As youth workers, we generally recognize that parents have the greatest influence on teenagers. Sometimes that’s simply a factor of time. We spend an hour or two with kids every other week (depending on homework and sports practice), while most moms and dads are with them nearly every day.…
The last time I saw Aaron, he was learning about life skills at a training session for at-risk teenagers. At the time, he was close to the cliff’s edge—where kids who are drug-addicted and homeless slip into oblivion. His parents didn’t know or care where he was.…
Editor’s Note: I met Jeanne Mayo more than a decade ago on a flight to the Canadian boondocks, where we were both speaking at a conference for youth leaders. She saw me walking back to the restroom on the plane, introduced herself, and asked if I’d like to hang with her.…
My wife, Rachel, doesn’t like to give me a Christmas list. (I’m sitting in Starbucks drinking some sort of holiday themed drink, which serves to remind me that Christmas is just around the corner!) Instead, around this time each year, she expects me to be listening to her cues and “reading between the lines” to decipher things she’d like under the tree.…
Recently I read a hysterical article comparing back-to-school from the 80’s to back-to-school circa 2016. It joked about the simplicity of an era that involved lunches with processed bologna, metal lunch boxes, and the need to only supply a pencil and pen for the first day of school.…
I talked to a fellow youth worker this morning who made the comment, “I feel like I am so behind already in planning the coming school year.” Although it’s only July, before we know it students will be home from vacation and back in school. …
Once you become a youth worker, it won’t take long for you to discover: You. Need. Help! One key ingredient in a healthy youth ministry is a team of caring adults. For the longest time, we tried to recruit young, funny, musical, athletic, attractive, cool, wealthy adults with big swimming pools and lots of free time on their hands.…
Recruiting Adult Volunteers for Your Mission Trip Adults are crucial to the success of the mission trip, in fact, it’s required. So, how do you get adults as excited about your mission experience? Here are some of our favorite tips for recruiting awesome adult volunteers: Ask them individually – Pick out adults in your church or adults who are connected to your youth group who qualify to be leaders, and take them out for coffee or ice cream.…
Imagine this scenario: You’re taking your family on a trip to Disney World. None of you have ever done a big park before, so you decide to spend the money to hire a professional guide, someone who is experienced at how theme parks work.…
Multiply Your Impact With Volunteers Youth workers aren’t very good at math. Let’s do a little simple math from my “Skinny” book about recruiting volunteers. If you look at the time you spend each week with teenagers, you could go out there and spend 20 hours a week with students by yourself.…
