Life in Student Ministry

The “Youth Ministry Advance Team: Haiti” discusses their upcoming trip

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:47:58 +0000

Today was a unique show. Instead of the normal round-table discussion we usually have, a couple members from the Youth Ministry Advance Team: Haiti joined me to talk about our upcoming missions trip to Haiti.

In the discussion was myself, Adam McLane, Jeremy Zach, Anne Jackson, and Jeff Goins.

You can follow us on Twitter and Facebook throughout the trip!

Some of the things we talked about:

Why we’re each agreed to go to Haiti
What we’re expecting on the trip
What we’ll be doing there and why it will make a difference
How other groups can help Haiti both financially and by visiting
And a whole lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

No Talk on February 15: I’ll be in Haiti, so there will be no LIVE YM Talk next week. However, the week after that, February 22, Tic Long will join us to talk about The future of Youth Specialties and Q&A. See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Podcast: The need for theological questioning in youth ministry

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 04:52:26 +0000

Last Monday we talked about the need for theological questioning in youth ministry. Our featured guest was Jake Bouma, a youth pastor who even named his cat after a theologian!

The discussion we had was one that every youth worker needs to recognize and consider because the implications can run very deep for the teens in our ministries.

Some of the things we talked about:

Why it’s important to help kids wrestle through their theological questions
Common questions our youth group kids are asking
How to help teenagers process through the questions
The balance between spewing answers and encouraging the self-discovery process
And a whole lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

February 8: Join us for LIVE YM Talk again this Monday! The “Youth Ministry Advance Team: Haiti” members discuss their upcoming missions work. We will have several guests, including Adam McLane, Jeremy Zach, Anne Jackson, Jeff Goins, and others. We’d love to have you join us! The live conversation starts at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Interview with Marko about his new YM Coaching Program

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:00:44 +0000

Earlier this week Marko launched his Youth Ministry Coaching Program, a 1-year 360 coaching cohort, focused on whole-life development and youth ministry issues.

While some have compared it to the Youth Ministry Mentorship Program here at Life In Student Ministry, there really are some clear distinctions that allow the two programs to complement each other quite nicely.

I had the opportunity to talk with Marko about his program.

You can listen to us talk about the coaching and mentoring programs in iTunes, or use the link below to listen to it directly in your browser.

Play: Interview with Marko about his new YM Coaching Program

Freebie Friday #163: Movie sound clips trivia game

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 05:46:21 +0000

Two years ago I gave away a game I made combining audio clips from different movies. The idea is to have youth group kids pair up with a piece of paper and pencil and, as a team, try to correctly identify as many movies as they can. The winning team get some candy or a cheap prize.

I created another one and played it with our youth group last week. Apparently it’s a bit harder than I thought it would be.

First, here’s the answer key:

1. Napoleon Dynamite
2. Incredibles
3. Finding Nemo
4. Shrek 2
5. 50 first dates
6. Night at the museum
7. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
8. Toy Story
9. Ice Age
10. Madagascar
11. Elf
12. Mrs. Doubtfire
13. Nacho Libre
14. Prince of Egypt
15. Wizard of Oz
16. Transformers: revenge of the fallen
17. Up
18. Star Trek
19. Open Season 2
20. Kung Fu Panda
21. Bolt
22. The Dark Knight
23. Wall-E
24. Cars
25. Lord of the Rings: Two Towers
26. National Treasure 2
27. Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom
28. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
29. Spiderman 3
30. Robots

There’s two options for downloading the audio file. You can download it in iTunes or download the mp3 directly below:

Play: Movie sound clips trivia

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Join us for LIVE YM Talk this Monday, February 8! The “The “Youth Ministry Advance Team: Haiti” members will discuss their upcoming missions work.” Our guests will include Adam McLane, Anne Jackson, Jeremy Zach, Jeff Goins, and others. We’d love to have you join us! The live conversation starts at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

A note that reminds me, “Youth ministry is worth it.”

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 03:42:09 +0000

Last weekend I received this Facebook message from a girl I haven’t been in touch with for about a decade. For the sake of her privacy, I edited out some of the details and have permission to share it with you.

I share this to encourage you as you work with teenagers. Some of you feel like your investment into teens is worthless — you’re seeing absolutely no growth. Some of you are frustrated, tired, struggling, and wondering, “Is all this time, energy and emotion worth it?”

Not every teenager will come back and thank you. In fact, just like the 10 lepers, most won’t, but the ones who do will make it all worth it. You may never know the influence you have on a student just by being present in their life.

Be encouraged — it’s worth it!

Tim, you knew me 10 years ago by my maiden name. I’m not sure if you remember me. I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for being my friend! Most of all, thank you for striving to truly live your faith and not being ashamed to do so. You lived your life in a distinctly different manner from all my other friends, and it made an impression on me. Adolescence was a rough season of my life. There were a couple of people in my life during that time who were “Jesus with skin on,” and you were one of them. I’m sure you’ve continued to be a blessing to teens through your ministry and life. Now I’m a pastor’s wife (whoa!); my husband was ordained last year and we are blessed with two little boys, ages 2 years and 4 months. Anyhow, when I stumbled upon your website a few months ago while helping my husband look up info on youth groups, I realized how God had blessed me through you, and I wanted you to know.

I think I’m doing youth ministry all wrong

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:59:13 +0000

Despite knowing otherwise in my head, the way I actually lead my church’s youth ministry is mostly from the mentality that our youth ministry is a program or service we provide to families. It’s almost like I’m unintentionally feeding the consumeristic perspective by sometimes using language like, “We offer small groups…” and, “We provide connection points for your teens…” Since when was ministry ever supposed to be about what a paid staff member and a couple adult volunteers are expected to spiritually provide for teens and families?

Youth ministry should not be about how the church can serve the youth or even how we can provide programs that help them grow spiritually. That’s the parents’ responsibility. In fact, I don’t think youth ministry should even accidentally enable parents to outsource their God-given responsibility to us, something I know my ministry is all too guilty of. Support parents, yes, but enable them to outsource? No.

The Greek word for “church” is literally “ekklesia,” a community of believers who are “called out” to serve and edify each other and the people around them.

Instead of fueling the consumerism mentality of what a church “offers” or “provides” and which church in town does it best, youth ministry should probably be about helping teens use their God-given gifts to serve the body. It should teach families that youth ministry isn’t just about what the church does for them, but that they are “called out” to think beyond themselves with a servant’s heart. I bet teen church drop-outs would decrease if they actually served as a valuable and essential part of the local body of Christ.

Youth ministry should be less about us doing youth ministry and more about youth doing ministry.

I said that two years ago, but it’s just now starting to really sink in for me. It demands a pretty radical shift, one that I’m not sure I have the vision nor the guts to really carry out yet.

Our programs program people to consume from the church, and I’m programmed to just run programs.

Please note, I’m not necessarily anti-program — I just think that too often we end up serving the programs instead of using them as very dispensable tools to equip teen believers to serve the body of Christ.

What do you think? Should youth ministry be more about providing a service or creating servants? What if focusing on the latter causes all those with the consumeristic mentality of the former to leave the group? Is it okay for your youth group to shrink numerically if it’s for the right reasons?

All the emotions surrounding my trip to Haiti

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:54:32 +0000

[ Catch up with previous posts about my trip to Haiti ]

Wow. I leave for Haiti in only one and a half weeks! And I’m starting to freak out a bit!

As the time continues to draw closer, my mind has almost become totally consumed with the trip:

What will I see? How will I feel when I see it?
Will I be able to handle my emotions or will I default to “tough guy” mode? Will I be the only one on the team who will struggle with that?
Why does the government put an expiration date on my passport that’s dated for 6 months after when it really expires?
How will my worldview be shattered? How will that impact my theology? My ministry?
I’ve never felt called nor prompted to adopt, but what if that changes once I’m there? Will I come back with some Haitian children? Is that even possible?
Will I really be able to make a difference there in only one week?
Will I feel called to return to Haiti on a regular basis, taking others with me to serve the people there?
How will I respond if I pull a body from the rubble or see dead people laying around?
Do I have all of the equipment I’ll need?
What if I say or do something stupid that offends their culture? What if I make matters worse?
Will the Haitians perceive me to be just another tourist or as someone who truly wants to help make things better?

Compared to the amount of pressure I feel when taking a group of teenagers overseas, this is about 10x more than that. Seriously. And I’m not even in charge of the trip! For once I’m able to just go along and let someone else take care of the details, yet I’m still freakin’ out a bit.

The organization

Thankfully, the organization I’m going with, Adventures In Missions, has been amazing so far. They don’t know it, but their detailed reporting about the plans and environment for the trip have done a lot to ease my tensions. They are so thorough, so considerate, and so obviously experienced. Despite my breif relationship with them so far, I honestly trust them so much and am confident that our time in Haiti will be maximized to its fullest potential.

The team

Another thing that contributes to my sense of security is the rock-solid team of people I’ll be with. Not only will Seth Barnes be traveling with us, the founder of Adventures In Missions, but so will a few other people:

Anne Jackson: blog | twitter | facebook
Tim Schmoyer: blog | twitter | facebook | youtube
Adam McLane: blog | twitter | facebook
Mark Oestreicher: blog
Seth Barnes: blog | twitter
Jeremy Zach: blog | twitter
Lars Rood: blog | twitter
Ian Robertson: video guy
Rhett Smith: blog | twitter
Clint Bokelman: blog

We’ll all be using our social media accounts to share what’s happening on the trip, so be sure to check them all out if you want to hear all sides of the stories. I, too, will be blogging during the trip, as well as using my Twitter account, Facebook page, and YouTube channel to post updates, pictures, and videos while we’re there, so be sure to subscribe to each of them.

Official team Twitter list
Perhaps the easiest way to follow the “Youth Ministry Advance Team: Haiti” on Twitter is to subscribe to the YMATH Twitter List.

Officially on Facebook and Twitter
In addition to using our own social media channels, Adam McLane set up a unique twitter account and Facebook page specificly for this trip. The big highlights of the trip, including videos, pictures, blog post links, and updates will be posted at those places throughout the trip.

Donate and win a $50 gift certificate to C28.com

In my last blog post about Haiti I mentioned I have several big expenses to cover, about $660 worth of shots, passport renewal, and equipment. Several of you responded with generous donations. Thank you!

C28 Christian Shirts stepped up, as well, and donated a $50 gift certificate for me to give away to a random donor, which is amazing! It doesn’t matter how much you give, whether it’s $1 or $100, use the ChipIn widget to donate securely via PayPal. Any funds that are donated beyond my needs for the trip will be donated to Adventures In Missions and their Haiti relief efforts.

Next Tuesday, February 9, I’ll randomly select a donor to receive the $50 gift certificate for C28 Christian Shirts. In the meantime, check out their website because they have some of the most unique and non-cheesy Christian appearal I’ve seen in a long time.

[ Donate here ]

How 30 seconds could drastically change your life

Adventures In Missions put together a great video about the relief work that’s needed in Haiti. I’m so honored I get to be part of a team that actually goes to serve. February 11 to 17, baby! (Yikes!)

Time Out: How God enables you in ministry

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:56:18 +0000

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

The last thing in life I ever wanted to do was speak before people. I never raised my hand in class. I always sat in the very back. I never even liked answering the phone. Talking in front of people always scared me. Anything more than a couple of good friends and I would clam up and just listen. So when God put it in my heart to enter the ministry it seemed all wrong. His Spirit gave me a great burning desire to help others grow spiritually. I was given a very strong inner compulsion to help believers learn the Bible and grow. But how could I do that if I couldn’t speak in front of people?

When God called me to speak for Him He also enabled me to speak in front of others. It is His Spirit that gives me the confidence to do so and the words to speak. I can’t take any credit for that. It still isn’t easy and I continue to find it hard to do at times, but I know if He wants me to do something He will have to enable me to do it for I can’t on my own.

Recently I have been traveling to India to minister to pastors there. God put that desire in my heart as well. He then enabled me to carry out the ministry to which He called me. That’s one of the ways God speaks to us today. He speaks enablement and ability to minister in the way in which He calls us.

Have you ever found yourself in a spiritual conversation with someone and the right words and answers just kept coming out of your mouth? You knew God wanted you to say those things, but you recognized they were beyond your ability to communicate in such a great way. That is God enabling you to minister for Him.

You see, God doesn’t call the gifted, He gifts the called. If He calls you to share a testimony, speak to a friend, sing in church, help with the youth, take a turn in the nursery – whatever it is He promises to speak guidance and enablement to you. All He requires of us is to be available. He doesn’t need out ability. He can give or take that as He chooses. He wants our availability, not our ability. He then provides the ability we need. His voice calls people into ministry (I Timothy 1:12; 2:6-7) and then tells those whom He has called what to say. Moses is an example of this (Exodus 4:10-12).

When I teach and preach or when I counsel I depend on God to give me the right things to say. That’s why I always pray before I start, asking Him to give me His words to speak and that everyone would hear Him and not me. I need to listen to Him and you need to be hearing from Him as you hear me.

Scripture
1 Timothy 1:12, “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service.”

1 Timothy 2:6-7, “…who gave himself as a ransom for all men — the testimony given in its proper time. And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle — I am telling the truth, I am not lying — and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.”

Exodus 4:10-12, “Moses said to the Lord, ‘O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.’ The Lord said to him, ‘Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.’”

Reflect
Think of some times God has given you words to speak or in some other way helped you to minister for Him. Thank Him for that. Ask Him to help you in ways He now wants you to serve Him. Listen to Him speak enablement to you to carry out what He wants you do to. If there is anything He wants you to do but you are hesitating because you don’t feel competent for it, confess that and commit to doing it with His help. He will speak enablement to you when you need it.

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Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 15 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Podcast: How to connect God’s Word with students who appear disconnected, apathetic, and distracted

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 04:49:34 +0000

Last Monday we talked about how to connect God’s Word with students who appear disconnected, apathetic, and distracted. Our featured guests was E.J. Swanson, a speaker who travels the country speaking to teens at camps, retreats, and conferences. His wisdom and experience where very helpful for speaking into this issue.

Some of the things we talked about:

How passion subconsciously teaches kids
What NOT to share from your personal life when teaching
Creating community around your teaching
Number of kids a full-time youth worker can adequately invest into
Having your voice heard among many negative voices
And a whole lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

February 1: Join us for LIVE YM Talk again this Monday! We’re discussing, “The need for theological questioning in youth ministry.” Our guest will be Jake Bouma. We’d love to have you join us! The live conversation starts at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Freebie Friday #162: Free music video DVD and Bible studies for Owl City music

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:48:38 +0000

The folks at interlinc have been able to cultivate a very cool relationship with Adam from the band Owl City (if you haven’t heard of them, your students have – he was #1 on iTunes for weeks). I’m told Adam is a wonderful believer and is letting his music communicate his faith.

Free Bible study for Owl City music

Interlinc wants to share their digital introduction to Owl City (a letter from Adam to youth leaders and some song explanations) and a two-session Bible study guide to go along with two of Owl City’s songs, including “Fireflies” (you can listen to the song at the bottom of the page here).

Free music video DVD loop

Interlinc would also love to give you a copy of their Music Video Loop 68 DVD. It contains a ton of music videos and extras. They’ll send you the DVD completely free – no strings attached – they just want you to try and see what playing some good Christian music for you student can do. Just call 1-800-725-3300 and say “I want the free Music Video Loop 68 DVD.”

Check out the DVD contents here. It includes videos from Flyleaf, Skillet, Switchfoot, Britt Nicole, Hawk Nelson, KJ-52, and a lot more.

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Join us for LIVE YM Talk this Monday, February 1! We’re discussing, “The need for theological questioning in youth ministry.” Our guest will be Jake Bouma. We’d love to have you join us! The live conversation starts at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

The Online Missions Trip starts THIS SUNDAY!

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:14:14 +0000

Just a quick reminder that that Online Missions Trip starts this Sunday! Greg Stier reminded us about it this morning, too.

