Almost every small group of teenage guys eventually comes to the topic of sex and porn. In fact, it’s probably the only subject that makes teenage boys giggle! Their hormones are raging, their world is visually stimulating, and many of their friends are sleeping with their girlfriends. It’s naive to think that most of the guys in our youth groups aren’t actively experimenting with pornography, which is why I gladly welcome the topic in small groups.

One resource I’ve used over and over again is a free ebook called, When A Man’s Eye Wanders: Breaking the Power of Pornography, by RBC Ministries. This 31-page resource discusses the dangers of pornography, why men are vulnerable to it, why men return to porn over and over again, and how to have victory over the struggle. It lists further resources at the end, too. I often print out a copy for each teen guy in the small group and discuss the main points in it with them.

To download a copy of the ebook, visit the following link and click “View PDF.”

When A Man’s Eye Wanders ebook

Also check out some of RBC Ministries’ other free ebooks.

P.S. It’s not free, but I strongly recommend that all youth workers use Covenant Eyes on all their computers. Even if you don’t struggle with porn, it’s wise to have that accountability and a record in place in case accusations are ever made. $7.99/month is worth it! X3Watch.com has a free version of their accountability software, but Covenant Eyes is much more fool proof.

CONTRIBUTE TO FREEBIE FRIDAY: If you’ve benefited from others who have freely shared their youth ministry resources online, consider giving back to the community by sharing your own materials here. Send me your donations for review and if I publish them in a Freebie Friday, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.

Great Skypecast today

We had a great discussion today about ministry philosophies, using “youth center” buildings in ministry, and our personal walks with the Lord. See you all again next Friday at 1:00 PM central time! More Skypecast info here.

Dennis Poulette contributes the following list of free software that is useful for youth ministry. If you’re interested in becoming a guest blogger for Life In Student Ministry, check out this page.

Photos

• Picasa - (Windows only) An online photo organizer from Google that allows you to do limited edits on your photos, organize them, and easily share them with others.
• GIMP - (Windows/Mac/Linux) The GNU Image Manipulation Program is a powerful, free Photoshop alternative that allows you to edit photos and save them in a variety of formats.
• irfanview - (Windows only) A graphic viewer that allows you to preview many different types of image, video, and audio files.

Music and Audio

• Audacity - (Windows/Mac/Linux) This music editing software is great for adding sound effects, making long songs shorter, mixing different tracks together, and any other basic audio editing you might need to do.
• Switch - (Windows/Mac) I use switch to convert music files from one type to another. You can output many different files to mp3 or wav formats.
• iTunes - (Windows/Mac) Unless you have lived under a rock for a while, you already know that iTunes can manage large amounts of music and do all sorts of things to playback your audio files as well as add visualizations to your music.

Video

• Handbrake - (Windows/Mac/Linux) Converts videos from DVD to MPEG-4 formats.
• VLC Media Player - (Windows/Mac/Linux) A multimedia player for various audio and video formats that does not require external codecs or programs to work. It can be used to play just about any video format.
• Download helper - (Windows/Mac/Linux) A Firefox extension that lets you save videos from most video sites on the internet, like Youtube, Google, and many others.
• ffmpegX (Mac only) and SUPER (Windows only) both convert video into every and any format you could possibly ever need.

Office/Publishing

• OpenOffice - (Window/Linux) An office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more.
• Taco HTML Edit - (Mac only) A full-featured HTML editor and PHP editor. It allows users to rapidly create their own web sites.

Security and Utilities

• McAfee site advisor - (Windows/Mac/Linux) A Firefox and Internet Explorer plugin that tests websites and warns users about spyware, spam, viruses, and other online problems.
• AVG Anti-virus - (Windows only) Provides users with basic anti-virus and anti-spyware protection.
• Mozy backup - (Windows/Mac) The free version of this online backup offers 2 GB of online storage space, and it automatically backs up your important documents online and encrypts them.
• Caffeine (Mac only) - Keeps your mac awake when activated, which prevents sleeping, screen savers, and screen dimming, perfect for when you are giving presentations.

