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...
Letting teens influence my youth ministry's teaching calendar means that sometimes, we talk about topics I have no interest in or even real knowledge of; Topics that if, it were solely up to me, would never in a million years make our teaching...
Last week, my high school youth ministry finished it's discussion of Gospel Journey Maui by wrestling with the question, “Who is Jesus?” Because I've used this curriculum before, I searched my computer for our “Who is Jesus?” discussion from five...
Since January, I've been using Dare to Share's Gospel Journey Maui with my high school teens during Sunday school.
Initially, I was a reluctant to use this curriculum. Despite having heard other youth workers speak favorably about it for years,...
Over the weekend, I saw the movie McFarland, USA.
In so many ways, this is a youth ministry movie – a powerful example of the impact adults can have in the lives of teens.
In the movie, Mr. White – a teacher who's been laid off by several...
In response to last week's post about how a fear of offending people keeps teens from talking about their faith with others, a reader reminded me how at that age, even if he'd wanted to talk about his faith with others, he wouldn't have known how....
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how to brainstorm with teens. People hesitant about utilizing teens in this process often ask some variation of this question:
What if the things teens WANT to talk about aren't what they need to talk about in order...
This fall in my youth ministry, we did a series on the attributes of God based on words that teens use to describe God that may or may not actually be accurate.
The last week of this series we discussed how, if at all, God resembles a genie....
Over the past four weeks, my youth ministry has been experimenting with student led small groups.
Truth be told, this experiment was birthed out of a shortage of adult leaders. In an effort to keep the size of our small groups small, I invited...
In a recent blog post, Andy Blanks offers 20 ways to spruce up your Bible study. His suggestions are good and well worth a read.
That said, I struggled with one of them.
“Let students teach--Adapt your lesson so students are teaching each other,...