Archives For Free

Pre-Service Slides

Jon —  October 13, 2012 — 4 Comments

Each week at our Sunday morning worship service we have slides that scroll during pre-service. Here are a few examples for you to use. In our ministry we constantly rip others off. I am not a graphic designer by any stretch so I have learned to imitate others. You will notice hat tips to YS! and Simply both. And on that topic, feel free to rip us off as well. This is about Jesus and his love for teens!

Welcome to DRIVEN Sneakers

A welcome slide of some sort is always in the mix. I recommend checking out Saddleback HSM’s facebook page regularly for ideas.

Everyone Has a Story

Everyone Has A Story is the title that Doug Fields used years ago to represent student testimonies. In our youth ministry we have developed a handbook/DVD combo that is free to students that helps them write out their own testimony and prepare to share it in our services. This is the slide we use when they are on stage.

Homestar Runner Slide

Lego Sermon Series

Among the slides that we have scrolling is usually a slide that tells students what the current sermon series is.

Small Group Couch

RAID Fall 2012 Slide

Superhero Dinner Theater

The 15 minutes before a service when students are milling around is a great time to promote things like small groups and special events.

Stache of the Month Beiber

Stache of the Month Queen

Stache of the Month Stewart

Well I hope this gave you all some sweet ideas!

Some slides are just for fun. Our recent Youth Ministry Magazine was dubbed the “Stache Issue” so we have been exploring all things stache.

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FREE Ebook – Living with Questions

Chris —  April 23, 2012 — Leave a comment

The Youth Specialties book Living with Questions is a free ebook right now. You can get it on Amazon or iBooks.

Publisher Description:

A practical and personal approach to apologeticsfor students. How many times has your teacher asked you a question, and you stare blankly at the ceiling, hoping to discover the answer lingering there? It’s frustrating when we don’t know the answers to the questions we’re asked by others, but it can be even more frustrating when we don’t know the answers to the questions we are asking ourselves. Have you ever asked one of these questions?* Does what I think really matter?* What is truth?* Is God there?* Has God spoken?* Am I important enough?* Am I good enough?* What’s so great about heaven?If you’ve ever wondered about any of these questions, you’ve come to the right place. In Living with Questions, Dale Fincher will help you look at each of these questions in such a way that you’ll discover clues, helpful tools, and answers—and what they all mean for your life and your faith. The answers you find will put you on a path to dig deeper and gain confidence in your faith. As Dale addresses the big questions that he’s been asked by students across the country, you’ll find that you’re not alone in your doubt, confusion, orquestioning. As you learn to live with questions, even the answers are only steps in the right direction. You’ll find how they whet the appetite to go deeper into your purpose on this planet and to discover something big—yet very personal—that’s worth living for.

I’m not sure how long it’ll be free, so act fast:

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Free Francis Chan E-books for Good Friday

Chris —  April 6, 2012 — 3 Comments

Today and tomorrow 3 of Francis Chan’s bestselling books free in ebook form, they are great books and I highly recommend them:


Amazon Kindle

Apple iBooks


Amazon Kindle

Apple iBooks


Amazon Kindle

Apple iBooks

Happy Easter!

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iTunes

Free Digital Film School

Chris —  November 27, 2011 — 1 Comment

Have you ever wanted to learn more about movie making even if it’s just to make your Youth Group videos better?  I just saw this class over on iTunes U that might help.  It’s an 18 part class to help jump start your digital movie making. It covers both iMovie and Windows Movie Maker, so no matter what platform you use, you should be covered. It doesn’t appear to be the complete class but a crash course to get you started.

The iTunes description:

Have you ever wanted to pick up a video camera and make a short video or film, but felt intimidated by your lack of knowledge? The explosion of film-making for websites and mobiles gives people and organisations the opportunity to tell their stories and show what they have to offer, at low cost. This collection of exciting videos features the Open University’s experienced team of filmmakers, who will show you some of the craft secrets that underpin good filmmaking, and how professionals stay up to date. You will learn the basics of editing, how to conduct an interview, the role of the producer and other crew members and how to archive your finished project. This material forms par

Best part is, like all iTunes U courses, it’s free. It may be a great way to introduce some students to film making so they can help you out by making some awesome youth group videos for you.

Chick here to check out the course.

