Happy “New Year”!

Back-To-School is like the New Year for youth ministry.

Think about it. You have a fresh season ahead of you. New students walking through the doors. New parents to get to know. New volunteers to train. Fall and winter retreats to plan. Calendars are filling up, small groups are kicking back into gear, and somewhere a youth pastor is realizing that the event they thought was three months away is actually three weeks away.

Welcome to the New Year!

I always loved this time of year in youth ministry because there’s an energy to it. Summer has its own rhythm, but when school starts again, everything seems to reset. Students settle back into routines. Football games and school activities kick off. Lunchrooms and hallways fill back up.

And suddenly, the students we’ve been pouring into all summer are back on one of the biggest mission fields they will ever experience… their school.

We spend a lot of time trying to get students to bring their friends to church. And we should. But every Monday morning, our students are already being sent into a place filled with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of teenagers who desperately need Jesus.

They don’t need a passport. They don’t need to raise support. They don’t need to get on an airplane. They just need to walk into school with their eyes open to what God is already doing around them.

What if we helped our students see the school year differently? Not just nine months of classes, homework, sports, dances, tests, and trying to survive until summer. What if we helped them see their school as a mission field?

That changes the way they see the person sitting alone at lunch. It changes how they respond when a friend tells them their parents are getting divorced. It changes the way they pray for their teammates, teachers, friends, and even the kid who drives them crazy. And it gives us, as youthworkers, a pretty significant assignment – we get to help prepare them.

Youth Leaders Only, in its 42nd year, helps youthworkers in thousands of churches be aware of the music their students are listening to, use all forms of music in their ministries, and equip their students to make wise choices about the music & media they have in their earbuds 9 hours every day. A membership costs less than the price of a pizza each month! The theme of the current YLO is “Parents & Family: Working With The Best Partners You’ll Ever Have”. This YLO features 9 amazing articles about Missions and Service. Click here to get it!

That’s why our team at interlinc has put together the Back-To-School Music+Media Resource Kit. We wanted to give youthworkers practical, ready-to-use tools that can help launch a new ministry year with purpose.

The Back-To-School Music+Media Resource Kit contains resources such as:

• Youth Meeting Guides: Three done-for-you youth sessions written by veteran youthworkers and built around the “Prayer – Care – Share” model utilizing movie clips from The Chosen.
• Devotionals With Luke: Luke Smallbone of for KING + COUNTRY has recorded a special set of video devotionals to encourage and challenge your students.
• Back-To-School Parents’ Meeting: Youth Ministry veteran Ken McCoy has developed an amazing resource based on for KING & COUNTRY’s “Unsung Hero” to help you launch your first parents’ meeting!
• Upcoming Youth Ministry Events:
  • See You At The Pole
  • National Campus Summit: Livestream
  • FCA’s Fields Of Faith
  • Dare2Share’s Day Of Global Youth Evangelism
• Campus Ministries
• 9 Month Mission Trip

So as you stare at that freshly printed ministry calendar, meet the new seventh grader whose name you’ll forget three times, recruit another small group leader, and wonder how summer disappeared so quickly, don’t miss the opportunity sitting right in front of you— Back-To-School: the New Year for youth ministry.

Happy New Year, youthworkers!

Let’s make it count.