Live Curriculum: Part 4 Real Life

February 17, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

If you can’t tell…I LOVE LIVE CURRICULUM!   And no Matty did not pay me a dime to say that….But seriously you cannot go wrong with this curriculum.  Take a look back at my posts for this series and you will see how great it can be for your church and your ministry.  And over the next couple years, it will transform your ministry.

For me it was a great kickoff for small groups in both churches that I have used it for.  It was very easy for me to start and hand off to my adult small group leaders.  It took very little training for me to get them going.  At both churches, the students got on board really quick.  And they both loved it.   It went from boring typical curriculum to great real life conversations.  And with the variety we used it also for our Sunday School material as well.

But my favorite part of my LIVE story is that I have seen it change one adult’s life in particular.   Two years ago I was preaching on youth sunday at my former church on “There’s an APP for that” and I pleaded that we needed help in our middle school sunday school class.  As you know, getting someone to teach middle school sunday school is more than a task…its a special calling.   I really wasn’t sure if the pulpit was the way to ask for help on this, but I figured why not.  And after the service was over I had one of my parents who I played softball with tell me that he was interested.  I had already known that this guy had a past and was just getting back into church.  He was also already on my radar for a possible volunteer, but there was no way I wanted to run him off by throwing him into teaching middle schoolers!    So he asked how hard it was…And I told him it wasn’t tough if he had a computer a love for middle schoolers!

The next week he stopped by and I walked him through the calendar of lessons and how to print things out.  And he was sold!  I was still very hesitant, but decided that I would give him a try here…So off he went!  A month later I had several other middle school parents tell me how excited they were that their middle school students were enjoying sunday school and that their students were coming home telling what they had learned.   A few weeks after that my volunteer stopped by my office and thanked me for giving him the opportunity to get back in church and help with the youth group that he had grown up in.  He went on tell me about his divorce and several other things from his past few years.   He explained to me that this opportunity to teach brought him back to God!

Now almost two years later he is a very strong leader in the church and in the youth ministry.   I’m very thankful that LIVE was an instrument into helping my friend find his calling in volunteering but more importantly changing his and the students lives.

Give Matty a call and see how LIVE can change your group!

Filed Under: church, Friends, God, technology, Uncategorized, Youth Ministry, Youth Ministry Ideas · Tagged: , , , ,

Live Curriculum Part 3:

February 16, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

There are so many great benefits to LIVE Curriculum.  As I stated in my previous blogs on LIVE, the possibilities for your group(s) are endless.  So let’s start off simple, if you just purchase the high school plan…That gives you 4 years worth of material.  Now if you add JR High, you have 6 years of planning taken care of for your students for whatever venue you decided to use it.  On top of that you can add Books of the Bible and have another 2 years of material.   But here is the really cool benefit…Are you ready?  Simply LIVE is in the process of working on Children’s and College Curriculum to their sets of options to be released in the next year!  SO now you can team up with your Children’s pastor and have Curriculum plan that builds upon each other through your entire church.

Another great benefit, that I like to point out is that there is only one type of theology in LIVE….its JESUS!  Its not Calvinist, not Pentecostal, Liberal, Reformed, or Wesleyan…Its Jesus!  Matty will call from time to time and ask me to give someone a call who has a question about the theology of LIVE from someone who works at at Methodist Church.  I’m glad that some people actually think about that before they buy their material of any sorts instead of just buying the greatest and latest item out in the youth ministry curriculum world.   So bottom line is that, its safe and its great for whatever church you work for!

I love how the team at LIVE is always taking suggestions and always updating the curriculum.   There is an area in each lesson where you can leave feedback for their team.  You can tell them of video clip you used or any other add on and they will look at it and will update their lessons.  This is great because as the years go by, they will always be relevant.  LIVE looks into the future and just will not be another irrelevant curriculum that we all used to use.

So what else can I say…

Well if you are a techie, there are some really cool things.  You can access the site from your smart phone or tablet.  If you have an iPad or iPhone, there’s an APP for that!  We use the APP to present our lesson.  But you can also print the lesson.   All the lessons are available on PDF and Word form, so you can download it to almost any device.

LIVE is LIFE CHANGING!   Its life changing for not only students but also the adults who teach it.   Tomorrow I will close out this series on LIVE with how LIVE has changed lives in our students and adults.  LIVE is an amazing tool that shapes the story of God in so many ways!

 

 

Filed Under: church, forms, Friends, God, just sayin, misc, stuff, technology, UMC, Uncategorized, Volunteers, Youth Ministry, Youth Ministry Ideas · Tagged: , , , , , ,

Live Curriculum Part II: the Format

February 14, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

LIVE Curriculm is made for YOU and YOUR GROUP.  If you decide to use it as your Youth Lesson, Sunday School Lesson, Small Group Setting, Adult Leadership, Student Leadership, College Ministry, Adult Sunday School or Adult Small Group setting…it works!  The best part about live is that you can customize it to fit YOUR GROUP’S needs!  You can make it as simple as you want or as in depth as you want.  You can be a first time substitute teacher or a twenty year veteran!

