flashback friday (dec. 3): 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

• FREE Christmas Lesson From ym360
• Youth Ministry Essentials: What To Do When Plans Change
• Stressed Out? Or Burned Out?: The Hard Work of Youth Ministry
• Seeking The Lost: The Drug Users In Your Youth Group

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.

• Greg Stier.org—Greg Stier of Dare 2 Share writes a great post: "3 Ways To Get Teens Sharing Their Faith." It's short and dead on.
• Youth Worker.com—Good youth culture stuff from Youthworker Journal. Short read.
• Youth Ministry Ideas.com—Good idea on how to have a little Christmas fun with your staff.
• Youth Ministry Geek.com—Jeremy writes the second part of the series, "Audio Podcasting, 101." If you are looking for some tips/advice on podcasting, this is a great place to start.
• Think Next Now.com—ym360 Contributor Mark Cox writes a great post on communicating with your pastor. Worth a read, for sure.
• Resurgence.com—Resurgence is not a youth ministry blog, but I thought this short post on family ministry was helpful. Maybe something to pass along to parents.
• Steve Cullum.com—Steve posts about how to get a really cool discussion guide to go along with the next installment of the Narnia series, "Voyage of the Dawntreader."
• Junior High Ministry.com—Kurt writes a great post on what his personal pillars of leadership are. Thought provoking, short, and informative.
• Ron Edmonson.com—Ron does not write a youth ministry blog, but does write extensively on leadership and the Church. This is a great post on the problems that arise between (in our case) youth workers and their senior pastors over unspoken expectations. Great post.
• Rethinking Youth Ministry.com—Looks like the guys over at Rethink will be posting some Advent ideas throughout the season (yay!). Here is a post that sort of kicks it off.
• More Than Dodgeball.com—Love, love, love this post from Josh. And the picture says a million words. It owns me to see that 10th grader up there doing his thing. Great stuff.
• Marathon Youth Ministry.com—Oh man . . . I loved this post from ym360 Contributor, Chris Wesley. I can totally relate. If you have ever called a student by the wrong name, read this!
• Lars Rood.com—New friend Lars Rood writes a post about some really thought provoking stuff from Mark Matlock. Some great insights on the future of youth ministry.
• Kenda Dean.com—Really, a must read for youth workers from Kenda Dean's blog. I love the post title: "Cheating: The White Collar Crime Of Schools."
• Doug Franklin.com—Short (as always) and meaningful post from Doug. If you have ever thought your students were too immature to lead your youth ministry, read this.
• Being Ministry.com—I am technically cheating here! This blog was written a couple of weeks ago by my friend Paul Martin. Paul has started a new blog and I wanted to feature this article. It's a short and sweet post entitled, "My 10 Commandments of Discipleship." Worth a read!

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.