Youth Ministry » Youth Ministry Other http://www.youthministryideas.net Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:32:22 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 8 Steps To Creating Great Youth Group T-Shirts http://www.youthministryideas.net/2009/09/18/8-steps-to-creating-great-youth-group-t-shirts/ http://www.youthministryideas.net/2009/09/18/8-steps-to-creating-great-youth-group-t-shirts/#comments Fri, 18 Sep 2009 13:45:28 +0000 Steve http://www.youthministryideas.net/?p=810 1. Plan from the beginning and much of the work could be done for you. Are you guilty of trying to pull off a last minute T-Shirt Miracle?  Plan ahead and you can actually save yourself time and money while making the whole project more effective.   Why not begin planning and designing your T-Shirts right along with your event promotions.  Many T-Shirt  shops will “give” you the design they have created for your shirts as long as you are printing the shirts through them.  Why not use this free resource to your advantage?  This way you can expand on the T-Shirt design, use it in multiple applications and multiply the effect of your message!
2. Don’t just make a T-shirt, Make a Point What is the purpose of the T-Shirt? Is it to communicate the theme, a scriptual concept, create curiosity, promote an event or just display your group identity?  Its a simple question, but many people don’t take the time to ask.  Make a short list of the mandatory wording and another of optional wording.  Evaluate every word and try and make it as effective as possible.   This is a great time to get feedback from your team and the students.
3. Know your audience? We all know how fast youth culture changes, so Instead of gravitating to what you think they will like take some time to do some recon.  Scope out some stores or popular websites like Pac Sun, American Eagle, Old Navy or whatever stores your students shop at.  These places spend millions to find out what will sell, so use them as a recourse when it comes to designing your T-Shirts.
4. Wanna Date? No you don’t.  Generally, including a date on your shirts will just make them obsolete faster, so unless you have a specific reason for including a date its best to leave it off.
5. Use the right designer Usually it pays to go to a professional designer.  They will have more dynamic design solutions and a better understanding of all the variable that make a design connect with the audience.  Most good T-Shirt shops will be able to provide a designer or even free designs as long as you print your shirts with them.  There may even be pre-made templates, if you don’t need to recreate the wheel, it’s best not to.
6. Use a quality printer A good printer can be your best friend.  Ask around for referrals from people who are happy with their printer.  If you are using someone for the first time make sure they have a money back guarantee, I hear too many stories of people who end up paying for shirts that they can’t use because they arrived late or were printed wrong.  Once you find a good printer, stick with them, as the relationship grows and a true friendship develops communication gets better and the end product improves.
7. Get the Quantities Right Prices for printed apparel are based on quantity of each print run, so take your time and do your best to order your quantities accurately.  You don’t want to end up needing to do a costly re-order later or end up with too many shirts, so it pays to be accuarate.  Order just a few extra just to be safe.
8. Hype the new shirts! Create an unveiling, let the staff wear the shirts before they are available to the students or even use them as incentive for early event registration. Whatever you do, make sure it’s a BIG DEAL!  Make sure all the presentations like posters, slides, videos, and web all reinforce the theme.  The more the design is seen and the message is repeated the stronger it becomes and the more sought after the event and the shirts will become generating the excitement and enthusiasm your looking for!

If you are ready to take a look at a great T-Shirt company that can help you because of their experience – then visit MinistryGear.com today.

]]> http://www.youthministryideas.net/2009/09/18/8-steps-to-creating-great-youth-group-t-shirts/feed/ 1 I Moved To Poteau, OK as an Associate Pastor http://www.youthministryideas.net/2009/08/28/i-moved-to-poteau-ok-as-an-associate-pastor/ http://www.youthministryideas.net/2009/08/28/i-moved-to-poteau-ok-as-an-associate-pastor/#comments Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:09:57 +0000 Steve http://www.youthministryideas.net/?p=794 Hey,

Just wanted to update my readers that I haven’t updated for awhile because I have now moved to Poteau, OK as an associate pastor for First Christian Church.

