Book Description
This is a complete resource kit for youth ministry professionals who are seeking to bring the concepts of the Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry success story into their youth groups by providing training resources for their youth leadership teams.


From the Back Cover
The Purpose-Driven® Youth Ministry Training Kit is here to help you and your leadership team (both adults and student leaders) build a purpose-driven ministry. Designed to prompt group interaction with you as facilitator this kit contains five sessions for your team. If you're starting a youth ministry, look here for firm foundations. If you want to take your existing youth ministry to the next level, turn here for insights and applications that can take your team a quantum leap forward. This clear and easy-to-follow facilitator's guide walks you through each session so you can escort your team into discussion, discovery, and ministry-transforming decisions. Get ready to cover more ground, reap more rewards, and have more fun building a truly purpose-driven youth ministry than you ever dreamed! Build a vigorous, purpose-driven youth ministry with these key concepts: Tap into the power of God - the foundation for any effective ministry. Chart the course of your ministry - clearly with a carefully conceived statement of purpose. Identify your target audience - know your students' various spiritual levels and needs. Develop purpose-driven programs that reflect the biblical goals of evangelism, worship, fellowship, discipleship, and ministry. Build a healthy leadership team whose members love each other as they love students.


About the Author
Doug Fields has been in youth ministry for more than two decades and has authored more than 30 books, including Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry and Videos That Teach. With an M.Div. From Fuller Theological Seminary, Doug is youth pastor at Saddleback Church, president of SimplyYouthMinistry.com, and a frequent presenter at Youth Specialties' events.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
What you need to know about how the sessions are organized:
The training is in five sessions, of about 90 minutes eachalthough the duration of each session depends on your personal style of facilitating, the team members levels of interest, actual time available, etc.
- All five sessions were designed to be led by a facilitator (that would be you), with minimal preparation time prior to leading each session. (Although if you choose to read the book Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry as you preparewhich is recommendedallow extra time. Or read the book before you start preparing to teach this training.)
- Within each session, youll find a variety of teaching methods to help keep your adult and student leaders attention and to communicate the material in the best way. For example, Session 1 begins with a brief introduction and teaching by the facilitator, followed by a group discussion, a video segment, personal reflection, another video clip, and a group discussion.
- Each participant should have a copy of the Participants Guide to this Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry Training Kit. You can see all the Participants Guide pages in reduced form on the pages of this Facilitators Guide. (They even have the correct answers written into the blanks!)
Before the session
Heres where youll find the appropriate chapters or pages to read in Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry, if youre reading that as you prepare to facilitate the sessions. Youll also find an overview of the main points and the objectives for the session. The session outline gives you a timeline to help you stay on track.
Unwrap the Session
Heres where you explain the objectives for the session and walk through any other material you feel is necessary to set up the session for your leaders. (And do it with enthusiasm, if you want your leaders to share your enthusiasm for this training.)
Discovery
You dive into the session here, equipped with key ideas and principles to explain to your leaders, as well as discussion questions. During your explanation your leaders will be listening for key words to write in the blanks in their Participants Guides. Work through the statements and discuss any or all of the questions.
- The main points are specific enough to offer direction but general enough so you can make applications to your ministry. So stress whats important to you and your youth ministry, and add whatever information or illustrations help your team understand the point. After all, youre the one who knows best whats appropriate for your team and its circumstances.
Video
View the video segments yourself before you show them to your leaders. Familiarity with the video segment makes a huge difference when you introduce the clip to your leaders. Each video segments length is listed in the session.
Connection
Get your leaders talking with each other to help them process what theyre learning, but also to create some new ideas for your ministry, too. Directions in this Facilitators Guide will help you through each discussion.
- And text with this kind of background means you can read it to your leaders verbatim, or simply use it as a guideline in your facilitating.
- If your group of leaders is on the large sidelike ten or moreyoull occasionally want to break into smaller groups to talk and share. (Even two-person groups arent too small for these discussions.) Instructions to participants are provided in their Participants Guides, although you still need to introduce the discussions. If you do divide into smaller groups, wander around between groups to listen in, see how theyre grasping the material, and adjust the rest of your facilitating accordingly.
Reflection
Every session has at least one period for participants to individually, silently respond to questions, reflect on Scripture, or otherwise process the material by themselves.
Out the Door
Wrap up your time by summarizing key points and answering questions. Close the session by praying for some specific areas of your ministry (suggestions for directed prayer are included in each session).
Making It Personal
This section is designed for participants to read, ponder, chew on, and possibly journal during the days following the meeting (or during the hours following the meeting, if you teach the entirety of this course during a weekend or a week). Its best if your leaders work through this section before they gather again for the next session.
On the other hand
These questions appear only in the Participants Guides, not your Facilitators Guide. Their purpose is not to get answered, but to provoke, to turn some of the issues inside-out for a different perspective. These questions are more likely to appeal to the right-brained among your leadersthose whose creativity takes more innovative forms, those who prefer out-of-the-box thinking to linear, fill-in-the-blank responses. Because these questions are not part of the training per se, participants can take em or leave em.
How to Prepare for Each Session
You are, after all, the facilitatorso youll have to do at least some preparation before leading the sessions. Your job is to direct the group through the material, clarify the concepts, segue between segments, answer questions, and redirect questions you cant answer back to your leaders to explore together. Your fundamental goals: 1) to help your team apply the principles of Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry to your own youth ministry and circumstances, and 2) to nudge your team into understanding their role as leaders.
- So heres how to start:
1. Well before you start teaching this training course to your leaders, read the book behind the course, Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry.
2. Read through the entire training session in this Facilitators Guide. Watch the corresponding video segments (theyre all pretty short), and make what notes you need to help you facilitate the lesson.
3. Also before each session, mark those questions and discussion items in this Guide that are the most appropriate and relevant to your teamand pencil out those that dont suit your team. Be selective, reworddo whatever it takes to convey the essential principles of Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry.
4. Finally, before each session cue the video to the proper location, gather necessary materials (extra pens, participant guides, whiteboard, markers, VCR, TV, handouts, whatever).

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Purpose-Driven® Youth Ministry Training Kit is here to help you and your leadership team (both adults and student leaders) build a purpose-driven ministry. Designed to prompt group interaction with you as facilitator this kit contains five sessions for your team. If you're starting a youth ministry, look here for firm foundations. If you want to take your existing youth ministry to the next level, turn here for insights and applications that can take your team a quantum leap forward. This clear and easy-to-follow facilitator's guide walks you through each session so you can escort your team into discussion, discovery, and ministry-transforming decisions. Get ready to cover more ground, reap more rewards, and have more fun building a truly purpose-driven youth ministry than you ever dreamed! Build a vigorous, purpose-driven youth ministry with these key concepts: Tap into the power of God - the foundation for any effective ministry. Chart the course of your ministry - clearly with a carefully conceived statement of purpose. Identify your target audience - know your students' various spiritual levels and needs. Develop purpose-driven programs that reflect the biblical goals of evangelism, worship, fellowship, discipleship, and ministry. Build a healthy leadership team whose members love each other as they love students.

Author Biography: Doug Fields a respected youth ministry leader for over two decades, has authored or coauthored more than thirty books, including Purpose-Driven Youth Ministry, Your First Two Years of Youth Ministry, and Videos That Teach. With an M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary, Doug is the youth pastor at Saddleback Church, president ofSimplyYouthMinistry.com, and a frequent presenter at Youth Specialties events.

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