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.
Ladies… gentlemen… this Twitter account exists. Because that student exists. Not just online… but likely right under our noses. It’s not always anonymous depression. There is probably someone in your contact list who when they call you know it’s going to be a long conversation.…
Not long ago I attended a two day gathering of about a dozen churches; all of which have had some experience in multi-site youth ministry. At the offset, each church was given fifteen minutes to monopolize the whiteboard and share with the rest of the group their multi-site youth ministry strategy in a nutshell. …
Let’s be honest… evangelism weirds most Christians out. We fear doing “bad evangelism” to the point that we do the worst kind of evangelism… we say nothing. We’re afraid of becoming a stereotype. Perhaps that’s why I was so inspired by a street preacher I recently encountered while driving by his spot on a local corner.…
Discussing suicide is never an easy conversation. With suicide getting more attention in the news lately, it has been revealed that there is a lack of resources to effectively discuss the subject with our students. It is important to have these discussions but it is equally important to have good discussions.…
In my last post I discussed three relational shifts needed if we are to actually disciple younger generations. Here, I want to discuss some bigger picture perspective shifts that are necessary. Now, to be clear, these are shifts from what might be known as a “traditional” understanding of discipleship. …
A student’s suicide can be emotionally devastating. Using and modeling healthy coping strategies — such as seeking support — will help you and others on the journey to healing and acceptance. When a student dies, your grief may be heart wrenching.…
To wrap up our series on becoming a small group guru, I’d like to prepare a little guru goulash; a delish mish mash of thoughts. * Don’t forget the parents! Leading a small group of 5-10 teenagers also gives you an incredible opportunity to minister to 5-20 parents!…
Growing up I had two older brothers who loved to practice their WWE (was WCW and WWF at the time) wrestling moves on me. They loved getting their friends involved especially on my birthday. What a great gift! When I sought counsel in my mom she told me; “Wine quieter, I can’t hear the TV.”…
Week three of this series may be a good time to come clean. I’m not a very good small group leader…a small group guru I ain’t! But I’ve observed some of the best (because I’m so bad I always partner with somebody really good!).…
Stages of Grief To get us started, let’s just get rid of the word “stages” of grief. The very word “stages” implies order and progression. I would like to move away from that concept and use the word “dimensions” of grief instead. …
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