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.
In this week’s Whiteboard Wednesday feature, I invite a group of young people to experience the Bible in the epic way it was meant to be experienced. It’s a live experience, and therefore as messy as you think it would be.…
Season 2, Episode 010: When The Bible Doesn’t Meet Your Expectations With so many teenagers reporting dissatisfaction with the Bible, we have to ask why? How can youth workers unlock the mystery of the Bible for young people? This week we join professor Ken Castor and share our own personal history and discovery with the Bible.…
I am not sporty. I don’t track athletes, teams, or even where the ball is on the field. ESPN has never been my jam. I’m much more of a Food Network kind of guy. Yet I was serving in a youth ministry full of athletes.…
First, a brutal confession: In high school, I didn’t care about the Bible. I cared about Jesus, but I saw him as a distant Savior who helped only when things went terribly wrong. If I needed Jesus to hear me, I’d read his Word because I thought that would make him happy—and when Jesus was pleased with me, he’d be more likely to answer my prayers.…
Our primary authority for living a Jesus-Centered life is the Bible, a long book written in two languages thousands of years ago by dozens of people throughout hundreds of year. Good luck making sense of all that! But if we want to deepen our trust in Jesus and our understanding of God, ourselves, and humanity, there’s no greater resource.…
The question from one of my teenagers was both jolting and inviting: “I’m just not into the Bible—is that okay to say out loud?” “You can absolutely say that,” I assured him. “Can you tell me more, though? I’d like to understand what changed for you—there was a time when you read the Bible all the time.”…
There was a time when Bible-reading seemed, well, normal… No more. As a first-year college student, I quickly learned that all of the Christian upperclassmen I looked up to owned Bibles that looked like they’d been through a crop thresher. They were marked-up, flagged, underlined, highlighted, dog-eared, and encased in leather-like covers imprinted by swords and flowers and crosses.…
Much of the momentum in our youth ministry is the result of our student leadership team (SLT). We invest a lot in that group because we want young leaders to invest in our youth ministry. [tweet_box design=”default” float=”none”]Ultimately, we aim to influence a group of teenagers to become kingdom-minded influencers.[/tweet_box]…
An exasperated small-group leader stopped me to chat. One of my best leaders, he was dedicated and prepared. He just wanted a quick fix to get his small group back on track. “I’ve never experienced anything like this,” he admitted. “One guy is totally disruptive every week, and nothing I try works.…
Youth ministry is a race we never have to run alone. Every week in thousands of youth groups across the country, small-group leaders partner with youth workers like members of a relay team. These volunteers invest their time to prepare meaningful lessons, investing in teenagers both inside and outside the group.…
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