We're going to go ahead and begin in the second section talking about programs with vision and The the exciting part about this is I ended last section talking about have fun Really ministry should be fun. It doesn't mean it's going to be easy It's going to be very very difficult, but there has to be a sense of God really Delighting in you as your part of ministry of one of the ways that will happen is when you get into doing these various programs designed to build relationships Vertically between you and God and your students and God and then horizontally with you and the students and the students with one another and families as well Remember though a couple of quick things is that when you're coming through this process of thinking about ideas Barrel from people steal from people. You know the old-lying creativity is forgetting who you stole it from I think that's funny But at the same time don't what's wrong with saying I got this idea from so and so it's a great idea We're doing it now. It's okay to use resources to a lot of times I think people find themselves being so Proud about their ability to put together curriculum and stuff that they won't go use what's out there Now I'll be the first to tell you that anytime you use curriculum Modification is going to be the key word you're going to have to add to it either on the level of fun and excitement and relevance or Ideological significance, but it's so good to use resources to help act as a spring board to go out there and do other stuff I mean use resources on TV if you're watching TV Nick Jr Nickelodeon and even those shows will do crazy stuff program-wise that you could probably adapt and implement in fact In some ways Nickelodeon makes our jobs harder because stuff that we did with high school students in youth group years ago Or middle school students they're doing now with younger kids because I got a little kids I see it like hey, we didn't we did that. That's a old news group gag And you hear Nickelodeon Nick Jr. They're using it. So use resources and never never never stop asking questions Not only other people, but all of your programs are they fulfilling its purpose? How will you know? I have a sheet just blank here That's what's not blank, but it has blanks on it where it says common youth ministry programs Sunday school Purpose question mark. I give this to you Just to keep just so whenever you get ready to do something or evaluate step back and go We're gonna do Sunday school. What's our purpose? And don't be a snott about it Like if you're working in a church and you're pretty confident They don't have a vision or purpose statement for it. You don't walk up to the earth that you pass your Well, I would love to help us in this school. What's its purpose? Hmm, you couldn't articulate it. Have you read this book? You don't do that Simply say what do you want to accomplish? And they might go I don't really have a purpose for it or my name They might not articulate it that well, but they haven't understood me what they're trying to do So don't be a snott about it, but try to help them see okay. This is what we're trying to accomplish and we should do that with Everything I really believe that and want to implement that she work with me though You'd see that it's not always that clear It's not always that perfect as there's a lot of the stuff. I'm gonna present here This is a model that I really am aiming to implement, but it's challenging It's difficult because of all the other things that take place So we're gonna talk now about what are the steps in planning programs kind of from start to finish How do you begin? How do you end? One of the great things is begin with the end in mind and everything you're doing What is your ultimate goal? How are you gonna get there? What we're stepping into now is basic goal planning Action steps, etc Planning is one of the most important things that you can do we all know that But your personality's gonna get in the way you're either a great planner who can do the micro Think about it from start to finish everything's just lined up perfectly. We'll need this number of supplies this time period this phone call whatever or you're gonna be more a visionary person I've got a vision for what this would look like and you can see it in your mind you're almost artistic with it I can I got a flow for it, but when somebody says well, what are you gonna do to make it happen? You have no Glue about how to do that or you're kind of somewhere in between For instance, my personal is one in which I love to dream big and I can initially come up with the list of steps I know the big questions to ask I know what to do, but then what happens is I get bored very quickly So I need somebody to step in And take over and run it through implementation after a little while I can get back into it and be excited again stir it up and then they've got to take it to another level doesn't make sense Don't pretend that you are going to be the perfect visionary leader and the perfect systems manager or project administrator whatever you're not God Did not gift people in a way where they actually excel at all those levels You're gonna be predominantly one you're gonna be predominantly the vision leader Kind of the servant that puts things all together or you're gonna kind of be a manager That's kind of a triangle if you can keep that keep it in mind That might help you is that we typically are one of three Leader manager are kind of a servant in anything that you're trying to Create in ministry you're good and need to have all three of those present and you are predominantly one if you're not another That's where great tension and conflicts arise because you can imagine The manager who's doing all the details