Every day people are faced with situations, or crossroads where they can choose to make God-honoring decisions or not. In this three-week sermon series, Doug Fields tackles some of the more difficult roadblocks that can hinder us from serving God freely. With humor, odd examples, and serious look at the Bible, this message series is great to take your students.

Crossroads topics include:

• When Your Past Is A Roadblock
• When Your Conflicts Are A Roadblock
• When Fear of Risk Is A Roadblock

For more information on this product and others, check out www.simplyyouthministry.com

This last year in ministry has been one of the most mentally and physically challenging for me. I’m learning to live in a place of surrender and dependency on the Holy Spirit, definitely. I think it’s just the trials that we all face to make us stronger and to deepen our faith.I’m discovering as I have been on my journey, many of my friends have been on the same journey just in different ways. I ‘m learning to appreciate this seasoning in my life and to be  thankful for all the resources created for such a time as this! 

 I read Doug Fields book “What Matters Most” a few years ago. I decided to really re-calibrate myself this year and read it again. It was exactly what I needed, again. I suggested the book to a great friend of mine who is not in Youth ministry. I felt the book was written broad enough to captivate a vast number of audiences, regardless of your career or ministry roles. The principles transcend for anyone not just youth workers! My friend was really impacted by the book and wanted to write her thoughts here on SimplyUrbanMinistry Blog!

 When I began reading the book “What matters Most”, I amazed out how someone else in the world totally understood what I was feeling and experiencing at the exact moment. For so long, I wore my busyness as a “badge of honor” and if you weren’t working at least to the same level of intensity, then you weren’t really that serious for the Kingdom of Christ. But underneath my badge of honor were scars and new wounds of chronic fatigue, anxiety, soul neglect, relationship disappointment, family absenteeism, poor physical health, and a lack luster life. It was at this moment that I realized that my constant hurried turbo-pace of doing ministry was not healthy. I literally at the moment had to ask God to help me undo the bad decisions and poor boundaries that were leading me down the path to an inevitable life crash.  This book applies to everyone that serves in ministry, especially those that do it in full time a capacity, because for this unique sector of the population our work and ministry often morph into one entity that consume everything.  This book was literally a saving grace and I thank God for my best friend recommending the book.  My friend could see that my heart do the work of the ministry was enormous, but the method by which I was getting it done for some 13 years now was heading me for a life crash. After all, I wanted that abundant life that God promises in scripture, but what I had begin to settle for was everything contrary to that in the name of serving God, and the work of God was impacting my relationship with God. This book isn’t saying stop serving! This is not that book!  But it does help you see that you can be more effective if you know what matters most. You know, those things that you want to say “yes” to like, family, meaningful friendships, significant others, ministry or important tasks God has called you specifically to do.  The first important yes in our lives is to a vibrant, personal, intimate and growing relationship with Jesus Christ. 

 I think sometimes Christian forget that scripture tells us that “His yoke is easy, and his burden is light”.  I learned from this book that I must make the daily decision to honor the things in my life that are worth the “yes”, and have the courage to say “no” to those things, even with the best of intentions, that will lead me a hurried life of insignificance.

 Lynnette Roberts

Of all the things distorted by sin, relationships—especially romantic ones—rank near the top of the list. In fact, young adults face more and more pressure every day to conform their relationships to ungodly standards. And it’s not enough to provide a negative reason to not do something. There has to be a plan. A hope.

In Song of Songs, Chuck Bomar breaks down the Bible’s sexiest book to reveal positive, godly principles for couples. Each of the five lessons reaches beyond a typical “5 principles of dating” message and is packed with practical information that students can apply to current and future relationships. From dating to divorce-proofing a marriage, this is a lesson series that can dramatically change the way people live their daily lives.

Lesson include:

• Introductions to Song of Songs
• Dating Relationships (Part 1)
• Dating Relationships (Part 2)
• Marriage – The Wedding Day
• Divorce-Proofing Your Marriag

Students are always dealing with some type of hurt, habit or hang up.  As youth leaders, we must teach them that the challenge of life isn’t avoiding pain (since that’s impossible), the real challenge is how to deal with pain when it happens. How to manage and heal from the wounds life inflicts on us. With this powerful three-week super-series by Doug Fields and Megan Hutchinson, you’ll be able to help students recognize and deal with the most painful experiences in their life. And most importantly, they’ll see how God can take their pain and use it to make beauty.

Lessons include:

• Hurt Happens
• Risking to Deal with Life’s Hurts
• Share Your Story—Student Testimony Sharing

You should check this product out! 

Since your ministry will never run out of guys and girls, we’re helping you out with more small group curriculum designed to tackle issues relevant to each gender—from each gender’s point of view.

In Guy Talk Girl Talk 2: The Cure For Cooties, you’ll get ten weeks of ready-to-use—yet fully customizable—lessons, handouts, promotional materials and more. And while the material is written twice for separate guys and girls groups, the topics are the same for each lesson (like, you’ll both study “Temptation” at the same time), just one is geared for guys and the other is geared for girls. This not only saves you tons of time in prep, but it also gives you lots of opportunity for discussion in a mixed group later.

