A couple things to note:

1. Questions and answers posted through a Facebook or Twitter account are not posted to the user’s Facebook or Twitter profiles.
2. If you currently have a MinistryQuestions.com account, it is not possible to merge your existing account’s data with a new Facebook or Twitter login account.

What’s next?

1. As this site continues to grow, we want to continue to support it and keep it under ongoing development as long as the funds are available (usually spare change from LISM). The next feature we’re working on is the ability for question owners to receive an email notification to rate a “Best Answer” after the question closes. That’s been a common sense feature we’ve needed for a while. Stay tuned for that development.

2. Also, I’m playing with the idea of a semi-regular “Ministry Questions LIVE YM Talk” show where other youth workers and myself take the time to talk through some of the questions that are submitted to the site. Details about the show are still a bit sketchy, so if you have any ideas or feedback, please leave them in the comments below.

Remember to use the Feedback Forum (i.e. the Feedback tab located to the far right at MinistryQuestions.com) to give us your suggestions for updates and feature requests for MinistryQuestions.com. You can vote on other people’s suggestions there, too.

Keep up with the latest questions

As ministry workers ask their questions, they rely on people like you to pitch in with answers. There’s a couple easy ways to keep up with the latest questions that are posted to the site.

• Become a fan of the MinistryQuestions.com Facebook Page
• Follow @MinistryQandA on Twitter
• Subscribe to the RSS feed of recent questions

We’re working on putting together a weekly email digest that contains all the latest questions, too, but that will cost us about $30/month for an email service that will do it right, so we’re holding off on that for now.

If you’re not already a user of MinistryQuestions.com, check it out! Here’s a brief video that explains what the site is all about and how it works.

With over 1,100 questions asked and almost 650 users, thank you everyone for making this the greatest online community of ministry workers possible! Thanks for investing into each other’s ministries with all the great ideas, wisdom, support and advice. You guys rock!

—————————————————————–
Help support the mentorship, the Online Missions Trip, and MinistryQuestions.com by subscribing to YouthWorker Journal. Get your FREE no-risk trial issue of YouthWorker Journal today, the best in youth ministry resources!

Related posts:

• Facebook group vs. Facebook page: Which is better for youth groups?
• Using Twitter in ministry
• MinistryQuestions.com launches for questions, answers, advice, and mentoring

We all know the story of Jesus being tempted in the desert when He began His ministry. What we often don’t realize is that Satan tempts us who are in the ministry in much the same way. See if you recognize these temptations in the desert of your daily ministry.

The temptation to meet all needs. Satan first tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread because He hadn’t eaten for 40 days. He had a great need for food, but it had to be met in God’s time and God’s way. Temptation is the call to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way. Often we want to meet every need we come across as soon as we are aware of it. Meeting our needs or the needs of another isn’t wrong, but it must be done in God’s timing and not our own. It must be done in obedience to Him, not just to meet our own ego needs or for our own comfort. Jesus didn’t meet His needs even though they were legitimate. He wouldn’t use illegitimate means to meet a legitimate need. We, too, must let God meet our needs and the needs of others at the right time and in the right way. It’s ego-building to always take care of everything that comes up, but sometimes God doesn’t want us doing that. Always check with Him first.

The temptation to be spectacular. Satan took Jesus to the top of the temple and told Him if He would throw Himself down the angels would protect Him and the people on the ground watching would be impressed. How common is the temptation today to do something in our life or ministry to impress others? We are always on the lookout for something unique, something new, something spectacular to gain attention and impress those watching us. Its not what we do but why we do it that is the problem in these situations. Letting angels minister to Him wasn’t wrong for Jesus, but doing it to impress others was not God’s will for Jesus. Neither is it His will for us to use our ministry or gifts to impress those around us.

The temptation to acquire power. Jesus could have had authority over all the kingdoms of the world if He would have recognized Satan as the one who gave it to Him. Power. We all want it, need it, crave it. It feels good. It enables us to accomplish what we want to accomplish. We all want to be the best, the first, the foremost. We want people to trust us and look up to us, to be awed with us and need us. That gives us power. But God wants us to be powerless so we depend on His power. He wants us to serve others, not have them serve us. It’s hard not being in control of everything, but the temptation to control circumstances or others is often Satan’s way of turning us from God’s will.

Satan uses the same temptations on us that he first used on Jesus. Even though they didnt work on Him they often do on us. Jesus had victory by quoting the Word. It’s only as we quote and apply God’s Word to these temptations in our lives that we will have victory. Jesus was ready for the temptations when they came. Are you?

Scripture
Matthew 4:1-10, Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

Reflect

• When are you most tempted to do something to help another so they will think well of you?
• When are you most tempted to do something spectacular to impress people?
• When are you most tempted to do something to gain attention, recognition and power?
• What Scriptures can you use when tempted in these areas? Write them out and carry them with you. Read them often. Use them when tempted.

———————————————————————-
Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Related posts:

• Time Out: Feed the sheep
• Teaching Teens Sexuality: Redeeming the Mind (4 of 7)
• Time Out: Flee the sinful desires of youth

Some of the things we talked about:

• The unknowns of walking into a new ministry
• Easing into the ministry vs. jumping right in
• How retreats will help you past the initial struggles
• Maintaining respect as both a friend and a leader with the teens
• And a lot more…

Although we discussed a lot things, we barely scratched the surface of everything Dennis had to share with us. So, he typed up the rest of his notes that we didn’t cover in the recording, which you can download here.

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

November 9: Next week YOU are the featured guest. We’re having an open discussion where you can ask questions, seek advice, share prayer concerns, vent, share stories, whatever you want. At 2:00 PM eastern time, call (724) 444-7444 and enter ID 19105#, or use the link on the LIVE YM Talk page to listen online and join the chat room.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Related posts:

• Podcast: How to be a volunteer and still have a full time job and a family
• Ten easy steps to guarantee a successful youth ministry
• Podcast: Working with cross-cultural students and minorities at youth group

Most of our students are impacted by music, tv, movies and videos games (or a complex combination therein), so when we have a chance to use one of those media venues for kingdom purpose, it can have a big impact. Disney is releasing A Christmas Carol this weekend. We media-ministry dudes at Interlinc have created a 3-session Youth Leader Guide to help you make the most of a movie that most of your students will probably see.

By the way, it’s an awesome movie – some of our Interlinc staff got a sneak peek on Monday. The 3D is amazing and helps communicate the story that much more. We decided to help with this movie since it is a wonderful story of life-evaluation and redemption.

So go download the 3-session Bible study lesson guide today and put Scrooge to work for you. Enjoy the Freebie on us, and enjoy A Christmas Carol.

View and download youth Bible study lessons for A Christmas Carol

———————————————————————-
LIVE YM Talk this Monday, November 9, YOU are the featured guest. We will have an open discussion where you can ask questions, seek advice, share prayer concerns, vent, share stories, whatever you want with other youth workers. We’d love to have you join us for the live conversation at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #49: Christmas Carol PowerPoint Game
• Freebie Friday #4: “Who Is God” Bible study talk sheets
• Freebie Friday #39: See You At The Pole training session for students

[ ht Greg Stier ]

Related posts:

• NYWC 2007 St. Louis: Back home again
• Still learning at the NYWC
• Issues in Youth Ministry: Greg Stier

Related posts:

• Disturbed rocks, but lyrics disappoint

Job evaluations – a necessary but not usually pleasant part of the job. If we don’t get our ego and pride all wrapped up in what is said there are things we can learn and growth can come. In Matthew 23 Jesus evaluated the ministry of the relation rulers of His day. It wasn’t a very good evaluation they received. We read those verses and cheer, smug in the knowledge that we are so much better than they. However when we do that we miss all opportunity to learn from the things Jesus was trying to teach them. Discipleship Journal in 1998 suggested some ways Jesus’ words apply to church leaders today. I have adapted some of what they wrote to apply to youth pastors as well.

1. Does my behavior match my teaching? (Matthew 23:2-3)
We know the religious rulers in Jesus’ day were hypocrites, but do we not some times do the same thing? Are we as faithful in our devotions, in our witnessing, in our prayer time and in our Christian living as we tell our teens to be? Do we talk or act differently at home or alone than we are with others in the church?

2. Do I lay heavy loads on my followers? (Matthew 23:4)
Are we always expecting more and more of them with the result that they feel they never do enough? Are our expectations for attendance, helping, bringing others, etc., unrealistic? Are we concerned about how others will see us and our ministry and so we expect a lot from our followers to make us look good?

3. Am I trying to impress people? (Matthew 23:5-12)
Do we find little ways to make sure the senior pastor and others know just what we are doing? Do we act in ways to impress our teens so they will think well of us? Are we always counting attendance and wishing for greater numbers?

4. Do I delight when my pupils surpass me? (Matthew 23:13)
Am I glad to see a teen or youth leader surpass me in Bible knowledge, prayer, worship, etc.? Or do I feel threatened and find little ways to best them?

5. Am I molding people in my image or Christ’s? (Matthew 23:15)
Does it feed my ego when those in my group act or talk like me? Am I doing more to promote myself or Jesus? Am I developing followers of myself or of Jesus? What would happen if I left, would my sheep keep on growing as they have been, or would they possible fade?

6. Am I majoring on the minors? (Matthew 23:23)
Over the past year have my teens gained a good overall of the whole Bible or do we find ourselves covering the same few favorite topics again and again? If so, are those topics the heart and core of the gospel or peripheral issues?

7. Am I keeping up appearances to cover up sin in my own life? (Matthew 23:25-28)
Do I have private habits that I wouldn’t want others to know about? Do I cover up sin in my life, make excuses for it, or in any way live a double life?

8. Do I consider myself superior to others? (Matthew 23:30-36)
Do I look down on others who aren’t as “committed” as I am? Do I feel special because I am on staff or in the ministry? Do I expect special consideration or privileges because of who I am?

If Jesus would evaluate you and your ministry as He did that of the religious rulers, which of these would you fail? Spend some time reading Matthew 23 just for your own growth and not for lesson preparation. What would Jesus say to you through these words? Prayerfully consider these questions, with an open heart, and let Jesus help you become more like Him in your life and ministry.

———————————————————————-
Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Related posts:

• Time Out: You can’t be like Jesus by trying to be like Jesus
• Freebie Friday #65: Journey with Jesus experience
• Developing leaders vs. developing followers

Dennis and many others in last week’s conversation added a lot of good insights and tips for working with teens who might be a little different from us.

Some of the things we talked about:

• Working with different value systems
• Helping different ethnicities feel welcomed
• Moving past potential language barriers
• Common mistakes to avoid
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

November 2: Next week’s guest is Dennis Beckner, a youth ministry volunteer at Saddleback, who will lead us in a discussion about, “Keys for successfully start in youth ministry as a volunteer.” At 2:00 PM eastern time, call (724) 444-7444 and enter ID 19105#, or use the link on the LIVE YM Talk page to listen online and join the chat room.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Related posts:

• Podcast: Challenges and opportuntities of working with high school students
• Podtcast: Key steps for a successful start in youth ministry as a volunteer
• Podcast: Are youth events still working?

What do you get for free? Criticism? That’s no fun. Resources, conversation, encouragement, training? Yes, more fun. When I started Disciple Project Ministries a little over two years ago, I was following a traditional model: Create stuff and sell it. The new model: Create stuff, give it away, talk about it, repeat. I hope the resources I will now provide for free; will somehow replenish a small part of what we all give up in time, money and sometimes ego to serve students. I am looking forward to serving all of you.

Download everything you want from Paul for absolutely free now.

The Discipleship Project’s FREE store

More free stuff from The Discipleship Project

Paul Turner has been working with youth for 20 years. He is the author of, The Cure For The Common Youth Ministry, and founder of Disciple Project Ministries. Paul is the youth director at Gardendale, Mt. Vernon UMC in Birmingham, Al. He loves spending time with his wife Kim, raising their their three great kids (2 of which are teens).

———————————————————————-
LIVE YM Talk this Monday, November 2, is with featured guest, Dennis Beckner, who will lead us in a discussion on keys for successfully start in youth ministry as a volunteer. We’d love to have you join us for the live conversation at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #68: 3 discipleship lessons, includes follow-up plan
• Freebie Friday #59: Lesson outline on Defining Discipleship
• Expectations of youth pastors and discipleship

On a very practical level, here are the avenues my ministry uses to communicate with teens and parents throughout the week. In fact, we even have a handout that sits at our youth kiosk at church that lists these for newcomers.

Youth Group website

www.AlexandriaYouth.com
This is our main hub of communication because it’s a neutral place that almost everyone can access. On the front page site visitors will find the most current information, where and when to be places and who to get a hold of for each thing. There are also pictures and videos of past events, and lots more!. Here’s more information about how I made our website and the thought process behind it.

E-mail list

Whenever news is posted to our website, that info is automatically emailed to our mailing list. We use Feedblitz.com to automatically distribute the emails and manage the subscription list.

Text messaging

Text messaging is a great way to get last minute updates, reminders, and cancellations, but we use it for a lot more than that. There’s a lot of mass text messaging services out there, but I highly recommend TXTSignal.com.

A note about Tatango.com
I know a lot of youth ministries are using Tatango.com, but, although their service may be okay, I can personally vouch that their marketing ethics are highly questionable. Their VP marketing guy emailed me two weeks ago and, after some exchanges, started calling TXTSignal’s service illegal (citing a list of “best practices” as evidence, all of which TXTSignal meets and exceeds) and pointing me to a misleading blog post on their site about the SMS technology. Kinda ticked me off because people who aren’t familiar with the technology could easily get sucked in, like they were trying to do with me. I’ll never use them.

Facebook Page

www.Facebook.com/AlexandriaYouth
Many of our youth group kids are on Facebook. We use it to keep in touch, posting not only youth group pictures, videos and status updates, but video clips and pictures of high school sports games and performances. When kids start commenting on the media, it highlights the videos and pictures for most of their friends. Some of them check out the rest of our page and even become fans. More about using a Facebook page for youth ministry here (although, it’s slightly outdated already).

Bulletin inserts

Every Sunday we basically copy and paste what was posted on our website and distributed via email to a bulletin insert. This is mostly for first-time visitors and those who don’t use email or the web too much at home.

Youth kiosk table at church

We have a youth kiosk table at church right outside the main entrance to our worship center (sanctuary). The lights and motion on the TV and digital picture frames catch people’s eye as they walk by. We have a lot of general information sitting out, as well as sign-ups, pictures, promo flyers, and our weekly news video on a loop. Hanging around it on Sundays is a great way to meet new visitors with teens. See a picture of it here.

Twitter

twitter.com/AlexandriaYouth
Although only a couple of our teens use Twitter, the real reason I use it is to easily easily post short little updates to the front page of our youth group website. (Parents love it when I post updates while we’re away on trips!)

iTunes News Videos

http://www.alexandriayouth.com/itunes
Most weeks we publish a fun video that gives and overview of announcements, highlights of past events, previews of what’s coming up, contests, giveaways, and funny clips from YouTube. I found that if I stand in front of the youth group and make announcements, no one listens, but if I say the exact same thing on a screen, everyone is glued to it.

We post these videos on our website, our Facebook page, and show them at our weekly large-group jr. high and sr. high meetings. Publishing the videos in iTunes allows teens to automatically sync them to their iPods to watch on the bus, in the gym, and share with friends.

Personal contact

And, of course, I make my personal contact information readily available.

A video of my seminar on youth ministry communication

Last year at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference I taught a seminar on, “Communicating with teens and parents throughout the week,” which went into some of these areas in more detail. You can watch the video of the seminar here. Although some of it needs to be updated now (especially the Facebook part), it’s still generally true.

Related posts:

• Enhancing communication with changes to our youth group website
• Open the lines of youth group communication
• Evaluating my group’s mid-week communication methods

Here’s how the Kingdom mindset works itself out in our youth ministries together:

• Instead of each church doing their own individual training, together we pool resources and fly someone in once a year to do an all-day training for all our youth leaders combined.
• Sometimes I send my youth group kids to the other churches for their events. They sometimes do the same for our events. If someone else’s ministry is doing something solid, why not join it? In fact, this Thursday some kids from my youth group and myself are doing just that.
• Friendly competition between youth groups is always fun, like our up-coming multi-youth group dodgeball tournament.
• We support each other’s ministries by spreading the word about each other’s events and meetings. In January the other churches are sending all their parents to my church for a Real World Parents seminar and helping with childcare for the event.
• We hear each other’s struggles, offer support, encouragement, and pray for each other. It’s great to have a neutral place to talk about those kinds of things every week.
• We learn together by reading and discussing various books, like Youth Ministry 3.0 and 7 Practices of an Effective Ministry.
• We used to have combined monthly youth meetings, but after a couple years it started to dwindle and the vision for it faded, so we canned it last winter.
• We share resources with each other. One church has a bus that we have all borrowed; another church lets us use their way-cool sanctuary for sr. high small group baptisms; we even share extra food with each other’s ministries so it doesn’t go to waste.
• Some of the youth groups have been known to cancel their youth meeting and go crash someone else’s youth group meeting instead.
• There’s open communication about “problem teens” and families who flip-flop churches.
• Later this year some of the other youth pastors are coming to my sr. high youth group as special guest teachers.