could easily get frustrated With the gentleman or the woman at the top who's going ah, you know, whatever don't bother me down with that. Let's just do it It happens. That's just gonna be reality But without the leader it's probably gonna be very difficult for the manager to move anything beyond what the status quo would be Over here the servant Depending on their personality. They're gonna pretty simply just you know Do whatever it needs to be done and enjoy that in the process You see how it works. I don't know which one you are. You should determine that Through gifts and evaluation So let's go through some steps when we're talking about specific programs We're not talking about the big things right now. We're just talking about Sunday school small groups You know youth group in general retreats whatever the first thing I think After prayer and those kinds of things is review Last year or the last time you did it now if you're an effective evaluator You should have an evaluation of the event after they've been happened Shortly after not like a year later because you're gonna forget things that happen little things and big things Never evaluate something when you're tired in other words. I don't evaluate whether or not I want to do a lock-in the next year when I'm driving home from the lock-in at seven that morning Does that make sense? I don't know. We're going to know how that was the greatest thing I ever did In fact, we're gonna forward next year I wait depending on how long it takes my body to recover and it seems to be getting longer every year I'll think about it maybe a week later and I'll go through a sheet just evaluating the event I'll file that so that whenever it comes time to think about the next one I'll pull out last years and I might go. Oh, that's right I remember Their ice machine wasn't sufficient to give us ice to the night I need to fix that. There's no way I'd probably remember that You know a year later if I hadn't written that down So evaluate keep it file it away and then you have it We just did a retreat a couple of weekends ago Right now is the time for me to step back and go what really went well I'm past the being tired from the retreat. I know we're going to do another one And so let's evaluate it file that away in August when we get ready to plan for it pull it out and look at it It'd be a great thing plan a vision retreat at some point try to get away From your office if you need to go to the library if you need to go to a restaurant If you need to rent a hotel do that it wasn't that long ago where The person on primary administrative person on staff here with the youth administrative dude. We needed to get away So we rented a room just down the road in a hotel Worked in a little sweep there. It wasn't very expensive, you know worked there spent the night there Worked one day one night spent the night there worked the whole next day It was incredible to see how much productivity we got because we were away from the desk Away from the phones and we simply sit down and laid out vision So go on a little vision retreat Gather your team for brainstorming as you're talking about ideas Sunday school. What are we going to do this next year? You could what do we want to cover? Or maybe you want to do the longer planning Get your team involved why it's going to give them ownership And they're going to have good ideas Imagine for instance right now if we were a youth team and I said all right Let's just brainstorm on what we want to teach students in the four years weather in high school Would you guys have any thoughts? No Sure you would I mean you have lots of thoughts would they be in disagreement? Well probably not I mean, you know, you're not going to disagree that What's being said is important, but when else then you realize that you only have You know So many weeks a year To do it you realize some stuff's going to have to get cut you're just not going to be able to cover Everything and that's where the debating would get it would sharpen you pick your best ideas Don't just pick every idea pick your best ones and this is where if you're leading a team It's going to be hard for some But they need to realize that not every idea they have is the very best idea and your team is committed to the best ideas Then only pick the best ideas and it'll be so good for people on your team to realize You know what? I need to surrender my ideas not the best that one's actually better and go for it Move from macro and you're planning to micro and you're going to need if you're not a micro type person Somebody who is to help you get there and our team right now david is a tremendous compliment To my style of leadership because he asked the questions that really pushes towards what do we need to get for that? You know and then I find when I get somebody like david on my team I've become less focused on micro than I would if I didn't have them That's good because I'm not a micro thinker. I need to be out thinking of the other things and stirring other things up He is but he's also very relational and so it works well together and I'll talk more about that later Outline an overview for the year. What do you want to do and I have a scope and sequence section We'll look at just a second and the next thing is develop a process page for each event You guys familiar with what a scope and sequences scope and sequence is a christian ed term which basically says over the course of this time period This is the scope of what we want to teach And this is the sequence of what we want to teach and the course we offer here on Evangelism our reach and discipleship one of the projects that students do is they'll work in a team of four to six Developing a scope and sequence and in