I got to spend some time today with Matt Couch he’s a Student Ministries Pastor at a great church in Avon, Indiana!  I was helping him design some simple slides that he could use for his youth group announcements.  We had a lot of fun coming up with goofy sayings & titles for the slides.

Most of the background images for the announcements were from Simply Youth Ministry.  A while back I had bought their Premier Background Images vol. 1 & 2 They actually have them right now for $14.99.  They’re loaded with great pictures and images for both announcements & sermon slide backgrounds!  We also got some of the images off of stock.xchng (a great side for photography)  And of course we grabbed a few with the great tool Google Images.

We were having fun sharing a few of them with our friends on twitter, but we decided to share all of them!  We’ve uploaded them to our Facebook Fan Page.  You can see all the slides here!

Disclaimer:  I am not a graphic designer, so don’t make fun of me!  I just used Apple Keynote to make the slides and to export them as JPEGS!

Here is a sample of what we did today…

And remember… “It’s a jungle out there… trust the monkey!”

Keeping parents updated while on a Missions Trip or Youth Group Event can be difficult.

We’ve recently found a tool that could be a huge help. You’ve got to check out Scribble Live.
Scribble Live is a live blogging platform. So, you can post updates & pictures extremely easily.
Plus, parents can comment back and be part of the conversation!

There is a ton of different ways to utilize this free technology.
Here’s just one way to use it.

1.  Set-up a Scribble Live acct.
2. Embed it onto your Youth Blog or Site.
3. Communicate to Parents that they can get updates while on the trip at your site.
4. Consistently update the live stream with updates. (i.e. Stopping for lunch, serving at shelter…)
5. If possible post pictures & videos.
6. You can even pull in Twitter updates with certain #hashtags! – So, you & students can twitter in updates!

Scribble Live looks to be a very promising service for Churches & Ministries!

You can see a full list of the features here!

Do you think you could put this to good use in your ministry?