Study

• E-Sword - (Windows only) A free Bible software package with many versions, commentaries, and other books available to improve your study of the Bible.
• Freemind - (Windows/Mac/Linux) A great mind mapping program that is useful for outlining books, organizing thoughts, and creating mind maps of anything you need.

Web/Email/RSS

• FileZilla - (Windows/Mac/Linux) A fast and free FTP, FTPS and SFTP client.
• Thunderbird - (Window/Mac/Linux) Mozilla’s alternative to Outlook, Thunderbird is very fast and efficient for email organization.
• Burn - (Mac only) An application for burning CDs and DVDs.
• NetNewsWire (Mac only) and FeedDemon (Windows only) are news reader that use a three-panel interface and downloads RSS and Atom feeds to keep you on top of all of your favorite news sites and blogs. Syncs with their online web reader, too.

———————————————————————-

Dennis Poulette is a youth ministry professor with Youth Ministry International. He lives and works in Mexico City. You can follow his ministry at ymimexico.org.

A lot of you are submitting questions for the Q&A series here at Life In Student Ministry, which is great! Now I have to try to keep up with them. lol

Brian Sheeler asks, “I was wondering what curriculum you use with your teens. What have you used? Do you pick your Bible lessons according to the teens you have and where they are at?”

I actually don’t purchase curriculum at all. In fact, I’m a pretty avid fan against canned “one size fits all” twists on all the same ol’ Bible stories. I write all of my lessons. Our small group leaders, however, pick different books and resources to use and I leave that up to them unless they want my input. (When I delegate responsibility, I also delegate the authority that goes along with it, which could be a whole post in itself.) However, I don’t use any specific curriculum myself.

When I lead a small group, I usually teach from my own life and the Lord’s interaction with it. More details on that here.

For large group teaching times, I start with a text of scripture, study it myself using Observation, Interpretation, and Application. Then I apply it to my personal life to learn “how it works” so I can use personal illustrations. In doing so, I find that I teach from my heart instead of from my notes. This is very important because then I’m actually passionate about what I’m teaching since I’ve already internalized the principles and application. Passion isn’t something that can be faked. When it’s genuine, it becomes contagious. Besides, I never ask my students to do something spiritually that I’m not already doing. If I’m going to challenge them to share their faith, I need to make sure I pop my Christian bubble and share my faith with unbelievers first.

I pretty much follow Ezra’s example in 7:10, “For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.” Study the Word, practice it in your own life, then share it with others.

If you’re a full-time youth pastor and don’t have time to prepare deep meaningful Bible lessons, then perhaps you should evaluate what it is you’re spending time on. I’m not saying that using curriculum is bad — just that you should never use it as an excuse to devote your time to something other than internalizing the Word yourself.

———————————————————————-

Have a youth ministry question you’d like me and other readers to answer? E-mail it to me! Please keep your question brief and to-the-point. Thanks!

Luke McFadden writes asking, “From what I have seen from your [youth group’s] site, your summer schedule is different than your in school schedule? Just curious of the reasons for this, and how you feel the church/youth take this as well.”

It’s actually not just me — our entire church shifts it’s ministry programming dramatically during the summer for a couple reasons.

1. Attendance is usually pretty low during the summer since so many people are traveling, at camp, visiting family, etc. We never stop events just because numbers are down. It’s more because this is the most natural time for reason #2 to happen.

2. Our volunteers deserve a well-earned break so they’re refreshed and ready to go in the fall. That doesn’t mean that the relationships and personal ministry to students stop — only that there’s not as many “official” events on the calendar.

3. It allows us, as church leaders, to take a step back from the normal ministry grind and reflect, evaluate and cast vision for the next school year. Otherwise we become so entrenched in the same ol’ stuff that we never take time to critically evaluate properly and implement changes for the next year.

