August 24- September 7

The internship this semester is a continuation of my internship from the Spring Semester of ’09.  While in the spring I was an assistant to the head Youth Pastor of my church, but focusing my energy on the Middle School programming, which includes a Wednesday night program that runs from 6:30-8:00 and then a Saturday Nite program that runs every first and third Saturday from 7:00-10:00.  This year, however, I have been put in the position to be the Middle School Director, completely taking over all the duties for running the programs.

I took these weeks to prepare for the year ahead, to get a vision for what the first few weeks were going to look like.  I spend many hours brainstorming new leaders and then making phone calls recruiting new people and making sure that leaders from the previous year were still on board for another year.  I also spent a good amount of time getting together a good security team for Saturday Nites and appointing a security team leader to keep a solid team on throughout the year.  

During this time, I met with many leaders to discuss the direction of the program, about its strengths and weaknesses and what needed to be changed in the upcoming year to make it overall more successful.  We held a team leader meeting that would discuss issues such as small group time, message topics and training programs and how it could be implemented throughout the year.  It was a great time of leader development and brainstorming for the direction of the program. 

On Monday August 24, from 8:30am to 4:00, we had our annual “6^th Grade Day Away” at the Jetboats in Niagara Falls.  This is a wonderful time for 6^th graders to get to know the leaders and a great welcome to the youth program of our church.  I got to know many students and bond with them in a setting outside of our normal church area.  Then at 3:00, myself and my supervisors met with the parents of the students to explain how our program works, what our vision is and answer any questions/ concerns that they had.  This went extremely well and it paved the way for solid parent/youth leader relations in the future.   

The week before September 6 I had to prepare to give a message at Fuel, or our high school/middle school worship service on Sunday.  This week we were continuing a series called “The Battle Within”.  To prepare I had to read through the curriculum presented to me and then pick out what I felt was most important to speak about and then type up my own message.  When I write my messages (and for further clarification for my job later on in my internship)  I follow a format of “ME, WE, GOD, YOU, WE”.  Meaning, Me-I connect to the students and provide a story, movie clip, song, something to allow students to warm up and connect to me and what I am about to speak about.  WE- reach out to the students, create tension and present an issue that they may be dealing with, this is the time to draw them in.  God-present scripture that backs up what you are saying and then apply it to God and the audience.  You-this is the time to challenge the students, to make what the scripture is talking about applicable to the students’ lives.  We-present a “community challenge”, like what would happen if we all applied this concept/idea to our lives.  Use inspiration to motivate them to use these principles in their lives.

 September 7- September 21

From September 11-13 we had our annual Fall Retreat for our entire youth program.  This is our kickoff event for the year where we take over 200 students and leaders to a place called Letourneau Christian Conference Center in Canandagua for the entire weekend.  This weekend has been in the planning process for months and requires much preparation.  In this time period we had various meetings about our theme for the year and what the weekend would look like.  The theme for this year is FL!P, meaning that we need to flip our worlds around for Jesus. (in order to be first we must be last…) Personally, my job was to prepare the message for our Saturday morning rally.  (a rally is just another word for a service, it has a crowdbreaker, worship and message)  This took a lot of time and research to put together.  The message focused on the idea that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and then how we can apply that to our lives in a practical sense.  Overall, the weekend went extremely well, and we had over 250 students attend.

On the 9^th our church had our Ministry Orientation in the evening.  We started in the main church building discussing the main idea and purpose of ministry, giving us inspiration and encouragement for the upcoming year of ministry.  After about an hour at church, we split off into our different ministry areas.  The youth volunteers headed over to the Hub, where we had a large group meeting and introduction, and then broke off into High School, Middle School and College.  In the time that I had with my volunteers for Middle School, we talked about the overall purpose of the program and a little about myself considering the fact that I am the new director. 

This year we wanted to try a little different of a program format.  We wanted to give students the option of playing the large group game or being able to have discussion groups or play board games.  We only wanted to use this structure if students were interested in the discussion groups or playing board games, therefore, we put together a survey to see what kids really wanted to do during this time at Overdrive.  I took one afternoon to create this survey and also sheets for students to request people in their small group.  We then handed out both of these sheets for the first month of Overdrive and collected as much information as we possibly could before we made any final plans for the format for the year.   

This week I also met with my supervisor, Paul Gartley (our Youth Ministry Pastor) to plan out the message series up to Christmas.  We decided to base a lot of our series on a book called “The Seven Checkpoints” by Andy Stanley.  This book lays out seven basic principles that every teen should have.  These include making wise choices, choosing the right friends, having moral boundaries, having an authentic faith and putting others first.  Usually a series is three weeks long, and so with the time that we had before Christmas Break, we would be able to have four series and then one commitment night.  The first series was simply called FL!P, which would give students an idea of what our theme is all about.  Our second series was called “The Network”.  It was based on the Verizon wireless commercial and the idea that “your phone is only as good as your network”, but using that toward students friendships, therefore saying “you’re only as good as your network”.  The third series is called “Caution” and deals with the issue of making wise choices, how to make the wise choice and then what the consequences are of our actions.  November 18 is going to be the “Ultimate FL!P”, where we would revisit the theme for the year, and then give students an opportunity to give their lives to Christ. 

