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.”
For years now I have worked with primarily “unchurched” students. Honestly, I’ve gotten used to a group of students with no Biblical foundation or pre-conceived ideas about Christianity.Yet, I guess I always thought if more of my students had grown up in the church then it would be different.…
Being approachable to students seems almost impossible when you’re an adult. There are so many logical barriers like age, different cultures, and different experiences. Those are the things that make a connection between a student and adult almost impossible. It’s hard to trust someone you don’t feel can relate to you.…
Fall is the perfect time to build youth ministry hype. Fall is a prime-time outreach for students. It’s the time of the year where students are injected back into their mission field. And I’ve learned that as a youth minister, one of our many jobs is to create a place where it’s easy for students to invite their friends.…
Like it or not Fall is upon us. The weather might still be warm (alright boiling hot for some of us) and the sun thankfully is still setting well into the evening. Weekends can still be spent at the beach or cooking out. …
While I was on a coaching call with a volunteer youth director from a small rural church, she said: “I don’t think we’re meant to have a youth ministry at our church. We only have 10 teenagers on our church rolls and I’ve never been able to get more than seven of them to come to anything!”…
We all know that a cockroach is hard to kill… After the atomic-bomb blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, the military reported that the only living things to survive the blast zone were these disgusting little pests.…
I woke up with an anxious knot in my stomach. I had no idea where it had come from or why it had decided to take up residence in my gut. Lying in bed, I started to go through a mental checklist of reasons it could be there.…
Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines “metaphor” like this: noun ˈme-tə-ˌfȯr also -fər 1) a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in money); broadly : figurative language — compare simile 2) an object, activity, or idea treated as a metaphor : symbol So for this definition we are looking at an object that is a symbol of something else.…
We love summer! No more alarm clocks, bonfires, and planned spontaneity! And if you’re a youth worker, we’re guessing you probably love it too. Our summer youth calendar is jam-packed with cool stuff like camp, mission trips, and summer activities all designed to help our students grow in their trust in Jesus.…
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.”…
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