HSM Weekend Videos

Some awesome videos we are playing this weekend. Pretty epic promos to get our students excited for HSM’s Halloween Party. Also, continuing our high school sports recaps, where we cover our local schools sports in one minute.

Videos are huge in our services. It adds a great dynamic to the service and with this generation that we preach too, nothing gets student’s attention like video. There is something about it that just makes them quiet and so focused.

Pumpkinfest Promo!

Sports Minute Vol. 4

Life Group Promo (Direct TV Commercial)

Small groups is what HSM life comes out of. If HSM could only do one thing with our student ministry, it would be small groups, it is that important. This is why we push it so hard to our students because we really believe that real life change happens in small groups because they will have the strong community around them as they experience Jesus.

Here is one of many videos we did to promote our Life Groups:

Missing Miracles

I have been reading through the Gospel of John lately, and in chapter two I found something that I never really noticed before that sort of stopped me in my tracks. John 2:1-7 says,

“On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, ² and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³ When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”⁴ “Woman,^[a] why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”⁶ Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.^[b] 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.”

We all have heard this story before. Jesus turns the water into wine. It is His first miracle that He does in public, but I do not want to focus on that. I want to focus on the servants who filled up the water jugs. Think about it, they were given the “blah” job. These were jars that held around 30 gallons of water EACH! It was heavy times six jars. Not a glorious job by any means but they did not say “This is not our job” or “This is not necessary”, they just simply obeyed and got to be apart of a miracle.

“His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”⁶ Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.^[b] 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.”

By simply obeying Jesus by what seemed like a menial task the servants got to be apart of a huge miracle that launched Jesus into ministry and His name was spread. If we do what we feel Jesus is calling us to do, no matter how small and insignificant the task seems, we can have the opportunity to be apart of a miracle in someones life simply because we obeyed.

Doesn’t matter matter what it is, don’t miss out on a potential miracle because you thought yourself too good for a certain task. My prayer is that I always carry out what Jesus calls me to do, no matter the task, so that I may be able to be apart of the miracle to have His name spread like in John 2.

GUEST POST: Humble Beginnings

Recently I accepted the position of Saddleback Huntington Beach Student Ministries Director. I cannot begin to tell you how surreal that sentence is.

I come from a church in a small town where you are bound to run into at least ten people you know on a daily basis wherever you go. I had the honor of being the Jr. High Director for my home church for almost two years. I watched our ministry start with a handful of students and grow to 300+ in the course of a year. I’ve seen God do incredible things in our students lives on a daily basis.

Coming from a ministry where everyone “gets it” to a ministry where you have the challenge of starting from scratch really teaches you about humble beginnings. “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.” – Zechariah 4:10 NLT

I have the privilege of taking these handful of students back to the basics. I get to teach them why it’s important to read their bibles, why they should take notes, why they should serve, and why they should reach out to their friends.

Was it always an exciting feeling to start from scratch? To be honest… No. I knew it would be a challenge, but I also knew that God had called me to this and I also knew that He would be there every step of the way. I know ministry can be discouraging when you feel like students aren’t getting it, or when you feel like what you’re saying is going in one ear and out the other. I encourage you to celebrate the win.

What do I mean by that?

Every week I remind my students to bring their bibles and journals. For the first couple months I got nothing. The other day I had a student walk up to me and say “Hey Brenda! Look! I brought my bible and journal!” You better believe I celebrated that all morning! I even gave him a shout out during service for setting the example.

These things may not seem like a big deal, but to a ministry that is going back to the basics to build a solid foundation it is a huge step in the right direction. I celebrate that they stepped out and talked to someone. I celebrate that they invited a friend. I celebrate when they take notes. I celebrate the first time a student raises his or her hand in worship.

What gets rewarded gets repeated.

We may not be celebrating that we had 100’s of students show up on a Sunday morning (yet), but I am celebrating that they are making progress. If you aren’t moving forward then you’re standing still.

My advice to anyone in ministry: Celebrate the WIN. We so often as ministry workers tend to hear and fixate on the negative. I pray that we start recognizing that even if just one student gets something out of your weekly message then you’re doing something right and someone’s life is being changed.

