I’ve posted in the past about the importance of having legitimate roles and responsibilities for the volunteers in your youth ministry – you can check out some great guest posts about it in posts like 1-Sentence Job Descriptions and Mission Critical Jobs. This week Geoff Stewart offered up his student ministry’s volunteer roles brochure to share with everyone. Download it here!
JG
What do you think?
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
A couple days ago I posted about Simply Youth Ministry’s huge contest called [dougs] Dumb Idea. They are giving away a total 30 Free mission trips to our Week of Hope program, free registrations to the Simply Youth Ministry Conference, and copies of LIVE Curriculum to 3 lucky youth pastors. Simply Youth Ministry just posted video of the day I found out…
This is video of Andy Brazelton and I discovering the contest.
Go here to sign up for the contest!
Good luck!
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.
Post by Ann:
So, I know we pretty well covered this last spring, but summer is coming again. I sat down with my husband last night to look over the next three months. I cried. This is our 10th summer. Shouldn’t I have this down by now?
Today I called one of our favorite babysitters and asked her to set aside a few days in June. That felt a little better.
Anyone have a few fresh ideas for surviving the May to August insanity?
I realize that many of you are still in the thick of summer, so please forgive me.
I would like to let out a public sigh of relief. Here in the mountains, school starts back in a week and a half. Summer is over!!! We survived regular camp, a grad trip, and an international mission trip. My husband shuts things down the two weeks before school starts. Most of the students are out of town anyway. We take some family time and then my husband has some office time to iron out the details for the fall. Yeah!! The end of summer. The fall will bring with it its own set of challenges, but at least they are local challenges.
For those of you still in the trenches of summer youth ministry, I am praying for you.
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Ann-
I feel for you!!! My husband’s schedule is so bad that I’m packing up the three kids and heading to my parents house…it’s our 9th year, and I’m still not used to it too. I love that my husband is in the ministry, but it can be hard sometimes!! I’m crying with you!