“Your Summer” Series Week 3

Dave Libbon —  May 21, 2013 — Leave a comment
impact long
Teaching Series: Your Summer, Share Jesus.

Connecting Activity: Top 3?    We allotted some time for small groups this week in our program. The topic was simple. Give your top 3 ________. They could be top 3 movies, top 3 favorite songs, top 3 foods, you get the idea. Then we told students to keep talking about themselves.

Main Point of the Teaching: Share Jesus. We share the things that are most important to us. I put up pics of my wife and daughters who the students all know, then I put up pics of my dog which students probably don’t know. My family is more important then my dog so naturally I’ll share them first. How much more important is Christ?  Made the point that in no way God will love us more or less if we share the gospel with no one or a million people. Don’t let guilt lead you to works righteousness. We’ll share Christ because he has renewed our hearts. Paul would say in 1 Cor 15:3 “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,”

Worship Response: Happy Day, How He Loves, Your Love Never Fails.

Next Week: (None until September.) We break weekly programing for the summer to give our volunteers a few months to rest, and to focus on relational ministry.

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Post-Christian Youth Ministry

Dave Libbon —  May 20, 2013 — Leave a comment

planning

This question has been bouncing around in my mind for sometime. It’s one that we, as youth ministers, will need to answer if we’re going to have any kingdom worth in the next decade…

What does youth ministry look like in a post-Christian culture?

Before we go any further let’s define some terms. What I mean by “post-Christian” is that Christianity is no longer the dominant and  assumed religious starting point in most of Europe and for large segments of North America. I realize this premise could be argued but what I’m hoping to convey is that we are drifting in that direction, even in the good old “Bible Belt” where I reside.

Last week I was listening to a leadership teaching from the senior pastor of a major church. He made some comments that I’ve heard echoed by Jesus loving guys like Voddie Baucham, Rob Rienow, and others who are rightly trumpeting the role of family as the primary disciplers of their teenagers. I’m on board with this as was Paul “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4, ESV) It’s my role and calling to bring up my daughters in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

So with all my heart I feel the need to issue a clarion call for dads to be disciplers. Here’s where post Christian culture has something to say. Continue Reading…

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Impact High School Ministry Week in Review: “Your Summer” Series Week 2

Dave Libbon —  May 14, 2013 — Leave a comment
Summer series
Teaching Series: Your Summer, Savor Jesus.

Connecting Activity: We took our summer calendar and cut it into 5 events. We split the group up into 5 large teams gave each team an event and then had them play charades to act out each event. The more information the group got the rest to guess the more points they got. For example if they got the name that’s one point. The date, time, cost, etc would each be a point. This helped get the word out about some of our summer plans as well as reinforced the idea that just because youth group breaks over the summer their faith doesn’t.

Main Point of the Teaching: Savor Jesus. We looked at Hebrews 1 and some of the amazing ways Jesus is described in scripture. If we get students to see Christ more clearly through the lens of scripture then their natural default will be to savor him.

Worship Response: You Are Good, 10,000 Reasons. (Only two songs this week because the Connecting Activity and Teaching went long.)

Next Week: Your Summer Week 3: Share Jesus (Final Impact of the school year)

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Impact High School Ministry Week in Review: “Your Summer” Series

Dave Libbon —  May 8, 2013 — Leave a comment

YourSummerTeaching Series: Your Summer, See Jesus.

Connecting Activity: Frog Or Duck. This came from the website MoreThenDodgeBall.com The idea is that different cultures approach the sounds animals make differently. For example Americans would say that a duck says “quack” while someone in Vietnam might say a duck says “cuck”. We play the sound and asked teams of students to identify if that was the sound a duck makes or a frog. What’s the point? Context. Without context it’s hard to identify the creature. Without context we have no way to respond to things. Unless we see this summer in context, or as part of the story, we will have no way to understand it’s role in our lives. What if this summer was the best summer ever?

Main Point of the Teaching: See Jesus. We looked at how Eph. 1 Says we see Jesus with the eyes of our hearts and how we can identify gospel analogies all through summer. We looked at movies, nature, and Charleston culture. It was a good starting point to the series.

Worship Response: O Praise Him, Revelation Song, Happy Day. *A big part of worship this week was that it was led by two freshman guys. I was blown away by their willingness to step forward and own their role in the ministry. Really proud of them.

Next Week: Your Summer Week 2: Savor Jesus

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How We Connect Big Group and Small Group

Dave Libbon —  May 7, 2013 — Leave a comment

small group guide screenshotOne of the things we’ve wrestled with for years was how to connect our big group and small groups (we call them life groups). We do excellent teachings at big group. (See our Week In Review section for more on our big groups) Also we have a great network of life groups that provide relational ministry, missions opportunities, and discipleship. It felt like we were fighting a two front war. Life groups would do a random book study, topical bible studies, or wander off on their own track. While our big group team would be doing series and gathering events. What our life group leaders were asking for was some structure and guidance yet all their groups were different.

