Like many youth workers I know, I make it a point of reading anything that Kara Powell writes. She’s brilliant and so is the research that she and Steven Argue do at Fuller Youth Institute. It continues to shape the way I do ministry and for the...
Dear John –
You don’t know me, but your books have sat on my shelf long enough that I like to think of you as a friend so I‘ll call you by your first time.
Your book, 12 Ordinary Men, was hugely influential in my understanding of the apostles and...
I was in my 30s before I began wrestling with the concept of my privilege, thanks largely to a senior pastor who was passionate about fighting systemic racism. My interaction with him sparked my desire to continue learning about and understanding...
We currently have an 8-week old and a 4-year old, which makes getting to church a challenge. Because we want to cultivate a strong faith in our kids, attending church is a priority for us. But doing so is HARD. Based on our experience, here are 8...
“She’s beautiful.”
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve heard someone say this about my newborn daughter, Kendall. It is, after all, what you say when you meet a new baby.
It’s also what my faith says about newborns. According to the ...
As another school year rapidly approaches, I’ve found myself thinking about two different pictures of youth ministry.
One comes from the first retreat I facilitated at a new congregation. During a meal where I was sitting with a group of...
Recently, we took our newborn baby girl, Kendall, to worship for the first time. Several people stopped us on the way into worship, which meant that despite our best efforts, we didn’t actually make it into worship on time. Despite this, we went...
A pastor friend who read my book, A Mission That Matters, recently wondered, “When is the right time for me to go to ‘the ends of the earth’ and lead an international trip for my congregation?”
It’s a good question and one that’s not easy to...
After beginning my new role as the Minister of Youth and Family at my congregation last summer, I immediately examined the vision for the ministry I’d inherited. While I didn’t find it particularly compelling, I knew the best thing I could do was...
My daughter, Hope, has literally grown up in church. (That’s what you get when your mom works for one…)
When Hope turned two, she began asking questions about communion, which wasn’t surprising since she’d gone forward to the communion rail with...