I could probably put together a list of a hundred things, some of them because I just want to play with, others that are fun but not practical. This is not that list, instead I hope that everything on here gets approved and so it has to be justified. This will help not only me do better ministry, but support my volunteers, and produce better video work for students and parents. Here are my top five that I hope to get at the end of the year.

1. Soda Stream Teens are always drinking soda at our small group and I never know what they are up for, so I have begun to default to just getting Mountain Dew. But I love the idea of making your own soda and it will make things quite a bit more interactive with teens. We could justify it with less waste, more cost effective, or best for the teens, but in the end, it is just a lot of fun!
   Cost: ~$145
2. Rode VideoMic Condenser Shotgun Microphone We do a ton of video work for ministry and are VERY limited because of the audio issues with wind and airplanes flying overhead. It is a must-have for people that do lots of video work.
   $150.00
3. 99 Thoughts for Caring for Your Youth Group We had been buying the more thorough and less volunteer friendly-version The Youth Worker’s Guide to Helping Teenagers in Crisis, but this much more practical book is perfect in their hands. No selling this.
   $6.99 each
4. Ping Pong Table We have very little physical entertainment with students beyond the typical kick balls and frisbees. I want something available for when the rain, snow, and wind come (which is completely unpredictable in Colorado Springs). The tough part about this item is that I am not sure where it can be stored, so this is a “dream” item.
   $400 (new)
5. Sack Chairs This is a “cross-your-fingers-there-is-money-left” item that is not vital, but would be great to have. The problem is that you cannot just have one, so we need would need to get a couple of them and that becomes expensive quickly. Like I said, cross your fingers!
   $274.00 for the Original

What are your top five ministry wishlist items?

We are social media promoters. If you are not using it with your business or in ministry and have great ideas, you need to start now. But at the same time, we argue that it is ONLY a tool and if it distracts from making sales or doing ministry, you need to just through it out the window.

Blogging is a completely different story. Social media is your marketing and networking tools to get the word out about what you have to say. Effective integration is important and here are four quick tips to start it well.

• Grow Your Network Make friends with people that have similar interests that your blog provides. Our tactic is to engage with anyone that talks about any form of ministry, blogging, or technology. Not only will it give you great new resources, but hopefully you will find a lot of new readers that will be very engaging with your blog.
• Appreciate Your Followers Just growing your network will not achieve success, you need to sustain the ones you currently have. When you do get new followers or fans, remember to begin a dialogue with people. Social media networks like Twitter have the issue of becoming very inauthentic and disingenuous with people and our conversations can help bring about a personal interaction with them. At the same time, share their content with your own followers and show them that you are engaging.
• Put Links On Your Blog Whatever social media that you are using, put at the top of your blog (what they call above the fold where everyone can see it instantly) so that people can easily identify what networks you are and add you quickly. Also, make sure your blog’s website is easily located on all of your social media about us sections.
• 80% Give – 20% Take There is a strong need to make your social media updates valuable so that people will continue to subscribe to you. We suggest to achieve this, that 80% of your tweets and status updates be you giving something to your followers and taking something from them only 20% of the time. When we say giving, we are talking about fresh ideas, links to the latest news you care about, or free stuff. Make sure that it benefits your followers. Keep advertisements to buy a book you wrote, reading your latest article, or leave comments on your blog to a minimum. Overdoing the “taking” can come off as spamming and you may lose followers and fans quickly.

How are you going to integrate social media into your blog?

Five Ways to Build Integrity as a Parent
It’s one thing to spot the problems you face as a parent. It’s another thing to try to solve them.

Relationships Key to Teens’ Mental Health
Interpersonal relationships at home, school and with peers appear to be critical for positive mental health among young Canadian teens, a major study suggests.

Most U.S. Children Born Out of Wedlock
More than half of births to American women younger than 30 are outside marriage, research has found.

Movies Influence Teen Drinking More Than Parents
A new study suggests that major exposure to scenes of alcohol consumption in movies is a bigger risk for teen drinking than having parents who drink or if booze is easily available at home.

Answering Bullying and the Media via Deuteronomy 6
Challenged to think of a “youth worker” solution, I began to think of ways that youth workers can help avoid having our teens fall into the traps that come from bullying and media’s mixed messages.

Getting After It
We need to get after it and get in shape for ourselves and our families.

With all of this excitement coming up, there are definitely some unfinished plans in ministry, preparing, and even this blog. I wanted to offer five things that we would love to have from you.

