flashback friday (april 6): this week's links from the youth ministry blogosphere

One of the things we are committed to at ym360 is Networking. Our vision for networking is connecting you to people and organizations doing awesome youth ministry.
Flashback Friday is a feature where we give you the run down of some of the awesome posts from the past week in the youth ministry blogosphere. Consider it our way of keeping you connected with what is going on. 

This week's posts from the ym360 Blog

• Does Your Youth Ministry Make A Lasting Impact On Those It Serves?--Danny Bowers
• What Youth Ministers Can Learn From A Small Town Newspaper--Andy Blanks
• Youth Worker BOOST: Listen Up--Richard Parker
• A Preventative Maintenance Youth Ministry--Chris Wesley

Posts From Other Awesome People

We search the Internet to bring you relevant information to help you be a better youth worker. Here are some links from posts we thought were pretty great.

Fav Read Of The Week:

“The New Face of Marriage and Family”by Jonathan McKee and David Smith

• If you aren't yet aware of the statistics that show a changed (not changing) landscape of marriage and family you need to be. It has HUGE implications for youth ministry. And not only how we'll lead students in the future, but how we can address attitudes in this current generation of teenagers. Jonathan and David pass along some awesome stats and some really solid takeaways. Worth a read, for sure.

The Rest Of The Best:

• Aaron Crumbey—“Conversation Tactics for: Youth Workers”
• Brian Kirk—“Teens Create Amazing Anti Bullying Video”
• Dave Wright—"A Brief History of Youth Ministry”
• Geoff Stewart—"Weigh In: Volume 18 – Navigating A Death With A Student"
• Greg Farah—“10 Actions To Take When You Don’t Like What You See In The Mirror”
• Jeremy Smith—“Teens & Tech: Texting”
• Len Evans—10 Things That’ll Get You Fired
• Mark Oestreicher—“Do You Razoo?”
• Michael Wallenmeyer—“7 Ways To Build A Church That Hurts The Kingdom of God.” (Not youth ministry specific, but if you replace “Church” with “youth ministry” it's highly instructive!)
• Ron Edmonson—“7 Pieces of Advice I Give to Young Pastors” (Another that's not youth ministry specific, but great words for young (and old!) youth pastors.)

Bonus Read!

"An Interview With Andy Blanks"by Jeremy Smith

• Jeremy's blog, seventy8productions.com, is one of our favorite sites out there. I was really honored to be interviewed by him on our new book, "The 7 Best Practices For Teaching Teenagers The Bible." Check the interview out and while you're there, look around the site if you haven't already. Jeremy and his crew are doing awesome work.

That's all the links for this week. As always, have an awesome weekend . . . And THANK YOU for the chance to serve you as part of the ym360 community.