The Download Youth Ministry Blog/
13 Dec 2023

Presenting Full-Screen In Sidekick

By |2023-12-12T13:00:42-08:00December 13th, 2023|Sidekick Hero Blog|0 Comments

Presenting full-screen in Sidekick is super simple! Just watch the video below, or scroll down to see step-by-step instructions.

Step-By-Step Instructions:

To see step-by-step instructions (along with a screenshot of each step) for presenting full-screen in Sidekick, just click the plus (+) button next to each step below:

It’s really that easy! And, of course, once you add any element to a slide, you can use your mouse to move and resize that element so you can place it exactly where you want it on your slide.

Be on the lookout for upcoming posts on how to do the following:

  • 🎵 Adding Songs to Sidekick via SongSelect
  • 🔀 Moving Sections and Slides in Sidekick
  • 📱 Controlling Your Sidekick Presentation from Your Phone
  • 📙 Adding Speaker Notes in Sidekick
  • ✅ Live Voting in Sidekick
  • ‼️ And more!

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

Read More
12 Dec 2023

Our First Poll @ Mariner’s JHM: “Who is Your Favorite?” BAD IDEA.

By |2023-12-12T09:12:01-08:00December 12th, 2023|Mariners Youth Ministry, Sidekick Hero Blog|0 Comments

I lost miserably in a new Sidekick poll we did with our students. Ugh, I did not see this coming. I ended up being tied for LAST in the voting.

But first, let me back up…

Ok, without a doubt, Live Voting in the new beta version of Sidekick is absolutely amazing. In addition to being incredibly easy to setup, the student experience is SO GOOD. It’s just so much fun. We had 2 polls this week.

First up was:

And, somewhat surprisingly, the vast majority of students were all in on Christmas tunes as soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is sliced up.

But the real controversy came with the second poll, which was:

…and let me come to you from the future with this warning:

DO NOT DO THIS POLL WHEN YOU GET SIDEKICK.

(Remember, Sidekick Presenter is included with your DYM Gold Membership, and Sidekick + Phones is included in a DYM Gold+ Membership).

So we put the names of six regular leaders up on the screen… and the host of the element (regrettably not me) pushed students to vote for herself… Then the bribing started. Another leader was bribing students with LLAMA BUCKS. Then student leaders all got behind another person.

In short… I was left out in the cold, just like having a birthday a couple days after Christmas – it’s not a great feeling. I got demolished in the final tally.

All of this to say… be kind to yourself this holiday season. When you use Sidekick + Phones, don’t even think of asking students to pick their favorite… or you just might get humbled a bit… like me this week. Ouch.

Josh

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

Read More
11 Dec 2023

How a Silly Idea Called Llamabucks Changed Our Youth Group This Fall

By |2023-12-11T23:47:43-08:00December 11th, 2023|josh griffin, junior high, junior high ministry, Mariners Youth Ministry, Youth Ministry Hacks, Youth Ministry Ideas, Youth Ministry Resources|7 Comments

Last week I had 11 students tell me last week’s memory verse from youth group.

Now, maybe that’s not the most incredible thing in your context, but I added a memory verse to our program over a year ago and this was exactly 8x the most we’ve ever had recite a verse from memory. Now, you could certainly chalk up part of that to poor leadership on my part for the past 365 days, and that’s certainly a contributing factor. But what accounted for the change?

Enter: llama bucks.

Back at Fall Kickoff we introduced a new currency in our youth group, playing off of a llama theme that has kinda taken over. No more prizes, just llama bucks. Serving? Get a llamabuck. Ask a great question in your small group time? Score a llamabuck.

SAY A MEMORY VERSE? Get a llamabuck.

And this thing has taken on a whole life of its own. Despite us having a really horrendous resume and zero experience in distributing an internatioal currency and inflation … we’ve given out thousands of llama bucks. And they can be used in two key ways:

  1. Use them in small amounts right away in the llama store outside the youth room to grab some Nerd Ropes or a Liquid Death (it’s just water people) or some JHM merch.
  2. Save up for the Llama-auction on January 13th, 2024. We have a big event planned with lots of fun, big items (most requested was an eBike, we’ll see, sounds expensive) but we’ll have fun items for students to bid on to use up their bucks.

