Part of the Glue

If there is anything I have learned that has helped me to execute well…. it is the value of planning ahead.  Occasionally I can wing it and come up with a great series or video in less than  a week, but more times than not the best ideas take time to marinate and time to discuss in boring meetings.  Its easy to focus on what is due this week and much more difficult to focus on a series or project that is 3 months away.  One of the things I love about action method is that I can break up various tasks I have.  Tasks that are due immediately, on-going projects and the favorite “backburner items”.  Having a place to look at on-going projects on a periodic basis I have found is one of the keys to actually getting them done.  If the idea is in your head and never makes it to paper or an online application, the likelihood of it being remembered is probably not that good.

Recently I asked one of my bosses if we could begin to think about our fall series in September so that I could create the pieces during the summer.  Asking him this question forced both of us to figure out a meeting that would help us to land such a large decision.  I love the thought of being able to be months ahead in the creative process because that helps to give me an edge that I just can’t have on a week by week basis.

Student Life has done it again. Year after year Student Life has been a leader in understanding teenagers and the world that they live in. Having worked for Student Life for several summers, I believe strongly in this organization and have grown to admire their passion to help teens to discover God’s word in a creative way.

I love this piece they created and can’t wait to share with other youth leaders in our youth ministry.

We all need people to sign up for things these days.  It would be a horrible thing to have an event that no one showed up to because we never asked them to commit. We need students to sign up for camps, mission projects and we need adults to sign up to volunteer at these projects.  Recently I started using google forms to manage all of our sign-ups.

You can create a google form in a matter of minutes and the great thing about google is that its free.  When creating a google form you have the option to embed it into your current website or link directly to the form itself.  Another benefit to using google forms is that it allows you the opportunity to be notified via email every time someone submits an entry as well as being able to view all the results in an excel file that you can share easily with others.