Help for Young Life Leaders NOW

YLHelp reader Dan from Quad Cities, Indiana sent me this great resource for club talks. It also includes questions and ideas for campaigners for the same topics. Here are the talks included in this resource:

1. Who Do You Say That I Am? Matthew 16:13-16
2. Jesus and H20. Matthew 14:22-33
3. Attempt to Stone Jesus. John 10:24-39
4. The Arrest of Jesus. John 18:1-11
5. Peter’s Denial of Jesus. John 18:15-18, 25-27, Romans 5:12-13
6. Jesus’ Death on the Cross and Resurrection. 1 Cor 15:1-11, Rom 6:23
7. Salt and Light. Matthew 5:13-16

Thank you Dan for sharing your insights and resources! The idea behind YLHelp is to share the best ideas so we can benefit from each other, like a gigantic all area leadership meeting from across the world. If you have some info you can share, send it in!

For some reason a lot of students I know like to pretend to be hippies. And then there are those leaders in Northern AZ that like to call each other “gypsies”. All that to say that being a hippy or a gypsy is all the rage right now, as they say, “all the cool kids are doing it”. We did have a great club with this a few weeks ago so I thought I’d pass it along:

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Usually once or twice a year we do a kidnap club. We did one last Spring. I think timing is key on this club. You can do it when things aren’t looking good, using it as a boost when numbers are low. But I think it is best utilized when you see things picking up and there is a positive energy in club.

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In our YL region we do a lot of weekend camps. I remember back in the day I used to haul up a few sound systems in a truck way early, talk the rental property people into the insane plans that we had, pushed play on the cassette or one of those new-fangled CD players (and you had to buy a CD with each song you wanted because “burning” CDs was years away), and there were no sound techs, you just did it yourself. All kinds of stuff. I can hear “You were LUCKY” lines beginning to be said from all the real program vets out there.

Anyway, though I’m in my third decade of doing program, we still do the same event almost every Saturday at weekend camps… Messy Games! It is a great event, I LOVE it. But there has to be some other awesome alternatives out there. I’ve seen a lot of things tried: scavenger hunts, amazing races, photo contests, tournaments of various kinds… But is there any great alternative or creative twist on messy games that anyone has seen?

If you have any comments, they would be greatly appreciated. A group of people are working together to try something new over the 5 or so weekend camps we have in the several weeks. We would love your input.

An oldie but a goodie… Fear Factor club. Quite honestly I’ve seen some clubs really do this one big with video camera feeds, strange animals and thousands of bugs in boxes… wow. This is our more manageable version. We did a version of this a few years ago too.

Enjoy…

Need to get a new leader up to speed with contact work and the school? We have used these questions below to help get things going. This could also be a great refresher for an experienced leader. You could also have a contest between leaders, pair them up in groups of two and see who can finish this first. Another way we have used this is at our All Area Leadership meetings. We play a Jeopardy style game with one representative from each club. The possibilities are endless. Not really, but it is fun to say they are.

Here is a worksheet you can download.

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