Apart from God, the most important resource we have in youth ministry is our team. They balance us, where we are weak. They help us reach more teenagers and families through a multiplied effort. They will continue the ministry if God moves us somewhere else. I could keep going, but I think you get the point.

One of the best ways to support our volunteers is to provide resources. Whether you don’t know where to find the best resources or you get overwhelmed as you look through the plethora of great options, we thought it would be helpful to provide three of the best for you. So here they are in no particular order.

Lead Small Book

Whether your youth group utilizes small groups or not, this short book by Reggie Joiner and Tom Shefchunas will help your volunteers understand the importance of their role. The authors highlight five big ideas that your team can implement in their own communities of teenagers. And the principles are adjustable for all church sizes. So if you have a team of 100 volunteers in various roles or you have one volunteer helping you do everything, Lead Small will help empower and equip your team to lead teenagers well.

DYM University & Training Library

Many of you might know Download Youth Ministry for their growing catalog of inexpensive games and teaching series, but they also offer an ever-expanding Leader Training Library of videos on various topics within youth ministry. For those who want even more, check out DYMU, which contains several series of training videos you can send to your team to watch on their own and complete a short quiz at the end. You could use the training videos for regular team meetings, on-boarding for new leaders, or to help your volunteers learn new ways of ministering to teens. This will also be incredibly helpful for those who prefer watching videos over reading a book.

National Day of Volunteer Youth Ministry Training 

If you can afford to take your team to a conference or workshop, do it. The problem is that many of them are nowhere close and they are often quite expensive. The National Day of Volunteer Youth Ministry Training is going to fix both of those problems. There are well over 200 locations, and there is just one price for you to bring your entire team. Eight of the leading voices in youth ministry will present TED-Talk-style trainings over a two-and-a-half hour event. Check out trainmyvolunteers.com and sign up your team to attend. The 2019 event is on September 21.

These are some of my favorite youth ministry resources for volunteers, but I know it is far from an expansive list. There are so many amazing resources for youth workers. We didn’t even have time to talk about all the great podcasts. If you have a favorite resource that has worked well with your volunteers, we’d love to hear about it. Tell us about it in the comments.