Last week I spent an hour on the phone with a youth worker talking about multi-site youth ministry. His church is new to the multi-site model and he’s tasked with figuring out what that looks like in the youth ministries at each campus.…
A few weeks ago my seventeen-year-old son returned from a day out with his buddies and told me something was wrong with his car. “It’s weird, if I let go of the steering wheel, it pulls hard to the left”. My first response was to remind him that there is virtually no scenario in which he should be letting go of the steering wheel.…
Not long ago I attended a two day gathering of about a dozen churches; all of which have had some experience in multi-site youth ministry. At the offset, each church was given fifteen minutes to monopolize the whiteboard and share with the rest of the group their multi-site youth ministry strategy in a nutshell. …
To wrap up our series on becoming a small group guru, I’d like to prepare a little guru goulash; a delish mish mash of thoughts. * Don’t forget the parents! Leading a small group of 5-10 teenagers also gives you an incredible opportunity to minister to 5-20 parents!…
Week three of this series may be a good time to come clean. I’m not a very good small group leader…a small group guru I ain’t! But I’ve observed some of the best (because I’m so bad I always partner with somebody really good!).…
John Maxwell has said, “Everything rises and falls on leadership”. And while I’m not sure that everything rises and falls on leadership, I think it is true when it comes to youth ministry small groups. The adults you entrust to lead your small groups will make or break your efforts.…
You are a youth worker, which means you are a pastor, a counselor, a teacher, an event planner, a parent engager, a calendar organizer, and a pizza purchaser. You are also a cheerleader. In fact you can make an argument that you are (or should be) mostly a cheerleader.…
In my estimation, the best youth ministry is the youth ministry you give away. Today, as we continue our look at some team building basics, we are gonna talk about the power of empowerment. Enlisting, Equipping, Empowering & Encouraging Because there are no Lone Rangers in youth ministry, and because you are building a team to help carry the load, it only makes sense that you would empower your team to take the ministry ball and run with it.…
Being a youth worker is a lot like being a construction worker; to be effective you need an understanding of the task at hand and the right tools for the job. One without the other leads to frustration, incompetence…or both! And sense we all want fulfilled and fruitful people on our team, we need to become Jedis (remember, no Lone Rangers…but Jedis welcome!)…
Over the past several years, one of the hottest topics in the youth ministry world has been faith abandonment—specifically, when kids “graduate” from youth group. It’s an important conversation to have, for sure. Experts have identified lots of culprits that cause young people to fall away.…
