Tim Schmoyer // Husband to Dana, father to Hannah, youth pastor, blogger at http://www.studentministry.org
There's a lot more to this chart -- some of it hidden behind the pitchers, some of it not written on it yet -- that one of our high school leaders wrote up to use to teach us during our church's youth leader meeting/training over lunch today. Good stuff they learned from the Simply Youth Ministry Conference this year!
Since the Vikings are in the NFC championship game tomorrow, I've had a couple parents and students ask me if we're canceling sr. high youth group because it conflicts with the game. Some are even a little upset that we're still having youth group. Since I think teens are already given way too many excuses to put spirituality behind everything else, I don't want our church to be part of enabling that. It's not that I'm anti-football or even that I don't think ministry can flex for current events. We cancel youth group for the Super Bowl, but for other games? It just doesn't feel right to me. God always comes first, especially before a football game. Our standards for teens spiritual growth are already so low! I'm sure we'll have a small crowd at youth group tomorrow night, which is fine with me. It's not important that we have a large group, it's important that we do the right thing for the right reasons and bring glory to God through it all. I'll be more than happy to focus on the students who are there.
"Would you cancel youth group so people can watch a non-Super Bowl game instead?"Got a variety of answers. See the screenshot below for a summary. Good input and a lot of different opinions.
Yeah... me... in Haiti... in only 3 weeks from now... WHAT?!
Dana and I were planning to be in Texas visiting her family for vacation from February 9-17. It was going to be a great time to introduce Hannah to all our friends in Texas, where we met, dated, got married, and spent the first 6 months of marriage. I was excited about it! I have the time off from church, airfare is purchased, everything is ready to go. And then earlier this week I got an email from a friend who asked me if I'd be interested in going to Haiti during that time. I talked with Dana about it and we were both kinda like, "Umm, no, we already have plans." I couldn't admit to this person that it was actually vacation, so I beat around the bush a bit. But as this week went on I was thinking, "Dude, Tim, how self-centered could you possibly be? You have a possible opportunity to go serve people who are in desperate need, and instead you're going to go on vacation?!" Matthew 25 kept coming to mind, "Whatever you do for the least of these, you do it for me." And James, "If anyone knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." (That's the downside of memorizing scripture -- the Holy Spirit uses it to convict you.)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 kinda see which direction we go from here.
Any glaring oversights of a service or tool I missed?On November 21 the local network of youth pastors is hosting a dodgeball tournament between our youth groups. It's gonna be a blast! I finalized the registration packet tonight after getting feedback from some of the other youth pastors and officially sent it out. Here it is, in case anyone else wants to see it.
Since I've been sick all week, I made a new intro for our youth group video announcements. I love it! Thinking about modifying it for other youth groups for about $75, but I'm not sure yet. Might wanna keep this one just for us.
A blog reader created a list of the past 145 Freebie Fridays at StudentMinistry.org as a reference he uses to check for youth ministry resources as the need arises in his ministry. He sent it to me for anyone else to use, too. Here ya go!
Thanks, Benjer McVeigh!Last night I saw Charlie Hall tweet about a good show he did in St. Cloud, Minnesota, right down the road from me! Wish I had known he was coming because I always enjoyed worshipping with him in a smaller, intimate settings at Irving Bible Church in TX back in the early 2000s and then at Falls Creek camp in OK with the youth group I led during seminary.
As a tribute to missing the show, here's a little video of my old youth group goofing around at Falls Creek in 2003. We went around and asked a lot of different people to read different "lists" just because we were bored, and one of the lucky candidates was Charlie Hall. Sorry, Charlie! Hope this doesn't haunt you 6 years later! :)
Had a great meeting today with some of the adult leaders on the youth staff team at my church over lunch today. Shared a lot of fun, encouraging stories and God-sightings, discussed some struggles, I did a brief training, and I promoted the Simply Youth Ministry Conference, pushing them all to attend if at all possible. Since it's in Chicago this year, we can drive and keep expenses down, meaning we can take a lot more people than last year. Hope they come!
Thanks to Kami at Simply Youth Ministry/Group Publishing for the fun conference swag!