I started the journey last week and got into Poteau on Friday afternoon, unloaded our 26 foot U-Haul with my towed on the back Saturday and this week I have been meeting people, trying to get our boxes unpacked and begin full steam ahead next week.

I’m excited to be here and serve in the church.

What does my Associate Pastor position involve?

I’m about 80% Youth Ministry and 20% other stuff like preaching, children’s ministry, and other things. The people here have been so wonderful and embracing!

Please for me and my family as we seek to do God’s will here! Also pray for God to give us a great deal on a home to either purchase or rent. More to come…

Here’s a video: (if you are trying to watch from facebook you will need to visit www.youthministryideas.net)

]]> http://www.youthministryideas.net/2009/08/28/i-moved-to-poteau-ok-as-an-associate-pastor/feed/ 2 Make Youth Ministry Ideas #1 And… http://www.youthministryideas.net/2008/11/21/make-youth-ministry-ideas-1-and/ http://www.youthministryideas.net/2008/11/21/make-youth-ministry-ideas-1-and/#comments Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:49:19 +0000 Steve http://www.youthministryideas.net/?p=349 Youth Ministry Ideas is currently # 1 for the keyword, “youth ministry ideas” on the top 3 Search Engines: Google, Yahoo, and MSN. From my site statistics that’s how many of my readers have found me. Others have found me from my posts listed in the search engines.

This obviously isn’t because I have the greatest youth ministry ideas or the best website. It has to do with SEO (search engine optimization). It’s the way that the search engines see my site and there are some things that was specifically done to put this site in that position.

Now I want you to help me with an experiment that I believe will work. I’ve been reading up more about search engine optimization and I believe that there is this one thing that I need to do in order to get my site on the first page of Google, Yahoo, and MSN for the keyword, “Youth Ministry”.

Are you ready?

This one thing that I need is YOU!

Did you guess correctly or not?

I’m about to share how I can be on the first page of Google, Yahoo, and MSN for “Youth Ministry” and if I make it, I want to reward YOU by featuring your favorite youth ministry website or blog (Yes it could be your own site) on this site.

Follow these instructions and let’s see together what happens:

  • Put a link on your site linking back to: http://www.youthministryideas.net
  • When you place the link on your site, the TEXT for the link should be: Youth Ministry

Here is an example: Insurance Quotes

Notice that the TEXT says “insurance quotes” but the link is: http://www.insurancequotes4u.net

Believe it or not if I get enough links back to this site using the text: Youth Ministry – then shortly you should see this site become on the first page of the search engines for keyword search “youth ministry”

Curious to see if it works? – Me too

Why would you want to do this? Well, you don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. I would like to keep adding free youth ministry ideas and network with others in youth ministry. I’m convinced that youth ministry is the best thing on the planet and want the world to know about it – I’m sure you do too. I still have dreams and visions of what I would like this site to become and believe that it can be a great free resource of youth ministry ideas from every state and even from the rest of our world.

You get a chance now to make it happen!

If you haven’t already, SUBMIT YOUR IDEA This site could have the most comprehensive and fresh ideas around for youth ministry because it’s updated on a weekly basis and you can help this site become what it is destined to do: Fresh Free Youth Ministry Ideas from around the world.

Help Me?

]]> http://www.youthministryideas.net/2008/11/21/make-youth-ministry-ideas-1-and/feed/ 0 Ways to Supplement Your Youth Pastor Salary http://www.youthministryideas.net/2008/07/29/ways-to-supplement-your-youth-pastor-salary/ http://www.youthministryideas.net/2008/07/29/ways-to-supplement-your-youth-pastor-salary/#comments Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:07:12 +0000 Steve http://youthministryideas.net/?p=271 I’ve heard story after story and have even been there myself about the lower wages of being a Youth Pastor. So let me share with you what I currently do. Others that I know also are able to supplement their incomes too by doing some of the things that I do.

