YLHelp: Help for Young Life Leaders

New Book – Evangelism: For the Care of Souls

2023-05-17T06:57:20Z

Hello friends! I’ve written a book about evangelism. I’m excited and, to be honest, nervous. If interested, I’d love your support in getting the word out.

Why should someone read it? This is why:

This book shows that evangelism is an ongoing process of caring for souls. Unfortunately, we’ve settled for shortcuts. I present an alternative to unrealistic, and often unsuccessful, gospel confrontations which frequently fail to work in the real world. Beyond providing “how to” evangelize, this book engages the complicated emotional experience of the pastoral work of evangelism – the feeling that people’s eternal life hinge upon our evangelistic performance.

Perhaps you have questions such as:

Why do I feel like I am “bad” at evangelism?
What should I say when I attempt to share the gospel?
Why don’t I see results when I evangelize?
When do we move beyond evangelism and get to the “deep stuff?”
Why do I lack passion for the gospel?

These are questions that I’ve faced over and over in my own life and from my friends too. My book addresses these and much more.

You can find the book everywhere, including:

*If interested, you can see my other books HERE. For more info, see the video below.

Re-visioning “Club” Part Two – Including Responses and New Ideas to Consider

2023-02-05T16:57:22Z

I want to share with you the responses I received from my recent post about re-visioning club. I received dozens of lengthy emails, text messages, Instagram DMs, Twitter DMs, Facebook Messenger messages, and several comments in-person. All of the responses affirmed that people have felt the need to make adjustments to club. None of the responses said: “no, the only or best way to do club is the ‘traditional’ way.” I’m sure there are people who read my post and are running traditional clubs and it works well for them and they just didn’t feel the need to reach out to me. But, from the volume and consistency of the content of the messages I received – it does seem that many people have changed how they do “club.”

After evaluating all of the responses, a lot of people are doing something like this:

Part 1: Food, hangout, casual semi-unstructured activities
Part 2: Mixer and/or game, announcement, talk
Part 3: Food (dessert maybe), hangout

Among the responses I received about non-traditional clubs: singing together is rare; skits are rare.
The major change seems to be that singing and skits have been replaced by food and semi-structured hangout time. I think there are lots of good reasons why these specific replacements are happening, but I won’t share those right now. I also saw a common theme that clubs adjust to the interests of kids and to the skills and availability of leaders more than in the past. Every response discussed the centrality of leaders being with students and leaders giving talks.

I plan to share this info with the leaders in my area and think about how I might adjust my own “club” meetings. The responses I received gave me a lot of new ideas to consider. I included some of the responses below – I think you might find many of these useful. Thank you to everyone who reached out to me to share their insights.

I felt the need to do something new. But, I was scared to do something different from Young Life.
I focus on: 1) hospitality, 2) atmosphere, 3) share Christ.
We start with a home cooked meal and serve dessert after the talk. Parents and community members rotate providing the meal. Kids and leaders sit at round tables and we open with a prayer, the meal, and then announcements. We do 1-3 games and then do a talk. Then we provide dessert and door prizes (via raffle tickets, 10 extra tickets if you bring someone new)
I’m an RD and I give my staff and leaders permission to make changes “but I think there’s a reluctance – or maybe a fear/ paralysis – to think about other possibilities.”
Prior to COVID, we noticed traditional club was not going well, even with some adjustments we already made. We now begin with hanging out, cornhole, games, music – like a party with snacks. Then, we run a mixer, announcements, game, YouTube “transition” song, and then the talk.
We have not had a traditional club in over 15 years. We started a basketball club and mentoring program. We used Tanita Maddox’s Gen Z training to help our leaders make adjustments, especially for our games and club talks.
We have never done a traditional club because we didn’t feel our personal gifting fit with it. We hangout for about 25 minutes of unstructured play (basketball, gaga ball, swings, trampoline, etc.), then a mixer, transition video (people are awesome videos), announcements, talk, prayer, snacks and hangout. We don’t do skits or music.
Our WL club is still pretty similar to the traditional club plan. But, our high school club is less formatted: hangout, games, message, hangout.
I wonder if some people have down-shifted to simpler plans because they are just easier, require less prep, and less commitment.
Is the adjustment to the pandemic & current Gen Z culture resulting in YL club feeling more like a church youth group? Are we compromising our distinctives?
We try to include: low predictability, humor, talks being excellent, and knowing kids’ names.
Club is “a gathering to introduce Jesus verbally to teens.”
We serve a full meal at every club, if we have trained volunteers, we do more traditional club, if we have less trained volunteers or no volunteers, we do less traditional things based on whatever the leaders can provide.
I noticed my 25-40 year old leaders just like to wing it, my 16-20 year olds and 45 plus are more committed to planning and training.
We noticed leaders trending toward “non-traditional club” simply because of the time involved to plan, prepare, purchase, and even get all of the stuff for traditional club. We moved to less songs and mostly stopped doing skits. We still run games. Our kids like theme and event nights like: trivia night, scavenger hunt, find your leader. We always do a talk and raffle.
It makes sense that traditional club rocks at camp because the people putting it on are investing gobs of their time into it (as they should) to make it awesome.
For YL, we do: food and hangout, two mixers, announcements, two mixers, talk, dance party. For WL, we do: food, games outside, TikTok dances, 2 mixers, announcements, club talk, mixer, then more food, games outside, and TikTok dances.

