Jun12

Seating Change

by Erik w/a "k" on June 12, 2013 at 12:16 AM
Posted In: Youth Room

Has your youth room seating arrangement been the same since you set it up 5 years ago?  Maybe its time for a simple change tonight.  It’s amazing how the feel of your room can completely change with just a few small re-arrangements.  Sometimes it can seem like a whole new room even.
couch
Circle Up.  Arrange the chairs in a wide circle around the room.  Sitting in a circle makes it so that everyone can see each other.  This type of seating is helpful when you want to encourage an atmosphere that is more like a conversation.  You can either do your message from the center of the circle or sit in the circle with everyone else.

Face Each Other.  Divide the room in half and turn one half of the chairs towards the other half.  This makes it so that each person can see at least half of the people in the room.  This type of seating also encourages conversation but it allows for students who may not want to stand out as much to be more comfortable.  This set up is optimal for a fun back and forth game too.

Huddles.  Arrange the seats so that they are in groups of 5-10.  This type of seating sets up small groups.  It works great when you want smaller groups to answer questions you ask up front.  It creates a less intimidating conversational atmosphere and saves time if you want every person to answer the question.  If you have small tables available, you might place them in each huddle.  Suggestion: have one adult or student leader in each group to keep groups on topic.

Turn Around.  I recognize this won’t work perfectly for everyone, but you can likely do some version of it.  To mix things up just change the direction the students are facing.  Students will be curious as to why and you wont really have a reason. If you have a youth room with a stage, you may need to get creative.  Maybe this is just for one meeting.

Have fun messing around with your room.

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Jun04

Guess the Announcements (guest post)

by Erik w/a "k" on June 4, 2013 at 9:00 AM
Posted In: Speaking

Most likely your announcements are similar every week. You stand in front of your group while your students take a moment to whisper to their friends or check their phones while you say something they supposedly already know. This can be frustrating but communication is important and announcements cannot just be taken off the schedule. Can they?

announcements

You need an upgrade! Why?

1. Mixing up how you give over information helps break the monotony of your announcements. When your students hear the same thing in the same way it becomes white noise. They will not hear your announcement.
2. We all know that in order for things to stick in our minds we need to hear it at least 3 times. Some people may never learn or remember something by hearing it, rather they need to see it. Make your announcements visual too.
3. Lastly, it’s fun to mix things up! Your students will like the change and feel more inclined to participate.

So, here is an idea you can use to change up how you deliver your announcements this week:
How about having your students guess the announcements? Have prizes on hand and see how well your students know your calendar. Tell the students that whoever correctly remembers and communicates the announcements for the week gets a prize! Be sure to fill in where students mess up and repeat them when it is all said and done. And, if a student gives an announcement for an event that is incorrect (or not happening) but you could certainly pull off – make it happen!

Do you have any creative ideas on how to deliver routine information? Share your ideas by commenting below!

–Hannah Greene

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May28

Action Movie – app review

by Erik w/a "k" on May 28, 2013 at 9:00 AM
Posted In: Apps, Video

Action Movie (iOS)

Not everyone can be a great videographer. Just because HD video camera’s are available and in almost everyone’s pocket (smartphones galore) does not instantly make you Steven Spielberg. Add some fun editing apps into the mix and suddenly that changes things. That’s exactly what Action Movie does. It helps you look like a genius in the video world…at least to your students.

Basics
When you open the app, you click “go” and you can scrub through all the different effects. When you click on one of the effects it will give you a preview of what it will look like on a premade background. Once you pick an effect (and they keep adding more and more) you shoot your video within the app. Once you have finished the shot, you use a scrolling bar to choose where you want the effect in your video. Once you have placed the scrolling bar there you just click ok and the magic begins to process. You then get to preview it and have options to trash it or share it to FaceBook, email or save it to your camera roll. From there you can use iMovie or Final Cut or whatever video editing software you use to include it into any other video you have.

Pros
It looks amazing.
They continue to put out more effects.
It’s super easy to use.

