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Cooties: Friendship, Dating, Etc.

February 9, 2012 in Middle School, Preaching, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

Cooties title

This past Sunday, we began our new sermon series for the middle school ministry for the month of February.  Cooties is a series about friendships, dating, identity, and sexual purity.  For four weeks we are going to be looking at what we can learn about dating and relationships during the middle school years.

More Than Friends

During middle school, it is very normal for people to begin having the desire to be “more than friends.”  Because of the changes that are happening, during this age we begin to look at the opposite sex differently.  While 3rd graders focus on playing tag with the opposite gender, 7th graders begin to have all kinds of ideas about what it means to be boyfriend and girlfriend.  These new attractions are normal; it’s part of growing up.  Now, what we do with these new attractions is a very important discussion to have.

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All Access: How to Pray

January 30, 2012 in Middle School, Preaching, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

 

All Access

This past Sunday, we finished our sermon series for our middle school ministry entitled All Access.  Because of the death and ressurection of Jesus we have complete and total access to our God; since we have complete access what does our prayer life look like?  The third and final message was all about “How to Pray.”

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All Access

January 10, 2012 in Freebies, Preaching, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

 

This past Sunday we started a brand new series for our Middle School students entitled “All Access.”  For 3 weeks, we will be discussing prayer.  Because of the death and ressurection of Jesus we have complete access to God.  Because we have complete access to him, it is important that we use that access we have and continually be praying.  Throughout the series, I will be sharing some of my notes from the lessons (except for the first lesson, which I did not give).  If you’re looking for a series on prayer and want to steal any of these ideas or graphics, feel free.

Week 1: Why Pray?

Week 2: What is Prayer?

Week 3: How to Pray?

For a copy of our additional background slide: download it here.

Waiting for Inspiration

January 9, 2012 in Leadership, Preaching, Youth Ministry with 2 Comments

Light bulb

The most difficult temptation to overcome in creativity is the idea that we must wait for inspiration.  There is not a creative person on the planet that doesn’t love the moments where an idea seemingly bursts out of nothing in the middle of the night.  These inspirational moments are important, but they are not the norm.  One of the most difficult things to do in the act of creation is to face an empty canvas on a day that you feel uninspired.  The choice you make when you face the blank canvas and have zero inspiration determines whether you will create mediocre art or great art.  You are left with two options:

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Sermon Series Branding Questions

January 2, 2012 in Preaching, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

Questions

[This post is a part of the Creating a Sermon Series series]

An important part of the series creation process is the point where you work through key details that need to be discussed in order to execute the series.  In order to help our team discuss the branding of a series, I put together a few different questions to help work through the details of a series.  There are certainly other important questions and discussions that may come up, but these questions help set up a framework for us to discuss some of the creative elements to our upcoming series.

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Preachers That I’m Listening To

December 19, 2011 in Preaching with 0 Comments

Preacher

If you want to be a better preacher, whether to students or adults, you need to not only be doing it yourself but also reading and listening to others who do it well.  I am constantly downloading new sermons to listen to and always looking for new ones to get into my list of podcasts.  This list is not based on the accuracy of their theology, but instead on their ability to communicate well.  There are certainly some on the list that I would reccommend to anybody to listen to and others that I would be cautious about recommending to somebody if I’m unsure of there ability to listen critically.

A Few Preachers I’m Listening To:

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4 Ways to Improve Preaching

December 16, 2011 in Preaching with 0 Comments

Podium

I love preaching.  It is one of my favorite parts of being in youth ministry; every week, sometimes even more often, I get to spend time preparing and giving a message to teach our middle school students.  Because I love it so much, I have found some things that seem to be helpful to me in improving my preaching.

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Branding a Sermon Series

December 12, 2011 in Preaching, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

Logos

[This post is a part of the Creating a Sermon Series series]

Branding the sermon series is the part that is one of my favorite parts of the series preparation.  It is the part of the planning that we really begin to think about what images, words, and symbols will help make this series of messages memorable.  What visuals will help not only make it memorable, but help communicate the message that we are trying to share.  The branding stage is the stage that a sermon series begins to look like an actual usable sermon series.  The branding is when the series gets a title and begins to be fleshed out into all the elements that make up a sermon series.

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When You Have To Say Something

November 30, 2011 in Preaching, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

Blankpage

Anybody who preaches on a weekly basis will tell you that they would much rather have the feeling that “they have something to say” over the feeling that “they have to say something.”  But what about those cases it is the latter?  What is a pastor supposed to do when Sunday is coming and the pressure to come up with some words of wisdom is growing?  My favorite times to teach our students are the weeks when I’ve studied and have felt like I have a lot to say, but the reality is that occasionally I have my selected topic or scripture for the week and my mind is blank.

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Teaching Notes: Bad Friends

November 28, 2011 in Middle School, Preaching, Youth Ministry with 0 Comments

Friends

This week, we finished off a 3 week series entitled “Me & My Peeps.”  This series was all about friendships; since friends are important to all of us, whether we are little kids, teenagers, or grown ups, it is important to look at what the Bible teaches us about choosing friends and being a good friend.  The third and final week of the series was about what to do in the cases we find ourselves with a bad friend.  What do we do when there are people who wouldn’t make good friends; should we keep our distance or still get to know them?  The best way for us to answer these questions is to dig into how Jesus responds when he is treated poorly and think about what that means for us and our relationships.

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