Help for Young Life Leaders NOW

Over the years I’ve tried a few things to change the name of campaigners to something else: Wiffleball Wednesdays, Commandos (WL), and a few others. I’ve also heard of names like “Man Club”, “Super-Man Club”, “Breakfast Club”, “Brothers of Thunder”, and others. My friend Alex wrote up an article on one name that has worked pretty well and he explains why. I thought I’d share it with you. Thanks Alex!

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Over the Summer of 2011 I announced to our Young Life club that we would no longer be calling our weekly Bible studies “Campaigners” anymore but now we would be calling it “Community.” The process of making this change took a while, but I really believe the change created some positive affects on our club and especially on our weekly Bible studies. About a year before announcing the change I tossed out the idea of changing the name at a team meeting, this didn’t go over so well immediately. We thought through a couple name changes, things like “Large Group,” “Small Group,” or “Home Group.” At the time my team didn’t like any of those suggestions, and my team, especially the Junior Leaders weren’t crazy about the name change. I tried explaining that the name “Campaigners” was incredibly outdated as it began as a term for those that “Campaign” for Christ. By no means am I against “campaigning” for Christ, but the term “campaign” isn’t exactly a term that’s tossed out in day-to-day conversation with our High School or Middle School friends.

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It may be too late, but I thought I’d pass along our Christmas campaigners time from tonight.

We opened, as we always do with a game, then we sang some Christmas carols, did some announcements (including an update on Raju, the Developing Global Leaders student staff we are helping support), and then moved into our Bible study before closing with prayer requests and prayer.

For our Bible study we divided up these parts to act out:

Luke 1:26-38 Angel speaks to Mary

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For the past few years our club has split up guys and girls campaigners. This year some details changed and our leadership team decided to do campaigners co-ed. When I put together all of my ideas I simply had too many components that I wanted to include. So I came up with a plan, with some feedback from other leaders, that is sort of a plug-and-play plan to include different parts each week.

Take a look and let me know what you think!

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I hope you enjoy YLHelp.com. I don’t do this often, but I wanted to let you know about some booklets that I have written. On YLHelp I’ve posted 258 different posts full of ideas that you can read and use anytime. Enjoy! Here are some other resources that might help your campaigners, one-on-one discipleship or Bible studies. I know many of you have been ordering these for your Fall campaigners.

Cabin Time Continued

This booklet is a series of lessons that are geared for camp follow-up. It reviews the main topics we normally cover at camp and then a few critical first topics for getting start in Christ. A lot of people have brought these to camp to give to kids at the end of the week, or to use right when they get back. Each lesson can also be used on its own, apart from camp. I just used one for a weekend retreat for college kids to use for their morning devotional.

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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!

I am happy to announce that Live Like This Part 2 is now available.

Thank you to everyone for your encouraging emails and comments about Live Like This Part 1. I have continued to find the wisdom found in the Sermon on the Mount to be challenging and rewarding not only in the small groups I lead, but also personally. We have even adapted this study for a married Bible study group and for large college YL ministry small groups.

I trust that Live Like This Part 2, the second and final installment of a Bible study through the topics found in the Sermon on the Mount, will continue the style and approach of Live Live This Part 1.

If you would like more information CLICK HERE.

Over the summer I normally try to post a couple things that I learned over the previous school year. These are a little late, but I really wanted to pass them along anyway. Also if you have anything you learned from last year that you would like to tell me about, send it my way smcgever (at) pv dot younglife dot org

When it comes to preparing campaigner lessons, I’ve tried it all. Fortunately the plan is not the most important part of campaigners. If the meeting includes honest sharing, a conversation about scripture and prayer, you pretty much can’t go wrong. With that said I’m always trying to provide the best content that is relevant. What I’ve done for the last few years is simply go through books of the Bible (ex: Mark), or sections of scripture (ex: Sermon on the Mount), or similar verse-by-verse type things. Here and there I’ll mix in some different approaches, but this is what I’ve found to be my favorite.

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For those of you who have followed YLHelp for a while, you probably have seen that I have published a booklet for camp follow-up called Cabin Time Continued. It is a series of 10 Bible studies perfect for when you come home from camp. I’ve seen people use it just for normal campaigners too. In fact I’ve used it twice in the last week as a part of one of our team meeting Bible studies.

I’d like to announce a new resource I have published. It is called Live Like This. Live Like This is a study through the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount is a fantastic study, especially for those in campaigners since it is simply the teaching of Jesus. I’ve divided the booklet in two parts. Right now Part 1 is available and Part 2 should be done this summer. If you would like more information on either of these resources check out this page.

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I recently spoke at a YL weekend camp. One of the best pieces of YL camp speaking advice I ever received was to plan your cabin time questions before you plan your talk. Obviously you tweak them after you study the scripture and the rest of the talk planning process, but you really want to begin with the end in mind.

Even as a speaker, I feel the most critical part of the gospel proclamation and formation is in the cabin time discussion. I’m sure you have seen miracles happen in front of your eyes in the midst of cabin time, I know I have.

I have posted cabin time questions before here, and below are the ones I recently used. If you are interested in more cabin time type questions you can also look here.

Here is the seventh installment of Sync through Mark…