“Fear itself.” In his famous wartime speech, President Franklin D. Roosevelt told an anxious nation that fear is the only thing we really have to fear. Those words, spoken by an iconic man at an iconic time to an iconic generation, seem like crucial great-grandfatherly advice right now.…
When Tom Melton, my friend and the senior pastor at my church, describes Jesus’ character and personality, he often has to collect himself and wipe away the tears that come so quickly. I’m riveted by those tears — they preach louder than his words.…
In this excerpt from Rick Lawrence’s revised book Jesus-Centered Youth Ministry, our conventional understand-and-apply approach to spurring spiritual growth in students is skewered, in favor of a revolutionary rewriting of our job description. I was invited to have lunch with six youth pastors who’d been singled out by a seminary professor as men and women who’d managed to build long-term thriving youth ministries.…
Sherlock Holmes is a lot like Batman. Yes, they both wear an iconic “costume,” but that’s trivial. Here’s their crucial sameness: Lacking a “superpower,” they both practice an eccentric commitment to a skill-set that, in their own disparate ways, “sets captives free.”…
Near the beginning of the 21st century, respected Christian pollster and cultural commentator George Barna dropped a big rock in the youth ministry pond. New research, he said, proves that just 4% of all Christians “take the plunge” when they’re teenagers.…
Based on our exclusive national research, Christian teenagers are watching and listening to a lot of profane entertainment, but their youth groups aren’t doing as much as they could to help them think critically and biblically about what they’re taking in.…
In our home, for the last six months, my wife and I have been leading a small group of senior highers in a Sunday afternoon pursuit of Jesus. After our last gathering, my wife (rather tentatively) asked me, “Do you like leading this group?”…
CNN Asks ‘Who Can Heal America?’ The Hymn-Writer’s Response… By Rick Lawrence Two days after a disturbed former soldier executed five Dallas police officers in retaliation for the deaths of two black men at the hands of white cops, I opened my laptop to this CNN.com…
Efrem Smith on Embracing a Missional Passion Originally published in the March/April 2015 issue of Group Magazine by Rick Lawrence EDITOR’S NOTE Efrem Smith began his long journey in youth ministry as a teenager attending two strong, urban churches in Minneapolis that called teenagers into significant roles in ministry.…
Stressed-Out Teens The most stressed-out people in the world are sitting right there in your youth room every Wednesday night. Listen, and you’ll likely hear your teenagers complaining about their workload—homework, college apps, choir tryouts, after-school jobs, SAT prep, chaos at home… The list of woes is long.…
