I like to think that I'm pretty good at communicating with the parents of teens in my youth ministry. I send out a weekly e-mail filled with details about upcoming events. I make sure to include announcements in our Sunday bulletin. I post updates...
My husband and I have a New Years Eve tradition wherein we ask each other a series of questions in order to reflect upon our year together. Rather than use a prescribed list of reflection questions, ours differ by the year in order to uniquely...
It's January. That means that once again, it's time for K-Love's 30-Day Challenge – something I have some concerns about. In response to my concerns, today I'm continuing to critically evaluate some of the songs that K-Love...
My youth ministry's winter retreat is rapidly approaching. As part of this, each adult leader gives a short devotion in response to a prompt related to our theme.
The beauty of this is that it allows each leader a moment in the spotlight,...
My church does not own vans. This means that with the exception of our summer trips (when we rent them), we depend on the goodwill of parents to drive us to and from various events, including our winter retreat.
Often, this means that teens are...
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...
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...
I’ve often heard people moan about the ineffectiveness of big youth ministry events like the 30 Hour Famine or summer mission trips. Such rants usually go something like this:
You spend a lot of time, energy, and money on X. And sure, teens are...
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...
If you walk into my house, you'll notice stacks of books everywhere - evidence that I'm an avid reader.
Much to my dismay, I read fewer books this year than last. As my husband pointed out, though, I also wrote one so I guess I can't be too...