I'm kind of a reality TV show junkie. I started by watching "The Real World" on MTV, back in the day and today I try to watch as many as I can. From "Survivor" and "Project Runway", to "Top Chef" and "Hell's Kitchen," I I love them all. But my all time favorite reality TV show is "The Amazing Race."
For those of you who have not seen this show, let me tell you a little bit about it. 12 teams of two race around the world together and check in at Pit stops along the way. During each leg there are a variety of challenges that each of the teams must complete. The last team to check in on each leg is eliminated until one team remains as the winner. The two reasons this is my favorite reality TV show are because of all the interesting places around the world that they visit and the fact that it's about the team that can complete the challenge is the fastest, not about the "backstabbing" drama of other reality shows.
Abington Press has seized on the same idea of "The Amazing Race" and produced a Christian education program entitled "The Amazing Bible Race." Like the show, this curriculum is divided into "Legs" (6 in all that are 12 weeks long). And while you don't travel around the world to exotic locations, you do race through the entire Bible reading it from cover to cover. So here's how it works. Each group signs up a team (larger churches can have multiple teams.) Participants in the race earn points for completing daily Bible readings, a weekly reading bonus, weekly challenges and participating in quizzes which they call "Hurdles." There is usually a weekly team meeting to see how everyone is doing which can meet during your youth fellowship time or a youth Sunday school or Bible study.
There are some interesting components to this curriculum including web-based quizzes, the ability to upload pictures and have messages sent between the team members. This program is perhaps the most comprehensive biblical reading program out there for youth.
I encourage you to check it out and see how you could use it in your youth ministry program. There are options in how to use this material, including,doing one leg for a 12 week intensive Bible study, or selecting daily readings and quizzes to develop into a retreat. If you are a church who is a member of the Susquehanna Conference of the United Methodist Church in Central and Northeastern PA, you can preview copies of each leg from our resource center, Discovery Place or check out their website at www.amazingbiblerace.com.
Good luck, and don"t be the last team to arrive, because you may be eliminated
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Starting or Restarting a Youth Ministry
As the summer comes to a close and the new school year is just around the corner, now is the perfect time to think about starting or restarting a youth ministry. To get you started on figuring out how to do this, I listed a few key things to keep in mind.
Determine a Need - A lot of churches want to have a youth ministry, however there is no need for youth ministry at their church. Before you even begin to start a youth ministry, you need to discover whether or not you have youth in your church or in your community that you can minister to. This can seem kind of basic, but you would be surprised at the number of churches who want a youth ministry because that's what every other church in their area has. However the makeup of their church and the surrounding area does not lend itself to having used in.
Develop a Purpose - There is a passage from Proverbs which says, "Without a purpose, the people will perish." This is true with churches and ministries within the church. If you do not understand why you are doing a particular ministry, the ministry will never sustain itself for the long-term. So if you are starting or restarting a youth ministry within your church, spend some time developing a solid purpose for what the ministry is going to be about.
Start Small - There is an old adage that many people know it's called the K.I.S.S. principle (Keep It Simple Stupid). This is a very smart principle to remember when starting or restarting the youth ministry program. People think that youth ministry programs need to be totally put together and healthy from the onset, but that simply does not need to be the case. If you start small and do simple ministry events, you can grow a program over time that will be healthy and will meet the needs of your church and community.
Don't be Afraid to Fail - When you're starting or restarting a new ministry, not everything is going to work the first time. If you are afraid to do an event or program because it might fail, you are limiting the potential for God to work through you. If you try a program in ministry and it doesn't work, evaluate it and see if you can change it to make it work better. If it bombs completely, you have learned valuable information. Take your failures as a learning process.
I hope some of these tips will help you in your goal to start or restart your youth ministry program. These same principles can be applied to young adult ministry programs as well. Good luck!
Determine a Need - A lot of churches want to have a youth ministry, however there is no need for youth ministry at their church. Before you even begin to start a youth ministry, you need to discover whether or not you have youth in your church or in your community that you can minister to. This can seem kind of basic, but you would be surprised at the number of churches who want a youth ministry because that's what every other church in their area has. However the makeup of their church and the surrounding area does not lend itself to having used in.
Develop a Purpose - There is a passage from Proverbs which says, "Without a purpose, the people will perish." This is true with churches and ministries within the church. If you do not understand why you are doing a particular ministry, the ministry will never sustain itself for the long-term. So if you are starting or restarting a youth ministry within your church, spend some time developing a solid purpose for what the ministry is going to be about.
Start Small - There is an old adage that many people know it's called the K.I.S.S. principle (Keep It Simple Stupid). This is a very smart principle to remember when starting or restarting the youth ministry program. People think that youth ministry programs need to be totally put together and healthy from the onset, but that simply does not need to be the case. If you start small and do simple ministry events, you can grow a program over time that will be healthy and will meet the needs of your church and community.
Don't be Afraid to Fail - When you're starting or restarting a new ministry, not everything is going to work the first time. If you are afraid to do an event or program because it might fail, you are limiting the potential for God to work through you. If you try a program in ministry and it doesn't work, evaluate it and see if you can change it to make it work better. If it bombs completely, you have learned valuable information. Take your failures as a learning process.