Reward what you want to see happen in your youth ministry. Not a new idea, just our spin on it … and it’s crushing right now.

Josh

Read More
11 Dec 2023

Live Voting: Would You Rather

By |2023-12-12T19:48:46-08:00December 11th, 2023|Sidekick, Sidekick Hero Blog|0 Comments

Live Voting is one of my absolute favorite new features in Sidekick. Without a doubt, it allows students to engage during a service like never before!

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be showing you some really cool ways that you can use Live Voting in your services, and I can’t think of a better way than one of my favorite ways to start a service: WOULD YOU RATHER.

If you’re curious how this might work, below are 12 different Would You Rather questions that our team came up to get you started. Just click on an image to see the two options that students would be choosing between…

On its own, Would You Rather is a fairly simple concept. Students are given two options, and they must make a choice between the two. One of the reasons Would You Rather is so much fun is that sometimes the options are related, and sometimes they aren’t even in the same ballpark. The other reason (and this is my favorite) is that often you’ll see friends who thought they agreed about something suddenly find themselves on VERY different sides of the issue.

All in all, Would You Rather is an incredible way to help students lower their guard a little bit so that they are more willing to engage with the service that’s about to happen. And in my opinion, Sidekick Live Voting takes that to a completely new level! Suddenly, students will be able to see the results of everyone in the the room’s choices in REAL TIME!

While we’d always encourage you to come up with some of your own that your students will resonate with, we also created this handy text document with all twelve of our questions so you can copy and paste them into your own Sidekick Live Polls:

👉 Download 12 Would You Rather Questions Here 👈
👉 Download 12 Would You Rather Questions Here 👈

And, if you’re interested in finding out more about how Sidekick Live Voting works we’ve created a short walkthrough video that shows you how to creat your own polls by using this this game-changing Sidekick feature.

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

Read More
8 Dec 2023

December 2023 – Improvements & Bug Fixes

By |2023-12-12T19:49:37-08:00December 8th, 2023|Sidekick Hero Blog, Sidekick: What's New|0 Comments

Sidekick has only been out for a few days, but as a result of your feedback and suggestions, we already have a few improvements and bug fixes that we want to announce! Users should start to see these over the next few hours, so you’ll definitely see them before church on Sunday.

The following features were improved:

  • Presentations that are live now have an indicator on the dashboard, allowing the user to jump directly to the live presentation.
  • Videos now autoplay unmuted by default.
  • Videos can be set to be muted or unmuted on load.
  • Added better descriptive language for Image-based Question Poll.
  • Landscape view on mobile shows current slide, controls, and next slide (See below) – NOTE: This is an incremental step to make mobile better, but it’s still work in progress.

(click image to enlarge)

The following bugs were fixed:

  • Muting/unmuting no longer restarts the video in Presenter
  • Video play button now works when editing
  • Mobile voting view now shows the actual slide (See below)

(click image to enlarge)

Plus, I have it on good authority (I just talked to one of our developers) that when you first load your presentation, you’ll notice that the slide thumbnails load A LOT (and I mean A LOT) 🔥 FASTER 🔥! Don’t get me wrong. It was already fast, but now it’s almost too fast… if that was actually possible.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

These improvements and fixes are a direct result of users like you telling us about your Sidekick experience. I speak for our whole team when I say that our goal is to make Sidekick the best and most engaging presentation tool for youth workers around the world. And we absolutely can’t do that without you. So, seriously, thank you for putting Sidekick through the paces. And thank you even more for letting us know what you think.

You’re the best, and you deserve a day off.

And since I can’t technically give you a day off, I’ll do the next best thing and make sure you know how to contact us with questions, issues, and suggestions…

Contacting support

If you ever have any trouble using Sidekick, or if something just doesn’t seem to do the thing it seems like it should, just reach out to our support team at [email protected]. They’re all super-nice, and super-helpful!

