I just wanted to let you know about The Life Book. I think its a great project and wanted for you as one of my readers to check them out and support them. If you are not sure what they are about here is a snippet:

Founded by

I just wanted to let you know about The Life Book. I think its a great project and wanted for you as one of my readers to check them out and support them. If you are not sure what they are about here is a snippet:

Founded by The Gideons International, The Life Book Movement (TLBM) is an innovative strategy to reach high school students with God’s Word. TLBM works through churches and their students to saturate high schools with God’s Word.

The Life Book Movement is best described as a short-term mission trip in which high school students get the opportunity to offer the gift of The LIfe Book to their classmates during school.

The Life Book’s unique design engages searching high school students with the truth of God’s Word as they are introduced to Jesus Christ. Using an interactive format with honest student comments and real-life questions in the margins, readers are drawn into the only story that can change their lives forever.
Working through local churches, The Life Book Movement provides free copies of The Life Book to Christian students to give to classmates during school. Because it is legal for students to distribute religious literature in public schools, this unique approach provides an opportunity for churches and youth ministries to get God’s Word in the hands of every student in every high school they serve.

With Saturations scheduled throughout the United States, the end goal is to eventually place God’s Word in the hands of 17.5 million high school students

What are some of your thoughts about The Life Book movement? Make sure you check them out then let me know.

A Youth Ministry Post By Eli Cork

The most important issue in the Church has always been the Gospel. It has also been the most dangerous heresy when it has been tampered with, edited, or altered. The following blog is the first of a series of blogs concerning the nature, importance, [...]]]>

A Youth Ministry Post By Eli Cork

The most important issue in the Church has always been the Gospel. It has also been the most dangerous heresy when it has been tampered with, edited, or altered. The following blog is the first of a series of blogs concerning the nature, importance, and misconceptions of the Good News. Evidently, the church’s precious pearl is also the treasure most dear to Christian ministers.

Part 1: Why it matters

What would be the scariest thing to happen at Halloween? A werewolf knocking on your door? Zombies invading your Fall Festival? A sugar-induced coma? No. Not even close. The scariest, deadliest, most dreadful thing would be to hear a false gospel. What’s worse? To be the one who preaches it.

You don’t think so? Paul says heresy has a terrifying consequence:

 “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!” (Galatians 1:8-9)

The Gospel according to… who?

Apparently, many ministers are proclaiming a false Gospel. Though they may not realize their fallacy, well-meaning people have strayed away from truth. Lies have crept into the Church, creating countless false converts, drop-outs, and unbelievers (2 Peter 2:1-3). The true Gospel is found in the Bible. We must wipe the dust from its cover, and studying once again its sacred pages. In turning back to our source, we can return to a true Christianity. Is the Gospel you preach based squarely upon Scripture?

Why should it matter that our Gospel is accurate?

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6).  All people stand condemned before a holy God (Ro. 3:10, 23). So unbearable will be the Day of His wrath that the wicked will seek refuge beneath the hills, crying, “hide us!” But they will find no safety there. (Rev. 6:16) Their only shelter is faith in the Cross of Christ. “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.” (Romans 10:17) To receive eternal life, one must hear the words of eternal life. Any alternative message will damn the people to a false hope. As we preach the Gospel of Christ, the one and only remedy is offered to lost man.

The Primacy of the Gospel

The Gospel, bearing so much power and purpose, is the supreme aspect of all meaningfulness in life, namely, in youth ministry. Greater than any game, gimmick, or special event, the Gospel has the power to transform generations. In fact, our calling is not the entertainment business. Our calling is to make disciples, by the demonstration and preaching of God’s power (1 Cor. 2:4-5)

Remember when the early church began bickering about the food distribution (in Acts 6:1)? Considering priorities and the urgent commission earlier received, the Twelve concluded, “We apostles should spend our time teaching the word of God, not running a food program” (Acts 6:2-4). We can assume the modern equivalents: We should spend time teaching, not playing silly games, not telling dumb jokes, not planning Easter egg hunts. We ought to take this seriously! Not that it is evil to play games or go to a concert, just as it is not evil to run a food program. But where is the majority of time spent? If the apostles spent most of their time baking bread, you would have never heard the Gospel of your salvation. Where are we investing our time, energy and money? Is it in prayer? Is it in the study of the Word of God? What about in counseling, teaching and gathering into small groups for godly discussion? Or is too much time spent of finding to coolest game? How much money goes to pop and chips for the hungry goats, while the sheep are starving? To the Corinthians Paul said, “What I received I passed on to you as of first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3). That first importance of the first century is the very same priority that we have: the Gospel of Christ. We must keep the Good News  accurate, biblical, and always of first importance.

