Recently, a fellow youth worker was brainstorming a list of topics to include in a series on controversial issues. At the top of his list was “Refugees.”

His response left me flabbergasted.

There are a lot of topics that could rightfully be...

When I was in grad school, author and professor, Steve Gerali, taught me about how important rites of passage are in the faith formation of young people. Since then, I've been a big fan of including these experiences in my youth ministry. I'm also...

I despise fill-in-the-blanks.

They annoy me.

More importantly, I don't think they're particularly useful.

Needing to complete a bulletin filled with fill-in-the-blanks doesn't make me listen more attentively to the person talking – especially when...

More than once, I've written an e-mail, hit send, and then immediately thought to myself, “What have I just done?”

You see, with the advent of e-mail, it's become far too easy to let people know exactly what we think. After all, the beauty of...

With the blink of an eye, the holidays are over and so is one of the craziest months of my program year! Here's what we've been up to. 

What I'm Reading:

Fiction:
I read 8 fiction books during the last two months. My favorites included:

The...

My high school youth ministry is called FLY, which stands for Faith Lutheran Youth. It's a name I inherited and truthfully, it's not one I love... Especially since I'm surrounded by much cooler sounding youth ministries:

The Edge.

212.

Fusion....

A junior at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Stephanie Warner is majoring in biology and global health. While in high school, Stephanie was active in her church’s youth ministry and a part of it’s student leadership team. She’s a 30 Hour...

Last night, I mentioned to my husband in passing, "Tomorrow's the first day in weeks I feel like I have some breathing room in my schedule." 

For me, January is always a sprint - one of the busiest months of my ministry year. To make matters...

Early on in my career in youth ministry, the time came for us to go on our summer mission trip. When it did, I freaked out because I realized I had no mission trip t-shirts.

As with retreat booklets, I thought that for something to count as a...

What the book's about: Lauren Winner's Real Sex is a book that talks openly and honestly about sex, confronting the lies both our culture and the church tell about it. It also explores the discipline of chastity. 

Why I read this book:...

The first retreat I ever led was about authentic relationships. I spent HOURS prepping every aspect of this retreat – including hours on a retreat booklet for participants. The retreat booklet contained cartoons, quotes, the Bible passages we were...

What the book's about: As it's subtitle suggests, Damaged Goods is about new perspectives on Christian purity. Using her own story as well as stories from interviews she conducted, Dianna explores some of the damage Christian purity...

This weekend is my youth ministry's annual winter retreat. During it, my high school students and I are exploring the book of Revelation.

After learning what our topic is, I've lost track of how many times someone has asked me, rather...

Sarah Bessey is a writer's writer. Her words are beautiful; Her language, poetry. She's someone I read when I need inspiration. 

Needless to say, my expectations about her second book, Out of Sorts, were incredibly high, so much so that I...