Double Up

Hi all, just thought I’d tell you that Liz and I (Tim) had a baby girl last Saturday! Way cool. And, Steve and Penny (Steve is another contributor to the Vanguard) also had a new bub on the very same day! Double way cool.

Kids say e-mail is, like, soooo dead

It’s American based research, but it’s still interesting …
‘E-mail is, like, soooo dead’ is the headline at News.com, where a piece looks at youth attitudes towards communication mediums. A group of teenage internet business entrepreneurs confessed that they really only use email to ‘talk to adults’. Primarily, these folks are using social networks to communicate. [...]

Youth Leader Training Syllabus

I’ve been thinking more since first posting about training youth leaders. In particular thinking about planning a training strategy. Most of the youth leader training programs I’ve come across so far take a grab-bag of ideas that the trainer perceives as important for leadership and teaches about them. Thus, there may [...]

Good Parenting Books?

Below is a review of ‘The Danger of Raising Nice Kids’ by Timothy Smith that I’ve just finished for the Journal of Youth and Theology. I’ve given it a mixed review, some good bits some average bits.
Part of caring for young people is encouraging their parents. Are there any good Christian parenting books [...]

How To Measure Success?

How do you measure the success of a youth ministry? Should you even try?
I rekon the easiest, but least reliable, way to measure is by counting numbers.
I rekon the most relible, but difficult, way to measure is by the growth of God’s kingdom as kids come to Christ and grow in Christ.
What do you [...]

Journal of Youth and Theology

I recieved the first JYT for the year a couple of weeks ago. There are four essays in this issue:

Beyond a Godless Understanding of Youth: Why Exegesis Matters of Youth Ministry

Towards an Adolescent Hermenutic

Faith in Networks: Religious Education of Dutch young adults in a ‘post-ecclesial’ era

From ghetto to communitas: Post-Soviet youth ministry and leadership [...]

The Church Office – Episode 2

The Church Office – Episode 1

Week by week leader training

Yesterday I went to a South Coast/Illawarra/Southern Sydney area youth ministry networking day. It was good (thanks to Andy Stevenson and Youthworks for organising it). I suggested an idea I had a while back to a few of the others, and it might just get off the ground. I’d love thoughts and [...]

Youth Groups on Myspace

Pulse, the youth group I’m a leader of, has a myspace. A couple of weeks ago I handed responsibility for the Pulse myspace over to one of the youth group kids. However, I also drew up the few guidelines below about the purpose of the Pulse myspace. Does your youth group have [...]