© 2008 Strategic Junior High. 
Here are some thoughts on what goes through the mind of a new volunteer that just started giving their time at your church:
“I don’t know anyone on the team - I feel like an outsider. They probably wouldn’t even notice if I stopped showing up.”
“The first sign that you want to take more of my [...]
AgileMinistry.com has a great collection of articles written all about how to grow your ministry area.� One that stood out was this one about volunteers:
It is hard to manage volunteers, and often is the case that the staff will discount the help of volunteers. Rather, they will take the route of doing it themself, even [...]
Now that you have learned about the staircase method of leadership development, and have seen examples of this in action, now it is time to start taking your first steps. We want to identify three specific actions that your volunteers will do on the start of their leadership development:
Step 1: The “No Brainer” Action
This step [...]
Christmas is over but for those in leadership in ministry, gift giving is something that goes on all year round.� When it comes to giving gifts though, for leaders it’s often a head scratching experience.� Oprah Winfrey once said, “It doesn’t matter what the thing is; what matters is how much of yourself goes into [...]
I was taking a look through some of Kurt Johnston’s old blog posts from about a year ago and I came across this post about strategy.� Now it’s no secret that this site has a particular interest in strategy driven junior high ministry but it’s posts like this one by KuJo (as I call him) [...]
This week I had the opportunity to meet with some other youth pastor’s from around our denomination’s district and it was a great experience. It did occur to me though that there are still pastor’s out there who fly by the seat of their pants planning their programming on a week by week basis. So [...]
Christians are supposed to represent Christ to the world. But according to the latest report card, something has gone terribly wrong. Using descriptions like hypocritical, insensitive, and judgmental, young Americans share an impression of Christians that’s nothing short of… unChristian…
Groundbreaking research into the perceptions of 16- to 29-year-old non-Christians reveals that Christians have taken several [...]
This post is all about this question, do small groups work? Before I attempt to answer that question though I think it’s important that I define what I mean by ‘work’. Like anything with ministry it’s a really good idea to have a clearly defined purpose for why you have small groups and what you [...]
Gordon MacDonald identified 7 worship ‘instincts’ that people can have as they encounter God. These instincts are a simple way to identify how each person can connect with God the easiest. As you program for junior high students try and find ways to incorporate all seven of these ‘instincts’ into your services. Most people will [...]
Ed Stetzer wrote an article recently where he broke down the emergent church into three categories. Although most people would balk at labels in general, I think that Ed has correctly defined some of the edges in the emergent conversation. His perspective is as a conservative baptist evangelical and that colour comes through in the [...]