Youth Specialties Acquires Youth Ministry Exchange

El Cajon, CA., June 18, 2006 – Youth Specialties, a division of Zondervan, a youth ministry organization that provides quality publications, resources, training, and encouragement for youth workers and youth-oriented organizations around the world today announced it has acquired Youth Ministry Exchange, a website devoted to serving, supporting and encouraging Youth Workers globally.  Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The acquisition will allow both parties to work together to provide more resources and support for Youth Workers and their mission.  YMX will currently remain a stand alone website supported by Youth Specialties.

“It just made sense to bring Youth Ministry Exchange back to Youth Specialties and be able to empower them to reach further in their mission with the support of YS,”  said Mark Oestreicher, Youth Specialties President. “We’re thrilled with the site that Adam McLane and his leadership team have built over the past few years. We plan to continue to grow its reputation and support the network that has become an integral part of the Youth Worker world.”

“YMX is excited to join the Youth Specialties family as we continue on our mission to connect youth workers to an online community,”  said Adam McLane, President, Youth Ministry Exchange.

About Youth Specialties For nearly 40 years, Youth Specialties has worked alongside Christian youth workers of nearly every denomination and youth-serving organization.  Each year, Youth Specialties serves more than 100,000 youth workers worldwide through training seminars and conventions, resources and the Internet.  Youth Specialties produces the YS National Youth Workers Convention for more than 15,000 youth workers each fall; and in the spring hosts the CORE™ training day for 20,000 youth workers.  For more information, visit www.youthspecialties.com.

Zondervan, a HarperCollins company, is a world leader in Christian communications and the leading Christian publishing brand. For more than 75 years, Zondervan has delivered transformational Christian experiences through general and academic resources by influential leaders and emerging voices, and been honored with more Christian Book Awards than any other publisher. Headquartered in Grand Rapids, Mich., with offices in San Diego and Miami, Zondervan conducts events and publishes its bestselling Bibles, books, audio, video, curriculum, software, and digital products through its Zondervan, eZondervan, Zonderkidz, Youth Specialties, Editorial Vida, and National Pastors Convention brands. Zondervan resources are sold worldwide through retail stores, online, and by Zondervan ChurchSource, and are translated into nearly 200 languages in more than 60 countries. Visit Zondervan on the Internet at www.zondervan.com (mobile site: zvan.mobi)

Youth Ministry Exchange Featured in Christianity Today

The ownership group of Youth Ministry Exchange is proud to announce that they have been featured in the May 2008 edition of Christianity Today.

Youth Ministry Exchange President Adam McLane on being mentioned in CT, “It came to us as a complete surprise. We’re humbled any time we are mentioned as one of the best youth ministry sites out there. But being mentioned in the largest magazine in the evangelical world is an awesome validation of all the hard work the team puts into the site.” The edition of the magazine is currently available wherever magazines are sold.

About Youth Ministry Exchange Youth Ministry Exchange, LLC is a Michigan based, independently owned company serving the  youth ministry community with member generated articles, online community, and downloadable resources. Started in 2005, the mission of YMX is to serve, support, and encourage those who serve, support, and encourage today’s amazing adolescents.

Youth Ministry Exchange, LLC Announces Editorial Staff Changes

It is with gratitude and our well wishes in her every endeavor that Youth Ministry Exchange, LLC bids farewell to its long-time Managing Editor, Amy Sondova.  Amy will remain a Contributor to www.ymexchange.com content via articles and reviews, as well as posts to the YMXblog and All Access: A Youth Workers Backstage Pass sites.

Effective immediately, Patti Gibbons, Youth Ministry Exchange’s Chief Operating Officer, will assume editorial management responsibilities, including media contact and assignment coordination.  Patti can be reached by email at patti[at]ymexchange.com and by phone at 518-376-6564.

Two New Youth Ministry Sites Added to Properties

Youth Ministry Exchange, LLC is proud to announce the formation of two new lines of business.

Youth Ministry Ad Network
The Youth Ministry Ad Network will launch with a pilot group of bloggers on January 1st, 2008.  These small ads are designed to have a big impact with targeted advertising on some of Youth Ministries most influential blogs. The company is still accepting applications for the pilot group, please visit the website to learn more and request an application.

Youth Ministry Pro
At Youth Ministry Pro, you can post your resume, search for a job, get job seeking advice, and connect with a potential youth ministry candidate.

At YMX, we continue to look for innovations that help us reach our overall ministry goal of serving, supporting, and encouraging youth workers. We hope these new sites continue to expand our ability to accomplish that goal.

Youth Ministry Exchange, LLC Posts Statistics

In keeping with long standing policy at YMX, management has made main site statistics available for interested parties. Statistical categories include traditional monthly statistics (pageviews and unique visits) it also includes more in depth information such as total subscribers, feedburner subscribers, newsletter subscribers, and limited sales figures. (Statistics page)

Adam McLane, co-founder of Youth Ministry Exchange says, “The nature of online community requires that we do our best to operate as transparently as possible. While we could never release some aspects of our business to protect the privacy of members and vendors alike, we’re happy to make what we can available.”

Of course, it’s easy to release statistics when things are going so well for the company. Overall site traffic and activity has increased 27.5% for the company in 2007.  With subscription renewal rates and new member rates also strong, the company maintains its outlook for a bright future. “We feel like we’re ready to see the launch of YMX into the mainstream of paid and volunteer youth ministry” says McLane. “With our debut at the National Youth Workers Convention in Atlanta we feel like we’ve built the infrastructure and relevance needed to reach company goals while also helping our target audience make a great impact for Jesus Christ among adolescents.”

