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Student Meet Ups

1/27/2022

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We spend a lot of time creating programs, planning activities, preparing messages, and leading meetings. We meet with our leaders, we meet with parents, we meet with our students. One of my favorite ideas has been student meet ups. Check out today's vlog post.

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meet jay

Jay Higham is a veteran youth worker of over 30 years; having worked with students in the local church and Christian camping settings. Jay is currently serving as the Director of Family Ministry at Covenant Community Church, in Wheeling, WV. Jay has been married to Amy for 25 years. Together, they are raising 5 kids, (4 boys and 1 girl). Jay is an aspiring author, blogger, speaker, vlogger, and social media junkie. He is also the host of our new podcast, Conversations with Every Day Youth Workers! Jay is passionate about student ministry, family ministry, and connecting and networking with youth workers to help them serve their students with passion and excellence.
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To Cancel or Not to Cancel...That is the question!

1/26/2022

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What to do you when winter weather threatens to shut down your student ministry? Do you have a policy or a procedure to provide you with guidelines or perimeters to help you know when to cancel or when not to cancel? Watch today's post about canceling programs in inclement weather.

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meet jay

Jay Higham is a veteran youth worker of over 30 years; having worked with students in the local church and Christian camping settings. Jay is currently serving as the Director of Family Ministry at Covenant Community Church, in Wheeling, WV. Jay has been married to Amy for 25 years. Together, they are raising 5 kids, (4 boys and 1 girl). Jay is an aspiring author, blogger, speaker, vlogger, and social media junkie. He is also the host of our new podcast, Conversations with Every Day Youth Workers! Jay is passionate about student ministry, family ministry, and connecting and networking with youth workers to help them serve their students with passion and excellence.
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How Often Do You Share the Gospel?

1/25/2022

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I've been thinking a lot lately about this question, and thought it was time to put it out there and hear what others think.

Of course, this question leads to a list of additional questions. And while I'm not going to get into those questions here and now, I think I will circle back and address some of them in upcoming blog posts. So stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, watch today's vlog!

Watch more vlog posts here...

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meet jay

Jay Higham is a veteran youth worker of over 30 years; having worked with students in the local church and Christian camping settings. Jay is currently serving as the Director of Family Ministry at Covenant Community Church, in Wheeling, WV. Jay has been married to Amy for 25 years. Together, they are raising 5 kids, (4 boys and 1 girl). Jay is an aspiring author, blogger, speaker, vlogger, and social media junkie. He is also the host of our new podcast, Conversations with Every Day Youth Workers! Jay is passionate about student ministry, family ministry, and connecting and networking with youth workers to help them serve their students with passion and excellence.
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Flipping my calendar in 2022

1/24/2022

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I recently spend a couple hours sitting in the service department of a car dealership as one of our vehicles received some work for our annual state inspection. I took the time as an opportunity to go over my calendar, do a little planning, and to schedule out some appointments. We were already one busy week into the new year, so before the whole month spun out of control with the unexpected, I chose to take control of my weekly schedule.
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I started by included time for my goals and plans for self-health. These would be things like personal quiet times, work out times, person study and development, and times for family nights and date nights with my wife. I also blocked out the weekends that my wife and I are setting aside for family adventures. Then I started filling in the regular appointments such as worship, staff meetings, monthly directors meeting with one of our pastors, weekly bible studies, youth group gatherings; the things that happen weekly or monthly. Then I went back and filled in time for planning, message study and prep, brainstorm sessions and trainings with our adult leaders, and meetings with some of my team coordinators. Next I block in time to plan and get ready for events and gatherings that are not regular student gatherings.

In about 45 minutes I had filled about 60% of my calendar. I looked at what I had just completed, noting how much the calendar had been filled. As I looked at my calendar, I thought to myself, 'there's not much time left for being with people.' I said to myself, "this is a problem."
Being organized and planning out your calendar, weekly and monthly, is good. I've been doing it for years. I've blogged and vlogged about it. I'm a huge fan of blocking out your calendar, setting aside time to in office work, study and prep work, and contact work. Like I said, I've been doing it for years. One of the reason I plan out my schedule like this is that it helps me to see how and where I am spending my time. I use different color pens and highlights to help create a visual record of my plans. When I see too much of one color, it causes me to look at that part of my ministry and ask, 'is there normal, is it a unique season requiring more time, or am I really unbalanced?' If there is too little of a color, I need to ask, 'what's happening in this area of my ministry.'

watch my vlog about block scheduling


But as I looked at my January projections, I didn't like that I had set aside 60% of my time to "work in the office" and only 40% to be with my students or with people. Now, let me also note that part of the 60% does include time I am setting aside for me as I work to keep myself healthy, both physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And yes, some of the 60% is reserved for family time. But even in that, together those two things might equal about 15%, leaving 45% of my time for work.
This little exercise has me thinking about how I want to spend my time. Now that I can see how and where I will be spending my time, I think I want to make some changes. I need to flip my calendar.

What does that mean? Simply that I want to flip how and where I spend my time. Instead of spending the majority of my time sitting at my desk, I want to make sure that I am spending time connecting with my students, leaders, parents, and people from our community. That will require me flipping how I build out my weekly and monthly calendars. ​
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Instead of spending the majority of my time sitting at my desk, I want to make sure that I am spending time connecting with my students, leaders, parents, and people from our community. That will require me flipping how I build out my weekly and monthly calendars. 

So, starting next month, I'll begin the scheduling by blocking out time to be with people; students, leaders, parents, and people from the church and community. I want to re-establish the habit of putting people first. I want to make sure I am taking time to be available to my students and leaders. And I want to make sure relationships are a priority.

