8.12.2008

Great New Junior High Resources!

Middle School Talksheets
If I remember correctly, Youth Specialties has been publishing Talksheets since somewhere around the mid 80's. If you are looking for a GREAT way to get your middle schoolers talking about and engaged in your lesson, it's tough to beat Talksheets. The newest edition by Terry Linhart focuses on the life of Jesus.

My Changes and My Future (from the Middle School Survival series)
This six-book series comes to a close with the final two books written by Mark Ostreicher and Scott Rubin. Now that the series is complete, I'm hoping they package them in a cool "box set" parents can give their junior highers.

Group's Emergency Response Handbook
This book is about a year old, but somehow I just stumbled upon it and....WOW! Full of one-page insights into how to minister and respond to issues of grief, divorce, gender identity, addictions and more. On Group's site, it looks like maybe this is only available as a download, but I'm sure there is a way to get hard copy if you'd like. This is a book I would put in the hands of every volunteer in your ministry.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The great thing about the PDF version of the Emergency Response Handbook is being able to make it available to volunteers at a low cost! Simply make it available on a protected area of the youth min website that is for leaders only.

Anonymous said...

I LOVE talk sheets for middle school. It really is a great way to get them invested in the lesson... they all want to share what they wrote down and they all know what's coming before the bulk of the lesson starts. They are awesome.

Ariel said...

Hey Kurt, I actually gave a copy of the Emergency Response Handbook for all my leaders not long after it came out. I got them from either LifeWay or Amazon at pretty good rate - and of course, the next week we had a situation where myself and 3 of my leaders actually had to use the books for a situation between two of the youth.

Anyway ...as one who has field tested it, it really is a great resource.

Anonymous said...

I've seen a few books like the Emergency Response Handbook; there are some that are a lot bigger with a lot more topics which I think are great for the professional youth worker ... but I think Group's Emergency Response Handbook is a must for every volunteer out there. I know I want mine to all have it; it's short, easy to use, covers the biggies with great advice on how to act. Definitely a GREAT resource. The Simply Youth Ministry website has the physical book for under $10.

Anonymous said...

Here is another review from when you could get the book for free.
http://timschmoyer.com/2007/09/15/free-ebook-er-for-youth-ministry-from-group-publishing/