Suggesting New Features

We’d love to hear about any feature that you think would be an awesome addition to Sidekick! Now, users can suggest new features (and vote on features that other users have already submitted) by visiting https://sidekick-tv.canny.io.

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

Read More
8 Dec 2023

Meet A Sidekick Hero: Scott Tinman

By |2023-12-12T19:50:22-08:00December 8th, 2023|Sidekick Hero Blog|1 Comment

From Doug: I asked Scott Tinman to share why he’s excited about Sidekick. Scott has been part of our Sidekick Testing-Team over the past month or so, and he has had so many different ideas and use cases. Scott is a friend to DYM, he’s a veteran youth pastor who is always willing to help other youth workers. He serves at Living Hope Church in Findlay, OH… and he’s our very first Sidekick HERO (a shirt is coming your way Scott!)

The NEW Sidekick is here!

As a veteran youth worker, I am excited about the potential of what is currently available and what DYM has planned for the new and improved Sidekick. For the past few weeks, I’ve been using Sidekick as part of the “Sidekick Beta Test Group,” and I AM ABSOLUTELY LOVING IT!

A little while ago, Doug asked me to write down some of the reasons I’ve been so impressed with the NEW Sidekick…here are my top 5:

1. It’s Web-Based!

Since this is a web-based program it means it’s available wherever you have an internet connection for both presenting and also for creating your presentation. Gone are the days of needing to be in the youth room to create your program slides or get a jump drive, or create a Dropbox or Google Drive to download and hope it works. You can create this anywhere you have an internet connection and when you open it up on the youth room computer it is ready to go! Just this last weekend I worked on my weekend program while hanging out at one of my favorite coffee shops. When I got to my church computer, it was all there. Love this!

2. Controls!

Remember trying to have someone in the tech booth and hoping they keep up with the slides in the presentation… well now you can have control with your phone, iPad/tablet or even your laptop. When you are in Live Presentation mode you can join from any device from the stage and control things yourself. Or, you can use your laptop as a confidence monitor for what slides are coming throughout your program and use your phone to advance your slides. I also like the feature of adding presenter/speaker notes that you can insert and use for when you are upfront.

3. LIVE Polls!

It’s time to stop fighting the cell phone/technology battle and use phones for some good interaction! Now with the LIVE Polls we can create simple ways of engagement with our students and our programming. Being able to see LIVE results on the screen has been fun for our group and bringing a different excitement to our weekly programming. These are easy to create and can be created for games and ice breakers as well as interaction during your teaching. It’s really versatile.

(click image to enlarge)

(click image to enlarge)

(click image to enlarge)

4. Streaming YouTube Videos for Worship!

One of the elements you can utilize is streaming YouTube or Vimeo for worship. Right now, our student worship team is in a bit of a restructuring/development phase, and we need to utilize worship lyric videos in our weekly program. In Sidekick, you can get the video URL, put it in a slide, and stream the song straight from YouTube. Gone are the days of asking youth workers what YouTube downloader they are using to download a video to put in your presentation software. This will also be helpful in streaming clips for teaching or other fun videos you want to share in your program. If you do have your own worship team and need to import song lyrics, Sidekick now has the integration of Song Select and CCLI, so you can import the slides automatically instead of the old cut and paste from searching the lyrics on Google.

5. Synchronizing between Coleader & Sidekick!

I have always been an early adopter of what DYM has done for youth workers and the resources they provide. Now, with my Coleader subscription and the NEW Sidekick, I just click a button, and everything that is in the Coleader program automatically shows up in Sidekick (it’s almost TOO EASY!). Instead of creating everything from scratch, you now have a template to work from, which saves tons of time! Whether you customize it or use it exactly like it is, Coleader content in Sidekick is an absolute game-changer!