It’s really all about Kingdom work, not church-kingdom work. It’s not about growing each of our individual ministries or competing to be the “best.” It’s about seeing teenager’s lives impacted for Christ regardless of whose church that happens in. The teamwork makes us so much more effective than any of us could be on our own.

P.S. Since I’m sure it will be a question in the comments, just thought I’d clarify that the churches who are actively involved in our youth worker network hold very similar theological beliefs. All of us are extremely comfortable sending students to each other’s ministries, partnering together for events and meetings, and even teaching for each other’s youth groups.

—————————————————————–

Last week Simply Youth Ministry released only 400 units of the Spooky Awesome Bundle. It’s a $69 bundle with $280 worth of resources included, plus some free gifts. There’s only 50 left, so get the value while you still can.

Related posts:

• Competing with other local youth groups
• Ministry is a kingdom mindset
• What I appreciate about my Sr. Pastor

Seminars, books, videos, conferences, web sites – everywhere someone is telling us how to do ministry better and be more successful at it. We’ve all tried a number of different approaches with varying degrees of accomplishment. The way the world measures success is different than how God measures it. While there are many good principles we can gleam from the world around us, Christian ministry is very different than anything the world has to offer. The “bottom line” is different and that changes everything.

I am currently in India ministering to pastors and Christians there. In seeking to most effectively train and prepare them I’ve had to think long and hard about what the church and Christianity really is. It’s so easy to get American culture wrapped up with it but I don’t want to waste my time or theirs promoting 21st Century western culture. That’s not what changes lives!

The gospel is transcultural. We must weed out that which is our culture from what is authentic Christianity. Only the true basic elements of Christianity which transcend culture meet human needs. The application of that in a specific society can vary. Fellowship, worship, prayer, learning the Word and outreach are the core ingredients for any ministry (Acts 2:42). How these are carried out can vary from culture to culture but these must be present. I want to let my Indian brethren apply these things as is fitting in their culture. I want to teach them what to do but not how to do it.

That applies to your ministry today as well. Don’t try copying the how of another ministry as if changing programs will somehow improve your ministry. It may become more exciting, and change always seems to bring new life for awhile. But always remember its not the body but the life within that matters. Learn growth principles from the secular world but apply that to the grid of Biblical ministry. When change happens within it is seen from without. However trying to manufacture that external difference by changing cultural forms doesn’t necessarily change hearts or lives. It can just end up in hypocrisy.

Spend much time in prayer. Focus on changing lives, not on building a reputation. Minister to hearts. Don’t just try to impress or entertain numbers of teens. That’s not how Jesus did it and it shouldn’t be how we do it either. Learn from others but stick to the basics. They still bring success in sports and in ministry. Fellowship, teaching, worship/prayer and outreach – these are the key ingredients of any Biblical ministry.

Scripture
Acts 4:32-35, “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.”

Acts 2:42, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

Reflect

• How balanced is your ministry between worship/prayer, teaching, fellowship and outreach? Where do you need better balance?
• Ask God to show you where you are guilty of focusing on externals, of looking for a new program to bring life and results?

———————————————————————-
Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Related posts:

• Time Out: If you think you have the gift of teaching…
• Time Out: God works in us before He works through us
• Notes and thoughts from second day at NYWC

Also check out my video with Matt where we discussed 5 ideas to help teenagers share their faith.

Some of the things we talked about:

• The current state of evangelism in our youth groups
• Why it’s important that we model it first
• Ideas to implement into your youth meetings
• Handling “persecution” for sharing our faith
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

October 26: Next week’s guest is Dennis Poulette, a youth ministry professor at a seminary in Mexico, who will lead us in a discussion about, “Working with cross-cultural students and minorities at youth group.” At 2:00 PM eastern time, call (724) 444-7444 and enter ID 19105#, or use the link on the LIVE YM Talk page to listen online and join the chat room.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Related posts:

• 5 ideas to help teenagers share their faith
• Podcast: Working with cross-cultural students and minorities at youth group
• Podcast: Using media in teaching students

While I respect people’s freedom to express their feelings through blogs and Twitter, some of you are jumping to illogical conclusions based on speculation and gossip. Wait until you have the facts before before making such judgments. We all hate it when people in our churches do the same about us or our ministry when a nugget of information starts spreading and is soon taken out of context, but yet that’s what we’re doing here with Zondervan and Marko.

Granted, the manner in which Zonderan released this information is indicative of a proper, almost impersonal, business approach. Clearly they don’t quite “get” the youth ministry audience and could’ve communicated it much better than they did, but that’s not a valid reason to start bashing Zondervan because they let Tic Long go first and now Marko. Youth workers, more than anyone else, should be familiar with change and transitions. Every year we say goodbye to a graduating class while saying hello to a new incoming class, causing our ministries to be in a constant state of flux from year to year. As if that turnover wasn’t enough, youth culture and trends are constantly shifting and trying to stay on top of the communication game is often a struggle. Maybe in a youth ministry world of constant change, Marko felt like the constant we could always depend on, and when it’s gone, the loss creates deep insecurity and even wounds. If that’s the case, then I suggest we need to reevaluate Who our anchor is in ministry. (Some of the comments I see on blogs and Twitter definitely cross the line into idolatry, putting Marko on a pedestal that’s much higher than where any man man ought to be.)

But even so, Marko is not dead, he’s just transitioning. He’s not disappearing from the earth, just moving to do new things to help further the Kingdom among teenagers. Marko will be fine. Youth Specialties will be fine. For all we know, this could be the best thing for both of them.

Marko is one of the people who encouraged me to write my upcoming book that Youth Specialties will release in January 2011. He also covered expenses for my wife and I to attend the 2006 NYWC in Austin because we couldn’t afford it. And he’s been a guest on LIVE YM Talk with me, among many other email and phone conversations. I love the guy and his heart for teenagers and his investment into me personally, so it’s with no disrespect toward him that I remind us that there’s a lot of what if’s and variables in this situation that none of us know.

• What if this is the best move for Youth Specialties to be able to serve your ministry?
• What if Zondervan is taking the hit, looking like the bad guy, when there’s really many other things behind the scenes we don’t know about? (Hasn’t every youth worker been in this situation?)
• What if Marko is honestly OK with this decision and maybe even relieved by it?
• What if the two options were to let Marko go or close Youth Specialties?
• What if Zondervan has a bigger vision for Youth Specialties than YS has for themselves?
• What if Zondervan is experiencing greater loss than Youth Specialties is by releasing Marko?
• What if this frees Marko to do even more incredible things for the the world of youth ministry?
• Remember, it was Karla Yaconelli who sold YS to Zondervan in the first place, not Marko. Maybe some of her unspoken reasons for doing so impact this decision?
• What if Marko becomes the new youth pastor at Saddleback to fill Doug Field’s vacancy? :)

Although I admittedly embrace change a bit easier than most people I know, I’m actually excited to see what’s in store for Youth Specialties. I absolutely feel for Marko and have been praying for him and YS for the past couple days, but I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how the Lord will use him to make a continued impact on youth ministry.

In the meantime, chillax. Quit the gossip and idle speech.

Related posts:

• Issues in Youth Ministry: Mark Oestreicher
• 2nd day at NYWC
• I’m going to the NYWC in Austin!

1. What are some icebreakers to start the conversation?
2. What are a couple of passages that shows God’s love toward us?
3. What would you say to someone if they ask a question like, “How do you know the Bible is right?” or “How do you know God exists?” or “What if you’re wrong?”
4. How do you prepare for an “encounter?”
5. What are some resources that you would recommend for someone who is going along with what you are saying?
6. Give me an example of bringing Christ up through music? Sports? Recent events? School?
7. What is a good way to explain the trinity to unbelievers?
8. How can you explain that having faith is different than religion? Like, a relationship with God?
9. How do we share our faith with people who don’t care about God and don’t want to learn more?
10. How do we approach people with a different religion?
11. How can we know when to be more persistent with someone and when to back off?
12. How do I share my faith with someone who wants nothing to do with me?
13. How do you go about pursuing someone who you and others may presume is “fine” but there is something that may lead you to be uncertain about their faith and if they know Jesus?
14. How do you help a Christian come back to Jesus after an emotional crises/breakdown?
15. How do you share your faith with a close friend?
16. What do you say when an unbeliever asks you to prove what you’re saying?
17. How do you prove the Bible using the Bible? How do you prove the Bible NOT using the Bible?
18. What’s the way of evangelism that seems to be received best by unbelievers?

You’re welcome to download this 41 minute video conversation between me and Greg Stier and use it with your youth groups, too. However, since it’s just shy of 700 MB, I’m going to let you guys download it directly from Vimeo. Use the link below to view the video. In the bottom-right corner of the page you can download the original source file (requires site registration).

View the Evangelism Q&A video with Greg Stier and Tim Schmoyer

Download the small group discussion questions

———————————————————————-
Remember, there is no LIVE YM Talk today or any other Friday in the future. LIVE YM Talks have switched to Mondays. Our next LIVE YM Talk is this Monday, October 26, with featured guest, Dennis Poulette, who will lead us in a discussion on working with cross-cultural students and minorities at youth group.

Related posts:

• “Answering teens’ tough questions” with Greg Stier
• Issues in Youth Ministry: Greg Stier
• Freebie Friday #24: “Evangelism for my life” teaching series

Many of you were asking how I did it, and fortunately for all of us, it’s really simple.

1. Setup the talking head

Visit Blabberize.com and follow the instructions. You’ll have to upload a picture you want to use, select the mouth area (it looks best if you select the entire chin area, too), and select what audio source you want to use. Click the icon to use your computer microphone and you’ll see that the mouth starts bouncing along with your voice. This is as far as you need to go for our purposes.

2. Record your JibJab video

Since there’s no way to download your JibJab videos from Blabberize, you’ll have to use screen capture software that basically records to video whatever you select on your computer screen. I use iShowU for Mac, but Jing is free and available for both Mac and PC. Or, Free Screen Capturer might work for you PC users, too. (Disclaimer: I’ve never used Jing nor Free Screen Capturer.)

Just like I explained in the tutorial about how to record L.T. for youth group video announcements, set the screen capture software to record only the area of your computer screen where your Blabberize character resides. Make sure you also set it to record the audio from your computer microphone. Then click record and start talking. Stop the recording when you’re finished and, wa-la, you have your JibJab video announcement.

—————————————————————–

Yesterday Simply Youth Ministry released only 400 units of the Spooky Awesome Bundle. It’s a $69 bundle with $280 worth of resources included, plus some free gifts. They’re already half way gone, so get the value while you still can.

Related posts:

• How to make fun video announcements in 3 easy steps
• Using video to communicate youth group news (2 of 2)
• Youth group announcements on AIM

Granted, some of the issues are self-inflected because the youth worker accepted the position in the first place, which probably means one of three things:

1. The youth worker didn’t do their homework about the church before accepting the position and was thus naively blindsided.
2. The youth worker saw the warning signs, but was impatient for a job and brushed off the yellow flags.
3. The church’s leadership changed since the youth worker first accepted the position and now they’re in a situation that could not have been foreseen.

In case you’re in the first category, here are some warning signs to know if you’re interviewing with an unhealthy church. Hearing any of these statements from a church be should reason for caution and further investigation.

Thanks to the other trusted youth workers who collaboratively helped me write this on Google Wave last week! The following list is a joint effort of me, Adam McLane, Ryan Nielson, Chris Day, Mike Kupferer, Adam Lehman, Roy Probus, and Brian Senecal. Thanks, guys!

1. Yeah, we have our vision statement written down somewhere. Hold on, let us find it and we’ll get back to you.
Translation: We’re not really sure what our vision is because it’s just something that’s written on a paper. The real vision that we actually function by is mostly unspoken rules, so we use the generic and poorly defined, “Love God, love people,” or “To make disciples” kind of jargon. (Hint: See chapter 4 in the book, “It: How churches and leaders can get it and keep it,” by Craig Groeschel.)

2. We don’t have a job description for the youth pastor.
Translation: We don’t really want to define what your role is here because we’re not really sure what we want you to do except for keep us happy. We like to have the freedom to keep you guessing as you default to a performance/numbers driven ministry.

3. We are a very friendly, loving church.
Translation: Our church is a very close(d) group of friends. (Hint: C’mon, not every church can be as loving as they say they are.)

4. You’ll have total freedom and support to build the youth ministry that you envision.
Translation: We would really like you to feel that way because we want to make a good first impression on you, but you’ll really only have freedom and support if we decide we like what you’re doing.

5. The salary might not look good on paper, but there are many other benefits to this job than money.
Translation: We’ll expect full-time hours from a slightly inflated part-time salary because you’re working for God, not for man, and your reward will be in heaven. Since this is your holy calling, you can’t say no, so we feel like we can get by cheap and thereby put undue financial strain on your family.

6. Will your wife lead a small group of girls?
Translation: We’re looking for a youth pastor whose wife will serve just as diligently as the paid guy. We want two for the price of one. (Hint: Make it clear from the very beginning that the church is hiring you, not your spouse. If he/she serves in the youth ministry, it’s with the same expectations and as any other church member.)

7. The position is part-time right now, but it will be full-time soon.
Translation: We can’t afford a full time guy nor do we yet see the need for 40 hours a week, but if we hire you and you bring in lots of new tithers, maybe we could do it then. (Hint: This never happens.)

8. From sr. pastor, “I don’t want to micromanage you – I just want you to do your job.”
Translation: I’m not really sure what your job is nor a vision of what it should look like. (Hint: Although many pastors say this with good intentions, you should still talk about it with other staff members confidentially.)

9. Are you an outreach guy or a discipleship guy?
Translation: Our last guy was too heavy in one area and we want to swing the pendulum back too far the other direction so we can complain about how the previous guy was better at it than you. (Hint: Biblically, you cannot separate evangelism and discipleship. Evangelism is the first step of becoming a disciple and witnessing should be an ongoing practice for any growing believer. The two go hand-in-hand. You cannot have one without the other.)

10. How do you address the teen drop-out rate from church?
Translation: Bad youth ministry is the reason teens are dropping out from church and we want to make sure you fix these kids so parents don’t have to deal with their spirituality at home.

11. We need a decision quickly.
Translation: We’re feeling pressure to get someone on board fast because, frankly, our youth ministry isn’t strong enough to survive on its own. Families might leave the church if we don’t get a youth pastor fast. If God is really calling you somewhere, we don’t need you to pray about it for too long, even though that probably tells you a lot about our church’s leadership.

12. Our old youth pastor this… Our old youth pastor that… How would you handle _____ because he handled it _____ way?
Translation: Since we’re willing to compare you to the old guy face-to-face, that means we’ll be willing to do the same behind your back. And since we’re publicly negative about him, we’ll probably handle you the same way. (Hint: It’s always a good idea to ask for the contact info of the previous youth pastor and talk to him or her. If the church isn’t willing to provide that contact for you, quickly check them off your list.)

13. We’ve had three bad youth pastors over the past three years.
Translation: Sure, you’ll get a “bad apple” youth pastor once in a while, but I’ll tell you how bad they really were because I don’t want it to be too obvious that the problem was really with the sr. pastor and church’s leadership doing a poor job of guiding and caring for our youth workers. The bad pattern must be with the youth workers we’ve hired, not with us.

14. We will interview you first, and if we have time you can ask us two or three questions.
Translation: It’s more important that we get to know all about you than it is for you to get to know all about us. You’re in the hot seat here, not us.

15. From sr. pastor, “This is my church. I run my church. Welcome to my church.” And other repeated usage of the phrase, “my church.”
Translation: I have a distorted view of ecclesiology and am assuming way too much control and power over this congregation. I will function more like a dictator than a ministry partner because my personal identity is wrapped up in this congregation.

16. What was your salary at your previous jobs?
Translation: “How little can you live on? If you’re used to working with cheap churches, we’ll be happy to follow suit.” (Hint: Your question to them should be, “Since you live here, how much do you live on?” Check what the local school district salary range is for a teacher with your level of experience and expect the church’s salary package to be competitive.)

What else?
We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas of other common yellow flag phrases and translations one might hear when interviewing for a youth ministry position. Continue this list by posting them in the comments below. Thanks!

[ UPDATE: ] If you or your church are struggling with job expectations, vision, what a youth ministry should look like, how it should function, and more, you definitely need to read, “Inside the Mind of Youth Pastors: A church leaders guide to staffing and leading youth pastors,” by Mark Riddle. It’s written for sr. pastors and has discussion questions after each chapter, so it’s perfect for sparking dialog with your church’s leadership about your position. It’s also a must-read for search committees before they hire someone.

—————————————————————–
Please help support the youth ministry mentorship, the Online Missions Trip, and MinistryQuestions.com by subscribing to YouthWorker Journal. Get your FREE no-risk trial issue of YouthWorker Journal today, the best in youth ministry resources!

