Posts Tagged ‘Resource’

Studies on the Go

Post a Comment » Written on May 15th, 2013     
Filed under: Resources, Web Resource
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SPEND MORE TIME WITH YOUR STUDENTS!
Sometimes you don’t have the energy to write another Bible study. This great series will help you teach students new things and important lessons while spending less time on preparation, and more time with them.

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Echo the Story

Post a Comment » Written on May 6th, 2013     
Filed under: Print Resource, Resources
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Discover the Art of Bible Storying…Echo_3products-300x193

For thousands of years, stories were the key means for people to learn and experience God. Echo desires to recapture this sacred art of biblical storytelling, inspiring new generations to find themselves in God’s Story.

Echo uses a process called Storying (short for Chronological Bible Storying) – a sequential telling of Bible stories followed by a time of review and dialogue. Derived from the ancient Hebrew way of learning through careful observation and discussion, Storying was rediscovered a few decades ago by missionaries who are now using this method extensively around the world. Recently, Storying is also proving to be effective with youth and adults in our media-literate, story-oriented North American context.

About Echo the Story

Echo the Story is a 12-week Bible overview for youth – it is almost complete and will be released on June 7th!

Founded by Michael Novelli, Echo the Story is an imaginative way to engage in the Bible using storytelling, observation, and dialogue.

Sign up for e-updates to be the first to learn more!

For more information, check it out here!

 



CKC Water Project – Summer Camp 2013

Post a Comment » Written on April 29th, 2013     
Filed under: Announcements, Camps, Resources
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Summer is time for fun especially fun at the beach, pool and waterparks.  While our student’s enjoy this time of water, water, and more water. It is a great opportunity to turn all the water splashing into a time of awareness and perhaps participation in a water project.

In 2013, Covenant camps will have the opportunity to help provide clean water and access to better sanitation and hygiene in Gemena, located in the Equateur Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo).

A recent study of more than 4,000 households in the community found that less than 6 percent had access to clean water and sanitation facilities were almost non-existent. The community themselves, confirmed by this study, has identified that solving the clean water situation has to be the first intervention in this new Area Development Program. To that end, the community is pursuing a multi-tiered approach.

The Ledia Water project is a new initiative to bring clean water to all residents of the Ledia community, where the Covenant Kids Congo program is located. The aim of this project is to save lives and improve health, particularly among children, by reducing the prevalence of waterborne and water related diseases such as cholera and dysentery. This project represents a tangible opportunity to dramatically improve the quality of life for people in the Ledia community.

Will you come alongside our brothers and sisters in the Congo to extend this life-giving help? For less than $20 per person you can help provide clean water access for life.

For more information, please visit the CKC Camp project website.

 

“Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14



YouTube You Can Use

Post a Comment » Written on April 22nd, 2013     
Filed under: Center for Youth Ministry Studies, Resources
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YouTube You Can Use is a free weekly youth ministry resource I publish every Monday at The Youth Cartel.

It includes a link to a YouTube video as well as a discussion starter, some related Bible verses, 3 ice breaker questions, and a thought question I call wrestle with this.

To give you some behind the scenes insight, here are my goals as I put it together:

  • The video can’t be cheesy or predictable or boring.
  • The video has to be 90 seconds or less.
  • The tie-in has to lead students back to Scripture or an attribute of God.
  • It has to be age-appropriate.
  • It has to be something I’d use… because we use it in our ministry.

Here are 4 tips for using this free resource:

  1. Play it as an intro in your Sunday morning or midweek youth ministry time. Just play the video and then have a slide with the 3 questions. Done.
  2. Post it on your Facebook page. Just straight up snatch the video and the discussion guide and put it up there for your students to wrestle with. You’re probably not using that page enough, this is a weekly excuse. Takes 30 seconds.
  3. Send it to parents as something they can use to talk to their kids. Copy/paste the content, drop in a link to the video, and now you have an excuse to send a weekly newsletter to parents. Drop your announcements for the week above there and I just made you look like a rock star.
  4. Table talk with your own kids or small group. Just pull the video up on your smartphone, hand it to them, and then have a discussion based on the email. No prep time needed, just open the email and you’re done.

Are you getting this? How do you use it?   Want to subscribe? (It’s free!) Click here.

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7 DAYS OF FREE DOWNLOADS

Post a Comment » Written on April 17th, 2013     
Filed under: Resources
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To create awareness for VideoBlocks.com, they are giving away 7 days of complimentary access to download anything you want from over 100,000 motion backgrounds, video clips, music tracks and more:

7 Days of Complimentary Downloads – 100,000 Clips

Just create a username and password, and you get download access to everything on VideoBlocks.com for 7 days. You can download 20 clips per day.

