Cultivating A Culture Of Worship For Youth
This might feel like a weird starting place for a conversation about a healthy culture of worship for youth groups, but when was the last time you went to a concert? If you’re me, it’s been a while. I just don’t value the experience enough for the financial and time investment required. But I can […]
Building A Resilient Youth Ministry
This time of year four years ago, we were just beginning to discover that what we initially thought would be a few weeks of the world shutting down was actually going to drag on for much, much longer. None of us had ever experienced anything like COVID, and the rate of innovation on how to […]
Addressing Faith and Doubt In Youth Ministry
We’ve all been there in youth ministry where a student asks a question or poses a doubt to Christianity that we’re not totally prepared to answer off the top of the dome. That’s a hard place to be because, let’s face it, none of us likes to look stumped in front of a group of […]
Avoiding Volunteer Burnout
If you’ve been doing occupational youth ministry for longer than five minutes, you understand that we have no shot at doing this well without a team of amazing volunteers. It’s just too much. It involves too many details. It’s too many students—even for those of us with ministries that don’t have that many students! But […]
Fostering Authentic Faith In Teenagers
Before we jump into fostering authentic faith in teenagers, let me share why this topic is top of mind for me. My wife and I recently went from parenting three kids to parenting five. No, we didn’t have twin babies! We brought in two teenage siblings we already knew and loved from around the neighborhood. […]
Navigating Digital Youth Ministry
If it wasn’t the new normal before, COVID ensured it had to be: Digital Youth Ministry. With technology continuing to rapidly progress and shift the world we live in, it becomes even more important that we have a lens for navigating youth ministry in the digital world. To that end, I’m not here to suggest […]
Life Is Long
Can we just be honest and admit something really quick? As youth workers, we love all of our students equally, but we love some more than others. It’s okay. No one’s looking. You can just admit it. Sometimes God puts certain students in our pathway and puts it on our heart to do for that […]
ChatBot GPT
My Prompt: “Write a blog post on the following idea: ChatBotGPT is going to elevate the efficiency with which students complete tasks and create content, but new tools aren’t new, and AI will demonstrate itself to be a poor substitute for the Holy Spirit at work in God’s people.” AI Response: “ChatBotGPT is a powerful […]
Deconstruction
When college students come back, we get the scary privilege of checking in with them as youth pastors. If you haven’t had this experience yet, you will. Sometimes we discover that our former students have fallen off a bit faith wise as they’ve begun their official transition toward adulthood. Disillusionment. Disengagement. Dissection. Deconstruction. Maybe some […]
Burnout Buffer
If you’re reading this blog post the day it comes out, and your Christmas tree is already up in your living room, I want you to know that you are/live with an insane person. It’s way too early! But in the same breath, thank goodness we’re knocking on the door of the Christmas season, because […]