A serving experience is likely in your future. It’s no secret that many youth groups take part in an annual spring, summer, fall or winter mission trip. You can either throw students into these opportunities, or see the time between now and then as its own opportunity of preparation.…
I’d like to tell you two stories. The first story involves how bands shift players around. It’s just the way it works. It’s rare to find the original group together like they when everything started. Audio Adrenaline, a Christian rock band that rose to fame in the mid-nineties, is no exception.…
A guest post by Aaron Kirkpatrick at RethinkingYouthMinistry.com offers this compelling thought against involving youth in “service projects”: A project is a job. A project is an assignment. A project is something that must get done, regardless of whether you actually want to do it.…
You likely have an opinion about the poor. You may have even served the poor. Do you have an understanding of the poor, though? “When you are broke, you can’t plan ahead or shop sales or buy in bulk. Poor people wait to buy something until they absolutely need it, so they have to pay whatever the going price is at that moment.…
Our church’s amazing children’s director recently resigned. It’s understandable financially. We couldn’t pay her what her household needed for her to keep doing the job. It wasn’t the first time our financial team approached her over the years to explain that the money coming in simply wasn’t able to sustain her position full-time.…
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.…
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?”…
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.…
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).…
