Some of my good friends are long-term medical missionaries in Nepal. Every once in a while, I'll get an e-mail from them saying, “We popsicle stick prayed for you this morning!”
Every day our friends – along with their three young children – pray...
My husband and I both grew up doing theater. In college, we even directed a show together. As part of that show, my husband introduced me to the concept of writing the actors' bios (the ones that appear in the program) for them – something that...
In addition to requiring student leaders to read and blog, another way I train and equip students for leadership and in particular, for creating a culture of welcome is by conducting frequent evaluations of each week's youth ministry programs.
...
Like many other congregations, ours has struggled with transitioning 8th graders into our high school ministry after confirmation. Over the past several years, we've put a lot of time and energy into strengthening this transition process. To that...
In addition to requiring student leaders to read, another way I train and equip students for leadership and in particular, for creating a culture of welcome is through blogging. Blogging forces teens to intentionally think about their faith...
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...
Shortly after returning from a mission trip to Rwanda, one of my teens called me in tears. She’d just returned from a bookstore, where she’d noticed less than a row of books about the entire continent of Africa and none about Rwanda. “Don’t people...
Last week, we talked about how the fundamental role of student leaders is to create a culture of welcome. A common question I get in response to this idea is “How do you train and equip student leaders to create a culture of welcome?”
There are...
Once you have a student leadership team, the question is, what do you do with it? What jobs can & should student leaders fulfill?
To be honest, I cringe a little bit at the notion of jobs for student leaders. Jobs are something that can be...
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...