Camps Retreats Missions And Service Ideas

Nearly 200 ideas for planning meaningful, memorable experiences for your kids! -Camps & Retreats . . . The drive up the mountain . . . The opening talk . . . The outdoor activities . . . The closing fireside -- here's a lodgeful of ideas for organizing successful camps and retreats. - Missions . . . Because even foreign mission work can start within our own borders, you'll find dozens of ideas for helping overseas missionaries right here at home. A used-Bible drive, a scavenger hunt for missionary supplies -- activities like these not only benefit missionaries, but also help your kids understand the personal, local aspects of mission work. - Service . . . Expose your students to others' needs! Inside you'll find ways to help children, the community at large, the elderly, the poor and homeless, shut-ins, and the sick and disabled Whether you're a youth worker or recreation director in a church, school, club, or camp -- Camps, Retreats, Missions, & Service Ideas is your storehouse of proven, youth-group tested ideas.

The spiritual formation of young people can often focus on encouraging their personal spiritual practices, and perhaps linking them to a local youth group. While both are important, Networks for Faith Formation argues that a far wider set of relationships are needed to help faith grow. The aim of Networks for Faith Formation is to describe and commend eight key networks, relational bonds that nurture and nourish faith. The eight networks are "bedroom practices" (personal faith), church, family, friends, mentors, small groups, events and gatherings, and mission and service. The description of each network draws on biblical studies, practical theology, and the social sciences, and practical ideas for helping young people engage with such networks are included throughout the book. In a context where some overlook the complexity of spiritual formation, Networks for Faith Formation is an important resource for church leaders, youth ministers, and parents seeking to help young people grow in faith. Since relational bonds are key for people of any age, it can also help all within the church understand the need for relationships in spiritual growth.

In this inspired resource from Youth Specialties, students are introduced to the mechanics and heart of small group dynamics through several meetings. They follow 27 topical meetings spanning such subjects as facing life's tension, self-esteem, clarifying future goals, friends and family. A valuable asset for outreach and evangelism groups, discipleship groups, Sunday school midweek cell groups and camps or retreats.

Nearly 400 more wild, creative games for guaranteed fun! - Baseball and Kickball Games . . . The national pastime is hereby turned on its ear by more nutty variations than you can shake a Louisville Slugger at. Plus other diamond games, like kickball. - Swimming Pool and Lake Games . . . Whether your water is a pond, pool, or Puget Sound, we've got contests, activities -- even a spectator Water Carnival (see page 117). - Wide Games . . . Got a few acres and a few hours to organize, strategize -- and then use stealth and cunning to infiltrate enemy lines, smuggle contraband through customs, or detect (and dispatch) aliens? These adventure games are perfect for camps and retreats! - Golf Games . . . You don't need manicured courses, motorized carts, or polyester pants. What you do need are people willing to golf with marshmallows, rubber bands, hula hoops, and croquet mallets. - Frisbee Games . . . Portable, ubiquitous, and supremely cool, flying discs hold hours of entertainment for your group. In fact, why not plan an entire day of Frisbee games? Plus . . . A bevy of relay races, outdoor games especially for large and small groups, 30-some soccer and hockey games, alternative football games, and enough water games (including water balloon games) to give your group a sopping good summertime! Whether you're a youth worker or recreation director in a church, school, club, or camp -- Games 2 is brimming with notoriously wild, creative, and youth-group tested games!

You know them as hilarious, boisterous skits that get kids involved, whether they're hamming up front, or in the audience cheering for the good guys, hissing the bad guys, and getting nearly as animated as the onstage actors. Better yet, these no-rehearsal skits are comic takes on 24 classic Bible stories, from Babel to Zacchaeus. Use these skits to take your students into or out of your Bible lesson -- for the humor never buries the central message of the Bible passage. Inside you'll find 12 Old Testament and 12 New Testament stories -- like these: - The First Tongue Twister (the Tower of Babel) - Josephine's Dream (Joseph and his brothers) - The Young and the Hairless (Samson and Delilah) - Dave, the Wave, and the Giant Kahuna (David and Goliath) - Dances with Lions (Daniel) - World Serious: The Empire Strikes Out (the temptation of Jesus) - Good Sam, the Levis, and Judas Priest (parable of the Good Samaritan) - Showdown at Tombstone (Jesus and the demon-possessed man) Unchurched teenagers who can't tell Samson from Solomon, or long-time youth group kids -- everyone will love not merely hearing or reading Bible stories, but doing them. Welcome to more than a year's worth of slapstick, pratfalls, and melodrama. These Bible-story skits are anything but solemn, but they'll make Bible stories memorable for your students.

As profound, as relevant, as funny as you are . . . teenagers still listen to each other more than to an adult youth worker.You may grimace, but you can’t deny it--students talking to each other usually means more to them than adults talking to them.The Student Leadership Training Manual helps you equip your senior highers for leading their peers and taking charge of as much of the ministry as they want or are able--helping and evangelizing their peers . . . organizing ministry teams . . . planning and executing their own youth ministry programming.Here are 31 training sessions for discipling student leaders in a small-group setting--sessions that start in the Bible and reach deep into teenagers’ experience . . . ready for you to implement a clear and effective program that trains your students for higher levels of leadership, regardless of where they are now.Plus 24 pages just for you, a veritable primer on how to cultivate student leadership:The role of adultsAuthority vs. responsibilitySetting student leaders up for successTeaching students not just the whats, but the whys and howsHelping them discover their spiritual giftednessPerfect for youth workers, CE directors, associate pastors, and small-group leaders--anyone who works with a youth group’s core kids.

This is a manual for quick and convenient access to the spectrum of administrative and managerial tasks that face youth workers every day with a companion CD-ROM that includes not only a student contact database, but all the book's forms in editable format.

In this thoughtful, comprehensive guide you will find ideas for encouraging spiritual growth in young people by one of the most authoritative voices in youth ministry today.