My home-based youth group (called Pursuing the Heart, Not the Recipes) meets every Tuesday night—20-ish teenagers from six churches and five schools, and from freshmen to seniors. When the college students are on break, it balloons up to 25 or so.…
In my 20+ years of youth ministry, I’ve seen shifts in programming that are often tied to shifts in the wider culture. To stay ahead of the wave, we try to be proactive about rethinking the way we do ministry. When we’re ready to roll out new ideas, we veer away from “launching programs” and, instead, tell our ministry leaders and teenagers that we’re “experimenting” with a new approach. …
As a teenager active in my church, I knew I “should” read the Bible. My youth workers often referenced their “morning quiet time”—I imagined them sitting in an overstuffed chair bathed in soft lighting, sipping fancy coffee, dissecting the original Greek meaning of “the” and “is.”…
