Trends in Youth Ministry Tools

I had a great opportunity to hang out in San Antonio Texas last week with a bunch of youth pastors. It was a refreshing week with lots of hanging out and late night coffee sessions. For those of you who were involved with the discussion on trends in youth ministry and youth pop culture below are the notes I promised to post. I also put the link to Student Ministry Connect. This is a relatively new social network just for those of us involved in student ministry! I know that the last thing we all need is another web site to manage BUT this one is actually worth the time and has a great feel. Log on and sign up. You will see Yancy and other pre-teen/ jr high banner wavers!

It can be difficult, even when you hang out with students in your ministry every week, and we have all made that mistake where we incorrectly reference something in pop culture and kids look at us like we have suddenly become completely out of touch. At the end of the day, I'm in the camp that says loving students is more important that knowing every nuance of a student's subculture . . . but it doesn't hurt to do some quick homework. Paul modeled this for us in his travels. Here are some links and tools that could help you with just a few minutes a week.

trendwatching.com
cypu.org
mryouth.com
repnation.com
simplyyouthministry.com
Student Ministry Connect

tools for texting students:
constantcontact.com
eztext.com