Related posts:

• Youth Ministry Job: Prairie Lakes Church
• Youth pastor as an unbiblical position
• Navigating the church system (5 of 5): Common mistakes by youth pastors

Related posts:

• Podcast: Mobilizing students to share their faith
• Responsibility ideas to assign to teenagers on a missions trip
• Why I share the gospel at every youth meeting

Unfortunately, we were plagued with technical difficulties throughout the conversation: the conference call’s host service had some hardware failures along with my microphone working incorrectly, so everyone was having some issues. I’ve doctored up the audio the best I could, but it’s still pretty rough.

Some of the things we talked about:

• Allowing the Holy Spirit to teach through you
• Teaching scripture to the apathetic kids
• How our personal walk impacts our teaching
• How big of a deal it is to teach God’s Word
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Today’s discussion

October 19: Today’s guest is Matt Brown, formerly with the Billy Graham Association, who will lead us in a discussion about, “Mobilizing your students to share their faith.” At 2:00 PM eastern time, call (724) 444-7444 and enter ID 19105#, or use the link on the LIVE YM Talk page to listen online and join the chat room.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Related posts:

• Podcast: Teaching to large groups of teenagers
• Podcast: Mentoring teenagers
• Podcast: Using social media to connect with teenagers

About a year and a half ago, Freebie Friday #75 was an ebook about pornography called, “When a man’s eye wanders.” It’s still available and is definitely worth reading. It’s a pretty quick read, but mostly skims the surface of the issue.

Today’s free ebook goes into more depth about the subject. It’s called, “Porn Again Christian: A frank discussion on pornography and masturbation,” by Mark Driscoll. At 53 pages long, it’s not really a full blown book, but it’s definitely bigger than a pamphlet.

If pornography is a struggle for you or someone you know, this ebook is well worth downloading. Or, if ebooks aren’t your thing, you can also purchase it for about $8.

Download “Porn Again Christian” free ebook

———————————————————————-
Remember, there is no LIVE YM Talk today or any other Friday in the future. LIVE YM Talks have switched to Mondays. Our next LIVE YM Talk is this Monday, October 19, with featured guest, Matt Brown, who will lead us in a discussion on mobilizing your students to share their faith.

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #75: eBook teaching tool about pornography
• Dealing with an addiction to porn
• Freebie Friday #121: Free ebook, “Leadership Learnings from Bloggers”

Earlier this year I wrote an article called, Dealing with an Addiction to Porn, which is worth reading. This post expands that a bit more except for the part about seeking professional help. That still stands true because if you’ve been addicted to pornography for a length of time, there are probably some neurological chemicals you’re addicted to that are only released when fantasizing over porn. Read that article and seek professional help.

The following are the steps I’ve taken to place roadblocks between me and pornography. I’m not an expert or anything — just a guy speaking from personal experience.

1. Confess to a couple trusted men. James 5:16 is clear, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” You cannot beat a struggle with porn on your own. No man is that strong. There’s something very empowering and freeing about humbling yourself and admitting weakness to other trusted men. Without this first critical step, none of the others will work, guaranteed.

2. Establish accountability with them. If you’ve ever had an accountability partner before, you know that it often lasts for a couple weeks, but soon the hard questions are less and less frequent and eventually the accountability relationship dissolves completely. That’s why it’s important that you find guys who are totally committed to supporting you for the long-haul. Each time an accountability partnership dissolves, the less likely you are to risk the vulnerability with someone else later again. (Your wife cannot be your accountability partner. Women just don’t understand this struggle the way a guy does and you may be less than honest with her because of the emotional challenge it is for her to hold you accountable in this area.)

3. Set up Covenant Eyes to email a weekly report to each partner. I have Covenant Eyes installed on every computer I have access to. It tracks all Internet activity and emails a log to my accountability partners every week. It logs web browsing, bit torrents, ftp transfers, peer to peer networks, everything, and puts the most questionable activity at the beginning of each week’s email report. And, unlike other accountability software, it’s pretty foolproof because tampering with it will cut off your Internet access completely; and there’s no way to uninstall it without calling Covenant Eyes and getting an uninstall code, which promptly emails your accountability partners about your uninstall.

Check out Covenant Eyes at CovenantEyes.com. It does costs about $8/month, but it’s absolutely the best use of $8/month you could ever spend. Use promo code YouthMinistry to get the first 30 days free if you just wanna try it out first.

4. Know your vulnerable points and avoid them at all costs. I’m most vulnerable when I’m super tired and alone, when I’m bored and alone, or when I’m under a lot of stress. When I notice that I’m in one of those states, I never believe the lie that I’m strong enough to resist just this one time. I don’t even flirt with the idea. Know when you’re most vulnerable and flee those situations every time. Go to bed early, leave the house, do whatever you have to do to avoid the vulnerable point before it’s too late.

5. When felling the pull, text message your partners and ask them to check up on you the next day. Sometimes it’s just not possible to avoid your vulnerable times. Some nights I’m very drained and stressed, but I have to stay up late and finish some time-sensitive work. In those cases, I send a text message to my accountability partners and say, “Hey, gotta stay up late tonight. Check on me in the morning.” They may already be sleeping, but just knowing that they’re going to ask the next day is usually enough support to help me make it safely through the task at hand.

6. Dig into God’s Word and pray like your life depends on it. Someone once said that addictions are like a vacuum: when you remove the addiction, it creates a vacuum that will suck the addiction back in unless that void is filled with something else first. That’s why it’s so important to fill that vacuum with the Lord. One of the most under-utilized part of our spiritual growth is memorizing scripture and fasting. Do not neglect either of these! Fill the void with both of them and more.

7. Mark on a calendar the last time you viewed porn. You’ll probably want to be discrete about it, but mark it somehow so you can count every day that goes by as another step in victory. This was extremely helpful for me. When I reached day 30, 60, and 90, it was very encouraging and gave me a lot of hope that victory is possible. I was so proud of myself! Go celebrate landmarks with accountability partners.

8. Never assume you’ll be okay. As you continue to check off days on the calendar, it’s easy for confidence to turn into pride, which quickly turns into a downfall (Proverbs 18:12). Be excited for yourself, but don’t let your guard down just because you’ve gone 100 days or whatever without viewing porn. Never let your guard down. You will never be immune to this temptation for the rest of your life. You are always vulnerable. As you know, the smallest trigger can set off a whole series of thoughts and desires, so stay alert and never slack off in this area.

9. Email or send a Facebook message to your accountability partners every day. It’s especially helpful at the beginning of the path to victory to give a daily report of how the previous day went. It feels a bit rudimentary at first, but after two weeks or so, you’ll see the value of it.

10. Stay honest with your partners. If you continue to fail, it’s very difficult to swallow your pride and admit it to your accountability partners, but do it anyway! Lying or misleading them is only cheating yourself and sabotages you of the entire process. They want to support you, pray for you, encourage you, and kick you in the butt when you need it, so let them help you.

11. Don’t beat yourself up. Sorrow and shame is one thing, but depression and questioning self-worth because of repeated failures is exactly the kind of defeated life the enemy wants you to live. Admit your failure to your accountability partners, pick yourself up again, mark a new day on the calendar, and move forward from there.

Tomorrow’s Freebie Friday will be a great resource to help you with this path to victory! Stay tuned!

In the meantime, check out this video on YouTube. If pornography is a struggle for you and you’re still keeping it a secret, pay attention to what the lady says starting around 3 minutes and 25 seconds into the video.

Related posts:

• Dealing with an addiction to porn
• Freebie Friday #147: “Porn Again Christian” free ebook
• Freebie Friday #75: eBook teaching tool about pornography

Rules
1. Split everyone up into teams of 3 to 5 students each. Make sure each team as at least one person with a picture messaging enabled cell phone.

2. Use a countdown timer to give teams exactly 2 minutes to run around the church and take a picture. The picture must include at least one person from their group. When they return, have teams message that picture to your email address.

3. Quickly take the pictures as they show up in your email Inbox and put them in a PowerPoint slide and assign each picture to a different team. Project it on the screen and let the teams race to be the first to take a picture that’s identical to the one assigned to them (in the same location) with one of their own team members.

4. The first team to send you a picture message replicating their assigned picture wins, but let the others keep playing for fun. Just set a time when the game is over and they all need to return to your youth room with or without a picture. If there are teams who can’t figure out where their assigned picture was taken, have the original team that took the picture announce the location at that time.

Here are the screenshots of when some of our sr. highers played it a couple weeks ago.

Original pictures labeled with their assigned teams

The teams who were able to successfully reproduce their assigned picture

Related posts:

• Favorite Youth Group Games: Mattress Surfing
• Favorite Youth Group Games: Twinkie Challenge
• Favorite Youth Group Games: Inner-tube challenge

(The following was written for the people in the church my father pastors, but applies to youth workers as well. As you read this, he is currently in India training hundreds of pastors.)

I was great fan of cowboy westerns when I was growing up. I would listen to them on the radio and watch them on TV. I had a stack of comic books about cowboys. I loved how the good guy always won the day and made everything right. Sometimes he handled the situation alone, other times he had some who helped him – but he always succeeded to do what he set out to do.

One of my favorite scenarios involved a young child or fair maiden who wandered away from safety and fell over a cliff. Part way down the cliff they managed to hang onto a ledge or small bush while waiting for help to come and rescue them.

The only way to get to them was by going over the side of the cliff. Of course it was the hero who went down. He couldn’t do it alone, though. He would take his rope off his saddle and tie one end around his waist. The other end would be secured to his horse or held by a group of people who had arrived to lend assistance. They slowly let him down and then gently pulled him and the person rescued back up to the top. If he failed they died – but I never saw that happen.

While the hero got the credit, it was those who let him down and pulled him up that had as important a part as he did, maybe even more important. They were the unsung heroes but they were absolutely crucial to the success of the mission.

So what does this have to do with my imminent departure for a month in India? I feel like I am going over a cliff and I need you to hold the rope! If you don’t hold the rope firmly I’ll never accomplish what God wants me to accomplish.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m certainly not saying I’m some kind of hero for going over the cliff. I didn’t volunteer for this. God made it very clear I was to do this. There was no alternative. If there had been I’m sure I would have taken it. It’s purely a matter of obedience on my part. It has nothing to do with courage, “spirituality,” or any desire to be a hero. I know how miserable it is to disobey God – I’ve gone that route too often already. Inner peace and fellowship with God disappear. It’s much better to obey and do what He asks. So there’s no hero here today, just me trying to do God’s will.

And this is no glamorous adventure of trying to save the heathen and become well known. It’s a rescue attempt, short and simple. There are people lost in darkness about to go over the edge into eternity. If God can use me to bring them to safety in Him I’ll go own down. There are pastors and church leaders in seemingly impossible situations. If I can encourage them and help them find stable footing then they in turn can rescue others. Rescue attempts are hard, difficult and not always successful. But the attempt must be made.

However this isn’t about me. It’s about you holding the rope for me as I go down. If you don’t I won’t succeed. What does it mean to hold the rope? It means to pray. And then pray. Then pray some more. It means to keep the situation and need before the throne of God, asking for His guidance and blessing, His protection and provision.

So I beg you – hold the rope!! Hold it firmly, strongly, consistently. Put all your strength into it. Don’t be distracted or discouraged. Don’t give up. Pray, pray, pray and pray. Pray without ceasing. Keep on praying. Remember, I’m on the other end of the rope. Don’t let go! Keep praying until I get back up on familiar ground again. And by the way, THANKS!!!!!

Reflect

• Who is holding your rope as you venture out in service for God? Who are those who regularly and faithfully pray for you? Take some time tot hank them today. Let them know specifically where you need prayer.
• Whose rope are you holding? Whose should you be holding? Your mate, co-workers, senior pastor, etc. Make a list and commit to supporting them in prayer every day

———————————————————————-
Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Related posts:

• Favorite Youth Group Games #1: Wawa Man
• My priorities need a major adjustment
• Time Out: You need a target in your sights before you shoot

Nick was gracious enough to let me and a couple other youth workers preview the ebook early and give some feedback, some of which he used as sidebar comments in the ebook. I actually wrote a recommendation for him, too:

Nick’s book is definitely not limited to only 43 ideas for connecting with teens. Although that may be the title, this valuable ebook contains many other tangible ways to practically build spiritually influential relationships with teenagers outside of church. Having tried almost all of his ideas in my own ministry over the past 10 years, this ebook brought back many fond memories and reminded me why I’m still in youth ministry today. Whether you’re a brand new youth worker or an old-school veteran, this ebook will help put you on the right track as you invest your life into students.
~ Tim Schmoyer

Download “Tear down the walls of the youth room” free ebook

———————————————————————-
Remember, there is no LIVE YM Talk today or any other Friday in the future. LIVE YM Talks have switched to Mondays. Our next LIVE YM Talk is this Monday, October 12, with featured guest, Rick Smith, who will lead us in a discussion on communicating God’s Word effectively to teens.

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #147: “Porn Again Christian” free ebook
• Freebie Friday #19: 130 Youth Ministry Tips and Ideas Ebook
• Freebie Friday #121: Free ebook, “Leadership Learnings from Bloggers”

There is no LIVE YM Talk this Friday. The next talk is this Monday at 2:00 PM Eastern time.

We have some great shows coming up, too! Here’s what’s schedule for the next couple weeks:

Communicating God’s Word effectively to teens
October 12 with featured guest, Rick Smith.

Mobilizing your students to share their faith
October 19 with featured guest, Matt Brown.

Working with cross-cultural students and minorities at youth group
October 26 with featured guest, Dennis Poulette.

Keep your eye on the LIVE YM Talk page for a schedule of other upcoming topics, guests, and shows. You can also listen to an archive of past conversations there, too.

How to join LIVE YM Talk show

Joining LIVE YM Talk is easy. On Mondays at 2:00 PM Eastern time join the conversation on the phone by calling 724-444-7444 and enter ID 19105# (standard long-distance charges may apply), or use the, Click HERE to join us LIVE online! link on the LIVE YM Talk page to listen to the conversation live online and participate in the adjoining chat room.

Cancellations and schedule changes are also posted on the LIVE YM Talk page as well as our Facebook page and Twitter.

—————————————————————–
Please help support the youth ministry mentorship, the Online Missions Trip, and MinistryQuestions.com by subscribing to YouthWorker Journal. Get your FREE no-risk trial issue of YouthWorker Journal today, the best in youth ministry resources!

Related posts:

• Skypecasts switching to Talkshoe: user-friendly and telephone access
• Vote for a new LIVE YM Talk day
• Talk with me and other youth workers LIVE this Friday

Should I create a Facebook group or a Facebook page for my youth group? Which is better?

Short story: absolutely, definitely, positively, without a doubt, create a page, not a group. Problem solved.

Facebook is no longer developing groups. They served their time back in the day, but pages are under heavy development and will continue to receive boosts and enhancements. A Facebook page acts like a “profile” account for your group and has several key features that group’s do not have:

• Post status updates
• The ability to add Facebook applications
• Post pictures and videos from your cell phone (great for parents while you’re away on a trip)
• Some pages integrate with Twitter
• Create a custom URL that easy for people to remember and share (for example, facebook.com/StudentMinistry)
• View analytics of your page’s fans and interaction with the page
• Promote your page by adding a “fan box” to your website
• Import blog posts from an external site as notes
• Organize photos into albums

There are other advantages of using a page over a group, too, but these are the ones that will pertain to the average youth group.

If you don’t have a Facebook Page for your youth group, get started with one here.

And while you’re at it, become a fan of Life In Student Ministry’s Facebook Page.

—————————————————————–
Please help support the youth ministry mentorship, the Online Missions Trip, and MinistryQuestions.com by subscribing to YouthWorker Journal. Get your FREE no-risk trial issue of YouthWorker Journal today, the best in youth ministry resources!

Related posts:

• Now login to MinistryQuestions.com with your Facebook/Twitter account
• Become a Facebook fan of Life in Student Ministry
• How to create a Facebook application for your youth group news or blog

My name is Nehemiah. I was a leader of the Jews. Some people think being a leader is hard. It’s really quite easy. All you need is inexhaustible patience, unfailing insight, unshakable stability, unbreakable will, decisive judgment, indefatigable physique, irrepressible spirit and unfeigned affection for all people. I didn’t have that, but God helped me with it.

If you are a leader, perhaps there’s something you can learn from me. If you have a job, a family or a friend, then you are a leader. A leader is someone who knows where he is going and how to get others to follow him. Being a leader is something you are, not something you do. It’s a function, not a title conferred by others. That’s the way it was for me.

I lived in Babylon after Jerusalem fell to Babylon. My story starts in Babylon in 445 BC. I was born in Babylon. My grandparents had been taken into captivity at the fall. I was a top adviser to the king, Artixerxes. God used me in some very unexpected ways.

A leader is a person who prays. When I heard about the terrible conditions in Jerusalem I prayed for God to send someone to help them — and wouldn’t you know it, He sent me! (Neh 1:1-4) God used me because I spent so much time in prayer with Him.

