Tag: youth group

  • Beg, Borrow, and Steal our Retreat!

    That’s the goal of our high school ministries Winter retreat. I’m not talking about a cash neutral event to the youth budget. I’m talking about… we’ve got no money so we need to do this retreat for free. We don’t have budget money and our students literally have no cash to offset expenses. Here’s what…

  • Open Letter to My Former Students

    Like all my friends in youth ministry, I have acquired a growing list of graduates that now scatter the globe. Some are freshmen in college this year, some are married and have cool jobs, and most are kind of in an in-between state. We bump into each other from time-to-time, we comment on one anothers…

  • Youth Workers: Don’t Punk Out

    Youth Workers: Don’t Punk Out

    Youth ministry seems to be facing asymmetrical challenges right now. Two of them on the forefront of my mind are longevity and transference of wisdom. With a tough job market and a climate of deconstruction/re-thinking/shifting in the profession… it really pains me to see a lot of very gifted youth workers move on. Some of…

  • Properly Loading Volunteer Staff

    Your role as a ministry manager isn’t just to plan programs and teach students. Successful ministry largely lies in your ability to properly manage a group of volunteers. Take five minutes and identify which category each of your volunteers is happiest in: Low capacity High capacity Super capacity What are some ways you can vary…

  • Front-loading ministry in the discipleship process

    A couple weeks ago I shared a post about discipleship that raised some questions about how we do things in our student ministry. Most of the comments were affirmative. Some of the more critical questions which arose required some follow-up. With that in mind, I grabbed a few moments with Chris and Kathy, our staff…

  • New Heights Project highlight video

    A few weeks ago I mentioned something our youth ministry does over the summer. We hire a group of high school students to run our children’s ministry outreach program. Here’s a highlight video they showed in church at the end of their experience. I’m so thankful for the impact these students had on our community!…

  • Is this a safe place?

    About 10 months ago a group of people sat on Chris’ back porch talking about starting a youth ministry for our church, Harbor Mid-City. As we chatted, dreamt, and prayed about this ministry one of the things that came out was… “We want it to be a safe place for students to explore a relationship…

  • The plot and sub-plot of every youth group meeting

    Youth group meets every Wednesday evening at 7:00 PM. And every Wednesday night at 7:00 PM a cast of characters arrives on scene. Each character is three-dimensional. And each character is coming to youth group for their own reasons. Every Wednesday there is a plot and a series of sub-plots. And it looks something like…

  • Longitudinal Youth Ministry

    There is something so cheap about a program that graduates students. Maybe it’s just that I don’t like to let go? Or maybe it’s just that I can’t reconcile the theological ramifications of shoving a copy of My Utmost for His Highest in a kids hands and saying, “Thanks for the memories. Have a nice…

  • My 3 Caddy Rules for Ministry

    I’m a golfer. I’ve played the game off and on most of my life. More importantly, I love being around golfers. There is a joke among golfers that there are just three rules to a caddy’s job. “Just show up, keep up, and shut up.” That’s really how I feel about our burgeoning youth ministry.…