Youth Ministry Resources Galore
	Ryan's E-Update from Pastor2Youth.com

• Long Time, No Communication...Sorry!!!
  
  
• "In the Trenches" Interview - Toby Perry
  
  
• YM Exchange Submissions Continue to Grow
  
  
• Member's Discussion Forum Growing as Well
  
  
• Support Pastor2Youth.com
  
  
• Lost Password? ID? Need Help?
  
  

     Greetings Pastor2Youth.com Member/Subscriber,

     There is always new information to share about what is happening at Pastor2Youth.com. It is a joy to be able to share with all of you the exciting things happening and the new resources available to all users. I pray that you will find this information useful and will be blessed by the features and resources at Pastor2Youth.com that are intended to help you in your ministry to youth. Please allow me to share with you some news and announcements about the highlights, help, and resources at your disposal.

As the title says, it has been a long time since I have sent out an E-Update for Pastor2youth.com. I apologize for the lack of communication - life has been crazy busy and there have been a lot of new developments both in my life and with the website. I am moving ever closer to my wedding (June 4th, 2005 - And yes, gifts are accepted. hehehe). In addition to that there have been some significant changes in my ministry as a Full Time Junior High Youth Pastor. Lots of new things happening in life, ministry, and more.

     So I want to first of all thank all of you for your continued support of Pastor2youth.com by continuing to visit regularly, downloading resources continually, and the frequent submissions of new resources in various different sections of the site (more on that below). I also want to express my thanks to the many of you that e-mail me to share encouragement, ideas, resources, and more with me about your own ministries, how you have been utilizing pastor2youth.com and even just to chat. It has been fun to get to talk to so many more of you on IM (see the homepage for the link to add me to your buddy list) and develop new e-friendships as well. What a blessing all of this is.

     In case some of you were beginning to wonder if I was still working actively on pastor2youth.com - the answer is YES - more than you know. There are some exciting new developments with pastor2youth.com that are in the works right now and I am hoping to be able to announce all of the details in the very near future - so keep your eyes out!!!

     One last tidbit of information here to be aware of. Pastor2youth.com will continually be "filtering" our Member database. To be a member, you MUST have a valid e-mail address associated with your membership. If you do not, your account will be deleted. If this happens, you can register again (for FREE), but again must have a valid e-mail address or it will be filtered out again. If your e-mail address changes, you can either update your account personally from the homepage when you log in, or you can e-mail me with the updates and I will be happy to take care of this for you.

At Pastor2Youth.com I believe that NO Youth Worker is an “average” Youth Worker – you all are making an impact for the kingdom of God – and that is HUGE!!!

      Our feature called "In the Trenches" which interviews and highlights Youth Workers from around the world is continuing to moving forward. You can view our eleventh interview with Toby Perry, the volunteer leader of REACH Student Ministries by scrolling down a little on the homepage. In addition, the "In the Trenches" Interview Archive is now active on the right-hand side of our homepage. Here you will be able to access both the current interview as well as all prior interviews. I encourage you to take some time to stop by and read these interviews. If you find something that touches your heart I encourage you to either e-mail the individual and share how you have been touched, or send the e-mail to me and I will pass it on to them for you.

     I am very excited to be able to highlight individuals who are "in the trenches" of youth ministry and working every day to impact the lives of students with the Gospel. It is always amazing to see how God is working in our lives and how He is working in different parts of the world - all for the same purpose - so that we may come to know HIM and know His saving Grace and Mercy.

     Are you working in youth ministry (full-time, part-time, volunteer)? Do you want to share what God has been doing in your ministry? If you would be WILLING to be interviewed and have your ministry “highlighted” on Pastor2Youth.com, please don’t be shy (or humble) and send me an e-mail at interviews@Pastor2Youth.com and let me know. We are about out of those who have submitted an interview, so we are in need of more. So, PLEASE e-mail me if you are willing (trust me, it doesn't hurt a bit). Keep an eye out for new Interviews to be posted on a regular basis.

     In addition, all interviews will remain on Pastor2Youth.com in the Interview Archives section. Keep an eye out for this as New Interviews get published and highlighted.