A leader is a person who prepares. When I finally got to Jerusalem we found everyone there was discouraged and very pessimistic (Neh 2:11-12). It seemed hopeless. I patiently gathered as much firsthand information as I could, prayed about it, talked with some trusted advisers and made some long-range plans. To carry them out I had to detail short-range goals and all that would be necessary to accomplish the needed work (Neh 2:4-8). When the time was right I shared my plans with others, motivating and encouraging them to follow (Neh 2:17-18). I had delegated work so everyone had a specific assignment to carry out. When the enemy was about to attack to stop us we kept working and didn’t give in to fear (Neh 4:3-9). I prayed trusting God to protect us, but I also posed a guard. It takes prayer and work to be a good leader: pray as if all depends on God and work as if all depends on me.

A leader is a person who perseveres. Food shortages forced poor people to have to sell their children to the rich so they could have money to feed their other children. Money was lent at a high rate, with 50% inflation. A leader must contend with internal problems, which are often more difficult to handle than attacks from without. I had to take action about these difficulties, so I did. I did what was necessary, even though it wasn’t popular. I stood for the right. (Neh 5:9-11)

Even when the enemy attacks intensified I didn’t let them intimidate me or distract the work. Not even threats of assassination stopped me (Neh 6:1-4). A leader can’t be influenced by fear!

A leader is a person who purges. We needed to remove sin and evil from among us. Ezra was still preaching, and God used his words to start a revival. Lives were changed and people started obeying the Bible. I went back to Babylon for a very short visit and when I returned I found more purging had to be done, for the people had quickly returned to their sinning.

Praying, preparing, persevering and purging are ongoing duties of a godly leader. They aren’t always enjoyable, but they are certainly necessary! Which of these do you need to work harder at? Set some goals and start today. You don’t have any option about being a leader — you are one. But it is up to you what kind of a leader you are!

Scripture
Genesis 18:19, “For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

Acts 20:28, “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.”

1 Timothy 3:4, “He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect.”

Hebrews 13:7, “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.”

1 Peter 5:2-4, “Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers — not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.”

Reflect

• Which are you best at as a leader: praying, preparing, persevering or purging? Pray and thank God for making you able to do these things.
• Which need most work: praying, preparing, persevering or purging? Pray and ask God to help you with that aspect of leadership. Pray about ways you can begin today.
• Who is an example of a good leader to you? What makes them stand out? What can you learn from them?

———————————————————————-
Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Related posts:

• Time Out: God’s behind-the-scenes men
• Time Out: Is the gift of leadership necessary for working with youth?
• Time Out: God answers eventually, not quickly

Some of the things we talked about:

• Some of the unique challenges and opportunities for a female youth leader
• What male youth pastors need to know about woman youth leaders
• Earning respect as a woman in youth work
• Encouragement for women youth leaders
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next week’s discussion

October 12: Today was our last day to have LIVE YM Talk on a Friday. Starting October 12, they will now be on Mondays. Keep your eye on the LIVE YM Talk page for an upcoming schedule.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Related posts:

• Podcast: Unleashing student artists to use their gifts in ministry
• Podcast: The economy, ministry administration, and youth leadership
• Podcast: Effects of extra-curricular activities on youth ministry

Limited Availability
This download will only be available for 2 weeks, so be sure to download it while you can.

You can preview it here.

Download “Green Particles” motion background

———————————————————————-
Our topic today for LIVE YM Talk is serving as a woman in youth ministry. Special guest, Patti Gibbons, will share with us about the unique opportunities and struggles of being a women in youth ministry, talk to the male youth pastors a bit about working with their female leaders, and more. Join us at 2:00 PM Eastern time today!

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #43: Free PowerPoint and MediaShout backgrounds for worship
• Podcast: Serving as a woman in youth ministry
• Freebie Friday #95: Video devos and sky PowerPoint backgrounds

(Of course, a simple Google search will probably reveal everything I’m about to share and more, so don’t forget to look there. Plus, check out the archives of past blog posts here that talk about using video in ministry and blogs.)

Programs I use for editing

I primarily use iMovie ‘09 for all my video editing. It comes free on my Mac and is just so amazingly user-friendly. I also have Final Cut Express, but I’ve only used it a couple times to do some work that was a bit more advanced. Probably 98% of my editing is done in iMovie.

Sometimes I use LiveType, a Mac program that’s included with Final Cut Express, to create text animations like this one, too.

In the past couple weeks I started playing with the trial version of Adobe After Effects and created this cool little intro, but After Effects is too expensive for me to purchase so I doubt I’ll keep it around for much longer. It’s also pretty advanced. It’s definitely not a novice, user-friendly program.

If you’re on a PC, the Microsoft’s free Windows Movie Maker may be sufficient for your needs as you begin to experiment with video editing.

Where to get a cool intro

You can find a lot of good stock (royalty free) video footage and animations at iStockPhoto.com and RevoStock.com. If you want something quick and easy that you can just throw some text over, check there first.

If you think you want to try your hand at editing an animated After Effects template, RevoStock.com also has a lot of good AE templates you can customize with your own text, images and video clips. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as simple as dragging and dropping your content in the blank spaces, but if you committed to spending a couple hours on it and if you’re willing to watch some video tutorials on YouTube, it’s definitely doable with the trial version of After Effects.

Determining what video content to publish on a blog

For my blog here, I basically take a topic that’s related to my blog’s audience and draft a couple thoughts on paper. I then tape that sheet of paper on the tripod beneath the video camera while I shoot to make sure I stay on track and remember everything I want to say. The trick is to maintain eye contact with the camera lens and only use the sheet if I have to.

Use a clock to keep videos moving

No one likes to watch a video where someone rambles on and on in circles about something, so I use the timer on my iPod Touch to make sure I keep moving through my notes. I try not to spend more than a minute or two on each point.

Also, since YouTube limits videos to 10 minutes, a timer helps me know when I’m approaching 9 minutes and need to wrap it up. If you ever do a video interview with someone, explain ahead of time that you two have a maximum of 8 minutes to talk, show them the timer and do your best to stick to 8 minutes because it will always go over and end around 9+ minutes anyway.

Another note about interviews: when you’re shooting a conversation with someone, time feels like it moves naturally to you, but when people watch it on a video, it moves a lot slower, so keep the pace quick and don’t get stuck on something for too long.

Camera I use

I use a Canon HF100 video camera because it’s small (size of a soda can), shoots in amazing HD quality, 12x optical zoom (great for framing shots from a variety of distances), and has some limited advanced features for when I need them. However, if you’re looking to purchase a camera, the Canon HF200 is out now and seems to be a slightly better camera.

Of course, there’s the Flip HD cameras, too, if you want something that does a good job as a cheaper point-and-shoot camera.

Microphones I use

The thing many people overlook when it comes to shooting the video is that the audio quality. It’s is just as important as the video quality. Video camera’s on-board microphones aren’t entirely bad, but an external mic will make a huge difference in the overall quality of your video.

I mostly use the Sony ECM-MS908C mic for general shooting. It does an outstanding job, especially since it will cut out miscellaneous sounds that come from other angles around the camera. This mic’s audio is far superior to any video camera’s on-board microphone. Definitely worth the investment.

For interviews or for subjects that are a further away from the camera or if there’s a lot of background noise, I use the wireless Azden WMS-PRO wireless microphone set, but honestly, I’m a bit disappointed in the sound quality of these mics. They record a very low hum in the background, probably noticeable to no one else but me. It’s absolutely better than the alternative of using a standard mic under the aforementioned conditions, but you also get what you pay for when it comes to wireless mics. If I could do it over again, I’d probably save a bit longer and purchase a higher end UHF wireless mic system.

Notes about lighting

One of the biggest mistakes I made when I first started shooting video is that I ignored lighting conditions. Most cameras let you set the “white balance” to a preset of sunlight, shade, cloudy, florescent, tungsten, etc. Make sure you use that! Otherwise the people in your footage will turn out looking sunburned, pale, or worse.

Also, when I started I thought that the more light there was, the better, but that’s not necessarily true. There are two things that are important when it comes to lighting:

1. It’s best if the light is all the same “temperature” (roughly, the same kind of light). For example, try not to mix daylight from a window with florescent light from the ceiling. If it’s unavoidable, set the white balance on your video camera manually by zooming in on a white piece of paper and use the settings to automatically determine and adjust the camera’s white balance.

2. Be aware of the angles from where the light is coming. Search Google for “three point lighting” and try to use that basic light setup when it’s just you and the camera. For example, here’s two YouTube videos about three point lighting that will explain the basic concept: here and here. You don’t need to purchase expensive lights or anything — just use normal light bulbs that are all the same brand and position them accordingly.

Do you need all this equipment?

Probably not. When I first started doing my video blog posts, it was just me and my Macbook Pro, that’s it. I used Mac’s built-in iSight webcam and mic to record directly into iMovie. I slowly upgraded as I saw that the video blog posts were being received well, that I enjoyed doing them and was willing to put the time into shooting and editing each video. I’d recommend you start small and upgrade your equipment slowly over time as you learn what you’re doing and figure out what equipment you need most.

What tips do you have for shooting and producing video? We would love to hear them in the comments below!

Related posts:

• Where to host youth group videos online
• Students want quality time more than anything else
• Using highlight videos to build momentum at youth group

Thankfully, my Sr. Pastor is totally fine with me hosting LIVE YM Talk during the “work week,” so I plan to move the show to a different afternoon. The question is, what afternoon works best for all of you?

I asked that question on Twitter and the LISM Facebook Page a couple days ago and received some helpful feedback from some of you. So far, it turns out that Fridays are the worst possible days for LIVE YM Talk.

If you’re interested in participating in upcoming LIVE YM Talks, please cast your vote on this poll for what day works best for you. The time will most likely remain the same since 2:00 PM Eastern time allows east coast youth workers to be finished with the show about the time schools let out, and for pacific coast youth workers to finish the show right before lunch.

If you’re not familiar with LIVE YM Talk, check out the show’s page. You can listen to recordings of most of our past open-forum conversations there.

Vote for a new LIVE YM Talk day!

Related posts:

• LIVE YM Talk switching to Mondays next week
• Talk with me and other youth workers LIVE this Friday
• Podcast: One year anniversary show of LIVE YM Talk

Is your student ministry leading students into the presence of Christ? As a youth leader myself, I know the demands that are placed on us to do a good job with the teenagers. I’ve noticed in many student ministries the need for effective media in their meeting times. This is one small way to make a huge difference in what your groups accomplishes. I’ve put together a list of things that may help you in getting your student ministry media looking fresher and better organized and why it may benefit your ministry. In a world of cool motion graphics and HD television, sometimes integrating the visual element in your group’s workings can help your ministry, hopefully leading more people to Jesus Christ.

Tip #1: Animation is Key

I’ve heard it said at times that PowerPoint is an effective teaching tool and I have to respectively disagree. PowerPoint has its uses, but a lot of times it is used wrong. Bad animations and outdated graphics can turn off kids because of its dated approach. Find out what worship software your church uses and, if your group has a student band, look into putting animated backgrounds and elements in your worship. Maybe even get your group’s logo over an animated background. This can create excitement and class to your student worship experience. There are lots of good worship software out there for all budgets. I would suggest Worship Him for low budgets, EasyWorship and MediaShout for bigger budgets. Get away from PowerPoint, it was cool at first, but there are things so much better to bring your church and student ministry great worship. These types of software are easy to train your kids on as well, and it’s a skill that will enable them to serve in God’s Kingdom after they leave your group. Your church doesn’t have to be 2,000 strong to enjoy great worship media.

Tip #2: Transcend Stereotypes

An old stereotype of Christian media is that it’s corny and irrelevant. God gave us the gift of media to teach, inspire, motivate, and worship. Use media that generates excitement and enthusiasm for what you’re trying to accomplish in your student ministry. Great Christian media is focused, creative, and powerful. And this type of media, when used in the right way, can do great things for your students. It’s the shock and awe of this type of media that often shows kids that the church is not a boring place and that Jesus’ message is real. I’m so glad Christian media is getting better, in many places becoming cutting edge. But many youth groups haven’t tapped into the potential of this. Often times by not tapping into the benefits of Christian media, you miss out on the increasing number of creative students that grace the streets of our culture.

Tip #3: Become the Innovator

What separates one youth group from the next group down the road? What are you doing they are or are not doing? Are your students serving more? Worshipping more? Giving more? Hanging out with each other more outside of group meeting times? The point is clear, separate your student ministry from the rest with relevant media, but don’t get lost in it. Have the media work around the strengths of your group. Use illustration videos that are relevant and teach. Use media to motivate your kids to serve on the mission field. Use media to motivate parents into integrating Christian principles into the family. Use media smartly. Don’t invest in media just because it’s a cool toy to add to the student ministry worship hour. Integrate media to innovate the way your student ministry operates and gets the Gospel to those who desperately need to hear it. Use these tips as a starting point to better integrating media into your student ministry’s worship or youth group meeting.

————————————————————————–
Jason Stemm is a husband of one wife, father of three boys, and associate minister at his church in southern Iowa where he currently leads the worship and student ministries. He is also the founder of www.motionrevival.com, a new company that sells video backgrounds and other church media resources. Jason can be reached at jason@gostemm.com.

Related posts:

• Short rant on attitudes toward church worship
• The need for solitude in worship
• How I started our student leadership team

Team players. Everyone likes them. Everyone needs them. Lone Ranger types who act alone can have a place, but a limited one. Every leader greatly those under him who are both competent and willing to serve. Many people are either competent but not willing or very willing but not very competent. Special indeed is the leader who has helpers who are both! God, too, greatly appreciates workers who are both in His Kingdom work.

When I think of behind-the-scenes men who served capably and willingly, and who were willing to step up to the plate when needed, I think of Zerubabbel and Ezra. These 2 men each led groups of Jews back to Jerusalem from their captivity in Babylon.

Zerubbable was the grandson of the 2nd last king of Judah (Jehoiachin). One hundred years before Nehemiah, he led the first group of Jews back to Jerusalem. Not many wanted to return, though – only about 1 of every hundred. Most didn’t want to leave the prosperity and good living in Babylon to return to a depressed and ruined country. Unfortunately some, like Daniel (who was in his 60’s) were too old to go back. When Zerubbable led his group of 15,000 back, God provided Haggai and Zechariah to preach while he led the work of rebuilding the temple. They didn’t get too far, though, before they stopped for 20 years. Then they finished their work. It was during this time that Hadassah, better known to you as Esther, was used by God to preserve the Jews from annihilation not only in Persia but also in Palestine.

Eight five years after Zerubbable, Ezra led another group of people back to Jerusalem. He was a great-grandson of the man who was the high priest when Jerusalem fell. He was the equivalent of the Secretary of State for Jewish affairs. Ezra was a godly scholar who knew the Old Testament by heart. He wrote the books of Ezra, Chronicles and Psalm 119 as well as finishing books such as Deuteronomy and Joshua. Ezra edited the whole Old Testament, changing it over to the square Hebrew script which is still used today. He also started the synagogue system which your church and school systems are built upon. The synagogue system kept the Jews together when they were away from their temple. In addition, Ezra developed the Sanhedrin, 70 top men to govern Jews in and out of the land. Only 1,500 men followed him back. He taught the Bible and persevered in trying to encourage them to follow God. He didn’t get much good response, though. At one point, when Nehemiah had come and led in rebuilding the walls, there was a revival and the people turned to Ezra to learn the Scriptures, but for the most part his ministry was hard, behind-the-scenes teaching and encouraging the people.

Yet each of these men served faithfully for their whole lives. They worked at whatever task God gave them and faithfully carried it out. They were available to step to the front when needed, then fade to the back again as others took over. Like a good all-around athlete who can play any position, they were invaluable members of God’s team. And they remain so today.

Scripture
Ezra 10:4, “Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it.”

2 Timothy 4:16-17, “At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength…”

Ezekiel 22:30, “I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.”

Reflect

• Would others consider you a good team player?
• What are some of your strengths as a support worker? What about weaknesses?
• Do you look for ways to assist others in their lives and duties, or do you expect others will be there to help you?
• Who do you count on to be your behind-the-scenes support, someone competent and willing? Thank God for them and take some time ASAP to thank them for this important role in your life.

———————————————————————-
Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #54: CSI Crime Scenes from the Bible
• Ezra’s “Doh!” moment
• Time Out: Leadership (Nehemiah)

Some of the things we talked about:

• How to spot artistic teens in your group
• Ways to help them start using their artistic abilities in ministry
• Tools that could help with the process
• Tips for shooting and editing video and photography
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next week’s discussion

September 25: Next week LIVE YM Talk is with guest, Patti Gibbons, who will lead us in a discussion about serving as a woman in youth ministry. We’ll discuss some of the unique opportunities and challenges of youth ministry for women, what male youth pastors need to know about their female youth leaders, and offer a lot of encouragement for you ladies!

