Youth Ministry Videos

Need A Vision?

2011-06-30T02:56:00.000-07:00

Here is video that I stumbled upon that illustrates a potential vision for your youth and children's work at church. Do not be fooled by it's title:

Aim lower, think smaller, give up, go have a cup of coffee

Activity: Ask your vicar/pastor/minister if you can show this video to the whole church and lets see if we can rise up more volunteers to help see a generation grow in their faith and into the people God has called them to be.

Blessings

Alex

Lord of the Rings Clip No. 1

2011-06-28T08:02:00.001-07:00

Every youth worker loves to use a Lord of the Rings, Matrix or Star Wars clip in their work with young people and I am no different.
The power of using a theme or message found in pop culture allows the young people we work with to experience Christ in different settings and contexts outside of Sunday Church.
So here is my offering:

So sorry I couldn't embed a clip this time hope this is ok! Click here to see the clip!

I am convinced however that we need to keep things fresh and with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, in it's entirety being almost a decade old we need to be looking for more gems to aid us in discussion and thinking about the bigger picture of life, however this is an awesome scene and like those old good hymns, timeless in it's quality!

Activity: The killer line for me here is

King Thoeden:"What can man do against such reckless hate?"

Aragorn "Ride out with me".

In a world that doesn't welcome Christianity with open arms it can often feel like such a burden yet as the old saying goes "a problem halved is a burden shared". If we work with just one other and 'ride out together' we can be twice as creative, twice as passionate and twice as effective so imagine if we ride out as a whole army. Also when they rode out together they were then helped out with a white light laden character (who came back from what seemed like death and has a beard - do you get what they are hinting at!).

Split into groups and think of areas of pain and struggle in our lives (school, work, nightlife) and think of different ways we can creatively share the love of God in those areas. Try putting them into practice!

Much love

Alex

Ice Breaker

2011-06-24T06:35:00.000-07:00

One of our greatest qualities for young people to see, is our ability to take things lightly and laugh at ourselves every once in a while. So much pressure is put on today's generation to keep up appearance and false identity. I have found it a great joy to first break this down by allowing the young people to laugh at our culture on the quest to find some thing deeper.

Check this gem out!

Activity: Play, laugh and think. What is it in our culture, that to the outsider may seem odd and laughable. I do not doubt the passion in these guys' hearts yet sometimes we can build barriers between what we do and those we do it with because we haven't stopped to think.

Keep on rocking like Sonseed!

Alex

Social Action We Can All Try...

2011-06-22T16:02:00.000-07:00

You have probably watched this film, you may have even thrown a film night for your youth showing it but have you tried the logic behind the madness?

Activity: Do it! Split your young people into smaller groups and ask them to try and help out 3 people in big ways. In our youth group at the moment we are looking at how we can bless large charities by blessing the local community (sponsored car washes, gardening etc.)

Post on here any other 'Pay It Forward' ideas you have!

Alex

Social? Movie Quiz!

2011-06-21T05:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a great movie montage you can use for that weekend away social evening or youth club.

Activity: What are the titles of the films shown? Who are the main characters shown? (For answers view the video on youtube by clicking on the video above)

Happy Quizzing!

Alex

Reverse Thinking

2011-06-21T05:25:00.000-07:00

There is not much point me explaining this as the video does an awesome job of it itself.

Activity: I love the 'penny drop' moment in this video and you can use this as a discussion starter about 'metanoia' or the 'turning around' that starts to happen when we begin to follow Jesus

Alex

When Praying Is Hard To Do...

2011-06-21T05:21:00.000-07:00

The young people we work with often struggle through some pretty hardcore stuff and often we have to support and encourage them through this. One of the biggest challenges is so often the challenge of keeping faith alive through the bad times.

This video reminds us that we are not alone in these feelings and it's ok to hurt.

The song and the animation work well as an opening when discussing these hard times and Job-like challenges.

Activity: The song is called 'Something To Say'. What is the 'something' your young people want to say. Write these down on post-it notes and place them on a table. We will start to realise that all young people have burdens of varying extremes. Use this as a prayer activity and pray whilst watching this:

Alex

David's Life in Poetry

2011-06-21T04:48:00.000-07:00

When I became a Christian around 7 years ago if you told me that Christian poetry could be good I would have sent you packing and asked you to take your Wesley Owen birthday card with you. However hope is on the horizon. A good friend of mine, Harry Baker is storming the world (literally! He is in Germany at the moment after having just returned from a tour of the States) with his clever and thought provoking rhymes.

This is one of many amazing poems that could be a great discussion starter in your youth group.

Activity: Ask your young people to select any character or event from the bible and write a poem about them. This is a great way for the youth to get to grips with certain events and people and helps them to relate to the everyday lives of our groups.

Alex

Love Your Enemies

2011-06-21T04:19:00.000-07:00

Probably one of the hardest things for us to handle is the concept of loving those who we find annoying, boring, tiring and sometimes plain detestable. Using these two videos, we can start to scratch the surface on practical ways to combat hatred and dissatisfaction within a group.

This next video puts our problems into perspective a little. If a group of christians can react to tragedy in this way then our small arguments and bickerings seem nothing in comparison.

Activity: Split your group up and ask them to pray for each other in areas they find it hard to forgive people for.

Alex

First Day

2011-06-21T04:13:00.000-07:00

Have you got a new group of young people joining your group in September? They are bound to be feeling nervous and scared, some may even not want to attend. However there are always a few who are excited and confident to jump to the next step.

It's great that JD from scrubs felt the same way on his first day:

Activity: Make sure there are plenty of 'getting to know you games' straight away. Mix up the group through the ages and have socials using games in these groups.

Alex

"Little Christs"

2011-06-21T04:07:00.000-07:00

An age old question is how we can become more like Jesus or as the name Christian suggests "little Christs". Here are two videos, one of the original artist and the second, a homage to the former's greatness

The thing is the second sounds like Elvis, looks a little like Elvis, even moves like Elvis but he is not Elvis, however I can guarantee after song released it spawned a new breed of Elvis fans

We need to strive to sound, act and move more like Jesus so we can see a new generation take an interest in Him.

Activity: Ask the young people what are the qualities Jesus has that attract people to Him? How can we gain more of those qualities whilst using our own individual talents and attributes?

A Song About Love

2011-06-21T03:58:00.000-07:00

Jaeson Ma was a drug addict/ dealer born into a christian household, circumstances and bad decisions led him into prison. Being in prison let him think more about his life and he decided to turn back to his spiritual roots(see more of his story here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISdOi6Pp-JQ). This video featuring Bruno Mars is a great video talking about God's love and His heart for the individual.

Activity: Play this and let young people reflect on whether they have ever felt this kind of love from a friend or relative. How did it make them feel? How can we show that kind of love to those we know?

Alex

Adam to Jesus in Under a Minute

2011-06-21T03:46:00.000-07:00

This video was handy to use to show the exact genealogy from Adam right through to Jesus.

Activity: Give young people a piece of paper and pen. Ask them to write down as many names from the video as they can remember from stories they have heard. Can they place the whole groups events/people or stories chronologically?

Alex