In the News Washington, D.C.—Christians who are discouraged and disillusioned by the 2016 presidential campaign are being reminded not to give up. In response to a New York Times article that characterized evangelical Christians as despairing, Carmen Fowler LaBerge writes that the word “despair” should never apply to Jesus’ followers.…
Summer is over, students are back in school, and weekends are filled with football. Oh, how I love the fall. Having been in my current role less than two years, I am still in the early stages of the “figuring out the culture of our group” learning curve.…
We’ve already plowed through the meat of the new school year. And if your life is anything like mine you’ve catapulted from the bustle of summer into the craziness of fall. My schedule is fuller (how is that possible?), overshadowed only by the packed calendars of my teenagers.…
The other day a youth pastor friend asked me a question that pinpoints a major shift that’s changing his ministry landscape: “How do I get my kids to care about worship? Nothing seems to be working.” My friend isn’t alone. The “worship problem” is quickly spreading, and deepening, in youth ministry.…
“Nick” belongs to my church and attends the middle school Christian club where I speak every Tuesday. His younger brother is my son’s best friend. But Nick doesn’t have a best friend; in fact, he doesn’t have any friends. Determined to change that, this honor-roll student recently snuck an over-the-counter medicine onto campus and tried to make the concoction known as Lean.…
Medical malpractice is decided by a jury of peers, and in this series of posts I’ve acted as a jury of…one. I’m biased, of course, in my perspective—because I’ve been immersed in the youth ministry world for 30 years. So I have a “seasoned bias.”…
Well, you’re not going to brag about it, but things are going great in your ministry. Your fall kick-off went better than expected, and you’re finally seeing breakthroughs in teenagers who’ve left the sidelines to get in the game with Jesus.…
It’s the buzz word around ministry these days. We move our students from large group time to small group time to discipleship. We want to see student’s grow in their relationship with the Lord and this is how Jesus modeled it for us.…
How often is a “reinvention” really, well, something new? I mean, Apple upgrades the battery life (supposedly) and takes away the headphone jack and suddenly we have an “all-new” iPhone. Mostly, “new” really means a relatively unimportant gimmick is added as a feature, forcing us to upgrade. …
One thing that I think youth workers are really good at is embracing change. We are trained to watch trends in culture, and we’re always attempting to adapt. Look at how quickly we embraced social media, and began using it to better our communication with our students.…
