I have long thought that to do what Steve proposes would be the most powerful way to run a youth group… or a church… Because God likes me and because he knows how discouraged I get about myself, about others and about the church, he regularly allows me to see the “real deal.” If I…

An older lady in the congregation phoned the youth directors to speak with them about a gift for youth ministry. Her husband had passed away and memorial gifts had been given to the church in his name. It was up to the widow to determine how they would be spent. Given her husband’s commitment to…

Years ago I used the 3D guide produced by CPYU with groups and found it to be very helpful in getting students to think through the media that they absorb. CPYU has updated the resource and added a valuable section to it. You can download the leaders guide for free here which allows you to…

What do we do with the stats that tell us that Christian kids don’t live any differently (morally) than their non believing counterparts? How do we make sense of it? John Piper has some thoughts on equipping the young saints… Pray for sure. And work our heinies off teaching and preaching and modeling the Truth.…

Educating others… Recently one of the newer folks in the diocese asked an older youth minister what I actually do in my job. It is a fair question of course and reminded me of a simple truth we all need to keep in mind. Part of our job in ministry is educating people about what…

Missing a beat… I blew it! The best laid plans and all that… The only thing I can say is “I am sorry” and seek forgiveness. What am I talking about? For our recent Fusion meeting, I was convicted that we really needed to spend more time in prayer for each other, for ministries we…

It’s an odd question, using an old image (unless you are a tetherball player) but John Piper has a great piece on the Desiring God website that Jonathan B tipped me off to. Here is a sample… The Bible tethers us to reality. We are not free to think and speak whatever might enter our…

With Halloween a mere five weeks away, I am reminded of a trend in some churches to create a Hell House sort of haunted house experience for the sake of evangelism. Honestly, I personally find this sort of approach frightening. It seems on the one extreme we see Christians watering down the gospel and trying…

Many years ago, as a young youth pastor, God impressed something on me about how I viewed my work. In looking at a long list of church kids we were not reaching and then thinking about the massive number of unreached students at local schools, the temptation was to go after the unchurched. In some…