Wrestling with the idea of student leadership in your ministry? Having trouble landing on a model/strategy that feels right? Here are three possible scenarios: ORGANIC Organic student leadership doesn’t rely on a program; there are no monthly gatherings, no “requirements” etc.…
Tasha and I weren’t raised in the church. The tradition in which we found faith had a very guarded view of the Holy Spirit in general and supernatural stuff in particular. In fact, we heard more than one church leader semi-jokingly talk about the Trinity as the Father, Son, and Holy Bible.…
The promise of a new year is also, always, the promise of a “new you.” In my life, the promise of a “new you” translates to a deep desire to be a better youth worker. I look out on the sea of perfectionistic, entrepreneurial, social-media-tethered teenagers and ask myself: How can I help them boldly live for Jesus?…
Let the students lead… Claire is a sophomore in my ministry. Last year, she and her mom bought tickets to the Jason Aldean concert in Las Vegas—yes, it was that concert. A gunman in a hotel room above the concert venue opened fire, killing 59 people.…
Somehow, it’s working… For the past 10 months we’ve been trying to nurture a “community within a community” inside our youth ministry. We call it Squad, and it’s changing how we do everything. It began a year ago, when a few adult leaders and I talked about getting more of our teenagers serving in leadership roles.…
Knighthood. Kingdoms. Castles, kings, and queens. They’re all very noble—very The Crown. After binge-watching that show on Netflix, I spent some serious time on Google to discover what it actually means to be knighted by a royal. Because if the Kingdom of God is, well, a kingdom, then surely some parallels must exist.…
Editor’s note: This post was originally published on September 25, 2016. In light of the string of destructive tornados that hit Louisiana on February 7, 2017, we wanted to refresh and bring this post to the forefront. We hope it provides practical advice for ministry when devastating events like this occur in your area.…
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about evangelism, it’s that I have a lot to learn about evangelism… but not really. That sounds arrogant. Let me clarify. I recently took part in a rather intriguing peer panel on the subject at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference.…
I love seeing students be the church, and a great way they can do that is through our student leadership program. They really get to take ownership of our program and general ministry. We gave students a voice when we first started our student leadership program by letting them develop our mission statement and code of conduct.…
Be encouraged – God is working in the next generation. Despite negative future-of-the-church chatter or speculative doomsday statistics, Jesus will build His church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Case in point, consider Bethel College in Mishawaka, Indiana.…
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