Title: My Generation
By: Josh James Riebock
Publisher: Baker Books
222 pages | soft cover | $14.99

This is the most honest book I have read in a long time. Josh’s writing style reminds me of Donald Miller in his “Blue Like Jazz” book. “My Generation” is a book filled with numerous stories in a unified theme; more-so than just one continuous story line. The focus of these real-life stories is on the Millennial Generation or “Gen-Y”. Josh gives us a broad, sweeping glance into both his life and the lives of many that he has come across in his time as a youth pastor, member, and friend of this generation.

What is it that the Generation Y – the teenagers in our student ministries – are thinking and feeling when it comes to the church and Christianity? Why are they graduating from youth group and leaving the church? Why are they feeling disenfranchised? What’s at the core of their emotional make-up and how do we respond and reach out to them? These are several of the questions that were brought to light in a very unique and fresh way through Josh’s writing.

I love the approach that this book takes. I think everyone wanting to reach or impact the Millennial Generation should pick this one up. It’s inspiring, thought provoking, passionate, raw, engaging, and challenging. My copy is filled with earmarks that I plan on going back to and reading again. Visit Josh’s web site at http://joshriebock.com for more.

- review originally written for the Foursquare Church

Bethel Assembly of God and several other area churches are partnering together to host this community-wide, student, evangelistic event which will feature live music with hip hop artist, Michael Fugitt and more, several inflatables, food, and special guest, Mark Entzminger — all for FREE to students of our community/region.

Where: Bethel Assembly of God, 1202 N. Maple Ave
When: Gates open at 5:30 pm; event starts at 5:45 pm; event is over at 8:15 pm
Cost: Free (including hot dogs and inflatables)

For more information, contact Pastor Gerad at gerad@northpointsm.com or at the Bethel Offices: (605) 342-5415.

All student pastors in the area are encouraged to challenge students to be a part of the national See You @ the Pole event on Wednesday, September 23rd.  For Rapid City area schools, we are promoting a 7:30 AM “meet-at-the-pole” time for students (all schools).  Visit the official site here for resources and more information: syatp.com.

Promotional Materials:
[download the 2009 Rally Poster (.JPG)]
[radio spot #1] [radio spot #2]

[more resources from the official SY@TP site]

Also, plan on bringing three-to-four student leaders with you to a Tuesday night, September 22nd, one-hour gathering at Destiny Foursquare Church, 927 E. Philadelphia Street, @ 7:00 pm.  Our rally speaker, Mark Entzminger, will be challenging and equipping students to help them better prepare for the following day.

Here’s local footage from students participating in the 2007 See You at the Pole event…

Looking for a student event that’s about more than flash and hype? I’m excited to introduce you to the EXIST, a different kind of event hosted in Denver, CO, this winter season. As described on the web site…

For some it will be a time of learning how to press in and hear God through and in worship, through the Word, and with each other. For others it may be a venue for expressions of love to or from God through song, the gift of poetry, art or… Exist is about you sharing God with others.

The three things we want you to take home from Exist: learn how to enter His presence, practice being in His presence and teach others what you have learned.

Peak your interest? Go to ChooseToExist.com for more.

I first heard about Twitter two years ago when I was researching for a parent Internet workshop I was preparing to teach. When I found out that the purpose of Twitter was to supposedly answer the question, “What are you doing now?”, I actually laughed about it. I made fun of it in front of my class! But then I signed up for an account and tried it out. The rest — as they say — is history.

You can now follow me at http://twitter.com/shawnmichael. As you can see, I’m pretty much fully immersed in the “NOW” culture that is Twitter.

If you need a little help with how Twitter functions, take a second and watch this…

HOW HAS TWITTER BEEN A RESOURCE AND A TOOL FOR ME IN YOUTH MINISTRY?

* It has helped me network with youth workers locally. I can keep in touch with what local youth workers are doing outside of our monthly network meetings. Depending on what they are tweeting, I can find out what they are teaching, what they are struggling with, how I can pray for them, and — yes — what they are eating for lunch and other trivial things that people tweet about. But I see value in ALL of it. I like getting to know people outside of their youth-ministry-world, too.

* I can also follow leaders in the field of youth ministry. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gleaned some of my best ministry ideas in the past couple of years from my Twitter stream. In addition, I’ve even been able to send short comments to them and, in some cases, hear back! What fun!

* Lots of great student ministry sites utilize Twitter. Be the first to hear about new content, prizes, and youth ministry ideas that they have to offer.

* Keep parents/guardians informed and updated on student trips. Parents can now get updates from camp, youth convention, weekend retreats, etc. in real time and it is as easy as sending a text from your phone.

* Students ministry pics and video are also easy to publish… through services like TwitPic and 12Seconds.tv or even simply posting links to Flickr, YouTube, or any other media site.

* Stay current on just about any topic. Twitter is a great way to keep up-to-date on youth culture, local news, youth training events, etc.

* Get quick answers to general questions. Sometimes if you post a question, you’ll get answers within minutes. For example:“Does anyone have a good resource for teen counseling in the event of a family loss?” “Looking for an extra pop-up tent that I can borrow for camp next month. Any ideas?” “Is there a good online resource for junior high small group curriculum?”