Also new to the company are several of sites they call sub-sites to Youth Ministry Exchange.  These sub-sites serve as practical services to subscribers while also drawing new subscribers to their main content. Two debut sites for the company are Youth Ministry Tips (www.youthministrytips.com) and Youth Ministry Classifieds (www.youthministryclassifieds.com) which join existing sub-sites, All Access and YMX Hosting. McLane adds, “One thing I love to hear when I meet with people is ‘Your company is very innovative! What’s next?’ as that reflects that people truly understand what we’re trying to accomplish.” The company promises to continue to innovate new resources to benefit the youth ministry world.

Look for Youth Ministry Exchange in the exhibit hall of the National Youth Workers Convention in Atlanta, Georgia November 16-19.

Patti Gibbons Added to Ownership Group of Youth Ministry Exchange, LLC

Youth Ministry Exchange, LLC is pleased to announced the addition of Patti Gibbons to the company’s ownership group, joining Adam McLane effective July 27, 2007. Patti, a veteran youth worker, has served as a forum moderator and administrator on YMX since the sites founding. Youth Ministry Exchange, LLC began in December 2005 with the objective to serve, support, and reach out to those who serve, support, and reach out to today’s incredible adolescents.

“Joining Adam as a partner in YMX is a welcome opportunity to continue the growth the site has seen since its opening, and also to help develop additional features to augment our mission to support and encourage the hard-working people dedicated to today’s youth,” said Patti. In the short run, Patti will continue to administrate the popular forum area of the site, and as time goes on her leadership will broaden as the company continues to grow. In addition to her involvement with Youth Ministry Exchange, Patti is also the founding Executive Director of Raising Lazarus, Inc., a sister ministry of Youth Ministry Exchange which raises awareness, provides relief and practical support for youth workers in times of need.

“Patti has dedicated much of her professional life to training, supporting, and encouraging paid and volunteer youth workers, so she is a natural fit to help lead the company,” Adam said. “With this new partnership the site will continue to press hard to achieve common goals for the end of 2007 in order to better position the company to grow in 2008 and beyond.”

With more than 1,000 subscribers, Youth Ministry Exchange has continued to grow at a steady pace, with month-over-month 2006-2007 increases in traffic. In June and July 2007 new functionalities and services have been added to the companies core business site, www.ymexchange.com, in order to enhance user experience and broaden the appeal to its target audience. Most visibly the site launched the “Monday Exchange” service for delivering free youth ministry resources to users via the RSS feed. Additionally, to improve the performance of the site, the company significantly upgraded the hosting package which delivers content across the company’s sites.

For further information about Youth Ministry Exchange, LLC contact adam@ymexchange.com or patti@ymexchange.com

Open Ads delivery system

Beginning on July 1st, 2007 Youth Ministry Exchange began publishing ads using the powerful ad delivery system Openads. There are several immediate advantages to this change which will benefit our advertisers immensely.

Advertisers now have the ability to login to our ad delivery system and view up to the second statistics for their campaigns, make adjustments to their campaigns, create new campaigns, as well as select from various other options to optimize their ad delivery on YMX.

Currently Openads has been implemented only on our parent site, Youth Ministry Exchange. However, we will soon be expanding campaigns to our other sites as well as exploring an external ad network.

More information about Openads can be obtained from their website, more information about advertising with Youth Ministry Exchange can be obtained by contacting Adam McLane

Several News Items

Youth Ministry Exchange continues to grow at a healthy pace. The site remains focused on its mission of encouraging youth workers while it expands it’s reach. Over the past several months, here are some highlights:
- YMX Hosting, a new subsidiary of Youth Ministry Exchange, LLC, has grown self-sufficient. It’s client base is mostly youth ministries, with several churches and individuals as well.
- YMX has continued to see steady traffic with more than 400,000 monthly page views.
- A YMX administrator, Patti Gibbons, has been diligently been working on a sister organization called Raising Lazarus to reach out to youth workers who have been “Left for Dead by the Church.”
- The company is now preparing for its first trip to the National Youth Workers Convention in Atlanta, Georgia this fall.

The past 18 months since our creation has been a very exciting time. We are greatly looking forward to what God will do with our little invention and innovations in the future.

YMX Hosting

Youth Ministry Exchange, LLC is pleased to announce the latest offering from the people who provide the increasingly popular YMX Forums.

Effective immediately, YMX Hosting will provide high quality, low cost web hosting to the youth ministry community. YMX Hosting offers domain registration and web site hosting in a secure environment with daily back-up, and great customer service. This new addition is a wholly owned company of Youth Ministry Exchange.

More information about YMX Hosting can be found at www.ymxhosting.com

Introducing YMX Hosting

In a continued effort to service YMX members, we have launched a web hosting company called, YMX Hosting. YMX Hosting is a fully owned line of business of Youth Ministry Exchange, LLC and offers competitively priced web hosting and domain registration for small to medium sized web sites. See hosting plans

This new venture represents a significant addition to the Youth Ministry Exchange family of sites. While we continue to demonstrate a firm focus on serving youth ministry professionals and volunteers, the company continues to look for new ways to offer high quality experiences to the users we have developed relationships with.

In the near future, Youth Ministry Exchange will announce more new ventures which our focused on the company goals while continuing to expand offerings within the youth ministry niche` presently unfilled by other youth ministry oriented companies.