Monday, April 16, 2012

Product Review: Live Curriculum by Simply Youth Ministry

     I've actually been meaning to write this blog post/product review for awhile and have just forgotten about it a few times. I had a few spare seconds so I figured I would go ahead and write it up.
     Live Curriculum by Simply Youth Ministry is hands down one of the best curriculums I have ever used. This curriculum is a bi-vocational youth ministers dream, it is easy to use, customizable, and very easy to study. If your like me and you have to work a full time job in addition to your work as a youth minister, anything that can free you up to have more relational time with your students is a God send.
     Each lesson features teacher training, parental email, text message teasers for your students, and student hand outs (all in PDF and Word format). It is set up in a four year format, and when paired with the Holiday package covers your entire year. This was critical for me since I use this as a Sunday School curriculum not small group. It was designed as a small group curriculum but with minor adjustments, ie replacing the words small group with Sunday School, it's a perfect fit for any ministry setting.
    It comes with a one year trial of the online delivery system, but the entire curriculum can be downloaded if you chose not to continue the online delivery. I love the online delivery it enables me to set up my entire year of lessons and stay organized. Also the mobile apps?.? Are you kidding me! If you're like me you're constantly on the go. I have a iPhone and an iPad and this enables me to stay mobile and have access to my curriculum any time anywhere. It also enables me to teach from my iPad and save paper. Also if your like me and your in a rural area with no WiFi in your youth room. The iPad app stores your last session so you have access to a few of your last viewed lessons even with no WiFi.
    The customer service with this curriculum is second to none. Matty McCage the Live Customer Service Rep is super knowledgeable, courteous, kind, and just an all around pleasure to deal with. When purchasing the curriculum I had a ton of questions and Matty answered quickly every time.
    The only draw back I could find to the curriculum is I wish the curriculum came with its own program to bring up the teaching parts to all of the lessons. I would love to have access to all of my lessons on my iPad at all times. I'm sure this would increase the curriculum cost incredibly.
     If you are looking for the hands down best curriculum for an on the go youth pastor, that's biblically sound, versatile, covers a variety of topics, and best of all is cheap and budget friendly. Live is for you!

2 comments:

  1. You still using it? Have you found Years 2-4 to be different than Year 1?

    ReplyDelete