Living It

We all know that teaching principles is easier than living them. We also know that when a lesson is experienced it is much more impressionable on our lives. While at a retreat in October another youth minister shared how he brings those concepts together. Every month he has his students participate in a service project once a month. He selects the project for the following month by having students write ideas on flash cards and then drawing one from bowl. He uses the weeks leading up to the event to plan out all the logistical details for the event.

I have adopted this philosophy into our student leadership team. They submitted the following ideas: reading to students, visiting the elderly, yard work for neighbors, and a soup kitchen. Rather than drawing a card I had them vote on their choice for November. While planning the visit to the soup kitchen, a need was brought to my attention. Someone my wife new was put in a situation requiring her to move near her parents. As a result, the team and I decided to push back the soup kitchen to December and tomorrow we will be helping with the move.

I'm thrilled to be able to provide the students with an opportunity to help a family truly in need. This is a lesson they will never forget.

Do your students serve? If not, opportunities for service are only a relationship away.

Bored

Two weeks ago, while at our student leadership team meeting, one of the leaders said, "Dude, I've been getting bored on Sunday nights." We need some different activities.
My first thought was, "Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." Okay, that wasn't my first thought. My first thought was "Wow, what else can we add? What else can we do?" We have basketball, a room full of video games, a hang out room etc.A few days ago I was thumbing through my planner and saw a quote I had written down from a speaker, "Never assume what worked yesterday will work today! Re-evaluate what is working today - it won't work tomorrow."

It's funny how often we need to re-evaluate and try something fresh. As the weather changes we have realized that the outdoor free-time activities are going to come to an end and more and more students will want activities available indoors. Our solution to this problem is a radically different layout on Sunday nights. We will switch teaching rooms and use our largest space in the building for free time during the winter months rather than the worship service. If you saw our layout, it is a pretty extreme decision.

We will go to a stage that is a third of the size. We will be going from three screens to one. The band will be playing direct from their amps not our sound system. We will be abandoning round tables and going to row seating. Why this drastic change? We realized by not thinking outside of the box we would keep a Wow factor service but have poor relational, activity time by not having sufficient activity space.

Going to the alternative room won’t be bad by any means, we will have a much more intimate setting. Messages and content will have a “different” vibe. There will be less opportunity for distractions in this location. The large room will be an awesome hang out activity station.

What extreme decisions do you need to make? What worked for you last month that might not be working now? Think about it before you find yourself out in the cold.

Important Survey for Pastors

Hello Readers,

If you are a Pastor at a church please take a minute to read this blurb from our senior pastor and complete the survey.

Hey, I was wondering if you would be willing to help me do something really cool for Aids orphans in Africa. This isn't some nutty spam thing.

I am in the process of developing a strategic partnership to launch a school/Aids clinic/church plant in Nairobi Kenya.

As an author, one of the ways I want to help fund this is through a book that I write that is packaged into an all-church campaign, much like what other author’s have done.

Here’s where I need your help. I’ve created a survey to help me determine what topics/issues would be most helpful to pastors who might want to do an all-church campaign in their church.

Could you take this quick survey? I would really value your input.

Also, would you mind putting a note about this in your blog (or emailing other pastors) and encouraging them to take the survey? I will post the results to this survey on my blog on December 15th. I think the info. we gather could be really helpful to dynamic church leaders out there.

Here’s the survey link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Cn3ERIeQFZpudTx9cZzEXw_3d_3d

I really appreciate this!

Brian Jones
http://www.brianjones.com/

The End is Near... The Golden Compass

The buzz is in the air, I've received several emails urging me to get the word out, "Avoid The Golden Compass... especially if you have young kids!"

My suggestion would be to take your kids to see the movie and enter into a dialogue with them. Why should we ruin a perfect teaching opportunity? I will be going to see it and look forward to a potential series we can do here on Sunday nights.

I have a few challenges for everyone who is quick to forward an email: Did you go to the movie site as well as do research on the author to confirm the claims on snopes.com? (Check out an interview on MSNBC) Does your forward go to "non-believers" and if so what emotion are you trying to evoke?

Perhaps the subject line could be... "Great teaching opportunity, Hollywood produces a movie that mentions a creator being overtaken by its creation." I've seen a similar story with a different outcome in Isaiah 14:12-14. Maybe you should check it out with me.

Events

If you want expert advice on event planning you should probably go to Jonathan's website http://www.blogger.com/www.thescource4ym.com. On his site you will find a book and a podcast addressing the issue as well as some event ideas.

If you want my two cents, read on. Regardless of the size of your ministry events are a great way to get students to show up. This is true if you have 4 students or 400. Here is a quick list of some things to consider as you plan your event.

