Mission Trip to Staten Island Island

Today is been a day of fun work and fun times on the Susquehanna Conference Mission Trip to Staten Island. 

Check out the pictures below.

The greatest part is ending with worship on the Beach

Young People's ministry Mission Trip to New York Update

Where in our second day of working on Staten Island helping victims of Hurricane Sandy. The students are really excited about this opportunity to help others and are working extremely hard.

Below are a few pictures of some of the projects that they have been working on so far.

New York Mission Trip

This week I will be live blogging pictures and experiences from a mission trip that the Young People's ministry counsel Of the Susquehanna Conference is sponsoring to help victims of Hurricane Sandy. 

We will be traveling to Staten Island, New York. I would ask for your prayers for the people we will be helping and for the young people and their leaders who will be traveling on this trip.

You can also follow us on Instagram (youngpplministry) and Twitter (@yngpplministry)

3 Must Have Apps

If you are in ministry with young people, then it is my belief that you MUST  have a smartphone. I realize that you can still be in ministry without a

smartphone, but staying connected with young people these days means constantly being on the move and I have found the use of my smart phone invaluable. So here are 3 apps that I think you should have. (This assumes that you already have social media applications like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc.)

Groupme

by Mindless Dribble Inc.

Cost: Free

This app is basically a group texting app. The benefit that I like with this particular app is that there is a web interface which a lot of other group texting apps do not have. The way it works is you create a group (large or small) of people that you want to communicate with, simply put in their contact information (mobile phone or email) and you can type I message and they will all receive it. If they also have this app they can carry on a conversation with you and you can see the thread of the conversation within the app. There are lots of neat controls (admittedly I have not tried out all of them yet) but I’ve begun using it and love it.

IB Questions

By Callum Henderson (icebreakers.me)

Cost: $.99

This app is probably my favorite app on the phone. It stands for IceBreaker Questions.  It’s basically a random generating question app. It has 3 different age groups (kids, teenagers, adults) and randomly generates various questions to get people talking. You can use the app in conjunction with another game or if you’re taking a long road trip it makes for great fun. It kind of reminds me of the book “the book of questions”, but it’s on my phone which means I will use it and you should too.

Group Games

by Callum Henderson (icebreakers.me)

Cost: $1.99

This is another great app if you are involved in youth and young adult ministry because it is chock full of games at the ready. It’s designed for groups large and small, inside or outside. It’s a great tool to have at the ready when you need to take up some down time with a group. I have found that these games can be used with kids, teenagers or adults and it makes a great resource.

Leading Like Jesus

I’ve read (listened to) a lot of the teaching books out there. I have done the same with the leadership books. But nothing compares to looking at the example of how Jesus led. Our ultimate goal as Christians is to so imitate Jesus in every way, shape and form that people don’t recognize us as much as they recognize Jesus. Here are a few things that I noticed about how Jesus chose to lead.

Used the Common and Ordinary-When Jesus set down with his followers across from the temple, he called their attention to the seemingly mundane to share the good news and expectations of God. Throughout Scripture you find him calling attention to the average ordinary things of life to make his point. What I take away from that is that we need to pay attention to the world around us and use common everyday experiences that people have to communicate the truth of Jesus. If that means citing a commercial, using a common catchphrase or bringing biblical stories into the 21^st century, then do it!

The 500, 72, 12, 3, and 1 Approach-No matter how small your group size, it’s difficult to connect and deeply disciple more than a handful. Jesus had different relationships with different people. His inner circle was comprised of 3: Peter, James and John. Then, he had John.

In student ministry, a huge win is to have your leaders understand Jesus' relational model and live it out. Some of “my” 12 would be another leaders 3. Some of their 72 might be in “my” 12. It makes connections with individuals easier and creates community and inclusion for all of your students.

Community, community, community-Just like in real estate it’s all about location, location, location; in ministry it’s all about community. It’s going to take time, plain and simple to form that community. It’s going to require us to spend time with our teams to determine our individual and collective giftedness. Our teams need to take on significant and specific roles on group nights and with students.

The Team-Trusting the team requires equipping, observation, and time. One of the most difficult things that I ever learned with a student ministry team was, “you don’t have to teach the way I do, but you do have to teach.” Each person on the team has a different skill level at teaching; it is each of ours responsibility to give everyone the tools they need (equipping), to provide coaching and feedback (observing) and to allow them space (time) to develop their particular skill.