Youth Ministry Tips

Tip #737: Collaborate

If I had a nickel for every idea I had for a lesson, illustration, activity, or  visual that I couldn’t quite get to gel on my own, I’d be paying my tithe and my bills in nickels for more than a few years!

Youth ministers, both volunteers and staff, are constantly trying to create new material with a brainstorming party of one.  We’re often planning alone, and time pressures are always part of the equation.  It really feels like we have to “borrow” someone elses’ ideas because we don’t have a team of youth ministry-oriented  folk involved in the creative process. Often, we feel like it would take more time to get others involved, or it wouldn’t be “ours” even if we had the opportunity to share the creative process. But it’s often just us as we try to take a creative idea from shadow to ready-to-use.
This week, we’re going to share two ways we’ve found to make bringing others into the flow of creativity so much easier and more efficient.

• Google docs is a free suite of applications which includes a word processor, a spreadsheet, and presentation format (with features similar to Office) which can be shared with anyone you want to bring into the process.  Want to ask your small group leaders for input on the topics and questions for next month?  Create and share a document, and each of you can give input on the same material when it’s convenient (one less meeting!).  Make and share this week’s visuals in presentation format, or share the load of planning the retreat talks using a spreadsheet.  Did I mention, this is free?
• Find an online community to make your brainstorming group burgeon from 1 to infinity!  A new collaboration project taking submitted visuals and crafting materials to accompany them for youth ministry use has formed in the forums at our parent site, Youth Ministry Exchange.  It makes use of a flikr group for submitting images as well as a dedicated section of the Youth Ministry forum to provide creative energy and space for development.  This effort is brand new, driven by the desire of YMX members and it’s certainly something exciting to get involved in at the grass roots level.

What are some other ways you have found to collaborate for youth ministry material?  We’d love to have you post so others can benefit (gasp! we want to collaborate with you all)!  We’d also welcome your best youth ministry tips that we can share with the youth working world (use the submit link at the top of the right hand column).