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Jonathan's Resource Ezine

Weekly Resources, Ideas and Articles from The Source for Youth Ministry
 Tuesday, January 9, 2007

In This Issue

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Resources for the New Year: Great ideas for the beginning of the year like our "Future" and "Legacy" discussions, even more Video Clip Ideas...

Looking for some stuff to use right now! Here's some great free ideas to use for the beginning of this New Year:

From our OUTREACH AGENDAS on our CURRICULUM & JUMPSTARTERS page:
    FUTURE (CLICK HERE) - This piece of curriculum includes a simple "Goal Sheet" that you have students fill out. They predict where they will be in 5 years, 10 years, and 20 years. Then we provide some small group questions and a wrap up on the subject.

    LEGACY (CLICK HERE) - This discussion starter gives kids a chance to write their own epitaph-you know, the words on their grave stone. This also provides a great wrap up about leaving a legacy.
From our SPIRITUAL GROWTH AGENDAS on our CURRICULUM & JUMPSTARTERS page:
    LEAVING A LEGACY (CLICK HERE) - In this agenda, kids will fill out their own "legacy" and seal them in a time capsule.
From our VIDEO CLIP IDEAS page: This page is a gold mine of discussion ideas, and anyone who's been spending time on our page has noticed that we've been going through and revamping a bunch of these as well. Any of the ideas marked A "JONATHAN'S FAVORITE" include small group questions, scripture, and a wrap up-everything you need except actually swinging by Blockbuster for you and renting the DVD (we leave that to you!) :)

When you click on our VIDEO CLIP IDEAS page... you'll see that it's organized by topic. I always like to start off the New Year talking about "Character" or "Choices." Check out some of the "JONATHAN'S FAVORITES" we have on those two subjects alone:

Upcoming Resources: What's coming to the site and in print in 2007

As you know, The Source is dedicated to bringing you a gold mine of truly free resources as well as occasionally pointing you to some quality affordable resources to buy. This year we have a bunch of great resources in development-take a peek at just a few.

COMING SOON TO OUR WEB SITE:

    SUPERBOWL QUIZ EVENT IDEA: Those of you who've been subscribers to this EZINE for at least a year probably remember our annual Super Bowl Quiz Event Idea. Basically, we give you the idea for a great Super Bowl Party... and then we provide a "Super Bowl Quiz" to use for the event. Click HERE for last year's party ideas, or HERE for last year's actual quiz. This year the Super Bowl is on February 4, and we'll be sending out the quiz in our January 30th EZINE.

    REVAMPED GAME PAGE: Those of you who have been on our web site have noticed a lot of great changes to our game page in the last few years. We've developed the custom search, the top 10 game lists and even a few new categories. In 2007 we will be launching a ton of new games, as well as totally revamping the page-updating categories and game criteria. Bottom line: more resources, better tuned to meet your needs!

    NEW VIDEO CLIP IDEAS: One of my personal favorites on our web site, this page has a mother lode (Wow, I'm really using the gold mining metaphors this week) of great curriculum for your weekly youth group (as you just saw in the article above). This page is continuing to grow with at least two new VIDEO CLIP IDEAS per month. You'll see a new one from The Rock's new film The Gridiron Gang next week. This page alone is worth the entire web site!

    OUTREACH EVENT IDEAS: Many of you were able to take a sneak peak at our "Out of the Box" outreach ideas this last year on the free CD we gave away with my last book. We are in the works of launching an entire page with these outreach event ideas.
UPCOMING BOOKS FROM JONATHAN:

Most of you have already read Jonathan's first two books. Jonathan's more recent book, Do They Run When They See You Coming? Reaching Out to Unchurched Teenagers received the "BEST OUTREACH RESOURCES" Award this past June. His book is in its fourth printing and YS will be releasing three new books from Jonathan in the next couple years. The first one will be an e-book from Jonathan and Fred Lynch in the next month:
    COMING THIS MONTH:

    What's a Fo' Sheezy?
    More Than 300 Questions from Slanguage to Get Teenagers Talking
    YS PUBLISHING
    By Jonathan McKee and Fred Lynch
    This book is more than just a source for better understanding slanguage and today's youth culture, it is a tool to get teenagers talking. This book is NOT a self help book to get you sounding trendy-it's a discussion starter book that helps you understand kids and get them talking about relevant issues. This book is already being endorsed by Chap Clark, Larry Acosta, Les Christie, Chris Hill, Walt Mueller, Greg Stier and others. What's a Fo' Sheezy will be an e-book. (If you've never purchased an e-book before, this is where you should begin. It's 1/3 the price, it's immediate, and it's perfect for printing out the discussion starters you need when you need them.) If you would like to be notified when this book is released, simply email us at SlangDictionary@TheSource4YM.com and type ADD ME in the subject line!


