Help for Young Life Leaders NOW

Work Crew Training Resource – Writing Your Testimony Work Sheets

2012-01-31T22:09:03Z

We are starting our summer Work Crew training next week. We have done various things in years past: here and here are some examples. This year we are collaborating with another area for a new approach. We will have two weeks of training online via a Facebook group and submitting work through Google forms. We will then have two Sunday meetings with all the kids from both areas.

For part of our online training we are having kids prepare their written testimony. I have two resources I am giving them, so I thought I’d pass them along to you too.

I am also including the amazing Work Crew training plan from the San Francisco Bay Region from my friend Bree. It is amazing.

Enjoy!

Campaigners Lesson – Your Story Your Testimony.pdf

How to prepare your testimony.pdf

SF Bay Region Work Crew Training Plan

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ASC YL Celebration 2012 Meetup if anyone is interested after social media seminar

2012-01-23T06:00:39Z

I’m guessing there are a few YLHelp readers who will be heading to Florida this week for the ASC YL Celebration, Young Life’s conference for staff which is every four years. I know my wife and I are really looking forward to it!

I want to put a plug in for the Social Media seminar where my friend Chad Swanzy and others will be sharing great ideas about social media and such. I will be in the crowd taking copious notes from the best!

If interested, I wanted to invite anyone who wants to chit-chat and meet in person to simply meet up near the front after this seminar, ummm lets say to the right of the stage (though I have no idea how the room will be laid out). It would be great to say hi and meet a few of you who have been gracious enough to send me your great ideas and add helpful comments to the posts.

If you are looking for me, my twitter is @seanmcgever and I look like this (with my youngest daughter and future ASU cheerleader!):

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More Club Talk Ideas out of the Gospel of John

2012-01-18T14:06:00Z

I’ve heard lots of great feedback from people who decided to use the book of John for club talks last semester. I’m glad it has been helpful!

My good friend Joey and AD in North Phoenix (such a good friend I’m sure he won’t mind the picture of him and his wonderful wife on this post) took what I started and added to it. It adds some good context for John’s gospel and adds some ideas for chapters I did not cover. He recently sent it to me and gave me permission to pass it along. Enjoy!

Gospel of John NWV YL Club Talk Ideas.pdf

PS I hope anyone at Winter Training right now will tell him his picture is on ylhelp!

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New Ideas About Club Cards?

2012-01-16T17:41:00Z

As long as I can remember we have used club cards. Those are the pieces of paper that you give to new kids at club, often during announcements or some type of introduction time, then they fill them out and give them back to leaders. These cards have a long history, all the way back to the first days of Young Life when the national office in Texas would keep them on file, like many “clubs”, to keep track of their members.

Over the years I’ve taken countless hours to type these into spreadsheets. Usually these include information like:

First name
Last name
Home phone
Cell phone
Email
Address
City
State
Zip code
Parents names
Favorite movie
School
Year in school
Who invited you

Let’s just be honest… that is a lot of information to type! So I’ve, or a helper or two for me, have spent a lot of time while typing thinking… do we really need all this info? So over time I would type in less and less.

On the other hand, these can also be a good physical reminder if you put them somewhere where you see them, from time to time it is good to look through them and be reminded of kids who have come to Christ and think of their first day at club, and others who may have come once and never come back. Other than using them for a database they have been a great tool for prayer, it is well worth it to spend a little time going through them one by one.

In all honesty, in the last year or so, our clubs have been bigger than normal and I know kids have slipped through the cracks. And I have not done a good job with the club cards. Even if I had done a better job, I’m not sure if our team would have time, or the diligence to keep checking in an online document.

So, as this semester starts up I want to experiment with some new ideas for club cards. One of the clubs in my area uses a text message system. At club the kids text a number to join a list and then get an update each week about club on their phones. That works well for them, but I’m trying to think of other options too. At the moment I have this really high tech idea of a club card with way less questions. Maybe just: Name, Cell, Year. I think I could type that in each week. Then I also have a card for prayer and as a reminder. But I’m still trying to think through a streamlined way to keep leaders in the loop of our accumulated list of kids (other than a Googledoc, though we may end up using that).

I’d love to hear your input. What works? What doesn’t work?

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101 Great Club Ideas at Young Life Leader Blog! Plus a few other ideas…

2012-01-11T18:25:00Z

If you need ideas right away, go to the bottom of this post for a link to the best resource to date on theme clubs.

A few weeks ago (before the post) we had our semester planning meeting and came up with some outlines for our clubs. Here is what we are thinking right now:

Jan 16 – Volleyball hangout

Jan 23 – All Area Club

Jan 30 – Hipster Club

Feb 6 – Progressive Club

Feb 13 – Valentines Club

Feb 20 – No school, no club

Feb 27 – Leap year club

Mar 5 – College Club

Mar 12 – Superhero Club

Mar 19 – Spring Break, no club

Mar 26 – Mom club

Apr 2 – Kentucky Derby Club (seriously, my leaders wanted it)

Apr 9 – All AZ Club

Apr 16 – Canada/Malibu Club

Apr 23 – Mock Prom

Apr 30 – Messy Games Club

May 7 – PJ/Pillowfight Club

May 14 – Senior Run Club

May 21 – Year End Party

Those are just rough plans at the moment. But if you need a ton, I mean a ton of great ideas… See what Drew put together here… It is an incredible resource. You should bookmark it and come back to it often when you need club plans and ideas! Thank you so much Drew!