If you’re not familiar with the Online Missions Trip, it’s a 2-week campaign to encourage students to engage in spiritual conversations with their unsaved/unchurched friends through mediums where they’re already communicating, like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Xbox Live, World of Warcraft, etc.

To learn more about this trip, visit OnlineMissionsTrip.com. There are many ideas, free resources and tools, a 24/7 Prayer Room, and more. It also has a video of me explaining the trip in more detail. This blog post summarizes it, as well.

And while you’re there, become a fan of the Online Missions Trip on Facebook and meet some of the other teens and youth leaders who will be attending this missions trip starting on Sunday.

Also, you have to see this video about this video, which underscores why this outreach campaign comes at such a key moment in history.

[ Visit OnlineMissionsTrip.com ]

8 tips for maximizing your mission trip’s impact

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:58:19 +0000

I’m going to Haiti in 16 days!

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:29:17 +0000

Those of you who follow me on Twitter or are a fan of the Life In Student Ministry Facebook Page already know this because I announced it last Friday with this post on my personal blog at timschmoyer.me.

To hear the story of this opportunity, I strongly encourage you to go read that post first. It tells the story of how I responded initially to the opportunity, how the Lord convicted me about my self-centeredness, and changed my response.

The short version is this: Early last week I was asked if I was interested in a trip to Haiti. Since it was during time I had already scheduled to be in Texas on a family vacation, my wife and I mostly declined, but as I thought about it throughout the rest of the week I felt very convicted. “Tim, how can you go kick-back in Texas and relax when there’s so many people in Haiti who are literally suffering! And you have an opportunity to help!” Matthew 25:40 and James 4:17 kept kicking my butt all week long until I got the email, “Tim, the trip is officially on. Are you in or out?” Apparently my wife had a change of heart, too, because when I approached her about it again, she said I needed to go even before I said I was actually thinking about doing it.

So, here I go! I’m scared, nervous, excited, and unqualified, all at the same time. I’m going with the expectation that God will just wreck me, that He’ll shatter my perspective of the world and of life. It will be hard, I’m sure… harder than I can imagine. I’m so comfortable in my tiny, self-centered, narrowly-focused, perfect American world.

There’s more about that in my original post, so let me use the rest of this post to fill in some details that are missing from it and answer some common questions I’ve received so far.

Common questions about the trip

First of all, this is definitely, absolutely, 100% a serving trip. I am not going just to be a tourist and see the sights. If that were the case, I would much rather go somewhere cleaner and safer than Haiti. I’m going to serve water and food in a community where currently no other relief is present except a small team from the organization I’ll be joining. The cool thing about this team is that they are serving along-side of Haitians instead of just taking over and doing it on their own. They’re partnering with local churches, drenching the ministry in prayer, and have a lot of experience in relief efforts, including Katrina.

I know people are being told not to come to Haiti unless you’re an expert, like a doctor or a dentist or something, but they’re mostly speaking to people without a plan, who just show up at the airport without a ride or a place to go. I am traveling to Haiti invited by people who are already there, who have a plan for me and our ministry time together. Reports from the people they’ve helped on the ground are, “Please come help us! We’ve been left homeless and without anything, and we are desperate.” Advance teams from this organization are being met with great gratitude. Furthermore, it doesn’t take an expert to clean up debris, hand out food and water, or just be present to give hope to people by showing them, “Hey, you’re not alone! We’re here for you.”

Follow my trip in Haiti

Depending on wifi availability, you can be sure I’ll do my best to keep you all in the loop with what’s happening while I’m there, including pictures, videos, tweets, and blog posts. I’m not sure what the Internet access will be like, nor do I know a lot of other details yet, but hopefully by next week I can update you all again with how everything is coming together. In the meantime, make sure you subscribe to my following channels for my videos, pictures, and updates from Haiti:

I need some financial help

It’s no secret that a missions trip costs a lot of money. Fortunately, most of it will be paid for by a very generous donor! (Thank you!!) There are some expenses I have to cover myself, however, most notably are the necessary immunizations and some gear, like decent hiking shoes and mosquito netting. I don’t have final prices on all the shots and immunizations yet, but it sounds like they’ll easily add up to several hundred dollars.

If you feel compelled to partner with me financially to help cover some of these expenses, I would greatly appreciate it. Any funds that come in above and beyond my necessary expenses I will donate to the Haiti relief work of the organization I’ll be joining. The dates for the trip are February 11 to 17. Please use this chip-in widget to donate money to my PayPal account. Thank you!

Time Out: Learning to listen for God’s encouraging peace

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 06:12:10 +0000

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

Have you ever had a time in your life when things were going badly and you could have really fallen apart, but you prayed about it and God gave you this awesome sense of peace? That has happened to me by the side of a highway with a broken-down car that contained four very upset children. It also happened when our church lost several important members at once, when things were not going well for us financially and we didn’t know how we’d be able to cover out expenses. Have those kinds of things ever happened to you? What is it? It’s God’s Spirit speaking peace to our spirit.

God doesn’t just speak information to us; quite often He speaks words of encouragement, peace, comfort and strength. “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (John 14:27). “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7). God speaks peace to us.

He also speaks encouragement as well. Our church has gone through some very difficult times when attendance and giving was way, way down. Still, God spoke encouragement to me to keep moving ahead and to keep my eyes on Him. I can’t take credit for those thoughts didn’t originate within me. I know it was God speaking to me to keep me going. I’ve seen Him do it to people whose marriage was falling apart, to those who had lost a job or a loved one, and in all manner of situations.

Unfortunately we don’t always recognize that it is His voice speaking to us at such times. When we don’t then we don’t thank Him and give Him the credit that is due Him. When we do recognize this comes from Him we are better able to recognize and listen to His voice next time we need peace or encouragement. Instead of shutting that voice off we must know it is from God so we listen to it.

This peace and encouragement comes when we turn to God in difficult situations. It can be in response to prayer, Bible reading, singing or anything that focuses our attention onto God.

Charles Stanley explains it this way:

As you pray and read, trust the Holy Spirit to quicken your spirit to His truth. You may feel this as a warmth inside, or you may feel a great sense of absoluteness about a particular verse. Sometimes the words on the page of your Bible may seem to stand out to you as if they were written in bold headlines. Sometimes you may not be able to get away from a particular passage. It comes repeatedly to your mind, and you can’t seem to shake it from memory.

Spend time now letting God fill you with His peace and encouragement. Ask Him for it in areas where it is needed and listen to His voice speaking that to your spirit. Thank Him for it.

Podcast: What every youth worker can learn from urban youth ministry

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:25:56 +0000

Last Monday we spent Martin Luther King Jr. holiday talking about urban youth ministry, diversity, and what the rest of the youth ministry world can learn from those working with inner-city teenagers. Our featured guests were Adam McLane and Eric Iverson. Eric has been doing youth ministry in an urban context for decades and brought a lot of good reminders to the table about what the rest of us can learn from it.

Some of the things we talked about:

The importance of building trust quickly and how to do it
Good versus bad reasons for doing youth ministry
How contextual ministry morphs our view of theology
Handling ministry events with low-income and no budget
And a whole lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

January 25: Join us for LIVE YM Talk again this Monday! We’re discussing, “How to connect God’s Word with students who appear disconnected, apathetic, and distracted.” Our guest will be E.J. Swanson, a national speaker at teen conferences, camps, and retreats. We’d love to have you join us! The live conversation starts at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

“To Save A Life” movie review for youth groups

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:38:18 +0000

Two weeks ago I had the privilege to watch an advanced screening of the movie, To Save A Life. They have a pretty agressive marketing campaign among the Christian community, so you’ve no-doubt heard of it and either dismissed it because it’s a “Christian film” and thought, “Please, no more Kirk Cameron!,” or, like me, you just put it on a back burner due to all the other demands of your time. Here are my thoughts after watching the film:

Plot

The story starts at the grave side of a high school student who committed suicide. A few of his family and friends are present, including Jake Taylor, the high school senior the movie shadows for the next two hours. For a number of reasons, Jake is devastated by the tragedy and, through his search for answers, he meets a youth pastor, Chris, who becomes a trusted friend. As Jake wrestles through issues like popularity, cutting, abortion, sex, divorce, drugs and relationships, his life eventually hits rock bottom. One might expect that this is the point when he turns to Christ, but the story is thankfully a bit more real than that. The truth is, Jake decided to give God a try early in the film and because of that, combined with the consequences of his past mistakes, he hits bottom, thinking that God was supposed to make everything better.

The plot is very heavy for two hours straight and has almost no comic relief. I was craving a break in the tension after about an hour or so, but none came, leaving me pretty emotionally worn out by the end, but fortunately it has a positive ending. A normal Christian film might try to wrap up all the teen issues with an over-simplistic and unbiblical, “Jesus can make your life happy and perfect!” but instead To Save A Life ends with the more realistic, “Life is hard, there are no simple answers, and a relationship with Christ is the only way to navigate it all.”

Quality

The film is surprisingly very well done. I was expecting a lot of cheesy moments from poor acting and churchiness, but the cheese-factor was kept to a minimum. In fact, there’s only one or two places that make you roll your eyes a bit, but even then it’s not big enough to make you laugh or grin.

Overall, the acting was a solid performance. They hired people who have experience in various other films and TV shows, which was probably a good move, regardless of if most of them are unbelievers. In my opinion, a movie that’s professionally done and credible trumps whether or not the actors on the screen actually know Christ or not. Hopefully this film is one that brings them one step closer in that direction!

My only gripe with the acting is that the main character, played by Randy Wayne, had this, “I’m deep in thought” look on his face for the first three-quarters of the movie. Granted, he was thinking through a lot of issues in the film, but a slightly different “deep in thought” face would’ve been nice. After a while, it kinda looked like his face was stuck like that.

His girlfriend in the movie, played by Deja Kreutzberg, did an outstanding job, though. I was thoroughly impressed with her performance despite her more limited film career.

Content

True to it’s marketing hype, the film discusses many teen issues like cutting, suicide, school shootings, abortion, divorce, cliques, drinking, peer pressure, dating, sex, and a lot more. Impressively, none of these issues feel forced into the story — they all feel like a natural part of Jake Taylor’s life and experiences.

However, I would opt to change some of the wording I read in other reviews and promotional pieces: the film doesn’t “deal” with all of these issues as much as it just highlights them and brings attention to how they’re often all integrated. That said, it does give more treatment to some of the issues than others, especially cliques and peer pressure, but I’m not sure I’d say it deals with every issue.

You should also be aware that, although it is a Christian film, it is not overtly so. My impression is that the producer wanted to demonstrate the power of a changed life through Christ without getting too churchy, which is good, but I would’ve liked to see the gospel communicated more clearly at the end. If there was ever a film to pull it off without being weird or tacky about it, this film could’ve done it very successfully. Instead, we just see a glimpse into what a changed life looks like.

The other thing about not being an overtly Christian film is that there is some swearing, an implied sex scene, and some of the normal graphic footage you might expect to see in a film that contains cutting and alcohol. It’s probably nothing “worse” than what you’d normally see on network TV, though. I wasn’t offended by it at all. In fact, it almost gave the film more credibility in the sense that we should never expect unbelievers to act like believers, and most of the characters in the film are definitely unbelievers. They’re just living the way they know how, and that transparency is communicated on the screen.

Bottom Line

So the million dollar question: Should you take your church’s youth group to see this film? For high school students, absolutely! For jr. high students, probably. The only reason I hesitate with jr. highers is because of the power of suggestion for them. Most, if not all, high school students have had first- or second-hand experience with the issues that are visually highlighted in the film. Some jr. highers, on the other hand, have a chance of still being a little more innocent (albiet, a small chance). They definitely need to be exposed to these issues around this age and doing it within the safety and wisdom of adults in a faith-based context is the best place to do it, but it is an emotionally taxing movie. I’d advise that you take a couple weeks to talk through these teen issues with jr. highers first, then go see the movie together. With sr. high, I’d probably do just the reverse: see the movie together first, then discuss it.

To Save A Life has youth group curriculum to accompany the movie, which you can purchase for $59.99 right now. I haven’t used it yet, but will probably pick it up soon for some of the high school small groups in my church after some further input from the adult and student leaders.

Trailer

Here’s the official trailer on YouTube.

More information

The movie is playing in theaters starting TODAY! Check out ToSaveALifeMovie.com for more information about the movie and to find a theater near you.

Win a free “To Save A Life” fan pack!

The people at To Save A Life have graciously given me 1 fan pack of schwag to give away for FREE to a lucky random person! The fan pack contains:

Limited Edition Hoodie
Printed novel
A slap bracelet
Pens
and other fun movie stuff

All you have to do is use the Twitter or Facebook Share buttons at the top of this page to help spread the word about this film and review! Next Friday, January 29, I will select one person at random and award them with the fan pack. (Note: you may tweet and post this review multiple times if you want, but doing so will not increase your chances of winning.) Enjoy!

UPDATE: This contest is over. See a video of the drawing for the fan pack giveaway here. Did you win it?

Freebie Friday #161: 3D “punched out” font

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:58:17 +0000

This is probably one of those things you never knew you needed until you saw it, and as soon as you saw it, you thought of a 100 ways to use it.

This font gives you cut-outs that let you build 3D pixel style letters, perfect for creating a sign to display upright on a table, gluing to a poster, or to give to students to spell different words for a game or lesson opener.

Type the letters you want in a document
Print it out. Cardstock probably works best.
Cut along the solid lines
Fold along the dotted lines
Put some glue on the shaded flaps
Stick them together and there you go!

Download “Punched Out” font

If you’re unsure how to install a font, here’s how to do it on Windows and here’s how to do it on Mac.

[ ht churchrelevance.com ]

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Join us for LIVE YM Talk this Monday, January 19! We’re discussing, “How to connect God’s Word with students who appear disconnected, apathetic, and distracted.” Our guest will be E.J. Swanson, a national speaker at teen conferences, camps, and retreats. We’d love to have you join us! The live conversation starts at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

The future of LISM based on your feedback (2 of 2)

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 04:13:27 +0000

Yesterday I posted the general results from the survey I did of this site’s readership, which was really helpful in sharpening the focus of this site for 2010. However, almost everyone left comments and questions in the survey, too.

Since the survey was anonymous, I have no way of responding directly to people, let alone knowing who they are. Here are a couple questions and feedback that was asked by several people and my answers. NOTE: I edited and summarized a lot of this feedback for the sake of brevity.)

I’d like to see more product reviews. We know what saves a young person, but what is the right camera to buy? What is the right program or mac to purchase? This is something that would be helpful and also a good use of God’s money.

While I’m glad to hear you’re like me and like to research products before you buy them, I doubt this will be an area I’ll dive into anytime soon. I’m happy to mention the electronics I’ve purchased for my ministry and make recommendations accordingly, but there are many other websites that do a much better job of offering reviews and advice in this area than I can. I usually use sites like Amazon.com and Epinions.com to check out user-reviews of products.

Of course, you can always ask for recommendations and input on a product at MinistryQuestions.com before you buy something, too. There’s usually a youth worker or two out there who can give great advice on just about anything.

Please carefully proofread your writing. I think the frequent errors detract from the professionalism that you promote otherwise.

YES! I know! It bugs me, too! lol I type about 87 words per minute, but that’s still not fast enough to keep up with my thought process. I notice I often skip entire words as I type because my mind is already several words ahead of what I’m typing. Thanks for this reminder, though. I do need to do this more.

Unfortunately, I’ve watched very few of your videos. When I skim through my emails, I can read text very quickly. When I encounter a video, I don’t know how much time you’ll be taking away from me. If I can’t tell how long the video it, I’ll just skip it.

Great input! Just thought I’d point out that you can see how long each video is ahead of time by looking at the bottom-right corner of the YouTube video. The time duration is there. Hope that helps!

I listened to one episode of ministryquestions.com and I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t very impressed. A significant chunk of the time was taken up by introductions. I suppose that makes sense at the moment but it is tedious and unnecessary for the archive version.

