It’s that time of year. It happens every March. Some students in your youth groups are excited for it and others could care less. Here’s the good news, your group doesn’t have to have a lot athletes for you to use March Madness as a fun tool to have fun or spiritually challenge students. For…
At the beginning of the year I designated each day of the week (M-F) to focus on one thing because Practical PKM suggested it would change how I work. So, here is how I allotted my days, Monday is Writing Day where I blog or post on social Tuesday is Audio Day when I record…
If you’ve been in youth ministry a while, think about to when you first started working in a church, did you discover some resistance to your new ideas? How long did it take you before you figured out you were working in system that didn’t favor new or innovative ideas? Part of the reason new…
You could call this Surviving A Quarterly Review Part 2. In part one I shared a critical tip and 3 important reasons you should embrace the quarterly review. In this post I want to help you prepare, all year long, for what some youth pastors consider a critical meeting, or meetings, that could effect their…
I sat in an office with the head of the youth ministry committee, 2 youth ministry volunteers and my pastor and if you think Leonardo DiCaprio got mauled in The Revenant, you haven’t seen anything. I sat there for an hour as a list of my faults, issues and problems were declared as if someone…
One of the hardest things to do is get a teenager to go from apathy to action. Usually somewhere in between there, we’re trying all kinds of methodology. Parents, teachers, youth pastors, try everything, right? And I’ve done it. I have three grown children. It’s hard to get them from action, from apathy to action.…
I asked some youth pastors what their current needs were and this was one of their questions: How can I get a more consistent groups of kids coming to youth group? The answer is in the question. You get more consistent students when you are a more consistent youth pastor. Youth pastors who are always…
I have been a Notre Dame fan for 40 years. I can hear some of you saying, “Oh, you poor thing”. The last time I saw them play in a National Championship was 1988, 37 years ago. Head coach Marcus Freeman said something a few weeks ago that inspired me and I want to pass…
Let me ask you, how many excuses did you make last year? Probably a lot, as did I, Let me narrow it down, how many excuses did you make last year that kept you and your youth ministry from being successful? I bet you can narrow it down to a few. One more question, how…
In March, this blog will be 15 years old and, with over 1400 posts, is an absolute failure and I’m, finally, ok with that. Let me be clear, this blog is a failure by many standards, one of which is that it is, to my knowledge, no ones favorite blog. I am rarely tagged in…
