Youth Ministry road trips are great for community, and are a lot of fun. But I always burnout when we get about half way home. Here’s what I’ve found helps.

1) The co-piolet

This is the number one key for me. I prefer an adult because they can take over and drive if necessary. If I don’t have an adult, I’m very selective about who sits in the co-pilot seat and when they sit there.

I try to be subtle arranging this, but I make sure I have a student who needs more attention riding shotgun on the way to the event. That way I can focus all my ministerial skills on giving them the attention they need. Then, on the way home, when I’m exhausted I make sure I have an easy-to-get-along-with teen for a co-pilot. That help decrease the odds of me going insane.

2) Music

I save my best stuff for last, because that’s when I need it the most. Right now David Crowder is about as good as it gets for me.

3) Lie

I’m not above stopping for food and calling all my adults together to have a “meeting” that teenagers aren’t invited to. Sometimes, we all just need a break.

4) Hire a Bus Driver

I know it’s expensive, and I prefer to be as cheap as possible, but I just took 40 teens to a Steubenville Youth Conference, and we decided to take bus. This was a first for us, and I have to admit, I loved it. Almost the entire ride home I got to hang out with the teens and chat about anything and everything. It was great, I wasn’t stressed, I didn’t want to throw anyone out a window, and I got some great relational ministry time it. If you can afford the expense, hiring a bus driver will make your ministry a lot easier.

A couple times a year I give our teens a CD (or VCD) of pictures (or videos) we took during the year. My computer came with Roxio preinstalled, and I have never liked the program. Sometimes when I try to use their “Classic Creator” it says it can’t burn the CD because their “Drag to Disk” feature is running . . . they are both part of Roxio, so why is there a conflict?

I’ve been playing around with Ubuntu lately and they recommend Window’s users download a free CD/DVD burning program called infraRecorder. This program is fantastic. It doesn’t have the shiny round buttons that most Windows programs seem to have these days, but the simple square buttons work great.

Here’s what worked and what didn’t work at our Black Light Basketball game.

Lights

My biggest concern was whether or not we would have enough lights to fill a gym. We had just enough; We could see everyone well enough that no one got hurt. I wouldn’t recommend doing this with any less light than we had.

After taking a look at the two $30 UV cannons we originally planned on renting, we decided to upgrade to two $40 UV cannons. We also had eight more 2-foot black lights loaned or given to the youth ministry.

I asked several parents how many 2-foot lights they though equaled the light produced by one UV cannon. The consensus was that between six and eight 2-foot black lights equaled one UV cannon. But, the cannons had mirrors behind the lights that helped focus the lights, while our 2-foot lights weren’t as efficient because half the light went the wrong way. I think we could duct tape four of our 2-foot lights together and slide a mirror between the light and the case to help make them more efficient. They wouldn’t be as good as the professionally made mirrors, but they wouldn’t cost as much either.

The Glow

When I found out that white t-shirts don’t glow under black lights unless they’ve been washed, I got nervous about what else would and wouldn’t glow.

We used a glow-in-the-dark basketball, and it did okay. I considered buying some neon tape to stick to the ball.

I washed the basket ball nets and that was a success. I really don’t think we could have played the game if the nets didn’t glow. I’m sure we would have come up with a workaround of some kind, but washing the nets was definitely a good decision.

We also bought glow-stick necklaces to tell which players were on which teams. They worked beautifully, but they were the other big expense for the event. I bought them at a local party shop, but if you’re better at planning ahead than I am, you can get them cheaper online.

Parents

I love the parents at my church. We had one coach show up to help, which was great because he knew how to handle large groups of energetic teenagers. Another couple parents organized all the food, drinks, and snacks without me even asking them to. And a couple more just came to hang out. This morning, one mom stopped by my office and gave me my yearly compliment

Money

This event ended up costing about twice what I had expected. Fortunately, this is the only expensive event we planned this year (summers trips not included).

Teens

My other big concern was that I didn’t know how many teens might show up, and only so many people can fit on a basketball court. I didn’t do a headcount but I would guess we had between 30-40 teens at the event. We had about half the teens playing at a time, which worked because they got tired and needed a breather (Thanks to the coach for organizing that). As our ministry grows, I think we could still do this event by splitting up the students by grades. So we might have Friday night just for the 9th and 10th graders and Saturday night for the 11th and 12th graders.

