Jun04

Guess the Announcements (guest post)

by Erik w/a "k" on June 4, 2013 at 9:00 AM
Posted In: Announcements, 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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May09

Ask Me Anything Box

by Erik w/a "k" on May 9, 2013 at 3:14 PM
Posted In: Youth Room

Sometimes students have questions about life, youth ministry, the Bible, themselves, etc. That they are uncomfortable asking anyone. It can be hard growing up and feeling like you are the only one who doesn’t know anything. It seems like everyone else knows everything and you don’t want to look stupid. Already they likely feel like they standout for things that we might think are dumb (I have a hair that is sticking up; there is a zit on my nose; I just got in a fight with my mom; etc.). Imagine having all of those things going on and then asking a question they don’t know about and worry they may get laughed at and made fun of for. It just isn’t going to happen with every student.

So, I propose the “Ask Me Anything Box.” This is a box that you place somewhere in your meeting room, or even at a desk in the church where they can be even more anonymous. A place where students can write down questions about anything they want. Put together some sort of box. It could be made out of cardboard/shoe box with a slit in the top; it could be a wooden box with a lock on it and a slit in the side carved out; it could be a basket that you pass around (probably not the best one). Just be creative.

* Label it well
Make sure you put it in a place where students know it is and will see it easily. You could use a posterboard and write “Ask Me Anything Box” on it and put arrows pointing at it. Tape the posterboard up against a wall and put the box at the bottom of it (you may need to tape/screw it to the wall).

* Reference it (regularly)
Explain it really well up front during your announcements. Better yet, do a message on questions we have and then use the box as your application piece. Take a picture and display it during your announcements. Make a goofy little video with a student using the box and showing you where it is.

* Respond to the questions (regularly)
Don’t make this something that you think is a good idea and then just let it sit there. It will not get used if you don’t respond to the questions. Truth be told, you will likely get goofy questions that have nothing to do with anything, but there will be some legitimate questions as well. Hopefully you get that there are some questions you probably shouldn’t answer from the stage, but do your best to answer as many questions as you can. You could have a segment of your meeting time be “Question Box Answers” or you could use the questions as direction for future messages.

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