D&W: Building an online community of Youth Leaders

This is stating the obvious, but as many of you know I am a huge fan of Deep & Wide Youth Ministry.  That’s why I blog about it so much, train on it, discuss with Youth Leaders through email and phone calls…it’s in my DNA.  That being said, as much as I love to explain the concept and strategy and introduce Youth Leaders to this philosophy, I have my limitations (I know, stating the obvious again ).  While I have the opportunity to lead a small group for our Youth Ministry at Northern Hills, I am not at the helm of the ministry itself.

That being said, I am looking to grow the online community of Youth Leaders who are implementing Deep & Wide Youth Ministry.  Starting in May (a little over a month away) I want to feature guest bloggers through this site that are actually doing D&W Youth Ministry.  If you would like to contribute, leave me a comment below and I will gladly follow-up with you.  I am looking for Youth Leaders who are willing to blog once a month.  Topics of these blogs may vary, but the goal is for you to share your successes, failures, ideas, and things you are trying as they relate to “doing” D&W Youth Ministry.

I have a few Youth Leaders on board, but my goal is to grow this into an ongoing and growing community of Youth Leaders, not just a select few.  Let’s connect and I can share more of the details. 

TWITTER-pated

If you couldn’t tell by my blog, I love online social networking.  It allows me to have “relationships” and stay in touch with friends, family and youth workers all over the world.  How cool is that?  Who would have thought even 10 years ago you could have a global youth workers network literally at your finger tips?  Technology allows us to do some really cool stuff – and TWITTER  is currently my favorite.

Here at Dare 2 Share we have just begun utilizing TWITTER as a way for you (youth workers) to keep up to date with the latest happenings in our various conference regions.  Follow any one of our conference regions by clicking on their TWITTER link below:

D2SDenver
D2SColumbus
D2SLincoln
D2SPhoenix
D2SSeattle
D2SChicago
D2SStLouis

See you in cyberspace!

Teen-to-Teen Evangelism

Dare 2 Share Ministries is beginning to move in a direction that we have been praying about and discussing for the past several months.  As you may know, Dare 2 Share is all about mobilizing teenagers to relationally and relentlessly reach their generation for Christ.  We are extremely committed to sharing the Gospel and training teenagers to do the same.  With that said, this new direction has us focusing in on the end result of training and equipping teenagers to share the Gospel.  We are beginning to aggressively dive into teen-to-teen evangelism OR what we also refer to as peer-to-peer evangelism among teenagers.

As we begin to do some research and gather data from other ministries who are also interested and invested in this cause, I was hoping that you as a Youth Leader/Worker/Director/Pastor would provide a little front-line feedback “from the trenches” for me.  Thanks for taking a few minutes to answer some or all of the following questions (if you only answer a few select questions, please indicate which questions with their number). 

1. What does evangelism look like in your Youth Ministry setting?
2. Are you currently seeing the teenagers in your Youth Ministry sharing their faith with their friends?
3. If yes, what percentage of your group is doing so?
4. What are you doing (curriculum, conferences, training, etc.) to assist and equip your teens to share the Gospel with their friends?
5. What are some of the challenges you face in motivating your teens for peer-to-peer evangelism?
6. What resources would help both you and your teens accomplish this goal of teenagers sharing their faith with their friends?

Another option, post a blog on this subject yourself and leave a link for me in the comments below.  I would love to read your thoughts on the topic.  Thanks again for your time and help!

Deep & Wide LIVE Chat

I had the opportunity to connect with friend and Youth Ministry hero Tim Schmoyer today as we are planning for a LIVE online discussion concerning Dare 2 Share’s Deep & Wide Youth Ministry.  The event is scheduled for Friday, January 23rd @ 2pm EST.  I want to encourage all of you to join in the discussion as anyone and everyone can call in or log 0nto the website and participate through the chat room.  It’s a pretty cool experience.  In fact, don’t wait until our Deep & Wide discussion to chime in and participate with Tim’s weekly LIVE Youth Ministry Conversations. 

For those of you who aren’t too familiar with Dare 2 Share’s Deep & Wide Youth Ministry take time to check it out.  Grab a cup of coffee, sit back in your favorite chair, and take a few minutes to read the Deep & Wide Paper.  If you have more than a few minutes, read the expanded paper.  It’s time we dove in and caught the wave of Youth Ministry that is transformational in our lives and in the lives of our teens.

HS Small Group 12/1/08

Tonight was another sweet night as our group dove into a great spiritual question that stirred up a little controversy but even more than that, prompted the probing into additional questions that we will tackle in the weeks to come.   This week we asked the teens, “If someone lives their whole life doing bad things, and then on their death bed hear’s the Gospel and accepts Jesus, do they still get to go to heaven?”  We had opinions all over the board from yes to no and everything in between.  Typically, with the ALT-ernative teaching style, we try to avoid Yes/No questions because it can limit conversation but our group plowed through and asked additional questions about once saved, always saved, faith vs. works, if I have been raised in church am I a Christian.  It was 20-30 minutes of solid conversation.  And God did another amazing work beyond what Sam and I did with the teens.  A brother and sister combo both accepted Christ into their life tonight…WOOHOO!!!  I love it as our group is all over Shreddin’ the Gnar!

Above and beyond what we are seeing unfold in our small group on Monday nights, our teens have committed to share their faith with 5 friends that don’t know Christ = Shreddin’ the Gnar.  Our group has compiled a list of 109 names of teens that don’t know Christ that we are going to go all out with the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

In addition to our small group Shreddin’ the Gnar, here’s a great testimony from a Youth Leader who attended the Washington, DC conference earlier this month.  Check out what he is doing with his teenagers!

 Hey Greg, I wanted to encourage you! We came back from the DC conference and wanted to capture the commitment that teens made to shred the gnar with 5 friends. So this past week at youth we challenged them to sign a board. It is really cool to see the changes that God has used D2S to have an impact. I resonate in a huge way with the deep & wide approach. It has been an answer to many prayers i have had over the last decade of serving in youth ministry. I am on the edge of my chair waiting to hear about the campus outreach component you have in the pipeline. I want to be able reach the teens that don’t have Christian friends. Let me know if you need a guinea pig ministry to test it out on. Cheers mate! In Christ, Andrew