After spending five years serving as the youth pastor in a church that held its weekly youth service during “big church”, I knew I wanted my next congregation to be one in which families worshiped together, where worship and faith formation (or...
What the book's about: Mack & Leeann's Guide to Short-Term Missions is just that: A guide to short-term missions, written by two InterVarsity Campus Fellowship staff workers who have directed numerous mission trips to Kenya, the Middle East...
One of my favorite ways to teach my daughter about faith is by reading to her. For this reason, I'm always on the lookout for clever faith-related children's books.
Bible Basics: A Baby Believer Counting Primer by Danielle Hitchen,...
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...
As I watched Disney's new Beauty and the Beast with my husband this weekend, I was captivated by Gaston – the narcissistic man who wants to marry the book-loving Belle – in a way that I didn't expect to be.
At multiple points in the movie,...
As a parent, I want to teach my daughter to follow Jesus.
Hope's only 21-months old, so right now, the main way we're doing this is by reading her the Bible in order to teach her the stories of her faith. One of her godmother's got her a copy of...
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...
“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...
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...
“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...