One simple way I grew my youth ministry was by handing out a calendar every four months. Over 5 years, parents expected it and looked forward to having the youth ministry calendar on their fridge. One of the best ways to communicate what you are doing in your youth ministry is to make a calendar. Youth Ministry calendars can help visually tell parents what is happening and why their kid must be at whatever event or program you are promoting. We have created some youth ministry calendars for you and your church. It’s one investment that will pay off over time. Once you get parents’ schedules on ..read more

Are you struggling to have fun with your youth ministry? It can be a challenge today in a digital world. How do you interact with students who can’t be there each week. How can you reach students digitally? I think a lot of youth groups are missing one element: Fun. We are missing the fun factor when it comes to online ministry. It’s easy to be so focused on online content, preaching series, ect. But students in your ministry need relationships, connection, fun. One way to upgrade the fun in your youth ministry in this season: Among us. Here is a fun game to play with 4-10 players online. All ..read more

What program do you use to communicate with your students digitally? I have seen youth ministries over the past few months communicate in a few ways, mainly we all have been communicating over zoom and YouTube. You have all pivoted in such a remarkable way. You need to give yourself grace because no one has been a youth pastor in a pandemic. We are all trying to make the best of this situation. Way to go! The new normal. Our students have been digital fluent, but now we have to adapt our youth ministries to be strictly digital. This can be a challenge. How do we build connections and content t ..read more

We are all zoomed out. I get it, but how do you create a fun place for student to hangout? Creating a fun space over zoom can be difficult, so here are 5 fun and easy zoom games you can play with little or no set up. Sherlock Holmes. One person leaves the room, and you change something on a person in the zoom call. This could be a hat, change a shirt, add glasses. The person gets 10 guesses. Word shoot out. You pick a letter and each person has to type into the zoom chat a famous person, place, animal, and a thing that starts with the letter. Wink murder. Wink murder is a classic youth ministr ..read more

What do you use to broadcast your youth ministry online program ? We are all learning about how to stream our content. Youth ministry has changed more in the last few weeks than it has in the last few years. We are all adapting to our new digital life. I can’t imagine youth ministry returning to normal until there is a way to combat this virus. Even if you were to open up the doors of your youth ministry students might not be there because of the fear associated with this pandemic. With every youth worker pivoting to a new digital reality the question is: What do you use to broadcast? One of t ..read more

Moving to online video content for your youth service is critical at this time. It has become the only way to reach students, but it also allows you to reach students on their turf. When I started out in youth ministry people always said, reach students where they are at. Here is the question, Where are students digitally in your context? Once you solve that, communicate where they are at. The tricky thing about creating digital content is that students can check-in and out at anytime. They can bounce out if it’s not captivating or engaging. If it’s too long, or not relevant. A lot of the yout ..read more

Do you feel like parents are on your side? Can I be honest?  When I first started out, years ago, I thought parents were the enemy.  How could they not find the time for their kids to prioritize my youth ministry?  If parents were truly serious about their kid’s faith, they would see how important my youth ministry was.  That was what I thought early on in my youth ministry days.   I was wrong. See how the arrogance creeps in.  It quickly became about me vs them.  It’s Iron Man vs The Hulk.   All it took was one relationship to start for me to change my ..read more

Are you looking for a tool to help you communicate with students and parents digitally? One of the best tools we have used over the past 7 years to build up youth ministry media on social media is to use a scheduling tool. If you don’t schedule your posts, you are not using social media effectively. Here is a great program. It’s called CoSchedule. What it is: CoSchedule helps you manage a single publishing calendar that serves as the blueprint for your events, content, social, and more. Get visibility into how everything interacts, overlaps, and supports your goals at a glance—confirming your ..read more

How do you interact and influence Gen Z? What is Gen Z? Gen Z is someone who is born between 1995 and 2010. Here is an infographic on how this generation cares so deeply about change and individuality. This generation is changing the way we buy things and the way that brands are trying to market. 94% of Gen Z’s said, “being true to myself is important.” Individuality is key for this generation. They have been raised in a digital era, and their BS meter is on. They filter everything through this authenticity lense. The important thing for this generation is to be real, and to be yourself. The n ..read more

One simple way I grew my youth ministry was by handing out a calendar every four months. Over 5 years, parents expected it and looked forward to having the youth ministry calendar on their fridge. One of the best ways to communicate what you are doing in your youth ministry is to make a calendar. Youth Ministry calendars can help visually tell parents what is happening and why their kid must be at whatever event or program you are promoting. We have created some youth ministry calendars for you and your church. It’s one investment that will pay off over time. Once you get parents’ schedules on ..read more