Posts by Young Life Leader
Free Krispy Kreme Tomorrow: Talk Like A Pirate Day
Saturday, Sept 19th, is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. In honor of the parodic holiday, Krispy Kreme is giving away free doughnuts. If you show up to any Krispy Kreme on Saturday and talk like a pirate, you get a free doughnut. Ahoy Matey! There she blows! Yo Ho Ho! Shiver me timbers! If you show…
Read MoreWyldLife Wednesday: Cereal Club
Our first-ever cereal club was a huge hit last spring and featured all things cereal. Here are some of the mixers and games you can use: MY FAVORITE CEREAL BINGO Play Human Bingo, but each square on the card contains the name of a cereal. Kids walk around to get signatures. If it’s a kid’s…
Read MoreYoung Life’s International Information Weekend
Have you ever considered going on YL International staff? Come one, come all to Young Life’s International Information Weekend, Oct. 16-18 at Frontier Ranch in Colorado. Learn all about the opportunities to serve overseas with Young Life. International Information Weekend October 16-18, 2015 Young Life’s Frontier Ranch, Buena Vista, CO WHEN Friday, October 16 to…
Read More20 Things Campaigners/Senior Leaders Can Do On Club Day
Pray! Wear a Young Life shirt to school. Invite friends who are disinterested in Jesus to club. Text all of your friends, reminding them about club. Post about club on Instagram and Twitter. Offer to give rides to club. Introduce the friends you brought to club to the YL leaders and others. Introduce yourself to…
Read MoreYL College: Large Group Structure
This Thursday we’re looking at Young Life College and large group structure. Lots of folks from around the country shared how they structure their YLC large groups. Who leads large groups? Each group is lead by a pair of students and an adult couple. We have a freshman guys group, a freshman girls group…
Read More“If I Were Not In Young Life” Skit
At the first club of each school year, we always have the seniors perform the classic ‘If I Were Not In Young Life‘ skit. 5 Keys To It Going Well Energy: Your farmer needs to be crazy. Tell him/her to start slow and steady and build to insanity. The rest of your actors will follow…
Read MoreWyldLife Wednesday: Bringing Scripture To Life For Middle Schoolers
Written by Steph Raubenheimer, Area Director, Lower Westchester County, NY “He has set eternity on the heart of every man..” from Ecclesiastes 3:11 For a long time I skipped over the idea of kids understanding Scripture in my WyldLife club talks: I relied on humor + the kids trust me + the kids like me…
Read MoreTwo More Instagram Ideas For Your Young Life Club
Last week we shared some thoughts about a social media strategy for your Young Life club. Yesterday I saw a few pics pop up on my TimeHop app that reminded me of 2 additional ways to help you kick off the new school year using Instagram. Senior Leaders The first is to gather all of your…
Read MoreClub Entry Songs: Pumping Hype Through Your Speakers
Sometimes it’s hard to find hype, yet lyrically appropriate songs to play as folks enter the club room each week. Thanks to many of you for commenting on Twitter and Instagram and offering suggestions. I’m not a pop music junkie so I wasn’t familiar with all of these songs, but I did a quick lyric check…
Read MoreYL College: Large Group Topics
In our continuing series on Young Life College, this Thursday we’re sharing ideas about large group topics. Last week we talked about tips for getting folks to large group. (And we mentioned that on most campuses, large groups function like Campaigners in our high school ministry. So, once students arrive at large group, what do…
Read MoreWyldLife Wednesday: 65 Contact Work Ideas
Written by Mark Kirgiss, Senior Area Director, Greater Lafayette, IN The foundation of any WyldLife leader’s ministry is contact work. However, many WyldLife leaders struggle to find ways to do contact work with middle school kids. Our WyldLife leadership team brainstormed together 65 ways that any WyldLife leader can do contact work. Attend a football game…
Read MoreA Social Media Strategy For Your Young Life Club
Our Young Life team is meeting tonight to do more planning for the fall. One of the things on the agenda to discuss is our ‘social media strategy.’ We’ve had seasons in the past where we’ve done a great job using Twitter and Instagram and plenty of weeks where we’ve dropped the ball. It’s far…
