Flashback Friday (Jan. 21): 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

• Unapproachable Leadership: How do others view you?
• ym360 Trends and Culture Update (Jan. 19)
• Youth Workers Sound Off: What Are The Biggest Challenges Students Face?
• Why Not To Do What The "Other Guys" Are Doing

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.

• John Vandervelde.org--John is one of the great folks at Leader Treks. He writes a short post that containing some very good advice.
• Lars Rood.com--Just a solid article by Lars on how to minister to parents when you don't have kids. If this is you, read this article.
• Orange Leaders.com--Great article on how to have more effective meetings.
• Why Is Marko.com--Marko has been running a "future of youth ministry" feature on his blog. I'm linking to this post because you can access the other posts from it (in case you missed them), but also because the answers are by two guys that know what they're talking about. Lars Rood and Andy Root are legit, and their opinions are valuable. Short read. Check it out.
• Doug Franklin Online.com--This post is so short, but my gosh . . . it says SO much. Doug is really talking about some interesting perspective shifts here. Fascinating stuff.
• Called To Youth Ministry.com--ym360 Contributor Paul Turner writes a great post over on CTYM about the challenges of student-lead ministry.
• Youth Specialties.com--Adam McLane posts three productivity apps for the busy youth worker. I use all three of these apps and they help me tremendously.
• Youth Ministry.com--ym360 contributor and all around good guy Danny Bowers writes a great post about the importance of knowing your weaknesses.
• Rethinking Youth Ministry.com--Thought provoking and challenging article from Brian Kirk. Are you guilty of practicing the "Distractional" model of youth ministry?
• More Than Dodgeball.com--OK, I don't want to pile up on Josh Griffin, who, as I've said before, I have a lot of regard for. But, Josh's experience here is actually quite encouraging (granted, in a twisted sort of way) to youth workers everywhere. We tend to look at guys like Josh who are blessed to be doing ministry in "mega churches" with incredible environments and think they don't struggle with the same things we do. While we all can certainly empathize with Josh, this post proves that this is not the case.
• Life In Student Ministry.com--We're fans of Tim Schmoyer and his always insightful viewpoint on youth ministry. We're excited about this incredible opportunity Tim is offering to youth workers interested in joining the Life In Student Ministry Mentorship program. It sounds great. Check out the details.
• Jesus and Teenagers.com--Benjer McVeigh has been doing some really great posts lately on youth ministry and theology. He's featured different youth ministers, many of them familiar faces to the ym360 community, weighing in with their thoughts. This post links to the other posts in the series.

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.