appendix. You'll see I've finished one a year scope and sequence now In our ministry we've done a scope and sequence from the time students are in sixth grade all the way through high school based on what is it if they attended every week All those years what is it that they would have in sunday school? What is it that they would have in the youth group now There's certain principles, you know, we know it has to be flexibility flexible for instance if we were going to talk about Joy Or we're going to talk about you know happiness or we're going to talk about entertainment and fun and a student in the youth group Just committed suicide We're probably not going to do that this week We're probably going to postpone that and deal with what's more current. That makes sense Instead of being locked on but it gives you a general idea of where you're going I use one example here from about three years ago where it goes from January All the way through December and it's specific enough for it as the actual dates On January 4th we will teach this and you'll notice that it says this is the topic This is who the teacher is and this is the resources that we're going to use Notice it never says Bible Well the reason is that's one of our principles the Bible will always be the foundation for what we're teaching And you can lay out your spreadsheet however you want but this is one example So we were talking in a brainstorming session with our team and one of the people say you know what we need to do We need to teach these students basic time management skills Is that a biblical principle? Well, absolutely to talk about being good managers of the resources. God's given us Talk about making God a priority in your life learning to make him first put him first etc That's a good thing And so we begin to talk about when should we do that somebody said the student the first of the year Now that could even either be in August or maybe in January we're going on a January to December curriculum Schedules so we said all right have on January on the full weeks on basic time management How to set your priorities according to life god? Obviously first family friends go down the list And so we use as a resource over here from my own study and preparation the people who talk about me First things first by Stephen Covey. It's actually not a Christian book But it's got principles that are not contradictory, you know At least not everywhere with scripture, but scripture was the primary book that we went through We talked about making god priority. We went through the proverbs actually was what we did So I spent four weeks there. We then did a book study We did first Timothy the resource we use was a curriculum which is okay called quick studies Uh gunning Mike was teaching that at the time and so he used that it was perfect for him It actually is a springboard launching him to do a pretty good job teaching Then we did a series on peer counseling notice how they're rotating It's kind of a topical deal Then it goes to a book study then it went to this uh peer counseling deal If that's happening what we're reversing with is at night in our small group or in a large group time We would be doing a book of the bible So it's constantly rotating that way because there's not just one time where the bible is being teach we use the youth builders group bible study On peer counseling and I had two students here both who graduated Uh from covenant with degrees in the count from the counseling department and they did this it was an incredible series plugin. Why did we do it? Well How we develop a Scope and sequences by asking lots of questions Most of the time people will come in they have a good idea and they'll make their own list of what they want to teach But it's not necessarily complete So what I did is I got elders I got parents I got students. I got a lot of different people to come on to a committee and say all right. What do we want to teach Through all these times and the list was massive it went over you know whiteboard And it may begin as picking shoes. I said well if we have an average of 48 weeks a year That we're teaching something in Sunday on Sunday morning. How many weeks does it give us why they're in high school How many 48 times for What's the number? How much? 192 so you have 192 weeks you start breaking that down and you realize we don't have that much time Because everybody starts with this ambition. I like them to know every book of the Old Testament in and out Okay, good now. It's great. Now. Let's go take 40 years and we're first to do it with that kind of detail It's not possible Plus there are certain things that you're definitely going to repeat aren't there I mean, I don't think you're only going to talk about Jesus and his birth or Jesus in his death once every four years Probably every year. So there's certain things that are going to be plugged in consistently shame on you If you don't deal with topics of temptation Sin especially in the areas of sexuality only once in four years That's foolish. You've got to do stuff and duplicate So recognize you can't do everything. But what this does is it acts as a scope. This is what we're trying to accomplish This is a schedule at which we accomplish that now. I get off of it all the time We do it for a while and then we'll get off because somebody will have some idea and then we'll pull back into it and go Okay, we need to continue Use it as a map. It doesn't necessarily have to be all you do But use it as a map and move forward The other thing that's really awesome for is when that parent or two comes forward So I don't think your youth pastor here is teaching the Bible It is great to be able to pull out a scope and sequence and say hey look This is what