Hmm… yeah, that makes sense. The reason I include the introductions is because I like LIVE YM Talk to be a place where youth leaders can connect with each other, even if it’s just by knowing someone’s name and having a frame of reference for their input throughout the recorded discussion.

I’m interested to hear what everyone else thinks about this. QUESTION: Should I include introductions in the podcast recording of LIVE YM Talk or not?

I’ll admit, the current website/theme is getting a bit old and is appearing “stale.” All my love to you, but after seeing some of your videos, video bumpers, etc. maybe an upgrade is in order?

I definitely agree. I’ve been discontent with it for a long time now. Since this site has kinda evolved on me, a lot of it needs to change. For example, when I made the logo of me in the goofy pose with the yellow lei around my hat, I just thought it was funny and didn’t expect too may other people to visit the site and see it. But now I know the branding of this site is very inconsistent and the design, while functional, is cluttered and busy.

None of the premium pay-for themes out there really fit what I have in mind, so just last week I finally finished saving up enough cash for a custom design and mailed in a check for the first deposit to a designer I hired. Within the next month or two, LISM will undergo the second phase of my site’s relaunch with new a new design and branding. (The first phase was moving to StudentMinistry.org, the final phase will be to upgrade some things with the videos and LIVE YM Talk recordings, but it all costs money, so it’ll take a while.)

Maybe giving away free tech gear, iPhones, or Wii’s? ;)

If someone wants to donate some gear to give away on my site, I’m totally up for that! In the meantime, I’ve showed you how to get those items and more for free, just like I have multiple times.

I appreciate not having to sort through the ads.

Yeah, this is a delicate balance. On one hand, I need to generate an income through the site so I can not only maintain it, but also improve it and upgrade it to keep up with growth. Plus, I love launching new projects like MinistryQuestions.com, which was not only costly to pull off, but is spendy to keep online due to the integrated video recording and streaming. It’s not even close to supporting itself, so I keep it online and maintained with the surplus funds from LISM advertising revenues.

But I also am firmly in your camp where I hate lots of advertising on a site. It annoys me to no end when I see it on other websites. I hate having to sift through the ads to find the content I want. Often I just leave a site altogether and never bother with it again if it’s cluttered with ads. While it’s necessary that this site generates an income, I plan on experimenting with fewer ads and charging more for them when the new design launches in a month or two. Not sure if that’ll work or not, but it’s worth a shot.

I really liked your “big rocks” video post. I have thought of four or five similar videos I would like to make but just haven’t had the time. Do you plan on adding more of these maybe for a small fee or even for free?

Yeah, the “big rocks” video was fun to do! It’s the only video I’ve done like that and, while it’s cool and all, personally I enjoy talking with other youth workers even more. As I mentioned yesterday, the tagline for LISM is, “Conversations among those who are passionate for teenagers.” The interview/discussion format of my videos is more enjoyable for me and fits the direction I’m going with this site better than the inspirational reminders. That said, however, I’m sure I’ll end up doing more videos like “big rocks” again in the future, because they still are fun to do from time to time.

Sometimes when I ask a question on MinistryQuestions.com, after a few answers come in, I’d like the chance to interact with the answers, which I don’t believe is possible right now.

I’ve wrestled back and forth with this question a lot. On one hand, I really do value the interaction and dialog that can take place from something like that, but on the other hand, I don’t want MinistryQuestions.com to just turn into another youth ministry forum. I want MQ to be distinctly unique. Sometime in the future I may pay the developers to build a feature that lets the question owner ask only one follow-up question to each response, but for now the best solution is to send a private message to the person who answered your question, as I talked about on the MinistryQuestions.com blog.

I don’t have the time to listen to all of the podcasts, but there are often topics discussed that I would love to learn more about. Is there anyway to get a text copy of the conversation or a summary of them?

Many people ask for this and, unfortunately, there is no easy way to do it at this point. Transcribing the each conversation would take hours and hours and does not sound even remotely fun. Maybe there’s someone else who would be up for doing that, or even writing a solid summary post about the discussion, but it’s definitely not me. Sorry! There may be some services out there that could do it, but I haven’t looked into them. My guess is that they won’t be too accurate with transcribing anyway.

Anyone else up for doing it?

Other general comments

Technology posts: There were a lot of comments about how you appreciate the articles about using technology in youth ministry, which makes sense, I guess — if you subscribe to a blog you’re probably more technologically inclined and interested about those kinds of things. Since I also enjoy technology, I don’t think writing more about this will be a problem. :)

My transparency: There were also many comments about how you all appreciate my transparency and authenticity on the site. Personally, I don’t think I’m being transparent enough! In 2010 I’m looking forward to sharing even more about my own life and ministry, lessons I’m learning and struggling through.

Networking with LISM readers: Another popular request was something I had never thought of before: a map of the US for LISM readers to use to find other LISM readers in their area. Apparently a lot of you want to connect with other readers of this site on a more personal level than what MinistryQuestions.com or LIVE YM Talk can provide. My initial thought is to refer you all to the National Network of Youth Ministers. They do an excellent job at forming local youth pastor networks and connecting youth workers together in face-to-face communities. But for those who want to connect specifically with other LISM readers, let me give more thought to that and see where it goes. Good idea!

QUESTION: How many other people would be interested in a LISM networking too like this?

The future of LISM based on your feedback (1 of 2)

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 04:29:57 +0000

On New Year’s Eve I asked how I can make LISM more valuable for you in 2010 and I’m glad I did because 70 of you gave me a lot of very helpful feedback!

Here’s an overview of some of your input, my responses, and reader demographics on this site. I would love to hear your response to all of these items in the comments below!

Overview

I asked this question to see if there were any trends in how questions were answered among newer subscribers as opposed to those who have been around for a while. The answers and comments were all pretty diverse, so nothing really to report there. The number of newer people who responded to the survey compared to the number of long-time subscribers is pretty reflective on how the site has grown over the past several years (i.e. there weren’t many subscribers 2 and 3 years ago).

Both of these surprised me! The main demographic of youth workers I have in mind when I generate content is the new youth worker (2 years or less) who is the main volunteer at a church with no paid youth worker. The secondary demographic I have in mind are paid youth workers who are new to youth ministry. To see that 64% of you are paid full-time and that 65% of you have been in youth ministry for 6 years or more makes me scratch my head a bit. I wasn’t writing for you! lol I feel like my content is a bit remedial for people who have been serving in that kind of a capacity for that long.

But regardless of what I had in mind, it is what it is. QUESTION: Should I start gearing my content more for you youth ministry veterans who have been doing this for 10+ years? I’m humbled you would even consider this site worth reading! Wow.

This site has a lot of international visitors thanks to some decent Google rankings, so I was curious to know if I should start focusing more on youth ministry from a global perspective. To be honest, I’m glad the large majority of readers are from the US because I know almost nothing about international youth ministry. How to work with teens in India, Africa and the Philippines is something I’d definitely have to outsource to someone more knowledgeable than myself.

This chart shows me that, while I have a decent amount of international traffic, almost none of it converts into subscribers, probably because the content is geared solely toward American teens? While it would be cool to help our international brothers and sisters in youth ministry, I feel that mixing international content in with the normal LISM stuff would dilute the focus here too much, but doing a separate youth ministry blog that focuses on that un-resourced demographic would be cool, maybe as a subdomain here or something. QUESTION: Anyone know someone abroad who would be excited and qualified to blog here about international youth ministry?

Aww man, I was hoping video would be much higher because it’s so much fun! Plus, I don’t have to worry about spelling, grammer, punctuation, and all that crud. Oh well. Good ol’ text it is, then… for now.

Freebie Friday and my normal blog posts are out front pretty strong together, twice as far as everything else, which are all somewhat close. It appears that there is value in it all, but that I should focus more on writing content than continuing the different features and series here. My tension is that I try to limit my posts to one a day, which only leaves 2, sometimes 3, days to publish unique “featured” posts.

Right now I have 56 blog drafts waiting to be published eventually. Some of them have been there for over a year and are probably out of date and irrelevant by now. QUESTION: I have enough that I could publish two posts a day for a while, which would be fine for you RSS subscribers, but might feel like spam for you email subscribers. What do you think?

Looks like I could write about anything and someone somewhere would be happy. I appreciate the flexibility! Although, I definitely am more excited about guest posts here at LISM than the rest of you are. I’m probably gonna push that direction a bit more than you guys indicated just because I really value having other voices and perspectives on this site. The tagline for LISM is, “Conversations among those passionate for teenagers,” hence LIVE YM Talk and the youth ministry mentorships. Guest blog posts fit right in with that focus. (If you’re interested in being a guest blogger, check out my guidelines and tips for how to make that happen.)

Tomorrow, answers to your questions and comments

There were several common questions that you all asked in the comments section of the survey. Tomorrow I’ll do my best to respond to a lot of your anonymous feedback and the future of Life In Student Ministry.

How mobile location-based games will impact the future of youth ministry

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:30:06 +0000

Just as many of us are becoming familiar with social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, here come two more big contenders that some tech sites are claiming will be the next big wave of social interaction. In fact, CNN calls them “next year’s Twitter.” True to my prediction about why teens will leave Facebook within the next two years, both of these services fall under the categories I suggested would characterize what’s next in the social media industry: It will not be tethered to a computer, and it will still enhance and lead to face-to-face socializing.

About the games

Imagine that the entire world is a giant game board. As you travel from place to place around town or around the world, you receive points via your GPS enabled cell phone for the places you visit and how you interact there. At some venues, you can pick up virtual items left there by other players, leave one of your own items behind for others who visit in the future, and view a log of how each item was picked up and passed along from place to place around the world, like a virtual geocache. If you visit a venue more than anyone else, you could become mayor of that place and earn a reputation with everyone else who visits it in the future as long as you retain your mayorship. (Some restaurants and stores now offer perks to the mayors of their venue, such as free drinks or special coupons.) Race to earn the most points among your friends, see their last location and choose to join them (no more calling everyone to see where they are, just check your friends list and drive over), and also race to earn both a local and global reputation as you travel your community and the rest of the world. There are leaderboards to climb, fun badges to earn, pins to unlock, collectable items to find, new venues to be the first to discover, and so much more. You can also leave notes for other visitors who check-in at that spot later (i.e. “I definitely recommend the chicken sandwich”) or leave notes for yourself that pop-up the next time you visit that venue (i.e. “Try the house salad next time instead of the caesar salad”). It’s a local game combined with a global game with both your friends and everyone else in the world.

The game names

The two big services in this mobile location-based game market are Foursquare and Gowalla. I’ve been playing both of their games for a couple weeks with my Motorola Droid and love it! As a guy who loves role-playing video games, the idea of being able to unlock badges, find items, rank up, and interact with other locals as I do my normal every-day activities around town is quite addicting.

GPS enabled phones with data plans are becoming more and more mainstream (Blackberry, iPhone, Android-based phones, etc.), which will lead to see a rise in the popularity of these mobile location-based games, first with the young-professionals 20-somethings, but then with teenagers. Within the next year or two, the mobile social networking games will become more robust, more competitive, more social and much more helpful and valuable as you travel to new places.

These services are still very new and there’s not much on the web that explains what they are or how they work in really simplistic terms. Foursquare as a half-decent explanation on their site, but Gowalla doesn’t have an explanation save for a brief video on the front page of their website that really doesn’t do it justice. This YouTube video is the best I could find if you want another (better) explanation of the two services side-by-side.

To see Foursquare and Gowalla compared, Mashable has a slightly out-dated chart of the two since Foursquare recently changed the game to be both global and local instead of just local. Now you play not only with your friends, but you’re also ranked again people who are within a 25 mile radius of you.

Another big player in the location-based mobile gaming industry is MyTown. It looks really sweet because it allows users to earn virtual currency, buy venues they frequently visit and charge rent to other players who check-in there, kinda like a big monopoly game in real-life. Unfortunately, I can’t play because it’s limited to the iPhone. Grrr…

Yelp.com recently got in the action by adding location-based gaming to their existing user-review community, and it’s only a matter of time until Facebook gets in the game, taking their millions of users with them to immediately dominate the industry (thereby somewhat negating my previous prediction).

The implications for the future of youth ministry are numerous

At a glance on your phone, see where your youth group kids are all hanging out and go join them.
Not familiar with the venue the teens are at? Check with the mayor, or read some of the notes posted about it.
Know who your youth group kids are spending time with every day.
Running some errands? Make your trail available so a kid can catch you if you’re nearby.
Notice that a new visitor who checked in to your church’s venue last Sunday is working at the check-out lane in the grocery store. Go do some shopping there and make sure you check-out on their isle to introduce yourself.
Leave virtual notes for kids at a venue for the next time they visit. (“Hey John, I talked with the store manager and I already pre-paid your next coffee here. Surprise! This one’s on me. Love ya, man!” Or, “Welcome to school today! Praying for your test, Jill!”)
Track attendance at youth group. If someone’s missing, see where they are. Notice the youth group guy is with a girl, probably on a date? Take the entire youth group over there and crash it!
Become mayor of your church to interact with guests, visitors, and even regulars who check in.
Thinking about grabbing dinner at Taco Bell, but see a couple kids just checked in at Subway across the street? Eat over there instead. (Plus, it’s healthier for you.)
A visitor comes to church and you notice they’re the mayor of a local bar. Great piece of info and background as you spark a conversations. Or maybe you notice that this person checked into 5 different churches each Sunday for the past 5 weeks. Again, helpful info. Maybe they’re searching for a church home. Drop a cool virtual item for them to take as a souvenir of their visit along with a note.

The list could go on and on, but you get the picture. Some of these location-based features aren’t available yet, like leaving private notes at a venue for a friend, but given some time I’m sure we’ll see this soon. (Remember The Milk already does location-based personal notes and “to do” reminders for GPS enabled phones. Walk into a grocery store and your phone automatically detects where you are and pops up your reminder, “Hey, remember to get cereal while you’re here.” Or, walk into church and your church “to do” list automatically comes up on your phone.)

My take

Personally, I like Foursquare the best because it has a native app for my Droid, the game is easy to learn, and it feels more social than the others. Plus, Foursquare seems to be pioneering the market more aggressively than the competition, which is still pretty limited. However, I really like Gowalla’s “virtual geocaching,” so I’ll probably play them both for now and see what happens.

Feel free to add me as a friend both on Gowalla and Foursquare. If you see that I just checked in somewhere close by you, come over and say HI! This will be especially fun to play with all of you at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference next month!

[ Tim Schmoyer on Foursquare ]

[ Tim Schmoyer on Gowalla ]

Note that there’s no gameplay on the site – you have to be on a GPS-enabled mobile phone for the actual game.

Preempting your criticisms

Before anyone gets too critical about the dangers of location-based services, let me remind you of the cycle of youth culture: everything from Elvis to MySpace is first met with criticism from the older generations before it’s eventually adopted as commonplace just as the new generation is moving on to something else. Since the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women over the age of 55, I’d say it’s about time to see the cycle start to repeat itself again very soon. Maybe mobile location-based networking will be where criticism comes next before everyone is eventually doing it, maybe not, but I’m guessing it is.

Yeah, there will be some crazy stalker stories surrounding the games of making your exact location known, and most of us (myself included) still feel a little uncomfortable about giving away that kind of information on a regular basis, but I remember feeling the same way about Twitter and letting everyone know, “What are you doing?” all the time. Now it’s normal. I remember way back when it was a privacy concern to post a picture of yourself online! Given some time and wider acceptance, I expect the same will happen with location-aware social networks, too.

What do you think?

Do you think mobile location based services will catch on? How do you see it impacting youth ministry?

Time Out: Hearing God through information and guidance

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:05:25 +0000

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

Twenty eight years ago I was between churches and seeking where God would have me minister. A church in western Pennsylvania invited us to come speak and apply so we did. We weren’t sure if God wanted us to go there or not, but they went ahead with their procedure and voted on us. The vote was 100% – unanimous. I remember agonizing over the decision, awaiting their final call to see if we were coming or not. When the phone rang I still wasn’t sure, but as I talked I knew God was telling me to turn it down. I really wanted to get back to pastoring. I hadn’t ever heard of Main Street Baptist Church in Doylestown. Six months later God led us here, and the church vote was 51% in our favor. Denominational leaders urged us to turn down what was then a hot-bed of conflict and strife, but I knew God was leading us to come here so we did.