I hope some of these tips will help you in your goal to start or restart your youth ministry program. These same principles can be applied to young adult ministry programs as well. Good luck!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Good Sex 2.0
Let's talk about sex!
Sex saturates the world our students are growing up in. Everywhere they look (or listen) they can hear all kinds of messages about sexuality, and most of it probably isn't helping them develop a heathly understanding of how their own sexuality fits into God's plan for their lives. In Walter Mueller's book "Youth Culture 101", he cites the latest research from the US Centers for Disease Control concerning teenagers engaging in sexual intercourse. Among High Schoolers in the United States:
34% of ninth graders are sexually active
43% of 10th graders are sexually active
51% of 11th graders are sexually active
63% of 12th graders are sexually active.
For young adults, 80% of College students (students 18 to 24 age) are sexually active.
In Good Sex 2.0, you'll find tools to help you (and parents of teens) involve your students in understanding, enjoying and talking responsibly about their sexuality without lecturing and moralizing. This seven-session program is broken down into the following topics: Sex Messaging, Sexual Identity, Intimacy, Desire, Boundaries, Responsiblity and Do-overs. Recently updated, it includes a DVD, reproducible handouts, scripture references on sexuality. Produced by Youth Specialties, a trusted resource for youth ministry for many years.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
WUWH - BTW - LOL...HuH?
Effectively communicating is a challenge in this day and age. We are all bombarded with a constant stream of communication through phone calls, e-mails, TV, radio, the Internet, and the latest text messaging. You would think with all the technological advances that have occurred, that we would have gotten better at effectively communicating with one another. However, I have found that this is not the case. I find it a daily challenge to communicate with the people I work with, the people I am in ministry with and just people in general.
I have noticed an interesting phenomenon in communicating with young people. I thought they would love to respond to e-mails. It is an easy way to communicate with people, there is a record of the communication and it is fast and easy to do. However, what I found out is that e-mail is probably one of the least effective ways to communicate with young people these days. Their preference-text messaging.
(A short disclaimer) Text messaging is not my favorite. I do not type very well, especially on a small mobile device. I also have a hard time keeping track of more than about two conversations at one time. If that were not bad enough, the shorthand that most people use to communicate through text messaging is like deciphering the code from an international spy. That being said, I know that if I want to reach the young people that I am in ministry with that I am going to have to overcome this shortfall.
It is a little confusing to me that young people will not just pick up the phone and call the person that they want to communicate with. They have the phone in their hand, it would seem to me that it would be faster. However, when asked a few young people why they prefer text messaging this is the response I got. From their perspective, text messaging is a fast and easy way to carry on more than one conversation at a time, to communicate while you were doing other activities and to communicate on the sly (bring back the days of passing notes!)
So here are a few suggestions that I would offer up. First, if you do not have a cell phone that can send and receive text messages, get one. I believe you to be at a severe disadvantage in ministering and connecting with the young people of today if you do not have the ability to contact them via text messaging. Secondly, I would encourage you to invest in a text messaging plan that is unlimited. Young people send a lot of text messages. One of the youth that I work with regularly sends upwards to 20,000 a month (And no, that is not a typo.) If you do not have a plan that covers an unlimited number you can be overly charged with additional fees from cell phone providers. Finally, get a text message shorthand crib sheet. I have one that is a poster hanging in my office. Or you can just simply Google "text shorthand help" and there are several websites that you can get help with deciphering text message shorthand.
I wish you luck in communicating with young people via text messaging. It's taken me a little while to get used to it, but it can be a very effective way of communicating.
I have noticed an interesting phenomenon in communicating with young people. I thought they would love to respond to e-mails. It is an easy way to communicate with people, there is a record of the communication and it is fast and easy to do. However, what I found out is that e-mail is probably one of the least effective ways to communicate with young people these days. Their preference-text messaging.
(A short disclaimer) Text messaging is not my favorite. I do not type very well, especially on a small mobile device. I also have a hard time keeping track of more than about two conversations at one time. If that were not bad enough, the shorthand that most people use to communicate through text messaging is like deciphering the code from an international spy. That being said, I know that if I want to reach the young people that I am in ministry with that I am going to have to overcome this shortfall.
It is a little confusing to me that young people will not just pick up the phone and call the person that they want to communicate with. They have the phone in their hand, it would seem to me that it would be faster. However, when asked a few young people why they prefer text messaging this is the response I got. From their perspective, text messaging is a fast and easy way to carry on more than one conversation at a time, to communicate while you were doing other activities and to communicate on the sly (bring back the days of passing notes!)
So here are a few suggestions that I would offer up. First, if you do not have a cell phone that can send and receive text messages, get one. I believe you to be at a severe disadvantage in ministering and connecting with the young people of today if you do not have the ability to contact them via text messaging. Secondly, I would encourage you to invest in a text messaging plan that is unlimited. Young people send a lot of text messages. One of the youth that I work with regularly sends upwards to 20,000 a month (And no, that is not a typo.) If you do not have a plan that covers an unlimited number you can be overly charged with additional fees from cell phone providers. Finally, get a text message shorthand crib sheet. I have one that is a poster hanging in my office. Or you can just simply Google "text shorthand help" and there are several websites that you can get help with deciphering text message shorthand.
I wish you luck in communicating with young people via text messaging. It's taken me a little while to get used to it, but it can be a very effective way of communicating.
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