we've been doing the last two years and this is where we're going and a watch them go Oh, it's such a good feeling when they walk out of your office going Ah, we were wrong Not because you always want to be right but because there's an accusation that is so Absurd and you're going to hear it. Why because the student that has the parents that are in your office Maybe a one who's always says every time they ask him what he did nothing And they're just because they don't want to talk to their parents or two they may be really struggling And so they may be attacking even what you're doing just because they want their parents to get up They're back and that's a reality and so be Very honest now. That's a great idea. I parent pages. You know this curriculum youth builders for instance They do that. They have a parents page that you can give to the parents I wouldn't give it to the students and expect the students to give to the parents. Hey, Mom That this what we did today is beautiful It was so wonderful. Could you please ask me questions about it while we're having lunch That doesn't happen very often But those are great ideas to communicate and we'll talk more about that in the family base ministry stuff. We're doing later um We move from steps in planning reviewing interviewing evaluating into then the implementation process Now that you brainstormed assess sorted developed and plan on paper. It's time to begin What does that look like you need to develop action steps for each event That seeks to fulfill its specific goal One of the things that's important is to sign a point person for each event I like to use the term director or producer I'm not really a good Director I can be a decent producer because I've got in mind what I wanted to look like and I love to market it and tell people about it But the director's the one who steps back has an assistant director Who says okay? These are the 25 things we need to do to make it happen I can sit with that director and say did you remember this did you remember this did and they always say uh huh And I know they probably get bothered by those questions, but that's how I remember all I say And then we move on so it's a real team effort set date for completion Or a step back plan in other words if it's not working what's gonna be the next way we're gonna do it And then keep an eye on the progress most of us Well different people have different gives to this some of you love long-term planning You just think it's great to step up and go okay. I love this idea And others of you can't stand it you like the real short term You know I start talking about goals you think a week from now Other people think years from now for instance in St. Louis They're talking about building this massive new stadium And this community that goes all around it. I was reading about this months ago And they said the date of completion for all of it was like 2030 All right, that's long-term vision and I started thinking about these middle-aged men Who are developing this idea and that the majority of them will be dead By the time it reaches completion now the stadium will be built be built much sooner But all these shops and stuff and I could be off in the days But it was a long time. I think it was probably 20 30 years and so I'm like that's amazing planning That's true long-term. That's massive long-term I couldn't do that I mean I can't begin to think about when I'm 60 right now. I can't in small ways, but not huge ways But I can think about five years from now. I can't think about what I want things look like two years from now And then you just step back and ask the question what are the action steps together? Does that make sense? Some of you you love that long-term term term stuff others of you This short term is where you want to bathe and that's why we need each other Well, what does that look like in your appendix? You'll see This little process sheet that I like to use and this is from about three years ago That talks about different things within our programs our purposes our target and description So you can see the formula clearly laid out First thing on the left column is I'll have what's mentioned as the program and that program means the title of the very thing that we're doing Next to it, I will have its purpose statement How long should the purpose statement be? How short one word One of the five It's all it needs to be now you can articulate in a sweet sentence which would be good I mean, I would do that if somebody says what's the purpose of your Sunday school worship It's fine. They don't know what that means But in your mind you ought to be able to clearly identify in a word Based on the five what are you trying to accomplish after that? I mentioned the target again. It's one of the five and then I have A description a description describes the purpose as it's intended to impact The audience So let's take for example somebody pick one out on the sheet and let's talk about it Anybody got one don't read them all just give me number two one and ten Small group Bible study. Okay, thank you Steve small group Bible study. What page is that one on? Okay, second page of this two page appendix is small group Bible study Great example. We write in what the small group Bible study is or what the program is His purpose is Growth which is the same as discipleship Target of this is believer but what's next to the believer? Okay, this means that I recognize in Our ministry that we're gonna probably more than one audience at one thing but It's not gonna be too deep for the basic believer and it's not gonna be boring For the person who's been to believe her a long time. Does that make sense? So I use sometimes pluses our minuses to identify that I then begin