Pastor2youth.com’s 2009
YM Exchange Submission Competition

OVER $1,800 IN PRIZES

REMEMBER: All files submitted must abide by all copyright laws!!!

Our Winners will receive the prizes listed below,
provided by our Partner, Simply Youth Ministry

GRAND PRIZE:
- Small Groups, Mission Trips, and Worship Band from Start to Finish Bundle - Retail Value $147.00
- Mentor Me: Year 1 & Leaders Are Learners - Retail Value $198.00
- Jr High Super-Series Bundle - Retail Value $189.00
- Jr High Game On Vol. 1-4 - Retail Value $75.00
- Sermon-Series Bundle - Retail Value $112.00
- 26 Teaching Outlines Vol. 1-3 - Retail Value $117.00
Total Value = $838.00

SECOND PRIZE:
- Small Groups, Mission Trips, and Worship Band from Start to Finish Bundle - Retail Value $147.00
- Mentor Me: Year 1 & Leaders Are Learners - Retail Value $198.00
- Sermon-Series Bundle - Retail Value $112.00
- 26 Teaching Outlines Vol. 1-3 - Retail Value $117.00
Total Value = $574.00

THIRD PRIZE:
- Mentor Me: Year 1 & Leaders Are Learners - Retail Value $198.00
- Jr High Game On Vol. 1-4 - Retail Value $75.00
- 26 Teaching Outlines Vol. 1-3 - Retail Value $117.00
Total Value = $390.00

You can submit your resource
DIRECTLY to the YM Exchange by clicking HERE
(Please note, you must be logged in
to access the YM Exchange submission page)

If you have any questions or problems with submissions,
please contact me directly at uthpastor@pastor2youth.com

"Back-to-School History
and Homework"
by Walt Mueller

"The young man's comments left me scratching my head. I was cleaning up after presenting a seminar on today's youth culture when he approached me to say "thanks" for the information I had just communicated. "I want you to know," he said, "that I've returned to the high school I graduated from to do some after-school ministry with students. What you shared with us today has helped me to understand why kids are so much more different today than they were when I was in school." "How old are you?" I asked. "Nineteen," he said. "I just graduated from high school 10 months ago."

Like a snowball picking up speed and mass on a trip down a never-ending mountain, youth culture is changing at warp speed. With your teens heading back to school in just a few weeks, you need to be aware that the school youth culture they're heading back to is not the same as the one they left just a few short months ago. Everything is changing. To help you keep abreast of the world your kids live in, let me give you a short history lesson along with some homework.

First, the history. . . . history that will help convince you that every day your kids get out of bed, their world is new in some way, shape, or form. It all starts with the relative newness of adolescence as a distinct period of life and the concept of "teenagers" as we know it today. While there have always been chronological teenagers (humans aged 13 to 19), teenagers as we know and understand them in our contemporary situation are a relatively new development. There was a time - not long ago - when there were no such things as teenagers or a distinct youth culture, as least not as we know them today.

Believe it or not, it wasn't until 1941 that the term "teenager" was first coined and used, in of all places, Popular Science magazine. So where have teenagers and youth culture come from? Most people don't realize that teenagers as a distinct group are actually a social and economic invention. In 1930, teenagers didn't exist. In 1930, the concept of teenagers didn't exist. You simply jumped from being a child to being an adult. Only 50% of young people ages 14-17 were going to school. The other half were in the work force. An effort was made to get them out of the work force and into school so that they could get an education and so that jobs would open up for family men.

When the GI's came home after World War II, America experienced an unprecedented "baby boom." This growing youth population combined with extraordinary economic growth and opportunity in a mix that left marketers drooling. Lots of children and teens with lots of money to spend were too hard to resist. Those who had something to sell segmented teens away from children and adults, creating a distinct youth culture that was targeted with food, clothing, cars, books, movies, and everything else imaginable - all of it made and marketed just for them. By the mid-1950's teens had their own music that spoke specifically to their interests and experience.[1]

Unless you've been asleep, you know the rest of the story. Media and marketing have continued to create and reformulate a youth culture (on a daily basis) that now includes children and teens. Because our teenagers are growing through the change-filled years of adolescence, they are incredibly vulnerable to the youth culture's ability to shape their values, attitudes, and behaviors. The fact that there are a growing amount of competing messages coming at our teens from a variety of different directions, makes it that much more confusing, frustrating, and difficult for parents of teens to understand and connect with their kids. In effect, these changes have made "normal" adolescent development far more complex, added pressures and tensions to the process that never before existed, and widened the cultural-generational gap between teenagers and their parents....."

Read the Rest of the Article HERE...

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