101 Theme Club Ideas at the Young Life Leader Blog

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Until Next Year… Top Ten Posts This Semester

2011-12-26T18:39:00Z

This semester had some incredible highs, and some incredible lows for me.

We already have our Pinnacle HS YL planning meeting for the Spring all set for later this week. But in the meantime, I thought I’d share the top ten posts of the last semester (based on views). Enjoy!

10. Limit the Choices for Talks

9. Christmas Club Again

8. Entire Set of Clubs

7. Fall 2011 Club Overview

6. Gospel of John Club Talks

5. YLPlaybook!

4. Club Songs in Spotify

3. Christmas Club

2. Club Talk Video: Blood Diamonds

1. Seven Talk Ideas for the Semester

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Semester Club Talk Plan for the Gospel of John A few weeks ago I mentioned that our YL region...
Fall 2011 Club Plan Overview Last Saturday we planned out our Fall 2011 clubs. I’ve...
Club Songs and Background Music on Spotify For months I have been using the free version of...

Christmas Campaigners

2011-12-21T05:45:08Z

It may be too late, but I thought I’d pass along our Christmas campaigners time from tonight.

We opened, as we always do with a game, then we sang some Christmas carols, did some announcements (including an update on Raju, the Developing Global Leaders student staff we are helping support), and then moved into our Bible study before closing with prayer requests and prayer.

For our Bible study we divided up these parts to act out:

Luke 1:26-38 Angel speaks to Mary

People: Gabriel (angel) , Mary, Narrator

Gabriel: _____________

Mary: _____________

Luke 2:1-20 Jesus’ birth

People: Caesar, Joseph, Mary, baby Jesus, Shepherds, Angel, Heavenly host (lots of angels)

Caesar: ______________

Joeseph: ________________

Baby Jesus (doll)

Shepherds (2): _____________, _______________

Angel:_______________

Heavenly host (the rest of us)

Narrator: _______________

We gave them 10 minutes to practice, then we talked about what each character experienced.

We closed with two fun Christmas videos, which are below:

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Troy Gray – We Will Miss You

2011-12-15T05:56:06Z

One of my good friends went to be with the Lord Monday night after losing his battle with a very aggressive cancer. His name is Troy Gray, Tempe, AZ Area Director, he was 29 years old.

Back in the mid-90’s Troy never went to my Wyldlife club, I guess the huge clubs and the fact that all his friends went simply weren’t enough to get him to come, I’d always give him a hard time about that over the years. But he went to Arcadia High School Young Life, the same one I went to years earlier, and his life changed through the power of Jesus and wonderful leaders like Dick and Kathy Mason, Mike Olson, and many others. Troy went on to be trained and discipled by our Area Director in Scottsdale, Rick Wilson, and later to become his intern after graduating from ASU. I was a few years ahead of Troy, but our paths have been very similar. He is also best of friends with my brother-in-law and some of my other close friends. Troy went from a sketchy teenage punk, that happened to be fantastic as basketball (he was a star in high school), to an incredible man of God, wonder husband and father, and an admired and top-notch Area Director, and he still kicked my butt in basketball too.

I’m not going to say much more, but I do want to say that I miss him very much, I love him, and I am excited to see him in a few years (whenever the Lord returns or He takes me home).

Here are a couple fun memories:

Woodleaf Program 2005 (with Joey and Laura Colletti)

A Hilarious Contact Work Training Video (with Tanita Maddox)

Troy speaking about Young Life adventures about a week before he found out he had cancer

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Hidden Valley Ranch Taste Test

2011-12-12T22:27:37Z

Our club is finishing up the semester tonight with a Ugly Sweater Christmas party. We begin the night with Christmas cookies, my wonderful wife makes a bunch of cookies and then we let kids decorate them with icing and frosting. We try to keep it clean, but if you are wondering if 50, 75, or even 100+ kids can do this, the answer is yes! We also have a small Christmas tree in our hallway with small Christmas ordainments that each club kid can write their name on and put it up on the tree. We had that up for the last two weeks and it will stay up until after Christmas. After the cookies, we will sing some Christmas songs, then do a huge white elephant gift exchange (the key is a really strict time keeper!), and then tonight we are doing a leader cardboard testimonies followed by a leader panel Q&A time.

I know lots of people have been looking up Christmas club plans and finding them here and a club talk idea here, so it may be too late to pass along new club info today. So in lieu of that I wanted to share with you a hilarious video from SNL that can be done as a skit. Megan from North Carolina sent it my way and I was laughing so hard I was crying. This could be a fun skit to do in the Spring, or maybe some of you have time to sneak it into your last club. Thanks Megan!

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Post It Note Club

2011-12-07T05:52:22Z

I’ll keep this short and sweet. Post It Note club will stick with the kids for a long time. If you got the pun in there then you would probably like most of my jokes because they are almost all like that, really punny.

But seriously, this is a simple club, lots of fun, easy to plan. The skit takes some work, but we showed the original video (see the document) after the skit (but watch out for a stray word or two) and they laughed a lot then too.

Post It Note Club.docx

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