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: Surprise. 

My husband was ready to have kids long before I was.

I...

A professor once told me the most important decision he makes for each class is choosing what that class will read.

In a lot of ways, I feel the same way about my student leadership team. Each summer, we read a book together. Not only does this...

What the book's about: As the subtitle of The Irresistible Revolution  suggests, this book is about "living as an ordinary radical." 

Why I read this book: I rarely reread books and yet this is the 3rd time I've read...

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: Share. 

As I stood in the bathroom doing my hair, I heard my dad...

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

The first time I heard these...

Recently, we talked about 11 signs you might be burning out.

Unfortunately, as you know, it's not enough to simply recognize you're burning out. Instead, you have to proactively deal with burnout both while you're at work and when you're at home....

Recently, Bravo aired a marathon of Top Chef Season 2, which I eagerly watched during late nights with the baby.

In addition to featuring fun cooking challenges and great food, this particular season of Top Chef focused on the relationships...

Last week, we talked about 11 signs you might be burning out.

Unfortunately, it's not enough to simply recognize you're burning out. Instead, you have to proactively deal with burnout. Next week, we'll explore strategies for coping with burnout...

In a recent sermon, mega church pastor and evangelical Christian leader, Andy Stanley said, “We want churches to be large enough so that there are enough middle schoolers and high schoolers that we don't have one youth group with middle school and...

What I'm Reading:

Fiction:

I read a LOT during February, completing six fiction books. Among them, my favorites were:   

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom. I don't know how I missed this when it came out in 2010. It was SO good -...

I am the product of an all-girls Catholic high school.

Without a doubt, I got a good education at the all-girls Catholic high school I attended. Beyond that, though, my all-girls education gave me all sorts of leadership opportunities –...

There are a few times a year when I hit a ministry slump: January / February and then again in August.

In both cases, exhaustion contributes to my slump. I enter January exhausted from the holidays only to then go full-throttle into two of my...

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: Forget.

During this season of motherhood, there is so much I don't ever...

Shortly before our annual winter retreat, a parent asked me, “Do you need any more chaperones for the winter retreat?”

For a second, I honestly didn't know what this parent was talking about.

My youth ministry doesn't have chaperones.

It does,...

What the book's about: I Am Malala is Malala Yousafzai's account of her life in the Swat Valley in Pakistan, her desire to see ALL people, especially girls, have access to education, and her fight for her own life after being shot by the Taliban...

I'm currently doing some research for Exodus World Service, an organization that mobilizes the Christian community to welcome refugees. As part of this, I was reading some background information on the organization written by one of it's founders,...

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...