Archive for FYI
Still here!
Posted by: | CommentsSorry for the lack of updates lately! I’ve been pretty busy with some stuff!
- General end of the school year youth ministry stuff
- Speaking in our main services two weeks in a row
- Moving YouthMinBlog.com to a new server home
- Redecorating YouthMinBlog.com
- Starting work with a new website client
- And generally enjoying life!
Don’t worry, I’ll be back real soon!
What have you been up to lately?
Here Comes Disappointment
Posted by: | CommentsWell, the disappointment is coming to all those that entered the contest to win the signed copy of Reggie Joiner’s new book, Think Orange, that’s because we have only one winner here!
The drum roll please…
Nick Whittenhall is the winner!
Don’t despair though, just by following along with what is going on at Orange right here on CoffeeWithChris you’ll all be getting some great stuff!
SHIFT Streaming Live!
Posted by: | CommentsTwo big weeks of following conferences are here! This week, starting on Wednesday the 22nd you can start following some of the main sessions from the Willow Creek Shift Conference. Here is the schedule & here where it is all going down.
ONE DAY training event!
Posted by: | CommentsSome of you have been to the Youth Specialties CORE, one day training events in the past, well now it is simply called One Day. The theme of the training for this coming year is The Bible: Bring It On!
I am really excited about this seminar coming up because I have already been working within my youth ministry to implement some of the ideas behind this training event and it has been a lot of fun to introduce teenagers to storying and inductive Bible study! You should not be missing this event, it really is a bargain, especially if you follow my advice at the end of this post!
This is the one youth worker training event that you will not want to miss and you will definitly want to make sure the other adults on your youth ministry team are there!
I know that for my ministry team, this is the one main training event that we look forward to each and every year. Some of my volunteers have been to the Willow Creek SHIFT conference and the the National Youth Workers Convention but we always come back to this one day training event that Youth Specialties does every year because we believe it is such a great way to connect our team and it is so practical for our everyday ministry.
I know it is coming up quick but if you are in the Upstate New York area make sure you register for the Syracuse date (May 2), I’d love to have you out to my church! Plus, Fred Lynch is the presenter and he is a ton of fun! (Fred, if you see this take it as a reminder to remember to bring the $$ for the bookstore this year!)
Oh, rumor has it that if you register at NNYM.com and you use their discount code, you get a sweet discount on registration! 
St. Paddy’s Day Surprise!
Posted by: | CommentsWe won’t get in to the whole orange or green thing for St. Patrick’s Day here but we will get into a fun deal that The Orange Conference is doing to celebrate the day! As of 9:52am, there were 2,909 people registered for Orange. If that # gets up to 3,000 today, then they’ll give the church that registers person number 3,000 four free registrations to the conference AND preconference. They will either refund them the cost of up to 4 people or give them passes for 4 additional people. It’ll be their lucky day. 
There is nothing special you need to do to participate…They’ll be watching the numbers and if we get to that number today, then they’ll post the winner on the Orange website news feed tomorrow. But this is only good if we hit that number today!
Texting
Posted by: | CommentsI have been texting students in our ministry for a while now but I have just recently found what I think is the absolute best text message service for group messaging. It’s called Tatango…
I had used a couple other services that are out there but I found that Tatango does (almost) everything that some other services do but the prices are great (starts at FREE!) and service is unbelievable. I say it does almost everything because the major flaw that I see right now is that I can’t seem to schedule messages to be sent. On the other hand, my cell phone is connected to the account so I can send from on the road which I couldn’t do before.
That is the reason that I am sharing Tatango with you! I signed up for the service since it was free but then I floated around and decided that I wasn’t going to use it because there was nowhere to import my whole list of current text message subscribers. There was no way I was going to spend my time or someone else’s transfering names & numbers manually!
Then today I got an email from out of the blue from one of the great people at Tatango explaining to me that he would import a list if I had it. All I had to do was reply to the email with the list in ANY format that I had! I liked their reasoning for not making it an option for anyone to import lists, turns out that many companies will try to import lists of collected cell #s so they can spam people with txt messages.
Thanks Tatango!
More Orange Giveaways!
Posted by: | Comments
As if you didn’t have a good reason to go to The Orange Conference already… They go and add a bunch of sweet new giveaways on top of the ones we already knew about!
Remember, the early bird registration rate ends on Monday!
Orange = Unbelievable!
Posted by: | CommentsWOW is all I can say! Well, maybe I can come up with a little bit more but I think you’ll be saying “wow!” too after you check this out. I got the inside scoop from the good folks at The Orange Conference about some stuff that they are giving away at some lucky attendees of the conference. If you’ve been on the fence about going to “Orange” then you shouldn’t be after this! Here is the low down:
- Real-Fake Buildings (realfakebuildings.com) - Giving away a portable stage set for a family experience to one church. This is a $15,000 value. Churches can submit their written stories to the team onsite at the Real-Fake Buildings exhibit booth and they will partner with the staff of The reThink Group to select one lucky and deserving winner.
- Clover (cloversites.com) - Giving away a website makeover to one church. This is a $1,000 value. The winner will be picked at random via drawing during the conference.
- David C. Cook Publishers (davidccook.com) - Giving away resources for an adult small group study of your choice – either Crazy Love by Francis Chan or Revolutionary Parenting by George Barna – to three churches. This is a $150 – $500 value per prize. The winners will be picked at random via drawing during the conference.
- Dare to be a Daniel (billygraham.com) - Giving away Dare to Be a Daniel 13-Session Training Resource for three churches or organizations. Dare to be a Daniel is a classroom curriculum that teaches “tweens” to stand for Jesus and share their faith. These are a a value of $229 each. The winners will be picked at random via drawing during the conference.
- By the Book (bythebook.com) - Giving away a child check-in system to one church. This is a $567 value. The winner will be picked at random via drawing during the conference.
If you are interested in getting the email updates about the conference then just drop a line to: orangeconference@rethinkgroup.org.
If you are into the twitters then you can help everyone get a sweet deal! Just follow http://twitter.com/OrangeConf if they hit 1,000 followers by tomorrow evening then everyone can get $50 off registration!
New Year’s Resolution
Posted by: | CommentsSo David Crowder says that his New Year’s resolution is to use his time more wisely in the title of the video. I don’t know about you but I only wish that I could use my time like this!
(Ht to Adam & David)
Some Recent Videos
Posted by: | CommentsIn this past week we have put out two new videos to advertise for our Fall Weekend for our jr. highers. This trip is one of the best ways that we have had to get newer kids to our ministry tied in tight & quick. Spending an entire weekend together doing crazy fun stuff & hearing about who Jesus is, is a great way to connect!
The first vid is just a cheesey Windows Movie Maker job. I think that it’s pretty fun though and I hope it gets the point across that this is not your average “church camp!”
Top 10 Reasons To Be At Wildside Weekend from Chris Szulwach on Vimeo.
This second video was made with Animoto.com. This service is sweet, they let you upload your photos, pick out your music, then their computers analyze it all and put together a great video! Say goodbye to your old slide shows! If you use this link to check animoto out you’ll get $5 off their unlimited plan.
Anyway, here’s the vid…
