Hit the Back Button to Move Fwd by Gavin Richardson

where is gavin these days?

i haven't been asked where i've been of late so much as "what i'm doing now?" which is an acceptable question since my leaving the paid staff church work back in july. the last few months have been a real ride emotionally and spiritually (not sure if those are completely seperate but for purposes of this sentance they are). i've run the gammet meeting/talking/chatting with people i respect a great deal on what they might see God's plan in my life. my general idea is that i was so close to myself that i needed help stepping back and looking in through the window. through this process i've identified some short term and long term places i'm putting my creative and passionate self into. thought i'd share those with you, so we can skip the "what are you up to now?" question.

All American Pest Control: this might be the most visible of the entities of late because for the past month or so i've been pretty chatty about my work with All American Pest Control. This is our family business and Erin has been working there for the last 7-8 years. We will eventually finish a purchase of the company in about 4-5 years from her mom & dad and we'll be sole owners. So, in the spirit of doing anything for the family, i've been crawling houses of late to help tend to our historical customers allowing our other employees to focus on some of our more current and up to date protection services. i am also helping erin our with promotions, marketing, and social media aspects of the company. you can follow the adventures of my life in pest control by following on twitter or facebook.

Sticky Sheep: this is one has been in the brewing for a year or two now. my buddy john ellis & i had spent a number or conversations talking up the mixtures of church & business, specifically marketing. we started writing a book on these conversations and we are still putting that together. in the mean time we figured it is time to start sharing these connections. you can engage in our little musings by hitting up the site or checking our twitter or facebook presences.

 

Proof Branding: this is an exciting project to be a part of. i'm joining in with long time friend sam davidson and a crew of others whom are especially creative in a full service branding company. my part in the team is to help translate and work with the church communities that wish to rebrand themselves. this would cover communications, marketing, design, creative directions, and more. i've been working independantly with with first presbyterian church youth in nashville before the launch of proof this past month and have had some real successes and enjoyable moments. you can follow the tweets of sam & matt via proof and the news on facebook.

YouthWorker Movement: is something that i'm really jumping into as my youth ministry passion. i am helping to put together a vibrant and transformational entity to help my beloved, and struggling, united methodist church & fellow wesleyan youth ministries. i've partnered up with charles harrison and a team of others i getting things mapped out and ready to roll next month. if you want in on the braintrust of a vast community of people you should get plugged in with the youthworker movement. in the short term we will have a new email list going out next week. a new website will launch in january (a temporary one will be available next week). in the spring we will be putting forth full service curriculum options from a wesleyan youth ministris perspective. through all this you can keep up on the 'movements' via twitter or facebook as well.

thanks a quick gist of me, if you want to talk further on any of these projects or hire me or my friends give a shout via email gavoweb(at)gmail.com is still my email. i'm pumped to get creative!

in another note: the company that hosts this blog is going in some different direction, so in anticipation of some crazy server issues. i'm going to be moving this blog over to my own hosting options sometime soon.. maybe when i have a minute not doing other cool stuff.

two letters : one result

two letters went out to our church community today. first one from me

Dear HFUMC Youth Community,

In Deuteronomy there is a really dynamic scene where Moses who has led the Isrealites through the wilderness since the Exodus exclaims that he is no longer directed to lead the tribe. He speaks to his apprentice Joshua and tells him that it is he that God wishes to lead the tribe into the promised land.

It is with that scripture in mind and a very heavy heart that I write this note to share with you that my employment at HFUMC as your youth pastor will end effective immediately. With the direction of the church my gifts and talents are not the match they once were for the ministries of the church as an employee. As tough as this is to accept, Erin & I are at peace with this and hope you find that as well. We plan to be at church on Sunday, but will not be leading any activities as we begin to identify who we are within the church community in our new roles.

Know that I love you all, have loved being in ministry, a part of your families, and seeing us all grow together. It has been my honor to be a part of your last five years. As we redefine who our family is in the midst of the church we hope that those relationships stay the same even though the nature of what brought us together has changed.

I don't know who your Joshua is but I am praying for that person and the 'unique community' that I know you to be.

May the Lord Bless You and Keep You
May the Lord Make His Face Shine Upon You & Be Gracious Unto You
May the Lord turn His Face upon You & give us peace.

Shalom
-gav

 

&:~)

second one came from our staff parish

After much thoughtful prayer and deliberation, your Staff Parish Relations Committee (SPRC) concluded that the final necessary element in the staff reorganization was an overhaul of the youth programs of our church. Therefore, effective immediately, the positions of Director of Youth Ministries and Director of the New World Generation Choir are open. Searches will be launched to fill both positions. In the interim, Associate Pastor Brad Holliman will assume leadership of the youth division, assisted by the adult leaders and volunteers already engaged in youth ministry at HFUMC.

All previously scheduled Youth programs and activities are expected to go on as planned. If you would like to help with these programs as a leader, chaperone or driver, please contact Brad Holliman.  Any changes to the calendar will be communicated via e-mail, Facebook or the Corner website, so check in before finalizing your plans.

Our prayers go with Gavin Richardson and Tiffany DePriest, and we thank them for their contributions to our church and its ministries. Please watch the newsletter and other church communications for more information about the searches in the next few weeks.

The Staff Parish Team

moving on...

"do the church dance" : also known as my next youth ministry lesson

this might be something for friends of mine like matthew paul turner to give some satirical response.. me, i'm just wondering if my church would allow me back if i tried to dance like this.. i'm guessing not, so i do what all youth leaders do, get the kids to do it. muhahaha!

what you think you have right about your communication is wrong : saying and communicating is different

i know when we meet as a staff we talk a lot about the need for better communication. it is a huge pain in our b'hinds. so i'm totally spinning in thoughts stemmed from rev. dan dick's latest posting on communication misconceptions of our 'good' communication that undermine actual good communications.

here's his three hit points.