Cons
It does not let you have video after the effect happens. I understand why, because the effect is over and it just decimated whatever you were shooting, but I would like to have a little extra footage of the leftover carnage.
The smoke cannisters move around and don’t look very realistic.

Movie FX Club is another app that is very similar. It only has about 13 at the time of this posting, but it does have several effects that Action Movie does not.

Tip:
Use the Intro Lite app to make a quick cool looking intro to your movie and it makes it even better.

Below is a “Rules Video” we did using a bunch of the effects and our 6th grade boys winning entry into our youth ministry Film Festival (very end). That is an example of how we incorporated the effect into a video we were already working on.

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May21

Visuals – Is that an Orange? Or a Basketball? (guest post)

by Erik w/a "k" on May 21, 2013 at 9:00 AM
Posted In: Speaking

No one has ever accused me of being a brilliant artist.  Or even a good one.  But that has never stopped me from trying.  Although, maybe it should have.

I was taking my students through a series on the “Fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5 (Trust me – they needed it).  I was looking for some sort of visual that I could keep up front to remind them of the previous talks. I thought that it would be fun to draw actual fruit to represent the Fruit of the Spirit every week (creative right?!).  Surely it would be easy to draw an apple or a banana.

So, the first week came and I explained the visuals and how I would put a new one up each week. Then I proudly taped my orange to the wall… only to have a student interrupt and ask “What is that?!”  Instead of being discouraged I decided to embrace my failed attempt at drawing.  Every week turned into “guess Hannah’s miserable drawing!”  The students loved it and I promise you every student to this day knows the Fruits of the Spirit.

Students love the attempt.  They love when you try and for some reason they love it even more when you fail.

You can certainly use tOrangehe fruit idea or even build on it.  Here is a creative (or not so creative) way to engage your students that mixes it up from the typical powerpoint. Incorporate in your messages a “Guess My Bad Drawing.”  Student’s often need more than hearing something; adding a visual builds on what you are trying to bring across.  Use those large pads of paper, a white board, or an app that you put up on a screen.

What have you attempted to do and failed, but God still somehow used it?

–Hannah Greene

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May14

Upgrade Your Seat

by Erik w/a "k" on May 14, 2013 at 11:54 AM
Posted In: Games

Do you have a couch that every one of your students is running for to sit on? Maybe you have a room filled with throwaway couches and so there is no special seat. Whatever your seat arrangement, you can set up a special seat in your youth room that can become something everyone wants. Enter, Upgrade Your Seat (or Audience Upgrade). A few years ago at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference they had a section they called the “Oprah seats” where Josh Griffin and Jake Rutenbar would come out and give away prizes to those sitting in a certain section. That was totally fun and a whole bunch of people got some cheap little gift, like a box of Mac & Cheese.

This is a twist on that idea. Most of us don’t have 3,000 students in attendance and making a section be the winner is not necessarily workable. BUT, we can make one or two students be the winners and get a nice seat while you are at it. The great folks over at GameShowBlog have a graphic you can use too. We used it at a recent retreat we had for high schoolers and had several different ways they could get their upgraded seat. Essentially we gave random students an opportunity to seat in a comfy seat right upfront and they had all sorts of goodies we gave to them.

How to give it away
We used twitter (even if your students aren’t on twitter, they can follow you on their cell phones by typing “follow your twitter handle” and sending that to 40404). We tweeted “the first person to grab the pen out of my hand gets to Upgrade Your Seat. We also taped a little alien figure to the bottom of one of the chairs. One time we had the first person to give us a note from one of their parents.

What to have there
Find a nice love seat or easy chair. Make it so it is big enough to fit more than one student. We got little end tables and put one on either side of the love seat. On each table there were all sorts of snacks (chips, cookies, cutie mandarins, popcorn, etc.). We also put out several different kinds of soda. You could put a hot, juicy steak there if you wanted to. Just make it worth it. You want students to want to win that prize.

What it does
It gives your students something new to get excited about.
It It makes someone feel special.
They get to bring a friend or a few and that is always fun.
Makes for an easy “game” when you really don’t have time for one in your session.

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