Blaze Conference Tour Resources

Dare 2 Share’s amazing Marketing Team has been hard at work developing new, cool resources to promote the Blaze conferences! You will find everything from posters, flashbanners, a letter to parents, logos…it’s all found at this link:

http://www.dare2share.org/conferences/resources/

Have fun using these resources to promote the conference in your city and with your teens!

My Sales Team at Dare 2 Share – August Review

I love my Sales Team (all 6 of them, 7 of them starting 9/21) and everything that they have accomplished recently.  They have been successful over the past few months in a very trying economic time and our Blaze conference tour is looking incredible right now!  I love the effort they have put into our success and the results they have been able to generate.  We typically take one of our 15-minute team check-ins at the beginning of a new month to acknowledge the hard work, celebrate what we accomplished for that previous month, and I award 2 “traveling” trophies to celebrate the Ministry Advocate that has earned the Registration Sales trophy and our Curriculum Sales trophy.  These trophies are “traveling” as they change hands at the end of each month if another Ministry Advocate was able to de-throne the previous month’s winner.  This is one of my favorite meetings of the month.

All of that being said, I had a team member approach me a few weeks ago and mentioned to me that I was doing a great job celebrating the top performers, as I should, but I was missing an opportunity I used to take advantage of in celebrating everyone on the team that hit their Call Activities as well as their Sales Numbers.  Example: last month 6 of 7 Ministry Advocates hit their Sales Numbers for the month but only the top performer was rewarded with our trophy for Registration Sales. 

Then this morning I was reading Sales Caffeine by Jeffrey Gitomer and his article was on rewarding those who have earned it.  It hit my right between the eyes that by rewarding my two top performers (sometimes the same person) I was doing a good thing, but by not acknowledging the individual team members that also did their job and hit their numbers, I wasn’t doing a great thing.  He also mentioned blogging about it so here I am typing away!

All of that being said, I am still going to reward my top performers for their successes each month, but I also want to encourage and reward anyone on my Sales Team that go the job done and hit their numbers as well.  Trust me, they will still be fighting for the trophies – they are sales people and they are passionate about what we represent!

August Sales Awards

Registration Sales Trophy – Joni Scudder, Ministry Advocate to Chicago
Curriculum Sales Trophy – John Musil, Ministry Advocate to Columbus

100+% to Sales Forecast – Joni Scudder, Ministry Advocate to Chicago; John Musil, Ministry Advocate to Columbus; Jamie Stanley, Ministry Advocate to Phoenix; Adam Cedillo, Ministry Advocate to Seattle; Chuck Acker, Ministry Advocate to St. Louis.

Exceeding Call Stats – Brian Conn, Ministry Advocate to Denver; Joni Scudder, Ministry Advocate to Chicago

*                    *                    *                    *                    *

Congratulations Team on a great August!  I look forward to celebrating our efforts and success in September!

 

Dare 2 Share’s Blaze conference schedule

Before we kick-off the conference tour in Denver on November 6-7, we have several Youth Leader trainings and lunches scheduled for September and October.  Here is the FIRESTARTER Youth Leader Training line-up:

	City:	Date:	Time:	Location:
	Columbus, OH	09-15-2009	11:00-1:30	Dave & Buster’s
	Lincoln, NE	09-29-2009	11:00-1:00	The Lodge at Wilderness Ridge
	Kansas City, KS	09-30-2009	11:00-1:00	Dave & Buster’s
	Phoenix, AZ	10-06-2009	11:00-1:00	Dave & Buster’s
	Seattle, WA	10-13-2009	11:00-1:00	Marriot Redmond Hotel
	Portland, OR	10-14-2009	11:00-1:00	Bullwinkle’s
	Addison, IL	10-20-2009	11:00-1:30	Dave & Buster’s
	St. Louis, MO	10-27-2009	11:00-1:00	Dave & Buster’s
	Springfield, MO	11-17-2009	11:00-1:00	Incredible Pizza

CLICK HERE to RSVP to attend the Youth Leader training closest to you!

In addition to these great trainings we are offering this fall, make sure to get your teens out to our Blaze conference tour this year!

Denver, CO	November 6-7, 2009
Columbus, OH	February 5-6, 2010
Lincoln, NE	February 26-27, 2010
Phoenix, AZ	March 5-6, 2010
Seattle, WA	March 12-13, 2010
Chicago, IL	March 19-20, 2010
St. Louis, MO	March 26-27, 2010

CLICK HERE to learn more about this year’s conference tour and to get your FREE promotional DVD!

D&W: pray

So prayer may sound like something that is more focused on worship vs. discipleship or evangelism.  And I really wouldn’t argue that point.  It does make sense and prayer is definitely a way that we worship God assuming our prayers are interactive (2-way communication) instead of me posting my concerns to God and saying Amen.  Prayer is vital to my worship of God.

Prayer is also a powerful tool when it comes to evangelism.  I would go so far as to say that evangelism that is not fueled by prayer probably sets the stage for the most ineffective evangelism effort one could pursue.  Essentially, you have stacked the cards against yourself.  As you continue to push your teens to share their faith and reach their lost friends for Christ, be sure that their efforts are rooted in prayer. 

Idea – have your teens start praying for a list of their friends who don’t know Christ.  It may just be 1 friend, it could be many more than that.  Simply have them start praying for those friends now.

• Pray for their salvation. 
• Pray for insights into how they can relationally & relentlessly reach them with the Gospel. 
• Pray for their campus and the school year (you don’t have to wait until See You at the Pole). 
• Pray for their Youth Ministry. 

Could you imagine how amazing our Youth Ministries would be and how effective our teens could be if they bathed this next school year, the Dare 2 Share Blaze conference tour, and their friends in prayer starting now? 

Pray!

HS Small Group 4/21/09

I am so blown away by my teens tonight!

I had told them about a month ago that we would begin going out to different hang-out spots to start spiritual conversations and share our faith.  So tonight was the night that we would get after it.  When I told the kids they were stoked!  Then after the euphoria wore off, a few of them had moments of holy crap, what are we gonna say?  Before we left we reviewed the GOSPEL acronym they learned at the Dare 2 Share conference to get it fresh in everyone’s mind.    Then we headed to the Orchard (a local shopping mall).

I broke the 10 teens into 3 teams making sure there was at least 1 strong evangelist in each group, prayed for them, and then we set out.  Here are a few observations about what happened:

1. Each group engaged in at least 3 spiritual conversations with an individual or a group of people (teens and adults alike).
2. To open the conversation they would tell these strangers (a few kids got to share with people they knew from school) they were hanging out with their Bible study group and wanted to ask a few questions.
3. None of the groups got shut down.  Everyone they approached was willing to share, talk, and listen.  It was amazing!
4. We had conversations with a variety of different people: a 30 something agnostic man, an 18 year old Zehn Buddhist, a couple of Catholic high schoolers, a few families, a few teens who hadn’t quite figured out what they believed, and a few believers as well.
5. In some instances, because authentic conversations and relationships were started, cell #s were exchanged and promises to continue the conversations were made.
6. My teens walked away impressed with themselves because they realized how easy it was to have spiritual conversations and share their faith.
7. No one was led to Christ tonight, and I’m honestly not too surprised by that.  However, after tonight’s experience these teens are poised and ready to share their faith with their friends at school.

I’m stoked right now.  God literally filled my heart with joy watching these teens share their faith and seeing the difference that they could make and what they are capable of.

I can’t wait to do it again…I can’t wait to hear the stories of how they shared their faith with their friends in school later this week…I can’t wait to see what God will continue to do with the rest of their lives…