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.


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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.

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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.


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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.

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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.

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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.


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understanding God ... from a distance

Our staff at the Vineyard Church has been reading some really solid books on understanding scripture. When we started reading, I did a little research on the authors, and I rightly assumed I would agree with some of their conclusions/arguments, and disagree with others. 

(Aside -- doing doctoral work helped me learn how to appreciate someone's contributions, even if I think their findings are wrong.)

I dug in, and I learned a lot. I read a lot of things that challenged my long-held assumptions and dared me to think differently. Some things I believed, I now believe even more strongly. Other things I believed, I've had to rethink and reconsider. On one hand, I'm not super-excited when this happens; it's much more comfortable to continue believing what I've always believed. But on the other hand, I never want to get stuck in my relationship with God.

All that said, here's what the things I've read have led me to believe/rebelieve. It's not earth-shattering, so don't get your hopes up. But it was a good journey for me, and I'm excited for the staff discussions that are coming up.

• The closer we get to God, the more we get closer to understanding him well.

• In the garden, Adam and Eve walked with God, and they messed up when they turned away from God and did things their way.

• One day we'll again see God face to face ... I'll come back to this one later.

• OT writers retold their historic stories with a constantly evolving understanding of God, filtered through their culture, but they didn't understand everything that God said or did.
• In places of confusion, they filled in their blanks with an understanding of God shaped by their experiences.

• Jesus was the perfect image of God but the disciples still misunderstood some things.
• In places of confusion, they filled in the blanks with what they knew from the OT or their culture.

• Paul (and other NT writers) write as people processing a NT experience with an OT background, but they may not be perfectly clear.
• In places of confusion, they filled in the blanks with how they saw Jesus live and reveal the kingdom.

• Today we have a much richer story, but we still misunderstand things, partly because of our confusion, partly because God is bigger than we are: more loving, more just, more giving, etc.

• One day we'll see God face-to-face, and in places of confusion, how do we decide what's right today? My answer - in order of importance:

1. We immerse ourselves in the written story of God that is historically accepted by the church - the canon.
2. We do everything we can to see God clearly and listen to his spirit - spiritual rhythms.
3. We yield to our micro community - the people we live life with everyday.
4. We yield to our macro community - the church historical and global.
5. We act in faith with a listening ear to all of the above.

I believe the authors of the books I've been reading would have some variance in their answers, probably both in the list itself and in the importance they place on each one. I appreciate the differences we share, and I believe the authors are (for the most part) being faithful to God in the midst of their own journeys.

I hope you're reading things that continue to stretch your faith and your thinking. Fight ruthlessly against getting stuck. And don't just read things you know you'll agree with.

The two books I'm most referencing in this blog:

• Derek Flood's Disarming Scripture
• Peter Enns' The Bible Tells Me So

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youth ministry lessons from coach les miles

In the interest of full disclosure, I am an LSU alum, fan, and supporter of all things LSU – including our head football coach, Les Miles.

ESPN has been running a series of interest pieces on coaches’ offices. I was excited to see Coach Miles profiled in October. As interesting as the article was for me as an LSU fan, I was most intrigued to read Coach Miles’ comments about a simple white football with the names of ...

[This blog was originally posted at youthministry.com. You can read the whole thing here.]


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dad-ventures

We have three daughters. When they were young, a trusted mentor told us that if we wanted to have legitimate relationships with our girls when they were older – the kind of relationships where we could speak truth into their lives – we had to ...

[This blog was originally posted at youthministry.com. You can read the whole thing here.]


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catching up

Like most blogger-wannabes, I occasionally fall of the wagon and stop updating my blog. That's been the case the last year. I have several good reasons and even more poor ones.

Regardless, it's time to catch up.

One way I'll do that is by cheating. Not really cheating, but by linking to some other places I've been blogging. It'll catch you up on what I've been writing, plus it'll (hopefully) generate your interest in other bloggers on that site.