So the Lesson assignments are pretty straightforward and if you have plenty of choices.  If you go the High School route, you have 4 years of lessons!  And you can pick and choose.  You just click on the date you want to add a lesson, then click through the lesson selection screen and it to the appropriate calendar(s).  This is great if you have several groups going over the same material.  For our group, we have three types of groups that meet.  We are currently using Books of the Bible for our Small Groups on Wednesday nights, High School Curriculum for our High School Sunday School Classes, and Jr. High Curriculum for our Middle School Sunday School Class.

The really great thing is that you can go into each lesson and edit it to the needs of your group.  You can rearrange the format for the need of each group.  And you even add more questions, mixers, video clips, or whatever you need for the learning needs of your group.  You can even divide it in half if you don’t have the time.  Like I said earlier, it is up to you on how you want to teach it for the needs of your group!

This includes:

1. LEADER PREPARATION

  • LESSON OVERVIEW
  • LESSON OBJECTIVES:  The What, Why, and How
  • PRIMARY SCRIPTURE
  • SECONDARY SCRIPTURES
  • TEACHING PREP:  The short overview below is designed to help you prepare for your lesson. While you may not want to convey this information word-for-word with your teenagers, you’ll definitely want to refer to it as you lead.
  • THE BEFORE & AFTER   
    • Text Message Questions: They
    • provide a couple of different text message questions to send out to your students prior to your meeting. Feel free to use one or both of the questions below. As with the rest of the curriculum, edit these questions to fit the needs of your ministry.

    Parent Email:  They provide you with an email below that you can send to your parents following the lesson. Our hope is to encourage parents to continue the conversation at home. Feel free to edit and customize the email to fit your ministry needs.

  • 2.   LESSON GUIDE
  • GETTING THINGS STARTED [optional]
  • Before your meeting, send a text message or email (as listed above) to your students asking them to bring an item that reflects something they love. It may be an iPod that represents their love for music, a picture of their family, or a baseball glove to reflect their love for baseball.
  •  TEACHING POINTS
  • The goal of the Teaching Points is to help students capture the essence of each lesson with more discussion and less lecture-style teaching. The main points we have chosen here are (1) We are created in God’s image, (2) We reflect God’s love more by what we do that by what we say, (3) We reflect God’s love by putting others’ needs first, and (4) Accept the responsibility of reaching the people God has given you today.  Remember: All throughout these lessons, it’s up to you to choose (1) how many questions you use, and (2) the wording of the main points—keep ours, or change the wording to make it clearer for your students.
  •  ****SAY SOMETHING LIKE: I Love this!  They give your volunteers help here!  They help fill the awkward moments by giving them something to say!
  • ADDITIONAL DISCUSSION [optional]
  • SUMMARY
  • End your lesson here. Provide your teenagers with a quick summary or take-home challenge based on (1) the content of this lesson, (2) the dialogue that took place during the lesson, (3) your understanding of the issues and struggles your teenagers are facing, and (4) the big picture of your youth ministry and what your leadership team wants accomplished with the teaching and discussion time.
  •  
  • FOR KEEPS [MEMORY VERSE]
  • Encourage and challenge your teenagers to memorize the verse below.

 

 

And it doesn’t stop there!  You can even add your own lessons!  There is a great feature of File Upload.  You upload your word document or pdf and add it to your calendar.

And if you have no clue what you are doing, just go to the Help tab and watch the videos to help you walk through everything!  If you still can’t get it…just call Matty!  He’s a great help!  Or you can just call me!  I’ve actually helped several people walk through things…but really its not that hard!  The sky is the limit with LIVE!

Right now they offer 4 years of High School, 2 Years of JR High, 60 weeks of Adult and Student Leadership, 72 weeks of the Bible, several video series…and that’s just the beginning.  They are in the process of working on Children’s Curriculum and College Curriculum!   But in the mean time you can still use and customize any of the others for your group.  At my current church we have used the Books of the Bible for our College Small groups!  So take a test drive today and give Matty a call!

 

Filed Under: church, God, technology, UMC, Volunteers, Youth Ministry, Youth Ministry Ideas · Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Great first full day @ #NYWC #ATL

November 19, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Today was a great day.  My wife and I started off with the second part of Marriage and Youth Ministry with the Fields.  Here are some notes from it.

Marriage and Communication
You need more connection than words

What’s happening with you?
How are you feeling about us?
How are you feeling about life?

Figure out each others rhythm on when to talk

1.  Save the little stuff for the calendar meeting
2.  Deal withe big stuff before you get into bed
3.  Stay in touch throughout the day
4.   Talk kindly to one another
5.  Learn to minimize. (get rid of the words always and never)

iPhone app Hey tell…great to keep in touch throughout the day.

