lots of you to join a few leagues and then some of you I just hunted down and forced (like you Jeffrey and you Daren) but you will all thank me for itverry soon. Well, perhaps you will curse me when you start caring about things like if the Cardinals win or not.

It is kind of like eating with a person. When you share a meal with someone and engage in real conversation that touches their life, something happens on a much deeper level. It is spiritual. Now I am not saying that FF is spiritual. (Although Denver Bronco Football can be) What I am saying is that, the interaction with me and some of the guys in my small group or some of my jr high worker buddies around the nation is special.

Did I just say special? . . . Perhaps I just hit close to the head of this subject! For guys this is about as sappy as we get. We don’t through baby showers. We don’t send Hallmark cards. We ask each other to be in a FF league. That is an olive branch. Man to man. In some cultures you might share a pint and sing a song. This is actually quite expressive for some of us. So from one man who has a controlled and comfortable hold on his masculinity I just want to say, “I love you guys, this is going to be the best year ever BFF!”
Ha! “Happy NFL Kick Off Week”