Articles

Years ago, I came across a blog post on studentministry.org titled “ 100 blog topics I hope YOU write. ” Surprisingly, to me, the 100th topic “How to Get Students Involved in the Rest of the Church Body,” remained untouched. In this article, we explore some practical ways to involve students in the broader church community - all of which I have implemented over the past 15 years of youth ministry. NOT AS HARD AS YOU THINK Most people (including youth leaders in various contex

Recently, one of our high school students mentioned that he wanted to talk to me about being baptized again. He had been baptized at an earlier age, but he really put his faith and trust in Jesus this summer during our mission trip. Now before everyone gets into whether he should “be baptized again” or not, I would like to investigate why baptism is significant in the first place. Baptism has become tricky in modern application. There are questions of infant baptism vs. belie

When I was playing football in college , our coach divided our practices into segments. Many college, professional, and even high school teams plan practices down to the second to try and cover as much as they can and get the players every possible rep. But what happens when time runs out and we are right in the middle of a drill? Or when we need to take additional reps to perfect a new play? In my experience, it was simple , we adjusted the schedule. But if we can jus

How do you feel about group work ? You remember, in high school or college (or maybe some other setting), you were assigned to work with a group of people on some project, report, or presentation. In my freshman year in college, my best friend at the time and I were assigned to work on a presentation with two other guys. The only problem was that one of the other guys never showed up for our meetings. The presentation was divided into four equal parts, and admittedly my frien

There are many different ways to study a passage of Scripture, none being more “correct” than another. However, I recommend the Summary, Meaning, Application method. My mother taught me this model many years ago. I am sure she got it from one of her many Bible Study groups she participated in and led over the years. It is pretty simple to understand, but lengthy to explain in written form. Check out this podcast (starting at 2:30 mark) where I explain it for our high school