YouTube You Can Use is a free weekly youth ministry resource I publish every Monday at The Youth Cartel.

It includes a link to a YouTube video as well as a discussion starter, some related Bible verses, 3 ice breaker questions, and a thought question I call wrestle with this.

To give you some behind the scenes insight, here are my goals as I put it together:

• The video can’t be cheesy or predictable or boring.
• The video has to be 90 seconds or less.
• The tie-in has to lead students back to Scripture or an attribute of God.
• It has to be age-appropriate.
• It has to be something I’d use… because we use it in our ministry.

Here are 4 tips for using this free resource:

1. Play it as an intro in your Sunday morning or midweek youth ministry time. Just play the video and then have a slide with the 3 questions. Done.
2. Post it on your Facebook page. Just straight up snatch the video and the discussion guide and put it up there for your students to wrestle with. You’re probably not using that page enough, this is a weekly excuse. Takes 30 seconds.
3. Send it to parents as something they can use to talk to their kids. Copy/paste the content, drop in a link to the video, and now you have an excuse to send a weekly newsletter to parents. Drop your announcements for the week above there and I just made you look like a rock star.
4. Table talk with your own kids or small group. Just pull the video up on your smartphone, hand it to them, and then have a discussion based on the email. No prep time needed, just open the email and you’re done.

Are you getting this? How do you use it? 

Want to subscribe? (It’s free!) Click here.

I’ve got a thing for companies that make youth workers look good. That’s why I’ve been so excited about Tatango. I shameless plug their service… it is just that good. Some people have asked me if I’m getting a kickback for referalls to them, not at all. I plug it because it’s a great service.

Anyway, I looked at their newsletter today and… bam, a little love came back the other way. Check out the link to their newsletter.

I just featured this in the brand new weekly newsletter we’re sending out here at the church, and I want to share it with my readers since I know many of you are not yet on our e-mail list. This is our worship leader, Jimmy Savage, performing at our Married Life event last weekend.

Feel free to join our free e-mail newsletter for a fresh video each week from romeochurch.com, a preview of this week’s services, and notes from last week’s message. Even if you don’t go to our church or live in our state… I think there will be something there each week worth checking out.