Adam McLane

Tag: youth ministry

  • Nervous Energy

    Nervous Energy

    Nervous energy. I think that’s a good description for the weirdness of a travel day for every short-term mission team, especially high schoolers. I woke up this morning thinking of the youth leaders and their checklists. At this point, the day they fly, there isn’t much left to do. Count heads, reassure parents, and check…

  • Jim Burns endorsement of A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Social Media

    I’m thankful for Jim Burns endorsement of the book I co-authored with Marko. Jim is a youth ministry legend. His decades long ministry has impacted the lives of countless students, youth workers, and parents. I was humbled that he not only read the book and offered this endorsement, he also had me on his radio…

  • 3 New Books from The Youth Cartel

    In the past 2-3 months I’ve earned a Masters Degree in Publishing. OK, not literally. But I’ve had to teach myself how to turn a manuscript into a book you can buy and a Kindle/iBook you can read on an eReader. It’s been crazy hard and fun. So here are the 3 books we’ve published…

  • Infographic: Why Youth Ministry Must Decentralize

    Click here to view or download full-sized version Source: U.S. Census Data Challenge You cannot reach 427 10-19 year olds with 1 paid youth worker. We have 40 years of data which tells us this is impossible. The way we currently do things is part of the solution but we must think differently to engage…

  • Join us for Open Seattle

    I’m getting really pumped for Open Seattle next week. If you live in the Pacific Northwest we’d love to have you. Yesterday, we extended the regular registration deadline until next Monday– so you can still get in for $25! What’s Open Seattle? Open is an experiment. It’s asking the the youth ministry world the question……

  • Lead by Enabling

    Did you catch the Do Something Awards on VH1 last night? Wow. Wow! WOWowow! It was an explosion of fun, music, and celebration of teenagers who… are doing stuff in their communities. I’m relatively new to discovering DoSomething.org but the idea behind their organization is pretty simple. They help teenagers do stuff in their community. Here’s how…

  • The 48 Hour Self-Retreat – How to plan your Fall 2012 Ministry Strategy

    It’s August 1st.  For most youth ministries things really kick off in 30 days. That means in the next 30 days you need a publishable Fall calendar, you need to check in with all of your volunteers to make sure they are coming back, and you need to host a volunteer training meeting as well…

  • Too big to fail

    “Too big to fail” is a colloquial term in describing certain financial institutions which are so large and so interconnected that their failure will be disastrous to the economy, and which therefore must be supported by government when they face difficulty. ~ Wikipedia Since the mid-1980’s the federal government has mandated that some banks are so…

  • You know you’re onto something when…

    the powers that be (doing nothing for years) are nervous about you. people from the church start leaving tracts and books on your desk anonymously. an old lady cusses at you and about you. country club members decide to worship elsewhere. tattoos and pick-up trucks outnumber lattes and minivans in the parking lot. you get…

  • 3 Things Teenagers Wonder About the Adults in Their Lives

    Teenagers are good at asking questions. But I’ve found they often have a hard time coming to you about things they wonder about. More specifically, what are the things they are wondering about as it relates to the adults running their youth group that they have which they can’t quite put words to? Here’s the…