I believe there are three main problems we encounter that prevent or undermine good communication: 1) confusing “transmitting” with communication, 2) over-reliance on information as the most important part of communication, and 3) making assumptions about what people “know.”

currently i'm wondering what push of information i do and how different that is from actually communicating to folks? in the size ministry i have, its impossible to pick up the phone and call everyone, not to mention many folks would rather not have a phone call (or they will tell me so). i might have become so conditioned to this that it is my norm. i actively use twitter cause i can spew out information, but if no one communicates back i just move on. did i ever really convey an idea? does that mean i should start blogging regularly again since its more of communicating an idea/plan/dream/rant/etc.?

what can i do better to help with communicating to you? my church peeps? my family? my internet networkings?

in the meantime, go check out the rest of dan's thoughts on communications.

youth gone wild : stats can be misleading

as youth pastor i do a lot of news filtering on the state of, trends of, and all the ills of today's and future youth culture. if you do some news search for teenagers it isn't a very promising picture (especially globally). one of the trends i see in the news is a whole lot of angry kids in the england. but as with any news reporting as with any statistic there is always the 'other side.' so my heart was lightened by the latest from asbo jesus.

 

its nice to think of the other side of all the statistics that we hear about and fear over. truth is, i have over 100 kids from ages 12-18 in our youth community and, though i don't know the intimate details of every moment of their lives, i pretty confident they are all on the positive side of every bad statistic.

it reminds me of some parenting education i used to teach on. i used to coach folks on doing a paradigm shift in their viewing of their children. to stop looking/seeing the bad stuff but to look for those positive pieces and celebrate those (even if they are minute).

well, enough of the preaching. its time for some music this whole thought process made me think of.

top tech trends of 2009 for youth ministry : new day in @ymtoday

i was asked to write a, shorter than this, article for ymtoday on the tech trends of 2009. this is my unedited & proper use of capitals article for your review.

Gone are the days where spent calling everyone on the youth phone list, cutting clip art books and taping graphics to papers for making posters, and sorting slides into a projector carousel. Today's youth ministry is full of early adoption to new technologies to communicate and build relationships. It seems to be 2009 amped that trend of leaving behind the those things we used to do so routinely in the early 2000's.

Here's a little list of technology trends from the past year used, being used, or to use for your youth ministry. Not all were created in the last year, but they did seem to pick up more steam.

1. Facebook: Do you remember MySpace? I do, and I thought it was pretty cool. Facebook though is just a fabulous youth ministry tool where MySpace wasn't. Create a group or fan page for the ministry you are a part of, easily send messages to the whole group, create events, post pictures & videos. It is easy to do, takes less time, and its where your teenagers are hanging. Have you watched your teenagers spend time onFacebook, it borders on problematic. If you have some cash, you can invest in ads on Facebook , the metrics for adverts is amazing, not terribly expensive either, plus it shows who are 'fans' in your ad extending the trust relationship. You can even get on board with a free mission trip via the social media network.

2. Twitter: People are up in the air as to whether Twitter is a usable youth ministry tool. My teens many follow a few friends and a bunch of celebrities. I don't have a youth who would create a twitter based newsletter for us like Adam. Twitter for me is brain trust & community of other youth and ministry leaders. Have a question, need prayer support, want to celebrate, need consolation after loosing a job, and more you can join into the community of youth workers on Twitter. I sought help developing this list via my Twitter community.

As a program, Twitter is a mobile based application, so it has txt and alert capabilities. Which leads us to our next item.

3. Mass Text Services: If you think it is going to be a pain to get all your people onto Twitter and then to enable the cell phone alert tweets for your twitter account, just set yourself up for one of the many mass text messaging services. If you are like me, youth gathering times are their normal loud and crazy, but now its all that with the teens staring at their cell phones. They have entire conversations overtxt . I've even caught teens not answering their phone calls but then answering text messages. Tap into that behavior with some of the paid services like txtsignal or a free service like broadtexter.

Note: Txt services use two basic formats: One is where message is more like an email going thru the system. Different cell companies handle that information differently, so a txt service will have you indicate what type of provider the corresponding phone number is. Other services are more like a phone to phone communication, big difference with those is you do not need to know service providers, but they will most likely charge by the number oftxt's and phone numbers (ie. each txt to 1 number is 5 cents, so one mass txt to 50 people is $2.50).

4. SmartPhones: I was told once that 'there haven't been any new inventions, only inventions making everything smaller.' This is certainly the case with the fusion of computer & cell phone. Whether you are iPhone, Blackberry, or now Droid the day of a phone being just for talking is gone.

The smartphone as it continues to become more affordable & builds in development will become the youth workers greatest tools (might even out do the guitar,haha!). As new applications are being developed from YouVersion's Bible app, Youth Specialties Tough Topics, productivity apps like Evernote, GPS directions, to even creating your very own phone application more & more will administration and communication will be done through the phone. I can be sitting at an sports match and send out emails & text messages to the whole group or just our leaders, make notes for the next days to-do list, take pics of the game and load them up to ourfacebook group or flickr page, and then post new information to our website.

5. Flip Cameras: Video used to be the toughest thing in the world. Cameras cost a bunch of money and then you had to edit the videos. Chances are your computer was not powerful enough to deal with all the resources needed for video, so it took many days to put together and render videos. Those days are gone.

With the advent of YouTube being the quality standard and the destination for most created video content the Flip Camera is the new video must have. Not only are they extremely cheap ($100-180, for a decent one) they shoot really good quality video, transfer extremely easily (digitally, so you don't have to do the tape playback recording), and portable so they can always be on your person. You can purchase one, two or three of these gems & hand them out to youth during events to capture footage for a highlights video. Pull out a camera when you are out on the town and inspired to do a little devotional for a video podcast. Get some of the youth to create a news/announcement video. Have a bunch of cameras to do a scavenger hunt and post stuff immediately to your presentation software or to the web.

So what's on your list of big trends for the year? Leave a comment or two, I'm sure there is something I'm missing or maybe my numbering is off.

