I was a big comic book reader. In many of the comics I read I would see an ad for Tony Atlas body building, like this. In my view, the guy/girl usually getting sand kicked in their face, in the church, is the youth pastor. The “bully” could be anyone, the pastor, a board member,…
You keep calling that one student who used to be very active to come back to youth, but every time you call they tell you they’ve been busy. Yes, they’re busy, they’re busy in another youth group that values them. To the other group they’re not just a number, they’re part of a bigger picture…
Brandon Staley could not have said it better than this in regards to Raider Coach Jon Gruden’s toxic emails and subsequent resignation . I have been an imperfect leader/pastor most of my life and I have always treasured the trust people have given me. I’d like to think I have lived up to that trust,…
I had the pleasure of interviewing Sean Buono, author of Youth Empowered. We walk through the process, and it is a process, of empowering students in your youth ministry to serve. Purchase Youth Empowered (I am an Amazon Affiliate, any purchase helps support the ministry) Here’s the abbreviated transcript of our conversation. Tell me a…
Today I welcome my first two time guest, Ryan Latham. Ryan and I go back a ways and wrote a book together called Prepared for Impact. Ryan is the founder of Renewed Leadership, a staff training organization for churches and businesses. Today he brings you some critical tips to saving your jobs if your church…
If you’re wondering what makes a successful youth ministry, it may help to look at some words and phrases that make for an unsuccessful youth ministry. I asked my youth ministry friends, and others, to chime in on what words describe unsuccessful youth ministry, and these the one’s they submitted. Which of these words do…
podcast notes I am opening another night of coaching, Tuesday Sept. 10 – November 19th. Six one hour sessions to talk about how to make your youth grow, improving your leadership skills, how to handle church politics, whatever area you want to grow in, we’ll talk about. I’ll put the link in the show notes,…
Some youth workers don’t like their main youth meetings. In fact, preparing for their meetings make them anxious. For some, its the pressure to “get it right.” For other youth workers, they have a casual “God will do it” mentality and do not pour a ton of effort into their meeting. This attitude could be…
I was listening to ESPN Get Up this morning and they were talking about Russel Wilson asking for more money to stay the QB in Seattle. I think it was Louis Riddick who said, and I paraphrase, “Front offices are victims of their own arrogance. If they feel like they have enough cap space to…
I was absolutely clueless in my first three jobs as a youth pastor. Maybe that’s why I was let go from two of them. I did’t do an any thing wrong, I just couldn’t the signs that I was screwing up. Part of that screwing up was my inability to detect what my pastor wanted.…
