Youth workers live busy lives. As soon as one trip or program ends, the next begins. So it is with mission trips.
As soon as you pull into the church parking lot at the end of your trip, inevitably someone asks, "Where are we going next year?" or...
I’ve been in youth ministry long enough to know that eventually, students in my ministry will face crises.
Knowing this, I’ve taken steps to equip adult leaders to minister to students in crises. That way, when crises happen, we’re prepared....
This summer, my student leaders & I read and discussed the book, Help! I'm a Student Leader by Doug Fields. Using the questions below, we had some incredibly powerful discussions about leadership and faith.
Questions about Ch. 3 of...
When I was in the third grade, one of my classmates had a habit of blowing on people. One day, our teacher caught him doing this, yanked him out of line, drew a circle on the chalkboard, and made him repeatedly blow into the circle for the rest of...
On a Sunday morning not all that long ago, I stood behind a young mom and her toddler-aged daughter as they exited church. When they reached the doors in the back of our church, the mom said to her daughter, “Say good-bye to the church.”
The...
As a youth worker, I'm constantly amazed at the mysteriousness of adolescence. One minute, I'm baffled by the immaturity of my teens. The next, I'm blown away by their insight. Somehow, in the adolescent world, immaturity and insight regularly...
This summer, my student leaders & I read and discussed the book, Help! I'm a Student Leader by Doug Fields. Using the questions below, we had some incredibly powerful discussions about leadership and faith.
Questions about the Ch. 2 of...
According to David Kinnaman in You Lost Me , 52 percent of youth group teens aspire to science-related careers but only one percent of youth workers have addressed issues of science in the past year.
Knowing this, I was excited when my student...
Nadia Bolz-Weber is as close to a celebrity pastor as the ELCA has. I've gotten to hear her speak on two different occasions, first at the Extravaganza (a training event for youth workers in the ELCA) and later at the 2012 ELCA Youth Gathering.
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Recently, one of my new adult leaders asked me, “Why don’t we talk about the Holy Spirit more with our high school students? It seems like we’re very focused on Jesus.”
Truthfully, this is a pretty fair assessment of my high school ministry: It ...