to talk about a description of the program. This is what I write These weekly meetings will be our tool for taking students to the deepest understanding of God and his word In these groups groups students will study specific books of the Bible As weak Well, I think it's the type of there As well as systematic theology and so it's a basic description of what that's gonna do Does that make sense and so as you can see on these two pages There are lots of little things that are gonna take place need football. I've mentioned it before What is its purpose in a word evangelism? Who's the target? Spectators people who drive by our church, but never really come we want this to be the event for them that they can come to it Get a little bit of exposure to us see that we're gonna be safe And maybe want to come again. I write the description this way once in the fall. We will host A guy versus girl knee football game the game is played like regular football, but the guys are on their knees We will use this meeting to invite students to come on money nights There will be no message at this event Purpose isn't To do an evangelistic message that night. It's not a bait and switch. It's simply to say We really care about students. We care about having fun. We'd love to get to know you We do the sing on money nights every Monday night. It's a lot of fun. Love for you to come. Does that make sense? That's our purpose Then We do sh area if you noticed at the top It'll say relational ministry appendix there, but anyway it says evangelism So these are the you know five or six things we want to do in terms of evangelism only Then these are the four or five things we want to do in terms of growth and then let's go on through worship All the way through missions and through fellowship We then have a more specific page. It gets even more micro Need to realize this stuff does not make me get super excited all this detail doing it But I love having it. Do you know why? Because it's easy to look at and go okay, we're on target This is what we're trying to accomplish So we go to a second level page which is called an action steps page and you'll notice on this it has all right in appear our purpose of the event again the purpose is growth evangelism missions worship Our fellowship the one main difference between this is that includes an action steps part portion right in the middle as well as date for completion and The point person the reason it has those things is because without those things Me being a dreamer. I'm not going to accomplish anything It just won't take place so we're going to be doing paintball and a few weeks December 1st. This is from a few years ago You'll notice on the sheet it says what's the purpose of it or purposes of evangelism We're not going to go paintballing and have a message on war We're not going to go paintballing and talk about whether this is too violent We're not going to go paintballing and have a season while you're out there alone You know pray and spend some time alone with the Lord And then when I think it's time to be overall sneak up behind each of you and shoot you in the back That's not what it's just about. This is about Something a believer can invite a non-believer to and it'll come because it's fun It's for the spectator The program is paintball. So what are the action steps? Well, there's some pretty basic ones first We need to set the date What's that going to be what's going to be involved with that Just pick them one out of the calendar. Oh, it's going to be Looking at school calendars Looking at sports calendars Looking at the events in your students' lives Asking the question when is the best possible date to do this oftentimes we don't do that Oh, I want to paintball this semester. Okay, let's just pick this Saturday Then I'll send you realize you picked a day and it's the middle football playoffs or you picked a day And it's the day of the ACT or SAT you picked a day and you know half your group loves football And it's a huge game between Alabama and Auburn or whatever And so you're just stuck and it doesn't have a good turnout set the date Next thing is you need to make reservations now those things go together because you have a proposed date If it doesn't work Then you got to have a backup plan So you have those conversations You need to produce the sign-up sheet How are people going to get enrolled And advertise it how are people going to know about it as a postcard going to go out? Are you going to make flyers? What's your desired outcome there encourage students to invite friends Well, how are you going to do that? Are you simply just going to say hey invite friends? Or we'd be more strategic with it. Hey guys, this is a great opportunity for you to bring one of your lost friends Who's never done anything with us everybody loves to paintball. So this would be fun In with a meal at someone's house. This was an idea we had back then that way it's not just Great game guys. See you later. There's actually a conversation taking place afterwards If you get somebody to videotape it go to their house eat dinner and watch the video and then invite them to come to crew on this case Crash we called a zoo here. That was our old name the following week. How are you going to do that? Well, maybe you give them a card Maybe you get their address as they registered so that the next week you could send them a card Dude had a great time playing paintball with you. I'd love to see you this Wednesday night We're going to show the video of paintball or love to see if we're going to be doing this whatever it is you're doing So that's your action steps You then propose a date about when you want to do each of those specific things And then you have a point person notice. I