Help for Young Life Leaders NOW

Here is a tip…

Often a Gospel story will be a little too long to keep kids attention if you read the whole thing. Here are some ideas…

1. Find “break points”. These are places where you can stop to clarify what is happening in the story, any confusing terms (i.e. Pharisee, disciple, etc.), and to paraphrase it yourself. You can even draw a line in your Bible so you remember where to stop.
2. Find the key phrases and just paraphrase the rest. A great example of this is the cross story. It is simply to long to read in its entirety. Find the key phrases that you need to read out of the Bible. By the way, NEVER paraphrase the whole story, always read out of your Bible when giving a talk.
3. Read the beginning of the story early in your talk, then tell a personal story, application, etc and leave the ending for the end. This can build anticipation and draw more attention to the story. A good example of a story like this is the Woman caught in adultery. Leave them with people with rocks raised over their heads wondering what is going to happen next

Plain. Simple. Yellow Club. Kids wore yellow to school and to club that day. Bang! Yellow Club.

I had the privilege to be with all of the camp speakers this summer. As part of this time they compiled their best talk illustrations. Many of them are time-tested ones many are familiar with. There were dozens of these. There were five that really stood out to me and I want to share them with you in this series of posts. I am also trying them in my club so I know how they work. I’ve used two so far, I’ll be using more soon.

THE LADDER

In this illustration you use a ladder to illustrate how people try to climb to the top in life or in Christianity or really anywhere. You have a ladder in your club talk. This is how I used it last Monday…

I told a story about how my dad has been absent and has a lot to make up in my life. I then transitioned into Zaccheus (Luke 19). It worked great because he was short and had to climb the tree. When I read that part I climbed the ladder and talked about how all of Zaccheus’ stealing left him with a lot work on in his life.

Then I told them how a lot of us feel like being a Christian has to do with going up and down based on our actions. I went to church this week (climb two steps up), but I cheated on my test (climb two steps down). I went on Work Crew (climb three steps up), but this weekend I was out of control (climb three steps down), and so-on, you get the point.

I then continued the story and highlighted that when Jesus wanted to eat at his house, what Jesus wanted was a relationship. I noted that Jesus didn’t immediately ask him to stop stealing. An ongoing relationship with Christ is more important than how high or low you are on the ladder.

I also took a brief moment to say that the ladder only counted when Jesus went up high on a cross (I climbed to the top) and gave up his life for ours (I spread out my arms like being on a cross).

It had the potential to be an A+ talk but for some reason I felt like I didn’t do a very good job, maybe a C+.

Let me know what you think about this…

I really like how this blog is coming together, and I’ve received a lot of positive feedback. But there is one element that hasn’t evolved yet. Sharing of ideas and resources. There have been some very helpful comments, but I’d like to hear from you more!

CONTEST: Send in your best club plan. It should include a group mixer, a participation game (a few kids up front), and a leader skit. It can have a theme, but it doesn’t have to. Submit via comments (below) or email to kccalimo@gmail.com. The winner will get a brand new YL shirt sent to them right away. The contest ends on Monday night April 7th.

Here is a simple game you can use as an icebreaker for Campaigners or any other get together.

Print out the link below and get a pair of dice. Take turns rolling the dice and answering the question with that number.

It is a simple game, it is fun because there is an element of a "game" and also you can get the same question in a row but in a fun way. Also people are anticipating what what someone might say if they roll a certain number. It keeps them focused.

I have to be honest. I’ve never seen one episode of Hannah Montana. But I know that it is crazy popular. What does YL do with silly trendy pop stars… we make mock skits of them of course.

With Summer Camp around the corner, let me suggest the following idea which you can tweak to work for yourself.

In case you don’t know, Hannah Montana is the alter-ego of Miley Stewart. Miley is an average girl by day but a famous pop singer by night, Hannah Montana.

How about this. Riley Stewart is a normal high school student by day, but a bigger than life star by night, Banana Montana.

Two characters played by two leaders (or maybe one). Each club they come out one at a time and talk about their favorite parts of camp. Riley highlights the normal part and Banana takes it to the next level.

