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.
Researchers now say the key to happiness is wanting less. If you don’t want much, the theory goes, you won’t be disappointed. According to Barry Schwartz in The Paradox of Choice, the abundance of choices today leaves us feeling less satisfied overall.…
Saturday Night Live doesn’t always nail it. This time I think they did. Check out this promotional video for an annual Christmas church service: So… can we laugh at ourselves? In my opinion, the humor isn’t found in just one side of this.…
To lead student’s means you have to include them in your life. No brainer, right?! Wrong. No matter how much we care for students, it still takes an intentional, deliberate effort on our part as leaders. Life is busy, stressful and unpredictable.…
Post originally written for Lifetree Family. Read it on their site here. “Look over there, kids. You see that cocoon? That caterpillar is rebranding.” – 21st Century Parenting I was at a wedding not that long ago, enjoying some conversation with the random people I happened to be sitting with.…
I can recall my first major small group fail vividly from about 17 years ago. I had been in youth ministry for a few years by then, so I thought of myself as a little bit of an up-and-coming relational expert. …
The Center for Parent/ Youth Understanding posted this article recently about youth pastors feeling ill-equipped to help youth with mental health issues. You can read that article here. While we live in a culture that loves to brag about the cast on our leg, and is unashamed to share that we were up all night puking because of the flu, when it comes to mental health issues we are much quieter about the issues.…
Confrontation is not my favorite part of my job, but it is definitely part of the work of youth ministry. Hypothetically, when you have both a student and a parent calling out one of your student leaders for poor choices, it is time for you to step in and deal with it.…
Every student got the flu… really bad. This was the quick story I shared with our church’s youth pastor last week, right before we were about to do something short-sighted. He’d be leading one of our student groups through a popular curriculum for the past few weeks.…
Editor’s Note: If you’re headed to a Christian conference in North America, it’s a solid bet that you’re about to see The Skit Guys perform. They’re everywhere, because their 20-year comedy partnership has made them the most in-demand performers in the Christian subculture.…
“Homosexuals” are not an “issue.” I’m guilty of this. When talking about homosexuality, we tend to tag on the word “issue.” And I’m sure most of us don’t mean it in a demeaning way. We are simply trying to speak about an issue that is deeply concerning to the Church – or at least it should be.…