have Kathy and Kathy written there I used to have another Kathy. I had three administrative people named Kathy. I called them my administrative trinity They were phenomenal now. I have two Kathy's You know someone parts gone, you know, and they're not the same person, but they're great And so these two individuals run a lot of this administrative stuff and so they made all the calls I said this is the date that will work best for us. So they call bushwhackers or Wacky warriors or whatever the name of the place is and they come back and say this is the price of wacky warriors This is the price of bushwhackers. I like the guy bushwhackers better It's a dollar more, but this is what you get and here's why well that just saved me 30 minutes of work They get the dates and all of a sudden we work through it. This helps Move things along because you're never going to have just one event. You're working on notice, you know We have a Panama City trip a basketball tournament lots of different things that goes on Go happens. That's a good English right there. It happens on these various pages for us to pay attention to Now it would be easy for you to go wow I'm overwhelmed with how much is taking place It is overwhelming That's why it's so significant to have that section of point person if you went through this And counted how many times my name is on there I can only see four or five Maybe six times my name is on there is the point person That's too many my name should not be on there that many times So I need to look at this and go who could do this better than me There are lots of people who could therefore I need to give them the opportunity to do that If I look on it and I see Kathy's name on there too many times Who's somebody else that she can begin to train to do that then also need a massive number of people Helping you fulfill and move through these action steps does that make sense Now I flew through this very quickly. I would love to step back for a minute and just have a little bit of dialogue What kind of questions do you have about the whole programs with vision stuff In implementing that I know it's pretty straightforward, but Personally, I'll tell you what what I do and what works and what doesn't work And mostly this is from interviewing people who work with me Years ago when I was just doing young life I would store most of stuff in my head and that's not that hard I mean, it's just oh, this would be a great idea. This would be a great idea This would be a great idea and then an event would show up and I'd be like all right Yeah, the dates getting close for pain ball you guys excited and people would be like Well, I don't know what you want me to do I just want you to show up have a good time that was true But I had steps for what that would look like in each person's involvement And so I would fail to communicate very clearly to them what my expectations were on the high level They understood be with kids have a great time get to know them But in terms of all the other stuff that had to take place I wasn't really very good at that So what I started doing was learning to file For instance, I do this with teaching I keep files of illustrations and stuff that I want to use Why don't I do that with ideas for programs too? And so just taking a folder writing an idea on it, you know, paintball or new football or ice broom hockey Or discipleship conference or we have a thing called park Prayer in the park a couple summers ago where we wanted to get students during the summer to go to the park Like a five six in the morning. We'd pray for a couple of hours. That's in them out on their own That was an idea. So create a folder for those Then I the way I work is I can do an initial brainstorm on what needs to take place Just file it down But then I need to hand it off to somebody else like a David or a Kathy and say okay Help me now move forward with this in terms of advancement There's a difference there. There's a difference between dreamers and visionaries dreamers just dream And nothing really ever happens visionaries dream But they think then strategically about advancing I Love to dream. I love vision stuff But I'm not very good at advancing, but I love to see stuff advanced So I am dependent upon other people to come in and advance those things Even with the Utan Ministries Institute here Russ Ramsey's you know the director of administration or administrative director's this official title He's an advisor He also dreams and we have great dialogue David and I dream together and stuff like this But they have the gift of really advancing things and so I delight And seeing how God uses them to fulfill all this stuff That's why we need to know what our strengths are and what our weaknesses are in terms of this syllabus for instance The way it's laid out I put the contents together. These are the things that I want to talk about This is what's going to happen. This is my vision for it. Russ comes in and says okay, great This would be a nice layout. I think these things fit together pretty well. Let's do this. He loves to sit at the computer Make it happen. I don't want to be around the computer unless it's in the middle of the woods where I'm with my laptop You know writing instead of you know doing clip art stuff And so that's just a natural the way God created me And so when it comes to the planning's I need a team. I can't just do it from beginning to end myself The event will come off But it won't come off near as effectively as if I have a team of people plot it plotting Moving along, you know David for instance, I keep referring to him because he's just now come on to our our staff has helped me in so many ways Just with something I call a process page, which is like on