Catholic Youth Ministry Resources

Video: Holy Week in Two Minutes

Eric Gallagher — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:34:28 +0000

Another great 2 minute video by Busted Halo. This time to help us teach about Holy Week. This video and the other two minute videos are great videos to use as lesson starters or simply to share across social media to the youth and the families in the your parish.

Be sure to check out Busted Halo here!

Have other great Holy Week resources or ideas, please share them in the comments section below!

Tags: busted halo, holy week, Lent, videos

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Video: Palm Sunday by OutsidedaBox

Eric Gallagher — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 19:40:11 +0000

Another great video from Outsidedabox. This short video is about a young man who has an incredible experience in the Palm Sunday Liturgy when the responses from the Gospel reading draw him deep into an experience that he will never forget.

If you enjoy the film or wish to use it in your ministry, please consider purchasing it from their site!

Tags: Crucifxion, Lent, Palm Sunday, passion

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Video: For You I Would Suffer Even More

Eric Gallagher — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 07:00:40 +0000

These three young adults put together this drama for our summer camp in 2011. Each year the Diocese hires young adults for their Totus Tuus program and to be counselors at several summer camps. It is a very powerful drama that you could do yourself or just show the video to them!

Thank you to the Diocese of Sioux Falls for sharing this video!

What did you think? Let us know below!

Tags: crucifixion, Dramas, Lent, passion, skits, Video

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Video: The Altar Server

Eric Gallagher — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 13:34:10 +0000

A new incredible video on being an altar server. This would be an incredible video to show when teaching on the Mass. Tags: Altar Server, Eucharist, Mass, vocations, Youth Ministry Videos You might be interested in this: Video: What if Starbucks Marketed Like A Church? "Restored" A ...

Tags: Altar Server, Eucharist, Mass, vocations, Youth Ministry Videos

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Video: Eternal Life from OutsideDaBox

Eric Gallagher — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 15:47:18 +0000

An excellent brand new video from OutsideDaBox on Eternal Life. Keep up the great work guys! Tags: eternal life, heaven, hell You might be interested in this: Hunter, Gorilla, Woman Texting Scavenger Hunt Game: Bigger or BetterCopyright © Catholic Youth Ministry Resources [Video: Eternal Life from OutsideDaBox], All ...

Tags: eternal life, heaven, hell

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Automated Email Newsletters For Your Youth Ministry

Eric Gallagher — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 03:49:48 +0000

Have you ever noticed that our weekly email newsletters happen to arrive at your inbox weekly on the same day and at the same time? I bet most of you think that we sit around until 10:00am (CST) waiting to push that send button so that you get it right at the exact moment we want you to get it at.

To be brutally honest, we do not even send the email. In fact, we designed the latest template a few months ago and have sent over 20,000 email without touching a thing. Want to know how?

We use a magical monkey known as the MailChimp. This is an email newsletter program that is free for a limited numbers of subscribers or emails sent per month and then you can pay for it after that. Every time we post something new on one of our sites, MailChimp records it and sends out an email with the latest posts each week at the day and time we ask them too. Pretty cool huh?

Here’s how you do it.

Set up a blog that has an RSS feed.

We use WordPress and our feed address is located at www.catholicyouthministryresources.com/feed. Feeds are a universal language used to “feed” the information from our blog to people in pretty much any format that they want it.

Sign up for a MailChimp Account

It’s free to start and you do not need a Credit Card to use it.

Create an RSS Driven Campaign

You can set it to send out daily, weekly, or monthly at current times.

Create the Newsletter

Going through the steps is very easy. If you need help on using certain codes and such for the feed so it shows up how you want it to, I would check out their cheatsheet.

Start The Campaign

Once it’s started, it will automatically send an email newsletter on the day and time you requested and it will include any new posts from your blog since the last one was sent.

I not only use it for these sites, but I use it in my regular ministry as well.

Parish Leader Updates – We sent out weekly updates from the Diocese with regular updates. We set up a blog on Blogger and the different staff are able to post new things and even schedule the posts (for example, we like to include the Pope’s prayer intentions). We can schedule out the posts for the whole year so we do not have to worry about them in the future.

Youth Ministry Update – I send out a weekly Newsletter for the Youth Events in our Diocese. As long as I remember to post a simple update before the 5th of each month, everyone in our Diocese gets the latest news on events and such.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up for a MailChimp account here and start making life a little bit easier.

What other email Newsletter tricks do you know of? Please include them in the comments below!

Tags: Email, mailchimp, marketing, newsletters, social media

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Our Lady of Guadalupe Powerpoint

Tom Lelyo — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:24:08 +0000

I created this powerpoint to talk to my students about Our Lady of Guadalupe and I have to say I’m really excited about it! I presented it yesterday to my jr. high students and I think they were blown away. It’s so amazing hearing the incredible stories of God stepping into our lives and revealing himself in such a powerful way! I had no idea how intricate the symbolism was to the image of Guadalupe.

The most important thing when going through this presentation is to remind students that God is communicating a specific message to a specific people (though that message can also be applied to all his people) – the symbolism of colors, images, etc. have to be understood from a perspective of “What would an Aztec see?” When you do that, it makes a big difference. Also, try to paint a picture of the Aztec culture as one that was all about human sacrifice – and not just sacrifice “lame” humans that no one cared about – but women & children – by the thousands!

The download file includes the powerpoint. You will also need to use the video from Busted Halo – Mary In Two Minutes. Lesson notes are within the powerpoint. The first slide also includes links to LifeTeens “Nuestra Señora” life night (which this is loosely based off of), and 2 documentaries about the image which are fascinating and very helpful. Hope you enjoy! God bless.

Tags: Mary, our lady of guadalupe

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Game: Bigger or Better

Eric Gallagher — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 02:40:58 +0000

This is a community youth ministry game where the youth will be going door to door. It is best to send the kids in groups and have an adult with each group. It is very simple.

Start everyone at the parish with a small item like a rubberband or paper clip. Give them one hour to run around door-to-door saying that they are playing a game with their youth group and they are wondering if they can trade their item for something bigger or better.

When they make a trade, they move on to another house and do it again until their time is up.

Keep in mind that the item can be bigger OR better.

We have had youth come back with tractor tires, snow blowers, large screen t.v.’s, and a toilet in the past. This game is truly a gem!

You should give it a try and let us know what they come back with in the comments below!

Tags: bigger or better, community, games, Outdoor

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