This may not be as much of an issue anymore with every kid and their dog having a cell phone. However, there have been many times I’ll take students to an event and give them a time to meet back. Sometimes there’s that group where none of the students have a watch. You can bet [...]

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A group of our high school students left for Kenya this week. Two of them were not allowed to board the flight because their passports were within 6 months of expiration.
If you’re taking students on an international trip, make sure the passports are good for more than 6 months. Just to be safe, a year [...]

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Because I blog, I…
1. Evaluate what I do for the sake of putting it into posts – This process of reflection causes me to see opportunities for improvement
2. Am more aware of the effort (or lack of effort) I put into my youth ministry work. When I run out of content, I know I’m slacking [...]

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I liked this post by Linda Vujnov over at SimplyYouthMinistry.com
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As a youth ministry volunteer and mother of four I’ve taken many students to different places in my car, but this time was different. Instead of the ASB and drill-team girls I usually chauffeured, I was stuck in my sedan with four girls who were the [...]

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We live in a world full of facades. A student is “okay”, but just had a bad fight with their parents, “doing fine”, but just got their 3rd Saturday school earlier today, “doing nothing”, but is freaked out the girl who might or might not say yes to going to the prom.
The message here is [...]

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Youth Specialties said, “We want to hear your worst game idea. Something you actually did that was a complete disaster.” The comments below are off their Facebook page. If you’re not a fan already, visit their Facebook page to become one.
Here’s what youth leaders said:
Alecia Fischer Several years ago, I played the measle game with [...]

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Sarah and I have talked several times about her struggle to balance lesson time and prayer time in her small group. Her girls want to go deep into the lesson, but also love to talk about their prayer requests before they pray. It’s all good stuff, but there’s never enough time to do both as [...]

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I bought a Disneyland pass this year because many of my friends spend a lot of time there. I’ve never been a big fan of Disneyland because I didn’t grow up watching the movies. I’ve now been sucked in. I spend a fair amount of time there.
I often hear people say to each other, “Let [...]

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Memories makes ministry stick in lasting ways. The last two summers at camp and also at our mission trip to New Mexico I woke my guys up with Coldplay songs. The idea was to give them a mellow and enjoyable start to the day… before pounding them with my pillow.
This afternoon I got this kinda [...]

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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 [...]

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