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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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.

On the other hand, these can also be a good physical reminder if you put them somewhere where you see them, from time to time it is good to look through them and be reminded of kids who have come to Christ and think of their first day at club, and others who may have come once and never come back. Other than using them for a database they have been a great tool for prayer, it is well worth it to spend a little time going through them one by one.

In all honesty, in the last year or so, our clubs have been bigger than normal and I know kids have slipped through the cracks. And I have not done a good job with the club cards. Even if I had done a better job, I’m not sure if our team would have time, or the diligence to keep checking in an online document.

So, as this semester starts up I want to experiment with some new ideas for club cards. One of the clubs in my area uses a text message system. At club the kids text a number to join a list and then get an update each week about club on their phones. That works well for them, but I’m trying to think of other options too. At the moment I have this really high tech idea of a club card with way less questions. Maybe just: Name, Cell, Year. I think I could type that in each week. Then I also have a card for prayer and as a reminder. But I’m still trying to think through a streamlined way to keep leaders in the loop of our accumulated list of kids (other than a Googledoc, though we may end up using that).

I’d love to hear your input. What works? What doesn’t work? 

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I know lots of people have been looking up Christmas club plans and finding them here and a club talk idea here, so it may be too late to pass along new club info today. So in lieu of that I wanted to share with you a hilarious video from SNL that can be done as a skit. Megan from North Carolina sent it my way and I was laughing so hard I was crying. This could be a fun skit to do in the Spring, or maybe some of you have time to sneak it into your last club. Thanks Megan!

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What other creative ways have you seen Facebook or other social media used to create momentum for things related to YL?

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I have yet another great resource from Hugh in North Carolina!

In a past post I asked people for their input about weekend camp activities. Hugh mentioned the “Clubble”. The Clubble is Club in a bubble (of course).

Basically imagine club in a huge plastic tent blown up by fans.

Then inside of the “clubble” you can have club. The projector can simply be projected on the inside of the bubble. Also, since it is an enclosed place it is a great location to do a messy club. At Hugh’s club they have done food smashing skits with the sledge-o-matic (ala Gallagher for those of you who remember, or maybe you tried to forget).

I liked the idea so much that while I was doing program last summer at Lost Canyon I tired to get the whole camp into a clubble for the messy games. That didn’t work out but we did use it as part of the obstacle course. It was a ton of fun. The only problem is that Lost Canyon is in,well, a canyon, and thus it can get windy at times. So the clubble almost blew away a few times. We had Summer Staff holding the clubble down while kids were in it, sometimes in the dark… well at least we tried it.

Hugh was nice enough to give great detailed instructions about how to build a clubble, complete with links to the Home Depot website so you can see exactly what you need and the cost.

This could be a great event to do in the midst of a long Spring semester to mix things up.

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Like most clubs they have a time each week when they introduce any new kids. In each club they will award one point to either the guys or the girls based on who has more new kids that week. At the end of the semester the gender that has more points will get $5 each in the camp store or snack bar.

I thought it was a great idea to promote new kids and camp at the same time. It also helps add some spice to the new kids part that, in my club, often lacks much excitement. It might cost you a little bit of money, but I think it is worth it!

What do you do with the “new kid introduction”? What are your thoughts to promote club each week?

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What do you do for camp follow-up?

Here are a couple of things that I we do for summer camp follow up:

1) Start talking about it at camp.  Plan a first post meeting before you  go to camp. The last night in cabin time, talk about that meeting.

2)  As soon as a kid meets Christ, I invite them to join me for a quiet time the next morning.  It begins to teach how they can relate to Christ.

3) If I have a long bus ride home, I will have a mini-campaigners on the bus with kids who have made a commitment to Christ.

4)  I have a pre-printed card with information about the first follow-up meeting and give it to kids as the bus pulls into the parking lot.  I also have enough to give one to parents.

5)  If I am in town, I usually will plan to meet with the kids from my cabin every day for a week.  I use it as an extension of cabin time to help bring the close relationship from camp back home.

6)  I have done a variety of things with kids.  In our area we are committed to large group campaigners, but we make sure that every day, they break down into a sharing time with the kids from their cabin.

7)  I have every campaigner kid help by calling the new Christians to invite them to campaigners.  I also divide the names among the leaders

8)  The Navigator wheel is a good resource to use. I have also walked through one of the gospels (like Mark), teaching what it is like to know Christ.  So each night there is the content of that chapter of scripture, and teaching how to take what you read and allow it to influence your life. 

9)  We usually have a person share briefly from their life as part of the night.  A sort of mini-testimony.

10) We meet EVERY week.  The only exception would be if the 4th of July falls on a scheduled night, but we would probably go with kids to fireworks.  If I have an assignment, this means that I need to get my team on board and ready to lead the group.  If I don’t have leaders to do it, I recruit someone who I trust will do a great job.

I think that the community you build is at least as important as what you teach.  If you can create a safe place where people are loved and accepted, then kids will want to come.

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Would you have club at a fast food place?

• Would you have it there once?
• Would you have it there for an entire semester?
• What would be the pros/cons?
• If you’ve done it, any recommendations?
• Any funny stories?

Here is my experience… I’ve done club several times at Taco Bell, at a local kids pizza place (Peter Piper Pizza), and maybe somewhere else. I’ve found that these places are very open to having an event on a Monday night if it brings people in. I’ve also been very upfront with them about the songs, the talk, etc. Nothing has phased them. On the plus side I’ve seen people who are just eating there really interested in who we are. On the challenging side, I have at times been worried that a stranger or two was being a little too interested in some of the teenage girls. It is a hard place for proclamation, but I like the oddity of it… Something feels right to me to be at a public place in our community talking openly about Christ to our friends. I’ve never tried more than one meeting a semester doing this.

I’m very eager to hear your input, and I know some of my friends are too… Can you help us by proving some comments?

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…

We do something called ugly baby where we pull pantyhose off of kids heads, but we put bibs and diapers on the contestants as well as paper grocery sacks with eye holes punched out of them with a sharpie marker of an “ugly” baby face.  The contestants come out with the bag over their heads, we then have “Vanna White” unveil the contestants one at a time (crowd goes wild), then “Vanna” unveils the ugly babies by pulling up very slow ly the pantyhose off of the each head.  TEARS, hilarious laughter!

Another is the “frozen spoon” gag where you have on the end of the rope a frozen spoon and people have to weave it up and down the isle of peoples shirts, it touches bare skin and it’s cold…OKAY…now hears what we do…we drill a hole in a frozen trout and have it at the end in the bucket where no one knows it’s coming and the line of people are busy with the other items on the rope, boxer shorts, hats, McDonalds toys…and all of a sudden the frozen trout has to come through because the string that the other things were tied to is already up and down their shirts.  Also a screamer…one that kids will never forget!

Have you ever done “rate that kiss?”  You have freshman think that they are going to rate the kiss of some upperclassmen (on the cheek), and they get blindfolded, then you sneak in each of the contestants moms, the upperclassmen step back, mom goes in for the smooch, and sometimes they even plant on on their son’s lips, the audience is dying laughing, while the contestants are clueless…they rate their mom’s kiss a 9/10/11 etc..  Then we unblindfold the contestants…and walla… another gut buster!

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I’ve been at my current club for seven years now. It has always been a good size, but nothing huge. I like how it is. This semester we want to give it some hype. To try to get it big, even if just for a little bit. Kinda like a shot of steroids, but legally. By the way don’t do steroids.

• What have you done to hype-up, or get more kids to your club?

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