Every Monday I send out an email for the leaders for that upcoming Wednesday.  It includes the memory verse for the week, any announcements that we have, the schedule of the night, the game and crowdbreaker and the message for that week with discussion questions. 

The 16^th was our kickoff night for Overdrive, the Middle School program at the Hub.  It runs from 6:30-8:00.  This night was extremely difficult to plan, we had made many plans to have a skate park ministry to come and do a demo for us, but after a sudden cancelation we had to make alternative plans.  When it came to it, we had a huge cookout with tons of food, crazy games in the gym and outdoor games on the patio.  Each night we also have a message for the kids (a sermon).  This night started a three week series based on our theme, FL!P.  FL!P is based on the Scripture verse Titus 2:12, “It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, ¹³while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” On this night I introduced the theme to the rest of the students who didn’t go to Fall Retreat and I spoke about what excuses people use to not FL!P their lives for Christ.  Overall, this was a great night and we had a great time getting to know kids and kicking off a great new year! 

 September 21- October  5

Starting on October 3^rd we have our Saturday Nites at the Hub for Middle Schoolers.  It runs from 7:00-10:00 and is an open hang out night for students to come and be in a safe environment on a Saturday night.  We hold this evening every first and third Saturday of the month.  We also offer a huge dodge ball tournament that students absolutely love to be involved with. Overall, we have about 250-300 students show up on these nights. 

This week I also put together Small Group Leader Binders.  These make the leaders’ jobs so much easier because they have all the information that they need right at their fingertips.  In the binders are the Hub rules/guidelines, the list of students in the small group, get to know you sheets for the students, contact cards, the memory verse for the week to hand out to students with raffle tickets for memorizing the verse or bringing friends, the discussion questions/notes for that week’s message, the schedule and game guide for the week and leader contact information.  Each week these binders are updated with the information for the following week. 

Each week I have to prepare for Overdrive on Wednesday.  To do this I have to come up with a crowdbreaker, competition (games), a message and small group discussion questions and message notes.  For the first month of programming, the format of the evening was a little looser than it normally would be.  We try to figure out what students are coming on a regular basis in order to arrange small groups accordingly.  On September 23^rd, our crowdbreaker was “Sunny Side Up!” In this game, students climbed up a ladder and cracked an egg to try to drop it in a cup that was on their friend’s head who was lying underneath the ladder.  The main competition was a game called “Steal the Bacon”, where students are split up into two teams.  There are tons of huge balls in the center of the gym and the leader calls out a category, such as “students who go to Hamburg Middle School.”  Those students who fit into that category would run to the center of the gym, trying to bring as many balls as possible back to their team.  For the message, we talked about the question “Who/ what is first in your life?”  I played a video clip called “I am second” based on various celebrity interviews of them giving their testimonies of how they came to Christ. 

On Monday, September 21, I started to meet with a young girl (we will call her S) who is in seventh grade.  She has been getting into a lot of trouble with her parents, school and her friends.  She has been doing inappropriate things online, and has made a habit of stealing and lying to those around her.  Her parents met with me and asked me to start mentoring her.  We decided to meet every Monday for an hour to discuss her week, her life, friends, and relationships with her family.  We also discuss a book that I had given her to read, called “Lies Young Women Believe” that is based on the lies that Satan feeds young women and how it affects their lives.  This week, we went for a walk and took the time to get to know one another.  We talked about her hobbies,  likes and dislikes, what she likes about herself and what she doesn’t like about herself and various other topics.  Overall, it was a good week and we both enjoyed the time we had together. 

On the last week of September, I gathered all of the surveys that we had collected and figured out what the majority of students preferred to do while they were at Overdrive.  Fortunately, students all fit into the categories that we had previously decided on, either wanting to play games in the gym, play board games or have discussion groups. 

On September 30^th, our crowdbreaker was called “Sheet 2 Shower.”  We had three students go in the backroom to wait.  We would bring out one student at a time and tell them to get under a sheet.   We would tell them, “you want to get in the shower, so what’s the first thing you are going to take off?”  Now, the students should get that they need to take off the sheet first, but the trick is that students don’t think of the sheet and start to undress themselves.  We do that one item of clothing at a time and try to give them hints that they need to take off the sheet first.  The first two students who did this caught on and took off the sheet first.  However, the last one was going to fool everyone.  We told him to put on an extra pair of shorts underneath his pants, and then he was to play along and pretend like he didn’t know he was supposed to take off the sheet first.  He took off all of his clothes, including his boxers (keeping in mind he still had the gym shorts on) and everyone in the crowd was laughing hysterically.  He then left the room in the sheet, keeping everyone in suspense, thinking that he was completely naked under the sheet.  For the game, we played “Prisoner Dodgeball”, which is just a combined version of dodgeball and capture the flag.  The message for the week focused on the idea that a person can’t do a half of a FL!P.  Physically if they try to only do half a flip, they will get hurt, it just isn’t possible.  I compared this to the FL!P we do for God, that we can’t do it halfheartedly, we are all in or not in at all. 

The week before October 5 we also had to prepare for “Glow in the Dark Nite” that would be held on October 7^th.  We had to order all of the glow in the dark sticks and plan all of the games, as well as put together advertisements for the night, including sending out post cards to each student.