The media is has really latched on to the Online Missions Trip over the past two weeks and given it more publicity than I ever imagined. In fact, last week I did 2-4 radio interviews per day, plus several magazine and written interviews. What started as a 2-week outreach campaign for my own youth group has really spread into something huge. Over 3,000 teenagers representing almost every continent will be actively sharing their faith using social media from February 1-14, 2009. Crazy! Sounds like the Lord is doing something here.

I’m continually adding resources to OnlineMissionsTrip.com, the most recent being a link to a free book download called, “Welcome to the Family,” by Youth for Christ. It’s 6 chapters long and would work perfectly for helping a new believer start the life-long journey of discipleship. It probably works best in a one-on-one format, but it could also be used in a small group setting. Thanks to Jonathan McKee for making this book freely available at TheSource4YM.com!

Download “Welcome to the Family” book

There are several other good options for new believer follow-up at OnlineMissionsTrip.com.

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Join us at 2:00 PM EST this afternoon in our LIVE YM Talk! Jason Lamb of Dare 2 Share Ministries will lead our discussion about Deep & Wide Ministry. Info on the LIVE YM Talk page.

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Been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer? Apply for a FREE 10 week one-on-one Life In Student Ministry Mentorship with one of our 13 youth ministry veterans. Application closes on January 24, 2009. Mentorship is made available for free thanks to Lifeway Students, who are supplying all the resources and materials to each mentee. Thanks, Lifeway Students!

Yesterday in our LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation Alejandro Reyes of ChurchWired.com lead us in a discussion about using social media to connect with teenagers. We talked about how to use Facebook to stay involved in our kids’ lives, how to use it to find out what issues they’re going through, how it should impact our teaching, if Facebook is true community or not, and many other things.

Alejandro Reyes is an online marketing consultant and speaker who specializes in teaching organizations how to use social media to better connect with their audiences. ChurchWired.com is his new project to extend this expertise to churches and ministries to learn how to further spread the message of Christ online. Check him out on Twitter, also.

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

January 23rd: Next week Jason Lamb, the Deep & Wide Ministry staff member at Dare 2 Share Ministries, will talk with us about Deep & Wide Ministry — how to take our teenagers deep in to God’s Word and wide with His message.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

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Been in youth ministry for 2 years or fewer? Apply for a FREE 10 week one-on-one Life In Student Ministry Mentorship with one of our 13 youth ministry veterans. Application closes on January 24, 2009. Mentorship is made available for free thanks to Lifeway Students, who are supplying all the resources and materials to each mentee. Thanks, Lifeway Students!

Yesterday in our LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation Adam McLane, Online Community-meister guy for Youth Specialties, talked with us about using online teen hangouts for our advantage in enhancing community at youth group. Not only did he give a lot of helpful insights and ideas for how these tools work in youth ministry, but many resources were recommended by the participants, both in the conversations and in the chat, for other ideas and ways to communicate and interact with teeangers online.

Plus, Adam offered a 30% discount on anything in the Youth Specialties store for LIVE YM Talk participants and podcast listeners. Listen to the recording to find out how to take advantage of that special offer, valid for one week only.

Listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Download this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next Topic: Dealing with the demands of extra-curricular activities and how it effects our youth ministries

October 3rd: Brian Ford recently wrote a blog post that circulated to several youth ministry sites called, Are high school sports interfering with teens growing deep? He’ll be our featured guest next week to talk about the frustration we all have with teenagers: sports, jobs and almost anything else being a higher priority than youth group.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!