I’m excited to play around and test out a new web based video editing site called We Video. Basics are shooting your video then uploading and making edits to it such as titles, music, transitions and other great features and then immediately you can post to your youtube account!

You can start [...]]]>

I’m excited to play around and test out a new web based video editing site called We Video. Basics are shooting your video then uploading and making edits to it such as titles, music, transitions and other great features and then immediately you can post to your youtube account!

You can start using them for FREE to get the hang of it and they also have pricing plans for heavier video users. Although im featuring We Video – you may have also noticed in YouTube that there are other services out there to create videos so my challenge is for you to look into and try these techniques to help you create some videos for your youth ministry – you may just surprise yourself!

If you have a youth ministry intern or administrative assistant – this would be a great project for them to play around with and work on to see what they can come up with.

What video editing stuff do you use if any?

We are all inspiration seekers.

In youth ministry we seek to inspire the youth in our communities.  We seek to inspire for God.  How creative can I be?  How long can we walk that culturally relevant tight rope?  Can we make cooler logos and use “artsy’er” PowerPoint backgrounds?  We seek to inspire.

There [...]]]>

We are all inspiration seekers.

In youth ministry we seek to inspire the youth in our communities.  We seek to inspire for God.  How creative can I be?  How long can we walk that culturally relevant tight rope?  Can we make cooler logos and use “artsy’er” PowerPoint backgrounds?  We seek to inspire.

There isn’t anything inherently wrong with creativity, cultural relevance, logos or artsy graphics—truth be told the ministry I lead is saturated with that list—but all too often those things can place the pressure of inspiration solely on us.    You may ask. “What’s wrong with that?”

When we seek to inspire for God, when we take on all that pressure, we are essentially swallowing a little red pill called Control.  We love the illusion of having control and the power that ultimately lies in God’s hands.

So how do we combat the pill?  I suggest we take the time to lower our guards and experience God through our students.

This past winter our ministry took 50 Junior High students to Spring Hill Camps in Evart, MI for our winter retreat.  Spring Hill puts on superb winter retreats for Jr and Sr High groups providing hours upon hours of excitement with snowboarding, sledding, euro bungee, indoor pool, coffee shops, caffeine, more caffeine, the list goes on.   In fact, the fun side of the retreat is the selling point for most students—and leaders—who attend with our group.  Every day of the retreat there are 2-3 camp-wide worship and lesson sessions that simulate a youth group or church service.   This is when students rock out with a live band leading worship in a style that electrifies campers.  It’s loud… it’s crazy; there is a lot of running, screaming, smelly bodies bumping into one another and exposing their rancid pits with arms raised to the heavens.  This is not the time to touch base with another person one on one; there is zero chance of audibly communicating with anyone because of the deafening volume of the music and crowd.  It’s youth ministry paradise.

Yet, she heard it.

I look over at a cluster of students who came with our group and they are all smiling and shouting with joy… well, all of them but one.  Let’s call this student Melissa.   She’s crying.  Standing amidst this joy she is showing sorrow; or so I thought.   In situations like this I typically get the attention of one of our female leaders and direct them over to a student like Melissa, but not this time.  I darted over to Melissa and her tear drenched face asking what was wrong.  Not atypical of a 13 year old she glanced up at me and mouthed, “Nothing.”  But it wasn’t her somewhat audible response that shocked me… it was her expression.   She was smiling.  Grinning ear to ear.  Surely Melissa sensed my confusion—as it undoubtedly was visible now by my expression—she pulled my shoulder down, stood on her tippy toes, and said into my ear, “I just heard God’s voice.  He told me he loves me.  I heard God said, ‘I love you’.”

I smiled at her, mouthed the words, “He certainly does,” and walked out of the auditorium into the gathering area to be by myself for a moment.   My eyes filled with tears; I had a hard time composing myself.

I wasn’t emotional because God showed up: he always does.

I wasn’t emotional because a student of mine encountered God: that’s our ministries Goal, we are somewhat prepared for that.

I was emotional because God showed Melissa who He is in that moment.  He spoke who He is to a 13 year old girl at a retreat that is 75% fun.  He inspired a little girl in an unexpected moment… because she was seeking.

And He inspired me… a measly youth pastor who prays he is serving the Kingdom properly.  A measly youth pastor who needed to hear those words because life and ministry were wearing me out.  I had popped the pressure of control pill in the prior months and I needed to hear from my Father that He loves me.  God spoke to me, though a student.  He inspired me, through a student.

While I aim to inspire students, while the camp aimed to inspire students, God ended up inspiring at least one student and her youth pastor with three little words, “I love you.”

It’s too easy for those of us who lead ministries to get caught up in inspiring others, creativity, cultural relevance, and the like.  I encourage you to seek God in your students.  You may be amazed at what you find.

Nate Heyboer

Director of Junior High Ministries

Community Church, MI

This post is really simply about some of YOUR best youth ministry ideas. What happened? What did you do? Maybe it wasn’t what you expected and it turned out to be an awesome idea.

Also when it comes to the best youth ministry ideas, it just depends on category your talking about. For [...]]]>

This post is really simply about some of YOUR best youth ministry ideas. What happened? What did you do? Maybe it wasn’t what you expected and it turned out to be an awesome idea.

Also when it comes to the best youth ministry ideas, it just depends on category your talking about. For example you may have the best idea for a worship night, or a game night, or an idea on the best lesson that seemed to impact your youth ministry.

Here’s what I’m going to do: (and I want YOU to participate)

I want for you to share (by commenting below) about the best youth ministry idea that happened for you in your how-ever-long you have been in youth ministry. What was it? Why would you consider it the best? Now I understand that God is the only one that truly does the spiritual work in our lives so im not trying to exalt a person or person for there awesome idea – but rather I think it would be great to here from the readers of this blog on some things that went really well.

I honestly look back and say that on an evangelism side of things – doing lock-ins seems to work for me. I always had students respond to a salvation message during the evening. I prayed, planned and saw the results that only God can do.

What say you?

Youth Ministry Ideas is looking for writers/bloggers for this site. I (Steve Blanchard) have many projects going on right now and felt it was the right time to find others passionate about youth ministry that would be willing to step up and become a blogger/writer.

Here are the qualifications im looking for:

This may all be old information for many, but I thought that I would [...]]]> I was thinking this summer that it would be cool to just be able to go to YouTube and create a playlist of videos that would be looped or shuffled while students were showing up for our youth nights this fall.

This may all be old information for many, but I thought that I would put together a video showing you exactly how to create your own YouTube playlist for your youth ministry.

What’s great about it is you can add or take videos out each week. Add funny videos to your playlist or whatever you want to do. As long as you have high speed internet streaming at your church you should be able to use this idea effectively.

Here’s the video (I was using a free screen capture software so you may hear some glitch noises but it’s nothing over-powering):