This year we started to publish Life Group Guides to Continue Reading…

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The Crippling Sickness of a Youth Minister

Dave Libbon —  May 2, 2013 — Leave a comment

christIt’s a crippling sickness that affects those in ministry. It begins with a seduction and then sets the hook in the meaty flesh or our pride. It’s called personality. Symptoms include…

  • Over inflated ego,
  • Seeing every critique as personal,
  • Relying on our sense of humor or ability to publicly speak over times of prayer and study,
  • A  fear of other “big” personalities,
  • and many many more…

Whole ministries are built on those suffering from this illness and when that person is finally consumed by their disease the ministry Continue Reading…

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Impact High School Ministry Week in Review: Jonah Chapter 4

Dave Libbon —  April 30, 2013 — Leave a comment

Teaching Series: Jonah Week 4: A Place to GrowJonah_5x7

Connecting Activity: Questions (Not fair) A big part of Jonah chapter 4 is God’s questions to Jonah and Jonah throwing a fit. This part of our morning involves students breaking into small circles with these rules.

  1.  You can only ask questions. If you say a statement you are out. (questions can be about anything under the sun)
  2. You must make eye contact to the person you are asking a question to then they make eye contact to another person and the game continues.

This plays off our natural tendencies to respond to questions. We have a leader randomly walk around and tell people they are back in. This comes into play later because it was Jonah’s complaint that God was showing mercy when people didn’t deserve it.

Main Point of the Teaching:

Finally we come to the last chapter in Jonah. Not only is it the last but it might be the most confusing. All of Nineveh has repented and turned to the Lord. Jonah should be thrilled but instead he’s so mad that twice he says “take my life from me…” The big thing to keep in mind here is that God shows mercy out of his great love. His mercy is poured out on Nineveh, Jonah, and us daily.

Worship Response: Jesus Messiah, Your love is everything, How he loves us.

Also we inserted the confession from the BCP.. Here’s the text we used….

       ALMIGHTY God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men; We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, By thought, word, and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.
We do earnestly repent, And are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; The burden of them is intolerable. Have mercy upon us, Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father; For thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, Forgive us all that is past; And grant that we may ever hereafter Serve and please thee In newness of life, To the honor and glory of thy Name;
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.    Amen.

Next Week:  Your Best Summer Ever Part 1

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Anglican Youth Confirmation: Don’t Waste This Season

Dave Libbon —  April 29, 2013 — Leave a comment

confirmation_logo-2013

It’s that time of year again. Spring has sprung, pollen is causing allergies to go crazy, and men with purple shirts are slapping teenagers across the face. (Yes, you read that right, part of some bishop’s confirmation prayer is a tap on the cheek to remind the confirmands that the world is not a kind place.) We are about to finish our confirmation process which began back in January.

What I’ve come to learn is that Confirmation is really different depending on where you go. Some youth workers (if we are being honest) are not that excited about it while others seem almost giddy to teach great theological treaties to a room full of middle school students. No matter where you stand on the spectrum I’d encourage you not to waste this season because there is great opportunities to be had for the kingdom.

Confirmation isn’t salvation. What we communicate to parents is that confirmation is a formal and personal accepting of the promises made over the student at their baptism as an infant. As the students becomes of age (for us it’s 8th grade or older) they publicly affirm their faith and are then formally recognized by the church. For us we seek to do three things in Continue Reading…

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Students and Social Media: Something Every Parent Should Know

Dave Libbon —  April 25, 2013 — 1 Comment

Here’s a great infograph that appeared over on Youth Ministry Media …

Thedigitalworldofteens 50a40e714f6ca w587 The digital world of teens [infographic]

The digital world of teens infographic by chandagohrani.

 

 

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Impact High School Ministry Week in Review: Jonah Chapter 3

Dave Libbon —  April 23, 2013

jonah spitTeaching Series: Jonah Week 3: A Place to Change

Connecting Activity: WAR! Nineveh was a waring, violent people so we thought we’d divide to room in half split 100 finger rockets and had a little skirmish. The goal was to get your rockets into another teams bucket (or just have fun shooting them at the other team!)

Main Point of the Teaching:

We don’t know how much time passed between chapter 2 and chapter 3. I’d like to think not much. How great would it be for Jonah to get puked up onto the Nineveh public beach? Funny but let’s actually talk about Nineveh for a moment.

The people of Nineveh were not God’s chosen people, they were outsiders. They were different, evil, and cruel. History isn’t kind to the Ninevehites and they Continue Reading…

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