flashback friday (aug. 13): 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 all the interesting 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

• Youth Ministry Essentials: Crafting A Bible Study Lesson From Scratch
• Equipping Students To Be Influencers
• The Two Words of Community In Your Youth Ministry
• Back-To-School Prayer Events For Your Youth Ministry
• Youth Ministry Essentials: 6 Steps To Helping Hurting Students

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.

• Mike King--Mike King is a great voice of experience and practice in youth ministry. This blog post is about his experience at the TEDX conference. The post is nice, but the video at the end is a great reminder of the intersection of dated educational models and the social networked-infused, Internet 2.0 world teenagers and young adults live in.
• More Than Dodgeball--Josh Griffin does a lot well. One thing is communicating with students. Josh gives a glimpse of how he uses texting to encourage his students to pray and stay engaged with his ministry throughout the week.
• LukeTrouten.com--Luke turns us on to a FREE TEXTING service you can use to send group texts to your students.
• Doug Franklin--As always, Doug is dead on. This short but accurate post examines what really matters in youth ministry.
• Life In Student Ministry--Tim Schmoyer turns his readers on to free stuff every Friday. This Friday, Tim alerts his readers to The Church On The Move and their wonderful propensity to give away lots of free stuff.
• Youthministry.com--Great article by Nathaniel Dame on how to use a purpose statement in your youth ministry
• Jonathan Mckee--Jonathan does as good a job as anyone of breaking down culture. He has had his sights on Katy Perry lately. Here is a short look at Perry and her influence, and a shout out to a longer piece coming soon.
• Rethinking Youth Ministry--This is a great idea. Help your students understand the current cultural discussion about social justice by examining the case made for this in Scripture, as well as a social justice scavenger hunt.
• Bill Nance--A really great and super practical list of Fall kick-off ideas from Bill Nance.

That will do it, folks. As always, have a great weekend . . . And THANK YOU for the chance to serve you as part of the ym360 community.

Share your thoughts with the youthministry360 community:

• As usual, we want to hear your thoughts. Any particular post catch your eyes? Make you think? Did you disagree with anything? Let us know! Your voice makes the ym360 community stronger.