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.”
There are preconceived ideas of who “people in ministry” are supposed to be.This holds especially true in youth ministry. You can make the stereotypical list yourself, I don’t think I even need to name the traits. The problem is that not all of us are capable of becoming the resident IT person.…
You Eminem lovers out there in the #YMNATION surely appreciate the title of today’s post! I’ve noticed something in the Christian community lately that I don’t like. And as I’ve been busy pointing out the splinter in the eyes of my brothers and sisters, I’ve ignored the log in my own.…
Editor’s Note: The church-planting movement in America is growing exponentially, fueled and driven by an army of former youth pastors. Attend any church-planting conference and you’ll ram into a sea of youth workers who’ve migrated out of their niche and into the Wild, Wild West of broader church leadership.…
If you ask people in ministry about their “calling” they give you the answer about what they now “do” for Jesus. You know what I mean. We are “called” to be youth pastors. However, I believe that “calling” is a far more transformational experience than any “one thing.”…
A pastor was working on his weekly sermon one day while his son watched. “Dad,” the boy asked, “how do you know what to say every week?” “God tells me,” he answered, writing some more thoughts on his sketch pad. The boy watched for a few minutes more and asked, “Are you sure it’s God?”…
There we were. Our small groups simply weren’t “working.” Sure, there were weeks when leaders felt great about what they preached. It was usually the week when the same students would complain about their small group. This is when I embarked on my grand experiment.…
I totally revamped my approach to small groups in our ministry recently. We have tried a multitude of curriculums, ideas, books, formulas and approaches. It has been topical and as simple as opening the Bible and walking verse by verse. Still I was finding an interesting trend.…
Are you sometimes a coward? I know I am… And because I’m quite familiar with the visceral mechanics of cowardice in myself, it’s not that hard to spot it in others, even when we do our best to camouflage it… Every Friday I go to a lunchtime spinning class at my health club—same instructor every week, with mostly the same people pedaling away around me.…
Editor’s Note: Not long ago, Willie Robertson was a small-town Louisiana youth pastor struggling to make ends meet and trying to balance the demands of ministry and the responsibilities of a dad with four small kids at home. He dropped out of seminary after a year, deciding that a business degree might come in handy down the road.…
When I teach at Colossae, I use something I call a “Thread.” The thread is the main point of the passage we are teaching, boiled down into a phrase or a very short sentence. On a fantastic week, if we’re honest about it, people will (maybe) embrace 1 thing they heard us say in our message. …
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