The best Dnow in the world will be useless if no one knows about it. But how do you promote this great event? First of all I would suggest starting early. Not so early that students get exhausted hearing about it but early enough that they can plan accordingly and you can work on removing their excuses. Second, I would focus on social media. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are where your students are spending their time so you want to take advantage of these resources to get the word out about your event. And the added bonus to this is that not only are these promotional options free, they are also time efficient since it does not take you much time to post and your students can do most of the work by Retweeting, Liking, sharing, and everything else they can do to get the word out. Finally, allow your students to promote the event. This can be everything from getting your students t-shirts to wear if your community does not have standardized dress, to giving them posters to hang, to challenging them to start their own social media campaign. Whatever it is this is a powerful method because it means one thing to hear about an event from you but it means completely different when it comes from one of their peers. Now all that is left is for you to formulate a plan and get out there to promote your great event and if you follow these simple tips I know you will have great success.
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When planning a dnow you have a lot of things to consider. But you need to take some time to consider what students will be attending your event. I do not mean simply looking at a list of names although this is important and I encourage you to take that list and pray over each name personally. What I am talking about is deciding what type of students will be attending your Disciple now. You need to consider what their interests and hobbies are. You need to consider what their pain and struggles might be, especially if you live in a smaller town where you can basically pinpoint the majority struggle of students. You also need to consider things like culture and how that effects the events and materials that you plan. Most importantly you need to consider the spiritual state of the students. Are they predominantly lost? Are they followers of Christ but new in their faith? Have most of your students grown stale in their faith? Or are the majority of the students in your ministry maturing in their faith to the point where they need more leadership opportunities. These questions are the kind of things you need to consider so that you can effectively plan your event and tailor it to the needs of your attendees. If you do not know the answers to these questions then do some homework. Talk to leaders, parents and students. Do whatever it takes to make sure that your event can be as effective and powerful as you envis
When planning your Disciple Now you have to think well beyond just your event to what exactly will happen after your event. How do you go from simply having a successful event to this being the catalyst for your ministry? In this video we discuss this and help you consider how you can take all your planning and preparing and help your event have its maximum impact in the grand scheme of things. D Now - Getting Adults InvolvedIf you want your D Now weekend to truly be all that it could be you are going to have to get adults involved. This does help out with the obvious fact that you cannot run this event alone. But it also helps out in some other intangible ways that I believe you will see are a necessity by the end of this article. First of all, your students need adult role models. Now I know that this should be your students' parents and ideally it would be. But we know in the world we live in quite often this is not the case. Families are broken, parents work and sometimes work two jobs. There are a lot of factors that contribute to the reasons that your students' parents might not be the role models they need to be. Because of this you have to find ways to fill in the gaps that exist. A great way is by taking advantage of your D Now weekend to help adults build relationships with students in your church. You can do this by allowing them to do everything from leading small groups to helping out with transportation. The most important thing is do it. Now if you really want to do something great get the parents involved. This will make a bigger change in your students' lives than you ever could have imagined.
Next, you need the support of your church. Too many student pastors isolate themselves from the rest of their church. This leads to feeling defeated and eventually burnout. It also can lead to factions in a church and terrible battles that have destroyed congregations and lives. You do not want this to happen to you. The best way to do this is by getting your entire church involved in what you do so they see what is going on and build a relationship with you. So many people do not even understand what goes on in student ministry and therefore assume all that happens is games and breaking stuff. Seeing that you are actually help students grow spiritually will destroy these misconceptions. Now how do you go about this? Simply put just ask. Make announcements from the stage. Ask people in the hallway. Send out an email. Do whatever you have to in order to bring adults into the fold in your ministry. I will warn you though that some adults may not be excited about this opportunity. Usually this is not because they do not want to help but more because they do not think that they have what it takes to connect with students. You will need to calm their fears and assure them that all that is needed is time and an open heart. If you want your D Now weekend to be a success this step is a necessity. Do whatever it takes to get adults involved and you will see your students' lives change and your ministry and church grow stronger. I guarantee it. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6664516 Youth discipleship is not about you. Too many people think that when they disciple their students it is about things going their way and students learning what they want. Their is a part of this as you are supposed to be modeling life for your student and you hope they pick up on that. But in the end it is first about God. It is about seeking what God has for this student you are discipling and Him revealing that for you. Then you find a way to be a part of that process. It is next about the student. It is about you helping them grow, meeting their needs, and if neccessary bringing them comfort. In this you do want to push them and you want to live an example that they can follow. For instance, I do not play video games and I push my students to follow that example for many reasons. But if I make it all about me that lesson will not last. But instead I can make it about God and what He wants for their lives and my example will be one that makes an impact for all of their lives.
