I had an interesting conversation not too long ago with a fellow youth worker who was feeling overwhelmed. Our conversation kind of centered around this statement, “The world is getting crazier and crazier, and it almost seems like what we’re doing isn’t working.”…
Our number one mission in youth ministry is to share the love of Jesus with our students. We can talk about the love of Jesus or we can demonstrate the love of Jesus. We can tell them they are loved but unless we demonstrate love to them our words really are just words.…
It’s the kind of telephone call no youth leader ever wants to receive. One of our teenagers just attempted suicide—twice in one hour. So where am I in the midst of this trauma? Right by the young man’s side in the hospital, giving the kind of encouragement and hope every youth leader would want to give?…
Is your wonder-er broken? You know it’s broken when you lose your sense of wonder. What if …? We think that’s one of the most powerful and provocative and downright fun questions our wonder-er can think about. It opens the door for us to imagine, invent, and dream.…
#ScreenFreeWeek There was one time I was sitting at a coffee shop enjoying a café Americano with one of my favorite friends. We were catching up, being stupid, making each other laugh, and absolutely we were people watching, when all of the sudden she hit me over the head with this doozy: “My school is doing screen-free week,” she said with ease.…
Today’s teenagers are glued to their tech devices. They have tablets, laptops, and especially cell phones that suck them in and demand their full energy and attention, often to the exclusion of other important things in life—including sleeping, live interaction with family members and peers, and schoolwork.…
This has been an unusually busy season for my family. We all have them, there are those times when we feel the full weight of 24 hours in a day, five to eight of which are wasted in sleeping. If I could just harness the ability to never sleep, then I might get everything done.…
When Kayla was born, Rachel and I made an immediate decision that has fundamentally shaped our approach to raising kids. It was a decision based on a reality: Our kids didn’t choose to be born into a pastor’s family! My wife and I together choose the way of ministry, of our own free will.…
Join Rick for the first episode of Season 8, continuing the series—“THE WAYS OF JESUS.” Our understanding of death, and our fear of it, colors our life. It plays in the background, like a haunting film score to our life narrative.…
Ministry to “special needs” kids is a big, big topic in the world of children’s ministry. If your ministry focus is grade-school kids, you can find dozens of books, workshops, magazine articles, and digital resources to help you come alongside the developmentally disabled.…
 THE WAYS OF JESUS: Life Over Death){kind=link}