Our calendar doesn’t reflect the actual ministry taking place (it never does!). We’re not “shutting down” the youth ministry — it just takes on a different form. It’s the perfect time for more personal hang-outs and building relationships to take place, especially when everyone’s schedules are not as conducive for programming and calendar events.

———————————————————————-

Have a youth ministry question you’d like me and other readers to answer? E-mail it to me! Please keep your question brief and to-the-point. Thanks!

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

When I was a young boy I loved baby food. Peaches were my personal favorite. I didn’t think anything could ever beat that taste. Then when my own children were eating baby food I thought I’d treat myself to a taste of their peaches. Needless to say, I was very disappointed. What had once seemed like such a wonderful food item turned out to be bland and almost tasteless. What happened? The food didn’t change, but my taste did. I guess if I would have stuck with baby food from then to now I’d still like it – it would be the only taste I’ve ever known.

The more we mature in the faith the more we need spiritual meat. Processed and simplified Bible truths are OK, but we need something deeper and stronger to feed our growing souls. Unfortunately many Christians stick to the simple stuff. They read devotionals and use lesson plans that are about the Bible, but don’t get into the Word themselves. They let others chew their food for them instead of chewing it themselves. Sure we are busy, but there is no quick way to take in the truths of God’s Word. It takes time to read and observe a passage of Scripture, looking for things you haven’t noticed before. There’s no fast way to unearth the gems of the Bible which only come to those who do careful and thorough interpretation. And only precise and insightful application can cause the truths we have been studying to become part of our daily lives.

When we rush we try to do application before we carefully observe and thoroughly interpret, it’s like leaving a doctor’s office with a cure before any examination has been made. A good doctor observes the patient, then interprets what he discovers. Only then is diagnosis accurate and helpful. We want a doctor to take his time and do a good job when checking us, and God wants us to do the same when handling His Holy Word. When we interpret a passage, we study God’s Word, but when we apply it to our lives we let His Word study us! Very little that we do in a day will be take with us to heaven – but what we learn in the Bible and its application in our lives will be ours eternally. Don’t spend all your time on daily activities, invest some in eternity. Spend some quality time in the Bible today.

Scripture
1 Corinthians 3:1-3, “Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly — mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?”

2 Timothy 2:15, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”

Reflect

• Have you ever tried journaling your Bible study, writing down the personal applications the Lord impresses upon your heart? Try it today. It’ll help you have better results and will be worth the time.
• When is the last time you studied a passage just for your own edification, not for use in a lesson or message?
• Which step of Bible study – observation, interpretation or application, are you weakest on? What can you do to improve in that area?

———————————————————————-

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!

Shift Creative is giving away their entire stock image gallery for FREE to ministries! In case you’re not familiar with stock photography, it’s images that are free from copyright restrictions and royalty fees, meaning you can freely publish and print the images. I use stock images all the time on my blog here so I don’t accidentally infringe on anyone’s copyrighted material, but stock images are never free, which is why Shift Creative’s giveaway is so valuable. It’s the legal way to create lesson graphics, PowerPoint slides, and newsletter images. Brian Buchanan is one of the photographers. Here is his summary:

Shift Creative is a Christian media production company that was started to help meet the needs of small churches and organizations that can’t always afford the big name production houses. For Tim’s Freebie Friday we are offering our entire 755 picture stock photo gallery for free. Go to http://www.shiftcreative.org/free.html, click the link for photos.shiftcreative.org in the middle of the page and you’ll have full access to our high-resolution picture gallery. Just find the picture you want, put your cursor over it, and click Save from the menu that appears on the right. If you’d like to talk with us about our graphic design, web design, or video production services then just email Brian at brian@shiftcreative.org and we’ll work out a sweet deal.

Thanks, Brian!

Free Stock Photos for ministries from Shift Creative

CONTRIBUTE TO FREEBIE FRIDAY: If you’ve benefited from others who have freely shared their youth ministry resources online, consider giving back to the community by sharing your own materials here. Send me your donations for review and if I publish them in a Freebie Friday, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.

