Ken gets published by YS!!

This is so cool… I know that several of you know my buddy Ken Rawson. He’s an incredibly gifted youth pastor and a great friend. He’s been doing middle school ministry with excellence for a long time now, and now he’s got something really cool out of it. He’s been published by Youth Specialties! His first two books should be out in May, and I understand that his wife Jen paved the way by getting a deal for her two books first. Pretty cool stuff!! Way to go Rawson fam!

All four books come out in May, and are available on the Youth Specialties website.

Here they are:

Two new promo videos…

Please take a look, and just for fun let me know which one you like best.
One is 40 seconds, the other is 1 min 20 sec.

My blog is worth…

I found this on Josh’s blog. Wish I could cash in on this.

so apparently my blog is worth about $6,700. It’s in a light gray font that is REALLY hard to see though. Thanks to Marko for pointing it out!

Highlight of my day

I followed a link from Zach Lind’s blog and measured the reading level of my blog. Personally, I couldn’t be happier with this:

Stuck’s Annual Campaign Letter

This is the letter that will be mailed out this week with Stuck in the Middle’s 2007 annual campaign information. If you’re interested in supporting our 2007 campaign, you can do so online by clicking on the “Support” tab at www.stuckinthemiddle.com, or by calling 1-800-497-3917. Checks can be mailed to Stuck in the Middle, 403 S. Sunset Drive #6, Andover, KS 67002. Thanks!

Dear Friends,

When I was in the eighth grade something profound happened that changed my life forever. I was a typical middle school boy, awkward and struggling with low self-esteem, not sure about much of anything. Then I met Dr. Bill Lown, an elderly man who took the time to invest in my life and show me that I had worth and value. He led me to know more about Jesus Christ and under his guidance, I began a relationship with Jesus Christ — a journey that I continue to this day.

A lot has changed for kids since I was in middle school. They are surrounded by temptations and pressures that most of us didn’t face until college or early adulthood. It is estimated that nearly 1/4 of all middle school students have suffered from severe depression at least two weeks out of the last year. Nearly half have considered suicide at some point and 10 percent have actually made a suicide plan. 60 percent consider themselves to be Christians, but only 30 percent say they have a relationship with Christ. More than 50 percent believe that Jesus sinned on Earth.

Pollster George Barna reports that 66 percent of those who trust in Christ as their Savior will do so before the age of 18. More recent studies have lowered that age to 14-15, which coincides with new studies on pre-adolescent brain development. The same report indicates that 2 out of 3 students who currently attend a youth ministry will walk out of the doors of the church forever after high school, having never made a deep connection.

Clearly, there is an incredible need for ministry to this age group. “Purpose Driven Life” author and Saddleback senior pastor Rick Warren said, “Anyone who works in the church knows that junior high may be the single most pivotal period for spiritual decisions in the lives of our children.”

This is why Stuck in the Middle is so vital. Currently, it is the only ministry in the United States that is devoted exclusively to middle school students.

Over the past two and a half years, Stuck in the Middle has ministered to more than 5,000 students through camps, conferences, retreats, school assemblies and other events. Though we have struggled to find financial support along the way, we have continued to push forward with a ministry that we feel is as critical as it is unique. To date, no member of the Stuck team has ever received a salary for their work — it has been entirely a labor of love. As our ministry has continued to grow, so has the need for a full-time director. We are now at the point where we must take a giant leap of faith and I am going to become Stuck’s first full-time employee. With a family of five, that’s a scary proposition, but we are confident in God’s calling to this decision and in His ability to provide provision for this ministry in 2008 and beyond.

In 2008, we will continue to move forward in new areas of ministry. Plans are well underway for our March event in Kansas City, “The Story.” This event is going to be amazing! We have some incredible speakers and artists lined up and an opportunity for students to experience the ways that their own story was created to intertwine with God’s story. We fully expect this event to sell out – that’s 1,000 kids who will get to hear this essential message! We are also planning events with our friends in the Nazarene denomination, who we partnered with for 2007’s DRIVE event, the denomination’s first-ever national event for junior high students. We will also be working with local youth pastors as we consider multiple cities to host future weekend events. In addition, we’re working on new partnerships that will allow us to move into the camping and missions areas of ministry, as well as new resources and publications for both middle school students and youth leaders. In short, it is going to be a very exciting year for Stuck in the Middle!

But we need your help!

In order to continue our mission of serving middle school students and equipping the people who love them, we need your support. Our goal is to raise $43,000. This amount will allow us to fully move forward in multiple areas of ministry in 2008. Our events are designed only to pay for themselves, not to generate much profit. As a 501(c)3 non-profit ministry, the majority of our support comes from individuals like you who believe in this ministry and in middle school students. Being a 501(c)3 also means that your contributions are tax deductions, and any contributions made before January 1, 2008 will count on your 2007 taxes. This is a great way for you to save money on your taxes, while supporting a ministry at the same time.

Stuck in the Middle is looking for both one-time donations and monthly supporters. We are set up to receive credit and debit card donations through our website at www.stuckinthemiddle.com, and we can of course take checks and cash donations. In addition, we also have the ability to do monthly bank drafts, which affords you the ease of donating without having to deal with monthly reminders or mailings. For those interested, we also have a business underwriters program that provides tax deductions and advertising to sponsoring businesses.

