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 have secrets. You do, too… And Robin Williams, the great comic actor who committed suicide just months after a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, had his secrets. Laughing on the outside, dying on the inside. His daughter Zelda, scrambling to understand her father’s “permanent solution to a temporary problem,” wondered aloud to the media why the love so many had offered him couldn’t rescue him.…
I’ve just relaunched our student leadership program and it’s been a ton of fun. This is a program designed to help students lead within the ministry. I would encourage you to start something for your students that would allow them to lead in some capacity.…
Jesus announced the Kingdom (or literally, God’s reign) being at hand in Mark 1:14-15. At it’s core, this is simply saying, “You are now seeing God’s reign firsthand in the life of a human being.” According to Jesus, this is the good news (or “gospel”) he declares for the world to believe in.…
3 Word Sunday! Struggling to get your students to engage in “big church” (Main service, adult service, sanctuary, etc. whatever it is you call your inter-generational service)? Maybe your students feel like it’s really boring and completely irrelevant. How can you foster engagement in the service?…
Because of the difficulties students have in early and mid-adolescence to manage strong feelings of intimacy, the new experience of having someone who listens and whom they can trust sometimes lead them to believe that they are in love with their youth worker.…
You are a youth worker, which means you are a pastor, a counselor, a teacher, an event planner, a parent engager, a calendar organizer, and a pizza purchaser. You are also a cheerleader. In fact you can make an argument that you are (or should be) mostly a cheerleader.…
In my estimation, the best youth ministry is the youth ministry you give away. Today, as we continue our look at some team building basics, we are gonna talk about the power of empowerment. Enlisting, Equipping, Empowering & Encouraging Because there are no Lone Rangers in youth ministry, and because you are building a team to help carry the load, it only makes sense that you would empower your team to take the ministry ball and run with it.…
…and I don’t mean parents. I’m talking grandparents, the old ladies in the women’s group, the crotchety dudes who grumble when students wear hats in the Sanctuary. The answer to the title question? Of course they do! Can you believe that I STILL run into YP’s who say their counselors really shouldn’t be older than college-age?…
Being a youth worker is a lot like being a construction worker; to be effective you need an understanding of the task at hand and the right tools for the job. One without the other leads to frustration, incompetence…or both! And sense we all want fulfilled and fruitful people on our team, we need to become Jedis (remember, no Lone Rangers…but Jedis welcome!)…
Making connections through conversations is something that I’ve been really thinking about. Every meaningful connection that I’ve made in my life started with a conversation. I think in the past I’ve put more emphasis on connecting, and not enough emphasis on how important it is that we have conversations.…
