It's kind of like an eye exam. See if you can identify all 5 animals that we have stacked on top of each other in these images.

Students may be famous for being on their devices, but how much have they paid attention to the news about their favorite apps? See how many big headlines they’ve caught as you challenge them to guess via trivia style, move-to-the-side-of-the-room, or call it out as a turn-to-a-friend-and-guess icebreaker.

There have been a lot of famous monkeys in the history of pop culture. See how many of these monkeys/gorillas you can correctly name.

All it takes is the right prompt to help your students and leaders discover something interesting about each other. This will get them moving as they do, too, as they shift from one side of the room to the other (or raise their left hand or right hand, if you have a big group). Have a blast as you find out if they “DID” or “DIDN’T” do it!

The solar eclipse of 2024 was all over the news… and so were several products that were themed to the event. Challenge your group to separate the actual products from the made-up ones in this wild game. In each round, players will be presented with odd options from the mouthwatering to the downright bizarre. Players vote by holding up a thumbs up if they think the product is true or a thumbs down if they believe it's false. After all the votes are in, reveal the truth behind the product - was it really eclipsed or just a figment of someone's imagination? So gather your students, prepare to be eclipsed, and let the celestial hilarity begin!

What if your students’ single life or dating world wasn’t at the mercy of their latest crush “crushing back” but was incredibly meaningful and life-giving on its own? What if they became the kind of friend who could inspire real meaning in their friend circle? What if they knew how to be especially and appropriately thoughtful in letting their special someone feel like a special someone? What if they had a genuine understanding of the freedom God gives them when they trust Him in all of these things, whether their relationship status changes or not? 

There’s a lot of advice floating around on all of this, right? Every one of your students probably already has a set of answers for all the questions about what it means to be single, dating, a friend, or romantic. But whether those conclusions were inherited from others around them, movies they watch, celebrities they follow, church messages, or personal experiences, there’s so much more room to let God reset them with new questions that can get them to healthier places. 

In SINGLE, DATING, FRIENDSHIPS, & ROMANCE, your students will discover the genius wisdom and unconditional love of God through a lot of laughter, interaction, honesty, and opportunities to reflect. Maybe they’ll even consider trading in whatever “answers” they’ve been living with for something healthier as they learn what it looks like to ask some new questions and operate out of a life-long relationship with Jesus. Throughout it all, your students will discover that they’re worth it, and so is what they’re fighting for!

How are you being intentional about ensuring that your current students feel seen, welcome, and pursued by your ministry? How do you help a new student feel like they belong? One of the things I’ve been experimenting with lately is sending postcards or cards to students and leaders. Let me tell you just one of the things I’ve noticed: There’s power in writing postcards! A handwritten note or card is not only a lost art form, but it’s also a unique and simple way to say, “I saw you,” “You are welcome/wanted here,” and “You matter to us because you matter to God.” So, let me share some tips and even an example of what sending some cards to your students, guests, and leaders could look like in your ministry context.

If you’re anything like me, you are always on the lookout for event ideas for your student ministry that feel fresh, don’t break the bank, aren’t solely focused on games/physical activity, and capture the attention/imagination of your students. In this video, I want to share one of the ideas we created to do just that: a student-led film festival that still has our students talking and counting the months until we host it again next year. 

Fair warning to all my fellow youth workers: in this video, I’m going to step on some toes (youth worker toes, parent toes, church leadership toes) and challenge you to join me in doing something that, for some reason, in our culture, sounds wildly controversial. My challenge isn’t for your youth ministry to go vegan. My challenge isn’t for you to stop playing games. I’m not even going to suggest that there is a correct timespan for a sermon. What I am going to do is to tell you why I disabled all my push notifications on my phone, and strongly suggest that you consider doing the same.

I think that we are all familiar with the Great Commission that is found in Matthew 28. I want to suggest, as a starting place, that the Great Commission is what youth ministry is all about. I think we'd all agree that we're not just about entertaining; we're not just about enculturating teenagers into the way of the church; we're about making disciples. And most of us in youth ministry are highly intentional in one way or another about how we go about doing that. That's what we want to consider in this video: reframing discipleship and what that could look like.

Working with teenagers, especially post-pandemic, you are most likely fully aware that adolescent mental health issues are as significant and debilitating as they are widespread (and growing). In fact, according to the Director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy, “The average high school student today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950s.” So what can we do, as youth ministry leaders, to lean in and help our students who are coping with or struggling to navigate mental health issues? In this single-session Masterclass, Jon provides seven thoughts to help you get started.