That’s why it’s so important to be listening to God and letting Him guide and direct. God speaks conviction to our spirit. A second type of content God speaks to us is information and guidance.

Jesus said, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come” (John 16:13).

The Bible abounds with examples of this. Paul said the Holy Spirit warned him of what was to come when he went to Jerusalem (Acts 20:22-23). He reminded the church in Corinth that they had the “mind of Christ” (2:16). Joseph heard of Pharaoh’s dream and God told Him the contents and their meaning. Daniel heard Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and God gave him the interpretation. Jacob (Genesis 46:2) and Samuel (2 Samuel 23:2) both said God spoke His guidance to them. Simeon was moved by the Spirit to find Jesus with His parents in the temple (Luke 2:25-28). Several times the Bible tells us that God guided Him by directing His spirit (Mark 2:8; John 13:21). God spoke to Ananias and told him to go to blind Paul (Acts 9:11-15).

An analogy I like which explains this is the shepherd-sheep illustration. He said that His sheep hear His voice and follow Him (John 10:4, 16, 27). Jesus’ definition of a disciple is one who follows Him, who hears His voice and responds.

St. Augustine tells of a time God’s voice guided him. “I heard from a neighboring house a voice, as of a boy or girl, I know not, changing, and oft repeating, ‘Take up and read. Take up and read.’ I could remember no child’s game with these words. So, checking the torrent of my tears, I arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God, to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find.” Thus he came upon Romans 13:13-14 which led to his salvation and transformation.

A very remarkable illustration of this concerns Peter Marshall, the Scot who in the middle of the twentieth century became one of America’s most widely acclaimed ministers. Through his outstanding qualities as a man and a minister, he brought the office of the chaplain of the United States Senate to a new level of prominence.

Back in Britain, on one foggy, pitch-black Northumerland night, he was taking a shortcut across the moors in an area where there was a deep, deserted limestone quarry. As he plodded blindly forward, an urgent voice called out, “Peter!” He stopped and answered, “Yes, who is it? What do you want?” But there was no response.

Thinking he was mistaken, he took a few more steps. The voice came again, even more urgently, “Peter!” At this he stopped again and, trying to peer into the darkness, stumbled forward and fell to his knees. Putting down his hand to brace himself, he found nothing there. As he felt around in a semicircle he discovered that he was right on the brink of the abandoned quarry, where one step more would certainly have killed him.

It’s not just the big things, but little things He leads us with as well. Many times I’ve not been able to find my keys or something I’ve misplaced. After frantically looking everywhere I finally stop and pray, and then soon after that their location pops right into my mind!

Charles Stanley adds excellent counsel to this: “In the Old Testament when men such as King David inquired of the Lord, the question was nearly always put to the Lord in such a way that the answer was yes or no. I believe this is the foremost way that the Holy Spirit speaks to us hour by hour as we walk through our particular set of circumstances. We can never ask too many times of the Holy Spirit, ‘Should I do this – yes or no?’ We will sense in our spirits His word of reply to us. Generally, it will be a sense of enthusiasm and eager desire marked with great joy and freedom, or it will be a sense of foreboding, danger, caution, or need for silence. I find that it is much easier to receive the direction of the Holy Spirit by asking for yes-or-no counsel than to say to Him in general terms, ‘What do you want me to do?’”

Take a few moments now to ask God for information or guidance you need for something you are currently involved in. Listen to His Spirit as He speaks. Keep listening all day, for God often speaks slowly and little by little.

Podcast: Answering questions and debates from MinistryQuestions.com #2

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:34:05 +0000

We had a great discussion last Monday answering some of the recent questions and debates that were posted to MinistryQuestions.com. Unfortunately, the service we use to hold the conversations, TalkShoe, was plagued with issues once again, forcing us to switch to Blog Talk Radio for next week’s talk.

Nonetheless, the phone part worked without many hitches, so we were able to discuss a couple topics before our time ran out.

Some of the things we talked about:

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

January 19: Join us for LIVE YM Talk again this Monday! We’re discussing, “What every youth worker can learn from urban youth ministry.” Our guest will be Eric Iverson, the Multi-Cultural Integrity Director for YouthWorks. We’d love to have you join us! The live conversation starts at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Freebie Friday #160: Campus prayer walk guide

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:38:13 +0000

Leave it to Paul Turner to again contribute a great resource for Freebie Friday! I think he’s starting to get close to rivaling Brett Hetherington for the most Freebie Friday contributions! Thanks, Paul!

Paul sent this to me with the following note:

Made this the other day for our campus Bible club. We divided the group into four and started them in different locations. Worked out very well. We met back together at the end and for testimonies and group prayer.

Download the Campus Prayer Walk Gude

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Join us for LIVE YM Talk this Monday, January 19! We’re discussing, “What every youth worker can learn from urban youth ministry.” Our guest will be Eric Iverson, the Multi-Cultural Integrity Director for YouthWorks. We’d love to have you join us! The live conversation starts at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

Quick Note: LIVE YM Talk is moving to BlogTalkRadio.com

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 06:00:32 +0000

Just a quick note to notify everyone that LIVE YM Talk will now be hosted at BlogTalkRadio.com.

In 2008 LIVE YM Talk was hosted on Skype before we quickly switched to Talkshoe.com, which worked great for a year and a half because it was free and served our needs perfectly. In fact, it still is the perfect solution for LIVE YM Talk, except that a couple months ago it started having a lot of issues with crashing people’s browsers, software incompatibilities, down-time, and more. I’ve been in touch with Talkshoe’s head support rep and, unfortunately, they don’t seem too eager to fix anything, so it’s time for us to move on.

Try joining us again

If you’ve joined us in the past but stopped because of all the technical difficulties with TalkShoe, I’d like to invite you to come back and join us again. Although BlogTalkRadio.com is missing some of the key features we loved at TalkShoe, at least it should be functional — it’d better anyway, I’m paying $39 a month for it!

Each week’s show link will be posted at it’s normal place on the LIVE YM Talk page here at LISM, so check that each Monday for a direct link to listen to the conversation online and access the chat room. We also now have a direct phone number: (646) 721-9140. Or, during the show you can just click a button and connect directly using your computer microphone with no software to install.

Some big upcoming shows!

We have a great lineup of discussions scheduled, including a live conversation and Q&A with Tic Long, the new Executive Director of Youth Specialties, in a couple weeks!

This Monday we’re talking with Eric Iverson, the Multi-Cultural Integrity Director for YouthWorks. He’ll lead us in a discussion about, “What every youth worker can learn from urban youth ministry.”

The Monday after that, on January 25, E.J. Swanson is going to join the conversation about, “How to connect God’s Word with students who appear disconnected, apathetic, and distracted.”

Check out the schedule of other upcoming discussions on the LIVE YM Talk page and join our conversation every Monday at 2:00 PM eastern time!

Outcomes of youth groups who serve their community

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:10:43 +0000

Next round of youth ministry mentoring starts at SYMC!

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:32:56 +0000

Almost two years ago I started doing some one-on-one youth ministry mentoring through this site and since then it’s grown into a full-blown team of mentors who have served over 100 brand new youth workers. We’ve taken a wholistic approach to mentoring by focusing on three main areas that all intertwine with each other: a mentee’s personal life, spiritual life, and ministry life. The response by new youth workers who have gone through the program has been extremely positive, so we’re glad we’re on the right track with this. We tend to do two 10-week one-on-one rounds each year, one in the spring and one in the fall, and this year will be no different.

However, this spring round of mentoring will be especially unique because we have the tremendous opportunity to partner with the Simply Youth Ministry Conference and start it face-to-face with you. Most of the mentors will be at the conference, myself included, and are pumped to take mentoring to the next level with a couple one-on-one lunch conversations. It’s advice and wisdom for your youth ministry, your personal walk with Christ, and your personal life that starts face-to-face and continues to weekly telephone conversations from there!

If you’ve been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer and will be at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference from February 26 to March 1, 2010, then this youth ministry mentorship is for you! The video below explains a bit more about it, including a story from one of the past mentees who has gone through the program.

Traditionally the mentorship has been absolutely free, but because we want to start investing more into the mentors and into the program, the 10-week mentorship now costs $99 (books included). We realize that some youth workers who really need this mentoring can’t afford that, though, so there are some scholarship funds available.

If you have been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer and you’re planning to be at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference next month, this is simply an opportunity I promise you cannot miss! Seriously. I don’t say that about many things. Check out the Youth Ministry Mentoring part of this site, look through the expectations, goals, and other parts of the mentorship and decide for yourself. If you’re up for the 10-week journey with a personal youth ministry mentor, fill out the application and if you’re selected by a mentor, I will be in touch with you via email to give you payment information and put you in touch with the mentor.

For those of you who want to be mentored but will not be at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference, you may also fill out the application to be considered for the mentorship. The mentors who are unable to attend the conference will be considering your applications.

I’m so pumped about this partnership! Seriously people, you new youth workers out there cannot believe how blessed you will be by both the conference and this mentorship, especially when they’re combined together like this. Check it out!

[ Youth Ministry Mentorship ]

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How can I make Life In Student Ministry more valuable for you in 2010? Here is a survey that could give me some valuable insights into you, your ministry, your needs, and thoughts about this site. It should only take about 3-4 minutes to complete. Thanks!

Podcast: Designing a vision for your student ministry

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:46:39 +0000

Due to a little miscommunication, the guest for today’s show wasn’t able to make it, so those of us who were on the call decided to go ahead with the topic ourselves. It actually morphed into the topic you see above, which was great. We’ll talk more about it with Todd Perkins when we reschedule him for another time, but will go more with the direction of “communicating the vision to the church and community” since we didn’t discuss that much in last week’s LIVE YM Talk.

Some of the things we talked about:

What is a vision?
How does it different from mission/purpose/values/goals/etc.?
Why is it important?
How a vision directs a ministry
And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

January 18: We’re working on getting Todd or someone else scheduled for this coming Monday, so keep an eye on the LIVE YM Talk page this week for updates about next week’s conversation.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Time Out: How we hear God speak

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:46:12 +0000

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

Sometimes I’m guilty of not listening when my wife speaks. I may be looking at here and pretend to be paying attention, but my mind is elsewhere and I don’t really hear her. I’m sure most husbands have been caught in that one time or another. It’s embarrassing and painful (for both of us). How much more so, though, when God speaks and we don’t her.

Some Christians say they never hear God speaking to them, but if you are a Christian, you have heard God speak to you. It has definitely happened or you wouldn’t be a Christian. And you were paying attention as well. For most of us, the first time we heard God speak to us He was convicting us of sin, showing us our need of salvation. Jesus said, “When the Holy Spirit comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me” (John 16:7-11). I Thessalonians 1:4-5 says the gospel comes to us with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.

To Ezekiel God complained that “these people have ears to hear but they never hear, eyes to see but they never see” (12:2). Jesus repeated this complaint several times as well.

When we look at these occurrences we see they can be grouped into five areas of revelation. God spoke conviction, information, encouragement, enablement in ministry, and revelation of Himself.

Of course we all know that how we respond that that conviction is a free will choice each will need to make.

In the 1640s George Fox, founder of the Friends, or Quaker, movement, wandered the fields and lanes of the English countryside, seeking someone who could show him the way to peace with God. He finally became convinced that “there was none among them all that could speak to my condition. And when all my hopes in them and in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell what to do; then, oh! Then I heard a voice which said, ‘here is one, even Jesus Christ, that can speak to thy condition’; and when I heard it, my heart did leap for joy. Then the Lord did let me see why there was none upon the earth that could speak to my condition, namely, that I might give him all the glory.”

One way in which God speaks to us is to show us the sin in our life. He does this before salvation so we will see our need of Him. He also does this in the lives of those who have freely received His free gift of salvation. He shows us sin so we can confess and remove it.

Charles Stanley wrote: “As we read God’s Word, we nearly always come to what I call a ‘gulp point.’ Something we read challenges us to change something in our lives, to gulp and say, ‘Wow! That really hit me. I need to do something about that.’ Sometimes it’s a conviction about sin in our lives. Sometimes it’s a correction in the way we have been taught or the way in which we act toward others. Sometimes it’s a clear call to engage in a new discipline or area of ministry.”

The problem is that we have a tendency to only listen to what we want to hear. A doctor can give us good advice about diet changes or needed exercise, but it’s very easy to ignore his counsel if it means changes we don’t want to make.

I’ve learned to recognize God’s Spirit when He convicts me of sin. He warns me ahead of time through my conscience. He also censures me after I have sinned. While we may not want to hear these things from Him, we can thank Him for faithfully bringing sin to our attention. Suppose He didn’t?

Scripture
John 16:7-11, “When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me…”

1 Thessalonians 1:4-5, “For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.”

Reflect
Thank God for speaking to you to show you your need of His salvation. Then ask Him to show you any sin in your life that you need to confess. Listen to what His Spirit says and confess that sin. Learn to recognize God’s voice speaking in that way so whenever there is sin to be removed you do so.

Freebie Friday #159: A variety of free resources from Break Free Youth Ministry

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:00:54 +0000

I don’t remember who pointed me to today’s Freebie Friday — I think it was in a chat conversation with someone on Skype actually. Sorry for not giving credit to whoever deserves it!

Someone passed this link along to me. It’s a guy’s website with lots of his youth ministry resources available for free. He has Bible studies, PowerPoint games, special event stuff, videos that can be used as teaching illustrations or just for fun, and more. Looks like there could be some valuable time-saver resources here. Of course, be sure to use his Share page to contribute any of your own resources, too.

Break Free Youth Ministry

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Join us for LIVE YM Talk this Monday, January 11! We’re doing another show of answering recent questions and debates from MinistryQuestions.com. We’d love to have you participate by giving your input, answers, and advice for people’s questions during the live conversation at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

My interview with the new Youth Specialties Executive Director: Tic Long

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:19:32 +0000

Today Youth Specialties makes a huge announcement and reveals its new Executive Director, Tic Long. Youth Specialties has been through a lot of major transitions throughout the past couple years, so welcoming back a familiar face like Tic is undoubedly a comfort and relief for many. Personally, I’m stoked! I appreciate Tic’s ability to appreciate the rich history of Youth Specialities’ past while still embracing the changes and risks that will always be necessary for the future.

It’s great to feel a sense of stability at Youth Specialties again now that the YouthWorks deal is finished and Tic is back on board (and, of course, that Adam McLane is still around). I’m looking forward to exciting new developments in the the field of youth ministry from YS for a long time to come.

I had the privilege of interviewing Tic in anticipation for this announcement. Here’s our discussion:

TIM: First of all, welcome back to YS! What’s been going through your mind, soul and heart during the time off?

TIC: To tell you the truth Tim the first couple months I was trying to get YS out of my system. After 32 years I had to relearn about life outside of YS. I tried to not really think too much or too soon about what was next but to enjoy my family, friends and God in a more leisurely manner. I spent a month Backpacking which did wonders for my Soul.

TIM: You could’ve taken a lot of different opportunities from a lot of different organizations. What drew you back to YS?

TIC: It was really a couple things. First I was actually surprised by that fact that in the end I had some really cool opportunities to choose from. Others said that would be the case but it still surprised me. In my time away I wrestled with the question was it time to leave youth ministry. In the end there was just nothing else that excited me as much. I think some of us are just lifers. We might be a sick group but it is home to me. There is nothing else that I am as passionate about. I wasn’t expecting this so it took a while to get my emotions around it. First I really fell in love with the YouthWorks folks. I went to Minneapolis to their HQ which is kind of dumpy. It reminded me of the early YS offices. They have had the money to build big fancy offices but to do that would mean they would not be able to give away as much money. They give serious money away to the communities they do mission trips in and that really spoke to me. They are serious about being the church to folks. There is a lot more to this part of the story but I really felt they were the perfect home for YS after I sniffed it out. I think the other thing is deep down I am just a YS guy. I love YS and I think this home can return us closer to what I dream we can be. In the end I just could not say no to YS.