Five love languages
1.  Words of affirmation
2.  Quality time
3.  Receiving gifts
4.  Acts of service
5.  Physical touch
Which one of these five is my primary love language?
My primary love language feels violated when my spouse (fill in the blank)

5lovelanguages.com

What you reward comes back

Sex and Romance
1.  Realize it gets better
2.  Commit to work out your issues
3.  Schedule time
4.  Sex is Gods for connecting
5.   Get better at non sexual affection

Top 6
1.  Your spouse is more important than your ministry
2.  Don’t try to force a spiritual marriage
3.  Find a mentor couple
4.  Have friendships outside ministry
5.  Celebrate each others differences.
6.  Protect your spouse from the crap in the church

Big Room #1  was pretty good.  We got there a little late due to lunch.  My really only complaint was the early worship music was more of concert that no one really got into.   It would have helped if they had lyrics up on the screens.   But Starfield did an amazing job and really enjoyed that part of worship.  Like always Reggie Joiner knocked it out.  I love hearing him speak to youth workers.  He was a great choice to kick off the weekend.

Adventurously Expectant

Rom 8:14-15
Is your version of Christianity adventurously expectant or predictably unremarkable?

The most important thing is love.

The great commandment

1. Gods love keeps this from being a religion.
2. Your faith will never have to be 100%.
-If you don’t allow someone to process their own doubt they will never own their own faith.
-The question is not how much faith do you have.  The question is where will your faith take you and put it.
3.  You don’t have to change your life.
It’s about transformation process
4.  The Bible is more than a good book.
It’s hard to invite someone into a story when they don’t have the context.
5. Your designed for a better story.

Invite this generation to be the church.

What can we do to invite _____ or change _____ view of God?

After that my wife and I went to Large Staff youth ministry leadership by Lars Rood. Really enjoyed his seminar and the talk back by fellow youth workers on volunteers.  Here is the outline of what he talked about.

Building a team

  • Power players (who’s in charge?)
  • Stacking the deck
  • Who holds vision?
  • Recruitment tips
  • What to do with the staff who don’t fit?
  • Strategic restructuring
  • Job description vs giftedness
  • Caring for them
  • Creating a shared story

Leading a team

  • Networking
  • Resources
  • Giftedness
  • Guilt
  • Relationships
  • Agendas
  • Management style
  • Vision
  • Parents
  • Congregation
  • Honesty
  • Communication

 

Then I finished the night catching up with old friends in the exhibit hall and going to the Youth Cartel meet-up.  It was great to talk with Mark O and Adam.  Really love their vision and the projects they have in the works right now.  If you haven’t checked out the Cartel yet…sign up for the free daily email.  You will not be disappointed.

 

Well off to bed to start early at 8am!

Filed Under: church, Current Affairs, God, Volunteers, Youth Ministry, Youth Ministry Ideas · Tagged: , , , , , ,

Marriage and Youth Ministry #NYWC Thursday 11/17/11

November 18, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Today, my wife and I attended “Marriage and Youth Ministry” Pre lab presented by Doug and Cathy Fields.  I would have to say it was one of the best if not the best pre lab, seminar, day session, really any youth ministry training I’ve ever been to.  I really wish I would have had this four years ago right when we got married or prior to getting married.  It was very interesting to see that the same things that Doug has gone through and got in the dog house for are 99% the same things that I have experienced.  My wife also really enjoyed hearing Cathy’s side and having very similar feelings and experiences.  I told Doug after today’s session that I really hope that he and Cathy write a book on this soon.  Purpose Driven Youth Ministry and My First Two Years in youth ministry have been and will always be my top books in youth ministry.  I still use both of them over a decade later.  I’ve read both books numerous times and both books are worn out from highlights and underlining.  I really feel that there is a need for “Marriage and Youth Ministry” to be in book form for those who cannot attend these two sessions.  It would also just be helpful to have to look back on it as I do with Doug’s other books.  But I have a good feeling that this book might not be too far off!

Here are some of my notes from today…

Your greatest youth ministry is your marriage.  

Kids don’t remember your messages.   They remember your life.

Strong sense of security
Models a healthy christian marriage

A hurdle to a healthy marriage is busyness

What’s the primary cause of busyness in our life?
When our life is over-busy I feel…
1.  Meet weekly to talk calendar busyness and family life.  (the fewer the surprises the better)
2.  Give your spouse the veto power of the church calendar.
3.  Minimize your ministry nights. No more than 3 nights a week.
4. Value and protect your day off!
5.  Put “light at the tunnel”on your calendar.
6.  Schedule a non ministry non negotiable date time
7.  Determine the signs and gauges of busyness in your own life.
8.   Create realistic unplug rules.
9.  Find the why behind busyness
10.  Read what matters most.
Which of these ideas seemed the most difficult?   Why?
Which of these actions can we immediately apply to our marriage? How?
Make the meeting slots not other people.
Remember the church hired only one of you
No matter what you choose don’t create separate worlds
Uncover REAL expectations
Seek unity and agreement on ministry roles.
Articulate your expectations confidently
View your spouses role terms of seasons

The goal is ministry fulfillment  not ministry entrapment

Money & Ministry

  • Spend less than you make
  • Budget budget budget
  • View your money as a stewardship issue

Children marriage and ministry

  • Your kids win when your in ministry
  • Realize a children’s season requires a ministry season if you want a healthy child
  • Always ask your children when you use them in an illustration
  • Take an advantage of ministry/family perks

 

Filed Under: church, God, UMC, Youth Ministry, Youth Ministry Ideas · Tagged: , , , , , , ,