Just to give a little background on what i'm wanting to do with this website, I have been working in youth ministry for some time now. I work full time as a Software Admin for 5 years and after 3 Youth ministers (left, didn't work out, etc.) I have been approached to do this full time (volunteer).

For the past few months I have tried to stir up some exciting new programs, events, trips, etc. Wednesday night as been my biggest challenge now that other youth groups have really pushed their new ideas. The congregation across the street now has a new Wednesday night program called "Crave". They have posters, flyers... you name it everywhere at every school.

With all that being said... my time and software resources are currently very limited (not to mention my ability). I wanted to create somewhat of a viral marketing sight with my new Wednesday night youth class title and a countown. There are some other very small details if anyone maybe had a little time and some flash resources that wouldn't mind to lend me a hand.

Thanks guys... I really want to do something our kids can be proud of and invite people to enjoy. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Take care,
Muli

wut

Maybe this isn't the proper forum for this since you're just asking for tech help...but why the competition?

What are your goals as a youth minister, and for the youth programs? I understand that a portion of the goal tends to be either conversion (for those not members of the church) and a deepening of faith for those who are members ...but I'm sure there are other goals as well.

Perhaps you and the other program have commonalities in those other goals, and could work together.

Another thing that would frankly be awesome, is to have an interdenominational youth night. I'm sure there are other congregations which do not have the members or the resources to put together huge programs. What if one night a week was devoted to that? As long as conversion of those others wasn't the goal, and sharing the commonalities was (since few parents would want to send their kids to a program that primarily is trying to convert them over if they're happy in their faith)...I think you could have a pretty awesome thing. Plus sharing beliefs (without the preach-y-ness, or conversion goal) helps everything better understand what they believe, and what others believe.

Anyhoo, just some ideas.

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Probably because it'd be the kids at the schools putting them up wanting to push their program.

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Marauder Harabakc Goat

We have come a long way... not being a youth minister who went to seminary and so forth, I was never brought up in a my way or the highway belief. I have always been very involved in Church and before being anything "official" I had been working with other denominations for some time. Being a musical Church of Christ, it's a hard reputation to overcome in the Bible belt. Thus far, at the local high school, myself, Methodist, First Baptist, and Catholic youth ministers/leaders have reformed the school's FCA (which will hopefully be student driven). Also, you can see what we have done with JulyJam in our area, www.julyjam.com.

We try out best to be as unified as possible. However, its not the most popular idea among conservitive Christianity, it's much closer to what we believe Jesus would want things.

Anyway... we are trying, with every opportunity to come together, but we still have respective duties at our congregations and youth we lead. As I said, I always try to be cutting edge and creative but this is an area I need help. I will be completely redesigning our youth room. We put flat screens, coffee shop, Xbox360/Rockband, into the budget and now I am going to flex that but would like to kick it off with something interesting for our youth.

Again, you can get more info by looking up the Pikeville Church of Christ. We were actually front page in the Lexington Herald (kentucky.com) for the mission work we did over the summer with Ichthus.

I believe this was were I fell short. I approached the youth ministry, fighting the idea that "Church" was coming to a building, locking yourself in a room, and considering yourself either a Christian or above everyone else. We have went out into the community and our state with mission work, founding recycling programs, and benevolent ministry. I focused so much on going outward, other youth ministers are getting creative on the inside. My reality is, if they are coming to church then they won't know or participate in the events. Therefore, I have to get on the ball in making our services intriquing.

Also, check out Southeast Christian Church and The Vine (at Southeast Christian). This is the direction i'm heading.

Thanks again, also, please feel free to comment or give suggestions. I am asking for technical help. I need it. I don't have the software or the skill to achieve my vision. I can hire it done but, I thought why not check this resource first. I know some really creative people here and would greatly appreciate the assistance.

You might also want to be more specific on exactly the help you want. Reading from your posts, I'm not entirely sure. I see that you want some help making some flash stuff (which unfortunately I can't do, but I'm pretty sure a few people around here can). If you need website design or graphics assistance that opens it up for quite a few more people to assist.

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Yeah and nowadays flash sucks dude. No reason to use it. You can get WAY better looking sites, way more easily.

In a nutshell, I just need a site that would say..

RENEWED (in some cool font that either did something with a fade effect or mouseover) I was thinking that the Font would be something like broken class or cracked letter that either transitioned or mouseovered to intact, solid text.

Under that, a centered countdown to a date. I wanted to be able add little bits of information each week leading up to the final countdown.

Black background. Something relatively simple I can put up to replace the current youth page as I get something new developed. I just want the kids to go to the site and think, "what the heck is going on?"

Thanks,
Muli

Something like this?



