Last weekend was the Simply Youth Ministry Conference, and there was lots of great training. One of the speakers, Tim Schmoyer videoed his seminar on Communicating Youth Group News with Teens and Parents and dropped it on YouTube. You can watch it here (it was really good):

If you’d like to pickup more seminars from last week end you can get them here. Or if you’d like to register for next year (It’s going to sell out early) Visit: youthministry.com/symc.

Over at SimplyYouthMinistry.com we are having an 80’s won’t die sale.  80 products and you pay 80% (that’s 20% off, get it?).  There’s some great stuff.  In honor of celebrating the decade of Big Hair we made this video.

WARNING:  This video contains a side of Andy Brazelton you may wish you never saw.

Click here to check out the 80/80 Sale.

Well 2009 is officially over, and I was thinking about some of the tech that made it’s way into my world during the year. Here’s some of my favorites:

Software:
Mozy – I committed to online backup this year having deciding that my time machine wasn’t enough.  Mostly because if something happened at my house the chances of losing both were pretty high.  I went with Mozy, and after having a harddrive crash while on a trip and I was still able to access my data, I’m sold.  It’s definitely worth the $5 a month it costs.

Dropbox – This has become a tool I use daily.  Great for online storage and sharing.  And it’s FREE!

Teleport – This little bit of software allows you to share one keyboard and mouse between 2 macs without any extra hardware.  It’s really cleaned up my desk and I love the way it works.  Price: FREE

Hardware:
iPhone 3gs – This is so much more than a phone to me. It allows me to be away from the office but still take care of quite a bit of my daily tasks.  I love it.

MacBook Pro Uni-body – My old Macbook Pro was great for almost 3 years, but my recent upgrade to one of the new Uni-body models has been a great one.  The power is awesome.  To compare, my old machine took 90 minutes to export the SYM podcast that I produce each week, and the new laptop does the same video in 35.  I love it.  Although if you are thinking about upgrading, I would wait to see if there are any upgrades early in the year.

Flip MinoHD Camcorder – This is such a great little camera.  So easy to use and a great picture for what it costs.  You aren’t going to produce a major motion picture with this, but to capture camp memory, quick event highlights, and fun family moments, I love it.  Read my full review here: review-flip-minohd.

Kindle 2 -I upgraded my ebook reader to the Kindle this year.  I really enjoy reading on it.  A few things that make it great:

1. Battery life
2. Amazon Store – so many titles, and great prices.
3. Always connected – I can download books where ever I am, and it doesn’t cost any extra

Web:
Gdgt.com: Great new gadget site.  I do a lot of my gadget research here.  I also really enjoy their podcast.

LIVE Curriculum: I think most of you know, I am the web manager for Simply Youth Ministry, and one of the big projects I worked on this year was this online curriculum. I am really proud of what we put together, and when I think of 2009 it was a huge part of it.

Now on to 2010.

There’s a lot of Christmas Freebies floating around this year.  I thought I’d let you know about some before it’s too late.

• Free Media from the Simply Youth Ministry Media Store
• Free Media from Centerline Blog
• Free Training from Cadre Connection
• iTunes Holiday Sampler
• Appvent Calendar – Free iPhone games
• Free Christmas PowerPoint Game
• Free Christmas Backgrounds
• Free Christmas Message – “The Christmas Killers”

Some of these are daily or every couple days.  Even if you missed a few of them, there’s still a lot of freebies left before Christmas.

Over at Simply, we are having a Save Andy (and us all) Sale.  He’s decided that he wants to be a Rock Star instead of Youth Ministry.  Watch this video and see how bad he his.  Help show him his future is really in Youth Ministry by helping make this sale a huge success.  And you save 30 – 70% on some of our best resources.

Visit the Sale Here!

The Spooky Awesome Bundle is new from Simply Youth Ministry and is a amazing deal for anyone looking to stock up on Youth Ministry resources. It includes 13 resources with a $280 value for only $69, plus when they sell 200 and 400 bundles they will add more resources too it. It has stuff from Doug Fields, Kurt Johnston, Chuck Bomar, Josh Griffin, and Megan Hutchinson.

Here’s what it includes:

• The $5 Youth Ministry
• ER Handbook for Youth Ministry
• Power Play Vol. 4
• 99 Thoughts about Girls: For Guys’ Eyes Only
• 99 Thoughts about Guys: For Girls’ Eyes Only
• 99 Thoughts for Youth Workers
• 99 Thoughts for College Age People
• 10 Minute Moments – Red Stuff
• 10 Minute Moments – God’s Story
• Love Out Loud
• Who Am I?
• Plugged In
• Life Hurts God Heals

Hurry, it’s only good until Oct 30, or until they run out, and I bet it will only take a few days, so if you’re interested, I would buy soon.

Thought I’d pass this along for anyone needing some resources, a great chance to get some Free stuff, but only till Oct 20, 2009.

LINK: SimplyYouthMinistry.com

I am constantly amazed at the tools that lifechurch.tv produces.  This morning I found out about what is quite possibly the most useful of them all: Open.  What is it?  It’s thousands of top-quality resources for churches available for free download.  It’s not just youth resources!  Everyone can find something from adults to children and youth to pet ministry (I may have gone a little overboard on the pet ministry).

To begin, you simply sign up for an account and voila, the world of Open resources is at your fingertips.  Browse through the files to find videos of messages, background loops, small group curriculum, skits and video illustrations.

Don’t have a great worship band?  No problem, you can download worship sets to project on a screen with a band, lyrics, the whole deal.  There’s even forms and training.  Like I said, it’s awesome!  The only problem I could find with the well-designed site is that some of the video files require you to burn them on a dvd to play them which for a novice (especially one using a pc) could get a little hairy.

That being said, it’s all there, and it’s all free.  Next time you need help on a message or small group your first stop simply has to be Open.

I recently ran across a pretty incredible site: Wing Clips. The site focuses on providing clips for download from top movies that you can use as an illustration in your talks/sermons.  What’s amazing, is that they have clips available from first-run movies that are still in the theatres!  Right now they even have clips for a couple of films that have not even been released.

The clips are categorized by title, theme, and some even have full sermon outlines available for download (premium only).  What is interesting, and convenient, is that they have worked out a deal with the studios to allow you to not need a CVLI license to display them.   They provide 320×240 versions for free, and offer a subscription for unlimited 640×480 resolution for $15.95 a month or $139.00 a year (which works out to $11.59 a month).

YouVersion announced an interesting new feature called Live.  Though it will not be “live” until October, the product is supposed to be focused on letting you interact with live events on your mobile phone.

According to their promotional material, it will allow you to follow along with message outlines and take notes, read related Bible verses and click through to the expanded passage, vote on a poll and see the results live, respond to questions anonymously, request prayer, and take it all home with you on your phone.

This promises to be an incredible tool if they deliver on all these feature.  Be sure that we will have a full review once the product launches.  Until then, you can click here to check out their site for all the information.