Re-visioning “Club”

2023-01-30T05:51:41Z

Last week, I was with nearly 40 experienced and diverse YL staff from across the country. I hijacked our meeting to conduct a bit of a survey.

My instinct is that prior to COVID, many people were moving away from traditional club plans. Since our return from COVID my sense was that few clubs returned to traditional club plans.

When I use the term “traditional club plans,” I’m thinking of something like this:

Traditional Club Plans

1-3 upbeat song(s)
Mixer or game
1-3 upbeat song(s)
Game
Skit
1 “transition” song
1-2 Christian content song(s)

Now, I know this plan isn’t “traditional” for everyone but since YL summer camps use this plan almost exclusively, I think most of us know this is the default plan our mission thinks of when we think of “club.”

But, my instinct is that most of us departed from the “default” plan.

So, I surveyed the 40 experienced staff and this is how it went:

Q: Raise your hand if all of the clubs in your area use the “traditional” club plan.
A: Only 1 in 40 of the staff raised their hand.
Q: Raise your hand if at least one of the clubs in your areas uses the “traditional” club plan.
A: About 10 of the 40 staff raised their hands.
Q: How many of you have zero clubs in your area that use the “traditional” club plan?
A: About 30 of the 40 staff raised their hands.
Q: How many of you have to prepare your club kids and leaders about what club will look like at camp because it will be brand new to them?
A: About 30-35 staff raised their hands.

What I learned is that most people don’t do club the way many of us did it years ago.

In order to know what they actually do for club, I asked them – to confirm – that every club shares Christ in one way or another as part of their “club” plan. Everyone agreed. So, I asked them, a few more questions:

Q: What do you do at the beginning of your club?

A: Almost all of them said they have food and/or unstructured events. I wanted specifics, so I asked them what food they provided. Only one said they provide pizza. A few said they make pasta. Others said they have church small groups rotate bringing meals. Others said they just have light snacks. The unstructured time included various sports, card games, crafts, talking, playing music together, among other things.

My sense by the end of the discussion was that most of the clubs these staff people represented, which was probably about 200 clubs, for an average “club” night do the following:

First: 30-45min of food and low-key optional opportunities to play sports, games, crafts or just talking
Next: 1-2 group games
Then: A talk about Jesus

I wasn’t all that surprised, but, I’ll be honest, I was surprised that: (1) this new approach to club is so pervasive and the new “default, and (2) no one seems to be talking about this. I would love to know what you think, what you do for “club,” and any way we can learn from each other how to adjust the less-important details of club to create the best possible platform to proclaim Christ. Shoot me a message. If there is enough interest, I might pull some folks together to create a survey or host a short Zoom or call for those interested.

Sacred Cow Club Checkup

2021-04-11T21:07:05Z

I haven’t written or posted much on YLHelp because, well… I haven’t had much help to offer. The good people at YL Leader Blog have done the heavy lifting – thank you! I hope the reflection below might be helpful in one way or another.

Yesterday, I met with a potential leader for our third new leader training session. The topic was club. One of the assignments was to “visit a club.” Nope. Can’t do that. None are happening. Another assignment was to “review a club talk.” None of those either. In our community those, as we normally know them, haven’t happened in over a year.

I was excited.

Why? Because the training that I provide to new leaders is about the principles behind club, not the outward shell of club. I’m guessing you’ve been forced to think about the same things too.

