How many seniors did you graduate this year? Enough to make your youth group radically shrink? I graduated one senior, but in a youth group that consistently runs 7, it’s like losing 5. I also consider the energy this senior brings, he’s a binding agent, a glue that keeps everyone uplifted and is a great…
Most youth ministries do not have the luxury of separating their middle and high school students, which is optimum, when it comes to Sunday school, small groups or even in your main meeting. This is mostly because of not enough volunteers or not enough volunteers who want to work with middle school. The challenges with…
Elisa started youth group in middle school and had been a part our group for a while now. As a freshman, she was involved in the band. Slowly, I started to see her blend into the background. She said she had a lot of homework and was thinking about getting a part time job. I…
Although we call them spiritual disciplines or habits, we can’t let the “check list mentality” creep into our walk with God by becoming legalistic about it. I think we can agree that the goal of starting spiritual disciplines in the first place is to create a deeper intimacy with God, not keeping a list like…
Remember when, as the youth pastor, you could have a discussion with your youth ministry around hot topics and have the majority of the group agree with you or echo similar sentiments? Yep, those days are long gone to the point where many youth workers don’t want to have these conversations for fear of being…
In my opinion, and currently my experience, the weight of a small youth ministry is much heavier than running a large ministry. I want to share five weights small youth pastors have to bear that large youth group pastors do not. The weight of loss Bearing the weight of large youth ministry is certainly a…
Sunday School was a part of my teen life for forever. I wasn’t committed because of the ugly room we met in, the bad snacks or the hard chairs; I was committed because I thought that is what I was supposed to do, so I did it. Classrooms have, generally, gotten better but the structure…
This is part six in my seven part series on how to keep your youth ministry from collapsing. You can read from the beginning here. Without discipleship, the church is a halfway house for repeat offenders. That’s a strong statement, but I stand behind it. I’ve worked in enough churches that were unintentional in their…
This is a rough transcript of Chad and I’s discussion on the podcast. I do not attempt a word for word transcript, but I try to interject key points and elaborate on Chad’s excellent thoughts for your benefit. If you have a moment, if you’re a regular listener who has not left a review for…