Questions for reflection:

• What is the Gospel to you? From what source do you draw it from?
• How much value the true gospel?
• In your ministry, how much time do you spend on planning games versus prayer and teaching?
• How many kids would leave your youth group if you stopped playing games and having snacks? What does this tell you about them?
• In the above scenario, how many would stay?
• Why do you think the apostles (and God) call the Gospel a priority?

Each passing day as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Ephesians 6:12 becomes more and more evident: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Last week [...]]]> Let me just start by saying that I see this as a HUGE thing for our youth today! I see this as something that can be done across the country! I may be dreaming big here, however, I wanted to give you a wonder youth ministry idea about doing a local missions trip.

Last week I participated in a local missions project in our community called REACH. We named it REACH – you could name it whatever you like.

What is REACH?

REACH is a week long local missionary experience available for participation among the local churches in the county area. The whole idea behind REACH takes on a “missions in your own back yard” approach to mission trips for youth ministries. While participating in REACH, students will be divided into crews that will work together on “hands on” projects ranging from cleaning up yards to roofing houses. At the end of each day, students will come together for a time of corporate worship, reflection, and inspiration.

With that being said I have attached a packet that you can download to see how we organized it (at the bottom). I highly recommend that you pray about this for next summer as an opportunity that you can have with your youth ministry! Start by downloading the packet and going to the website we created for it: www.REACH2010.org and just pray within your youth ministry alliance in your community.

The things I enjoyed about it:

• Physical labor – im not a physical labor kind of a guy – but it was good for me and my students to learn how to “work” and see something accomplished together through a team effort.
• Spiritually encouraging - at night we had worship through a live worship band and a guest speaker all week. It seemed as though those times were more intense and enjoyable as we had worked all day helping those in need and then coming together and worshiping God.
• Results – We got to see our project getting completed each day. We got to see and share with the residents! It was great!
• Encouragement bags – At our place where we were staying each crew had bags with each crew members name and you could write encouraging notes to each other and drop little candy gifts inside them.
• Youth Ministries Coming Together – It was SO awesome to see the youth ministries coming together to get this done and I think it will actually strengthen all of our youth ministries because of it.

Here’s a video of the event we just got done last week:

Here’s a picture of my crew: (we painted this house all week long)

Below is information that you can download:

Reach 2010 Packet

Medical Release Form adult form old format

Adult Volunteer Information

Community Information

Reach 2010 Brochure

If you have any other questions you can talk or contact those that administrated the event at www.Reach2010.org

There are two answers, and they’re not always the same: The answer students give if you ask them directly (conscious or perceived motivations), or what really motivates them (true motivations).

To figure out what really attracts students to meetings, you have [...]]]> Have you ever asked the question, why do my students come to youth group?

There are two answers, and they’re not always the same: The answer students give if you ask them directly (conscious or perceived motivations), or what really motivates them (true motivations).

To figure out what really attracts students to meetings, you have to watch them. What’s the first thing they do when they come in? What do they spend the most of their time doing? What do they seem to enjoy the most, and the least? Here are the five biggest motivations that I’ve seen:

Friends

This one is obvious. The number one motivator bringing students to youth group is their friends. This is true across the board, so it’s important to provide them with opportunities to hang out before and after meetings.

Games and the high-energy excitement

A lot of youth groups use games in various ways, from sparingly to all-the-time. This can attract and keep a lot of young students engaged (6th, 7th and 8th grade primarily). The older they get, however, games have less and less pull–and can even push away juniors and seniors that don’t want to associate with “kid stuff.” Be careful to not rely on games too much!

The youth pastor and other adult leaders

Strong personal relationships with students really keeps them coming back. Younger students are quicker to just look up to the youth pastor whether they know you well or not. The older students get, the more opportunities you have to build serious relationships with them, and the more important these relationships become.

The opposite sex

Students still come to youth group to flirt. Sometimes its inappropriate, but more mature students have also developed very classy flirting techniques to impress the opposite sex without crossing any lines of indecency. Sometimes this can be healthy and fun, but it can also lead to heartbreak and hurtful disputes.

Spiritual solid food (1 Cor. 3:1-3)

Sometimes it seems like nobody is there to learn about the Lord, but a select few in every youth group–your raving fans and spiritual giants–come to youth group sincerely hungry for truth and discipleship. If you let them down by playing too many games, you may loose your greatest chance to develop student leaders. Jesus’ taught the multitudes, but He pulled His disciples aside to show them deeper truths (see Matthew 13). We must be careful to give our dedicated and mature students opportunities to go deeper–and that starts by leading them there with our own lives.

What do you think about these five motivations? Did I leave any out?

Nathaniel Dame is the president of Called to Youth Ministry which provides the youth ministry resources, coaching, community and training youth pastors need. He is driven by a passion to promote effective youth ministry in the local church. Nathaniel lives with his beautiful wife, Christa, in Woodstock, Illinois.