You might know that every week every club has to report club and campaigner attendance to the national database for statistical tabulation. I dutifully enter ours every Friday afternoon. At first, we were provided detailed numerical strategies for how to calculate Instagram Live “club” data each week, but that season is about as old as the latest episode of The Tiger King.

As the dust settled on that season, I had to choose how to communicate to leaders at each of our nine clubs “what” club was during the pandemic. The frontline summary I gave to our valiant and busy volunteer senior leaders was this: club is when you open the Bible and tell kids about Jesus; campaigners is when you provide an opportunity for students to talk back about it.

Club: monologue about Jesus.

Campaigners: dialogue about Jesus.

Please check with your local area director, there are more details to consider. I’m sharing the part that matters most, maybe the only part that matters at all. Many of us enjoy the front-facing side of most common club elements (singing, games, themes, etc.) but this is just a front for the meat of club: proclaiming Jesus.

I’ve worked hard to try to “help” with both. YLHelp has lots of songs, games, themes, etc.; it also has dozens of hours of PhD-level informed biblical commentary and exegesis on every chapter of each gospel tailored for Young Life available on YouTube.

As I think about the next season we are all stepping back into, I encourage us all to do a sacred cow checkup. Do you need singing? No. Games? No. Mr. Christmas Tree? No. Theme clubs? No.

These elements of club merely setup the opportunity to proclaim Jesus – they can help, but we should evaluate them for their effectiveness on a case-by-case basis in our local communities.

The only required element of club is opening to a gospel passage and proclaiming Jesus. I urge you to get creative and radically reconsider what front-facing elements fit this generation, your community, and your strengths in order to proclaim Christ faithfully. I hope some sacred cows are sent to pasture and some are redeployed better than ever. The best Young Life is yet to be done, by no one else but you.

Spring 2020 Club Plans, Songs, Chords, PowerPoints

2020-02-10T16:16:26Z

I’m sure your semester plans are off and running. Mine are too. Maybe this will help…

Semester Plans

My team and I have put together all of our plans for the semester. I thought I’d pass them along in case any of them are helpful for you, might spark your own ideas, or save you some time.

Here is what is included:

-11 Club Plans (Glow Club, UHaul Club, Surprise Club, 4^th de Mayo Club, PJ and Pillowfight Club, The Office Club, Lettuce Club, Greek/College Club, Field Day Club, Emo Club)

-29 Songs with Chords we are singing this semester

-11 PowerPoints with lyrics for each club

Get all of that in one zip file HERE.

I’m sure your plans will be much better than ours, but I figured I’d share these if they are helpful!

New Talk Videos

Some of you may know that I spent four years going through one gospel per year and one chapter a week to give some ideas about how you could do a club talk through each chapter of each gospel. In case you are interested, the links are below. You can join my YouTube channel here.

Gospel of Matthew Club Talks

Gospel of Mark Club Talks

Gospel of Luke Club Talks

Gospel of John Club Talks

Now that I have covered all of those, I plan on making some more videos on specific topics like: “my first club talk,” “club talk delivery,” “alternative approaches to club talks” just to name a few. If you are interested, just follow what I’m up to on YouTube.

Other Stuff

I have a few other things in the works that aren’t ready yet. One is a new approach we are trying for campaigners. Others are several writing projects (academic and practical) that I’m praying will be helpful for others.

Super random, but, if you have used the New Testament in a Year, I would appreciate if you could give it a rating on Amazon – no worries if you can’t now, I know you all have a lot going on.

On the other hand, if there is anything I can share with you, shoot me a message (or just hit reply if you received this as an email).

Many blessings on your ministry! Keep going!

Semester Plans: Contact Work, Club, Campaigners

2019-09-18T19:57:37Z

Your club semester probably already started. Mine did.

I thought I’d pass along some of our plans:

Contact Work

After staying rooted in Christ and prayer, the most important part of our work is contact work. My clubs are working through a shared Google Sheet so that every leaders has at least ten names of people we keep in touch with regularly. I’ll likely post about it at some other time.

Club Semester Plans

You can find those details HERE. Some clubs are planned out more than others.

Club Music

I recently posted all of our plans HERE.

Campaigners

Our girls leaders are going through OT12: Twelve Old Testament Stories to Grow in Jesus (for info click HERE). The fellas are still working on our plan. If you need ideas or resources, you can look HERE. Also the NT in a Year is a good tool for one-on-one discipleship and leadership development too (HERE).

