morethandodgeball.com

Look Inside: 99 Thoughts for Small Group Leaders

99 Thoughts for Small Group Leaders

My new book with Doug Fields comes out this month – it just went up for pre-order! – just in time to get it into the hands of your small group leaders. Want to take a look inside – check out the first few pages for free in the widget above. Hope you’ll think about picking up a few copies for your small group volunteers this fall!

JG

simplyinsider.com

SJH Episode 47: Small Groups

juniorhighministry.com

4 Minutes Wisely Invested

1 September 2010

posted by Scott Rubin

Some of your churches are like mine, and you encourage some of your volunteers to ?take a breath? during the summer months. We push the pause button on our small groups in June & July so that our faithful volunteers can vacation, rest, and be ready to jump back into investing in junior highers once the school year begins. Honestly, our ministry is less effective during those months, and I miss those volunteers like crazy, but for us it?s the best choice in the long run. (and, it probably explains why so many of our volunteers have stuck around for years & years!)

So last week, I was anticipating the ?re-arrival? of our school year volunteers. I said to our staff team, ?Who?s one person that you?re really really looking forward to serving alongside of this year?? It was fun to hear people?s answers? and look forward to this fun we?re going to have together this year, as we point middle schoolers towards Jesus.

Later that day, I decided to take 4 minutes & jot a note to one of those volunteers? and tell them how much they?re valued around here ? and why. It?s a habit I?m trying to ?re-create? ? because honestly, I?ve gotten a little sloppy with it! (Which is crazy, because when I get an encouragement note, sometimes I?ll carry it around with me for a few days!) Thoughtful words are really meaningful to me — and in about 4 minutes, I can put some fuel in someone?s tank just by jotting them a snail-mail note. In a mailbox full of credit card offers and cable-tv-advertisements, a card from you would be a welcome site!

youthministrygeek.com

Apple to Provide Live Video Streaming of September 1 Event

This may make the live bloggers a little miffed, but apple announced they will live stream their event tomorrow. I love that they made this move.

From their site: Apple will broadcast its September 1 event online using Apple?s industry-leading HTTP Live Streaming, which is based on open standards. Viewing requires either a Mac running Safari on Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard, an iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad?. The live broadcast will begin at 10:00 a.m. PDT on September 1, 2010 at www.apple.com.

I’ll be sure to log in, how about you?

UPDATE: Here the link for the live stream: http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/1009qpeijrfn/event. Here are the system requirements: Safari 4 or 5 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Safari on iOS 3 or later. Sorry PC friends.

collegeministrythoughts.com

New Book Officially Released

Well, College Ministry From Scratch has finally released. Actually, it released a few days ago…I just forgot! If you’d like to read a sample (the brief introduction as well as the first chapter) click here.

Below is the table of contents. I hope it’s a help to you and your ministry!

INTRODUCTION

SECTION ONE: Chapter One: A Story of Perceived Success Chapter Two: Creating And Measuring A Sustainable Ministry Chapter Three: Developing A Job Description (that fits our goals) Chapter Four: Your First 90 Days In College Ministry Chapter Five: Understanding College-Age Issues?An Overview Chapter Six: Providing A Place To Belong

SECTION TWO: Chapter Seven: Recruiting Older Adults?Overcoming Obstacles Chapter Eight: Recruiting Older Adults?Characteristics To Look For Chapter Nine: Leading College-Age Leaders Chapter Ten: One-On-One Conversations?Questions To Ask Chapter Eleven: Starting And Sustaining Effective Small Groups Chapter Twelve: Shifts In Teaching Approaches Chapter Thirteen: Seven Critical Teaching Topics Chapter Fourteen: Mission Trips?What To Include And Why Chapter Fifteen: College-Age Retreats Chapter Sixteen: Working With Interns Chapter Seventeen: Church-Based Campus Ministry Chapter Eighteen: When Students Are Away At School

youthmissionsinsider.com

Choosing adults for your next mission trip

Who you select as volunteer adult leaders for your next mission trip will have the single biggest impact on your trip. The adults on the trip will set the tone for the students. If they are upbeat and positive and having a great time serving, so will the students. If the adults are grumbling and having a bad attitude and unhappy with the lodging, the students will reflect that attitude. So how do you choose the right adults for the trip?

Here’s a couple ideas that we know work from hundreds of great youth leaders across the country.

1. Choose adults for their passion for youth ministry and/or missions, not for their availability – there are a lot of adults who “can” go on your trip. But the adults who will serve your group the best are the ones who want to go.
2. Just because they love teenagers doesn’t mean they’ll love a mission trip – you probably have adults who are fantastic at helping lead a small group or leading games or even teaching a lesson but do they want to sleep on the floor, eat the same meal for 6 days straight, and drive 17 hours to get there? If not, there are other adults.
3. They love missions but do they love students? – in your church there are adults who want to go on every mission trip. They feel called to missions. But you’ve never seen them at a youth group function or at a small group and they’ve never really even [...]

smallchurchyouthministry.com

Its September; do u know where ur volunteers are?

Ur YM has kicked off for the fall or is about to. How’s ur voluntold team looking?

Mark DeVries in his epic book, Sustainable Youth Ministry, says u should have 1 adult volunteer (engaged and relational I would add) for every 5 of ur youth. How’s that going for you?

Some of u are doing great. Skip the rest of this blog then and go back to chatting on FB.

For the rest of you: having trouble getting enough good volunteers?

Three reasons why: 1) Have you asked the right people?

2) Have you given them a specific job description with clear cut expectations, boundaries, plans and purpose?

3) Are you spending more time with ur teens than w ur volunteers?

Let any one of these three facts go awry and that’s a place to start figuring out why ur begging and pleading for help. Why ur pulling out hairs u can’t spare from ur head. Why uve even resorted to asking the SP if he would like to help “chaperon” the MS lock-in. Ur are one desperate YP if it comes to that!

Stephanie

PS-u can always tell when i’m posting from my phone. grammer, spelling and abbreviations don’t seem to matter to me.