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Related posts:

• Podcast: How to use improvisational techniques for group learning
• Podcast: Simple Student Ministry
• Podcast: Transferring summer momentum into the fall ministry

Youth Leader Training on the Go is a book that contains 52 training outlines that you can use with your volunteer youth leaders, as well as 12 pre-written email encouragements, handouts, and an audio CD. It’s available for only $20 right now, which is cool. But what’s even cooler is that you can download 4 of the training outlines and 1 encouragement email note for FREE in the sample package. If you meet with all your leaders once a month, that’s a third of the year’s training covered for free!

How To Get It
To download the 4 youth leader training sheets and 1 email encouragement note, go to the Youth Leader Training on the Go book and click the gray Download a Sample link.

———————————————————————-
Today our featured guest is Brandon Riley. He’ll lead us in a discussion about unleashing student artists using photography, video, and art. Listen in and you just might learn some tips to sharpen your artistic skills in these fields, too! See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join the call and/or the live chat at 2:00 PM Eastern time.

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #39: See You At The Pole training session for students
• Freebie Friday #90: Six youth ministry training videos
• Freebie Friday #91: See You At The Pole training guide

I am a pastor’s wife working with a youth group of about 40 jr. high and high school students and 7 adult volunteers who help with the ministry. We saw your resource on youth leadership on-line…. We have adapted a version of this which we feel fits our group. My question is, how do we motivate students to want to take on responsibilities? We presented the job descriptions and have asked them to respond. I also plan on talking to specific students to ask them to consider making the commitment. It seems the students are very content (in an apathetic way) to let the adults do everything. Do you have any advice for us?

First of all, we don’t have a ton of kids involved as student leaders. In fact, out of 200-some, we only have about 8 on board as student leaders. Some of them help lead jr high small groups and the others lead the worship team. For a group of about 40, starting with just 1 student leader is great!

But the bigger issue is that it sounds like you’re pitching the leadership team as a, “Who wants to do more work around here?” Of course, no one is going to sign up for that. They have to catch the vision for it and understand why.

Every student leader in my group is one that I hand-picked. We don’t really open it up to whoever wants to apply anymore. In fact, the kids on our “leadership team” don’t even think of themselves as being on a special team or anything. All they know is that they serve in the ministry in a leadership role.

When I approach a high school student who I feel confident would be a positive role model for jr. highers both spiritually and socially, I cast the vision for their position first. For example, “Hey Jill, I was wondering if you’d consider helping lead a jr. high small group this year. You remember when you were in jr. high how much you looked up to the high school kids. In fact, we’ve found that jr highers often listen to and respect high school students even more than the adult leaders! I really believe you could be a great positive influence on these jr. highers and would love for you to team up with us to impact these 7th and 8th graders. Would you be willing to help lead a jr. high small group with two other adult leaders this year?”

Of course, the conversation is longer and deeper than that, but that’s what I mean by casting the vision for them: about how they’re part of something bigger than themselves, the potential they have to make a difference, not just take on some work that the adults don’t want to do.

Also know that it may take your group several years to cultivate student leadership as a value in your ministry. Instead of starting with an official student leadership team, maybe you should follow more of a mentoring path:

1. Invite a teen to observe you in ministry on a regular basis.
2. Later, bring them along side of you and do ministry as partners.
3. Then push them to take the lead with your support.
4. Finally, launch them to serve on their own.

This whole process should probably take a year at minimum, maybe even 3 years at most. If it takes longer than that, you probably have a kid who is not catching your vision and passion. It’s not an official “student leadership team program” anymore, either, which is the direction I take with our group. It’s more of a group of students who are willing to serve and reach their peers for Christ, kids I usually hand-pick.

As the rest of the youth group see that one teen serve and they see it modeled for them for a couple years, the value of student leadership starts to sink in. For example, if Jill starts helping with a jr. high small group, the jr. highers who grow up with her as a leader will have that mindset that, “Hey, I loved having Jill as a leader in my group! I would love to do that for some other jr. highers when I’m in high school.”

That motivates them to grow up to be a positive influence in whom the other adult leaders will have confidence of establishing as a spiritual leader. Thus, the process of establishing leadership as value and casting the vision for your group isn’t as simple as starting a program with an application and saying, “Hey, you wanna sign up to do more work so we don’t have to?” I know that’s not what you’re saying, but that’s what the kids are thinking.

Start with one kid whenever that one kid comes along, cast the vision for him/her, come along side them to ensure their success, and be willing for leadership to take some time to build in your group.

Related posts:

• Brainstorming for a Student Leadership Team
• Freebie Friday #21: Student Leadership Team info packet
• Youth Leadership 101: What to look for in a youth leader

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #81: Adult youth worker volunteer application packet
• Podtcast: Key steps for a successful start in youth ministry as a volunteer
• Ten New Years resolutions for volunteer ministry

Daniel is one of the most outstanding men in the Bible. From a young teenager to his 90’s he faithfully served. There is not one sin recorded about him in the whole book. He was an outstanding man of prayer and of faithfulness. Yet despite Daniel being such a very special man, the book isn’t really about Daniel – it’s about God. While Daniel shines brightly through the pages of his book, God shines even brighter. For the book is really about God and about His Sovereignty.

From the opening words God’s sovereignty is evident. Daniel’s family and friends are gone and he alone is taken to Babylon to train for service in the King’s government. God could have protected Daniel’s family and kept them together in safety and prosperity, but that wasn’t God’s plan. By the end of the book we see that God knew what He was doing, but we don’t want to wait until the end of our lives to trust His sovereign rule over each of our lives!

Everything about Daniel’s life shows God’s independent ruler ship. He and his friends prosper above the others on their special Jewish diet. Daniel survives the lions den and his friends survive a fiery furnace. Time after time Daniel is promoted to places of leadership in the governments of the various men and nations who rule Babylon. Daniel is given visions and revelations about the future of Israel and all nations. These form the framework for all later Bible prophecy. God in His sovereignty knows the future and was able to show it to Daniel. All history, past, present and future, will unfold just as God has planned for He controls it all.

Now if God is sovereign over nations and the future, if He is in control of every detail of our lives, and if He has our best interests at heart because He loves us, why do we worry about anything? Why do we fear the present or the future? Do we think something will slip out of God’s controlling power? Do we fear He will overlook some important detail in our life? Do we assume He will at one point stop loving and caring for us?

The sovereignty of God is the foundation of our faith. If God isn’t totally and 100% sovereign then by definition He isn’t God. If He is sovereign He has to be God. If He is God He has to sovereign. The whole Bible reflects this truth. History screams it out over and over. The testimonies of others affirm the validity of this fact. Our own past experience also supports this truth. God is sovereign. God is sovereign. God is sovereign. No matter what happens God is sovereign. Whatever the future holds God is sovereign. Despite what occurs worldwide, God is sovereign. God is sovereign. How could He be otherwise?

Scripture
2 Samuel 7:18-23, “Then King David went in and sat before the Lord, and he said: ‘Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? And as if this were not enough in your sight, O Sovereign Lord, you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servant. Is this your usual way of dealing with man, O Sovereign Lord?’ What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Sovereign Lord. For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant. How great you are, O Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears.’”

Deuteronomy 10:17, “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.”

Reflect

• What difference does it make in your life that God is sovereign? Or do you sometimes think and act as if He were not sovereign?
• What would be the repercussions if everyone trusted 100% in God’s total control of every aspect of life?
• What situation or decision are you now facing in life? What implication does God’s sovereign control have to that situation or decision?
• Take a few moments to thank God for His sovereign control in your life: past, present and future. Worship Him, not just for being sovereign, but that His love guides and directs His sovereignty.

———————————————————————-
Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Related posts:

• Following Daniel’s example of holy living
• Time Out: The last shall be first (Ruth)
• Back together with Dana for 2006

It’s very intriguing to hear Mark Matlock talk about how Open Space Technology works for both small groups and larger groups and how we can use the “technique” in our own ministries. If you get a chance to listen to this podcast, as a ministry worker, it will be well worth your time.

Some of the things we talked about:

• What Open Space Technology is and isn’t
• The process a group goes through together
• How it creates energy and solutions for a problem/topic
• Lots of questions and answers from callers and chatters
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next week’s discussion

September 25: Next week LIVE YM Talk is with guest, Brandon Riley, who will lead us in a discussion about unleashing student artists. We’ll discuss ways you can use the artistic teens in your ministry as well as how you can mentor them in video, photography, and other artistic ventures. You may even pick up some video and photography tips yourself!

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Related posts:

• Podcast: Unleashing student artists to use their gifts in ministry
• Podcast: How adolescent development impacts growth and learning
• Podcast: High school transitions, time management, pastor’s kid goes to a different youth group

In the download, you’ll get the newsletter in a variety of editable formats:

• iWork’s Pages
• Microsoft Office
• A postcard version in Microsoft Publisher format
• The necessary font files and Photoshop file are also included

This is such a great idea – primarily because it was created by youth. The designer said she was so stoked that people around the US were using her design for their youth groups – she’s pretty excited to be able to let everyone use this for free! It’s also a great way to keep your newsletters brief, to the point, and concise with a layout that’s been proven to communicate successfully.

Download the Twitter-themed youth group newsletter from Adam’s blog:
How to make a Twitter Youth Group Newsletter

———————————————————————-
Today our featured guest is Mark Matlock. He’ll lead us in a discussion about some pretty cutting edge group teaching methods: How to use improvisational techniques for group learning. See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join the call and/or the live chat at 2:00 PM Eastern time.

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #121: Free ebook, “Leadership Learnings from Bloggers”
• Freebie Friday #111: Youth group news video intro
• Freebie Friday #23: Free youth group contact management tool

• Read Part 1
• Read Part 2

Training Killer #3: Poor Planning

One prevalent reason many training offerings are not well attended by volunteers in the church is not because volunteers lack commitment to the church, their ministry, or personal development, but because the training opportunities are not planned with the life, ministry, and schedule of the average church volunteer in mind.

Be sure to be cognizant of—and to avoid—these four common planning blunders the next time you plan training for the volunteers in your church:

1. Poor Scheduling
A common planning gaffe vocational church leaders tend to make is planning an excellent training session for volunteers at times that are nearly impossible or extremely inconvenient for most of their volunteers. If you schedule training when volunteers are not likely to attend, don’t be surprised when only a few attend.

When training volunteers in your church, it is absolutely critical to look through a volunteer lens when you plan the timing of the training! Plan training for times that work best for the schedules of the majority of your volunteers—not what fits best in the schedules of the full-time staff. In some churches/ministries, a Saturday morning works best. In others, Sunday afternoon or night is best. Still in others, a weeknight for 2 hours is best. You must figure out what works best for the volunteers in your church/ministry. The best training offered at inopportune times for volunteers will still be a poorly attended training.

One last scheduling warning: Offering training for volunteers that falls in the midst of a church calendar that is overloaded with events and activities forces volunteers to choose between the training or some other church event that either precedes or follows the training event.

2. Poor Communication
Once you’ve landed on a training workshop and a time that is most opportune for the volunteers in your church, volunteers will need clear and advance communication about the training. Everyone is busy. Schedules are filled way in advance. So plan ahead—and start communicating at least two months in advance for maximum volunteer participation. Give advance, clear, and personal
communication about the training.

3. Failing to Provide Childcare
If you really want adult volunteers who have families to come to your training, you would be extremely wise to offer childcare at the church during the training. This alone could make the difference in whether or not busy volunteers with small children come to your training! Whether or not you offer childcare during a volunteer training opportunity speaks volumes to those you are trying to train. Does offering childcare during training sound like too much work? Welcome to real volunteer ministry!

4. Forgetting to Offer GREAT Food and Snacks/Goodies
As insignificant as this may seem, offering great food and snacks/goodies could be a significant factor in getting volunteers to come to your training — no joke. Think about it: If you provide food and snacks/goodies, you’ve just saved volunteers time. They don’t have to plan, pay, or prepare a meal. If there’s one thing a volunteer appreciates deeply it’s someone who values their time. Few things say, “I love you” to a volunteer better than “We’ve got the food and snack/goodies covered.”

I just finished training 100 volunteers who teach and lead small groups. When the pastor came up to close the training in prayer, he mentioned that he would be offering ongoing training over the next six months and that at the first time of training next month there would be a chocolate fountain. There was a collective audible gasp of delight! People loved it. I ask you: Is this bribery or wisdom? I’ll let you decide. (Okay, I think it was incredibly thoughtful.) But don’t miss my point. Good food and snack goodies are always a plus. Great food and snack goodies have a magnet-like pull on volunteers, and any money you spend on doing the food and snacks well is money well invested in the volunteers who serve in your ministry.

To be sure, there are plenty more training killers that keep volunteers from showing up for your training. However, if you avoided the blunders mentioned all three parts of this series, you could be on your way to a volunteer training break through. Who knows, the next time you offer training to the volunteers in your church, your training time could be filled with… volunteers!

FREE Amazing Time Management Secrets for You and Volunteers

Bill’s book on Recruiting, Motivating, and Retaining Volunteers in the Church

Subscribe to Free Monthly Online Training from Bill and Cadre Ministries

————————————————————————————–
Bill Allison is the founder of Cadre Ministries, a ministry whose Eph. 4:11-12 obsession is to equip churches to make volunteers wildly successful. Cadre fulfills this obsession best by training trainers to take training back to their local ministries. Every month he publishes Cadre Connection, a FREE gold mine of training resources for volunteers in the church — and those who love volunteers in the church. Subscribe for free.

Related posts:

• Why volunteers won’t show up for your training (1 of 3)
• Why volunteers won’t show up for your training (2 of 3)
• “Volunteers” versus “Ministry partners”

• Read Part 1
• Read Part 3

Training Killer #2: Cotton Candy Training Content

Another killer of training in the church is weak training content. Frankly, when it comes to training and resources for volunteers in the church today, there’s a lot of fluff out there! The dysfunctional premise of much of this cotton candy training seems to be:

• “We can’t—and shouldn’t—expect much out of volunteers.”
• “Volunteers are not as gifted as fulltime pastors and church staff.”
• “Volunteers won’t really put in the work necessary to be trained to do ministry well.”

I heartily disagree with all of these faulty and unbiblical premises about volunteers in the church—for the following reasons:

Fiction: “We can’t—and shouldn’t—expect much out of volunteers.”
Fact: We should expect what God expects from every Christian.

The Bible teaches that all Christians (including “volunteers”) are full-time ministers whether or not they get a paycheck from a church (see II Corinthians 5:18- 20 and I Peter 2:9 just as a couple of examples)! Therefore, the church should fully expect from volunteers what God expects out of every Christian:

• a life of loving God and loving people (Mark 12:30-31)
• regular personal study of Godʼs Word (II Timothy 2:15)
• prayer (Philippians 4:6-7)
• worship (Romans 12:1-2)
• service (I Peter 4:10)
• financial stewardship (II Corinthians 8:7)
• sexual purity (I Thessalonians 4:3-8)
• biblical community and loving accountability (Hebrews 10:24-25)
• sharing the gospel clearly (Mark 3:14)
• And everything else commanded in the Bible (see your Bible)

These commands (not suggestions) from God are not just for pastors and church staff, but for every Christian! Therefore, it is right to expect all believers — including volunteers in the church — to be growing and developing in the personal application of God’s commands. This is normal Christianity and should be an essential part of any volunteer training in the church.

Fiction: “Volunteers are not as gifted as fulltime pastors and church staff.”
Fact: Pastors and staff are not the only gifted servants in the church.

While most church volunteers have not studied theology formally in a seminary or Bible college, all saved volunteers are gifted for ministry! (See I Peter 4:10.) Furthermore, it is not uncommon for volunteers to be as gifted for ministry — or even more gifted for ministry in certain ways and areas — than their pastors. You would think that all pastors and church staff would welcome this as a God-thing, and a good thing! Think about it: How cool would it be to have a group of gifted volunteers serving away in the church with passion and excellence? However, insecure pastors and church staff have an uncanny ability to ignore high potential volunteers and, ultimately, these gifted volunteers end up at a church where a secure pastor puts these “ministry partners” into play where their giftedness can be maximized for the glory of God.

Make no mistake about it: Volunteers in the church are gifted to do ministry by the same Holy Spirit who gifted the pastor! (See I Corinthians 12:7.) If we think volunteers are second class workers in the church, not as gifted or able as formally educated pastors and staff, then our efforts to train volunteers will tend to be fluffy and lack disciplemaking substance.

Fiction: “Volunteers won’t really put in the work necessary to be trained to do ministry well.”
Fact: Volunteers desire biblical training with specific application.

I just spent a weekend with sixty extremely committed and hard working church volunteers in Pennsylvania. These folks drove from several states and eagerly gave up their precious time and paid considerable personal and financial expense to participate in serious, interactive, rigorous, biblical, and extremely practical ministry training. These volunteers threw themselves into the learning activities, took notes, prayed fervently, laughed heartily, loved each other intensely, and pelted me with questions about the nuts and bolts of doing ministry biblically and effectively.