Honorable Mentions:

• Digital Photography: Every youth event I go to seems to have youth & youth leaders in tow with high quality cameras. Bye bye disk camera & slide film.
• Digital Publishing: All those pictures & graphics can be printed into beautiful books & posters for affordable prices & effort. Forever keeping the narrative of that ministry
  
• Netbooks: Though I'd say that might be more for the college scene
• Google: From Google Voice, Docs, Earth, Ocean, Maps, Latitude to the beta test of Wave there's something for everyone
• Affordable Presentation Equipment: Doing the projector thing was a huge ordeal (not to mention projectors were HUGE!) now the hardware & software is small in size and price
• Collaborative Tools: Maybe its Basecamp, could be Google Wave, we all are using stuff to help us collaborate with our team of ministers & cohorts.

naming the paradigm : rob bell on youth ministry

i've often said when working with other youth ministry leaders, 'you can get anything done if you can speak to it well.'

my thinking behind that is, my observation, that much of youth ministry actions are intuition/gut moves (some may say Holy Spirit leading, which i'm cool with). those movements are done with great intentions and well meaning, but just as i have a hard time telling folks why i am a 'nice guy' (something i've been accused of on occasion) it is hard to explain intuitive actions. coupled with, many 'professional' youth leaders are quite young and haven't had a great deal of experience working with & coaching adults sometimes twice their age. but, if you can speak to people why this or that is necessary, they are more apt to go with your leading, even if they do not completely agree. thus, an importance to speaking well of what you are doing in ministry.

with that in mind, i was quite excited to read some of rob bell's thoughts on youth ministry in this interview with youth worker journal. he speaks so well to some of the issues i feel at hand for our current crop of youth growing up in youth ministries around the country.

YWJ: OK, the magic bullets, if you don't mind.

RB: The dominant paradigm in churches is production, not discipleship. It's about how to keep kids coming—how are the numbers? In the gospels, whenever there were large crowds, Jesus gave a difficult teaching that thinned out the crowd. Over and over, He chose those moments: John 6—Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood. Nice. Very accessible for kids. There is a certain pattern where He's trying to find out who is serious. Youth workers are put in this position where their paychecks are based on how many people they can keep in the place. When they read the gospels, they realize this whole system seems to be going the other direction. Many youth pastors I've met are promoting something they don't believe.

YWJ: Like what?

RB: They're told by the senior pastor to encourage the students to attend the service where there's a seven-part sermon on raising funds for a giant building, and kids don't really buy it. At the same time, the kids are wearing a red bracelet and becoming passionate about AIDS and water in Darfur. So the youth pastors and the kids sit in a system that says the preservation of this system is the first priority, and they look around at these giant issues of justice that are demanding a generation to step up and do something about it; and guess what they do?

this excerpt i pulled basically because it shares two tensions i feel in youth ministry, 1. the need to have top notch programming & 2. the culture of preservation (something i feel is paramount, not in a good way, in my mainline tribe). those two things are just not part of the Kingdom of God that i envision.. now, can #1 be a gateway, sure.. can #1 help in discipleship, sure.. but at what cost are we going so overboard that we loose sight of our goals.. living at Christ lived, loving as Christ loved. to me that isn't grounded in a program or an institution. those are ground out in relationships beyond human measures and being remarkable because you have been inspired to be that way.

anyways, check out the interview i could go on and on with the various questions & answers.

youth ministry's future : glimpse of youth ministry in the year 2400

so i don't usually write fiction, let alone, sci-fi type fiction, but when ken asked if i would contribute to the upcoming issue of the reporter (which is focusing on youth culture & youth ministry issues) i felt honored to do something.

"so what do you want me to write about?"

"well, something on youth culture."

little did ken know, i for some reason had this curiosity for buck rogers that day.. so i had been doing some reading up on the old show & comic series.

"how bout youth ministry in the future."

"like 2050?"

"no, like the year 2400...?"

some time passes

"cool, can you write that by monday?"

"probably not, but i'll try."

"you sure?"

"yes, it'd be nice to have something not so serious"

here's an excerpt of my futuristic view of youth ministry in the year 2400. published by the umportal, that i turned in on thursday, after my monday deadline

Just then, he receives a ringing in his communications chip. Zahn taps his head and a visual hologram appears of one of his teenagers, Jessup (one of the oldest and more active teenagers in the ministry). Jessup is visibly upset. 

Annika, Jessup’s girlfriend from the Saturn moon Titan, has broken up with him, and Jessup is worried he’ll never find another person like her in the entire Milky Way galaxy. Jessup is now convinced he will grow up alone. 

my concept for this article is simple.. the tools and trademarks of the culture will change (which was fun to try and imagine), but the human needs & behaviors will not change. as i see, they haven't changed in thousands of years, they aren't about to start. beyond that, anything you read into it is purely your own speculation.

telling stories on missions : sharing experiences with congregations

how to use social media to share your ministry story with home congregation & ministry partners from Gavin Richardson

one of the things that social media has allowed myself & you the lay web designer to do is easily share missions, event, and other ministry experiences with our congregations and ministry partners. i know folks are starting to do this more & more, so here's some of the set up & tips that i've used in the past.