Brenda Medina is the Student Ministries Director for Saddleback Huntington Beach. She is a lover of Christ. Encourager. Over analyzer. Writer. Reaching the next generation with passion and heart. Devoted to building up leaders, Brenda is available for any suggestions or comments.

Brenda Medina. Student Ministries Director | Saddleback HB

T: @_Bren_

F: BrendaSays

B: BrendaSays.blogspot.com

GUEST POST: Expectations for Youth Leaders

In any position, expectations are important…very important! The person applying for a job needs to know what is expected of him first. If the boss does not lay out the expectations from the get go, he cannot expect for his employee to meet those expectations. Therefore, I blame this on the boss. In student ministry, it is important that you lay out the expectations for the youth leaders ahead of time. When I came to this student ministry, we already have had youth leaders in place, and I have not had to go out recruit much, but when I do, this is important. Lay out clear expectations for your youth leaders. Okay, we got that…now, what are some expectations that I should have for our youth leaders? Here are a few of those for you to start out with:

1. Maintain a healthy growing time with Jesus– Youth leaders time with God will show in how they approach their ministry! If they have not been growing in the Word, you will see it lived out in youth group, and you cannot have this! Youth leaders must be steadily growing in their relationship with Jesus if they ever want the students to grow.
2. Be faithful to church/youth group– This is a no brainer in our minds, but let me tell you from experience, the youth leaders need to hear it! It is important and vital that you stress this. We cannot ever expect our students to be faithful to church if we cannot be faithful. Tell your leaders that you expect them to be at church when the doors are open so that is applicable to however your church does its service times.
3. Attend youth events– Now, there are going to be times when some youth leaders cannot attend certain events throughout the year, but they should be at many throughout the year for sure! This is their responsibility. Attending youth events is one of the best ways to build relationships with the students. They love seeing their leaders at stuff. It is tough, but from experience the leaders with the best relationships with their students are the ones who try to come to every youth event!
4. Build relationships with their small group students’ parents– This is HUGE. I actually had a breakfast meeting this morning with one of our youth leaders discussing how we can be more involved in the home and the parents lives. I am learning that we are ministering to our parents as much as the students and your youth leaders must understand this from the get go! Therefore, they must try their best to talk with the parents and build a solid relationship with the parents throughout the year.
5. Participate with enthusiasm– This is important to me. The reason is there is nothing worse than you being excited and no one else is. That is awful for the student pastor. If you have leaders (and you should), this should never happen! Meaning as long as leaders are there, there should never be a dull moment in youth group. If there are, it is the leaders responsibility to kick up the enthusiasm and energy. Expect this from your youth leaders.
6. Follow Rules & boundaries of church– Every church and youth group have certain boundaries. Sometimes they are crazy and far-fetched, but every youth leader must know that they are responsible for teaching the students to follow rules whether or not they agree with them.
7. Offer suggestions for improvement– I desire this from every youth leader. If you have 5 youth leaders, that is 5 different perspectives that you need to hear! I love hearing feedback from our youth leaders, but you should expect every leader’s feedback, not just the same few every single time.
8. Attend training and leader’s meetings– This is another big thing that we struggle with. If you have a leader who skips out on all of the meetings that you have, they are not going to be much good. It is your responsibility to find the best time for the most leaders to attend and schedule it. Schedule them far in advance so that the leaders can plan accordingly. After that, it is the youth leader’s responsibility to attend! They must plan around important meetings.
9. Follow through on responsibilities– If you give them a responsibility, follow through with it! Youth leaders who sit on things for a long while are not going to be good leaders. Find leaders who are eager to get things done for you. Also, if they suggest for you to do something, you must follow the example and the expectation of getting it done in a timely manner as well.
10. Pray daily for the student ministry– This is another no-brainer, but it sometimes goes unnoticed. We expect so much when it comes to the program, but when it comes to the biggest thing like praying, we do not stress this! Every youth leader should be responsible and held accountable that they are praying daily for the student ministry!

I could go on and on, but these are 10 expectations that you must have! Remember to lay out the expectations early. The student pastor’s who are frustrated with their youth leaders and their performance are normally the ones who have not laid out the expectations that they desire!