Club Talks

We are doing the Gospel of John this year in my club. I finished the fourth and final year of the “Talk Tuesday” series last year (one year for each gospel). If you are interested in those, you can find them HERE.

If I can find some time I might create a series of videos on various kinds of talks. I’m a bit swamped at the moment, this might happen next semester.

Wyldlife Strategy

Also, my area is trying something new for WL. The only “club” meetings we are having are once-a-month All Area WL Clubs. The rest of the month each WL team is devoted to weekly contact work and group hangouts (and campaigners if the kids are ready) every two weeks. If this plan works out well, I’ll post about it later.

I’m heading out the door to handout suckers at the junior high… I hope your semester goes great! -Sean

Club Songs… from camps last summer to use NOW

2019-09-18T19:56:52Z

I sat down a few weeks ago, once again, to try to dig up some new club songs. Then it hit me.

Why am I doing this?

I realized that YL recently chose the most talented people to pick songs for clubs. These people were at YL camps last summer leading music. They spent time sorting through the options. They are younger and hipper than me. They might not have done it perfectly, but I may as well put their hard work to good use. Their song selections were likely sitting on the hard drive of every club room computer at every YL camp. I knew what to do next.

I emailed every YL camp and asked them to email me their song lists from last summer.

Some responded.

Then I emailed again.

A few more responded.

I am super thankful for the nine YL camps that emailed me back. Thanks Carolina Point, Castaway, Crooked Creek, Frontier, Malibu, Saranac, Sharptop, Timberwolf Lodge, Trailwest!

I worked through all of the lists. Some sent snapshots of their file folders, others sent pdfs of every slide from every club!

I made a list of the 224 songs that were sung at YL camps this past summer.

Then, I had some fun, I’m talking Excel-geek fun. Boohyah! A few text-to-columns functions, filters, and pivot tables later, I had it. More information than you probably would ever be interested in. It is all below.

I hope it is helpful and saved you a ton of time so you can, instead, spend that time in relationships with people (and not Excel, or Ultimate Guitar, or Keynote… but actual people).

I also put together a zip file of all of the songs below with chords and ppts – you can get that HERE.

One other note: My area went to Lake Champion last summer and the music team did something cool and innovative. They played kareoke tracks of modern-ish songs but used a live drummer to give it a “live” feel. They switched to an acoustic guitar for the worship song. It worked really well.

—

If you were to walk into an average summer camp, this is the most likely playlist you would have heard last summer:

MOST LIKELY

FAST	Firework (Katy Perry)
FAST/MED	Thinking Out Loud (Ed Sheeran)
MED	I Won’t Give Up (Jason Mraz)
SLOW	All of me (John Legend)
WORSHIP	Keep Your Eyes Open (Nashville 9)

SECOND MOST LIKELY

FAST	Livin on a Prayer (Bon Jovi)
FAST/MED	Don’t Stop Believing (Journey)
MED	Thinking Out Loud (Ed Sheeran)
SLOW	Hello (Adelle)
WORSHIP	I Will Never Be the Same (Nashville 9)

Sound familiar?

Real quick, and this is not the point of the post, but it isn’t difficult to notice the drastic lack of diversity in our music. You likely knew this already. My research proved it. We can and should do better.

After scouring the complete list of songs, I created several updated playlists I will be doing in my club this semester:

Playlist 1

FAST	Old Town Road
FAST/MED	Meant To Be (Bebe Rexha / Florida Georgia Line)
MED	The Middle – Zedd, Maren Morris
SLOW	All of me (John Legend)
WORSHIP	Rescue (Lauren Daigle)

Playlist 2

FAST	Hey Ya
FAST/MED	Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
MED	Halo
SLOW	Girl on Fire
WORSHIP	You Say (Lauren Daigle)

Playlist 3

FAST	Ride (21 Pilots)
FAST/MED	Riptide
MED	Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
SLOW	Lean on Me
WORSHIP	Lay My Burdens Down

Playlist 4

FAST	Better Now
FAST/MED	Shut up and dance / I wanna dance with somebody
MED	Perfect (Ed Sheeran)
SLOW	I Will Always Love You
WORSHIP	Known

Playlist 5 (oldies mostly)

FAST	500 Miles
FAST/MED	Sweet Caroline
MED	The Climb
SLOW	Fix You
WORSHIP	Beautiful Things

If you would like to see the entire list of songs and how many times they showed up in summer camp playlists, you can download that file HERE.

