Help for Young Life Leaders NOW

We are starting our summer Work Crew training next week. We have done various things in years past: here and here are some examples. This year we are collaborating with another area for a new approach. We will have two weeks of training online via a Facebook group and submitting work through Google forms. We will then have two Sunday meetings with all the kids from both areas.

For part of our online training we are having kids prepare their written testimony. I have two resources I am giving them, so I thought I’d pass them along to you too.

I am also including the amazing Work Crew training plan from the San Francisco Bay Region from my friend Bree. It is amazing.

Enjoy!

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I’m guessing there are a few YLHelp readers who will be heading to Florida this week for the ASC YL Celebration, Young Life’s conference for staff which is every four years. I know my wife and I are really looking forward to it!

I want to put a plug in for the Social Media seminar where my friend Chad Swanzy and others will be sharing great ideas about social media and such. I will be in the crowd taking copious notes from the best!

If interested, I wanted to invite anyone who wants to chit-chat and meet in person to simply meet up near the front after this seminar, ummm lets say to the right of the stage (though I have no idea how the room will be laid out). It would be great to say hi and meet a few of you who have been gracious enough to send me your great ideas and add helpful comments to the posts.

If you are looking for me, my twitter is @seanmcgever and I look like this (with my youngest daughter and future ASU cheerleader!):

I’ve heard lots of great feedback from people who decided to use the book of John for club talks last semester. I’m glad it has been helpful!

My good friend Joey and AD in North Phoenix (such a good friend I’m sure he won’t mind the picture of him and his wonderful wife on this post) took what I started and added to it. It adds some good context for John’s gospel and adds some ideas for chapters I did not cover. He recently sent it to me and gave me permission to pass it along. Enjoy!

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As long as I can remember we have used club cards. Those are the pieces of paper that you give to new kids at club, often during announcements or some type of introduction time, then they fill them out and give them back to leaders. These cards have a long history, all the way back to the first days of Young Life when the national office in Texas would keep them on file, like many “clubs”, to keep track of their members.

Over the years I’ve taken countless hours to type these into spreadsheets. Usually these include information like:

• First name
• Last name
• Home phone
• Cell phone
• Email
• Address
• City
• State
• Zip code
• Parents names
• Favorite movie
• School
• Year in school
• Who invited you

Let’s just be honest… that is a lot of information to type! So I’ve, or a helper or two for me, have spent a lot of time while typing thinking… do we really need all this info? So over time I would type in less and less.

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If you need ideas right away, go to the bottom of this post for a link to the best resource to date on theme clubs.

A few weeks ago (before the post) we had our semester planning meeting and came up with some outlines for our clubs. Here is what we are thinking right now:

Jan 16 – Volleyball hangout

Jan 23 – All Area Club

Jan 30 – Hipster Club

Feb 6 – Progressive Club

Feb 13 – Valentines Club

Feb 20 – No school, no club

Feb 27 – Leap year club

Mar 5 – College Club

Mar 12 – Superhero Club

Mar 19 – Spring Break, no club

Mar 26 – Mom club

Apr 2 – Kentucky Derby Club (seriously, my leaders wanted it)

Apr 9 – All AZ Club

Apr 16 – Canada/Malibu Club

Apr 23 – Mock Prom

Apr 30 – Messy Games Club

May 7 – PJ/Pillowfight Club

May 14 – Senior Run Club

May 21 – Year End Party

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