Below is an e-mail (used by permission) I received from two of the volunteer youth workers who attended the training weekend. As you read the e-mail, pay close attention to the fact that not only are these volunteers working hard in their ministry— but they are also diligently working hard at applying the training they received to their lives and ministry:

My husband Dwayne and I were recently at a youth workers retreat where we experienced training with Cadre Ministries. We very much enjoyed the weekend and heard God speak to us through the training.

We appreciated the focus on building our own relationship with Christ first and foremost. We won’t soon forget the illustration with the water being poured out into cups to then overflow into others. It brought to mind John 15:5, apart from Him, we can do nothing! We need to stay connected to Jesus.

Through Cadre’s Ministry Is Relationships training, we received affirmation in beginning a mentoring ministry at our church where we will pair a youth with an adult mentor. We see this will be a great way to help build relationships and build the Kingdom.

We also appreciated the personal growth plan challenge that was presented. It is helping us apply the things we learned over the weekend. We also hope to implement the Smart Goals into our mentoring program.

Overall we just were glad for the refreshment and the time to build our relationship with God. Thanks and Praise be to the Father!
Sheri and David, Volunteer Youth Workers for Nine Years (so far)

Are these volunteers working hard applying the training they got to their own lives and their volunteer ministry? You bet. Weekend after weekend I have the high honor of working with volunteers like this. When the training is intensely biblical with very specific application to their lives and ministries, volunteers are more than willing to put in the work necessary to be trained to do ministry well. Don’t miss this point: It’s wrong to view volunteers as theological or ministry lightweights who only want a “101 Easy Techniques Approach to Volunteerism in the Church.”

The truth is that many volunteers want more than the cotton candy training they are being offered. They’re silently asking, “Where’s the beef?” (Remember that commercial?) The real question is: Will you and your church keep living in the land of fiction when it comes to training volunteers, or will you and your church stand and deliver meaty ministry training that encourages and equips them to love God and love people?

FREE bonus audio download: What keeps volunteers from really stepping into God’s purposes for their lives

A $0.99 training tool for you to use with volunteers: You’re Never Just a Volunteer

————————————————————————————–
Bill Allison is the founder of Cadre Ministries, a ministry whose Eph. 4:11-12 obsession is to equip churches to make volunteers wildly successful. Cadre fulfills this obsession best by training trainers to take training back to their local ministries. Every month he publishes Cadre Connection, a FREE gold mine of training resources for volunteers in the church — and those who love volunteers in the church. Subscribe for free.

Related posts:

• Why volunteers won’t show up for your training (1 of 3)
• Why volunteers won’t show up for your training (3 of 3)
• “Volunteers” versus “Ministry partners”

• Read Part 2
• Read Part 3

Training Killer #1: Lecturing Instead of Training

Perhaps the biggest mistake church leaders make when attempting to train volunteers and create a volunteer training culture in their ministries is that they allow the “trainer” to lecture.

Let’s be very candid: who is doing the training and how the training is conducted makes all the difference in how many attend the training. If you lecture, most volunteers will show up for “training” one time — and then most likely not come back to any “training” you offer in the future because it was boring. Because most volunteers in the church are nice, they would never tell you to your face that the training was boring, but if they stop coming to training (I want to say this as directly and politely as I can) there is a high probability that the training you are offering them is boring.

Mark my words well: Lecturing tends to kill the attendance of any of your future volunteer training efforts — and ultimately destroys your ability to create a true culture of training volunteers in your church. The goal of training is heart and mind engagement, passionate interaction, and biblical life-change, not the filling in of blanks in a training manual while the “expert” drones on and on! The training you offer volunteers in your church should be facilitated by a “guide-on-the-side” and not a “sage-on-the-stage.”

FREE bonus PDF download: Six ways training is different than lecturing (a.k.a: The Training Genius of Jesus)

Read Part 2! Part 3 will be here on Thursday.

————————————————————————————–
Bill Allison is the founder of Cadre Ministries, a ministry whose Eph. 4:11-12 obsession is to equip churches to make volunteers wildly successful. Cadre fulfills this obsession best by training trainers to take training back to their local ministries. Every month he publishes Cadre Connection, a FREE gold mine of training resources for volunteers in the church — and those who love volunteers in the church. Subscribe for free.

Related posts:

• Why volunteers won’t show up for your training (3 of 3)
• Why volunteers won’t show up for your training (2 of 3)
• “Volunteers” versus “Ministry partners”

Criticism and opposition are very hard for me to handle. As I’ve matured in the ministry, I’ve learned to not take it personally. It may seem personal, and sometimes it is, but don’t be surprised and taken off guard as if everyone is supposed to always be nice to you all the time.

When a soldier gets shot at, he doesn’t get his feelings hurt and he isn’t plagued by self-doubt. He doesn’t wonder if this is the kind of work he is cut out for and considers quitting. He may do so out of fear of battle, but not just because there is a battle. A soldier who is attacked doesn’t peer over the edge of his foxhole and shout back, “Was it something I said?” Getting shot at goes with the territory so don’t take it personally. Paul clearly tells us we are in a battle and need to put on our armor and fight.

If you are in God’s army and making any kind of impact against Satan’s kingdom then he will fight back. You will be attacked. It may be financial, it may be a health issue or a relationship problem. It may be a critical remark that hits you at a weak moment. Don’t be surprised when attacked.

Jesus certainly stirred up the enemy’s work and was attacked over and over. He forgave His enemies and turned the other cheek. But He was never surprised by attacks nor did He take them personally.

If you are going to have a long and fruitful ministry you can’t take criticism and attacks personally. Now if you have done something un-Christlike that is a different story, but if you are doing your best to live for Him then the attacks aimed at you are really directed towards Him. Since He isn’t here we take the brunt of the attacks from those who would oppose Him. Don’t fight back but respond in love, as Jesus did. It’s not about you – it’s about Him. Love them and treat them as Jesus would. Go ahead, try feeding the hand that bites you.

Scripture
1 Peter 3: 14-17, “But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.”

2 Corinthians 4:16-17, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

Ephesians 6:10-18, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.”

Luke 6:26, “Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.”

Reflect

• What is your normal first response to criticism or opposition? Is it what Jesus would do in similar situation? What can you do to become more like Him in your response?
• What can you to do better keep from taking everything personally?

———————————————————————-
Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Related posts:

• Handling criticism in ministry
• Dealing with criticism in youth ministry
• Time Out: Wear your helmet

Some of the things we talked about:

• High school graduates who don’t leave youth group
• Managing time between ministry and family
• Knowing what to do next when all the work seems to be done
• When your pastor’s teenager attends a different church’s youth group
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next week’s discussion

September 18: Next week LIVE YM Talk is with guest, Mark Matlock, who will lead us in a discussion about how to use improvisational techniques for group learning. This will be a pretty cutting-edge discussion about how to great a group that can self-teach and self-direct itself in the process of self-discovery teaching. The NYWC will begin to use some of these techniques this year, so join us to hear a bit more how you can use it for your youth group, too!

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Related posts:

• Podcast: Challenges and opportuntities of working with high school students
• Podcast: Rest, burn-out and time management in youth ministry
• Podcast: Having and raising children in full time youth ministry

Earlier this month, Steven Furtick, the lead pastor at Elevation Church created the B90X system, an intense Bible reading workout, and challenged his staff to read through the entire Bible with him in 90 days. He describes it like this:

B90x is a revolutionary system of intense, truth-absorbing, brain-busting Bible reading that will transform your understanding of Scripture from intro to nitro in just 90 days! Your personal trainer, Ruach “The Breath” Yahweh, will drag you through the most intense infusion of His vision that you have ever experienced and you won’t believe the results!

If you’re a Twitter user, I’ve seen many people online stepping up to the challenge by forming a system of mutual accountability by using the hashtag #B90X. In fact, check out the latest B90X tweets here.

This could be great for your church to go through together, or for you to use with some youth group kids or a small group.

Download the B90X Bible reading workout

[HT to Terrace]

———————————————————————-
Today our featured guest had to reschedule at the last minute due to sick children at home, so I’ll be lining up someone else for today’s conversation. Regardless, we’d love to have you call in and join our conversation at 2:00 PM eastern time. See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join the call and/or the live chat and to get the latest updated on the new guest and topic.

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #139: Bible memory verse tracking sheet
• Freebie Friday #150: 3-session Bible study for the movie, A Christmas Carol
• Freebie Friday #98: “Wii > Mii” 4-week youth Bible study series

No related posts.

Although this idea started originally for my own youth group out of my discontentment with outreach events, it’s a great experience when we can all connect together online through this “outreach campaign.”

The Internet has never made it so easy to share Christ with those all over the world! Teenagers spend a crazy amount of hours talking with friends on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, World of Warcraft and other such social hangouts online, as youth workers, let’s train them to share their faith and encourage them to do it online. The Online Missions Trip is a 2-week campaign to empower them to use social media to share Christ with their friends who don’t yet know Him.

The structure looks like this:

January 10-30, 2010

Pre-trip training. Use youth group meetings to train kids how to share their faith, think through the Online Missions Trip concept, and start praying for unsaved friends.

January 31 to February 13, 2010

Online Missions Trip! During these two weeks teens and youth leaders are engaging in spiritual conversations with unsaved friends online. They’re uploading videos, photos, posting links, using status updates to share what God’s doing in their lives, writing notes, sending messages, posting on blogs, creating event invites to youth group, and anything else that will bring God up in a conversation that starts online and hopefully spreads to a face-to-face discussion.

February 14, 2010

Outreach event/series and new-believer follow-up starts. Follow-up on this missions trip with a series that helps the new teens in your ministry either investigate Christianity a bit closer or start growing in their new faith. Be sure to follow-up one-on-one with new converts, as well.

To learn more about this trip, visit OnlineMissionsTrip.com. There are many ideas, free resources and tools, a 24/7 Prayer Room that will open in 2010, and more. It also has a video of me explaining the trip in more detail.

Also, you have to see this video about the social media revolution, which underscores why this outreach campaign comes at such a key moment in history.

While you’re there, become a fan of The OnlineMissionsTrip.com Facebook Page and meet some of the other teens and youth leaders who will be attending this missions trip with you next year.

[ Visit OnlineMissionsTrip.com ]

—————————————————————–
Only 2 day left to apply for the FREE Youth Ministry Mentorship! Please help support the mentorship, the Online Missions Trip, and MinistryQuestions.com by subscribing to YouthWorker Journal. Get your FREE no-risk trial issue of YouthWorker Journal today, the best in youth ministry resources!

Related posts:

• A FREE missions trip for your youth group
• Freebie Friday #105: Youth Bible lesson on the Great Commission and Online Missions Trip
• Why I’ve never done a missions trip with a missions organization

Some of the things we talked about:

• Setting boundaries and priorities
• Taking your kids on youth trips and to youth events
• Taking your kids to the office with you to work
• Having your own teenagers in youth group
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next week’s discussion

September 11: Next week LIVE YM Talk is with guest, Dennis Poulette, who will lead us in a discussion about cross-cultural youth ministry. Many of us have teens in our youth group who are not the same race or come from the same culture as we do, and Dennis will help us understand how to best reach those teens who are foreign to us.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Related posts:

• Podcast: How to be a volunteer and still have a full time job and a family
• Podcast: Helping teens pursue a calling into full-time ministry
• Podcast: Working with cross-cultural students and minorities at youth group

There is no sign-up form – just the digital book for you to use. You can even print it out and use it later! They are still working to make the music downloadable, but for now, the book is there.

You can check it out here:

“Savvy Youth Ministry” YLO – Fall 2009 issue

———————————————————————-
Today our featured guest is Josh Christian who will be leading us in a discussion about having and raising children in full time youth ministry. We’d love to have you call in and join our conversation at 2:00 PM Eastern time. See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join the call and/or the live chat.

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #109: Free book download for new believer follow-up
• Freebie Friday #140: The 31 Day Challenge
• Freebie Friday #120: Excellent “stuff I can use” in youth ministry

If you have been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer, we want to serve you with free one-on-one youth ministry mentoring for 10 weeks straight.

Apply!

If you’ve been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer and would like to have a FREE one-on-one youth ministry mentor for 10 weeks, read the official Youth Ministry Mentorship page. The link to the application is there. It’s open to anyone who serves in youth ministry in any capacity, whether that be on a volunteer basis or as a full-time youth pastor.

The application period is open for only 7 days. After September 10, no further applications will be accepted for this round. Read an overview of the mentorship and apply there.

Unfortunately, no girls: It should be noted that the mentorship team’s only female, Janelle Painter, is unable to participate in this round. Thus, we will not be accepting any female applicants for this round. We are always working to add more competent ladies to the team, but we were unable to get a commitment from a female mentor in time for this round. Sorry!

As you can understand, we have a limited number of mentors, so you may not be one of the 20 chosen this time around, but keep your eye on this site because this is an on-going program. The next round will be in Spring 2010 sometime. Subscribe to the RSS feed or by email to stay up-to-date. Also, become a fan of our Facebook Page.

An online version of the mentorship

If you’re not paired with a mentor for this round, but would still like to receive some online mentoring, check out MinistryQuestions.com. It’s the perfect place to ask your ministry related questions and receive advice, ideas, support and input from a host of online ministry workers.

A past-mentee’s perspective

If you’d like to see an example of what you’re in for, check out Danny Eiler’s blog. Throughout his mentorship with Kevin Twombly, one of the mentors, Danny blogged about their conversations for all to see. You can expect amazing personalized youth ministry training just like what Danny writes about.

• Week One
• Week Two
• Week Three
• Week Five
• Week Six
• Week Seven
• Week Nine

Related posts:

• Youth ministry mentorship application is now OPEN!
• Get a FREE one-on-one youth ministry mentor!
• MinistryQuestions.com launches for questions, answers, advice, and mentoring

It seems hardly a week goes by that we don’t hear of another person in ministry who has been defeated by moral failure. We sigh, shake our head, and affirm again that it won’t be us. But they probably did the same thing. And what are we doing to make sure it isn’t us? What could have they done to prevent their sin? There is nothing more dangerous than thinking we are above temptation, that we aren’t susceptible to the same thing, that somehow we are safe. Here are some ways to prevent moral failure:

Monitor your spiritual pulse. How is your personal relationship with Jesus? Are you drifting? Is your prayer life and Bible reading slipping? Do you use busyness as an excuse? Make sure you spend time each day with Jesus, and take periodic extended spiritual retreats as well.

If married, guard your marriage. Are you drifting from your mate? Are you less close than you once were? Is your spiritual, emotional and physical intimacy slipping? If so make repairing that relationship your top, immediate priority.

Take precautions. I have made it a practice my whole ministry to never be in a car, home or church alone with a woman other than my mate (or family member). I recommend that for everyone in ministry – male or female. Be honest with your self if you find yourself enjoying the company of someone more than you should. If you feel or act towards a member of the opposite sex in a way you wouldn’t want any one to know about or wouldn’t want your mate to be acting, then back off fast! Watch your thought life – that’s where all sin starts. If someone seems to be attracted to you don’t let it sway your ego but do everything to quench it as quickly as possible.

Become accountable. Most of those who fail morally admit to not having anyone who held them accountable. Make sure you have some mature believer of the same sex who will hold you accountable, will ask you the tough questions, and will be there to help you when (not ‘if’ – it will happen) you are attacked. Honestly share with that person what is going on in your thought life, where you are tempted and what they can pray about for you.

When you next hear of a Christian leader who succumbs to immorality don’t just say, “There, but for the grace of God, I might have gone.” Instead say, “There, but for the grace of God – and my alertness and diligence, I may yet go if I am not very careful.”

Scripture

Matthew 5:27-30, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”

Reflect

• Who is your accountability partner? If you don’t have one, choose someone now and talk to them today.
• Honestly search your heart and ask God to show you where you may be weak in this area: relationship with Him or mate, getting too close to those of the opposite sex, or especially thoughts you shouldn’t be having. Confess any sin you may find.

———————————————————————-
Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Related posts:

• Tim’s dating advice for Christian students
• Time Out: Ministry’s #1 Responsibility
• Time Out: Running on an empty tank

Download and print out the calendar below to either use by yourself, with a small group, with the whole youth group, or even the entire church. You could (and should!) encourage families to do this together, too.

Once you see it, the instructions are pretty straight-forward: read the scripture passage for that day and complete the assigned task. Then, in your small group meeting, with your spouse, or whatever context you use this challenge for, discuss it with others for follow-up, accountability, and reflection.

Download the “31 Day Challenge” [PDF]

———————————————————————-
Unfortunately, due to my schedule, there is no LIVE YM Talk today. However, next week our featured guest is Josh Christian who will talk with us about having and raising children in full time youth ministry. See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join the call and/or the live chat.

Related posts:

• Youth group game: Cell phone picture challenge
• Freebie Friday #130: Meditative prayer exercise with a rock
• Freebie Friday #138: Instrumental Reflections mp3 downloads

You can sign up for the newsletter simply by creating an account at MinistryQuestions.com.