* Get travel help when trouble arises. True life example… I texted the following: “The interstate is shut down due to snow. Anyone want some surprise overnight visitors on the eastern side of South Dakota?” I had about six invites to stay overnight within a couple of hours. Not bad at all!

* It’s a tremendous way to share prayer needs. Think about it: your requests immediately go out to all your followers and they are praying within minutes. How cool is that?!

I could keep going… Twitter has opened up a whole new world of resources for me. I hope I’ve encouraged some of you to, at the least, give it a try. If so, let me know! I’d be glad to help you get started.

I want to harness this energy and keep the momentum going by challenging them with stories of others who are using their gifts creatively to change their world. Here are four that I’m going to be highlighting in the next few weeks with my students… maybe you could, too.

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This first one hits close to home (for our students) and yet has a potentially very far reaching arm. Jason Salamun is a friend to our student ministry and a local church planter here in Rapid City, SD. He’s shared with our students before at our Wednesday night rally services, so most of our students would recognize the name or, at the least, his face.

Jason is doing something simple, yet profound. He’s challenging himself to lose weight and, in the process, he’s challenging his online community, friends, and family to donate a dollar per pound that he loses in the next three months to one of six great causes listed on his site. I think it’s an awesome idea; check it out at ThisMustChange.org.

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The Laundry Love Project (LLP) grabbed me from the first time I watched the following video. LLPs are regular opportunities to help people who are struggling financially by assisting them with doing their laundry. Relationships are built, and LLPs become small communities of common concern in which participants often find that they receive assistance and benefit with other areas of their lives. LLPs are just one of several initiatives of the JustOne nonprofit organization.

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The Freeze Project is another simple idea to challenge our communities with social injustice issues. The idea is to have a group of people gather at an area and do a pre-determined group “freeze” in a very public, high traffic place — an action made popular by Improv Everywhere — and putting a twist on it to bring awareness to social injustice issues. Nice!

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Here’s another one that seems particularly relevant to my group of students right now. We just got back from distributing shoes (and food, clothes, etc.) to the Tarahumaran Natives in the mountains of Copper Canyon. The idea behind TOMS Shoes was founded on one premise: “With every pair you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. One for One.” What a profound way of doing business.

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Take these ideas and challenge your students with them. Maybe do one of them as a group, making it your own. Or just challenge students with these stories so that they can be encouraged to change the world with their own God-given ideas and gifts. Imagine what change could be affected through the Gen Y generation!

I’ve been seeing videos from a service called Xtranormal pop up here and there and wanted to check it out. This could have some cool youth ministry applications.

Here’s what they say about the service on their site:

Xtranormal’s mission is to bring movie-making to the people. Everyone watches movies and we believe everyone can make movies. Movie-making, short and long, online and on-screen, private and public, will be the most important communications process of the 21st century.

Our revolutionary approach to movie-making builds on an almost universally held skill—typing. You type something; we turn it into a movie. On the web and on the desktop.

Is what they say as easy as it sounds? Well, you’ll see rather quickly that I’m no J. J. Abrams, but I was able to quickly — in about ten minutes — throw together this little video for your viewing pleasure. All it takes is typing in a script, dragging and dropping in some physical reactions, picking the background scene and music, and clicking publish…

Kind of fun, huh? Youth group announcements, anyone? Give it a try!

What do you think about these thoughts from Josh Griffen’s “More Than Dodgeball” blog in regards to the extremes in a youth worker’s life?

They’re aren’t really any typical weeks – every day is completely different from the last.

Youth ministry is called on most at both ends of the spectrum – when things are good and when things are really bad.

Youth ministry pays extreme. Extremely little.

We minister in extremes – when marriage is at an extreme, and the kids are about to face their parents’ divorce. When a life is at an extreme, we’re at the emergency room or performing the funeral.

Youth ministry is focused on essentially an extreme age group – when students are figuring themselves out and parents are at the most challenging point in relating to them.

Youth ministry is about asking a student to give over total control of their life to Jesus – an absolute extreme.

We ask students to be baptized, to demonstrate their faith to their friends, family and the world at the time when peer-pressure and image are the most crucial in their life.

Extreme pressure and expectations – from senior pastors, staff, parents and from yourself.

Extreme hours, extreme emotions, extreme work. Youth ministry seems to be about pushing everything to the limit. So why would anyone want to do it? Seems like a nice, safe, well-paying nine-to-five is more what people look for in life.

Extreme fulfillment.

Wouldn’t want to do anything else. You?

I agree, Josh.  Well said.

Be sure to listen to some of their newly remixed tunes on MySpace.

Also, it’s cool to see Brooklyn Lindsey’s face in front of the camera. She’s a new contributor on the YS blog.

Looking for a fresh and new way to get the wisdom of Proverbs into the hearts and minds of your students? Try the wisdom deck. Here’s Mark Matlock of Planet Wisdom to introduce you to this simple and practical tool…

Find out more about the Wisdom Deck and other Planet Wisdom resources here.