Skypecast Guest Today: My Sr. Pastor

Today we’ll kick off the Skypecast conversation with the topic of Working With Sr. Pastors. My own Sr. Pastor, John LeVahn, will join us for about 20-30 minutes to talk about our relationship and how we work together. If you’re struggling with your Sr. Pastor and would like advice or input from another Sr. Pastor about your situation, this is the perfect opportunity! Come with your questions and ideas. After the first 20-30 minutes of “Working with Sr. Pastors” we’ll move on with our normal format of whatever you guys want to bring to the table. See you tomorrow at 1:00 PM central time! More info here.

We’re all in youth ministry because we want to see teens move from being spiritually apathetic to being spiritually passionate, so when time passes and we see no signs of growth, it gets frustrating. Often we feel like we’re wasting our time, that our investment is pointless or that we should move our focus to a student that might produce more favorable results. It’s important to understand why we become frustrated because maybe then we won’t give up as easily on that “hard to reach” kid.

1. Unrealistic Expectations
What is it exactly that you expect to see in the teenager who’s supposedly not growing? Apparently you feel the student is not where you think they should be, but what is it that place where you think they should be right now? Perhaps your idea is unrealistic, especially since it’s quite possible that there are other factors in that student’s life and thought process that are unknown to you.

2. Remember: growth is a process
The process is longer for some than for others. It also takes a different path for everyone. There’s no such thing as microwavable spiritual fruit — it takes time to grow. Just because the fruit isn’t ripening as fast as you think it should doesn’t mean it won’t ripen eventually, maybe at a time when you’re not around to observe it. Allow the Holy Spirit to work in His timing.

3. We’re watching close-up
Staring at a pot of dirt to watch a seed grow is frustrating. You could stand there for a week and not see any evidence of growth. However, if you come back maybe three weeks after it’s been nurtured, watered and cared for, what was happening all that time beneath the surface is now displayed as a visual sign of growth. But if you stared at the plant the entire time, it would appear as if nothing was changing. Likewise, in our daily interaction with teens, we’re often watching for growth from a constant up-close perspective so we don’t notice the slow, but drastic, changes taking place. Look at your own life: where are you now spiritually compared to five years ago? I see my little brother and sister every couple months and they look more grown-up every time, but to my parents, who live with them, the growth is unnoticeable. Just because you don’t see the growth doesn’t mean it’s not there.

God never gives up on you. Don’t you give up on spiritually apathetic teens!

If we’re not careful, a youth pastor’s job description becomes very bloated very quickly, not just with all the stated expectations, but with all the unstated ones, too. Before we know it, we’re juggling so many balls we’re doing nothing but stressing out and ignoring what it is that God actually put us in youth ministry to do in the first place. Most of us seriously need to step back, take a deep breath, and figure out what it is we’re spending all our time on that is truly important and necessary for the ministry that no one else can do but us.

For me, the responsibilities boil down to three areas:

1. Relationships
No one else can build relationships for me. That is something only I can do and something I must do for the sake of effective ministry. That includes relationships with students, with parents, other staff members, school teachers, coaches, youth workers at other local churches, my family and most importantly, with God.

2. Solid Bible Teaching
I went through four years of Bible college and three years of seminary for primarily one reason: to know how to “correctly handle the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15) and to learn how to effectively communicate it with others (Ezra 7:10). There’s no one else in our youth ministry who has that kind of training to take teenagers deep into the Word of God, not just to put a different twist on the same basic Bible stories they’ve heard since first grade, but to provide deep spiritual nourishment that the Holy Spirit uses to move them from spiritual milk to solid food (Hebrews 5:12; 1 Peter 2:2). I take lesson prep and delivery very seriously. What a tremendous responsibility and privilege (James 3:1).

3. Training Adult Leaders
As the resident “expert” on youth ministry, no one else can provide the training for adult youth workers that I can. Ministry to kids increases exponentially when I can multiply myself into other mature and passionate adults by training them to be effective in their relationships with teens. I can only reach a limited number of teenagers by myself, but together we can reach our entire community as I lead us.

