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Hidden Resource Number Two
We work with a visual generation. The lives of our teens are lived in high-definition color. With that in mind, I try my best to present powerpoint presentations and class handouts and advertisements in high-definition. I use pictures and design elements from the internet all the time.
There are millions of pictures online that can be downloaded for use in presentations. Go to Google or Bing or any other search engine and you’ll find pictures for any topic. However, most of those pictures come in very low quality. If you use a lot of pictures and have teens in your youth group who are visual thinkers, I recommend Corbis.
Corbis is an online picture hosting site that is free to use. It will provide you with thousands of high-quality photos that can easily be downloaded to your computer. Like most sites, you’ll need to register an account (no credit card needed) to remove the Corbis watermark from each photo.
I have found this site to be incredibly useful. However, you must be specific with your searches. If you are looking for a picture of a teenager, search ‘teenager portrait.’ If you are looking for a person with a smile, search ‘person smiling.’ I’ll warn you now that there will be some pictures that aren’t descent. (Unfortunately you’ll find that with any picture hosting site.) However, the vast majority of photos can be used.
Overall, I think you’ll find that Corbis is a great tool to use for the countless powerpoint presentations, vbs books, Bible class lessons, and other things you participate in with your youth ministry. I made a small presentation of photos following this post for you to see the quality and variety that can be found on Corbis.
Hidden Resource
Every youth minister should check out Wix and it’s easy-to-make flash websites! If you plan many events throughout the course of the year and you want to try some new, creative advertising, Wix is the answer.
With the free edition of Wix you can easily design websites to advertise for youth rallies, summer series, vbs, area-wide youth events, etc. The program on Wix gives you many options to design and publish teen-focused websites to use for your groups. Let’s be honest, youth ministers should use every possible tool available to advertise to the teens in their groups.
This will be a great resource for your teens to direct friends, parents, and interested family members to for information and updates about the youth group’s upcoming events. These are quick, effective, and easily used sites. Once your activity is done, simply change the information for your next upcoming event.
While it isn’t completely finished, the flash site for the 2010 Enlighten Youth Rally (made using Wix) here in Henderson is up and running. Check it out by following this link and see what can be done.
