The Youth Ministry Toolbox

Most days of the year, the best way to describe my office would be organised chaos. There’s stuff everywhere – mostly dumped there at the end of a long night of youth group or as I’m rushing from one event to the next. In those rare moments of quiet – when programs are wrapping up for the year and I feel like I can stop and take a breath, I get on top of the job of cleaning and organising my office. And in even rarer moments, I start thinking of how I can do the organising thing even better.

And that’s when I get ideas like the Youth Ministry Toolbox.

Here’s the problem – on a Friday night I grab what I need for the night from my office, juggling multiple items, and take it all down to the hall. Then I meet with my leaders and work out what we need to make the program work for the night. Then it’s another trip up to the office to scrounge around for the things we need. So, I’m thinking – how can I streamline this process? How can I minimise the number of trips and cut down on the awkward juggling?

One trip to Bunnings and I had my answer.

The toolbox itself cost me about $30. I like it because it is sturdy and covered in easy to access pockets. Here are some of the things I’ve already loaded it up with:

Permission notes – we do online registration, so these handouts are for new families to point them to the online form to fill out

Gospels to give away – we have Bibles in the hall to use on the night, so these are for giving to curious newcomers

Generosity box – this year I’ve upgraded from a cardboard box to a small coin safe. Each week we get our youth to give generously to a project that seeks to proclaim Jesus to the world. We pass around the box and those who have brought money can put it in the box without everyone seeing what they’ve given.

Incident book – one of those things that is good to have, but you hope you never need. Any injuries or safe ministry concerns get recorded in the book (which is only accessible to the relevant leaders).

Things that might be useful for games and activities:

Coloured pencils

Pencil sharpener

Pens

Sharpies

Scissors

Sticky tape

Playing cards

Rubber bands

Dice

Bulldog clips

Blutac

Masking tape

Gaffe tape

String

Whiteboard markers

I’m sure I’ll think of more things to add to the toolkit as the year goes on. What would you add to the kit? What would be in your youth ministry toolkit?