Category Archives: Free Stuff

Initial Volunteer Assessment

[FREE] Initial Volunteer Assessment Sheet

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Working in a military ministry that has military families always moving, our hunt for volunteers is never-ending. We love to put out our feelers to always know who has what talents and how interested they are in serving within our ministry. Half the time, people do not know what youth ministries need which inspired me to put together this initial volunteer assessment sheet. Below is what we look for and at the bottom is the download for the WORD document. Let us know what you think of it.

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road to success

Finding Success As A Beginner Blogger

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This last year has been amazing for the seventy8 Productions blog. We began with nothing, an empty slate, and ideas to put into words. We have shared our favorite memories, but we did share the details of the stats that we have been so excited. Our first post received a whole three views and that month we had ten unique visitors. Now, we are averaging about 4,000 unique viewers a month, a 400,000% increase in a year… not bad.

The dream of blogging began simply as trying to provide some fun stuff for you and record some other thoughts and research for later use. The added benefit that came out of it is that I was able to better conceptualize youth ministry constructs as I prepared for the different relationships and events. When I added the student leadership program and had a summer intern, I planned everything out ahead of time, went through the feedback I received from everyone, and put it into action. I love to converse with great youth workers and tech people, both on the website and through other venues.

Here are the stats over the last nine months:

Monthly Unique Pageviews

While success is easily measured through pageviews, number of comments, and people who have subscribed to your RSS feed, that is a sterile approach to interacting with people. To measure success means more than cold numbers, instead you need to invest the time and energy that can build relationships, share wisdom, and find great resources to have better your own ministries.

We want to share some of the things that we have found to be success. Here are three things we have found to not only increase the number of people that view our website, but make for a better blogging experience.

  1. Give Away Free Stuff. This is by far the best way to increase the views and benefit others. In fact, three of our five top viewed pages were free resources that we gave out and the category of free stuff accounts for more than twenty percent of our traffic overall. At the same time, people offered up some great constructive criticism that will help make better material for the future to share. If you are not offering free stuff on your blog, you are losing out on what you have to share and the views that come with it.
  2. Content Is King, Always. Regardless of if you plan to write to make the money or just for the hobby, you need to know what you are going to write about and write it well. Success does not just fall into your lap. Writing a post may require experiencing something in life or ministry, taking the time to do the research and flesh out an article, or having some professional opinions of hot topics of the week. This will require using SEO techniques to know what people are searching for and viewing, writing about unique material that you are an expert on (or at least know what not to do), and putting in the elbow grease for your posts. If you do not put in the effort, you will not get the results.
  3. Guests Posts Give A Voice To The Audience We love our guest posts. The response to offering guest posts has been amazing and the quality of content was better than we could ever expect. In fact, we plan to make one of the guest authors a regular on the website this month. Not only do we give a voice to a group of people, that week of guest posts not only freed up a week for us at seventy8Productions, but it was the third most active week for us from viewers. Guest posts are a must for all bloggers! Make an event of it.

[FREE] 2 More Christmas Games For Youth Group

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Here are two more games to play at youth group that can easily turn a good Christmas service into a great one. The best part about these games is that while they are challenging, the teens love it! This may also be the best way to hand out those old t-shirts you still have stored up as prizes.

Christmas Movie Quotes Game – Download PDF
Christmas Carol Game – Download PDF

If you play these (even on your own personal time), let us know what you think.

FREEBIE FRIDAY : Fourth Quarter 7-Week Curriculum

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Here is the fourth and final installment of our curriculum. In 1 & 2 Samuel, we will be looking at the life of David, where he started, how he came to be king, the mistakes that he made, and how he was redeemed through his lineage to the birth of Christ. There are so many good stories here to introduce to students all of which can easily be applied to the life of a teenager: knowing God loves you, trusting in Him, living the life God has for you, falling into sin, and yet knowing we can find salvation in Him (Matthew 1).

These lessons cover:

Bible-Based
1 Samuel 16, 1 Samuel 17, 1 Samuel 19, 2 Samuel 7, 2 Samuel 11, Matthew 1

Use it, rework it, just do not resell it.

