“You’re in ministry. How do you avoid the insanity of this Christmas season?” my friend recently asked. “I’ve got three kids and between all the church and school programs, we’re always busy!”
There was a time when I added to the Christmas chaos,...
Read more
In my community, it's officially the end of the year. Schools get out in the next couple of weeks and it seems that between now and then, there's a steady onslaught of end-of-the-year festivities, including parties. In some instances, students...
Read more
Last week, we talked about 11 signs you might be burning out.
Unfortunately, it's not enough to simply recognize you're burning out. Instead, you have to proactively deal with burnout. Next week, we'll explore strategies for coping with burnout...
Read more
I'm currently doing some research for Exodus World Service, an organization that mobilizes the Christian community to welcome refugees. As part of this, I was reading some background information on the organization written by one of it's founders,...
Read more
I despise fill-in-the-blanks.
They annoy me.
More importantly, I don't think they're particularly useful.
Needing to complete a bulletin filled with fill-in-the-blanks doesn't make me listen more attentively to the person talking – especially when...
Read more
More than once, I've written an e-mail, hit send, and then immediately thought to myself, “What have I just done?”
You see, with the advent of e-mail, it's become far too easy to let people know exactly what we think. After all, the beauty of...
Read more
My high school youth ministry is called FLY, which stands for Faith Lutheran Youth. It's a name I inherited and truthfully, it's not one I love... Especially since I'm surrounded by much cooler sounding youth ministries:
The Edge.
212.
Fusion....
Read more
Early on in my career in youth ministry, the time came for us to go on our summer mission trip. When it did, I freaked out because I realized I had no mission trip t-shirts.
As with retreat booklets, I thought that for something to count as a...
Read more
The first retreat I ever led was about authentic relationships. I spent HOURS prepping every aspect of this retreat – including hours on a retreat booklet for participants. The retreat booklet contained cartoons, quotes, the Bible passages we were...
Read more
Churches today are struggling financially.
Oh, I know that's not true of ALL of them.
But I know it's true of a lot of them.
As a result, it's entirely possible for you to do the hard work of crafting a budget proposal only to be told, “We'd love...
Read more