For the past six months I’ve written a free, weekly resource for adults who minister to teenagers called, YouTube You Can Use. It’s exactly what it is called. All I do is take a popular, short YouTube video and write some prompts designed to make it easy for you to have a Bible-based discussion with students.
How do I use it?That’s for you to decide. I’ve heard from people who use it as a crowd breaker at youth group. I’ve heard from teachers who use it in the classroom as a discussion starter. I’ve heard from parents who use it as a weekly devotional with their kids. And I’ve heard from some folks who post it as a discussion starter on their Facebook. Be creative and use it however you want!
Discussion Starter:
Josh’s story isn’t about what he can’t do because of his accident. Instead he’s made his story about what he can accomplish after the accident.
Genesis 37 tells the story of a famous dreamer, Joseph. He was the 11th born of 12 kids. And yet he dared to dream that one day he’d become important. All throughout his life his wild dreams lead him into and out of trouble until one day, his dreams lead him to become the second most powerful person in all of Egypt.
Like Josh, Joseph’s story wasn’t defined by what he couldn’t become. What would happen if your dreams were bigger than your limitations?
3 Questions:
Would you rather do a flip on snow skis or a bike?
What are some limitations you have in your life?
Which is scarier? Failure or failure to try?
Chew on this: Why do you think God wants us to try so hard to achieve our dreams?
Lots of cool things happening with The Youth Cartel. Here’s some new things to point out.
Middle School Ministry Campference – Save the date. We’re doing it again. This time we’ve moved a few hundred miles south to Seymour, Indiana. And I’m using inclusive language because I’m going to be a part of it this year! link
A brand new look for the website. Simply put we had outgrown our first look/feel. That’s not unusual for a start-up. The plan all along has been to flex as we grow. Well, this new site has some serious design muscle to flex, at least I think so. link
Launching a job page. This week I started a job page for our site. Our hope is to connect revolutionary youth workers with revolutionary churches. link
Our first book in the iBookstore. On Tuesday, our Extended Adolescence Symposium ebook went live in Apple’s iBookstore. It’s been prominently featured on the Religion, Christianity, Health, and Psychology pages. We’ve got lots more planned in this department.link
We have a very busy events calendar. Marko and I have a lot booked in the category of youth worker training and family ministry. Like the iBookstore, we are dreaming about lots of cool stuff in this department right now. link
We’re continuing to serve ministry organizations. About half of my time each week is invested in serving behind the scenes with some amazing youth ministry organizations. I’m totally loving this part of what we do. link
Long story short, these are exciting days for our brand new little start-up. We are growing like crazy. Marko and I just keep looking at each other in awe– holy smokes this is a blast!
Pray for us as we deal with the realities of our growth. We have many massive decisions in the coming weeks/months.
Last week, I put together a sweet little seminar for parent’s called, A Parent’s Guide to Social Media.
It’s an hour-long training session aimed at removing the fear about what their teenagers might be doing online and back-filling it with the latest research, then helps to build a theological framework for raising kids in a digital world.
Part of the challenge of putting together something like this is that the data behind it will change all the time. (New research comes out from the big players quarterly while lots of additional one-off research is published all the time by universities and the marketing world.)
That’s why teaching parents principles is more important than merely looking at trends. They need to know what to do today. But they also need to know what’s going to work with the next thing that comes out.
Long story short, I’ve now down this seminar with two groups of parents and it’s gone pretty well. If you’re interested in having me come to your church or event to present this stuff, just let me know.
Forgive the pause in my normal posts to share some life updates.
Speaking & Training
My 2012 speaking/training schedule is now has it’s own page. As far as I know, everything listed there is available for you to register to attend. There are two primary things which seem to be taking off for me in this area.
A Parents Guide to Social Media – This seminar teaches social media principles, goes over relevant laws, and tries to replace fear with fact, principle, and strategy.
Growing Your Business with MailChimp – This is a 2-hour class, more like an interactive training session on all that MailChimp can do for you. (I also do a ministry version, much the same content just geared for ministry communications.)
Obviously, I do a lot more than just these two things. But that’s what is bringing the most interest right now. I’d love to come and speak for you. Just send me an email and we can talk about it. Being a small business owner/entrepreneur– I’m pretty creative when it comes to the payment side of things so darn near anyone can afford me.
Writing
Short-form writing has really become my specialty. (500-2000 words) Over the past several years I’ve written lots of blog posts, guest posts, and magazine articles. But I’ve stayed away from books because the idea of 40,000 – 60,000 words scared the crap out of me.
That said, I have two book projects underway in the >15,000 words category.
I’m co-authoring a small book for parents with Marko on social media. (Hence, the seminar above.)
