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!):

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We already have our Pinnacle HS YL planning meeting for the Spring all set for later this week. But in the meantime, I thought I’d share the top ten posts of the last semester (based on views). Enjoy!

10. Limit the Choices for Talks

9. Christmas Club Again

8. Entire Set of Clubs

7. Fall 2011 Club Overview

6. Gospel of John Club Talks

5. YLPlaybook!

4. Club Songs in Spotify

3. Christmas Club

2. Club Talk Video: Blood Diamonds

1. Seven Talk Ideas for the Semester

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In this model you have three circles and at least three names in each circle. The three circles are 1) Contact Work, or kids who don’t yet go to club, 2) Club, meaning kids who go to club but not much more yet, and 3) Campaigner kids. If you can maintain a focus on at least three people in each circle, you will likely have a good, well-rounded, approach to outreach, gospel proclamation, and intentional discipleship (though all three of those terms have overlap themselves).

I have a couple observations about this, probably learned from Rick, and Alex covered most of these too for our leaders:

1. First, leaders should have different kids on their lists. There is a tendency for everyone to focus on the same few kids. Many times these are the eager kids who like YL in one way or another.
2. Second, we all probably have one particular circle that is easiest to fill. In my experience most people fill up the “campaigner” kids list first. This is because these kids most likely have been around the longest, have been to camp, like club, know the leaders, have the shirt, follow the Twitter, etc. It is great to have these kids! The challenge is if these are the only kids you have relationships with, you will likely be a campaigners leader and not a YL leader. It isn’t a bad idea idea to pour a lot of focus into the campaigner kids, they likely have more influence with their friends than a leader might have, but there are important reasons for the leader to know club kids and contact work kids as well. If you were interested I love leading campaigners, developing leader and discipleship, but I get most excited about the kids on my “contact work list” personally. As another side note, I have closed a club before because it was only campaigner kids and the club morphed into a youth group that was uninviting to outsiders, and we already have plenty of youth groups filling the same purpose in our community.
3. Additionally, this approach creates longevity for your club, it is less susceptible to having significant ups and downs from year to year depending on who is graduating.

As mentioned before, I’ve seen this approach around for years, I guess now I can even say decades! [Wow, I’m old.] As I have been chewing on the idea in the last couple days I have been thinking how this might apply to other relational balancing. I think the team leader (or senior leader depending on what you call them in your neck of the woods), has another layer to consider. I added a few other circles: 1) Club kids [this would include all three circles above], 2) Leaders on the team, and 3) Old club kids. I’m sure there could be more circles to add as well. In my area the team leader has three responsibilities, the primary one is to be a top-notch example of a leader, so the “club kid” part should be on auto. Yet the team leader needs to pay attention to the leaders almost like their own special set of club kids. Finally, the team leader often has been around for a few years and therefore has ongoing relationships with students who are not in club any more.

Finally, I was chatting with my friend who knows a thing or two about developing leaders and relationships. He told me his key question he is asking leaders and staff right now is, “Who are your three”?” Meaning, who are three people you are pouring everything you got into them. Then asking those three people to have their three, and so on and so forth. This approach is laid out in Master Plan of Evangelism and elsewhere, but I love the simplicity of the question.

Have you used any approaches like these before? How do you balance your relationships in YL? What strategies work for you, or don’t work for you?

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One of the great features is you can share playlists. Maybe some of you have already done this but I am going to share three playlists with you. One is a set of background music to use in club. This might be during a game or mixer, that kind of thing. The other playlist includes songs you can sing in club, all you need to do is learn how to play them. The goal will be to keep the lists somewhat short (I have hundreds of club songs in my files so I won’t be adding all of these), as clean as possible (but I’ve learned never to guarantee this and undoubtedly someone will send me a nasty-gram email about a song on the list I somehow overlooked), and mostly current. Songs and style vary so much that it will certainly be influenced by what works in my club. So consider this a starting point. Maybe you can suggest songs, or your own playlists too. I also added a “collaborative” playlist that anyone and everyone can edit themselves (no guarantee on the content of that one since anyone can add or delete songs), but it could be fun to see your suggestions. So without any further delay, just click on these to get started…

1) YLHelp – Club Background Music

2) YLHelp – Club Songs to Sing

3) YLHelp – Club Collaborative Mix

If these gain some traction I’ll add them to the side of the YLHelp website for more people to see.

