Guest Post: Leading Worship At The Landing, by Robbie Dye

I asked one of our worship leaders at The Landing to give his take on leading worship there. Here’s what Robbie wrote: Leading Worship at The Landing at Saddleback Church is a super sweet experience. In the past year God has taken me on an adventure that I never thought I would be a part [...]

Guest Post: Facebook Youth Ministry

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 [...]

Nathan Took The Challenge to Start a Parent Letter

Nathan, a volunteer youth worker, took the challenge to start a weekly parent letter. He sent this note to me sharing how it’s enhanced his communication with parents. I also included his parent letter below. There wasn’t anything super like WOW in the responses, some were like: “my son takes this certain meds at certain [...]

Guest Post: Youth Ministry Resources

Thanks to Sarah, a youth ministry chaplain from NZ (New Zealand?), for sharing these links: – Postsecret.com – topic of lonliness – 1000awesomethings.com – contentment – www.TheTroubleWithParis.com.au – excellent small group discussion on hyperreality – www.creativemyk.com and www.sxc.hu for all our powerpoints -animoto.com for video making -www.toptenz.net for intros Disclaimer: I have briefly looked at [...]

Guest Post: A Note from the Junior High Trenches, by Steven Orel

Recently, Dennis approached me and asked if I would do a post for his blog. I was honored to be asked to do a blog post for him, especially because I’m so new to youth ministry. As a relatively new Junior High small group volunteer, I feel so humbled to be given this opportunity to [...]

Guest Post: Helping Students Who Are Different Than Most

What do you do with the kid who’s different? The boy who wears eye makeup and has black fingernails, the girl who goes through five shades of hair color every two weeks, the bookworm amidst athletic kids, the student who makes offbeat comments that leave everyone scratching their heads… the list can get long in [...]

Guest Post: The Wheel That Isn’t Squeaky

You know the saying, “The squeaky wheel is the one that gets greased”? It seems that’s true in youth ministry. We give our attention to obvious needs. By the time we’ve dealt with one, another pops up. Sometimes needs that aren’t as obvious go unmet because we haven’t taken time to unearth them. In this [...]

Guest Post: Small Group Sorority

Haley Veturis is a 2-year intern with our high school ministry. She has taken a unique approach to bonding her girls together while raising the bar for them by giving them expectations to live up to. She’s had a great response. I asked her to share her idea with you. Here’s what she had to [...]

Guest Post: Youth Ministry Prayer Guide – by Matt Baxter

If your church doesn’t currently have a youth ministry prayer team – make that your primary goal for the remainder of the year! Other youth ministry goals are great to have – i.e. increase in numbers, increase in volunteers, monthly service projects, an annual mission’s trip, etc. But prayer is paramount! A youth ministry’s success [...]