When I began my first job in youth ministry, the church I worked at was in the midst of worship wars: Fighting constantly about whether to have “traditional” or “contemporary” music.
Young, naive, and convinced we were right and traditional music...
Read more
It's January. That means that once again, it's time for K-Love's 30-Day Challenge – something I have some concerns about.
One of my concerns about K-Love's 30-Day Challenge is that it seems to invite people to thoughtlessly consume Christian...
Read more
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how to brainstorm with teens. People hesitant about utilizing teens in this process often ask some variation of this question:
What if the things teens WANT to talk about aren't what they need to talk about in order...
Read more
Although I failed to see the movie, God's Not Dead, when it was in theaters last spring, knowing the basic plot - A Christian kid decides to defend the idea that “God's Not Dead” to an atheist philosophy professor – I made a note to myself to...
Read more
Earlier this year, this youth minister meme began showing up everywhere in social media:

While it made me chuckle, I couldn't help but think, “This confusion is real.” People really don't understand what it is we do.
And this is true not just of...
Read more
On Sunday mornings, we utilize small group discussions as part of our large group teaching in our high school ministry.
Currently, we're in the midst of a series called “Jesus' Family Tree”. It's our way of talking about the characters in the...
Read more
While in Rwanda for our international missions trip, we went shopping at an artisans' market.
While there, I couldn't take my eyes off the crib mobiles.
Eventually I confessed as much to my husband. He assured me that even though we did not yet...
Read more
Dear Parent Whose Child Does Not Want to Go on the Mission Trip -
I know your family has hundreds of worthwhile options for how to spend it's time each summer and that you can't do it all. I can also only assume it's far easier to send your child...
Read more
In a recent episode of The Biggest Loser , the time came to reshuffle the teams in order to force contestants to not only work with new teammates, but also with new trainers.
Every year, contestants face this Biggest Loser milestone with fear,...
Read more