I’m revisiting some of my favorite, most shared blog content and “digitally remastering” it into a beautiful little book on how you and I can become Good News in our neighborhoods.
I’ll let you know when those have official titles, release dates, etc.
Curriculum
I’ve got 2 very creative, very fun, 6-week curriculums in development for high school and college students. (They’d work for middle school too, probably) I’ve got a bit of a manifesto on curriculum and why I’m doing it a certain way, but that’s for another post!
Both of those are coming out this Spring.
I’m hunting for collaborators
There’s no other way to say it. If you have ideas and you want to work with me on something, let’s chat. If you’ve got a great idea for a mobile app, event, book, curriculum, or something else and think working together might be awesome, drop me a line.
What the heck is a campference? It’s a little word we made up at The Youth Cartel to describe a gathering of like-minded people at a camp. In this case, it’s unique because it’s specifically designed for adults who minister to middle school students. Half camp, half conference. I know… it’s tricky.
We moved this bad boy south. Last year, I was pretty new to The Youth Cartel when the first one happened. In fact, I didn’t even go. But I was in charge of following-up with people who had told us earlier in the year they were interested. Over and over again I heard from people who wanted to come but our location was just too dang far from where they live. Fortunately, we were able to move a couple hundred miles south. That gets us within a 6 hour drive of places like Nashville, St. Louis, Cleveland, Chicago… and really close to cities like Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Louisville. In short, that will mean it is a lot easier for a lot more people to come.
Why should you think about going? Um, I’m going to be there. Enough said.
I’m loving this season of life. In 2005, I did a start-up but it was different. The scale was much smaller and I had a full-time job. So in some ways this season feels familiar and in other ways it’s all new.
If you’ve read the blog for long you know how much I value transparency. In fact, transparency is a value Marko and I have carried into the very DNA of The Youth Cartel. In order to stir things to change– transparency is required, right?
Here are some updates on how things are going, in a few categories.
Cartel Stuff
The weekly newsletters we started are doing really well! Youth workers are especially resonating with YouTube You Can Use. The growth of those, numerically, speaks to their usefulness. Both of those are kind of our flagship stuff right now.
This weekend Marko is in Michigan hosting our first official event, the Middle School Ministry Campference. The lead-up for that has been very successful and we can’t wait to see how it goes.
Our next event is the Extended Adolescence Symposium on November 21st. The planning for that is going great. We could really use your help in getting people there, though. If you live in the Atlanta area send me an email because I have a favor to ask. (adam@theyouthcartel.com)
I’ve been kicking around the idea of starting a ministry innovators coaching group. I kicked it around last Winter and didn’t make it happen. Thinking about it more seriously now.
We are dreaming of our next events, which is super fun.
We have a couple other initiatives coming along which I’m really excited about. But I’m quickly learning that “talking about” doesn’t always pan out!
Client Stuff
I’ve been very busy on the website side of things. This could be an entire division of our company… building, maintaining, and growing organizations/individuals web presence. (Which is good, because it kind of is a division of our company!)
The Concierge Service is finally taking off! (Flat rate WordPress design, a great 2nd step for bloggers and small organizations.) We have the capacity to handle 2-3 of these per week and are really getting it down.
I’m about 2 weeks away from completely rebooting the website for a youth ministry organization. That’s been a great project and I think we’re set up for a nice long-term relationship.
We have a really cool project we’re unveiling at NYWC. This project deeply resonates with me and is the kind of thing every youth worker is going to want to look at.
I’m on the lookout for 2012 projects. Individuals, churches, organizations, start-ups, yada yada yada.
Personal Stuff
Health insurance: Super excited that we can get that through Kristen’s work. A huge relief there!
Work time: The home office is great and I’m loving going to a co-working place 2 days per week. There are actually a group of us now looking for a real office to share… fingers crossed!
Speaking of balance: As I mentioned a few times already, the summer was nuts. But I’ve been able to shake those 16 work days for the most part. I’m way more available (and present) on nights & weekends than I have been in a long time. Loving that.
Cash flow: As someone who has had a paycheck every 2 weeks for the last 17 years this is the scariest part. So far, so good though. It’s fun to see the connection between what I do and what I bring home so concretely.
Joy factor: This whole thing is a blast. It’s a good kind of scary.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’ve spent 3 months waiting for September 1st to arrive. Words can’t express how excited I am to get started today. Our byline is “Instigating a revolution in youth ministry.” So let’s kick this thing off.
How can you get involved in the Cartel?
Sign-up for YoutTube You Can Use – This is a free resource I’m producing every week as a discussion starter with the teenagers in your life.
