Posts by Young Life Leader
50 Questions for the New Year
Natalie and I have a New Year’s Eve tradition of reflecting on the past and dreaming about the future. We use these “Questions For The New Year” (also copied below) as a starting point for our conversation. Hopefully, they can be helpful to you as well. If you’re tired of making and breaking new year’s…
Read MoreHow to Say Goodbye: Thoughts on Young Life Leaders Leaving Well
Some of your Young Life teammates may be entering a season of transition. Maybe they’re graduating, moving, burned out, or called to another ministry. Their absence will be noticed. Not just by you or your team, but by their middle, high school, and college friends. Change is hard. Trust is expensive. Abandonment issues are real.…
Read More30 Items Leaders Can Pack For Summer Camp
Download a printable PDF of the packing list. Bible Psalm 119:105- “Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.“ Mini Notepad/Pen Take notes in the leader meetings, write down the schedule, cabin time questions, etc… it’s nice to have a small notepad that fits in your pocket. It’s also handy during…
Read MoreThe Young Life Summer & The Strategy of Jesus
“A society of genuine loving souls, set free from the self-seeking struggle for personal prestige…would be something unutterably priceless and powerful. A wise person would travel any distance to join it.” -Elton Trueblood One summer. Three months. Thousands of Work Crew and Summer Staff. Millions of hours volunteered. Why? Why will thousands of high schoolers and college students sacrificially…
Read MoreThe Complete Guide to a YL’d Bus Ride
Many of you have LONG bus rides to camp this summer. Instead of enduring the ride, let’s make it one of the highlights of the trip. Below are tons of ideas stolen from many different Young Life leaders over the years. Bus Program Have you ever done program…ON A BUS?! This link has a full script,…
Read MoreA Darth Vader Scavenger Hunt: May the 4th Be With You
Originally posted by Jason Talley in 2015. Last year, around the end of the year, we decided to do a “Ninja Scavenger Hunt.” A slew of awesome adults dressed up as ninjas and hid around town and the kids went off to find them. Two years ago, during our planning meeting our scavenger hunt landed…
Read MoreSpring Break and Redemption
Timehop is a fun app for Young Life leaders. Each day, it pulls in pictures from Instagram, Facebook, Google, and my iPhone camera roll to remind me of things that occurred on that exact day in past years. Mine takes me back more than a decade to when I started using Google Photos and Facebook. A lion’s share…
Read MoreHow Spring Break Broke My Heart
I’ve tried to stay off of social media this week. It’s Spring Break for my high school friends and the few posts I have read have broken my heart. It seems everything we’ve talked about in Campaigners this year just got thrown out the window… …of a jeep…while speeding down the strip at Myrtle Beach…along…
Read MoreHow To Get WyldLife Kids To Camp
Your middle school friends may be excited about going to camp this summer, but unless their parents are excited too, those kids won’t be on the bus with you. That means you’ve got to get camp information in the hands of parents. Start by handing fliers to parents when they pick up their kids after…
Read More10 Spring-Time Contact Work Ideas
Spring-time has arrived! If you need some fun, fresh, & frugal contact work ideas, you’re in luck. Grab your middle, high school or college friends and make some memories. Dog Park/Animal Shelter If you have a dog, take your dog and some friends to a local dog park. If you don’t have a dog, visit…
Read MoreThe Most Formative Year Of My Life
If you’re a college graduate or a college senior and trying to figure out what to do after graduation, I can’t think of an experience I’d more highly recommend than the Dale House Project. When I look back over my life, I’m convinced that the year I spent working at the DHP was the hardest…
Read MoreBattle of the Brackets Challenge (Pick’em Group for Young Life Leaders)
March Madness is here… and so is the annual Young Life Leader Battle of the Brackets! Enter your bracket in the Young Life Leaders group on ESPN. The winner will be featured on YoungLifeLeaders.org and leaders around the world will stand in awe of your ability to predict the future. In addition to featuring your pickin’ skillz on the…
Read More13 Lucky Ideas for a Sham-Rockin’ St. Patty’s Day Club