Here are some recent questions that we all would love to hear your input on:

Volunteer Appreciation

by Josh Knierim: What are some of the ways that you show appreciation to your volunteers? We don’t have a huge budget, but I really want our people to know that they are extremely important to us. What has worked for you? What has not worked? [answer question]

How do you know which church God wants you to be in?

by Matilda: We are trying to find a home church. I have prayed daily for the Lord to show me which one (out of 2) He wants us to be planted in. Just when I think He has sent an answer, something else happens from the other one, which leads me to believe it is that one. Really confused at the moment. I know how incredibly important it is to be in the right church that God wants us to be in, but how do you know for sure? Has anyone gone through this, deciding between 2 churches and can offer any helpful advice? One church is a very, very big one with thousands of people. The other is a small church with only around 150 people. Both seem totally on fire for God with great leadership. If anyone can offer advice from their own experience, great!!! [answer question]

Need church website solution

by Steve Cullum: So, we are currently in the in process of seeking out a new website for our church. We currently use churchsites, and have for the past 6-7 years, ever since the church started, I believe. We want something newer, better looking, and easy to use (user & administrator). So, my question is what do you suggest? On a side note, I am fairly pleased with our Student Ministries site using WordPress, but if you have suggestions for that, feel free to share. What we’re mainly looking for is a new church website that will be very informative, easy to use, will draw people in, and will be a tool to reach people online. [answer question]

Recommend a good training book for volunteer leaders?

by Btrav: I am interested in going through a good ministry training book with my volunteer leaders. The volunteers are mainly small group leaders, but the book does not necessarily have to be specific to small groups. [answer question]

What role do Youth Leaders play in evangelism?

by Steve Cullum: So, we are about to make a BIG “evangelism” and inviting push in our Student Ministries this year. I want to make sure the students know how to reach out to their friends AND invite them to church. However, I am unsure about what role our adult Youth Leaders play in this…other than being ready to greet them and teach them when they do come. Should they do their own “evangelizing”? If so, how do they do that w/o being the creepy guy/lady who hangs out at all the teen places and asks kids to come to church? I’m hoping to spend part of our next Youth Leaders meeting training on this. [answer question]

Related posts:

• MinistryQuestions.com launches for questions, answers, advice, and mentoring
• Now login to MinistryQuestions.com with your Facebook/Twitter account
• Great youth ministry questions at MinistryQuestions.com

Highlight videos are essentially a lot of short video clips, typically set to music, that summarize a special youth group trip or event. To see a couple examples, check out some recent videos from my own youth group this summer: jr high retreat, sr. high conference, and Wake ‘n Ski.

Highlight videos have tremendous potential to build momentum for your ministry if you leverage them in a couple key ways.

1. Show highlight videos in church services, online, and at youth group.
When people see the energy, excitement, and value of the youth ministry in a very tangible way on the screen, they tend to become excited and talk about what’s going on in the youth ministry. You’d be amazed how much support you can generate from the church body after showing them a couple highlight videos of your group in action.

2. It serves as a video scrapbook of memories together.
Sometimes I’ll put all the highlight videos from the year together on one DVD and give it away or even sell them to the teens for $5. The students love having the visual reminders of some of their fondest memories with each other, especially years later after they’ve graduated.

3. Upload the videos to Facebook and tag kids.
Perhaps the best way to use highlight videos is to add them to your youth group Facebook page and tag every kid in the video. Not only does this notify each teen that a video of them is online, but it also makes it more likely to be featured on Facebook’s home page news feed when their friends login. They see, “5 of your friends have been tagged in a video by Way Cool Youth Group.” Their friends watch the video and immediately form a positive image of your group. They see the faces, what you do together and think, “Hey, that’s something I’d like to be a part of.”

4. It helps disconnected kid want to connect.
Whether the disconnected kids see it on Facebook, in a church service, on your youth group website, or looping at the youth kiosk at church (as in our case), it somewhat makes them feel that they’re missing out on something great (because they are!). Just this past weekend a girl who is not involved in our group had no motivation to connect with us until she saw our Wake ‘n Ski video from earlier this summer. Now she can’t wait to plug in and attend our last Wake ‘n Ski for the summer this coming Sunday.

5. It’s great accountability to the church.
Especially if donors contributed funds to help make the event possible. They can see exactly how their money worked because, short of witnessing it first-hand, nothing can tell a story as well as a video can. I’ve found that after donors see the video of the trip or event they helped sponsor, they are much more likely to donate again in the future.

6. It reminds kids where they were spiritually.
Sometimes it’s appropriate to sit down with individual teens or even the whole group and record a debriefing time at the end of a missions trip or camp. A couple years later, show them the confessions they made on video and ask them, “Look at where you were in 9th grade. Now you’re a senior. How is your walk with God going since then?”

As my church continues to experience the power of sharing our community’s stories through video, we’re now doing some for our entire church body, as well, like this highlight video of our baptismal service two weeks ago. We showed it during the offering last Sunday as a way to extend the celebration of what God’s doing in the lives of people in our church body.

Related posts:

• Where to host youth group videos online
• Four reasons to put youth group videos on YouTube
• A FREE missions trip for your youth group

My first “full-time” ministry almost became my last. It seemed to consist of one battle after another. It seemed all I was doing was fighting a problem or dealing with an attack. It was very draining, not to mention discouraging. Through a difficult series of very challenging circumstances God removed me from that ministry. I’ve been in my current ministry for 28 years and, in contrast, have never again had the problems I faced in those first few years especially to that extent. This has been a relatively peaceful ministry of growing God’s people. What a difference! Sometimes we are called to fight battles and sometimes to build God’s house. David and Solomon are prime examples.

David’s ministry was marked with warfare, necessary and worthy battles against the enemies of God’s people. They had to be fought and God chose David to fight them. His son Solomon reigned during a time of peace and prosperity. He built God’s temple and dedicated the building to God. Of course, neither David nor Solomon were perfect, but each had his own God-chosen role in the Kingdom. The same is true of us. Sometimes God wants us to fill the role of a warrior but other times He may want us to fill the role of kingdom builder. Which is more important? Both are equally important. Each has inherent risks as well as certain advantages.

If you are now, or have ever been, in the role of a David please understand that was God’s call for you. It is a necessary role, even if not a pleasant one. Don’t think it was your fault or everything would have been OK if you had handled it differently. Sometimes battles are necessary to prepare the way for a ministry of peace and growth (maybe by you but probably by the person who follows you).

Being in a ministry that is a battle isn’t easy and unfortunately some leave the ministry because of it. But if that is where God has put you it means He feels you can fight and win with His help. You won’t always be in a warfare ministry, and quite often it is the new, less experienced warriors who feel the heat of battle at the start. Persevere. There will be quiet times of kingdom-building coming. Whatever you face remember it is His battle and if He put you in the midst of it He will stay with you throughout it all.

Scripture
2 Timothy 4:9-17, “Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry. I sent Tychicus to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments. Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. You too should be on your guard against him, because he strongly opposed our message. At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength.”

Reflect

• Are you in a warrior or a temple builder ministry at the present?
• Whichever you are, do you recognize it as coming from God and not your skill (or lack of it)? Pray and thank Him for whatever role He has given you.
• Spend a few extra minutes praying for those with David-type battle situations. Give them a call or send them an email of encouragement today – let them know you are praying for them.

———————————————————————-
Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Related posts:

• Time Out: Handling criticism attacks in ministry
• Time Out: If God gave you three wishes (Solomon)
• Feeling “called out” of ministry

Some of the things we talked about:

• Recap of our ministries during the summer
• Vision for fall ministry
• Connecting with teens on their campus
• Building momentum with video
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next week’s discussion

August 28: Next week LIVE YM Talk is canceled. Sorry for the inconsistency! However, on September 4 we talk about “having and raising children in full time youth ministry” with Josh Christian. It’ll be a good conversation about raising P.K.s and balancing time and priorities at home and in ministry.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Related posts:

• Podcast: The importance of building a youth ministry team
• Podcast: Having and raising children in full time youth ministry
• Podcast: Rest, burn-out and time management in youth ministry

He’s passing along a sheet his ministry uses to keep track of students’ bible memorization progress. His kids choose from between 2 or 3 verses every week to commit to memory and recite at either Sunday School, Sunday Night, or Wednesday Night (SS, SN, and WN on the sheet, respectively).

In case you’re wondering how the Bible memory system works at his church, here’s what he told me in his email:

It’s crazy stupid simple, but it works, and is easy to administrate. The youth are coming on board with it, because there is a nice study Bible waiting as a reward for each of the students that puts together a string of 52 verses. If the students lose it, they start over, so they are guarding their tracker sheets very closely.

Download the memory verse tracking sheet [PDF]

Download the memory verse tracking sheet [Excel]

———————————————————————-
Join us at 2:00 PM EST this afternoon in our LIVE YM Talk. Our featured guest is Joshua Johnson, a youth pastor in Minneapolis who specializes in jr. high ministry and will talk with us about some of the challenges and opportunities of working with that demographic. See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join the call and/or the live chat.

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #53: Bible study talk sheet for athletes
• Freebie Friday #96: “Seeking God” youth group bible study lesson
• Freebie Friday #67: Free worship song download with chord sheet

Here are some ways I’m using video in my youth ministry this year:

1. Teaching. Although it’s a pretty common usage of video in ministry, using it in teaching environments is often way undervalued. 1) Video gives the audience something different to focus on after staring at me for a while. 2) It keeps minds engaged. 3) Video can tell a story much better than I can. 4) I can only describe an event, place or a person, but a video can actually show them. 5) I try not to take it personally, but video is also more memorable than most sermons and bible studies I lead.

2. Announcements. When I started using video for announcements in my youth group, kids actually started paying attention! When I stand up in front of them and tell them what’s going on, most students are not listening very intently and thus the retention of the information shared is pretty low. But if I say the exact same thing and project it on a big screen or show it on a TV, everyone is glued to it. Turns out the exact same thing is true for adults and our church announcements (see an example here). Plus, our news videos are viewed by all our teenagers’ friends online when I include our youth group kids in the videos and tag them in Facebook. More on using video to communicate youth group news part 1 and part 2, as well as a free youth group news video intro.

3. Training. With so many different schedules, it can be really difficult to get all of my adult youth leaders together for training sometimes. Rather than trying to carve the same period of time out of everyone’s schedule to come to my house or the church for training, I plan to shoot the training info in a quick video, post it to YouTube or Facebook, and send it to all my leaders to view instead. I encourage them to ask questions and interact in the comments. Of course, this can’t be a long-term substitute for meeting together, but it can get the job done and can shorten the amount of time I take when we do meet. (If you make training videos, make sure you send them to me so I can feature them in one of Life In Student Ministry’s youth ministry training videos.)

4. Screening. Our church has a pretty rigid volunteer screening process every adult must pass before they’re given access to children and teens. In the past we scheduled times when new leaders could come to the church, watch the child safety video and fill out a stack of paperwork and questionnaires. As of this year, however, we’re putting the video online and have reproduced the forms and questionnaires as online forms people can fill out and submit at their convenience. It will cut down on a lot of my legwork for each new leader and it allows the new leader to work the screening into their schedule whenever their time permits.

5. Atmosphere. Videos can do a powerful job at setting the tone for your meeting. A worshipful video before a time of worship can settle hearts and minds and help direct their focus on the Lord. A funny YouTube video can have a totally opposite affect. Or a countdown video can set a mood of energy and anticipation.

How are you using video in your youth ministry?

Related posts:

• Using video to communicate youth group news (1 of 2)
• 8 ways to enhance your PlugRug experience
• Internet tools I use in ministry (4 of 6): Facebook

Auctions

• Desserts
• Lawn care service
• Dinner auction
• Donation from Venders
• Babysitting
• Silent Auction
• Raffles
• Students for Service

Pledges

• Bowl-a-thon (pledge per pin)
• Walk-a-thon (pledge per mile)
• Bike-a-thon (pledge per mile)
• Rock-a-thon (using rocking chairs)
• Trash-a-thon (pledge per bag)
• Corporate car wash (donations from Businesses)
• Dime-a-Dance

Dinners

• After church brunch
• All Saints day flower sales & dinner after church
• Cafe Night
• Dinner in concordance with church meetings
• Pancake Breakfast
• Dinner Theater: Friday, Saturday, Sunday matinees (ask for a free will offering)
• Potato or salad bars
• Event Banquets/breakfast/dinners
• Spaghetti feed
• Basket Lunch-Find church attendees to sponsor student’s through prayer and/or a monetary amount, then thank them with a creative lunch basket.
• Sweetheart Banquet
• Put on Dinners at people’s homes for a fee (provide entertainment)

Donations

• Change drop
• Free will offering
• Scholarships
• Loose change offering
• Slushie machine
• Pledges from the congregation
• Sponsor-A –Student
• Pop machine Invest in students & become a stockholder

Community Helps

• Have a booth at a fair
• Free Car Wash-Students get pledges for how many cars they can wash in so many hours
• Phone book deliveries
• Partnership Days-Match up a student with people to serve and to work for donation
• Car detailing
• Phone book deliveries

Events

• Drive-in movie
• Benefit concerts/music/speakers
• Golf tournament
• Talent show
• Deliver flowers for florist

Recycling

• Bottle Drive
• Aluminum Can drive
• Paper drive

Sales

• Bake Sale
• Christmas decorations
• Christmas trees
• Cinnamon rolls
• Craft Sale
• Concessions at a local school
• Donuts
• Community yard sale
• Fruit
• Sell coupon books
• Candy
• Sell flowers & plants
• T-shirt
• Super bowl Sub Sale — “First & A Foot to Go” people place orders and the youth make delivers to homes during game

Miscellaneous

• Adults “Adopt-A-Grandchild” for prayer and financial support.
• Flamingo Insurance — Sell flamingo insurance to church members in various amounts which guarantee that their homes will not be the flocking ground of pink flamingo lawn ornaments. Place as many lawn ornaments as you can on uninsured lawns, and charge a service fee for their removal. To add even more fun, one member can hire a flamingo hit on another member by paying more than what that person bought their insurance for. Provide the opportunity for the insured to increase their insurance amount.
• Students write an adult sponsor a letter before and during the event with prayer requests, then when they come home have dinner with the sponsor.
• Support letters
• Monthly payments-start early and have families contribute monthly to the fund

————————————————————-
I haven’t used them before, but I’ve talked with the owner of SamaritanFundraising.com and it seems to be a pretty solid option for an on-going youth group fundraiser.

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #63: Free Easter lessons and ideas
• Competing with other local youth groups
• Ideas for becoming an evironmentally friendly youth group

Is your ministry significant? We all want to be able to answer “Yes!” but before we can answer it in any way we must define what we mean by “significant.” Clearly the world defines success in terms of numbers and dollars. Unfortunately that mind set has often spilled over into the church. We lift up as examples those programs which are large and growing as “successful.” The implication then is that if your ministry doesn’t include large and growing numbers you aren’t successful or significant.

Yet in the New Testament we don’t know the size of a single church. Jesus evaluates the churches in Revelation 2-3 in terms of faithfulness and purity, not size or cutting-edge activities. When His disciples asked Him who was the greatest in the kingdom, Jesus used child-like humility as the yardstick by which we are to measure ourselves (Matthew 18:1-5). A large and growing ministry can cause us to start taking credit for it ourselves. If our ministry is small we can become too conscious of numbers and think less of what God is doing through us because of them. Size may not be the most significant thing in God’s sight.

Jesus also says that those who disobey God are the least in the kingdom (Matthew 5:19). This gives us another insight into what is significant to Jesus: our obedience to Him. If we minister to one or one thousand doesn’t matter, but our obedience in the details of daily life does.

May God keep us from the sin of trying to build our own little kingdom so we can impress ourselves and others by numbers. My we not get trapped into evaluating God’s work through us by external tallies. God says if we are obedient (faithful) and humble (give Him the credit) then we are successful in His sight. Finding security in whatever kind of stats we can throw around is not necessarily “success.”

Jesus Himself only had a group of 12 men after almost 4 years. Then one of them deserted and the others fled. According to today’s standards Jesus wouldn’t be asked to speak or write, nor could He qualify as having a significant ministry. But there was none more significant for through His ministry lives were changed. If even one life has been changed through your ministry then God sees you as very significant! Don’t buy the devil’s lies that you aren’t significant. If you weren’t he wouldn’t work so hard to discourage and stop you!

Scripture
Matthew 23:23, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”

3 John 3-4, “It gave me great joy to have some brothers come and tell about your faithfulness to the truth and how you continue to walk in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”

Reflect

• Write down your definition of success.
• How will you know you are successful in your ministry?
• Are you growing in humility and obedience? Are those you minister to growing in humility and obedience? Then your ministry is significant.
• Make a list of lives you have touch in the last several months. Thank God for each opportunity.
• Ask God to continue to use you to touch lives for Him and vow to make that your goal, not numbers.

———————————————————————-
Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Related posts:

• Time Out: How would Jesus evaluate your job performance?
• The conclusion of the NYWC
• Time Out: Can God count on you?

