Great new Small Group resource for Jr high Students!

8/18/09
Brooklyn Lindsey has written an awesome new resource with Zondervan and Youth Specialties called Opposite Day that you have to check out! We might all poke fun at the old ‘Would you rather’ books today (why does familiarity breed contempt?) but the fact is that those resources worked GREAT to get kids talking AND STILL DO! That is why we all know what comes after, “Would you rather kick a puppy or . . . (if you don’t know what comes next then the answer is below). Of course everyone who has ever worked with Jr high boys knows that 8th grade boys will answer “Both!”. Brooklyn's new book is like a new and clever second generation Would you rather that will get your kids, and leaders, talking. Get it and check out Brooklyn’s other resource, “Confessions of not so supermodel”.


I met Brooklyn a few years ago at a Jr high youth worker meeting and was blown away at how many ideas she had. I was impressed not only with her Rolodex-Idea brain that didn’t stop but also her deep passion for kids, Jesus and injustice. I was so pumped to open up a copy in my mailbox of Opposite Day. When Brooklyn described her new project to a small group of jr high pastors at dinner we all had a great time batting the idea around. During our 4 day meeting the term opposite day became it’s own punch line several times. I knew then that this project had legs.

Believe invited Lindsay to come and check out our Florida event last spring. I knew that she would be a valuable source of ideas and would ultimately push us on some aspect of what we do. We had a great time and look forward to have her speak more into our intionality with jr high programing. Lindsay will be featured in our 2010 Messiah Tour publicity mailing next month in a powerful quote endorsing the Believe Tour. Here is what she had to say about Believe:

What impressed me most about the junior high believe tour was it's ability to do exactly what they claim to do, lead Jr. highers in worship and discipleship that makes sense to them. They keep things insanely creative, surprising, passionate, relevant, and totally Jr. high. I love that many of the worship leaders are junior high students themselves. They rocked. It's one of those affordable and accessible events that's a "must do". Clear away the clutter on your ministry calendar and make room for junior high believe, you won't be disappointed!

Opposite Day is another resource Believe will be carrying on the Messiah Tour as we ramp up our jr high intentional resources available online and at CIY events!


Answer: . . . .or make a child cry.”

A look at the Best from the Speak Tour

Today I am cranking out content for the new Believe Web site. Publicity will hopefully go to print later today and when it hits youth pastor's desks in the next few weeks we will have all the new Messiah Tour content up on the web. Here are some looks at last year's event.

NEW Middle School Ministry Book

There is a great new resource for those of us who live Jr High Ministry called Middle School Ministry: a comprehensive guide to working with early adolescents.

I received a pre-release copy a few months ago and was asked to write a quote endorsing the book. At Believe, our hopes were high for the book from knowing both authors for their time speaking on the Believe Tour in recent years. Mark Oestreicher and Scott Rubin (Speaking at our Atlanta and Michigan Events) have made a significant contribution to raising the skill level and insight you ht workers may have with this work. Believe will be carrying and promoting this new tool on our spring 2010 Messiah Tour. I hope you don't wait until then to pick a copy up for yourself and all your fellow Jr high teammates!

New publicity leaked

The word isn't out yet but here is a sneak peak at our new ad coming out in Youth Worker's Journal and in Interlic's fall YLO issue.

It has been difult for us to find a price based incentive for new youth ministries to check Believe out that doesn't seem to penalize all of our great ministry partners. We got it figured out and it's going to rock. The deal is that Believe is going to be only 25.00 for every new registration! Click here to read the details of the special price promotion.

We realize that the current economy is having an impact on the programming decisions that youth pastors make. We didn't know what to expect last year for attendance as the country began to feel the financial crises during the middle of our tour. What happend is we experienced the largest attended Believe tour in our 11 year history. And what a great tour of ministry it was as we looked at lesson's for jr high students from the life of Jeremiah.

We have experienced steady growth as leaders across the country talk to each other and recommend Believe. In part, some of our growth was due to ministries trying a new spring event instead of planning thier own. At the end of the day it takes lots of time and investment to put an event together for your students on your own along with everything else leaders do on a weekly basis.

The exciting thing is that our awesome administrative staff at CIY has not cut corners on the event to make the 25.00 registration happen. In fact, our plans for the Messiah tour are the most ambitious I have ever been apart of. We are quite excited and look forward to seeing many more students as we amplify Christ's call to be Kingdom Workers in 2010!

Believe Welcomes Hetti-Marie

I got the Believe Director job from my first real contact with CIY as a subcontracted worship leader. I've been leading jr high students groups specifically in worship for ten years now and if there is one thing I am very picky about at Believe it is most definately the worship aspect.

Many kids come to Believe and have thier perspective of what it means to sing corporately in the faith community challenged. Over the past few years Worship at Believe has evolved into what I would call a much more healthy model. In the early years I mimicked what I saw modeled. There was a single guy leader with an acoustic guitar standing out front leading every song. We didn't have the Hillsong model of community led worship until these last few years. Thank God for what they are doing and how it is chaning our views of what the gathering of Christians calling upon the Lord can look like.

With my involvment as an MC at times during the weekend event it has been great to have other worship leaders co lead our song times at Believe over the past few years like: Yancy, Robert Pierre, Jordan Howerton and most recently Issac Schade.

This year we are proud to welcome to the Believe Stage Hetti-Marie. Hetti is a childrens pastor at Strong Tower in Nashville, TN. She has a amazingly talented voice with a countenance on stage that will point kids towards Jesus. I can't wait to watch her make her mark on the feel and flow of next year's Messiah Tour. It really is going to be awesome. Visit Hetti-Marie on Myspace or her Website!