Using 'Ready-To-Use' Resources
As you will find, more and more Youth Work resources pop up
over the internet and in various magazines etc, however we thought it would
be good to offer a good practical guide to using these resources.
Read The Resource beforehand
It is absolutely essential that you carefully read the resource
in advance and show it to your other youth leaders so that they are also
aware what is happening. It could be good to meet with the other leaders
to discuss the session and make sure people know what they are doing and
make sure that you know what you will need.
Don't use them as black and white guides
Ready to use meeting guides are not black and white anymore-so
than every bible study group is the same. Every group of young people is
unique both in group dynamic and size of group, some of the things in our
ready to use meeting guides might not be suitable for your group, some of
the illustrations might be ones your young people could struggle to relate
to and some of the games just might not work with the group you have, so
when you read before hand be thinking about if each part will work with
your group or not and don't be afraid to change it.
Don't make a habit of using them
Ready to use meeting guides are great and have been valuable
resource in my own youth work, both for using as sessions or within session
planning for ideas however I would personally advise that as youth workers
you don't get into the habit of just finding one each week to use, it is
good to be aware of your groups needs and write your own appropriate sessions
for your groups, this can be good for you as the leader because you know
exactly what each part of the session is meant to achive, and it can be
good for the group as it is written for them so should work with the group
dynamic. However don't feel that all sessions have to be your own stuff,
you can research online and take various ideas and games, just weave it
together with some of your own stuff. It can be good to plan whole sessions
with your leadership team too!
Some notes for using the talks
The talks you can find are talks which I have done in the
past, some even have an mp3 of me doing the talk, however I wouldn't advise
just taking the talk and doing it word for word, it has very much been written
by me for me but is online to help you with planning your own talks and
will hopefully sometimes provide some good ideas
However you use our resources we hope you find them useful for your ministry, also please feel free to share your own on the forums