gavoweb

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Youth Ministry

songwriters night at hfumc : come help a youth ministry out

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if you live around the hendersonville tennessee area i want to invite you to our songwriters night tomorrow evening to benefit our youth ministries missions for the summer. it will be at hfumc in our youth lounge area.

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Multi-Award winning songwriters Larry Cordle, Carl
Jackson & Jerry Salley (Cordle, Jackson & Salley) will
be performing this Thursday night, April 16, 7:00pm at
the "Songwriter's Night at Hendersonville First United
Methodist Church (HFUMC). The Grammy, Dove and
IBMA award winning trio have written songs that have
collectively sold over 100 million records, which
includes songs recorded by everyone from Garth
Brooks, Reba McEntire, Ricky Skaggs to The Oak
Ridge Boys, Steven Curtis Chapman and many, many
more. This event is a benefit fundraiser for the Youth
Missions ministries of HFUMC. Door cover will be
$15.00 with further donation support welcomed

nashville allies : nashville area youth worker network

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Starry Night in Nashville

brian senecal & i have been developing this dream/idea to put efforts in building up a nashville area network of youth ministers in collectively building the kingdom. it'd be a three time a year kind of gathering for volunteer, newbie, oldie, paid, intern, etc. youth workers. we are calling it 'nashville allies' and we hope to start in the fall. if you are a nashville area youth worker and want to jump in on this & help us out. start by signing in with our network hub we are using & follow us at nashallies on twitter (if you are already on twitter)

business cards & youth ministry : the green business card

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Picture 2

i've been in youth ministry for going on 15+ years now. in those years i've possessed maybe two business cards, all bought for me by someone else. never in those 15+ years has a teenager asked me for a business card. so why have them? i never saw the need.

now, in this new day of my youth ministry career i find myself doing more networking within the larger church & most recently the nashville (soon to be hendersonville) tech community. i am feeling the need to get some business cards. here are my two options i'm going with.

1. i've put together the sms contxt card. all you need to do is txt 'gavoweb' to 50500 and you will receive some of my basic business card info. this is paperless, which is an excellent 'green' usage. wasn't technology & the computer supposed to get rid of the need for paper?.. right.. well, here is atleast a spot to try something new out that is paperless. not to mention, if you are a youth leader like me, your primary audience is one of people who txt like mad seems logical to use.

2. i am ordering "mini-cards" which are small, baseline essential versions of business cards. now, i don't know if they prove to be something more effective than a stack of traditional business cards, but i like the concept and the coolness factor of being smaller. i might not call this 'green' i don't know the ins and outs of paper product to say that just because this is smaller means it uses less paper. it probably does.. but really i think its cool, not to mention the cool mini card holder.

what about your volunteers : setting up youth ministry infrastructure

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i didn't realize, but i'm not surprised, that chris folmsbee has started attending and helping out with the youth community at church of the resurrection. so it is interesting to read some of the 13 ideas he shares about getting plugged in as a volunteer in youth ministry now.

I think I would assign a veteran volunteer to show them the ropes for a
few weeks in a row.  There is nothing like the feeling of standing in a
room all by yourself.  Crazy awkward.  Remember how you felt as a
teenager when that happened to you?  Yep.  It still feels the same.

I know I’d do a better job following up with new volunteers.  An email
or a phone call asking, “How can we make your time better or make you
feel more comfortable?” can go a long way with a newbie.

being familiar with the folks at cor, i know one of their staff's core questions is how effectively did they provide people opportunities to be in ministry. so it is not a surprise they do this part well. we can all learn from that. if you didn't know they have some great little reads that i keep with me, one on youth ministry & another on recruiting volunteers.

anyways, its a good list to check out. i do mention in comments that there is some need to 'say' that some of those items will happen natuarlly in a smaller environment. but the principles there are solid.