All the methods that I’m sharing with you actually are a result of starting this Youth Ministry Blog which is pretty amazing to me. Please feel free to contact me about any of the items that I share about. Please also know that many of the things below TAKE A LONG TIME, so don’t think you are going to be able to rapidly reproduce them.

  • Business Opportunities – There are many of these out there so Please contact me if you are interested in doing any online business stuff and I can guide you.
  • Google Adsense - If you don’t know about this then I’d like to meet you, but basically it’s a program from google that allows you to display advertising on your website/s and when people click on these advertisements, you earn money.
  • Kontera – Kontera is another advertising source that underlines keywords in what you write about on your website. If you scroll your mouse over these key words a bubble pops up and if a person clicks on this – wala – you get paid. Kontera is usually reserved for those that have 500,000 page-views a month, but I was able to get a special deal with them that allowed me to add it.
  • Private Advertising – This happens when you get a lot of visitors to your website and then someone offers you to stick their ad on your website and will pay you for this. The big time bloggers make a bulk of their online incomes because of this.
  • Selling Products – You can sell products very easily via commission Junction or some other affiliate based company. What you do is display a product on your site and if someone clicks and purchases this, then they pay you whatever is negotiated usually 10%. You can go to my Youth Ministry Products page to see. You can also create your own product and sell it – I hope to do this eventually.
  • DomainNameandHosting.net – This is a place where people can buy domain names, hosting, and basically any product that GoDaddy Offers. I get paid when people purchase something.
  • MyMedQuote.net – This is a site where you can get a free health insurance quote. I’m paid when you click on a company to get your health insurance quote. Please don’t abuse by clicking for fun, but if you seriously want a health insurance quote, then please use it!

Please also note that these items do take time and you will need to decide how much time you will spend on these things and balancing a youth ministry program and time with your family. With some diligent work and time, you can supplement your salary for whatever you need this extra source to do.

Also know that money is a sensitive topic and one that is dear to us. So dear that Jesus himself taught more about the subject of money then anything else so guard your heart as you seek out additional income for you and your family.

]]> http://www.youthministryideas.net/2008/07/29/ways-to-supplement-your-youth-pastor-salary/feed/ 1 Youth Ministry Ideas From Every State http://www.youthministryideas.net/2008/05/13/youth-ministry-ideas-from-every-state/ http://www.youthministryideas.net/2008/05/13/youth-ministry-ideas-from-every-state/#comments Tue, 13 May 2008 20:52:49 +0000 Steve http://youthministryideas.net/2008/05/13/youth-ministry-ideas-from-every-state/ I’ve been praying about Youth Ministry Ideas and I need your help. I have looked at stats on my site and I see that every state in the United States has visited this site, but my vision is that of more involvement with Youth Ministry Ideas.

So, I will continue to post things that I find and that I’ve worked on and try to be as unique as possible even though sometimes it’s just not going to happen, but I would like for you to pray and consider sharing a youth ministry idea that is happening in your state. What I mean is if you are living in North Carolina and you visit this site because you are looking for some youth ministry lessons, games, events, or whatever – please pray and consider submitting a game or lesson that worked, or maybe an event that is happening in your state.

I will post these things and give you credit. I do edit them as needed and may add my own thoughts to it, but will add it if it applies to youth ministry.

To the right of this page is the categories that I currently have on youth ministry and I will add more as needed.

I really believe this site can be another tool that you can stick in your pocket when doing youth ministry. My most visited post on here is the Survivor Lock-In because I did the work and you are now able to download the files and the schedule of the evening and tweak it to your particular event which is awesome. I want to see much more of that taking place.

What I’m going to do is to offer for you to be able to log-in and begin writing for me. I will view these posts and see which ones I will use.

Thanks so much for visiting this site and I’m envisioning great things as we all work in youth ministry together. Please log-in to my site and begin submitting your ideas – all of us would like to hear what is happening in your state.

Let’s start with the states and ad other countries involved in youth ministry.

CLICK HERE to register

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