*Josh Evans is the student pastor at Union Grove Baptist Church in the Winston Salem, NC area. You can connect further with Josh on this blog or send him a direct email at joshhevans@gmail.com.

Forgiveness…Is More Than Saying Sorry

Forgiveness is not an easy thing at times. Forgiveness is not a lot of things, but there are 3 things that forgiveness is.

1.  Forgiveness is a choice. When has being mad every fixed anything?  When has getting even ever changed the situation?  When has getting even ever really made things even?

We can choose to hold a grudge or we can CHOSE to forgive. I like to think of it like this, for every time that someone has hurt us, we probably have hurt someone else at one time by things we either have said or things we have done. We are the same.  We have done the same things.  When does holding a grudge really change our views of someone, or their view of us?  When does holding onto hurt ever make us feel better. Gandhi’s said “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.”

2. Forgiveness is a command. Forgiveness would be simple if we only had to grant it to those who come asking for it in sorrow and repentance. The Bible tells us that we are to forgive, without condition, those who sin against us. Refusing to truly forgive a person demonstrates resentment, bitterness, and anger, none of which are the traits of a true Christian. Jesus said in Matthew 6:14-15, “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.” In light of other Scriptures that speak of God’s forgiveness, Matthew 6:14-15 is best understood to be saying that people who refuse to forgive others have not truly experienced God’s forgiveness themselves.

 3. Given to us everyday. Whenever we disobey one of God’s commands, we sin against Him. Whenever we wrong another person, we not only sin against that person, but also against God. When we consider the extent to which God forgives all our transgressions, we realize that we do not have the right to withhold this grace from others. We have sinned against God infinitely more than any person can sin against us.

God promises that when we come to Him asking for forgiveness, He freely grants it.1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The forgiveness we extend should know no limits, in the same way that God’s forgiveness is limitless.

When you are forgiven by someone, don’t we feel so much better? That worry about what that person thinks of us? Wondering if we are ok with them and our relationship will be ok? Once we are forgiven by them, we then do everything in our power to make sure our relationship is restored and we try to rekindle it and strengthen it. Same thing from God. God has already forgiven us. Not only from our huge mistakes from also from our little ones. The everyday ones. We then too need to go on with our relationship with God in the same way. We are forgiven. We now need to be thankful and rekindle our relationship with him. That because we are forgiven every single day from every single sin, we need to realize that and strengthen that relationship with God. It doesn’t matter if we have done a huge boo boo, or just a million small little everyday ones, we HAVE to remember and allow that to shape our lives and actions as forgiven people.

*This is just a section from my workshop from our HSM Summer Camp that I got to teach at. I hope this helps!

How To Keep The Camp High

For both students and for leaders, there is always a camp high when we come back from a camp. It is during those times in which we feel so much closer to who God is, what He is doing in our lives and it always seems to be a rekindling  of a relationship between us and God. So how do you keep that? How do you not lose that when you come home and have it fade away?

If you really think about it, there are 5 major things we do at a camp or retreat everyday that we tend to not do when we get back. 5 things in which we are supposed to do on a daily basis which we tend not to do at camp or retreat. It is these 5 things that give us that spiritual “high”, but if we were to do these everyday we would be able to have that feeling everyday.

• Pray- We pray everyday at a camp or retreat. that communication between us and God is key to our closeness with God. If we are having a struggle on determining where God is wanting you to go, what better way than to have a conversation with the One who made you.
• Quiet Time- At a camp or retreat you have a quiet time with God every single day. You study the Bible for at least 30 minutes everyday you are there. This is something I myself struggle with on a daily basis and I know it is a reason in which the “camp high” fades when I come back.
• Community- You are in a great community of people everyday. You are around people who you are comfortable talking to and opening up to and being able to talk openly about struggles that you are having and being able to pray with them right then and there.
• Worship- There is worship session every single day (usually in the form of music). But its time where you and God connect and you can just worship Him for who He is.
• Laugh- We let loose at a camp or retreat because we are not worrying about anything besides just being there with God. Jesus says why worry about tomorrow, today has enough worry for its self. When we are at camp or retreat we can just have fun and laugh with everyone around us and not worry about anything.

