We have a big problem in our high school ministry. More students than our leaders can handle want to be in small groups. While I love the desire or our students, it kills me to know that there is such a great need going unmet. I’m going to do my best to do something about [...]

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Tonight one of the small group leaders called to share his concerns about not going deep enough in his teaching. He’s been a little self-conscious since two of his guys gave that as their reason for leaving his group for a group at another church. This is understandably difficult on the self-esteem and confidence level.
What [...]

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Thanks Kurt Johnston for posting this on your blog so I could share it on VolunteerYouthMinistry.com. I’m so incredibly glad this video serves as a warning to me instead of a “what-was-I-thinking” regret.

I filed this on my blog under “How to last in ministry.” The concept is you last in ministry by learning from the [...]

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If you’re interviewing for a youth ministry position, Tim Schmoyer has created a list of red flags to watch for and what they mean. Be sure to check it out to save yourself from getting into an unhealthy church environment.
I’ve pasted a few of them below, click here to read the rest.
2. We don’t have [...]

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a. Determine to last through the awkwardness
Even secure people who are stable in every way can feel self-conscious when they begin working with students. Stepping into youth culture to care for students is about as natural a feeling for adult leaders as the feeling a student gets when his doting parent friends him on Facebook. The [...]

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Last night I met up with a youth ministry Twitter friend (Jonathan Telles – blog, Twitter) for dinner. We had never met in person, but we’ve been following each other on Twitter. We talked about a lot of stuff; vacation locations, ministry ideas, how-to’s for ministry, etc. It was 3 hours of getting filled up [...]

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The last church where I was a youth pastor did not support the youth program financially. One time they gave me a raise of $50/month and told me to spend it on the youth. I had to turn in receipts to show how I spent it. I have about 3 more sessions on that and [...]

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When I prepare to teach my small group, there are 4 tools I’m learning to use to help me customize the curriculum to be relevant to our ministry setting.
1. Relate my life to the material – Sometimes this requires me to dig deep, other times the connections are obvious. Either way, it’s important for me [...]

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When I was a rookie in youth ministry, I felt like a failure if I couldn’t reach every student. It wasn’t as much about my ego as it was feeling a need to be everything to every student. Regardless of how much I tried, there were some students I just couldn’t make a deep connection [...]

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Many of us became youth ministry volunteers either because somebody helped us get through our teenage years or because we want to help others avoid the same mistakes we made during our adolescent years. However, many times leaders get overwhelmed by students once they start volunteering.
Last year I spent a few days substitute teaching at [...]

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