I truly believe the NEW Sidekick is a game-changer in youth ministry. Sidekick is a resource created for the youth room and with the youth worker in mind! And, this is just the beginning! I’ve seen the list of updates and improvements that will be coming out soon to help us youth workers win! My gut tells me that if you check it out, you’ll LOVE the NEW Sidekick just as much as I do!

Check Out This SIDEKICK HERO In Action:

(click image to enlarge)

(click image to enlarge)

(click image to enlarge)

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

Read More
7 Dec 2023

What Are Connections & How Do I Get More?

By |2024-04-10T11:16:49-07:00December 7th, 2023|Sidekick Hero Blog|0 Comments

One of the biggest questions we’ve gotten since launching Sidekick, is:

What Are ‘Connections’ & How Do I Get More?

So we’ve written this handy guide to help you understand connections and how the number of connections are related to your DYM Gold or DYM Gold+ Membership:

Understanding Sidekick ‘Connections’

The most basic explanation is that “connections” are the number of phones/tablets/devices that are able to connect and participate in interactive elements (like Live Voting) at the same time. Here are a few helpful scenarios to show how we calculate the number of connections in different situations:

Scenario 1: If you are presenting to a room of 50 people, and all 50 decide to scan the QR code to vote in a Live Poll, you are using 50 connections.

Scenario 2: If you are presenting to a room of 100 people, and 50 decide to scan the QR code to vote in a Live Poll, you are using 50 connections.

Scenario 3: (However unlikely) If you are presenting to a room of 50 people, and all 50 decide to scan the QR code on their phones AND on their tablets (effectively letting each person connect twice) to vote in a Live Poll, you are using 100 connections.

This means that if you are planning on using the live voting element during your presentation, you’ll need to make sure that you have enough connections available for each person to scan the QR code that is presented on the screen.

Since launching, our users have asked a lot of really good questions about connections, so we wanted to take a moment to answer them here for everyone:

Nope! ’50 connections’ refers to the first 50 devices that scan the QR code shown on the screen during an interactive element such as Live Voting. As soon as your presentation ends, all connections are reset, and you are able to connect a completely different set of 50 devices. The same is true for our 50, 100, 250, and 500-device plans.

The number of connections in your plan covers the number of phones/devices that are able to connect and participate in interactive elements (like Live Voting) at the same time. Here are two scenarios that may help make this clearer:

Scenario 1: If you have multiple groups who are using Sidekick at the same time (like youth group and kids ministry both meeting at 7pm on Wednesdays), this would mean that the number of connections is shared between those two groups. If your plan includes 50 connections, but you have 40 participants in each group (totaling 80 participants trying to connect at the same time), only the first 50 participants will be able to connect. In this scenario, we would suggest increasing your membership to include the

Scenario 2: However, if you have multiple groups who are using Sidekick, but they meet at different times (for example, your youth group meets on Wednesdays at 7pm, but your kids ministry meets on Sundays at 11am), you will only need enough connections to cover each group individually. For example, if your youth group and kids ministry each have 40 participants, you will only need a plan with 50 participants, since the two groups are not trying to connect at the same time.

That’s so exciting! In order to increase the number of connections on your account, you will need to upgrade your account to the next DYM Gold+ membership tier. The best way to do this is to contact our support team at [email protected] so they can pro-rate your current plan so that you’re not paying more than you need to (plus they’re super-nice people who are always eager to help!).

If you need more connections than your current membership allows for a one-time event, please reach out to [email protected]. Our support team is made up exclusively of veteran youth workers who totally get what it’s like to lead from the trenches. Plus, they’re really nice people, so when in need, reaching out is always a good idea.

Understanding DYM Memberships

Whether you are considering purchasing a DYM Gold or DYM Gold+ membership for the first time or you’re thinking about upgrading in order to have more connections on your plan, below, you’ll find a comparison of all of our DYM Gold & DYM Gold+ memberships, including cost and how many connections come with each membership tier:

DYM Gold Monthy

$2699monthly
  • Pay Month-to-Month, Cancel Anytime
  • Access to Sidekick for 1 User
  • 25 Simultaneous Phone Connections
  • $20 Monthly DYM Store Credit
  • Free Monthly Members Only Resources
Try Gold For $0.01!

