FebruaryFeb 13 Friday 09
A year and a half ago I wrote about a Teen Internet Hangouts workshop I did for the parents at my church. I gave them an overview of many popular social places on the Internet, including Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, World of Warcraft and some of the upcoming sites they …





FebruaryFeb 11 Wednesday 09
The following 2-part guest series is contributed by Jake Waits. He has some great ideas for romancing your spouse and keeping your marriage alive throughout the demands and pressures of ministry. Oh, and you men, remember Valentines Day is this Saturday!
See Part 1 of …
I can't believe today is finally here! After several months of dreaming, vision casting, and late nights with ingenious web developers, MinistryQuestions.com is finally alive!
This site is a culmination of several things:
1. As much as I love to hear from youth workers …
FebruaryFeb 9 Monday 09
Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)
Roy "Wrong Way" Riegels is known for running a fumble the wrong way in the 1929 Rose Bowl. His error cost his team the victory. Roy was devastated. He sat in the corner of the locker room at half time with a towel over his head and cried. …
FebruaryFeb 7 Saturday 09
This past October I wrote a two-part blog series for you all explaining the effectiveness of using video to communicate with teens and an actual "how to" post of making videos a reality for your group. It's been fun to see many of you pick up on the idea of using video …
Yesterday in our LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation Bill Scott of Xtreme Talk Live and Sound of Light talked with us about "teaching to large groups of teenagers." With several decades of experience in national radio and speaking at large student conferences, he shared …
FebruaryFeb 5 Thursday 09





The following 2-part guest series is contributed by Jake Waits. He has some great ideas for romancing your spouse and keeping your marriage alive throughout the demands and pressures of ministry. Oh, and you men, remember Valentines Day is a little over a week away!
FebruaryFeb 3 Tuesday 09
Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)
Football is a contact sport. It's a tough game. There are 15 times as many injuries in football as in bowling or tennis, ten times as many as in gymnastics. Football players get hurt. That's why there is always an injury report for each team …
It's a good idea to interview every new youth leader before unleashing them to be a spiritual role model for the teens. If you're the paid youth director, you're the one who stands between a potentially harmful adult and the teens, so be very careful with this process. …
JanuaryJan 31 Saturday 09





Jim Burns of HomeWord recently published a free 6-part lesson series on sexuality purity called, The Purity Code. Many people have issues with sexual abstinence tools that push teens to sign a pledge card, and the research backs up the fact that signing a card …
JanuaryJan 29 Thursday 09
Changing the world happens one student at a time, not in bulk at big events because students do not connect to programs, they connect to people. The most effective way students are influenced is by significant relationships with key people in their lives. Our goal is to …
JanuaryJan 27 Tuesday 09
Time Out (by Jerry Schmoyer)
It's been said that a good offense wins football games but a good defense wins championships. A solid defense is crucial, but if a team can't score they'll never win even if they hold their opponents to no points. Every team needs a good …
Boundaries are so critical to the health of any youth leader. We could talk about the need to say "no" and protect personal and family time. We could talk about setting emotional boundaries with teens and their personal situations. We could also talk about setting …
JanuaryJan 25 Sunday 09
Yesterday in our LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation Jason Lamb of Dare 2 Share Ministries lead us in a discussion about the Deep and Wide Ministry model. We ran through a quick overview of what it is and what it isn't, and then talked about ways to implement it in our …
JanuaryJan 23 Friday 09
I'm not sure there can ever be a complete list of expectations for adult youth leaders. Every ministry has different expectations for people who play different roles and carry different levels of responsibility. The following list is what I use with the youth workers at …
The media is has really latched on to the Online Missions Trip over the past two weeks and given it more publicity than I ever imagined. In fact, last week I did 2-4 radio interviews per day, plus several magazine and written interviews. What started as a 2-week …
JanuaryJan 21 Wednesday 09
Most paid youth workers know they need to put together a team of adult leaders to serve the teens and the ministry, but surprisingly few actually know what they're looking for besides someone who is breathing. It almost feels like anyone qualifies to be a youth leader …