Help for Young Life Leaders NOW

I want to put together a checklist for leaders in training. It would be a 1st 30 days new leader checklist. In other words, it would be a list of the most important things a leader could do to get a great start as a YL leader. Here are a couple ideas…

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Oh I remember the days of sending out postcards every few weeks to kids to tell them about club. It sure beat calling their home phone number, which was often busy (that is before call waiting!). Then came call-waiting, then you might have to talk to their parents. Then came cell phones, but only adults had those… Fast forward to today and now we use Facebook and text messaging almost exclusively to keep in contact with kids about events and small-talk.

There are plenty of text messaging tools out there. Here are some that people I know are using with success:

iPhone

Group Text

For a long time Apple did not allow any apps to interface with their text messaging app. This meant that texting groups of people on an iPhone was a tough task that lacked flexibility. Recently this functionality was changed and there are now plenty of apps that will allow you to make a group and choose that group again. Some apps even allow you to pick a group of people and then, just for that text, remove someone from the list, which is handy feature for my club. I have been using "Group Text” and it seems to do the job nicely. Here are some screenshots. After you pick your contacts it moves the contacts you picked to the native iPhone texting app, which makes it nice for replies.

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Over the past year we started a new Wyldlife club in our area. As I mentioned before we meet right after school in a classroom and the school is nearly 90% Latino. These club plans reflect a little bit of that context. Many of them are adaptations of my high school YL club plans for a junior high setting. I hope they might help you a bit in your planning!

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I am happy to announce that Live Like This Part 2 is now available.

Thank you to everyone for your encouraging emails and comments about Live Like This Part 1. I have continued to find the wisdom found in the Sermon on the Mount to be challenging and rewarding not only in the small groups I lead, but also personally. We have even adapted this study for a married Bible study group and for large college YL ministry small groups.

I trust that Live Like This Part 2, the second and final installment of a Bible study through the topics found in the Sermon on the Mount, will continue the style and approach of Live Live This Part 1.

If you would like more information CLICK HERE.

Today is the official kickoff for two of my clubs I lead. Tonight is our big all-area dodgeball tournament. I am doing a new type of talk there, here is one I did before.

But in about an hour we will have our WL club which meets after school. The school is 87% hispanic and all of our leaders are former students there (except me). Below is our club plan for today.

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