Sign-up for Cartel Culture – More than a newsletter, this will give you regular entry points to kicking off a revolution in your community.
Collaborate with us – If you share a vision for seeing foundational shifts in how we minister to adolescents, I want to hear from you.
How can you invest RIGHT NOW?
My first big idea for The Youth Cartel is the Extended Adolescence Symposium. It’s a one-day event, bringing together two of the countries top thinkers, and drilling into the root causes of extended adolescence and it’s effects on adolescent faith development. We are funding it through Kickstarter, and investing as little as $10 would help us out a lot.
As of right now we’ve raised $2470 of the $6000 we need by September 17th. Many of you have asked me how you can help me get The Youth Cartel going. This is a very practical way. $10, $50, $250… all makes a big difference.
After three amazing years of working at Youth Specialties, it’s with a crazy concoction of sadness and excitement, that I’m sharing today that I’m leaving Youth Specialties to start a new venture. It’s impossible to put into words the emotions I felt just now as I wrote, then again as I rewrote, and over the past weeks as I’ve meditated on having to write those words. Truly, few jobs could have shaped, challenged, encouraged, and forced me to grow more than these past three years at YS.
My hope is that I’ve received the gift which my time at YS was and it’ll act as a springboard for my next season in life.
At the same time, from a different place of emotion, I am bouncing up and down with excitement for the opportunity I have to partner with my friend Marko (Mark Oestreicher) in launching The Youth Cartel.
I told you it was a crazy concoction of emotions!
My last day as an official YS staff person will be August 31st and I’ll start my new role with The Youth Cartel on September 1st. I’m still coming to both NYWC in San Diego & Atlanta as a seminar speaker, fish bowl moderator, and presenter in the multimedia area. So I hope to see you at convention! Likewise, with my new role, I’ll have more free time at convention to chat with fellow attendees instead of racing from thing to thing.
First — A Look Inside My Head
The last several months have been incredible. The Spirit has been at work in our house, shaking things up and reassuring us at the same time. He has used many people to speak bold unmistakeable truth to us. We’ve had deep, long conversations with trusted friends, and even remarks from others such as, “Maybe your just doing what you’re doing to learn?” Or “I feel like God wants you to dream bigger.” Or even, “We’re wondering just how serious you are about San Diego. Do you want to be here for a long time?”
Into those messages have come some close friends, acting as a discernment group, helping Kristen and I weave together what we needed to do vs. what our heart might have been telling us. In the last several weeks, as we really dug into this thing, that group of men helped me (specifically) see past my own expectations and limitations and get a plain view of what God was calling me to do. (I’ll have to write about the wisdom of plurality in decisions another day.)
More important than even those outside voices has been the voice of Kristen. At every turn she’s been bold in telling me the truth. And when I said, “What do you think about this thing with Marko? A start-up is crazy.” She just looked at me and said, “It sounds crazy enough to be a lot of fun.” Yesterday I wrote a post about being bold and courageous. She lives that out better than anyone I know.
Housekeeping, literally house-keeping. Unlike a lot of ministry moves this life-change means we are staying put in San Diego and have no intention of moving any time soon. I’ve re-upped my San Diego State football tickets and added men’s basketball, as well. I mean… what’s not to love about San Diego?
Second — A Look Ahead
Stoked isn’t quite the right word for what I feel about The Youth Cartel. Marko and I have continued to grow closer as friends over the past three years. Originally, I thought maybe God was asking me to start my own youth ministry organization. But as Marko and I shared our hopes and dreams for youth ministry it became abundantly clear we needed to work together. Our byline is “Instigating a Youth Ministry Revolution.” If you’ve ever been with me for more than 20 minutes you know that’s what I’m all about. This venture is all about finding and elevating new ideas, new voices, and a new era of youth ministry. It’s that “sharedness” that drew Marko and I together to do this. As I shared in the video, we have some cool stuff in the works. And I can’t wait to give my full attention to this in September.
A fun sidenote: This is my second youth ministry start-up. My first, Youth Ministry Exchange, Marko led the way in buying from me in 2008.
Third — A Look at the Big Picture
What’s crazier than one start-up? Simultaneously running two start-ups. I’ll be sharing my time between The Youth Cartel and McLane Creative. To some degree, both organizations operate in very similar ways so it’s a natural compliment. I’ll continue growing McLane Creative with innovative design, marketing services, and coaching with my non-church clients. And all of my church/youth ministry related stuff will be part of The Youth Cartel. My hope, long-term, is that I can stay involved with both as they grow, with eventually handing over the day-to-day operations of the design firm to a protege`. (Or even one of my kids!)
That’s my news. If you have questions, leave me a comment (public) or even use my contact page. (private)