• site: have a website that you can do quick updates to. this might be a special wordpress site or typepad/blogger are all formats that give you ease in telling little stories or updates without having to know code or ftp information. you can even use twitter if you need. i also like to use flickr for posting pics & videos. so much easier to upload a batch than to put into a blog posting.
• connections: ask ahead if you can get wifi in the area or cell service, and which kinds of services. if you can get wifi (which is surprisingly much more common than not) its wonderful. next best is cell service & you can probably spring for one of the broadband connecting cards depending on your provider. next, if you can only find cell service you might tether a connection, or just plan to use a smart phone application. my iphone has applications for all kinds of blogging updates, or i can just surf the web browser.
• ahead of time: depending on my anticipated needs i'll set up a posting ahead of time. example: our experience up into appalachia last summer i knew there was no wifi options, so i set up a blog post with a twitter widget that i could send updates to. i gave a shortened url link to the one of the ministry secretaries that she could put into the prayer chain emails.
• hardware: if you have a wifi connection bring your laptop. if you do this right you can stay up a few minutes after lights out, do what you need to do and then close shop and move into the next day. one of my key hardware pieces is a universal card reader. the best 30 bucks i ever spent in ministry. if you don't take the pictures, no worries, borrow someones camera card download theirs and use them to upload. same thing with video. if you have one or more video cameras (we used a sony webbie flip camera and a harddrive camcorder for our bahamas trip this year) bring what cables you need for charging & downloading. if they use flash/sd cards then you just need your universal reader..
• mobile upload: most social media sites have mobile upload options. you need to have them in your back pocket. twitter has an email to post option, as well as twitpic (which will post to your twitter). so if you can send pics or video through your cell service you are good to go. flickr also has an email that will post to your account. have your mobile apps tested out and ready to go before hand.
• choose your portal: life on a missions or other ministry experience is generally filled with little downtime. if you are like me you don't want to spend your every minute telling others and not living into the moment you are in. so, choose what your portal is for sharing. do you want to write out stories? or, like we have done, take the photos and put them out there to tell our story. this year we went more immediate video doing some little one or two minute update videos. since we are photo/video heavy this year, we just used flickr. set up a trip set and gave out the shortend url then populated it as the week went on. boy have we ever populated that... most likely too much. if you want to just have the youth or adult participants write stuff for blogs, give them a heads up. sometimes though its hard for people to sit down and write, so you either need to tell them what to talk about or give them the whole week to work on writing to get into a flow. some folks though, write very easily, well & quickly, look for those folks, but not at the detriment of the experience.
• clean it up: once you get home, clean up some of the url updates, spelling errors, add captions, edit finished versions, add more content, etc. people don't need everything, they love to get a taste or idea of what it looks like & what is happening.

disclaimer/distribution: i've been asked before if i've gotten permission for posting photos and such. yes & no. i've put in our release forms that this is part of our group & i tell parents that this is what we do, so if they have issue we can remedy the situation. most of the times our parents are exstatic to see what's going on. how often do they get frustrated with their kid going to camp, only to return & asked "what happened?" responding "nothin.." with this, they know something did happen. now, we do take some precautions of not putting in names, certainly not full names. we generically name photos most of the time. i don't do uber tagging so it falls into the greater searches, but is usable for my own search. with flickr you can protect download of pics to just your contacts/friends/family which is helpful if you can get people to get a free account and 'friend' you.

technology & youth ministry : my chippendales life

one the youth within our youth ministry had a little fun with some of our youth leaders and jibjab. enjoy!

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

songwriters night at hfumc : come help a youth ministry out

if you live around the hendersonville tennessee area i want to invite you to our songwriters night tomorrow evening to benefit our youth ministries missions for the summer. it will be at hfumc in our youth lounge area.

Multi-Award winning songwriters Larry Cordle, Carl Jackson & Jerry Salley (Cordle, Jackson & Salley) will be performing this Thursday night, April 16, 7:00pm at the "Songwriter's Night at Hendersonville First United Methodist Church (HFUMC). The Grammy, Dove and IBMA award winning trio have written songs that have collectively sold over 100 million records, which includes songs recorded by everyone from Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Ricky Skaggs to The Oak Ridge Boys, Steven Curtis Chapman and many, many more. This event is a benefit fundraiser for the Youth Missions ministries of HFUMC. Door cover will be $15.00 with further donation support welcomed

nashville allies : nashville area youth worker network

brian senecal & i have been developing this dream/idea to put efforts in building up a nashville area network of youth ministers in collectively building the kingdom. it'd be a three time a year kind of gathering for volunteer, newbie, oldie, paid, intern, etc. youth workers. we are calling it 'nashville allies' and we hope to start in the fall. if you are a nashville area youth worker and want to jump in on this & help us out. start by signing in with our network hub we are using & follow us at nashallies on twitter (if you are already on twitter)

business cards & youth ministry : the green business card

i've been in youth ministry for going on 15+ years now. in those years i've possessed maybe two business cards, all bought for me by someone else. never in those 15+ years has a teenager asked me for a business card. so why have them? i never saw the need.

now, in this new day of my youth ministry career i find myself doing more networking within the larger church & most recently the nashville (soon to be hendersonville) tech community. i am feeling the need to get some business cards. here are my two options i'm going with.

1. i've put together the sms contxt card. all you need to do is txt 'gavoweb' to 50500 and you will receive some of my basic business card info. this is paperless, which is an excellent 'green' usage. wasn't technology & the computer supposed to get rid of the need for paper?.. right.. well, here is atleast a spot to try something new out that is paperless. not to mention, if you are a youth leader like me, your primary audience is one of people who txt like mad seems logical to use.

2. i am ordering "mini-cards" which are small, baseline essential versions of business cards. now, i don't know if they prove to be something more effective than a stack of traditional business cards, but i like the concept and the coolness factor of being smaller. i might not call this 'green' i don't know the ins and outs of paper product to say that just because this is smaller means it uses less paper. it probably does.. but really i think its cool, not to mention the cool mini card holder.

what about your volunteers : setting up youth ministry infrastructure

i didn't realize, but i'm not surprised, that chris folmsbee has started attending and helping out with the youth community at church of the resurrection. so it is interesting to read some of the 13 ideas he shares about getting plugged in as a volunteer in youth ministry now.

I think I would assign a veteran volunteer to show them the ropes for a few weeks in a row.  There is nothing like the feeling of standing in a room all by yourself.  Crazy awkward.  Remember how you felt as a teenager when that happened to you?  Yep.  It still feels the same.

