Talk Help: Great Video for Need/Something More

If you are doing a talk about feeling like there is more to life than this, or that we all find ourselves in need of something more. Here is a great video that can add to that. I’m sure most of you have seen it, but i thought I would make this available to you.

Interview with Tom Brady about how there has to be more to life than being really really good at football.

Young Life is…

A look into the mission and people of West Central Cincinnati Young Life and what Young Life is to them. This video was done for our 2008 banquet to show our donors a glimpse of what we do. music by: Sigur Ros

more about "Young Life is… ", posted with vodpod

Become a Walking Bible

I was on facebook.com and there was an ad that I actually found intriguing and clicked on it. It lead me to walkingbible.com. This is a project to help people memorize scripture through music and pictures. They actually have put together scripture to music with related pictures and created a software app that helps you structure the verses you want to memorize. It works with Mac, PC, Ipod, and MP3 players. I think this is really cool except for maybe the British accent they have, but I can get past that. It’s funny because I always said if scripture was put to music I would have no problem memorizing it. Well now were gonna put that to the challenge.

If your trying to get your students on track with scripture memorization this might be a fun and new way to do it. Anything you can put on an Ipod is cool right?

Check it out:

Pizza Olympics

This is an awesome event to have with your group. I have done this during club and as it’s own party. Everytime its a big hit.

Here is how you do Pizza Olympics. You order pizza from atleast three different places. Its fun if you order them all at the same time. So you might have to get a few people to help you order. Then you start the timer. Buy some medals, gold, silver and bronze, or you can make your own.

When we did this in club we used it as an interrupter. So any time a pizza was delivered we stopped what ever we were doing and awarded the driver with a medal and played the Olympic music. For the party when they showed up we shot off fireworks and played the music. It was a good time.

Once you get all the pizza you can either just pass it out for dinner or a snack or you can use it to play a game. One game you can play is divide up the group into teams and each team gets an entire pizza. The first team to eat the entire pizza wins.

Supplies: Medals, Pizza’s, Drinks, Plates, Napkins, Music, Lots of Fun

Here are some pictures from our Pizza Olympic Party.

Success Can Lead to Failure

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.

One thing that anyone can get caught in is the idea of success in their ministry. Now it’s not to say that success itself is bad or to want success is bad, but how we measure and desire success can lead us down a dark path. What is success exactly, Princeton Wordnet says success is an event that accomplishes its intended purpose. In essence success can be as simple as being hungry, eating, and not being hungry any more.

So why have we taken success and made into a game of measuring ourselves to others? What if God has already taken care of success in our lives? Paul wrote to the Corinthians,

“When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”

I think this statement has success, our success, written in it. If we live our lives with faith in Christ and him crucified we have already achieved any amount of success we ever could want. When we go out and seek students for Christ our only thought of success should be that they know the success of Christ. Not that we gain higher numbers to our events, that we get the football captain to come, or that we become the cool thing on campus. Our success has already been achieved. We need to focus on our faith in that success and how that faith can push our ministries on towards righteousness.

God wants our faith not our success. He has already given that to us.

Youtube to YourDesktop

Ever wanted to use videos you have found on youtube for club or campaigners. Youth Ministry Geek has a helpful article on some cool tools to do exactly that. Also a sweet app for you Mac users called GetTube.

We go in His stead

2 Corinthians 5:20 tells us that we are the Ambassadors of Christ who He uses to appeal to the masses and come to the understanding of his reconciliation.

As leaders who seek out students who are hurting, miss-understood, lost, confused, or just trying to make it through high school we need to realize that we go in the place of Christ. He has entrusted us with the responsibility to represent Him in the time and place we are. So go forward with your heads held high. Stand strong in the confidence of Christ. You are his ambassador!

Why We do what We do

Guess the Leader

Here is a fun and easy game that you can get everyone involved in. You don’t need any extra supplies or equiptment.

Everyone gets in a big circle. Pick a volunteer to leave the room after you explain the game. Once that volunteer is out of hearing range, pick a volunteer in the room that wants to be the leader. Everyone must slyly watch this person and imitate what they do when the other volunteer comes back into the room (cross legs, cross arms, yawn, stick out their tongue, etc.).

The person who was out of the room will come back in, stand in the middle of the circle and try to see who is the leader (the one everyone is watching). The leader can get bold and make faces, throw their hands in the air, etc. when the person’s back is turned and before the person in the middle has a chance to see who started it, everyone is doing it. Give the person in the middle three guesses. Then find a new volunteer and a new leader. You can have the leader be the next volunteer if he is guessed or any way you see fit.

If you would like to use this graphic you can download it here. (right-click, save image as)

Let us know how this game went for you. How did you deliver it? How did students respond to it? Did you mix it up at all? Leave a comment, share your experience.

Beach Balls and Food

If you want to have some fun with a beach ball here is a fun game you can play. Its great to celebrate summer or for a beach themed night. This game is fun and easy to get everyone involved.

Throw a beach ball out among everyone while you have some fun music playing. Stop the music randomly and whoever hits it last comes up, picks out a mystery bag and has to eat whatever is in it … baby food, onion, candy bar, apple, pickle etc.

Help create a fun atmosphere and have everyone cheer for that person as they eat the their mysterious treat. Be sure to mix up what surprises you have with some good foods and some gross foods.

Supplies: a beach ball, music, brown lunch bags, random foods

If you would like to use this graphic you can download it here. (right-click, save image as)

Let us know how this game went for you. How did you deliver it? How did students respond to it? Did you mix it up at all? Leave a comment, share your experience.