Adam McLane

Tag: youth ministry

  • Youth Ministry as Life Ministry

    A few years ago I was talking to a senior pastor about youth ministry. In a moment of honesty he said something like this. “I don’t get it. Tell me why you want to work with high school students your whole life. You’re qualified to be a senior pastor. You have all the qualities people…

  • The power of story

    I’m spending the next week on the road for work, capturing stories from youth workers in their context. Here’s Ryan’s story. I first heard about Ryan’s story last year. We met for lunch and than later at NYWC. I love that his story is just like real life, full of ups and downs. Full of…

  • The Bible is Useful

    Recently we took a survey of Youth Specialties customers. The results of one particular question completely shocked me. Here it is: When I was looking through the initial survey results I turned around to Tic, and said… “Wanna know why so many youth groups are struggling to keep students for the long haul? There’s the…

  • Social Media and Youth Ministry

    Today I had the chance to talk to youth workers in East County about all sorts of internet and technology stuff. Here are some highlights of that discussion. It’s important to identify WHY you are a part of social media. Youth workers must get past the passive-praxis response of just doing it because it feels…

  • Congrats to Tim & Sara

    A few weeks ago Sara and Tim got married. They have a pretty cool story, I hope I don’t get in too much trouble for sharing the little snippets that I know. I met Sara last October in Pittsburgh for the National Youth Workers Convention. I was walking around looking for people to interview for…

  • Anxiety in Youth Ministry

    Over the past several days I’ve started to put words to what I’ve been observing: The tribe of youth ministry is anxious. 2009 has been a ridiculously hard year. Last October when Tony Campolo spoke in Sacramento he said something like… “Church, as we know it today, will collapse with the economy. And we will…

  • The Youth Ministry Gap

    After 18 months of working at Youth Specialties and interacting with youth workers around the United States (and everywhere else) it’s finally sunken in: There are two different things called “youth ministry” with a major gap in the middle. Professional vocational youth ministry: When I talk about youth ministry this is often my default. These…

  • Support Holistic Youth Ministry in San Diego

    I’m a part of a team at my church trying to figure out how to create a holistic youth ministry right here in San Diego. What exactly is a holistic youth ministry? Well, we don’t know just yet! But our vision is to architect a ministry that is good news to the urban working poor…

  • The Hook-Up for Youth Group

    I was so distracted by convention last week that I failed to really process/understand/comprehend an e-mail I got about our brand new youth ministry. It’s really cool to see people get on board with what we are trying to do. Background: About 6 weeks ago I had lunch with two pastors at Harbor Mid-City. Basically,…

  • Back in the Saddle Again

    This video expresses a lot of how it felt last night to get back in the youth ministry saddle again. Last night was a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to figuring out a whole new way of doing ministry. My biggest observation from last night: These students have a particularly sexualized lexicon. I wasn’t…