This video circulated the Internet about a year ago, so it’s quite possible that many of you have already seen it, but for those of you who haven’t, here’s a ton of encouragement for why we’re in youth ministry today. This man, Mike Yaconelli, the founder of Youth Specialties, passed away in a car accident 4 years ago, but his passion for students continues to contagiously infect people like me. Thanks, Mike!

Last weekend Dana and I took two girls from our youth group to M.O.V.E. 2007 (Mission Outreach Venture Experience), an event where Evangelical Covenant youth groups from our Northwest Conference come together to do service projects all over Minneapolis. Our assignment was to paint the basement of an inner-city Baptist church. One tip of advice: Always paint in a well-ventilated area and make sure you have paint thinner on hand when using oil-based paint! We tasted the paint in our throats for the rest of the day and had quite the experience trying to clean up without turpentine.

Here are some pictures:

Here’s the video:
[youtube]7zUT7oWVklA[/youtube]

Last weekend was our annual youth group lock-in. I had a lot of great video footage of the crazy stuff we did, but unfortunately toward the end of the night my video camera ate the tape! Doh! First time that’s happened. I tried to recover as much video as possible, which turned out to be none. So, this year’s video was made from the still digital pictures we took instead. Kind of a bummer, but oh well.

[youtube]oiWQapYoNIU[/youtube]

It was my last big event with this youth group before moving to Minnesota in three weeks. Sad times.

I spent a lot of time with one of my high school guys helping him make this music video for a chemistry project. I think it turned out pretty well for all the fun we had making it! Good job, Randy!

[youtube]gE2CB8R2rU8[/youtube]

For a while now I’ve been trying to figure out which is the best online video to use for my video. I’ve been using [tag]YouTube[/tag] mostly just because it’s so popular, but I’ve also used [tag]Google Video[/tag] for clips larger than 100 MB and longer than 10 minutes (YouTube’s max limit).

Lifehacker has a survey of which is the top video player and notes that if pure image quality is what you’re going for, YouTube might not be your best bet.

They also link to a site that has the same video clip posted side-by-side from various video hosts. Check it out to evaluate where your youth group videos might work best for your needs. I think I’m sticking with YouTube for reasons I posted two weeks ago.

[youtube]zwGAKUForhM&eurl[/youtube]
Will this change the future of communication from the pulpit? It gives the ability to bring up images, change text and form illustrations on the fly, all with simple hang gestures.

ht to ymexchange.com

[tags]Jeff Han, multi-touch sensing, preaching[/tags]

I was looking around Google Video and came across this “documentary” on the history of youth ministry. Pretty funny! Looks like it’s from Simply Youth Ministry.

[googlevideo]-2320576239525913098[/googlevideo]

Here’s another Dove video of girls talking about their self-image. Just like the previous video, this might be a good clip to show to both guys and girls in youth group for starting a discussion on the matter.

[youtube]Li3mg1GrKe0[/youtube]

[tags]Dove, beauty, self-image, self-esteem, girls, youth group[/tags]

My wife and I saw this commercial by [tag]Liberty Mutual[/tag] a little while back and, like most people, were captivated by the beauty of its message. Isn’t this a perfect example of what the [tag]body of Christ[/tag] is all about?

If this is your first time viewing the ad, watch closely.

The song is called “[tag]Half Acre[/tag]” by a band named “[tag]Hem[/tag].” It talks about finding peace from the struggles of life back in ones hometown. Maybe it could be used to start a good discussion on longing for our heavenly home and where we search for [tag]peace[/tag].

Man, I really wish I didn’t have to cut this first clip short. Right when this clip ends a lady shares about her unusual profession, which serves as a springboard for jokes and laughter throughout the remainder of the act. It goes on for a half hour and seriously becomes one of the most hilarious acts I’ve ever seen in my life. For privacy and content concerns, however, I gotta end the video at seven an a half minutes. Doh!

[tags]stand-up comedy, Youth Specialties, NYWC, National Youth Workers Convention, The Skit Guys[/tags]