I remember the first crisis I had to face when I first started in youth ministry. I was paralyzed at the idea of going into the home of some students I barely knew whose dad had just passed away. I’ve learned a lot since then. Seeing this article from Kurt Johnston and Josh Griffin confirmed [...]

Filed under: Counseling, Ministry Lessons, Training | No Comments »

One of our volunteers at The Landing was telling me about how she keeps in touch with her small group (even some who have moved on) through Facebook. She’s having great success and being very effective with this so I asked her to write a guest post. Here’s what she wrote: Keeping connected through Facebook [...]

Filed under: Creating Culture, For your newsletter, Guest Posts, leadership, The Landing | No Comments »

Filed under: poll, The Landing | No Comments »

My youth ministry friends over at Generation To Generation are looking for some guest posts from youth workers. If you have some wisdom to share, click on over to read about making it happen.

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I had this idea to take s’mores to the next level by using Pop tarts instead of graham crackers. It was so good that I had to share the idea here. Go and do likewise! PS: Thanks for reading VolunteerYouthMinistry.com!

Filed under: Just for fun, Try This | No Comments »

Each summer at our high school camp, we offer an opportunity for students to get baptized. What I love about this picture is most of the boys are in my small group. Two of the guys wearing light blue shirts got baptized that day. That was a bonding red-letter day for us.

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Sometimes I get asked if a church can allow 6th graders (elementary students) to attend The Landing (recovery for jr high and high school students). Here’s how I answer that question: ___ That’s up to the discretion of the church. At Saddleback Church, I don’t allow 6th graders or those who have graduated high school [...]

Filed under: Ask A Volunteer, The Landing | No Comments »

It happened again last night. I’m so happy when it does because it gives me more respect for parents. A student I was taking home after small group told me that his mom had looked me up online and has gained a lot of trust and respect for me. I’ve written about this before, but [...]

Filed under: Family Focus, For your newsletter, leadership | No Comments »

I’ve been doing a small group series with a few high school small groups this summer called The Invisible War by Rick Warren. It’s all about understanding and dealing effectively with temptation. My friends over at Generation to Generation have written a couple of posts on the curriculum and its effectiveness. I echo what they [...]

Filed under: curriculum, Generation to Generation, Resources, teaching | No Comments »

I loved this guest post over at MoreThanDodgeball.com. Here’s a snippet. Go there for the rest. Perhaps I am the only person, but I am pretty sure I am not the only one out there who has a student that just doesn’t like me, and I mean really doesn’t like me. In many cases it [...]

Filed under: Dealing with Conflict, leadership | 2 Comments »