If we’re going to be serious about ministry to youth and young adults, then we have to face up to the fact that the biggest thing standing in the way of that ministry is our own insecurities. Ministering to young people instantly throws us back to that stage in our lives and we long [...]
I was thinking as I got started on this final installment of the Youth Ministry series that perhaps this last piece should have in fact been the first. I’m guessing there’s a good number of you who are reading this, or skipping over them, and thinking that they don’t pertain to you because they’re talking [...]
After laying the groundwork for ministry to youth by understanding that God calls people of all ages, we looked last month about what it means to step into what often feels like a completely foreign culture: the world our teenagers inhabit. And so building on the concept that for youth ministry to be effective it [...]
Last post we looked at how the basic groundwork of youth ministry calls us to understand the truth that God gifts young people, calls young people and uses young people and therefore we must take seriously ministry to young people just as we take ministry to adults seriously. But as adults, ministry to other adults [...]
What basic understanding must be in place in order to provide good groundwork for the youth in that ministry? Throughout scripture we see examples of God calling young people to do his work. If God can use, and in fact, wants to use people of all ages, then we as the adult member of the [...]
When God called Jeremiah to be a prophet, Jeremiah thought he was far too young to do what God had asked him to do. God’s response to him was this: “…do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ …Now I have put my words in your mouth.’” (Jeremiah 1:9 NIV). Several hundred years later, we [...]
“Slipping through the cracks” is a cliché used for many things, but unfortunately it’s all too familiar in our churches. Mostly it’s come to define what happens to many kids as they transition out of high school youth ministry.
From The Journal of Student Ministries Read it all
I recently finished reading the long-awaited final installment of the Harry Potter series, and discovered several things the church could learn from Harry about what teenagers are looking for.
As early as the first book in the series, we learn that Harry is destined for a fight that could prove deadly. A terrible villain is looking [...]