DYM Gold Annual

$29689annually
  • Get 12 Months for the Price of 11 Months When Paying Annually
  • Access to Sidekick for 1 User
  • 25 Simultaneous Phone Connections
  • $20 Monthly DYM Store Credit
  • Free Monthly Members Only Resources
Order Now

DYM GOLD+75 Connections

$3999monthly
  • Access to Sidekick for 10 Users
  • 75 Simultaneous Phone Connections
  • $20 Monthly DYM Store Credit
  • Free Monthly Members Only Resources
Order Now

DYM GOLD+125 Connections

$5999monthly
  • Access to Sidekick for 10 Users
  • 125 Simultaneous Phone Connections
  • $20 Monthly DYM Store Credit
  • Free Monthly Members Only Resources
Order Now

DYM GOLD+250 Connections

$7999monthly
  • Access to Sidekick for 10 Users
  • 250 Simultaneous Phone Connections
  • $20 Monthly DYM Store Credit
  • Free Monthly Members Only Resources
Order Now

DYM GOLD+500 Connections

$10999monthly
  • Access to Sidekick for 10 Users
  • 500 Simultaneous Phone Connections
  • $20 Monthly DYM Store Credit
  • Free Monthly Members Only Resources
Order Now

DYM GOLD+75 Connections

$35991annually
  • $29.99 per month when paid annually
  • Savings of $119.97 over monthly subscription
  • Access to Sidekick for 10 Users
  • 75 Simultaneous Phone Connections
  • $20 Monthly DYM Store Credit
  • Free Monthly Members Only Resources
Order Now

DYM GOLD+125 Connections

$53991annually
  • $44.99 per month when paid annually
  • Savings of $179.97 over monthly subscription
  • Access to Sidekick for 10 Users
  • 125 Simultaneous Phone Connections
  • $20 Monthly DYM Store Credit
  • Free Monthly Members Only Resources
Order Now

DYM GOLD+250 Connections

$71991annually
  • $59.99 per month when paid annually
  • Savings of $239.97 over monthly subscription
  • Access to Sidekick for 10 Users
  • 250 Simultaneous Phone Connections
  • $20 Monthly DYM Store Credit
  • Free Monthly Members Only Resources
Order Now

DYM GOLD+500 Connections

$98991annually
  • $82.49 per month when paid annually
  • Savings of $329.97 over monthly subscription
  • Access to Sidekick for 10 Users
  • 500 Simultaneous Phone Connections
  • $20 Monthly DYM Store Credit
  • Free Monthly Members Only Resources
Order Now

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

Read More
7 Dec 2023

We’ve been testing Sidekick at Mariners Youth!

By |2023-12-12T19:52:06-08:00December 7th, 2023|Sidekick Hero Blog|0 Comments

This past Wednesday, we got to use Sidekick for a little fun in our youth group to choose a punishment for our High School Pastor if/when registration fills up for the youth conference our church is putting on.

Students scanned the QR code SO FAST, and weighed in quickly with their votes … now we have to fill up the event so we can see one of these awesome choices happen in real-life:

How will YOU use Sidekick + Phones creatively this week? Give it a shot … just beware of the consequences if you choose this idea!

Josh

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

Read More
6 Dec 2023

My Initial Reaction to the Sidekick Launch LiveStream

By |2023-12-12T19:52:42-08:00December 6th, 2023|Sidekick Hero Blog, Youth Ministry Ideas|3 Comments

Doug and Josh hosted a Facebook live event and asked me to simply jot down my thoughts and reactions to what they shared. So here we go…

Initial Thoughts

They started off by sharing what the new Sidekick looks like, and let me tell you, it is amazing! Not only was there a whole lot of hype about how youth pastors will be able to use phones to engage students instead of trying to fight against students using their phones, but there are some pretty significant giveaways going on as well!

