In this episode you'll hear from Kurt Libby, co-creator of the Youth Ministry Tracker App.…
Teaching your youth to share their faith is one thing…getting them to actually share it is another thing altogether. In this episode of the podcast Dr. Alvin Reid shares how to help get your youth to actually share their faith.
This episode is packed with resources, helps, and practical steps to get your youth to share their faith.
Links mentioned:
Resources mentioned in this Podcast:
Get Out: Student Ministry in the Real World by Alvin Reid
The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission by John Dickson
Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper
4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris
Almost Christian by Kenda Dean
Sharing Jesus without Freaking Out: Evangelism the Way You Were Born to Do It
In this particular episode, you will learn:
- Practical steps to take to help youth share their faith
- Resources and ideas to help youth
- What Youth Pastors need to be doing personally to help youth share their faith
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Xorbee.com – Be sure to use the discount code “TLH” to save 10% at checkout!
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Jody,
I really enjoyed this podcast, and have very much enjoyed Dr. Reid’s books. I do have one question about something you brought up towards the end of the podcast. You mentioned that you guys do service projects during DNOW weekends. I love this idea, and was a part of a DNOW one time as an intern where we did this. However, my experience the one time was that the 3-4 hours allotted for service projects were not enough. Some of the projects were finished in about 45 minutes, and then some needed 8-12 hours and so were left undone. One simple fix could be better preparation of selecting service projects….. Personally I responded to this (now as a youth pastor) by canceling the DNOW service projects and creating a separate event weekend where all we did was service projects (like a stay at home missions/ministry experience). The DNOW weekend we added, you guessed it, a scavenger hunt. We tried to focus on building a sense a unity in the small groups. Anyways, Im fine to be wrong on this, but would love to hear you comment further. Thanks brother!
-Joel
I’m glad you enjoyed the episode. Dr. Reid is one of my favorite people on the planet for sure.
As far as the service projects go, I think ultimately you just have to find and do what works for your context. We have chosen to focus on serving and missions because we feel it falls heavily in line with the discipleship aspect we are trying to emphasize over the course of the weekend. Planning wise it is always a bit of a challenge as you’ve mentioned, but we have found that if we are really intentional in thinking through the projects we can pretty much fill the time well. If they finish early we have them return to their host homes to get cleaned up and have some down time before returning back to the church. Our in home leaders know this and have a “just in case we finish really early” plan that we give them. For the most part we also try to pick projects that are a bit flexible. We may have students ministering in a park for example passing out water, cleaning up trash, witnessing, etc. Others may be helping with yard work with the understanding they may not get to it all.
To do it well, it definitely takes some time and thought, but it doesn’t really require much more of me that planning a huge scavenger hunt all over town. We have also done a scavenger hunt type of activity in the that was missions oriented. The tasks that were required were missions based (share your testimony with three people at the park/mall, have very team member explain the salvation bracelet to 1 person, pray for at least 2 people, etc.) and an element of fun (catch a pigeon, carry each other on your back across the park and back).
There are lots of options really. I would just encourage you to be creative and intentional. Don’t just do what everyone else has done, or what you have always done. Don’t take the easy way out just because you can get away with it. The possibilities are endless.
Hope this helps!