Help for Young Life Leaders NOW

One of the best ways to learn the lyrics to a song is to play it at an event at camp. You will inevitably have a young leader or student come up and say, “don’t you know what that song is about?!?!” On the other hand it is also helpful to actually know the words to the songs you sing along to in club. It is embarrassing when a leader has been singing “Brown High Girl” all these years only to find out that is not what the lyrics are. OK maybe it is not that bad.

I have found a great free program that is linked to my iTunes. It displays the lyrics for whatever song is playing automatically. You can even copy/paste them or whatever you want to do with them. It is a small program that simply does what is supposed to and little more. And again, did I tell you it is free? It is even open-source, for those of you who care.

Just as a reminder, if you are going to do a song in club, you need to have purchased a copy of the sheet music and have it with you.

Just wondering… what are some good contact work ideas over the winter break? Any creative ones?

BTW… have a great Christmas. Let’s bring our gifts to Him for His birthday.

As the semester draws to a close, we all get a well deserved break. But soon kids will start asking, “When is club?!”

One year I was on campus the first day of school in January after the break and a girl came up to me and said, “I have 8 new friends coming to club tonight! Isn’t that great!” In my mind I was thinking, “What are you talking about? Club doesn’t start for 3 more weeks! Us leaders need a break!” But instead I quickly said, “That is great, we are meeting at the food court at the mall.” And then I was able to get one more leader who helped me pull of an event for those kids and a bunch more.

I’ve done everything from waiting until February and just focusing on contact work until then, all the way to having club on the first day back.

I’m interested to know, when and why do you re-start club?

Also be sure to vote on the survey to the left of this post. It will be up until we have a new one.

So the results are in! YL camps are by far the nicest resort camps in the world. It really doesn’t matter what a camp has, if it is Christ-focused, a patch of dirt is all that is needed (I’ve run a few camps like that and can attest that the results do not rely on the camp itself). With that being said, if you are going to have a camp then it may as well be great. It was Jim Rayburn who said, “Who started the idea that Christians have to camp in tents? We talk about the King of kings; let’s act like He’s in charge! We’re going to have the classiest camps in the country " (It’s a Sin to Bore a Kid: The Story of Young Life, pg. 46). It is clear that we have the “classiest” camps! With my friends we don’t even call them camps, we call them resorts, and once they get there they agree.

So without further delay, here are the results:

If you don’t know what a flowrider is, you should check it out. They are sweet. I’ve seen them on the boardwalk in San Diego and I see them advertized on TV commercials on cruise ships. It definitely brings the “wow” factor! It is a great option for a summer-focused camp. I’ve seen little kids, maybe 6-7 years old have fun trying them over and over.

As for paintball, I’m sure there is a legal risk, but if you think about some of the other things we do (ropes course, zip line, blob, etc.), it normally is something we embrace rather then dismiss. It might be more of a draw for guys then girls, but I think a lot of girls would enjoy it.

Last, I don’t think that the skatepark got the respect it deserves. I spent over a month at Oakbridge last summer and kids love the skatepark there. One leader told me it is the only reason they came to camp. Between XGames, Dew Tour, Fuel TV, etc… there is so much draw in this.

One principle that should be applied to any options, and YL normally does a fantastic job at this, is whatever we do, go big. Don’t buy the affordable option, the value-priced one, or even the middle-of-the-road one. Lets have the classiest Flowrider in the country! Lets have the classiest paintball arena! Lets have the classiest skatepark anyone has ever seen.

Much respect to our property friends who are working every angle every single day to have the best camps in the world. They are way beyond this survey, they have thought through these ideas years ago. Lets just keep our eyes open to the best ways to keep our camps on the cutting edge.

One thing I didn’t do… I didn’t ask for other ideas, I only gave you three options. What would you add to YL camps?

The video is a little choppy due to my camera only recording in 1 min segments (?!) but this is a great skit…

Here is the plan if you want it.

One of our last clubs in the semester is our “best of” club. I look back at our songs, our mixers, our games, our skits and I put them on a poster. Then for a couple weeks I have kids vote on their favorite ones. Then I pick kids to run them. We also have a student share his or her story.

It really sets kids up for success because they have already seen how the mixer/game/skit works. Also it is a nice break for our leaders near the end of the semester. Though sometimes it is more work to help the students Also it adds buy-in because the kids are looking forward to seeing what they voted for. For the songs I played guitar and picked different kids to lead each song.

Here are our plans from a week ago… Enjoy!

Here is a great piece advice: Find something in which you have found success, something that you look forward to doing, something that makes time fly by, something that is incredibly easy for you to focus on and something that fulfills a need of yours… and then do it. Find ways to do it in your job, no matter what your job is. Find ways to incorporate that into your relationships, your free time, anywhere and everywhere. This is Marcus Buckingham’s advice in “The Truth about You: Your Secret to Success”.

I work with so many college and young career friends of mine who are constantly trying to figure out what the heck they should be doing with life. Buckingham provides some good help in “Now, Discover Your Strengths” and this book and others of his have been helpful for some of my friends and even personally.“

This is not new advice, but it is concise and timely for nearly everyone. It would be a good primer for someone who is new to the idea of personal strengths or who has spent little time in personal professional development. You can find some more detail about my experience with this book here.

My friend Brian sent me this great idea…

“At Club these past weeks, we have done a game called "What would you do for a buck?"  One kid is chosen by the crowd to do something crazy like drink a blended Happy Meal, and that kid invites all their friends to Club that night and encourages them to bring $1.  $30-$45 is the norm for one crazy stunt at our Club and the student is given the option to keep the cash or turn it in for camp.  If they use it for camp, we double it!

“A boy named Richard came this past week and gave us a $10 bill. We asked if he wanted change.  He confidently smiled and said, "No change.  Keep it all."  You see, Richard was the boy doing the crazy thing that night, and he really wanted to go to camp.  He took his last $10 and turned it in, knowing that money would be doubled for camp.  Richard doubled down.” 

So I posted the Turkey club a little late. Maybe this will be in time for your year end club plans.

The Christmas plan is very simple. But at least it is ready to go! Hope it helps!

Christmas Club

Christmas Songs Handout

So this might be a little late. Maybe you could pull it off this week or next? We had a gobbling good time at Turkey Club. I love Turkey Bowling. Adding finger holes in front of the kids added a nice, and gross, touch to it all.

FYI… I have an exciting idea I’m working on for club and campaigners in the Spring that we can all share. I’m really interested in what your biggest needs are. Let me know if you can.