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Thanks!

Dennis

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Teaching Jr Highers

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I saw this post over on Kurt Johnston’s blog. He’s got a lot of great stuff on his blog. Click here to check it out.

Teaching 101….part one.

Here is a short list of what I believe to be fundamental when teaching/speaking to junior highers:

– The first minute is the most important minute
– It doesn’t need to be long to be good
– If it’s going to be long it needs to be good
– Junior Highers like to laugh
– Junior Highers like stories
– Be authentic
– Be relevant to THEIR world
– When possible, include active learning ingredients. Students learn more when they experience it.
– Offer specific application steps
– The last minute is also the most important minute

Small Group Leader Training

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I’ve been asked to share some tips for small group leaders this week in our training meeting. I only have 3 or 4 minutes. Since it’s directed toward rookie leaders,

I thought I’d share 2 helpful thoughts about leading a small group. One is for the leader’s sanity and longevity. The other is for bonding the group in a safe close-knit environment.

1. For your sake: Thinking through age-appropriate behavior will save you a lot of anguish and you can use it to help you plan your lesson
— Think through what to expect from your group based on their gender and age
— What will the energy level and attention span be?
— How can you use that to their advantage while teaching?

2. For your students’ sake: Define the culture of your group and actively pursue it.
— This is our group
— What’s said in the group stays in the group
— We will have fun, but not at each other’s expense
— When it’s time to start the Bible study, we’ll do it without a lot of messing around and everybody will participate

Volunteer Round Table Discussions

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I got permission from our youth ministry team to conduct volunteer round table discussions. We’ve done these in training meetings years ago. They were some of the best trainings we’ve had because we’re discussing youth ministry concepts with others who also volunteer youth workers. I’m very excited to see the training that comes out of these. I’ll post some of what we learn on this blog.

Free Training

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SimplyYouthMinistry.com puts free training in its weekly newsletter. Many times it is specific to volunteering in youth ministry. They also have specials on their products. I recommend subscribing to this weekly bundle of joy. Sometimes you’ll even see material from VolunteerYouthMinistry.com make its way into the newsletter. Don’t hold that against them, though. 🙂 If you are a youth pastor, you will also find great stuff for your newsletter in their freebie section.

Click here to go to the newsletter

Handout for Parents of Students in my Small Group

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Tonight we’re having a meet and greet for small group students and their parents. If you read my post What Parents Need To Know, you’ll remember that I put a high value on what I communicate to parents and how I get the messages across. This is an extension of that concept. You’ll see the principles of that post expressed in this document.

Eye-opening Illustration

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Tonight we had our small group leader training. Katie, one of our staff members had a pretty good visual aid that helped us understand how many people can influence the lives of our students. The idea behind the illustration is that each person in a student’s life has some kind impact. In light of that, we need to understand the importance of what little time we have as one of many voices pouring into the lives of our students. We need to use that time wisely, yet understand there is a lot of demand for their attention.

Each person in this picture represents a different person in the life of a student who somehow has an impact: Parent, step parent, friend, teacher, coach, youth pastor, small group leader, band director, boss…

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Volunteer Youth Workers and Social Media

Josh Griffin posted some guidelines all youth workers should keep in mind when using Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.

Here’s a sample. Click here for the rest.

3 Rules for Small Group Leaders and Facebook

We love that our volunteers are on Twitter and Facebook! It seems like everyone is enjoying the benefits of social networking these days – so it shouldn’t come as a surprise your volunteers are interested or already involved for sure. Most use the technology to their groups’ benefit, though from time to time we’ve had to have conversations and consider removing volunteers for what they put online. At small group training this week I’m going to ask our small group leaders to apply these three simple guidelines when updating social networks:

Remember what you post influences students
Your students are checking out your profile. They look up to you. They are eager to make a connection with you, and since they’re always on Facebook they’ll almost always see what you post. But it is so much more than just seeing – what you say, what you value, what you show yourself doing – it all influences students – the good, bad and ugly. When you give an inch, they may take it a mile. Of course, it works the other way as well, when you use social media positively, it can have a significant encouraging influence on them, too.

Why Do We Do Small Groups in Youth Ministry?

Josh Griffin posted this on his blog. I liked it so I thought I’d share a snippet. Visit his post on MoreThanDodgeball.com for the rest.

4 Reasons Why We Have Small Groups

WISDOM: There is power in an adult life intersecting with students’ lives
There are all sorts of influences in a student’s life – we believe that pairing them with a well-trained, loving leader is a powerful way for them to grow spiritually and taste spiritual community. Someone down the path of life a little further can provide impactful insight, encouragement and warnings in the life of a high school student.

Relating to Your Students’ Parents

Mike Kupferer wrote some great tips for preserving relationship with parents of your students. It’s posted on YouthMinBlog.com. Click here to read the entire post. Here’s a small clip of what he wrote:

Parental Relationship Sabotage

3. Tell them they are doing a terrible job.
When you see a parent being to harsh on their sophomore or letting their senior have too much freedom, it is your job as a youth minister to tell the parents what a horrible parents they are. You might be the only one who sees that they are ruining their child’s life and relationship with God by treating them the way they are. If you ever start thinking this… STOP! It is not your job to critique the parental skills of another person without their permission. You can have your own opinions, thoughts and ideas – but until that parent says “hey, Mrs. Youth Minister, how do you think I’m doing as a parent?” you should keep all of your thoughts to yourself.