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According to Time Magazine, sugarcoated, MTV-style youth ministry is so over.

Youth ministers have been on a long and frustrating quest of their own over the past two decades or so. Believing that a message wrapped in pop-culture packaging was the way to attract teens to their flocks, pastors watered down the religious content and boosted the entertainment. But in recent years churches have begun offering their young people a style of religious instruction grounded in Bible study and teachings about the doctrines of their denomination. Their conversion has been sparked by the recognition that sugarcoated Christianity, popular in the 1980s and early ’90s, has caused growing numbers of kids to turn away not just from attending youth-fellowship activities but also from practicing their faith at all.

In 2006, The Barna Group learned that of kids 13-18:

• 72% pray to God (81% in ‘98)
• 48% attend worship service at church (53% in ‘98)
• 35% attend Sunday school (37% in ‘98)
• 33% attend a youth group (36% in ‘98)
• 31% read their Bible (34% in ‘98)

Barna also discovered that 61% of adults in their 20s who had participated in church activities as teens no longer do.

Many youth ministers are realizing that they must change how they do youth ministry in order to reverse these trends. A few success stories of those who have are:

• Chris Reed grew his youth ministry from 70 to 200 by focusing on the five Christian principles taught in Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Church.
• Ben Calmer of Shoreline Christian Center (Austin, TX) has been focusing on activities that increase spiritual nourishment and has watched his youth membership double to 160 in 18 months.

Spiritual growth is far more important than funny videos and cool games. First, focus on solid spiritual growth. Without it, technology, marketing, and the “cool” factor are worthless. And that’s a principle that applies to any minister, not just youth pastors.

Special thanks to InkTank for highlighting the article.

Advertising on Facebook isn’t the only way to reach college students. Your church may want to consider advertising in the college paper too.

The Boston Globe reports that according to a survey conducted by Student Monitor:

• 76% of the 6 million full-time US undergraduates read their campus papers at least occasionally.
• 38% of students regularly read an online edition of their campus paper, and they spend an average of 19 minutes doing so.
• While students watch an average of 10 hours of TV a week, they spend 15 hours a week online.

In fact, this advertising medium is so promising that a subsidiary of MTV bought College Publisher which hosts the largest network (roughly 450) of online college newspapers in the world.

The article also states:

While in college, many students will make major first-time purchasing decisions — cars, insurance, electronics — a market advertisers covet.

And it’s not just purchasing decisions, this is also a time when many students will form religious opinions, perspectives, and beliefs that will influence them for the rest of their life. Advertising in college papers looks like a very promising opportunity for college ministries to reach students.

Special thanks to YPulse for referring the article.

For those of you responsible for your church’s website communications, you may be interested in an online resource called Instant Domain Search that does exactly what its name says.

Simply begin typing a website address, and for each letter you add, it will instantly tell you if a .com, .net, or .org domain is available.

According to MSNBC, British researchers investigated the link between job performance and exercise among roughly 200 workers, and discovered the following:

• 60% said their time management skills, mental performance and ability to meet deadlines improved on days when they exercised.
• The amount of the overall performance boost was about 15 percent.
• The type of exercise didn’t seem to matter. “We could find no difference according to length of exercise or duration or intensity,” McKenna says. “You still got the effect no matter what you did.”
• Many of the participants said exercise seemed to help them deal better with the demands and pressures on the job.
• Workers in the study also indicated they were less likely to suffer bouts of afternoon fatigue known as the “post-lunch dip” on days when they exercised.

So get out there and exercise! Do something, and enjoy the benefits of improved health and job performance.

It’s the day after Thanksgiving - the day when millions begin their Christmas shopping. If you plan to join them, you may want to consider that Church Marketing Sucks is now selling t-shirts.

All proceeds will be used to support the mission of their non-profit parent organization, the Center for Church Communication. So if you love t-shirts or know someone who does, buying a CMS t-shirt could be the perfect way to kick off your holiday shopping.

According to September’s CTIA Wireless Survey, U.S. parents believe that the medium that poses the most risk for teens is:

• 85% Internet
• 13% TV
• 1% Magazines
• 1% DVDs/Videos
• 1% Radio

Special thanks to the November 21, 2006 issue of PC Magazine for highlighting the statistic.

Last year, almost 4 out of every 10 U.S. births occurred out-of-wedlock. That rate is double of what it was three decades ago which means that the composition of American church congregations has also dramatically changed. It also means that the community your church reaches has changed.

Mike Stobbe of the Associated Press reported the statistic and also shared:

The Who

• While out-of-wedlock births have long been associated with teen mothers, the teen birth rate actually dropped last year to the lowest level on record.
• It was up among all age groups except youngsters ages 10 to 17.
• Births among unwed mothers rose most dramatically among women in their 20s.
• The increase in births to unwed mothers was seen in all racial groups, but rose most sharply among Hispanics.

The Why

• Experts said the overall rise reflects the burgeoning number of people who are putting off marriage or living together without getting married.
• They said it also reflects the fact that having a child out of wedlock is more acceptable nowadays and not necessarily the source of shame it once was.
• More women in their 30s and 40s, hearing their biological clock, are choosing to give birth despite their single status.

While God’s Word does not approve of sex outside of marriage, it is important that churches realize that their only chance to reverse this trend is through discipleship not condemnation.

Volunteers are often the driving force behind great ministry, but they are only capable of what their leadership equips them to be able to do. This past spring, Leadership Journal shared the following six steps and five quotes by volunteer management expert Don Simmons on equipping volunteers:

1. Training.
   “If it is important enough to do, it’s important enough to train volunteers in how to do it!”
2. Affirmation.
   “We often forget that people need to know that they matter more than what they do.”
3. Feedback.
   “Authentic, love-based feedback does much to develop servants into strong leaders.”
4. Evaluation.
5. Recognition.
   “Recognition acknowledges people for what they do.”
6. Reflection.
   “What did you learn about yourself? People decide in the reflection whether they will do this again and if they will let it change their lives.”

Other nuggets from the article include:

• In 2004, 64.5 million Americans volunteered, an increase of nearly 5 million since 2002.
• A recent article in Journal of Volunteer Administration indicates that one of the principal reasons people leave their volunteer positions is that they feel unappreciated and unrecognized.

Notice that training is just a small part of equipping volunteers. They need your ongoing coaching and positive interaction to reach their true potential. How you treat your volunteers will either limit them or release them in their area of ministry.