• Determine the Purpose - Every event doesn't need to have a theological component. Don't try to spiritualize your middle school trip to the corn maze.
• Pick a Strategic Time - Push to have your event either during your regular youth group time or if you meet on Sunday mornings, immediately following your youth group time. We used to do our events on Friday night in order to get students to show up for something fun. The problem was they already had fun plans for Friday night. Our youth group time is on Sunday nights for the convenience factor. If a student can show up on Sunday for an event, they can certainly show up the following week for group.
• Get Them to Return - Give them a reason to come back after the event. This is not budget dependent! If you have a budget that allows you to give out t-shirts to every student who shows up the following week do it! Showing pictures or a video of the event the following week, that's free!
• Count the Cost - The larger the number of attendees for events, the more planning you need to do. There will come a time when you can't do an event every month of the year. When I first started, we had a fun event for every month: Jan - Ski Trip, Feb - PCTC Conference, Mar - Camp Tockwagh (Service Project), Apr - Movie Night, May - Bowling, Jun - MS Camp Out/HS Graduation Service, Jul - MS Mini Golf/HS CIY Conference, Aug - Movie night, Sep - Amusement Park, Oct - MS Corn Maze and Bonfire/HS Haunted House (the following week we would teach on Demons), Nov - Shady Maple (All You Can Eat Smorgasbord), Dec - Mall Scavenger Hunt and Christmas Party. Currently we do a large scale quarterly event.
• Big Yellow School Bus - Contact a local bus company for transportation. You will be surprised how affordable they are and here are three benefits: you get a professional driver, you can easily accommodate a wide number of attendees (from 1 to 72), you can actually talk to students and not have to drive!
• Cell Phone List - Put parents at ease by giving them several leaders phone numbers.
• Event Release Form - Keep a form on hand for the entire year that works as a waiver and insurance purposes.
• Split the Groups - If you want HS Students to invite their friends, don't have MS students be a part of the event.
• Bring a Friend Incentive - We've done this two ways in the past; first, the kid who brings the most friends gets a prize like an (ipod shuffle) or gets to (shave Sally's head). The second option was "for every two friends you bring you get (a movie ticket) gets a chance to win (four movie tickets). Whoever brings the most friends seems to be going better for us now because we have some powerful bringers. In the past, an incintive for everyone to bring others was better because the same kid was winning every time.
• Hang out before and after - Before and after your event, depending on the time, encourage your leaders to get together with the students. Sleepovers the night before or after the event were huge for the students.

That's all I got for now. If you have any other great tips please leave them as comments. If you have any specific questions email me!

Great Resources

If you're like me you are always looking for great resources. Here is a list that our teaching team came up with. Enjoy, and please add any additional that we missed in the comment section.
Video Ideas:

http://youtube.com/ (use tabs for highest rated/most used)
http://www.preachingtoday.com/
http://www.sermonspice.com/
http://meatloafmedia.com/
http://www.bluefishtv.com/
http://www.ministryandnmedia.com/
http://www.36parables.com/
http://www.thesource4ym.com/
http://www.worshipfilms.com/
http://www.lifechurch.tv/
http://www.mediashout.com/
http://www.creativepastors.com/
http://floodgateproductions.com/
http://imeem.com/
http://barnafilms.com/
http://www.churchmedia.net/
http://postmodernparables.com/
http://worshiphousemedia.com/
http://radiatefilms.com/
http://sermonvideos.com/
http://visualscripture.com/
http://www.highwayvideo.com/
http://www.ignitermedia.com/
http://www.atomfilms.com/
http://funnyjunk.com/
http://www.collegehumor.com/
http://ebaumsworld.com/
http://funmansion.com/

Preaching, Stories and Information:

http://Sermonnews.com/
http://Willowcreek.com/
http://northpoint.org/
http://www.creativepastors.com/
http://GCCwired.com/
http://Pastors.com/
http://www.lifechurch.tv/

Blogs:

http://Evotional.com/
http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/

Songs:

http://Billboard.com/
http://www.myspace.com/
http://www.rhapsody.com/
http://www.apple.com/itunes/
http://MTV.com/
http://www.vh1.com/
http://Pandora.com/
Any radio station’s playlist

Worship Music:

Rhapsodyradio http://internetradio.wetpaint.com/page/Rhapsody+Radio?t=anon
http://Christianmusic.com/
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/
http://Christianmusic.org/
http://Worshipmusic.com/
http://todayschristianmusic.com/
http://www.christianmusicplanet.com/
http://www.ccmmagazine.com/
http://Klove.com/
http://Worshiptogether.com/

Dramas:
http://Dramashare.org/
http://Churchdramas.com/
http://willowcreek.com/ServiceBuilder/


Thanks!

More of Me

Because you just can't get enough information about me... check out my new blog at http://www.mattsilver.org/.

Enjoy :)