our top 10 most unbrilliant things we've done in youth ministry

In honor of everyone else’s brilliance, we thought it might be fun to share our un-brilliance. We’re limiting the list to 10, but we could easily turn this into a multi-part series. Heck, we might even be able to categorize by the liturgical calendar if we could get organized enough to find a pen.

Left a student behind. His name was Michael. We really ...


This blog was first posted in two parts at youthministry.com. You can read the rest here.


What do you think?

teens, anxiety, and youth ministry

Long gone are the carefree days of youth.

The modern teen is stressed out. With sports travel teams, AP classes, gifted programs, standardized testing, band/dance/cheer/sports camps, and college application essays, today’s teenager feels the pressure to perform. And this doesn’t take into account the anxiety of dating, social media, loneliness, peer pressure, peer approval, faith, etc.

Anxiety specialist Dr. Richard Leahy was quoted as saying ... 

This blog was first posted in two parts at youthministry.com. You can read part one here and part two here.

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this is your place

My buddy Brian recently posted an original poem on his blog. Because I'm a friend, I read it. Because it stirred something up in my soul, I've read it again and again. Here's my favorite set of verses, a beautiful echo of the Kingdom of God:

Where we meet in that place, face to face and we see
There is no difference between you and me,
For they is we and me is them, there is only one
There is only us

I love Brian because he's a friend, a Jesus follower who's open and honest about his journey, and if there's a struggle or question -- he errs on the side of loving people. That seems to be a beautiful echo of the Kingdom as well.

You can read the whole piece at Brian's blog, Conversations Along the Way.

What do you think?

the sexualization of our culture, part 4

For the past few weeks, we’ve talked about several key themes related to building a healthy understanding of sexuality from a Kingdom-of-God-perspective. (Click for Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.) This week we’ll wrap things up with what we believe are the two biggest challenges facing students (an adults) in this struggle.

The first challenge is trusting that the Kingdom of God is best.

The word “faith” in the Bible has always struck us as a little peculiar. For many years ...


This blog was first posted at youthministry.com. You can read the entire article here.


What do you think?

the sexualization of our culture, part 3

We regularly remind our students that the decisions they make today shape who they’ll be tomorrow. This statement is easy to apply to sexuality, but we must...

This blog was first posted at youthministry.com. You can read the entire article here.

What do you think?

the sexualization of our culture, part 2

If you read our article from last week, The Sexualization of our Culture, Pt 1, you saw our general thoughts on sexuality in our culture. We ended with the question, “How can we hope students choose to live differently unless they are offered a new way to understand their world?” This week we want to begin looking at ...

This blog was first posted at youthministry.com. You can read the entire article here.

What do you think?

the sexualization of our culture, part 1

You may remember a few months ago when two female high school teachers were accused of having group sex with a male high school student. I was concerned because 1) I’m a human, 2) I work with teenagers, and 3) this is the school Elle (my 14-year-old daughter) attends. When the news broke...

This blog was first posted at youthministry.com. You can read the entire article here.


What do you think?