Ministry with Kids, Students, Young Adults, and Parents
I was a youth pastor for 20 years before our church adopted a NextGen model and I became the NextGen Pastor. The transition has been challenging but totally worth it! Here, I’d like to dive in a little deeper and get more specific about some do’s and don’ts that I’ve learned in my own journey into NextGen Ministry.
There are many skills that ministry leaders need to develop. Among them are skills like teaching & preaching, leading meetings, planning events, caring for people, responding toRead More
We use Basecamp to manage all our ministry’s major projects, plan events, and manage some key processes. It’s an intuitive, simple online
We use all sorts of apps to pull off what we do on a weekly basis––apps that help us preach and teach better, communicate better, manageRead More
A major part of me hates recruiting volunteers. It takes a lot of energy just to work up the motivation to ask people to volunteer.Read More
There’s a big difference between organizing ministry and mobilizing ministry. The more we grow, the more gears there are to grease, the more issues weRead More
The Problem: How I Did Missions Then For years, I took students on annual mission trips. Some were domestic (in the U.S.) and some were internationalRead More
Four Things that DON’T Grow Your Youth Group 4. Fun Games It’s fun to play games at church or youth group. In fact, fun and laughterRead More
Ask them to read scripture during worship services, youth group, and small groups Ask them to pray during worship services, youth group, and small groupsRead More
If you have a pretty good worship band or youth band and you want to help them move from good to great, Ableton Live willRead More
The Problem Those drums can be way too loud…even for youth. It’s hard to have a great musical experience when the drums are overpowering everythingRead More
If you’re tired of your band speeding up and slow songs and slowing down on fast songs or speeding up and slowing down on any song,Read More
You should consider getting your band to get rid of those monstrous stage monitors and get some IEMs (In Ear Monitors). Once you do, you’llRead More
1. Leading Worship – I used to do that, but now someone else is doing that. 2. Giving the Welcome and Announcements – I usedRead More
7. Some people are better at teaching than me. 6. I need a break from the rigor of teaching so often. 5. Kids need aRead More
With all the changes to our staff and ministry teams, we had a lot of work to do clarify our roles, responsibilities, goals and objectives, andRead More
Okay, so a lot of things have changed at our church and in my job. Over the summer (2014) we 1) made some major changes to our churchRead More
Like I said in my last post, I’m convinced that God designed the Church with the Spirit-driven desire and the innate ability to grow inRead More
The more recent conversation in our Student Life Leadership Team has been about defining our roles (last post) and focusing our meetings (this post). NowRead More
We haven’t taken students on a mission trip since 2007. Prior to then, my personal practice was to take students on mission trips every year.Read More
I’ve heard it said that a ministry without infrastructure is like a body without a skeleton…it’s just a 6 inch puddle of skin, fat andRead More
As our youth ministry has grown there have been a few things that we’ve had to let go. Some of them were difficult to letRead More
To help our small group leaders stay in control, we use simple a four step process for behavior management (4 R’s inspired by Josh Griffin’sRead More
Risk. It’s always there. It’s something that every ministry leader has to calculate almost every day. Calculating the risk of releasing responsibilities is for sureRead More
…but I don’t. I’d really like to spend more time meeting with them, talking about the kids, their struggles, their successes, strategic steps for disciplingRead More
I’m frustrated with our follow up strategies. It worked just fine a few years ago but not so well anymore. I’ll tell you what weRead More
I’ve always seen my role as a youth pastor as having four major objectives. Pastor the People. Mobilize the Ministry. Cultivate the Climate. Voice theRead More