an event. This is what we're going to do that given night The key components of that are Schedule. This is what's going to happen at 6.30 6.45 7.15. We should bring one of those by the way next week David 8.15 whatever then there's a list that just says to do and get now I came up with one of those a long time ago. It's okay But then I gave it to him that's beautiful and every week On Wednesday night we started meeting up with that page. David says okay. This is what we needed to do to make sense So teamwork getting people who were gifted in their areas and letting them just flourish. That's exciting. Everybody's happy that Very happy. The problem is most of us think we're good at everything. A reality is You know, you're barely good at anything. So just that's reality. God made us needy people Other questions? Good question. How do you develop a scope of sequence? Depends on a lot of things one your church The specific church you're working for may already have one and then you really don't care what you have to say You just kind of do what they're doing Two they may not have one but have strong ideas about what should be taught so it's going to be more than one meeting I look at it as not a one-time deal but an ongoing conversation about what we're longing to do if they've never done one These would be the steps Strategically who do you want to be a part of that team to discuss it a couple parents a couple students maybe Another person on the pastoral staff and then just begin with the blue sky Everybody and I would probably have them do this before they even got together if you had You know four years What are the key things that you would like to talk about what are the key books of the Bible one of the ways and I need to bring this And I'll try to remember to do that is I didn't just start with a blank page paper. I created a Huge Outline with I don't know hundreds of topics on it one side was Books of the Bible another side was Everyday life issues the other side was emotional issues another side was relational issues Another section was hot topics, but what I did as I said using this page Circle 10 things That you would love to talk about in your four years here in our youth ministry This was to students and I did the same thing to parents but specifically the student one so they went during the circle 10 Said other ten you circle I'd like you to put a check mark by three That you just you're me so disappointed if we don't cover and then of this three. I want you to put an x by one They you just like I'll never come again if we never do this and so they went through it It was amazing to see what happened. I started with the students I just wanted to see what they would say. I then went to the parents and I said well This is a breakdown of what the students did now. What do you know about my personality? Do you think I enjoyed doing the breakdown? No, so I didn't who did Kathy she guts down raised down all the numbers homework about you know of the 40 kids that did this You know 10 said they wanted to do this 8 said they wanted to do this one person said they wanted to talk about this We knew that they needed to counsel and now all of a sudden we're dealing with all these different issues And so I get a breakdown hey, this is what the students said In parents like wow Sometimes you're impressed sometimes they're frightened and now we went in that direction I said why won't you guys to do the same thing? What do you think and all sudden? I was able to show back up about a month later and say okay This is what people say they want what's they gonna look like specifically and you'll get different people with different views Well, I think we need to study every book of the Bible All right, I think it's a great thing, but I'm not sure this is possible I think we could hit on parts of each book But it's got to be different. It's got to be a little bit bigger a little bit broader Uh, and also even deeper and so you just have those conversations finally then you come to You know a sense of this is what we want to do. How does everybody feel and move on That's why I think it's critical to pick people that you can work with well But also people who are gonna represent um That the church community well You know if you get people for instance who are you know all very excited about one aspect And they totally are void of another aspect you're gonna be in trouble So I hope that's helpful All right a couple other questions Yeah, that that scope and sequence for Sunday school that one year And I think you should do one for the whole ministry so if you have small groups Well, what do you want to do in small groups if you have a youth group outside of Sunday morning Do that if you have Sunday school do that so is that a lot of work? It's not as overwhelming as you think if You use other people's thoughts and ideas You know for instance you are not when you do a scope and sequence Developing a purpose statement for every lesson You are not developing an objective. You're not even picking necessarily passages You're simply saying these are the themes and the topics that we're gonna talk about Over the next four years Now what you don't want to do is then show up the day of okay. What's the scope and sequence they were covering today? Oh time management. Okay. I think I think I know something about that Hey kids, you know, and then you start doing your deal instead you want to look at that You know, I think monthly where we at are we on target? No, we're kind of off. All right. What are we gonna scratch? And why do we why did we scratch it? I give an example We were doing I think I forget how many pages it says but we were doing colts And religion here we gave it one two three four five six