In youth discipleship, we have one primary example for what discipleship looks like. That example is Jesus and the way that He did life with His disciples. In this article we will do a quick overview of what this example means for us and focus on the key points that we can learn from Jesus when it comes to discipleship.
1. Discipleship starts with following Christ.- This is key. Not just anyone can be a disciple. You must actually first choose to give your life over to Jesus. This is what the disciples did. They chose to accept Jesus' invitation to follow Him. Then Jesus began to disciple them and show them what it truly means to be His follower. We must follow this example too and make sure that they understand that salvation comes first and then discipleship. 2. Discipleship is about relationships.- Youth Discipleship is a daily process of doing life together. As far as we can tell, Jesus spent every moment of everyday for three years with His disciples. This is true investment. This type of investment and relationship is what makes for teachable moments and true life change and is what we must strive for. 3. Discipleship is costly.- Following Christ will cost you everything but the cost is well worth it. The first disciples laid down everything to follow Jesus and we must do the same. This will not make sense to many people and will cause some to turn from Jesus as it did in scripture. But we must be willing to make these sacrifices and make sure that we hold others accountable to make these sacrifices as well. 4. Discipleship is a never ending process.- We will never fully develop as a follower of Christ. There is always work to be done, change to take place, and growth that needs to happen. And as we grow and change, we turn around and help others grow and change. This is what our lives are to be devoted to. We are to devote ourselves to growing in Christ and helping others do the same. This is what happened with the first disciples as they went out into the world and the church was born and this process continues through to today. These are just a few of the characteristics that we learn from Jesus as he modeled discipleship for us. Hopefully you will follow His model as you embark on the journey of youth discipleship and hopefully you will see thousands of lives changed. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6966175 Youth discipleship is always an ongoing process. The problem is that many people look at youth disicpleship and are always looking towards the next scheduled meeting or bible study they have. But there are opportunities for disciplesihp all the time and we need to see and seize those opportunities. Look around you. Look at your students schedules and your schedules. What are your daily activities? Try to find ways that you can create moments for discipleship in those situations. Take people along with you on your errands. Have great conversations. Teach them about life and show them how their faith is lived out at all times. Look for object lessons even in the most mundane tasks. Whatever it is work hard to help your students see that the Christian life is happening all the time and show them how to live it.
_ New Disciple Now Devotional Added
Lesson 1: One Heart (The Great Commandment) Lesson 2: One Passion (The Least of These) Lesson 3: One Focus (The Great Commission) Lesson 4: One Church (The Big Picture) This Study Now Includes A 30 Day Devotional That Follows The 4 Lessons. Why not allow your students to take what they have learned at your event home with them. This devotional is a great way to get the Word of God into your students hands for 30 days. One of the ways we are using these devotionals is when a student becomes a Christian we are able to give them 30 days of devos to help the start growing in their faith. Once you buy this study it is yours and you can use it in you ministry however you need too. Check out all of our studies at ---------> http://www.disciplenowcurriculum.com P.S. We have a new study coming out at the end of this week in fact this is the study we are using this year for our DNow. It is called "Called To Greatness" P.S.S We are about to relaunch our Youth Ministry Toolbox website! We are adding a ton of new stuff and of course if you want to jump on the price for $9.95 a month you can do that now! Youth Ministry Resources When looking for discipleship materials for youth you may not know exactly what to look for. While it all comes down to your vision for your discipleship ministry and your students’ needs, there are two big things that you want to look for. First of all you want to look for a bible study. A large part of discipleship is your students getting into the word so, as we have said in prior posts, you want to find resources that help your students do this very thing. The second thing that you want to look for is time. This might be the most important discipleship material that you ever have. This is because true discipleship takes time and investment and so if you are going to truly invest in your students you must carve time out of your schedule to pour into their lives and be willing to make the investments necessary to help them grow in their faith and become life changers.
Youth discipleship curriculum is simply a resources to help you disciple your students. It is all about equipping you with resources to help you disciple your students. I share this because it may seem like a fancy or complicated idea but this is simply what it is. We all know we need to disciple our students but often we are unsure of how to go about it. While there are many aspects a big to discipleship a big part of it is getting your students into the word. But more than that, the bigger goal is to help them get into the word in such a way that they learn how to get into the word for themselves so that they can in turn disciple others. You want to keep this in mind as you search for the right curriculum for you. You do not want to just merely find a normal bible study. You want something deeper that trains your students how to teach themselves and in turn go out and teach others.
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