VideoBlocks.com is only giving this complimentary access to a limited number of users, so start downloading now:

Get Your 7 Days of Complimentary Downloads



Specialized Ministry Areas

Read a little more about what’s going on with the other people who will be helping pull together CHIC 2015!

Let’s give them a round of applause!

 

Specialized Ministry Areas: All positions report to the Director of Youth Ministry

Spiritual Services:

The Spiritual Services team is responsible for the Prayer team at CHIC prior to, during and following the event. The team develops an E- newsletter to keep people informed on prayer needs during the ministry. The team communicates with the CHIC council, CHIC office and events office to learn about requests and needs of the team. The desire is to get as many people on site and off site praying for the work of the spirit. The team will communicate with Covenant churches, conference and retirement communities to recruit off site prayers. The team is responsible for prayer experiences on site from prayer room, to Labyrinth, and prayer experiences that help people connect with God, reflection rooms etc.

Early Adult/Staff Coordinator:  Aune Carlson

Early Adult/ Staff Coordinator exist to support the men and women who make CHIC happen through their gift of service during the event. CHIC would not exist if we did not have the hundreds of people who serve to implement CHIC. People serve in all areas of CHIC from set up, welcoming people, helping areas be staffed in Enrichment opportunities, Early Evening Options, Mainstage, security, health services to name just a few. This team gathers daily for check in a daily assignments.The goal is to have the Staff Volunteers and the Early Adults to have a meaningful connection with God and others before, during and following CHIC

Ethnic Engagement Connector: Kevin Farmer

The Ethnic Engagement Connector partners with our ethnic churches. Our goals as a team are be engaged in a continual conversation on how CHIC can better reflect the kingdom and serve our churches. The Ethnic Engagement Connector partners with the Council Council in IDI and debriefing of this inventory. The Ethnic Engagement Connector challenges us to take next steps for growth and development. the Ethnic Engagement Connector will partner with the Ethnic Associations to come to a cohesive plan for scholarships.

CHIC liaison Coordinator: Brian Zahasky

Each conference has a CHIC Liaison to coordinate the travel plans, marketing, and counselor staff approval. The CHIC Liaison Coordinator meets with the CHIC Liaisons to train them on the specifics of CHIC. The CHIC Liaison Coordinator is a resource to the CHIC Liaisons helping answer questions that arise from the Conferences or local churches. The CHIC Liasison Coordinator works closely with the LEADER EXPERIENCE team and COVENANT EVENTS OFFICE .

CHIC Bookstore:  TBD

The CHIC Bookstore team contract with CHIC to provide memory items for students and leaders to purchase. (logo apparel, etc) The team will set up and run the CHIC main store and 2-3 satellite sites. CHIC staff will be supplied to the team to help sell and possible set up for the store. The team will work with CHIC designer to create logo materials, order all materials, set up, sell and clean up the store. The goal of the store is to raise funds for the CHIC budget.

CHIC Excursions: Mary Kate Fretheim, Josh Danielson

The CHIC Excursion team plans the pre-chic adventures and excursions options with the goal of allowing youth workers to have a common fun and challenging experience for their students. The excursions happen daily following Base Camp time until dinner. The Excursions run Sunday – Thursday with the possibility of a debrief trip planned for Friday. The team works with companies to raising money for the CHIC budget. The team works with the events office to work on contracts and permission slips for each excursion with the goal of rolling all of the language into the registration material.

Human Resources: Bruce Baehr

The Human Resource team provides, counseling services, security and health services for CHIC students and staff. The team works to supplement the services offered by UT. The team works with the CHIC Council Executive team to determine next steps for students in disciplinary situations.



The Justice Conference

Post a Comment » Written on February 18th, 2013     
Filed under: Events, Resources, Uncategorized, Web Resource, YM Network
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 The Justice Conference is a 2-Day annual conference taking place in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on February 22-23, 2013

This event promotes dialogue around justice related issues such as human trafficking, slavery, poverty, HIV/AIDS and human rights, featuring internationally acclaimed speakers, and hundreds of humanitarian organizations.

The Justice Conference is a movement of students, teachers, business people, parents, artists, social entrepreneurs, pastors, advocates and academics all of whom are discovering the paradox that true life is found when we give our lives away on behalf of others.



How Do We Get Teenagers To Read The Bible More?

Have you ever asked yourself this question?

Well I sure have, constantly! I am a mother of a teenager, a very sweet one at that. But will he sit down and read the bible on a daily basis? No, not really.