 

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Learn to code | Codecademy

Want to Learn to Code?

Chris —  August 29, 2011 — 1 Comment

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always wanted to really learn to code.  I feel like I know just enough to know about programming that I don’t know what I’m doing.  This weekend I stumbled upon Codecademy which is a free site that will teach you some basic coding / programming skills.  The lessons start out really easy (can you type your name?), and then get a little more difficult as they teach you some of the fundamentals.   You can also code along with your friends, and earn badges for the lessons you finish (Who doesn’t like badges?).

It might be a great thing for students that might be interested in coding but don’t know quite where to start.

Enjoy, who knows, maybe someday you’ll find yourself turning into a CodeMonkey.

 

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europe-underground-fresh-free-fonts-2011

Free Fonts to Kick Off the Fall

Chris —  August 21, 2011 — 1 Comment

With back to school in full swing or coming very soon, you may be working on flyers or calendars for your fall season.  I saw these two collections of free fonts come across my twitter feed this week, and thought i would pass them along.  Enjoy!

Fresh Collection Of High Quality Free Fonts for Professional Designs

Read more: www.smashingapps.com

50 Fresh and Beautiful Fonts From 2011

Read more: www.1stwebdesigner.com

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Great (short!) Youth Ministry Training Podcast

Jeremy —  June 20, 2010 — Leave a comment

I’ve been involved in a project to provide free Youth Ministry resources online at umyouthpastor.com for a while now.  We thought about doing a training podcast for a while, but wanted to make sure that we were adding something worthwhile rather than just creating more work for ourselves.  After consuming a lot of podcasts, I realized that what I wanted was a periodic training/idea podcast that was short and to the point.  That is where the idea for 10-minute Training (itunes link) began.

Each episode is an interview with a talented youth minister about a specific topic covering everything from having hard conversations to indoor game idea roundups.  Every episode then concludes with a resource recommendation from the guest.  All in about 10 minutes.

I love and listen to tons of long-format podcasts like the SYM podcast (iTunes link), but know very few people who are both entertaining enough to listen to for that long and experienced/talented enough to have that much quality content (Doug and the gang are some of the few in youth ministry).  The point of the podcast is to get you some usable information or idea as quickly as possible, or as the tagline suggests… we get to the point so you get the training. Check it out by going to the website or subscribing via iTunes.

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180 Free Fonts Great for Ministry

admin —  February 9, 2010 — Leave a comment

I was working on a project recently and decided I really needed to find some new fonts for it.  I came across a few collections that I thought would be fun to share:

1. 40 Free Comic and Cartoon Fonts: These have youth ministry written all over them.  Lots of fun ones to play with.

One of my favorites:

2. 40 Free Hand Drawn Fonts: I’m a big fan of the hand drawn look.  I’ve seen some of these before, but there were some great new ones also.

I love this look:

3. 100 Abstract and Grunge Fonts: I really like a lot of these, very current and a lot of fun for ministry.

Check these out:

Maybe these will be just what you need for your next project.  Enjoy!

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Free Resources from Simply Youth Ministry

admin —  October 13, 2009 — Leave a comment

free_gift_hero

Thought I’d pass this along for anyone needing some resources, a great chance to get some Free stuff, but only till Oct 20, 2009.

LINK: SimplyYouthMinistry.com

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Amazing, Free Resources: Open by Lifechurch.tv

admin —  October 11, 2009 — Leave a comment

I am constantly amazed at the tools that lifechurch.tv produces.  This morning I found out about what is quite possibly the most useful of them all: Open.  What is it?  It’s thousands of top-quality resources for churches available for free download.  It’s not just youth resources!  Everyone can find something from adults to children and youth to pet ministry (I may have gone a little overboard on the pet ministry).

To begin, you simply sign up for an account and voila, the world of Open resources is at your fingertips.  Browse through the files to find videos of messages, background loops, small group curriculum, skits and video illustrations.

Don’t have a great worship band?  No problem, you can download worship sets to project on a screen with a band, lyrics, the whole deal.  There’s even forms and training.  Like I said, it’s awesome!  The only problem I could find with the well-designed site is that some of the video files require you to burn them on a dvd to play them which for a novice (especially one using a pc) could get a little hairy.

That being said, it’s all there, and it’s all free.  Next time you need help on a message or small group your first stop simply has to be Open.

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