What’s wrong with young people today? We’ve all heard about the symptomatic things that may characterize today’s teenagers, such as lower church attendance. But what’s underneath these trends? For many young people, it’s a suffocating sense of loneliness and isolation. A Generation Defined By Loneliness “This is the most lonely generation,” said Josh Packard, sociologist and author of Church Refugees.…
What’s your big dream for your youth ministry this year? And can you sum it up on a T-shirt? Leadership guru Peter Drucker made the “T-shirt” challenge famous—his argument was that big goals should be so easy to understand that they fit on a T-shirt.…
From the last porch light of Halloween through the last light of the Christmas tree, our holiday schedules are packed! Cramming their way into our margins are school Christmas parties, staff get-togethers, and family dinners—and we haven’t even touched decorating, cooking, shopping, and wrapping.…
Looking for a COVID-friendly subsitution for your youth all-nighter? Try pulling off an online lock-in! I’ve never been a huge fan of all-nighter’s, except for when I was a teenager. This Online Lock-In is more of a check-in than an all-nighter and, frankly, it’s one of the best things we’ve done to connect with our middle school students during the pandemic.…
Use these 5 digital tools to help disciple youth in your ministry. In his day, Jesus used one of the most powerful communication tools known to man—it’s called “the parable.” He was a master storyteller. And so, we read in Matthew 13, when he has gathered a large crowd, he leverages the moment by telling five parables in a row.…
If you are you have been in youth ministry for more than a few years, you’re likely familiar with the term “Moralistic, Therapeutic, Deism” (MTD)—a descriptor invented by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist-Denton in their groundbreaking report on the National Study of Youth and Religion (Soul Searching).…
Yes, like sheep, we are a needy people. But we don’t really want to live under the shadow of desperate circumstances as a prerequisite for our intimate dependence on Jesus. It’s hard to live that way. But there is an “alternative fuel source” that those who are living a dependent life with Jesus have discovered.…
In the midst of the pandemic shutdown, our youth pastor and intern joined forces to create a daily devotion—a social media post called The Four Fives. It’s a visual prompt that encourages students to spend five minutes in four spiritual disciplines every day: Prayer, the Word, Worship, and Waiting.…
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders. We are prophets of a future not our own. (Cardinal Dearden, 1979) We had pulled together a handful of youth workers from our city for a little mutual encouragement (and pizza). …
Now that we’re approaching four months into the pandemic apocalypse, we know the shaping impact of this crisis goes deep and broad. But to understand exactly how these extraordinary challenges are impacting teenagers today, we must dig a little. And that’s what our contributor Maina Mwara—a youth ministry veteran, writer, and journalist—has done.…
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