TIM: Based on Youth Specialties’ past that has brought it to where it is today with YouthWorks and Zondervan, where do you see God taking YS in the future? What’s vision has God laid on your heart for YS?

TIC: It is still a little early to speak to this to a great extent extent as I just said yes to returning December 27 and have just spent a couple days with the folks here in Minneapolis and have yet to even be in the YS office since coming back. What I am feeling most strongly is returning our focus to loving, training and resourcing youth workers. These last couple seasons at YS we have had so many internal issues and financial pressures we had to focus more on ourselves than youth workers and that hindered us. YS at it’s best is playful, prophetic, inclusive, grounded, willing to take risk to help youth workers engage culture and equip their students to follow Jesus. I think our calling is to be an advocate and safe haven for those working with students, our events a place where youth workers are nourished spiritually and encouraged and at the same time challenged to take chances to meet God on the outer edge of their faith and not play it safe, go for it for the kingdom of God…. Sorry I’m rambling.

TIM: What are the biggest obstacles for YS to overcome to get there?

TIC: Being better listeners to not only what God is calling us to but to what youth workers are asking for. We have been at this for a while and have lots of ideas and approaches with many peers. We need to make sure we make room for new voices and not just stay in our own comfort zone. We need to provide platforms for the new voices God is calling to speak into the youth ministry community. It is much easier to go just with those we know well but we just can’t do that. Someone gave Yaconelli a chance, We gave Duffy Robbins, Chap Clark, Doug Fields, Les Christie and many others a platform to speak to the youth ministry community with what God placed on their heart. We need to keep doing that, to keep presenting new voices.

TIM: NYWC has been the Mecca of youth ministry conventions for decades, but recently many youth workers have become increasingly disinterested in it for a number of reasons. What changes can we look forward to specifically at NYWC?

TIC: I think the above applies here. The convention is not about us but about youth workers. I think we refine what we do best in response to what we hear from the trenches. I actually think Youth Ministry is better served with the SYM convention, Orange and others on the scene rather than the NYWC being the only game in town. It makes harder for us but better for the kingdom. I think as all our events fine tune and respond to each other and the youth ministry community the church wins.

TIM: What is your relationship with Marko? I know you were at one time the President of YS, but what makes you think you are the person to do it again?

TIC: I don’t really know how to answer that but let me start with this point because I think there is some misinformation out there. Marko and I are good, we have always been good. We are friends and had a good working relationship. We have not blamed each other or had any big weirdness throughout this wild ride. We will continue to be friends and speak into each others lives. I am not worried about my ability to lead YS (other than the fact that there is always some fear in me when handling something I think God has places in front of me). It is is my giftedness and skill set. I know YS, I know youth workers but I am not doing it alone, as always we will have a team. We have always seen YS as a gift, a sacred trust and not something we owned. I am once again a caretaker of that trust and that is humbling. I am excited and humbled at the same time, does that make sense?

TIM: What does YS need from youth workers during this transitionary time? How can we support you all?

TIC: Give us some time to catch our breath, your prayers and your voice.

TIM: Any chance you’ll be moving to my backyard here in Minnesota to be closer to YouthWorks? :-)

TIC: Ummmmmmm………NO. That would take a burning bush.

Read the official announcement about Tic’s position at YouthSpecialties.com, including this teaser video on YouTube.

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If you’ve been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer, there’s a solid team of experienced Life In Student Ministry youth workers who want to support you and invest into your ministry on a one-on-one basis! Read more on our Youth Ministry Mentors page.

Why the Online Missions Trip happens at a pivotal moment in history

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 02:19:38 +0000

You have to see this video about the social media revolution. It underscores why the Online Missions Trip outreach campaign comes at such a pivotal moment in history.

REMINDER: Online Missions Trip starts January 31!

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:36:20 +0000

This past September I announced the dates for the 2010 Online Missions Trip, along with some detailed information about what it is, how it works, and how your youth group can join my groups and thousands of other teens around the world in sharing Christ through social media online.

If you’re not familiar with the Online Missions Trip, here’s what it’s all about:

The Internet has never made it so easy to share Christ with those all over the world! Teenagers spend a crazy amount of hours talking with friends on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, World of Warcraft and other such social hangouts online. As youth workers, let’s train them to share their faith and encourage them to do it online. The Online Missions Trip is a 2-week campaign to empower them to use social media to share Christ with their friends who don’t yet know Him.

The structure looks like this:

January 10-30, 2010

Pre-trip training. Use youth group meetings to train kids how to share their faith, think through the Online Missions Trip concept, and start praying for unsaved friends.

January 31 to February 13, 2010

Online Missions Trip! During these two weeks teens and youth leaders are engaging in spiritual conversations with unsaved friends online. They’re uploading videos, photos, posting links, using status updates to share what God’s doing in their lives, writing notes, sending messages, posting on blogs, creating event invites to youth group, and anything else that will bring God up in a conversation that starts online and hopefully spreads to a face-to-face discussion.

February 14, 2010

Outreach event/series and new-believer follow-up starts. Follow-up on this missions trip with a series that helps the new teens in your ministry either investigate Christianity a bit closer or start growing in their new faith. Be sure to follow-up one-on-one with new converts, as well.

To learn more about this trip, visit OnlineMissionsTrip.com. There are many ideas, free resources and tools, a 24/7 Prayer Room that will open in 2010, and more. It also has a video of me explaining the trip in more detail.

While you’re there, become a fan of The OnlineMissionsTrip.com Facebook Page and meet some of the other teens and youth leaders who will be attending this missions trip with you next year as part of fulfilling THE Cause.

[ Visit OnlineMissionsTrip.com ]

Time Out: God speaks through a burning heart

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 04:58:11 +0000

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

In the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral there is what is known as the Whispering Gallery. Through the peculiar construction of the dome a whisper by a person at one side travels round and can be distinctly heard by another person standing at the other.

An even more remarkable whispering gallery is that known as the Ear of Dionysius at Syracuse in Sicily. This is a vast cave, which externally bears a resemblance to a human ear. Entering by a low doorway, the visitor finds himself in a huge cavern. High up, concealed in the roof, is a chamber, which can only be entered by a concealed path at the top. The faintest whisper uttered below is distinctly heard by those concealed above. In this chamber the tyrant Dionysius used to sit listening to his slaves working or to his captives imprisoned below. All their plots against him were thus, to them, mysteriously discovered and circumvented. From this historical fact the cave has received the name of the Ear of Dionysius.

We, too, can learn to hear everything God says – if we know how to listen. God really does speak to us today. He desires communication with us and we desire communication with Him. Hearing from God is probable, possible and even very necessary. How does God speak and what does He say?

God speaks to us today through His Holy Spirit. We can hear His voice. It’s not a sound, it’s a voice. It’s not something you hear with your ears but in your mind. Once you learn to recognize and respond to this voice you’ll recognize it often. It’s a gentle whisper, not a shout. God speaks rich and enlightening thoughts to our spirit by His Spirit. Often this still, small voice speaks rich and enlightening thoughts by causing a burning within my heart.

The disciples who talked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus that first Resurrection Sunday experienced this. Luke 24:32 says, “They asked each other, ‘were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?’”

Psalm 39:1-3 talks about this as well. “My heart grew hot within me, and as I meditated, the fire burned.”

One of the more familiar quotes about this comes from the journal of John Wesley for May 14, 1738. “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate-Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

Haven’t you found yourself moved by something you sense in your spirit? Perhaps it happens during a song or sermon, when listening to a testimony or out in nature? This stirring is God speaking to our hearts through His Holy Spirit, putting His fire within us to highlight something of importance.

Charles Stanley writes: “As you pray and read, trust the Holy Spirit to quicken your spirit to His truth. You may feel this as warmth inside, or you may feel a great sense of absoluteness about a particular verse. Sometimes the words on the page of your Bible may seem to stand out to you as if they were written in bold headlines. Sometimes you may not be able to get away from a particular passage. It comes repeatedly to your mind, and you can’t seem to shake it from memory.”

So we see that this still, small voice speaks rich and enlightening thoughts by causing a burning within our hearts. How He speaks is by a gentle, quiet whisper. Where He speaks is to our thoughts and to our hearts. He touches our rational mental capacity (enlightened thoughts) as well as our emotional feelings (burning hearts).

Scripture
Luke 24:32, “They asked each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?’”

Psalm 39:1-3, “I said, ‘I will watch my ways and keep my tongue from sin; I will put a muzzle on my mouth as long as the wicked are in my presence.’ But when I was silent and still, not even saying anything good, my anguish increased. My heart grew hot within me, and as I meditated, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue: ‘Ask God to make you sensitive to the ‘burning’ He puts in your heart, the desires and emotions He creates in you to speak His truth to you.’”

Freebie Friday #158: Youth group “Twilight” curriculum and a whole lot more!

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:04:57 +0000

One of the Youth Ministry Mentors, John Byrne, runs a site called YM Theology. It features a lot of youth ministry videos, podcasts and blog posts surrounding youth ministry and theology, but John also has a page of youth ministry content he’s created that he’s willing to just give away for free. The page includes

Description of a Discipled Person
Discipline
Event Prep Worksheet
Internship Proposal
KRA-s
Intern Job Description
Small Group Training
SWOP
Worship Team Application
Youth ministry leader app
Christmas Trivia

Also on his page is a 4-week youth group curriculum series called “Twilight” that’s based on the story of Ruth. You can download all 4 weeks of the discussion questions for the series plus everything else mentioned above right here:

Free Youth Ministry Stuff from YMTheology.com

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For LIVE YM Talk this Monday, January 4, Todd Perkins is our featured guest. He will lead us in a discussion about designing and communicating the student ministry’s vision to the church and community. We’d love to have you join us for the live conversation at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

How can I make LISM more valuable for you in 2010?

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 21:18:07 +0000

As we enter into 2010, I’ve been thinking a lot about Life In Student Ministry and it’s direction for the future. I’ve been tremendously blessed to create much of the content here, sometimes with you in mind, sometimes just rambling out loud about my own issues and struggles in youth ministry. I presume much of that will stay the same in 2010, but I also want to make some changes that will continue to bless you and your ministry. As you know, evaluation is critically important in preventing something from becoming stale and stagnant, so would you help me with that?

Linked below is a survey that could give me some valuable insights into you, your ministry, your needs, and thoughts about this site. It should only take about 3-4 minutes to complete, so when you have the time, please fill it out and help me serve you.

[ SURVEY: Looking forward to 2010 with LISM ]

All that I ask is that you be honest, courteous and constructive with your feedback.

I pour a lot of time and energy into Life In Student Ministry and the projects that surround it, so criticism can be a little difficult to hear sometimes. However, I think it’s vital to hear it all if this site is going to continue to be a valuable resource for you and your ministry.

I appreciate if you could complete the survey above, but also feel free to leave comments below that could be helpful for LISM in 2010. Give me feedback about topics, types of posts, posting frequency, the site’s design, blog features, MinistryQuestions.com, tools and services, frustrations, ideas, etc. Thank you!

I’m looking forward to an amazing year of blessing you and your “life in student ministry!”

Time Out: God speaks rich and enlightening thoughts

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 03:04:57 +0000

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

Writer Charles Swindoll once found himself with too many commitments in too few days. He got nervous and tense about it. “I was snapping at my wife and our children, choking down my food at mealtimes, and feeling irritated at those unexpected interruptions through the day,” he recalled in his book, Stress Fractures. “Before long, things around our home started reflecting the pattern of my hurry-up style. It was become unbearable.

“I distinctly remember after supper one evening, the words of our younger daughter, Colleen. She wanted to tell me something important that had happened to her at school that day. She began hurriedly, ‘Daddy, I wanna tell you somethin’ and I’ll tell you really fast.’ Suddenly realizing her frustration, I answered, ‘Honey, you can tell me — and you don’t have to tell me really fast. Say it slowly.’ I’ll never forget her answer: ‘Then listen slowly.’”

That’s good advice for all of us. Listen slowly; listen intently, for His voice is often a gentle whisper, a still, small voice. When we learn to listen for it we recognize that He speaks rich and enlightened thoughts to our spirits.

God can put a new idea directly and immediately into our mind. He can give us a new perspective in which to view something. He can put new desires into our hearts. He can stimulate certain memories stored within our mind just when they are most needed.

Martin Luther wrote: “If the Holy Spirit should come when these thoughts are in your mind and begin to preach to your heart, giving you rich and enlightened thoughts, then give Him the honor, let your preconceived ideas go, be quiet and listen to Him Who can talk better than you; and note what He proclaims and write it down.”

James Dobson has given some of the best practical advice I have ever heard on how someone who really wants the will of God and who has a basically correct understanding of it should proceed. Describing how he does it himself, he says, “I get down on my knees and say, ‘Lord, I need to know what you want me to do, and I am listening. Please speak to me through my friends, books, magazines I pick up and read, and through circumstances.’”

Often God’s still, small voice takes the form of thoughts that are our thoughts, though they are not from us.

When God speaks in your heart it doesn’t matter where your mind has been going; He blocks and overrides all circuits. You are captivated by His voice speaking to you. He commands your undivided attention. There is absolute certainty in what He says. What He says is right. His word has perfect balance and proportion. Everything He shows us fits together seamlessly. The word He gives us is complete. Everything He says compliments everything He’s been showing us.

It’s true that Satan can counterfeit this, but that just proves that God does speak to us in this way. A little later we’ll have a whole message on how to tell God’s voice from Satan’s counterfeit leading.

When I study, when I prepare sermons and lessons, I try to be very aware of the rich and enlightening thoughts that God sends me by means of His Spirit. When I counsel I always try to be sensitive to His leading and direction. When we are involved in spiritual warfare it is essential to be in tune to hear what thoughts God gives me. God speaks to you in the same way. You need to learn to take time to recognize His voice.

Scripture
John 2:22, “After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.”

John 14:26, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

Reflect
Spend time quietly listening to God. Have a paper and pencil with you to start writing down some of the things that come to mind. It may be a reminder of something to do or an idea about how to solve a problem. It could be just a sense of peace and wellbeing. But first you must listen.

Freebie Friday #157: Custom countdown timer video on a green-screen

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 03:36:50 +0000

Troy Young created and donated this year’s Christmas Freebie Friday! Thanks, Troy!

If your youth ministry uses countdown timers, here’s a simple 5-minute timer on a green screen. You can put your latest youth ministry video of an event, a motion background, or even your youth group logo in front of the green screen. iMovie ‘09 makes it dead simple to use a green screen, so if you’re on a Mac, this should be simple.

Download 5-minute green-screen countdown timer*

*You may have to right-click on the link and select, “Save Target As” or “Save Link As” in order to download the video file.

———————————————————————-
There is no LIVE YM Talk this week. Our next talk is on Monday, January 4, 2010, were we will talk about designing and communicating the student ministry’s vision to the church and community. Our guest will be Todd Perkins of Youth Ministry Consultants, Inc.. Join us then for LIVE YM Talk.

Time Out: How to hear God speak in a gentle whisper

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:49:12 +0000

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

There is an old story about two men walking down a busy, loud New York City street. Horns honked, engines roared, PA systems blasted advertisements. All of a sudden one of the men, who had been an outdoorsmen all his life, stopped and said, “What’s that?” The other man couldn’t imagine what he was talking about with all the noise and confusion all around. The first man went over to the side of a building and picked up a cricket he had heard. The friend was amazed that the outdoorsman had even heard it, but his ears were attuned to that sound and could pick it out of the din around them.

That’s how our spiritual hearing needs to be. We need to be able to pick God’s voice out of all the other voices clamoring for out attention. Hopefully this post will help you to be able to do that.

First we’ll look at what God’s voice sounds like, and then we’ll talk about some of the things He says. The first clue we have to what God’s voice sounds like is in I Kings 19 where we see it is a still, small voice – a gentle whisper.

