True Friendships

We've been busy these last couple of months getting ready the new tour! We're getting pretty excited as things have been shaping up. It's always amazing to watch how God allows the pieces to fall right into place. Our teaching this year will be on True Friendships!

As we've gotten to observe preteen students over the last couple of years we've notice that this is the age when real friendships begin to evolve. Up until this point most of the people they would call friends are simply the people they see everyday (neighbors, class mates, family acquaintances, or people they go to church with). But who they call a friend changes when they reach 10, 11, and 12. At this age they become aware of the importance of their friends and what those friendships mean to them. Most importantly they start to realize that they have a choice in who they consider to be or to not be a friend.

The teaching at SuperStart! this year will talk about what a "true friend" is. By focusing on the Proverbs 17:17 ("a friend loves at all times...") and looking at how Jesus and others from the Bible handled their friendships, our goal is to show that true friendships are based out of love. By understanding this very simple fact, the students will not only be able to understand how to be a true friend but also be able to figure out who in their life is actually being a true friend to them.

How are we going to teach this? What will our characters on stage be doing? Well I guess you'll just have to wait and see. But I have to tell you...we are VERY excited about it!

Patrick Snow

Elevate Preteen Leaders Conference

If you haven't already heard, there's a new preteen leaders conference! It's called Elevate! Elevate is a two day conference just for leaders and teachers of 4th, 5th, and 6th grade ministries. The weekend will be packed with main sessions and workshops designed to help improve the way we communicate the gospel with preteens. I don't know about you, but hearing about this gets me extremely excited. A church full of people who are passionate about preteen ministry??? Sign me up! For more information follow the link below.

http://www.sunsetchristian.com/

Patrick Snow

Leading Preteens

It's been an amazing journey since we began SuperStart! almost three years ago. Through countless hours of reading, talking with preteen ministries, and spending time with preteens themselves, God has solidified in our hearts the importance of an intentional preteen ministry. Not only has this journey helped us fall in love with preteen ministry but it's also blessed us with some understanding of what it looks like and how it could be used.

In the last year I've worked with Standard Publishing to take the knowledge and experiences we've been blessed with and put it all in a book for others who have the same passion. The book is called Leading Preteens and it's now available through Standard Publishing. I've found some books that talked about preteens and the need for preteen ministry but few of them gave a practical look at what it could actually look like. Leading Preteens is designed to help preteen leaders understand preteen ministry from the ground up (something I wished we had when we first started). The best part is that it also includes great practical advice from a few leaders who already have successful preteen ministries.

Whether you're already passionate about preteen ministry or just figuring it out, you should check out Leading Preteens. And afterward let me know what you think!

Patrick Snow

Preteens Are Playing Games With My mind!

This past week I was around a sixth grader named Thomas. As we were hanging out, Thomas gave me a serious look and said there was something he didn't understand. Thinking that Thomas was about to open up and allow me the opportunity to pour guidance into his young inexperienced soul, I asked "What?". Suddenly Thomas' face changed from serious to silly and in a high pitched almost winy voice he sang out "YOU'VE GOT FIVE MINUTES TO GET RID OF THAT WORD". Immediately I realized what had happened. Instead of allowing me the chance to teach one of the great truths of the universe, Thomas had tricked me with one of the great preteen games of the universe. A game that I myself played on unsuspecting victims when I was a preteen. The "WHAT" game!

By saying the word "what", I had so carelessly stumbled into Thomas' mastery of the game. Because of my foolishness I now had the task of getting someone else to say "what" before five minutes was up. Try as I did, there was no way of getting Thomas to say the word, so I automatically moved to the easiest target I could think of: my wife!

Later that day I thought about how true to preteen ministry that experience was. As quickly as opportunities to reach preteens come they can disappear. The question then becomes; "in the small amount of time I actually had their attention, did what I say even get through???" And to me that's the true mind game!

Patrick Snow

A Perfect Picture of Preteen Ministry

This is one of my favorite video clips. It's a minute and twenty five seconds of pure preteen ministry. Anybody who's tried to work with preteen boys will have no trouble relating with the Pastor in this clip. And I know all of us have wanted to do what the preteen student does. Enjoy!



Patrick Snow

A Growing Passion/Concern

Around seven years ago I was given the amazing opportunity to be a leader in the children's ministry at a church just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. My job: to write, produce, and direct the large group program for students in 1st through 5th grade. I was so pumped! I had just graduated from Bible college with a communications emphasis and also had a good bit of experience with drama ministry. Not to mention that I love kids!! We launched the program and everything was great. For a few months.

Then I began to notice the fifth graders.

Our large group time was set up just like every other church: first graders on the floor in the front, then second graders, then third, then fourth, and finally the fifth graders were in chairs (since they were older) in the back. What I noticed about those fifth grade students, as I watched that back row, was the fact that they weren't as engaged in the teaching as the rest of the students. And why would they be? They were being taught a lesson that had to reach the learning needs of students four years younger than them.

Trying to be positive, I decided to try and rework the lessons to engage the fifth graders better. I soon became overwhelmingly frustrated (as you can imagine) as I found out that there really was no good way to make this work. If I wrote something for fifth grade then the first graders were lost, if I wrote something for the first grade then the fifth graders were bored and checked out. I was beginning to grow concerned for those fifth grade students. They obviously didn't fit (or feel comfortable) in the same classroom with the lower elementary students. They needed their own classroom. They needed their own teachers. And most importantly they needed their own teaching. It was from that experience that my passion and concern for preteens was born.

Over the last several years that passion/concern has grown as God has allowed me to devote my time to preteen ministry through SuperStart!. How to effectively connect Jesus to ten, eleven, and twelve year olds is what keeps me up at night. But the road has been tough. I've discovered that there isn't much out there in the area of preteen ministry. There are some decent resources and some awesome church ministries that focus on preteens, but these are few and far between. (Doesn't this concern anybody? It does me.)

Preteens need more! They need more resources and ministries devoted just to them. They need us to stop lumping them into programs that are either too young or too old. And they need us to begin intentionally teaching them about Christ. What does that mean? Intentionally teaching? It means taking the time to get to know how they tick, what they like, what they're excited about, what they are dealing with, what their learning needs are, and then using that information to connect them with Jesus.

That's my passion. That's my concern. Anybody else?

Patrick Snow

The SuperStart! Team