PS: If you made it this far, wow. If you are looking for campaigner resources, I created a new one, you can read about it HERE.

This Year: Lessons I learned & learning right now (Part 3)

2019-06-08T20:43:06Z

As I’ve done in the past, I’m writing a series of posts to capture a few things I’ve learned about leading Young Life and Wyldlife in the past year. I’m adding something new too. This year, I’m adding an extra section to include things I’m working on right now. Also, see my shout out at the end to my friend Drew Hill.

I learned… Two trends for stronger clubs in our region

Earlier this year I was called into a difficult meeting. A team of us had to decide how many weekend camp weekends we were going to commit to contractually for the next few years. Unfortunately, our discussion concluded that we needed to drop one weekend in the future because the outlook and trajectory of our camping numbers couldn’t support the number of weekends we used in the past.

Following the meeting, a few of us banded together over several months to do a deep dive on camp numbers. I’ll spare you the details, but I want to share two of our primary conclusions.

First, we found that larger club teams tended to be stronger than small teams.

More specifically, teams of 6-10 leaders (adult and junior leaders added together) were much stronger than small teams (these teams usually were 2-4 leaders). More surprising, the larger teams had a much stronger kid-to-leader ratio – in other words, leaders on bigger teams were involved with more students per leader and overall.

In response to this information I made two decisions in my area this semester. I consolidated one of my clubs that only had three leaders into another club. This club had struggled for the last couple years despite the valiant efforts of the three leaders. There were tears when we announced this to the students but, honestly, the leaders and key students were relieved and refreshed (they were all worn out from trying so hard to make it all work). The other step I took was to hold back on opening a new club we had in the works. We are still working this out, but previously I would have jumped in and started it since we had 2-3 leaders ready to go. We are praying for and waiting for more leaders now before we begin.

Second, we found that stronger clubs tended to have senior leaders who are strong organizers.

This probably isn’t a shocker – team leaders have to organize things and organization involves a lot of details. An interesting related finding was that strong club senior leaders were typically not the strongest “kid” leader. In other words, they tended to be known more as a strong organizer than a “kid-magnet.” The number one role in our senior leader job description is to be a “model leader,” meaning that senior leaders are consistent and effective at contact work, club, etc. But, consistency and faithfulness do not always mean that you excel at these things. To speak personally, on almost every club I have ever been on, I have never been the strongest “kid-magnet.” Early-on that bothered me. I got over that quickly. But, to get back to my point, stronger clubs typically did not have the strongest kid-leader as the senior leader.

As it turned out, in the club I described above, the one I consolidated into another club, the senior leader is an absolute kid-magnet – totally amazing at that. What was missing was organization. That dynamic combined with the low number of leaders made my decision easier. This leader is gonna crush it on the new team which is led by a strong organizer.

Let me be clear – I’m not trying to be prescriptive, there are so many other circumstances that led me to these steps this year, but I want to share these details for those who are interested and you can discern how my steps may or may not be useful for your own ministries.

I’m learning… Club model struggles but contact work rules

The sky isn’t falling. But, I think a lot of us know that there are some challenges with club. I’ll share two.

First, I find that kids in my community are less interested in a weekly song/game/skit/talk than they used to be. I hope your community is different – I think club is a blast – but, I have actively been exploring adjustments to the club model. I don’t have any best-practices to share but I am open to ideas if you have them.

Second, and more importantly, club can be a time and relational black hole. What do I mean? Club can take up nearly all the limited time we have to devote to Young Life. And, unfortunately, when club communication, planning, prep, setup, execution, clean up, and post-club reflection are finished, many volunteers are out of hours they have in their busy lives to devote to Young Life. Staff have lots of hours left after club, volunteers have very few.

I have believed for a very long time that virtually the only unique thing we do in Young Life is contact work.

My community has other things that look like club – club is a wilder version of a youth group meeting. Lots of things that look like campaigners – campaigners is an introductory version of a church youth group weekly Bible study. Lots of things that look like Young Life camp – many of the churches in my community rent the same camp (Lost Canyon) we use and do a great job with their camps.

But, in 25 years of doing Young Life and Wyldlife I very rarely see anyone else working to have a sustained presence on local school campuses talking to kids who don’t go to church. I’d be willing to part with all the “Cs” before I’d give up contact work. Without contact work we should just shut this whole thing down.