So, I need help here… what to do, what to do?

I found a very interesting article that might shed some light to this “not-so-simple” question:

How do we get teenagers to read the Bible more?

By Andy Blanks, co-founder of youthministry360. Andy loves Jesus, his amazing wife and daughters, and the Boston Red Sox. In that order.

I have thought a great deal about this, and I’m convinced there isn’t a sure-fire, “try-this-five-step-method” that works. But I do think there are some important things to consider.

Here are a few of them . . .

Knowing God, Part 1: We’re Framing The Question All Wrong.

“What can we do to get teenagers reading the Bible more?” I think this might be the wrong question. I think the right question may be, “What can we do to help teenagers value God more?” God must be important to our teenagers, specifically the idea of knowing God. When knowing God is important, when being close to Him matters to teenagers, the act of reading the Bible simply becomes the means by which they come to know Him. If they value God, they’ll value reading the Bible. Which leads me to the next point . . .

Knowing God, Part 2: It Doesn’t Start With Doing. It Starts With Feeling. 

I read hundreds of blog articles a week. (Or, I skim hundreds. I read a few dozen.) A few times a month I will run across an article that is titled something like this: “5 Steps To Better Bible Reading,” or “Tips To Help Your Students Read The Bible More.” The problem with these articles is that they are practice oriented. They focus on technique (“Bible study methods”) and behavior (“when to study the Bible”). Many of them are solid articles. But they assume a faulty starting point, as I alluded to earlier.

We have to change the way we teach teenagers to think about the Bible. If we teach them to see the Bible primarily as a “discipline,” or a “habit,” or even as “Bible study,” we’re missing it. We’ve forgotten that reading the Bible is relational. (We don’t talk about any other relationship in this way. You don’t develop the discipline of taking your children to see a baseball game. You do it because you love your kids. We should approach the Bible the same way.) We should strive to teach teenagers that the Bible is first-and-foremost a heart-driven, deeply personal, experiential encounter with God. We go to the Bible to engage with God, to meet God. We have to stop putting technique and behavior first, and make Bible reading about feeding our relationship with God.

Teach Teenagers To Embrace Multiple Methods Of Engaging With God’s Word

WAY too often we communicate to students that there is one way to engage with the Bible: sit down with a passage and study it as they would any other text. Inductive, exegetical Bible study. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with teaching this method. The only problem comes when this is the ONLY way we teach teenagers to engage with the Bible. It communicates to students that the Bible is meant for primarily comprehension-based information gathering. It neglects the many experiential, heart-driven approaches to meeting God in Scripture.

    • What about praying through the Psalms as personal worship?
    • What about choosing a specific attribute of God’s and meditating on it over the course of a few days?
    • What about learning some of the different names used for God and choosing to pray to Him using a name that speaks to them personally?
    • What about creating something, ANYTHING using Scripture?
    • What about prayer journaling?

These are just a few of the many different ways to lead teenagers to engage with Scripture. They represent a varied approach to encountering God in His Word, and helps students to break free from one specific way of looking at the Bible.

Modeling A Right Attitude Toward The Bible Is Key

This almost seems like a cop-out to include this on the list. After all, you can say this about every aspect of spiritual growth. But, I think this is especially true for this discussion. Your students will pick up on whether or not you value the Bible. If you model a passion for meeting God in His Word, your students will pick up on it. This is “caught” WAY more than it is “taught.”

These are just a few of my thoughts on the subject. I want my teenagers reading the Bible more. But I know that it starts with their attitude and values toward God and His Word.

So, what are your thoughts? 

 

 

 



CKC Children’s Video

A new video from Covenant Kids Congo is now available for children. The video details how community development works through Covenant Kids Congo powered by World Vision. Demonstrating how God works through us to build a community as local leaders come together. Check out the video and give them your feedback. Feel free to use this in your church along with the CKC children’s curriculum.

Click here to learn more about Covenant Kids Congo!



CHIC Council Area Descriptions

So, now that we have announced the amazing folks on the CHIC 2015 council. Lets learn a bit more about their roles:

CHIC Chair – Ben Pease

The CHIC Chair partners with the Director of Youth Ministry to partner with YW to dream, vision, create and implement CHIC. The CHIC chair connects with the Council between the Council Meetings for encouragement and as a resource. The CHIC Chair runs the 4 meetings for the Council. They partner with the Director to create an agenda for the meetings. On site the Chair runs council meetings, cares for 1/3 of the team- checking in daily to add support and encouragement and run defense for issues that arise. The Chair partners with Human Resources and Director to determine if students need to be sent home. On site the chairs gifts are used (MC, listening and walking people through issues, etc as needs arise.) The CHIC Chair is a partner in ministry with the ChF team, Events office and the CHIC Council.

