The other day, a teen walked into our youth room. Another student immediately grew excited and exclaimed, “Oh great! It's the funny kid!”
I'm pretty sure the funny kid didn't hear this other teen and for that I'm thankful. I responded by greeting...
I'm a strong believer that belonging precedes belief. This means that if we want teens to take ownership of their faith, we have to first help them belong.
To be clear, belonging doesn't happen accidentally. Helping teens belong takes time,...
Two years ago, during our Youth Room makeover, we set aside an area of the room to use as a dedicated prayer space. To differentiate it as such, students painted several verses about prayer on the wall in that section of the room.
For two years,...
Ever since my congregation stopped kidnapping people, we've had to find new, better ways to transition our kids from one ministry to the next.
One of the best things we've done is institute an 8th grade orientation. Truthfully, we borrowed this...
As I mentioned last week, one benefit of taking the summer off is that it gives leaders the time to invest in other things. One of the things I routinely invest in during the summer is our youth ministry’s space.
Roughly every other year, we hold...
Today, I'm linking up with Lisa-Jo Baker‘s Five Minute Friday. The rules: Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
This week's prompt: Fly.
The first youth ministry I served was called FLY – an...