I started attending church in the second grade. I spent most of my childhood and teen years in youth ministry. I went to a few different churches during that time and saw different variations in youth ministry. As I got older, I also began volunteering on the junior high and …
Read More »Why It’s Important to Inoculate (Rather Than Isolate) Our Young People
One Sunday, after the morning church service, I picked my daughter up from the youth ministry where she was still visiting with her pastor, his wife and their two baby daughters. The twins were five months old and were sleeping peacefully in their strollers, even though the room was filled …
Read More »When Youth Pastors Ought to Feel Responsible
My first year as a youth pastor was a challenging year of self-evaluation. When I was initially offered the job, I wasn’t sure I could lead or teach high-schoolers; I’d been working with younger students and my own children were not yet teenagers. But I was ambitious and eager, so …
Read More »Yet Another Student Survey Confirming the Need for Case Making
It’s been about a month since Larry Taunton of Fixed Point Foundation posted an article for the Atlantic entitled Listening to Young Atheists: Lessons for a Stronger Christianity. Taunton’s organization has been interviewing members of atheist college groups (the Secular Student Alliance and Freethought Societies). “These college groups are the …
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