Enrichment Services – Sally Carlson

Enrichment Services has the wonderful opportunity to provide CHIC 2012, youth and youth workers, with the space to connect relationally.  We do this by providing opportunity in adventure, fun, challenge, and space to simply just be together.  Our goal is simple: No matter your cultural background, talent, gifting, creative passion, or social network, that each youth and youth worker have not only a rewarding time at CHIC 2012, but moments that will be significant and memorable in the context of the story of God in their lives.  Glimpses of this at CHIC 2012 include: off-site excursions, on-site recreation, creative opportunities, competitive fun, story and talent sharing, and the simple fun of a party! This team plans the Welcome party- partnering with NPU, plans afternoon options on campus for those who are sports minded and those who possess a gift for the arts. The Enrichment team also plans evening options for students prior to the worship time.

Leader Experiences – Ben Kerns

Leader Experiences exists to support the men and women who make CHIC happen through their service as counselors, pastors, and volunteer youth leaders, and to partner with parents and churches in the entire CHIC experience.  Our focus is as follows: unifying leaders through their CHIC experiences and drawing them into their larger story as part of God’s family, honoring leaders from registration through debrief by communicating with them as partners, investing in their whole person, and providing opportunities for them to connect with one another and celebrate the movement of God, equipping leaders, in their specified capacities, to bring about the realization of the CHIC vision and values, joining with parents in the life-transforming experience of CHIC, and working with churches to see an integration of the momentum and significance of CHIC into their body-life experience. Leader’s experiences provide a system for care for students and leaders by utilizing the Youth Ministry Network Facilitators and the Youth Ministry Network Leaders. Each Conference will be housed in a dorm. The team will be responsible for morning counselor meetings, closing down dorms each night and time of encouragement for their conference.  This team works with YMNF to train and work with RS at CHIC, provide adult training materials for counselors and staff.  This team is responsible for communicating to all staff at CHIC before, during and after. The team developed an app for this purpose in 2012.

Small groups and take home resources:

A critical part of CHIC is the processing time that is built into the CHIC schedule as well as the resources we equip students with as they leave CHIC. Individuals interested in serving in this area will brainstorm the most effective way to structure small group time as well as working with UT to determine locations/restrictions.  They will also participate in brainstorming and executing all the student follow up materials for the individual students.  This team is responsible for the Morning sessions, Base Camps and Focus groups, small groups, pre CHIC Devotionals and post CHIC devotions.

Student Experiences - Dominique Gillard

Every day at CHIC students go through a 3 hour gathering that includes a learning experience and a seminar. Every day centers on a specific theme that will be developed by this         I-team. Each member of this team will participate in creating the daily themes, brainstorming learning experiences and related seminar topics. In the final year before CHIC each member will champion a specific theme, coordinating and orchestrating either a learning experience or the seminars.

Member of this I-team should possess the following characteristics:

  • Enjoying brainstorming and creative thinking to develop themes and learning experiences.
  • Be able to translate dreams into tasks that can be managed by other team members
  • Problem solving
  • Implement the plans for the morning experiences

The Long Road to Justice - Vicki Tsui

The Long Road to Justice is a team committed to infusing and undergirding every aspect of CHIC with biblical principles that bring about God’s justice here on earth. Our I-Team will illustrate the inherent connection between living justly and evangelizing the Good News of the Gospel. Through intense scriptural exploration we will illustrate how the Word clearly exemplifies that it is impossible to separate works of righteousness from our faith. Our team is responsible for illustrating how scripture calls us to live in a manner that embodies God’s love, care, and concern for every element of creation both domestically and internationally. We hope to open the eyes of youth attending CHIC to the need for justice and to catalyze them into becoming actively involved in issues pertaining to compassion, mercy, and justice. This team planned a Base Camp experience, afternoon options, afternoon service opportunities (2012 with KARM and Beardsley Farm)

Mainstage - Angie Wysocki

This team works with UT to set up the staging, lights and sound equipment for Mainstage worship. This team recruits and contracts with speakers and bands for evening worship. They partner with other teams that need talent like Enrichment team- welcome party and block party- early evening options. The Mainstage team story boards each worship set, designs the set, contract for lights and sound, set design. The team is responsible for Production, Music Worship, speakers, side stage, video, web design, publicity video and CHIC store. This team includes original material, CHIC songs, Videos produced for Mainstage, on site videos for the screens. The team also recommends the THEME for CHIC or partners with the CHIC Council to create a seamless theme and focus.