In the often-chaotic cloud that is everyday youth ministry, one goal always rises to the surface—growing disciples who follow Jesus with an all-in commitment. You’re after life-changing, inside-out transformation—driven by a passion for Jesus that spills out onto the lives of others.
What You’ll Find
The Discipleship section offers practical ideas and insights about effective discipleship in youth ministry. We explore the method and models and strategies your ministry can use to help “seed” a generation of teenagers who are all-in for Jesus.
“Isolated in a world full of connection.” This is how a student described herself to me last week in our small group. She was sharing how she feels like all of the ways we “show ourselves” to the world just creates an illusion of perfection, and causes drama among her peers.…
It’s easy to see teenagers like caterpillars that are wrestling free from the numbing rhythms of their everyday life and into their butterfly life—where they figure out who they really are and what they really have to give to the world.…
Once again, I’m hanging out—rather begrudgingly—in God’s waiting room. Ever been there? It’s the place where answers to prayer seem suspended in the heavens. Where something you thought would take 10 days is still incomplete after 10 years. Where you wonder if hopes you’d labeled as God-given dreams are actually spiritual fantasies caused by too much late-night pizza.…
Last week I looked into the eyes of some very apprehensive 11-year-olds. It was their last Sunday in “KidzTown.” Even though we made a big deal about “graduating them” up to youth group, still some pulled me aside and asked if they could have just “one more week” before they aged out of children’s ministry.…
How can you help teens fall in love when they’ve known about God their whole life? Here’s one leader’s experience! I was born on the front pew of a church during a Sunday night worship service. Before I could say momma, I said Jesus.…
Here are 3 easy games to keep in your back pocket. At some point this summer, it’s going to happen. You will need a game to bail you out in a pinch. It won’t be during your mid-week program because you’ve planned that well in advance (you have planned that well in advance, right?).…
Wrestling with the idea of student leadership in your ministry? Having trouble landing on a model/strategy that feels right? Here are three possible scenarios: ORGANIC Organic student leadership doesn’t rely on a program; there are no monthly gatherings, no “requirements” etc.…
If it hasn’t happened already, it’ll happen soon enough: the late night phone call from a student or parent dropping a bombshell. “Tim, my dad just beat me up. What should I do?” “Tasha, my mom just left my dad, and I don’t know where I should go now.”…
Truth be told, many of us are discipling our teenagers with unsharpened axes. We’re dull inside, because we’ve refused to take a break and invest in our long-term relationship with Jesus. We just keep swinging, through season after season in ministry, surprised that our work seems harder and harder.…
One night when I was in high school my youth pastor handed each student in our youth group a little sheet of neon-colored paper. On it was a list—a list he hoped would encourage the junior high and high school kids he cared so deeply about. …
