Yesterday was a busy day. We had a bunch of new things happen and I was about as tired as could be last night. First I started a new series in the high school ministry called "Jesus' Priorities" part of what we're trying to do with this series is to get our students talking with each other and not just sitting and staring at me while I try to keep them awake for 20 minutes.
We decided to go to a shorter talk/discussion group model with groups led mostly by parent volunteers. We set the whole room up with round tables and went for it. The response from both students and parents was great. I was impressed with the high school leadership team and their drive to make this work.
After high school we reset the room up for our All-Nations fellowship. This was the first Sunday that we were both going to be using the room. Seemed to go off without a hitch.
The rest of the day was great too. I had brought in Chap Clark from Fuller Theological Seminary to lead a ParenTeen seminar that evening. Chap also preached in the 1105 service and went out to lunch with our staff team. Everything he was involved in went phenomenal and I've already heard from many parents that this was exactly what they needed to hear.
As I reflect back on the day I have a couple thoughts. First, I'm glad that I'm still in youth ministry. I think God has given me a renewed sense of my purpose and calling. I can't imagine a better place than Highland Park Presbyterian Church for me to be than at this church because I am able to leverage my strengths.
Second, I think we have a long ways to go to create a space where all students feel unconditionally like we "collectively the church" care about them.
Third, I'm proud of the parents who came last night because they made a good step towards understanding their kids and this world we're all trying to raise them in.
Forth, this goes to the "Quantifying results" title. I'm working on trying to get my head around how to gauge how something like this is effective. I know that most of the parents I spoke to had great things to say but I want to figure out how we can track how change happens. We'll be talking about all of this during our meetings this week and next.
three comments.
first, good old chappy. Great stuff. in this parenteen seminar, did he discuss the ideas wrapped up in his book Disconnected?
second, what type of answers did the parents share in the discussion? could you tell they were "parent" answers?
also did you sense the student a bit reserve since mom and dad were in the room?
third, this model of high ministry is freaking brilliant. instead of you crafty a nice three point sermon, you allowed the students and parents to discover the biblical truth together. with your help and guidance of course.
Posted by: jeremy z | April 03, 2008 at 11:32 PM