Josh GriffinMore Posts3 Potential Last-Minute Youth Ministry Budget Purchases

If you are fortunate enough to even have a youth ministry budget, most of us work to preserve at least a chunk of it until the end of the year. For many, that means some critical purchasing power at the end of the calendar year (or fiscal year, depending on when your church “resets” everything back to the start).

If you find yourself in these merry last few days of the year with some funds left to spend on your own development and your youth ministry, here are a few recommendations for you to consider:

A resource for your students
Think of a spiritual growth tool to put in your students’ hands to help them grow in their faith. Right now the 1-Minute Bible (the most popular resource in our Grow Booth each year) is only $6.99 and a total steal at that price. Next closest is Amazon at $10.14. Lots of other great options to get good stuff in your students’ hands, too!

A training event for you
There are a ton of great training events and conference on the local, denominational and national level. Pick one that has some offerings that will encourage you were you are at and push you where you need to grow. I highly recommend the upcoming Simply Youth Ministry Conference and I’d love to meet you at one of the events I’ll be attending in the future, too! You can get a great book or tool – those are certainly helpful – but there is something special about being in the same room with hundreds of other men and women who share your calling.

A challenge for your volunteers
Find a great resource to develop your team, too! 99 Thoughts for Small Group Leaders has been fortunate enough to be one of the best-sellers of the year at Simply Youth Ministry. Doug Fields and I wrote it to help youth workers lead their groups better – think of it as leader training in a simple little book. Combine it with a Starbucks card and it is a total winner. On sale right now for $4.99.

What are you thinking about buying here at the end of the year?

JG

TagsComments Add Comment December 27, 2012

Josh GriffinMore PostsOne Minute Bible Was $14.99 … on sale for $6.99!

We just restocked our “grow booth” with a ton of resources – the most popular and one of the best we’ve ever used is Doug Fields’ 1-Minute Bible for Students. It gets students in the Word everyday and is a great tool to help teach them the disciplines of a daily quiet time. It is $14.99 … scratch that … $6.99 for a limited time (I have no idea how long, I just saw it on the site).

JG

TagsComments Add Comment December 12, 2012

Josh GriffinMore PostsOne Minute Bibles By the Case

A great way to help students get the New Year started right! Consider picking up a case of One Minute Bibles by Doug Fields, a great discipleship/spiritual discipline resource for students … might be good for you and/or your volunteers to do it alongside them, too!

JG

TagsComments Add Comment December 28, 2011

Josh GriffinMore PostsHSM Weekend in Review: Volume 153

Weekend Teaching Series: LAUNCH (series finale, week 3 of 3)
Sermon in a Sentence: Get ready to go back to school by starting the habit of spending time with God every day – walk with Jesus.

Service Length: 72 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend we want to send students back to school armed and prepared for each day ahead. The best way to live life is to walk with Jesus – so we challenged them to spend time with God everyday in His Word and in prayer. I challenged students to live out Proverbs 4: 20-27 and to pay attention to God’s Words so that they stay on the right path. I asked a couple students to help teach this weekend and they did a super job helping make spending time with God seem possible. It was important this week to make sure we went from ideological to practical, so we created 14 days of text devotionals (I’ll post them later this week) and gave away a TON of 1-Minute Bibles by Doug Fields.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We had a fun Life Group rap called “Life Groups Win” to promote the upcoming deadline for small groups, and had a funny tribute parody video to the “Footprints in the Sand” infamous Christian poem. Everything played well and for a holiday weekend attendance was up and so was the energy. Must be about time to go back to school!

Music Playlist: Our God, God Above All, Forever Reign, Burning Ones

Favorite Moment: This weekend I used 2 students to help me teach the talk this weekend – one was a senior and the other a sophomore. They did great! Seeing them teach was an incredible experience – made me think I should do that more often! Just picked out the next 2-3 who will do it in the future …

Up next: No HSM – 9/11 Memorial services in big church

TagsComments 1 View Comments September 6, 2011

Josh GriffinMore Posts1-Minute Bible Sale at Simply Youth Ministry – $9.99 each

Simply Youth Ministry is running a sale on the 1-Minute Bible by Doug Fields. It is a devotional Bible that is great to get students in the Word each day. Might be a good tool to give out to your students in a New Year’s message with a “Starting Out the New Year Right” kind of message. Check it out if you’re interested!

You’ve committed yourself to more Bible reading plans than you care to admit and you’re 187 chapters behind in your latest attempt. If this sounds familiar, then the One Minute Bible for Students is what you need to get back and stay on track. Do the math. There are 1400 minutes in a day. It will take you One Minuteto read a passage of Scripture. “Hey, that’s doable!” Additionally, veteran youth pastor Doug Fields has contributed some great insights to help you apply these short, one minute Scripture readings to your every day life.

JG

TagsComments Add Comment November 11, 2010

Josh GriffinMore Posts20% Off Resources Today and Tomorrow at Simply Youth Ministry

Quick heads up on an opportunity to pick up some great youth ministry resources for a discount: Simply Youth Ministry is giving you 20% off of just about everything in their store. The only catch is that you have to do it quick – the promo code scareandy is only good for today and tomorrow. What would I pick up? Easy:

JG

TagsComments Add Comment October 26, 2010

Josh GriffinMore PostsHSM Weekend in Review: Volume 117

Weekend Teaching Series: 2020: The Future is Now (week 2 of 6)
Sermon in a Sentence: Each day matters in creating your future. Take time to get spiritually ready in the morning, respond at noon, and reflect at night.
Service Length: 70 minutes

Understandable Message: This weekend we zoomed in from the big picture life goals from last week and talked about how each minute eventually becomes a day, that days become weeks, years and eventually your future. We talked through 3 sections of each day and how to give it all over to God. The point of the talk was to not increase the amount of time we give God, but give God everything. It was a fun challenge to give students, seemed like students totally got it. We had a countdown timer on the stage the entire service, started at 70 minutes, the idea was the end my talk right at zero to emphasize the importance of making each minute o our life count.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We had the return of Parker from the Future – this time Parker came back to warn us about some new changes to the political situation in the future. In order to stop this from happening, they needed a contestant from the audience to play a Minute to Win It Game called Elephant March. The game was fun, and the return of our guy from the future was great. We had lots of greeters and the choir doubled as cleanup/setup/greeters, too. Played some funny videos in the talk as well as the message.

Music Playlist: Clocks [Coldplay cover], Majesty, Savior of the World, Dancing Generation

Favorite Moment: Having a choir made up of students is always epic. We don’t do it too often, but when we do the energy is super high and the songs seem more powerful than ever. Lots of other great moments this weekend, but watching students worship passionately through song is something I’ll never get tired of.

Up Next: The Future is Now: week 3 (Doug Fields speaking)

TagsComments 1 View Comments October 24, 2010
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