Also, Josh was drinking something yellow and weird out of a suspicious-looking water bottle… but I don’t think that had anything to do with Sidekick 🙂

The Big Reveal

The big news is that Sidekick has been rebuilt from the ground up!

Instead of having to download a program onto every computer, you plan on using it with, Sidekick is now a browser-based web program! So you can design your youth program in your office and walk over to the youth room and load it up without having to ask anyone for their permission to put a new program on a computer (for some of us, this is a BIG DEAL).

Bring on the Phones!

You can now use Sidekick to engage with students by having them answer multiple-choice questions on their phones! Wild! 

Speaking of phones, you can CONTROL Sidekick on your phone, laptop, iPad, other computer, anything you can log into the web and see the internet. This is a SUPER BIG DEAL! Now, you can make each slide appear as soon as you want it to and not necessarily wait for your computer person who may or may not be tuned into your lesson (we’ve all been there, right??).

The Giveaways (…it is DYM after all!)

There are also some MAJOR giveaways going on with the launch of Sidekick! If you sign up and use Sidekick three times or more during the month of December, you’ll be automatically entered into a giveaway for an iPhone, Xbox, or a $500 Slurpee gift card. These are some exciting times! Get in on this right away!

Questions

As I was watching the live stream, there were a few questions that kept coming up, so I reached out to my friends at DYM and asked if they could help me answer some of those for you here.

  • What about CCLI Worship Licenses? Yep! CCLI SongSelect is integrated directly into Sidekick. That means you can import any of SongSelect’s 100,000+ songs directly into your presentation without having to type out every word!
  • If we have Coleader and/or DYM Gold, will there be any retro for us to change to DYM Platinum? You bet! If you’re in this boat (or if you have any issues at all with your membership), just reach out to [email protected], and they’ll help you get your Platinum Membership up and running!
  • So with DYM GOLD+, how many members can I have on my team? With DYM Gold+, you can have 10 users under one account.
  • So if 50 voters is the base, how do you upgrade to the larger tiers? You can find all the info about upgrading to more connections here: https://help.sidekick.tv/en/articles/8673101-getting-more-phone-connections-on-sidekick

How Do I Rewatch the LiveStream?

Well, obviously, the Sidekick Launch LiveStream was a HUGE deal for youth workers, so if you missed it, here’s how you can watch:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

Read More
6 Dec 2023

Adding Images, Text, and Video to Slides in Sidekick

By |2023-12-12T19:54:52-08:00December 6th, 2023|Sidekick Hero Blog|1 Comment

Adding images, text, & video to slides in Sidekick is super simple! Just watch the video below, or scroll down to see step-by-step instructions.

Step-By-Step Instructions:

To see step-by-step instructions (along with a screen shot of each step) for adding images, text, and video to your slides in Sidekick, just click the plus (+) button next to each step below:

It’s really that easy! And, of course, once you add any element to a slide, you can use your mouse to move and resize that element so you can place it exactly where you want it on your slide.

Be on the lookout for upcoming posts on how to do the following:

  • 🎵 Adding Songs to Sidekick via SongSelect
  • 🔀 Moving Sections and Slides in Sidekick
  • 📺 Presenting Full-Screen in Sidekick
  • 📱 Controlling Your Sidekick Presentation from Your Phone
  • 📙 Adding Speaker Notes in Sidekick
  • ✅ Live Voting in Sidekick
  • ‼️ And more!

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

If you’re using Sidekick and you run into any issues, or if you just have a question, please feel free to reach out to our support team at: [email protected]. Or you can check out other helpful articles and walkthroughs at the Sidekick Help Desk by visiting https://help.sidekick.tv.

Finally, if you choose to use the new Sidekick… let us know how you do it and what types of polls you do because we want to highlight you. Our goal is to highlight a youth worker every week with different ways they’ve used Sidekick to help their students engage. If you’re interested in being recognized as a Sidekick Hero, just click the big red button below:

Read More
Copyright Download Youth Ministry | All Rights Reserved
FacebookInstagram
Go to Top