I was always taught Summer Jump not Summer Slump. This means that while other churches shut down/wind down for summer, our church was going to grow. I just had to figure out how to make that happen. For the past ten year and two churches I have used the TRIBES outreach program. The 10 week…
I was reading a post from YM360 called Are You Drawing a Crowd? Ask Yourself Why. The last phrase of Andy’s blog sparked something, “Do you have an audience? If your answer is “yes,” today would be a GREAT time to think about your message and why you’re drawing an audience” I like the term…
Yes, only four words holding back your youth ministry or nay ministry. Ready for them? Here ya go “It’s too much work” Now, there are others like, “That costs too much” “I don’t have time” and “I’m not good enough” I don’t want to ever phone in my work. I want every post, every message…
If you’re new here, and are not caught up, you can start this series here. If you are a Youth Pastor working hard to keep their youth ministry afloat, I feel for you, but you are working too hard, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Physically you’re work too hard (the set up, the planning) Mentally…
Welcome to part two of my four part series on Rebuilding Your Declining Youth Ministry. If you missed part one, where I talk about Re-Imagining Your Youth Ministry, click here to catch up Youth Pastors who want to focus on re-branding before re-imaging, eventually, fall into the same pit as before. To avoid this, let’s…
A friend asked me a question: How do you rebuild after a significant decline in program attendance. The question is, what is significant. I would estimate that losing 80% of your youth is significant if you have 100 students. If you lose 50% of your students, and you only had 10 students, that’s pretty significant.…
I was scrolling through Instagram and I stopped on video of a youth pastor making a big announcement. What he said made me cringe and it is the very thing you should never say to your youth group. “we built this for you” The youth pastor was announcing a new youth room for their students.…
Youth Pastors do not leave churches, they leave Pastors. Pastor, does that shock you? I know that many pastors want to couch a youth pastors leaving their church in religious language and claiming God’s will, etc. but the truth is, they’re leaving you. Just like when two people break up, one person will try to…
This is part seven in my pillars of youth ministry series. You can start the series from the beginning here. Too many churches have youth groups meeting in their buildings. Yes, I said it right. There are churches who have youth groups who meet in their building but there is no connection between the groups.…
It’s simple, you can’t build a 2200 sq. ft house on a 100 sq. ft foundation and yet we have all tried. You’ve tried to build your youth ministry on hype but hype is short lived. Those who want to build their youth ministry large, must build the foundations wider an deeper. Scripture says, “When…