Read MoreYL College: Club-Large Group-Small Groups
It’s Thursday–and that means it’s ‘Young Life College’ day on YoungLifeLeaders.org. Today we’re sharing different thoughts about club, large group and small groups. Some YLC ministries structure it this way: Club: outreach meeting for everyone Large Group: for folks who want to go deeper (a combined gathering of all the small groups) Small Groups: discipleship…
Read MoreWyldLife Wednesday: Mean Girls – Speaking Life Into Gossip
Written by Steph Raubenheimer, WyldLife Representative, Greater New York Division “Ew, she was like ‘Hiiiii’ and I was like ‘Who are you and why are you talking to me?’” Have you ever felt like you were an accidental producer in “Mean Girls 2” (…and 3, 4, 5, 6…), but your actors went rogue on your…
Read MoreYL College: Small Group Leaders
On Thursdays this fall we’re sharing “best practices” for YL College. These ideas are compiled from YL College leaders across the country. Today our focus is on finding small group leaders. Find more resources for Young Life College here. Where do you find small group leaders for YL College? Below are suggestions compiled from YLC ministries around the…
Read More10 Ways High Schoolers Can Be Producers Rather Than Consumers
One night last semester, right after club, our newest leader asked me how it compared with a typical club. “Was it better than normal, average, or not quite as good?” I turned to one of my high school friends and asked, “What do you think?” His response surprised me, in a good way. “I think…
Read MoreUnlovable.
Being a Young Life leader is hard. As much as we love high schoolers, many of them are just difficult to love. Apart from Christ in us, it wouldn’t make much sense to love them. They reject us. They ignore our texts. They’re mean. They lie. They have terrible habits. They don’t listen. They’re filled with…
Read MoreHigh School Is Hard: Let Young Life Help.
High School is hard. Let Young Life help. Here’s an Insta-squares you can edit, post and tweet out.
Read MoreCamp Musician Of The Month: Tim Halperin
Our featured YL Camp Musician for the month of August is Tim Halperin and his new album releases TODAY! (View other YL camp musicians here.) Tim Halperin considers himself a late-bloomer in Young Life, because there was no Young Life at his high school in Omaha, Nebraska where he grew up. But during his time at Texas Christian…
Read MoreWyldLife Wednesday: Friday Night Lights
Some people think we’re crazy – and we might be – but for many years, we’ve hosted WyldLife club on Friday nights from 10 pm to midnight. After all, if you want to find a middle school kid on a Friday night in Texas, just go to the high school football game. So it makes…
Read MoreThe Story of Nick & Ben
Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE Last summer while serving at Carolina Point we met a dynamic young man named Nick. Nick had been in a horrible car accident earlier that year, losing his leg and having a series of other injuries. We had great conversations throughout the week and he’d already been…
Read MoreDancing To His Rhythm: A Guest Post From Jim Branch
A guest post from Jim Branch, author of The Blue Book. Well, it’s that time of year again. The time of year when school starts back and the pace and the activity level seems to pick up once again. There is simply something energizing about this time of year, although it has occurred to me that,…
Read MoreYoung Life College: Small Groups
On Thursdays this fall we’ll continue sharing ‘best practices’ for YL College. These ideas have been collected for YL College leaders all around the country. Today the focus is on connecting small groups. Find more resources for Young Life College here. How to Communicate and Connect We do it much like large group, and keep…
Read MoreThe Most Important Phone Call You’ll Make This August
Many of our friends recently graduated high school and are starting college this month. What happens during those first weeks of college will significantly influence, not only their next four years, but the very direction of their lives. Andy Stanley says “Direction, not intention, determines destination.” He illustrates, “If you’re going north on I-85, you’re not…
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