So, what does this mean? What is the takeaway? Think a lot about how many hours leaders can realistically devote to Young Life and think of ways to create team contact work habits. I could write a lot about habits, but here is an example: Most of us know where we will be on Monday nights at 7:37PM… Club. You know. Your team knows. Your club kids know. Every week. But, do you know, does your team know, and do club kids know when you will be on campus… every week? Think about that.

YL Leader Blog Highlight…

Congrats to Drew Hill for winning the biggest award a Young Life author has ever won based upon its content. His book Alongside: Loving Teenagers with the Gospel won the 2019 Christian Book Award for Ministry Resource of the Year – that is a big deal. So, with each post I’m highlighting a few posts from the Young Life Leader Blog that I found helpful – I think you might too.

33 Creative Ways To Serve Your School

Tips for Hosting Club in Homes

Resources for the Summer…

If you haven’t planned your camp follow-up, graduation or leader gifts yet, you may know that I have written a bunch of resources with you in mind. Here are some suggestions:

Young Life Post-Camp Campaigners

Cabin Time Continued (YLHelp) / Mark in a Month (Amazon / YLHelp for bulk)

Wyldlife Post-Camp Campaigners

WyldQuestions (YLHelp) / Mark in a Month (Amazon / YLHelp for bulk)

Further Follow-Up

Live Like This (Amazon / YLHelp for bulk) / New Testament in a Year (Amazon / YLHelp for bulk)

This Year: Lessons I learned & learning right now (Part 2)

2019-05-29T15:08:07Z

I learned… Campaigners can get a lot out of the Old Testament

My campaigners group has studied a lot of different things over the past couple years. The one thing that has been pretty consistent is that we have tended to look at chunks of scripture – not a lot of “one verse here… a few verses there”, though we have done that a little.

We have discussed a bunch of different “chunks” – most often, we have gone through the stories of the gospels (Jesus) and the Sermon on the Mount. Those are my go-to’s for sure.

Biblical literacy (familiarity with the Bible) is pretty low. I should know. When I first entered Young Life my junior year of high school, I had never read the Bible and had no idea who Moses, John the Baptist, or Paul the Apostle were. That is OK, but I want my campaigner guys to take steps to be biblically literate. I decided to do something I’ve never done before with my campaigner guys: we studied twelve of the most significant stories from the Old Testament together (and how they connect to Jesus).

Here is what I found: It works.

The Bible Jesus used (the Old Testament) has plenty to teach teenage guys today – especially as we connect that to what we know about Jesus (in the New Testament). It wasn’t boring. It wasn’t super complicated. It connected. It challenged. It was relevant. I’m in the process of going through all my notes to create something you might be able to use – but, don’t wait for me… consider cracking open the Old Testament to show your friends that Jesus is on every page there too.

I’m learning… Club music has got to change

I admit… I actually like Brown Eyed Girl and Sweet Caroline. But… a lot of people don’t. Music is a polarizing topic. Ask pastors (contemporary or traditional?), young people (rock or country or hip hop?), or club leaders (wait… did you just say some people don’t like Brown Eyed Girl? How. Dare. You.) It might be that all the old YL tunes still work for your club – great! You can stop reading. But, I can tell you this: those tunes don’t work for everyone.

The tunes (often) don’t work. The lyrics (often) don’t work. And… the instruments (often) don’t work. Try to play the current top 10 Billboard songs on your 6 string guitar – I dare you. You can’t.

Club is one tool we use to gather with teenage friends, and hopefully some new friends, to hear the truth about Jesus Christ while having some laughs, fun, and singing. The singing part ideally gives us something to think about (“content songs”) but most of the songs are there to help the students connect with each other through their shared songs (the few that exist today that don’t communicate something terrible and vulgar). We are at a crossroads.

I don’t have the answer figured out, but I think I know the ingredients:

Familiar beats.
Familiar melodies.
Fun and easy choruses.
Call and response.
Great song leading.

All of those ingredients used to be available via songs from the Billboard list, a guitar player, and a great song leader. As much as I like my Martin guitar, I just began experimenting with a new instrument (if you can call it that). I own a Novation Launchpad MK2. I am learning Ableton. Yes. Me. I’m 42. Yup. If you don’t know what a Launchpad or Ableton are, that is OK. Some of your younger leaders do and some of them already know how to use these tools/instruments.