I know I’d do a better job following up with new volunteers.  An email or a phone call asking, “How can we make your time better or make you feel more comfortable?” can go a long way with a newbie.

being familiar with the folks at cor, i know one of their staff's core questions is how effectively did they provide people opportunities to be in ministry. so it is not a surprise they do this part well. we can all learn from that. if you didn't know they have some great little reads that i keep with me, one on youth ministry & another on recruiting volunteers.

anyways, its a good list to check out. i do mention in comments that there is some need to 'say' that some of those items will happen natuarlly in a smaller environment. but the principles there are solid.

brick testament : an idea for visual

 
i make assumptions that everyone sees and thinks the same things that i do. with that, i assume everyone has seen 'the brick testament'... just imagine, lego meets biblical narrative, with some excellent photography to boot.

anyways, for our coffeehouse youth gathering yesterday our teacher asked for some images to go with the scriptures of Jesus cursing the fig tree and turning over the temple. i decided to use the brick testament and the young ones really enjoyed it. but mostly i did which is all that matters haha!

so in case you didn't know, you too can use the brick testament for some scriptural images in teaching.

archie carver jr. : may you rest in peace

this morning i received word that one of my dads, archie carver jr., passed away after his long battle with liver cancer. he didn't talk about his cancer battle much, but i believe this was his third onset that he had to take on treatment for. he passed away this morning, march 9th, 2009, around 8:30am with friends and family with him.

i will alway remember archie jr. for his quiet michievous-ness about him. in the big crowds of friends we'd find ourselves in at church he'd be the quiet one with this sneaky smile on him. telling jokes in his head, laughing at the rest of us trying one up each other,.. i'm not really sure, but that smile was always there. i know he wasn't always the quiet one, but i'll always see that face, that michievous smile and i'll smile myself.

archie was beloved by his friends. he was an active part of the cancer society in hendersonville, and many joined the cause on his behalf. last years relay for life was held in his honor as a survivor even. he was getting treatment in tulsa for the last 6 or so months. as is liver deteriorated and prognosis became grim a number of their friends left for tulsa to be at his & terri (archie's wife) side. yesterday his sunday school, at first united methodist, class spent the whole hour plus in prayer for their friend. they joked it would have been archie's favorite class to spend it in prayer without any real lesson.

you will be sorely missed in our church family archie. take rest & hope that you have been a part of something special in your friends & family. your children are wonderful extensions of yourself and terri, tiffani, archie III, and william.

may the Lord Bless you and Keep You. may he Heal you and Hold you. may he allow you to help cook some great eats for that communion of saints. until we meet again. shalom

update:

visitation is set on thursday, march 12th from 1-2pm, with celebration service beginning at 2pm and food afterwards, at hendersonville first united methodist church.

seen it all : life of a youth pastor

i can resonate with much of this. how bout you? tip from emergent journey

introducing youthminblog : collaborative youth ministry blog

i am very excited to be asked to participate in a new youth ministry blogging initiative. this is a portal youth ministry blog that is taking in some of the most noticeable blogging & tech youth pastor types.

pretty stoked to be considered in the group as many i've met and almost all i have followed for some time now.

the basic idea, brainchild of chris szulwach, is that we are all going to be posting on some similar/coordinated topics our best thoughts, ideas and perspectives. so plug this into the rss feader, there is sure to be some great discussion on youth ministry practice.

swimming with the characters of nashville : the polar plunge

Originally uploaded by gavoweb.

participated in the polar plunge today as fundraiser for special olympics. it was supposed to be a mission thing we were doing as part of our senior dudes small group. but it ended up just being us adult leaders as our youth wigged out, forgot to get out of work, or had some state hockey tournament.. all very lame excuses if you ask me.

todd's daughter, bailey, was our photographer for the day. so hopefully i can share some other pictures.

sending off the teens : one of our ministry ideas

one of the things that we do as part of our youth ministry here at first umc in hendersonville is that we try and put in ads to each of our hs yearbooks. this can actually prove kinda tricky cause the leadership of the yearbook changes frequently, but when we can do it its a good thing. we do a page/half page graphic highlighting our graduate seniors from that high school.

our idea behind it is that this is piece of memory that will walk with the graduate well into youth and adulthood and putting together a picture collage of sorts to give some remembrance of the story of their time with this particular church community is a great reminder. not to mention, if it looks cool everyone else who gets a yearbook will see our name & we are supporting relationships with the school.

the trick is trying to find pics of those seniors who don't come around a whole lot or using those old pics of someone who kinda wained off their junior or senior years, but with facebook or myspace its a little easier to make that work too. here is our standard looking page for hendersonville high school` class.

warmth in winter : retreat highlights

i know you all might be bored of seeing all this warmth in winter stuff by now, but this was my life for the later part of last week. not to mention the 5 or so months leading up to the event. this was our retreat highlights video shown saturday night. i'm a proud papa in that the youth team we assembled shot it, cut it up, and produced the video all in the weekend. i will probably add a bit to the end of the video to put in the saturday night experience. i gave everyone the morning off (except shane who had to do song slide duty) so we don't have video captured of that.



Warmth in Winter '09 : Retreat Highlights from Gavin Richardson

warmth in winter : story in photographs

i had many folks from my team of youth taking photos of warmth in winter. here is a bit of the story in photography

warmth in winter : glimpse into a retreat

this is partially a mobile test post

This is a pic of a core part of our design team for warmth in winter jumping around dancing at the end if another great retreat. they worked harder than ever before to make this one happen and it turned out great. view more photos at our conference flickr & my own flickr set.

where i've been : warmth in winter

wondering what i was up to last week (with only one posting and all)? well, here's a little glimpse as i was doing my normal stuff, but getting ready for our largest youth retreat, warmth in winter, we participate in. this is our friday highlights video my team of youth put together as part of the retreat.