All of these things happen at retreats and that’s why we get that extra close feeling to God. Because these are the things that we are called to do on a daily basis, so that “camp high” doesn’t need to go away…ever! We have to stop doing these things just at camps and retreats and not on a everyday basis. No wonder we don’t have that feeling when we come back because we forget to do this when we are back.

That’s my goal as we just got back from camp, to continue to do these things to keep that “camp high”.

Blotted Mercy

When you look at the ink blot above, what do you see? What do you focus on? The blot? The space around it? What?

In prayer I think we sometimes focus on all of our problems and not the widespread mercy of God. For example, if there was a blank white page and there was an ink blot right in the middle of it, because the page was blank, the ink blot will stand out to us and that will be the thing that we focus on. But the ink blot doesn’t take over the whole page, its just a small section compared to the rest of the page. There is still a lot of white on the page. The ink blot is our sin, and the rest of the page is God’s mercy. In prayer we only focus on the ink blot, our sin, and that’s the one thing we focus on. The rest of paper, which is far bigger than the ink blot, is God’s mercy, and that is what we should be focusing on. We always pray for and focus on our sins, which is only tiny compared to the rest of the page of God’s mercy. THAT’S WHAT OUR PRAYER SHOULD BE FOCUSED ON, THE VAST MERCY THAT SURROUNDS OUR SIN.

Proverbs 28:13

People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy.

10 Foot Leader Rule

One of my favorite things about our team is that we love to be around each other. We have a blast during the week in the offices, we go to lunch together, we do life together and it is incredible. I encourage that in any office until no end. There is only one problem with this and that is when that bleeds over onto the weekend services where we tend to flock to each other and hang out rather than being with the students that are walking right past us.

On the weekend, we should implement a 10-foot rule amongst leaders. What this means is that no leader should be within 10 feet of another leader. In fact, within that 10 feet should be students that we are engaging with.

Benefits of this rule:

• We are there for the students during service, not each other. We are there to serve the students, to know the student, connect with the students. We connect all week and the weekend services should not be the place to do it.
• It will spread us out. Clumps of people are intimidating for new students. If all our leaders are spread out, it is less intimidating for a student to talk to a leader.
• We will cover more ground. One of my goals on the weekend is to make sure that every student that walks in our doors in connected with one of our weekend leaders before they leave our building. Being 10 feet from each other will help everyone spread out and make sure we do our best to make sure every student is connected with.
• It will help us all remember that church is about people. It is about the relationships and connections we all make. If there was no people, there would be no church and we are not doing our jobs. This will get us out of our comfort zone of people we know and love and help us get out and get to know and love new people.

It is simple but I think it can be really effective if we really focus on this idea.

God Uses Idiots

Acts 4:13 says, “¹³ When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”

Peter and John just got done doing a miracle and people were amazed. People were blown away and noted that these men, ordinary, non-schooled men, idiots to the world because they were just fishermen once before, had been with Jesus, and Jesus used them to change the world and perform this miracle. People took note of them because they had been in love with Jesus.

These men were “idiots” of their day. They didn’t meet up to the religious elite because they didn’t go to school for it. But it never mattered. They just lived for Jesus and obeyed, and God used them.

God is looking to use idiots. The “not good enough”. And I am glad… because I am one of them. I’m an idiot, I promise you that. God is in the habit of using people who are willing to follow Him no matter what the case.

People that do not ask, “What do you need me to do? Yes, that sounds good and safe I’ll do that” but rather people that the answer is, “Yes Lord! Now what will you have me do.” And then they do just do it.

People will look at you according to the world’s expectations and qualifications, and judge you off of that. Jesus can and will use you no matter what condition you come in as long as you are willing to obey.

Craig Groeshel said, “You are not who others say you are. You are who God says you are. And He says you are His!” It doesn’t matter what anyone else tells you you are just as long as you know who God says you are. God uses everyone and anyone, no matter the past or future, just as long as we are willing to be so passionately following Jesus that the world thinks of us as idiots.

Is anything impossible for our God?

It does not matter who you are, what you have done, whether you think you are capable or not, God loves to use idiots to move in big ways. I’m glad I am an idiot. I’m glad I realize that I have messed up, done stupid things in the past but know God can still use me in a huge way.

Same goes for you! Be an idiot. We all are, and let God use you and define you.