As Youth workers, we are constantly looking for resources to use with our students. Some resources help us teach the Bible in a more effective way. Other resources help us plan and execute games so students have more fun. Still other resources enable us to train volunteers efficiently. Although there are thousands of resources available to youth workers, here are three that may be beneficial for your youth group this school year.

Curriculum Resource. The Gospel Project for Students. Teaching students the storyline of the Bible is a difficult task. One benefit of curriculum is that it helps lay out a plan in order to teach this over an amount of time. The Gospel Project is a great tool to use in order to help students connect the dots between many of the stories that they learned while they were younger and/or introduce these stories to students for the first time. Our high school, middle school, and children’s ministry at my church has greatly benefited from this curriculum.

Apologetics Resource. How We Got the Bible by Timothy Paul Jones. Many of our students have learned about the Bible, but a lot of them are not sure how the Bible was formed. This is an important topic to teach students before they graduate and head off into the world or college. Timothy Paul Jones has a book and DVD series titled How We Got the Bible that clearly teaches students and leaders. The book is reader friendly and can be adapted for the youth group setting. Pro Tip: The DVD series can be helpful for students to hear directly from Dr. Jones and then the youth worker can discuss this information with their group.

Games Resource. Download Youth Ministry. During my first couple years as a youth pastor, a friend of mine introduced me to Download Youth Ministry (DYM). This website has a huge variety of games, which were made by youth workers, and are developed specifically with other youth workers in mind.  I have had great success using these games as ice breakers and have also used the games as a tie into a lesson to help the teaching be more interactive.  Websites like this help youth workers save time and provide high quality games. 

 Obviously, this list of resources could be much longer. However, whether you are a veteran or rookie youth minister, I hope these three resources can be beneficial as you start your school year. May God continue to use gospel-saturated resources to help us effectively reach and teach our students the good news that true and eternal life is found only in Jesus Christ.