I don’t blog advertisements…
Anyone who’s been around Life in Student Ministry for a little while knows that I almost never write product reviews. Although I’m contacted almost every week by different companies asking me to write about their product or services, I very rarely do so because 1) I don’t want this to turn into a youth ministry marketing blog, and 2) the time you spend reading/skimming these posts is too valuable to waste on “glorified advertisements.” However, whenever I do mention a product or service, it’s only because I’ve actually used it myself and found it to be a resource that’s highly worth recommending for your ministry.

…but this is good!
Dare 2 Share’s Go Wide kit and The G.O.S.P.E.L. Journey are two such tools that I’ve been dying to share with you. Both the Jr. High and the Sr. High students in my ministry have gone through these studies with amazing results: their understanding of the gospel is crystal clear and they are now articulating it just as clearly with their unsaved and unchurched friends. I’ve never seen Jr. High glued to teaching and instruction as they were during Greg’s DVD sessions. And some of the most deep and meaningful conversations we’ve ever had with high school students took place following the G.O.S.P.E.L. Journey videos.

Go Wide Evangelism Training Kit
Greg takes a couple DVD sessions to teach the Go Wide strategy, that is, to spread the message of salvation to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:19-20). He’s not only motivational, he gives practical training on how to actually share Christ with an old friend or a new acquaintance: Pray, Peruse, Persuade. The discussion guide then helps kids place faces and names to the strategy in their own lives.

The G.O.S.P.E.L. Journey
The G.O.S.P.E.L. Journey is an attempt to be a “reality show” where they put together an atheist, an agnostic, a Wiccan, a city girl, an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian and a minister’s kid to create some thought-provoking discussions on God, religion and faith. Although the concept is great, it wasn’t as much of a typical reality show as it was Greg teaching God’s plan of salvation through the entire Bible and getting feedback from those with opposing viewpoints. The idea still worked for my group anyway. The best part is that Greg covers the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, throughout the series, giving students a clear understanding of the central theme that ties all of scripture together.

The only downside to The G.O.S.P.E.L. Journey is that the video sessions tend to be about 40 minutes long, which makes it tough to fit in decent discussions if you only have an hour and a half meeting with games and a time of worship. So, my youth group meetings slowly morphed from our typical 30 minutes of Bible study to 70 minutes of Bible study and the kids loved it! In fact, we’re going to stick with the 70 minute teaching times from now on at the high school large-group meetings. (Although, there’s more behind the shift than just this DVD series.)

How we used it
We took about 4 weeks to go through the Go Wide kit and then seven or eight weeks to go through the G.O.S.P.E.L. Journey. The two work great hand-in-hand. Go Wide covers a strategy for personal evangelism and the G.O.S.P.E.L. Journey follows-up nicely with other viewpoints of Christianity. It helps students know how to respond to the questions they’ll encounter or maybe questions they’re currently wrestling with. The discussion guide includes two different outlines for each DVD teaching session: one that focuses on training students who are already believers, and one that focuses on discussing salvation with pre-saved teenagers, making it a great outreach tool.

To find out more about these two products, check out these links for promo videos, downloadable leader guides, and more:
Go Wide: info | purchase $74.00
G.O.S.P.E.L. Journey: info | purchase $169.00

Posted on April 7, 2008