Kings 19:11-13, “The LORD said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.’ Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’”

In the still, small voice of God we are given a message that bears the stamp of His personality quite clearly and in a way we will learn to recognize.

There is a speaker system at the Ontario Motor Speedway in California that has an out put of 30,800 watts connected to 355 speakers and able to communicate to 230,000 people above the noise of the car races. God could outdo that, but instead chooses to speak quietly. Therefore if we want to hear Him we can’t wait for Him to shout over the noise in our life but we need to learn to be quiet and listen for His still, quiet voice.

I remember several years ago I was marrying a couple that I had known for a long time and had been coming to church and Bible studies for quite some time. They had some major “issues” it seemed that had worked through, but the day before the wedding the groom did something that was part of his old pattern. I clearly heard God’s voice in my spirit telling me not to marry them, so I didn’t. The bride and both families really put a lot of pressure on me to go ahead with the wedding but I knew that God had spoken.

Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones writes: “God sometimes answers directly in our spirit. The prophet said, ‘I will watch and see what He will say in me.’ God speaks to me by speaking in me. He can so lie something upon the mind that we are certain of the answer. He can impress something upon our spirits in an unmistakable manner. We find ourselves unable to get away from an impression that is on our mind or heart; we try to rid ourselves of it, but back it comes.”

Remember, this is not a verbal voice, a sensation or an emotional experience. In fact, it can be very easy to overlook His voice or just think it’s a thought of our own.

Try an experiment: Be as still and silent as you possibly can for the next 30 seconds or so. Listen as intently as you can, noticing the sounds you hear. How many sounds? What are they? Close your eyes and begin to listen. Pause: Did you hear 1 sound? 2? 3? 4? 5? Did you hear the ticking of the clock? Heater noise? Birds? Traffic? Voices? Your own breath? Your heartbeat? Ringing in your ears?

We are seldom still enough to hear the subtle sounds. Most of us suffer from a steady dose of noise pollution: TV, radio, conversation. Constant sound bombards us until the naturalness of silence sounds foreign, unnatural, threatening, and we’ll do just about anything to cover it up. In a significant way, we are in fact addicted to noise. The constant blaring of the TV is for many an electronic companion whose presence we take for granted; Muzak fills the elevator; we jump in the car and switch on the radio to fill the uncomfortable void; even a lapse in social conversation is viewed with alarm, and someone has to rescue the moment by talking. Even in church, if a few moments of silence are called for in worship, most church members have this internal response: “When will this be over?”

We need to learn to hear God’s still voice as He speaks to us. I can think back on times He told me to talk to someone about Him and I didn’t. Those still haunt me. Better memories are the times when God put it on my heart to speak to someone and I obeyed.

I hope you’ve been learning to listen to Him this past week. Have you taken time to let Him speak and to sit and listen? Have you become more aware of when and how He speaks to you? I hope so.

Podcast: Issues surrounding separate jr. and sr. high youth ministries

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:15:28 +0000

John Mulholland recently separated his youth group into jr. high and sr. high ministries. He joined us to talk about some of the issues that surround splitting the ministries and, together with a group of other youth workers who joined us on the call and in the adjoining chat room, we had a pretty lively discussion. Apparently this is an issue that’s much more controversial than I anticipated, with many different perspectives and opinions.

Some of the things we talked about:

Reasons to separate jr. and sr. high ministries.
Reasons to keep the ministries together.
What separating can unintentionally teach teens about the body of Christ.
If your ministry should split or stay together.
And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

January 4: There is no LIVE YM Talk this week nor next week. Our next talk is on Monday, January 4, 2010, were we will talk about designing and communicating the student ministry’s vision to the church and community. Our guest will be Todd Perkins of Youth Ministry Consultants, Inc.. Join us then for LIVE YM Talk.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Freebie Friday #156: The Nativity 3-Session Resource Guide

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:14:16 +0000

Although you no longer have 3 more weeks to do a Christmas lesson series with your youth group, you could tuck this away for next year, cram it in this year, or even continue to talk about Christ’s birth after Christmas (imagine that!).

This freebie from Interlinc includes a couple articles and three free Christmas youth group lesson plans.

Article: The Humbling Starts Here
Article: A Righteous Dude
Article: Really, A Virgin?
Session One: Unplanned Pregnancies
Session Two: A Trip At The Worst Time
Session Three: A Child Is Born

View and download the Nativity 3-Session Resource Guide

As a bonus, here’s a PDF quiz of Christmas carols that is print-ready for 8.5×11 paper and produces two quizes per page. The answer sheet is printable as well. We used it with our youth group last week and had a lot of fun with it!

Christmas Carol Game PDF

———————————————————————-
There is no LIVE YM Talk this week nor next week. Our next talk is on Monday, January 4, 2010, were we will talk about designing and communicating the student ministry’s vision to the church and community. Our guest will be Todd Perkins of Youth Ministry Consultants, Inc.. Join us then for LIVE YM Talk.

A youth group game using Google Voice

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:13:11 +0000

Since I’m on a roll with the whole “technology in ministry thing” after this week’s post on how new technology develops into a ministry tool and how we used Google Wave at youth group, I figured I might as well continue the trend with a game we did at our jr. high youth meeting tonight using Google Voice.

It’s actually based on the game, Sound Effects, from TheSource4YM.com that calls for a blank tape and tape recorder for every team. You give them 15 minutes to record all the sound effects on a list and then come back together and have judges determine a winner for each effect category.

Since I don’t think I know anyone that still has a tape recorder, nor did I want to go out and buy recorders for each team, here’s what I did:

I split our jr. high large group into teams based on their existing small groups. They sat in a circle and placed one of their cell phones in the middle of the group. Then I had each team punch in my Google Voice phone number and call my voicemail, which was set with a pre-recorded message of me saying, “Hey guys, record your sound effect after the beep. Have fun!” (Set your Google Voice account to “Do Not Disturb” so all calls are sent straight to voicemail.) Teams then recorded their sound effects on my Google Voice voicemail, which allowed me to immediately and easily play back their recordings from my laptop (logged in to Google Voice) through our sound system almost as soon as they hung up. I simply identified teams by the phone number that left the voicemail and we played back each team’s effect for everyone to hear (and laugh at!).

Here’s a list of some of the sound effects I asked for:

Herd of mooing cows
Cat in a dog kennel
TV Show theme song
Lovesick Coyotes on a moonlit night
Sing a Christmas carol
Room full of babies
Traffic

We had a high school student leader act as the judge who awarded points to the jr. high teams with the best sound effect for each category. The team with the most points won a bag of candy for their small group that night.

Two quick tips: Require that teams record sound effects that are shorter than 10 seconds but no longer than 15, especially if you have a lot of teams you have to listen to; and require that every person on the team must contribute to the sound effect.

Since Google Voice allows me to embed my voicemail messages into websites, here’s a couple of my favorite sound effects from tonight.

[ NOTE: If you're reading this in an RSS reader or email, you may have to visit the original post to hear the following recordings. ]

How we used Google Wave at youth group

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:45:33 +0000

Yesterday I wrote about how new technology becomes a ministry tool and mentioned how that’s happening for Google Wave right now. This post is not intended to explain what Google Wave is or how it works — there are plenty of posts and videos around the web that already explain that. My point here is simply to give an example of how we’ve been using it for personal use until last Sunday night at youth group when it became the most logical solution for ministry use. There are probably other ways to accomplish what we wanted to do besides using Google Wave, like good ol’ pen and paper, but this worked best for our situation.

We just finished up a series with our high school students based on NewSpring’s, “Don’t get married until…” series and wanted to end it with an anonymous conversation between the guys and the girls. The idea was to split the girls and guys into separate rooms and write a list of questions they wanted the opposite gender to answer. We would swap lists, write down answers in our groups for the other gender, and then send the answer sheet back to the other gender to read and discuss.

That sounded good except for the time it would take to run back and forth and the time of writing out all the answers when we could instead be discussing and talking. So, my wife had the idea of using Google Wave to collaborate instead. Here’s what we did:

I went in the room with the guys and my wife went with the girls. We both took our Macbooks, connected to our church’s wifi, and started two Waves, one titled, “Guys questions for the girls,” and another called, “Girls questions for the guys.” We gave each group about 10 or 15 minutes to list their questions in order of highest priority to least (to ensure we addressed their top questions first before we ran out of time). We each listed our group’s questions in the appropriate Wave. Then we switched Waves and started reading the other group’s questions aloud and typed our group’s responses. At that point all the teens really started digging it! In the guy group, after answering some of the girls’ questions, we hopped back to our origional Wave to read how the girls were responding to our questions. We posted our follow-up questions, added other comments, and then went back to answering more girl questions. It was serously a lot of fun!

The guys and girls had a great open and honest “conversation” with each other, feeling safe to ask anything without risk of embarassment or knowing who was saying or asking what.

Since this is a bit hard to explain, especially if you’re not familiar with Google Wave, here’s a screenshot of part of the girls’ Wave and part of the guys’ Wave.

The cool thing about this that I didn’t anticipate was that the teens wanted to continue the conversation online even after youth group ended. So I gave away a bunch of Wave invites to the students and added them to the Wave as soon as they were accepted. It’ll be interesting to see if and how the Waves that started at youth group continue throughout the week. It might be a good follow-up tool or “for further discussion” type of things?

The teens really want to do it again sometime, so I probably will when it’s appropriate for other discussions in the future.

P.S. Speaking of technology, I just wrote yesterdays and today’s entire blog posts on my cell phone, the new Motorola Droid. Who even needs a computer anymore?

How new technology develops into a ministry tool

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:25:05 +0000

With any new technology, the question is asked by many, “How can we use this tool in ministry to advance the Kingdom?” The conversation that follows is usually full of speculation and theoretical ideas that end up being bad ideas, impractical, or at least not as good as a system or tool that’s currently in place.

Sometimes using a new technology tool in ministry feels somewhat forced at first — like we feel a need to make this tool useful somehow, but the round peg just doesn’t seem to fit in the square hole. Using technology in ministry for the sake of using technology is the wrong perspective. We use technology not to feel cool or current, but to advance the Kingdom, and if it’s not doing that, then don’t waste your time on it. It’s better to let the technology evolve, use it for personal use so you grow to understand it while keeping the ministry implications tucked away in your mind until it becomes the most obvious tool for something related to ministry.

I remember the 90’s when I tried to convince my parents that we needed dial-up Internet. The objections were numerous: “It’s a pipeline to filth, it opens your computer to hackers and viruses, and why do we need yet another means of communication? It’s a waste of money and there is little ministry use for it.”

Eventually we figured out that some of those fears had some validity, but that they were also far outweighed by the ministry opportunities that abound online. It just took us a while of experimentation to play around with the Internet to figure it out and move past theoretical “good ideas” for ministry.

Once the Internet was hooked up, then came email. Again, like anything new, we had to play with it for a while before we could start using it practically for Kingdom purposes, hence all the email forwards we used to circulate. We were still figuring it out how to use it, what it’s best for, and how it could enhance communication.

Skip MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and other technological tools that followed the same pattern of, “What ministry value is here?” that later turned out to have tremendous value, but not always in the ways we originally expected. Eventually we get to Google Wave, a service that is currently in limited preview for those who receive an invitation from a friend. I lost count of how many Waves I’ve been a part of that start with a subject of something like, “How can we use Wave in ministry?” While I welcome the discussions, my response is usually something like, “I dunno, but continue to use it, play with it, and eventually it’s ministry impact may become clear. Don’t force it.”

That’s actually what happened for my youth group this past weekend. I’ve been using Google Wave personally for a while now. Although I’m a bit skeptical about how and if it will replace email in it’s current state, it has been especially helpful in collaborating over a blog post I wrote and with the Youth Ministry Mentors. Then this weekend my wife and I were trying to figure out how to best execute an idea at youth group and Google Wave was the perfect solution!

Tomorrow I’ll explain some of our experimentation with Google Wave and how it allowed us to have separate, yet collaborative, guy/girl discussions at youth group. It was a natural fit for our specific context and need, and it worked much better than I expected. We’re still playing with it, but that’s how new technology begins to develops into a ministry tool.

Time Out: God speaks to us today

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:12:15 +0000

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

Have you ever had anyone open a conversation with you by saying, “God told me to tell you…” Whenever I heard that I immediately became skeptical. I guess I was a bit jealous because it didn’t seem God ever told me anything. So I make an in-depth study about how God speaks to us, because I really wanted Him to speak to me as well. I’ve always desired deeper intimacy with God, so hearing Him talk to me was very important. As it turns out He had been speaking to me a lot more than I realized. The problem was that I usually didn’t recognize His voice. That may be the case with you as well. If so, the purpose of these blogs is to help you recognize and understand God’s voice for He really does speak to us today.

There is a real need for Christians today to learn how to listen to God. I read one author who said that 90% of Christians are more concerned about so-called “church-work” than about praying, and of the 10% left, 9% of those are much more willing to talk to God than listen to Him. In our relationships with others we are often more interested in talking and listening, and unfortunately we are often that way with God, too.

Which is more important: what you have to say to God or what God has to say to you? Which do you focus on more, talking to God or listening to God? We know He already knows what we are going to say before we say it, but we don’t know what He wants to say to us unless we listen to Him.

I”m convinced He wants to speak to us. He does speak to us often. He wants us to listen to Him. Psalms 81:13, “If my people would but listen to me…” Jeremiah 33:3, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” Psalm 50:3, “Our God comes and will not be silent…” 1 Samuel 3:1-10, God spoke to Samuel as a boy.

God wants to fellowship with us, to communicate with us. He created us to have a personal relationship with Him. Not only does God desire to communicate with man, but man desires to communicate with God. Psalms 83:1, “O God, do not keep silent; be not quiet, O God, be not still.”

We know communication from God is possible for He is God. If He can hear us speak to Him, He can certainly speak to us as well. Not only is it possible, it is probable for He made us to relate to Him. Even more, it is necessary for it is the only way man can know God.

So man desires to speak to God just as God desires to speak to man. The Bible is full of examples of this in the past. When we see how common it was in Bible times we’ll realize it can be just as common today.

In the Old Testament God walked and talked with Adam in Eden, He spoke to Cain, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Job. He spoke to Moses at the burning bush, in Egypt, in the desert and at Mt Sinai. We read that God spoke from the cloud as well as the Ark. He even spoke through a donkey to Balaam. It is recorded that God spoke to Samuel, David, Nathan, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah, Jonah, Ezekiel, Haggai, Zechariah and other prophets. Kings like Ahaz, Manasseh and Jehu heard from Him as well.

God spoke often to Jesus. He spoke to the leaders of the early church. Philip was told to go to the eunuch, Paul heard Him on the road to Damascus, Peter was told to go to Cornelius, Ananias to Paul and Paul to Macedonia. These and many other examples are listed on your handout if you want to look up any of them.

Thus we see that God did indeed speak in the past, often and to many different people. Therefore it is only natural He would do the same thing today. Charles Stanley says, “God not only speaks in general and absolute terms to all people, but He speaks to each one of us personally. We can hardly comprehend that possibility with our finite minds. God is an infinite God, and He is capable of communicating with each one of us, right were we are – in the midst of our current circumstances of crises – in very personal, direct and explicit terms.”

Scripture
Jeremiah 33:3, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”

Reflect

How important is it to you to listen to God?
How much time do you spend listening to Him each day?
Spend some time now sitting quietly listening to His Spirit speak to your heart.

Podcast: Q&A with Walt Mueller – youth culture, ministry, parenting, and more

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:12:05 +0000

Last Monday, Walt Mueller of CPYU joined us for LIVE YM Talk. I collected several questions from you all in the weeks leading up to this conversation and we had a great time picking his brain for answers along with many other youth workers who also had good insights.

