Preteen Ministry in Rocklin, CA

Just got back from the preteen leaders conference in Rocklin, CA.  My third time there.  Really enjoyed it.  Throughout the week I will be blogging what I gleaned from the conference.  So, keep coming back for more.

I drove to the conference with my three young kids (8, 6 and 4 yrs. old). My wife had to work, so it was daddy time for a few days. Including pit stops it was about a 10 hour drive there and back.  The experience with them reminds me how precious and valuable my time with them is.  It is a great reminder to not get so caught up in ministry that I lose focus on my family.  They come first, even if it means dong less in preteen ministry (it usually does).  I even took a job at a church that isn’t quite 100% me to have 2 1/2 days off each week.  Family comes first no matter what.

Back to the conference.  Because I drove up early, I got a chance to take a sneak peek at Sean Sweet’s midweek preteen service.  Really cool to see it in action.  Here is what Sean taught me.

First, I really liked his conversation style of teaching.  Having about 50-60 preteens in attendance, he didn’t teach at them.  He involved preteens throughout the teaching.  He had a preteen come up on stage to talk about last week’s message.  Simply asked for a volunteer on the spot who wanted to share.  When reading from the Bible, he would often ask someone in the audience to read it out loud on the stage.  He would ask many questions and call on a few preteens in the audience to answer.  I usually take a different approach to large group, so it was good to see a different perspective.  Will definitely begin to implement some of those ideas.

Second, Sean is creative.  He used a lot of creative elements, such as a cool theme, video, large group visuals and so on.  I wish I had time to develop his chicken nugget series, but I don’t.  It was very fun and memorable. For small group, he gave them something to do in their groups and something to come back to talk about in large group.  Great concept.

I wish I took my Flip camera and could post bits of the service online.  Oh well, maybe next year.  Thanks for having me visit Sean!  Stay tuned for more of my take aways from the conference throughout the week.

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