After you've let your dreams percolate, the next step in crafting your budget proposal is to translate your dreams into actual numbers.
To do this, go back through your lists, paying particular attention to your answers to this question: What...
My teens care deeply about issues that affect the marginalized in society. They long to make sense of what their faith says about such things and wrestle with how they can make a difference in regard to these issues. To that end, my student...
I blinked and suddenly it's fall, I'm back at work, and Hope is 4 months old. Where oh where did maternity leave and the summer go? Since I somehow missed doing several monthly recaps, we're going to take July - September in one fell swoop.
...In junior high, I was a member of my school's volleyball team.
I loved being part of the team. I even enjoyed playing volleyball. Here's the catch: I wasn't very good. I just happened to attend a school that was so small that in order to field a...
It's easy, I think, for teens to pity people, to feel sorry for someone else. It's much harder for teens to cultivate and develop empathy, the ability to feel and understand another person's experience. This is true, I'm afraid, even for church...
When they hear how much of a role my student leaders have in creating our ministry's vision, other youth workers often look at me as though I'm crazy. They wonder, Why would you entrust your teens with creating your vision?
To which I say, Why...
On Saturday, my youth ministry gathered together to play the summer's hottest game: Slip 'N Slide Kickball.
One of my seniors, a student leader in my ministry, came up to me at the start of the event, eager to share with me her experience of...
One question I'm commonly asked in regard to student leadership teams is, “Are people grandfathered in?” In other words, once someone is on your student leadership team, should they remain on it indefinitely?
My answer is an emphatic “No!”
No one...
One of the leadership axioms I adhere to is that leaders cannot take people further than they are themselves. In order for teens to consistently grow in their faith, student leaders must do so too.
To challenge student leaders to grow, ask them to...
Ever since the Vanity Fair article, Call Me Caitlyn, broke earlier this week, my Facebook feed has been filled with people's reactions to it. My progressive friends are overjoyed; My conservative friends are horrified. Opinions seem to abound...