I just got back from a youth conference that I will blog about soon and Rick Young (who also MC’d the event) – Middle School Pastor at First Baptist Church Woodstock shared with the youth pastors and leaders about how to last in youth ministry. Rick has been at his church for the past 16 years! Currently the average stay of a youth pastor is anywhere from 18 months to 3 years. We need to change this so here are 1o principles for lasting in youth ministry.

Keep Growing – Key: …

About a year ago Jeff Borton contacted me to let me know that there was a book that was on its way called Simple Student Ministry. He asked that I would let others know about it on my blog to gather some input from other youth workers across the country.

I was totally blessed when I read a message this morning from Paul who tried my Survivor Lock-In out.
Listen to Paul:
I had survivor lock-in last February and it was a huge success. We had over 150 kids there that night. I wanted to share our You Tube video with you to help show some of the events that are apart of the lock-in. We added some of our and omitted a few as well. The pressure is on this year for another amazing lock-in. Any ideas? I have been kickin’ …

I’m excited to be blogging again this week. Today’s Monday Ministry Helper is about dealing with our sin.
In the Sunday School class that I’m attending we are going through a book by Dr. James MacDonald called “10 Choices“. You can read more about it HERE.
Chapter two is about Choosing forgiveness and at first I thought that it would be more focused on how to forgive people that wronged you and how to let go of things that you are holding on to, but rather the whole chapter was focused on …

I enjoy eating and I enjoy people. Put them together and (no I don’t mean eating people silly) get a great way to build your team! This weeks Thursday team building thought is to consistently take your volunteer staff out to eat.
I would recommend that if you can do this at least quarterly and if you can pull off monthly then you are doing really well.
What happens when we sit down and eat together?

Time – it’s one of the best ways to utilize your time because you have to eat, …

This Team Building Thursday is something very simple and practicle, but you wouldn’t believe the mileage that you can get out of this!
If you haven’t done this before or in awhile, I would suggest writing a good old fashion letter to those that help in your youth ministry.
Here’s why:
1) It’s tangible. We live in an electronic age and most people are flooded with emails all day, but when you get something in the mail, you get to actually put your hands on it and stop for a minute to look …

In my last two posts I wrote about my visit to a church in Iowa and that I was interviewing with them. I first wanted to say that out of 3 candidates that they narrowed it down to, I was told last Wednesday that they offered the job to one of the other two guys that had interviewed besides me. I was a little shocked based on how well everything went, but I’m ok with the decision as I prayed that the right thing would happen and so I will …