     Exciting things continue at Pastor2youth.com. We now have OVER 11,400 registered members and OVER 1,200 YM Exchange files available for FREE download!!! There are a lot of members who regularly stop by to download fonts, lessons, Powerpoint Games, Powerpoint and MediaShout Backgrounds, Powerpoint lessons, and to pick up games for their youth group programs, just to mention a few. It is exciting to see so many people making use of, downloading, and utilizing the resources from pastor2youth.com. That is what the site is here for.

     While I may have been a bit remiss about sending out some E-Updates over the past few months, that does not meant that Pastor2youth.com has been idle. We have continued over those months to have more and more resources submitted to the YM Exchange, as well as new games submitted to our large game archive. Since the last E-Update there have been OVER 360 NEW YM Exchange Resources submitted. So, if you have not stopped by in a while, take some time to check out all that is new and available just for you.

     There are a number who have continued to submit resources to the site and I would like to express a special thanks to them. I appreciate how you help pastor2youth.com to continue to grow, and provide fantastic resources for all to use. So to those who have contributed, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!

For everyone else, we would love it if you would share with us as well. If 50% of our members submitted just ONE resource would would increase the exchange 4 TIMES its present size. So, please help add to the list of contributors and submit a resource in order to continue to make Pastor2youth.com a growing and vital resource for youth workers around the world.

     In case you have any problems submitting your files, or if you would simply prefer not to do it yourself, you can e-mail the files to me at uthpastor@pastor2youth.com and I will upload them for you making sure all ownership, permissions, and credit is given to YOU!!

         We presently have LESS than 10% of our registered users at Pastor2Youth.com who have visited our Members Discussion Forum but it is continuing to grow as well, and there is some fantastic exchange of ideas, resources, prayer and encouragment taking place on the forum.

     I want to encourage you to stop by (click on the “Members Discussion Forum” link in the left-hand column) to share your questions, encouragement, wisdom, and more with each other at Pastor2Youth.com.

     This is one of the ways in which we are working to make Pastor2Youth.com more than simply resources, but a community of individuals whom work with youth sharing together with one another. Please be sure to visit and contribute to the conversations.

     You can access the Members discussion forum by going HERE!!!

 

Support Pastor2Youth.com

     Have you found Pastor2Youth.com a blessing? Have you utilized it in your ministry? Would you like to see Pastor2Youth.com continue to grow? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then we need YOU!!! There are a few different ways in which you can support Pastor2Youth.com.

     First of all, one of the most significant ways in which you can support Pastor2Youth.com is by submitting YOUR resources to the site for inclusion for others. The most important part of Pastor2Youth.com is you!!! We continue to grow because of you!!! The site is more valuable because it contains the ideas, creativity, input, and resources of many individuals, not just one. So, the number ONE way that you could support Pastor2Youth.com would be to take some time to upload to the site any games, lessons, fonts, powerpoint files, newsletters, miscellaneous resources, etc. that you have that you would be willing to share.

     A second way to support Pastor2Youth.com is to visit our sponsors. This is significant to Pastor2Youth and helps me maintain the site at the quality it is at and helps me to continue to develop new things as I am able. Please take some time when you visit Pastor2Youth.com to also visit our sponsors.

     If you are interested in finding out more specific ways in which you can directly support the ministry of Pastor2Youth.com, please e-mail me at support@pastor2youth.com to inquire about how you can help keep this ministry growing.

   I cannot express how much I appreciate your support in any and all of the above three ways. You have been a blessing to me, and to many, many others. Thank you so very much and may God Bless you in your giving and generosity of sharing what God has given you with others.

     Has it been a long time since you have been to Pastor2Youth.com? Have you forgotten or Lost your Username? Are you having troubles with your password? Don't let that keep you away. If you have forgotten or are having any problems logging in to your account at Pastor2Youth.com, just send an e-mail to Help@Pastor2Youth.com with your need and I would be more than happy to help you out.

     Another reminder as well: You can personalize your password to make it easy to remember for the future. Once you log in, click on the "My Account" link in the left-hand column. Inside there, you will find a link titled "Change Your Info". If you click there, you can personalize as much of your account information as you would like, including the option at the bottom to change your password. Enter the new password twice and push save - then you don't have to worry about trying to keep track of, or remembering, that crazy automated password you received when you first registered at Pastor2Youth.com.

     If I can help you out with any of this information, please don't hesitate to let me know.

     Keep an eye out for more E-Updates to come helping you make the most out of your onlline experience as you search for Youth Ministry material to help you. We are excited about some of the things in store in the near future!!!