Where is this going? I’m not sure, but if I learn something useful – I’ll let you know. (And, if you are at Lost Canyon Session 2 this summer, you might find out.)

I’d rather fail trying to innovate and then try something else than force the young and diverse community I minister to into the mold of what worked in my 1993 Arcadia HS club (“Blindman” anyone? “Cats in the Cradle?”)

YL Leader Blog Highlight…

21 Alternative Club Ideas to Start the Semester

Godspeed: The Pace of Being Known

Resources for the Summer…

If you haven’t planned your camp follow-up, graduation or leader gifts yet, you may know that I have written a bunch of resources with you in mind. Here are some suggestions:

Young Life Post-Camp Campaigners

Cabin Time Continued (YLHelp) / Mark in a Month (Amazon / YLHelp for bulk)

Wyldlife Post-Camp Campaigners

WyldQuestions (YLHelp) / Mark in a Month (Amazon / YLHelp for bulk)

Further Follow-Up

Live Like This (Amazon / YLHelp for bulk) / New Testament in a Year (Amazon / YLHelp for bulk)

This Year: Lessons I learned & learning right now (Part 1)

2019-05-23T22:32:50Z

I also want to give a major and ongoing shout out to my buddy Drew Hill for winning the biggest award a Young Life author has ever won based upon its content. His book Alongside: Loving Teenagers with the Gospel won the 2019 Christian Book Award for Ministry Resource of the Year – that is a big deal. So, with each post I’m highlighting a few posts from the Young Life Leader Blog that I found helpful – I think you might too.

I learned… Eleven students = the average size of a camp trip

Two months ago, I posted that clubs bring 11 kids to camp (on average). The motivation for the post was in response to the enormous amount of failure many of my YL and WL leader friends and staff feel. You can read more in the original post HERE.

I received dozens, if not hundreds, of emails, text messages, direct messages, phone calls, and face-to-face comments saying “thank you for saying that.” I even had several people say “wow, you went there.” Truth should set us free.

I hope that the reality of what might seem to be “small” camp trips in our mission frees you to think less about any “empty seats” or “empty beds” in the coming weeks and more about “who is in the seat.”

I’m learning… Lunch club is quietly taking over YL and WL

I mentioned in passing that I noticed a quiet and undiscussed trend in our mission that many clubs are moving towards doing “lunch club.” Lunch club is a version of club that is done at the school during lunch. I have been scrambling to piece together the “why” and the “how” of lunch club all year. Here is an update…

Many people are doing lunch club for a combination of reasons: 1) transportation issues, 2) kids are busier than ever after school with sports, clubs, homework, and jobs, 3) the traditional club model is not as big of a draw as it was in the past, 4) lunch club can double as contact work, 5) lunch club naturally attracts and includes many more students than night club (especially if free food is involved). One staff person I know told me his entire region(!) does nothing but lunch clubs right now!

Lunch club is not rocket science: 1) students get approval from the school per their policies to form a club that meets at lunch, 2) adhere to all the regulations carefully, 3) do YL/WL club type things at lunch (often involving free food). There are lots of questions that bubble-up about the depth of relationships, leader availability, when to (or not to) hand out free food (and which food to bring; and how to pay for it), what a talk looks like at lunch, how to translate lunch involvement into non-lunch involvement (campaigners, camp, other contact work, night club, etc.).

I think I have a good grasp of the “why” behind lunch club, but I’m still learning the “how.” I have connected online off-and-on with a group of people across the country to discuss lunch clubs. If you are interested in joining this discussion, let me know (shoot me your name, area, and email address).

YL Leader Blog Highlight…

Like I said above, I’m super proud of my buddy Drew and all the good work he and his team have done. Below are two posts from the last year on his blog that I really appreciated, I hope you do too!

Questions To Help Your Young Life Team Evaluate & Celebrate The Year

10 Questions to Ask Graduating Seniors

Resources for the Summer…

If you haven’t planned your camp follow-up, graduation or leader gifts yet, you may know that I have written a bunch of resources with you in mind. Here are some suggestions:

Young Life Post-Camp Campaigners

Cabin Time Continued (YLHelp)

Mark in a Month (Amazon / YLHelp for bulk)

Wyldlife Post-Camp Campaigners

WyldQuestions (YLHelp)

Mark in a Month (Amazon / YLHelp for bulk)

Further Follow-Up

Live Like This (Amazon / YLHelp for bulk)

New Testament in a Year (Amazon / YLHelp for bulk)