Days before Christmas, mere miles from my home in the western suburbs of Chicago, my youth ministry and I delivered a Welcome Pack containing the basic supplies needed to begin life in America to a refugee family from Sudan.

They'd fled Sudan...

Less than 24-hours into our Peacemaking Trip, a student told me, “We've met ONE immigrant and I'm already changing my mind about this issue!”

Before our trip began, this student was in favor of Trump's campaign promise to build a bigger wall....

“Lots of balloons popping will give me a panic attack,” cried my student as she walked into our prayer station room in tears.

Moments before, I’d given students directions about how to complete our prayer stations, urging them to take them...

I'm a big believer in the power of experiential learning. To this end, instead of giving a talk about prayer, I'd much rather create a series of prayer stations designed to give students the opportunity to pray in a variety of ways.

Over the next...

Whenever I ask teens what they want to talk about in my youth ministry, they respond with enthusiasm, “SEX!”

As a youth pastor, I've lost track of how many times I've taught on sex or done a Valentine's Day sex series in my high school youth...

I took most of the week off between Christmas and New Years, as did most of my colleagues. During that time, my family vacationed in San Antonio. We explored, rested, and had fun. We shut our laptops and distanced ourselves from our jobs.

When I...

I'm a big believer in the power of experiential learning. To this end, instead of giving a talk about prayer, I'd much rather create a series of prayer stations designed to give students the opportunity to pray in a variety of ways.

Over the next...

Our youth ministry had its annual Christmas party last week.

That, by itself, isn’t all that remarkable.

What’s remarkable is the fact that I wasn’t there. Nor were any of our ministry’s other adult leaders. We were at adult leader’s training....

What the book's about: Assimilate or Go Home is a memoir about Mayfield's experience with refugees. It's a story about how her faith grew and changed when she befriended people whose faith looked nothing like hers. 

Why I read this book: I...

“You’re in ministry. How do you avoid the insanity of this Christmas season?” my friend recently asked. “I’ve got three kids and between all the church and school programs, we’re always busy!”

There was a time when I added to the Christmas chaos,...

Today, I'm linking up with Kate Motaung's Five Minute Friday. The rules: Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.

This week's prompt: Joy.

I know joy is a fruit of the spirit, but it's one I struggle with. Joy...

What I'm Reading:

Fiction:

I read 4 fiction books in November.

Best mystery: The Perfect Girl by Gilly Macmillan. 

Most thought-provoking: Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult. This is a fiction book about racism. It is beyond...

Before my seniors leave for college, we spend a good deal of time talking about various campus ministries. Our hope is to encourage students to get involved in them (or in a church on their college campus).

As part of this ongoing conversation, I...

On the night of the 2016 election, I sat glued to my television, watching the Presidential returns come in. As the night wore on and Donald Trump’s lead grew, my heart sank.

That’s when my phone began dinging.

I received text after text from the...

This year my youth ministry is offering two summer mission trips: A domestic trip to a nearby town (that we offer every other year) and an international trip to Haiti.

Some of our families do both trips but others choose only one. We know this. In...

What the book's about: Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living by Shauna Niequist is about learning to say "no". It's about "real over image, connecting over comparing, meaning over mania, depth over...

“Being in jail is the best thing that's happened to me this whole game!” cried Ben in anger. For a moment, I thought he was going to flip his Monopoly board over in a fit of rage.

He didn't – even though the game never improved for him.

It...

One of the questions I hear most frequently from the older people in my congregation is, “Where are all the youth?”

I’ll admit this question frustrates me. Underneath it is typically one of two beliefs:

1. There are no youth in our congregation.
2....

What I'm Reading:

Fiction:

I read 5 fiction books during October but sadly, no non-fiction books. 

Best mystery: The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena. Definitely not as good as last month's I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh, but still...

Apparently, if you want optimal choices, you have to buy toddler halloween costumes in July. Not knowing this, I went at the end of September and thought I was doing good. Instead, I found only two left in my daughter's size: An adorable dog and a...