I think Brett Hetherington has contributed more to our Freebie Fridays over the past couple years than anyone else. The best part is, his stuff is always quality material. Besides serving as one of the Youth Ministry Mentors, he’s contributed seven other youth teaching series’ and resources here in the past, and today’s series is no different. Visit his site and let him know how much you appreciate his generosity in equipping your ministry with great resources time and time again!

The End…
If your teens are anything like the rest of America, they want to know all about the book of Revelation. What is it about? Why is it so confusing? If I understand it will I know when Jesus is coming back? Do you find your inbox, cell phone and other methods of communication storage filled to overflowing with these questions and more? No? Me either, but once one student asked if I would lead a series on the seven signs of the apocalypse, it triggered a landslide of interest in Revelation. The End… is the result.

The End… is a three part teaching series in Revelation that attempts to give a balanced look at some of the major themes and symbols at play in Revelation. Numbers, the Rapture, Apocalyptic Prophecy and more are all covered within this study, as well as the four major viewpoints that Revelation can be interpreted from. Yup, Left Behind is not the only way to interpret Revelation. This series takes years of study and research, and boils it down to 3 fairly understandable and manageable interactive lessons. You could even break them up and make it 6 parts! Please use what you can and feel free to contact me with any questions that come up. This study should answer your teens’ questions about Revelation, and inspire all-new questions that you cannot answer.

Included in this series you will find:

• WORD and PDF formatted scripts for all three lessons
• PowerPoints for the first 2 lessons
• Images of the PowerPoint slides that can be used in another program if you do not have PowerPoint
• Publisher and PDF formatted blank notes pages for students who want to take notes
• Quicktime and Windows Media Video (WMV) formatted promotional videos
• Quicktime and Windows Media Video (WMV) formatted intro bumps
• Photoshop file of the logo for the series
• JPEG images of the logo to use for advertising
• Additional documents in WORD and PDF format detailing Hebrew Numerology and an overview of the 4 main methods of interpreting Revelation
• PDF and WORD document with links to the font used to the series and full-length videos of the Original Sessions

Download “The End…” youth lesson series

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Join us at 2:00 PM EST this afternoon in our LIVE YM Talk as we talk with Ryan Neilson about collaborating with other youth pastors/ministries. See the
LIVE YM Talk page for details.

It’s obviously hard not to compare Group’s National Youth Ministry Conference to Youth Specialties’ National Youth Workers Convention, the grand-daddy of youth ministry training. In fact, just in this past week I’ve already received Facebook messages and emails from several of you asking that very question: How do they compare and which one should I go to next year? The answer probably depends mostly on your values and what you’re looking for in a youth leader conference. For example, I personally don’t care for all the marketing that goes on at the NYWC exhibit hall, but I know some people really value having all the vendors together in one spot for resourcing their ministry. Also, some youth workers are looking for training in the wide assortment of topics and issues that are available at NYWC, while others want to go deep in only one area like the NYMC provides. Each conference provides solid youth ministry training, great information, general sessions, workshops and seminars, entertainment, and counselors. The differences mostly lie in their approach and what it is you’re looking for.

One of my sr. high youth leaders went with me to Youth Specialties’ NYWC last October for the first time and now to the NYMC for the first time, also. The video below is a summary our thoughts comparing the pros and cons of each conference.

NOTE: This video is our very first conversation comparing the two conferences and is solely based on our personal preferences and what we were looking for in a conference. Your experience and values may differ and that’s totally okay. I should also disclose that I was a presenter at the NYMC.

NYMC 2009 Highlights

Tom Roepke posted a couple highlight videos of the NYMC from last week:

• NYMC ‘09 Day 1
• NYMC ‘09 Day 2
• Final morning at NYMC ‘09

Brian Ford’s reflections on the NYMC.

Phil Bell’s recap of the NYMC 2009

Rick Warren like you’ve never seen him

If you’ve been to both conferences, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

I recently wrote an article for YouthMinistry.com on dealing with an addiction to pornography. I was a little blunt in asking guys to man-up to what they know they need to do and stop messing around. A particular comment from a woman there also addresses that this struggle is definitely not limited to men.

Read my short article on “Dealing with an Addiction to Porn.”

In the article I mention a program called Covenant Eyes. I highly recommend it, even over some of the free alternatives out there. If you try it out using the promo code “YouthMinistry” you’ll get the first 30 days for free just to try it out. And even if you don’t struggle with porn, it serves as a protection against any future accusations that may unfortunately come.