High School Curriculum (part 4)

FREEBIE FRIDAY : Third Quarter 7-Week Curriculum

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Here is the third installment of our curriculum. Teenage life is radically different from what I was a teenager and that was only eight years ago. They are computer savvy, always “plugged in” to what is going on through texting, Facebook, and Skype calls. Teenage ladies are boy crazy about the latest pop stars, lead actors, and fashion. The young men are already talking about sports, YouTube videos, and who they think is “hottest” in TV shows and movies they watch. It is amazing they have time for school and family with everything that is going on.
Because of their unique experiences from our own teenage years, they have unique views of the world, some of which could probably challenge our own. Yet, they are still in a period of time of transition. Middle school students are hitting puberty and many times do not understand fully the physical changes that are experiencing. At the same time, they have probably figured out “who they are” in their own family and are trying to figure out “who they are” in their own little world at school, in sports, at the mall, and where ever else they go. As for high school students, they may have figured out who they are just in time to face the reality that they will soon be on their own in college or working right after high school. This means facing the unknown and even redefining “who they are” away from what they have known their whole life.

These lessons cover:

Bible-Based
Relationships 01, Relationships 02, Relationships 03, Priorities, Integrity, Hurt, Game Day 03

Use it, rework it, just do not resell it.

High School Curriculum (part 3)

FREEBIE FRIDAY : Second Quarter 7-Week Curriculum

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Here is the second installment of our curriculum. This method of youth ministry allows the Scripture and God to be the authority in the lessons, speaking truth into their lives, and hopefully making getting them excited about the Bible and their faith. This 6-weeks will still be topical and so we will not be progressing through a book of the Bible from week to week, but this will allow us to show them the different books of the Bible and allow those who have not read much of the Bible to become more familiar with it. (Note: The fourth 6-weeks we will progress through 1 & 2 Samuel, instead of being topical)

We will be providing an assortment of verses both as the main Scripture and the other relevant Scriptures. One great opportunity here is that we can connect the Old & New Testaments together to illustrate the lesson’s point. While we are currently under the new covenant that was established through Christ’s sacrifice, the text of the Old Testament speaks endless truth that is useful to us now, so we as leaders should make attempts to tie in both testaments into our lessons.

These lessons cover:

Bible-Based
Bible Based, Shine Your Light, Own Your Faith, Home In Heaven, From Heaven To Earth, Jesus’ Life As A Leader, Death and Return, Game Day

Use it, rework it, just do not resell it.

High School Curriculum (part 2)

FREEBIE FRIDAY : First Quarter 7-Week Curriculum

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Here is the first installment of our curriculum. The goal with these lessons is to serve the military students that go to USAFA Club Beyond. The first 6-weeks of lessons will be the initial setup for us to go where they are at in LIFE, the theme for the whole year. The popular board game has endless ways that we can use them, I have only thought of a few of them for our illustrations and questions. Be sure to share with them each week what the theme is and how it applies to The Game of LIFE as a fun visual illustration.

Many of these students are facing at least one, if not several of the issues that we will be discussing at club in the following lessons. This allows us to discuss things that are going on in their life, get to hear their stories of who they are and what they have experienced, and be able to develop relationships with them.

The hope is that in building these relationships with them during these 6-weeks, we will be able to then go on to share who Jesus is and how he dealt with similar issues of loneliness, pain, and frustration. During this time of building relationships, we should be listening intently on the details of what they have to say, giving validity to what they share, and encouraging them in the accomplishments or supporting them in the tough times.

These lessons cover:

Military-Culture
Dog Tags, Military ID Card, PCS, Deployment, Leadership, Homecoming, Game Day 01

Use it, rework it, just do not resell it.

High School Curriculum (part 1)

Great Free Resources For Writing Curriculum

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I have found several places that I continually draw from when I need relevant and up-to-date illustrations, statistics, games and more. Here is a list of a few that I used this summer.

Barna Group
A great resources for statistics in the Church as a whole. This is one resource you should add to your RSS feed and simply monitor weekly for great reports. These are wonderful to show to volunteers and parents. Occasionally you will get a good chart or stat that can be used directly with students too.

HomeWord Center for Youth and Family
A wonderful website with piles of research waiting to be used for ministry with teens, parents, and volunteers. At the same time, a lot of great articles in here can be used for the sole purpose of illustrations.

KLove
A great database of articles for illustrations to support your sermon or follow up with after a good small group discussion. At the same time, you can pass these on to other staff and volunteers for a lighthearted or encouraging minute.

The Sources For Youth Ministry
A great set of resources for movie clip ideas and discussions, free curriculum, games and skit ideas, and more. A seemingly endless list of possibilities here.

Wing Clips
Wing Clips sole purpose is to provide great video resources for ministry. Sorted by title of the movie or category of the message, this is an invaluable resource.

So what free resources do you have bookmarked?