If you are able to meet in person for club, remember to follow your local and state guidelines. 13 Lucky Club Ideas Wear Green, Win Green You could call it “Green Club.” Encourage everyone to dress in green. Some folks may even paint their faces. Whoever has the most green on wins “green,” aka $50…
Read MoreApplying Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedy Principles to Young Life Club Talks
I recently listened to a brillant conversation between comedian legends Jerry Seinfeld and Larry Wilde. Larry interviewed Jerry on the topic of stand-up comedy. You can listen to it here on Spotify. So much of what Jerry discusses is also super-applicable for giving Young Life talks, so I took a few notes to pass on below.On…
Read MoreWhy Kids Don’t Go To Camp: The 25 Best Fundraisers
We’re continuing our “Why Kids Don’t Go To Camp” series by looking at The Top 5 Excuses Kids Make and How to Respond. Today we’re talking about how to address the money problem. Money is a huge stressor in most teenagers’ lives. When they see camp flyers they tend to skip everything and focus right on the $$$…
Read MoreChristmas Tree Scavenger Hunt
Below is a fun idea to do around Christmas. It’s similar to “Bigger, Better, Best!” The Human Christmas Tree Scavenger Hunt An event that gives kids and leaders an opportunity to laugh and play – and also allows parents to get involved. The Big Picture Teams visit houses in the neighborhood looking for items to…
Read MoreTons of Christmas Club Ideas and Tips for Your Mr. Christmas Tree Pageant
Below are tons of ideas we’ve used in the past for “Christmas Club.” Christmas Club Schedule On a typical Monday, we start club at 7:37pm, but for this particular event, we start earlier to allow more time for the “Mr. Christmas Tree pageant.” 6:50-7:20- Pics with Santa/ Awkward Christmas Cards 7:20- Seniors form entry tunnel 7:22- Tonight,…
Read MoreChristmas Contact Work Ideas
With Christmas fast approaching, your Young Life team may be scrambling for some last-minute ideas before the holiday break. Here are some fun and festive suggestions for Christmas contact work! Christmas shopping Need to grab presents for loved ones? Don’t go alone – bring your high school friends. Great opportunity to hang one-on-one and ask…
Read MorePractical Help For Your Campaigners TEAM
To help us think through some of the non-negotiables of Campaigners, the Young Life Discipleship office has come up with the memorable acronym: T.E.A.M. As you’re planning for Campaigners this year, think through these 5 pieces below. TEAM The acronym TEAM is a reminder that each Campaigners group should function like a team. It’s crucial…
Read MoreTop-Kan: A Fun New Game for Club
Some of you have experienced the wonder of playing “Top-Golf,” the driving range of the future. Many of you have played Kan-Jam, the yard game of the decade. Last week, we invented a game called “Top-Kan,” a combination of the two…and it was AWESOME! TOP-KAN WHAT YOU NEED TO PLAY TOP-KAN Find a bunch of paint…
Read More“My Commitment” by Bill Goans (Friday Night Lights)
As long as high school kids mill around at ball games looking for love in all the wrong places… As long as they desperately seek an identity based on the opinions of friends and reputation… As long as kids limp through the stands broken by family strife, enslaved by drugs, alcohol, and sex… I want…
Read MoreWhere to Bury Your Heart
A Simple Way To Inspire Leaders I still remember the exact moment I knew I wanted to become a Young Life leader. I was sitting among fifty freshmen in the lounge of Winston dormitory on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill. We’d been meeting together every Sunday night all semester. It had been a mishmash of…
Read MoreThe Most Important Text Message You’ll Send This Semester
Many of our friends recently graduated high school and are now starting college. What happens during those first weeks of college will significantly influence, not only their next four years but the very direction of their lives. Pastor Andy Stanley says “Direction, not intention, determines destination.” He illustrates, “If you’re going north on I-85, you’re…
Read More10 Ways To Find New Leaders
The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Matthew 9:37 The beginning of a new school year is a great time to connect with potential new leaders to join your Young Life team. 10 Ways To Find New Leaders Ask your middle or high school friends if they have any older siblings, friends, teachers…
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