The worship director at my father-in-law’s church, Russell Martin, does a pretty regular feature called “Instrumental Reflections” on his blog. He often sits down in front of the piano just to play and worship, which became the inspiration for it:

I started thinking that maybe you would benefit from some recordings of these musical ramblings as a background to your own corporate or personal prayer and reflection times. So… every week I will upload an instrumental reflection. I may use one that I was able to record during a worship service, or go and sit down at the piano and record something new. I will put the songs up here and provide a download link. You are free to use the music for any worship service or other service you wish. All I ask is that you ask me before using it for other purposes, like on a video, compilation CD, or something like that.

Download his mp3s for altar time, devotional music, reflection background music for youth group, or whatever else you could use it for in ministry.

Here’s the category link for his Instrumental Reflections. Click through each title to download the mp3 associated with it and read more about the background behind the music track.

Instrumental Reflections

———————————————————————-
Our LIVE YM Talk for today is CANCELED. We’ll have to postpone Patti Gibbons until another Friday in September. Enjoy your Friday off!

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #84: Worship music mp3 download with chord chart
• Freebie Friday #12: 8-day devotional ebook for students
• Freebie Friday #43: Free PowerPoint and MediaShout backgrounds for worship

Related posts:

• Church staff: close friends or co-workers?
• Trends in a church staff that reflect God’s heart
• Handling ministry blunders

The contractions started around 1:30 p.m. on Friday, August 7th. Dana and I went to the hospital at 6:30 p.m. where she labored until the delivery, all without an epidural! She was actually planning to get one, but ended up being able to tough it out. (Yeah, my wife is tougher than I’ll ever be!)

Since we didn’t know the baby’s gender until it was born, the boy name would’ve been Ezekiel James Schmoyer (nickname Zeke, of course). Maybe we’ll hold on to it for the next child, who knows.

Dana’s family was in town visiting from Texas for the weekend, so it was fun to have them around to meet their first grandchild, niece and nephew.

Got some pictures of Hannah’s first day of life outside the womb on Facebook and at TimSchmoyer.me, along with lots of other pictures of the past couple days with her. I’m sure I’ll also make a highlight video of Hannah’s time in the hospital will probably post it on Facebook and TimSchmoyer.me sometime soon. In fact, for the next couple of years I’m sure it’ll be hard to not take tons of pictures and video of this amazing little girl.

Sorry this post is mostly a list of random facts. I’m a bit tired to think cohesively right now. Just please pray for me, Dana and Hannah: for rest, wisdom, patience, health, boundaries, priorities, and most importantly, that Hannah Love will grow to be a godly woman who obeys and follows Jesus more than anything else. Thanks!

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #132: Audiobook download of “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan
• Time Out: Loyal love (Hosea and Gomer)
• Time Out: The Goal is Love

When we think of courage we usually think of Bible men who fearlessly stood against great odds: David before Goliath, Moses before Pharaoh, Elijah before the prophets of Baal, Paul before his attackers, Stephen before the religious rulers. We think of the Alamo and Masada and Iuo Jima. But when courage is shown by a young girl it seems to be all the more outstanding for we know it isn’t based on physical strength but on personal commitment. The servant girl of Naaman who told him about Elisha comes to mind. So does Ruth who followed Naomi to a strange land. But one who is sometimes overlooked is Esther.

After reading her story, who can forget her courageous words when challenged with taking a chance to intercede for her people or be killed for going to the king uninvited: “If I die, I die.” She had faced one obstacle after another in life. She was an orphan, then she was married to a Gentile who kept her in the harem. The chance at a normal family life with a Jewish husband and children was denied her. She was part of a people who had turned from God, and marriage to a Gentile was forbidden to Jewish girls. Still she found herself risking her life by approaching the king and risking it again by revealing her Jewishness for all Jews would soon be killed. What did she have to lose? Nothing – and everything. “If I die, I die.” “What’s the worst than can happen to me? I can be killed! That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

Most of us will never face that kind of a situation, not the life-or-death kind anyway. But in another way we face tests to our courage every day. How will we respond when criticized for our faith, when challenged about our beliefs, when faced with taking the easy way out, when knowing we should turn the other cheek and get hurt again, or when taking a stand against obscene talk or actions? Is courage any less important for us today than in Esther’s time? Are our lives so precious we would do anything to protect them? Maybe not, but sometimes are egos are. Sometimes our pride is more important than having the courage to admit we are wrong or to apologize for something we said or did (or didn’t say or do but should have). Holding back a verbal bark, no matter how true it might be, when hurt by another – that can be a real act of courage. So can stepping out in faith and trusting God’s provision in an area of need.

Scripture
Philippians 1:20, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.”

2 Chronicles 19:11, “Act with courage, and may the Lord be with those who do well.”

Acts 4:13, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”

1 Corinthians 16:13, “Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong…”

Reflect

• Make a mental list of all the ways you will need courage today, of the situations you may face or the obstacles and challenges you may meet. Pray and ask God to give you courage to face them.
• Who comes to mind when you think of someone you know who has godly courage? Where do you think it comes from? Pray for them today. Talk to them soon and complement them on being a good example of courage. You can even ask for insights that might help you.
• If you feel particularly courageous, ask God to give you opportunities today to show courage for Him. Remember, though, most of our really courageous acts are behind the seen and unnoticed by others.

———————————————————————-
Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Related posts:

• Time Out: God wants availability more than ability (Deborah and Jael)
• Time Out: Out of his comfort zone (Saul)
• Time Out: Whipping up a good pity party (Elijah)

The video illustrates the importance of trusting in someone else, i.e. God. If you want to preview it before downloading, you can see it on YouTube here.

Download the teaching illustration video

———————————————————————-
Our LIVE YM Talk for today is CANCELED. We’ll have to postpone Mark Matlock until another Friday in August. Enjoy your Friday off!

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #138: Instrumental Reflections mp3 downloads
• Freebie Friday #97: Coupon for free video download from BlueFish.tv
• Freebie Friday #24: “Evangelism for my life” teaching series

1. Meet in one host home consistently and regularly.

Rotating and switching between homes on a weekly or even monthly basis leads to confusion for many teenagers, parents, and even other youth leaders. It also makes it difficult to build momentum and for teens to feel comfortable in one place that is familiar to them. When the host family is not around, it’s best if the host is willing to let the group meet in their house that week anyway. Once in a while it can work okay to meet in a different home — the C-Group leaders just need to be in very close communication with Tim Schmoyer and Ruth Nelson about it so we can over-communicate the change to everyone else.

2. Leaders who are consistent.

C-Groups work best when leaders are as consistent as possible. Of course, there will be things that come up and prevent a leader from being present once in a while, but inconsistency overall hinders the relationship building process and makes it difficult to establish a place that feels safe for teens. If a leader knows ahead of time that they will be in and out for a season, they are still welcome to be a part of the C-Group team as their schedule permits, but they will be partnered with another small group adult leader who can be consistent most weeks.

3. Breaking into smaller groups.

Some C-Groups have as many as 30 regular attenders. When a C-Group is larger than 10 teenagers, having a meeting of everyone together works great for some topics, discussions, and issues, but we’ve found it works best in the long-run when a C-Group launches into smaller groups of 5 to 8 teens for discussion and Bible study. Whether or not breaking into smaller groups around the home happens every week or for the whole evening is dependent upon the dynamics of each C-Group, but it is strongly recommended that breaking into smaller groups somehow becomes a part of every C-Group. Although there may be some initial resistance when a C-Group has been meeting all together as an entire group for some time, it usually wears off and the long-term benefits of the quieter teens being able to share more openly will greatly outweigh the initial push-back.

4. Have dinner together at each C-Group.

This has been an ongoing staple of our C-Groups since they started years ago. Dinners are usually cooked by parents or youth leaders and financially reimbursed by the church’s youth ministry budget. When we provide dinner at C-Groups, many positive things happen: 1) Teens are more apt to attend because they come straight from their sports practice or school activity rather than going home to eat and then being less inclined to leave their home again. 2) There’s something that’s very relational about eating together. It provides the perfect context for talking about everyone’s weeks and sharing stories. 3) It creates a very welcoming and “homey” atmosphere for teens, especially newcomers. It calms nerves and eases anxieties about being in someone else’s home with people they may not know.

5. Share “house rules” every week.

Every home has different rules and expectations they ask of the people who are visiting. There’s nothing wrong with that — it just needs to be communicated to the teens every week. Start every meeting with a quick introduction, point out where the bathrooms are located, and go over any other rules the host family might have. Also share group rules and expectations at that time, like, “What’s said here, stays here,” and, “One person talks at a time,” etc. In addition, leaders and regular attenders are expected to model the rules and expectations every week, as well as be intentional about setting the tone and atmosphere for the evening.

6. Keep ‘em guessing.

It’s good to be proactive about not getting stuck in a rut. Change the meeting a bit each week, try things that are new, do something different. Some kids like teaching videos, some don’t. Some teens learn best from discussions, some learn best from a leader teaching. Sometimes it’s best to say in a larger group with everyone together, sometimes it’s best to break up into smaller groups. Be flexible and let the kids come with an expectation that tonight will be a unique night unlike all the others, something they won’t want to miss.

7. Come prepared.

Teens can tell when a leader throws a lesson or an assignment together at the last minute. When a leader is prepared for the meeting, it communicates to teens that the leader have a sense of direction and leadership, it gives the group confidence in the leader’s overall leadership, and it allows the leader to alter the course of a meeting (if necessary) because he/she is able to make choices regarding what they will cover, especially if a teen comes with an life experience they need to talk about.

These “best practices” are geared toward our context and experiences. What would you add or change based on your experience in your ministry context?

Related posts:

• What high school guys look for in girls
• My high school guys are still going strong
• Podcast: High school transitions, time management, pastor’s kid goes to a different youth group

So, please welcome the new domain… *drum roll*… StudentMinistry.org!

I eluded to this domain change in my earlier Gifts from YS, Interlinc, and Simply Youth Ministry post. Switching my site to StudentMinistry.org is the first phase in a long (expensive!) vision for this site, hence the fundraiser. Thanks to your contributions and gifts, this first step is complete. If you missed out on the fundraiser post when it was originally posted, there’s still time to contribute to the next step and get your thank-you gifts.

The next step is a new design and branding for studentministry.org that will allow me to work more easily with the board members of some ministry partners, thereby enhancing the Youth Ministry Mentorship, the reach of LIVE Youth Ministry Talk, snag high-quality Freebie Fridays, and a lot more.

So, although the domain timschmoyer.com is retired for a year or so (until I resurrect it for some unrelated personal use), Life In Student Ministry is growing and has some exciting potential in the future, all for the sake of bringing glory to God by blessing His youth workers.

Important

If you find broken links around the site, please let me know so I can update them. But more importantly, if you have previously linked to timschmoyer.com on a website, either in a blog post, sidebar, or whatever, could you please update your site to link to studentministry.org instead? Please and thank you!

Related posts:

• Major overhaul at Timschmoyer.com
• Hello world!
• Site updates

The period just before and during the Jews’ captivity in Babylon was one of the darkest times in Bible history. God’s people had fallen to their lowest level in sin and rebellion. They totally rejected God and everyone who represented Him. That included men like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

Isaiah ministered for about half a century, as did Jeremiah and perhaps Ezekiel. This was during very difficult times. Each one was persecuted, rejected, abused and at least Isaiah cruelly killed. Isaiah warned the last kinds of Israel about coming judgment. Jeremiah lived through the judgment and Ezekiel went into captivity with Jews who were taken to Babylon. God was faithful in keeping a witness for His people no matter how difficult the circumstances.

They faithfully served God despite rejection by family, friends and those they ministered to. They were unappreciated and have very little if any positive response to their work. Yet they persevered? Why? Statistics tell us that today, in this country where ministry is much easier than it was for these men, that 9 out of 10 men who begin in the pastoral ministry will drop out before retirement. Unfortunately we know very little about these men for they revealed almost nothing about themselves. But perhaps that is the clue we need to understand their faithfulness. It wasn’t about them, it was all abut God. They were willing servants no matter the dangers or rewards. They were committed to serving God faithfully no matter the cost. They had no private agenda, so personal “kingdom” they were building. Everything was about God’s kingdom and faithfully doing what they were called to do.

God must have been very pleased with these special men who faithfully represented Him in a time and place where they weren’t appreciated or thanked. They were tiny lights in a land of darkness. But they kept the light alive. Nothing could put out their light. Their only agenda was to faithfully serve God as long as they lived, no matter what happened to them. And God was pleased.

God needs men and women like that today in every country of the world. He needs disciples who are committed no matter what, who keep following despite everything around them going wrong, who will stick to their job no matter how personally painful it gets. God needs Isaiahs, Jeremiahs and Ezekiels today. Will you be one?

Scripture
1 Corinthians 4:2, “Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.”

Hebrews 11:32-40, “And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets…. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.”

Matthew 25:21, “His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’”

Reflect

• What has been the strongest test you have every faced in your Christian life? Were you faithful? What would you do differently if you faced the same thing again?
• Are you willing to be a witness for God no matter how tough the circumstances and how rejecting the people?
• Will you serve God year after year even if you see no visible results or increase? Will you serve out of faithfulness to bless God even if you aren’t personally blessed in what you do?
• Are you faithfully carrying out the work God has given you to do regardless of the response? Are you working only for God’s kingdom or do you keep an eye on the personal ‘kingdom’ you are building?

———————————————————————-
Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Related posts:

• Time Out: God rewards faithfulness more than fruitfulness
• Time Out: Can God count on you?
• Time Out: God answers eventually, not quickly

Some of the things we talked about:

• Why building a team is so important
• Ideas for promoting unity, training, and working with their schedules
• Good and bad reasons why someone might serve
• Answered questions from the chat audience
• And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next week’s discussion

August 7: Next week Mark Matlock is our featured guest. He’s been doing a lot of research on how to use improvisational techniques for group learning where a group can follow certain guidelines and teach themselves in very unique ways. This ground-breaking discussion will definitely be a talk you’ll want to be a part of!

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Related posts:

• Podcast: Building community with teens online to enhance community at youth group
• Podcast: Rest, burn-out and time management in youth ministry
• Podcast: High school transitions, time management, pastor’s kid goes to a different youth group

He usually charges $7.00 for it, but he’s providing it free of charge to Life In Student Ministry readers. Download it below.

Download “God, What’s Your Status?”

———————————————————————-
Join us at 2:00 PM EST this afternoon in our LIVE YM Talk. Brian Eberly joins us to talk about, “The importance of building a youth ministry team.” He’s been learning more and more about this in his own ministry and comes to share about it with us. See the LIVE YM Talk page for details on how to join the call and/or the live chat.

Related posts:

• Freebie Friday #106: 21-day devotional for youth
• Freebie Friday #123: 30 days of missions devotionals for teens
• Freebie Friday #12: 8-day devotional ebook for students

Related posts:

• How to keep parents updated on youth trips (the fun way!)
• 5 tips for making visitors welcomed at youth group
• Ten tips for starting a church youth group ministry

The story of Hosea and Gomer is one of the strangest love stories in literature. Imagine God telling a prophet, a committed servant of his, to marry a woman who was (or who would become) a prostitute! God gave him a deep love for a woman who would break his heart over and over. She didn’t share his commitment to God. She wasn’t faithful. She wasn’t a good mother. It doesn’t even seem like he was the father of the children she bore. She didn’t love Hosea back. She was bitter, angry and self-seeking. She only thought about herself. Even when the life she was living led to slavery and Hosea sought her out and paid good money to buy her back she didn’t seem to love him. But later on, love and appreciation would grow. Still, imagine how this was for Hosea, a prophet who spoke for God and tried to turn the people back to God. His own wife was among the worst. How it must have hurt him and burdened his heart. So why did God make such a demand on Hosea?

Hosea was living out his message. Day after day he preached about God’s unconditional love for His people. Even though the Jews were unfaithful to Him and committed spiritual adultery with false gods and pagan idols, He still loved them. They took advantage of Him, used Him, hurt Him and deserted Him. So what did He do? In love He pursued them and paid the price to buy them back and restore them to the place that was rightfully theirs. He did this because He loved them. He loved them. It was one thing for Hosea to speak the words but another to actually live them out right in front of the very people he was speaking to.

God wants us to tell others about Him and His love. But more than that, He wants us to show it by how we love them. Loving those we like is easy, but to love those we don’t like, those who hurt and take advantage of — that’s the kind of unconditional love the world needs to see because it reflects God’s love. We can only do that through His strength, but He calls us to do more than preach a message — He calls us to live it first of all. That means starting in our home, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, be a reflection of His unconditional, sacrificial love. Standing up and speaking God’s message is easy and rewarding, but living it? That can be tough. But that’s where it must start, in our daily lives. Does your life reflect the unconditional love of God which your words speak. It better, for words alone won’t do much good.

Scripture
1 John 4:7-12, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

1 John 4:16, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.”

1 John 4:19-2