Youth Ministry Tips

Tip #7: Pause

February 4, 2008 – 11:29 am
Here we are, halfway through the school year which means this is a great time for you and your team of adults to pause and evaluate. Take a few hours to retreat with your team to pray, plan and evaluate. Is your ministry on course and moving toward the goals and vision? Are ministry plans moving the students you serve toward life-long discipleship? Are your summer plans made; do they further the course? Take some time to check in with your partners in ministry; examine your ministry's trajectory; make any course corrections that might be needed with your plans, your teams, your students.

Posted in leadership, planning, time management | No Comments »

Tip #55: Remember

January 28, 2008 – 2:11 pm
There are occasionally long stretches of time in youth ministry that truly feel like spending 40 days in the desert with the unhappy Israelites. In these times it is important for us to remember what God has done, just as God reminds his people (16 times in just the book of Deuteronomy). Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. - Deuteronomy 8:2 Today's tip is for the lean times, the tough times of testing, but it starts today. In whatever manner suits your habits and needs - be it computer or paper or something else - keep a personal journal of what you see God has done in you, in your students, in your church, in ...

Posted in encouragement | No Comments »

Tip #42: Organize

January 20, 2008 – 9:59 pm
Can you find the book or document you need every time?  No searching through stacks of paperwork or magazines, or boxes?  Even the most organized among us has those moments where items simply escape.  But there are strategies for keeping that from happening, starting with the piles on your desk.  Make your new rule "handle items once" to eliminate the piles. Direct Mailings & Catalogs - advertising pieces about mission agencies, camps, curriculum and everything else come across your desk every business day.  If it's not a product that's an immediate need, or it's not related to a project already a goal, recycle it.  If it's something you'll use, file it right away in folders of related material ("camps", "mission agencies") for future use. Magazines - use magazine files to organize the issues on your shelf so they're handy when you can read them (or when you're looking for that game ...

Posted in discipline, planning, resource management, time management, youth ministry | 1 Comment »

Tip #24: Multiply

January 13, 2008 – 3:21 pm
The scope of your ministry is only limited by your multiplication of leadership.  You cannot possibly hang out with every student, solve every problem, answer every question, plan every event. Fight the prideful belief that no one can do it the way you can. Carefully select key adults in your ministry that you can entrust with ministry and pour into them as disciples and leaders.  Teach them to do likewise with students.  They can do ministry at times and places, and with kids and families you are not.  They can connect with people you don't.  They can be places you can't.  By entrusting the message to equipped and reliable leaders, you have multiplied the ministry to which you are called. Don't give in to the fallacy that only you can lead.  If you take the time to teach the standards, expectations and impart the vision, yoy can empower leaders who can ...

Posted in collaboration, leadership, resource management, volunteers, youth ministry | No Comments »

Tip #5: Mark It

January 2, 2008 – 10:44 am
You're putting together a lesson or a sermon and you dig out a resource or curriculum to tweak, maybe even a book you've recently read to pull a quote from, and you think to yourself, "I used this somewhere before, where was that?" Been there? Yeah, me too, and therein lies the genesis of this tip! When you pull a resource out, mark it! In the margin of the book (or with a sticky note if you're a person who just can't bring yourself to write in books), write what you used, where and when, and for what purpose (game, small group, sermon, large group lesson). For other media, like CDs or DVDs, go with the sticky on the inside of the case or notes booklet. For web sources, a document or spreadsheet noting the site and details would also work well. Bonus... keep a log ...

Posted in creative, planning, resource management, teaching, youth ministry | No Comments »

YouthMinistryTips.com’s Best of 2007

December 31, 2007 – 12:48 pm
The most popular youth ministry tips we've published this year at youthministrytips.com are: Tip #12: Frustration Avoidance Tip #98:  Watch Your Language Tip #737:  Collaborate See your best tips and tricks for youth ministry published here in 2008.  Submit a tip and share the love. Here's to 2008 being a year of blessing for you, and the youth & families you serve in Jesus name!

Posted in best of 2007, youth ministry | No Comments »

Tip #1: Tick, Tick, Tick

December 16, 2007 – 9:35 pm
In one of the most memorable youth ministry convention speeches I've ever heard, Andy Stanley said "There's not enough time to get it all done." Does that resonate with your life in ministry? It did with mine! Time management is probably the biggest challenge people in ministry face. We're always on call. We believe passionately in our cause. We have Earthly and Heavenly accountability. All this makes us not want to say no, to be responsive, to be effective, to go above and beyond. But, to be honest, we can't do everything, or be there for everyone, without dropping the ball on something else. Most of us in youth ministry are super-connected for information and availability; that's a good and bad thing for our time. Email is one of the items - dare I call it a necessary evil? - that has the ...

Posted in discipline, goals, planning, time management, youth ministry | No Comments »