For our second installment of New Position advice, we’ve got another great one: Don’t be afraid to push. Starting off, it can be easy to avoid the tough stuff. We want to build relationships and be the cool youth guy or girl for a while, which is alright. Build your relationships, let the youth get…
Author: Kellen Roggenbuck
New Position Advice Pt. 1
Today’s post is the first in a series of advice for starting a new position in ministry, whether it’s your very first position, or if you are an old pro. Either way, our advice rings true. Today’s Advice: Do You. The most common mistake a youth minister makes when they assume a new position is…
Don’t Hate the Player…
When I started serving my present church, I was confronted with a question that has become a large part of youth ministry. The question is: How large of a part of our ministry should games play(no pun intended)? First, some back story. Several years ago, two adults shared the part-time position of youth minister. They…
Piggy Bank Pile Up
Looking for a fun relay game? All you need is a couple dollars’ worth of pennies and some buckets. It takes minimal set up and is a great team-building, trust building activity. You can do this as a set of pairs, or large groups. One member of the team has to transport a dollar’s worth…
Speed Interviews
One of my favorite retreat ice breakers is called Speed Interviews. They cram a whole lotta meeting in a short amount of time, needs little or no prep, and can be a ton of fun. Partner your group off with people they don’t know, if there is an odd number, you participate. The pairs then…
Line ‘Em Up
I like to break up pairs when I do most of my games, ice breakers or activities. It helps to keep cliques from forming, develops new interactions and sometimes, it’s just good to shake things up. In order to pair them up deliberately, it’s easier to have them in a random order. To do this,…
Amazon Smile Program
I buy a ridiculous amount of stuff on Amazon. A. LOT. Sometimes it’s for the church, sometimes it’s for personal, sometimes it’s because I have a problem with impulse buying and my Amazon account is set up with one-click purchasing. Recently, I found out that if you buy the purchases through Smile.Amazon.com, Amazon will…
Giant Dodgeball
Dodgeball is fun, but sometimes my teens throw too hard or too aggressively. I think it’s the Wheaties. Dodgeball is no fun if someone gets hurt, so if we want to play, we need some adjustments. One of the adjustments we use often is we play with yoga exercise balls. It adds a whole new…
Water Balloons 2.0
As promised in my Pirate Toss entry, here’s my post on non-water filled water balloons! I host a huge annual event on our Kick-Off weekend called Mess Fest, an event that is outrageous, messy (obviously), and a great draw for new youth and friends. One of the things I use for several games at Mess…
Handy Dandy Youth Ministry Blog 