That’s how I spend and prioritize my time. Anything that doesn’t fall into one of these three categories can typically be done by anyone else. I feel no need to organize events, make schedules, or design newsletters when anyone else can do it just as easily (and probably better) than I can. That’s why almost all of the major events in my church’s youth ministry are led and organized by adult youth workers. I don’t even coordinate most of our weekly meetings. If no one steps up to lead the fund raiser, for example, it just doesn’t happen — that’s all there is to it.

I have the privilege of just showing up to youth meetings, building relationships and teaching God’s Word alongside of leaders who are well-trained. That’s the way a body is supposed to function anyway.

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

What comes to mind when you think of meditation? If it has something to do with sitting in a monastery, bored to death while your mind wonders, then you are pretty typical. We seem to delegate meditation to the great mystics of long ago, to the church fathers who were so spiritual they were more in heaven than on earth anyway. I got quite a surprise recently when I started to study what meditation really is. I found it’s much different than I originally thought.

While the Hebrew root can mean “to ponder,” it can also mean “to converse aloud.” In fact, it is often translated “cried out” and “voiced his complaint.” Psalm 77 is an example of Asaph meditating out loud. Read it and listen to his meditation. The New Testament equivalent is praying without ceasing (1 Thes 5:17). Meditation, therefore, is speaking and listening to God by expressing what is on your heart and reflecting on what He says to you in the Word and by the Holy Spirit. It’s like a friendly, after-meal conversation with your wife when you feel close and aren’t in a hurry to end the connection.

Try talking to God out loud (this works best when you are alone and no one can overhear you!). It is a good discipline to put thoughts into words. We focus better and communicate more precisely. Try praying a Scripture passage. Read it out loud, think about it, read it again, talk to God about it and listen to what His Spirit tells you. Writing down your thoughts in a journal can help add to this experience. Sure, it takes a little more effort, but any good relationship takes effort to grow. The results are definitely worth it!

Scripture
Psalm 119:97, “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.”

Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Reflect

• When was the last time you had a good, long time of fellowship with God, where you just relaxed and enjoyed His presence?
• What the main obstacle to your having these kinds of refreshing, rejuvenating times with God?
• Take a few moments to meditate right now.
• Share what God has taught you about meditating in the comments below. We can pass on some of these insights in future posts.

———————————————————————-

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!

Grahame Knox, a veteran youth worker in the U.K., graciously donates a free ebook he wrote called, 40 Icebreakers for Small Groups. It’s full of great ideas to get the blood pumping, adrenaline flowing and teens interacting with each other. Here’s his description:

40 Icebreakers for Small Groups is an ebook compiled from several previous articles posted on my blog Insight. I thought it might be helpful to put them together in an eBook to download. In addition, I’ve added several extra icebreakers which don’t appear in the articles!

Divided into two sections, “Getting To Know You” and “Group Builders,” these icebreakers encourage sharing, openness, listening, co-operation and discussion, providing a creative foundation for a small group study or teaching time.

40 Icebreakers for Small Groups ebook

CONTRIBUTE TO FREEBIE FRIDAY: If you’ve benefited from others who have freely shared their youth ministry resources online, consider giving back to the community by sharing your own materials here. Send me your donations for review and if I publish them in a Freebie Friday, you’ll receive full credit, a link, lots of gratitude and a warm feeling inside that comes from sharing with others.

Featured Skypecast Guest Today

Adam McLane of Youth Ministry Exchange is gracious to join us for today’s Life In Student Ministry Skypecast. Four youth pastors who are connected with his ministry lost their jobs this month, so he’s going to talk a bit about transitions in youth ministry. He’ll also discuss social networking, blogging, and general technology stuff in youth ministry. Come to hear his thoughts and bounce your questions and ideas off him. It starts at 1:00 PM central time this afternoon. More info here.