Serving in youth ministry is both rewarding and challenging. As a leader, you’re a catalyst for helping teenagers grow as disciples of Jesus, a counselor who must deal with upset parents and discouraged adolescents, and an EMT who has to treat the occasional dodgeball injury. Often, all in the same day. As you walk through the ups and downs of your calling, we’re here to support, encourage, and equip you with ideas that will fuel your journey as a Jesus-centered leader.
What You’ll Find
Our leadership topics are designed to give you the knowledge and skills to confidently guide your ministry. We’ll cover the must-know areas—including working with parents and volunteers, planning and productivity, and the broad range of skills you need as an adolescent specialist in ministry. And, most important, we’ll help you grow your own relationship with Jesus so your leadership flows out of a “deeper well.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… A healthy relationship with your senior pastor is a core part of a healthy youth ministry. I understand this isn’t often the case, and you may wonder most days what’s happening in his or her head. …
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.…
Jack Anderson (not his name) thought it could never happen—at least not at his church. The color drained from his face when he received the call that a police investigation was in progress due to a report of sexual misconduct from one of his volunteers.…
If you want to be in youth ministry for the long haul, you must learn to have fun with students. I get the fact that you have administrative tasks to get done and program stuff to get done, but taking a break to have fun keeps it all in perspective.…
You have an ally in your youth ministry; one that most youth workers fail to recognize or leverage. It’s an ally that shows up unexpectedly at some times and has to be created at others. And fall seems to be it’s favorite season.…
In youth ministry we often settle for small wins (ANY wins) when Jesus said his followers will do “even greater things” than he did (John 14:12). Can I be honest? In some ministry settings, if I didn’t celebrate the small wins, I wouldn’t have any wins to celebrate.…
In a ministry context, summer is a serial liar. I mean, summer is NOT a slower time for youth ministry, and it’s NOT chock-full of margin. We won’t have a more relaxed schedule, and we won’t have time to catch our breath.…
I once did a lesson series with our students entitled “LOVE YOU: Learning to Love Who God Made You to Be.” Our study focused in on what a Christ-centered self-image looks like, and how the way we see ourselves affects our relationship to God and others. …
Eventually, you’re going to see how it all plays out. Right now, they’re teenagers. Tomorrow they’ll be in in college or starting a job… then growing into their early twenties, and so on. You’ll watch from afar as all of the time you’ve poured into helping them know Jesus personally either gets scrapped or gets owned.…
The proverbial “good kid” can come in many shapes and forms. They might be the ones that always show up early to actually help set up, or sit in the front row so they can pay attention and take better notes, or we ask to be on the student leadership team, or are the first to sign up for the missions trip, show up to every fundraiser and actually pay on time.…
