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...

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...