Or

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ORRRRRRRRRRR

use these two with one as a mouseover and a countdown clock under it

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And if you need the coding for it: http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/images/ ... pp_59.html

Or any other number of sites out there. It's really easy to do.

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Those are pretty awesome. I really like the first image in your second post for the broken font.

When I was looking for examples... I had went to this site.

http://www.1001freefonts.com/distorted-eroded-fonts.php

and found examples like the 814 YZX or After Shock Gaut font. Hope to moseover the text and it becoming together but I like your broken font better.

The non broken font/image is going to be important because it will become the final logo once the go live date hits for the class. I hate to say anything since you are doing me such a great favor but, could it be in more white, silver, grey, and/or black. I wasn't envisioning much color in this for now.

I'm excited to check out the code once I get home. I'm at work still so i'm limited to where I can browse.

Thank you very very much!

Muli

Here it is with a plain black background. I also made the broken font more 'random' so all the Es didn't look identical.




Or if you wanted no color at all here's an example of how that would look.

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Oh I forgot to jazz up the 2nd renewed to create the additional layers blah blah blah. I can do that np, just let me know if you like it and want me to do that. The blue is supposed to make it look more glass-y. Or I can do it in BW too.

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If you'd like to make those yourself you can do what Tarot is doing and just downloading "Actions" for Adobe Photoshop.

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/i ... &loc=en_us

Ooo very cool. I was doing mine by hand with a shitload of layers. That looks much better, I'll have to play with it and the other shit on the site.

Reminds me of when I used to outline my own text and how fucking retarded I felt when someone explained the 'stroke' tool to me.

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I wish I still had Photoshop, PSP, Flash, etc. I lost all those two computers ago. I've been meaning to sink in some cash and get at least Photoshop but just haven't needed it. (Until now...)

I like the RENEWED with no color very well. I'm just concerned with having a smooth mouseover transition. Actually, I think i'll not worry about the mouseover. I like the RENEWED with no color, kind of broken, and then when the countdown hits zero, replace it with a very cool logo where all the letters or font have been "renewed."

If we can get a really nice final logo, I think we'll be there. I have to find a countdown that won't insult your image now.

I'm getting excited now. It's getting closer and closer to happening.

Thanks alot!!

If you know anyone who is a student in higher education, they get massive discounts on software for school/personal use. I think you can get Photoshop CS3 for like 80$, standalone. I'm sure you could write it off for your organization too. Har. It has to be used for an academic use if you want to be legit, but I'm sure your Youth Group has a lot to do with the schools in your area, and trying to bring in new people, so that'd be considered a legitimate use, I think.

I had never thought about purchasing software for the Youth Group... I'll ask our Treasurer, he's one of the major CPA's in our city so i'm sure he'd know the answers to that.

It would be great if we could get a laptop for presentation and graphic design. We do a lot of work for our local school. Not just advertising but we lead devotion and/or prayers for the football team before games and anything we're asked to do in service to them. I'll definitely check it out.

Thanks again,
Muli

It would also be great to get the kids involved in doing the work. It would teach them marketable skills, and give them a greater investment in the group.

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Yeah... I agree. We have some talented kids at that. We are in the process of getting a couple of computer set up in our youth room / coffee shop. They do quite of bit of marketing anyway. Just nothing very technical.

BTW... where did the broken text without the color. I wanted to check out what it would look like on the site. I need to find a decent countdown too, if anyone has suggestions that would be fitting with what Tarot has created.

I'm shooting on getting the site up this weekend. I wanting to kick it off on Oct. 1st. This will give me time to make some final presentations to the Church leadership and see if I can't get some approval on some youth room upgrades.

We'll be going through this study during Renewed..
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/ ... iew=covers

First, 30 mintues of hangout, Rock Band, fellowship, 45 minute lesson, and then another 30+minutes of hangout and/or discussion.

Should be fun...



Thanks,
Muli

Ah the site I used to host hosed them. I'll put it up again later or tomorrow, along with which font I used (I'm sure it's a free font, since that's almost exclusively what I use).

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Jesus would want you to use Actionscript, trust me.

You can make some pretty spiffy stuff with Flash CS3. Actionscript isn't terribly hard, it's very robust in what it can accomplish, but not hard to learn.

Just make sure to create in 3, and not 2.

http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Flash-CS3-P ... 0789736926

Good book to learn with there. They also have a great Dreamweaver book.

We are getting ever so close to finishing up. The last touch for the front-end of the webpages i'm developing needs a countdown which will give a real-time visual of when the real website will be open.

I'm looked all over google and cannot find anything that looks remotely good.

Anyone know where I can get a nice flash or javascript countdown?

If I can't get a flash countdown, i'll take anything I can edit font and colors. Would like to have it include days down to the miliseconds. The countdown would need to be counting down to October 29th.

Thanks,
Muli