Along with the financial support, we also humbly ask for your prayers for this ministry. If you have email access and would like to pray for us and know our needs on a regular basis, you can sign up for our weekly email newsletter by visiting our website and clicking on the “weekly newsletter” button.

We are so thankful for your prayers and support in our 2007 annual campaign and pray that God would bless you greatly in 2008. Thank you for being a part of Stuck in the Middle!

In His Grip,

Sean Meade
Founder/President

The Rest of YS

The National Youth Workers Convention is always a great experience for me. I started attending back in 1999 as a junior high youth pastor, looking for training and resources. This past weekend I went as an exhibitor, promoting Stuck in the Middle. It’s really crazy to think how much my life has changed between those two points. I’m feeling kind of reminiscent today, and very grateful for the way that God continues to weave the pieces of my life together.

This weekend, I had a blast. I had the chance to connect with several friends, and loved the opportunity to sit and chat for awhile with my buddy Jason Raitz. Jason is one of those guys that I’ve just “clicked” with, and I can’t tell you how much I value this brother and his friendship. Seeing the YS folks and several other ministry friends is always fun, and it makes YS feel like more of a family reunion than a conference. Hanging out in the exhibit hall was great fun with our Willow Creek buddies just down from us and a load of other fun people there too. A booth across from us was loaded with air canons and finger rockets, and we had a little too much fun with that.

We met a lot of people who were interested in our March event in KC, and several others who were excited to hear about the mission and vision of Stuck in the Middle. It reenergized me and left me feeling very excited about the potential and future of this ministry. We had a couple of vendors approach us as well, interesting in various types and degrees of partnership with us. Overall, the exhibiting side of the event was a great success, and we had a wonderful experience. It was pretty easy to figure everything out, and it was a great atmosphere with a great group of fellow ministries.

The general sessions were equally impressive. The production this year was outstanding, with some impressive backdrop screens used on the stage. They combined 3 large screens and projected one solid elongated image across them all. I’m told that the piece of equipment to do that is quite pricey, but it was very impressive. The stage setup was also different, with a large stage in the back and a smaller stage floating out in the middle. I really liked the setup, which made you feel closer to the action no matter where you were sitting. The floating stage was just the right size, but you could tell that a few of the speakers weren’t comfortable or didn’t know how to work with attendees sitting around them on all sides.

Some highlights from the weekend:

1. Doug Fields message on ministry envy: It was powerful and timely, and I am still wrestling through parts of it.
2. Jeff Johnson leading worship: WOW! I’m definitely a “Crowder Band” kind of guy, but this worship was incredibly powerful and moving, and it connected with me on a very deep, soul level.
3. Michelle Tolentino: Michelle is a young woman from the Philippines who grew up as a Compassion International kid, and is now a Compassion Sponsor. Saying that her testimony was powerful just doesn’t do it justice.
4. Playing the “electric shock game” with Zach Hunter and his friends: Zach didn’t want to be zapped, but hanging out for just a bit with him and his young friends from World Vision was cool. It’s so encouraging to see a young man like him. I pray that many, many students would be inspired by his example.
5. Giving whoopee cushions to a nun: self-explanatory.
6. The Skit Guys: Always hilarious!
7. Taylor Mason: Ditto on the hilarious!
8. Joe Castillo: The “sand artist” was amazing. The best opening for a YS yet.
9. Being challenged to take Stuck in the Middle to the next level.

Finally, I’d never seen Family Force 5 live before. It was unreal! Here’s a clip of what I saw.

Day one of exhibiting at YS

After taking off around 6:00 AM Thursday morning, we finally arrived in St. Louis yesterday afternoon. We pulled around to the loading dock by the exhibit hall and joined the crowd of exhibitors unloading there. We were greeted by some “friendly” union workers who informed us that we couldn’t move our gear in with any cart with more than 2 wheels. We got our stuff in and began unloading and setting stuff up. After our screen was up, our friend and host for the weekend John Birkhead suggested that we turn the screen sideways for the best visibility…and so we did. Our booth set up, we ran to get a bite to eat before the welcome reception in the exhibit hall.

Before the reception started, I tried to prepare Neal and James for what they were about to experience. “We’re about to be overrun” I told them. “There will be thousands of people in here, the isles will be packed and we’ll probably run out of our whoopee cushions in an hour (yeah, we’ve got some really cool whoopee cushions to give away this weekend!). About an hour into the reception I realized just how wrong I was. We had maybe a few hundred people go through (we’ve since had many more), but we hardly even put a dent in our whoopee stock. James and Neal made fun of my prediction relentlessly.

This morning we were back in the hall, peddling our Stuck in the Middle events and stuff again. We’re definitely a “rookie” booth, with nowhere near as cool of a display as other people. Still, our movie screen and pop-up banner (designed by the amazing Strategy Group) are awesome, and make us look like we have a little bit of professionalism!

Today we’re still connecting with youth leaders and having a great time. I’m pumped to see a lot of friends here from around the country that I don’t normally get to see. It’s also been good to connect with other ministries that might want to work with Stuck or partner with us in the future. All very cool stuff…and now I’m back to the exhibit hall.

Side Note: the first general session was awesome. The theme this year is “storyline”, and the YS crew has some amazing production. A huge stage with an incredible video background is very cool, and their stage breakout is interesting as well. They had a powerful opening with the story of creation told through sand art. It’s one of those “had to be there” moments, but it was very cool. More later.