Warmth in Winter '09 : Friday Highlights from Gavin Richardson.

caption contest & freebie : in recognition of inauguration day

inauguration day is always an great day. i know people have their reasons for this year being more special than others, but to know that we have a complete change of government leadership without violence or war is something to behold. so, in recognition of inauguration i've got this caption contest. cool thing, my completely subjectively chosen winner (and you can vote for who you think is best) will be sent a copy of my worship feast prayer stations cdrom project & maybe some more stuff, but i promise that one.

let the captioning begin!

dear gavin : what to do with sunday school

one of the latest emails

Hey if you dont mind me asking, what do you use for Senior High Sunday School? Trying to find a good resource/curriculum to use.

we started doing a coffee house worship for the traditional sunday school hour. so its a bit different. before that i developed a master plan curriculum for our sunday school classes.

the ileadyouth website has (or had, they did a redesign recently) a 'master plan' of curriculum which covers a wide range of topics & the bible thoroughly. they had 2 and 4 year curriculum to work with that would be classified as 'bible' or 'life'. we put together a 2 year master plan (before we did the coffee house thing) which we had set up as 7 week segments that the 7-8th graders choose between two classes, the 9-11th had two choices, and the 12th graders had their own dedicated class.

i find it a good idea to get into developing a long term plan so that you can say that your youth are getting a full picture of life & theology. have this in place will help keep your teachers from winging it on a consistent week to week basis. in recruiting teachers it is good points to show them some of the things you would be asking them to teach. teachers can preview items that they are going to be teaching & thus be more well equipped. its gives parent cred to show you have a plan for their child's theological upbringing.

don't know where to start or have the time? that's cool. here is the one that we developed. you can use it as is (even fill in your own teacher names) or use it as a starting point. note: since we put this together a few years back some of the curriculum pieces are on closeout prices, which is cool, you can get for like 2 dollars.

• Download Sunday_School_2_Year_Master_Plan (pdf)
• Download Sunday_School_2_Year_Master_Plan (rtf)

so you want to volunteer : how to recruit your youth workers

okay so it's not the sustainable way to get your peeps together, but it is pretty accurate how it gets done & probably a more realistic look. comes courtesy of dave walker & cartoon church developed for national charter for youthworkers. if this doesn't work try herding cats.

sustainable youth ministry : the book i've been needing

i consider myself to be a pretty capable youth pastor. i've got some skillz! but i also lack some skills. one seems to be that i get lost in my own creative self. i can imagine up new youth ministry ideas and models, but when it comes to implementation i miss stuff, and i know it too. problem is that i can't, or take forever to, sort through making a better way.

this is why i'm super stoked to be reading sustainable youth ministry. not only does the title speak to me as i've been doing this in some form or fashion for over 14 years but i find myself in a larger church context that takes more skills than i even possessed. i am a super fan of contemplative youth ministry practice and even believe in what youth ministry 3.0 is presenting, but when it comes to implementing to a point where you & your youth community you've been blessed with are healthy then this is a book for you & your staff.

i haven't finished it, but i am already feeling energized by it. it's what i've been needing for probably the last two years.

stupid part of it, mark devries is a friend of mine and i'm gonna have to pick on him next time i see him for holding out on me for so long.

what has me pee'vd : back to the war metaphor

i could not help it. i got burned up inside by some prooftexting comment on adam walker cleaveland's posting about inappropriate youth ministry curriculum. i've gotten on my war metaphor bandwagon before and it's not that i'm some pacifist (i admit to struggle with pacifism). but as i see it, youth need new metaphors and new words to bring inspiration of the gospel message. otherwise we just get a lot of the same. here was a bit of my comment.

thanks for the prooftexting, i think we know there is a bunch of war in the bible. but if you can honestly say war is what God wants then get away from my youth. my youth want nothing to do with war, it stresses them and contributes little, except loss and heartbreak to their lives. we have adopted what Jesus told Peter, to “put down the sword” & “get behind me devil” for picking up the sword and weapons and power tool of the empire which creates widows & orphans. may we all turn our gun & war metaphors into “plowshares” so that we cultivate things that grow, not destroy..

update: adam's posting was picked up by the youth specialties blog, asking if military imagery is needed in youth ministry?

youth ministry 3.0 : emerging youth ministry observation

i was given youth ministry 3.0 by the folks at youthworker movement and asked to give a recommendation on whether it is a must read, okay read, and on down the line.

knowing mark oestriecher through some mild interactions and consistent reader of the marko blog, even read the precursor postings that lead up to the writing of this book i was very excited to get a hold of a copy and start reading.

some of my thinking points

• i read this book in one sitting.. not sure, but i think that is a first.. it isn't a long overly drawn out book, which i can appreciate. the basic framework of the book goes through a basic understanding of adolescent development then history of youth ministry leading into the futurist thoughts on where this new phase we will be finding ourselves in regards to youth ministry. i call it futurist in that some of the basic methods for analyzing the future trends is looking at the historic path and the consistent behaviors of the target group.
• some of the voices that marko uses for giving language to this future are the like of kenda creasy dean and many from the emergent/emerging/missional church generative friendship. so if you are familiar with what they are saying then you will probably find threads you already resonate with in y3.0.
• the adolescent section dragged for me. being an early childhood and human development person in college all the adolscent stuff was basic.. but, for those who have no training or education in human development and/or life stages then its a good primer to get you started in the know. i've leaned on my adolescent development knowledge for years and still have my text books (which might be in need of some updating).
• the history of youth ministry is brief and very general. it basically covers the evangelical spectrum and grazes a few thoughts on mainline christian practice. now, this could be attributed in part to that evangelical contexts were the first to be doing a 'youth' ministry. if that be the case it should be explored what spiritual formation when a youth was immersed into a full life of the church instead of being separated out. some of this could be hashed out reading four views of youth ministry
• i cannot express how much i support some of the ideas that marko shares in being ready to deconstruct the old forms of youth ministry. he doesn't put out what youth specialties will be doing next as the next form or youth ministry, as he confesses he doesn't even know, but that a change is happening and to ignore it will only lead you aimlessly into the wendy's black hole (you'll have to read the significance on that one). marko's greatest gift to the youth ministry world is giving some language to those are feeling frustrated that what you have been doing does not work to bring about some change. change is not hard within a church context, but you need to be able to speak to it.
• i was super pleased to see the word 'discernment' in the book. as i was reading and hearing marko say 'i don't know how this will turn out' or 'can't tell you what it will look like for you' i was sitting saying, you need discernment.. a few pages later, that is what marko suggested (and i was well pleased). the practice of discernment with your adults and youth alike is a powerful time of reshaping and anticipating the needs of your youth community. the youth minister will/should become more of a spiritual director in this regard cultivate a community that is intune with their cultural context. i would suggest additional reading of practicing discernment and the art of spiritual direction
• i like the idea of encouraging folks to become a youth culture anthropologist. its not hard to start into things like that. getting on the ypulse email list, cpyu email list, using google reader to subscribe to some blogs (like mine, haha) and news outlets, then using google news to send you news articles on keywords (ie. youth culture) is an easy way to observe some of the trends. beyond what i have mentioned personally subscribe to wired magazine, which throws out gems like snack culture. i also pick up a futurist magazine every now and then. a cheaper thing i do is watch my youth cruise through youtube and their behaviors.
• the "communional" idea is worth more discernment. the best part is that marko gives his own language spin to it. language will take you far in moving forward in shifting sands of youth ministry.