Some of the things we talked about:

How youth workers can stay up-to-date with constantly changing social media and communication.
Addressing the consumeristic mindset teens have about church.
Where youth ministry needs to change for the upcoming generation of students.
Ways to take teens deeper when they really don’t want to go deeper.
And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

December 14: This Monday our featured guest is John Mulholland. He recently separated his jr. high and sr. high ministries, so we’ll use his experience to spark a conversation about issues surrounding separate jr. and sr. high youth ministries. The show starts at 2:00 PM eastern time. Call (724) 444-7444 and enter ID 19105#, or use the link on the LIVE YM Talk page to listen online and join the chat room.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Freebie Friday #155: Free Christmas music sampler download from iTunes

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:42:28 +0000

iTunes is giving away a free 20-track Christmas music album for you to download!

O Come All Ye Faithful – Amy Grant
The First Noel – David Archuleta
Silent Night – Sarah McLachlan
Carol of the Bells / Jingle Bells – Barry Manilow
It Snowed – Meaghan Smith
Above the Northern Lights – Mannheim Steamroller
Baby, It’s Cold Outside – Lady Antebellum
We Three Kings – Toby Keith
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Rascal Flatts
Silent Night – Wynonna
Twelve Days of Christmas – Mexicani Marimba Band
We Wish You a Merry Christmas – Weezer
A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like a Kiss) – Glasvegas
Another Christmas Song – Stephen Colbert
Greensleeves – Vince Guaraldi Trio
Dream a Dream – Charlotte Church
The Nutcracker, Op. 71, Act 2: Character Dances (Divertissement) – Dance of the Reed Pipes – Kirov Orchestra & Valery Gergiev
Angels We Have Heard On High – Aretha Franklin
O Holy Night – Musiq Soulchild
Auld Lange Syne – The Lonesome Travelers

Don’t ya love it with God uses unbelievers to spread His message?!

Download the iTunes Holiday Sampler

[ ht to MattReeve on Twitter ]

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This Monday, December 14, John Mulholland will join us to the issues that surround separating jr and sr high ministries. Join us for the live conversation at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

Some things I’ve been thinking about lately (rants)

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:33:13 +0000

Bare with me as I unload a mind dump of stuff that’s been running through my head lately. If you have any thoughts on these items, please feel free to comment below.

1. Sometimes I feel that teens are replacing Christianity for Churchianity, as if being busy with lots of Bible studies somehow equals spiritual growth, or even a relationship with Jesus. Unfortunately, I think they’re seeing that modeled from parents, youth leaders, and even pastors.

2. This generation really has a consumeristic mindset about church and ministry. It’s all about what “I want” or “I need” more than anything else. If they don’t like it, then they don’t come, which isn’t want the body of Christ is about at all. The pressure youth workers feel is to give kids what they want because then they see the ministry “grow” and unfortunately we fail to give them what they really need, because if we did that, then everyone would leave because that’s often not what they want. I’m thinking it’s better to have a small group of growing, committed teens than a large group of kids who are pressuring us to resort to entertainment that expect everything to be “fun.”

3. There will always be “cliques.” Fighting against it is probably a futile effort. Instead, we need to find ways to leverage the friend groups and capitalize on those existing relationships. I mean, we all have people we naturally gravitate toward more than others, right?

4. High school upper-classmen totally underestimate the influence they can have on jr. highers. In many ways, 7th and 8th graders look up to and respect juniors and seniors even more than they do adults. I need to be more intentional about making that happen for the high school students who are spiritually and emotionally mature.

5. Youth ministry is so much more powerful when teens take ownership of something and feel like they’re in control of the direction and vision. I wonder how I can best help keep their vision from being misguided and imbalanced without putting a damper on it.

6. Can’t believe I turned down someone’s vision in our church for a youth facility or a youth room (neither of which we have). Most youth workers would jump at that! Guess I’m more committed than I thought to making sure teens are an integrated part of the life of the body here, not just a separated age group, or a minichurch.

7. It seems like mentoring is becoming all the rage right now. I’m seeing too many well-intentioned ministries starting mentoring programs that are really just membership-only websites with resources. C’mon, if you’re gonna mentor, actually do it — don’t just re-label your content because the mentoring bandwagon will help your market your stuff better.

8. How in the world do we start to combat narcissism in our youth ministries? (Thanks to Walt Mueller for putting this one in my head during last Monday’s LIVE YM Talk.)

9. I know studies show that teens are supposed to have an attention span of only 25 minutes or so, but over the past couple months I’m witnessing many of my youth group kids sitting down and listening intently to content-heavy sermons that are over an hour long! It shows me that they really crave spiritual depth when it’s practical and highly applicable.

10. My little 4-month-old daughter is amazing! She’s so much fun! But having her around makes it much harder to keep up with blogging the way I used to. My rhythm here has slowed from publishing content almost every week-day to maybe once or twice a week. I’m trying to find my groove again. When I do invest time into the site, it’s mostly behind-the-scenes stuff, like updating the mentoring program, recruiting new mentors, working on my book that YS/Zondervan is publishing next year, preparing for the Online Missions Trip, responding to emails, working on updates for MinistryQuestions.com, etc. I think I could make a full-time job out of this if I wanted to.

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Please help support the YM mentorship, the Online Missions Trip, and MinistryQuestions.com by subscribing to YouthWorker Journal. Get your FREE no-risk trial issue of YouthWorker Journal today, the best in youth ministry resources!

Tips for helping students start a campus bible study

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:25:28 +0000

Time Out: Are you called to ministry?

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 06:18:17 +0000

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

Jesus, the master story teller, told a story about a man who held a banquet but those who were invited didn’t come so he invited others to fill the hall (Luke 14:15-24; Matthew 22:2-14). Just as he called some to come, so God today calls men to come to Him for salvation. From those He then calls others to come serve Him in ministry. Not everyone is chosen. We don’t know on what basis the decision was made, it’s up to the Master. But no one can come without an invitation. This applies to your call to ministry as well.

In Jesus’ story, those who called were expected to respond. There was a limited time in which they were to come. If they said no or just put off responding God called someone else to take their place. If you feel God has been calling you to serve Him in some way don’t put off responding. Tell Him you will follow Him, then take whatever steps are necessary to carry out what He is calling you to do. It all starts with your responding to His call. He won’t force you, but you must decide soon.

Committing to come when called is of prime importance. For those coming to the banquet it meant paying a price. A change in activities takes place. Time is required. So also for those who come when called to a specific ministry. It will mean a change in your life. It will require you to use your time in a different way. Your current way of life will be altered. Don’t look back, though. Look to what is ahead. What could be better than dining with the master?

Being called is a rare privilege. Ministering in the presence of the Master is an honor. It won’t always be easy but it’ll be worth it. It will stretch you and mature you. You’ll be expected to do things that you can’t possible do without God’s help – but that’s the idea. You aren’t in this alone. You’re in for the time of your life!

Scripture
Luke 14:15-24, When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.” Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’ The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ ‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. 24 I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”

Reflect
Is God calling you to a change in your life? Does He want more of your time? Will you be required to depend on Him more than ever? Don’t put your response off – accept the invitation NOW.

Podcast: Answering recent questions and debates from MinistryQuestions.com

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:17:03 +0000

Last Monday was our first MinistryQuestions.com LIVE YM Talk show where we collectively answered questions and debates that were posted to the site by other ministry workers. There was a lot of good discussion over real issues that real youth workers are experiencing.

Some of the things we talked about:

If youth ministry is rooted in pragmatism or sound theology
If you should have a “bring a friend” youth group night
Siding with parents when teens disagree with them
How to teach middle schoolers the importance of “Living for Jesus”
And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

December 7: Tomorrow Walt Mueller of CPYU is joining us to answer your questions about youth ministry, youth culture, and parenting. Submit your questions here ahead of time. The show starts at 2:00 PM eastern time. Call (724) 444-7444 and enter ID 19105#, or use the link on the LIVE YM Talk page to listen online and join the chat room.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Freebie Friday #154: 4 Christmas PowerPoint games, 10 backgrounds, and 1 lesson

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:05:22 +0000

Simply Youth Ministry is giving away several Christmas PowerPoint games and Christmas backgrounds for free!

On their Freebie Games page, you can download three different PowerPoint Games: Christmas Trivia Game, Christmas Zoom-In Game, and Christmas Sing-along Game. There’s also directions there for a non-PowerPoint Christmas game called Christmas Wrap-Off.

They’re also giving away 10 free Christmas backgrounds to use with PowerPoint

In case that’s not enough, check out their free talk outline called, The Christmas Killers. It helps students see that Christmas is more than gifts.

And, of course, there’s the Christmas Carol PowerPoint game I gave away over 100 freebies ago, too.

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This Monday, December 7, Walt Mueller of CPYU will join us to answer questions related to youth culture, parenting and ministry. We’d love it if you could submit your questions ahead of time, though. Join us for the live conversation at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

Signs that a youth leader is lacking maturity and healthy adult relationships

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:47:39 +0000

I know there’s a lot things we could add to this list, like needing everyone’s approval, neglecting the role of the Holy Spirit, pretending to act like someone you’re not, siding with teens against their parents, etc. But there’s one problem that often goes overlooked that will undeniably create very unhealthy relationships with students possibly worse than anything else, and that’s this:

Every adult youth leader needs healthy adult relationships, or their relationships with students will quickly become very unhealthy.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen this story play out too many times. An adult youth leader may not connect well with other adults for any number of reasons: their maturity level isn’t up to par; they felt rejected in high school and now try to find that security in youth group teens; they think being an adult is “uncool”; they look to teens for self-worth; and a host of many other reasons that are related to emotional baggage. The end result is they become a peer for students, not a leader. And students don’t need more peers.

Signs that a youth leader is lacking maturity and healthy adult relationships

Whenever an issue arises in a student’s life, they rush to “save the day” and often make a bigger deal out of the situation than the student does.
When there’s a disagreement between a student and another adult youth leader, the adult will side with the teen and even unintentionally pit the students against the other leaders, even in scenarios where no sides needed to be taken in the first place.
The leader will confide in students about issues in their personal life that should only be shared with a spouse, a pastor, or a close Christian adult friend.
Whenever the adult has free time, they spend most of it hanging out with the same group teens (as a peer group) and rarely with other adult friends.
The leader will entertain gossip and complaints (sometimes even start it) with students about other youth leaders, the church, and even other authority figures, like parents and teachers.
When a student confides in them, they promise to keep it a secret and never to share it with anyone else. The unintentional result is that some students, who need professional help, never get it. By the time you find out about it, it’s too late.
The other extreme is when the leader goes out of their way to fish out “juicy” private information from students because it strokes their ego and feeds an insecure self-worth when they know a teen’s personal secrets.
They are really involved with a friend-group/clique of teens and generally don’t reach out much to other students.
Other adult leaders and parents, whom you know and trust, express concern to you about the leader (in a non-gossipy way) and their input aligns with your unspoken observations.
When you try to express concern about any of this to the leader, they become defensive and make excuses, often causing them to separate from the team of adult leaders even more than they already were.

Because their maturity is lacking, they will unintentionally create division and will ultimately hinder the maturing process for students. Often their hearts are in the right place and they mean well, but they are blinded by their immaturity and fail to see the damage they’re actually causing.

So, how should you handle it? Every situation is unique, but here are some general principles.

How to address the situation

First, it’s important that you spend a decent amount of time in prayer. It’s an obvious first step that too often goes overlooked.
Talk with your sr. pastor (and other church leadership, if necessary) about the situation and get their input and advice. These conversations always work best with the godly advice and guidance.
Sit down one-on-one with the leader and have an honest, open conversation. Do your best to speak the truth in love. Express your concern and pray they are receptive.
If they humbly see truth in your observations, then work together to connect them with other maturing adults who will help them grow spiritually, relationally, and emotionally. Establish some sort of regular, on-going mentoring relationship, either from yourself or someone else.

If they make excuses, get defensive and refuse to listen to your concerns, then discuss the next steps with your sr. pastor. The process from here will be pretty sticky. Depending on the severity of their immaturity, there’s a good chance that the leader may need to be asked to step down from the youth leadership team. Sometimes they can be dismissed with the intention of restoration after certain expectations have been met, like establishing accountability, working through some personal issues, mentoring, and adult relationships. Other times they will have to be dismissed permanently. Either way, the confrontation is often the most helpful component because how they respond to confrontation will show their true character.

But be forewarned: dismissing this kind of a leader will be a very ugly process. The teens who love him/her will definitely look at you like you’re the bad guy. Even though you’re doing it for their benefit, you can’t tell them that because then you’d have to explain why you’re doing it, and you would never talk poorly about someone else just to make yourself look better (even though the other party may not play by the same rules). But you still have to do what’s in the best interest of the teens and the ministry whether they understand it or not. The Lord knows. Sometimes being a leader is like being a parent: you have to make the tough decisions for their own sake even if the kids don’t like it nor understand it.

Have you ever worked with a youth leader like this? How did you handle it? What advice do you have for others who are experiencing it? Comment below.

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Please help support the youth ministry mentorship, the Online Missions Trip, and MinistryQuestions.com by subscribing to YouthWorker Journal. Get your FREE no-risk trial issue of YouthWorker Journal today, the best in youth ministry resources!

Time Out: The priorities of the pastor

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:25:10 +0000

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

Gaining recognition is fairly easy in life and ministry. What isn’t easy is succeeding in the things that really matter. We can all find some way to achieve in some area – but unless it is what God wants it isn’t really success at all. There is way too much to do in life and ministry to do it all. Therefore we must focus on doing what really is important. No one sits around bored because there is nothing to do. We all are making decisions, large and small, about how to use our time. The key is to make the choices God would have you make. Here are some principles to help determine godly priorities.

Praying is more important than preaching/teaching. Guard your time for prayer even more than you guard your time for lesson preparation and study. When forced to choose between them, make prayer your top priority. As has been said, prayer is not preparation for the work, prayer is the work.

Preaching/teaching is more important than administration. Its so easy to get bogged down in administrative details that the real important things in ministry get set aside. While it is necessary to be organized, its very easy to put off difficult tasks while spending a whole morning taking care of minor details.

The family is more important than the youth group. Our number one responsibility is to shepherd our mate and family. We will have more impact on them than on anyone else. Those are the sheep with the first priority for our time and attention. While the youth group may feed your ego more and you may struggle with relationships at home, don’t hide behind “ministry” and use it to avoid meeting the needs of your family. That can mean making some hard, but very important choices.

Faithfulness is more important than competition. Don’t compare yourself to others in the ministry. That is always very dangerous and a sure set-up for feelings of failure. The grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence. Be faithful to the best of your ability where God put you and leave the rest up to Him.

Love is more important than ability. You’ve heard it said that your teens don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. That’s true. Paul himself said that having all the best gifts in the world isn’t anything if we don’t have love. Even the best teaching and the finest program won’t change lives if it isn’t filtered through a personality filled with love.

Scripture
1 Corinthians 13:1-3, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Reflect

Which of the above do you think God would say you have the most success with?
Which of the above do you think God would say you have the most problem with?
What can you do about that, starting today? (Write down a plan, be specific.)
Pray for your senior pastor and others on the staff, that these would be true of them as well.

Podcast: Leading a team of volunteer youth workers

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 03:50:18 +0000

Last Monday the youth pastor at NewSpring Community Church, Brad Cooper, joined us for LIVE YM Talk to discuss our topic of, “Leading a team of volunteer youth workers.” As a youth pastor who works with hundreds of teenagers and adult leaders, he shares from his experience about how to lead a team of leaders.

Some of the things we talked about:

Setting expectations for adult leaders
The process of “basic training”
Helping leaders use their gifts and passions within the ministry’s vision
Moving leaders through “Direction, Coaching, Supporting, Delegating”
And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

November 30: Next week we’re doing our very first MinistryQuestions.com episode where we’ll be answering recent questions and debates from MinistryQuestions.com. If you’d like us to discuss your question, post it at MinistryQuestions.com between now and then. The show starts at 2:00 PM eastern time. Call (724) 444-7444 and enter ID 19105#, or use the link on the LIVE YM Talk page to listen online and join the chat room.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Freebie Friday #153: Talking happy face to use for youth group video announcements

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:35:29 +0000

A couple months ago Joshua Griffin posted a big, yellow smiley face they used for a teaching series at Saddleback. I looked at it and thought it could work great for another personality for youth group video announcements since it works very similarly to our good friend, L.T.