Side Note

I just spoke with one of the teens who was at the basketball game and found out that after the game she went to a school dance. The reason I bring this up is that we occasionally hear the excuse that a teen would come to our events if we did a better job of scheduling them on nights that didn’t already have another school function planned. But, the truth is that if our ministry is a priority in the teen’s life, they will somehow make the rest of their schedule work; if our ministry isn’t important to them, they won’t come even if they don’t have anything else to do. It’s important for us to be sensitive to the teens’ other activities, but double-scheduling is inevitable.

Every month our youth ministry cancels our first small group bible study and replaces it with a social, this month we’re having a black light basketball game.

The teens are excited about the game, and so am I, but I’m also a little worried because it’s going to take a lot of black lights to fill a gym. For the past month I’ve been asking teens and parents if they have any black lights I can borrow and they’ve loaned me five 4-foot lights. . .that’s a good number if we’re going to have a black light foosball party, but it’s not even close being enough to fill a gym.

I started calling party supply stores to find out if I could rent some industrial-strength black lights, and after a couple of phone calls someone recommend I call a local music store. I was skeptical, but my desperation outweighed my skepticism. I called and spoke with one of the world’s nicest human beings, Bill. Apparently, Bill has taken care of the lights and sound in our school’s gym for various special events, so he knows the space, and has a good idea of how much light we need to fill the gym. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have any black lights . . . yet. But he said he was buying two UV canons that would be here by April. Awesome! He’s going to rent them to us for $30 each.

Now we need to find stuff that glows under a black light. I read on HowStuffWorks.com, that white t-shirts don’t glow under black lights; what actually glows is the phosphors in the detergent. I’ll have to do more research to find fun things that glow.

Here is the followup on what worked and what didn’t work at our Black Light Basketball game

(This is the fifth meeting in our Jr. High Youth Ministry’s semester study of the Bible. See the Curriculum page for more information.)

This meeting is fun enough that I call it a social and we get tons of great pictures, but our teens still spend some time flipping through the Bible, so it’s kind of like having your cake and eating it too. I also recommend you invite parents to help lead the small groups (see “Finding Volunteers”).

Pick a few locations on your church’s campus and try to find related Bible verses. Here are some examples:

• Exodus 2:6 – The Cry Room (Clues on back wall)
  • “On opening it, she looked, and lo, there was a baby boy, crying! She was moved with pity for him and said, ‘It is one of the Hebrews’ children.’ ”
• Genesis 25:29 – The Kitchen (Clues above stove)
  • Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished.
• John 4:35 – The field behind our church (Clues on pole)
  • Do you not say, “Four months more, then comes the harvest”? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.
• Ezra 3:12a – The old church (Clues on back wall where crucifix used to hang)
  • But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations,
  • Note: Some bibles translate “house” as “temple”
• Mark 1:4 – The Baptismal Font
  • John (the) Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
• Jeremiah 52:21 – The pillars in front of the school. (Cards taped to pillars)
  • As for the pillars, the height of one pillar was eighteen cubits, its circumference was twelve cubits; it was hollow and its thickness was four fingers.
• Ephesians 4:9 – The Elevator (Cards taped above buttons)
  • When it says, ‘He ascended’, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?
• Revelation 12:1 – The statue of Mary that is outside in front of the church. (Cards taped at base of statue)
  • A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

Tape a clue card at each location. Each clue card will have two piece of information

1. A Bible verse which is the clue to the next location.
2. Instructions for a photo, such as

• “Never do THIS while driving a car.”
• “Remember to do THIS before you go to school.”
• “It’s not too late to buy Doug THIS for Christmas.”
• “Never take THIS on an airplane.”
• “If you meet the president of the U.S. you should do THIS.”

• There must be at least two people from each small group in the picture.
• There are no wrong ways to interpret the instructions for the picture, just be creative.

Tips:

• If you have more than one small group, make sure you start them all off on different clues, and print each group’s clues on different colors.
• When explaining the rules, have the students follow along by actually completing the instructions on their first clue. So when you explain they are supposed to take a picture, have them look on their first clue card and take that picture. When explaining the Bible verse will lead them to their next clue, have them look up the Bible verse, and send them on their way.
• Use digital cameras instead of disposable ones – the pictures will turn out better and if the students get done early enough you can quickly make a slide show of their pictures. When asking parents to lead the small groups you can also ask to borrow digital cameras.