June 2012
41 posts
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Reaching Out To Graduated Students
A few weeks ago now we had “promotion Sunday” at our church. Promotion Sunday is the time when our 8th graders graduate up into high school and we receive a fresh batch of brand new 6th graders into our ministry.
Here is a quick question that came to my mind this week: what are we doing for the students who have graduated out of our ministry? Once our students leave our youth...
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Youth Ministry Hangout #3
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Youth Ministry Survey: Teenage Spiritual Growth
<a href=”http://4102842.polldaddy.com/s/youth-ministry-survey-student-discipleship” data-mce-href=”http://4102842.polldaddy.com/s/youth-ministry-survey-student-discipleship”>View Survey</a>
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Intergenerational Youth Ministry
Today I sat in on part two of Kara Powell’s Sticky Faith seminar based on her book “Sticky Faith: Practical Ideas To Nurture Long-Term Faith In Teenagers” and it got me thinking about my own youth ministry experience as a student growing up. When I was in jr. High and high school my experience of youth ministry was very different from what most youth ministries look like around...
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Youth Ministry Book Highlight: "STICKY FAITH"
Today I had the privilege of sitting in on a seminar with Kara Powell (Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute and author of the book “Sticky Faith”) about why around 50% of church-going teenagers walk away from the faith when they graduate from high school and move on to college.
I will be writing a few different posts about our discussions later this week (it’s a...
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When Students LEAD...They Don't LEAVE!
One of my favorite parts of working in youth ministry is seeing students step up to the plate and begin to serve. I love watching jr. high and high school students discover their gifts and then use them to serve the church in a variety of different ways. At IGNITION (Daybreak Church’s Jr. High Ministry) one of our core values is having students lead the ministry. We really value having...
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IGNITION Weekend In Review 6/17/12
Series: “Welcome To The Middle”
Title: 6th Grade Weekend
Sermon In A Sentence: Now that you know all about our jr. high ministry, you need to ask yourself “where can I PLUG into the PLAN?”
MESSAGE SUMMARY: This past weekend at IGNITION (Daybreak Church’s Jr. High Ministry) was our promotion Sunday where we received all of our brand new 6th graders. We had a ton...
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How to build a youth ministry program
Yesterday on episode #2 of the “YOUTH MINISTRY HANGOUT” Dennis, Nikkie, Peter and I discussed the most important aspects of building a youth ministry program. Specifically we were asking the question, “how do I plan my youth program?” whether that is a midweek service, weekend service or even small groups. Here are the BIG THREE IDEAS we came up with during the show:
1) KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE! Are...
YOUTH MINISTRY HANGOUT #2
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YOUTH MINISTRY HANGOUT Today!
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This is a brand new song that we’ve been...
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Youth Ministry Idea: "Photo-booth"
Here’s a quick/fun idea for your next youth ministry event. A couple of weeks ago we set up a simple “photo booth” station in our jr. high service where students could take free pictures of themselves and their friends as we finished up our series on friendships/dating.
After their picture was taken we had a volunteer edit/touch up the photos and then we gave them away the...
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Youth Ministry Resource: "SYM Tools"
This is probably one of the COOLEST and most USEFUL youth ministry resource that I could point you to. SYM Tools does it all! Here’s some of the features:
-create your own youth ministry rolodex of students/volunteers
-recruit new volunteers via online applicaitons
-communicate via text blasts to your students
-watch hours of solid youth ministry training from my friend Kurt...
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WatchLooking for a place to take your students for Summer Camp this year? Join us at the MIX Summer Conference on July 22-25th in Orange, CA. MIX is the most jr. high intentional program you will ever take your students to. It’s going to be a blast. Don’t live in California? No worries. Check out the MIX website to find the closest Summer Conference to you! Summer is here!
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IGNITION Weekend In Review 6/10/12
Series: Oh, The Places You’ll Go!
Title: 8th Grade Weekend
Sermon In A Sentence: As your world gets BIGGER, don’t let Jesus slip into the BACKGROUND!
MESSAGE SUMMARY: This weekend we said goodbye to our 8th grade students and commissioned them on to high school. It was a super fun weekend. The entire weekend was Dr. Seuss themed…we even had a Cat In The Hat mascot! My...
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Youth Ministry Hangout #1 (beta)
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YOUTH MINISTRY HANGOUT!