You may also want to check out this free ebook I offered in an earlier blog post that addresses this struggle in more detail. And also watch this video discussion between me and two other guys about internet accountability for youth workers.

The video below was produced by Covenant Eyes. It contains some good insights about this struggle. Definitely worth your time to watch “Struggle with a pornography temptation?”

Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)

Peace. We often talk about it but don’t always understand it. Sometimes we think of it as calm circumstances, a time when there aren’t external difficulties or stresses. Thus peace is the absence of trouble. Perhaps that is why we so often try to control our environment and pray for God to remove anything that stretches us. But there is a big difference between everything going OK in life and real peace deep within. We seldom live with circumstances perfect, but we can always have peace within, no matter what storms rage without.

The Hebrew word for peace is shalom. Shalom’s basic meaning is wholeness and well-being in all areas of life. Real shalom isn’t something that we can produce ourselves any more than we can whip up unconditional love or deep joy. It has to come from God’s Spirit. It is His fruit. It is an inner contentment, an attitude of faith in God despite what we face in life.

Jesus is called the Prince of Peace because He alone brings peace. He isn’t called the Prince of Love or Hope, although He could have been. God blesses His people with peace (Psalm 29:11) because Jesus provided it on the cross (Ephesians 2:13-14).

The fruit of the Spirit is peace. Remember first, it’s FRUIT not fruits. Love is the blossom; peace is love trusting. God has placed His Spirit, His love within our lives. Therefore, while we may still live within a world in desperate need of peace, we trust God with absolute confidence for He is our peace.

Second, don’t forget it is the fruit of the SPIRIT, not the fruit of the saints. We cannot produce the fruit. This is spiritual fruit, and peace is only produced in our lives as we are connected to Jesus. He is the life giving vine by which we receive His Spirit in our lives. Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing,” but when we are connected to Him we will “bear much fruit.” (See: John 15:5).

The first step to having peace in your life is to be connected to Jesus. Jesus went to the cross and died in your place. Jesus suffered torture and the most brutal of deaths to restore peace in your life. Therefore first we have peace WITH God (Romans 5:1), for the enmity is removed by the cross and He accepts us because Jesus paid for our sins. Then we have peace FROM God (Phil 4:7).

Scripture
Ephesians 2:13-14, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…”

John 14:27, “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.”

Isaiah 26:3, “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.”

Philippians 4:6-7, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Reflect

• On a scale of 1 to 10, how much peace do you have in your life now? What is keeping it from being a 10? What do you need to do to make it a 10?
• Is your first response to trouble to try and control circumstances or ask God for His peace?
• Are your expectations for yourself or your ministry too high? Are you putting stress on yourself because you are evaluating your effectiveness by human standards?
• Where do you need peace in your life right now? Ask Him for it now.

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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!

Yesterday’s LIVE YM Talk featured special guest, Greg Stier, of Dare 2 Share Ministries. We talked about his recent experience filming The Gospel Journey: Maui and a lot of the tough questions about God that came out of that.

We discussed several things:

• Identified many of the key questions
• Discussed some answers to them
• How we can help our kids wrestling through these questions
• How experiences shape our beliefs
• How our youth ministries and churches are unintentionally do kids a disservice with these struggles
• And a lot of other things…

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

Download this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next week’s discussion

March 20: Next week our featured guest is Ryan Neilson from Pastor2Youth.com. He’ll be leading a discussion on “Collaborating with other youth pastors/ministries,” both online and face-to-face with ministries in your community.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

Today’s Freebie Friday is contributed by Ryan Epps. He put together a list of online resources for you and your ministries. Some are free, some are totally worth your money. The following is his guest post for you. Enjoy!

In a culture that is saturated by the latest buzz of technology, we can see the fruits of its influence on teenagers and their families. While technology has created negative issues such as lack of verbal communication, inability to focus, straining time spent as family, and an increase of so many other issues, I have decided to see the problem with a brighter perspective. Instead of complaining about the problem, be a part of the solution! We can all agree that the use of the latest technology will only increase (unless there is a nuclear melt down or Jesus returns). Why not utilize what is making such a huge influence on young people and positively incorporate it into your ministry to them. So, I have developed a list of links to raise your awareness to what is available to you to greater impact the technologically crazed culture we live in:

Communication / Relational Building

Facebook.com – While this may be a given for those of us that utilize it, there are still many youth workers I speak with that have decided not to take part in this social online giant. The ways to connect with young people is astounding. Messages, writing on their wall, chatting with them through facebook chat, creating groups, creating events, and the list could go on.

