Category: youth ministry
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You’ll never know
Clearly nervous, her voice wavered to say hello as she gave me an awkward side hug and handed me a gift. She’d driven a hundred miles or so “just to swing by and say hello.” No one drives that far just to eat greasy food and say hello. After some niceties the reason she drove all…
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5 Common Misreads on Teenagers in Youth Group
One of the things you learn as you go in youth ministry is that teenagers are experts at sending off false signals that can be difficult to pick-up on. Here are five common ones I see newbies miss all the time. “I’m just hanging out” or “I just thought I’d drop by because I was…
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How to Keep Your Youth Ministry Job
Spring firing season has begun. The end of the school year is a dangerous time to be in youth ministry. With the program year winding down it is prime time for church leadership to make a decision on whether to keep their youth worker for another school year. Hint: If you get invited to an…
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Don’t apologize…
Don’t apologize…. For being 39 and loving to hang with teenagers. For giving a student a hug, it might be the only hug they get all day. For pursing a career in something your parents think is a stepping stone. For giving up another career for something most adults don’t get. For loving a job…
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A better place to live
A few weeks ago I spoke at the BOOST Conference. BOOST is a resource for out-of-school time workers. (After schol programs, assemblies, stuff like that.) In other words, these are people who work with children and teenagers. If you think about it, youth ministry people are out-of-school time workers, too. The major difference is that…
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A rant on discipleship
A few week’s back Joel Mayward asked if I’d participate in his blog series on discipleship. He asked some great questions and really got my mind churning, plus I was in one of those pre-lunch moods. Here’s a taste of what ended up being a holy rant on the topic. What is discipleship? I’d like…
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GIVEAWAY: Real Conversations by Jonathan McKee
What it is… Jonathan McKee (The Source for Youth Ministry) just released a 4-week video based curriculum that’s all about how to have real conversations about sharing your faith. (Which is cool considering it’s called, Real Conversations.) As a youth leader, this is one of those plug-n-play options that would be cool to have on…
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Youth workers in the news
Exhibit A Tell me this guy has never played chubby bunny or lit a fart at 3 AM with a room full of 7th grade guys… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPGDt01ea1s& Exhibit B This is why youth workers bring their teams to conferences. Because if we just hang out together without people from our church, this happens… http://youtu.be/o5m7xEES-go Exhibit…
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Is your strategy as big as your vision?
Our vision is to provide high quality, age-appropriate experiences which invite every student in our community to experience the Good News of Jesus Christ. This could be the vision statement of any youth ministry team in the country. Like you, I’ve seen vision statements like this in youth ministry literature, on youth group websites, and…
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The cup is 95% empty
“Adam, why are you always assuming that the cup is half empty?” Youth workers say this to me over coffee. Their lives are run wild with activities, planning, teaching, and meetings. Their ministries are full and something I’ve said has called that busyness into question. My response, not trying to be trite, is “Oh no,…