The book, “Not the Same old, Done-it-before Youth Meetings” is an exciting, practical, knowledgeable and well composed book that, despite its length (360 pages) I took only ten days to thoroughly study it.

• Elements of Excitement: The reader can feel excited by studying chapters like Flashlight Sing, Olympics, Valentine’s – Day of Love and Youth Meeting Place. The reader is involved to substantial extent, for example, I reacted enthusiastically to the competition of flashlight singing in which the youth group is divided into teams and each team has to sing a song and so on.

• Elements of Practicality: Through this book young people can be encouraged that the Holy Bible is an effective source of hope and redress for young people, e.g. in the lesson “Prayer” the starting verse of the chapter, “And being in agony of mind, he prayed and more earnestly and intently” (Luke 22:44). There are helpful references given alongside it about the Prodigal Son and about the crippled man, etc.

In addition chapters 24-26 entitled “Who do you say I am?”, “Where can I find you God?” and “What would you have me do?” … these chapters, along with the evidences and references are marvelous about the practical aspects of the Lord.

• Elements of Knowledge: Apart from excitement and practicality this book is elaborated with knowledge, for instance, chapters like “Study of Angels for teens”. In addition the “Lets Ask God” chapter gives techniques to share knowledge and something new for young people.

I would conclude by appreciating great effort from Tim Ferguson and recommend that this book is fruitful especially for youth leaders and workers. I pray that his untiring efforts for the last so many years may bring fruit.

In reading your website, listening to your radio interview and reading your book (over the past several months) I have come to feel so blessed to have known you these 33 years, and in being a part of your life and research (though we didn’t know it at the time). Your book demonstrates the growth that comes faith. Praise God that he will never let any of us stay stagnant if we but listen and obey.

Your book is a great asset for me as a Professional Clown who has been Commissioned to Spread the Word in Greasepaint. You can know with certainty that I will be using many of the games, etc. as Smiley the Clown plays the Holy Fool for Christ!

I am a Christian youth leader and Secondary School fellowship leader in our country during 7 years, nowadays: One among Church Leader and one among association against poverty leader.

In this interesting book, I learned a lot of things from it. As a young man, a youth leader, I so helped myself whereby I'm going to help my fellow Christians using this book. In the book I'm glad of it because I grew spiritual from the strong topics which I went through. I especially liked how you can use youth, grouped together, to go deeply into any topic and learn from them by using games/ life experiences.

I learned about Thanksgiving, how vertically I got a reason to thank God. The teaching from 2 Peter 1:5-78 about needed qualities and how God expects those who are filled with His Spirit to use those qualities (Matthew 26) were some of the most meaningful lessons and activities in the book.

Lastly when I went through the Angels Teen Lesson, I came to understand the meaning of angels and about modern day angels. I appreciate you supporting my ministry by sharing these hidden, richest teachings and I promise to help my fellow youth to know God, where we can find Him and ways we can listen to His still, small voice. Let me thank you for this precious book and may God bless you much.

• Tim is a member of my church and I wanted to support his endeavor

• I planned on thumbing through it and perhaps pick up some ideas to aid me in teaching Sunday school.

Little did I realize what an invaluable Christian youth resource this book would become to me. As I was looking through the book, I realized how it tied in with our curriculum (I teach the 6th, 7th and 8th grade class). The best part of it is the concrete examples and the step-by-step lesson plans that I just have to follow. I use this book, the Bible, the curriculum and a book on parables and I have one solid, exciting curriculum. Tim did all the work and I just have to follow the lessons he prepared. Currently, we are making our way through Who Do You Say I Am? The kids are interested and so am I as I hear their feedback and their understanding of who they think Jesus is.

I cannot wait to use some of the Christian youth lessons and awesome activities Tim has put in the book. I think this would be a great addition to any Sunday school as well as Christian Youth program.

Cathy Murray,

'My goal was to write the book for Christian teens I wanted to have when I started Christian Youth Programs over thirty years ago.'

Tim Ferguson, Community Presbyterian Church, Deer Park, NY

TO LEARN MORE WAYS TO MEET YOUR GROUP'S UNIQUE NEEDS ... ALL WHILE HAVING FUN ... HELPING CHRISTIAN TEENS MAKE NEW CHRISTIAN FRIENDS ... AND TEACHING LESSONS THAT ENHANCE THE FAITH OF YOUTH AND YOUTH LEADERS TOGETHER. ...

Please take a moment to visit by clicking the below link.

Not the Same Old, Done-it-before Youth Meeting (the book)

See the history page to learn of the special people who motivated me and assisted in this project.

Larry: Well, Tim ... did you ever have a "hard nut to crack"

Tim: Let me share a story that did happen ... a thirteen year old boy who refused to talk to anybody, social workers, teachers, anybody... His mother said, "Good luck to you" and we talked a little and (she said) he doesn't want to come out and talk... I said, "I'm going to talk to him anyhow". She said, "Go right in there that's his room.... his room was filled with garbage, two feet high, just junk, by garbage I mean litter,... beds, pillows, sheets, all over the place, papers, chairs upside down ... I saw a little movement underneath the garbage ... I came here to talk to you ... I know you don't want to talk to me, so let me just talk to you and I started telling him about the things I do with youth... I said,"I'll see you next week" ... I came back next week and he was sitting in the living room ready to talk to me.

Larry: Your book allows others to tap into your expeience ... it's almost like a recipe book...

Tim: You want to do something about sports... well I've got two or three places where I've done scriptural things about sports, forinstance, Jacob's wrestling match with God.You've got a bunch of kids that are into wrestling that's on t.v.; and say, "You know, that's not the first time we have wrestling; we have it in Genesis" and Jacob's wrestling match (with God) is both a physical and spiritual experience. It gives you a nice lead into things of faith.