Youth Minister 101

Campaign Blogs

In 2 days, the youth group and I will be traveling to Jackson, Kentucky for our summer campaign. We’re going to help with some flash flooding clean up in the community.

We’re going to keep a blog of our daily events. You can check that blog out here. We also kept one last year. You can see it here. I would highly recommend that you think about this idea. It gives your parents a daily reminder of what’s happening. It is also a great place for your teens to check out and remember the work they accomplished.

I would recommend using Tumblr because it is so easy to use. Just sign up with a valid email address and you’re blogging.

Neal

New Youth Classrooms

Part of the reason why I’ve been so busy and not able to post is the painting and working on two new teen classrooms. We have run out of room in our present building (the reason for the plans of a new building). However, since we won’t be moving for at least a few years, problems needed to be addressed. We had a great big high school classroom that functioned as a “catch basin” for all of our youth group stuff. However, that room needed to be split in two so that we could create a new classroom.

I asked the teens how they wanted the rooms painted. Due to the inspiration of the youth room at the Estes Church in Henderson, Tennessee, our teens wanted strips and bright colors.

Here is how all this went down.

(1) The youth rally ended on Saturday afternoon. That night my partner in the work, Josh Fletcher worked on the ceiling and the patching of holes.

(2) Sunday following services, the primer coats went up.

(3) Monday the base coats of blue, yellow, neon green, and neon yellow went up in the morning. The base coats of the stripes, red, purple, orange, and royal blue went up.

(4) Wednesday morning the carpet guys came in a finished the new carpet in the rooms.

(5) This Sunday, the teens and I are going to pick out the finishing touches (clocks, trash cans, etc.)

I’ll put a slideshow up following this post to show the rooms. Somehow I don’t remember this ever coming up in my “Fundamentals of Youth Ministry” class at FHU.

Do any of you have similar stories you’d like to share? Feel free to leave those stories in the comment section or e-mail them to me at: neal@hcofc.com.

(Neal Mathis)

enlighten youth rally 09

The Future is so Bright…I’ve Gotta Wear Shades! What a great time once again. The youth rally went very well. Jeff Darby, Barry Throneberry, and Craig Evans did a great job delivering lessons about heaven. We had a great number this year - 120, better than we’ve had over the last two years.

We still want to keep growing and making this a youth rally that is on everyone’s to-do-list for 2010. Our theme for next year is going to be “Lost in the Cloud.” I will put a “teaser poster” up soon for next year’s rally!

Neal Mathis