In late April and early May, my VBS leaders and I began wrestling with what to do with VBS this year. We felt skeptical that things would be open enough for us to offer in-person VBS. We felt even more skeptical that people would come if we did...
I was supposed to be on a mission trip last week.
With the exception of the two summers I was on maternity leave, this is the first time since 2003 that I haven’t spent my summers leading mission trips.
Mission trips are – for so many junior...
Over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about Martin Luther King Jr.
As a kid, MLK was the ONE black man I learned about in a positive way. He was the pastor who gave the “I have a dream” speech and who advanced the notion of...
As states reopen, the conversations are raging in youth ministry circles about when and how to “reopen” our youth ministries.
My youth ministry will not be regathering this summer.
I'm using that word, regather, intentionally because even though...
Perhaps in the last few weeks, you’ve seen a meme like this one:
I certainly have.
Between the pandemic, the murder hornets, the killing of another black man, the protests, and the riots, I've heard more people than ever before say something...
Hope is very into party planning right now.
Yesterday, she planned a carnival for our family to participate in, complete with individual tickets for each activity – tickets she spent two hours making.
One of the carnival activities was CHALK,...
This week has broken me.
George Floyd.
The protests.
The looting.
The pandemic.
It’s left me feeling exhausted.
And I’m someone who knows what exhaustion feels like.
I’ve felt the complete and utter exhaustion that defines a first trimester...
As a parent, I, like so many, want to shelter my girls from the horrors of the world. At 10-months old and 5-years-old, they are, after all, still so young.
Yet, the reality is that Hope (the 5-year-old) hears EVERYTHING… And she asks questions...
Although I grew up in the church and was taught that Jesus sacrificed himself for my sins on the cross, I didn't really learn about self-sacrifice until twenty years ago when I was a summer staffer for YouthWorks Missions.
That summer, I was told...
As we stood at my mother-in-law’s casket, my nearly two-year-old nephew chased my four-year-old daughter around the empty funeral home room – something they could do since, thanks to the COVID-19 restrictions, the room was empty except for us.
...