1. Pray for us. We long for your prayers. So many “what if’s” with this child. From the very basics of “what if this is a boy?” or “what if this is a girl?” to the more scary ones of “what if we need to go to the NICU for any reason?” We are anxious and know that prayer is powerful. Thank you so much!
2. Ask questions. I LOVE talking about my wife and future child. What do you want to know? I know it’s weight, height, heartbeat, where it is in the body, and how all of this is going to go down. I love being involved and since it is not the first thing that guys start to talk about, I want to share it with all of you!
3. Offer suggestions We know how to raise a child. I have read all of the baby manuals on sleeping routines, feeding, and changing diapers. I have that. But what I do not know much about is how to raise a baby while doing youth ministry. What is that like? What do I need to look out for and guard my family from? What can I look forward to?
4. Guest post for us! When this baby comes, I am not going to worry about this blog for two weeks. Completely checking out. So I made a contest out of it and would LOVE for you to join in. Here are the details of what we are looking for and the prizes you could win.
5. Be patient. I will be posting baby pictures, maybe even a video with him or her, but not much else. Please be patient. Things will return to normal, I promise. We love you all and are so excited!!!

Thank you so much and these last three weeks will fly by!

This step of the process may be a simple one for some and something that others want to skip when they shoot for putting together a blog. But if you do not do the ground work now, you could find yourself doing a lot of complaining, being constrained because of lack of options, and ultimately spending more time fixing problems in the end than taking the time now.

There are numerous options for blogging, but we are going to assume that most of them are too complicated with programming your own website or not cost effective to do. With that in mind, here are four suggestions on hosting your own blog, each for a different reason.

• WordPress.com
  This website is actually designed for people who want to blog. There are other options like Blogger, Typepad, or Movable Type, but I simply love WordPress! Tons of themes to choose from and so easy to setup. Literally from start to finish, you could have a blog up and running in less than twenty minutes.
• Buy Your Own URL
  When you use WordPress.com or Blogger, you have a website address like yourusername.wordpress.com, not exactly the best URL to use. We need to make something more memorable and at a cost of less than $10 per year, you could have your own website that is easy to read and still points to this blog.
• WordPress.org
  Jeremy… you just suggested that, what do you mean? Well, actually there are two different versions of WordPress. The first is simple but limited on themes and plugins. This version is one where you have to store your own website on a server. Some great hosting services like 1and1.com or dreamhost.com can give you space for as little as $18 per month. This will allow you to create your own web design for your website and break out of the mold. Something to seriously consider if you want to go big with your website.
• Tumblr.com
  I suggest this out of shear recommendation, as I have not used Tumblr for more than a couple of weeks. It is a social media network that shares reposts from blogs and website across the Internet. Getting an account here has allowed people to repost on their website and get extreme exposure for their content. Something to really consider.

So how will you go? Do not forget that we can offer our help for free. You just need to contact us about your questions.

A blogging strategy is not the key to success, but personal goals that you need to have. We have shared with you guys our own blogging strategy for this year.

As we have said before, we will not define what your blogging strategy must be, though if you want a bit of free consulting, you can contact us via our Contact page for some assistance. While you are waiting for a response, here are four reasons that you need to come up with your own blogging strategy.

• Honest Evaluation You need defined and measurable goals that are realistic, like getting 20,000 page views this year. This provides you with a measuring stick to know if you are successing or not for what you hope to achieve. A strategy that is vague (Get more comments) or unrealistic (as many page views as Google) is unhelpful and discouraging in the end for evaluation.
• Clear Focus Putting down a good 5-10 goals within your strategy allows you to focus specifically on what is important and give you boundaries for not only writing articles, but marketing and knowing the pace that you are going to be going for. These defined goals allow us to keep on track in the future, instead of developing too many hopes, dreams, and tangents that will ultimately get in the way.
• Specific Motivation A couple months into your first year of blogging, when statistics are not what you want and the passion and dreams begin to become stale, a great blogging strategy can provide inspiration and hope for you. The idea is that this strategy will push you a little further, though you need to be realistic that you will need to bounce back as it cannot carry you for too long.
• Defined Endgame When the year (or we would suggest a 3 month strategy for beginners) is up, measure how you did. If it was a success and you can do more, push yourself. If you did not reach your goals, do not fret but instead find out why and make the appropriate adjustments. If need be, add a new goal that needs to be measured and get rid of one that you now know is just not going ot happen right now.

