For the first year as youth pastor at Mt Oak I did too much. Every week I wrote a sermon that needed to be right on point. And then I would also write a small group lesson for our four small groups…every week. It didn't take long for me to realize this wasn’t working. But where could one find help with such a problem?
Enter LIVE Curriculum.
It’s only been a couple months now that my team has been using this material, but I can tell you it’s been a help. And I wanted to share it with any readers out there involved in youth ministry. It’s saved me hours upon hours of work. It’s helped us to step up our connectivity with our students and even their parents. And it’s allowed me to focus on the important job of spending time with my students.
I’ll share a couple of the things I like about this material for your help.
1. The material is quality. Hands-down this HAS to be the most important thing. It makes no sense for any ministry to use small group material that isn’t actually good. So I perused the material pretty seriously and thought it looked good. In actual practice we haven’t been disappointed. It sparks great conversations, covers a number of good topics, and brings in some good illustrations as well.
2. The online feature is very helpful. It’s really nice reducing even the little aspects of what I once did. I would not only have to write out the curriculum and think of good questions. On top of that I had to email all my leaders and send it to them. We’re talking just a few minutes, granted. But now they can get the lessons at their own discretion whenever they want! It gives them a chance, if they want, to take a Saturday and even look over the next couple weeks in one sitting.
3. The perks really do add something. To be fair, not all of the small group leaders feel the need to take advantage of all the perks available. To me, that’s fine. I just like that they’re there and available for when you do want to use them. These include a pre-packaged email to parents letting them know what their kids will be talking about. It also includes predesigned texts to send to students to entice them to come. And then there’s follow up material as well. These are things I had only wished I could do on my own, but simply didn’t have time for.
All in all, I’m really pleased with using Simply Youth Ministry’s LIVE Curriculum. In case you’re wondering, no, I’m not getting anything out of this promotion. But I’m hoping that some youth pastors might. We’re always looking for good materials. And nothing beats hearing some personal experiences.
Details: It was just under $700 for us to buy the 2-year junior high and 4-year high school material.
So do you recommend any other small group curriculum out there? Have you used LIVE and have anything to add?