SimplyYouthMinistrytxt.com – Use text messaging to communicate with your teenagers the way they communicate with each other.

Skype.com – “I prefer Skype as my choice for instant communication because it’s so versatile: text chat, voice chat, video conferencing, SMS, even telephone calls, and it does it all better than any other communication client out there.” Tim Schmoyer

Txtsignal.com – Very similar to simply youth ministries version of getting mass messages to different texting groups (students, parents, youth leaders, etc.)

Personal and Ministry Networking

YMexchange.com – Connect with hundreds of other youth workers and discuss ideas and issues in life and ministry.

MinistryQuestions.com – A site developed to encourage, inspire, and resource ministry workers through answers, questions, mentoring, and advice. This site provides a honkin database of ideas.

Twitter.com – “Twitter has many uses for both personal and business use. It’s a great way to keep in touch with your friends and quickly broadcast information about where you are and what you’re up to.” www.tweeternet.com

Video Production / Teaching

Animoto.com – Time to upgrade from your typical slideshows! Animoto was created by TV and Movie producers and in minutes can add some BAM to your photos.

Bluefishtv.com – Videos to help you teach!

Zamzar.com – Want to show videos from YouTube but don’t have internet access in your youth room? This site will convert files for you without the need to download software. (Use of the site is predicated on the fact that you will use the converted files in a way consistent with copyright rules.)

Smilebox.com – A more conservative approach than animoto would be. Use your photos and videos to share life’s moments in minutes.

SermonSpice.com – “Over 12,726 ways to spice up your sermon.” Sermon Spice

YouthBytes.org – A hilarious, but extremely relevant resource to help you clearly communicate the message you are delivering to your students.

RadiateFilms.com – Very explosive and cutting edge graphics, backgrounds, and videos for ministry.

Resources for Youth Workers

This list is so vast, I am only going to list the site and not give an explanation.

• YouthMinistry.com
• CPYU.org
• YouthSpecialties.com
• SimplyYouthMinistry.com
• YouthPastor.com
• TheSource4YM.com
• EgadIdeas.com
• Pastor2youth.com
• LeaderResources.org
• YouthWorker.com
• Dare2Share.org
• GroupPublishing.com
• AnswersCafe.com
• PluggedInOnline.com
• YouthResource.net

Resources for Teens / Resources for you to help teens

Christianitytoday.com/teens – Hundreds of Q&A articles and advice on most of today’s tough and hot issues.

xxxchurch.com – Getting help to those addicted to pornography.

CreationTips.com/teentopix – Biblical advice for teens!

TeenHopeLine.com – This site provides a safe place where teens can interact, find scriptural answers and direction, and at times of decision in their lives seek healthy counsel.

ChristianAnswers.net/teens – Another site that provides biblical answers for questions teens have.

Resources for Parents

Homeward.com – I have utilized this site to put hundreds of resources in parent’s hands. Homewards mission is to advance the work of God in the world by educating, equipping, and encouraging parents and churches to build God-honoring families from generation to generation.

TheParentlink.com – This is a phenomenal newsletter that is full with tremendous amounts of information for your parents. With just a few clicks of a mouse button, the newsletter is attached to your website.

CrossWalk.com/parenting – Filled with tons of articles and resources to provide for your parents.

Curriculum

TeenLifeMinistries.com – Over 300 lesson outlines with class handouts and small group discussion guides (and more added each week!). Plus over 870 articles waiting to help you maximize your youth ministry.

StudentLinc.net – Do you have a student leadership team? The materials in this site will help you to teach, train, and equip them for ministry.

Studentlife.com

Lifeway.com

Blogging

WordPress.com – Create a free blog in minutes!

Website Creation

MinistryWebsites.biz – A very simple and inexpensive approach to building your ministries website!

LifewayLink.com – This is the company we use as a church and it is also inexpensive and extremely easy to use.

If you have an internet resource that has encouraged you and helped equip you in ministry, be sure to comment and let us know about it! God bless you as you apply the passion you have for teens to utilizing technology to establish more ways to reach them.

His,

Ryan Epps
Pastor to Students
Boone Trail Baptist Church
ryanepps.wordpress.com
twitter.com/ryanepps

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Join us at 2:00 PM EST this afternoon in our LIVE YM Talk as we talk with Greg Stier about answering teens’ tough questions about God. See the
LIVE YM Talk page for details.

I don’t do alter calls or invitations to come forward or anything, but I do make sure that I point every youth group lesson back to the gospel for several reasons.

1. It’s the foundation of everything else in scripture. In fact, we wouldn’t even have scripture in the first place if it wasn’t for the gospel. It’s the core, the hub, the center of everything we teach. Everything is dependent on the gospel. No matter what subject, issue, or passage you’re teaching, it all ties back to the gospel message. Don’t believe me? Watch Craig Groeschel of LifeChurch.tv do it with almost every message he preaches.

2. I’m not naive enough to think that all my youth group kids have made a decision to trust Christ. Actually, often the very opposite is often true. The church kids are the ones who are the most immune to the gospel. They mentally check out thinking, “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ve heard this part before.” That’s why it’s important to always tie every lesson back to the gospel! I’ve found that some teens listen to my lesson just to try to figure out how I’m going to make the connection at the end. When I get there I explain the gospel in a way that’s relevant to the lesson we just discussed. In this way it doesn’t become redundant for them, but instead they get the gospel from a new angle every week.

3. The more my kids hear the Gospel, the more clear it is for them, the easier it is for them to share it with someone else, and the more confident they feel when doing so. When I do one-on-one discipleship with teen guys, one of the questions I always ask is, “If you had 30 seconds to share the gospel with someone right before they died, what would you say?” It’s surprising to me how many good, solid church kids have a perspective of soteriology that is totally confused. They often miss key elements such as sin, or the fact that Jesus was God. They know all the elements in their head, but they’ve never been asked to put all the pieces together. That’s why it’s so helpful for them to hear the gospel every week from me because it makes it more clear each time they hear it. Coincidentally, that helps them share it more clearly with others, which in turn boosts their confidence. Of course, that means I must first have a firm grasp on the gospel myself. Do you? Can you clearly answer my question?

4. Scripture expects that both me and my youth group kids share the gospel with others regularly. There are some things scripture expects from us whether we’re gifted in that area or not. For example, some people have the gift of serving, but every believer is still expected to serve others. Some people have the gift of giving, but every believer is expected to tithe. Some people have the gift of evangelism, but every believer is expected to share Christ with the lost people around them in one capacity or another. When we keep the gospel in front of our teens at youth group, it moves it to the forefront of their theological grid, and thus they are more apt to follow the Lord’s command in obedience to share Him with others.

Ultimately, it helps both the youth group teens and myself go deep and wide at the same time.

What kind of role does the gospel play in your youth ministry?

The guys at Animoto.com have been nice enough to give me another set of FREE 3-month All Access passes to give away to five of you all. If you’re not familiar with Animoto.com, it’s a website that makes amazing video slideshows from your pictures. Upload your pictures, add your own soundtrack, it analyzes the music, and melds the two together in a way that feels somewhat like MTV video. You can either upload your pictures manually or send Animoto to fetch them from other sites like your Facebook account, Picasa, or Flickr. Adding music works the same way: upload your own mp3 or select a track from their growing library of music beds, including many Christian artists like Steven Curtis Chapman, TobyMac, and Jeremy Camp. For an extra measure of fun, you can remix the pics and music again and again to get other versions of your slideshow. No two videos are ever the same. It’s definitely worth checking out for transforming all your youth group pictures into very professional videos. In fact, here’s one I made a while back for our missions trip last summer.

Belize Missions 2008 Pictures

Thirty-second clips are free, or you can upgrade to an unlimited All Access pass for $30/year.

OR, you can win a 3-month All Access pass to Animoto.com by contributing to MinistryQuestions.com. I’ll give away one All Access pass every Wednesday for the next 5 weeks to the top user on the Weekly Top User Chart (excluding myself and any previous winners). This chart is based on the number of points you earn. Although you can earn points by asking questions, posting answers, and responding to debates, the fastest way is to be awarded points from others on the site. This is done by rating each other’s questions, answers, and debates with the star ratings in the red division bar below each user’s response. If you think someone gave a good answer, give them some points! If you think they asked an excellent question, give them some points! If you see someone was awarded 4 points for a question, but you think it’s only worth 1, give them a one-star rating and lower the point value of that question. Points are determined by both you and your peers, so have fun!

Head to MinistryQuestions.com and join a community of ministry workers who will invest into your ministry as you invest into others.