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I love getting to host club in our home! It’s my way of getting to be involved even though I’m not currently leading Young Life. We’ve had club here for 2 years now and I’ve learned a few practical lessons along the way that help kids feel more comfortable and help me manage the chaos of so many people moving through our house.

• A well-placed trash can (or two or three) saves TONS of time in clean up! If kids can find a place to put their garbage without having to ask someone, they will usually throw their stuff away instead of leaving it laying around. Good places include in the club room (or right next to it), next to the door where kids walk in, and on the patio during outside clubs.

• Cover the carpet to keep spills and dirt from feet/shoes from causing damage. We found some inexpensive (and yes, ugly) throw rugs that we put out in the club room (our living room) each week during club. It helps to keep the carpet clean and also transforms the room from a living room into a space that’s ready for Young Life.
• Along those lines, a good welcome mat or entry mat both outside and inside the house keep a lot of dirt contained! When things stay cleaner, kids feel more comfortable sitting on the ground.
• Water cups and a sharpie are out on the counter every week so that kids know where to get a drink when they need one. The sharpie is to write their names on their cups. We have ice and water dispensers in the fridge door and the cups are right next to that. At first, I put out an ice bucket and pitcher of water because without that, some kids decided to dig through the fridge for something to drink. With 50 or so kids each week, that wasn’t practical for us. Once I put out water, the problem was solved. Now, kids know to get water from the fridge door and new kids follow the example of the regulars.
• Bathroom…this one seems simple, but make sure the bathroom is clean and stocked with toilet paper, soap, and something to dry hands on. I keep extra toilet paper in the cabinet beneath the sink, too, just in case. Also, in the medicine cabinet there is a stash of “female products” in a little pouch (trust me….girls will recognize what this is) just in case! Nothing is worse than being new to club in a strange place and having a problem in the bathroom!
• Club sometimes gets messy, so there are a few supplies that are nice to have out in easy to find places. Some of these include paper towels, extra hand towels or kitchen towels, trash bags, baby wipes, and hand sanitizer. These are for the skit or mixer that goes not quite as planned or the kid who spills soda on the carpet. When a kids and the club room can be cleaned up easily, it makes for a more comfortable experience for everyone.
• Fans are essential for us in our attempts to keep the club room cool. Since we’re in Phoenix, the first few clubs in the fall and the last few clubs in the spring can get pretty warm! Our club room does not have the best air circulation, so I try to do what I can to make it comfortable. We open windows and the door to the outside, set the AC lower to help cool the room, and we use several fans in the corners or the room to keep the air moving and as cool as possible.

What are your thoughts about hosting club?

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I hope you all have a lot to say about this one!

As you may have picked up, I tend to have lots of ideas. Some good, some not so good, but either way I love ideas! You may have also realized I am from Arizona and in the Western Division of YL. I’d say I am very, maybe even extremely, familiar with most of the “norms” and standard approaches to club, campaigners, camp, assignments, etc. as we do them here on the West coast. So when I end up interacting with people from another part of the country who do YL differently I get really excited to be exposed to new ideas. I might not always like them, and lets be honest, we usually like “our” ideas better due to familiarity, but there is more than one way to skin a cat (I think they say that in some parts of the Carolinas?)

From time to time I get to experience these new ideas. This year I was part of a training class at Lost Canyon in the Spring, and as you might imagine, a lot of people from the frozen East coast came to Arizona looking to thaw out. Ironically it snowed, but that is another story. But, of the 150 or so people there, only five or so of us were from the Western Division. I loved hearing all the ideas and norms from their parts of the country. Then this summer we took our YL kids to summer camp that was being led by the Southern Division. Once again I saw all kinds of different approaches and ideas that had great reasons behind them. I even took some of those things and incorporated them into my assignment (war room in the afternoon, WC leads the new Christian walk, other things too). Even on this blog I have seen people chime in on some things such as how cabin unity outfits have become too competitive in other parts of the country, which generally isn’t the case at camps I go to regularly.

The great part of our mission is we are held together by principles and approaches that can be contextualized into our local environment. The prime example is the excellent work YL International is doing around the world. Yet I think we could really benefit from the perspectives of others if we come with an open mind and humble heart. The tricky part is it takes time to discover these things. It would be hard to have a meeting to go through all these things quickly. They emerge on assignments, at trainings, road trips with old friends, etc. Who knows, maybe one day there will even be cross-divisional assignments, but this blog isn’t a place to discuss that topic!