If you’d like to have almost three months of biblically-based material for you students, this is it. Your students may never look at each other the same way again (praise God!).

Topics include:

Help your students see themselves, and each other, as God created them to be.

I’m a true fan of cars and I love the show Pimp My Ride.  Some friends of mine have a Christian Car Club called Holy Rollerz (www.holyrollerz.org)!  Our kids love them and I love the concept!!!

The link for the product is youthministry.com/survivalkit

This is a great product!!!!!!!!!! 

I’ve been in youth ministry now for over 10 years.  Some will say after the decade mark, you become a specialist or expert.  Yeah right!!!!  Man I’m still learning every day.  As a youth pastor in an urban setting, with limited resources, I often times find myself searching for ways to stay current and relevant!  If I could be honest, there are a lot of times when I feel alone, unprepared, and isolated from the rest of the Christian world. Surely there was no one else on Earth is struggling in youth ministry like I am to keep up with all of the latest treads, fashions, fades, and issues facing this generation. What do I do? Where do I start? How do I get them to listen to me? If they don’t get, how disappointed will God be in me? Honestly, at times, I’m scared to death, however, I do fell a deep calling to this type of ministry and 11 Timothy 1:7 reminds me that God hasn’t given me the Spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind.
As I talk to other youth leaders, we all seem to have or currently feel the same way.  Here is the million dollar question: “How do you begin a youth group, with virtually nothing, for kids in urban settings?”
First, we must understand there is no one cookie cutter process or magical formula. There really isn’t a “how-to” manual for urban ministry (YET!!!). The needs of the students are as diverse as the cultures, ethnic groups, and personalities of those who make up the inner city.

Although there are no set formulas, there are a few essential ingredients which, if implemented, make it more likely for kids to want to keep coming back.

RELEVENT RESOURECES
I know, I know, you don’t have any resources. But if you take a good look around, you’ll begin to see a tone of great resources around you.
1.    Christian Ed. Resources: This is the obvious.  These resources include your Bible, Christian books, music, videos, etc. You can check out www.simplyyouthministry.com to get some ideas.
2.    Facility Resources: You have access to a church building, homes, schools, gyms, parks, and recreational facilities where you could meet and host activities for students. Check around to see what’s available and what would work best for you. You can even rotate your meeting places.
3.    People resources: There are adults from your church who can help you, special speakers you can invite, and local music groups who might be willing to come for free.

As the leader, you are the key.  You have to get out there and pound the payment (as my mom always say) There maybe resources already around you and available to you for little or no cost.

START WHERE YOU ARE
If you don’t have a lot of students in your youth group, it doesn’t mean you can’t have an effective ministry. Some of the greatest youth ministries out there started with 5 –8 people.  This is a perfect size to start developing your core student leadership team and to develop a strong group of disciples that will help grow the ministry. The key in this phase is building relationships. Let the students in on the planning and development of the ministry. You’ll see their level of commitment and excitement for the ministry. Once you’ve established relationships and earned their trust; you’ve laid the foundation for an effective program and ministry to take place and grow.

BE CREATIVE
This is where most youth leaders drop the ball.  I’m all for the traditional format for a youth service:
•    Welcome & Opening Prayer
•    Praise & Worship
•    Announcements & Recognition of Visitors
•    Choral Worship (You know the song that set’s up the message)
•    The Word
•    Benediction
•    Dismissal
•    We’ll holla at you next week and do it all over again!

That cool and everything, but what about adding a little flavor in it every once and awhile!  Your job is to sell a product and/or brand that is exciting and inspirational and makes students want to come back and bring their friends. Students like, want, and need to express themselves (check out some of my students www.myspace.com/incrediblzproductionz). This is why I believe hip hop and varies genres of music is so appealing. Encourage students to do poetry, drama, music, dance, rap, painting, cartooning, graffiti art, T-shirt art, computer graphic arts, murals, even cooking and auto mechanics.  Help facilitate your young people to experiencing God’ spirit though the arts. God Himself likes to be creative. “God saw all he had created, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31)

Please don’t think you’re alone in this!  We’re in this together!  You can, and you will be healthy and effective!  You know why, because God said so!!!!

A lot of people ask me where are some good products/resources out there to help minister to hurting students. For me, I like “Life Hurts; God Heals”. It’s a great resource to help hurting students heal from all of life’s hurts, habits, and hang ups.  In our youth group, unfortunately, we deal with a lot of students struggling with drugs, gang activity, being in single parent households, and simply just trying to survive.  For years, I struggled with how to effectively minister to them and help them systematically process through all of the issues they were dealing with.  This resource helped me so much!  We use it every Friday night during our Celebrate Recovery time (Christian 12-Step Recovery Program for adults).  We’ve seen God move in some great and mighty ways.  If you have kids that are hurting, like we all do, click on “Resource” and check it out.  It’s located in the small group sections.

Link: Life Hurts God Heals