For example: the blob. Riley says how he is excited to blob his friend, maybe he will blob her 10 feet in the air, “oh and be sure to bring your sunscreen”. (Kinda the nerdy side). Then Riley walks out the door and Banana Montana comes in to loud music. “Waaaaiiit a second… The BLOB… I’M GONNA GO CRAZY ON THAT THING!” You get the idea. You play off the low key to crazy contrast. Maybe, if you have a host or leader who is being interrupted, the leader can play both parts with a super fast costume change. Then the leader give Banana the boot.

Then each week, change the part about camp to highlight. Maybe you show up as Banana Montana on campus and sign autographs.

Did I mention that Banana Montana is in a Banana suit and hands out bananas? Yeah, that should help. The Banana song too.

I just got an iPhone and I love it! The interface is unbelievable. Some of the applications like the Google Map integration and the Facebook iPhone web-app have been really useful.

There are a couple things I’m trying to figure out to maximize it for YL usage. Maybe this will be in the iPhone 2.

1) Is there a better way to group text message? Right now you can pick the individuals for a multi-person text, but not a way to manage a group. The Treo had a great free program to do this.

2) How to best organize my contacts on the phone. I have a lot of contacts, over 1100. As far as I know the iPhone doesn’t do any sorting or categories. One of my leaders enters club kids phone numbers with "YL" in front of the name. (i.e. YL – John Smith) This way they are all together and easy to find.

QUESTION: How do you organize your club kids names for easy retrieval? Also, any iPhone tips would be appreciated.

I had the privilege of hearing from Dr. Tim Brown of Western Seminary (Holland, MI), last week. He, like Dale Bruner for those who know him, recites long passages of scripture for the majority of his messages. I’ve seen him do the Sermon on the Mount and other long sections. I won’t tell you how many, but he has many complete books of the Bible memorized, not just the short ones.

I’ve heard him several times, but I finally decided to ask him, “How do you do it?” He said he just gets lucky and remembers it after reading it once. Just kidding, he actually said there are five ancient practices that have been used for thousands of years for oral tradition. I believe he is writing a book or a chapter of a book on this. I’ll let you know when it comes out.

1. Say it aloud. Go somewhere where you can say it. You probably need to be alone so you don’t freak people out.
2. Repetition. I knew this was coming, yes the hard work of going over it over and over.
3. Mnemonic Devices. Since I was an engineer I thought he was going talk about pumps and device controls with differential equations. This is what he actually said.-Write out the verse on paper over and over.
   -Make acronyms. For example if you wanted to remember “love, joy, peace, patience…” in the fruit of the Spirit, this would be L.J.P.P
   -Draw little pictures. He said like hieroglyphics. So for the fruit of the Spirit you could draw a heart (love), a happy face (joy), a peace symbol (peace) and so on. In the deciding what to draw you actually are creating mental memory points that will help you. Another example is the classic One-Verse Evangelism from Navigators

4. Take breaks. Work on it for 20 minutes, then take a 10 minutes break, then work on it again. Taking a break helps clear the mind and actually helps you remember it better than if you worked on it 50 minutes straight. So 20 + 10 + 20 > 50 if you like math talk.
5. Hand motions. Anyone who has done the Walk Through the Bible seminar knows the power of hand motions. This can really help with the subtle words in a verse. For example if it said, “then Jesus went down from Jerusalem”. You could use your hand to motion going down from a high hill into a lower area. This kinesthetic movement will help memory.

There were some other words of advice and I have a bunch of stuff on names from my leader training stuff, but I think this is enough for right now.

Yes, we did Thug club Monday. The kids came dressed krunk and all. We played lots of hip-hop music. Ironically it was the first week we had Rock Band out to play before club so there was a little contrast between the two. It was funny to see a thug-ed out kid playing the Rock Band drums to Nirvana.

The funniest part was "pimp my ride". Foil was everywhere. The skit is a tricky one, it can come off rude way too easily. The rap challenge was fun. I’ve included the rhyming words sheet below.

When you are teaching scripture, it is critical to ask yourself, "What does God want them to know through this text?" We often are tempted to have an idea for a talk that we bring to the scripture rather than letting it speak for itself. Technically this is called eisegesis.

Trust me, when you get stuck trying to pick a scripture for a talk, you need to pick it early so you don’t force your idea into the scripture. You know you have done this if while doing your talk you have no idea how to transition into your challenge/main point.

Let the Bible speak for itself. Your explanation of the word should be the highlight of your talk, not your super funny intro story. Our strongest tool is a clear picture of Christ and nothing else.