Help for Young Life Leaders NOW

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

I know an amazing senior leader who has organized his team in a new way this semester. (Go Alex!) He decided to form three teams with his leaders. While everyone participates in the activities of each team, those on the team have specific responsibilities. It is all outlined below.

What I like about this is that is spreads out the planning and puts a few people in place who are always thinking about their specific area. Ideally it should add accountability and make it easier to not forget about a key area of the club team. This is also a way to place leaders who are more gifted with certain things in charge of their specialty.

In case you think this is impossible with your team because it is too small… on their team there is one, or two, “adult” leaders on each team and then about 2 leaders who are still in high school. So this approach could work for a team that only has three leaders.

Disciple Team

As leaders we are not called to make converts to Christianity but Disciples. Our goal is to teach kids more about Christ, help them on their walk with Christ, and train them to be the light to their friends and family.

Responsibilities for the semester

1. Determine teaching plan for the semester (topical, expository)
2. Organize readings for each campaigner meeting (Lesson, Book/Chapter)
3. Give the team a outline of Campaigner lessons/readings for the semester (needed by 9.21.09)
4. Make bookmarks for Campaigner kids
5. Recruit Work Crew Kids for Work Crew Weekend (10.2.09-10.04.09)

Responsibilities for the week

1. Lead campaigner discussions each week
2. Remind kids of the readings each week

Outreach Team

Outreach is going where kids are. Outreach is our opportunity as leaders to show Christ in the world no matter where we are, or what we are doing. Outreach is meeting kids at school, at sporting events, hanging out with kid and inviting them to see who Christ is through our interactions with them.

Responsibilities for the semester

1. Plan out of club outreach events (needed by 9.21.09)
2. Once a month, movie night, In N Out night, Post Homecoming Party, etc.
3. Gather Sports schedules, Plays schedules, and distribute to the team (needed by 9.21.09)

Responsibilities for the week

1. Set up, and organize Ultimate Frisbee each week
2. Be on campus every week

Club Team

Club is the an opportunity to invite kids to be themselves, meet new people, meet leaders, and hear about how Christ has impacted the lives of the leaders that serve in Young Life.

Responsibilities for the semester

1. Organize the themes, games, at club events, and skits for club
2. Create a Camp Sell Skit
3. Give the team leader a summary of what is needed and how games work for each game/mixer at club (needed by 9.21.09)

Responsibilities for the week

1. Print out club line up from the team leader and bring it to club prep
2. Make PowerPoint slides for the songs at club each week

Team Leader

1. Organize and distribute club line up via email each week
2. Support and assist each team, Disciple, Outreach and Club
3. Provide needs and supplies for each team
4. Set an example for other leaders to follow

This year I had some club kids who love ping pong (OK table tennis technically, don’t send me angry emails). Since I’ve been in YL for a while, I’ve picked up some ping pong skills over time so I was always challenging them. But we didn’t have it at club, so we didn’t get to play. I realized that there used to be a club at the school where kids would play ping pong at lunch. I contacted the teacher who used to run it, he was a friend of mine, he said he was too busy to do it anymore. So I took it over and played ping pong with kids at lunch every Monday. We even made shirts that said, “PHS Varsity Ping sponsored by YL”. It attracted a lot of different kids who we didn’t know before. 

Here is an idea I got from my friend Tanita and Keith. You buy some plastic pink flamingos, then you go put them a friend’s yard (preferably someone with a sense of humor and a connection to YL). Then you leave a sign on one of them that says, “You’ve been flocked by XYZ YL!”. Then the letter explains that it is a fundraiser for camp and that for $25 (or whatever you choose), they can have them removed. For $10 more they can “flock” whoever they choose. And for $10 more they can purchase “Flocking Insurance” so they will not be flocked again. Of course the letter also says that you will gladly remove them for free as well.

My friends who have done this say almost everyone makes a contribution and thinks it is great. It is great contact work with kids and allows them to be a part of the fundraising. You will also get a chance to introduce new people to YL.

Here is a letter you can use…

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.

Here is a helpful and entertaining contact work training video my friends made a couple years ago. Enjoy! Go Tanita and Troy! Thanks to Steve too.

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.

One of my favorite baseball players growing up was Darryl Strawberry. I even traded a Ken Griffey Jr. Upper Deck rookie card for a Strawberry 1984 Topps one time (now the Griffey is 10x its value). Anyway… One thing I loved about Darryl was that he hit for power and could steal bases. He was consistently in the 20/20 club and was on the verge of a 40/40 season one year (that is home runs and steals). For some reason this combination has fallen from the spotlight in baseball.

What do you think about this about a stat… Names and contact work trips in a semester (season). So you could be a member of the 10/5 club after you learned 10 new names and went to do contact work five times. Here are a couple details:

Names – They cannot be names that you already know. This would be only new names.

Contact Work Trips – This would be times when you do contact work and encounter kids outside of club or campaigners. There is a value to texting, Myspace and Facebook connection, but for this plan it would not include those. This could include shopping at the mall where kids hang out and intentionally going through the food court where they all hang out (Level 1 Contact Work = Be Seen).

I have a couple questions:

1. How could you keep track of all this? When? Where? How? Before club? Email?

2. It would be fun once a month (Area Leadership) to have awards for certain plateaus. What would be good levels? What would be good awards?

Is this a good idea or too focused on numbers?