Help for Young Life Leaders NOW

Last night, Danny, one of our excellent leaders did the “need” sin talk. The “need” talk is often used the week before, or the night before, the traditional sin talk to help introduce the impact of sin on our society and our personal lives. This theme is built upon the following week with a talk that focuses more on the impact of sin on our relationship with the Lord. The need talk is a good transition to help people think about sin and its reality.

Danny opened up his talk with references to some of the recent news in the paper and on TV. He didn’t need to, but in the past I’ve even brought in that day’s newspaper to show them how sin is so easy to spot. Then he transitioned briefly about some things that have hurt him, then he played the video below. After the video he walked them through Romans 3:23 and a few other ideas about sin. He closed with some very open sharing about his own life and how sin has impacted it. Finally he gave them a challenge and introduced the talk for the next week and about our hope in Christ as well.

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Our area does a lot of Work Crew weekend trips. We have a YL camp two hours away, so not only do we help at YL camps, we sometimes do Work Crew at non-YL camps also.

The typical tension I’ve seen on Work Crew is work vs. spiritual experience. There is often a lot of work to do on Work Crew (I’m Captain Obvious). The challenge is that the work needs to get done. If it doesn’t get done, camp doesn’t work. So typically all the work gets done. The part that can easily be minimized is the spiritual experience. It is a bummer when occasionally I hear a kid say, "All I did was work my butt off, we never had a meeting, prayed, or did anything like that". It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

I have a couple suggestions:

1. Train the Work Crew bosses well – help them understand both priorities work and spiritual growth.
2. Know when to draw the line on work. Every once in a while tell the camp or the program or whoever is running it, "no, we can’t do that". Explain that you need time to have a meeting or a worship time.
3. Work hard so you have more time for other things.
4. Make the most of when the Work Crew eats. Have a Work Crew boss share their testimony or have "table questions".
5. Have a good meeting plan with a game, worship and small group teaching.

I have put together a basic Bible study for Weekend Camp Work Crew that includes four different sessions or quiet times. Hope it helps!