What will your blogging strategy look like?

This week’s funnies is an assortment of batman, star wars, social media, and straight up nerdy humor all wrapped up. Enjoy!

The highlight of the trip happened in the small moments of teaching teens how to do the different activities like skiing and snowboarding. I shared a little on Tuesday about how patience was such a great tool, but what I did not share was how much it impacted me.

We do a lot of great stuff with teens from those fun and silly games at youth group to simply hanging out after school at the local coffee shop. But life is happening in those moments. They have homework in the back of their mind that will need to get done, cell phones constantly going off, or some kind of extracurricular activity within the next 24 hours that needs their attention.

I Had Their Full Attention

When we were out on the slopes, I had their full attention and they had mine. I never actually shared the Gospel with anyone, but the trust in the relationship was present. They needed to fully understand what I had to say to do everything right. If they did not understand something and did it wrong, they were probably back on their butts again and we had to start all over. I needed to know what their concerns and fears were to help address their techniques.

Sure, some of them did not catch on to it and decided skiing and snowboarding was not for them. But a few of them stuck it out and within a day and a half, we were at the top of the mountain and finding ourselves all going down the hill together. Nothing was perfect about it, but just 36 hours before, they had not been on skis or snowboards. They had grown that weekend and succeeded in conquering a whole mountain.

Bringing It Home

These little wins translates into amazing memories that they will be talking about in 20 or 30 years and I was lucky enough to be apart of it. I have seen them grow in this area of life which has revitalized me to push on in the spiritual dimensions of their lives too. I want to hear how they conquered the mountains of loving their locker neighbors or regularly jumping into the Scripture. I hope that the scariness of inviting a friend to youth group or finding the confidence to share their faith with someone they care about will be overcome.

I have noted their success on the slopes and will make sure to remind them in front of the whole group of that success. But I will also be challenging everyone in the room to conquer their own individual mountains in life and offer to help however I can. Just as I taught these teens how to start out before we went to the peak, I am fully here for them in this too.

How are you encouraging and spotting teens growing in their lives?

We blog because we want to get stuff off our chest or we have something to share. When we write about these things, we need to present the best articles possible. This takes a bit of time and energy on our part to know who are audience is and what they like so that they will read our blog, love what we write, and share our articles.

We still have some work to do before we begin writing articles, but this will help enormously. Here are three things to be proactive in knowing your audience and what is best to present your conversations.

• Who Do You Talk With Naturally
  We have a natural audience of people that know and love us already. This is where we need to start. Do not reinvent the wheel. I personally polls people about what they love about my conversations. They love that I get to the point and have some good things to share. At the same time, you might already have an online presence elsewhere, via Facebook, forums, or guest posting with other blogs. Look back at that work and find out what people responded to well.
• Research the Competition
  People are already writing about what you want to talk about. What are they saying and how are they saying it? Use your social media skills and RSS feeds to find out their styles as well. You might not have considered writing on some kind of topics or writing styles. Take a few months of reading their stuff to know what they have. In fact, interact with them. Pick their brains. Want to write on youth ministry or technology? Ask us questions. I’d love to share whatever you need to know.
• Make Your Medium Appropriate
  This includes the fact that some audiences love video blog articles and will come to your site while others love a five-point post every single time. Poll your audience, be it social media or your friends, to know what they like. If you are heavily involved with Pinterest, incorporate images to bring in the viewers. We love you for who you are, find out what that is and press on with it.

Who is your audience and what do they love about you?

I was feeling a bit worn before this event. Nerves were on end and I was finding myself wanting to just rest when I needed to do paperwork. The desire for students to know Christ better was still there, but the passion had lost a bit of its edge. I needed to be refueled.

I know many different ways to be renewed, but none of them are better than silence. I can read books, journal, or program a website (yes, that’s refreshing to me), but all of those are still a kind of work. Silence and solitude, even if just for a single run on the slopes, can fill my soul, restore my heart, and calm my mind like nothing else. After several runs, I was a whole new man and my faith was running deep again.

How do you restore your soul? Is it the best that is out there for you? Have you practiced it? Restoring our soul needs practice. The first time that I sat in silence, it took an hour for my mind to shut up. Now, a five minute ski lift trip is enough and the three minutes back down is truly encouraging for me. Exercise your “soul care” muscles and practice being with God, however you do so.

So what are you waiting for? Go out now and be with God!