In this single-session Masterclass video, we will explore the two-and-a-half ways that you can approach summer programming/calendaring, which will help you absolutely crush it. We will explore the pros and cons of these approaches in detail, along with one ministry failure story and one idea for each approach that you can try out. Nick also shares five outside-of-the-box connection ideas you can try this summer (complete with downloadable examples). All of this is to capture significant summer momentum and set yourself up for a fantastic fall return from a fruitful youth ministry summer!

In this single-session Masterclass, Josh addresses a leadership topic that is oftentimes frustrating for people. We love the joys of student ministry. We love it when we can cast a vision for something that sticks and that people get excited about and want to follow us to see it come to fruition. But what about those other seasons where we cast vision, and nothing happens? What about those times when you get super excited about something—a new program a new idea, a new initiative, whatever it is—and we cast that vision to church leadership or families or our volunteers or our students, and they look at us with a little bit of confusion like we have four heads? So, let’s talk about what to do (and not do) when our vision doesn’t stick.

No matter the size of your ministry. No matter how long you’ve been there or what type of church you participate in, chances are, you’ve had experiences with parents who may be a little bit more “needy” than other families in your ministry. These are the families who are a little more opinionated or maybe more willing to share their opinions with you (and everyone else) more than the rest. We’re talking about the families whose emails you leave unread just a little bit longer because, honestly, you’re not totally sure how to respond. The families that call your phone you may send them to voicemail because you want to hear what they have to say before you answer or call back. It’s the family that on a Sunday after service, you’re standing in the lobby, and you see somebody walk into you, and you go, “Ohh man, that’s so and so, and I’m not sure I’m ready to have this conversation.” We all have families in our ministry who we just struggle with, right? We don’t hate them. We don’t dislike them. However, at the end of the day, they just make life a little bit more difficult for you, and we want to know how to navigate, how to engage, and how to care for these families really well because God has entrusted us with that task. God has placed those families in our church, so we don’t just want tactics or tips and tricks to figure out how to avoid these families or just pass them off to someone else. We want to be pastors. In fact, God has invited us into this as pastors, and we have a responsibility and, hopefully, a desire to care well for the people that God has placed in our ministry context. So, in this single-session Masterclass, Josh talks about difficult parents and five things to consider when choosing to pastor them well.

In the journey of faith, the decision to be baptized marks a significant milestone for many individuals, particularly students, who are embarking on their spiritual path. It is a moment of profound significance, signifying their commitment to follow Christ and embrace the teachings of Christianity. In navigating the complexities of guiding students through the baptismal journey, a multifaceted approach that prioritizes timely action, is intentional with inclusive discussions, and one that sits on a solid foundation rooted in Scripture is indispensable. In this three-lesson module, we will discuss how to create a baptism counseling strategy that approaches the subject of baptism with humility, openness, and reverence—one that engages in meaningful dialogue, listening attentively to the voices of tradition, Scripture, and the Spirit. And one that extends grace and hospitality to all who seek to explore the depths of faith.

Youth ministry changes quickly depending on what's going on in the church, what's happening in the culture, the makeup of the current students involved in the ministry, and literally hundreds of other factors. These changes often go unnoticed because we, as youth ministry leaders, are too busy or assume nothing has changed. If we don't take a step back and assess our ministry, we are in danger of becoming less effective in our reach and discipleship. Having recently stepped into a couple of new ministry environments, each with its own unique contexts, I learned just how much value there is in the ability to quickly and accurately assess each context. With my degree in business combined with a fair amount of youth ministry experience, it occurred to me that the ability to perform a SWOT analysis could be a real game-changer for youth ministry leaders. So, in this five-lesson module, I will break down a SWOT analysis for you and discuss how to apply it to your youth ministry. 

For anyone who has ever felt unqualified to share the Good News, this training is for you. My Eight: Embrace and Engage in the Wonder of Evangelism uses Scripture and stories from Dr. Newton’s life to make plain how not only are we, as Christ-followers, more than capable of sharing the Gospel, but we are also called to do so. It does away with the idea that you must have a microphone or a stage to make Jesus known, but instead invites us to see the beauty and joy of embracing and engaging in evangelism everyday.

Every Disney movie has some recognizable symbol. Have a couple of players face off to see who can guess the name of the movie (not the character) first!

See who can get the closest to the actual answer.

Can your group recognize which animals that are Omnivores (that eat meat and plants)? Test their knowledge on this multiple-choice quiz. Play it as a face-off or having everyone stand and vote (winners stay standing, losers sit down). Enjoy!

Simply guess "Yes" or "No" if you think these items hit the target weight of 50 pounds.

There have been a lot of famous cats in the history of pop culture. See how many of these cats you can correctly name.

Everyone grows up with a mix of awkward phases and shining moments. See if your students can recognize what some of their favorite celebrities looked like back then. Play it as an icebreaker, in teams or as a face-off!

Can you match these famous frontmen with the bands they are a part of? Let's find out.