Basically, use your computer’s microphone to talk while using the keys on your computer to control the smiley face. A screen capture program will allow you to record a video from your audio and smiley face together, just how we discussed with the jib-jab effect tutorial. (See that post for screen capture software suggestions.) Upload the video announcement to your youth group’s Facebook page and, wa-la, you’ve created an engaging, creative and fun announcement in under 5 minutes.

Here are the controls for using Big, Yellow Smiley:

Mouse – controls eye movement (click and drag to move)
Q through O – controls the eyes
A through G – controls moving mouths (hold to make mouth move)
Z through B – controls static mouths (hold to make them stay on the screen)
Space Bar – controls talking mouth (hold to talk)

View Smiley full-screen in your browser (right-click and “Save as…” to download)

[ht Dennis Poulette]

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For LIVE YM Talk this Monday, November 23, Brad Cooper is our featured guest. As the youth pastor at Perry Noble’s church, Newspring Community Church, he will lead us in a discussion about leading a team of volunteer youth workers. We’d love to have you join us for the live conversation at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

Walt Mueller and MinistryQuestions.com coming up in LIVE YM Talk

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:37:26 +0000

We have a couple exciting LIVE YM Talks coming up! If you haven’t joined us yet on Mondays at 2:00 PM, it’s always a great conversation among youth workers from all over the country. We gather together in an online chat room and on the phone to learn from each other.

We have two exceptionally good talks coming up the next two weeks.

Answering recent questions and debates from MinistryQuestions.com: Monday, November 30

Not sure why I didn’t think of this sooner. It just makes natural sense to do a Ministry Questions podcast where we discuss some of the recent questions, answers and debates posted to the site. So, this coming Monday we’ll be doing our first Ministry Questions LIVE YM Talk episode. We’ll probably make this a semi-regular discussion, so come be a part of the first one.

If you have some questions you’d like us to discuss together, get ‘em posted at MinistryQuestions.com sometime before Monday.

Q&A with Walt Mueller: Monday, December 7

Next Monday we have the tremendous privilege of having Walt Mueller, founder and President of the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding, join us for LIVE YM Talk. This will be a great opportunity for us to interact with him, ask questions, and pick his brain on issues relating to youth culture. If you’ve ever wanted to sit down and talk with Walt, this is your chance!

We’d like to have as many questions ready-to-go for Walt as possible, so if you have something you’d like to talk with him about, please post it in the comments below. This will both help us manage our time well and help Walt come as prepared as possible for you. It would be great if you could show up for the conversation and ask him your question yourself, but if you’re unable to, I’ll do my best to ask many of your questions as I can in your place. Either way, post them in the comments below between now and then.

How to join the LIVE conversations

To join the live conversation on Mondays, call 724-444-7444 and enter ID 19105#. Or, use the link on the LIVE YM Talk page to listen online and participate via the live chat room.

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes if you can’t make the live conversations but want to listen to the recordings later.

Time Out: Youth pastor as maestro

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:25:47 +0000

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

We’ve all heard many analogies of pastors (and youth pastors) being shepherds of their sheep. In the Fall of 1988, in the issue of Leadership Magazine, Fred Smith used orchestra conductors as examples of pastors. I’d like to apply that to youth pastors as well.

The purpose of an orchestra conductor is to make the chosen selection of music come alive through the musicians he leads. A youth pastor is to make the Word of God come alive in the youth he leads. Before he can do that he must have a reverence for the music and a very intimate knowledge of it himself. No conductor is born with a knowledge of the music he leads. He must arrive at it by hard work. Youth pastors must never stop learning God’s Word. Too many become “too busy” and stop studying the Bible for their own growth. They level off and coast. No good conductor would allow himself to do that. He must keep improving his own knowledge or he won’t be able to help others increase theirs.

When he leads his orchestra, the conductor must set a meaningful beat. The rhythm, volume, intensity and interpretation are his responsibility as he leads others. They know how to bring out the best in their players. They respond to his passion, his enjoyment and his enthusiasm. He complements them on a job well done and they strive to do even better. Youth pastors, too, set the tone and mood for the group they lead. The teens look to them to determine how to respond.

When one of the musicians makes a mistake, a good conductor knows how to minimize it and correct it without embarrassing the person or letting it spread to others. He knows mistakes will happen because he keeps stretching their ability and moving them to even greater levels of performance. He forms them into a team but relates to each one individually. His job is never finished. He patiently keeps moving ahead despite whatever obstacles may be in his way. He keeps his eye on his goal: reproducing the music of the great composers in the lives of his players. It’s a daunting task, but a worthy one. Youth pastors, too, must strive to bring the best out of their teens. They must keep moving them ahead but also know how to gently handle mistakes along the way. He knows his job is never done but gains satisfaction from the progress his group has made. His remembers that is main goal is always and only to reproduce the music of the Great Composer in their lives.

Scripture
2 Timothy 4:1-2, “In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage — with great patience and careful instruction.”

Reflect

How does this picture of an orchestra leader compare with how you see yourself as a youth pastor?
Entertainment, popularity, fun — all these are means to an end but not an end in themselves. Has anything sidetracked you from your goal of reproducing Jesus in the lives of your teens? What do you need to do to correct that?

Podcast: How to find and determine the Lord’s leading to a healthy church ministry

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:47:48 +0000

A couple weeks ago I published an article that was written collaboratively by myself and several other youth workers titled, Signs That You Should Back Away From A Church’s Youth Ministry Position. Although it’s admittedly pretty cynical, there still is more truth to a lot of the statements than some people would like to admit (especially the people who have fortunately had positive experiences and don’t talk with many other youth workers).

As a follow-up to that post, we brought in Mark Riddle to join us for last Monday’s LIVE YM Talk to discuss some of the points in that blog post. As a youth ministry consultant, author, and expert in church staffing, he’s the perfect guy to give us a larger perspective on this issue of finding and determining the Lord’s leading to a healthy church ministry.

Some of the things we talked about:

The role a church’s vision plays in the youth pastor hiring process
What to look for in a job description
Figuring out if a sr. pastor is a micromanager or not
The time frame of a healthy church’s hiring process
And a lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Monday’s discussion

November 23: Next week Brad Cooper, the youth pastor at Newspring Community Church, will join us to talk about leading a team of volunteer youth workers. The show starts at 2:00 PM eastern time. Call (724) 444-7444 and enter ID 19105#, or use the link on the LIVE YM Talk page to listen online and join the chat room.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Freebie Friday #152: Dallas Theological Seminary courses in iTunes

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:32:36 +0000

A couple years ago I highlighted Covenant Theological Seminary’s courses that were available as free mp3 downloads, complete with handouts and notes. Even two years ago, that was pretty cutting edge for a seminary, but today more and more schools are publishing course videos to iTunes, including my own alma mater, Dallas Theological Seminary.

Dallas Theological Seminary doesn’t offer videos of entire course, but it does offer pretty good chunks of them. If you’re thinking about seminary training or want to take your theology deeper without the expense, this is the perfect way to get started.

Here’s a list of the course videos you can download in iTunes for free:

BE101 – Bible Study Methods
BE102 – OT History I
BE103 – OT History II
BE104 – Prophets
BE105 – Gospels
BE107 – Hebrews, General Epistles, and Revelation
BE109 – Ruth, Jonah, Epistles
BE510 – Life of Christ
NT101 – Elements of Greek I
NT102 – Elements of Greek II
NT111 – Intertestamental History
ST101 – Intro to Theology
ST102 – Trinitarianism
ST103 – Angelology, Anthropology, & Hamartiology (Angels, Humans, and Sin)
ST104 – Soteriology (Salvation)
BC101 – Introduction to Biblical Counseling
CE102 – History and Philosophy of Christian Education
PM101 – Spiritual Life
PM102 – Evangelism
PM103 – Preaching I
SL305 – Dynamics of Leadership
WM101 – Introduction to World Mission

Dallas Theological Seminary on iTunes U

13 tips for teaching and communicating God’s Word to teenagers

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:06:30 +0000

Time Out: How to judge others

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:12:39 +0000

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

“Don’t judge,” the Bible tells us. But we do it anyway. Since we aren’t going to stop we ought at least learn to do it right. Judging implies we know a person’s motives and feel we are better. That isn’t our place. However we are to evaluate others. As we minister to our sheep we must be constantly evaluating their spirituality so know how to best lead, counsel and teach them. What is a shepherd to look for in order to discern the health of his sheep?

First, there must be an open and complete confession of Christ (Romans 10:9). While some are more outspoken and others quite shy, each one should be able to explain their own faith and the reason for it. There must be, at some point, clear verbal expression that Jesus is their Savior and also their Lord.

A second sign is evidence of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). We aren’t to judge but we can be fruit inspectors! No one is perfect. However there should be evidence of Christ-likeness developing over time. This should become visible in words as well as works. Their words should be more edifying and less critical and complaining (Ephesians 4:29). In the same way, there should be a difference in actions which reflects a heart of love within (James 2:14-17).

A third significant factor is a healthy spiritual appetite for learning the Bible (2 Timothy 2:15). Lack of an appetite is a sign of sickness, physically and spiritually. A spiritually healthy person has a hunger and thirst to know the Bible and learn more about God and His will for them. Knowing the Word will make a difference in the decisions they make (James 3:17) and how they face the difficulties life throws at them (James 1:2-4).

Scripture
Matthew 7:1-2, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Romans 14:10, “You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.”

John 7:24, “Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment.”

1 Corinthians 5:12, “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?”

Reflect

Before you work on the speck in someone else’s eye, check out the plank in your own by applying these three signs to your own life. How do you stack up in these areas?
Who in your ministry comes to mind when you think of these signs? Thank God for them and ask Him to help you continue to minister to them.
Think of some in your care who are struggling in one or more of these areas. Ask God to show you what you can do to help them. Listen silently as He speaks to you, then do what He says.

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Jerry Schmoyer has been a minister in Pennsylvania for over 25 years and has worked with teenagers for 14 years, ever since I became one myself. He authors the weekly Time Out series here at Life in Student Ministry in hopes to spiritually refresh your soul as you continually pour so much of yourself into students. God bless!

Freebie Friday #151: Seminar handout, “Web tools for youth ministry”

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:43:35 +0000

If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you may notice that I already published this document earlier in the week on my personal blog, but since I put the time into creating the resource, I thought I’d share it with everyone else here, as well.

This weekend I’ll be at a youth pastor retreat for the Christian Missionary Alliance denomination doing a seminar on, “Web tools for youth ministry.” Although we’ll probably cover a lot more than what’s on this handout, this is what we’ll start with and see what direction we go from here.

View and download, “Web tools for youth ministry”

Any glaring oversights of a service or tool I missed? Let me hear them in the comments below.

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LIVE YM Talk this Monday, November 16, Mark Riddle is our featured guest. He will lead us in a discussion about how to find and determine the Lord’s leading to a healthy church ministry as a follow-up to my recent post on when to back away from a youth ministry position. We’d love to have you join us for the live conversation at 2:00 PM eastern time! See our LIVE YM Talk page for details.

Now login to MinistryQuestions.com with your Facebook/Twitter account

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:08:17 +0000

After a lot of hard work, we’re proud to announce that users can now login to MinistryQuestions.com using their Facebook or Twitter accounts. This means new users no longer have to take the time to register an account with the site — they can jump in and start participating on their very first visit. Awesome!

A couple things to note:

Questions and answers posted through a Facebook or Twitter account are not posted to the user’s Facebook or Twitter profiles.
If you currently have a MinistryQuestions.com account, it is not possible to merge your existing account’s data with a new Facebook or Twitter login account.

What’s next?

1. As this site continues to grow, we want to continue to support it and keep it under ongoing development as long as the funds are available (usually spare change from LISM). The next feature we’re working on is the ability for question owners to receive an email notification to rate a “Best Answer” after the question closes. That’s been a common sense feature we’ve needed for a while. Stay tuned for that development.

2. Also, I’m playing with the idea of a semi-regular “Ministry Questions LIVE YM Talk” show where other youth workers and myself take the time to talk through some of the questions that are submitted to the site. Details about the show are still a bit sketchy, so if you have any ideas or feedback, please leave them in the comments below.

Remember to use the Feedback Forum (i.e. the Feedback tab located to the far right at MinistryQuestions.com) to give us your suggestions for updates and feature requests for MinistryQuestions.com. You can vote on other people’s suggestions there, too.

Keep up with the latest questions

As ministry workers ask their questions, they rely on people like you to pitch in with answers. There’s a couple easy ways to keep up with the latest questions that are posted to the site.

Become a fan of the MinistryQuestions.com Facebook Page
Follow @MinistryQandA on Twitter
Subscribe to the RSS feed of recent questions

We’re working on putting together a weekly email digest that contains all the latest questions, too, but that will cost us about $30/month for an email service that will do it right, so we’re holding off on that for now.

If you’re not already a user of MinistryQuestions.com, check it out! Here’s a brief video that explains what the site is all about and how it works.

With over 1,100 questions asked and almost 650 users, thank you everyone for making this the greatest online community of ministry workers possible! Thanks for investing into each other’s ministries with all the great ideas, wisdom, support and advice. You guys rock!

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Time Out: The wilderness temptations of ministry

tim@schmoyer.net (Tim Schmoyer) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 06:42:15 +0000

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

We all know the story of Jesus being tempted in the desert when He began His ministry. What we often don’t realize is that Satan tempts us who are in the ministry in much the same way. See if you recognize these temptations in the desert of your daily ministry.

The temptation to meet all needs. Satan first tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread because He hadn’t eaten for 40 days. He had a great need for food, but it had to be met in God’s time and God’s way. Temptation is the call to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way. Often we want to meet every need we come across as soon as we are aware of it. Meeting our needs or the needs of another isn’t wrong, but it must be done in God’s timing and not our own. It must be done in obedience to Him, not just to meet our own ego needs or for our own comfort. Jesus didn’t meet His needs even though they were legitimate. He wouldn’t use illegitimate means to meet a legitimate need. We, too, must let God meet our needs and the needs of others at the right time and in the right way. It’s ego-building to always take care of everything that comes up, but sometimes God doesn’t want us doing that. Always check with Him first.

The temptation to be spectacular. Satan took Jesus to the top of the temple and told Him if He would throw Himself down the angels would protect Him and the people on the ground watching would be impressed. How common is the temptation today to do something in our life or ministry to impress others? We are always on the lookout for something unique, something new, something spectacular to gain attention and impress those watching us. Its not what we do but why we do it that is the problem in these situations. Letting angels minister to Him wasn’t wrong for Jesus, but doing it to impress others was not God’s will for Jesus. Neither is it His will for us to use our ministry or gifts to impress those around us.

The temptation to acquire power. Jesus could have had authority over all the kingdoms of the world if He would have recognized Satan as the one who gave it to Him. Power. We all want it, need it, crave it. It feels good. It enables us to accomplish what we want to accomplish. We all want to be the best, the first, the foremost. We want people to trust us and look up to us, to be awed with us and need us. That gives us power. But God wants us to be powerless so we depend on His power. He wants us to serve others, not have them serve us. It’s hard not being in control of everything, but the temptation to control circumstances or others is often Satan’s way of turning us from God’s will.

Satan uses the same temptations on us that he first used on Jesus. Even though they didnt work on Him they often do on us. Jesus had victory by quoting the Word. It’s only as we quote and apply God’s Word to these temptations in our lives that we will have victory. Jesus was ready for the temptations when they came. Are you?

Scripture
Matthew 4:1-10, Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

Reflect

When are you most tempted to do something to help another so they will think well of you?
When are you most tempted to do something spectacular to impress people?
When are you most tempted to do something to gain attention, recognition and power?
What Scriptures can you use when tempted in these areas? Write them out and carry them with you. Read them often. Use them when tempted.

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