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Youth Ministry Poll: Summer & Youth Ministry
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Some Thoughts For Promotion Weekend
For most youth workers, promotion weekend is upon us (or has just passed) where brand new 6th graders & brand new 9th graders join our youth ministries. At IGNITION (Daybreak Church’s Jr. High Ministry), this upcoming weekend is our PROMOTION SUNDAY for incoming 6th graders. Here is a copy of the email that I just sent out to our youth leaders regarding their roles this weekend....
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Youth Ministry 101: Helping Your jr. high & High...
As I’m writing this post I’ve just finished up a meeting with a couple of Jr. High parents who were concerned about their students falling through the cracks (their students hadn’t really gotten “plugged in” deeply to our youth ministry) in the church.
As I was listening to their concerns, a few thoughts came to me about partnering with parents. Here are some simple...
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Youth Ministry Idea: "Classy Youth Ministry Tour"
This past weekend we had our incoming 6th grade Parent meeting at Daybreak Church. We used this time to get to know brand new parents, inform them about our purpose/strategy/programs and offer them help and hope as they enter the crazy years of parenting middle school students!
One idea that we tried that worked pretty well was our Jr. High Ministry “Classy Tour”. Basically we...
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IGNITION Weekend In Review 6/3/12
Series: THE GUY/GIRL THING
Title: “Relationship Q&A”
Sermon In A Sentence: When it comes to relationships…it’s OK to ask QUESTIONS!
MESSAGE SUMMARY: This weekend we wrapped up our 4-week series on friendships/dating/sex/relationships with a “Relationship Q&A Panel”. Instead of a regular message, we had a few married couples (some older, some...
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Youth Ministry Resource: SHIRTS FOR MISSIONS →
Do you need shirts made for an upcoming youth ministry event? Need shirts made for your volunteers? Head over to www.shirtsformissions.com to check out my friend Dennis Beckner’s new company. I use him all the time for our youth ministry events. Here’s the mission of SFM:
The Mission
There is a pretty big mission behind what’s going on here. It actually has 3 parts…
1. Help people...
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Youth Ministry Idea: Why I Like jr. High Lock-ins
This morning I finished up our 6th grade boys lock in at the church. It was an awesome (and exhausting) night of junk food, video games, crazy games and great memories. And even though I am basically comatose at this point after getting near to no sleep here are some quick thoughts:
1) Lock-ins’ are powerful. I know that holding a lock in is super hard, very tiring and takes years off of...
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GUEST POST: 5 Reasons your youth ministry may...
Here is a recent post of mine entitled, “5 Reasons your youth ministry may never grow.” I was having some issues posting the text so I posted a link so that you could see my blog and other recent blog posts of mine. I would love to share some of my thoughts on your blog sometime. I have subscribed to yours, and have you in my reader. If you have any further questions about my ministry...
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WatchCheck out this AWESOME promo video my buddy Ryer Flaker made for our jr. high and high school youth ministry at Daybreak Church. Super cool. I love the very apparent difference between jr. high and high school students as displayed in this video. Thanks Ryer!
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Check out ChurchWebWorks! →
Our church’s website was highlighted recently by +Church Web Works . If you are looking for a web designer for your church or youth ministry, check them out!
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Join A Youth Ministry Circle! →
Looking for some great youth workers to connect with? Get to know some of these! Great friends with great youth ministries.
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WatchThis weekend is our 8th Grade Weekend at IGNITION (Daybreak Church’s Jr. High Ministry) and I am speaking on the three big ideas that jr. high students need to know before they graduate up into high school. I’m using a clip from the tv show “King Of The Hill” which illustrates a hope that our graduating 8th graders won’t “grow out” of Jesus as they move...
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Using Adobe Creative Cloud In Your Youth Ministry →
Are you a youth worker on a small budget? If you don’t have someone to make graphics/videos for your services, you might want to consider grabbing a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud. For a cheap subscription you can use all the Adobe software without having to purchase the entire suite. Here’s my idea: 1) Get an adobe creative cloud subscription 2) Grab a student in your youth...
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Watch The Simply Youth Ministry Show! →
Hey youth workers! Looking for some great youth ministry training/ideas? Then subscribe today to the SIMPLY YOUTH MINISTRY SHOW! My friends Kurt Johnston and Jason Carson are the hosts. Great content & great fun.
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