so as the folks who gave me the book asked. would i say this is a must have? no.. conditional that you are reading a whole lot from other places. is this a good read? certainly.

is it worth your time? if you are feeling that you are not making a dent and wondering if there is a different way? for sure. if you are looking for some language to help reshape some change this is a good starting point.

tennessee conference position updates : what a long strange trip its been

our conference office sent this announcement out just last evening via our listserv.

The new Directors of Children and Family Ministries and Director of Youth and Young Adults will be announced in January. Before that announcement the CCOCM Personnel Committee wanted to update the conference on the procedure.

The 2008 Annual Conference voted to have the job descriptions approved by the CCOCM before the interview and hiring process could begin. Prior to the development of the job descriptions, listening sessions were conducted with the existing Children's Council, Youth Council, youth, workers with youth, young adults, and interested persons. These listening sessions refined the direction of the CCOCM and lead to the development of the job descriptions approved on September 25th.

A national search was conducted for both positions. Ten resumes were submitted for the Children and Family position and the Personnel Committee picked four applicants for interviews. The President and Vice- President of the Youth Council were added to the Personnel Committee and were valuable participants in the selection and interview process. Thirty-eight resumes were submitted for the Youth and Young Adult position and five persons were selected for interviews.

Opal Ransom, Chair of the CCOCM Personnel Committee, said, "We have sought to be fair in the hiring process and I am very pleased with the candidates we have selected."

i am pretty close to these situations, so i was at first confused.. why give an announcement that you are going to announce seven days (at least) from now? especially when holding off information got in the way of the original process that has led us all the way to here.

for those that do not remember, i became the face and an undermining voice (in some opinions) with my position at conference youth coordinator and this blog here, not to mention all the various social networks that i am a part of or created, when our conference office terminated both our youth & children's positions at the conference level for a joint position. part of that firestorm came because communication was not in a timely manner, ie. now. people were not getting information from the office so they talked to whomever they could, and sometimes just created stuff. i have taken some responsibility for some of the information that went out, partly because i wasn't being called or communicated with either. i did, as i do, tried to convey as much information without telling people what to think. i never told someone what to write or call and say,.. anyways, thats old news i care not to relive. i have pissed off some people, made some new fans, become fan of many people, and all in the name of holding together our conference youth ministries. since we went from a joint ministry person to a full-time person (which is actually an improvement from where we were) i consider our groundswell of people to have some element of success. but as with anything like this, no one wins happily.

back to my initial confusion.

what is in this news alert is true. i can speak for the youth portion of this process. myself, opal, loyd, brad (the new incoming youth coordinator back during all this) and an assortment of youth, young adults, and youth leaders got together a number of times to talk about ministries in the conference area. we dreamed up some big stuff and challenged each other. we then produced a document based on that which contained some plans, a description of sorts, and some goals to hit for an incoming person. no one asked me to be on the personnel group to go over candidates, knowing my track record with some of the people, i didn't expect to be invited either. i know who we hired and i am very content with that decision. i have also known who we hired for the children's position, which i am indifferent about that. from the children people i've communicated with, they know too.

what our conference leadership needs to learn from this (and i know you read this), is that appropriate communication is needed. now 'appropriate' is a perception term, so let me share that the perception is 'now' or like yesterday. no, its not fair all the time, but with people finding out that there was a plane crash or terrorist attack via hyper news outlets as twitter acts frequently, people are only going to be more expectant of information they care about quickly. going days weeks, months, without saying anything is giving your audience license to create and say whatever they need to fill their information gaps. you allow people like me to speak & give words to others opinions, which may or may not be a good thing. bad communication undermines peoples confidence in you and your mission.

a great case in point in the obama campaign using various tools to keep people, in the know. their only slip up seemed to be when the txt updates for vp candidate were lost in a huge database of people that the news got to burst the story before millions got their message. he's keeping to that communication commitment by doing weekly 'fireside' chats via youtube talking about what/why of some of his decisions. wonder if he will share why he's chosen rick warren?

this process has gone on for over 9 months now, its time to say something. name people and lets move on.

things on tab : stories sex religion church teens and technology

as part of my new integration of lifestream stuff into my blogs newer look. i've been plugging a lot of stuff into my gavin del.icio.us account. so you can track back to these and other links of interest long after this posting (and others) have cycled out of view. i'm working on figuring out how i like stumbleupon or digg.