    COMING LATE SUMMER:

    Getting Students to Show Up
    Getting Students to Show Up
    Practical Ideas for Any Outreach Event-from 10 to 10,000
    YS PUBLISHING
    by Jonathan McKee
    If you loved the heart behind Jonathan's book Do They Run When They See You Coming? ... you'll love the practical application of that book in Getting Students to Show Up. Getting Students to Show Up will challenge you to rethink your methodology when it comes to outreach. But more than that, it'll show you, step-by-step, how to plan and execute a great outreach event for 10 or even 10,000 students. Whether you're going for a city-wide shindig or a weekly gathering for your church or a campus, you'll find plenty of tips and tools inside that will ensure your event actually reaches out to your demographic and points them toward Jesus.


    COMING THIS FALL:

    The New Volunteer
    Recruiting & Managing 21st Century Volunteers...
    Who Want to Do It Their Way
    GROUP PUBLISHING
    by Jonathan McKee & Tom McKee
    I've never seen a sign on a youth worker's door that says "No Help Wanted!" Let's be honest, we all could use more volunteers. But how can we not only recruit them, but keep them, train them, manage them, encourage them... and sometimes even fire them! Jonathan and Tom's new book equips us to do this in the new millennium, paying special attention to the huge number of retiring Boomers and the growing number of Millennials that are beginning to volunteer.

Movie Reviews: Jonathan's "2 Cents" on Thr3e, and Eragon

Here is Jonathan's "2 Cents" on a couple of films in the theatre right now.

IN THEATRES NOW:

Thr3e Thr3e (1/5/07)

Rated PG-13 for violence, disturbing images and terror

Directed by Robby Henson, Written by Ted Dekker...

Starring Marc Blucas and Justine Waddell

JONATHAN'S SCORE: Skip it

The Christian world has shown interested in Ted Dekker's writings. As for the film... good premise, poor script.

It's no secret, Thr3e really wants to be Saw. But it's not even close. Thr3e comes across like a "made for TV" Saw. No big name actors and a slightly cheesy script.

But I'll give the story credit: it ends well. I started to think I was so smart in predicting the ending. And then it threw me a curve-a curve that made me realize, "Oh... three! I get it!" And for the first time (at 1 hour and 36 minutes into the film), I was impressed.

So yes, it's hard for me to give props to a film that takes an hour and a half to impress me.

What was wrong with it?

Glad you asked.

First... the riddles were lame. "Always going, but never really going anywhere." "A bus!" another character proclaims. "They're always going, but never really going anywhere!"

Yeah! Like the freaking storyline!

CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THIS REVIEW

Eragon
Eragon (12/19/2006)

Rated PG for fantasy violence, intense battle sequences and some frightening images.

Directed by Stefen Fangmeier

Starring Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, (voice of) Rachel Weicz



JONATHAN'S SCORE: Rental

A fun adventure... but don't fool yourself, it's no Lord of the Rings.

It's kind of sad in a way. If any film falls in the fantasy film category now days, it automatically will be compared to Lord of the Rings. All three Lord of the Rings films almost achieved perfection by most people's standards, with incredible performances and some of the best visual effects ever seen. So most fantasy films pale in comparison.

Too bad for the tale of Eragon. An exceptional book was turned into a mediocre film.

Don't get me wrong... it's still worth the rental on family night. You'll probably all enjoy it if your expectations aren't too high. But for those who read the book, it goes under the category of, "Not even close to as good as the novel!"

For those who don't know the story, it's about a young boy named Eragon who is thrust into an unexpected adventure when he finds a dragon egg in the forest. As the dragon hatches and grows, Eragon discovers that he is the last chosen dragon rider, an extinct race. He develops his gifts on his journey to find comrades for his cause, battling an evil magician who seeks to kill him and his dragon, eliminating the last of the dragon riders.

My family enjoyed the film. My son, who has read both of Paolini's books in the series so far, gave an unenthusiastic, "It was a'ight!" He said the film omitted and changed so many elements of the book that it eventually began to bother him.

My biggest disappointment was John Malkovich's mere two minutes of screen time. Have you seen the preview? Then you've pretty much seen all you'll see of the best actor on the cast. Jeremy Irons does a good job, but I wanted more Malkovich!

On a funny side note... I couldn't help but think of the phrase, "There's no such thing as a new story" while watching this tale unfold. About 15 minutes into the film I was convinced that I was watching the Star Wars storyline... let me explain...

CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THIS REVIEW

For Jonathan's 2 Cents on even more theatrical releases like Charlotte's Web or Pursuit of Happiness, click on our MOVIE REVIEWS page (CLICK HERE)


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