This is all the more important as we get back to ministry post-covid. Having spent the last 20-something months, mostly disconnected, working from home or from the office has becoming the norm. It's easy to fill up your schedule with busy work when you can't be with people. No doubt, covid has left us with some bad habits. But after two years of not always being able to meet up with students and leader, I want to make sure this years a year of connected with people.

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How about you? How are you planning to reconnect with your students, leaders, parents, and the people from your church and community? What priority are you placing on the idea of spending time, one-on-one time with the people around you? I'd love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment below!

​- jay

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meet jay

Jay Higham is a veteran youth worker of over 30 years; having worked with students in the local church and Christian camping settings. Jay is currently serving as the Director of Family Ministry at Covenant Community Church, in Wheeling, WV. Jay has been married to Amy for 25 years. Together, they are raising 5 kids, (4 boys and 1 girl). Jay is an aspiring author, blogger, speaker, vlogger, and social media junkie. He is also the host of our new podcast, Conversations with Every Day Youth Workers! Jay is passionate about student ministry, family ministry, and connecting and networking with youth workers to help them serve their students with passion and excellence.
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Welcome to 2022

1/10/2022

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Welcome to 2022! And welcome to The Youth Worker Daily!

I started The Youth Worker Daily in 2019. It was my hope to bring youth workers daily tools, tips, resources and helps so that you, as a youth worker, might thrive in your ministry. Through a mix of blog posts and video-based tips, I wanted to encourage youth workers with simple but practical helps that might aid in their work.

So far I've created almost 100 videos and countless blog posts that date back to 2015 when I was writing under my personal domain name of www.JayHigham.com. Along the way I wrote articles for Youth Specialties, Youth Ministry 360 (YM360), Group, and Called to Youth Ministry. For a little while, I oversaw the blog management at Controlled Chaos, a blog and podcast for Middle School Ministry. Then in the middle of the Covid-19 Pandemic, I launched a podcast called, Conversations with Every Day Youth Workers, a podcast that invited youth workers to share their story of youth ministry. During that time, most of the conversations were about how we were surviving ministry while in a historic season of shut downs and stay-at-home orders.

Then 2021 came. Promises of a covid vaccine and hopes of returning to "normal" brought little rays of excitement and anticipation. It was also an opportunity to get back to doing student ministry. It was still touch and go at first, but slowly, we managed to eek out a series of student gatherings; first as small groups, then finally in large group gatherings. During this time, I set aside my extracurricular activities of blogging, vlogging and podcasting to focus on the work at hand; rebuilding our student ministry, our kids ministry, and our college ministry.
And while 2021 came with its fair share of ups and downs, I saw God at work in the lives of my students, my leaders, and the families I serve. Ministry, though it looked a little different, was coming back. Families were coming back. Students were coming back. Life and ministry seemed to be moving in a good direction.

Then the fall came. We were giving the green light to do student ministry, so we jumped into our first semester with both feet. And it was good! Really good! September, October, November, and December brought weekly gatherings, activities, a fall retreat and an amazing Christmas Yule Ball Semi-formal. God showed up and did something amazing. Oh, there were still some difficulties. We had to postpone some things due to Covid, and numbers sometimes fluctuated depending on who was under quarantine. It certainly wasn't perfect, but we trusted God to show up and he did.
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But now 2022 is here. And as I get ready to launch our second semester of student ministry, I think we're ready to bring back regular activity to The Youth Worker Daily! God has been super active in our ministry and with our students. While the season of Covid shutdowns and virtual everything was difficult, it brought about the opportunity for us to take a good look at what we were doing in the way of ministry. It was a time to refocus, reinvent, and reenergize. I was reminded of the importance of relationships over programs, personal connections over blast texts and bulk emails, and the power of a conversation versus great social media posts. We learned a lot. I've learned a lot. And now it's time to get back to work.

2022 is going to be an exciting year. Covid aside, I believe we are poised to see God do something amazing. The Youth Worker Daily is back, and with it, more tools, tips, resources and help so you thrive in your ministry! New content, weekly ministry recaps, games and resources, and a look inside what we as a student ministry are doing with our leaders and our students.

I am also looking forward to bringing the podcast back. That's right, Conversations with Every Day Youth Workers will return in February 2022. I love talking with youth workers; listening as they share their stories and what God is doing with their students and within their ministries! But along with these conversations there will also be more interviews and sharing of what's happening within the realm of student ministry. It's going to be great!
So who's ready to see 2022 become a year of growth?

Welcome back to, THE YOUTH WORKER DAILY! We're so glad you're here!

- ythworkerdaily

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    Jay Higham is a veteran youth worker of over 30 years; having worked with students in the local church and Christian camping settings. Jay is currently serving as the director of family ministry at a church, located in West Virginia. Jay has been married to Amy for over 25 years. Together, they are raising 5 kids, (4 boys and 1 girl). Jay is an aspiring author, blogger, speaker, vlogger, and social media junkie. He is passionate about student ministry, family ministry, and training youth workers to love and serve their students with passion and excellence.

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  • HOME
    • Jay Higham >
      • COACHING
      • SPEAKING
      • FAVORITE BOOKS
    • ABOUT THE BLOG
    • LINKS
    • CONTACT ME
  • BLOG
    • ARTICLES
    • ARCHIVES
  • VLOG
    • SEASON ONE
    • SEASON TWO
    • SEASON THREE
  • PODCAST
    • BE A GUEST
  • SHOP
    • BOOK STORE >
      • USED BOOK SALE
    • FOR YOUTH WORKERS
    • my books >
      • Christmas is the Best