I know there are some of you who participate on YLHelp who have YL experience in different parts of the country, whether on Work Crew, Summer Staff, Staff, Volunteering, etc. What differences have you seen?

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One of the most important pieces of our leadership approach in our area is the use of junior leaders. Junior leaders are juniors or seniors in high school who become “jr leaders” in our Wyldlife or Young Life clubs. They receive 6-8 weeks of training and go through an interview process. Currently about 30% of our adult leaders were once junior leaders in our area. Also, just for reference, 60% of our current adult leaders went through our freshman in college Bible study and leadership training program, FYL.

Over the last two years we have been experimenting with junior junior leaders. These are key 8^th graders who go through a short training and play a role in the leadership of the Wyldlife team. They are invited to come to the pre-club dinner and to some of the team meetings, but not all. They are also a visible part of club and campaigners. It has been a great way to expand the campaigner-type experience for our top notch kids. I have seen similar approaches in some of the older Wyldlife training regarding “student boards”, kind of like a student board of directors who have a say in the leadership of club. We are still working out how we are approaching this junior junior leader program, but so far we like where it is going.

What have you done to develop student leadership in Wyldlife clubs?

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You know how it is easy to miss something once, but then when you hear it twice, three times, then over and over you start to think… there must be something to this! This year in our area we had to two themes that kept coming up.

The first theme was to “pray big”. Many of us are familiar with Ephesians 3:20, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…” But I think we often do not put this into our prayers or expectations. Maybe we don’t pray this way because we have prayed this way in the past and it didn’t work out, maybe we don’t pray this way because we feel selfish to ask for something so lofty and great. Listen here… Pray big and don’t stop praying big! Many of us prayed big this year in the lives of students, in the lives of leaders, in our own lives. Go “over-the-top” in your requests, you can’t over-ask God. One of my favorite book titles of is “Your God is Too Small” by JB Phillips. We do not want to be under-praying, you never know what you may be leaving on the table, as James says, “you do not have, because you do not ask” (James 4:2).

The second theme many in our area heard is to “listen hard”. It seems like every speaker we brought in to speak to us talked about listening as a part of prayer. We were encouraged to listen to the still, small, whisper of God (1Kings 19:12). As many of our club kids experience in the 15 minutes of silence, God speaks in various ways when we listen. Let’s give Him more than 15 minutes per year!

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YLPlaybook (@ylplaybook) – The best spot for games and skits!

Young Life Leaders (@YoungLifeLeader) –I pretty much steal all my good ideas from here.

Youth Leader Stash (@ylstash) – Great info for YL and Youth Ministry in general from great dude.

TotalYLmove (@totalYLmove) – Hilarious! If you’ve ever felt odd and alone in YL, you will find you are not alone here.

Official YL twitter (@YoungLife) – The mothership has landed on Twitter! Good info on here from the source!

Young Life Ideas (@younglifeideas) – The official YL ideas feed. Lots of people sharing good stuff here.

YLHelp (@ylhelp) – Oh yeah… We got our Twit on too.

(PS Sorry if I missed someone by accident!)

What other great sources have you found online?

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Over the years I have noticed a trend with the clubs in our area, the ones that have the most cash deposits in early always bring the most people to camp. Now I don’t believe “having a lot of people at camp” is the holy grail of YL work, and in all honesty it can become an unhealthy idol in our view of our ministry. Yet, I’m sure we can all agree that wanting lots of kids to go to camp is a healthy goal for our work. On the flip side, some of our clubs only make the push to collect actual money a few days before camp. These clubs always have lower numbers of kids at camp.

This year we tried something that I’m sure many of you already do, we gave an incentive to get the deposit in early. For our YL trip we matched up to $50 of a deposit that was in by April 15^th. The deposit from the kids couldn’t be a fundraiser, it had to be actual money.

There was an important reason behind this. When you need actual money, parents usually have to get involved. So many times I’ve seen a kid be a part of several fundraisers, sometimes even earning a significant amount of money, but they don’t go to camp. Usually the culprit is they had none of their own money deposited. They liked hanging out at the fundraisers, maybe did some on their own, but they never had an actual sit-down talk with their parents to ask for the money. This happens less with junior high students since the parents are more in the loop, but this is common with high school students who may be pretty independent, until they need a few hundred dollars.

Our schools that normally bring a lot of kids to camp improved their numbers a little bit, but our schools with historically low numbers did significantly better with this approach.

Do you require a deposit by a certain date? Have you ever matched their money to incentivize signs-ups?

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