The night my high school youth ministry discussed refugees, one of our final questions was, “How else can we show mercy to refugees?”

After wrestling with this question for a while, one student quietly and courageously asked, “Everything...

As a youth worker, one of my roles is to come alongside families during times of struggle and provide pastoral care. As part of this, others often ask me, “What can I do for Person X?”

During times of crises, people want to be helpful but they...

In addition to reviewing Katharina & Martin Luther: The Radical Marriage of a Runaway Nun and a Renegade Monk, I also had the chance to interview its author, Michelle DeRusha about her writing process and what she learned from writing this...

As part of our youth ministry's recent conversation about refugees, students worked in small groups to write a modern-day version of the Good Samaritan. Here's one group's version: 

An empty-handed Syrian refugee was traveling from...

After 15 years in our congregation, my senior pastor is leaving to take a new call.

Since my senior pastor announced his departure, I’ve become acutely aware of the role that I, as a staff member, have to play in this transition. Just as there are...

“I can’t do the Famine,” one of my active, never-miss-an-activity students informed me.

“How come?” I asked.

“My mom doesn’t want me to starve myself,” she said.

It’s something I’ve heard a lot over the years. For many students, fasting – the...

I'm a Lutheran Youth Pastor who, until now, could count on one hand the things I knew about Martin Luther, a key player in the Reformation and the person for whom my tradition is named. 

1. He believed in the importance of Scripture alone.
...

After 15 years in our congregation, my senior pastor is leaving to take a new call.

As far as transitions go, this is a healthy one. No underlying conflict is forcing anyone to go. And yet, transitions are always hard. I’m grieving and so are many...

What I'm Reading:

Fiction:

Best chick lit: Forever, Interrupted by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I devoured this book in just a couple days. It's fast, entertaining, and would make a great beach read. 

Book I'm still thinking about: ...

After President Trump signed the travel ban impacting refugees, I met with my student leaders. Together, we decided to postpone our previously scheduled discussion in order to insert a week into our teaching calendar about refugees. As Christians,...

As a parent, I've been astounded by how much I'm already learning from my 20-month old daughter. For that reason, when I saw Amy Julia Becker's book, Small Talk: Learning from my children about what matters most, I was intrigued.

Small Talk is...

We were out with friends on Saturday and as it often does in a group of readers, the conversation turned to books. One of my friends admitted how important fiction has become to her in the last few weeks as a means of escape from what feels like...

As the Church Council President adjourned our congregation’s annual meeting, the high school teens swarmed me.

“How can it just end like that?”

“We still have questions about the budget!”

They quickly rattled them off, rapid firing one after...

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...

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...