Nothing has the power to transform your teenagers’ lives better than an outside-my-comfort-zone mission trip or service project. Outreach is the lifeblood of a thriving youth ministry, and serves as a microwave for life-change.
What You’ll Find
The Missions and Service section provides guidance, inspiration, and ideas to help you find or create life-changing experiences for your youth ministry. You’ll find stories of epic triumphs and epic fails, along with how-to’s that will aid you in planning a trip/project, fundraising, recruiting volunteers and even post-trip follow through.
It’s always fun to sort through old computer files. I found two letters this week from a teen trip I led from afar years ago. My challenge at the time was that I couldn’t be in two places simultaneously, as I was a part of the leadership team organizing the convention for thousands of teens and leaders within our denomination.…
Our church recently broke bread with each other. When I say “broke bread,” I mean we literally ate a brunch of coffee cakes, lemon squares, blueberry muffins and more. It wasn’t a special event… a women’s tea party… a men’s breakfast… or a guest reception.…
Ok, so you made it through your mission trip with everyone alive, now what? Your kids are on a high because they have seen what God can do and they want it to continue. Can you do something to help your students continue? …
I’d advertised the opportunity well. “You’re invited to join our Student Leadership Team.” It was my second week at the church, and the students didn’t know me or what to expect from this invite. All they knew was that whomever was on this team would become point leaders in our youth group.…
Camp problems. I’m talking bugs coming into the bed… and no hot water all weekend. Not the usual stuff you might deal with on a weekend away with students. Normal camp problems usually involve wondering “Is this a tan, or just dirt?”…
One part of my job I love most is being the coordinator for summer missions groups who come to serve our ministry. It’s awesome to help a group of students see what “inner city” ministry and service looks like in Florida.…
It’s hard to serve those who cause you heartache. (Pause with me a moment as we each consider who that is for us.) I’m going to guess we have one thing in common with our answers. It’s the reason why youth workers and pastors who are otherwise strangers can find immediate camaraderie with each other.…
In a few days we’ll load up a few buses and cross the border into Canada for our High School Houseboat camp. I love camp; it is one of my favorite weeks of the year. I love that we spend almost as much time with our students in this one week as we do in the whole year at our programs.…
The enemy of outreach… is outreach. It seems like every church has some advocate for its “outreach.” This could be a person in an official ministry role, be it paid or volunteer. In some situations, the pastor is the primary advocate (especially if he/she has a spiritual gifting in this area).…
Many of you have started planning for mission training with your students. Each year at the orientation, I teach students about the importance and proper way of putting a mission support letter package together. Regardless of the student’s situation, it is important to encourage them to write a support letter, not only for financial needs, but to also mobilize prayer supporters.…