• simply my favorite story of a teenager & faith that i've read in a long time. here is his official website & a powerful youtube video testimony
• in similar news, jolly blogger announces he has cancer
• a big deal with the episcopalian church break up is, what to do with the property? the umc has the same set up, so this is interesting news for me.
• the wifey wanted me to read this.. its true, i have bad sleeping habits. sage advice?
• i'd say this is pretty darn cool for perkins school of theology
• poor pastor, at least he's got his congregation
• muslim teenagers growing up in america. not so easy to keep to traditional rules
• 10 questions that separate girls from women.. how do you answer?
• some united methodist churches talk merger
• inside of the bernard madoff's 'scam of the century' (though, this century is kinda young)
• phyllis tickle and peter rollins talk emergence shop
• a lot of folks upset or happy about rick warren doing the invocation. this one caught my eye though. ben witherington always has a thorough thought on the subject
• if you missed my sex week challenge article
• reverend mommy's prayer musings and her last supper lunch box
• locking down your own data
• turbulent cleric on reimagining the world a sermon of sorts
• asbo jesus at it again
• sky lowe mccracken highlights the troubles of a methodist university
• chris brogan on the distinctions of a blog post versus twitter post & how to see that in the whole social media spectrum
• is a green shift in home ownership going to save economic times?
• jason's many hats
• newspapers are still figuring out the whole conversation thing, by techcrunch
• top 10 photography tips and tricks plus why you should shoot in raw format
• josh's guide to God blessed college football bowl games

youth marketing trends : ministry still applies

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: teens kids)

the part that caught my eye first was #4, marketing is no longer something that you do 'to' youth but 'with' youth. sounds like relationships, which should be at the heart of ministry.

last minute toy store : getting filmed by the news

Originally uploaded by gavoweb.

i am actually amazed this photo turned out so well. took with my cell phone which is not the best of cameras, while standing on the front steps doing crowd control.

this is one of my senior hs and college guys getting filmed by fox news helping to take items to peoples cars who were helped by the last minute toy store. i'll be heading back there again today. i'm just running a little late.

i don't know if it made it onto the news or not. this was the article they have online about the last minute toy store.

family heirloom : prayer station video

this is a prayer station idea that didn't make the cut onto my worship feast prayer stations cdrom. this features my bud jonathon with a few kids talking about 'family heirlooms.' i think it didn't make the cut cause jonathon's voice got lost in the space, so volume might have to be turned up. you can still hear clearly enough, promise.

Family Heirlooms : Prayer Station from Gavin Richardson.

you can purchase the worship feast prayer stations cdrom amazon : cokesbury

prayer stations slideshow : a photo share

for a workshop i did yesterday with our youth ministry institute participants i shared this slide show of some of the prayer stations i've constructed over the years. i have more ideas in written form at my prayer station index. i will also be working in the next few weeks to clean up my data so i will probably run across some other 'pre-blogging' experiences that i will post.

warmth in winter : our undignified promo

i am moving most of my video stuff over to vimeo. the quality seems to be better in replaying videos than youtube and since youtube decided to throw in the search bar (lame) it seems an okay time to go elseware. this particular video is a promo video we threw together for our upcoming massive youth retreat, 'warmth in winter,' its the largest event of the tennessee conference of the umc.


Warmth in Winter 2009 : Undignified from Gavin Richardson on Vimeo.

david crowder band : national youth workers convention

David Crowder Band : NYWC '08
Originally uploaded by gavoweb.

its been a busy day, we had a run on walk-ins at the labyrinth so i missed out on mark yaconelli and the morning session. its okay, he forgave me.

been uploading some of the photos from last nights session, this is one from david crowder band that i liked. you can check out more from the national youth workers convention here.

labyrinth : nywc '08

Labyrinth : NYWC '08
Originally uploaded by gavoweb.

just a quick posting of a photo of the labyrinth where i am working a bunch for this national youth workers convention. at the moment it is quiet as folks are at the first general session. business will pick back up in a little while. till then, get gander at more of my photos from nywc '08 in nashville.

you can follow the crazy twitter action as well, or live general sessions if you like.

national youth worker convention : day one, set up day

today was set up day for much of the national youth workers convention. i was part of the labyrinth team, which is a first for me. i'm pretty excited to be a part of what folks experience within the lines of the labyrinth. this particular one is called the 'prayer path' which has guided audio. i don't particularly care for that part of it, i'm a classical labyrinth guy. this one is considered a contemporary labyrinth as well. i went though this labyrinth for the first time some 6 years ago & it was a powerful experience.

after finishing up with most of the labyrinth we got our lunch on, nothing major there. we did a major exploration of the various sauces available to you at chick-fil-a.

once we were back it was sanctuary set up time with lilly lewin. this proved more difficult than imagined. the room was sorta ordinary but with a bunch of doors and angles it was hard to make some focal points that didn't look out of place. some rigged up drapes & a few moves of our main altar we think we found a spot that evokes a little bit of the spirit for the many contemplative practices and hours of prayer.

ran into some great folks today, which is the highlight from getting to set up & prepare sacred spaces. eli roogles & i got reacquainted. we first met last year after being like the only two peeps who twittered the convention at that time (there are a lot more now). i got to meet jenn roogles too who mistakenly thought i was the drummer for the david crowder band last year (he must get mistaken for jack black too). finally, after i don't know how many years, i got to meet andy thompson when he & adam mclane stopped by the labyrinth to say hi. ran into old tennessee pal john stephens on the street, then in front of the ys store. on the way out i got a quick chat & hug with mike king as he was doing his traditional 'walk the crowd.' lastly, but who i didn't get to spend time with was chad crawford who is from the baptist church in my church's town. the neat story with chad, is that he & his family were displaced from hurricane katrina & he was the youth leader that was brought to nywc and given the royal treatment by the ys folks last time the convention was in nashville. he's a cool guy, but i needed to meet with some other folks to get my car out of a parking garage. there are other fine folks i ran into and met,

home now

check out my flickr set from the nywc '09 nashville for some more images of the convention