Our seven weeks and we realized after the first lesson that this guy put together That it would easily go four weeks itself Kids were just intensely interested in this information and the teacher was phenomenal first John It got sliced out. We didn't do it that year We rode the cult thing all the way up to the first part of Christmas The holidays where we then we talked about Christ which was so excellent in the way it was timed Because we just been talking about all these other things It was outstanding And so you need to that Let's talk about recruiting recognize the first in teaching that was not even somebody on our staff It was a parent in our group who was a brilliant guy well read in this area He came in and started doing it. He agreed to do six weeks After the enthusiasm He said I'd be happy to do six more and he did and it was a great great series So be flexible in that now. I didn't have to go to a committee And say hey, you know, we're gonna punt first John right here to do this um, but you might and so if you had that committee don't Don't do something that would upset them without having a key conversation or two most of them would be like I think that's fine. You know, they're excited about it. They're growing. What are they learning? That's great that they're learning that in apologetic there. So let's move on All right Yes Good morning Chesterfield actually is a video and now what we do with our church's name Chesterfield Presbyterian Church And this community we live in is also called Chesterfield and so what we do is we take a video camera and Me or one of our volunteers or somebody on our staff um There's two people it just they will show up at a kid's house before they wake up And I should bring the video of it. I could bring a video maybe next week and show it if I can find it Do you know where it is? Yeah, okay. See that's why David's on my staff and so David and I Went or was it you or Steve Joseph Steve Joseph went with me. So I know who went with me. It was early We went over to this young man's house at sixish He gets up normally at 630 and um, we busted into his bedroom with the blowhorn And it's siren was on you know and we come in and there he is, you know Freaking out because also in the light is on and his eyes are dilated and you know Here we come rushing at him with all kinds of things And the video camera's on and so we wake him up. It's called good morning Chesterfield We videotape the whole thing so that Later that week at one of our youth events will show that video and students love it And then he gets hilarious it is funny. I mean you see a guy, you know He me rolled out of bed and you hope they're dressed decent like I don't go into girls rooms I have girl leaders do that because oh camera up, you know, you can't do that So he rolls out he has boxers on many pretty well covered any tackles me You know, which is funny and the camera shows that and then we zoom in on him and he looks terrible I mean just woke up and then we kind of follow him through the morning For a few minutes and then as he goes to get ready I'll go around his room and make comments about different things that I notice about his room Which is always funny because they don't know your comment and the rooms aren't usually in Infectable order so we have fun with that. We show the video after we wake him up. We take him to breakfast And again it's relational. We have a fun time laughing at him and with him and then we have conversation They go to school that day. What are they talking about? Mark came in and Steve and woke me up this morning I was so ticked. They're gonna show it this week. Yeah, they're showing it tomorrow night And his friends probably are gonna come just to watch him being embarrassed So that's one of the things on our deal It takes it takes some You know planning to make that happen got to call the parents Got to find out what time they get up Got to make sure the door will be unlocked. Got to make sure they're okay with this. Got to make sure that you know What is Ryan normally sleeping? You know if she says thong, I'm probably not going to Ryan's house So I've got to know what to do. So that's what good morning Chesterfield is Here are you afraid are you sad? Yes It is fun Our time has come to an end. I cover through this stuff very quickly Um, and in some ways it's so self-explanatory, but I will tell you this This is where most youth guys and gals really fail They failed to be good planners one because they probably aren't to They don't have the wisdom encouraged to ask other people to help them do this This is the stuff that if you'll do it will greatly enhance your ministry You'll have a plan. You'll know what your strategy is and you'll be able to attack it a lot more effectively than you would have If you're just making things up each week It will free you and give you energy to do lots of other things people ask me all the time Mark how can you do this this this and this It's not because I don't sleep. It's not because I'm never with my family It's because I have a lot of other people Helping pull things off so that it's not always about me some people then say well the people resent that I don't think so because they are affirmed and enjoy what they're doing And they don't see me as a person who just kind of walks in. I didn't do anything They recognize what I'm doing is work as well And so that's a critical element. So let me pray and we'll take off lord Thanks for the wisdom that you Bless us with it with Lord when we ask and we need to know how to effectively develop things that will encourage students We thank you for this day and pray that you bless us this week We love you You're a god. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen