Last Friday Steve Quatro joined our Skypecast as our featured guest. He is the director of the Kern Center for Vocational Ministry, a ministry that helps high school students pursue their calling into full-time church ministry by offering them scholarships, resources, paid internships, and a lot more. They also provide youth workers with free materials and discipleship curriculum who are working with youth group teenagers that are considering full-time ministry as a career. It was a very valuable discussion. I really learned a lot from Steve and all his practical advice and wisdom. Here’s a recording of the Skypecast for those who are interested in hearing what he had to say. Even if you don’t yet have a teenager who’s expressed an interest in ministry, encourage them to start thinking about it and have some of Steve’s tools handy for later.

NOTE: The next Skypecast is scheduled for August 1 at 1:00 PM Central Time. We’ll debrief about summer ministry and talk about the balance between “fun” and Bible study in youth group.

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 Helping teens pursue a calling into full-time ministry [47:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We had another great Skypecast discussion last Friday! Thanks to everyone who came! It was really a beneficial time for all of us to hear about how God is working in other ministries, to be encouraged in tremendous ways and to receive advice from others who have often already gone through the exact the same things we are. I love hanging out and talking with you all about anything that pertains to “life in student ministry” and “what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Eph. 4:29).

This week we covered several great topics, including:

• Building relationships with teens this summer
• Prioritizing time and responsibilities in ministry
• The balance between teaching from a plan and allowing the Holy Spirit to lead differently last-minute
• The difference between teaching from a curriculum and teaching from our lives
• What stresses us out the most in youth ministry
• Handling conflict
• Disciplining kids in our ministry
• Keeping different literacy levels and age groups of teens engaged together without leaving some behind

It’s been over a year since my last podcast, so what better time to publish another one than to feature some of the highlights from last Friday’s Skypecast conversation. To join in the conversation again this Friday, visit the Life In Student Ministry Skypecast page at 1:00 PM Central Time and click the link to join the discussion via Skype. If you don’t have a microphone, don’t worry — you can still interact via the group chat room.

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 Skypecast Highlights from 05-09-2008 [5:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Youthroots.com is a faith-based social networking site that helps youth workers communicate and build relationships with their students online. In this podcast I interview Tom Nickell, the President and CEO of Lightworks New Media, about their history, why they started Youthroots.com, and how youth workers can best utilize this FREE resource for their ministries. If you’re looking for a safe, flexible and user-friendly web presence for your youth group, this might be the ticket.

 
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 Youthroots.com interview with Tom Nickell [22:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

[tags]Youthroots.com, Lightworks New Media, Tom Nickell, social networks[/tags]

This Sunday is my one year wedding anniversary! In this podcast I quickly recap our past year, ministry together, a conversation I could’ve had before dating and what Dana probably thought after she married me.

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Apple just sent me the approval email saying that my podcast has been reviewed and is now included in iTunes. If you have iTunes installed on your computer, you can use the following link to automatically open iTunes and display my podcast. Click the “Subscribe” button in iTunes for new episodes to be automatically downloaded and included in your music library for easy syncing to your mp3 player or playback on your computer.

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Long-time readers of my blog may remember back to August of last year when I first announced my upcoming podcast. Unfortunately, life quickly changed and forced the podcast to a backburner while I settled into married life, interviewed at churches and then moved to Minnesota. I had some extra time today, though, and cranked out my very first podcast.

The future of this podcast is likely to be very random. I have ideas for different interviews, Bible studies for youth workers, ministry ideas, mission experiences, and more. So stay tuned and it’ll be fun!

Summary of “Micah 2″ podcast
It’s hard to confront specific sins in students’ lives when you’re concerned about how it might affect your relationship with them. Micah addressed sin and has a good point about the outcome.

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 Micah 2 [6:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

There’s been a delay in the podcast production I announced two weeks ago due to my church’s old sound equipment being replaced for a reason — it doesn’t work! I figured we’d easily set up the old mixer and some mics in my office to record the podcasts, but it turns out that the old equipment is indeed old and either sounds terrible or is missing parts. So, Tuesday night my wife gave me permission to purchase a new mixer, which we promptly did minutes before Guitar Center closed. It’s all set up now and ready to record. Hopefully I’ll have an episode finished within a week or two depending on students’ availability.

For anyone new, here’s what the podcast is about:

The Life In Student Ministry Podcast is a discussion of real teenagers talking about real issues in their lives and culture around them. It is our desire that this podcast will be a valuable resource to parents and youth workers seeking to understand student culture and best help other students in our areas of discussion. Our goal is to be insightful, give ideas for effective youth ministry, open windows into youth culture and prompt thoughts for youth workers to discuss with their students.

Coming soon!

I’ve been disappointed by the lack of quality youth ministry podcasts available. Most seem to just push products and services or ramble on and on about unrelated issues, so I thought I’d start one myself. My idea is to release an episode of about 15-20 minutes in length on a weekly basis containing discussions/interviews with teenagers on issues in their culture. The target audience will be parents and other youth workers, so these discussions with teens will pertain mostly to how adults can understand them and best help other students in those areas. Topics that come to mind include depression, MySpace, values, stress, cutting, eating disorders, faith/spirituality, sexuality, divorce, dating, suicide, abuse, etc, etc, etc. Hopefully the podcast will be insightful, give ideas for effective youth ministry, open windows into youth culture and prompt thoughts for youth workers to discuss with their students.

Bill Scott, a friend of mine, life-long radio veteran and president of Zjam Youth Ministries and Teenhopeline.com, is helping with some of the initial production. He also wants to include the podcast on Zjam’s new huge website that will release in about a month. So it looks like the Lord has some plans for this podcast that extend beyond the scope of my blog. I’m excited and looking forward to what He wants to do.